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Azzo Wolf Crowley. Age eighteen, lived with his grandmother. In need of more help than Edward Nguyen could provide.

The counsellor in question tossed the casefile back on his desk with a slight grimace, stirring his cooling hot chocolate. 'His' came with airquotes. He and the other RTLB counselling staff were nomads who used whatever space they got to work in. At Meadowview they at least took advantage of a crumbling prefab they'd partitioned into offices, utilized the rest of the time as release-teacher space. At Hillworth they got empty science classrooms with dripping taps. At their far-and-few visits to Crystal Academy they got beautiful soundproofed rooms and -- as Gina said wryly -- "a wide berth from everyone else." To be honest, he preferred Hillworth.

Azzo Crowley, and he'd never been able to work out whether the Wolf was part of a First Nations heritage or not, had been one of the ones who'd come out alive from the organ ring broken up in the DC hills late last year. They'd offered the kids only a cursory psych examination, as far as Edward could tell, before releasing them back into the system. He wasn't the only one of those remnants to get put on an RTLB keyworker, but unless the student in question specifically got a doctor's rec to go into therapy the counsellors' suggestions for psych help were gently rebuffed. "Not enough resources," they got told. "It's not your job to reference except in cases of major concern."

To them Azzo was too good a kid to be 'of major concern'. He was high-functioning and clamp-mouthed. Had slightly twitchy hands. Was one of thousands and thousands of latchkey kids abandoned to a sole grandmother who liked her Pernod and liked her Ambien -- there was a knock on the door, and he put that thought away in the box of 'pretty unjust, Edward'.

"Hey," he said. Big smile. Set him at ease. "Come in. Pick a chair, they all squeak."

As a chair got picked, Edward Nguyen sifted through Azzo's files. There were a couple scribbles from last time, a couple things they'd talked about. Goal: I won't dwell on the past. I'll think things through logically when they disturb me. It wasn't even as though he was a disruption, just lost concentration doing his homework and was struggling to catch up after trauma. No anger, no lashing out.

It wasn't Edward's forte. But there was nobody else.

He shuffled idly through the pages, took a swig of his drink and set his mug down again. Today his t-shirt read: BE YOURSELF. WHO ELSE IS BETTER QUALIFIED?. "What if I don't ask you how you're doing this time, but how your schoolwork's going?"

Edward did the classic check-my-shirt upside-down glance. "Thanks, Azzo," he said, though this was said with the perfectly straight face of someone who was happy that you'd just complimented his shirt. The tack changed: "Mr. Gordon, am I right?" A nod. "You're not the only one who's called him 'interesting'. You're lucky to end up with him, you know. He's a good teacher. Keeps you on your toes."

Mr. Gordon also played favourites, but it was probably better for Azzo to test the waters in Ray Gordon's class than it was for him to be in, say, Amelia Vyner's -- both were relatively young teachers, but Miss Vyner was young and softspoken and easily distracted. Ray provided structure. Sometimes really bizarre structure, but structure.

"Okay." He took another long swig of his hot chocolate. His eyes were on Azzo's: Mr. Nguyen didn't do confrontation, but he tended to meet your eyes. "Let's talk about how much sleep you're getting instead, because your face says -- let me see -- three, four hours last night?"

Nightmares was part of the scribble. Beside it he'd written frequent, ???, 2-4 times??? which needed to be typed out coherently. Azzo knew the tone of voice that Mr. Nguyen shifted into. "First thing that goes with no sleep is concentration," he said. "Memory retention's cut in half. That won't help you in science if you're trying to pass. From there we get depression, high blood pressure. Dogs and cats living together." The last one was said lightly, but there was a furrow in Mr. Nguyen's brow. "Okay. Hang on."

He was easing a sheet out of a big fat file he had, and he passed it to Azzo. It was headed: SLEEP HYGIENE, and seemed to consist of all the things you weren't meant to do an hour before bed. The best way to get sleep was to bore yourself into a stupor, reading between the lines. "Emotional health is physical health is emotional health," the counsellor was saying. There was still that tiny frown. "Are you eating?"

