[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Odhrán's work was piling up everywhere. His last week had been a complete disaster. He'd come crashing down so hard his mind was still reeling from it. And then there was the guilt. He felt it sharply and it was power overwhelming. Some of his patient appointments had slipped in aftermath of the German obscurial case he'd been treating. The few days he taken to stay in Bern with his grandmother had been necessary for his personal recovery, but all he could think about was the mountain of work he'd left abandoned.

His last patient had attested him that he looked like a wraith, pale and sallow with bloodshot eyes. His tiredness was evident on his features, though he felt too restless to allow himself some relaxation.

He was pushing himself too hard, but every minute he spent working meant he didn't have to be alone with his thoughts. They were so tumultuous he didn't know how to handle them. Safer to keep half the content of his head swimming in his office pensieve where it could do him no harm.

His receptionist had left a few hours ago and there was only one more patient to come, a Ms Albron to finalise some work he'd done suppressing nightmares. She was one of the clients he'd been forced to reschedule due to his personal circumstances. His gut said she probably wouldn't show up, given how nervous she'd been about the first treatment. He hoped that the young woman was okay.

Odhrán made his way down the stairs to the tiny kitchenette by the reception desk. It was time he put on another cup of tea. The bittersweet scent of jasmine blossoms filled the entrance area and he sunk into one of the comfortable armchairs in the waiting area. He'd give her twenty minutes. If Ms Albron hadn't shown up by then, he'd down a bottle of dreamless sleep and pass out on the patient couch it treatment room two. It was by far the most comfortable one.

[Deitha Albron]

Deitha had made an appointment to see Healer Ó Dálaigh again - it had not been the easiest of gestures but one that she felt compelled to do. Truth be told, she'd had quite the time since her first visit. No more nightmares - not so much as a headache - since her treatment. And yet, she had questions...

She was aware that callous cruelty and sadism was not always something she'd been enthusiastic about. Certainly it was something she had grown into, lashing out at the world in a way to deal with what happened. Being hurt, and continuing the cycle - and the nightmares certainly hadn't helped. But in a way it had taught her something about herself... that the wellspring of whatever it was that fuelled her inner sadist had always been there, and merely amplified by everything that had happened.

Specifically, this recent dose of freedom from her past gave her thoughts about her future. She wondered if she might, for example, start to spontaneously sprout something entirely as inconvenient in her trade as conscience, Merlin forbid, compassion, or even - empathy.

But, while she had made the appointment and had had the occasional jitter about keeping it, the question had been resolved for her by Ó Dálaigh's office postponing it.

But today was the day. The reckoning.

Last time she'd found herself in London heading towards Meridian, she'd purposefully worn an outfit intended to make a statement. A statement of 'come on, world, what do you have?' But today that hadn't felt like the right mood.

Yes, her purple dress was a frightful statement of intent. Confidence. Calm. That hint of something not so well aligned with everything else. But she'd felt... better, she could only call it... and purple didn't seem the right statement. It wasn't even that she wanted to demonstrate some sense of contrition perhaps for her delightfully dark exterior. That exterior, she was quick to amend, mentally, was still just as delightfully dark, thank you very much.

She stood, much as she had those few weeks ago, at the entrance into Knockturn Alley. Slightly different this time, it was a set of dress robes that were plummy in colour, less brash and bold than the purple, but still making it quite clear that adherence to blandness and convention was neither acceptable or desired. She adjusted the angle of her hat - it had a really rather wide brim this time, checked her pigtails one last time, took a deep breath and set off for Meridian.

She stepped over the threshold and felt the air change. It was as tranquil as her last visit, but it had a note of sadness about it. Something in the air... whatever she tuned into to get a read on her clients, she tuned into it here.

Odd, the receptionist wasn't there. She looked around, wondering where... all there was, was a scent of jasmine, which she followed to the little kitchenette, before knocking politely on the door.

"I'm not late, am I?"

