Britannia, NY

It is time yet again for Gary to venture out of the house for art supplies and groceries and a pretense at normality, which isn't easy right now. His nightmares are getting bad again, a kind of searing white-hot slicing that rips him out of sleep and leaves him lying awake sure that he's covered in blood--he has to lie in bed breathing slow, in out in out, until he can convince himself that he's fine, it's fine, and her blood washed off a long time ago.

He looks exhausted. The nightmares have come with their usual side effect, and he wakes up in the night trying to shove his fist in his mouth to muffle the screams, whimpering into the pillow at the memory of her empty eyes staring at him from the floor. It's making him lose weight again, and his clothes are too loose for his body, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepless.

On his errand run, he stops at the coffee shop, the grocery, the art store, and Laurel's shop to buy flowers for Mike; it's their fifth-year anniversary, and he's not feeling so bad that he doesn't remember that and set a lot of store by it. Gary still isn't sure some days why Mike's let him stay so long, or how it's continued to work out, when he's so crazy (and he knows Mike is up at night sometimes watching him, he knows that). But he can be bothered at any of those locations, before he finally returns home.