"No, you don't," said Mr. Nguyen pleasantly. "Television keeps you up. Use a radio." Nag. Unfortunately, right there on the sheet echoed his keyworker's words: Television will engage your attention, so no TV right before bed. Some people find it more soothing to listen to music. "Let me guess that you're not getting five plus of fruits or veggies a day, either."

He glanced over at Azzo's feet on the chair. One of his long denim-clad legs shot up and lifted the boy's feet off it just as cleanly, depositing them back on the floor and off the seat. "I can't actually imagine what you're going through," he said, as though he hadn't just relocated Azzo's legs. "If I could I'd have all the answers. But you have a duty to yourself and to your Grams to keep yourself healthy, to lower your stress, to keep your schoolwork up so you can graduate."

Mr. Nguyen took another long swig of the cup. "Or are you sitting there thinking, 'I'm eighteen, I don't have to listen.'" He smiled again, that small smile. "You don't, you know. It's your choice."

Mr. Nguyen didn't immediately contradict him, didn't give him any platitudes about of course they care you're alive, they're your family, they love you. He merely said, "Let's focus on you and your Grams. You said, 'strong one'. To look after your Grams, you look after yourself so you can look after her."

The goal sheet was dropped into his lap. "I know we talk about solutions a lot," his keyworker was saying. "What it'll look like when you succeed. I think you've written enough for me." (Phew.) "Azzo, tell me where you want to be in six months. I'm not going to judge you on anything you say. There's no wrong answer. We just keep on talking about what you want to change, but I think you're frustrated about how you keep going nowhere."

His counsellor shrugged. "I'm meant to be like your -- GPS, you know. Tell me where you want to go, I'll help you find the route."

Mr. Nguyen was draining the very last from the smiley-face coffee cup. Now he was digging around in his pocket and had unearthed some cinnamon mints, the tin of which he was flicking open with a thumbnail and shaking out a couple into his palm. What could you do? Azzo was a bundle of concerns and worries, expectations and pressures, and there was no way of saying concentrate on yourself only. In fact, Azzo had the right of it: the world was unfair and wanted something from him, and so long as he wasn't screaming he'd never get a referral. But the type of work he wanted. Well.

Puppet shows. Where did you go with puppeteering unless you were Jim Henson?

"With kid's entertainment you'll need a referee. You know that if you need me to vouch for you, I'll do it? Bring me your résumé next time and we'll go over it." Azzo was offered a cinnamint. "Résumé and your solemn promise that you're eating fruit."

Edward had smiled a little at cactus salsa, which probably meant that it did not, in fact, count as fruit. Considering that there were three empty Kit-Kat wrappers half-hidden behind a folder on the desk in front of them, it was a little suspect if Mr. Nguyen himself got five plus a day.

"That's what I'm here for," said his counsellor. Azzo looked uncomfortable, weighed-down, the kind of look you got before you admitted that you'd tried crack cocaine or that you swore the local icecream seller's van was following you around or that you'd cheated on your girlfriend. None of these things were in-character for Azzo Crowley. The boy in front of him looked incredibly unsure. Mr. Nguyen prompted, quietly: "Go ahead."

There was only one question he didn't want and had always dreaded: why did God pick me to be snatched by organ farmers and steal six months of my life?

Mr. Nguyen had simply listened. There was no expression of concern or judgement on his face, of worry or skepticism. He looked impassive. His only move was to lean back in his chair nad extract another cinnamint, his gaze flicking out the window briefly as he seemed to turn over everything Azzo had said inside his brain.

In fact, Edward felt nothing but that terrible sense of sadness again. "Azzo," he said. "You've been through -- well, you know what you've been through, I'm not going to repeat it. You're going to be feeling bad about the gaps in your memory for a while, you're going to be afraid. You're going to be frustrated, I guess."

Another cinnamint. "I'm going to speak off the record for a moment," said his counsellor, and put down the packet. "Azzo, I've never been able to give you the help I think you need. You need a doctor. I don't even play one on TV." It was a lame joke. Both of them knew it. "You're going to have to work through the amnesia aftereffects by yourself, and it's going to be really difficult, but I want you to remember four words."

Four fingers were held up. "I. Am. Not. Crazy." A finger came down after each word. "You are not crazy. Say it."