To make something whole again only to break it

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13:59:10 …
A delicate and rather unsure knock on his door, just loud enough to announce her entry before the door was carefully opened and big brown eyes were introduced to the simple interior of the room which fell in perfect unison to the other entrance room she came from - if not with very slight differences. “Excuse me?” They then only a small moment later got acquainted with the man she was there to meet as she stepped all the way through. A curly-haired and kind-faced gentleman, tall as anyone seemed to be in comparison to her own short frame; more so now without her signature heels to help a little in the height department. He surprised her, not actually having had much time to picture him beforehand, so really, what could she have expected? A silver fox with slim rectangle-shaped glasses and polished well-worn shoes?
"Mr. Addington? The woman out front told me I could just walk in,” she explained with a more gentle-sounding confidence than what she had been used to using. Something that didn’t feel as natural to used now so she had had to compromise for the time being. However, as she stepped probably inside, she didn’t stand slouched. And as she presented herself with not only a smile on her lips, but even a reddish muted colour consciously painted onto them for some desperately needed normalcy and hair both freshly washed and brushed, the untrained and passing eye would probably not see the many layers of trauma.

It was the first time in a while where she wasn’t either forced into a strangers clothing like a Barbie Doll or dressed in unflattering hospital gowns, but where she was actually properly dressed. In her own clothes. It was still a very strange sensation, and it had ultimately scared her when originally, because she had thought she’d finally feel much more herself after putting on what she knew and had worn before, but that hadn’t quite been it. While the hazy periwinkle shirt was loose-fitted around mostly everywhere on her upper body expect for how she had buttoned it all the way up, the hugging elastic of her black faux-leather pencil-skirt, where she had stopped the shirt neatly and fashionably into, made her breathings surprisingly apparent. It didn’t hurt and in reality she couldn’t even feel the healing scars that hid on her skin underneath. It was just… different. Something she surely just had to get used to again.. At least the skirt didn’t reach longer than just past her knees so if she had to, her legs wouldn’t be too restricted to run. Of course, what reason would there be to run from a psychologist.

Maeve took in a deep breath to fill her weighing chest and managed to pull more strength into her smile. It all came down to her she could bring the smile to her eyes, still she hadn’t gotten that far yet. “I’m sorry, this is a first for me, so I’m not really sure how this works. I’ve never been to a psychologist before, I got to admit.” Her eyes wandered for a bit around the room, looking towards the settee where different kinds of media such as movies and shows made her think that was probably where she’d be seated, but she really wasn’t sure so her gaze found its way right back to this Fenris Addington and she continued to take up as little space as she could. Borys Ignatyev had taught her well over the past 14 weeks…

Ah. Fenris, yes. It would be a lie to say that Maeve had actually been looking far into this man and even more a lie to say that she had come to him completely willingly. It had nothing to do with him personally but she was far from keen on picking at what had happened. She was barely holding the cracks together already, but at the very least, with how she automatically had chosen to deal with it - pretend and suppress and forget - there was something that kept her from collapsing in a dust cloud of broken pieces. Right? So coming there today hadn’t been on her account. She was there to lessen the worry and concern of her loved one. And by that; she hadn’t even thought to even search up this place and it’s practitioner. That was why his name caught her little by surprise. It wasn’t a particularly ordinary name. Still, as she looked at him more closely, the name somehow fitted him. She nodded affirmatively to his request followed by a pull up in her smile as she replied back: “I’ll do that then, thanks. Fenris.”

It was only when he gestured towards the settee that she moved her eyes away from him again to follow his hand’s directions. So this was really it. It wouldn’t be very polite of her to just leave again, although thing started to heavy down even further upon her chest, making her breathing ever so slightly onerous as she did as he instructed and walked over to sit down. Making sure to smooth the shirt properly under her behind and back-thighs as she did. “Actually, if won’t be too much trouble, I wouldn’t mind if you call me just Maeve as well,” she then stated, taking him full on up on the offer of ‘anything that would make her more comfortable’. Seated, she looked back at him and followed along with his movements, closing the door and coming over to join her in the little cozy area. One thing this place certainly wasn’t was closed off. It wasn’t spacious, per se, but it didn’t have to be to not feel cramp, because cramp wasn’t something she’d use to describe the place either! It was… quaint. A little barren but she suspected that this Fenris didn’t want to over-decorate. “I’d feel weird if I’m the only one on first name basis, anyway.” She let out a fleeting chuckle by that addition.
She then couldn’t help up watch him pouring their glasses of water. It wasn’t even that she thought much of it. It was an instinct, not a conscious choice, but surely something in her was now on alert. Even the way he took the first sip… How much did he now of what had happened, she couldn’t help up think. She had been referred to him specifically, so he must have some access to her medical files. And as she herself had become familiar with the news media’s interest in her story, there probably wasn’t much he wasn’t aware of now that she thought about it… She leaned in to lift up her own glass, however she didn’t drink from it. She simply held it, both hands cupped around it as if it was a cup of warm tea which she was warming her hands on. “Hm?” She had been listening througoughly; well, she thought she did, but the question which he landed on in the end caught her, yet again, off guard and her eyes widened in bafflement for a moment there. “What I had for breakfast?” If it was the lack of mundane small talk for the past time or just her own prejudice assumption  of what therapy was, she couldn’t tell you. But with whatever luck this man had, he had managed to break through the first layer with just.. that.

