took one deep breath in, and then let one deep breath out.

Dr. Sen said that these breathing exercises would help calm her, but she felt about as calm as a sailor in choppy waters. She felt as if she were on her own boat out at sea, the boards creaking and rocking, turning her stomach every which way as uneasiness swarmed her entire body.

Dr. Sen took the deep breaths with her to give her a guide, smiling as he let out an exhale. "It's peaceful, right?"

It was peaceful, yeah. But it hardly did anything to ease Daisy's troubles.

"Sure. Kinda."

"Where should we start? I haven't seen you in what...two, three weeks? I'm sure you have a lot on your mind."

Daisy only shrugged. Of course she had a lot on her mind, she always did. But that was normal. She wasn't quite sure what she should talk about.

"Uh...yeah, I...I don't know where to start." Daisy frowned as she tried to rack her brain for information to share with her psychiatrist.

She didn't really feel like explaining the events of the last two weeks. That just felt like a tiny road bump, a situation that Daisy should've just let play out instead of calling her social worker.

Naturally, though, the last two weeks was exactly what Dr. Sen was hoping to discuss.

"We can start from the beginning." Dr. Sen suggested. "Mark came to my office and said you wanted to cancel your psychiatry sessions, because...you were going through something?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was...I was just having a bad time." Daisy mumbled, Dr. Sen looking very blatantly concerned. "I'm okay now, though! Seriously, I...I feel okay."

Dr. Sen didn't quite believe that. It was evident that the girl was uneasy in the way that she spoke, the stutters that poisoned her sentences. The way she constantly shifted, the way her eyes were absolutely restless as she scanned over every square inch of the room.

Dr. Sen wanted to know what was going on, but he didn't want to force an answer out of her. He decided to ease into it.

"What made you decide to come back to psychiatry?"

It hadn't really been a choice, technically, nor had it been something that Mark and Daisy ever really discussed. Now that she was back, it was just a part of her normal routine again. It was in the same way that they didn't discuss Daisy going back to school, or Naomi coming to watch the girls again. It was a given, psychiatry was normal to Daisy's routine.

"I guess I was just ready to come back? I don't know." Daisy couldn't find a good answer without going into detail about everything, so simplicity became key. "I was ready to come back."

"So you would say that taking a break helped you?"

No, actually. Not at all. Daisy found that her counting was more sporadic and her fits occurred more often. Not to mention the fact that the holding facility doesn't exactly take initiative to serve meals via red dinner plates, and God did that drive Daisy crazy.

The past two weeks were reckless. There was no cleanliness or order in the room they stayed in, no repetition in her schedule. How could Daisy possibly live a life in which there was no repetition? How could anybody possibly enjoy a meal without the delicacy of a red plate? It was barbaric.

"Yes." Daisy nodded as she blatantly lied.

"Good." Dr. Sen smiled. "So everything's good? And you're feeling okay?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?" Dr. Sen questioned, to which Daisy could only hesitate.

Her eyes briefly darted over to the closed wooden door before focusing back on the man in front of her. Daisy cleared her throat before beginning to speak slowly.

"Things that I say in these sessions are secret, right? You're not allowed to tell?"

Dr. Sen raised an eyebrow, incredibly intrigued. "That depends. Are you planning on hurting yourself?"

"No." Daisy shook her head, Dr. Sen proceeding with his next question.

"Are you planning on committing a murder?"

Daisy wrinkled her nose, incredibly confused. "Uh...no."

"Perfect. Then yeah, everything is top secret in here." Dr. Sen smiled as he reassured, a more serious look taking his face as he looked at Daisy. "Is there something you wanted to talk with me about?"

Daisy did want to talk about everything. There were so many problems going on and she badly wanted to get to the root of it all. She wanted to fix things, but she didn't know how to.

Daisy leaned in like she was telling a secret, her voice quiet as if somebody were on the other side of the door eavesdropping. "I saw him with Mark. Mr. Walter, I mean, I...I saw him with Mark."

