"At this point I'm applying a lot of filters to the candidate pool but I'll see what I can do."

:I understand: Sigh. :I'm going to fix the Mindhealing I did on myself and hopefully then I'll be able to think about this better. I'm going to try my best not to cry but if I do start crying it's not your fault and I don't need anything: 

"Okay."

Melody does this, slowly over about ten minutes, while watching shampoo advertisements again because they're soothing and distracting, fidgeting with her fidget toys and finishing her tea. 

She doesn't cry. She's - not less sad than she'd expected, exactly, but it's a duller sadness. She can put it alongside all the other pointless tragedies of the last two decades, and it's not all right and will never be all right but it's not less of a blight on the world than the pointless bloody waste of the Karsite war. 

She's - kind of scared. Of screwing this up, mainly; of explaining Leareth's past in a way that alienates all of their tentative allies on this planet, and then what are they supposed to do. It's not like they could leave even if they wanted to. 

She is really incredibly frustrated, which seems like the most urgent thing to troubleshoot. 

:Can I think out loud at you for a bit?: she checks with Dree. 

"- Sure, go right ahead."

:Um. I...think I'm going to be all right. About the - being sad that the city where all my former colleagues live got destroyed, and the war. I'm not there yet and it's going to be a lot easier to - get there - if I I'm not trying to sneakily do all my emotional processing in the same house where Leareth is and hoping he won't notice. Separately I think you're right and it's not sustainable for me to be on call all the time, and I'm doing worse by him because I don't have any off-time. For example, right now I'm actually kind of mad at him? Because - wow this sounds really stupid now that I try to say it - because he's picked right now to have a lot of feelings, and I'm tired and it's inconvenient for me. I realize he's not doing it at me, just...: 

Helpless shrug. :I definitely shouldn't try to interact with him until I'm either not mad or can really thoroughly hide it, the other day I slightly raised my voice at him about a minor thing and he spent the next ten minutes having a panic attack about it. Er, if you don't know what to say, probably the thing I want most right now is just for you to agree that it sounds frustrating and that I am trying very hard here?: 

"If I were stuck in a foreign universe with a dependent nobody else was fully qualified to give me a break from that would be incredibly stressful!" nods Dree.

:- Also this is even stupider and I'm embarrassed by how incredibly stupid it is, but I'm frustrated at him for not brushing his goddamned hair or being capable of taking a goddamned shower and then I feel like it makes me look bad when we have guests. ...I realize I could just be the grownup about it and help but he doesn't like being touched and he cooperates but looks miserable about it the whole time and I realize that 'it makes it unpleasant for me' is really not the biggest problem with that but it does: 

"Why is his hair still long if he has trouble keeping it brushed?"

:...Quendi cultural thing, mostly? They are extremely weird about hair - it's, like, a sex thing? I have never learned all the details because getting them to talk about straightforwardly is like getting twelve-year-old boys to talk about sex - but anyway they find short hair distressing, it would stand out a lot, and Leareth - kind of went native with it. Also he was fine with Vanyel helping, just not me, probably partly because I separately feel weird about it for me-related reasons and he can tell - but Vanyel's not here. I really really badly wish Vanyel were here instead of fighting a goddamned war: 

"...I could probably find a person with a monkey trained to do hairdressing who would make a house call. With enough looking."

:He'd probably do fine with it himself with prompting at the right times? Which I should theoretically be capable of doing but my routine is all thrown off and apparently it makes me incapable of reliably remembering to do anything on a schedule. I swear I'm normally better at that kind of thing: 

"I believe you, routine's really load-bearing for a lot of people. And being in familiar circumstances."

:I hadn't really expected it because I was fine when I ran off to Arda on literally two minutes' notice because Vanyel stepped through a Gate and said it was important. In hindsight a lot of that was because the King's eldest son is some sort of superhuman genius at paying attention to everyone's needs and making sure everything social goes perfectly smoothly all the time. Vanyel was the happiest I'd ever seen him when I got there, and that was despite the fact that they'd spent the last six months having a war! Also Leareth would accept hugs from him for some reason that I still cannot really fathom: 

"Unfortunately I don't think we have one of those."

