Love Me Once, Love Me Twice

"Repressed?" Alex paused, considering her words. "It's possible," he said with a shrug. "I have simply never given this much thought."

"But then what do you do when you're sad?"

"You might remember I'm a stress-cooker."

"But that's just to give yourself something to do, isn't it?" she frowned.

"What do you think petting an animal is?" he raised an eyebrow at her. "Dopamine is dopamine, regardless of its source."

"Don't speak logic at me," Anna pouted. "I'm just trying to see what you like for self-care!"

"I don't think comfort is the same thing as self-care," he said, frowning. Were they the same? One was supposed to be considerably more consistent, wasn't it?

"They're not," she sighed. "But stress-cooking isn't exactly the best response to stress. I mean, I guess it doesn't harm anyone unless you're counting the plants and animals that end up getting mass-produced for those times. How does the pantry even hold up after that?" Anna was thinking about the sheer number of platters that poor wooden table had practically been groaning under.

"It's affordable," he waved the matter away, "And the food is all put to good use."

Which, okay, that was fair. Hadn't he told her as much when she'd asked him about it on the day of the event? "But that's it? That's the only thing?" she protested.

"Well, how many things do you take comfort in?" he asked her pointedly.

"Small animals," she replied immediately, "Sometimes I'll go for a run or exercise, maybe write out my feelings to sort them out."

"So not many," he spoke decisively. "Having one thing isn't so bad, especially when it has its own merits. I'm sure I'll eventually pick up other coping mechanisms." He doubted it, actually, but he felt that they'd exhausted this topic. "Let's look at those menus, shall we?"

As though remembering they were there for lunch, she immediately perked up, quickly diverted to another topic.

"Right!" she disrupted the poor puppy in her lap when she shifted, leaning over to grab two menus off of the small stack against the wall. They were eye-searingly yellow and the print on them was in a lurid green. Anna kind of wanted to stab her eyes out. Grimacing, she handed one over to Alex.

Sneaking a peek at his reaction, she grinned. He wasn't the most expressive person in the room, but even he'd hesitated upon seeing what he had to take from her offered hand. He didn't say anything, though, and did actually grip the laminated object. His expression wasn't quite one of horror, but there was enough discomfort there for her to find it funny.

He was generally unflappable, so she took comfort in the small reactions he had.

Giving the menu a look herself, she found that the Puppy and Pop cafe offered a fairly standard fare with hot and cold sandwiches, soups and salads, drinks, and dessert pastries. She was impressed by the savory pastries, too - she'd only had a meat pie once before, and it was from a farmer's market. In a corner, there was a section where people could purchase organic treats for the puppies, though it was restricted by time. That, she assumed, was so the baby dogs would actually eat their regularly scheduled meals.

"I think I'll have a Deluxe Grilled Cheese with Tomato Soup," she hummed, pleased to see a favored food on the menu. "With a cup of milk!"

Alex chuckled. "What quaint taste," he remarked. "You don't want something more filling?"

"It's lunch, not dinner," she shook her head. "And besides, cheese is pretty fatty and fat is usually high in satiety."

He paused at her response, then smiled. "I didn't realize you were a nutritionist."

"Nothing of the sort," she contradicted, grinning. "But I've been around enough dieters to know some of these things. I'm part of the group that just eats what they like."

"That's fair," he murmured in agreement, returning his attention to his own blindingly yellow menu. After a moment, he reached a hand over to the button at the end of the table, just where the matronly woman had promised. It didn't take long for someone to bustle out.

It was a young man, probably around her age. He was wearing blue jeans and a black sure over which he wore a light blue apron advertising the logo of the cafe. He had black hair, too, but it was carefully wrapped into a bun. When she glanced at his face, she realized he was of Eastern descent. "Hello," she blurted out her greeting, realizing that she'd been staring.

"Hello," he returned easily. "I'm David." The golden retriever and black lab clumsily left their benefactors to go and nose against his knees. Smiling, he said, "Looks like Gabe and Loki like you!"

