ifeelwounded (ifeelwounded) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-11-24 15:31:00 |
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It was Gray that traveled the hallways of the hotels, not Helena. To Hels, they were known, from the time that Morgan walked them and she opened the door to make sure it was really her Kara and not some super-psycho-crazy version of her best friend, to the very last time when she and Kitane had come stumbling out of the door and Helena had pushed her further down the hall, away and away and finally out of Vegas. Only she was supposed to stay with Kitane, tucked up in the back of her mind, but she hadn't because her life was one long cosmic joke. Ha. Ha. Ha. As for Gray, currently dressed in a sharp soft gray (ha) suit, the first two buttons of his shirt left open and wide, he was trying not to stare at anything, while taking in as much as he possibly could. It was his first time going through these hallways and though Helena had already mentioned what would happen when they first stepped over, he was still curious to experience it. Curious more to see what would happen when he was in her mind, would it be like his was now, house like, with rooms and hallways, everything neatly compartmentalized, or would it be all together different? He unconsciously sped up as his excitement got the best of him and had to consciously remind himself to slow down as he followed Alana's directions towards her door. Alana was completely new to how this worked herself. Anna's curiosity led her to the hotel and past the door in the first place, and she was a reasonable woman. They got along fairly well, and Alana was relieved to have that type of harmony; she could tell it wasn't always so with the others. Outside of their occasional bickering because Alana was a psychiatrist and had trouble keeping her advice to herself. Still, she caught up fast and was able to give Helena directions to the right location. She hoped she was going to do this the right way. Alana opened her own door and stood on her side, clutching her key, blue eyes curiously looking out the same way Gray was looking around. This door went straight into her office at the college. While it was more often used for students to discuss their grades, it was set up to double as a therapy room if it needed to be. She thought it worked best, because it didn't feel in any way like a psychiatric hospital room. It was warm and comfortable, with several bookshelves against the wall, and a few personal decorations. She liked dreamcatchers and Buddhist symbols. She was dressed in casual-formal clothing, usually in light dresses and warm jackets, although the latter wasn't necessary right now. Her dress of choice today was red and violet, her favorite colors. She waited on the other side by the door. From Gray, Alana got a smile. It was strange, in that way that meeting someone for the first time always was. What would they look like? Would they be as he pictured them? She was close, with the brunette hair he imagined her to have, but her face was warmer and she was younger than he had initially guessed. Whatever he thought about her, however, did not matter nearly as much as whatever Helena thought. In the back of his mind, she was momentarily quiet. Taking a deep breath, he stepped across the door, wondering if it would hurt when the change happened, but it didn't feel like much of anything at all. One moment, he was him, and in the next, his bones had shortened, his hair had lengthened, his body changed from male, from being Gray, to female and being Helena, leaving her standing in Alana's office. She was still dressed in the same clothes she had left Wayne Manor in all those weeks ago: her fuzzy flannel Hello Kitty sleep pants, the Batman t-shirt, and a black hoodie zipped up to her chest, hood down. They all hung in a way to suggest weight loss, but it was harder to tell under the thickness of the hoodie. "Hi," she started, one hand jamming into the front pocket. It was polite to shake hands, it was right, she'd been doing it all her life, yet here she balked, waited to see if Dr Bloom would offer her hand out or not. Her gaze momentarily left the woman to take in the space around them, the doctor's office that didn't look like a hospital office, warmer like the doctor in front of her. There was a slight curving of her mouth, a suggestion of a smile when she caught sight of the Buddhist symbols. "Do you like Eastern thought?" She asked, blunt, moving straight from a bare whisper of a greeting, past the normal formula for conversation and straight towards connection. A desperate need to find some sort of similarity, to not feel quite so adrift. Alana returned his smile and gave a small wave too. It was acknowledgement of the man, since she spoke to him from the beginning, and she knew he was trying to help Helena the same way she was. She'd never seen the change happen to someone else before, and it was startling. Outside of a small widening of her vivid eyes, though, she seemed serene about it. She knew how to school her face. It was best if patients thought she had it together all of the time. It was why she came off as self-possessed and assured. "Hello, Helena. It's great to meet you in person." Alana decided whether or not physical touch was welcome, it was difficult to tell by her body language. But sometimes that connection helped, so she offered her hand. "Alana Bloom, officially. Thank you for coming here." She hoped the environment would put her at ease. It