Notes: This story is set a year and a half after the events in Remembrance.

I was posting a post book 6 Mediator fic, but then I figured if I revamped it enough, I could make it a variation of it as post book 7 instead. Much more fun that way. Please enjoy! (It's still different enough for me to continue my post book 6 fic, so if you're interested in Suze adventures that are not compliant with canon, don't hesitate to check it out.)

Hush
One

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure if the receptionist knew my name. You would think she did, since it was written on the sign of the building that she worked in, and she must've seen it every morning when she rolled into the parking lot, but I still couldn't be sure. I had never once heard her say my name before. Felipa had a habit of calling everyone "honey" or "sugar" or "cari?a" (or cari?o in Jesse's case).

"I know you've married that handsome man, sweetie, but eight o'clock is when you're supposed to be here," Felipa said in greeting as I strode past the receptionist desk and further into the clinic where my office was.

Felipa was an old lady, so she could get away with chiding me like that without getting fired. Not that Jesse had any intention to fire her. The decades she'd spent at St. Francis prior to retirement had made her efficient, patient, and acclimated to the stimulation and excitement of the front desk. She was also Peruvian, and Jesse enjoyed speaking in Spanish with people who actually understand everything he said. So, in other words, people who were not me.

"I know, I know," was the muffled defense I gave for myself while I gripped my cup of coffee in my mouth with my teeth, held my bag in my left hand, and opened the door with my right. I could've asked Felipa for help, but I was trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible. Just because Felipa knew I was late didn't mean everyone else at the clinic had to know as well.

Halfway through me juggling my things and the doorknob, the door opened of its own accord. Or rather, it opened at the accord of Dr. Jesse de Silva, the person I'd been hoping to avoid most.

"Look who showed up just in time for her lunch break," Jesse said. One of his eyebrows, the one with the scar running through it, was raised in disapproval.

With one of my hands now free, I took the coffee cup out of my mouth and said, "There's almost an hour left till lunch. And I'm only late because I didn't feel well this morning."

It was true. I'd had a bad cold for the past week, and all of the Nyquil in the world wasn't doing a thing to fix it.

"In that case, you know that caffeinated beverages only make a cold worse, right?" Jesse said, and he took my cup of coffee from my hand before I could mount any protest.

He drained the rest of my coffee, which I had barely started on, in the span of about five seconds. Jesse's caffeine tolerance was a lot higher than mine or any other regular person's. But unlike most of the things that made Jesse different from other people, it had nothing to do with being born in 1830 or being revived over a century and a half later. His caffeine tolerance was entirely a product of med school.

"Is coffee really bad for colds or did you just want my coffee?" I asked.

"Both," he said. "And you should've told me or Felipa you weren't feeling well, so we could've called your clients to reschedule."

"Clients?" I asked. The whole reason I'd let myself lag around at home for so long was because I'd thought my schedule was empty and no one was waiting to see me. Jesse had been able to establish a pretty sizable patient roster already, given his reputation at St. Francis, but my clientele was still slight. So far, I'd spent more time around the clinic doing housekeeping than I had putting my counseling degree to use.

"Client," Jesse corrected himself. "I saw a boy with a fractured arm this morning, and his guardian was looking for a counselor for him. I recommended you, and since I knew your schedule was open…"

I started to swear but caught myself halfway. The prices on the swear jar had doubled since the clinic opened. There were young, impressionable ears around whose parents would probably change their clinic stat if they found out how often the resident counselor employed four letter words.

"When is he scheduled?" I asked.

"About five minutes ago."

This time I didn't catch the swear word that came out of my mouth, and Jesse gave me a reproachful look before I took off down the short hallway to my office.

I was greeted with two sights when I entered the room.

First, there was the sight of the ocean in the distance from the large window behind my desk. When Jesse bought the clinic he gave me the best room for my office. His logic at the time was that he wouldn't actually be meeting patients in his office, so I'd be spending more time in my office than he would in his, and besides, didn't I like looking at the ocean? I couldn't exactly say it was a decision I rebelled against.

Second of all, and, most importantly, there was a little boy and a woman sitting in the chairs in front of my desk.

"Finally," the woman said in exasperation. She had dishwater blonde hair that was decidedly brunette at the roots, and she was wearing a sweater set with pearls that didn't look entirely real. In contrast, the unimpressed look on her face was completely genuine.

I didn't bother making excuses, although the contents of my stomach deciding to become one with the toilet in a really unnatural way was probably a good one as far as excuses went.

"I'm sorry about the wait," I said, as the woman gave a sniffle of displeasure. "My name is Susannah de Silva. Pleased to meet you."

