Raz shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder; the prescription bottle was light as a feather, but somehow it still burdened him. He wasn't sure what else he'd expected from the appointment. So he was gonna be stuck popping pills now – possibly for the rest of his life. Assuming they even worked, of course. In fact, not only had the pharmacist warned him the pills might not work, he'd said they could even make the problem worse!

Raz shuddered. He wasn't sure he could handle worse. At any rate, his prospects seemed pretty grim, and he had long since run out of strength to keep putting on a fake smile. Actually, in hindsight… Is this what Clem and Crystal were feeling? Man, no wonder they wanted to jump off a building.

He found himself staring like a shell-shocked soldier at the Motherlobe as he trudged toward the doors. Would they even still let him be a Psychonaut? What if the medicine didn't work and he just went into the same downward spiral that got Bob fired? What if—

The doors whooshed open and a voice snapped Raz from his dark reverie.

"Raz! You're back!"

Lili rushed over to throw her arms around him; the watering can she'd been levitating along fell, utterly forgotten, to the ground with a splash of water and a low, resonant thud. "What did the doctor say?" she asked as she pulled away.

"Uh…" Raz rubbed at the back of his head, and the smile on Lili's face faded. "It's… kind of a lot."

Lili's expression softened. She took him by the hand and guided him to the edge of the platform, next to the landing pad. She sat, dangling her feet off the edge, and patted the concrete next to her as an invitation.

Raz obliged her, and she patiently waited for him to speak as they looked down into the flooded quarry.

"Well," he finally said, "she said I have some kind of depressive disorder, and gave me some pills to take."

"That sounds like good news to me!" Lili said, cocking her head to one side slightly. "How long will it take you to get better?"

At that, Raz bit his lip. "Well… that's the thing. She said there are two kinds of depression. One kind is temporary, and once you get through it, you're cured and it's gone. But the other kind never completely goes away. We don't know which one I have."

"But the medicine will still make you feel better, won't it?" She squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"It should," Raz admitted. "As long as I keep taking it."

"So what's the problem? Taking a couple pills every morning doesn't sound so bad. Uncle Bob has to take pills for his blood pressure every day and it's no big deal. Even if you can't be cured, you can still get better."

Raz honestly hadn't thought of it like that. "Well, when you put it like that, I guess it doesn't seem so terrible after all." He telekinetically fiddled with a stick floating on the water below, spinning it idly in place – fidgeting, not with his hands, but with his mind. "I guess I just don't like the idea of not being able to get rid of Melancholia. The dragon, I mean. Milla and Sasha are gonna help me try to fight her again when the pills start kicking in."

"Well I'm coming too!" Lili declared confidently. "Medicine or no medicine, I'm gonna kick that dragon's big, stupid, scaly butt for hurting you!"

Raz smiled in spite of himself, but the expression soon faded. "Lili… what if we can't win? Melancholia told me… She said the only way to kill her was to kill myself. What if she can't die?"

"Well then I'm gonna make her wish she could!" Lili moved like she was going to punch Raz in the shoulder, but apparently thought better of it, her expression softening as she chose instead to hold his hand. "Stop being such a worrywart, Raz. Sasha and Milla and me are gonna fix this, one way or another. You saved us, now let us save you."

Raz only made a noncommittal humming sound in response, but rested his head against Lili's and closed his eyes. It was so hard for him to believe in anything right now. Everything seemed so overwhelming and hopeless in a cosmic way. But this… this small, solid hope was something he could believe in.

He could believe in Lili beating the ever-loving shit out of a dragon.