Stavanger Bay run doe run

It couldn't have been a recent development, the stutter - she knew that. He'd probably lived with it most, if not all, of his life. This knowledge did not make watching him struggle any easier, and the poisonous voice - not the sensible one - that lived at the back of her mind insisted that she stop him.

Don't let him do that. Why does he even try? Why would you let him suffer this way?

To the selfish part of Doe - that is, the largest part - it seemed like sound advice. Why strive to do something that only caused you pain? She could do well enough without him speaking to her, after all. They got along without it just fine, didn't they?

But there was something in his willingness to try for her that touched her heart, stilled her tongue, and kept her waiting patiently for him to finish. And when he'd said his part, she resisted the urge to praise him, though it was as strong as the original urge to quell and protect him from his attempts at speech. You will never know these things I think, she silently vowed, disguising an attempt to hide her face by washing a few salt crystals from behind his ear. Though you battle your own silence, sometimes silence is what you will need from me.

Feeling the need to add levity to the situation, Doe made her voice the blank, dreamy chirp of the Doctor's: "Oh, I just like them," she said in a bland but cheerful voice, watching his expression carefully out of the corner of her eye. When an appropriate amount of time had passed for him to properly appreciate her superior humor, she went on in a more serious tone.

"We need to line our borders with these black stones and shells. There has to be a clear line of them, perfect and unbroken," she explained, looking back at what seemed like too meager an offering for the task. "Halfway there," she hazarded, tail sweeping weakly behind her. "I wish we could make the line before the ceremony, but it has to be done in a special order, with all of us to help. Otherwise, we might already be done, and there'd be no worry about having enough..."

But the sea would provide, and there was no point in worrying about the woes of the future when today had quite enough of its own. Borrowing trouble, said the sensible voice.