The healer was sat in a chair. He didn't look well, and it was all Deitha could do not to gasp, and convey... was that an ounce of compassion in her face? He looked like he needed a holiday. Several of them, possibly.

"How are you?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Holy Merlin, was it already that time? Odhrán heard Deitha come in, but he felt too lethargic to make a move. She was going to come to the reception desk anyway. He'd sit another minute and enjoy his tea. Just a little stay of execution. He could feel the seconds trickling down. In a few moments he would have to function again. Was it just his perception or was that getting harder?

He took a deep breath taking in the heavy jasmine scent. It was a comforting blanket, and at least some of the muscles in his neck and shoulders weren't entirely opposed to moving anymore. Still, he felt a little stiff. Exactly how long had he just sat holding his tea? A while from the looks of it as it was only luke warm. He drank and finished the cup.

"No, no, come in. You're not late at all. It's just that Linda is already out for the day. She only works 'til 4pm most days. It's just me after that."

To his surprise Deitha enquired after his well-being a moment later. From a lot of his patients he would have perceived this as politeness, but this one - if she asked she probably really wanted to know. Worse yet, she probably had a reason for asking. Was he so out of it his patients could tell now. That wasn't good.

"A little more work than I can comfortably handle," Odhrán fibbed. Every good lie began with a grain of truth. The clinic really had been unusually busy with a rather punishing schedule. "Nothing to worry about, but I am a little tired." He rubbed his temples and took a moment to brush a few unruly strands of dark hair back into position.

"You do look rather well though. How are you feeling?"

He carefully scanned her. Yes, this was different from the last time that he had seen her. She came across a little less restless.

"Can I offer you a cup of tea? Any kind, you don't need to join me for jasmine. And then perhaps we shall sit down in the green room and catch up a little? I guess there can't have been major issues or I would have heard from you sooner, but I'd still like to see how the spells are holding and run through a bit of a checkup both physically and otherwise. Does that sound okay to you?"

He put the kettle on again. Regardless of her preference, he could do with a second cup of something warm in his belly. It was grumbling a little reminding him that he apparently forgotten to eat. Again. He'd fix it after this session when he could finally get some sleep.

[Deitha Albron]

A little tired? Deitha thought that even her "customers" didn't usually look that tired and drained even after being shaken down for whatever their obligations were. But she thought better of pushing it just at the moment.

"A couple of tea would be wonderful, thank you! Jasmine isn't quite to my taste, but anything herbal would be... just peachy." She stopped herself giggling at her own joke. This was new, feeling an urge to laugh at her own, mildly terrible, joke. The lack of nightmares had certainly allowed for some restful sleep and not a persistent sense of teeth on edge.

She knew, of course, that she wasn't 'fixed'. She still had all of the things that had happened to her, everything that had brought her to this moment and she doubted she would ever entirely move past that, but she was at this point comfortable with it.

After the tea was poured, Deitha settled into the chair in the green room and held her tea, just inhaling its warmth and scent.

A deep breath, and she realised that the quickest way to do this was to just dive straight in. "Well, first up, I haven't had any nightmares since the last night before I was here last. I had only hoped for a single night's reprieve from the nightmares and that would have done me, but so far it's been holding just fine. I haven't had so many nights of restful sleep in... in I don't know how many years, and I don't know how to thank you for that."

She looked down at her tea, blowing gently on it to cool it, and watched the ripples on the surface. "It's not without side effects though." She paused, waiting to see if the statement had had much of an impact, but if there were, there was nothing she could discern - but between his tired appearance and her wrapped up in this moment, she couldn't figure any out.

"If you remember when I was here last, I had my brightest, most 'statement' of dress robes. A general statement to the world that I'm coming and I don't care who knows it."

She took a sip of her tea. The peach notes were stronger than the vanilla.

"I still have my job 'encouraging' people to get on with their obligations. I still get deeply amused by the more intensely scared of my clients, that hasn't changed. I still get a kick out of making people pay their dues, kick being the operative word. But..." She sipped her tea again. "But, I've found on occasion that I have other feelings. Feelings I haven't felt in a long time."

