Lee sat uncomfortably on the couch beside Tarin. These little 'chats' she was having with Doctor Rossi were strange enough, despite how nice a woman Dr Rossi seemed to be. But having Tarin there as well only added to the awkwardness.

Lee really wasn't sure whether they were making any progress or not. Well, she was no longer seeing things whenever she closed her eyes, so that was a bonus, but she did tend to wake up at least twice a night still because of nightmares.

At least they had let her leave the infirmary after spending almost a full 24 hours there. The doctors had decided that there really wasn't the need to keep her under that close of scrutiny, and that being there might just be making it worse by adding stress, but that didn't mean that she was allowed to leave. They'd given her and Tarin a room, barely more than a dorm, where they could stay.

At least it was nicer than the infirmary.

"And how does it make you feel, knowing that can happen?"

Lee looked up at Dr. Rossi as she spoke. And again, she wondered why Tarin had to be there for this session. Normally, most of their talking focused on, at first the images she had seen, and now the nightmares she kept having, and in turn that led to talking about what had actually happened. But today, their little talk seemed to be completely focused on Tarin's merging.

"I can deal with it," Lee replied, and unconsciously curled her legs a little closer to her.

"I know you can deal with it, but how does it make you feel?"

Lee's eyes dropped to the empty space on the floor between the couch she and Tarin were sitting on and the chair that Dr Rossi was occupying.

"It terrifies me," Lee said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

As Tarin had thought, the Doctors at the labs quickly decided that physical tests were unnecessary. Some of that fact had Tarin relieved, but mostly he was even more worried than he had been before. Problems that resulted from mental problems were tricky to fix, and even trickier to deal with in the meantime. Lee hadn’t had a relapse of the terrifying hallucinations she’d had the night of the fight at King Pharmaceuticals, but she was having nightmares now. For the first time, Tarin had an idea of what it was like to sleep next to him. His nightmares had grown much fewer and farther in between after Lee had given in and started sleeping in the same bed with him, but they still happened every now and then. Lee’s were happening nightly now, sometimes twice a night. That’s what this session was for, though, to try and figure out the root of the problems.

Tarin hadn’t been allowed in most of these meetings, and Lee seemed okay with the fact. Tarin, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue how to feel about it, especially since this Dr. apparently knew all about being mutants and the things that had happened. That was the point of this, though, Lee talking about the things that she was seeing in her sleep and getting a professional opinion on how to deal with them…and today Tarin got to help.

It had seemed like a great thing at first, and Tarin had been almost eager to get to the appointment and see what the Doctor had to say. Until they got there and the session started. They were talking about merging. Tarin’s hands had clenched into white knuckled fists the second the doctor brought it up. The problem was that this was apparently the point of the whole session.

Lee was being stoic, Tarin had to hand it to her, but he could tell by the way she curled in on herself at the other end of the couch that the topic of conversation was bothering her. Part of him wanted to tell her that this was the point, that she needed to talk about it. Another part didn’t want to know what she really thought, though, didn’t want the confirmation about what he did.

The Doctor was persistent though, good at her job, and eventually she pulled the answer from Lee that Tarin had both been hoping for and dreading.

Terrified.

Tarin’s eyes closed slightly and he swallowed a little convulsively at the wave of nausea that washed over him at the realization that Lee really was scared. Tarin knew things were hard on Lee, but every time he’d merged around her he’d been passed out by the time she actually dealt with what had happened. Tarin opened his eyes and the doctor was nodding, she looked pleased, suddenly the woman was on the ‘them’ side instead of the ‘us’ side.

”What about it terrifies you. I want you to talk me through it, talk to your husband about it.”

Tarin had never understood the phrase ‘gobstruck’ …until that moment. The woman wanted that. Tarin took a deep breath though, and turned to Lee, nodding his head, “It’s okay.” He said, softly and slowly, avoiding eye contact, “This is good. We never do talk about these things.”

Lee was silent after the doctor spoke again. What about Tarin merging terrified her? Really, what about it wouldn't terrify?

She swallowed. Even if she fully wanted to, how was she supposed to explain this to the doctor? No one she had ever talked to seemed to even remotely understand what it meant when Tarin merged until they had seen it.

