A/N: I'm so sorry that I haven't updated in ages! Something had to give for me to survive life, and sadly my fics and my Gender in Pop Culture Class (which is one where you go at your own pace, so it wasn't exactly a huge deal) had to be put on the shelf for things with less permeable due dates. It's spring break for me, though, and so I've decided to try and catch up!

Also, two of the names in this piece are a reference to another musical (one that I was obsessed with in high school and still might write a fic for now, despite its small fandom). It's a little older, so I guess I wanna see how many "youngsters" know about it. I would tell you how old, but that would possibly give it away more than I fear I already have! If you get in right in the comments or send it to me via a message of some sort, I will write you a fic or your choice. Or maybe a list of headcanons or I'll like send you a bouquet or something. Whatever works.

Basically, this is me being granny-Bri, sitting on my porch in a rocker and being like, "In my day, we didn't have no 'Ever Handsome' or 'Bee Moore Hill.' We had musicals that violent ripped your heart out and shoved them right back in crooked. We had no closure! Musicals didn't give us no closure back then! You children don't know what heartbreak is."

Btw, I don't think that Ever Handsome- er, Evan Hansen is not heartbreaking, but the musicals that I'm directly thinking of didn't feel (to me) as if they gave us as much closure as this one did.

Anyway! Enjoy and I hope you guys have a lovely week/few days, depending on if I want to update early again to catch up!

The seat underneath Evan was hard and yet again, he desperately wanted out of a situation.

"Hello, Evan. I'm Reyna Madden and I'm going to be your social worker for the time you spend here. If you have any questions or need help finding resources for when you're released, I'm your girl. Just come and talk to me anytime!" Reyna was wearing nice clothes, just like the lady in the TV room earlier. She had shoulder-length auburn hair and black glasses. For some reason, this made Evan uneasy, and he picked at the stupid baggy blue scrubs he had on. At least the nurses had on scrubs, too, and weren't so obvious about their position of power.

Instead of addressing his discomfort, Evan merely looked down at his hands.

Next to him at a desk was a woman in her fifties. Her black-and-gray hair was pulled back into a long ponytail and she was dressed in a long ruffled brown skirt and a matching cream top. Around her shoulders, she had a green jacket.

She made him feel safer. Maybe it was because her outfit was like that of one of his favorite teachers; perhaps it was because she didn't seem so blatantly fake. How knew? Whatever it was, he was glad that he was sitting closer to her than the social worker.

"Hello," the desk lady said, turning to him. "I'm Dr. Goodman. I'm the psychiatrist here and we'll just be gathering a little information from you. I know that you took a tremendous amount of time last night answering one of our staff member's questions, but I'm afraid we have to ask some more. It won't be the same, though. We'll be asking you to go into more detail, okay?"

Evan nodded hesitantly.

Dr. Goodman took this as her cue to begin. "Alright. Can you tell me why you're here?"

Evan refused to make eye contact and instead stared at the place where the wall and carpet met. "Because I wanted to die."

"Can you tell me what made you feel that way?"

"No. I just... I just wanted to disappear and I knew that I'd do something to make that happen if I didn't tell someone and so I told my mom. And then Mom told my doctor and then they both talked to me and then I was taken to the ER and then here." He let the words just tumble out of his mouth, wanting to get this done as soon as physically possible.

"And what did you think about coming to get help like this?" Dr. Goodman asked, scribbling notes rapidly. A few feet away, Ms. Madden was, too.

"I dunno. I just kind of felt numb, like I'm starting to now. Resigned, maybe."

"Okay. It says here that you have anxiety and that you're proscribed Buspar for it?" Dr. Goodman pointed to the screen of her computer.

"Mhm."

"We're going to up that and add an antidepressant to that as well. Have you ever been on a mood stabilizer?"

Evan shook his head.

"Okay, well we're going to add that, too. How are you sleeping? Staying up a lot at night when you don't want to?"

"Not too much, no."

Dr. Goodman nodded. "Okay. Okay, great. Any trauma?"

Evan blinked. "Like-like what?"

"Sexual assault, physical assault, abuse -emotional or physical - neglect..."

Evan went to shake his head but then stopped. "I mean. My dad wasn't a nice man, I guess. I - um. I don't remember because I was pretty young, but. I guess he used to yell at me a lot? Mom said he would also act like nothing I did - or that she did - was good enough or important. He'd - um - mock me and stuff."

Dr. Goodman gave a small hmm sound. "Is your father still around?"

Evan took a long moment, breathing in and then out. "No. He-um- he l-l-left when I was six years old."

"And it's just you and your mom?"

"Yeah. She works really hard and is taking night class. Even though she's really busy, she is - she is - she is a good mom." Evan squeezed his eyes shut. The small room was getting a little hot and he kind of wanted to lay down.

"We're almost done, then you can go and do whatever you want, okay?"

Without opening his eyes, Evan just made a small noise to confirm.

"You're okay, sweetheart," he heard Ms. Madden say. "Do you need some ice water?"

Evan made the same noise as before. Although he didn't exactly trust her or her almost-fake chipper attitude, he decided if she was offering help, he would take it.

He heard her leave and opened his eyes a bit when the woman came back with the cup. A few moments later, Evan almost had the water drained and was crunching on ice cubes. They were weird and almost soft. He hadn't every had this kind before and wondered if ice was like this at every hospital.

"Feeling any better?" Dr. Gooden asked.

Evan nodded, noticing that his cheeks didn't feel quite so hot anymore.

"Okay. We're nearly done, alright? I just need to let you know what's going on with your meds. We've upped your buspar. I'm also going to add sertraline for depression and lamictal as a mood stabilizer. They should give those to you tonight. I also added garden privileges so they you can go outside when the weather isn't bad. It can be a really calming place."

Evan started to shift towards the edge of his seat, impatient to be out of the room. He eyed her as if asking permission to leave.

"Go ahead," the doctor said. "We'll talk again tomorrow, okay?"

Evan nodded, hurrying to get back into the day room. It was much cooler out there and he took a moment, heading to the window. Outside was a huge garden that was still vibrant in the early October sunlight. He'd be allowed to go out there soon. There was a huge fence at the edge of the lawn and it seemed to overlook another wing of the hospital.

After staring at the flowers and

the trees in the distance, he finally turned and started to head over to the phone. He planned on calling his mother and making sure that she was okay. However, as he passed one of the tables, he noticed Connor's drawing. It was different now; written on the bottom in beautiful cursive, someone had added, Can't see the forest for the trees.