This chapter is brought to you by crippling self-doubt and paranoia! No, but seriously, THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH. I have never had so much positive feedback. It really is helping a lot with this story.

"So tell me about your family."

Kid had been sitting rather neatly in his chair, back slumped forward just slightly so that his elbows could rest on his knees. His hands were held before him, steepled and with his forefingers pressed to his lips. Very calm, very collected, but when he heard that question the entire image seemed to crackle for a moment. She could see the edges of his nails turn white as he put more pressure on them, and his intake of breath quickened ever so slightly-

"There's not much to tell." The teen lowered his hands and leaned back in the chair. "There is my Father and that's all." Rebecca noted how he referred to him – no appellations, just Father. "I'm sure you could learn plenty about him on your own."

"But it still wouldn't be what you thought was important," she pointed out, but it was clear that subject was off-limits for now. "All right, but what about your mother?"

"I don't have a mother."

Rebecca's hand jerked and the pen slashed an ugly blue line across the page. Well that's not very professional, she thought with a small moue before looking up at the teen. "What do you mean, you don't have a mother?" she repeated, and despite herself she couldn't keep the small laugh out of her voice. "Everyone has a mother."

"I don't." He said the words flatly and any humor Rebecca had been finding in the situation immediately evaporated.

"Even if your mother hasn't been around you still must have one. Surely Lord Death has-"

"No," Kid said firmly. "No."

Rebecca nodded but still noted the flicker of doubt that crossed his features. "… all right. Let's talk about something else."

It was 8.05 and there was no sign of Kid. Rebecca sighed and cast one final glance at the clock before giving up and getting up. For all his talk of symmetry and perfection she knew there was no way he would show up late and, truthfully, she was surprised he had even gone twice. The lack of forewarning fit him perfectly – so to speak – as well; informing her that he was done would have be an admittance of failure, something that wouldn't match up with his own perception of the world.

"Oh well," she said softly. She carefully slipped the papers jotted full of notes into a folder and pressed a red sticker down to seal it shut. "I really think you would have done well Kid… you should have just given yourself a chance."

"You're late."

Rebecca blinked and stared blankly at the figure seated in the haphazardly arranged discussion area. Kid kept his gaze level with hers as he stared back, forefingers tapping together slowly as he held his hands before him. She said nothing as she glanced over at the clock – 8.14 – before looking back at him. Late? I'm late.

"I'm… sorry but I'm afraid we don't have an appointment today," she said slowly. As she spoke Rebecca glanced down at the files in her hand. Johnson, Riordan, Kelley… Lori had pulled out all the files for the clients she would be meeting with today and Kid wasn't among them. Of course, there wasn't going to be a file labeled "Kid, Death"; as per Lord Death's instructors Rebecca had filed everything related to the reaper under the pseudonym of Torrence Baker. But, no, not even a Baker here. "We had a meeting last week that you didn't show up for…"

"No," he said rather simply. "We had scheduled to meet two weeks later. You must have simply gotten confused."

Rebecca narrowed her eyes as she looked at Kid. It was fairly obvious to her what he was doing; deny the previous appointment and claim that the mix-up had happened on her end. A refusal to accept responsible made it so that he hadn't done anything wrong and, by that logic, had maintained his 'perfect' persona. "Kid…"

But it wasn't even like she would really gain anything by forcing him to acknowledge this. Of course feeding into his deluded world perception wasn't going to help him either, but Rebecca couldn't quite justify arguing against his reasoning for coming back to see her. "… I have an appointment at nine," she finally settled on – the subject of who bore the responsibility for their missed session was easily glossed over. "So we won't be able to meet for long. But I won't charge for this meeting."

Which was fair considering that she had billed Lord Death for the scheduled, but missed, appointment.

"Let me get some paper," she said and Kid nodded. Rebecca turned and walked back into her office, sighing as she did. She placed the files in her hand down on the desk before crouching down in front of the metal filing cabinet in the corner. 8.18 and now I'm going to have no time to get some coffee and get ready for any other patient, she thought as she rooted through the bottom drawer for Kid's file. This is just going to set my whole day off. There was a jolt of irritation as her fingers closed around the sealed file, but Rebecca just bit down on the inside of her lip to keep from frowning. Yes, of course this was going to be an inconvenience – walk-in's always were – but they were also the patients that needed her the most.

He came back to see you. That's the most important part.

Papers, pen, and clipboard – once all were in hand she headed back into the outer office. Kid was still sitting in the battered chair and he was staring at her intently as Rebecca let the door shut gently behind her. She took a moment to glance around the room and take stock of everything. It wasn't that she wasn't a neat person – one look inside her office would be enough to convince anyway that was she, perhaps, even a touch anal – but it didn't show out here. Most likely because sterile environments didn't feel conducive to the mental healing process, but the fact that most of her clientele was under the age of twelve didn't help.

Doesn't that bother him? She looked at Kid curiously as she took her seat across from him. I'm sure… though I suppose he's just learned to ignore it while here. "So what would you like to talk about?"