She let that sit in the air for a moment, half waiting for the healer to prompt, half just thinking it through in her own mind.

"I know that things happened to me and they changed me. I think I suppressed feelings as a result, and now that I'm not having nightmares, some of those feelings are back. I..." She tilted her head to one side and had a wry smile on her face. "I started feeling things that I can only describe as compassion. It's like you took away my nightmares and gave me something of a conscience."

She took quite a deep swill of tea.

"I know you didn't 'make' me have a conscience. I used to have one of those long ago, and then... things happened... and I suppose since the world showed me no compassion, I stopped having any for anyone else. And now I do. One or two of my customers didn't get as scared as I might have before, for example. One I even let off some of what he owed - for now - owing to circumstances. Ssh, don't tell anyone, otherwise they might think I'm going soft." That time she actually giggled. It felt good.

"I don't want to trade back the nightmares... I just... I think I understand now why what you do must be so exhausting. How do people cope having compassion and a conscience? It's exhausting for little old me and I only have a small dose of it!"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Something peachy? The request reminded him of his siter Aoibheann. It was a good think he always kept the Madagascan peach and vanilla infusion in stock in case she decided to stop by. He brewed up a cup for Deitha and poured it into a delicate floral mug with a pretty gold trim. A gift from his mentor Helene, received when he had opened the clinic.

She'd helped him decorate the rooms and place some of the enchantments, like the soft breeze that occasionally swept the green room or the lingering impression of a warm summer meadow that was inspired by his childhood in Ireland and how much he loved the endless green of the Emerald Isle. Normally, he liked to use the space for recovering patients in a bit to create a feeling of restful optimism. It absolutely was the right choice for Ms Albron, but thinking about it it was also the right choice for him personally.

Odhrán sank into a comfortable, overstuffed armchair, placing his mug of jasmine down on a little side table. It went rather nicely with Deitha's peach. A nice set of complementing fragrances. And his impression had been right. She was better.

"And is that okay for you? Does it bother you to have other feelings on occasion?"

He tried to tap into his usual sense of therapeutic equanimity, but the smile that crept into his eyes betrayed that he was happy to hear this. After his ethical struggle over whether or not to help this woman and his general weariness over if the treatment would hold, this was akin to a miracle. How had his spell even held up as well as it had? With the amount of resistance he had felt from her, he thought that it would decay quickly and require many, many reapplications. He loved being wrong about this and took a little weight off his shoulders he hadn't even realised was there before this very moment.

"You're correct in saying that I can't give you a conscience, as much as I would love to have that ability with some people who come through my door. It's your and perhaps now that the nightmares are not so loud anymore you might hear it on occasion. I don't believe it's a bad thing. It will help you make more nuanced decisions in your work."

Feeling reinvigorated by the good news some of the tenseness in his facial muscles eased. "As to how people cope, with practise for the most part. And sometimes a little difficulty. Life is hard, with or without nightmares. In my case, I'm sometimes a little tired. But -" he wiggled his finger in a playful gesture, "sometimes, when you do something good it just restores you." 

There was a certain playfulness to his tone that implied he was catching her drift. She'd seen through his 'a little tired' as the euphemism that it was. He didn't see a reason to lie to her and correct the impression. What he did was exhausting. Being honest with patients and open about what was going on had always been one of the tenets of his practise. Sure, he'd hoped that his patients wouldn't have to see him struggle, but he was human too and it was what it was.

"I know you said there are no physical complaints, but I'd like to have a quick look all the same to see how the spells are holding and if there is anything I need to do go keep it in place. Don't worry, unlike last time I can actually promise that this won't hurt. At best, a quick tingle and we'll be done. I'm not expecting to see find anything, but just to be through and avoid any future complications."

He slowly rose from his chair so he could fish his wand out of the narrow pocket on the side of his robes.

"Anything else that's new? Or just the occasional moment of compassion?"