was very different from anything in a mental ward on purpose. She saw that Helena recognized the Buddhist decoration and understood what it meant right off the bat. That was a good bridge for them. "I do. I tend to take a hodgepodge of things and keep an open mind about philosophy. Buddhism is a personal favorite." Buddha believed that thoughts were everything. As a psychiatrist, it appealed to her. The mind was a constant fascination. "'We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.'" After the quote, she smiled. "I think that's fitting for our situation right now, wouldn't you say? We've built on this side of the door." Everything felt the same. It wasn't. "What about you?" There was the expected hand. She rubbed her palm on her pants, pushing the sleeve of the hoodie up past her wrist before she finally reached out and shook it perfunctorily. A strong grip, not overly strong, not dead fish limp, the practiced gesture of someone that had been doing it for a very long time. "My father believed that the only thing that could ever hold us captive was our minds," she said, quietly, as she drew her hand back. It did not join the other in her pocket, but the sleeve dropped back down and she pulled it tight across her knuckles. The quote rang particularly true with her now, when her body was free, but she was held captive by her emotional state, choked by it until there seemed to be only one way out. All roads, however, seemed to bring her back here. Not to Alana's world, but the world on the this side of the door. "I don't remember what it's like to build something that won't destroy everything," she confessed. Oh, she'd wanted to build the network, but that hadn't been possible. She'd wanted to build a way back to her own home, but when the possibility came that it would destroy everything, she had wanted to nix it. Kara had convinced her not to, but she wished she had now, just destroyed it before anyone knew and then maybe she could have followed without anyone disturbing her. Too late now. She took in a deep, shuddery breath before the tears started again. "I like your office though. It's warm. Warmer than I was expecting." They were usually so clinical. Sterile. Or they reminded her of the offices at the facility where the last Bruce had put her. Would this Bruce do the same when she returned? It was something she'd have to find out when she next crossed into her world. There was a lot someone could tell from a handshake. Or that Alana could tell. It was part of her training, and she was perceptive beyond that. She made sure to shake it equally firm and quickly, so as not to make Helena uncomfortable. Her head tilted curiously when she spoke of her father. Heavily influenced by her father, a cerebral man. "Yes, that can be true, but the mind can be freeing too. We see more with an open mind." Being stuck in the head was something she could understand. It came with being a doctor and overanalyzing all of her own actions. "If you did it once, you can do it again. Maybe you'll get that memory back." Alana smiled softly and noted the rest. Pessimistic and downward thinking, tied in with a feeling of personal failure. "Destruction can be painful, but there's potential, when the dust settles and it's time to start over. Breaking down a wall means opening space for something new." She could see Helena had more than a few walls of her own. "I teach at the college here, and I prefer people to feel at home. Of course that means my students are occasionally mingling in the hallways, but I don't mind." Alana was always willing to listen to them, whether it was about their grades or further studies, or what was troubling them that week. She remembered a time when she felt scattered and uncertain of her future. "Would you like to sit? I have tea if you want any." There was a kettle by the couch and a small tea stand with a few selections. "You said you've seen other therapists before. Were they at clinics or personal one on one?" "Destruction," she echoed hollowly. Destruction of her personal life, destruction of her planet, both hands went into her hair and she tugged slightly on the limp strands. It was an old habit and as soon as she realized it, her hands dropped and her fingers stayed busy with the cuffs of her hoodie instead. "I'd like some tea." And sitting. Sitting would be good. She didn't take the doctor's chair, but took the sofa and twisted, kicking off her shoes and setting her white-socked feet on the cushions. Comfortable. The first time she'd done this, she'd sat on the coffee table, screamed, pulled every book off the shelf, and threw a vase before the orderlies had come in with a fresh dose of Haldol and Ativan. This was different. She was here of her own free will and knew, more than she'd known then, that she needed to be here. "Facility. It was a facility. My -- the second Bruce. He had me committed." That was probably going to be confusing. "I should start at the beginning, shouldn't I?" Her legs came up, toes curling on top of her thighs. "The first world, my world, where I was born, was destroyed when this -- Darkseid. He was an alien and he wanted to destroy everything. My father died to save me. My best friend and I fell through a boom tube and ended up on our second earth. Bruce -- my father there -- didn't have a daughter yet. He thought I was insane." Alana knew habits and rituals and how they could get compulsive. The fact that Helena corrected the behavior by herself could be both bad and good, depending on how she was taught