Sabrina let out a groan and straightened her spine, leaning back and rubbing her stomach as she did so in a vain attempt to push down the nausea that had been threatening to overwhelm her ever since she woke up that morning. Her coffee had come up in minutes, as had her muffin. She had thought it was over when she got ready for work… but it had come back with a vengeance the moment she stepped through the portal. Forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply, she released her frustration and annoyance into the atmosphere, emptying herself of her own emotions. In their place, she could feel the contentment from the baby, growing more distinctive and pronounced every day. Leaning on the bathroom counter, she sighed, looking downward. "You know, one of these days you're going to have a tummy ache, and I'm going to tell you it's karma for all the times you made me throw up!" she announced, raising an eyebrow.

"It is not the baby's fault," Nooroo pointed out, flitting around her neck from where he had been holding her hair out of her face, his eyes wide.

Sabrina chuckled wanly and shook her head. "Yeah, I know," she grumbled. "But still…" She clamped her mouth shut and squeezed her eyes closed, riding out another wave of nausea, trying to breathe through it. "Ohhh…" Her mother had warned her that it would get worse before it got better, but she hadn't wanted to believe her. This morning, however…

"It will pass soon enough," Nooroo consoled her, patting her cheek sympathetically.

"For today, or for good?" Sabrina gave him a dubious look.

"Both?" Nooroo frowned. "Or at least it did not last more than a week or two past this for any of my previous holders."

"A week or two?" Sabrina blinked, staring at him in horror. She leaned back, resting the back of her head on the counter, and closed her eyes. "Just kill me n–" She froze, her eyes shooting wide open as two sets of agitated emotions appeared on the building's second floor and started down the hallway, barely pausing as they passed Delphine's apartment. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, Sabrina pushed herself up off the floor and wiped her pant legs before washing her hands, splashing water in her face and rinsing out her mouth as she did so. Letting out a calming breath, she looked up at her reflection, frowning at the less-than-professional appearance. Finally, she dried her hands and patted her face dry, just as the first knock came on the door. She sighed. "Be there in a minute!"

Two minutes later, her makeup touched up, Sabrina stepped out of the bathroom, crossed the waiting room area, and pulled the door open to find Officer Luron standing in the doorway and looking furtively up and down the hallway. His eyes widened in surprise on seeing Sabrina, matching the nervousness on his fiancée's face next to him. Sabrina smiled warmly and stepped back, waving them inside. "Hello, Ray, Delphine," she greeted them with a nod. "I take it you came to see me?"

Ray coughed nervously. "Um… yes," he agreed, nodding. "Delphine wanted–" Delphine's emotions shifted to frustration, and she pursed her lips. Ray cleared his throat, his cheeks losing some of their color "–I mean, we decided that it would be good to see someone. Your dad suggested we come here, so…"

Sabrina hummed. "I'm glad you came," she told them, gesturing down the hall in the direction of her counseling room. "Counseling is always a good idea – and not just when you think you might need it!"

Delphine sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping as she stepped inside and looked around the waiting area. "I wish we didn't need to be here," she began, quirking an eyebrow at Sabrina. "But…" She sighed heavily. "I just don't know what the problem is lately."

Nodding sympathetically, Sabrina shut the door and moved toward the kitchenette. "Then it's a good thing you came to me! We'll figure out what's happening together. Would you like some tea?" she asked, placing her kettle on the stove. "I didn't get a chance to make any for myself yet, and I find that herbal tea always helps calm my stomach."

Delphine's eyes widened. "Oh? Is your stomach…?"

Sabrina waved her hand dismissively. "It's nothing. I'm sure it's passed now."

"Um… tea sounds nice," Delphine agreed. Ray shook his head.

Shrugging, Sabrina bustled around the kitchenette, getting the tea out and poured. Handing a cup to Delphine, she sipped on the other cup and settled into her accustomed chair in the counseling room, waving the other two toward the seats around the small coffee table. "So, why don't you tell me what's been happening lately, and we can start from there?" Sabrina suggested, sipping pensively, leaning forward in her seat with her eyes fixed on Delphine and Ray. She let out a slow breath, willing her stomach to settle "I can see that you are feeling somewhat anxious," she told Delphine.

Delphine scoffed, shaking her head ruefully. "That's an understatement! I haven't been able to sleep right for the last two months!"

"Oh?" Sabrina furrowed her brows, making a mental note. "'Two months'… That would be… since the Tarasque was defeated?" Her stomach churned.

Delphine nodded, looking down at her hands. "Now, every time I close my eyes, I see Ray, just the way he was when they took me down to see him in the lab, his hand a ruined mess, hardly moving, his arm just covered in blood." She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut. "Sometimes, it's so real I can almost hear Élodie, trying to comfort me and tell me that he will be okay. I almost smell the antiseptic of the lab."

"I'm okay, babe," Ray assured her, holding his hand up to her cheek. She leaned into the touch, sniffling. "I promise, it's going to be okay."

Delphine let out a breath, the anxiety and fear in her emotions rising. "Every time I close my eyes, that's what I see. And every day, I expect to get the call again, that he's been hurt again – this time worse."

Sabrina nodded slowly. "So you feel anxious and worried about Ray, because he's already gotten hurt once and you can't get it out of your mind that it could happen again?"

