Like a scratchy wound, the soggy (but drying) letters on the table drew him back after he was finished doing the household work. He just couldn't resist the urge to scratch the itch.

He figured that it must be because he had left the City due of people like this. Emotionally needy, self-centered creatures that donned compassion like a cheap pair of underwear and discarded it the second that they could get the chance.

The man at least took a minute to put the tea-kettle on for his wife before diving back into the papers.

Immediately, he found something to shake his head over.

"'Chee"' What the Hell is a 'Chee'" 'I do not believe he will let me near him.' Now there's someone with a brain in his head. 'Specially if him and 'Sir' were pals — last thing he needs is some needy brat going on and on, making everything about himself."

The man frowned as he read on. The more he read, the more sympathetic he found himself, not to Renne, but to the people he apparently felt the need to force himself on. How someone could be so unkind to someone who couldn't obviously defend themselves was beyond him.

Setting the letter down, he rubbed his eyes. "On and on with the 'understanding' and can't even afford half a lick of it himself. 'How dare you not understand me?! How dare you not understand how special and helpful and kind I am....even though all I ever do is talk about myself and how you HAVE to understand me, you HAVE to love me!"

He tossed that letter aside to join the few before it, then picked up the next one. Why he was doing this was beyond him, except that it was a really good reminder of why he moved away from the City, and why he was glad for the wife and friends he had here.

"'Oh, for the love of....oh, sure, he's cold because how dare he leave! It must've been because he just didn't accept how wonderful and helpful you were, that's it! Y'know, 'cause you're the center of the universe and all that horse****."

The idea of casting a bottle to the sea with a reply to this 'Renne' was becoming almost overwhelming. That amount of arrogance and ignorance needed to be addressed. Not that the man thought that it would ever get there, but it might make him feel better.

Before he grabbed the paper, though, he read one more line outloud to himself, boggling over it.

"'I only wish you to know my emotions and perhaps, one day in some eternity understand that I value you more than you know.'

"Yeah. You value him so much that you still can't understand that his world obviously didn't revolve around you."

..Yes, she was an interruption. By no means other than by chance.

As usual, she was at the shoreline, on a stroll, her eyes open to anything out of place. She had happened upon an abandoned turtle shell, likely left behind by a pirate, one who had been hasty. Its patterns were like that of a tree, and signified life.

But today, there was only her sunkissed toes sinking into loose sand and the whistling of glass.

The rocks had been hungry. Shriveled seaweed basked grotesquely on slate, and shingle, as the water rushed towards inclines. Her feet followed the rush.

Curiosity mingled with pleasure at the strange sight. Almost as if dreams had been captured on parchment and bottled. She could not resist. The threat of ink and all it contained. Heartfelt or no.

Bending down she collected the sailboat of dreams in its glassy home and held it close to the eye. Water dripped onto the sand. Like tear drops.

Beach combing wasn't the most profitable venture in the world, but it was a rewarding one. Sure, sometimes he simply got junk that had floated out from the city, or soggy letters from psychologically unsound people, but sometimes something great came along.

When he saw the driftwood branch, he was fairly sure that this was one of those things.

It was shaped almost perfectly like a spoon. Admittedly, spoons weren't terribly exciting, but this one looked like something just made by nature and shaped by the sea to stir a pot with.

Brian knelt down, picked the "spoon" up and eyed it.

It was bleached white by salt and age, and hardened to a nearly crystalline quality by its time buried under the sand high enough on the beach to miss the tides. How long it had been there before the winds exposed it was anyone's guess — the shores of Whitewall never seemed to be the same from day to day, and even when he grumbled about the garbage that washed up, he generally looked forward to finding things.

In fact, he was almost sure that Elena had a good part of a quilt started just from the flags of ships that were torn away from mastheads during storms, or drifted in on wreckage from some distant catastrophe.

He didn't know what more could be done with the spoon-shaped driftwood branch, but he did know that she would probably get a kick out of something that nature had crafted in the patterns of man, but with more panache.

