Thursday: Identity through Exertion

She'd thrown herself into work after Grams' funeral, and after breaking up with Roger; of course she didn't walk away from Bucklands' when Rex Buckland turned out to be evil.  Work was predictable, controllable, comforting -- most of the time, when evil and the fight against it didn't throw up complications that annoyed her mortal bosses.  It had been such a relief, the morning after Andy's funeral, to just go into her office, close the door, and catalogue 19th century Chinese immigrant artifacts for four straight hours.  It took almost losing Piper to see -- no, admit -- that this wasn't a healthy pattern, using good work, but work that was a duty for her rather a passion, as an emotional tranquilizer. 

As she and Cole consolidate their hold on the Brotherhood and begin turning their attention to returning to the surface for the birth, the thought of being idle and listless disgusts and terrifies her completely, equally.  They sit, designing the charade on legal pads, and she lets herself feel a terror she is very familiar with, just connected to him for the first time.  "And I want my career back.  Unless you actually think letting me go stir crazy will be beneficial to your son."