"I will. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

And she goes.

And he spends the week off adjusting, and - yep, enjoying things, that's something he can do, some things taste better than others, some things make him excited - it takes a while to distinguish them, even with Findekáno helping - and then at some point they are lying in bed together reviewing the day's memories and Findekáno is naming feelings for him and he gets to the present moment and the present, odd, unpleasant-only-because-uncertainty-and-new-experiences-are-unpleasant sensation - 

- so, when we got married, when we - every time - you weren't feeling that?

Wasn't feeling things, I told you that.

Then why -

Knew I'd want to if I was okay, had decided to act like I was okay -

Okay.

I'm sorry?

It's fine.

Do you want - but the answer is communicated perfectly adequately by Maitimo's immediate lurch of terror -

...sorry, he says a second later. I think I just want to lie here and process - maybe tomorrow -

You do realize that you don't owe me anything and that I will be perfectly fine if it's a hundred years?

Yes, of course. I won't be. Tomorrow.

And a couple days later he would like another session with Boots, please.

She's available. What seems to him to be remaining to do?

"...I still default to wishing intensely to die whenever anything unexpected or hard-to-navigate or mildly overwhelming comes up. I signposted sexual stuff before and I don't need you for that specifically if that's awkward, considering, but I have a lot of hangups there. I still relive the memories a lot more than I'd like to - all that perfect eidetic-memory detail..."

"I have no training in sex therapy at all," she says. "It's its own discipline and I didn't take any classes in it, anything I could come up with would be generic. But I can do sort of the same thing I did with the imagination spiral to the tendency to relive memories..."

And she continues to be good at her job.

And he - 

- wakes up in the morning and feels nice-because-the-bed-is-warm or excited-because-he's-practically-got-Stork-wrapped-up-as-a-present-for-Kib or adoring-because-someone-he-loves-is-asleep-next-to-him -

- eats things and remembers liking things and looks them up and still likes them - 

- kisses his husband and does not have to drag out of distant memory what sounds to make -

- prefers to be alive, mostly -

- tells his Luster alt this.

His Luster alt is going by Zenith, his world having been caught after the last triumphs of its war and before the horrors started. He would be interested in Boots' very scarce time when she happens to have more of it.

She can arrange to have more of it. (The comm ball was her urgent project; nothing else as high-impact on the wizardry research front currently going.)

"Hi. Uh, I'm anticipating having a little difficulty directing you because I am not convinced this isn't still a game of the Enemy's. Can you pretty much do what you did for Island -"

"Pretty much, yes. If you want to abdicate substantial decisionmaking the only thing I need you to do is help me signpost anything I ought to avoid looking at -" She explains signposting.

He will do that.

And she signposts, and explains what she's going to be doing, and gets underway.

And he sits there patiently and very still and thanks her cheerfully when she's done for the day.

"You're welcome."

She schedules more appointments and turns up to each one and has to do something else for the emotional numbness but there's lots of options and if he doesn't want to pick one she can pick something for him.

That'd be great, thanks.