"All I'm sayin'," Kevin said as they hopped through the forest, "Is that we don't always have to have the same boring things to eat. We can combine stuff! We can have full meals with lots of ingredients!"

"Oh, so you're a chef now?" Gerry asked, laughing.

"We make big dinner, and lot of food in it?" Mipsy asked, "That what you mean?"

"Exactly, we don't have to eat just berries or just nuts or whatever, we can combine stuff, have a lot of flavor. For god sakes, just because we live in the wild doesn't mean we have to eat like slobs," Kevin said.

"I think someone got a little too spoiled eating lab food," Gerry said, smirking.

Kevin laughed and thought about how good it was that things were staring to get back to normal. He'd used to do this gathering with Number Two, but...anyway these days it was Gerry joining him and Mipsy on their little gathering hunts. As they continued furthered into the wooded thickets, Kevin wound up walking next to Mipsy while Gerry walked a bit ahead of them.

"I am sorry," Mipsy said softly.

"For?" Kevin asked, looking confused.

"Number Four," Mipsy said, lowering her ears, "I am sorry. She was good rabbit, good friend. You were nice to her. Did you really go to Sick to see her when THEY take her away?"

"Yeah," Kevin said, smiling, thinking about it, "Yeah, Number Two...he took me there to see her because he'd been there before on his own. He knew exactly how to get in and out. Number Two knew everything. God I miss that rabbit. Others, like Gerald, they tell me not to blame myself for Ellens death, and while I don't necessarily blame myself for that, I do blame myself for everything else. That whole debacle was because I decided to go back to the lab. Number Two would still be here with me if we...if Richardson hadn't..."

The conversation was suddenly broken by the sounds of laughter. All three rabbits stood still, and then hopped into a nearby bush. Gerry slowly pushed his face through the leaves and saw, there, in a clearing, was a group of human children in uniforms sitting around on logs, with one adult human, also in uniform.

"What's going on?" Kevin whispered, but Gerry merely shook his head.

"I have no idea, buddy," he replied.

Just then, the adult human knelt down and, lighter in hand, started a fire in between everyone, making all the kids excited. The flames licked into the air, and reflected off Kevins eyes as he stared directly into them. Suddenly it all hit him. This was the answer. The answer to everything. He finally understood why he had kept going all this time, was to see this one moment, to get this one idea, to carry it out to fruition. He walked out of the bush back the way they'd come in, Mipsy and Gerry following.

"What's with you?" Gerry asked.

"...we're going to set the lab on fire," Kevin said.

"We don't even know how to MAKE fire," Gerry replied.

"Stone was one of the Special Seven, she talks constantly about the knowledge she's accrued from her time in there, I'm sure she could easily teach us," Kevin said, "Think about it, we'll do to THEM what THEY did to us...hurt us, torture us, take away everything THEY ever cared about. It's the perfect revenge."

"You're starting to sound like Dodger," Gerry said, furrowing his brow and lowering his ears, "I don't like that."

"Maybe in some weird way Dodger is right about something. Right about making your place in the world known, you know? Making sure you aren't just another creature everyone can take advantage of. Maybe Dodger sort of does know what he's talking about," Kevin said.

"Dodger got Number Four killed!" Gerry said, sounding irate now, "Do you even hear yourself!? He got Richardson to betray us, and he got Number Four killed! And now you're saying, after all that and the rest of what he's done to us, that somehow he was RIGHT about something?!"

"I'm just-" Kevin began, but Gerry interrupted him.

"Not to mention we don't know where Number Two is, or if he's even alive!" Gerry shouted, "That's three rabbits, Kevin, three! Three of our closest allies, of the rabbit you loved, of our major planner, now gone, because of that rodent, and you've got the gall to tell me you think he might've been right?!"

Kevin went silent and looked at his paws. A cool breeze whistled through the tree leaves overhead, as Gerry turned and continued on his way. Mipsy came up to Kevins side and watched Gerry hop off, before looking at him.

"I think you maybe right," she said, "I think...we need show to THEM how bad THEY hurt us."

"See, you get it, right?" Kevin asked.

"THEY took...away parts of me..." Mipsy said, stuttering, "THEY made me stupid, and-"

"Hey, you are not stupid, okay?" Kevin said, "Don't ever think that again. You're obviously smart, you've managed to survive this long, haven't you?"

"I guess, yeah," Mipsy replied, starting to smile.

"Come on," Kevin said, "Let's catch up to him before he gets too far away."

With that, both rabbits hopped off towards Gerald, but Kevin...he just couldn't get the idea of fire out of his head.

                                                                                       ***

"I'm a rabbit, not an arsonist," Stone said, watching Kevin pace as they stood in her burrow. Ever since they'd gotten back to the Hollow, Kevin hadn't left her side, bouncing idea after idea off of her. Stone wanted to help, that's what she was there for obviously, but there was only so much she could realistically do, and only so much knowledge she actually had.

"Something in my gut just tells me that this is the right thing to do," Kevin said, "I have to find out how to start fires."

"Something in your gut is telling you to burn people alive?" Stone asked, "That's healthy."

"Let me tell you a story," Kevin said, "It's about a rabbit name Steve. Steve was one of the first rabbits I became friends with in the lab, if not the first. Steve was great, he was funny and charming, extremely nice. Everyone loved Steve, he was everybody's friend. And then, one day, THEY blew Steve up. All that was left were his fucking feet, and you know what they did with those feet? They became keychains. That's right. Good ol' lucky rabbits feet. Not so fucking lucky for Steve, obviously, but. But THEY walked around with these keychains, with the feet of my best friend, dangling from metal, and didn't think twice about the sickness of that situation."

"...okay, yeah, that's pretty terrible," Stone said, "Did you ever get any of the feet back?"

"Eh, three of them, but we're still missing the fourth. That's beside the point, Stone. The point is that THEY are monsters, pure and simple, and what do you do to monsters? You defeat them. Help me help others, please. Help me learn how to make fire so that we can burn that place to the ground and end this once and for all."

Stone looked at him, their eyes locked. She sighed heavily and then walked over to a small bundle of sticks and grass and sat down, her ears going back, her nose twitching.

"Back when I was a member of The Special Seven, obviously before any of you ever got there, THEY did the same thing to me. THEY took away all of my friends, all the ones I cared about, the one I loved...THEY are monsters, Kevin, there is no doubt about that, but what can we possibly do? We're just rabbits?"

"You said it yourself! You're smarter than THEM! You're better than THEM! They're scaaaaared of you," Kevin said, "Stone, look at what you've accomplished! You've built an entire underground Hollow the size of 4 nests simply to house and protect and hide all the other rabbits you can! YOU did that, single handed, and THEY haven't found you yet! We are alive because we are with you. We wouldn't have lasted at our Burrow, god knows, THEY would've found it eventually. It wasn't even that well built. Help me stop THEM, and then life, finally, for once, for everyone, can be great."

Stone looked at him, and he smiled at her. She knew inside that he was right. That THEY had to be stopped, for good, but something was gnawing at her, begging her not to give in. She sighed and shook her head, only for Kevin to turn and leave in silence. Stone sat there after he left, looking at her paws, and thinking about the ones she'd lost. Murder is what made her hurt like this. How could she possibly live with herself if she stooped to THEIR level?

                                                                                             ***

"God, nobody listens to me," Kevin muttered, frustrated, sitting in the shady clearing, his whiskers twitching, "Nobody listens to me now. I know that hurting others is bad, I know it's wrong, but after all that THEY have done, aren't we entitled to at least a little bit of retribution?"

He looked at the grave marker, with the number 4 made out of sticks and leaves, and he sighed.

"I wish you were here," he said, "I miss you. I miss having your conscience around, giving me advice, knowing exactly what to say and do. I...I don't know what to do without you, Ellen. I swore after what happened before that I'd never love another rabbit again, and then I met you and I couldn't help myself. I should be the one who's dead, and you should be the one leading the cause. I'd give anything to switch places with you, even if it meant still not being with you. I need them to listen to me. I need this to work. I finally have the solution to all our problems. Why doesn't anyone want this to be over?"

He shut his eyes and cried a little, before hearing the rustling of nearby bushes, and spotted Stone coming through them. He was surprised, as he rarely saw her out of the Hollow.

"What...what're you doing here?" he asked.

"I thought about what you said," she said softly, "I think you're right. I want to help you. I want to put an end to all of this suffering. I want these rabbits to live knowing that they can be free without any fear from THEM ever again."

"...you...you wanna help me?" Kevin asked, sniffling.

"Kevin," Stone said, approaching him, their noses almost touching, "Let's torch these mother fuckers."

The sun, oh god the sun, ever so warm on her soft fur. This was the feeling she'd been promised, and granted, in the end, and all by one singular rabbit that she'd trusted. Sitting outside, Number Four was happy. She'd escaped the lab, escaped certain death and was now in a safe place, with other rabbits she loved. As she let the sun rush over her body like a warm running river, she heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind her, and turned to see Kevin cautiously approaching. She grinned, blushing.

"Oh look, it's my hero," she said, making him blush too.

"Stop that," he said, "I didn't do anything special."

"Kevin, you saved everyone, you saved ME," Number Four said, "I'd say that's pretty special. How're things going inside?"

"Pretty good I guess. Number Two's figured out a system for gathering and collecting food, and...and eventually we'll go back to the lab and get Gerald and Six and everyone else. But for right now, I just want you to rest."

She nodded and shut her eyes again, just taking in the suns warmth. As she stood there, Kevin watched her. Ellen's beauty was something he never expected to find in another rabbit again. After he lost his family, his own child, he never once imagined that he might find happiness again with another, and he treasured every moment that they had together. The problem, however, with moments...

...is eventually they end.

                                                                                          ***

Kevin could feel all their eyes upon him, watching, waiting with baited breath, for him to say something...anything. He sighed and looked down at the small grave they'd dug, and he fought back tears as he exhaled and looked up at the rest of the rabbits before him.

"Number Four was a blessing," he finally said, "She was...a better rabbit than I could ever hope to be. She was warm and kind and intelligent, and the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I remember the first time we tried to escape, when I was getting frantic and nervous, she approached me in the vents and she told me it would be alright, and that's what she always did. She always reassured me, even if everything pointed to the contrary, that everything would somehow be alright. And what's even more amazing than the fact that she actually meant it and cared, was that she got ME to believe it. I've never been one for hopeful insights or positive thinking, mostly because everything has been pretty terrible in my life, but something about Ellen...something about her that made it sincere was that she wasn't just saying it because she thought I needed to hear it, but because she genuinely believed it. She believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that things could get better and would be alright."

He paused and took a breath, then glanced up at a small tree stump nearby to see Salt standing there, wiping her eyes with her paw. He exhaled and continued.

"In a way, she wasn't wrong. Everything DID come out alright, at least for her. She didn't die painfully, she didn't die brutally, she didn't die in a fucking cage in a laboratory. She died in a burrow, surrounded by other rabbits that cared about her, believing that I would come back with something to save her. And I did. I just didn't get back in time. And the thing is, as much as I want to hate myself for it, I know that she wouldn't want me to. Each one of us, at a certain point, have to understand and accept that death is always waiting for us and always an option. Doug gave his life for this collective, allowing us to get out of the lab unpoisoned, and Fern gave her life for this collective, stopping the lab dogs from tearing us limb from limb, and Ellen...Ellen didn't give her life for this collective. But she gave her life to me. She's not gone, because I will always remember her, and love her, and carry with me the things that she taught me and the lessons and values and morals she instilled in me."

Kevin paused again, clearly on the verge of tears, as he felt a paw on his, and glanced to his right to see Gerry there, petting it. He allowed a few tears to roll down his face before he caught his breath and continued again.

"All those animals I just named, Doug and Fern, those are heroes. They sacrificed themselves for a greater good. The word hero is a weird word with a weird definition because it can be twisted to mean anyone really who does something even remotely unselfish. Ellen called me a hero. She told me I was a hero for getting us out of the lab, for getting her somewhere safe, all of that. But the thing is, nobody ever seems to count the ones behind the heroes and heroes. Honestly, without her, I never would've had the strength of the courage to become the rabbit that I am today. I was unsure of myself. I was insecure. I was afraid. But Ellen, Number Four, she told me all these things she could see me as, and what the hell is more heroic than telling someone they're better than they think they are? What is, honestly, more heroic than putting others before yourself, than raising others up to be their best, and force them to believe in themselves? I'm not a hero. Ellen was a hero. And if I AM a hero, I'm a hero BECAUSE of Ellen."

Kevin paused again and smiled as he looked down at the grave, then nodded and walked away from the funeral. Gerry then got up and gave a little speech, while Mipsy followed Kevin away from the funeral. Kevin and Mipsy headed into a small clearing, away from The Hollow, finding Nickle and Stone together in the clearing. Kevin took a seat and rubbed his head with his paws.

"You guys didn't come to the service?" he asked, and they shook their heads.

"I'm not great at funerals," Nickle said, "But, Kevin, I am sorry. I hope you know that. None of us wanted this for her, or for you. We were all really hoping things would pull through and she'd get better."

"She really loved you, you know," Stone said, "That was one of the last things she said to me before she went to sleep. She was fine with you not being there because she knew you were trying to save her, because you cared for her...and that she really loved you for it."

"I can't believe this. That goddamned mouse and fox and...Richardson. My god, if I ever see that rabbit again he will not leave me alive, that I can promise you," Kevin said, starting to get angry, "I will make him pay for everything he did. Ellen is gone, god knows what happened to Number Two...I feel sick. I believed him. I trusted him, and for what?"

"It's a setback, but only a minor one," Stone said, "Ellen wouldn't want you to live your life embroiled in anger, now would she?"

