My roll is slowing, I must say. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and favourited my stories! My plotbunnies are dashing off at a steady pace, so don't think it's all too serious if I'm not getting one, two fics up a day. C: Love you guys, and I hope you enjoy another Anna/Georg fic, since y'all seemed to like the last one. ^^

A swish of a long cotton dress. A melodic hum. A one-two, one-two patter of flat shoes skipping along the road. These sounds all mixed together with nature noises nobody ever noticed- they all made Georg so tense. He felt unprepared, like he didn't know enough to understand it all, and it worried him. It worried him to the ends of the earth. He wasn't excellent at school, like Melchior, or absolutely flailing in the unknown, like Moritz. They, too, worried him.

And the fact that he was always so worried made him worried- it was like the world was enveloped in a sea of concern, and it was his job, his given task, to think about it and think about it and think about it until he couldn't stand it anymore. And Georg really couldn't stand it anymore. His mind had one track, and like a horse running races it just kept moving in circles, going over things again and again. He was becoming paranoid, and he knew it had to stop.

"How?" was the question and "Why?" was the answer. How could he stop tiring himself out before he went clinically insane? Why he did it in the first place was a wonder and a solution at once. Once he figured that out, he'd be able to rest well, sleep soundly, and think clearly. Too much thought and too little sleep would get him nowhere; learning required sleep. Georg couldn't afford to lose any brain cells; he needed them all for piano and Latin and Greek and maths and literature… it all became a blur again as the subjects all swirled around in his head.

He came back to the noises outside. Pacing frantically and restlessly around the room, he slid one hand over his face, pressing in his features non-exclusively. He had a headache. Maybe a walk and some fresh air would help him some.

Dashing down the stairs, Georg loosely but dutifully yanked on a jacket and pounded the ground with his feet as they propelled him to an unknown destination. It shouldn't be too far, because his mot- NO. No more thinking, no more minding what other people would do, what they would say when he got there. The unknown was the best thing for him right now, and he had to stop his racing mind from worrying about everything and anything.

Dizziness swept over him- maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all, forgetting that strenuous activity made him weak. Georg swayed and staggered back, propping one hand against a tree to steady himself. He closed his eyes and took even, steady breaths. "What are you doing, Georg?" a sweet, childlike voice asked with the upturn of an impending laugh tacked onto the end. Trying to mask the fact that he was frightened out of his wits and was gathering them up mentally like a child who dropped his marbles, he replied calmly, "Nothing." He then turned around to face the voice's owner and blushed scarlet.

Anna. They hadn't spoken since last week, when the rain shut him out of his piano lesson and he was trying to make it home. When he… he couldn't think about it without shivering, the action was so unlike him. The important thing was the feeling, the moment of realization he'd had the minute he walked out her door: He'd done it without thinking. That alone made Anna worth about a million dollars and a summer home.

But really, she was already worth that, Georg thought. "What are you doing?" he added, glancing down at her hands. A basket, oh, yes. The spring showers (or rather, spring monsoons) had indeed brought flowers, berries, and other growing seedlings, as nursery rhymes so long ago had promised. So the question was really unnecessary.

"Trying to find any flowers that would look fine on our mantle and tablepiece," Anna replied and smiled sweetly, her eyes blank of expression but crinkling at the edges to show real interest and happiness at seeing him. Oh, how that face made him want to know whether she remembered, as well as he did, how that felt. For him it was bliss.

Still breathing regularly, he raised his eyebrows with approval. "And how is that going?"

"Well, thank you." It was getting harder and harder to stop thinking about it, and Georg was trying as hard as he could to stay calm and collected. "Of course," he replied. His voice was more strained now, and he took deeper breaths between each word. He watched closely as her face began to show concern, and her lips formed, "Are you feeling alright, Georg?" It nearly killed him to hear his name- that was all he could hear. He turned away and slid down the tree, trying to get his mind to stop looping her face from the week before during that fateful moment.

"Georg?" She kneeled next to him, turning his face with a small, soft hand. He caught her hand before it slid off his face and said, "It's all right, I'm all right." Her palm was flat, facing up in his lap, and he traced the three prominent lines with his fingers, weaving into hers and letting the intertwined hands rest on his knee.

"Georg." It wasn't a question anymore, he noticed. He looked up at Anna, who, at meeting his nervous glance, leaned forward and kissed him full-on, as he did to her the previous week. Georg took her other hand in his own, lacing them together and pulling her to sit next to him. The kiss deepened, and Anna seemed less hesitant. When they broke apart moments later, he whispered, "I think you're just what I needed."