Todd wants the Bee Man to put down paper before Cathy lies down on the table; Todd swoops and scurries like he's watching Amanda Montgomery buy a car. The Bee Man makes a mockery of him as a doctor, and a man; the buzzing everywhere shouting danger for his patient, for his friend, and she walks into those arms like she's safe. She trades his medical knowledge, hard-won and historied, for this Bee Man and his bees. He feels protective, Dr. Mauer. He feels protective and a little something more, like a bee crawling on the back of his neck. Never stinging, always there. For awhile now.

As Cathy lies down on the Bee Man's table, Adam slays Mia on a videogame, perched on the windowseat in the sun. She notes the time: Dinner, dad's new girlfriend, ratty hair extensions. "She's like fifteen," Mia grumps. When Adam apologizes for his mother Mia's nonplussed: "My mom's too busy fighting my dad for money to call up a guy and tell him I'm shy..."

Adam hears the first part, but not the second. The first part is scary and the second is not. But everything that rises must converge and the more he fights the first part, the better the second part gets. Adam swears, twice, that he's not shy. The second time, with a bit of fire behind the eyes. She heads for the door and he calls her back. "Would you, um, mind... If I did something? If something I tried was with you?" It sounds insane; he offers to text her again so she can leave.

Mia thinks, for a second. Her mom will never call a guy, to tell him that she's shy. But Cathy did. It makes her feel less shy than ever. She kisses him, and smiles, and she leaves.

Indian pipes and the Bee Man communing with the bees, as Todd and then Cathy stare. He rocks slowly, from side to side, with the jar against his face. The buzzing warmth of it: "A quiet thank you to the bees," he explains. They die selflessly, he says: Their sting. "We can learn so much from the bee. If only we would listen."

He wakes them from their boredom and produces the first bee. A Canadian bee, they say, will be more polite; the pain will be devalued at the current exchange rate. She holds Todd's hand as he puts the bee down on her skin. She jumps, scaring Todd, and the bee goes free. Soon enough, Todd has stamped out its life. Todd leaves the room without being told, as the Bee Man mourns.

Paul paints the window frame, by the front door; he's dipping his brush when Marlene appears suddenly, framed inside it. She calls to him, loudly, and he jumps. They laugh together. Now that he's home it's a lot easier, with Paul. "I saw you up on the roof, replacing shingles..." She wonders if they're selling; she hopes they never leave.