Has anyone seen Oneechan? I'm getting worried… *frets*

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Anne went off to work, where she was promptly snowed under by problems that had arisen overnight. It was more than merely difficult to think of work. While she tried to concentrate on linkage problems and soldering options, her mind kept drifting to last night, or to what she knew she needed to do tonight. One could tell which preyed most heavily on her mind by taking in either the goofy grin or the pensive frown plastered on her face. But she did try to concentrate on the pressing troubles that had been brought to her, and she did manage to make some progress.

Finally working her way through the linkage problem, she shoved the soldering one to the edge of her desk and thoughtfully watched as it slowly toppled into her trashcan. Wishing that she could leave it there but knowing that wasn't an option, she stood up and fished it out, the looked at the clock and decided that it would not be a terrible thing if she left for lunch a few minutes early.

She stood and stretched, listening to her spine pop as she yawned, waking up from the enforced tedium of sitting at a desk. She wondered once more, as she opened the door and took in the office and all its chaos, just how she had ended up with a desk job. She had always shunned anything that took her away from the action, that kept her off the edge between life and death. And now look at her, comfortably far away from the edge she had courted. Her former self would have looked at this life and shuddered in horror, but she had to admit that it had its points.

Maybe she was just getting old. Aside from a week ago, the memory last time her pulse had pounded in her ears, fueled by adrenalin and controlled panic, had faded. She was pleased with her performance last week, felt that even though she had moved away from the line that she had spent so many years walking that she hadn't lost that talent that had allowed her to follow it for so long.

She meandered over to where Effie commanded and waited for her friend to extract herself from her own personal set of disasters, and then the two set off for lunch.

"So, did you two make up?" she asked as they walked out of the building. "That smug look in your eyes is a good hint, but I want to hear all the juicy details."

"Who says the details are juicy?" Anne shot back, then grinned. "They aren't really."

"What, no fevered apology, no beating his breast with pleas to take you back? No night of grand passion to make the earth move and the stars sing? And you still took him back?"

Anne laughed. "An apology, which I was shocked to hear, but no beating of the breast. He did climb in through my bedroom window, though, after I had gone to bed."

"That's romantic! Or scary, if he's a stalker."

"We'll go with romantic."

"So, then the night of grand passion?"

"Nope. We were in Mark's house, and neither of us are exhibitionists. You know how thin the walls are."

"Pooh."

"I did get to sleep in his arms all night long, though."

Effie closed her eyes and sighed happily, then opened them before she walked into a wall. "That's sweet, at least. He gets points for sweet."

"Indeed." They exited the building and walked past the square, deciding to go to their favorite little Italian bistro. Effie wheedled every last detail out of Anne, then declared herself satisfied, but not overwhelmed, by Knives' behavior.

After sitting and ordering, lasagna for Anne and fettuccine alfredo for Effie, the normally hyper woman's face grew serious.

"I think I need to learn how to use this talent thing I have."

Anne mirrored her serious mien, letting the echoes of last night's euphoria fade for the moment. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, you say I have it. And mentally, I can accept that I do. But there's still the feeling deep in the pit of my stomach that tells me that it's wrong. Evil, almost, to be able to do things that other people can't. But then I look at Mark and see how he can walk now, and that scared part of me just seems so selfish. If I could do that, and allow fear to let other people suffer, well, that's just wrong."

"You don't learn healing right away. And I can't promise that you will ever be able to. Healing is not an easy thing to do; you need to be very precise, very careful, and have complete control over what is going on. You may be powerful enough to learn, but that's no guarantee that you'll be able to continue."

"But I can try, right? If I fail, well, that's no big deal," she lied, but both let the lie pass. "At least I will have tried. I can feel better if I tried.

"Just look around, Anne. There are no real surgeons on Gunsmoke, not anymore. We used to live in a society that nearly conquered death, where people who lived into a second century were more common than those who didn't, but not now. Now you're old at sixty, ancient at seventy, and eighty is almost unheard of. Women are dying in childbirth in increasing numbers, children dying before they turn two because of diseases that took nothing to cure one hundred years ago. A pill, a spray, a shot and they were gone, but we ran out of those supplies and now people die."

Anne nodded. "I know the numbers."

"And you're concerned with the plants, which is well and good and very rational of you. But someone needs to look out for the rest of the planet."

"And you think that should be you."

"I don't see anyone else to take up the job."

Anne reached over and took her friend's hand.