Author's Note: I am ashamed of myself. Here I was completely stuck on this story, despairing of ever finishing it, and it took me fifteen minutes to rework my plot once I finally did it. blushes And not only that, but I didn't write a word of anything for three months. ducks and waves white flag I'm sorry! I'm sorry! But at least I have a plot I can get along with now. That's something, right?

Lengthy and extensive author's thanks at the end. Please, please, please enjoy.

She didn't know what'd instigated it, but something was different. Rainey was . . . cooperating.

Well, he was cooperating to a certain degree – and not a degree more – but it was something. He still wouldn't talk and his written communication was spotty at best, but he was consistently making eye contact with not only Toby and herself, but with the nurses and orderlies they ran into occasionally on his outings. He didn't – wouldn't – look at the other patients though.

"That's okay though. Other patients aren't going to help him," Carly confided to Bast who was purring contentedly on her lap. Mort's avoidance of the other patients went deeper than that, she was sure of it . . . Perhaps it's some version of denial. The sight of the other patients force him to confront that he is not so much different than they right now. And that would run parallel to his attempt to take down his mirror the week before last. . .

Carly groaned in frustration and softly banged her head against the back of the couch. She was supposed to be trying to relax. With a deep sigh, she got up and blew out the "serenity candles" that her soon-to-be sister-in-law had given her, and turned off the "Peaceful Reflections" CD she'd suggested. The one and only element of the whole "yin/naturalist/feng shui" kick that Penny was into that Carly happened to like was the bonsai tree. And she'd discovered that in college. That was the kind of plant that she could take care of. Well, those and cacti. She did not have a green thumb. So it was without a trace of guilt that Carly swept up the kindly-meant gifts and shoved them into a box in her closet, along with all the other kindly-meant that she'd gotten in the past few years. The box was getting rather full.

That closet is practically a graveyard for family presents. It was true. Being somewhat estranged from her family did have its drawback. The "estranged" bit meant that no one knew her well enough to get her something she'd really like – and vice versa - and the "somewhat" bit meant that no one in their entire family knew what to get anyone else. Sometimes Carly wished she had more friends if for no other reason than it'd be easier to re-gift.

"Coffee." It was hard to go wrong with coffee. Even if it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Before Carly could make it into the kitchen though, her doorbell rang.

That's odd, she thought as she stepped over her slow-moving cat – Bast liked company – I'm not expecting anyone. I didn't forget about some kind of wedding hoo-ha, did I? For a moment she simply stood in front of her door, wondering if it was her mother, and if it was, could she get away with pretending she wasn't home. But she decided that hiding was childish, and if things got really bad, she could always pretend to need to leave.

She opened the door –

"Are you Carly Beckham?" Too surprised to speak, Carly nodded at the man on her doorstep who was holding a box marked with the Hallmark Florist's logo. The man handed the box over, wished Carly a good day, and went back to his van.

What on earth is this? Carly wondered as she closed her door and carried the box to the kitchen table. It was about thirty inches long, and about a foot across; white and wrapped with a burgundy bow, it looked harmless. But there was no card, and Carly couldn't think of anyone who would want to send her flowers.

Her curiosity demanded that she open it right away. Her compulsive/addictive behavior demanded that cup of coffee first. Carly compromised by brewing herself a cup of decaf coffee – heavily spiked with creamer – before returning to the table.

Dried flowers? I can't even imagine who would send me living flowers. But a bouquet of dried flowers it was. An simply enormous bouquet that was going to have to be split between several different vases if she was going to keep it.

Carly identified sunflowers, red carnations, peonies, lilac, dahlias, fern, calla lilies, daffodils, and what she thought were primroses. Her nose picked up traces of honeysuckle, sage, fennel, and mint. And then there were other flowers and things that looked like small, flowering tree branches that she couldn't identify to save her life.

What am I going to do with this? Although she knew it probably wouldn't produce anything, Carly delicately searched through the dried stems and blossoms for some sort of card, or note. Who would send her something like this? And who would send her something like this and then not take credit for it?

When the doorbell sounded for the second time in under an hour, Carly was still engrossed in her mystery. "Come in," she called distractedly.