to do it. She watched Helena take a seat on the sofa and made herself comfortable almost immediately, and she smiled. It was a sign of safety, letting her guard down with a stranger, and that was entirely the point of Alana's gentle tone and soothing office. She picked up one of the cups and filled it with the hot water, offering it over to Helena. "You can pick from any of the ones there. If you have a flavor you like in particular, I can get more for down the road." That was if Helena wanted to continue sessions, it was entirely up to her. But Alana went out of her way to customize it to the preference of her clients. And her friends, honestly. She had particular types of wine at home she knew Hannibal liked, and more cooking utensils and ingredients than she really knew. She had dog treats for running into Will. She took her own seat and listened to Helena. Another day she might have taken notes, but this was a preliminary discussion. Helena didn't need to feel dissected, and Alana had an excellent memory. She knew in this place she would have to get used to unusual stories, so she was ready for this one. "It must have been difficult, to lose your father and gain another who treated you that way." Alana knew more than a few people society would call 'crazy,' and by definition they were, but she didn't see it in the rehabilitating way or how they became other than human to people. "What happened with your friend?" One session wasn't going to cure her, Helena knew that. More sessions depended on her, on Alana, and whether she liked her enough to keep coming, because there was no stopping the rise of sadness. Given enough time, she'd scrape together the will to get back into a bath tub with another piece of mirror, or a knife, and see it through. It wasn't easy to maintain that type of sadness though, to let it cut and cut and cut until she was nothing but pieces like the mirrors she'd destroyed. Looking over the options, her fingers lingered over a blueberry flavored tea for a few seconds before she slipped out one that read peach in a salmon colored packet. She tore off the very top before dunking the bag into the steaming water and taking it all from Alana. "My mother was shot down and died in my father's arms." Mommy, no. "I think my planet is dead," she confessed to the top of the teacup, vision beginning to go water hazy. "I saw everyone I love die, except for my best friend." She paused. Was that more or less difficult than finding a father that had no recollection of her? It had stung, insult added to injury. "We did the best we could. She wanted to take us back there, back to where we originally came from, see if we could save our planet. Maybe get there before the invasion and make sure it never happened, but," Helena gave a little shake of her head. "You see these people that you expect to be like the people you lost, but they're not. They're younger, or older, or different than the ones you knew, even when they have the same past and the same names. Sometimes the details are different, but they're still the people that you used to know. Only they don't know you." A hundred sessions didn't necessarily mean someone was cured, and some conditions were lifelong. Alana had to make an assessment for herself, and she wasn't going to suggest medication any time soon. Helena needed to feel safe and start talking to her before there was any possibility for drugs to come into the picture. Building a relationship between therapist and patient took time and care. The problem with being used to a mental hospital was they didn't go about things in this gentle of a way. Helena went through several ordeals, and then she was stuck in a place where they controlled her and said she was crazy. Alana could tell easily she wasn't crazy ... although her situation might have made her unstable. There was probably some survivor's guilt in there. With the family and world dead, of course it would beg the question why did she survive? Alana didn't have to ask if Helena self-harmed. She knew the answer to that, although she might ask about it later, depending. "It takes a great deal of personal strength to come from there and still be standing." Broken and emotionally beaten from it, certainly, but she kept going. "Are you having trouble sleeping? Dreams keeping you up maybe?" That was something they might have to work on right off the bat, because it was difficult to mentally recover without feeling right in the body. "How do you feel on a physical level?" "They can get to know you again, if you let them. I know it's terrifying, after losing that much, but you aren't crazy. That version of your father was wrong, and you don't need to have that hanging over your head now." Alana set her hands on the arm of her chair, a conscious effort to keep herself from leaning forward. She did that when she got absorbed in something, and it wasn't proper body language. Psychiatrists needed to be open and collected. "You said on the network it's the little things that are bothering you more than the big ones. Can you talk about what they are?" Did she have trouble sleeping? Helena shook her head no. Sleep came easy, sweet grip of Morpheus, a place where she didn't feel, where she wasn't missing anything except the life going on around her that she wanted to avoid. Dreams were likewise, not a problem. Immediately after arriving on her second Earth, they had been, dreams where she kept getting closer and closer to her mother, almost saving her only to see her die again and again in her