Then Lee heard Tarin speak, and though she had almost purposely been avoiding him the entire time they'd been in the room, her eyes shot up to look at his. Only to see that he was avoiding eye contact with her even as he was trying to say that this was a good thing, because they never talked about stuff like this.

Closing her eyes, Lee had to swallow three times before she could find her voice again. "It's the worst when it's with a spirit," Lee said, actually pulling her legs up in front of her now and wrapping her arms around them. "It can happen at any time, and it's terrifying that I might not figure it out in time."

Lee tightened her arms around her legs, her chin resting on her knees. Her eyes stayed closed, though; she could feel the tears prickling, trying to escape.

Then Lee felt a touch on her shoulder, and she jumped as her mind imagined the hand moving up, grabbing her hair, and her eyes snapped open in panic.

A moment later, as she realized that that wasn't going to happen, Lee let her breath out in a whoosh; apparently she'd been holding it. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her forehead now dropping down onto her knees as she squeezed her eyes shut again. Unfortunately, that didn't trap the tears.

It was the worst when it was with a spirit. Tarin knew that part, of course it was because it looked like him. It always looked like him when that happened. It was something that Tarin had worried about a lot when he and Lee had just started seeing each other, but had gradually forgotten about as time had gone on. What must she see when she closed her eyes, or even when she looked at him sometimes. It made Tarin shudder and the nausea rear its ugly head again.

Lee was upset, and all Tarin wanted to do was make her feel better, and she jerked way from him. The immediate apology didn’t help matters, and Tarin pulled his hand back and looked at the floor, trying to figure out the jumbled thoughts that were knocking around in his head.

Something about this was just wrong, completely unnatural, and it hurt to really think about it. To admit it. It could happen at any time, she might not realize it in time…he might hurt her, or worse. That brought on a shattering realization.

“This is my fault.”

The words surprised Tarin, even though he was the one who had said them, and he clamped a hand over his mouth as his eyes squeezed themselves shut. He forced them open, though, and turned to look at Lee. She was crying.

”This is good…keep going, talk to each other.” the Doctor said, and Tarin turned slowly, eyes narrowing on the woman’s face before turning back to Lee.

“This is all my fault.” He said again.

Tarin took his hand away almost as soon as she had jumped, flinched away from him touch. She knew he didn't like it when she did that, knew it from the time after the camps when she wasn't letting any one touch her.

But she also knew that this was different, this flinch was even worse, because she did it while they were talking about his merges.

Lee tried swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat just as she heard Tarin say that it was all his fault. "It's not," she tried to say, not looking up, but Lee didn't think she had quite managed to actually get the words past that lump.

Then the doctor was talking, saying that they were doing good, and Lee just wanted to growl at her. How could this be good, she wondered. They'd gotten by just fine so far without really spending much time talking about the merging. Well, at least Lee had thought they had, but they had ended up here...

"It's not your fault," Lee repeated herself, rolling her head on her knees so she could look at Tarin. If he was looking at her, he'd be able to see the tears anyway. "How can it be your fault? You don't even know what I was remembering there, why I jumped. I don't think you even know half of what you've-"

Lee cut herself off there and turned her head to once more bury her face against her knees. That wouldn't help matters, she realized a little too late, pointing out that she didn't think Tarin remembered half of what he'd actually done to her.

"Half of what he's what? Lee, if you want to be able to figure this out, you can't bottle stuff up like that."

Ok, could she slap the doctor or something? Lee didn't look up. She didn't say anything at first. All she did was continue to sit there, arms around her legs, forehead on her knees, eyes closed. Then she took a deep breath and spoke, not looking up, though louder and to the doctor this time as a couple more tears leaked from her eyes. "Possibly, but maybe there's some things that Tarin doesn't necessarily need to know."

As he sat on the couch in the psychiatrist’s office, listening to Lee try and convince him that her flashbacks weren’t his fault, Tarin absolutely was not convinced. She hadn’t even managed to get the words out on her first try. Lee was looking at him now, trying to say the words again. Somehow what came out was even worse than what he’d been expecting.