The door opened and closed, and then there was silence. She didn't notice. In fact, she didn't emerge from her brown study until she heard someone loudly clearing their throat. Automatically looking up to ask if something was wrong, Carly's look of distraction turned into a faint frown.

"You're the one who told me to come in."

"I didn't know it was you," Carly groused as she studied Lawley, who'd apparently made himself at home in her living room. The fact that Bast was twining around the man's ankles only made her mood more sour. "Why are you here?" Wasn't it bad enough that he'd made a weekly practice of tracking her down at work? Was she going to have to start avoiding her own home now?

As if he could read her thoughts, Lawley said, "You're an amazingly hard person to get a hold of. And I had some questions about your latest batch of reports that I was wondering if I could ask you." He held up a perfectly innocent manila folder as if it gave him a right to be invading her space.

"So? Are you suddenly unable to use a telephone?"

Lawley grinned, as if she'd said something precocious. "I've noticed that you've taken to screening your calls."

Carly blushed, but didn't quite back down. "Maybe you should have taken the hint," she muttered.

"Maybe," Lawley agreed mildly, "but I've got reports of my own due Monday morning, and I'd really to ask you my questions before I write up the briefs." When Carly continued to glare at him instead of asking him to leave, he said, "Your coffee smells good. I don't suppose you've got an extra cup."

Oooh . . . Carly's eyes narrowed imperceptively, but she got up and went into the kitchen. Only the tight reign on her behavior kept her from slamming cupboards and throwing filters around. And as a result of her restraint, she ended up with a cup of passable java. It wasn't quite steaming, but as far as she was concerned, that was still more than Lawley deserved.

When she emerged from the kitchen, she found Lawley standing over her dining room table, examining her botanical gift. "Looks like someone has an admirer," he commented, looking over his shoulder at her.

"If I do, it's news to me." She handed over his cup. Lawley took a sip, then shot her a look as he discovered the drink was only lukewarm.

Carly looked at him innocently. "Wouldn't want you to sue me if it was too hot."

He rolled his eyes, then turned back to the mound of dried flowers. "Obviously your admirer has an overstated opinion of your generosity."

Her first reaction was to prickle, but Carly shrugged his comment off. He got under her skin far too easily. It was time she put a stop it.

"Why do you say that?" she asked instead of snapping at him. This earned her a sideways glance of surprise – Spending time with Rainey certainly helps my understanding of body language! – then Lawley shrugged.

"The mint and fennel mean virtue and worthy of all praise respectively." He turned in time to catch Carly's surprised face; he chuckled. "Flowers have long held particular meanings, and I was quite a romantic in grad school. I bought a copy of 'The Language of Flowers,' and started sending out small posies. Mostly they just got laughed off, but . . ." He shrugged. "I still remember some. I could take a stab at what this means if you want."

"Alright." Carly took a seat on the corner of the table and crossed her arms.

With the gauntlet thrown down, Lawley observed her for a moment, then got to work. Carly watched as he bent down over the box, his lips moving as he tried to remember something he'd only taken half-seriously years before. When he was like this – i.e. not annoying or trying to annoy her – he was bearable. He almost reminded her of a librarian back at her old high school.

A few minutes later Lawley straightened and took a sip of his coffee. "Your man – well, I assume it's a man –" Carly made a face, "thinks that you're unsurpassed in purity, loveliness, virtue, strength, intellect, elegance, and dignity. His regard will never fade, but he will never tell you of it. He's sincere, but shy, and he finds you fascinating. That's about the long and short of it."

Carly wondered how much of that he'd just made up, but didn't ask. Instead she asked the suspicious question that was lurking behind her eyes. "You didn't send this, did you?"

"Me?" Lawley chuckled again. It was a nice enough sound. "No. For one thing, since all these flowers are dead, that changes the meanings. The only way to make any sense of them at all is to assume the sender intended the meanings to be the same as if they were alive. Why do you ask?"

Carly bushed again, but forged ahead. Just as she did in everything. "You're always asking me out for coffee –"

"Coffee. Check." Lawley held up his cup. "We can move on to bigger things now."