"No, she wouldn't..." Kevin said, admitting to himself that Stone was right, but still...he was angry; he added, "That being said, she also wouldn't want me to take that injustice lying down. I have to do something. I have to find Richardson. I am going to find Richardson."

"And what're you going to do when you find him?" Nickle asked.

"I'm going to kill him," Kevin snarled.

                                                                                             ***

Lying in The Hollow, getting sicker by the minute, Number Four was starting to worry she'd never see Kevin again. As she watched Stone hop around and gather supplies to help her feel better, Number Four cleared her throat and, in the best voice she could muster, finally spoke up.

"What is the point of getting better?" she asked, making Stone stop and turn to face her.

"What?" she asked.

"What is the point of getting better? It's not like the life we lead is all that grand, all that happy, so what is the point? We escaped the lab, certainly, but-"

"I have to tell you something, Number Four...you haven't escaped anything. They will come looking for you. It's only a matter of time. They've come looking for me numerous times, and do you know why? Because THEY are afraid. THEY are afraid of what THEY have created. So the best thing you can do, Number Four, is get better. Regain your strength and live to fight another day so that one day, one day very very soon, you can help your fellow rabbits take THEM out. You...are a special. You're one The Special Seven. You were meant for great things, just like myself, just like Number Two."

"...what kind of great things?" Number Four asked, coughing, feeling weaker with each breath of air she drew.

"You are not a leader, that is Kevin. You are not an advisor, that is Number Two. But what you are, Number Four, is so much greater than all of those things. You...are an icon. You are a martyr. You are the one they will remember, because you pushed them to do these great things. You are the fury behind the fire, and that's the best thing to be."

Number Four nodded, and shut her eyes again, thinking about Kevin. She had gotten him to grow, she had gotten him to be a better leader...these were all true, but what would he do without her there to guide him? He'd have Number Two or Gerry, certainly, but they hadn't been with him the way that she had. She knew of his past, of losing his other partner and their child, and she could only imagine what losing another partner would do to his fragile state. But Stone was right, in the end. Number Four was an icon. A martyr. One that would inspire the others to do things they never dreamt possible. Things they never would've done otherwise.

Things like survive.

                                                                                            ***

That evening, after the ceremony and everyone had gone to bed, Kevin sat outside, looking up at the stars. He heard the sound of someone coming up from The Hollow, and turned to see Gerry hopping out, coming over to sit by his side and join him in his stargazing. As the two sat there, looking at the bright lights in the sky, Kevin felt lucky that he at least still had Gerald.

"It wasn't your fault, you know," Gerry said, "That's the one thing that being tricked by Dodger had to teach me...it wasn't my fault. He's good, and he's so good at it that he makes you doubt yourself. But don't doubt yourself. He got to Richardson, Richardson got to you and...and it wasn't your fault."

"I know that," Kevin said, sighing, "I know that what happened wasn't my fault. But Ellen is gone because of him, and Number Two is...we don't even know if he's alive, Gerald. That's two of them. Two of our closest friends, just gone in the blink of an eye, all because of that little bastard. Something has to be done about him."

"I agree," Gerry said, "And when the time comes, something will be done about him, but for the time being...let's just mourn those we've lost, okay? Let's just take some time, take a breather and think about the rabbits who've touched our lives...and for what it's worth, Kevin...thanks for coming back for me."

"Of course," Kevin replied, "This whole thing was your idea. I'm just the one who got stuck doing it. I wasn't going to just leave you there to rot."

They smiled at one another and sat there, looking at the moon.

"Ellen loved the moon," Kevin said, "I'm going to get THEM for what THEY did to her, Gerry, mark my goddamned words. I will make THEM pay."

"I'll be right behind you, buddy. From here til the bitter end."

                                                                                                ***

Sitting in the vents, during that first escape attempt, Kevin couldn't believe his luck. He'd been duped, led into a trap, and the only one who really understood was this other rabbit, Number Four. He was watching her, watching as she went around to all the other rabbits, mothers and their children, families, lone rabbits, and tell them that things would be okay. That this was just a minor setback. That soon enough they would be on their way to the outdoors. Kevin couldn't believe how she could be so kindhearted after everything THEY had done to the members of The Special Seven, but she was, and that kindheartedness seeped into him, whether he wanted it to or not. He was infected with her heart, and he promised himself right then and there that no matter what, he'd get her out of that lab.

And that, at least, was a promise he didn't break.

"Am I in trouble?" Carol asked, shifting nervously in her seat.

"We're not in middle school," Boris said, snickering in his seat beside her, "I'm sure nothing is wrong. Just try and stay calm and collected and we'll get through this together."

"I've always been nervous when people in power have wanted to talk to me directly," Carol said, "Always made me certain I had done something awful and was now being chastised for it."

"What kind of trouble could you possible get into at a nursing home?" Boris asked.

"Oh how quickly we forget the Yogurt Debacle of last year," Burt said, leaning against the wall and Boris nodded.

"Alright, fair argument."

The door finally opened, and the man in charge of the facility, a Dr. Marvin Handler, entered and sat down behind the desk. He rubbed his forehead for a moment before shifting the papers on his desk, clearing them out of the way so he could pull a file from a drawer on his desk and plop it down in between them all. He finally adjusted his glasses and looked up across at Carol.

"You didn't need to bring anyone with you," Dr. Handler said.

"I was nervous, the company helps," Carol said.

"Well, there's absolutely nothing to be nervous about," Dr. Handler said, "If anything, I'm the one who should retain the right to be nervous, because I'm not exactly quite sure how to go about this. Nothing like this. As you all know by now, a few weeks ago James Gardener died in his sleep. He'd been a resident here for many years, and he was a very beloved person in our community. I know that, Carol, you personally had a report with him, did you not?"

"I did, yeah," Carol said, "I mean, we'd kind of fallen out of touch in the last few years, but-"

"How do you fall out of touch with someone you live in the same facility with?" Burt asked.

"Shut. Up." Carol said, glaring over her shoulder, making Boris and Burt chuckle.

"Well, either way, you must've made quite an impression on him, because he's left you everything he had," Dr. Handler said, "These include what's in his room, all his personal belongings, but also what was left of his finances."

Carol was, understandably, surprised. She and James had been close, but not recently, so the fact that he still liked her enough to leave all his things, even his finances meager as they likely were, to her was a shock to say the least. Carol exhaled and released the tension in her as she felt Boris rub her back for support.

"I'm glad, well, not GLAD, because these are sad circumstances, but I should say I'm relieved I guess that it isn't something worse," Carol said, "Can I trust the home to dole out his wardrobe and such to the men of the facility? Clearly I have no use for mens clothing."

"That will be taken care of, of course, if you want us to help," Dr. Handler said, "But, uh, we're going to need your banking information in order to deal with moving his finances over to your own."

"Of course, however I can help cooperate I will," Carol said, "How much could he have had anyway, seventy five dollars?"

"Actually," Dr. Handler said, opening the envelope and flipping a few pages into the stack, adjusting his glasses again, "he left you the sum of his lifes savings, which amounted to a whopping seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in cash and stocks."

The air in the room was sucked out instantly, as everyone stared at Dr. Handler.

"Ex...excuse me?" Carol asked, completely blown away by this number.

"Hey Carol," Burt said, "Can I borrow some money?"

                                                                                                ***

"How do you propose I deal with this?" Boris asked, seated on one side of Ellen's hospital bed as Father Kricket stood on the other side of the bed, glancing out the window now and then. Kricket sighed and shrugged.

"I think you're doing the right thing, but often times the right thing is frowned upon," Kricket said, "This girl sounds like she's in need of help, and she clearly trusts you to help her because you're who she came to, but at the same time she is a runaway minor, and that could spell trouble for everyone involved. You want my absolute honest to god advice, Boris?"

Kricket sat down as Boris nodded. Kricket was in his street clothes, a tan windbreaker, jeans and a black turtleneck. He clasped his hands together between his legs and shook his head.

"I think you should contact someone who deals with these sorts of things," Kricket said, "But therein lies the problem that if you do this, and it goes poorly, you'll lose her trust, and when you're the only adult she trusts at the moment, that could further isolate her from adults than she already appears to be."

"Jesus," Boris said, leaning back, before remembering he was in the presence of a priest and said, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Kricket said, smirking, adding, "I really do think that's what needs to happen here. She isn't your daughter, Boris, much as you might want to protect her as such. She's someone elses child, and there could be serious legal ramifications if you don't address this properly and within a timely manner, but also doing it in such a delicate manner so as not to hurt her feelings."

Boris wiped his face with his hand and exhaled, sounding extremely exasperated. He really didn't need the legal trouble, nor did Whittle, but he also didn't want to do wrong by Chrissy, as she had, after all, come to him because she trusted him. He didn't know how to deal with this, and now he was asking for help from a priest. The door opened and Lorraine entered, surprised to see Father Kricket there.

"Oh! Hello father," she said as he rose to shake her hand.

"Hello Lorraine," Kricket said, "I was just heading out."

"I'll see you out," Boris said, standing and walking with Kricket out of the room as Lorraine settled in to tend to their comatose daughter. Heading down the hallway slowly, hands in his pockets, Kricket cleared his throat and looked at the floor as they walked.

"Boris, I care about you, I don't want to see anything troubling come your way, that's why I said what I said," Kricket said, "But honestly, I think what you're doing is damned admirable, that's for sure. Most people wouldn't have the guts to do it, and I think you're an excellent example of why we should respect our elderly."

"Wow, thanks," Boris said, surprised by Kricket's genuine kindness.

"Just, do me a favor, alright?" Kricket asked, turning in the hall to look at Boris straight on now before adding, "Don't get in over your head. Just stay the course and do the right thing, even if it makes some people unhappy."

"Which people?" Boris asked.

"You'll figure it out as you go," Kricket said, chuckling, patting Boris's arm as he turned back and headed down the hall to the front of the hospital. Boris turned and headed back for Ellens room, where he found Lorraine sitting in what had previously been Krickets seat, reading a magazine. Boris took his chair back and sat down, exhaling loudly.

"What was he doing here?" Lorraine asked.

"...just giving advice," Boris replied.

"About?"

"God damn everything," Boris said.

                                                                                             ***

Carol was standing in the small rock garden where she and James had once had lunch together regularly, and she was looking at a small statue he'd had put in. It was a statue he'd had taken from the backyard of his house, and it featured a little old man holding a lantern, all made of very old stone. She'd always meant to ask what the statue represented, but she'd never gotten around to it, and now she'd never know. Carol hated that she'd kept putting things off especially when she knew there wasn't much time left to get around to them anymore. She heard the sound of rocks being walked on and turned to see Boris coming up behind her.

"What're you doing out here?" Boris asked.

"Thinking about the money," Carol said, "...I never knew he had money."

"You'd think if he'd had that kind of money he would've lived somewhere nicer," Boris said, "Maybe his own place with a private nurse or something."

"He liked being around others," Carol said, "He told me that once. He liked being in a home because he'd spent so much of his life feeling alone and disconnected from his peers that he wanted to feel like a part of a community at least once before his life ended."

"Christ, what a downer," Boris said, making Carol laugh.

Carol crossed her arms as she headed across the rock garden, Boris walking beside her, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. She shut her eyes occasionally and took a few deep breaths of the cool air surrounding them. After a few moments of walking and letting the breeze say a few things in between the silence, Carol finally smiled and looked at Boris.

"What would you think if I bought the nursing home?" she asked.

"What?" he asked, genuinely shocked.

"We talk about it all the time, the state of this place," Carol said, "Things are breaking down, wearing out, and could use a lot of renovations. Hell, even just a mild bit of work could be accomplished by a mere chunk of that change. Why shouldn't I spend what's left of my life making things better for those still living here and those who will someday come in?"

Boris nodded, feeling like Carol was a far better person than he could ever hope to be, even if they had the same goals for different people. She wanted to save the people their age, and he wanted to save the children, but both of these goals - despite the age differences - were of the same general concept, really. Protecting life. Improving life. No matter what, they wanted to make things better for others, no matter who they were. Boris looked at Carol and then looked up at the building in front of them.

"The gazebo could use some tender loving care, I must admit," Boris said.

"I think that's what I'm going to do," Carol said, "It's what feels right. It would be like a parting gift from James to the place he always appreciated, the place he decided was worthy enough for him to choose to spend his last years at. I think that's what James would want."

Boris pulled out a small airplane bottle of liquor he'd bought at the drug store on the way back to the home, unscrewed it and took a sip before handing it to Carol.

"To James, then," Boris said.

"To James," Carol said, taking it and taking a swig herself.

"...can we put in a go kart track?" Boris asked.

"Boris," Carol said sternly, "Seriously."

"Would get people to stop racing electric wheelchairs," Boris said.

"Mmm, in that case..."

                                                                                              ***

Chrissy came into the apartment from school, pulling her bookbag over her head and dropping it to the floor before she noticed Whittle and Boris standing in the living room watching her. She stopped and looked at them, feeling as if she were in trouble for some reason she couldn't ascertain. She lowered her voice, quivering, as she pulled at her ponytail.

"What did I do?" she asked softly.

"Come with me," Boris said, heading down the hallway, Whittle in tow and Chrissy following them.

"What did I do?" Chrissy repeated, and Boris smirked to himself.

"You did what a lot of people refuse to do, even as adults," he said, "you made a stand to make your life better for yourself. We will deal with things as they come, but for the time being, you deserve to be praised for your bravery. You refused to be treated like less than who you are, and that's something worth rewarding."

