✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

[Flashback Chapter 386: Time to Share]

Dean tried to do some of his work, but he couldn't focus. He was feeling so bad for yelling at Adi, and he couldn't think about anything but the shock on her face. She'd been scared, and that was something he never wanted to see. He wanted to make her happy, that was the whole point. But he'd made a stupid mistake, and he'd yelled at her for it. That wasn't fair; she was feeling like a baby and didn't know any better. And it was his fault that she was stuck as a baby right now, so any careless things she did were down to him. He could tell himself that it was tough love, that he'd done it for the right reasons, but he knew that wasn't right either.

After a few minutes he went back to her room. She was sprawled out on the bed now, trying to stack her Cyrillic alphabet blocks on the rumbled duvet. She stared with intense concentration at a block with a bold 'К' carved into the red paint on one side, showing pale stained wood grain beneath. She was sticking her tongue out from one corner of her mouth, and seemed to be putting all her effort into making sure that the block was straight in front of her. Then she picked up a second block, this one yellow and decorated with a capital 'Е'. With just as much focus, she turned and placed it on top of the first. It took her several attempts until she looked satisfied, with about a quarter of the block's size overhanging the corner of the one beneath.

Dean let out the breath he'd been holding. She was acting like a little baby, and she didn't seem to be upset. Then she looked at a green block, this one showing her the letter 'И'. She scowled at it like it had offended her for a moment, and then turned it around so that she could see a 'Д' instead. That at least looked kind of like the familiar letter 'A' – Dean assumed that was what she was trying to think. He didn't know if she could read the letters, but he could imagine it would be confusing for a child to be presented with unfamiliar symbols in the middle of learning to spell.

He wondered if he should give her a set of English blocks instead, or some toy that didn't require spelling. Would that make it easier for her to cope? But the blocks were one of the things she'd picked out on their shopping trip, and he wanted her to retain some autonomy when it didn't interfere with the plan. If she ended up only doing and thinking what he told her, she would be no better than a robot. The worst of all possible outcomes.

Then she slammed the wooden cube down on top of the others with a loud bang, hiding the unfamiliar symbol against the top face of the yellow block. A smile crossed the baby's face for the minutest fraction of a second, and then the springiness of the surface she was building on sent the lower blocks flying off in all directions. A stunned plush took a wooden block to the head and fell sideways, dislodging a whole sorority of dolls who tumbled to a pile on the floor. Adelaide pouted, and then put the yellow block back in the centre ready to start again.

"Are you building a tower?" Dean asked, and she glanced up startled. She hadn't even heard him approach; that seemed to be a sign that she was quite deep in her babyish headspace. That was a sign he knew how to read now. He'd noticed that sometimes she was more or less observant, more aware of her surroundings, or paid him more attention. He'd seen that she was sometimes happy to use babytalk, or simple words to convey what she wanted, while at other times it was a fight to get a recognisable syllable out of her and she would just nod or scowl. Before he had been guessing how she was really feeling, and doing his best not to bother her when she wasn't in a receptive mood. But the moment of shock when he'd taken her phone away, that was the rosetta stone to the lexicon of her body language. After seeing that, everything snapped into place and he was confident that now he would have a better idea how old she was at any given moment.

"Do you need some help?" he offered. "If we get you a tray, they might fall down less. Or I can bring an end table up from the dining room, so you've got something to put them down on. Or would you like me to show you some words? You know letters can make words, right?" He glanced at the blocks in her hands. For some reason each block in the set only had 3 letters on, with opposite faces the same. But with the ones in front of her he could see a few things she might be able to both spell and understand. The first that came to mind being ДТЕК – 'baby'.

"Word!" she shouted, suddenly joyful. Her mood was changing like a pendulum now, a child whose world only contained memories from the last minute or two. She put some of the letters next to each other, where they didn't fall over, but she couldn't find the one she was looking for. Dean moved closer and knelt beside her. But his own conscience was still a heavy weight on his shoulders, and he felt like he would burst if he didn't tell her some of the reason they were here. He owed her that much, however much or little she remembered the next time her adult thoughts fought their way back.

"I'll show you some words," he said, gently taking the cube from her hand and turning Д to the top. "And in between, I'm going to tell you a little story. It's okay if you don't understand it, but I'd like you to listen, and remember as many of the words as you can. You see, sometimes when I see you as a baby I start to feel..."