"See?" Carly asked in exasperation, hopping down from the table and moving into the living room. "You're always making covert passes at me."

The look on her guest's face said that he'd better get to work if his passes were merely covert, but he kept that observation to himself. "I take it you're ready to get to work."

"The sooner we do, the sooner you can leave." Carly smiled sweetly, although she knew he'd take the words the way she'd meant them.

"You're so mean to me," Lawley muttered, but he opened his file and pulled out a pen. "Can you give me any further insight into why Rainey might have been trying to take down his mirror?"

Carly found herself back at work on Monday morning feeling inexplicably optimistic. She'd made it through her weekly staff meeting with minimal amounts of acerbity, had made progress with a patient she was treating for agoraphobia, and was now working her way through a stack of phone messages. Currently she was on the phone with Mrs. Rainey.

"I'm not trying to tell you what you should do, Amy. You can come visit, or you can not come visit. It's not my place to say. What I can say is that a visit from you would not be harmful. Whether it'd be beneficial or not is a mystery. I've only just managed to get a relatively good read on Mort's behavior."

"I wish you'd make the decision for me," Amy fretted on the other side of the phone. "I've been putting off setting a wedding date, you know. It's driving Ted nuts. But I can't help but feel that I don't really have a right to get married unless Mort knows what's going on." She sighed; Carly could practically feel the other woman's indecision, even over the phone. "It just seems so very wrong. I went behind his back once, and had a hand in causing this mess. To go behind his back again . . ."

She fell silent, imagining the scenario. She and Ted got married. Mort finally snapped out of his voluntary seclusion. Would hearing that the woman he hadn't wanted to divorce was married push him back into his shell? Why is this so hard? I never wanted to hurt him. And if she decided to go visit him, would it help her in knowing her own mind when it came to setting a wedding date? Ted was getting impatient, and she couldn't blame him. He always wanted to have things right up front. He was always the one with the plan. He was the one who'd nagged her about telling Mort about their relationship. To ask for the divorce. He was very different than in her that respect.

"No. I don't think I'll come down today."

Carly closed her eyes and counted to ten. It was true that she was in a good mood, but for some reason, Amy was trying it. There was just something about the way that she was putting things off that got to her. I'm one to speak. Look how I treat my own family. But at least she didn't make a pretense that she was doing anything but stalling.

"May I make a suggestion, Amy?"

"Please." The feeling of relief made it through the line just as easily as the indecision had.

"I suggest that you come down. Just because you come to see him doesn't mean you have to be in the same room with him. I think that actually seeing the progress he's made will help take a load off your mind."

"That sounds a bit selfish."

Carly shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. "A lot of psychiatry is selfish in some way. We can't make anyone change. They have to be selfish enough to want to." Silence. "Today would be a good day to visit. Mort's been emotionally stable for several days. It would do you good to see him at his best."

Again there was silence, but Amy was the one to break it this time. "Alright. I should arrive some time after noon."

"Sounds good. I'll see you this afternoon."

Carly hung up and stretched in her seat, yawning. A veritable heat wave had moved in Saturday evening. For this part of Maine in mid-May, that meant highs in the mid-fifties. It felt warmer in the sun.

She glanced at the clock – it was late enough in the day to justify a break. She'd wander outside and find Todd. The old man was back on duty, but he was noticeably quieter than he'd been before Steve's death.

Just as Carly was climbing out of her chair, Toby came rushing to the entrance of the staff room. "Doc!" he panted. "You gotta come see this."

They were coming from all around him now. They? Was it "they" or merely "it?" He couldn't tell. The surround sound was making everything but his own racing heartbeat hard to hear.

((They're coming for you, they or it would whisper. You've been bad. See how you're locked up?))

No. He wasn't locked up. He could leave if he wanted. Mort glanced at the door. It wasn't locked . . . was it? No, he shook his head, no, he wasn't trapped. That doctor was always making him leave –

((Practice for the long walk, my friend.)))

Mort wandered in circles around his room, peering under table, bed, clothes in his closet each time he passed them. Nothing. Nothing anywhere. But what if something was there next time?