"Oh. You did?"

Dr. Sen seemed so unfazed, as if this news didn't surprise him. Daisy almost wondered if Dr. Sen hadn't heard her.

"He was here. And...and they were talking like they were friends. It felt so..."

Unsettling was the word for it. It was so unsettling to see somebody that used to make Daisy's life a hell casually having a conversation with a person Daisy was beginning to build trust with.

"It was probably scary, I suppose." Dr. Sen offered a word to finish off Daisy's unfinished sentence.

It was scary, sure. But unsettling above all else. The mere thought of Mr. Walter made Daisy want to puke, and the fact that he was conspiring with Mark just made her want to hide away forever.

"So you talked to Mark then? About what you saw?" Dr. Sen asked, to which Daisy shook her head.

"No." Daisy's voice came out quiet and shaky. "Because...because then if he knows that I know that he's trying to hurt me, then...then I know he'll just snap."

"You think Mark's going to hurt you?"

"I think Mark brought Mr. Walter here to hurt us." Daisy corrected, pushing back the pathetic quiver she heard in her own voice. "And I know Mr. Walter won't hesitate to hurt us."

Dr. Sen frowned. "I find it very hard to believe that Mark would hire a hitman just to hurt you and your sister."

Perhaps it did sound a little silly. But Daisy knew by now that anything can always happen, nothing is off limits. Nobody is off limits, especially not Daisy.

"I don't know." Daisy spoke, her tone sounding incredibly unsure. "I called my social worker on him."

"You did?" Dr. Sen raised his eyebrows. Reporting somebody to CPS was a pretty huge thing, and the psychiatrist was shocked that timid Daisy had picked up the phone and reported Mark.

"We went away for a little bit. But...but now we're back. We've been back for a few days."

"And how have things been since you've been back? Has Mark been angry?"

"No." Daisy furrowed her eyebrows. "I mean, he definitely knows I called on him. But...but he hasn't yelled yet. He took us to get ice cream last night, it was so...weird."

"That doesn't sound weird." Dr. Sen smiled gently. "That sounds nice. I'm sure he's just happy you guys are back."

"Ice cream is...ice cream is bad." Daisy spoke in a hushed and panicked tone, thoughts of her past resurfacing. "Mr. Walter used to take us for ice cream before the home visits so that we wouldn't tell on him. And he was nice for a little bit, and then...it all got bad again. Ice cream is a set-up. Ice cream means bad things."

"And sometimes ice cream just means ice cream." Dr. Sen suggested in a calm tone. "I think you need to have a conversation with Mark about what you saw."

Daisy frowned, her eyebrows furrowing. She felt majorly invalidated, it sounded to her like Dr. Sen thought she was making this up.

"I know what I saw."

"I'm not denying that you did see Mr. Walter here." Dr. Sen reassured. "But I don't think the situation is what you think it is. I think if you had a conversation with Mark, he could clear a few things up for you."

Dr. Sen of course knew that Mr. Walter had merely been admitted for a facial lift. Dr. Sen knew that Mr. Walter and Mark weren't friends, but rather Mark was just the man's doctor.

He would love nothing more than to tell Daisy all of that and clear the air up, if only it weren't a major breach of patient confidentiality.

Mark wouldn't be able to tell Daisy the specifics of Mr. Walter and his case for that same reason. However, Dr. Sen did think that a conversation would help. Mark couldn't give out any patient information, but he had no doubt that Mark would be quick to ease any of Daisy's anxieties about the man hurting her.

"I don't know." Daisy was majorly anxious, not quite sure how she felt about discussing the matter with Mark. She was happy to keep her distance and take tabs on the situation from afar.

"Try and talk to him, if you find a moment. I think there's a major lack of communication here, and talking things through would really help."

Daisy knew she should listen to her psychiatrist. The man had a doctorate, she knew he was incredibly smart and qualified.

But Daisy was comfortable not talking things through. She felt safer keeping her anxious thoughts to herself.

