"It's suffocating, I understand." The Bixby family had undergone some real hardships over the last few years and he had no idea how his mother handled it all, he'd barely contained himself, but she was always right there with a soothing word or a comforting hand. He appreciate it, obviously he did, but it had also trained him to keep everything in check so that she didn't have to. He didn't need to be another concern for her. She had enough to worry about.

Alvin settled an arm on the back of the wooden bench behind Zinnia, but was careful not to touch her. It was something he'd built a long while ago for his mother to enjoy the garden with her tea in the afternoons and he used it more often than he'd ever thought. Mirroring Zinnia's movements without really realizing it, he agonized over what to do. Alvin didn't know what comfort he could provide here; he'd never been in this position and unlike Sloane, they knew Rhys wasn't coming back from the dead. "Have you thought about a dreamless sleep potion?" Again, Alvin knew firsthand what it was like to have a tragedy play out before you and then again and again, over and over every time you closed your eyes. He still sometimes saw Sloane's accident in his dreams and woke up in a cold sweat, even though she was safe and alive and trying to figure herself out.

"I heard they can help," he'd never tried one, but had been tempted. After Sloane's disappearance, he'd slowly tortured himself with the thought that he deserved the nightmares, if only to keep a fresh memory of her alive at the time. It had been stupid, he realized now, but grief didn't exactly play fair.