The pacing and circling continued.

((You've been bad. Very bad. And you know it. It's why you stay awake at night. You know what you'll see.))

True. So very true. The dull terror of what he might see himself do in his dreams kept Mort awake until his body threw him into a mindless, dreamless sleep.

((You're a dead man.))

Where are you, where are you, where are you?

((Go look in the mirror.))

With more than a hint of trepidation, Mort walked towards the bathroom, but he couldn't go in. Instead, he poked his head around the corner. The only thing in the mirror was his own wild yet blank face.

((That's me.))

No! Liar! Twirling around, Mort resumed his circuits around the room. Just like a goldfish.

((Goldfish go belly up.)) Now that he was directly talking back, the voice turned malicious. As if it hadn't wanted to waste the energy if he wasn't going to play along.

Shut the hell up.

((Puff puff, I'm the big bad wolf. Wanna light?))

I don't smoke.

((Yes you do.))

No I don't. I gave it up.

((Did you give up killing people too?))

Never did.

((You never gave it up?))

Never killed anyone! Mort growled. Never . . . I wouldn't. I won't. I can't.

((You would, you will, you can.))

Why should I listen to you? You're not even real.

((Real enough to have a real effect on you. Or do you always wander around like Bo Peep without her sheep?)) Mort picked up the biggest book on his shelf and dropped it on the floor, just to hear the noise. ((Oh, going to scare me away with loud sounds now? I don't think so.))

You can't think. You're not real. He picked up another book, held it above his head, and let it go. It made a louder sound. A sound that came from just one place.

((You think therefore I am.))

I don't sleep therefore you are. Was that it? What he merely having a mental meltdown? That didn't seem too bad.

((Not too bad at all. Just on the same level as a nuclear meltdown.))

Chernobyl's growing back.

((You're more destructive than that. You ruin everything.)) Cruelly, the sight and sound of Amy's screams and pleading eyes was shoved to the forefront of his mental ticker tape. ((Look at that. That's going to leave a scar that Mederma won't help.))

Shut up!!! The book slammed into the wall this time, causing the last two books to fall off their shelf.

((Make me.))

Ah-ha! He could place the voice this time! It came from behind the window shade. Like a maniac he ran across the room and tore down the window shade to reveal . . .

Through his own reflection, Mort was entranced by the site of a garden coming to life.

"I found him like this when I came into the room," Toby said quietly. Carly stood at his side, and they both stood in the open doorway to Rainey's room. Their patient stood with his back to them, seemingly trapped by the sight of the outdoors.

"Just like this?" Carly asked softly, taking note of the pile of books on the floor to her right and the tipped over table to her left.

"He hasn't moved a muscle," Toby confirmed.

The pair stood in the doorway for several minutes, simply observing their patient. Carly wanted all the insight she could get before she risked talking to Rainey. If she had to hazard a guess by the state of his room alone, she'd say that he'd had some kind of panic attack. She didn't think that he'd even meant to end up in front of an open window. And if that was the case, then that would explain why he was so stock still. It'd also go a long way in supporting her diagnoses of psychotic depression; patients suffering from that often stood still – or laid still, or sat still, etc. – for long periods of time.

When she deemed that enough time had passed, Carly instructed Toby to quietly go through the room. Not to clean it – if Mort turned around and his room was clean when he didn't remember it being that way, it could set off another attack – but to look for anything he may have written during the frenzy he'd destroyed his room in. Again, it was a search for information.

After several minutes of searching though, they had turned up a grand total of bupkis. Carly motioned for Toby to stand back, but to be ready. She was going to try to talk to Mort.

Her approach was slow and smooth. She didn't want to just appear next to him; she wanted him to be aware of her approach, but didn't exactly want to draw his attention to her. Not yet.

One…two…three…four… Silently, Carly counted to a hundred and fifty. In her experience, that was long enough for the subconscious to become aware of the surroundings. So hopefully, she thought as she reached out to touch his arm, he's not about to jump out of his skin.

For all her care and concern, Mort's reaction was almost disappointed. He didn't even seem to notice that she was there, or that she'd just touched him.