“Ehm,” she hummed as she lowered her face for a moment, painting the pondering expression clear as day in her face as she thought back. What did she have for breakfast? Did she even eat? And then the smile broke through and her face softened. “Actually, one of my younger brothers had made breakfast ready for me when I came down.” She looked up again, more perked up. “You see, I have three. They are much younger than I am. I was already 15 years old when my parents got Jonathan, the oldest of them. He had made me a ‘slapped toast’ as he used to call it. Two pieces of toasted bread, slapped together with whatever between. I think it was just cream cheese this morning.” It was such a nice thing. She loved talking about her brother, about her family. She was also grateful for her brothers to be so young that they didn’t bother fuzzing around her. It made the daily day feel more normal.
Feeling more comfortable already, she fell more relaxed into the chair and even relaxed her shoulders. Clicking a finger nail discreetly against the glass. “I usually drink coffee in the morning too, but on doctor’s orders, I’m not allowed too much caffeine for the time being. To not risk overstimulating my mind.”

The corners of her mouth rose even further. “Yeah, very much. Family is something very important to me and it might have something to do with why I haven’t moved out of my parents place yet,” she casually ended up revealing without really realizing. It wasn’t usually something she brought up in conversations since it was a tiny bit of a taboo when one was as old as Maeve was. And she had the money to move out. She had had it even before she had turned twenty two, having worked part-time diligently side by side with her school and chores and responsibilities at home. “I’ve always been there to help out my parents with my brothers since they’re both pretty busy people. I am…” She suddenly choked and her eyes sort of automatically lowered. “..was busy too but it has always been a team effort, so it I’d feel bad for leaving, although we’d still be in the same city.”
After that one tough word change, she lifted her head again and while one would easily see the remanence of the fade - and the reason behind - the smile was also back on her painted lips. “But yeah, I guess I’ve been highly family oriented ever since I was a little girl. You know, dreaming of having a family of my own. Marry and have kids. It probably stem from having changed diapers and comforted teething children since my teenage years,” she reverted back to the actual topic at hand, adding a discreet, half-hearted chuckle in the mix. She had noticed it before, how the more she talked, distracted her mind with using her face muscles to move her mouth and crowded her mind with words to say, she could take more and more distance to what normally had her fall into a trance of emotionless non-existence, which had already become pretty prevalent then and there. The fake façade was sprouting more and more.

But exactly like the small human herself, the façade was fragile. Very fragile. So of course it broke. “I..” Out of nowhere she couldn’t remember exactly what she had been about to say but as the smile started to become force before she just let I mellow out, guilt shallowed her expression and she urged herself to turn her head to the side and looked towards the nearest window, as if not letting him see the entirety of her face would make how her jaw and throat tensed up less obvious. In reality it only really give him a better view point to at least one side of her dimples caving in. She already had that; her own family, her own kid. She had a son. But she had run from that, and now.. How could she claim him now that she was like this? Broken.

“This tea shop.” When she found her voice again, it was a very clear change of topic. Even the tone was different. And she waited to look back at him until after having started her sentence. “Where did you say it was? I might know it.” It was a possibility. She wasn’t one to splurge on things like tea - not even coffee really - but her job at Clover had her dip her toes in luxury and speciality places. Employee- and guest gifts. And still… she doubted. “Maybe you can write down the name of it for me? I’m going to be honest, I hadn’t thought of going decaf on.. anything.” The tapping of the glass had turned into her thumb gliding over the edges of it instead.