He was always glad when she came back home, but understanding that she had to travel. While he couldn't bring himself to counsel anyone outside of sharing a beer and being a sympathetic ear to his friends anymore, Elena had persisted and had found a niche where she could make a difference. Certainly he did his best to talk things over with her when she was puzzling over how to help certain patients, but mostly he just listened and was continually impressed with her strength.

Best of all, though, she tolerated his grumbling and complaining, and put up with the fact that he snored when he slept on his back.

Deciding that he had enough of his beach combing for the day, he stuck the "spoon" in his pocket and headed for home. An afternoon spent chewing over things with the wife and sipping on his iced tea sounded like the most profitable (and rewarding) venture there was.

The past few days had gone by so quickly, she had been left blinking. Aside the mess in her appointments created by attending to Darien's crisis (many letters had been sent, and she was getting ready to go back out there for as long as necessary), she was getting several new requests for therapy at once. Brian answered her letters for her in times like these, which lightened her load considerably, but dealing with an influx required a lot of decisions about whom she could help, and whom she would have to tell no for now.

Depression and anxiety were the psychologist's bread and butter, here as anywhere else. Oddly enough, the third point of the unholy triangle, substance abuse, was almost absent in Rhy'Din. But there were plenty of other things that could be called addictions. And there were so many identity crises, so many griefs that people here went through - they clung to the oddest things. It was no less heartbreaking and frustrating than alcoholism, watching someone disappear into the hope that rescuing the next person, and the next, and the next, would heal one's self.

Insects sang in the dusk, a low melodic buzz that Elena found soothing. She had told Darien where to find her if he woke up and started contemplating sharp objects again; she was sure enough by now that he would find her.

One of the mysteries of her profession that she would never solve was this: that a person so in despair could be brought back by talking about the very things that caused the despair. Of course, it wasn't as simple as that. Most people could tell their story in under fifteen minutes - that was not what brought healing. In Darien's case, there was the troll attack that left him half-crippled and unable to run his small farm by himself (a severe blow to his pride and his belief in self-sufficiency). There was his mother's death (the last one of a series of deaths and disappearances - Elena knew that he was almost relieved by this, as it meant that he would not be hurt like that again, and that he could not forgive himself right now for feeling even a moment of such relief). There was the interminable ongoing legal battle for his land (the latest shove that pushed him over the edge). Most of this, and more, he had told her in about fifteen minutes when they had first met, four months ago, which was two months after his mother's death. He had wanted to stop grieving so much, believing that he should get over it and get on with running the farm. Their work together had helped him see that he need not choose one over the other, had helped him stop wanting to die - when the first letter from the attorney arrived.

So - fifteen minutes to understand the details, and a few hours at a time, talking it out again with him, helping him feel the hurt in a way that led to wanting to live. She never quite believed that it would work, because while she was good at navigating her way to the most helpful turn of phrase, and the best times to keep silent, she always wondered how it could be enough, what she was saying. Twice in her life, it hadn't been.

It had taken several hours, the first time, talking with him, sitting with him, and being quiet with him. Recently, it would take maybe an hour. She was glad of that - glad that her presence on this farm was mostly spent chatting about other topics, relaxing together, cooking meals companionably - and with tense and responsible analysis, calculated the likelihood that the sheer normalcy of it would help convince Darien to live. She only really knew how to talk to people who answered back. Brian was always very good with those who were too young, or too frightened, or too withdrawn to answer, and had tried to teach her, but in this, she was not able to learn well. So aside anything else, it frightened her deeply when her clients talked of suicide. She could not help wanting to reach out more to them, and many of her most difficult moments had been when she'd known she should hold back, so as not to push the suicidal person in exactly the wrong way.