Lee hadn’t managed to cut the sentence off soon enough. Tarin’s eyes widened as he looked across the couch at his wife, and the stupid shrink was prodding for more. Couldn’t the woman see what was happening in this stupid little room that looked like someone’s worst idea of a library? “There’s more.” Tarin said, fists clenching again as he looked at his wife. “My god Lee…how could there be more.”

Tarin unclenched his fists and realized he was shaking. Not only had they practically ignored the merges after the fact, but Lee had kept things from him about them. Those things, among others, had lead to her current condition.

Lee turned her head away from Tarin and he looked at her, jaw clenched and a shaky sigh escaping him. He was a little floored by this whole thing, weren’t you supposed to warn someone before you rocked their world like this? Then Lee spoke again and Tarin’s jaw actually dropped.

“No, no, no, no Lee. You’re not doing any good holding back here.” Tarin said, surprised at how firm his voice was as he spoke, “You need to talk, and talk now. I don’t know who you think you’re protecting here…but look where it’s gotten us.”

Tarin stopped and shook his head, “God Lee, I had no idea you weren’t telling me everything. “

Tarin was surprised, shocked, perhaps even a little angry to find out that there was more that had happened during merges than he knew about. Lee didn't know why he was really so surprised; he had admitted himself that he didn't always remember everything while he was merged, and they had never really talked about it, so how could he really think that he knew everything?

"How could I tell you everything?" Lee asked, her forehead drawing together, the line forming there as she spoke. "You're always so upset, guilty, depressed after a merge. What would happen if I told you what else had happened? And, by the time you wake up, I really don't want to think about it again to tell you."

That had to be a good enough reason for why she hadn't told Tarin, right?

“God Lee, I had no idea you weren’t telling me everything. “

"You want to know?" Lee asked, finally lifting her head to look at Tarin, tears standing in her eyes. "You really want to know about it?"

She took a deep breath, this was not going to be at all easy, then plunged in before she could talk herself out of it, which she knew wouldn't be hard. "That last time, when I came back from Toronto, nothing was working, he wasn't going away," Lee started, her eyes slowly drifting down to look at her knees. As she started talking, Lee started to see flashes in front of her eyes, memories from that day, those couple of days: her striding into the room and shooting Tarin with the taser as soon as she could dig it out, him hanging there, limp and bloodied, where he had sat cuffed to the chair.

"Nothing was working, and I could feel he was still there," Lee continued, the tears running freely now as her mind had jumped ahead in its memories. "I thought if I could draw him out, make him cocky or angry, it would work.

"So I uncuffed him and went over to the fridge." Lee paused, trying to swallow the lump attempting to form in her throat again. "I knew exactly where he was, was concentrating on that, but didn't account for the fact that his hand could reach further.

"He grabbed me by the hair," Lee continued. Her voice had grown more quiet with each word, and her eyes had now slipped shut. "He was holding really tightly, dragging me toward the knife drawer. So tight that it pulled hairs out when I moved a bit to be able to elbow him. He didn't let go. He got to the knife drawer, and it fell out on him. My elbow caught him in the face that time, and he let go.

"I didn't even let him grab one of the knives on the floor. My hand went around his throat and I pressed him against the wall siphoning until he passed out..."

Lee's words were slightly garbled there at the end, the tears having come on heavier at that point. She had really, truly been worried that she had killed Tarin then, that she had taken too much energy from him. What good would it do to tell Tarin about this, she wondered again as she once again pressed her forehead against her knees.

Lee’s reasoning made Tarin shake his head and run his hands through his hair, leaving them there to grip the strands as he tried to work out exactly what had been going through his wife’s head all this time. No wonder she was having problems dealing. Not only had she gone through all the merges, she’d apparently been keeping nasty details from him too. Tarin looked up at the woman who was supposed to be helping. Lee was right, he did feel that way after the merges, but in all honesty he didn’t know how holding back things that had happened could improve things.

“I didn’t know she wasn’t telling me…” he said, head still moving slowly back and forth in disbelief. Then Lee spoke, she almost sounded rebellious with her tone. And her words held a definite undercurrent of I told you that you didn’t want to know.. She was, as usual, right.