If he wants to play hardball, I can play hardball, she thought. There was a snort from Toby as she pursed her hips and narrowed her eyes. Carly ignored him, but relaxed her face anyway. It wouldn't do for Rainey to think she was upset with him, because she wasn't. She just wanted to get his attention.

"Mort," she called quietly. "Mort, what are you looking at?" He didn't answer, didn't shrug, didn't acknowledge her in any way. Glancing at his face, Carly turned her gaze to the window as well, taking in the buzz of activity below her. Funny, she'd never noticed that Rainey's room looked out on the patient's garden.

"How are you feeling?" Carly unobtrusively slipped her fingers around his wrist to measure his pulse; it was quick, but not racing. His skin was cool, but not clammy. Alright, he's not in shock. One theory down, who knows how many to go. She let him go.

"Mort, what do you see outside. Can you tell me?" Actually getting an answer was lower on her list of priorities now, so she was pleasantly surprised when Mort twitched his head in her direction. The move could have been caused by a hundred different things, but he was moving. He was conscious of something.

((I don't know if you've noticed, but your little nurse is hot.))

Doctor. Not a nurse. Doctor.

((Wow . . . I didn't know you'd even noticed her. What's her name?))

The voice was coming from outside. The urge to go find it was strong . . . but so was the urge to stay in the safety of the indoors.

((Wimp.))

"Mort . . . ?"

Why was the woman talking like that? It annoyed him when Amy talked like that. She wasn't Amy.

((We've confirmed that. What's her name?)) Mort's eyes darted back and forth and his head twitch as he thought that perhaps – perhaps – he'd seen something out of the corner of his eye. But there was nothing, and the voice didn't – wouldn't – shut up.

((I don't know who's more pathetic. You, or her. Maybe I'll tell her you're not home. You'd like that, wouldn't you?))

Something – had it looked like a man? – slammed into the window.

Mort stumbled back; as he fell, he dragged the doctor with him. He recovered himself much before anyone else could though, and was out of the room, running down the hall before he knew what he was doing.

He was going to find the voice, he realized.

And when he did, he was going to kill it.

Carly sat on her ass in dumbfounded shock as Mort Rainey, a man she'd never seen move at any pace faster than a slow shuffle, tore out of his room. Before she could move past amazement at what she was seeing, Toby hauled her to her feet and then they were both running down the hall after their patient. Absently, Carly was thankful for the sneakers on her feet even as she wished that Mort had been wearing his slippers when he'd left his room. It'd make it easier to catch him.

It's a good thing I go to the gym, she thought wryly as she waved off a security guard who was moving in to intercept Rainey. After so many months of laying and sitting around, the other man wasn't in any kind of shape to outrun her, not to mention Toby. No, she wanted to see the final product of what was developing. Why did Mort want to go outside? What was it about that bit of falling hardware from his mangled shades that had caused him to do this? Had it been the crash of that metal rod, or was it simply the impetus that was making him act on a desire to be outdoors? Carly wanted answers to those questions.

Unfortunately, Rainey wasn't so well acquainted to the ward that he knew how to get outside. His sprint led him to a dead end in a corridor without windows. He stopped and started looking around, his eyes and hair wild.

They slowed a dozen or so yards from them. Carly had an absurd vision of her and Toby as horse wranglers trying to urge a particularly spooked animal.

"It's alright, Mort," she tried to soothe, slowly coming towards him. "There's nothing to be scared of. Is that what happened? Did the loud noise scare you? Or do you want to go out? We'll go outside. Is that what you want? To go outside?" She was close enough to touch him, and touch him she did. It was just a soft brush of her fingers against his arm like she'd done not so many minutes ago, but this time it produced results. Mort fixed her with a penetrating gaze that made her freeze.

He's on the edge of . . . of . . . She wasn't sure what the word was, but she knew she recognized the emotion.

"Outside?" Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Umph . . ." The sound was breathy, rough and drawn-out with a hissy consonant that she wasn't quite able to identify. But that's not what she cared about.

He'd made a noise.

He'd . . . vocalized himself.

This was what she was working for.

"Outside?" she asked again, wanting to acknowledge and reward his effort in some way.