Boris stopped in the hallway in front of what had been his room and placed his hand on the doorknob, turning it and opening the door. Chrissy stepped in and looked at the room, which he and Whittle had clearly spent the entire day preparing for her. It was made up like a young girls room, with things they knew she liked in it, scientific posters and a bookshelf for anything she wanted to read and keep. They even bought her a cute little dresser and got her new bedding. It wasn't overly feminine, seeing as Boris could tell Chrissy wasn't that kind of girl, but thanks to Whittle it had a feminine charm to it. Chrissy stopped in the middle of the room and turned back to them.

"You guys did this for me?" she asked.

"We did, kiddo," Boris said, sitting on the end of the bed, "This is your space now. I'll be sleeping on the couch when I stay over. Sit down."

He patted the bed and Chrissy sat beside him.

"I know what it's like to feel like you're alone in the world, like you can't trust anyone, even yourself," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder, "but you clearly trust Whittle and I, so let us help you, okay? Together, the three of us will navigate this and see how to move forward with this situation. We're not your legal guardians, but we will do whatever we can in order to keep you safe and happy. Now do your homework."

Boris patted the top of her head as Whittle handed the bookbag to him, so he could hand it to Chrissy. As they shut the door behind them, exiting back into the hall, Whittle looked at Boris.

"First me, now her," Whittle said, "You're pretty good at guiding women for being such an old sack of crap."

Boris laughed heartily and nodded, putting his hand on Whittle's back and leading her down the hall.

"What can I say? You live this long, you're bound to pick up a few things along the way," he said, "Did anyone ever teach you how to play Cribbage?"

"God you are SO old," Whittle said.

                                                                                             ***

Standing outside, watching the renovation work begin on the front of the home - putting in new large bay windows and a series of beautiful rose bushes out front - Carol, Burt and Boris stood together, each eating from a box of donuts Boris bought on his way to the home that morning and sipping tea and coffee respectively.

"I gotta say," Burt said, "This is looking pretty good."

"We're going to have nice faculties than the local high schools," Carol said.

"Not that hard, considering most of them were built on shut down prisons," Boris said, opening the donut box again, "Hey, who ate my last goddamned bear claw?!"

"Bite me, old timer," Burt said.

"You're older than me!" Boris shouted.

Carol smirked as she sipped her coffee and listened to her friends gripe. Turns out all the old people she'd always known when she was younger had been right.

These really were the best years of her life.

A pounding woke Boris early on a Sunday morning, and he groaned at being awake so early. Much to the disbelief of everyone, old people liked to sleep in too. Boris dragged himself out of bed and hobbled down the hallway only to find Whittle already at the door. Boris yawned, nodded at her and she turned the doorknob only to reveal Chrissy standing in the apartment hallway. That got Boris to immediately wake up, and he now walked quickly across the room towards the door.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, "Are you okay?"

"...can I come in?" Chrissy asked, and they stepped aside to let Chrissy step inside. She tossed her bookbag on the floor by the couch and then fell face first on the couch, not making a peep. Whittle crossed her arms and looked at Boris, who merely shrugged.

"So," Boris asked, "How you doing?"

"I'm great!" Chrissy said, muffled through the couch cushions, making them chuckle.

"Chrissy, what're you doing here?" Whittle asked, sitting down on the arm of the couch and watching this poor young girl lay motionless face down on her cushions. For a brief moment, Chrissy didn't even respond, but once Whittle was about to speak again, Chrissy finally opened her mouth.

"I ran away from home," she said, surprising them both. Boris approached the back of the couch now, leaning over it to look down at her.

"In heavens name, what for?" he asked.

Chrissy rolled onto her side and looked up at him, this old grandfatherly figure she'd come to know and trust, and she smiled.

"Why stay in a house that isn't a home?" she asked.

Boris didn't want to openly admit it, but she had a point.

                                                                                                ***

"I don't care what your reasoning is, we cannot harbor a minor," Whittle said, her voice full of ire that she didn't know where to direct so she was directing it in small bursts towards Boris in his bedroom. He stood, hands in his pockets, calming waiting for her to finish as she continued, adding, "think about it, what would society think? She, a little girl, runs away to live with you, an old man? That'd send us up creep creak without a paddle."

"Hey, nobody runs away from home for the fun of it, alright?" Boris said, finally interjecting, "She clearly had a reason. Something is obviously going wrong at home, okay, and it's our job to figure out what it is, because every other adult appears to be failing her and that isn't fair. I won't let another child be failed."

Whittle couldn't really understand why he felt this way, but she could see from the pain in his eyes and his shaky voice that he really meant every word. She exhaled and leaned against the wall, running her hands through her auburn hair.

"So..." she said, "where do we start?"

                                                                                                  ***

Boris and Whittle were seated in Whittle's car, on the street across from Chrissy's home, an address they'd gotten from the marker written on her bookbag. Boris had his hand deep in a bag of chips they'd picked up at a gas station along the way, while Whittle sipped her coffee. After a while, she shook her head and looked at Boris.

"This is ridiculous, we're not social services," Whittle said, "We should bring in someone trained for this sort of thing."

"For all we know she came to us because we're not social services. Because we can be trusted," Boris said, "Now is not the time to betray that trust. We just need to watch and make sure nothing questionable is going on around here. Maybe if we can convince her it's not all that bad, then we can get her to go back ho-"

As if on cue, the front door was thrown open and a man exited, shouting angrily, as a woman chased out after him, throwing things at him. Whittle and Boris slid down in their seats a bit and continued watching, until finally the man had enough and, turning back to the woman, slapped her across the face. But she didn't back down, instead she grabbed his hair and jerked his head forward, kneeing him in the stomach. After this, they both backed away and he stormed off into his car, started it up and drove off. Boris and Whittle glanced nervously at one another.

"I don't think she needs to go home," Whittle said.

"No, I think you're right," Boris agreed.

Sitting in a nearby diner a few minutes later, each eating an enormous breakfast platter, Whittle couldn't shake the sight of what she'd seen back at that house. Boris asked the waitress for more coffee, thanked her and sipped it before stabbing again at his eggs before glancing up at Whittle, who was nervously chewing on a piece of bacon nonstop.

"Anything you want to say about that?" Boris asked, and Whittle finally seemed to snap out of it, looking at him.

"I just...I don't do well in those situations, around those situations," Whittle said, "My father wasn't exactly the most approachable guy, and my boyfriend, well...he wasn't physically abusive but he certainly was somewhat psychologically demanding to say the least. Altogether I think the healthiest relationship I've ever had with a man is you, and you're old."

"Gee, thanks," Boris said flatly, both of them laughing.

"You know what I mean. I just...I appreciate what we have, and I understand why Chrissy feels safe around you, because I feel safe around you too," Whittle continued, sighing, "but we aren't her family, and it's irresponsible of us to just take her in like we are."

"It's even more irresponsible to send her back to a place that's hurting her," Boris objected, "Listen, the last time I didn't listen to a kid, they wound up in a wheelchair for most of their life. I will not make the same mistake twice."

The coldness in his voice let Whittle know that Boris was being incredibly serious about this, and that she shouldn't push the subject anymore, at least not right now. For the moment, she just accepted that he wasn't going to budge, and that - in light of what they had seen - perhaps he was right, even if only momentarily, and that harboring Chrissy was actually the best course of action. Often, and Whittle knew this from experience, that when a child comes from an angry family, the family usually doesn't even notice (at least not immediately, if ever) when a child runs away because they're so heavily focused on their own infighting.

Besides, Whittle knew full well what Boris meant. She knew he was referring to his daughter, and how he felt her situation was his fault, and that was something she didn't even want to begin to approach. So instead, the two sat and ate in silence, knowing that when they returned back to the apartment, they'd have a 3rd party to deal with now.

                                                                                              ***

It wasn't every day that Carol saw Father Kricket at the home and not being bothered by Boris, but seeing as he wasn't around right now, and Father Kricket appeared to be alone, she took it upon herself to bother him. She approached him in the hallway, as he leaned against the candy machine and chewed a candy bar that was half unwrapped, reading a book while he snacked. As she approached, Father Kricket finally noticed her and smiled.

"Where's your partner in crime?" Carol asked, and he shrugged.

"Beats me. I'm not his beeper," Father Kricket said.

"What are you doing here?"

"What am I always doing here?," Father Kricket said, "I'm here preparing last rites. I spend so much time in this nursing home I should just get a room for myself at this point. Maybe when it's time to retire, I'll just move right on in. Already feels like a second home."

"Well, if that's your plan of action, let me tell you right now the pudding is terrible and the television channels are all misnumbered. But we do have a pretty robust crocheting group," Carol said, making Father Kricket laugh as he offered her part of his candy bar, which she politely declined; she cleared her throat, folded her arms and asked, "So...who's on the way out?"

"Uh, James Gardener," Father Kricket said.

"I didn't even know James was sick..."

"Friend of yours?"

"First person I met when I came here," Carol said, "He's always been a very polite and intelligent man. Lord knows there's even less of those in here than out in the real world."

"Senility will do that to a person," Father Kricket said, wrapping his bar back up, stuffing it into his coat pocket and then sighing, "I have to head back in."

As Carol watched him head back into the room, she leaned on the wall and chewed on her lip, thinking about James Gardener. Why hadn't she continued talking to him lately? She and James had always been somewhat close when she had been there the first few years, even somewhat romantically entangled, but once Boris arrived she and James somewhat drifted apart. While James found Boris rather abrasive, Carol found him oddly charming and she appreciated that his cynical nature melded well with her own mildly cynical tone. Now James was going to die, and she hadn't even known he had been sick.

What kind of friend was she, really?

                                                                                             ***

That evening, Christy was laying on the couch, nestled up under a large fuzzy blanket and reading a book. Whittle had gone to bed, exhausted by the situation, but Boris came into the kitchen to get a piece of pie and a glass of milk when he noticed Christy was still up. He pulled the fridge open and then, checking the clock on the kitchenette wall, sounded surprised.

"It's almost 11 pm," he said, "Shouldn't you be getting to sleep?"

"I can't sleep in new places," Christy said.

"You'd think the relief of not sleeping in the same awful place would be enough to help ease you into slumber, but I guess I understand that," Boris said, bringing his piece of pie and glass of milk to the couch. She scrunched her legs up to her chest and put her finger in her book as Boris took a seat. He handed her a fork, and she took it happily, taking a bite of the pie.

"You're not going to make me go home, are you?" she asked, sounding worried.

"Kiddo," Boris said between chews, "I'm certainly not going to make you go back to that. I can't say Whittle will be as on board, but she'll come around. No child should have to live in an abusive household, whether it's abusive to other people in the house or abusive to the child directly. That level of toxicity should never be allowed around children."

Christy held her hand out, and Boris handed her his glass of milk. She took a few gulps and then handed the glass back to him before wiping her mouth on her arm and sighing.

"...thanks for listening to me," Christy said quietly, "nobody at home ever listens to me. I tell them I need help at school and they ignore me, I tell them I want to see a doctor and they pretend not to hear me. I've just kind of stopped talking at home. It means a lot to have an adult I like actually listen to me."

"It's nice to have a kid who appreciates what I have to say actually hear me," Boris said, the two of them smiling at one another; Boris finished his pie, set the plate and glass on the coffee table and looked at Christy, clapping his palms on his knees and asking, "You want to hear a poem? I used to tell my daughter poems to help her fall asleep."

"Okay," Christy said, putting her book down and lying back on the couch as Boris tucked her in better and sat beside her.

"Remember back in September, when we went out on your roof?
When we sat there on the shingles, and we finally told the truth
Remember how we pointed at the stars so high above?
Shining in the darkest night, used to light our love"

Remember back in September, when we gave the stars their names?
When we identified them all so that none would be the same
We sat there in the Autumn breeze, pointing at each one
Knowing we must finish before we saw the birthing sun

Remember back in September, when we wrote all of this down?
When we had that notebook, pages filled up with our sound
Our laughter and our joy as we fell in love with every star
Their names ringing on forever more, both so near and far

Remember back in October, when you threw the book away?
When you told me it was over, that was all you had to say
We had named the stars together and we had given life
To those little specks of beauty, so stuck there in the night

I miss when would name the stars, I miss the stars as well
Carol, Joyce, Burt, Earl, Charlie, Greg and Belle
I miss our love and happiness, and I miss what we'd dream of
But at least it's true, that even without you, I'll always have the stars above."

Christy noticed tears welling up in his eyes, and she smiled as she shut her eyes and cozied up into her pillow.

"That was really pretty," she said, "Thank you."

He kissed her head and, after taking his dishes to the kitchenette and washing them, headed back to his bedroom. He shut the door and sat down on the end of his bed, thinking about Ellen, and burying his face in his hands, crying quietly. He didn't care if people hurt him, but he'd be damned if he was going to let yet another little girl be hurt by the world. That much he swore to himself. As Boris laid on his bed and looking up at the ceiling, he decided then and there that he'd give his bedroom to Christy if she was going to continue to stay there, and he'd sleep in the living room. He was the earliest to wake up anyway, it was only fair to give her her own private space.

And maybe he'd buy some glow in the dark stars to plaster the ceiling with too, before giving her the room.

Just so they could name them together.

A car horn blared as smoke wrapped around them like a blanket, warm and fluffy, but more suffocating than one would expect a blanket to be. Boris had trouble opening his eyes, thanks to the blood that had crusted over them, but when he finally managed to, he could see he was looking upwards at the roof of his car. He could feel the slight hint of sunshine that had managed to peak its way through the shattered cracks of his windows and spill onto his face, and the warmth it brought felt surprisingly comforting. Boris had never really been much of an advocate for the sun, but for once it actually was nice to feel its presence on his skin. He groaned and looked around best he could, but his neck was cricked and hurt every time it moved.