"Pauline George. Pleasure." The way she said "pleasure" didn't make me think it was a pleasure at all, but I shook her hand nonetheless.

"You can call me Suze," I said to the little boy standing next to her. His left arm was in a sling, as was typical for fractured arms, and the look on his face, a hollow expression in his gray eyes that sat behind a pair of limp, brown bangs, told me that his arm might not be the only thing that was broken.

I reached out my right hand for his, and he looked at it for a second before he took it in his own and shook it. He didn't offer me his name.

Pauline noticed and immediately saw to remedying this deficiency. "His name is Daniel. Daniel Powell. I'm his aunt. We were telling this to the doctor earlier, so I'm sure you've already heard, but Daniel witnessed a very unfortunate incident a couple of days ago. And he hasn't said a word since. He didn't even let on about how much his arm was hurting until this morning."

I looked from Pauline to Daniel, who, true to Pauline's word, had not spoken once.

"When you say unfortunate incident…," I said.

"His mother's death. She worked at the jewelry store on Lincoln Street. I don't know if you might have heard about it."

I had heard. There wasn't much in the way of exciting crime stories in Carmel, so the fact that there had been a homicide in a jewelry store would probably be the headline for the next month or three.

"Daniel here was in the car outside of the store when it happened. He said, well, he didn't say, but he intimated that he was asleep and didn't see anything. But still. The police have already interviewed him about it to the best of their abilities."

I nodded while Pauline kept going.

"Now, look, I'm not really one for counseling. I think children are resilient. But the police did recommend that Daniel see someone, and since you're located within the clinic… You accept insurance, right?"

"We do," I said. That had been one of the conditions of the grant Jesse had received, to help patients regardless of their financial circumstances. We'd done our best to extend that idea beyond physical conditions to mental and emotional ones as well. "And the police were right to recommend that Daniel see someone. I'm happy you took their advice."

Pauline made a "hmm" noise, to showcase how unconvinced she was that she'd made the right choice. Then she asked, "What's your prognosis?"

"Prognosis?" I asked. She couldn't be serious.

"Prognosis," Pauline repeated frustratedly. She was indeed serious. "When do you think he'll start talking again? Start, you know?" And she made a few hand motions as if to convey an energetic smiling child.

That was one of the things people didn't really understand about mental health. Earlier, Jesse had probably told Pauline that Daniel's arm would mend in a few weeks, so Pauline wanted the same status report here. But Daniel was always going to carry the memory of his mother's death around. You couldn't put a cast and a sling on your own mind.

"With regular counseling, I believe we should see marked improvement in Daniel's condition," I said. It was a set phrase I used for people who were skeptical about counseling being helpful.

Pauline didn't look satisfied. "How regular can you make it?" she asked.

"Given the circumstances, I'd say two, maybe three times a week would be best for right now. We can scale back later to once a week."

"And then eventually nothing at all?" Pauline asked.

"Even without experiencing trauma, a weekly or biweekly counseling session is really a good idea for mental and emotional health."

Pauline gave me a withering look. "We'll see about that," she said.

I smiled as serenely as I could in response.

"Monday afternoons. Wednesday afternoons. Friday afternoons. Can you put that in your schedule? Daniel's school releases at three o'clock, so he can be here by half past."

I made a big show of opening up my datebook and looking thoughtful before I confirmed that I had availability during those times. I knew that I didn't have many clients yet, but Pauline didn't need to be privy to that information.

Pauline pulled out her cell phone, a Blackberry of all things, and inputted everything into her calendar. 3:30 to 4:30, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.

"Since today is Monday, would Daniel be interested in starting his first session today?" I asked.

She replied curtly, "I think Daniel has seen enough of the clinic for one day."

Given the unmoving blank expression he'd had on his face since I'd first met him, there was no telling if Pauline was right or wrong about this.

Pauline stood and tapped Daniel on the shoulder to follow suit. I stood as well and shook Pauline's hand again.

"It was nice meeting you," I said. "I look forward to seeing Daniel this Wednesday."

Pauline returned my handshake but not my words, and she and Daniel left my office soon afterwards.

I more than had my work cut out for me. If I didn't make headway and quick, I'd have to refer him to someone else, probably a psychiatrist and not just a counselor. My experience with Becca had given me some confidence in helping with more traumatic issues, but I was more used to dealing with clients whose recent experiences weren't quite so devastating.

I flipped open one of the psychology journals that I kept on the bookshelf behind my desk and was about three quarters of the way through with a paper about selective mutism when I heard a knock on my door.