Mort ran his fingers through his hair several times, seemingly impatient and confused, but he pushed past her, quickly walking down the hall.

"Just think of what would have happened if he'd tried to go out a fire escape," Toby murmured to her as she joined him. Carly threw him a bemused look as the moved up to flank Rainey. Apparently he did was to go outside.

"It was amazing, Ted!" Amy Rainey enthused as her fiancé passed her the peas across the dinner table. Due to her visit to Briar Ridge, she'd gotten home late and instead of cooking, Ted had ordered out from Boston Market. "I got there, and an orderly took me behind the building . . . and there he was! Outside."

"So you've said, Amy." If Ted sounded somewhat less enthusiastic than she did, Amy didn't notice. She was too caught up by what she'd seen.

"You ought to see the gardens they've got behind that hideous building. They're enormous. And there's theme gardens, and fountains, and paths, and a artificial lake . . ." She shook her head in wonder. "Dr. Beckham told me that the one of the smaller gardens is tended entirely by patients. And there was Mort, in the midst of it all. I didn't think I'd ever see him like that again. She said that maybe she could get Mort to take an interest in it."

"How nice." Ted's voice was dry. Amy ignored him.

"Not that he was back to normal." She shook her head, buttered a biscuit, and never noticed that she was dominating the conversation. "He seemed so aware of what was going on around him, but I don't think he even once noticed me."

"The last time he noticed you, he tried to put a screwdriver through you," her lover muttered.

She glared at him. "Dr. Beckham thinks that was an isolated event. She said that now that she's had time to think things over, that Mort has probably suffered from some form of depression for most of his adult life, and that it has probably turned into psychotic depression –"

"How comforting."

Amy glared at him across the table this time. "Which means that he was probably having a hallucination and therefore didn't know what he was doing. She also said –"

"I don't care what she said, Amy. The man is dangerous. How can you take her seriously when she coddles criminals for a living?"

"What is wrong with you tonight?" Amy asked in exasperation. "I have all this good news, and –"

"And you're treating this woman like she's some kind of miracle worker. She's not. She's got a hundred cabinets full of drugs to produce the results she wants. She could make him swear that he's a pink hippo of that's what she wanted."

"You're wrong," Amy said heatedly. "Mort's on less medications now than he was when that other doctor was taking care of him."

"So she's found a better combination. That doesn't mean anything, Amy. He's still dangerous and I don't want you around him. Especially not where he's not under control."

"And what would you call 'under control,' Ted? Having Mort strapped to a hospital bed, drugged completely out of his mind? Or do you prefer lobotomies? They'd ever so much more cost effective."

"I can't believe –"

"I can't believe we're having this conversation." Throwing her napkin down, Amy got up from the table. "I have some invoices to fill. I'll eat later."

Ted watched Amy storm off, an unreadable look in his eyes. Then he sighed, and picked up the dishes. Obviously Amy wasn't going to clean up tonight.

Author's Thanks: Thank you to everyone who's reading this now. I'm glad that you didn't give up on me. Thanks to everyone who reviewed 'Post Script' and 'Days' and included a short message about how I needed to get my butt in gear on 'FS.' This chapter is dedicated to all of you, otherwise I never would have felt guilty enough to wrestle with the plot line.

