A/N As promised, here's the August 30th installment! A huge thank-you goes out to the people who've favorited or reviewed this story so far, your feedback means so much to me and please keep it coming if you can!

Also, just sayin', the second sentence of the second paragraph down there is probably my favorite out of the entire story so far ^_^

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\ˈsän-dər\ (noun) The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

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Sometime in October, Opal got a call from Ms. O about a medical condition with Oksana.

Literally, one of the loudest calls from the boss she'd ever gotten. "DR. O! IN THE BREAK ROOM! NOW! ! !" came the shout, so loud it reverberated around headquarters for another two weeks before finding its way out to fly south for the winter. Unable to hold back a yelp, Opal dropped her stethoscope and nearly knocked her teddy bear patient off the bed. "Apologies, Mx. Bear!" she said quickly, stabling their tottering form with one hand and scooping up her stethoscope to deposit it back around her neck with the other, before dashing out to the stairs. "Did someone call for a doctor?" she said moments later as she entered the Break Room, back to her normal professional composure.

She was met by Ms. O, standing in front of the infinite table, with Oksana seated in one of the chairs next to her. "Oh, there's a problem, alright," the boss said. "Tell her, Oksana."

The Kitchen Head locked eyes with Opal in that disconcerting way she did with everybody. "My hands are making this noise." She held them up, and sure enough a loud "AAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" sounded.

Opal blinked once, but otherwise didn't react. "Ah yes, I've seen this before. Oksana, how many meals did you make this morning?"

"One thousand."

"Were they all the same?"

"No," Oksana answered, narrowing her eyes. "You agents don't like it when your breakfast is the same as the agent's next to you. Makes my job difficult."

Opal ignored the comment. "How long have you been making different meals for all one thousand agents?"

"Since you agents demanded variety several years back."

"I see. Do you think you could make me a grilled reuben sandwich?"

Before Oksana could open her mouth the hands aaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeed again, but this time of their own accord. Ms. O jumped in surprise.

"That's what I thought." She nodded a few times. "Oksana, your body is exhibiting a common stress reaction known as corporis quiritatus, in which the part of your body experiencing the most stress literally screams for help and refuses to do whatever caused it to feel so stressed in the first place."

Ms. O didn't look too happy about that. "But I need Oksana to be able to work!" she insisted. "Is there a cure, Dr. O?"

"Oh yes. There's an easy part and a difficult part, however. The easy part is calming her hands, which can be done simply by painting their entire surface with a coat of mockingbird egg whites, a coat of lime juice cordial, a coat of pureed rutabagas, a coat of liquefied Tiggle breath, and a coat of unicorn tears, afterwards wiping off the coatings with a special towelette made of Saffron Slimer fronds. Should only take about six and a half hours."

Oksana stared in disbelief and wrinkled her nose. "What's the hard part?"

"Changing your meal routine. You'll have to go back to preparing the same meal for every agent."

"Change my meal routine?" Oksana got up from her chair so fast it would've fallen over had it not been screwed to the floor. "That's impossible!"

"Whoa there, no it's not," Ms. O jumped in, easing the Kitchen Head back down into her seat. "You don't have to completely change your meal routine, do you? Why not just ask agents to vote for three different meals, and only prepare the one with the most votes? That way you're still having agents tell you what they want, but it's less stressful on you."

Oksana regarded the boss dubiously. "Are you saying you know how to do my job better than I do?"

Ms. O didn't bat an eye, although Opal could tell she was struggling to hold her ground under such scrutiny. "No, I'm asking you why that wouldn't work."

"It would," Oksana said bluntly, surprising both of them. "Very well. I'll change my routine tomorrow. But today's too early."

"And I'll need time to apply the coatings," Opal added. "It'll be close to dinnertime by the time I'm done."

"Which means that's two thousand meals you can't make..." Ms. O trailed off thoughtfully, eventually snapping her fingers. "No problem, I know just what to do!" With that she dashed out of the break room and over toward the lab. "OSCAAAR! I need you to call Delivery Debbie's for me...!"

Not too long after, Opal had brought Oksana up to perch on her Medical Bay sick bed (after assuring Mx. Bear that yes, they were perfectly fine, and dismissing them down the chute), had arranged all the necessary ingredients in front of her (except for the pureed rutabagas and Saffron Slimer towelettes, for which she sent out her head nurse Odell to get more), and had begun daintily painting the mockingbird egg whites onto Oksana's hands with a tiny blue paintbrush. About thirty-five minutes in, the two girls still hadn't spoken a word between themselves. Normally Opal wouldn't have minded this, but she'd noticed Oksana was eyeing her with something like...no, it wasn't just boredom, there was something else there, too...but her doctor instincts weren't telling her anything about what it could be. Logically she knew the correct thing to do in a situation like this was small talk followed by subtle prodding—trouble was, she wasn't sure what sort of small talk would interest someone like Oksana, of all agents.