Maeve was definitely not coping. At all. There was nothing truly impressive about how open she seemed to him because in reality it was only an excuse. A big fat excuse to not have to admit to the trauma or anything else that was gnawing at her on the inside. She was convinced that it was fuelled by attention and by giving it that, it would feed off of her even faster. And it would spread. And before she knew it, she would be nothing more than an exposed ball of limitless anxiety. Capable of nothing more than being thrown at surfaces and bounce back with little to no control of which direction. The face she showed Mr. Addington-.. Fenris was what she remembered from before and the things she told him was mainly because she had less of a problem of talking about that than what needed to be brought to light. Even if that meant revealing evidently quite personal information to a complete stranger. For some reason, that was of far less concern of her. Because… fundamentally that wasn’t what had brought the horrid 14 weeks upon her. Right?

The soft appreciation she felt as he caught and held onto her obvious shift with no trouble at all, became very apparent in her face as it stroked over and close to automatically, she stopped the tapping of the glass. For now. Curiosity also made its appearance the moment he started to write something down and usually she would’ve probably leaned forward to get a peak but she was held back. It didn’t take much for her to move her eyes right back up to his, either. All it took was the mentioning of lemon muffins. This surprised her.
Her smile grew enough for her lips to part slightly and let the teeth show a little. “That sounds amazing. I don’t think I’ve heard of the shop but anything lemony is right up my alley. Even if I end up being fan of the teas,” she said before reaching over and accepting the little scribbled piece of paper. Serene Aromas. If he had to be honest, it did sound like something on the edge of very spiritual. A place where people who believed in the healing factors of essential oils stopped by regularly. It didn’t sound like a tea shop, she had to admit. And also – she allowed herself a more capturing gaze upon the therapist for a moment – he didn’t give off the feeling of that kind of person. She… She hoped he wasn’t. “Their decaf black tea, got it. If you insist that it’s good, I’ll have to try it, don’t I.”

She had barely started moving to put the piece of note onto the table so she wasn’t fiddling with both that and the glass when the before so sturdy glass became anything but sturdy right there in her hand. It suddenly turning into something soft and modellable, the strength which she held the glass immediately had her press it in and fall completely out of balance and the untouched water inside it spilled everywhere! Startled, She quickly stood up and instead of the usual movement of holding the glass out in a stretched arm she had in a fright of the abrupt change of the material itself, dropped it onto the floor with a short squeal, where she then instinctively tried to avoid to have any more water land on her. The glass, as it hit the floor, didn’t clink. It sounded nothing of what one would expect and it didn’t bounce as one could expect. It was like jelly or soft plastic. And then not exactly. It was still as clear as glass was. But its firmness had shifted completely. Maeve looked at it in complete horror. She looked outright scared. Scared of the consequences of not only having dropped it or spilled the content, although that was a large part of her reaction but… “I-.. I’m so sorry!” she burst out, quickly looking back and forth between the ..glass and Fenris. She was shaking. Quite violently.

If she hadn’t been so clouded by the immense panic and anxiety which had welled up in her on that very short amount of time, she might have noticed the lack of surprise in his face and she would probably have wondered just how he had kept that composure. At least until it would click for her that he himself wasn’t as human as her ignorant human brain would think. She still thought everyone outside of the supernatural bubble when she met them, after all. But sadly, she noticed nothing of that sort. All her attention was on the fallen glass and the water spilled. She expected the hand slapping her across her face any moment now. The shouting words and the humiliating commands. Even though it was now almost two weeks since she had gotten away she suddenly seemed to be smelling the stuffy smell of the basement. The strong cleaning products used to clean of bloo-…
It seemed so sudden when Fenris placed his hands upon her shoulder and managed to pull her straight out of the spiralling train of thoughts. She jolted, however, she didn’t jump. Her eyes simply found focus back at him with a very sharp movement as it had somewhat startled her. For a good while she just stared at him with widened, slightly frightened eyes - not frightened by him but something else - and while she didn’t shed any tears her eyes were visibly more glossy than before. She had truly feared this; how people in the outside world wouldn’t think of her if she couldn’t keep her cool but… he… he hadn’t stepped away and the longer she looked at him the more her mind allowed her to see the calmness in his face. Breathe, Maeve.

She tried it. Breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Her lips stayed slightly apart and her chest shook as she elevated it by slowly filling her lunges. In through the nose. The smell of chloroform disappeared from her nostrils again as if it hadn’t ever been there. And it hadn’t. It had been gone for a while. Out through the mouth. Either it was the pressure he had on her shoulder or just the breathing technique but her shoulders sunk again within a couple of rounds and she started blinking more frequently to dry up the shocked tears in her eyes. She eventually even found enough collective to nod to his words, agreeing to them. “I-.. I don’t..” she tried but gave up when words didn’t seem to fit. What was she even trying to say?