And then he remembered he wasn't the only one in the car, and he hurt himself as he craned to look at the backseat where his daughter, Ellen, was sitting, or rather had been seated, her legs now bent at impossible angles, and she appeared completely unconscious. Boris shut his eyes and started to cry to himself, as quietly as possible, because he needed the grieve, even if only momentarily and by himself, for the fact that he was a terrible father. But that wasn't what upset him the most, actually. What he was really mad at was Ellen, and this made him even angrier at himself for being mad at her. But he couldn't help it, this was - in effect - all her fault.

If only she'd been better at hiding things, none of this would've happened.

                                                                                           ***

The thing about anniversaries is that they happen no matter whether you want them to or not, because it's tied to a date, and a date isn't something you can skip past. It's a day you have to live through. Sure one could spend it sleeping, or busy so they don't think about what the day is supposed to represent, but in the back of their head it's always itching at them, like a dog scratching at a door to be let in. That's what it felt like today, of all days, as Boris sat at his desk and tried to jot down some thoughts into his journal. He couldn't help but be irritated at the one thing he was trying so hard to ignore gnawing at him, keeping him distracted from the things he was trying to use to distract himself.

Had it really been almost 25 years? Ridiculous. Time flies. He sighed and set his pen down, then cracked his knuckles, stood up, pulled on his coat and his cap and - grabbing his pen and journal - headed out of his room. Perhaps a change of scenery was necessary to facilitate the ability to ignore it. As he walked down the hall, he could hear the sound of shoes clacking on the floor behind him, clearly trying to catch up to him, and before long he noticed Carol was walking alongside him, eating a pudding cup as she walked.

"Good afternoon," she said, "Where you going?"

"For a walk, want to come?" he asked.

"Sure, where we walking to?" Carol asked as she tossed the empty container into a nearby trashcan on their way to the front door and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

"It's a walk, that invariably means there's no preset destination," Boris said, "You just walk for the sake of walking."

"Alright, alright, jeez, no need to get snippy about it," Carol said as they pushed their way through the doors and headed outside. The sun outside on his face, it felt nice again, just like it did that very day, and he remembered that no matter how hard you tried, you simply couldn't escape anniversaries.

                                                                                                 ***

Boris was seated in the waiting room, having somehow escaped relatively unscathed, bar a few nasty scratches on his face and his right hand being fractured. He couldn't even hear the people around him, not that he was trying all that hard, it was just that everything else was blocked out by the fact that his mind was so heavily preoccupied by what he'd endured. He was so out of it that he didn't even hear Lorraine approach him and speak to him. It wasn't until she snapped her fingers in front of his face that he finally came to, and looked up at her.

"Hey," she said softly - in the nicest tone she'd spoken to him in months, actually - as she knelt in front of his chair, "...are you okay? You don't look too worse for wear."

"I'm...yeah, I'm okay. I'm alright enough," Boris said, "...when did you get here?"

"Like, five seconds ago," Lorraine said, unclasping the top of her purse and pulling out a small pillbox, "Do you need Ibuprofen?"

"Rest assured they already gave me plenty of pain medication. We are in a hospital, after all," Boris said.

"Fair enough," Lorraine said, standing up and seating herself next to Boris; she was momentarily quiet, but then, in almost a whisper, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for arguing this morning, before you left. This made me realize that perhaps you should never leave a conversation angry, because that might be the last time you ever speak to the person you're currently angry with and you really don't want your last words to someone you actually love to be that you hate them."

"I'm sorry too," Boris said, grabbing and holding her hand, squeezing it, he added, "...this was all my fault. I was so busy being mad that I didn't focus enough on driving. I should've been more present in the...well, in the present."

"Hah," Lorraine chuckled, squeezing his hand back, "sure, but these things also just happen. I don't think it's very fair to assign blame. Especially not immediately after it happens. Has anyone said anything to you about Ellen yet?"

"No," Boris said quietly, clearly simultaneously afraid to ask about his daughters status and ashamed he hadn't asked yet. He wrung his hands and bit his bottom lip, trying not to cry here in front of all these people. He didn't mind crying in front of Lorraine, but he was always afraid of crying in front of strangers. These last few months, however, he hadn't liked showing any emotion whatsoever in front of Lorraine either, as things had grown more and more stressed between them.

"Boris," Lorraine said, touching his shoulder as he turned to look at her; she smiled and said, "it'll be okay, it's not your fault."

Everyone would tell him this for years, but he would never allow himself to believe it, no matter how many times he'd come to hear it.

                                                                                              ***

"God I spend so much time indoors I often forget how good the sun feels," Carol said, slipping her hands into her cardigans pockets, adding, "It's so nice and warm, it feels like the sky is hugging you like a grandmother used to. A hug you could actually feel and appreciate the sentiment behind, you knew it was genuine."

"Wouldn't really know," Boris said, "never really got to know my grandparents. The ones on my moms side died young, and my father didn't speak to his parents. Overly religious, and he wasn't, so that kind of created a wedge between them."

"That's rough, pal," Carol said, "grandparents are simultaneously one of the greatest and worst gifts you can give a child. On one hand, you get memories you'll cherish forever, and love you'll always appreciate having gotten, but on the other hand you're the first person to break that childs heart because you'll be the first one they love who dies."

"Dark," Boris said, making Carol smirk.

"Honest," Carol corrected him, "I mean, you're the first person outside of their parents that they love, and often you spend more time with them than their parents do when they're little, so when you finally bite it it really does a number on them. Suddenly this person who loved them unconditionally, who spent all their waking time with them...is just...gone. You know?"

"I do know," Boris said, "I was that person."

"I didn't know your daughter had children."

"She doesn't. I did it to her."

Carol stopped and watched as Boris came to an intersection and looked at it, and then looked down at his journal, pen tip still pressed to the page in an eternal placement of 'about to start writing'. What the hell did he mean by that, Carol wondered.

                                                                                                    ***

Having someone in your family in a wheelchair changes the whole dynamic of not just your life, and their life, but also the layout of your home. Suddenly ramps were necessary to simply get in and out of the house, and stairs were no longer a viable means of movement. Now, whenever she needed to get up the stairs, Boris simply had to carry her. This wasn't a problem when she was a child, of course, but as she got older - got bigger, got heavier - it became more of an issue, especially since the crash wound up tweaking Boris's back indefinitely in a way that nobody, no matter who it was he sought treatment from, could ever fix.

And Boris did it all, because, not only was it the right thing to do of course, but he felt responsible for putting Ellen in that chair. Her legs not working now were a direct result of his automotive ineptitude, or at least that's how he saw it. After the first few weeks of getting things in order, life mostly seemed to resume normal as before; Ellen went back to school, Lorraine and Boris went back to work, and Ellen, much to her enjoyment, no longer had to play Soccer after school. Boris never understood why she hated it so much, but now it was a moot point, as she could no longer play it.

Boris tucked Ellen in one night, then read her a few stories from a collection of old fables, and as he got up to leave, he kissed the top of her head and, reaching the door, heard her speak.

"It's my fault," she said quietly.

"What?" Boris asked, turning back to her.

"What happened. It's my fault," Ellen said, "Because...I hid your keys. If I hadn't hid your keys, we would've been on time and that accident wouldn't have happened. It only happened because we weren't leaving at the right time."

"This wasn't your fault," Boris said, trying not to sound enraged that she actually thought this, "Do you hear me? This was NOT your fault. These things just...happen. If anything, it was my fault, because I wasn't paying attention. I was...I was yelling at you, I wasn't focused. I was mad, I was angry and yelling because you kept telling me you didn't want to go to Soccer practice, and I couldn't understand why, and I...I simply wasn't paying enough attention to the road."

Boris came and sat down on the side of her bed, looking at her and scratching the back of his head.

"Why do you hate Soccer so much?" he finally asked flat out.

"I'm not good at sports, I don't like it," Ellen said quietly, "I feel embarrassed playing in front of other kids who like it and are good at it, they're always judging me."

"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I forced you to do it," Boris said, "I'm sorry I put you in the chair."

"I don't mind being in the chair," Ellen said, surprising him, as she added, "I mind that I put myself in it."

"Please don't think you did this," Boris said quietly, as he leaned closer and put his arms tightly around her, squeezing his daughter to his chest, crying softly on the top of her head, his teardrops falling into her hair, "please, please don't ever think you did this. That would hurt me far more than what actually happened."

"Okay," Ellen said, hugging Boris back.

After a few more quiet minutes, Boris said goodnight to her, got up and left the room. He made it down the stairs, then into the hall heading towards the master bedroom before he finally leaned against the wall and broke down. The master bedroom door swung open and Lorraine stood there, in her silk pajamas, her thumb stuck in a book as she looked at Boris. Boris was sobbing uncontrollably as he slid down against the wall, and Lorraine walked down the hall and sat down beside him, pulled him against her and stroked his hair, just letting him cry on her.

"It's okay," Lorraine said, "you're okay."

But it wasn't okay, and it never would be again.

                                                                                               ***

Standing at the intersection, Boris wouldn't say a thing. He just leaned against the pole and scribbled in his journal as Carol stood back and watched, arms folded, a mixed look of utter confusion and absolute despair on her face. Finally Boris wiped his nose on his coat sleeves and turned to look at Carol.

"She blamed herself for the accident, I blamed myself for the accident, and Lorraine...I don't know what she thought," Boris said, "...I signed her up for Soccer after school, and she hated it. She always fought me on doing it, but I always pushed her to keep doing it, I told her it was a good thing to learn teamwork. Only now do I realize there's a million ways to learn teamwork, and often times teamwork isn't even necessary of even worth it in the long run, because you wind up alone."

"You're not alone," Carol said quietly.

"...she hid my car keys, made us late. I was angry, I wasn't paying attention, I drove into the intersection without thinking and we were just...reamed. She lost the use of her legs, and she blamed herself. A little girl, blaming herself, for being in a wheelchair. I tried to convince her it wasn't her fault, but what child listens to their parent? So she blamed herself, I blamed me and nobody ever really got over it. It happened 25 years ago today. Right at an intersection, just like this one."

Carol approached Boris and rested her head on his arm as he ripped out a piece of paper from his journal and, taking out a piece of gum and chewing it until it was good and soggy, used it to stick the paper to the pole.

"Accidents happen," Carol said, "Look at most of the people in the home. They're not there because they want to be. They're there because most of them had an accident. You're there because you decided not to be a burden to your daughter as an adult, because you felt responsible for what happened to her, right?"

"Right."

"But...but that's the thing. It was just an accident. Hell, so much of life itself is an accident. So many babies are born on accident, so many people die by accident, it just...it's all so random. It's impossible to find rhyme or reason for anything. I'm sure Father Kricket would tell you the same thing. Sometimes things happen, and sometimes those things are bad, and that's just existence."

Boris nodded, then turned around and hugged Carol as tight as he could, whispering into her ear.

"thank you for liking me," he said, and she nodded, patting his back.

After the hug ended, Boris turned and began heading back the way they came, saying he'd treat her to lunch. Carol agreed, but stayed back momentarily to look at the paper he'd stuck to the pole. She grabbed it and looked at the words scribbled on it, then smiled and followed him.

                                                                                                  ***

Things never got better, at least not while he still was young and had a family.

But when Boris moved into the home, and he met Larry and Burt and Carol, and to some extent Polly, things began finally getting better. It just took a few decades, but now he was happier than he had been in years. But none of that lasted, because then his daughter decided to try and get her legs fixed, and because he'd given his blessing to it, she was now in a coma. Twice now, he felt, he was responsible for what had happened to her. For putting her in the hospital. And that wasn't something he lived easily with.

But thankfully, with the company of people like Carol, he didn't have to live with it alone. That's the thing Boris realized, is that pain may be awful, but sometimes you don't have to deal with pain by yourself. And sometimes that's the best you get, if you're lucky, and he was lucky. So sure, things never got better.

But they were at least becoming manageable.

"You selfish son of a bitch".

It was scrawled, the handwriting not only near illegible but also unrecognizable, across a piece of paper taped to Boris's door. Boris groaned as he stood and stared at it, Polly at his side, chewing on a bear claw. Boris took the paper off and looked at it closer, almost like he was inspecting it, as if he'd find some clue that would somehow lead him to its author.

"I didn't know someone hated me this much," Boris muttered.

"I hate you that much, but I didn't do this," Polly said.

"No, of course you didn't, you'd have to know how to spell to do this," Boris said, making Polly smirk as she followed him down the hall, presumably looking for Carol. Unfortunately, Carol was nowhere to be seen, and he groaned and stuffed the paper in his coat pocket.

"So what are you gonna do about it? You gonna find out who it is and challenge them to a deadly game of shuffleboard?" Polly asked, snickering.

"You're the same age as me, why do you act like you're not?" Boris asked, sounding annoyed.

"You're only as old as you feel," Polly replied, "And I feel 45."

"Well you look 90," Boris snapped back, making her laugh even harder before adding, "And honestly, if you're not gonna help me, then just get lost, alright? I don't need anymore stress around me right now."

"You want my help?" Polly asked, "I'm a pretty good sleuth."

Boris turned to face her as Polly finished eating her bear claw and licking her fingers. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, then threw his arms up in frustration, giving up and continuing to head to his bedroom, Polly right behind him. As they entered his bedroom, Boris opened his desk drawer and found his pad of personalized paper, then pulled the paper ball from his coat pocket and spread it out on the desk as Polly sat on his bed and watched.

"Just as I suspected," Boris said, "It's from my pad. Someone came into my room, found my paper and then made a note on a piece of my own personalized paper. That's just an extra bit of cruelty."

"How and why do you have personalized paper? I want personalized paper!" Polly said, standing up and taking the now uncrumpled paper ball from him, looking at it closely, "It's shaky. This indicates we could be dealing with someone who has Parkinsons."

"That's not stereotyping at all," Boris muttered.

"I'm just giving you the facts as I see them."

