could hear the two men clearly as they bickered in the hall outside of Dr. Sen's office.

Mark's words were loud, his angry tone a stark contrast from Dr. Sen's calm and level tone.

Daisy sat rigid, her skin stuck against the cool leather couch as her eyes fixated on the floor, the thoughts in her head running all about.

Perhaps it was both a blessing and a curse that Daisy dissociated so often. People tended to think she wasn't listening because her eyes were stuck on an unknown point. The two men clearly thought standing outside in the hall a couple feet from the door was effective in ensuring that Daisy couldn't hear their conversation.

"Your whole job is to make sure that she's okay. You can't just give up on her because she's going through a rough patch. That doesn't make you a psychiatrist, it just makes you a defeatist." Mark spoke hastily as he spewed the insult, Dr. Sen clearing his throat as he swatted away the harsh words.

"I am not giving up on her. But we've had three sessions in the past week, and she hasn't said a word. She stares, and she's just...she's just unresponsive." Dr. Sen spoke.

The psychiatrist turned to look back through the doorway to make sure Daisy was still zoned out before he continued, speaking to Mark in a much quieter tone.

"Daisy is not alright. She's going through something deeper than a rough patch. Daisy needs help in a way that stretches farther than anything I can offer."

Mark only blinked, dumbfounded as the words Dr. Sen spoke weren't absorbing in his brain. "So...you paged me up here to tell me that you're giving up on her."

"Dr. Sloan." Dr. Sen sighed out, trying his absolute best to stay patient. "I'm referring her to Dr. Perkins. He's a licensed psychiatrist, and he specializes in trauma counseling. He can help Daisy come to terms with the state of her sister."

"Dr. Perkins." Mark repeated the name, narrowing his eyes slightly as thoughts came back to him. Mark knew who Dr. Perkins was. "Dr. Perkins doesn't even work at this hospital."

"He does for the next month." Dr. Sen explained, Mark's eyebrows furrowing. "The chief's granted him temporary privileges to work here with the victims of last week's bridge collapse. Dr. Perkins is going to be here until the end of June, and I'd like Daisy to see him."

"But she doesn't know him." Mark pointed out the obvious, the annoyance seething through his words. "You've been her psychiatrist for months. She knows you. I don't know what makes you think she'll be willing to spill her soul to a brand new psychiatrist when she won't even mutter a word to you."

"Trauma therapy isn't based on just talking. It focuses more on the doing part, more about taking action rather than just talking things through." Dr. Sen tried his best to explain. "Daisy didn't just lose her sister—she watched her die as she sat there coated in her blood. She has every right to not want to talk, but she needs deeper help."

Mark frowned, having trouble grasping what Dr. Sen was saying. He was right, of course, about Daisy's silence. The girl was relatively unresponsiveness all the time, and Mark hated it. He wished things were how they used to be, he wished they could go back to a time when Calypso was still alive and Daisy was still happy.

Dr. Sen took Mark's silence as a sign to keep going. "It's so hard to see her feeling like that, I completely understand, and I-"

"You do not understand." Mark snapped, his tone holding more anger and annoyance than it had been before. "I get that you're a psychiatrist, and you have to be empathetic with everyone you talk to, but you don't understand an ounce of what we're going through, and you don't get to act like you do."

Dr. Sen took note of the fatigue in Mark's eyes. The usually easy-going and relaxed doctor that Dr. Sen knew was particularly angry and hostile, something that told the psychiatrist that Mark was harboring a lot of mixed feelings.

"How have you been coping, Dr. Sloan?"

Mark narrowed his eyes, the psychiatrist truly getting on his nerves. "What?"

"You've had to be the strong one for Daisy's sake, you've had to stay upright and firm as her support. Have you even allowed yourself any time to grieve Calypso?"

Mark hadn't, truthfully. It was hard to take a step back and let everything sink in when he had to spend so much time helping Daisy.

"I'm fine." Mark spoke firmly. "Daisy's the one you should be worrying about. She lost her sister."

"And you lost your child." Dr. Sen countered. "It doesn't matter that Daisy knew Calypso longer than you did, grief isn't comparable in that way. You lost somebody too. It's important that you grieve so that the grief doesn't destroy you."

Mark had dealt with grief in copious amounts in his life, this wasn't the first time he'd come face to face with the feeling. Mark knew how to handle grief, he wasn't sure why Dr. Sen was so sure he'd break.