My individual thanks go to deep breath . . . Stahlfan125 (I still wonder if Toby and Mort really tied in that game, or if Toby gave up. :P He's not telling.); Dawnie-7 (I love the cartoons/TV shows/movies where someone asks for a volunteer for something particularly dangerous, and the guy that "volunteers" is the guy who wasn't paying enough attention to know that everyone behind/beside him took a step back. ); A Cheerful Reader (I don't know a lot about psych wards, but I know some people who worked in the special ed. class in high school, and they said everyone in there had a schedule, whether they needed it or not.); LadySparrowJack (No more burrowing for Mort. He's more fun to write when he's running around and doing crazy things. I'm glad you liked my little OUATIM duo there.); Savvy TBird (Details are our friends, and Mort is hot. :P ); CaptainJackSparrowsGirl (If you were feeling deprived before, I can only imagine how you're feeling now. :P); Lynx (No, the speech was supposed to make people laugh. I certainly enjoyed it. Maybe we're both evil. . I don't like forward progress. It's too much like cutting a sandwich down the middle. I'm a diagonal girl. :P Double story lines are fun for no other reason that I can switch back and forth between them when I start to get bored. Isn't that horrible?); normal human being (I always have to stop 'there,' yes. I like cliffhangers. Cliffhangers are our friends. Don't worry about Michael. He's going to make an appearance in the next chapter. Crowbars aren't allowed until I say they are.); butterflywings32 (I hate it when people update right before they go to bed, so you don't find out about it until the next morning when you wake up…unless you live like in England or something. thinks about that ); Depp-Luver49 (I don't usually let readers into my fics. It's happened exactly twice, I think, and both in the same chapter of 'More Than Eyes.'); Nithke (A self-sustaining alternate universe? I'm obviously watching way too much Star Trek because my mind wants to turn that into the punch line of a joke involving self-sealing stembolts and alternate universes. scratches head Lawley is hot. I should post the little graphic I made for this fic. I'll do that in my bio. Kettle Korn is good. Can I have some?); Blue Autumn Sky (That's some good imagery of Mort and his non-existent yet annoyingly chatterish double. I must say that that did inspire a bit of this chapter.); HumiliatedGrape (Law and Order is very good. Great show. You're right, Mort will come around eventually – or is it stop going around? – and it will be a fight. I like fights. :P ); BraveSymbol (Was there enough frenzified Mort in this chapter, SS? . And if you're missing Lawley, than I think I'm doing a good job of things.); pandagal (Mort is kinda like a turtle, and not the good, caramel and chocolate kind. :P Mort's a writer at heart, which is why I've got him writing so much. It fascinates me for some reason. That, and I think I may be heavily influenced by Garth Nix's Lirael. She did a lot of writing too.); Pirate Rhi (I haven't updated in awhile, but I think you're still ahead – behind? – in lag between reviews. As in it takes me longer to update than it does you to review. I think that's what I mean at least. I'm very glad that everyone is remaining in character. What's worst for me when reading a fic is to have someone be consistently in character for a few chapters, and then they suddenly do something inexplicable. That or the entire story progresses with everyone being just a tiny bit out of character.); SparrowLover (Inner demons are fun. Lots and lots of fun. I give all my characters demons.); Merrie (How could Mort's angel do anything but write him very well? :P And I don't think you're one to nag about quick updates, missy. .); CleopatraVII (The story is going very…very…very…slooooowly. sigh But I hope it's still enjoyable and a nice, high quality fic. nods); Spoofmaster (Ooo…I like being on author alerts. :P I hope things are still nice and spiffy.); Isabela Pucini (Plagiarism is all well and good until someone gets their eyes poked out…oops, wrong 'verse. :P Tragedy…drama…what are these things? Certainly I don't write anything but enjoyable fluff. :P I like drama. It keeps things interesting…as long as I don't have to be involved.); Kitty Kisser (I hope you caught my reference to you up above. points to the beginning of the thanks I hope this chapter satisfied you for the time being.); Wayward Slinky (I think I prefer it when it takes people a long time to catch up. Then they don't notice how long I'm going between updates. . I think Mort would dislike Carly – she's making him do stuff he doesn't want to do. Kinda like a parent. We dislike them at times, but not really.); Euterpe (Thank you so much for your kind complements. And thank you for saying that Tess pissed you now and then. When I caught myself beginning to get offended, I was able to laugh at myself. . I can see how she can get on some people's nerves. She just doesn't get on mine because she's my baby. :P Thanks for the promise of constructive criticism. It's always appreciated.); JohnnyDEPPmaniac (I certainly hope you didn't need this story to survive, 'cause then you'd be dead by now.); Logical Ghost (There's not a lot of variety in the female-OC-meets-Mort category, now is there? And what would Mort be about the legion of little things that push him over the edge? Mort actually was reading over Carly's shoulder when she wrote her little short story, but he expanded on it.)

Author's Note 2: I added links to story graphics in my bio section here on