Chapter One:

In which the gang settles in to their new office and Christopher Robin reflects.

"This is it guys! Christopher Robin gestured expansively around the small office with its comfortable furniture.

"But," Pooh said, perplexed "where will you sleep Christopher Robin?"

"Silly old bear." Christopher Robin laughed and hugged Pooh close. "This isn't a bedroom. It's my brand new office."

"This is your doctor's office?" Roo asked. Christopher Robin nodded, ruffling the joey's pink ears affectionately.

"Hmmmm." Rabbit twitched his whiskers thoughtfully. "It doesn't look like a doctor's office. Where's the big bed? Where's the stethoscope and the thing that takes your blood pressure?"

All his animal friends knew what the inside of a doctor's office looked like from the times he'd taken one or another with him as a small boy. Now, a handsome man in his mid thirties, Christopher Robin took them to the office in the belief they would help his patients as much as they'd helped him.

"I'm not that kind of doctor, Rabbit," he explained, his green eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. You're thinking of a body doctor. I'm a head doctor."

"A head doctor?" Tigger asked. "You mean you put people's heads back on when they drop off?"

"No no no." "I help people with hurt feelings. People get their feelings scraped all the time. Fights with friends, being misunderstood..."

"Being squashed flat by boxes of books," Eeyore broke in.

"Huh?" Christopher Robin looked, quickly taking the box off the gray donkey. "Oh! Sorry Eeyore."

"Don't mention it," the donkey replied gloomily.

"Anyway," Christopher Robin went on "those kinds of hurt feelings people can mend on their own. But sometimes, something so terrible happens to a person's feelings that it's like having an arm or leg broken. That's when they come to a doctor like me."

Everybody nodded. Sometimes it took his friends a long time to understand basic concepts, but Christopher Robin didn't mind. One of the things he loved best about his gang of furry helpers was the way they maintained the fresh unblemished innocence of childhood long after he himself had grown out of it. Pooh's stomach rumbled loudly.

"It's eleven o'clock," Christopher Robin observed, unpacking a tea set from a well-padded box. "Let's eat."

Everybody gathered at a low table near the window. He'd had it put here for just this reason. It was low so the animals could sit comfortably and long to accommodate all the extra chairs. There were more chairs and more table space than they needed in case patients who brought animals wanted to sit theirs here with his.

"Here you are, Roo dear." Kanga began passing out iced tea in little cups and sandwiches on matching plates. "Here you are, Tigger darling."

Christopher Robin smiled. The kangaroo and the tiger had been married for some years now. He had presided over the ceremony himself at the enchanted place at the top of the forest. He remembered with amusement the odd look the seamstress gave him when he brought Kanga in for a custom-made bridal gown. The old woman's confusion grew when, a week later, he brought Tigger in for a custom-made tuxedo.

"Aren't you a little old to play with stuffed animals?" she had asked the third time Christopher Robin came. This time, he brought Roo in for a custom-made tuxedo and ring-bearer's pillow.

"No ma'am," he had replied. She sighed. Business was business. All the others opted not to wear suits, or he would have been back many more times. He didn't care what people thought, and though the little outfits were expensive, money was no object. Christopher Robin came from money after all. Kanga wore the ring, a heart-shaped opal set with flecks of jade, on a thin silver chain around her neck. Tigger was afraid of losing his, so he kept it safe in the house the three animals now shared. It was bigger than the one they had before with a nursery near Roo's room. Being toys in addition to different species, Christopher Robin didn't suppose they'd ever have a baby, but he didn't say so.

"Here you are, Christopher Robin dear." Kanga set his plate and cup before him.

"Thank you Kanga." He smiled at her. Serving herself, Kanga sat happily between Tigger and Roo.

The friends munched in silence for a time. Then Piglet asked "How will the people with hurt feelings know where your office is?"

"Good question, Piglet," Christopher Robin replied. "I advertized. I wrote to newspapers and put up a website telling about where we are and what we can do for people. I also put our office on lots of different lists so people can find us in a hurry if they need to.

"I don't suppose very many will come," mused Eeyore.

"Nonsense, Eeyore!" Owl said crossly. "Of course they will."

"It doesn't matter." Christopher Robin shrugged. "If even one person comes, it's all worth it." His eyes strayed to a picture sitting on his computer desk and he closed them. He didn't need to see it. He knew the picture by heart. Amy, a girl with red hair and blue eyes smiled out of the frame where she sat on an old porch swing. In her arms, a black and white puppy looked out at the camera with wide, excited eyes. The puppy had been a present from Christopher Robin just six months before the picture was taken.. The porch swing belonged to his parents. It was the summer before their senior year, and Amy's parents had agreed to let their daughter spend the summer with her boyfriend and his family. It had been the best summer of Christopher Robin's life. He smiled whistfully.

"Don't think about it," Kanga said softly. "The past is the past."

"You're right." But how they had laughed. How they had loved each other. He shook his head as if to clear it, looking in to his shallow tea cup as if it held the depth of a thousand unanswered questions.