:...Mmm. I'm not sure anywhere does. He's one of the most impressive people I've ever met, on the things he's good at: She ducks her head, stares hard down at her hands. :I really hope he's all right. Really hope they all are. I hate not knowing: 

Dree nods sympathetically.

Sigh. :I'm kind of stressed about having to explain the relevant context on Leareth's life to someone, and - I realize it's stupid to be embarrassed about it but I sort of am. And maybe a tiny bit worried that it'll - result in all of you being less willing to help us, just because...I mean, we're showing up and making our bizarre complicated problem your problem, I think you've been going really above and beyond even just given that: 

"- you're the only aliens we have. And if you start requiring something new and weird on the level of a monkey hairdresser every week it'll add up but a rental cottage and some outfits and an inflatable bathtub is pretty crumbs-and-smears compared to the government's budget."

Nod. :I hope we can make it worth your while. - On the bright side, if I can get some Leareth coverage, I would at this point be utterly delighted to go spend eight candlemarks a day treating patients with a wide range of normal problems which are in no way related to my friends being dead. ...Feels kind of silly to say I'm bored but I am, a little, I do better with more variety than this: 

"I will see if I can figure out how to make that happen!"

Nod. :I should go explain the plan to Leareth. And take his dog out in the backyard. And then if you don’t mind, while you’re here I would really like the opportunity to take a shower:

One week later, Melody is out on her day off in a shopping complex with Kelta, who feels that it's hard to truly appreciate the wealth of the world without shopping in person even if in principle browsing Malldiamond is just as impressive. Leareth is back at the rental house with Dree, and their respite worker will be there in the evening to swap in.

Dree is a heroic person and you know what is amazing: LEAVING her HOUSE! And being a different place that is not her house! And is much more interesting!

(Today is hopefully not going to be too stressful for Dree; Leareth wasn't having a good day when she headed out, exactly, but it was mostly the kind of bad day where it's hard to convince him to do any things, and he bathed yesterday, it's not the end of the world if today he doesn't succeed at getting out of bed.) 

She is, overall, feeling a lot more positive about things. Not about Leareth's wellbeing specifically, she's still worried - he's been incredibly up and down depending on the day - but she's made a start on carving out some structure and routine, Forgiver is now trained to bring Leareth packaged snacks if he misses a meal, and both of them are growingly fluent in Kayshu - Leareth continuing to pull ahead of her on reading and writing, and Melody still has a slight edge for speaking comfortably but he's catching up. She's been reading all sorts of articles and studies about therapy and pharmaceuticals and has sent emails to some researchers who had interesting studies on the pre-registration site. Leareth was functional enough to do programming three days out of the past week, which is always a sign that Melody will have a pleasant and mostly-peaceful day. She's even convinced him to let her do some Mindhealing work with him to help with things like frustration tolerance. 

They have not actually told the respite worker Dree found about Leareth's horrifying backstory, yet, although Melody did reluctantly explain some of the key facts about Angband. Leareth was very stressed when she floated the plan with him, and it's not great that she's still the only one with huge swathes of context - what if she gets hit by a car or something on a day out - but it's not an emergency. Mainly she just gave the respite worker her standard script for re-orienting a Leareth who has just woken up distressed and confused, and then she stays at the house just in case she's needed but puts earplugs in to sleep. So far she hasn't been disturbed at all on her nights "off". Leareth hasn't been projecting accidentally at all since they found a good sleeping drugs regimen; he does wake up screaming like a banshee at least once most nights, but apparently earplugs plus the official license to consider it Not Her Problem is enough that Melody basically sleeps through it, or at least falls back to sleep fast enough not to remember it in the morning. 

She's discovered STIMULANTS that WORK REALLY WELL. Also she has a nice day planner that she bought online.

She tells Kelta that she's interested in looking at other organizational aids if there's a store here that sells them, but mostly she's staring around in awe. 

The mall has a store called Desk Yay, which is for things that might go on or around desks and provoke yay; it's a very alluring display of crisp notebooks and fifty kinds of folder in five hundred colors and desktop fidgets and shelf-drawer-things and lamps and pens and device accessories and attractively encased power strips and more.