But she had come out here to relax and find her balance. Several weeks of letters and short visits, and two weeks now on the farm itself - the back-and-forth of legal letters had meant that once or twice a day, maybe more, she would find Darien going through the knives, the needles, the razors, the farming implements - anything with a sharp edge or point. She knew that in an odd way, it soothed him to be contemplating the exact choice of weapon, to not yet know what to do to achieve death. She was, in fact, calm and firm and confident when interrupting his contemplation, because she knew what to do, even if uncertain of the outcome. But there seemed no end in sight to this - she was utterly tired with the need to be someone on whom he would rely to call him back, every waking hour. She was afraid that he was growing far too dependent on her. She knew that she needed to calm herself and relax - did it every available moment - and wasn't sure it was enough, right now. Times like this, she wished that Brian were still practicing, so that they could tag-team - their styles might be different enough that they rarely worked together in a given session, but they were excellent at counterbalancing each other, and giving the client differing but complementing approaches to work with. Plus, of course, that each would take care of the other if noticing signs of fatigue or self-doubt, and talk it out together.

She even wished sometimes that Darien wasn't so sincere and was more like one of Brian's nightmarish clients - it would be much easier to stop worrying about him if he'd just been toying with his life. It would be much easier to respond to insincerity - just a matter of figuring out what scripted response to give. But Darien was truly heart-sick, and even so, doing his best to work out his problems, even as he went under again and again. No role-play would do here. His fears, his pain, came from who he was; when he spoke of it, he put himself into his words. To answer him in a way that helped to heal, nothing less would do than that she should be who she was, answer him in words just as real, and hope that that would be enough.

With an effort, she set her mind to drifting a while, listening to the noises around her. The evening smelled of grass, and leafmold, and off to her right was a climbing plant, something like jasmine. She would have to ask Darien what it was called. Maybe in a while, she would walk down to the orchard, when it was dark and all the trees were dim, scent-laden shapes, and just breathe a while.

The frantic worries were calming down, retreating to the back of her mind, now tractable and patiently waiting their turn to come back, instead of pushing forward. She was close to nodding off on the porch, when out on the road, the clomp of hooves and the flash of a lantern appeared. She lifted her head to watch the two riders, even as she took her phaser from her belt. It was one of the few things from her home planet that she'd kept - travelling alone long distances on her usual route, she believed in taking precautions, even after that disastrous first time when she'd managed to stun both the bandit and her horse. Her foot still twinged in bad weather, sometimes, and it had taken her a lot of time, determination, self-analysis, and reminders of "physician, heal thyself" to get back on a horse. And she mostly rode in a cart.

But this time, the travellers dismounted, a man and a woman. Still holding the reins, the woman inquired, "This is the homestead of Darien Evin, isn't it?"

And when she confirmed, both of them gave loud sighs of relief. The woman spoke again, "Tell him....tell him....that we both long to hug our baby brother again, now that we've finally found him."

Elena nodded, gestured for them to wait a moment, and hurried inside. One part of her mind was going "Oh, no, oh no." She had no illusions about how stressful Darien would find this on top of everything else, and would probably blame himself again for not feeling completely overjoyed that his brother and sister, missing and presumed dead since he'd been fifteen, had returned. And even on a few moments' acquaintance, she had the feeling that the words the woman had used were role-play words.

The other part hoped that here, finally, were people for whom Darien would do everything - that he would finally discover that there was yet more to him than a man constantly drowning. That the somewhat theatrical introduction was only the awkwardness of someone not knowing how to express the full weight of their feelings. At the very least, instead of two people struggling together, there would be four, and whatever troubles the siblings brought, those were much better numbers for facing the future.

The circle of firelight in which they sat was probably the main thing holding these four people together.

Darien, blinking from less than two hours of sleep and dazed with the news - there was a slightly uncertain smile on his face. He looked from his brother to his sister, and back again, over and over, with every once in a while, an anxious glance thrown Elena's way. He was not doing much asking about where the two had been, the past years. Rather, he was inquiring about whether they were comfortable, and allowing them to question him on how his life had gone. He was open about the losses and setbacks - the siblings exclaimed at each name of a person who was gone, and were already moving to try to comfort Darien. He was not open yet about how the losses had personally affected him, and they had not yet asked.