[Deitha Albron]

"Does having other feelings bother me?" She didn't know whether to laugh or not. "I am not bothered that I have feelings, because some of those feelings are, you know, good feelings. Warmth, kindness. I'm just... not used to it."

She looked down into her tea, watching the infinitely slow swirl of the liquid amid the pull of the world. "Even compassion is a good thing, sometimes. Not ideal for my line of work, but I'll figure it out." She smiled just for a moment, but it was warm and genuine.

At the healer's mention of 'doing something good' a slightly mischievous look crept onto her face. "I may not be a good person, but I know good and I know evil and in my own way, I try to do good. It... feels good to do a little good in the world. Even if the thing you have to do isn't pleasant."

She clicked her neck to one side. "New things? There's the compassion, the occasional fleeting glimpse of what might be called regret, but other than that? I feel better than I have in a while."

Deitha sat, perfectly relaxed. "A tingle, you say?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

"Just a short little sensation, nothing like the last session." He produced his wand as he was speaking, carefully weaving the pattern of a complex diagnostic spell. He instinctively reached for another strand of magic to weave into the incantation when his spell burst with a little 'pop'. Gone before it was even finished. Odhrán blinked. That had not happened to him since his first year of medical training. What was going on?

"Oh, excuse me. I lost my concentration there," he apologised to Deitha. How embarrassing. This was not how to reassure his patient and let her know that she was in safe hands. He shook his wrist, waiting until he heard it click, and began to weave the spell once again. Yes, that was more like it. Just one more weft, and, yes, this time it was holding.

For a brief moment he saw varied signatures of arcane activity. The knot previously placed in her mind was still there, holding firmly. "Good, good," he muttered, satisfied with the results. "Looks like everything is still just how I put it into place. I was expecting that I might have to refresh it, but it appears that should wait for a little longer. We could make it permanent just now, but that is quite invasive... and you might find that as you get better you might not need this block at all. The nightmares might stay away by themselves if you get a few good, but not necessarily pleasant, deeds in."

He liked her phrasing on that. It really summed up his work too. Good, but not pleasant.

"If there are n other complaints, I wold say you made great progress. And I'll take the danger of sounding really healery here... you look better for it. Just... try to be patient with new things and getting used to them. But it looks like you've got it all in hand."

[Deitha Albron]

She sat back and let herself relax as the healer worked his magic. Or, at least, tried to. It seemed like something had gone awry - she frowned as she heard a small 'pop'. Magic rarely ended well if it ended with a 'pop'. At least, not unless it was meant to go pop, but most magic didn't in her experience. Her experience had, to put it crudely, suggested that a pop like that was the magical equivalent of a soggy fart. Awkward, mildly uncomfortable but quick to set right.

And so it was, the healer stretched his wand wrist, which also made a pop - but joints are more meant to pop, she'd found - and that was that. A mild tingle, like the afterglow of a glass of something mulled in the autumn, the after-taste of it warming through, without the actual heat.

She smiled at the thought that the nightmares might lessen by themselves, but she somewhat doubted it. She'd long ago learned that doing good deeds was nourishing for the soul but not for whatever sprite or spirit or... whatever... was the source of her nightmares. No, she'd done good by her standards because on some level it was the right thing to do, not because it had paid any of whatever karmic debt she owed. Or was owed to her. It was funny how that worked out.

"I rather imagine you'd know about doing good but not necessarily pleasant things." She thought about it for a moment. "Sometimes I wonder if you and I aren't... quite so different. I imagine you don't do it because it's fun and Merlin knows it can't be because it's easy."

She paused, plucking up courage. "People did things to me, I did things t-- I do things to cope with it... but you? Forgive me for asking - but I think I have to. I think someone has to: people like me come to people like you when we need help. Who do you go to when you need help?"

There was a long silence, during most of which Deitha simply stared into what was left in the teacup, the peach and vanilla having gotten quite strong now. "Please tell me you have someone you go to when you need help." Then a wry smile. "There's some of that compassion I was telling you about."