"As you see them?"

"Yes, the only ways facts are meant to be seen, by me," Polly added snarkily, making Boris chuckle; she continued, adding, "I mean it could be something different, but that would be my first guess is someone suffering from Parkinsons, and likely poor eyesight considering how sloppily this is done. So someone with glasses, or perhaps on medication for Glaucoma."

Boris looked at her in sheer awe, something Polly had never experienced before given the general animosity of their strangely almost laughably pseudo vicious rivalry. She shrugged and smiled as she handed the paper back to him.

"What can I say," she said, "I really loved Nancy Drew."

Thankfully, with this information Polly had somehow gleamed from this paper, Boris knew exactly who to go to.

                                                                                                ***

"That's classified information, I can't tell you that," Whittle said.

"What do you care, you don't even work there anymore!" Polly asked as Whittle stood up from her dinner table and walked across the kitchen to the sink to get a glass and pour herself some more coffee. Whittle took a few sips before leaning against the sink and looking back at Polly and Boris sitting together at the table.

"What is this?" she asked, "What's this little, uh, weird Sherlock and Watson thing you got goin' on here? Normally you two hate eachother."

"It turns out Polly somehow has a natural talent for sleuthing," Boris said, "I don't know how she's good at anything, but remarkably she is."

"And, only I am allowed to make Boris's life miserable. That job is taken," Polly said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms as Whittle laughed a little and walked back to the table, sitting back down.

"If I tell you this, you cannot tell anyone who it was that told you," Whittle said as she leaned in and lowered her voice, "...you want Room 213. Ask for Mrs. Sylar."

                                                                                               ***

Room 213 was easy enough to track down, as they discovered once back at the home.

Second story, thirteenth room, but upon knocking on the door they were greeted with something fairly unusual. It wasn't the room of a patient, but rather a janitorial closet. Once it was opened, a young woman stood there, looking out at them, dressed in her janitorial garb. Polly and Boris glanced at one another, the looked at the young woman again.

"Uh, Mrs. Sylar?" Boris asked, and the girl nodded, opened the door the rest of the way and let the both of them in. She shut the door behind her and then leaned against it, looking at Boris and Polly who now stood in the center of the small closet, looking around at all the various cleaning supplies. The woman, who they presumed was Mrs. Sylar, was fair skinned and heavily freckled with buck teeth and mousy brown hair. She looked at them as she chewed her thumbnail on her right hand.

"My name is Boris, this is Polly," Boris said, "I was told to ask to speak to Mrs. Sylar about finding out information about a patient."

"I'm Sylar, but not Mrs. I'm not married," Sylar said, "What do you need?"

"Someone left me a fairly strongly worded message on my door, and we figured their handwriting meant they suffered from one or multiple ailments that impaired either their ability to write or see properly," Boris said, taking the paper out from his coat pocket and handing it to Sylar, "So we want to know who might've done this. We're thinking perhaps they have glaucoma or parkinsons."

"This is definitely the chickenscratch of someone with parkinsons, most definitely," Sylar said as she looked at the writing on the paper, "Remarkably only one person in this entire home suffers from it. They take a medication called Levodopa to help deal with it."

"How do you know this?" Polly asked.

"Because I steal medication and sell it on the street," Sylar said walking past them and pulling out a small black book from her pocket on her jumpsuit, "Yes, you want Mr. Druback, in Room 119, Building B. But you cannot tell anyone I gave you this information."

Polly nodded, then turned and began to exit the room as Boris stood behind and waited for Sylar, who stopped as she got near him.

"Why are you telling me this if you know you could get into a lot of trouble?" Boris asked, and Sylar looked at the floor, her voice almost a whisper now.

"Because people think I'm a selfish son of a bitch too, because of my reliance on the drugs I steal, and the money I make off of them," Sylar said, "I know what it's like for people to hate you."

Boris didn't know what to make of this. He never really expected anyone at the home to outright hate him. Sure, he and Polly had a somewhat clashing relationship, but it was all in good fun, he'd always felt. But this note left on his door? This was done out of anger and spite. Someone was truly unhappy with and at him, and that was something Boris didn't know how to deal with. He'd never been very good at dealing with people who didn't like him. Especially not since the accident with Ellen. Boris turned and followed Polly back out into the hall, as Sylar shut the door behind them.

"Well," Polly said, "That sure was a load of something."

"...why would someone be so mad at me?" Boris asked.

"You really gonna let a little note scribbled by someone who likely can't even hold their own dick to pee anymore get you down?" Polly asked, "Get over it. You're in much better shape than they are, maybe that's why, because they're envious."

"I can't imagine anyone who would be envious of me," Boris said, leaning against the wall and rubbing his face with his hand, feeling deflated.

"Boris," Polly said, approaching him, "I don't go out of my way to be nice to, well...anyone, but especially not you, so I hope you appreciate what I'm about to say. A lot of people would be envious of you. You're in much better health than most of the folks who live here, you can come and go as you please and, most importantly, you still have someone from your life who visits. Even if it's an ex wife, it's somebody. You have a lot to be envious of, believe it or not."

Boris looked at her, and could see she wasn't just putting him on, she was being sincere, or as sincere as Polly could stand to be anyway. Either way, didn't matter. They had their name now; Mr. Druback, Room 119, Building B.

                                                                                               ***

They had never visited Building B aside from the one time Boris came to find Leanne.

But even then he hadn't really stopped to take into account just how...shabby, it was. It was a lot more rundown than Building A, and a lot less cheerful in a decorative sense. As Boris and Polly walked down the halls, trying to find Room 119, they could both feel the chill in the air that permeated the entire establishment; a chill of both sadness and illness. This was not welcoming like their building was, and they both began to feel bad for anyone who was forced to live within these quarters. It wasn't squalor, by any means, but it was definitely a step down.

"Just being in here makes me feel like I'm committing elder abuse," Polly mumbled, making Boris chuckle.

"It's pretty dang dreary, yeah," he said, "This must be where everyone who can't afford the nicer accommodations ends up. People without money, or health insurance or health care of any kind. This is the place old people who have kids that don't care about them get stuck."

"God I'm glad I never had children," Polly said.

"Really? You never had kids?"

"Can you blame me if this is what they would do to me?" Polly asked, gesturing to their surroundings.

"Fair argument," Boris said, as they finally stopped in front of a door and he pointed at it, adding, "There it is. Room 119. Mr. Druback...I don't know that I've ever even heard of him or heard his name. God, I'm terrible. You'd expect me to be friends with more people around here."

"Please, you're really gonna spend your last few years alive making friends? Most will likely die before you do, and then you'll just be left with a world of grief," Polly said, knocking on the door.

"Jeez, what happened to you to make you so cynical?" Boris asked, but she merely folded her arms and didn't answer him. The door swung open to a young woman standing there, a nurse, who looked surprised to see people outside in the hall. She glanced between the two of them before asking what they needed.

"We're here to see Mr. Druback," Boris said quietly.

"Come in," the nurse said, moving aside so they could enter.

The interior of this room was like a snapshot of the forties. The wallpaper well patterned, the carpet shaggy, the lighting dim yet accessible. Bookshelf after bookshelf lined the wall, and there, in the middle of the room in a bed, in front of a television, was an old man hooked up to machines. Boris and Polly slowly entered and walked towards it, the nurse right behind them.

"Mr. Druback, these two want to see you," she said, before leaving them to their business.

Mr. Druback, nearly bald, large bags under his eyes, rolled his head to the side and glared at the two, before exhaling.

"God dammit," he mumbled, "What do you want?"

"You left me a note on my door," Boris said, "It called me a selfish son of a bitch."

"And what? You're here to dispute that?" Mr. Druback asked, "Go ahead, try and tell me how I'm wrong."

"I...I don't think you are, is the thing," Boris said, surprising both Polly and Mr. Druback, as he seated himself on the chair beside the bed and hung his head, "...the truth is, I've spent all day, we spent all day, looking for who wrote the letter because I was hurt and angry. I thought it was malicious and cruel. But I never recognized just how lucky I am, and that maybe, to someone else, I really am a selfish son of a bitch. But it's not intentional. I don't think I ever recognized how lucky I am to have the things that I have. I haven't always been lucky, and my luck isn't all that great. I have a daughter in a coma and an ex-wife with a bitter unstable relationship with me, but I have my health - give or take - and some friends and I have money and...and I guess I'm pretty lucky in that regard."

Mr. Druback shifted in his bed and folded his hands in his laps, waiting for Boris to go on, while Polly stood by, one hand on her chest, surprised by this sudden outpouring of honesty.

"...and what it really boils down to is after spending a whole day being angry, I'm now angry at myself for being mad at someone for being so brave to tell me the truth. I wish I had that courage. I wish I could tell the truth as easily as you seem to be able to. I always sugarcoat it, I always try and make it less harsh than it is because I don't want to hurt people but...but I think sometimes the truth needs to hurt. If it doesn't hurt, then it doesn't make an impact, and thus the lesson that's supposed to be learned from it is easily forgotten or outright ignored."

Boris shook his head and pulled his cap off, running his hands through his thinning hair.

"Thanks for being mean," Boris said, half laughing, "I think maybe it's the exact kind of thing I need."

With that, Boris held his arm out and Mr. Druback, half hesitant and half confused, reached out and shook his hand. After the shake ended, Boris stood, put his cap back on and headed out of the room, Polly quick on his heels. As she closed the door behind her, saying goodbye to Druback's nurse, she turned to see Boris leaning against a wall, his arm posted up on the wall, his face shoved against his arm.

"Well," Polly said, stretching best she could and yawning, "I think I could use a nap after all this excitement. That was, uh, kind of surprising what you said in there."

Boris was quietly crying, and Polly stopped and cautiously placed her hand on his back and rubbed, trying to comfort him. It'd never occurred to her that perhaps she was actually the best person he had in his life, if for no other reason than because she argued with him and pushed him to fight back, something Carol and Burt and the others didn't do. Their dubiously antagonistic behavior seemed to actually be better than complacency, and she'd never really considered this a positive. After a bit, Boris finished crying and turned to face Polly, who - for the first time he could remember - genuinely smiled at him.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "Thank you for coming with me, for helping me figure this out. Thank you for being mean."

"Hey, it's no big deal, I just did what I normally do," Polly said.

Boris and Polly walked back to their building together and spent the rest of the evening getting dinner, playing a few games of Scrabble (surprising everyone else by their odd, unnaturally cooperative demeanor) and then went their own ways. After Boris went to his room for the night, Polly went to hers and sat on the end of her bed, staring at the vanity mirror propped up on the table across from her against the wall. She shut her eyes and tried to remember, tried to remember back to when Boris had first moved into the home.

                                                                                              ***

He was new here; tall and well dressed, and didn't seem nearly as physically or mentally impaired as most of the residents of the home were. Polly and Carol were sitting together at a table, as Polly did a puzzle and Carol read a magazine, but upon Boris's entrance, they both looked up at him and watched his every move.

"He looks fine," Polly said, "I can't imagine why he's in a home. He doesn't seem to be the kind who needs the help."

"Who knows," Carol said, "None of our business."

"He doesn't need any help, he's cognizant, he's not stumbling around, he looks like he has money, and yet here he is, ready to take up space that someone much worse off than him likely would appreciate and need," Polly said, scoffing, as she turned back to her puzzle and under her breath muttered to herself, "what a selfish son of a bitch."

                                                                                                     ***

Sitting on the bed that night, Polly swore to herself she'd try to be less combative towards Boris from then on. He wasn't selfish, he was in deeply immense pain, just like everyone else; it just wasn't as physical as most of the people in the home. She laid on her bed and looked at the ceiling overhead as she reached to the bedside table and turned on her radio, tuning it to the old jazz station and shut her eyes to let the notes carry her off into a restful sleep.

He wasn't a selfish son of a bitch, and that wasn't something she was afraid to admit being wrong about.

"You don't know the first thing about flowers," Carol said, standing with Boris as they watched Larry dig in a small plot of soil outside in the garden area of the home, hands on her hips, "What makes you think you can do this?"

"Because how hard can it be? You're just putting plants in the dirt," Larry said, digging up yet another hole for another flower to be inserted, "It can't be that difficult for god sakes."

"The man has a point, how hard can it be?" Boris asked, looking at Carol.

"You want to know how hard it can be? Have you ever seen a landscaper do their job? A gardener? Knowing where to prune and sheer? It's an art, a science," Carol said, "It's not something one can just pick up and do, unless you don't care about doing it poorly."

"...did you just call planting a flower a science?" Boris asked.

"Would you two either shut up or join me, because you're distracting me," Larry said, annoyed. With this ultimatum, Carol and Boris turned and started walking away, towards the gazebo.

"You ever get the feeling like this is just reverse daycare? It's like, when you're a child, someone looks after you, cleans up after you, feeds you, gives you pointless activities that go nowhere for you to pass the time with until you go to sleep, and that's exactly what's going on here," Boris said, "Except our sleep is the eternal sleep we're all eventually going to face down."

"God talking to you is depressing," Carol said, "Though, you're not totally inaccurate. I for one never assumed I'd be spending my final years in a nursing home, that's for sure. Especially one so...low maintenance."

"I know, this nursing home is so low maintenance that if it were a woman it would still be above my standards," Boris said, making Carol chuckle as they sat on the bench outside the gazebo and looked at every other senior passing them by; Boris continued, "See, each is involved in their activity, their mindless time wasting activity, all just awaiting that inescapable visit from the reaper."

"Well hopefully the reaper shows up sooner than expected," a voice from behind and somewhat above said, making both Boris and Carol startle and look up. In the gazebo behind them, leaning on the rail and sipping a carrot juice, was Polly.

"What tomb did you crawl out of?" Boris asked, as Polly finished her drink and capped it.

