Piper watched Fear carefully from her end of the boat. He seemed oddly subdued, as if he were deep in thought. He had that distant look in his eyes again.

"Fear?" she asked, hesitantly.

He didn't answer out loud, but he turned to look at her, meeting her eyes, dragging his thoughts back from whatever distant place they'd been occupying to the present.

She took a deep breath. "Why'd you come? I...I was nervous earlier but I wasn't scared, standing by the lake. Not really...not badly." She paused as she noticed that his expression had changed to one of...almost worry. "Anyways," she pressed on. "I know you're busy. So I wondered why you came. If I wasn't afraid, that is."

She waited, almost holding her breath. Fear was silent. Eventually, he turned away from her, fixing his gaze on the water. He reached down and swirled his hand through it momentarily, his expression almost a grimace. He looked somehow younger, as if he'd gone back in time. His eyes finally looked more like they belonged to a young adult, rather than to someone who had seen things.

He sighed, removing his hand from the water and turning to face forwards once more, although Piper noticed he was avoiding eye contact.

"Fear?" she muttered, pressing him.

He closed his eyes momentarily, before opening them and fixing them on the bottom of the wooden boat. "I came because all I knew was that you were at the lake again. You were at the lake again and I hadn't been summoned. Which, for all I knew, meant you were back again and this time...with no fear. No way for me to save you with my abilities. So I had to be there. I had to come try to stop you."

He shook his head, looking almost dazed. "But you were just...here...And once I got here, I could see...I could see that you weren't here for that."

"You were...afraid? For me?"

He rolled his eyes at the hint of a smile on her face. "Don't..."

"Fear was...afraid?" She grinned.

He glared at her, clearly not as amused as she was. "Yes," he snapped. "I was. For the first time in years, I was afraid."

She was a bit taken aback. "You...you actually worry about me?"

He stood up, pacing the short length of the boat floor in three steps before turning around and heading back in the other direction. The boat didn't even rock. He finally groaned, exasperated. "Yes," he said. "I worry about you. And that's a problem." He turned to face her, gesturing with his hands. "Don't you see? I'm no longer...apart. I'm no longer detached. I'm caught up..." He shot a frown at her and resumed his pacing. "And it's new, and different, and I don't...I don't know what to do. Because for all that I am, and all the things that I can do, I've never done the friend thing. I didn't have friends. I don't have friends. And...and..." He threw up his hands, flustered.

Piper caught herself thinking it was almost kind of adorable. It was so strange, seeing Fear flustered. She quickly shook off that thought as Fear continued his pacing, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair, making it stick up slightly.

"I just...Dammit!" He slapped a hand over his mouth. "S-sorry," he said, turning red.

Piper shrugged, forcing herself not to laugh. "You should hear the things people say these days. I'm used to it."

He shook his head, eyes still distant, as if he were somewhere else. "Anyways...I came because I was worried. Because I would consider you a friend. And I couldn't let you...I couldn't..."

He looked up, his expression strange, finally meeting her eyes, but somehow still making her feel like he wasn't really seeing her.

"1922," he said.

She folded her hands in her lap, waiting for him to elaborate. His eyes made it look like he was a million miles away...maybe back in 1922.

"This lake," he finally continued. "1922, at this lake. Picture a boy, twenty years old. Just turned twenty. A boy with his whole life ahead of him."

He shook his head sadly, catching his breath. He sat back down at his end of the boat, staring vacantly at nothing again. "A boy who didn't see any of that, because he thought his life was so bad that it wasn't worth anything anymore. He couldn't see how he could live another day. He'd lost his father in the war, a few years ago. He'd been trying to work to make a living for himself since then. He was miserable. He thought he had nothing left to live for. And..."

Piper felt her breath catch in her throat.

"He came to this lake at around two in the morning. There weren't boats around...so he just stepped in. The water was bitter cold. It was late winter...early spring...Just thawed out. Nice and cold." He laughed, almost bitterly. It scared Piper, a little. "Lulls you right to sleep. Hypothermia. Nice and calm..." Fear looked like he might break. Piper felt like she might break.