"They can't like us that much if they're so quick to leave us," Alex said, amused. "We'd like the Deluxe Grilled Cheese, Tomato Soup, and milk for Anna," he nodded towards her, "And I'll take your Meaty Moist Meatball sub with coffee."

David was quick to take down the order, pulling a small notepad from a pocket and writing with a small pencil that had what looked to be a rubber paw print over the eraser. "Alright, I've got that down," he said, before politely asking, "Can I get you anything else?"

Anna glanced at the menu again, but shook her head, looking to Alex if he had anything else he wanted. At the lack of response, she smiled at David and said, "I think that'll be it for now."

"Sounds good," he said, sliding the pad and pencil back into his pocket in a practiced way. "Just call if you need anything else. This should be pretty quick." So saying, he carefully stepped around the puppies at his feet and disappeared back into the rear room he'd come from.

Without waiting for the puppy to come back, Anna reached out and dragged the golden retriever - Gabe, apparently - back into her lap. Glancing at the collar that was snuggly cinched around his neck, she confirmed that, yes, this adorable pupper's name was Gabriel. Gabe for short.

"He seemed nice," she said, stroking Gabe's ears.

"It's his job to be nice," Alex pointed out unhappily, letting Loki come back on his own. He could see a few more of the curious puppies carefully making their way up the stairs to come and investigate them. "Else he wouldn't get much done. Quibbling with customers is hardly going to be to his merit."

"Are you flustered?" Anna asked him, laughing quietly. "Your vocabulary shifted."

There was a long, pregnant pause.

"Maybe a little," he admitted. "I didn't think I was the kind to become jealous."

Leaning forward on the table, Anna only grinned at him broadly. "That's okay!" she said cheerfully. "It's good to know that you're wanted!"

Alex repressed a flinch. He could have done so much better back then. She'd deserved so much better - he'd practically killed her himself by driving her away. He looked down at Loki, rubbing at the puppy's belly.

"You know, I'm not her, but if it makes you feel better, I forgive you," Anna said casually.

Alex whipped his head up to stare at her, shocked at her words. Was he so easy to read?

"But really, it's probably more important for you to forgive yourself," she continued. "I told you before, didn't I? If she had a say, she'd want you to forget her and move on so you can be happy."

That was true - she'd told him that when he'd first related the story to her that day in the study. "I don't think it's so easy," he said quietly, bowing his head.

"Forgiveness never is," she said sagely, nodding in agreement. "But you know, holding your mistakes against yourself isn't going to help anyone. Six hundred years is a long time to be angry with yourself and to punish yourself. Don't you think she'd be upset if she knew?"

This was also true. His wife had been a sweet woman, soft and kind, earnest and hard-working. She'd loved him through and through and he'd never done her justice.

"It seems I'm doomed to fail her in all things," he said at last. Though he spoke lightly, his words were filled with an angry kind of self-condemnation.

"Stop," Anna ordered him sharply. Her eyes were still warm. Was shy pitying him? "The problem isn't your treatment of her. It's that you're using your wife as an excuse to punish yourself for your own guilt. You messed up. It happens. The next step is to figure out how to do better next time and then do that."

"That's easier said than done," he objected quietly, feeling turmoil spin out larger and larger in his chest.

"Anything worth having is worth earning," she said simply, shrugging. "It's hard, but it's always worth it. I don't think I've ever had someone come out of something hard with only complaints."

"Even if there are more complaints than blessings?"

"In other words," Alex summarized, "You're saying to just keep at it."

"Basically," Anna agreed. "Or else you're just going to keep making yourself sad. Do you want to be sad?"

"No particularly."

"Then make the effort. It's easy to be sad, you know. It's always easy to just let things be and to feel bad about them, but with some effort, things can be a lot better. Don't you want to see things from the other side of the window?"

"I don't know that I can," Alex admitted with a sigh, still staring down at the surface of the table. "It's difficult to let go."