"You two are making fun of that man for trying to make a garden and beautify this place, and that's just mean," Polly replied, "What are you two doing? Just sitting on your asses? Real lovely way to spend an afternoon, being judgemental while doing something of even lesser value."

"You're one to talk, you judge people so much you should be in a court somewhere," Carol said, making Polly smirk.

"Well, I'm gonna help him," Polly remarked, coming down the stairs of the gazebo and handing her carrot juice bottle to Boris, adding, "I think it's nice to have flowers around. Not like there's a lot of pretty faces here to look at as it is."

With that, Polly turned and headed off, leaving Boris and Carol alone. They glanced at one another for a moment, before Boris looked at the bottle in his hands and then looked back where Polly had been.

"Hey!" he shouted, "I don't want your trash!"

                                                                                             ***
Gardening had been something Larry had never done before. He'd only watched one other person do it...his wife.

She always wore a big sunhat and green latex gloves and a large pair of sunglasses when she went out to the garden in the backyard, and Larry would always join her. He'd seat himself on a pull out chair and drink lemonade from the pitcher they kept on a table nearby with them, pouring himself and his wife each a glass whenever they needed it, and he would read a book while she gardened, occasionally giving into conversation.

It wasn't an excuse for him to relax or even partake in a hobby. It was an excuse for him to just sit back and admire his wife from a distance. He would watch everything she did, not understanding much of it, but it didn't matter. He just liked how happy the act made her. She'd hum, usually not realizing she was doing it, and he felt like he didn't ever need a radio if he had her around. He'd much prefer to listen to her humming than anything he could find on an AM/FM station.

She'd run a small gardening shop that she'd taken over from her own father, but it had shut down a few years back, and that's when she started gardening at home. She just couldn't get away from it, it was something that made her extremely happy.

And then one day she died, and Larry couldn't stand to look at a single flower for years afterwards.

                                                                                          ***

Boris was sitting on his bed, sifting through some old papers he had written some poems down on. This thing with Leanne had hurt a lot, and he wondered if he'd just be better off burning his remaining poems. But he could never bring himself to actually do it, and instead he always merely locked them right back up into the briefcase and pushed it back under his bed. He was in the middle of doing this when a knock came at his door, and he opened it to find Father Kricket standing there.

"Oh," Boris said, "What're you doing here?"

"There's a man down the hall, very sick, likely not to last through the night...could I borrow your bible? I seem to have forgotten mine," Kricket said, wringing his hands, clearly feeling bad about this failure on his part.

"It's out of date but sure," Boris said, stepping aside for him to enter the room, "Come on in and let me dig it up."

"A bible is never really out of date, to be fair," Kricket said, smirking, "If we're being semantic about it."

Boris pulled open a drawer on his desk and inside was his bible and a few dirty magazines. He took the bible and handed it to Father Kricket, who merely shook his head and rolled his eyes as he took the book and stuck it under his arm.

"It's in good company," Boris said.

"I'm not going to comment," Kricket replied, chuckling, "Thank you very much."

As he turned to leave, he stopped and turned back to face Boris.

"Yes? Do you need my rosary too?" Boris asked.

"No, I...I just wanted to see how you've been lately. I know things at the hospital aren't really going as well as you'd hoped...are you doing okay?" Kricket asked, and Boris folded his arms, shrugging.

"About as okay as someone in a nursing home with a comatose daughter can be, I suppose," Boris said, "There's nothing I can do about any of it, so I try not to dwell on it. The whole thing is fucked, you know? So why think about it constantly and make myself feel even worse than I already generally do?"

"Solid line of thinking, I guess," Kricket said, "Well, you know where to find me if you ever want to talk. I care about you, you're my friend. Thanks for the book."

And with that, Father Kricket exited Boris's room, leaving him to smile to himself. He'd called Boris his friend. It'd been a while since Boris felt like he had a real friend. Oh sure, he had Whittle, or people in the home like Carol and Burt, but...the way Father Kricket said it, it felt more genuine, like a real friendship and not simply a friendship for the sake of friendship because of their situation. Boris went to bed happy that night.

                                                                                                ***

"This looks awful," Carol said, watching Larry and Polly still try and plant flowers the following day; she continued, "Not to be mean, I'm just...this looks awful. Do you guys want me to go to the library, get a book out maybe about how to garden? Because it looks like you need it. I didn't expect two people to not be able to complete one task, but well done, ya did it."

Polly pulled her hat up and wiped her forehead with her arm, glaring over her shoulder at Carol.

"Well, I'm sorry it doesn't live up to your majesty's garden at the palace," Polly said, "We're doing our best."

"It's weird how your best is still bad," Carol replied, just as Boris strolled up and looked at the 'progress' that had been made. He stood there, chomping on a sandwich beside Carol, while Polly continued to put flowers into the ground and pat the dirt lovingly around them.

"Wow," Boris muttered, "Somehow it looks less like a garden than yesterday."

"I'm sorry!" Larry said, standing up, throwing his arms into the air, "I'm sorry I don't know how to garden! She never taught me how to do it properly! I was just...I was just trying to steal back a piece of her, you know? I'm sorry it doesn't live up to your weirdo standards of perfection! I was just...I was just trying to bring her back. Any part of her back. Just for even a moment..."

With his sudden outburst complete, Larry wiped his eyes on his sleeve and turned to walk back into the building. Boris and Carol stood there, rather shocked by this surprising evidence of emotion from a man so usually stoic, and when they finally looked at Polly, who was now standing up herself and wiping the dirt from her knees, she crossed her arms and stared them down.

"So, feel better about yourselves now?" she asked.

"Not really no," Boris admitted.

                                                                                               ***

It had happened while he'd been at the store.

Larry had gone to get ingredients to surprise his wife with a dinner, and when he got back he knew she'd still be out gardening. Larry prepared and cooked the entire meal, and only once it was plated and ready, wine glasses filled to the brim and candles lit, did he finally head outside to the garden to find her. Find her he did. She wasn't hard to miss, as she was laying on her side in between a row of roses bushes and her wheelbarrow. Larry rushed to her side, even though he knew full well that there was nothing he could do at this point. That she was gone long before he'd even gotten home.

When the doctor finally informed him of the cause, cerebral hemorrhage, Larry didn't even care what had done it. He didn't even really get upset at the fact that it had happened. Mostly, he was furious that it had happened while he was completely unaware. That's what upset him more than anything else. He'd never wanted her to die alone, who would want that for anyone really? Sitting outside as the paramedics loaded her onto the stretcher, then covered her with a sheet and carried her to the ambulance. After they left, Larry sat there on the marble bench near where she'd dropped and stared at the spot her body had lied for hours before he'd found her, wringing his hands. If only he hadn't left. If only he'd come home sooner. If only he'd been here when it had happened. A million examples of 'if only' ran through his mind, and try as he did to ignore them, he couldn't. What would become of her garden? Turns out he wouldn't have to make that decision, as a few months later he'd slip getting out of the tub, give himself a concussion and his son would bring him to the home, then move his own family into the home.

The garden, from what Larry had been told, had been left untouched, but not cared for. It too, like them, had rotted away and was now nothing more than a mere shell of itself. They'd added more to the backyard; a bigger deck, a barbecue built into the ground and a playset for the kids, a porch swing for themselves, but nobody really had any passion for gardening, so as the backyard grew in life, the gardens life diminished. Larry always had seen the empty bits of land on the grounds of the nursing home community, but he'd never had the guts to do anything to it until now.

But now, as he was discovering, he couldn't do it properly. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't bring even the smallest piece of her back, even momentarily.

                                                                                           ***

Larry woke that morning and laid in bed for a while. Usually he got up immediately and got dressed and went for breakfast, but not today. Today he lay there, thinking, mostly about her. After a while of silently apologizing to her memory that he couldn't make the garden happen, Larry finally got out of bed, put on some slacks and a turtleneck and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. He sat by himself, figuring the others felt bad about how they'd treated him the day prior and were now avoiding him, and ate his oatmeal before finally deciding to go see his friend Don across the community in the other building and have a game of chess. As Larry stepped out onto the back steps and began to cross the grounds, he spotted Boris, Carol and Polly all by the area he'd tried gardening at.

"Christ," he mumbled before striding over there, "What the hell is going on? Come on, I told you I was done, it's pointless! You can all stop now and-"

And as they moved aside, Larry saw they'd done it. Boris, Carol and Polly had made a nice little garden full of different flowers in the space, and Larry was without words as he approached it and knelt before the floral arrangement in the dirt.

"After what happened we all, well Carol and I really, felt bad about how we behaved towards the idea, and towards you, and...you're our friend, Larry, and if this is what would make you happy, then we wanted to help. We also had no idea it had something to do with your wife," Boris said, stepping forward, planting one hand on his shoulder and pushing a flower encased in dirt in front of him. Larry took it and looked up at Boris who smiled.

"It's the last one to be transplanted, if you'd like to do the honors," Carol said.

Larry took it, set it into the dirt and lovingly pushed the soil up around its stem, then leaned in and smelt it. Tears swelling up in his eyes, his fingertips gently touching the silk petals, he smiled and whispered.

"I did it, Petunia. I did it for you."

"Well this is lovely, isn't it?" Leanne asked, cutting off another piece of steak, "A nice candlelit dinner, relaxing music, intimate small talk. This is the kind of stuff reserved for women much classier than I."

"Hey, don't talk that way about other women," Boris said, making her laugh as he raised his wine glass, "To us. To taking new chances. Braving new horizons, and all that other romantic crap."

And together they clinked their glasses, the sound of it echoing throughout the restaurant, until Boris woke in his bed, remembering it was all just a dream. He sighed and rolled over, silently cursing himself for having this dream once again. Hell, he hadn't even seen Leanne since she'd left the home, so why was he suddenly dreaming about her? Shit, his alarm went off, and he remembered he was going to be late to take Whittle to an appointment. Boris quickly, quickly as an old man could anyway, got up, got dressed and rushed out the door.

                                                                                            ***

"God, can't you women ever be ready before you're supposed to leave?" Boris asked, as Whittle flipped him off and stuffed some more things in her purse; he leaned on the doorframe to her apartment, crossed his arms and sighed, "Why am I taking you anyway? You drive."

"My car's got a flat tire, remember? I told you that."

"Oh, right. Well maybe we should focus on getting that fixed instead."

"Hey, you wanna get your toolbox out and change it? I got a spare," Whittle said, grabbing her coat off the rack, "Be my guest if that's how you'd rather spend your afternoon."

"Beats standing here being verbally berated," Boris muttered, making her laugh. That's when his eye caught the glimpse of the shimmer down the hall. A green shimmer, like an emerald, and as he protected his sight from it, he also realized where it was coming from. A woman, an old woman, wearing an emerald broach, being helped to the door of an apartment by a young man.

It was Leanne. Holy hell, she lived in the building, right down the hall. What were the odds? Did he dare go speak to her? Did he really want to make that move? Would she even remember him? Her memory was beginning to fail her, so would she even remember him, and if not, wouldn't that only make him feel more embarrassed than he already did for not seeking her out sooner?

"Hey, you do know where we're going, right? I don't need to..." Whittle started, coming out the door to her apartment, locking it behind her, "...Boris?"

"Wh-what? Uh, yeah, I know where it is, you don't need to give me directions."

"Everything okay out here?"

"Yeah, I'm just admiring your hall," Boris said, "You know, you get so tired of seeing the ones at the home that any new hall is just something to behold and bask in."

"You're so weird, dude," Whittle said, laughing as she passed him, and he followed quickly after her. He only glanced back once, but he wished he'd gone and knocked on the door. The not knowing was worse than any rejection he would've faced, he felt. Boris drove Whittle to her appointment, which was just her applying for a secondary nursing job to make extra money since she was now living alone. Boris sat in the waiting room, since he was her ride. He puttered around the waiting room a bit before finally picking up a magazine off a nearby table and sitting down with it. Boris read a few articles, and then turned the page to see a full two page spread ad about life insurance, featuring a happy, smiling older couple.

A couple he would never be a part of, he knew.

                                                                                             ***

"I'm back from the store!" Leanne called out as she entered the small, cozy apartment.

"Did they have what we needed?" Boris asked from the kitchen, "I need that pasta, pronto."

The apartment was littered with indoor plants, some hanging from the ceiling, others sitting in windowsills, and dozens upon dozens of books, considering the two were avid readers. They often found themselves sitting up late into the night, reading passages they found amusing or interesting or simply well versed to one another. It was a humble life, but a life worth living, at least. They finished cooking the dinner together, and then ate, each discussing their day so the it was as if the other didn't miss out on a single thing.

Afterwards, they ate ice cream and watched game shows, then laid in bed and read to one another until they each fell asleep. This was the life Boris had always wanted, and now with Leanne, he had it. Now he had this life, and he couldn't be happier. He loved getting up every morning, putting on the coffee and making them breakfast. They could read the daily comics together and start their day with a laugh.

But, like all other dreams, Boris realized, this too didn't come true, and he woke up the following morning sick to his stomach, wondering if he should've spoken to her in the hallway.

                                                                                                 ***

"You know what your problem is?" Carol asked as they sat eating lunch, "You got no moxie!"

"I'll have you know that I have moxie falling out of my butt, alright," Boris replied.

"You should get that looked at," Burt said, not even looking up from his tray, making Carol smirk.

"You need to stop imagining what you could've had, stop asking yourself 'what if I'd just talked to her' and actually go talk to her and see where it could lead! You never know, she might remember you!" Carol said, scooping up a handful of chips and eating them one at a time, "Heck, you might be the only thing she remembers!"

"Well I don't know if I wanna be the only thing someone remembers. That's a lot of pressure on me," Boris said, "I wanna leave a last impression, not be a lasting impression."

