His stomach muscles tightened at Pippa's furious gesture, but Rory refused to flinch away from her damaged hand. Tadhg had refused to let him look in that last box, refused to let him see the severed finger inside, but he remembered her screams, the crack--

Stop it. This isn't about you. Swallowing hard, he tried to regroup. "Love, that's the point. You need to talk this through with someone. And for whatever reason, you don't seem to want that someone to be me."

Rory took deep breaths, fighting the increasing tightness in his chest. "But you can't heal keeping all this to yourself. Abby and I -- she recommended someone else for you to see." No turning back now; the bomb was well and truly dropped. "A professional."