I eyed my calendar, which was empty until two o'clock, before I said, "Come in."

It wasn't a client or Felipa on the other side of the door. It was Jesse who, judging from the boxes in his hands, came bearing takeout. He set the boxes down on the table across from my desk, where I'd set up two arm chairs and a coffee table as a less formal area for speaking with clients.

Once the boxes were out of his hands, he hung up his white lab coat on the coat rack next to the door. I tried not to let my eyes flutter downward to take in how well his butt filled out his pants, but I wound up failing. Just because Jesse and I had an active sex life now did not mean that I was going to stop checking him out any time soon.

He caught me looking when he turned around and gave me a knowing look when he saw I didn't have enough shame left to look sheepish about it.

"Thai food today," he announced before he set himself down in one of the armchairs and started removing food from the bag.

I put the journal down and joined him around the coffee table a second later.

When I reached for one of the takeout containers, a green curry whose deliciousness I could smell straight through its cup, Jesse pulled it away from my grasp and held it in his lap.

I groaned. "First the coffee now this?" I asked. "What gives? Is curry bad for a cold, too?"

"It's not that," Jesse said. And he held the Styrofoam cup in the air behind his head once he saw my hand reach across the table and head for his lap. "Promise me you'll be on time for work tomorrow," he said.

"What are you, my boss or something?" I asked. I didn't want to have to stand up to get my curry, but if it came down to it…

Jesse groaned. It was times like this that I could tell he regretted making me a part of the clinic. "Technically, yes. And, as your boss, I would appreciate it if you let someone know when you plan on being late. When I woke you up this morning, you told me you'd leave on your own and be here by eight."

"Fine. I'll be on time for work tomorrow. Do you want me to report our relationship to HR, too?"

"Susannah, you are HR," Jesse said before he set the curry back down on the table.

I made a grab for it immediately while Jesse spoke again. "You know, as your husband, I think you should let me examine you," he said.

I grinned. "You mean you want to juego al medicos?"

"Jugar al medicos," he said automatically. "And no, I mean an actual examination."

"It's a cold, Jesse, not the plague," I said, and I took the lid off of the curry and grabbed a spoon from the bag of takeout.

"Still."

I shrugged as I put the first spoonful of curry in my mouth. It was just as good as I expected it to be, maybe even better. I followed the first spoonful with a second and a third soon afterwards. I put the curry down on the table briefly so that I could put my back against one side of the arm chair and hang my legs over the other side. I let my heels fall from my feet before I picked up the curry again.

After another mouthful, I said, "You could've given me a heads up that my newest client was a product of the jewelry heist."

Jesse looked up from his pad thai in amusement. "I would have if you'd been here on time."

I was about to complain that he was being unfair to me, since I was sick and all, when the phone on my desk rang. I rolled myself out of my chair to answer it.

"Carmel Pediatrics Center. Susannah speaking."

"It's Felipa, dear. Would the doctor happen to be in your office?" Felipa asked.

"He's in here."

"Is he decent for conversation or should I call back later?"

"Decent. Perfectly decent," I said. In the two weeks that the clinic had been open, Felipa had caught us going at it during lunchtime a grand total of one time, but I was pretty sure she would never let either of us live it down.

"Then tell him Dr. Whitehall is on line two when he's ready," she said.

"Will do."

Felipa's voice disappeared, and I noticed the button for the second line blinked in anticipation of someone picking it up.

"Phone for you," I said to Jesse. "Dr. Whitehall's on line two."

Jesse set his box of pad thai down on the table and headed over quickly. Dr. Whitehall was one of the people Jesse was interviewing for a job at the clinic. Having one pediatrician was fine, but two would've been better, especially if Jesse ever wanted to take any time off during the week.

My phone buzzed as I heard Jesse greet Dr. Whitehall.

I had a text from Gina:

IT'S GOING TO AIR!

I texted her back a series of exclamation points immediately. Gina had stuck it out in Carmel for nearly a year after she landed her first theater role. She might've stayed here indefinitely, seeing as she was in a relationship with Jake now, but a talent scout from LA noticed her last fall and thought she'd be a good fit for a role in a new TV show. She'd gone down to LA and shot everything, but there was no guarantee that the show would actually see any time on TV at all.

Gina's next text was similarly in all caps.

I'M IN THE PROMO!

Her next text was a link to a YouTube video.

I was about to open the link when I heard Jesse's phone call wrapping up. Instead, I texted

Can't wait to watch!

and put my phone back on its lock screen just as Jesse returned the office phone to its receiver.

I looked at him, and he smiled lopsidedly.

"I think I've found our new addition," he said brightly.