inhale, kevin day.

iv. take on the world

chapter four
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"How was the trip?"

     Maeve ignored that question,"I've had... a realization. Recently, in fact."

     "Tell me."

     "Andrew," she paused,"Totally... broke all of your little glass figurines. Didn't he?" Betsy displayed no reaction to that, but Maeve continued,"C'mon, Dobson, you had a huge collection the day we met and then suddenly you've got, what, like five? And I wasn't sure at first, but then we took this trip..." the psychiatrist leaned forward, eager to hear about it, only to be left with nothing as she started speaking again,"We were at the airport, I'd gone off to get my plane snacks and Andrew and Day had both followed me..." further inclination, something to grasp, maybe? No. "I was just minding my own business, Day was being annoying, of course." Though that was something. Enough? No. "And Andrew... bought something. It was definitely a glass figurine, my best guess is that little frog one there."

     "It's interesting," Betsy commented.

     Maeve feigned agreement, she picked up the hot chocolate sitting before her and moved the marshmallows around with her spoon,"Isn't it just?" In reality, that wasn't at all the realization she'd had. One thing she had noticed was that even though these... meetings were so Betsy could study her and help her, Maeve spent more time watching the woman's every tick and learning how to avoid them and her questions. Though that obviously wasn't the point here either. "So then it was him right? When'd it happen and how? When you two first met, maybe? Breakdown, possibly?"

     Betsy remained stoic,"This session is not about me. Or Andrew, for that matter, unless there was something else about him you'd like to discuss?"

     They looked at one another, unmoving.

     She sighed. She didn't want to give up, but she figured Betsy deserved brownie points for that one. She now wanted to talk about her realization, a scowl took over her face— damn you, Dobson...

     "I think..." she hesitated,"Andrew might have..." another brief moment of silence,"Possibly told Wymack I was going to run." She blurted all in one go before adding to clarify,"Right before the trip to Arizona." Betsy prepared to ask about that, but Maeve was, as always, one step ahead of her and this session,"However, that doesn't bother me... though I guess I wouldn't still be thinking about it now if that were genuinely true, right?"

     "Sure." A nod, at last they were beginning to move somewhere. "Though only to an extent, I'd say. It could not be about Andrew at all. Why do you think this bothers you? Would it still be on your mind, had it been someone else?"

     Maeve frowned,"Okay, but Betsy, it couldn't have been. I've gone over this so many times in my head, and Matt, well he would simply never do that to me, neither would Renee, I'd like to assume. I wouldn't put it past Dan or Allison, or even Seth, honestly, but they were all preoccupied around the time I left Fox Tower. And Aaron, well, he's an asshole, I'll give him that, but he doesn't actually give a shit about anything that doesn't directly involve him. Then there's Nicky, though he and I don't know one another well enough for him to blab to Wymack about me yet, besides I don't believe him to be the kind of person to do that anyway. So really, it's not that it bothers me much who it was, but..."

     "You wouldn't have run."

     "I am..." Maeve inhaled, breathing out slowly as she decided,"A lot of things, but I'm not a coward. I don't run from battles, and Millport? I'll hand that to Abby, it was something I needed to do... to face and start to move past."

     "And you wanted someone to believe in you." Betsy gathered.

     That immediately shut Maeve down, almost like a slap to the face for speaking so much in one sitting. But there were still angles to be played, and so the next pawn moved out accordingly.

     "What about Kevin?"

     "What about Kevin?" Maeve almost scoffed.

     "You didn't mention him while going over your suspects, could it be because you think he knew you wouldn't run?"

     "No." She did scoff now.

"Or maybe you haven't accepted him as a part of your team just yet." Betsy tried.

"No." The response was immediate, she let the thought sit for a second and spoke again,"I mean, I don't like the guy and I certainly haven't bought into his "holier than thou" approach like the rest of them— we don't need the Kevin Day on our court. However, none of this is about that, that is a whole other session, Bee, and you're getting ahead here."

     "Okay so not Kevin, what then?"

     She looked up, gave a hopeless shrug,"I... I don't know."

"Well, I'm a firm believer that you absolutely cannot have a team without trust." Betsy frowned, her hand lingered by her pen, almost wanting to write something down— notes, meds? For once, Maeve couldn't quite tell, but eventually the woman leaned forward, not a sign that she wanted to hear and press for more, but simply so that she could see her entire face as she said,"You don't have to take on the world, Maeve, not on your own, not anymore. And I want you to remember that."

Maeve stared back, heart like the tattoos on her skin, free for anyone to read. "That's the thing... I can't share the burden of it with anyone in it— not anymore."

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1) sorry for the extreme shortness of this chapter & 2) idk if this seems too ooc for betsy ?? we didn't get very much for me to properly base maeve's therapy off of, and either way i feel like she'd have a pretty different approach with each of the foxes & so here's her + maeve... kinda ?? i'm ngl i'm thinking all of their interactions might vary based on what they're talking about