Chapter Text
Dr. Joan Bright had asked for help exactly once in her life. It was to save Mark, and only after she’d exhausted every other option. It had worked, she’d gotten her brother back, but at what cost? Weeks of desperation and anxiety, even more trauma for Mark?
She’d asked for help once and it had put Sam into an impossible position. It had made everything so much worse. So she decided that she simply wouldn’t, as long as she could avoid it.
Not asking for help looked like staying late when she’d put too much on her plate at the AM. If it meant that Sam and Owen went home on time and the AM kept working like a well-oiled machine, it was worth it, even if it made her choose between a real dinner and an appropriate bedtime. It looked like surreptitiously rescheduling meetings when she was sick so her codirectors wouldn’t notice and send her home. It looked like trying to figure out how to keep a plant watered when she ended up at a conference three states away. She’d had the text typed out to Sam, thinking about catsitting Darwin. Or maybe Chloe? Chloe loved plants. She could even have taken it over to someone’s house to stay for the week and a half she’d be gone.
That’s asking for help, a part of her whispered. You’re putting them out— they won’t be able to politely say no to you. You’re interrupting their lives.
“It’s returning a favor at worst,” Joan muttered to herself, even as she deleted the text. “I took care of her cat.”
You took care of her cat because she was trying to save your brother, which you should have been doing, from a situation you put him in. It was the least you could have done.
“I’ve still… I’ve helped Sam.”
You’re her therapist. Of course you’ve helped her. Well… until you stopped. It’s different for you. You were doing your job, and not well. You wrecked Sam’s life being selfish. You’re lucky she still talks to you, let alone looks at you.
She’d circled that thought process for forty-five minutes, listing people and the reasons why she had no right to impose a potted plant on them for a few days. The fruitless exercise ended when she realized it was too late to text anyone, or risk waking them up. And that would simply put her on even worse footing to ask a favor.
She overwatered the persnickety peace lily before she left and hoped the open blinds would treat it well. It was still green when she came back, but the leaves were crisp to the touch and it died its final death within the week.
Joan sighed as she tipped the plant, pot and all, into the trash. “Nice one.”