A man sits in the waiting room. His hair is combed nicely and he's wearing a pair of black slacks and a dark blue button up shirt. It's clear to see that both his slacks and shirt have been ironed. What a shocking sight this would be for those who know the man the most.

It's Erik. Duh. He's sitting in Dr. Lane's waiting room. He's fifteen minutes early for his appointment. He's got one leg crossed over the other. Just sitting there. Waiting.

Doctor Lane isn't with another patient, well not exactly. Yelling comes from her office none the less. It lasts until the door opens exactly two minutes prior to Erik's appointment and Ker walks out.

He can hear the yelling that's going on and tries his best to ignore it. It's not his business. He picks up a magazine and starts thumbing through it. The door opens and he glances up. A brief look of surprise on his face. "Hi Ker," he says.

I'd still be talking to her about her house guest, if it were anyone but you scheduled to see her. Ker let him know. Her lips moved only to give him a faint smile. Ker wears a pair of loose jeans and a black t-shirt today. Her badly scarred arms show and her hairs is all odd short lengths, but there is no evidence of recent damage to her.

He offered a faint smile in return. I... um... I can probably reschedule if you'd like... he offers politely. And he would too. He didn't want to get in the way of anything or whatever. Same ol' Erik. Putting others before himself. Will that ever change? Probably not.

Ker shook her head. She liked Erik, Jordan was allowed to help him. They could finish talking about that crazy white rapper living in their guest room later. It wasn't like Ker didn't know where to find Jordan.

Jordan called from in her office. "Please come in Erik."

Erik smiled a little more as she shook her head. Thanks Ker he said before getting up from the chair he was sitting in as he heard Dr. Lane calling for him. See you later.

He made his way into Dr. Lane's office and moved over to the chair that he usually sat in for his appointments. "Hello Dr. Lane," he said with a smile as he sat.

"How have you been?" Jordan asked him. She looked a bit tired, but Ker does often wear her down.

She gets up and adjusts the blinds in her office so the bright light does not pool right where Erik is sitting. He is the only patient that uses that particular chair.

Out of the various chairs in her office, this is the only one he's sat in. He likes it. It's comfortable. At least to him it is.

"I've been okay," he answered honestly. "Keeping busy at work. Walking a lot in the conservation area still."

"Still been writing then?" she asked. "How've you been sleeping?"

"Yes. Still writing. Quite a bit," he answered. "Especially when I'm sitting on that boulder I told you about at the base of where the waterfall meets the river." Yes. He still goes to the very place that he had tried to kill himself. What a strange man.

"My sleep... well... For a while the nightmares were still pretty bad," he admitted. "But the other night, someone started to teach me how to alter my own dreams. To change the setting. I was told, though, that I need to learn to meditate or something to gain control of my own mind."

"You know a dream walker?" that is an exceptional rare talent, and it usually drives people insane or kills them if they happen to be born with the gift.

"Yes," he answered. He was unsure of if he should tell her that it was the very same person who had pulled his sorry ass out of the river in the first place. The very same person who couldn't stand him to begin with. "I do."

Pause...

"Why?"

"It's simply very unusual, they often have problems, like schizphrenia, they can't stop dreaming a lot of the time and sometimes they can be dangerous. Be careful." She said.

He nodded slightly. "I don't see him much," he says. "You see... he doesn't like me much at all."

"He doesn't like you and he helps you? You run into that a lot don't you?" she asks.

He actually chuckled slightly at her questions.

"Well..." he says almost hesitantly. "He's helped me before."

Can you guess how, Dr. Lane?

"It's not like he or I go out looking for each other. He just stumbles into my dreams every great once in a while."

She has her theories. "Do you remember how to put yourself in a trance with yourheartbeat?" she asked him.

"Um..." Come on Erik. Think. "No..." His mind has been on a lot of other stuff lately.


((EEP!))

Jordan walks him through a repeat of the exercise several times until he is comfortable doing it on his own and then teaches him how to use it as a medatative or self reflective state.

It takes him several go's but he seems to be catching on okay. "This will help me to be able to learn to control my mind?" he asks. "The one who was helping me learn to control my dreams, he had made a sarcastic remark about a telepath who couldn't control his own mind. Or something like that."

I can't teach you how to control everythin, but you can use this to focus, just like while I hypnotize you, you can slowly work with your mind in that same way. I can guide you through some hypnosis sessions to deal with your dreams a bit, but ultimately only you can learn to control your mind.

He nods his head slightly as he listened. "Sounds good to me," he finally replied.

"Keep practicing the technique we've gone over today and we'll get more in depth next week." Jordan said. There was only another quarter hour to their scheduled session.

"Alright," he says with a nod. "I can do that."

And he would too. Practice that is.

"I've got a question," he says after a moment. "Why am I so drawn to the place where I tried to kill myself? I mean... Is it strange that I like to go there?" He's been wanting to ask that for a while now.

"I have no idea, I could make guesses all day long, some might even be educated, but that's not one I know. Maybe it will reveal itself to you. You don't have thoughts about, a repeat swimmming excursion, do you?"

He shook his head at that. "Gosh no," he answered. "I find myself sitting there asking myself why I had even tried. I find myself asking myself why I had tried any of the times I tried. But no... I'm not having any thoughts of trying anything of the sort."

"Well that's good, maybe you just need to work through why." She said. She was always honset, lies served no one.

He nods slightly. "What ever the reason, my writing that I've done while sitting there has been better than any I've written thus far."

Silent pause.

"I've been doing good about making sure to check in with Jayme if I'm not going to head back to his place right away," he tells her. "I don't really go anywhere much though. Work, his house and the conservatory is all really. I've been avoiding some of the people that I knew."

"I didn't think you knew that many people, who've you been avoiding and can you say why?" she asked him.

"I really don't know too many people. Just a handful," he says. "It's mostly Callie that I've been avoiding ending up running into. I just... I don't know. I don't want to go back to where we were. I'm actually doing better on my own. I'm not ready for a relationship. Too much stress."

"That might be so. What else has been going on?" she asked time was almost up.

"Not a whole lot of much. I ran into an old friend about a month after I got out. We talked. A lot. Haven't seen him since though," he answered. "Other than that, just working mostly. It's good to be back at work. I really do like my job. Jayme is great."

"He really does seem to care very much about you. It's good you have such a friend." she agreed.

"And to think," he starts. "I told him to fuck off the first time I met him." He chuckles slightly. "I was upset and just wanted to be left alone. Along comes this guy that kept trying to talk to me. Now he's not only my boss but my friend, too. And I'm thankful for that every single day."

"Well that's kinda screwed up." Jordan said with a slight chuckle of her own. Though really she'd only been mad at Jayme when he got himself appointed Erik's patient's advocate, he had seemed like he might interfere in Erik's treatment at first.

"Yes," he says with another chuckle. "It really is. But he was persistant and after a while, I actually started talking to him. He even helped me sleep a couple of hours that afternoon with no nightmares."

"Persistant can be a good quality." Jordan said. It can also be bad though, look at just how persistant Ker can be about meddling in Jordan's life.

"I'm glad he was," he replies. "I got a job and an awesome friend out of it all. And I really do believe that ending up in Royal Pines was one of the good things that's happened to me." Yep. He openly admitted it. "It's helped me to stop and think about a lot of things I've done. It's helped to make me stop and think about things before I do them now."

The intercom on Jordan's desk buzzed and she ignored it. "That's good, moving forward is good. Don't forget to practice." she reminded him.