As Lee spoke, revealing a part of the night she’d come back from Toronto that he didn’t know about, Tarin’s hands clenched into fists again. She was remembering, Tarin could tell as she dropped her head onto her knees. The words kept coming and Tarin’s face grew more and more horrified at the information he was receiving. He’d had no idea. Lee kept saying he but Tarin knew what it would have looked like to anyone watching what was going on in the apartment. It would have looked like Tarin was dragging his wife around by the hair. It had been his hand wrapped around the dark locks, his face twisted in sick rage, him going for the knife. Tarin’s whole body was shaking by this point, and a drop of cold sweat ran down the side of his face, he knew what would have happened if he’d have gotten a hold of the knife.

Lee had been so brave, so strong, and she’d never said a word about any of this to anyone. Not even him. Tarin’s stomach rolled again and Tarin had to swallow convulsively to keep himself from emptying the contents of his stomach right onto the ugly rug on the office floor.

“How can you even look at me?” he asked, voice slightly broken as realization after realization hit him. He tried to talk more, but his eyes were welling and Tarin was bound and determined not to cry in front of that woman. Tarin took a deep, shaky breath, and did manage to speak.

“What else? Get it all out. Every last bit.” He said, nodding his head slowly, and damn her, the psychiatrist smiled encouragingly.

“How can you even look at me?”

Hadn't she answered this question, or at least very similar, after almost every merge to date? Still, Lee looked up, her tear filled eyes turning to look at Tarin, confused about how he could even be wondering that. "Because it wasn't you," she stated simply.

She was looking at Tarin, even though her eyes were blurry, and so Lee could see what her revelation was doing to him. His own eyes were actually filling with tears too, something that was very uncommon for him; other than occasionally during chick flicks, and she was pretty sure Tarin would kill her if she revealed that to anyone, Le couldn't recall a time that he had cried since she had come back from Toronto.

"I know it wasn't you," Lee repeated, her voice soft. And fresh tears filling her eyes as she continued. For one reason or another, she hadn't been able to keep her tears at bay for days, now. "Just like every other time. That's how I can look at you, because when it is you, I can see how much you love me when you look at me."

What else? Tarin actually wanted her to continue, to tell him more? Lee's eyes closed as she shook her head. "You don't really want me to tell you more, do you?" Lee asked. After how he had looked when she had revealed this, how could he want to know more?

But maybe she could tell him a little more, and that would get both him and the doctor off her back about it.

Her eyes still closed, Lee took a deep breath. "He wasn't going to give up that time," she finally managed to say. "He said I'd have to k-" the word stuck in her throat, and Lee had to swallow before she was able to continue. "To kill you to get rid of him." Out went a shaky breath. "I would have, if I needed to. I was scared I might have when I finally let go..."

It wasn’t him. Tarin knew it wasn’t him all those times, he knew that Lee also realized that fact. It was still a lot to try and deal with though, Tarin shook his head, “I get that…but still…it wasn’t the metaphysical me…but it was…” Tarin gestured at his physical body, “Me.” He finished, shoulders slumping slightly. The medium shook his head, “Even if your conscious mind knows that…on some level it’s got to terrify you, and never talking about these things. We’ve been through a lot of violent stuff over the last year, Lee. I’m sorry I didn’t take the initiative to push harder.”

She knew because of the way he looked at her. Tarin took a deep breath and let it out slowly, at least he didn’t think he was going to cry anymore. This was a slightly monumental problem, though. Tarin had always known that Lee was just a little bit too calm after all these things happened to them. He kept shaking his head, he should have pushed harder.

At least she was talking now, and Lee kept going on that night. Tarin had known she had to fight the monster that had managed to take him over…he didn’t know how far it had gone. Involuntary flashbacks from that night immediately surfaced at the thoughts. The blood everywhere in the apartment, Rupert hand cuffing him in a chair, Lee refusing to hesitate as she pulled the trigger on the taser. He’d felt awful when he’d woken up, worse than he could ever remember feeling, but Lee hadn’t told him. Just another thing she’d carried around and kept to herself. As guilty as she already felt about her powers, feeling like she’d have to use them that way must have been hard.