"Well, be that as it may, I still think you should talk to her," Carol said, "You felt really awful when you found out she was suddenly gone, and now you have the chance to make things right and you don't wanna take it?"

"Because the last time I tried to do that, my daughter wound up in a coma," Boris said flatly, making Carol immediately regret what she'd said. She went quiet, and Boris went sullen. They finished eating in peace and then all went their separate ways for the day.

But Carol was right, and Boris knew it. Here he was, being given yet another second chance to fix a relationship, and he was willing to throw it away all because of a medical accident that befall Ellen? Ridiculous. That, unlike the accident that had crippled her in the first place, wasn't even his fault! Boris wandered the garden outside for a bit, where and Leanne had first met, and he couldn't help but feel like the real reason he didn't want to approach her was because he was embarrassed. Embarrassed for how attached he'd gotten so quickly, only to have her presence ripped away from him, like so many other people had been throughout his life...

He barely knew her, after all, so why had he become so fond of her so fast? If Boris had to guess, it was likely because she had been nothing but nice to him. Carol and Burt were fine, but they were snarky and snippy, and they gave him shit (which he gladly gave right back to them), and Polly was...well, Polly was Polly. Better to leave it at that than even begin to attempt to examine that relationship. But Leanne...she'd just been approachable and friendly and interested right off the bat, and that was something Boris hadn't gotten from another person his own age in god knows how long. Whittle was that way, but Whittle was not his age.

And suddenly he found himself walking by a small stone monument with a plaque on it. He slid his hands into his pants pocket and staggered up to it, reading the words off the shimmering gold plate that looked up at him.

"To love is to throw caution to the wind, to hate is to be overly cautious of what we don't understand."

He nodded, then wondered why he'd given physical recognition to a goddamned plaque with a random quote on it. He really was losing his mind, he thought. He made a decision right then and there, though, that the next time he was at Whittle's complex, he would go and try to speak to Leanne, if given the opportunity. Guess this random plaque really was useful. Boris headed back inside and went to his room, where he sat down at his desk and opened a notebook. He picked up a ballpoint pen and started writing. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it the right way. The only way he knew how. With a poem.

                                                                                                ***

"I'm not saying the kids are wrong," Leanne said, "I'm not saying that at all. The kids have plenty to be angry at and for. They've been handed a shit on planet with a myriad of issues they had no hand in creating but are now inheriting and expected to fix, all the while not being given any chance to make even a meager enough of a living to simply survive with the basics. If anything, I'm surprised the kids aren't angrier."

"You make a good point," Boris replied, "And we know for a fact that plenty of them grew up with people who ruined them so deeply that they can barely function as a relatively capable human being. They're forced to recover from a thing they should've been able to take for granted, childhood, and that's sick too."

Boris and Leanne were sitting at a small table in a cafe, both sipping hot chocolates and sharing a box of doughnuts. For a moment, while they sat chewing and sipping, they just smiled at one another from across the table, each happy that they had someone to talk to, to care for, to be cared for by.

"I think I'd do terribly in the world today," Boris said, "If I were just starting out, you know? Certainly there's a lot more options, but that almost makes it worse, makes it too overwhelming to know which road to go down and constantly be afraid you've gone down the wrong one. I just don't think I could make it work, and I'm always in awe of the young people who do because it seems so vastly difficult."

"I know what you mean," Leanne said, leaning back in her chair, wiping her mouth on a napkin, "My children have so many possibilities at their fingertips that I'm really in shock that they can navigate each and every one as well as they can, not because I doubt them but because it just, as you said, seems so very overwhelming."

Boris reached across the table and took her hand, and as he felt her thumb rub the back of his hand, he woke up again. He was getting tired of these dreams. He'd much prefer nightmares over these. But, then again, weren't they nightmares in their own unique way?

                                                                                           ***

Standing in Whittle's doorway, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded while Whittle stuffed some dirty clothes she was preparing to take down to the laundry room into a hamper, Boris couldn't take his eyes of the door that he'd seen Leanne go through. He wondered if he should approach, but what would he say? He pulled the poem he'd written out of his coat pocket, unfolded it and glanced at it, quickly reading it over. Boris then gathered his strength and walked over to the door, before knocking on it after hesitating for a split second.

But nobody answered. Just his luck, he figured, the one day he had the courage to do it, nobody was even there. So, Boris simply slid the poem under the door and then walked back to Whittle's, where he helped her carry her stuff down to the laundry room. Sitting on the machine while it ran, sharing a can of soda back and forth between them, Boris leaning against the wall, Whittle sighed and lit up a cigarette.

"I don't know, man," she said, shrugging, "I've never seen her, so maybe you hallucinated it."

"Gee, thanks," Boris replied, "That sure makes me feel less old."

"Did you leave the poem?"

"Yes, I left the poem. I figured, best case scenario, she reads it, and she remembers me and she wants to get together. Worst case scenario, she doesn't remember me and I never hear from her again," Boris said.

"Well it sounds like you have this all thought out then," Whittle said.

"It's hard to meet people you like romantically when you get to be my age, not because it becomes hard to approach them, it's not that it's any easier or harder in that respect than it was when you were younger...it's more because you become afraid of making a comitment to a person who could drop dead at any second."

"Yeah, but isn't the happiness you'd get out of the short term worth the pain in the long term?" Whittle asked, "I mean, don't you deserve to be happy, no matter what age you are?"

Boris didn't have a response for this.

                                                                                          ***

Boris laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, chewing his lip.

He couldn't help but feel like a fool, someone who had put himself out there and would now regret it once again. What had made him think for even a split second that he deserved some sort of happiness? He almost wished he hadn't done it now, just because he felt so embarrassed by his actions. And then the phone rang, and he sat up. Boris got out of bed and slowly approached the phone, then answered it.

"H-hello?" he asked.

"Boris?" Leanne asked, and he smiled.

"Yeah, it's me."

"I got your poem, it was absolutely lovely!"

"I'm glad you think-"

"But you're an idiot, Boris. You're an idiot thinking anyone would want to spend their last few years alive with someone like you. Have you seen how awful you are these days? You're sick and mean and nobody should be forced to be around someone like that."

Boris stood there, stunned, until he realized her voice had become distorted, the phone melting in his hands. And then he woke up. He stared at the ceiling, catching his breath, realizing it was just another dream, but this time the worst kind. She'd remembered him, but she hadn't wanted him despite that. He sighed and rolled onto his back, and then the phone rang. He stood up, and slowly walked across the room to answer it. He picked it up, his hand shaking the entire time, and lifted the receiver to his face.

"He...hello?" he asked softly.

"Hello, is this Boris?" Leanne asked, and his spirits lifted.

"Yeah, yeah it is, I guess you got my poem!" Boris said, sounding happy now.

"I did, it was very beautiful!" Leanne said, "I...I don't know you at all, but I thank you for brightening up my day nonetheless!"

Boris stood there, silent.

"Hello?" Leanne asked.

"Uh...yeah, you're...you're welcome," he said.

Boris didn't have any dreams about Leanne after that.

"Where exactly do you want this box of crap?" Boris asked, carrying in a rather large box, standing in what would become Whittle's new living room. She turned and looked at him, hands on her hips, thinking.

"I'm gonna say to just drop it anywhere, really," Whittle said, beginning to pick at her teeth, "Is there much left?"

"There's a few tiny boxes out here, but I don't know that my frail old man bones can handle it. I'm so weak and my body is just a mere husk of the strapping once brash lad I had been in my glory days. Ah yes, my glory days, let me tell you, I was bold and daring, head full of hair and built like an ox. In those days, you could get a piece of pie for a nickel I tell you, and-"

"Shut. Up," Whittle said, laughing as she pulled a small box cutter from her back pocket and started to undo one of the boxes on the floor. Boris chuckled to himself before bringing in the last few small boxes and leaned against the couch, pulling his cap off and exhaling. He glanced around the apartment and nodded.

"This is nice," he said, "You found a good place. It's clean, in a seemingly safe neighborhood, I like it. Are you...feeling weird about the whole thing? I was kind of surprised when you asked me to help you move, I gotta be honest, I hadn't expected you to take my advice to heart so quickly."

"Well," Whittle said, kneeling down on the floor over the box and pulling out books, a strap on her overalls slipping off her shoulder, "I don't know, I guess? It was hard, believe me, he wasn't happy about it, but after what we talked about I realized that I absolutely had to do it. I had to make a change of some kind, you know? You can't continue living a life that stops you from living."

Boris nodded, his eyelids lowering as he became lost in thought. Yes. What a true statement that was.

                                                                                         ***

"She didn't even want to do soccer! She hated soccer! But you wouldn't listen to her, you told her team sports are great just because they were great for you!" Boris shouted.

"Don't you even fucking dare!" Lorraine responded, "You were just as adamant about her sticking to her responsibilities as I was! How dare you try and pin this solely on me! Just because you gave up on what you wanted to do doesn't mean she should learn to do the same!"

"Fuck you! You're a fucking monster! You never ever listen to either one of us, and it shows now more than ever!" Boris shouted, and then the crying started. He slouched his shoulders and glanced over them towards her bedroom before softly adding, "I'll go."

"Why can't I go comfort her?" Lorraine asked, folding her arms.

"Because she never asks for you," Boris replied.

                                                                                             ***

Boris walked around the front of the couch, hands in his pockets, looking at everything in Whittle's new place, as he slowly made his way towards the small round table she'd set up near the kitchen. She was on the floor in front of the table, elbow deep in a box of books, as Boris pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He sighed and simply watched her, thinking about how much she reminded him of both his daughter and his ex-wife. Perhaps not in physical stature or anything, but definitely in attitude. Whittle had his daughters earnestness and his ex-wifes stubbornness, both traits he admired very much, especially when combined like they had been here.

Whittle pulled out a collection of large books and held them up triumphantly, almost like they were a trophy she'd just won. Boris cocked his head to the side, somewhat confused, until she grinned at him, stood up and sat with him at the table, opening the first giant book in front of them.

"Yearbooks," she said, "This was my freshman year."

"Oh?" Boris asked, looking into it with her as she skimmed photos in a collage until she found herself and pointed herself out.

"There I am, god I was such a dweeb," Whittle said.

"You were in band?" Boris asked.

"Yeah, I played the cello. I still do, from time to time," Whittle said, "But it's more a hobby than a profession. It was one of those things my parents made me do, pick an instrument and learn it, and it seemed like the most interesting, outside of saxophone which wasn't in band, sadly."

"What kind of band class doesn't have a saxophone?" Boris asked, sounding genuinely disgusted, making Whittle laugh.

"I know, right?!" she replied, "God these were the absolute worst years of my life..."

"Well, don't worry, the years get even worse, trust me on that," Boris said, making her smirk as she opened a pizza box on the table and picking up a slice, biting into it as she skimmed through a few more pages. Boris got up and got himself a glass of water, looking out the window over her kitchenette sink until he heard her exclaim something again. When he turned and headed back, Whittle was pointing excitedly at something in the book, almost squealing.

"That was Garth Harris!" she said, "God, I had a huge crush on him when I was in school. You really remind me of him, honestly. He was intelligent, but kind of a dick, but he was also really open and insightful."

Boris thought about this for a moment, and couldn't decide if he liked reminding her of someone else or was angry she didn't see him as his own person instead of a likeness. Either way, he supposed, it didn't matter, as long as he had her friendship. Besides, wasn't her really substituting Chrissy for Ellen, in a lot of ways? Trying to undo all the bad parenting he'd done to his own daughter? So who was he to argue. Boris sighed and pulled a slice of pizza from the box and bit into it.

"You know, you think those memories are the ones that matter," Boris said, "But honestly, they're not. The memories that you hold close aren't the big ones; weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays, graduations, that kind of stuff. No, the ones you actually wind up cherishing, polishing in your head til they gleam like a mental trophy, are the ones that seemed so insignificant at the time. Just really good days, where you had a really good time. Random dinners, certain shopping trips, that sort of stuff."

"Stuff like this, right now," Whittle said, looking up from her yearbook at him, "Like this will someday be a treasured memory. Not the whole 'breaking up with my boyfriend and moving to a new apartment' aspect of it, just this, you and me, sitting here with a pizza and talking."

"...Sure, exactly," Boris said, smiling, "That's fair to claim. Though, if you don't mind, please try and remember me as much more handsome than I am, maybe even fairly rich."

"No problem rockafella," Whittle replied, laughing as she continued to flip through her yearbook.

                                                                                              ***

Ellen was lying in her bed, reading a book when Boris came in with her afternoon snack. Ellen put her book down as Boris sat on the side of her bed and set the tray on his lap. He sighed and cut her sandwich in half, handing her a glass of juice, which she gladly took and sipped on as he continued cutting her sandwich.

"Your mother wants to know why you never call for her," Boris said.

"Because mom never makes me feel better, only worse," Ellen said, "I don't need to feel worse right now."

"You know she's just upset about what happened, right? That she-"

"I don't like mom," Ellen said, surprising her father before looking down at her juice glass and, lowering her voice, added, "I don't even really like you."

Boris's heart cracked in that moment. He finished cutting her sandwich, handed her the entire tray, ruffled her hair and then exited. He immediately hurried down the hall to the bathroom, shut the door behind him and sat on the toilet lid, crying quietly into his arms. He couldn't even be angry or upset with her, because he completely understood, and, quite frankly, didn't like himself very much either, so why should he expect her to? Especially after what he'd done to her. It was all his fault, no matter how much blame he wanted to push onto Lorraine or extenuating circumstances, it was his fault.

