Schneiders

It's the end of the day, she's sleepy and warm on the couch. To all appearances she’s scrolling idly through her phone, but in reality her attention has long left Buzzfeed behind to watch Schneider quiz Elena on something to do with plumbing. Pen isn’t following the jargon, but whatever it is Elena answers right and they both let out a cheer, flinging out their arms in a celebration that turns into a hug.

Elena holds her head high as she walks away, and Schneider watches her go with a look of pure pride.

A warm feeling blooms in her chest.

"I'm glad we found you."

His head snaps to her, surprised. “I—” he lets out a stuttery laugh, adjusting his glasses. “I mean, if anything, I found— What brought this on?” He leans too-casually against the arm of the couch, joy plain across his face.

She hadn't actually meant to let that slip out, but she isn't going to let him know that.

She hadn’t given much thought to the weird decor in his apartment before—the wood, the cans, pieces of whatever all stuck together. It fit his hipster vibe so well she'd never questioned it, but for some reason today her focus shifted from one to the workbench, and a new thought occurred to her.

“Schneider, did you make these?”

He blinks at her, head turning towards her first, the rest of his long self following in a wave in that way that always made her instinctively concerned he was going to fall over. “Yep, those were me.” He grinned proudly, hands on hips.

“Huh, cool.” She looked back at the closest one, then swiveled back to him. “... Whaaat is it?”

He rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be anything. Don't you ever just feel like making something?”

She wasn't sure what to say to that, but he'd already turned back to his creation, tapping his fingers idly along the slats. “That one was… The Hendersons, used to be in 204, remember? They had a table that they tossed, wood was good but their son had done a backflip into it, all in pieces. Seemed a shame to let it all go, so.” He waved his hands like, tah dahhh.

It's a weird intrusive thought. Sometimes things just get associated with each other, stuck in her brain, a call and response. This comes up any time some weirdo hits on her and she pulls out her go-to leave me alone move: mentioning her kids. And when they’re making excuses and backing off, her brain reminds her, Schneider was cool with it.

At this point she cuts off anything else with a reminder of: “Freaking wannabe-Sugar Ray was lucky he had anything redeeming going on” and moves on with her day.

She tries asking him about it once.

“Sure, of course I remember meeting you! It was… here, in the building. Anddd…”

He clearly in fact, does not remember. She regrets bringing it up. “Ugh, forget it.” She’s probably remembering it wrong, anyway. Between the lack of sleep and the rush of everything that came after, that whole section of her life feels like a fever dream.

He laughs, leaning back against the wall. “Look, Pen. There's whole swaths of my life I don't remember.” He taps his head and shrugs, as if disparaging a faulty filing system. “That's what happens when your best party trick is out-drinking everyone else.” The way he says it falls so matter-of-fact. She hates how he does that.

Sympathy wars with annoyance until he continues: “Why, did something happen? Did we hook up? That would explain a lot.”

Annoyance wins. “Ew. What? Explain what? And I was still married, remember?”

“Oh no, right, gross.”

She narrows her eyes at him.

“What? I ain’t no homewrecker, girl.”

Hey Nick, Schneider typed. This is me, doing the smart thing.

He only hesitated a moment before hitting send, pacing over to the window and looking out over Echo Park while he waited for his sponsor to reply.

He'd thought of going to the roof, or for a walk. Feel some sunlight instead of the cold those words had doused him in. But he'd gone back to his apartment, partially because he didn't really want to feel eyes on him right now, to wonder what they were seeing. Another part was hoping Penelope might want to apologize, and, well. If so, he'd be where she'd look.

She didn't come.

Nick texted back though, within a minute. He was good that way.

Nick
[ Hey man, I'm here. ]
[ What's going on? Are you safe? ]

Part of him relaxed at the feeling of someone, somewhere, caring about him. Nick knew just how messed up Schneider was, but he hadn't given up. They'd walked similar roads.