"I'm not going to get hurt again," he promised, his emotions turning to guilt. "I–"

"But how can you know!?" Delphine demanded, cutting him off abruptly, clenching her jaw, her eyes narrowed as a surge of anger invaded her emotions. "How can you know that you won't get hurt again? Last time, you lost your hand; what will it be next time?"

Ray took her hand in his and held them up, intertwining their fingers. "See? You can hardly tell that it's not real."

Her mouth set in a thin line. "I can tell. But that's not the point: I don't want to lose you. I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I don't want to get hurt," he replied earnestly. "But I can't just turn it off."

"I know." She sighed heavily. "And that's what I love about you: you want to help people, you want to do the right thing. I wouldn't change that for anything. But… I'm still worried. And I don't know how to not worry anymore."

"I know how you feel," he began, as a spike of anger shot through Delphine.

Sabrina cleared her throat, interrupted Delphine just as she opened her mouth to respond. "Ray," Sabrina began, arching an eyebrow, "do you have a fiancé, or a sibling, or a parent, who is a police officer?"

He frowned. "No…"

"In the military? Fire? First responder? Someone who puts their life on the line regularly?"

"No." He shook his head.

"Then you can't really know what Delphine is feeling."

Ray's mouth opened and closed a couple times, and the looked away, embarrassment taking over his emotions.

Sabrina gave him a sympathetic smile. "I understand how much you want to connect, how much you want to make Delphine feel better. But saying that has the potential to trivialize what she is feeling."

"Oh." He grimaced, looking up at Delphine and squeezing her hand. "I'm sorry. I… I didn't mean it like that."

After a pause, she nodded slowly. "It's okay. I… I knew you meant it differently." She swallowed anxiously, looking away.

Sabrina watched them for a long moment, as Delphine looked down at her feet, anxiety and fear warring for dominance in her emotions, while Ray's guilt and concern increased. Finally, Sabrina let out a breath, drawing their attention back to her. "Ray," she asked, "would you step out into the waiting area for a few minutes? I think it might help for us to talk alone, woman to woman – just for now. I'll let you know when to come in again."

Ray shrugged, confusion appearing in his emotions. "Okay, I can do that."

The moment the door closed, Sabrina leaned forward, studying Delphine closely. "I can tell that this is something that's been on your mind for a while. Even before the Tarasque, I think?"

Delphine cocked her head, furrowing her brows suspiciously. "I did talk about it with your mom a few months ago… Did she say something?"

Sabrina shook her head. "My mom wouldn't tell me what you discussed with her. Just like I won't tell anyone what we talk about – or even that you saw me for counseling. When we're done it might be helpful for Ray to know some of this, but I will leave it up to you to decide when and how much to tell him."

Delphine nodded slowly, relaxing the slightest bit. "Okay," she agreed. "So…"

Sabrina hummed. "Let's start from your sleeping," she decided. "You said that you've been dreaming about Ray getting hurt, and that it has been making it difficult for you to sleep."

Delphine nodded. "It isn't always the same dream, but it always has the same result: I wake up and have a hard time falling asleep again."

"Is this something entirely new since the Heroes stopped the Tarasque, or had you experienced it prior?"

Delphine furrowed her brows in thought. "Not entirely new…" she answered slowly. "I'd had a few nightmares before then, but not nearly as regularly as they have been since. And before, none of them left me unable to fall asleep again afterward." She laughed humorlessly. "Actually, ironically, the six weeks between when Ray got hurt and when he went to fight the Tarasque in Tarascon I didn't have a single nightmare – I suppose I didn't really have the time or energy for them." She frowned. "But now I do have the time for it, I guess."

"I understand – in a way at least – what it's like: seeing someone you love hurt in the line of duty," Sabrina told her, stretching here senses out in the direction of the apartment, where she could sense Max, his emotions a mix of intense concentration and excitement. "I know how terrifying it is to feel helpless and powerless, watching something you can't control threaten to kill someone you love."

"I just… I don't know how much longer I can handle this," Delpine responded, sniffling and shaking her head. "I'm just so tired…"

Sabrina hummed pensively. "This is not an easy job that Ray is in," she began. "He can get hurt – we all know how much of a possibility that is. But that risk was so much greater three months ago against the Tarasque. There is still the danger, of course, but it is far less now than it had been. And I think that you know that." Delphine nodded slowly. "But unfortunately, knowing and accepting are two different things. I think it will happen – the acceptance, I mean. And it may take a few weeks – possibly even longer – until the stress and trauma of what happened abates. But I do still think it will. And when that happens, the nightmares may even cease. But until then, how much is this affecting your sleeping habits? Are you able to sleep more than four hours a night? Six?"

Delphine furrowed her brows in thought. "Maybe four? Sometimes it's been less, but I think that's the average."

Sabrina nodded, pulling out a pad of paper and jotting down a name and number. "If that's the case, I'm going to refer you to a doctor who can give you a better evaluation, and he will prescribe you something that can help you sleep – even if you just take it for a few weeks. My guess is that the longer you struggle with getting a good night's sleep, the harder it will be to break that cycle. Dr. Ouazani is someone that we trust and who can keep an eye on you to make sure that this doesn't turn into something worse on the medical side. But I still want you to come in and talk with me; we also need to approach this clinically. My hope is that if we can help you sleep better, it will help you talk about and process the stress, which will in turn help the stress to reduce to the point that it doesn't interfere with your life the way it is currently." Sabrina smiled sympathetically. "We will get you through this."

Delphine nodded jerkily. "I… thank you."