I mean, she's stiff and serious, just like me, so it shouldn't be that hard. I dunno, what's something I like to read...? Maybe the news? She seems like a type who'd enjoy the news. Or maybe popular music? She does play and remix a lot of it. Maybe news about music, or music about news? Maybe...

"Did you read that TBD article about Jessie J's new album?" she said, way too abruptly.

Oksana's lip curled a little bit, though it didn't seem to be directed at the doctor's social blunder. "I don't read TBD Magazine anymore. Not since they stopped being an actual magazine."

"I don't blame you," Opal agreed, a little less tense now that they were talking. "I liked the print version better, too. It just hasn't been the same since they moved to online-only and got rid of most of their writers. And though I'm a doctor and not a social psychologist, it seems to me the website and app are more popular now with other kids like us."

"Whatever," Oksana muttered. "They don't understand quality journalism. Neither does whoever bought the magazine and ruined it last January."

Opal made a face. She, too, didn't trust businesspeople who bought companies and turned them upside down like that Sawyer Shaw. That's why she was a doctor. "It's not all ruined, though," she said after a few minutes. "Riley Winter's still there. It was actually Riley who wrote the Jessie J article. I thought it was decent. Way too short, and a little simple, but thought-provoking. Like how Riley's articles used to be."

She was rewarded with a grunt. "I'd thought Riley left, too. Oh well. Might check out the article sometime."

Another silence fell. After a few minutes Opal finished the egg white coating and got up to wash her paintbrush, while leaving the areas on Oksana's hands that were still wet to dry. Then she came back and set to work on the lime juice cordial, trying to think of another piece of small talk that could get her closer to figuring out what that look in Oksana's eyes was supposed to be.

And then two gossiping off-duty Tube Operator girls happened to walk by the Medical Bay.

"Did you hear about how Agent Otto shut off the security system by himself yesterday?" O'Donnell gushed.

"Oh, I know!" came O'Higginz's equally flattering reply. "And by dancing! It's so creative of him to think of that for getting through all those lasers."

"And soooooo dreamy!" Their giggles faded down the walkway.

Opal caught her breath. The paintbrush lay forgotten in the bowl of green cordial. Please no I haven't

thought of Otto all

day I can't

do this please no I

can't

think no

no nO NO NO NO—

"Ugh, those two are incredibly annoying together."

She snapped out of her reverie. "Ohuh?"

Oksana was now eyeing the doorway they'd walked past with the same look she'd been eyeing Opal with, only now more intensely. Frightening intensity. "All they do is talk about Otto and how cute he is. Not like they have anything else to d—to, er, do...like actual jobs..."

"Of course. Incredibly annoying," Opal repeated, oblivious of Oksana's stutter, forcing herself to pick up the paintbrush and focus on her task at hand; no pun intended. Yet her brush strokes were more hurried, coarser, not with the dainty precision of before.

Her patient had noticed. Little did Opal realize just how much Oksana understood of her blooming interest in Otto. But all she said was, "What do you think of Otto, Dr. O?"

Opal pursed her lips, ironically (as it turned out) determined not to betray her thoughts. "Too silly for my taste. Can't seem to talk about anything other than food or dancing or Soundcheck or more food. Needs to be more serious."

"Good, you understand. Glad I'm not the only one who's not a superficial bowhead in this precinct."

"He's still a good agent, though. Olive keeps him in check."

"Hmm. Yes, she does, doesn't she..."

Oksana trailed off and looked back up to the open doorway. Yet another silence fell. Opal finished the cordial right as Odell dropped off the missing ingredients, and before long she'd set to work on the rutabaga coating. The silence had relaxed her somewhat, and once again her painting was careful and precise.

That is, until Oksana decided to be the one to break the silence. "Do you fancy Otto? Is that it?"

Opal froze.

"Do you?"

"I'm a doctor, not a lover," she blurted out, all but stabbing the paintbrush into the creamy puree. "Odd Squad agents don't have time for that sort of nonsense."

"Nonsense. Yes, obviously." Oksana didn't speak again after that.