"Daisy's session is over now, and I don't have another patient until two." Dr. Sen spoke suggestively, tilting his head. "If you want to, we can step into my office-"

"No." Mark shook his head. "No, no, I'm...I don't need somebody to psychoanalyze my life. I'm okay."

"Dr. Sloan..."

Mark wasn't hearing it though. The man walked past Dr. Sen, moving to stand in the doorway as he spoke to the zoned-out girl. "Come on, Dais."

Daisy obliged, picking herself up from off of the leather couch and turning to follow the man.

Dr. Sen looked a little upset as he watched Mark and Daisy walk past. It was clear to him that the man was bottling up unexpressed grief, and Dr. Sent thought he needed a proper psychiatry session.

But the two continued to walk past. Daisy slowly followed Mark like a lost little duckling, her feet dragging against the cold tile.

She knew he would have to stick her in the daycare for the day, because there was nobody to pick Daisy up. Mark had fired Naomi, and Daisy didn't have a nanny anymore.

Daisy felt guilty, because it wasn't Naomi's fault. The nanny was exhausted from studying for her finals, and Daisy knew that. Daisy took advantage of that, and it was entirely her fault.

"I'm the one who killed Calypso, not Naomi. It wasn't her fault, it was mine." Daisy had spoken up quietly, one of the few times she had actually opened her mouth and talked to Mark.

"We're not blaming anybody for what happened to Caly." Mark had reminded Daisy firmly. "Naomi should've been watching you, she shouldn't have been asleep."

"She was up all night studying. She was tired."

"I don't care how tired she was. If she had been doing her job, Calypso would still be alive."

Daisy wanted to yell at the fact that Mark kept pushing the idea that nobody was to blame for Calypso's death while he repeatedly blamed Naomi for Calypso's death.

It was Daisy's fault, it always was. Calypso had been so innocent, and she had trusted her sister to keep her safe, and Daisy hadn't done her job. It was Daisy's fault, and the girl would never be able to escape that haunting fact.

"I have a surgery in a couple hours." Mark broke Daisy out of her trance, the girl noticing they had reached the outside of the daycare in the pediatric wing. "So, you know...if you need anything, I won't really be able to help."

"Yeah." Daisy mumbled, her eyes peering in through the window of the daycare as she raked over the tiny children playing.

Daisy usually didn't mind the daycare because Caly was there to keep her company. She knew it would be a dreadful few hours as she waited alone for Mark with children running all around her. She would feel embarrassed sitting there, she felt way too old for daycare.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom."

Daisy's plan was to hide out in the bathroom for a while, actually, but she didn't think Mark needed to know that.

"Okay." Mark nodded, looking sideways at the girl. "Are you...okay?"

"Yeah." Daisy spoke a quiet lie, turning slowly to walk down the hall to the bathrooms, not bothering to say goodbye to Mark.

Her feet dragged along as she walked down the pediatric wing. The fluorescent lights in the hallway made Daisy's head hurt, a dim and ugly illumination cast down on everyone walking the halls.

Daisy let her thoughts catch up to her as she walked. She thought again about Calypso, about the tiny girl that she couldn't hold anymore.

Daisy wanted to hug Calypso. She wanted to brush through the girl's hair one last time, she wanted to kiss her head and squeeze her tightly and have one last debate about unicorns with the tiny girl. Daisy missed her so much.

"Hey." A voice called out, interrupting Daisy's thoughts. She turned to look through the doorway of one of the rooms she was passing, a teenage boy peering expectantly at her. "Could you get me another Jell-O?"

"Oh, uh...I don't..." Daisy frowned, feeling a little confused. "I don't work here."

"Yeah you do. I saw you yesterday, and you..." The boy's voice faltered as he put his glasses on, seeing clearly through the lenses. "Oh, no you don't. Sorry, I thought...your sweater kind of looks like those scrubs the doctors wear, I sort of thought...sorry."

Daisy looked down, noticing the pastel blue sweater she was wearing on account of the fact that it was Tuesday, and blue sweaters were for Tuesdays. She supposed the color did kind of match the scrubs that the interns wore.

"That's okay." Daisy spoke gently, turning to continue her walk down the hall when the boy interrupted her again.

"Wait." He called in a desperate tone, not seeming to want to be left by himself again. "Do you know how to play chess? Dr. Robbins usually forces one of the interns to play with me, but she's not here today and I'm super alone. I feel like I'm going crazy."

Daisy was far too familiar with feeling like she was going crazy. "I don't know how to play chess."

"Do you want to learn?"

