A/N: this was started for the Has Been songfic challenge: then it turned out that Dar Williams is not a Has Been (she just released a new album) although I guess Sports Night probably would qualify. Anyway, all standard disclaimers apply: I don't own and don't profit; only the writing is mine.

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I say I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believingAnd the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving
And she says, "Oh," I say, "What?" She says "Exactly"
I say, "What, you think I'm angry, does that mean you think I'm angry?"
She says, "Look, you come here every week with jigsaw pieces of your past
It's all on little soundbites, and voices out of photographs
And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map
So tell me, where does the arrow point to? Who invented roses?"

Dar Williams: "what do you hear in these sounds?"

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Abby Jacobs reached for her next file and read the name: Rydell, Daniel W. She'd forgotten it was Danny's day. Trying to focus exclusively on the client in front of her meant that, she often ended a consultation and had no idea who was next on the schedule. Occasionally, someone completely unexpected would just show up on her doorstep. Still, she couldn't quite bring herself to hire an appointment secretary; it seemed like one more hurdle for people who already had overcome a lot just to get to her door. Besides, keeping her own calendar helped her keep up with her clients' schedules. Dan, for instance, had swapped his usual 11:00 AM for late afternoons because he'd taken up rowing in the mornings. Rowing, of all things! She just couldn't quite picture it, but she knew she should be grateful. Morning rowing and half a day's work burned off enough energy that Dan was actually sitting down again during their sessions. Also, he was fidgeting less. A little less, anyway.

The rowing had started three weeks ago, when Dan had read a flyer outside the office of his sometimes-girlfriend, Rebecca. They'd only had two appointments since then because Abby had been out of town for a conference. That meant Danny should be right on schedule to talk about rowing today; it usually took about that long for him to put words to his feelings. Not that he was bad with words. No, this guy was a writer and it showed. More a case of being bad with feelings, she supposed. After all, he was just now grasping the fact that not everyone had to shove a heavy, swaddling shroud of guilt and worthlessness off his chest just to get up in the morning. "You mean, other people don't…? How I feel—this is not normal, is it?" he'd asked, realizing it for the first time at the end of particularly rough session. And what could she say? It was normal for Danny; it had been his normal for a good long time.

Abby flipped through the file, thinking that Dan was a little like a mutt who had spent his life walking on his hind legs and jumping through hoops, trying to earn his owners' affection. Then the circus pulled into town and promised to make him a star if he agreed to stay a freak. The funny, charming persona that had begun as a defensive technique was suddenly a hot commodity. Thanks to TV, everyone loved him. But only as long as he was funny and charming. Did that mean, too, that he would have to stay on the defensive forever?

Dan Rydell was not her most challenging—difficult? messed up?—client. He loved his job and his friends loved him, which was more than many people could say. (Sometimes, listening to Dan, Abby wondered if she was maybe a little thin in the friends department, herself.) Nevertheless, she thought about him a lot. Because he was funny and charming, but mostly because she couldn't decide which option she would take, if the choice were hers. Wait for those who'd ignored you to love you for real, or sign on with the circus and barter quality for quantity?

"Penny for your thoughts? I think that's the going price."

She looked up from the file and, yup, there was Dan Rydell. Large as life and real as television, whatever that meant. He looked a little rough but, then, she wasn't yet used to seeing him so late in the day. She returned his smile. "Given what I've paid in tuition over the years, I'm going to have to hold out for a better offer."

He shrugged off his jacket and tossed her a sandwich from that place across the street from his building: "They don't usually do take-out, but I told Jack that my mental health was at stake, here. Roast beef on rye. Hold the mayo, hold the mustard, hold the lettuce, so really, why even bother?" He sighed to the ceiling, "It's a sad life with no mustard."

This had become their ritual over the past few weeks: since he was busy in the mornings, he came during his lunch hour instead. Of course, that meant 5:30 in the afternoon, so he was often her last patient. Realizing that his lunchtime was essentially her dinnertime, he'd started bringing her something to eat from whatever take-out place caught his eye on his trip across town. Somehow he even managed to remember that she liked her sandwiches dry.

"You really don't have to bribe me with food," she joked the first time he did this, "I'd listen to you anyway!"

"Damn right I don't have to bribe you; with your hourly rates, you should throw in a free continental breakfast for me," he'd grumbled, "But you work a long day; what if you get faint from hunger just as I'm having a revelation?"

"I promise I can hold out for an hour," she said seriously, holding up her hands. "Besides, revelations are for rabbis and other religious professionals. I'm just the shrink."

"I'm going to contemplate the meaning of 'religious professional' in just a second but, see, here's the rub," he explained animatedly, "We don't want me getting faint from hunger in the middle of the score report tonight and if you don't eat, I can't eat…it wouldn't be polite, my mother would die of shame." He paused, looked at her wide-eyed, "Do you want to kill my mother? Wait—do I want to kill my mother? Could there be something Oedipal about my bringing you marsala tikki from India Palace? Only it was Elektra who killed her mother, and what's the adjective form of that? Elektral? We should discuss this, Doctor. At great length. Where's that extra fork?"

Abby had eaten, afraid that otherwise she'd get a fifty-minute hour of Charming Danny and nothing of substance. They'd washed it down with tea from her office machine. For dessert, he had picked out most of the butterscotch from her candy dish: "Kim and Chris love butterscotch." It had actually been one of Dan's better sessions. She'd begun to realize just how utterly exhausting it was to be delightful all the time: no wonder he was looking a little ragged at the edges, the circus was a hell of a lot of work.

At first, Abby worried that Dan would try and turn these dinners into dates, which would, of course, be totally inappropriate and require her to have a conversation she really didn't want to have. But when he showed up the next week bearing enchiladas, she began to see it was just his way of making everything a little less…clinical. He wasn't ashamed of needing therapy, which was remarkable, considering the macho milieu of sports broadcasting. Where someone else would have just called in a favor, Dan probably had explained his situation at great length to that bartender, Jack. In fact, Jack no doubt knew more than he'd ever wanted to know: Dan believed in full disclosure. But he still worried about the trappings, about couches and hypnotism and antidepressants; he worried about being crazy. This was just the 'dinner with friends' phase, a sequel to the 'only dropping by for a minute' phase that had him standing in the doorway for a full hour a few months back.

If it started to detract from their sessions, Abby would put a stop to it and they'd go back to the old question-and-answer format. But sessions with Danny were never ordinary and for now, she couldn't see much harm in it: the food was good, and it got Dan Rydell through her door so…

"Hey," Abby said, "whatever works."

Dan just shook his head sadly, "Yeah, I guess—but come on, no mayo?"