The last few weeks have been unexpectedly difficult. It isn't as if Alana's never lost someone before, and under much less pleasant circumstances. It isn't even as if she saw Will every day or even every week. She made a point of spending time with him, less cautious about being alone together than previously, though almost always in public anyway, but his constancy didn't always require his physical presence. Going days without seeing him is hard now in a way it wasn't before. She knows why, understands the logic, but that doesn't make it easier.
It's her work that keeps her steady, helping her patients cope with their own problems. If she can't fix her own, at least she can guide them and do some good. Her friends help, too. She doesn't have many, but there's solace in knowing those few still remain.
Don's one of those she's likeliest to call up just to hang out with. Being close to Hannibal helps, but it hurts, too; there's too much shared grief, and that can sting as much as comfort. Sometimes being around someone who knows about but doesn't feel her loss is more of a balm. They make plans to go out again this week, though she doesn't know yet what they'll do with the night. As often as not, they just end up in a bar, talking, but something like a movie, a reprieve from her own mind, might be more welcome tonight.
He doesn't come out, though. She waits outside his building where they were supposed to meet, sends a text after ten minutes. After fifteen, she heads inside. The number isn't disconnected, but it isn't like Don not to respond or to be this late, and she can't shake the panic that comes over her, the fear that this is about to be another blow to the chest for her, that she'll arrive at his door, unlocked, apartment empty. The elevator makes it way to the third floor at a pace so obscenely slow she wishes she'd taken the stairs. Bursting through the doors before they're finished opening, she hurries down the hall to knock at his door. "Don?" She sucks in a deep breath, voice dropping to a hush. "Please, please, please..."
It's her work that keeps her steady, helping her patients cope with their own problems. If she can't fix her own, at least she can guide them and do some good. Her friends help, too. She doesn't have many, but there's solace in knowing those few still remain.
Don's one of those she's likeliest to call up just to hang out with. Being close to Hannibal helps, but it hurts, too; there's too much shared grief, and that can sting as much as comfort. Sometimes being around someone who knows about but doesn't feel her loss is more of a balm. They make plans to go out again this week, though she doesn't know yet what they'll do with the night. As often as not, they just end up in a bar, talking, but something like a movie, a reprieve from her own mind, might be more welcome tonight.
He doesn't come out, though. She waits outside his building where they were supposed to meet, sends a text after ten minutes. After fifteen, she heads inside. The number isn't disconnected, but it isn't like Don not to respond or to be this late, and she can't shake the panic that comes over her, the fear that this is about to be another blow to the chest for her, that she'll arrive at his door, unlocked, apartment empty. The elevator makes it way to the third floor at a pace so obscenely slow she wishes she'd taken the stairs. Bursting through the doors before they're finished opening, she hurries down the hall to knock at his door. "Don?" She sucks in a deep breath, voice dropping to a hush. "Please, please, please..."