Daisy nodded to appease the man, but she doubted she would actually take the time to address the Mr. Walter situation with Mark.

The clock signaled that it was the end of Daisy's session, and Daisy was free to go.

Daisy exited the man's room, following the floor tiles down and down the halls with the ultimate goal of exiting down to the parking lot where Naomi and her tiny car would be waiting.

Daisy had to admit she had been particularly uneasy at first, but she really was glad to be back. She had established such a routine in the almost six months she's been here. The psychiatry sessions and Naomi playing chauffeur and Thomas clawing on all of her throw blankets, it all held such a familiarity that made Daisy comfortable.

The girl always tried to keep her gaze ahead, not wanting to look through the room windows at the patients. What they went through was none of Daisy's business.

But an incredibly pitchy and loud scream made Daisy look through at an older woman in the hospital bed, her hands in restraints as she strung out a number of profanities at the unfazed nurse in front of her. Daisy felt sympathetic, and she wondered what was wrong.

Daisy let her feet continue onward. The next room had its blinds drawn, and she understood that. If Daisy was a patient, she decided she would always keep her blinds closed. She would never want anybody passing to see into her tiny built-up sense of security.

Passing all these windows made Daisy's brain skip back to when she had seen Mr. Walter through the conference window in this very hospital, and she felt a sense of uneasiness wash over her.

Where was Mr. Walter? Was he still in this hospital, lurking the halls? Was he just waiting to strike until Daisy grew comfortable and let her guard down?

"Dais!" Mark called from down the hall behind Daisy, making the girl jump at the unexpected voice that had interrupted her thought process. Daisy looked back, watching as the man approached. "You're leaving already?"

"My session is over." Daisy shrugged, making sure to avoid eye contact. "And Naomi's waiting."

"Right." Mark nodded, taking note of how short the girl was being with him. "Oh, uh, one of my surgeries got pushed back, I'll probably be here a lot later than I thought. Just tell Naomi to pick something up for dinner and I'll pay her back."

Daisy nodded, not focusing on Mark as he spoke but rather the space behind him. She looked everywhere for Mr. Walter's face, waiting for the man to magically appear and start screaming at her.

"You okay? You look sick."

It was February already, the weather outside as frigid as ever. Daisy could totally pass off the fact that she had a cold without being suspicious. Maybe she could even say she had the flu, despite already having had the disease last month.

Daisy didn't feel the need to lie, though. She was ready to leave the dreary hold that the hospital had her in. "Just...tired, I guess."

A tad bit afraid also, but that was beside the point.

Mark nodded understandingly. The days had been particularly dark lately, it was making everybody in Seattle exhausted.

There was a lull in conversation, as there usually has been since Daisy got back.

Dr. Sen had told Daisy to find the right moment to talk about the Mr. Walter situation. Although the middle of a hospital hallway was hardly the appropriate place to have a serious discussion, perhaps it was the perfect place to have this discussion. They were in a public space, and Daisy knew that Mark couldn't possibly hurt her with so many people around to witness.

Daisy had just begun to built up the courage to speak with Mark when his obnoxiously loud pager rang out.

Mark looked down at the device, mumbling something under his breath that Daisy couldn't quite make out. The girl barely had a change to blink before Mark was already beginning to walk away.

"I'll see you later. Feed the cat when you get home!"

It was Daisy's turn to mumble things under her breath. That stupid cat would drive Daisy insane.

Daisy continued to make her way down to the parking lot. She was excited to see Naomi, and she was excited to see Calypso. Daisy always felt at ease with Calypso, and she felt at ease in this moment thinking about her baby sister.

But anxiety flooded right back in as the girl's brain wandered to Mr. Walter. She wondered where the man was right this minute, and she wondered if Mark was still plotting bad things with him.

This situation was taking an unreal toll on Daisy. She felt anxious beyond belief, and she wished Mr. Walter would go far away leave her alone forever.