“It’s okay Lee…” Tarin said softly, “and you don’t have to feel bad about it. That situation couldn’t go on, no matter what the consequences of stopping it were.” Tarin’s eyes dropped at the memory and he swallowed hard, “I tried to stop Rupert from finding you, calling you. I was groggy and messed up and I let it slip that you were in town…by that point there was nothing I could do. I didn’t want you to have to do that.”

Was this getting them anywhere? Tarin didn’t know, but at least Lee was talking, and now that the initial shock of the unknown information had worn off, Tarin was feeling better about the situation. If only slightly, he sighed and ran his hand through his hair and sat back in his seat, “There’s got to be more…a lot has happened since then, Lee. What else are you seeing, and what haven’t you told me?”

Tarin was talking, and the line between Lee's eyebrows deepened. Yeah, it terrified her, the thought of what could happen, the fact that at any moment, potentially, a merge could happen. But he was apologizing for not pushing her sooner about talking about this.

"I didn't want to talk about this," Lee said quietly. "If I had, I would have told you before now.

"And it does terrify me, Tarin, but what else am I supposed to do?" She went on to ask. "Even if I wanted to, it wouldn't work for me to leave, and telling you this stuff is only going to make you more upset about it."

But Tarin said that she didn't have to feel bad for what she did that night, that night that felt so long ago yet had memories in her mind as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. She dropped her head, though her face wasn't buried in her face this time. "I do feel bad about it, though," she told him. "I almost killed you in the camps, then after not touching anyone for months, the first thing I do when I get back here is almost kill you again. I know things are better now, but..."

Lee trailed off with a slight shake of her head. Then turned to look at Tarin when he told her that he'd tried to talk Rupert out of calling her. "It wouldn't have done any good," she told him. "I'd seen the paper, I was already trying to figure out how to get rid of Rachael and get into the apartment to get the taser, hopefully while he wasn't there. If he hadn't called, it only would have put off me getting there by a few hours."

Tarin was asking for more. After all of that, after how he'd reacted to what she had said so far, he was asking her to tell him more, what she kept seeing, what else she hadn't told him about

Lee swallowed as she turned her tear stained face to look at her husband. "You really want me to tell you?" she asked in a whisper. "I didn't like seeing any of it the first time, never mind again and again like this. Why do you want to know too?"

Tarin just nodded as Lee spoke, her words made perfect sense, but at the same time, “Lee…it’s normal to be terrified of these things. It’s normal for me to be upset…” he paused for a second and scooted down the couch towards his wife and pulled one of her hands away from where it had clasped around her legs, “It’s when you’re not scared or upset that you should start worrying.”

Lee was still speaking, still talking about how bad she felt for almost killing him those few times it had come to that. “I know you feel bad…I feel bad too for putting you into a situation where you had to put up with that right after getting out of the camps.”

Lee said something that really caught Tarin’s attention, though, “Things are better now. Things always get better, and I think you know that I’ll do whatever it takes to make things better…but I can’t do that if I don’t know that something is wrong.”

Lee was hesitant about talking more, pointing out that she didn’t like seeing the things the first time, asking why he wanted her to talk about it again. “I do want you to keep going Lee. There’s a reason you’re seeing these things. The only way we’re going to figure anything out is if you talk about it.”

The doctor was still there, Tarin had kind of forgotten if he was completely honest with himself. It didn’t matter anyway, the woman had been completely useless so far. Now she was sitting and looking slightly surprised, like she hadn’t expected to hear all the things that Tarin and Lee were saying. He ignored her.

“So, hit me with it. I can take it.”

Tarin moved, reaching out and grabbing one of her hands in his. And then just held it as he spoke. And Lee wasn't entirely sure whether he was being fair or not. She was the one who was always wanting normalcy.

But Tarin repeated that he did in fact want her to keep telling him what she was seeing. Honestly, Lee couldn't understand it. Didn't he remember what Columbia had been like, what the camp breakout was like, what this last big fight had been like? Why did he want to know about what horrible things she was seeing? Why did he want her to describe things to him?

It's not like he ever told her anything that he saw when he connected with spirits.

