Loki Laufeyson (ex_brother217) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-10-04 14:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | harry dresden |
Who: October Fischer
What: Introspection.
Where: Throughout the city
When: Very recently
Warnings/Rating: Just a lot of sads.
The meeting went better than Toby ever could have predicted. His license was not revoked, as he had feared it would be, but it was suspended pending his successful completion of psychiatric treatment and re-evaluation in the spring of 2014. He had to stop himself from thanking them profusely for their generosity, but he knew that wouldn’t reflect well. The last thing they needed to see from him was that sort of behavior, so Toby held himself in a professional manner and promised that he would be back sooner rather than later.
Leaving the office with considerably less weight on his shoulders pulling him down, Toby knew there were a lot of people that he needed to see, to make apologies to. Briefly, he thought about Sam, about Iris, and everything that had happened there, and he knew he couldn’t contact either of them. That didn’t mean he was happy about that, however. Sam had been part of one of the happier memories he had collected since coming to Las Vegas, and Iris was someone he wanted to protect, but both of them were people he needed to put in his past. Lingering on them wouldn’t do any of them good, and he had promised that he would cease all contact with both of the sisters. It was hard to put it out of his head, and Toby knew it would be some time before it would be anything close to easy.
But right now, his focus needed to be on himself. On his own recovery, on the problems he was just beginning to chip away at with the help of Dr. Jack Roman. He was relieved that his doctor was someone he was familiar with, someone that he trusted, because Toby wasn’t entirely sure if he could do this with just anyone who was assigned to him. Toby knew better than many that being comfortable with your doctor was the first step towards a successful recovery. Twice weekly sessions, a low-dose of something for depression. Baby steps towards feeling better. Baby steps towards having his license reinstated.
Toby put those thoughts out of his head as he caught a cab to the group home that his mother called home. He hadn’t been to visit her in some time, and even if he wasn’t entirely sure she recognized him each visit, visiting her was important. She was one of the few connections he still had to his father, to his past, and perhaps even more importantly, to the shadow of mental illness that loomed over him. Nearly 40, Toby knew that the chances of him developing schizophrenia this late in his life were slim, but the chance was still there. The fear was still there, and it was something that he thought about more than he would ever confess.
She was in her room when he arrived, sitting by the window with a blank pad of paper in her lap, though her attention was focused on the world beyond the glass. He took a seat nearby, hands folded together, and she didn’t turn to acknowledge him. It wasn’t a peaceful thing, visiting her, but it was something that comforted him nonetheless. She was familiar, even when she existed so far away from him, and it left Toby wondering what life might have been like had she never grew ill, had she not tried to kill them all in a fit of desperation. What might have happened if their father had never killed himself. Would they have been a happy family? Functional? Where would March be? How might he and Jan have turned out with more than just Toby there to look after them.
They were questions he wasn’t comfortable thinking too hard on, things he didn’t want to ponder. What use was it, after all, thinking on those impossibilities? Life hadn’t led them that way, and there was no use in wondering ‘what if?’.
Reaching out, Toby took hold of his mother’s hand, fingers curling around hers, and he let himself join her in staring out the window, a moment of reprise from a busy world.
I'm not saying this for you to go apologizing, Toby, so don't you dare go starting. Take it the way I mean it, okay? You're smart, and you're healthy, and you just dodged some kind of damn bullet. You go see a therapist and talk to him about women and consent, and you walk out a stronger man for it. Be grateful you ain't dying, like me. And be grateful ain't no one raped you, like they did Jan. And you take your damn life and you make something of it, and you just learn from this damn thing. You were working too damn hard and too damn obsessed anyway. This could be a good change for you.
And that's the last I'm saying on the matter. You're my brother, and I love you, same as Jan does. Now, go on and do something with this life you got ahead of you, and stay away from these broken up women that bring your momma to mind.