It was only when Maeve had reached this point of calm that she dared turn her attention away from the kind-eyes man towards the glass and it was there she saw how he stood in an almost perfect placement to obscure the view from her so she couldn’t actually see where it was on the floor unless she leaned to the side. She only saw the pool of water on the floor. She didn’t know if this was on purpose or not, though. She gulped silently as she could still somewhat remember what had become of the glass. She had done it, she knew as much. Should she start wearing gloves? Would that even work? Wouldn’t she just end up changing the gloves themselves?
“I’m.. alright now,” she partially lied as she looked back up at him. “Thank you. We should get something to wipe up the water. I really am sorry about the mess. I don’t know what happened.” Another lie. Partially, at least. But the last thing she wanted was for him to think her a freak more than she already was.

She felt bad for lying as he with an awfully kind ruthlessness passively pointed it out to her. She wanted to tell him, that it was just so much easier to lie but even though the excuse never escaped her lips, she suspected that someone like him was already more than aware of this. She wasn’t his first. She had to remember that..
Then with his guidance Maeve found her way back into the seat and while her eyes still lingered on him, she nodded gently before he started to step further away towards the door. She could’ve said something. She always used to be such a social butterfly, enjoying talking, enjoying being around others. She still enjoyed it, she knew she did! She couldn’t have changed that much. Could she? It was just more difficult now, that’s all. But not impossible. With Fenris out of the room, she tensed the muscles in her cheeks, provoking the small indentations in them and when she was sure he had gone, her eyes finally fell to the glass on the floor and she furrowed her brows.
The least she could do would be to pick it up. However as if planned out perfectly, the moment she did the first movement to stand up again, Fenris returned in through the door, leading her to automatically look his way and fell back into the soft settee. Slightly surprised but nothing that was comparable to how frightfully startled she had become before. Instead it was easily faded into a light smile. “Thanks.”

The smile grew but the laugh that followed was still less than half-hearted, clearly still affected by whatever had just happened to her. “It’s funny isn’t it? You need to talk about thing to solve them and yet here you’re giving me the choice to not speak at all,” she said shaking her head a tiny bit at not only him but also herself because she felt the clawing craving to take him up on the offer of not talking. To say that she wasn’t ready and that she needed more time to process. But there was a problem with that: She felt that she probably would never be ready. Maybe this was as useless as she had thought from the beginning, this therapy. All she really needed was distractions. Right? ”What just happened, I can’t actually explain it. Ever since I… I got out I’ve been different. I don’t feel different. Not much at least. I feel much more paranoid but that’s to be expected, right?” Another attempt at a chuckle that fell flat. “Someone that did horrible things to me is still out there. But that’s not quite what I mean.” She spoke rather softly, no words were rushed and probably so that she wouldn’t overwhelm herself by talking about the topic at hand. She feared her voice would either crack or start to shake like her hands still did in her lap. Barely noticeable now, luckily.
“Do you…” she started out before nearly choking herself on the retraction and hesitation of the question. She needed to breathe in deeply to unlock the words from her throat again. And then instinctively, as she parted her lips to try speaking again, she leaned a little towards him. “Do you believe in the supernatural, Mr. Addington?” Even now, after knowing full-well that such things existed, she felt very strange for asking anyone about it. She felt it a high-risk gamble. Ask she wrong person and she’d get stamped as a freak of sorts. She knew this. She had been on the other side. Been the one who looked strangely at people who talked of vampires and werewolves as being real and walking among humans such as herself. But Maeve had no other way of filtering those who knew from the rest. She had no sixth sense like she felt everyone else around her had.

Maeve Poe couldn’t with good conscious state that she fully understood where Fenris was trying to lead with his explanation. Actually, as he talked, her thick brows furrowed ever so slightly and pulled on her facial features until a more perturbed expression appeared and she couldn’t help but then ask: “However that may be truth, if a method or path ends up causing even more scars, what good would it be? For someone already used to the pain, then the easy and short path filled with thorns would be a first choice rather than the longer one.” She didn’t mean for herself to turn all metaphorical or try to match him in his cryptic talks. And she most certainly didn’t mean for it to turn into this equal conversation. That wasn’t why she was there, after all. But it was always where she ended up. She was clearly not ready to open up. Not entirely. And if she had to be honest with herself, with him - the psychiatrist - just having somewhat confirmed with her that it was alright to deal with the trauma in her own way, be it possibly destructive and suppressing, then… wouldn’t it then be better for her to say her goodbyes? Let someone else get the timestamps in his schedule?
She gently clenched her cheeks, provoking the two small indent dimples to peak through.