At that thought, Lee's eyes rose slowly to look at Tarin. Maybe that was why he was wanting her to tell him, because he was actually used to seeing things like that. Maybe he'd be able to help her deal with it.

Maybe she should have told him at least some of this stuff sooner.

It took quite a while for her to make it through at least the most common images and nightmares that she had been having. Some of the scenes, Tarin was familiar with, but there were others that even though he was there, he just couldn't know how they had effected her. Like in Columbia when she had found him bleeding to death after she'd dealt with the soldiers, or, to a much lesser extent, when he'd sent her out of the ruined school because the spirits were too rough.

"So," Lee asked, turning the question slightly toward the doctor for the first time in forever. "Now that I've talked, how do we make it all go away?"

It was getting easier for Lee to talk. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? Tarin thought it was. Maybe if she could get all of this off of her chest, maybe if she knew she wasn’t completely alone in trying to deal with all the horrible things she had to go through, everything would get back to normal. At least that’s how Tarin hoped it was going to work out.

Something had changed in Lee though, he could almost feel it, especially when she lifted her eyes to look at him. There was some kind of understanding dawning there. The more Lee talked, the better things were getting, the easier it was for Tarin to listen to things that she was explaining. It was frustrating that he’d put her through all these things, but they’d learned once that running away from the problems, and each other, only made things worse. Tarin was going to stick it out.

So Lee talked, and talked, and talked. She’d been seeing a lot of things when she closed her eyes or slept at night. Tarin felt for her, he really did, but a part of him also wondered why exactly it was that these things were bothering Lee so badly when they hardly effected him. Yes, he felt guilty for the things that had happened, but he’d never had a problem like the ones Lee was having. So he asked the psychiatrist…it was her job after all, wasn’t it?

The woman looked at Tarin for a few moments, then spoke slowly, ”It might have something to do with the nature of your mutation. Mrs. Brooks tells me that you see vivid images that are often quite gruesome. “ The woman shrugged, ”If that’s the case, you may very well be quite desensitized to this sort of situation. You feel things…just not to the degree that another might.”

Tarin nodded, it really did make sense when she put it that way. Tarin had had the same realization when he’d introduced Lee to the spirit at the top of the ESB. “See Lee, I can handle it.” He said, “You just have to be okay with me being upset with the things I’ve done. Which is okay, I should be.”

Lee had finished talking by now, though, and she wanted to know exactly what it was they did from here. How did they fix the problems? The psychiatrist looked over her glasses at Lee and shook her head, ”This isn’t going to necessarily be a quick fix, Mrs. Brooks…but talking is the first step. Your husband is right when he says you can’t keep all that’s troubling you under wraps. With the kinds of lives it seems you lead…it’s just too much for one person to handle. “

Tarin nodded, deciding that maybe this chick did know what she was talking about after all. “I think we can do that…” Tarin said trying a small smile in Lee’s direction, “What do you say?”

As she finished talking, Tarin asked the doctor a similar question to the thought that she'd had.

And, after a bit of though, the woman answered, saying she thought it was probably because Tarin had been desensitized because of the years that he had been seeing that sort of thing.

So, Lee thought as she turned her eyes back to her husband, did that mean that he'd really actually be able to help her with this? Tarin was looking back at her, telling her that he could handle this, almost seeming to be trying to prove that.

Lee's eyes dropped for a moment, before she looked back up. "So no more funks, then?" She asked softly. "Even if you do get upset because of something I say, you won't go into another funk?"

Well, that was important to know; those funks were almost harder to deal with than what caused them, simply because of the length of time they could last.

But the doctor didn't think it was going to be a quick fix. Of course, because how could anything be easy for them? Lee nodded, her head dropping slightly as she did so. An easy fix, at least to get rid of the nightmares, would be so much more preferable, though. Even if she did still have to work and all that to keep from something like this happening again.

Then, hearing Tarin's voice again, Lee glanced up just in time to see him smiling at her. Lee blinked. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen Tarin smile. Well, she'd seen him smile, but not a real one since she'd woken up here. Had they actually made that much progress here, despite what they'd been talking about, that Tarin was actually smiling?

Lee nodded, her head dropping a bit again. "I'll try," she said. "I'll really try to."