Early in the morning, Ty pulled open the barn door so Amy and Merlin could walk out to the round pen. Both Ty and Amy were still sleepy-eyed, but ready to see if Merlin was willing to join-up. The horse had been behaving well as long as they walked him out of his stall before putting his food out for him, then putting him back in the stall and leaving him be while he ate. But while that was an option for the owner as well, Amy didn't want to make that hard for the man and his daughter, she wanted the horse to feel secure at all times. That was best for the owner and the horse.

"It's a beautiful morning", Ty commented as Amy walked Merlin to the pen.

"Yeah it is", she agreed, letting the horse loose after Ty had closed the gate. She sent Merlin to trot around the pen with few simple movements while Ty climbed up on the bars to watch what was happening with Amy and Merlin as she continued to make him move around the pen.

He hung his arms loosely over the bar and observed. "Let's see how he's feeling today", Ty said to himself as he watched the two of them.

They had ruled out any medical reasons for his behavior the night before, so Amy was relieved but also puzzled about what could possible be the reason for Merlin's strange behavior. Had it been a medical problem, they could have probably been able to fix it, but then again Amy didn't like knowing that the horse had some pain or disease weighing him down. The unfortunate thing with behavior problems was that they were hard to figure out and as Amy didn't have the complete background story for Merlin, it was going to be a task to figure out the root of the problem.

"That's a good boy", Amy murmured as Merlin reacted to her every movement just as she wanted and finally joined up like there was nothing to it. "Good job", she praised the horse, turning to face the gelding standing behind her.

Ty watched the scene smiling, thinking how seeing Amy join up with a horse never got old.

"I'm going to try massage him now just to see if feels tense when I touch him", Amy explained partly to Ty and partly to the horse so he would be aware where she was in case he wondered what she was going to do as he watched her reach out toward his neck and shoulders.

"He was pretty good when I checked him last night", Ty added. "Usually horses that feel threatened pull their heads up, shying away, or don't like letting someone pick up their feet, but... Merlin was a dream customer."

"That's what I'm hearing and seeing too", Amy replied, gently running her hand through the coat, her mind constantly ruling out possibilities that did not seem fit. "So what is it that's bothering you, huh?" she asked from the horse, even though she knew Merlin couldn't answer. "No one's trying to take away your food."

"You've given us a free pass, right?" Ty checked if Amy had actually moved on from her earlier theory. Amy glanced at him over Merlin's back, figuring he must have been talking about what she had told him last night in the barn. She was feeling like Ty was thinking of her as being ridiculous for her theory.

"I know it sounds stupid, since a lot of time has passed, and while I think the chances of us being the original problem are slim, I'm not completely willing to rule that out. If I've learned anything from watching Lou and Peter, is that parenting can be hard. Sometimes you think you're doing the right thing, but it doesn't go the way you planned", Amy replied, feeling sympathy for the couple in the middle of marital and parenting problems.

Ty cocked his head and looked at Amy. Where had that come from? They were working with Merlin and while he knew she saw herself as more than just a trainer with the horses, this was quite a leap - even for her.

"What does Lou and Peter's parenting have to do with Merlin? Or are we even talking about the horse at the moment?"

"We are", Amy confirmed. "I just... feel like in some way we were Merlin's parents back in the day, and to have him here now... I don't know - it feels like there's all this worry about making it as a parent in the air."

"Is that why you kept tossing and turning last night?" Ty asked. The bed in Amy's old bedroom wasn't big, so whenever Amy had turned over in the bed, Ty had bounced up and down with her. He knew she had not done it on purpose, but Ty had hardly gotten any sleep and was now running purely on the coffee he had drank - which made him even more cranky than usual. "You were thinking about Lou and Peter?"

The way Ty said his statement made Amy feel like she was guilty of something. "So what if I was? They are family", she snapped.

"But we have talked about this - a lot", Ty snapped back at her.

"I know you said that I should focus on my own life, but I can't", said a now very defensive Amy.

Even though she was many feet away, she could hear Ty sigh. The way he looked elsewhere for a moment, let her know that Ty was disappointed, and she couldn't understand why it was such a big deal to him.

"Can we just focus on Merlin now, please?" Amy tried to find a way out of Ty's lecture.