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Odhrán gave Deitha a very uncomfortable smile. What she said was entirely true and hitting closer to home than he was prepared to admit, even to himself. Who did he really have that he could talk to anymore? Just out of school he had talked with his fellow interns at Montreux hospital. When he had worked in Paris as an attending healer and later head of department there had been peers to talk too. Even Quebec there had been his friend Thierry - but since he had opened Meridian he was somewhat on his own. Sure, there was Helene, Leni - but things between them had been difficult for months. He'd said something about her husband, she'd said something about him becoming too involved with his patients and one thing had led to another until their lifelong friendship was so frayed it was barely deserving to be called that anymore. Should he tell his girlfriend? She was bound to hate him by now. Merlin only knew what people had told her about him following their date.

Deitha was still looking at him, apparently expecting him to really answer this question. "I tell the sea and waves around Árainn Mhór in the dead of night," he tried to joke, though perhaps the joke was on him. It was true enough in a way; watching the waves wash upon the sand had always been a comfort to him. His music helped too. Sometimes, the drawing did. She had a point through that he could do with somebody. Except, who could he even trust in this place? He hadn't really made friends in London. His focus had been taken up by Aoibheann. He'd neglected to take care of himself and lately it was catching up with him, sometimes at an alarming rate.

Catching himself, he shook his head, forcing a less weary and exhausted expression. "In all seriousness, don't worry about me. I have colleagues and teachers to rely on."

The world around him didn't feel real anymore. He should call Leni. What on earth were they fighting over anyway? So what if she'd married an idiot? Here he was, with a patient calling him out on his exhaustion. Something Thierry used to say to him, popped back into his mind. It's not a question of if you will make mistakes, Odhrán, but rather when.  He'd been a lot younger then and determined to prove his friend wrong. He was in denial about the inevitable, wasn't he?

"I think we all get to make choices, Deitha," he ventured carefully, "about the kind of person we want to be. Choosing discomfort over the familiar is one of the hardest choices one can make, but it is surprising what we can live with. We are all so much stronger than we think."

He stopped himself. It wasn't like him to give his personal or philosophical opinions to patients. It was late. He was tired. This was unprofessional.

"If you don't have any further complaints, I think that is all for today. Of course if anything changes, you can just floo any time and my receptionist will book you in."

[Deitha Albron]

There was a lot of truth in what the healer was saying. Deitha had seen this first hand - she had on occasion wondered what life would have been like if she could have gone back and warned her teenage self what would happen, and she had spent far too long dwelling on the notion that if she'd had to explain it to her teenage self, the notion that 'it would be too much to bear' rode to the fore. But born it, she had.

She found herself choosing her words carefully.

"I think you're right, we get to make choices. Bad things happened to me but I chose how to respond and I... I think I am the product of my choices more than what happened."

There was a slight tilting of her head, as she pondered for a moment what choices the man before her had made to bring him to this place, where he might not approve of her choices but does as she asked anyway, in spite of whatever internal moral conflict he may have had.

There was a lot of truth in what he was saying, indeed. But there was also a fair amount of half-truth too, at least from her perspective. She found herself staring past him, almost through him, with a slightly reflective tone in her voice. "You know, you remind me of some of my customers. The ones who tell me they have the money for me. The ones who always think they can tell me such things."

She snapped her head to look at him properly, almost as if she remembered her place, her tone of voice becoming more bouncy and light. One might almost call it uplifting - almost. "You look tired, you should sleep - and then you can send an owl to your colleagues and teachers. And maybe one to Árainn Mhór if it'll listen. I'd offer to make you another tea but you seem like the sleep would do you more good." She hoped the pronunciation wasn't as terrible as it sounded in her head. He'd said it with a much more graceful tone and a delicacy she didn't really have.

"Don't you worry about me, I'll make an appointment with Margaret and we can talk about all the things next time. Toodles!"