You Have Us... Always.

Chapter 21- Connecting?

"So. It's Friday night, are you excited for the weekend?" Derek asked, just as she shut the door after entering his office.

He was sat cross-legged on the top of his desk, placing some files down on his right. He was also in his usual casual wear- dark blue denim jeans, grey sweater and white trainers.

She nodded.

A deducing look was given to her. "Excited for your brothers to come back from their work trip?"

She nodded a bit more eagerly this time, she was excited. She was ecstatic.

Not that she was dying without them or anything, it just felt better having all of her brothers in the same place at once; felt safer and more secure.

Derek smiled, placing both of his hands flat on his desk and kicking his legs out to stand up.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked, rounding the desk.

"Water, please," she answered as she began walking over to her usual spot on the couch. He nodded to himself and reached down to open his fridge under his desk, grabbing two water bottles and making his way over. He held one out for Brynn, which she took giving him a thank you.

"So," he started, going over to his armchair and sitting in it with one leg over the other, "how're you feeling today, Brynn?"

"Alright," she said, unsure of the answer herself. Truth be told, she felt like a right idiot.

She didn't tell anyone about the clown incident and, at the time, it hadn't shaken her up as much. Milo's done much more skin-crawling stuff. If anything, she just felt weirded-out.

And there was the incident at lunch yesterday with her not-breathing thing. That had scared the girl more.

At least with the clown thing, she could understand that the person was a little messed-up and was definitely on something, but with the not-breathing thing, now that scared her. It scared her that she hadn't understood it.

"Uhm," she started, focusing her gaze on the floor and fiddling with the cap of the water bottle. She got myself a little more comfortable, shuffling until her back hit the back of the couch. She wanted to tell him about the breathing thing.

She was supposed to tell him things like this, wasn't she?

He didn't look annoyed at all when she looked back up at him. He just sat there with an encouraging look, patiently.

"Well," she sat up a little straighter. "On, uhm, Thursday," she gulped, getting a little overwhelmed. "In music," she won't include the Malcolm part- that would be embarrassing , "I couldn't really breathe."

Derek looked like he was thinking, deducing and understanding all at once.

He encouraged her to continue, "take your time."

She fiddled with the bottle cap some more, secretly trying to open it, but not wanting to make it obvious because she was struggling quite a bit.

"I don't really know what happened, but my legs were quite wobbly and-" she paused, getting overwhelmed again, "-and I couldn't really write because my hands were shaky and my arms and shoulders were numb." This felt good to get out.

"And then I wasn't breathing," she felt stupid saying this, obviously she could breathe. "Thought my heart stopped or something," she muttered to herself feeling stupid now.

"And what did that feel like?" Derek asked tilting his head. She thought about the answer.

"Nothing at first, didn't even realise I'd stopped breathing," she was reliving it now, "I just felt panicky at first and then when I figured I wasn't breathing, the panic got worse."