Schneider
[ I'm at home ]

He sent that and paused. His thoughts were racing just as fast as usual, but his processing felt super slow. Like he was reaching through honey trying to grab at the right words.

Schneider
[ A friend said some things about my addiction that were

Long pause.

 a little too accurate. ]

[ And I know

He stopped again, thoughts running into each other and piling up. His first instinct was to defend her. She wasn't her normal self, she didn't really mean it, she didn't know how it was for me.

But he got stuck. Some part of her had to have been thinking those things to say them, and her normal jokes were that sentiment-light.

Maybe she didn't know his particular specifics, but she'd been through it with Victor, hadn't she? Just because Schneider was coping, didn't seem broken enough…?

Probably why she went off her meds and quit therapy, he mused. As soon as she didn't feel broken anymore, she decided she didn't need the exact tools that were helping her feel that way. It made his heart hurt for her, despite it all. He wanted to help. But he was sure now she wouldn’t accept it from him, wouldn't believe he knew what he was talking about.

And right now he wasn’t totally sure he wanted to.

(If he were high, would his concerns be interesting enough to listen to?)

He snapped himself out of his reverie to realize his phone had been buzzing. He looked down at the window with his unsent message.

Nick
[ I'm sorry Pat. ]

[ Would you like to talk about what they said?
  What do you need? ]

Through his time with Nick, they'd figured out that rather than directly guiding him, it was most helpful to prompt Schneider to actually think about what he needed at that particular moment, to put it into words and ask for it himself. It pulled him out of being in the middle of the problem, to the outside where it was something to solve. That could be solved.

Schneider
[ Yeah, I think I need to talk about it. Do you have time for a call?
I was thinking of going to check on my seahorses later, then come back here to work out. ]

(To remind himself that something mattered if he wasn’t around, to quiet his brain and feel in control again.)

Nick
[ Now is perfectly fine, hit me with it. And that sounds like a good plan. ]

Nick picked up on the first ring.

By the time they'd wound their way through the particular stickiness of the word interesting, the well-worn topic of his revolving cast of supposed parental figures, and his wonderings if he could ever be taken seriously, Schneider was feeling steady again.

Two more days would pass before he would come back to apartment 402. But that's another story.

She'd just… assumed it of him. The fact of his sobriety was such a given that she sometimes completely forgot until she saw him toasting with water or wincing as one of her drunk tias leaned in a little too close.

She thinks about 8 years. She lies awake, thinking about what it would take to wake up every day and try your hardest to resist something you craved. It all getting a little easier, but never truly easy, never going away.

She buries her face in her pillow, thinking about the times she'd come to him for help, but he hadn't been able to come to her.

She decides that was going to change.

"How are you doing, Schneider?"

"Oh, you know, I'm...." whatever Schneider tried to say trailed off, and he just ended up shrugging, mouth twitching in what was almost a sad smile.

Doctor Berkowitz nodded.

"Not much to be proud of now, huh." Schneider tried to laugh but didn't quite make it.

"Oh, Schneider, no." Dr. B gripped Schneider's shoulder. "Of course I'm still proud of you. Eight years? It isn't nothing."

Schneider looked at the floor but didn’t move away from the hand. "Kinda feels like it was all for nothing, now."

Doctor Berkowitz's voice was quiet. "One day out of eight years, you lost the fight. And now you’re right back in it. How could I not be proud?"

Schnider’s face did something complicated. He opened his mouth, only to shut it again and just nod, letting out a shaky breath.

"And you know what,” Berkowitz squeezed his shoulder. “The next eight years will go by before you know it."

Schneider closed his eyes, hard. When he looked up, his eyes were full of tears, but there was a small grateful smile on his face. "Thanks, Doc."

Dr. B patted him on the shoulder before releasing him. "You know," he continued conversationally, "I once went 10 years without seeing one of my daughters in person!" He stared off into the distance. "...like it was nothing..."

Now it was Schneider who looked disturbed. He pulled Dr B. in for a hug.