Daisy knew Mark wouldn't just like her wandering about and talking with patients. Daisy wasn't supposed to talk to patients or ever go into their rooms.

But this felt like an invitation, and Daisy was not eager to return back to the daycare full of loud and hyper children.

"Sure." Daisy smiled, taking a step into the boy's room. The boy returned the smile, immediately pulling over his bedside table.

Daisy was very observant as she entered the room. The bleak walls were as depressing as ever, but the atmosphere felt a little more lively with drawings taped up against the paint.

They reminded Daisy of Calypso's drawings she used to make, except these weren't stick-figures. These were actual drawings, intricately mapped out and shaded in with dark charcoal. Daisy couldn't take her eyes off of them.

"What's your name?" The boy asked, working intently on placing the different-sized chess pieces on their corresponding square.

"Daisy."

"Daisy." The boy repeated quietly, nodding like he liked the name. "I'm August."

"Is your birthday in August?"

Daisy had never been any good at making friends, and she figured she had asked a weird question when August's nose scrunched up slightly.

"Huh?"

"I just mean, like...I don't know. I know a woman named April whose birthday is in April. And...my mom's name was May, and she was born in May. I just thought maybe-"

"Oh." August parted his lips slightly as he caught onto what Daisy was asking. "No, July. That would be cool though, if that was the case. I'm a little upset now that that's not the case."

Daisy let out a quiet laugh, a sound so minuscule it was hardly there. She hadn't laughed since Calypso had died, and the nearly-foreign feeling made the guilt rush back to Daisy.

"Is your mom okay?" August asked curiously as he peered through the thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

"What?"

"You said your mom's name was May, like she's not around anymore."

"Oh, yeah. She passed a few years ago."

It was silent for a moment, the only sound the faint shuffling of August sliding chess pieces onto his dark oak chessboard.

"I'm sorry."

Daisy only shrugged. Talking about it didn't really bother her anymore, it had happened a while ago.

"My mom's dead too, if it makes you feel better."

Daisy immediately frowned. "That doesn't make me feel better, that's terrible."

August shrugged, a sideways sort of grin on his face. He nodded to the stiff-looking chair in the corner. "You can pull that over here and we can start with the rules, if you want."

Daisy obliged, listening to August go over the game of chess. He started with the pieces first, their names and the moves they could make. There were pawns and rooks, knights and bishops, a king and a queen.

The basis of the game was to protect the king, it sounded like. When the king was captured, the game was over.

And checkmate. August had place such emphasis on the word, like it was a deadly thing. The last action in which no more moves can be made to save the king and the opponent is screwed.

Daisy felt a little clumsy as she moved her pieces around, no real strategy on account of the fact that she had no clue what she was doing.

August's actions were calculated though. He knew what his next move was before Daisy had even moved her piece. It was insane to Daisy, the way August scanned the board and moved his pieces around like it was a battle strategy.

Daisy observed August's appearance as the boy was debating on what move to make. When his face wasn't scrunched up in concentration, Daisy noticed he had kind features. He had dark skin the color of coffee, hazel eyes peering through those black glasses.

Another thing Daisy noticed was that her new friend didn't have any hair. There weren't any dark curls sat on his head, a missing space above his eyes as he lacked eyebrows. His appearance reminded Daisy of how Mom had looked during her final couple months, chemotherapy having destroyed the woman's curly golden locks.

The boy also had a long, crooked scar that ran the width of his head, looking like a surgical incision.

"You can ask about the hair, you know." August spoke, glancing up from the chessboard to meet Daisy's gaze. "It's not rude to ask, but it is rude to stare."

"I'm sorry." Daisy immediately apologized. "I didn't mean to-"

"It doesn't matter." August gave Daisy a small smile. "It happens all the time, it doesn't really bother me when people stare anymore. It's just cancer."

August's statement felt like an oxymoron to Daisy. Just cancer, he had said, as if cancer weren't a horrible and deadly beast.

"What stage?" Daisy asked quietly, moving her rook forward.

"Stage four. It's metastatic, so it's just gonna keep spreading until it kind of just takes over my body. I'm terminal."

Terminal.

"Terminal?"

The word didn't sound flattering, and Daisy hoped it didn't mean what she thought it meant.

August nodded in confirmation, looking so nonchalant about the notion of being at the end of his life, and Daisy didn't understand how he seemed so comfortable with the thought of dying.

August smiled widely, his happy expression a stark contrast from the frown on Daisy's face. As he moved his bishop, Daisy noticed that her king was cornered.

"Checkmate."