An hour earlier than expected, the process was finished and the screams were gone. Without a word Oksana got up from the bed and marched out of the Medical Bay, before Opal could even give her the routine push down the chute into the ball pit below. She watched her patient go, dropping the used towelettes into her trashcan only by afterthought, unable to shake the feeling Oksana knew more about what she felt for Otto than she did herself.

And little did she know just how much her own emotional distress mirrored Oksana's own.

* * *

Christmas morning, 2014. One week before the Countdown Crook incident.

Opal had always been an early riser, and today was no exception. No matter how much she wished it might be. Sure, though she considered herself a Buddhist more than anything, she still understood the whole "true meaning of Christmas" well enough.

It just never seemed to find its way to her.

Her world had been full of struggles for as long as she could remember, since her very not-birth in 1990. During her Academy years and then that limbo period at Odd Squad, there were often months she was forced to choose between paying her tuition or paying the rent and bills. Not that Ms. O wouldn't've found a spot in the Pillow Room for her to spend each night, or that the Academy had dorms—albeit expensive ones—but it was a point of pride for Opal to maintain her own home. Plus the "All Kids Are Equal, All Kids Belong" promise only extended so far where finances were concerned. It was all too worth it to finally get that diploma and medical licence a full two years earlier than expected, but even holding worthy esteem (and a fatter paycheck) as a doctor couldn't get her everything.

It was just her luck the nearest Tube entrance was the same distance away from her tiny apartment as the nearest subway station: twelve and a half blocks. Technically she could ask the Tube Operators to open another entrance by her apartment building, but O'Brian had been on duty that day and a then-Agent Opal was quick to shirk from his threatening glare. So the alternative was a walk she did not enjoy making twice a day in all weather as a young girl on a congested city street, and though her faith taught suffering and material renouncement to be necessary parts of life...gosh, a bike sure would be nice. And up until a few years ago, it seemed the beautiful teal Schwinn in the shop window display might finally be hers.

But when dear Cousin Libby was diagnosed with leukemia in late 2010 and the immediate family couldn't pay the hospital bills, Opal didn't, couldn't, hesitate to send a few hefty checks their way.

So now, as with every year around this time, surrounded by happy families and neighbors exchanging gifts and singing carols and sharing hot cocoa by warm fireplaces, she was forced to show some holiday spirit and hide her pointless desire for a bike that not even extra money from babysitting on her days off could buy. Just as the Second Noble Truth dictated, her material desire only brought suffering. And not even a day off from work would allow her to sleep in and avoid as much as possible the holiday that never seemed to apply to her. That only reminded her of such suffering.

Groggily, Opal threw on the slightly too-small gray housecoat Oscar had given her as a not-birthday present one year and climbed out of her lofted bed down to the kitchenette below. Never mind if she couldn't sleep the day away, there were things to do. She'd see if there was any more instant oatmeal in the cupboard and make herself a small breakfast, then check out what Santa had left under her meager little tree—though she never asked him for anything, he always seemed to insist on bringing her a few doctor-related trinkets to decorate her Medical Bay with. After that she'd catch up on her meditation, then call Libby to see how she was doing, and maybe tune in to a few holiday specials on the TV in the landlord's office if she felt really bored. There was also the option of taking to the streets with her megaphone and giveaway toothbrushes to deliver her routine holiday health lectures, but that had gotten her in trouble on Halloween this year, so probably best to avoid doing so. Oscar might still be in town, she could always try taking the subway to his house for a brief visit—

Opal gasped and dropped the instant oatmeal box.

What is that?

Utterly unaware of the mess she'd made on the wood floor, Opal brushed the tangled bedhead hair away from her face and took a few halting steps into the spartan living room, scarcely daring to believe what had caught her eye. Gingerly she approached the large, suspiciously-shaped tissue-wrapped package in the center of the room. Pulled off the tag stuck on the side to read it.

"To: Dr. O, duh! From: Not Santa, just two friends :)"

It can't be...

But it was. Propelled into action by some untraceable gut instinct, Opal tore off tissue paper by the shreds. In awe she marveled at the glint of light on teal-painted steel, the sturdy tires firm with air, the crisply sleek little bell on the handlebars.

How...what...but who could've...?

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to jump up and down and dance for joy. Who cared where or who the bike came from? It was real, it was so definitely real, and Opal was absolutely ecstatic. This year, oh yes this year, something of the true meaning of Christmas had finally found its way to her home.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Otto was gleefully imagining her reaction as just that.