Lucy stayed close to Casey throughout the years. When her father died, it had been Lucy's arms Casey had run into. Lucy hadn't known Mr. Cooke for very long, but she had liked and respected the man. He was a good father, and never once allowed his daughter to feel responsible for taking her mother out of the world the day she had come into it.

That was perhaps the most sensitive topic for the poor girl. Despite Lucy's best efforts, it came up more often than not in Casey's bullying. The dark-haired girl found comfort in the art room the same why Lucy had when she was a child, however. Lucy would do her best not to play favorites, but it had become quite obvious.

Lucy didn't like Casey's uncle, and the feeling was mutual. John reminded her too much of her father, and he didn't seem like the best caretaker either. Casey had always been a rather shy and skittish girl, but it seemed to increase to an uncomfortable degree the longer she lived with her uncle.

Casey was fifteen when the arts department at her high school was dissolved entirely. Because people made a fuss however, the school partnered with the community center to still have the option for art and music classes. The only difference was that they weren't the ones footing the bill.

Lucy liked teaching art, but found Casey's high school class insufferable. Had she been this irritating as a teenager? Perhaps she had just spent too much time with Munch and Finn; who would much rather trade sarcasm and arguments between the three of them than act like proper adults.

Still, the older group presented a new challenge to her, and Lucy dove in head first.

Almost three years later, and she thought she was doing rather well. These teens were a lot less single minded than she recalled being, but then again, she had been a special case. It was a warm Friday afternoon when she had taken them to the Philadelphia zoo and challenged them to draw the animals and the habitats around them. And, she just really wanted to see the zoo's new baby penguins.

As she was paying more attention to the birds than she probably should have been, she failed to notice two of her students wondering off.

She turned at the sound of laughter, catching them just as they ran away from a very flustered looking employee. His face was read and whatever the girls had done had clearly upset him. His eyes were darting all over the place, but they finally froze on Lucy's.

'I love you…'

'No! Dennis! Dennis don't let her take me!'

'And you are the first and only person who is ever gonna hear me say that.'

'Dennis please!'

The voice of the scared little girl echoing in her ears, Lucy paled and reached out to steady herself against the metal fence surrounding the penguin enclosure. No. Nononononono. She had finally put that behind her, why did it have to come back now?!

Lucy shut her eyes and focused on her breathing. Using the hand that wasn't white knuckling the black metal, she tapped the pad of her thumb against each of her fingertips in turn, repeating the process steadily over and over. Dr. Wong had called it grounding; if she found a way to bring her mind back to the present, the haunting memories of her PTSD could not keep hold of her.

It wasn't working though. In other situations, when a certain sound, sight, or smell would remind her of her childhood Dr. Wong's tactic would calm her down. For some reason however, this stranger's eyes had triggered her harder than anything else ever had.

Then again, they had borne a rather striking resemblance.

******
Lucy stared up at the brownstone building with a frown on her face. She very much did not want to be here. She didn't understand how Dr. Wong had managed to use his magic ability of getting her to face her issues from several states away, but here she was, outside of the residence of a therapist in the area he had recommended.

She had to hand it to him, the man was good at his job.

Huffing and cursing the doctor under her breath, she trudged into the building and made her way up the stairs. She paused outside of Dr. Fletcher's door, her hand raised to knock, once again debating bailing on her appointment. Before she could however, the door swung open and she was face-to-face with a tall man in a red overcoat and a beanie.

"Oh! Sorry!" he apologized, just as startled by the sudden meeting as she was. "Dr. Fletcher, I think your next appointment's here!" he called over his shoulder.

"Ms. Collins? Yes, do come in." the old woman called from inside the apartment.

"Don't worry." The man smiled at her, sensing her hesitation. "Dr. Fletcher's the best. She's such a sweet woman."

Lucy smiled nervously at him, his eyes, his smile, and about a million other things setting off the alarms in her head. He stepped to the side to allow her to enter, and shut the door behind him as he left. Lucy immediately collapsed in one of the armchairs in the room, panting as though she had just been underwater.

"My my. You look a little worse for wear dear." Dr. Fletcher's voice drew her out of her thoughts. Lucy looked up at the old woman who was setting a cup of tea down for her on the table, taking the chair across from her.

"Thank you." She said in a quiet voice, picking up the cup and sipping from it. Lavender, she noted. Yet another one of the calming techniques she'd been taught over the years.

"You're quite welcome dear." The older woman gave her a small smile. "Now, I know this is our first session together, but you seemed rather upset coming in here. Is there any particular reason why?" Lucy didn't answer, staring down at the stray tea leaves in the cup held tightly in her hands. "Alright." She nodded. "Why don't, we just start with how you're feeling right now?"

Again, Lucy did not want to answer, but she knew from experience that bottling herself up like this wasn't good for her. "….Lost, I guess." She said after a long moment. "Sort of…empty…."

"Empty?" Dr. Fletcher prompted.

"Like….Like everything that made me….me….it was all just torn away."

"What exactly was torn away?"

Lucy idly wondered if the person who had taught this woman her craft was the same person who'd taught Dr. Wong; they both seemed to know their way around probing but not demanding questions. "When I was fifteen….my, best friends were murdered." She admitted. "We did everything together. They were all I had. Then one day just….poof."

"They left?" the doctor raised an eyebrow.

Lucy scoffed out a laugh, and shook her head. She couldn't help it. "It's a lot more complicated than that, Doc….."

*******
Late that night, Lucy came home to her apartment and was greeted with a face full of golden retriever.

"Hey Brucie." She smiled, scratching her dog's ears. As Lucy didn't do alone very well, her dog Bruce helped to cut through the silence her apartment trapped her in in the evenings. The pup trotted loyally by her side as she made her way into the small kitchen to make dinner.

Setting her plate down on the table, and putting out Bruce's food for him, Lucy didn't even notice she'd set a second place at the table until she sat down.

She sighed, staring mournfully at the empty chair. Bruce, sensing his master's distress, looked up in concern.

"It's okay, Bruice." Lucy smiled, albeit a little sadly. "Wherever they are, I know they're still looking out for me." She looked back to the empty spot. "Least one of us kept our promise…"