Elena was wide awake, with her shoulders straight. She had been known to think of herself, in this place, as a one-woman mental hospital (and really, that was what Darien needed, except that there was no such place that she knew of, in Rhy'Din). So currently, she was amusing herself by wondering whether this situation compared more to visitor hours, or to some odd form of therapy, and if the latter, which one. Darien, when the first introductions were being made, had identified her as "my friend." She would naturally respect his desire not to have his treatment known to his siblings, but she could already see certain conclusions being suspected, from the fact of her being female and the only other person in the house at this time of night. The ring on her finger and the lack of one on his did not seem to have been a strong enough hint about the wrongness of those suspicions, which made her all the more determined to set them straight on that at the first opportunity. But at the moment, she was staying in the background.

Rimal, the brother, was similarly backgrounding himself from the conversation. His hands and face were oddly patchy, with yellow and white covering more area than healthy skin did. He looked steadily at Darien, and the only sign of some inner excitement was the way his hand fiddled with something in a cloak pocket.

Alinor, the sister, was animated, almost feverish. Her speech was quick and peppery; her hands moved constantly. She seemed genuinely eager to hear what Darien had to say, and Elena could almost see Darien warming up under the attention. She recalled him telling her that he used to be much closer to his brother.

The kettle boiled, the cups were handed round, and Alinor produced a flask of something to "add a kick to the tea." "These chilly nights, it comes necessary, eh?" she insisted, though it was almost summer. Alinor poured; the rest politely did not decline.

A brief silence fell, while all were drinking. Then Darien quietly set his half-full cup down, and asked, "Tell me, where have you been and what happened to you?"

Whitewall Island had a lot of benefits. It was large enough not to be too crowded, self-sufficient enough not to rely heavily on the mainland, and remote enough not to be bothered. Between the sea air close to the shoreline, to the more earthy tones further inland, it was just a really damn good place to live.

Brian made himself at home on the rock he was waiting on; he was pretty sure Elena would be along shortly, and in the meantime, he just let his mind wander. A stray leaf, loosed from a tree by the heat (even on the relatively clement island) fell and before too long, he was applying the aerodynamics of it to that of birds wings, and to the airplanes he still had quite a bit of interest in.

"I'm looking for someone," the voice said, casually but with a note of....coyness, he supposed the right word would be. "Maybe you can help me find him' He and I have a date."

Brian chewed down a grin and swung a look to the beautiful woman standing on the road. Well, he certainly thought she was beautiful. "Oh, I don't know. Not a lot of people travel this road."

"It is very quiet," she admitted, then in a move he knew was very intentional, she clasped her hands behind her back and played the part of 'shy'. Which just made it all the harder for him not to laugh. "The chances of two people meeting must be..."

"...slim to none?" He slid down off of the rock, then in the most absurd manner he could, waggled his eyebrows. "Maybe you shouldn't bother waiting for this date of yours."

It took her a very long moment to reply, and he knew it was because she was trying not to laugh. At the absurdity, and with the joy; knew that because he felt the same thing. "I think you're right. Maybe we should just have a quickie right here on the road, and consider it good fortune that we met under such unlikely conditions."

They eyed each other for a pause, then both of them broke out laughing. And shaking his head, Brian pulled Elena into his arms, laughing into her shoulder even as she wrapped her arms around him and laughed into his neck.

Once the mosquitoes started coming out in force, Elena got ready to go back to the farm. She was probably as far from a clingy woman as one could get, but it was much harder to leave Brian than usual, even knowing that she'd be seeing him again tomorrow. She definitely needed that vacation, and time spent together without interruptions. Okay, without too many interruptions, knowing her.

The walk back was quiet, right up until the point where Darien intercepted her at the gate. "Where have you been?" he demanded, and from his tense and frightened posture, she could see that the day had been hard on him.