"I start school again next week." He kept his gaze level with hers but Rebecca noticed how Kid's hands lowered and twined together, his right hand pulling at the skin of his left. "It's already been a month. I can't waste any more time and there's no point avoiding the inevitable. I need to go back and I might as well start now."

"Wasting time?" Rebecca asked. "How exactly have you been wasting time? By just not going to school or by coming to see me?"

"I- no, that's not…" His eyes lowered for a moment as the edges of Kid's mouth pulled back into a small frown. "That's not what I meant. But just waiting until I'm… better-" Rebecca half-expected him to air-quote the word but all the reaper did was let his eyes roll ever so slightly. "-if I did that then I could end up waiting forever before I return. It's not just going to suddenly become easier overnight."

"No, I don't think it is," she said in agreement. Rebecca lowered her eyes to the paper and pressed her teeth into her lower lip as she thought. If nothing else Kid was full of contradictions; he could see that avoiding something would only make dealing with it harder later, and yet he seemed perfectly fine with creating excuses to push responsibility of a situation onto another person. Oh, now I'm just being overly harsh, she thought, chiding herself, but Rebecca still jotted a few notes down. Who takes responsibility? "So what does this mean for you?"

"School starts at seven. I won't be able to see you in the mornings anymore."

"No, I don't think that would be possible." Meeting at eight had only been due to Lord Death's specific requests; Rebecca couldn't imagine trying to fit him in even earlier. She looked up from her paper and tapped the pen against the page. "So what does that mean? When do you want to see me if you can't in the morning?"

"Well, I thought… we could still meet at eight." There was a small pause. "… at night."

Rebecca didn't even bother trying to hide her look of utter disbelief at the idea. The therapist lowered the clipboard as she stared at him. "Eight at night?" she repeated and the corner of Kid's mouth started to pull up into a grimace. "You want me to stay in the office until past nine just so that you can meet at eight? Why eight? School can't go that long."

"It ends at three." Kid's brow furrowed at the thought and Rebecca saw how the fingers of his right hand started to dig into the back of his left. "It starts at seven and ends at three. Such ugly numbers… why would anyone pick those? Why couldn't it start an hour later? Why would my Father decide that?"

"Twenty-seven is my favorite number," she said idly, and when Kid turned to frown at her Rebecca just shrugged. "I like it. It's nine three times, or three cubed."

"… that's nice?" Rebecca laughed at just how confused Kid sounded – at least he's focusing on that instead of being upset now!

"My point is that just because you think those numbers are ugly doesn't mean that everyone else would feel the same way. And besides, couldn't you just look at it as lasting for eight hours?" Rebecca asked rather pointedly. "If you're so stuck on the numbers then just find a new way to view them so that it doesn't upset you."

"I…" Kid looked down, clearly unsure how to respond. She smiled softly and made another note – Work on refocusing the problem.

"It's okay. We can meet at eight Kid," she said gently. "But you have to realize that I'll be going out of my way for that. If we make an appointment at that time and you don't show up then I'm not sure I'm going to want to keep on trying to help you." He at least had the decency to flush at that, but Kid still nodded. "Good. We don't have a lot of time left today but is there anything else…?"

"… What's your family like?"

The question caught her off-guard and Rebecca immediately frowned as she stared at him suspiciously. Years of conditioning kicked in and it took her a moment to realize he probably meant it innocently enough. It wasn't uncommon for patients to repeat questions back, especially when they had trouble answering it initially.

But it didn't make it any more comfortable.

"My family…" She took a deep breath before smiling at Kid again. "My family isn't really that interesting. I really don't think you'd want to hear about them."

"I want to." Kid looked up at Rebecca and, after a moment, added: "Please?"

Well, since you asked so nicely… "I… have a mother and a father. And an older brother. And that's about it."

"Do they live in Death City with you?"

"… no. My parents live out in Seattle and my brother lives somewhere on the East Coast."

"Somewhere?" Rebecca frowned at Kid, annoyed that he had picked up on that. He just smiled back, seeming oblivious to her irritation.

"Yes. I know he was in Connecticut at one point but I'm fairly certain he's moved since then. We don't talk that much. Not lately."

The number one rule of a session – do not let it become about you. It was a rather tempting rookie mistake to think that sharing personal experiences would help the bonding process and Rebecca knew she was guilty of stepping into the territory in some of her earlier years. All it really did, though, was draw the focus away from the patient and what they needed. One look at Kid's expression let her know that she had just slipped up again; now it wasn't about what he needed and now it was about what had happened in her past. If he asks another question about this…

"I was wrong," he said quietly and she blinked. "I do have other family besides my Father."

"… oh?"

"Liz and Patti. My weapons."

Oh. Rebecca made a note of that as she smiled at Kid. "Have you told them this?" He just shook his head as he glanced over at the clock. 8.59.

"I suppose I should." Kid let out a short sigh as he started to stand. "Thank you Rebecca. I'll see you in two weeks… right?"

"Right Kid. Two weeks."