What kind of a family was this? He didn't want this. He didn't want any of this. And it wasn't long after that that Boris packed up and moved out, only coming around to see her Ellen once a week, and always giving Lorraine whatever money he could spare to help with house or medical expenses. That was the day that broke Boris, and it was also a moment he'd never forget. As he told Whittle, it wasn't the moments you'd expect to remember that you remember, it wasn't the accident he recalled. It was the moment his own daughter told him she didn't like him.

That was the moment he remembered.

                                                                                             ***

It was getting late, Boris realized as he checked his watch. He should probably start to head back to the home. He sighed, ate one more slice of pizza, had another root beer and then decided to call it a night. As he stood up and slid back into his jacket, Whittle stood up as well and walked him to the door.

"Thanks for helping me, not just moving in but like, in making the decision to change my life too," Whittle said.

"My pleasure. You know me, I'm always willing to give advice I'll thoroughly ignore myself," Boris said, and, without warning, Whittle hugged him tightly. He was taken aback for a moment and didn't know how to respond before realizing he should likely hug her back, so he started to. They stayed that way for a minute or two until she finally let him go, they said good night and he was on his way.

Boris took the bus all the way back to the home, and when he finally arrived, the only person still up and in the common area was Carol, reading a book. Boris sat down in a chair beside her and exhaled heavily, taking his hat off and running his hand through what was left of his hair.

"Busy day down at the office?" Carol asked, smirking.

"...what's the one moment you can't shake that surprises you? You know, a moment that theoretically you would imagine you wouldn't remember or have considered important down the road."

"Hmmm," Carol said, placing her thumb between the pages of her book and resting it in her lap, "I guess...I guess that honor would likely go to the time I was in my mid twenties and had to have a tooth pulled because it split in half while I was eating candy. Wound up dating that dentist for a few years, all because he made a tooth pun and I thought it was funny enough to base an entire relationship on. And even though it ended when he was hit by a train, which is the part you'd think I'd remember most of all, it was the start of our relationship, not the death of it, that I recall with ease."

"...jesus, you're kind of a bummer," Boris said.

"That's rich, coming from you."

"You ever think you might make some more memories?" Boris asked and Carol laughed.

"I'm making memories every day! There's no cutoff on memory making, Boris. Just because I get old doesn't make my new memories any less worthy than my old ones. You just have to decide which memories are worth remembering, and continue to make them. I'm gonna go to bed."

Carol stood up, tucked her book under her arm, yawned and then put a hand on Boris's shoulder.

"You make the memory, to memory doesn't make you," she said, and with that she turned on her heel and headed off to bed, leaving Boris to sit there and contemplate everything she'd just said. Later on, when Boris himself had retired, lying in bed and looking up at his ceiling, he couldn't help but try and think of a different memory, any memory, worth remembering more than the time his own daughter told him she didn't like him.

He thought about when he first signed her up for soccer. She was apprehensive, she wasn't that into sports, but he said it would be fine. He bought a brand new ball and everything, and took her out into the backyard to practice. And despite her grievances towards sports, despite her lack of athletic ability, he could remember her having a lot of fun that day. He could remember the both of them having a lot of fun that day. After they finished, they went inside and had some ice cream before Lorraine got home from work, and sitting there at the kitchen table, she said to him, "I guess it wasn't that bad. Thanks dad."

Thanks dad.

That was the best he'd ever gotten.

But it was better than the other memory. And with that Boris managed to shut his eyes, and go to sleep.

Regina Whittle couldn't take the sound anymore.

That constant knocking on the door, his voice coming in and telling her to just come out and talk to him, that this isn't fair to him, to keep cutting him out like this, but she didn't want to listen anymore. She leaned against the door of the bathroom and poured herself another glass of wine as she wiped her eyes on her arms. She downed the wine and then she ran one hand down her arm, looking at the scars on her wrists. She wanted to tear them open, watch them flow with blood. She wanted to cover the entire bathroom floor with her insides. She wanted to. But she didn't.

After all, she had to work in the morning.

                                                                                           ***

"You know, between Angela Lansbury and Matlock, television really convinced me that I'd be knee deep in detective work when I reached old age," Burt said, making Boris laugh.

"You're telling me. In the end, it turns out that the only mystery I'm trying to solve is how I ended up here," Boris said, as Carol walked in and handed Boris a can of soda. He thanked her as she took a seat beside him and watched the tv.

"MORE fucking Matlock? Seriously?" Carol asked, "Have you no shame?"

"You know, there's this great place called your bedroom that you can sit and NOT insult my viewing choices," Burt said.

Carol mocked him, making both men laugh as the front door opened and Whittle entered, looking pale and exhausted, her eyes red, like she'd been up all night crying and then had to tried to cover it with makeup so as to dissuade any questioning. As she walked past them, she smiled at Boris, who nodded back at her accordingly, before she headed into the back of the nurses station. Boris looked back at Carol, who was sipping her soda and he sighed.

"Whittle looks like shit," he said.

"And you look like a basket of roses," Burt said, "Don't talk about a womans appearance like that."

"No, I'm not being derogatory, I'm being concerned, asshole. I'm saying she doesn't look well, like she is feeling bad or having a hard time dealing with something," Boris replied.

"We're all having a hard time dealing with something Boris. It's called life," Carol said.

Boris stood up and walked to the door that exited from the nurses station into the hallway and leaned against the wall, waiting. Eventually, it opened, and Whittle walked out, holding a small tray with tiny paper cups on them. She was surprised by his presence at first, but then acknowledged him and the two walked together down the hall.

"What's going on?" Boris asked, "You seem...kind of...not...good."

"Boy, for a writer, you sure are a real conversationalist," Whittle said, making Boris chuckle.

"I'm just concerned. Is everything okay?" he asked, as Whittle stopped and looked at him.

"Meet me outside, in the gazebo, in about...twenty minutes? We can talk then," she said, and he nodded as she went about her way, delivering medicine to house citizens. Boris got something to eat from the cafeteria and then headed out to the gazebo and waited for her. Leaning against the rail of the gazebo, chewing on his cookie, he watched the knitting club and saw Larry toiling in the dirt nearby, seemingly trying, badly, to do some gardening. After a few minutes, Whittle showed up and sat down on the floor of the gazebo, exhaling.

"Want some of my cookie?" Boris asked, holding it out to her, but she smiled and shook her head.

"No thank you," she said.

"Good, cause I didn't wanna give you any," he replied, eating the rest and then groaning as he too sat down across from her; he wiped his hands on his pants and then asked, "So...what's going on? You usually seem sort of perky. What's up?"

"I don't want to do this anymore," Whittle said, "I don't...I don't know what it is I wanna do, but I know it's not this."

"You're a trained medical professional, you can do anything," Boris said, "There's lots of jobs in that field for someone with your expertise."

"It's not just that, I just..." Whittle said, trailing off as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, "...I'm really unhappy with, like, EVERY decision in my life. I don't wanna do this job, I don't wanna be where I am, at work or at home, but I don't know how to fix any of it."

"Nobody knows how, and because the idea of change is so scary, so many often don't even try and they remain unhappy until they either die or wind up in a place like this," Boris said, "Do you wanna wind up in a place like this?"

"I already have," Whittle said, making him laugh.

"Sure, but, voluntarily. I mean like us. Like Carol and myself. Not by choice."

"...you're here by choice," Whittle said, making him furrow his brow.

"Listen, we're here to talk about YOU, okay?" he said, "I remember being extremely unhappy when I was married and working, and that nothing, no matter what it was that I tried, seemed to help. Eventually I just sort of accepted how I felt and left behind the concept of gaining fulfillment of any kind. Society would have you believe that having a family makes your life complete, but I think that's only true when that's a goal you actually want to achieve. Point is, you're a lot younger than I was when you're realizing how screwed up your life is and that you want change, and I admire that."

"Yeah, but I don't know how to do anything about it," Whittle said, "That's what's so frustrating, man. Like, where do you even START? I..."

She glanced away and rubbed her eyes as Boris finally sitting down, cross legged, across from her. He cocked his head, waiting for her to continue, and she finally cleared her throat and undid her ponytail, letting her bushy brown hair down.

"I hate my boyfriend," she finally said, very matter of factly, "He doesn't know this, obviously, nor does he really deserve it. I just...I don't think I'm capable of being in long term relationships with people. My sister can, she's fantastic at it, she's been with her husband for like 10 years, but I just...I can't do it. It's not even a fear of commitment, it's just that eventually I get tired of people and nobody ever really understands how I feel, even if they swear up and down that they do and I try to talk to them about it."

"I sort of get what you mean," Boris said, sighing, "I was very unhappy in my marriage because I felt like I wasn't good enough. Like my wife deserved better. Then, when the fighting started, after the accident, I took the hatred I had for myself and merely redirected it towards her, because it's easier to hate others than it is to hate yourself, at least for me it was."

Whittle ran a hand through her hair and glanced around at the gazebo, taking in the architecture.

"I don't even know that I wanna stay in this field," Whittle said, "...did I ever tell you how I started getting into the nursing field?"

"No, but please do weave your tale for me," Boris said.

"I was actually in college for something else. I was about three months into my sophomore year, working towards my culinary degree, when my aunt took ill. She was my favorite aunt, and she'd gotten really sick and it looked really bad, so I started spending a lot of time with her. It got to the point where I was spending more time caring for her than I was working towards my degree. After a while, I decided that I needed to do more with my life than cook soup, that I needed to help others, so after she died, I changed my major to nursing and decided instead to dedicate my life to the care of others. But the thing is, the sick, irrefutable thing is, I don't really CARE about others. I mean, I DO, but...but I don't want to dedicate my life to them, but to say that, to admit that I don't want to spend my life doing that, feels so cruel, so instead of following my dreams and shit, I just continue to live with a man I no longer love and work at a job I no longer enjoy."

"...I think you should leave him and go back to school," Boris said, "I know, I know, that's so easy for me to say, but I think it's the only option. Look at how miserable you are now, imagine how miserable you'll be if you stay in this situation. You have to do something. That's...that's the one thing I've come to learn this past year. I have to try and move forward and be a better person, even if only for myself, because otherwise it was all meaningless. I want my life to end with an exclamation point, not a question mark."

Whittle smiled as Boris handed her a fresh cookie, still wrapped in plastic.

"Thanks," Whittle said, taking it and trying not to cry, "I guess you're right. I guess I'm the only one who can do anything, and that that's what I should do, is something, anything. Otherwise I'm doing nothing and look at what doing nothing has netted me. It's netted me nothing."

"Exactly."

"I can do better," Whittle said, opening the wrapping and biting into the cookie.

"We all can," Boris said, opening yet another fresh cookie he'd pulled from his jacket.

"What's with all the cookies?!" she asked, mouth half full of cookie, trying not to laugh.

"I stole 'em from the cafeteria," Boris said.

                                                                                           ***

Father Kricket was sitting in someones room reading his bible by the dim light of a small table lamp when he heard a soft knocking on the door. He turned to see Boris standing there, coming in quietly. Father Kricket smiled and nodded at him as Boris shut the door behind him. Boris sat down in a chair across from Father Kricket and leaned forward, hushing his voice, so as not to disturb the sleeping woman.

"You're here an awful lot," Boris said, as Father Kricket leaned forward too, but didn't whisper.

"You don't have to be quiet, she's deaf," he said, making Boris laugh, "Yes, I'm here a lot. It's a nursing home. I'm all a lot of these people have, as you should well know. Lots of folks end up here completely alone, and it's up to me to give them some sort of comfort and guidance in their final days."

"Is this woman dying?" Boris asked, looking at the woman sleeping in the bed and Father Kricket shook his head.

"Nah, I just come in here cause she sleeps a lot and is deaf so I can't bother her. I'm actually on break," Father Kricket said.

"The word of god takes breaks?" Boris asked.

"Well, I'm only human underneath this cloth," Father Kricket said, shutting his bible and setting it on his lap gently, "So, what's on your mind?"

"Not much, just wanted to see how you were doing. I had a long conversation with Nurse Whittle today about the things she does and doesn't want from life, and it made me wonder if I was even qualified to be giving out advice, considering how well I screwed up my own life. I'm likely the LAST person who anyone should be coming to for life advice."

"I don't think that's true. Those who screw up are actually, in my experience, the ones with the best advice for how not to fail because they've already failed. If anyone is qualified to steer others towards success, it's those who have failed. They can tell you what NOT to do," Father Kricket said, "You know I'm not a therapist, right?"

"That's fine, I don't need a therapist. I need a friend," Boris said, making Father Kricket blush a little as he looked at his cross necklace he was playing with in his hands.

"Well, I'm glad I can be that for you," Father Kricket said, "I know all too well what it's like to feel like you don't have any companions. If I can alleviate some of that pain for you, then so be it. I'm here to bring comfort to those who need it, as I said."

"...you don't think I'm a bad person, right?" Boris asked.

"I don't, no, but I gotta tell ya, I'm gonna get very annoyed with you if you ask me every week," Father Kricket replied, making Boris laugh loudly.

"I have to confess, I stole some cookies from the cafeteria today," Boris said, "But I did share them with Nurse Whittle, so."

"The lord taketh and the lord giveth back," Father Kricket said, licking his lips, "You wouldn't happen to have any of those cookies left would you? I need to keep my blood sugar up."

"I do, yes," Boris said, reaching into his jacket and tossing Father Kricket a wrapped cookie before leaning back in his chair and sighing, "I guess in a way I AM sort of like Columbo. Earlier today we were watching Columbo, and I thought how weird it is that there was a trend of old people being detectives, but I think, really, all old people are detectives. We're detecting new ways to help others, help ourselves, always solving one problem or another in any way that we can. I discovered Whittle had a problem and I helped her with it."

"Another case closed, Columbo," Father Kricket said, raising his cookie to him before taking a bite.

Yes, Boris thought, another case closed.