She explained about meeting with Brian and getting some rest. She didn't like the way Darien sounded - as if he had counted on her to be there in the background, even when he wasn't actually interacting with her. It was definitely time to reiterate that she was there as a therapist, not anything else. She started to do so - but Darien was obviously not in the mood to hear it. He stomped back into the house, responded curtly to Alinor's welcome back words, and disappeared into the kitchen. From the smell, Elena could tell that the stew was almost ready.

She sat down at the table, since supper would probably be served soon, and looked at the others. Alinor looked back at her steadily, but her hand twitched slightly, and she drew it back beneath the table. Rinal was examining the ceiling. Elena thought that the two of them might be uneasy - not knowing whether Darien was about to throw them out again, perhaps. She imagined that, while not afraid of the wandering life, the two had counted on being able to get back home. So, preferring people to talk openly about what bothered them, she decided to push a little.

"It's still your home, you know. You have a right to be here that Darien will never deny."

Alinor gave her a long stare. "He doesn't seem happy to see us. Not much point in being here, then."

"And are you happy to see him' Only happy and nothing else?"

Alinor bit her lip, a gesture much younger than any Elena had yet seen from her. "I could be happier, I suppose."

"It's nobody's fault that you all grew up."

Rinal broke in unexpectedly, through he was still idly examining the ceiling. "I like him. He's a decent fellow."

Alinor snorted a little. "I suppose he is."

"A slight difference there, between a decent fellow and a brother," commented Elena.

Nobody spoke after that, though the silence was slightly more comfortable. That is, until Darien carried in the first plates, clearly still upset. He seemed to calm down a bit as they ate, but not by much. So Elena asked him what was bothering him.

He looked at her as if he didn't have the words to explain, closed his eyes, and then the words came pouring out, half-incoherent, and somewhat accusatory. "Why weren't you there?" he said in different ways, and it was not clear if he were referring to those who had died, to Alinor and Rinal, or to her, or to all at once. "You don't care about me, do you?"

What do you say to that terrifying thought' Honesty (I do care about you, with caveats) seems far too bald a thing. But as it was the only thing she had found to work, Elena said it that way. (I want you to live, and I want you to live well, but I am not your family or your friend. You have to look elsewhere for these things, and two people are right in front of you. Even if you don't know them yet, you used to. You can probably find a common bond again.)

Alinor's voice, low and sweet, but tense, followed. (I remember you as my little brother whom I loved, but can't you understand that we were hurt and needed time to recover" That we had been taught that we had a different place in life, far away from you? Can you understand how that lingers" Can you understand what it is to come back, and find that everyone you knew had died, except for one little boy, who is now a stranger" And yet I want to know you.)

Rinal spoke slowly, as if from a far away distance. (It's hard for me to think, you know. It's hard for me to stay in the present. I'm trying, because I want you to be important to me.)

And finally, Darien again, speaking carefully this time. (I thought your coming back would fix things right away, and that was unfair to you. But I can try, too.)

"Fix what?" asked Alinor, and Darien actually answered, including the part about being suicidal, and the part where he worried about how they would judge him for not "handling things well." In this, too, he had been a bit unfair to his siblings - they had a fair understanding of people who had been pushed close to the edge. So aside from a few exchanged glances, they absorbed that bit of news easily.

Later that evening, when it was just Elena and Darien at the table, they went over what had happened, and where Darien could go on from there. A lot was still unknown - whether Alinor and Rinal would settle here, whether they would become the family Darien wanted, whether they would still have a place to live after the legal dust settled - but Darien wasn't thinking of suicide as his best solution any more. He wanted to see what would happen, at least for now. So Elena talked to him of whether he felt ready for her to leave, and was hard-pressed not to smile so wide that it would be misinterpreted when he said he felt ready, though by no means wanted to go it alone. They settled on continuing the therapy through letters and visits every two weeks.

So in the morning, she packed up her few things and hitched up the cart to the horse. Darien packed a loaf of fresh-baked bread and some cheese for her, together with several jars of preserves (though those would have to wait till she got home). She inhaled the scent of bread eagerly, hugged Darien, and set off for Brian's camping site in the fresh morning light.