father's arms. She hadn't had those dreams in a while, or even dreams that she could remember. She'd have to ask Bruce though. Given the amount of time he'd spent watching her before, he would know if her sleep had been disturbed and she simply didn't remember. Absently, her hand came up, index finger rubbing at the faint pink scar in the middle of her forehead. A blessing if she'd had bad dreams. No, her bad dream was the waking world. "I got to know them," she answered, faintly as her hand dropped to her lap. "I have a brother -- half brother. And there are so many of us -- I think my dad kept picking up Robin's because he wanted the family that was taken from him." But that wasn't the answer to her question, just the flow of thoughts from brain to tongue. "There were others I got close to. My best friend showed up, but then her person left and she didn't come back with her." Slower, her fingers working around the cup of tea, shuffling it around with her fingertips and the broad flats of her fingers. "I have no one I'm important to, anymore. Except for Bruce. Bruce cares. And Gray." That was unusual. There were so few men she trusted outside of her family, but he'd gone slow, given her space when she needed it, threw up the mental peace flags and let her be. "But the rest? They barely talk to me. They're always too busy and if I miss family check in's, they don't ask. They don't care. They're the only thing I have left and I could be dead in a ditch somewhere and it wouldn't matter to them." That was good at least. Sleep difficulty was normal when handling high levels of PTSD, but as long as she was getting some kind of rest, she would have a better chance of collecting herself. Alana generally looked for that first. "Do you sleep too much, on the other end of the spectrum?" Too much sleep was indicative of depression. Clearly Helena was depressed, but there was a difference between depression set off by real events, and something that was bone deep and biological. Robins. Bruce Wayne. Wow. Alana would file that away for later. She knew in general who Batman was, but not enough to make sense of what that meant in context. Still. She was talking to Batman's daughter. That was a reminder of how strange this all was, not necessarily in a bad way. She wondered what exactly put her on the same level as people here. They did track down serial killers, so it was comparable to one of those CSI shows. That had to be the answer. "I'm sorry about your friend. I understand around here it happens, and given your experience, that would make it harder." Helena would keep growing distant if she had to survive abandonment after abandonment. It was no wonder she got to a breaking point. "What about your half-brother? If your father cares, and he's built himself a new family, aren't you a part of that? They could care more than you think." It felt like she barely slept at all, but that wasn't quite true. "A lot, and sometimes not at all. I don't feel rested after." Which usually led to more sleeping, and when she wasn't sleeping, she was crying, and when she wasn't doing either of those things, she was quiet and still. Sometimes in those moments, she found herself rocking, a slow back and forth that brought no comfort, only a sort of foggy oblivion where the hours passed and her thoughts were quicksand. Nothing until disturbed, then they dragged her down every time one broke free. She twisted the teacup around in the saucer. "Damian?" Helena asked, whisper soft before she took a sip of the tea. "I haven't talked to Damian since --" Since when? After her stint as a marble girl? Before. Before that. Except there were pancakes when the lights were too bright and she could hear the hum of her digital clock. Damian was the pancake-maker, but she couldn't remember him at all. "Months," she finally finished, lamely. "I don't remember the last time I talked to him. They don't care. I have to -- it's okay. They're busy. They have other, more important things to deal with," she stated as factual as the sky being blue. Alana nodded her head as if she expected that answer, and she did. It didn't take an expert to get to the right diagnosis for Helena, although she was one, so her word counted more than most. It wasn't a question of whether she was clinically depressed, but rather why, and if medication would help her. Short or long term. "Having restful and regular sleep is very important to us, on a biological level. Without good sleep, a person's mind and memory slows, it can cause their mood to drop, and illness to take hold quickly. It's not always about the quantity of sleep, but the quality. So we might want to talk more about that if we continue these sessions." She made mental notes of the names so she'd remember from now on. At least the names were very distinct. "Is that what you're saying, or is that what they're saying? Have they said to you 'we don't care about you' or is that a conclusion you've made from observation?" Alana knew Helena wasn't making it up, not in the least, she clearly believed this strongly which meant it was real to her. All the same, sometimes it was easier to shine a light on realities, on things that were unclear. "Have you thought that maybe you are one of those important things?" She nodded to the information about sleep. It was already known, but how to change it? Sleep was the only time when everything didn't hurt and she didn't want to give it up, but every time she woke, she felt worse than when she'd gone to sleep. The cup and saucer went