"I am not the one who changed the subject by bringing Lou and Peter into it", said Ty in a sarcastic tone. "Amy, I just don't understand why you insist of putting yourself into the middle of other people's messes", he expressed his point of view again.

Amy wasn't in the mood to talk about it, so in her usual way of not facing a problem, she turned her head away.

"We'll talk about it later", Amy said, this time with much firmer tone.

Ty shook his head.

"Will we? Because it seems like no matter how many times I try to tell you that you should stay out of it, you don't. It's like you're not even listening to me, so what's the use of talking?"

"I'm working right now, okay?" she responded, partly as an excuse but also because there was a real reason for her request. She didn't like to be agitated because Merlin could easily feed off it, and the point of the join-up and the massage was to calm him down and make him trust her, so her being upset would have just the opposite effect.

"Yeah, well I'm leaving for work soon, which means I'm gonna be away the whole evening and then when my shift's done, I'm going to go to bed, so when are we gonna talk about it exactly? Tomorrow?" Ty asked, again sarcastically.

He didn't like this hovering over his head through the whole day. There was an easy solution to this, but Amy wasn't willing to take it. When she would start minding her own business, she didn't have anything to stress about anything - simple as that.

"Oh, would you like me to come to the clinic while you're in the middle of a surgery to talk about this then?" Amy said, angrily. "Because that's exactly what this feels like to me now. I asked you to help me, not give me a lecture about how you think I should live my life. I'm sorry if I care about other people so much, but, you see, I don't think that makes me a bad person - as you apparently do."

"I'm not saying it makes you a bad person, Amy. I'm just saying that I see you stressing about things that you shouldn't be stressing about. The reason I'm telling you to stop is because I don't like seeing you so stressed when there's an option where you wouldn't have to stress about it so much", Ty explained himself. "I'm only thinking what's best for you."

"Or perhaps you are only thinking about you", Amy suggested. "You will never understand how I feel, you don't come from the same kind of family situation as I do. I actually want to help my family."

Ty was hurt for Amy using "the family card".

"That's not true, and you know it", replied Ty. He wanted to tell her about the time he had spread his father's ashes or the time he had given money to Lily's rehab, but the fact was, Amy knew all that, yet she was still claiming he didn't know how family worked. But that was not the point of this argument, anyway. They were fighting about something else and using the kind of weapons they knew would hurt the most.

"Well, Ty, it's my family. So when something's wrong with my family, something's wrong with me. I can't just act like I don't see or feel it. I need to deal with it, I need to help them", she said, walking toward Ty now.

"Why is that your job? Huh?"

Amy didn't understand his question. "Why not? If I can help, shouldn't I?"

"Are you helping?" Ty wanted to know if Amy really thought she was. "They are gonna be okay without you, Amy. Katie's home, she's taking this medication, and you told me that Lou and Peter are looking into getting help for Georgie. What's there for you to stress about? I feel like you're just looking for something to worry about when there's nothing there."

Amy didn't like the way Ty made her feel bad for caring about her own family, so she turned around and walked back to Merlin, to find solace from the horse when she wasn't getting it from her husband. She tried her best not to say something she might regret later. Not that she would know what to say anyway; even after years of arguing with Ty, she still didn't know how to end it in any other way than walking away from the situation. At some point, as usual, she shut down. She was tired of arguing, as it never seemed to lead to a solution and she just didn't want to talk about it anymore. It was as if she had the right the feel the way she felt and Ty didn't have a right to question it or challenge her.

As she had always said; talking was overrated.

"I'm just looking out for you, Amy", Ty tried one last time to communicate with his wife. She never turned around, but the tone of her voice told him all he needed to know.

"Yeah, well you don't have to. Just because I'm your wife now, doesn't mean I'm helpless. I can deal with this on my own." Her voice was shaky, and she tried her best to not to let it show. But it was no use, because Ty could hear it, loud and clear, and be began to realize just how upset his wife was.

"The thing is, you don't have to. That's the whole point of being of us married."

It seemed like Amy didn't need his help with anything anymore, so Ty stepped down from the fence, letting her have it her way - for now. He had made his opinion clear and if she wasn't willing to listen, so there was not much more he could do without making it worse.

"I'll be in the loft", Ty said as he stomped off towards the barn, "in case you need me."

But he wasn't counting too much on it.