However, the tension that started to fill her, the longer she sat there with the intrusive thoughts - one side convinced she could handle herself and the other attempting to understand that there had to be a reason for her family and hospital to have her sat in this chair in front of this man - got punctured and started seeping out again when revealed his belief in the supernatural. Rather, it was his follow-up question that made the most difference in her.

The human chuckled very lightly. “No. No, not in the slightest,” she admitted wholeheartedly. If anything she felt stupid as she always did when she met someone with their toes into the waters of that other world because the more people she came across the more she felt like the only one who just didn’t know. “Of course, it, in and of itself, is something I still have difficulties comprehending. Werewolves, fairies, archangels and what have you. But past that, I can’t not feel interested and, honestly, drawn to it. A little bit jealous, maybe. But what happened to me with…” She fell silent, choking on the name or just simply the sheer memory of the man. “It was unnatural. Not supernatural.” Borys Ignatyev could’ve been anything else than a demon and nothing would’ve been different. “But it still left me changed. Now I’m capable of doing..” She made a fleeting gesture towards where the accident had happened. “..that. Something I’ve never been able to do before in my life. I don’t know how.. or if it’s really me doing it or just some invisible force playing tricks on me.” Abusing her fragile mind. Continuously picking at it and eventually making her completely mad.
As she was talking, she was discreetly fidgeting her fingers in between each other in her lap, not noticing it herself. She was too busy trying to find the right words to say and holding her eyes focused at the calming man. She hadn’t realized before now, but his eyes.. when ever his head was turned the right amount away from the natural light coming from the window, they were very dark? No. Absorbing.

One thing we can be sure of, is that I saw it too.
It sent a strange sensations through the human’s body. A pleasant sensation. One that felt like a soft wave, a breeze of cool air against a hot, flushed face. It relaxed her slightly. He was right. He had seen it too. She wasn’t going insane. Unless he himself wasn’t real either but the thing was; Maeve always had a very strong sense of reality. An innate ability to differentiate. And he was real. She was real. It was only the unexplainable she had trouble with.

Automatically, she lifted her head, focusing back at him with a sliver of bafflement and surprised, and then followed him with those big brown eyes as he moved a few steps away from their little cozy spot by the window. At first, she was caught off guard by what he presented her. A book. One about the supernatural. She eyed the book for a good while, before her face softened a significant amount and let those who witnessed her, in on a sudden and very gentle smile as she reached out to take the book to her lap. “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” she admitted, running a hand over the edges of it as if her mind was playing with the thought of opening it. Glancing through it.
She had denied the opportunity to read through another book on the unexplainable and strange once before as she hadn’t wanted to store it with her family. There was probably so much more of the kind out there, though. “I guess this explains why I was referred to you, Mr. Addington.” She looked back up from the book. They must’ve known. He must’ve known. She should’ve known.

Then with him pulling in the fishing line again in one fell, and professional swoop, he successfully pulled her back to shore as well. It was best not to fall into holes like these. This session had already been a rollercoaster for her, actually. Did she attempt to think back, she’d only get dizzy. That he could maintain order was both comforting and reassuring. His assumption also immediately had her react rather strongly.
“Wha-.. No! Of course not,” she quickly burst out as it somehow had offended her, that he thought that about her. It was, by all means, a lie. Sort of. Leaning forward to place the book back on the table, she continued: “It was horrible! Horrendous! It was grotesque and unimaginable ….un…unimaginable…cruel.” As she - or he, perhaps - broke through that crack of finally spitting out about the event, she was filled with such overwhelming feeling that it became harder to get the words out. Not because she didn’t want to, not this time, but it became clear that there really weren’t any words that’d properly describe it. Discreetly she crossed her arms and held around herself in the chair. “What I meant by ‘unnatural’ was only in contradiction to ‘supernatural’. When he cut me, he did so with a scalpel. Or a kitchen knife. When he chained me, he did so with cold, hard steel. When he sedated me, he did so with drugs. He didn’t need to have a tail or horns or red, pulsating flesh-like skin to be a monster.” She folded and pressed her lips clenching as she finally got something off her chest. Did she feel better? No. At least not yet. But this was the first she had actually talked about it on this level. With the police it had been different and she had barely been present enough. And that had to count for something. Right?