down on the little table beside her seat as she drew her legs up to her chest. Had they said the words? She shook her head, briefly mute as she tugged on the cuff of her hoodie, dragging it down past her pale knuckles, her fingers curling up, pressing fabric into palm to keep it there. "They don't -- you talk to people that matter. You show them that they matter," she said quietly as her arms, now protected so only her fingers were visible wrapped around her legs and she set her chin on her knees. "I used to be important but I'm not anymore," she whispered, head ducking down as water streaked out of her eyes. Alana watched her body language with some concern, knowing it was only a visual representation of how she was shielding herself inside. It was going to be difficult to get her to open up, not after everything she went through. There was a lot of trauma here, and the last time she dealt with doctors, it seemed they only made things worse. She'd seen this several times, but nothing quite to the magnitude of losing a whole planet. Everything about her world, and their current situation, amplified the problems. Everyone here might need a shrink. "People respond in a variety of ways when someone they love is in pain, the type of pain they can't fully understand or make better. Sometimes they pull away. It isn't fair, and it doesn't make you feel any better, but that doesn't mean they stopped caring about you. Gray cares about you, and you've only just met." Alana wondered if it would be a good idea to talk to them some time herself. Not without Helena's permission of course, she'd never overstep boundaries that way. But it was difficult to get a full picture, and she usually had a case file to look at. It was too early to look into anything like that, but she was going to mark it in her head for later. "You are important, Helena. Other people do not get assign worth or importance. You can still believe in yourself and value yourself." "You have to tell me that," Helena whispered into her knees. That's what Alana's job was, wasn't it? And though she knew it was true, that other people didn't get to assign worth, what did you do when those that were important to you, that were worth something to you, didn't feel the same way? It left a little aching crater in her chest, next to her lungs, taking up so much space that breathing hurt and sucking in everything else so much that it felt like she should collapse inward. "That's the type of person Gray is," she started to say more, but stopped herself there. Gray was the Secret Keeper, and she needed to keep his secrets as much as he kept hers. "It's different." That care came close to being within, but she and Gray could never go out and fight crime together or, and far more likely, go out to a business lunch together. He was separate from her family and different than a friend. She rubbed her face against her knees again, hands pushing through her hair, tugging it back until it hurt. "I know, I know, but I can't and I don't know how to make myself do that anymore." "I don't have to tell you anything. We're not at a hospital here. It's just you and me." Alana did have her ethics as a doctor, obviously, but Helena was only starting to be her patient. Or heading toward there. It wasn't on a professional level, and even then, she preferred telling people the truth. As much of the truth as she could, if it was safe. She did work with patients where sometimes too much truth was dangerous for them. Helena seemed to know very well what was true and what was a lie, considering she was told she was crazy. "I understand, but you can learn. We'll figure it out together, okay? I do know what I'm talking about, and it is a big step that you agreed to come here today. The hardest part sometimes is to admit you want and need help." Deserve help might come later, but it was there. Helena moved out of her comfort zone. She was headed in a better direction, and it was by force, not someone handing her into a hospital. Alana smiled to her and picked up the kettle. "Do you want more hot water?" Helena wasn't sure she believed that. There were still certain things a therapist had to say, no matter if they were in the hospital or if they weren't, right? She rubbed her palms against the sides of her heads as she withdrew her fingers as if that would help clear her thoughts. No such clarity came. No answers, only more questions, but there wasn't the further denial of what Alana said. She shook her head at the question of more water. No, no more water. No more tea. She had opened as far as she could today and there would be no more. "No, thank you," came the quiet response. "I should go." Retreat back to Gray's mind, not back to her home (what home?), not to Wayne Manor, or the apartment, or the house she left behind in Micronesia, but back to the place where she existed only as fiction. A quick wipe at her face with the sleeve of her hoodie removed saltwater tracks. "I should go," she repeated as she stood up as fresh trails streaked down her cheeks. "I should, I'm sorry," was all she began to stay as she hurried for the door and out into the hallways of Passages and the sanctuary of Gray's mind. "It's okay, you don't have to be sor--" By the time Alana got it out, Helena was already gone. She watched her leave through the door and frowned sadly. Well, all she could do is hope she helped. Or that she'd have the chance to help more later on. For now she went to get a piece of paper to write down everything she learned, just in case. |