"He didn't have any fear of dying left." Fear shrugged, sadly. "So he waded out...until his feet couldn't touch the bottom anymore...And he let himself float, until hypothermia set in. The last thing he saw...the night sky...before he closed his eyes and let himself sink into darkness. And down...down..."

Piper sat, frozen, watching as Fear's words faded into stillness, the breeze picking up slightly and gently swaying the boat. Fear was there, in body, but his mind still seemed like it was gone away, and she wasn't sure where.

Suddenly, he shook his head, and straightened. "I couldn't let you do the same. I couldn't. I can't..." He had come back to himself, and was now looking at her earnestly. "Do you understand?"

She nodded.

They lapsed into silence, the boat drifting on the calm waters beneath them. Piper thought of the boy, watching the night sky until he closed his eyes and sank. She shivered.

She looked up...Fear was looking over the side of the boat, his gaze transfixed on the water. He was swirling his hand through it, a strange, almost dazed smile on his face.

"1922," he muttered to himself.

"Fear?" she questioned, hesitantly, concerned. He seemed not to hear her, only continuing to move his fingers through the water.

She moved hesitantly forward, the boat rocking beneath her, until she came to sit next to him on the bench at his end of the boat.

She cautiously laid a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He jumped slightly, turning to look at her. His eyes slowly started to look less haunted.

Hesitantly, Piper put her arm around him. He stiffened for a moment, but relaxed, wrapping his own arms around her. She didn't know what she had expected him to feel like, since he wasn't really human even though he was human in form, but he felt good. Normal. Safe.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Fear pulled away.

"S-sorry," said Fear. "This...this isn't normal. I don't know...It's just the thought of...Don't do it Piper. Please promise me that you won't. Don't do...what I..."

Piper drew in a breath. "Fear," she whispered, drawing back slightly. "Y-you?"

He shook his head in embarrassment, drawing himself up. "Yes," he said, looking down at his hands. "Me." He laced his fingers together. "It's strange," he said, after a moment. "It feels like it was forever ago...a lifetime ago...and yet at the same time, it feels as if it were just yesterday."

He took a deep breath, frowning. "I figured out too late that I didn't actually want to die. So..." He shrugged, back to being matter-of-fact Fear, as he more ordinarily was. "I made a deal with Death. The current keeper of fears had been doing the work for quite a while. He was ready to be done. I took what I could get. And here I am." He gestured dramatically, with false enthusiasm. "Keeper of Fears and Bringer of Nightmares!" He deflated somewhat, returning his hands to his sides.

"Anyways," he said. "You can have everything, Piper. I know this seems hard right now...And maybe I'm not the best one to talk. But it will get better. And when it does, you can have anything you want. People to love, and people who love you. Maybe children. Opportunities. Experiences. Tea. Food."

Piper felt tears gather in her eyes. She laughed slightly when Fear brought up tea and food. "I do love some good Earl Grey..." She quipped. He smiled sadly at her.

"Fight through the bad days," he told her.

She smiled, slightly. "Ok," she said.

After a few moments, she returned to her bench, and Fear began rowing back to shore. It didn't seem to cause him any effort, unlike when Piper was the one rowing. He made it look so easy. Piper studied him. She'd never imagined what he was hiding. Looking at him now, she couldn't have imagined. And yet, he had seemed old beyond his years. He did seem to know quite a lot about depression and anxiety.

She watched him, noticing little things like the way he bit his lip when he was concentrating on something, or the way he tilted his head just slightly when thinking, or the small scar on his forehead just above his eyebrow that she'd never noticed until now.

She found herself wishing she was back in 1922, in a park, late at night, to save a boy's life.

"Piper..." he said, after a few moments, drawing her mind back to attention. She shook her head, embarrassed somewhat. She hoped he'd been deep enough in thought that he didn't know what she was thinking.

"Huh?" she intoned, straightening.

"Promise me you won't make my mistake." His eyes were serious, and his lips were set in a straight line, his jaw hard and his expression earnest.

Piper hesitated. Could she promise that? She had to admit that she'd thought about coming back again a few times. Thought more about what dying would be like (like falling asleep or more violent?). She thought about what it would mean to promise him that she wouldn't try again.

"Don't promise for me," he added. "Promise for you."

Piper nodded then, smiling slightly. "I promise," she said.