Author's Note: Set in my Dark and Shameful Past universe (Haven't read it? Go read it! ). Elena has come out of the camp, but desperately needs therapy. This is a session where she starts turning around toward healing. (I couldn't leave her as she was. She kept making little pitiful sounds at me. You know how that is.)

Department H's walls were done in a cheery robin's egg blue. I should know. I'd seen them enough over the past several weeks.

I followed Logan cautiously to room 212. Either he or Mystique always walked with me when I came in for therapy. I was too nervous to walk alone, though I was becoming comfortable enough to have my protectors walk several feet ahead of me rather than right by my side.

Damian looked up from his papers as Logan opened the door. He nodded to Logan, then to me. He was about forty-five to fifty years old, balding, with slow-moving brown eyes. He wore his usual slightly ratty sweater over a collared shirt. Burgundy today. His thin mouth tightened and he looked down at the papers on his desk.

Logan left and closed the door. I walked back and locked it. Damian sighed. I lowered my head as I returned to my favorite seat. We were working on my safety issues, but I still felt nervous enough around my fellow mutants to lock the door every time I came to see him.

"How are you today?" he asked gently as I stared at my shoes.

"About the same." I ventured a look at his face. He didn't look mad, just disappointed. I sank into my chair and clasped my hands around my wrists.

"Want to talk some more about how you feel?" He got up and walked over to the water cooler in the corner behind his desk. He had fresh lilacs in a vase today. I inhaled their spicy scent.

"Why? You already know how I feel anyway." I slouched in my chair. He shrugged and rose, mug in his hand.

"Did you want any?" He pointed to the water. I shook my head.

"Okay. So what should we talk about today?" He leaned on the desk and looked down at me.

I shrugged. "Whatever you want."

"Let's talk about Mystique today." He took a gulp of water and I frowned. Why did he want to talk about her?

"What do you want me to say?" I scratched my neck. He sighed.

"Elena, please stop it. I've had a hard day. Just talk to me about her. Start with her reaction to Erik's death if you want." He did look tired. I felt a little guilty. Damian was an empath, so he had to feel what everyone around him felt. I didn't want to hurt him.

I cleared my throat. "Well. She had a hard time with it, of course. She said she should have been there to stop them. She told me …" I paused. I didn't know if I should share something that personal.

"What?"

"She told me that she wasn't sure she could go on. Krystal rejected her, and Kurt was far away, so she had no one else."

He waited. I was quiet, remembering. He interrupted me. "So was she right?"

"About what?"

"Did she have no one else?" He gulped down more water.

"No. She had me and the others at the camp."

"Hm. Just like you have her and your other friends from the camp. Go on."

I stared at him. "You sure you don't want to make any other points?"

He stood again and started pacing. "I can. You want me to?"

"Yeah." I folded my arms across my chest and tucked my hands under them. "Go on."

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't get snippy with me, missy." He stopped and sat in a chair next to mine. "Mystique's had a hard time, just like you. She's had people she loved die unfairly, just like you. The difference is, she picked up and kept on living. You aren't and you need to."

I pulled my arms tighter into my chest, hurting my breasts as I squeezed. "Okay, genius. How? How do you keep on living when the guilt is around you every day? How do you get over having tortured people? How do you do it?" I glared at him.

He reached out slowly and touched my left arm, gently massaging my muscles. "You think about things differently. Have you ever tried to think instead about all the lives you saved? Did you ever consider that what you did had very good outcomes? Take Mystique, for example. Do you care about her at all?"

"Of course. I love her." His touch felt good until I remembered he was a man and he was touching me. I tried to pull away, but he held on.

"Stop hurting yourself, Elena. You don't mind how this feels, do you?"

I tried to relax, to sink into the feeling. I closed my eyes. I didn't mind, really. I let the fear dissolve as he moved on to my left shoulder, then to my right. He began speaking again as he massaged me. "So you care about Mystique. Do you ever think that by releasing her children from the camp, you've done something good for her?"

He was making sense. "Well, yes, but…"

His hand covered my mouth. "Stop right there. Yes. It's good."

I opened my eyes. "Yes."

He stopped touching me then, rocking back onto his heels, his hands dropping to his knees. "How about the others? You've freed whole families. Was that good?" He walked back to his desk and brought out a stack of papers. He knelt next to me and tossed them into my lap. They hit hard and I yelped a little at the impact.

I looked at the top page. There was a small picture at the top, probably taken from a class yearbook. It was of a laughing blond boy, hair tousled, eyes nearly shut. He was Mike Levin. He had been targeted for termination. His date of execution was January 15, three weeks after we'd gotten him out of the camp. He was seventeen.

I looked at another, then another, before I shut my eyes, trying to shut them out. "Think about it, Elena." His relentless voice kept talking. "Nearly a thousand mutants were interned there. Most of them live here now. Do you think you did good?"

I kept my eyes shut. My emotions were a whirlwind, cycling from joy to grief to anger to fear. I wished Damian would shut up already. He kept going. "Here's one, Elena. I'm sure you've heard of this one. Scott Summers."

Oh, God. Stop him from talking. Please.

"Yeah. Leader of the X-men, nearly died when the mansion went up and Professor Xavier with it. Spent nearly four years in the camp. Pietro Maximoff liked him. Did lots of stuff to him. Everyone thought he was dead. Now he's recovering in our hospital. Expected to be on his feet in two weeks." He tapped the page, rattling it. "Been asking to see you, by the bye. Don't suppose you care, though, locked up in your damned self-pity."

I settled on rage and turned it on him. "What the HELL do you know, Damian? Do you have any idea what it's like, living in darkness, praying to get out, and then finding the darkness followed you when you did? Do you know how it feels to free one group of friends, then to have another murdered? Here's one to answer yours. Wanda Maximoff. Pietro's sister. Forced to work for Magneto, her father, then a few years after she was "freed" from working with him, the mutant murders happened. She got caught and had to become a guard at Camp American Freedom or be tortured some more. Did you see her scars? Did you hear her crying at night? Did you see the small things she did, trying to be kind? She gave me a spell to stop Pietro, her own brother, though she's probably being tortured for it in the demon realms now. She got killed by those precious mutants I helped save." Tears were flying down my cheeks, spraying from my lips as I talked. "Was that 'good', Damian? Was that right? Was that something I should be proud of? I got other good people like her, people who couldn't take ordinary life there, killed."

"And now you are here to remember her. Who knows? Maybe now you can repay her kindness, Elena." He knelt before me. His sweater was dotted with wet spots from my tears.

"How?" I impatiently wiped my arm across my eyes.

He shrugged. "Magic exists. Technology still exists. Either could bring you where she now is. The important things to remember, Elena, are these. You saved nearly a thousand lives. They know it and are grateful. Now you can tell those mutants who their guards were and make them live again. Bring them a little justice. Who knows? If you meet the right person, they might be able to help you help Wanda." He took my wet chin in his right hand and looked soberly into my eyes. "You won't do her or anyone else any good by just dying, Elena, any more than it would do everyone good for Mystique or Logan or me to die for any of our past sins. Live. Don't deny yourself pleasure because they no longer can feel it. You can, and those who love you can."

I trembled and started sobbing. He looked startled, then gathered me into his arms. He smelled of dust and old books. His sweater was warm but scratchy. He began singing. He was awful, off-key and off-tune. He sang old songs, some sad songs. After the Ball. Goodnight, Sweetheart. I Heard the Bells. I sniffled as I came back to myself. "I guess you're right, but …"

His hand covered my mouth again. "I am right. Say it."

I wiped my nose with an old tissue I found in his other hand. "Fine. You're right. But you still can't sing."

"Good." He got me to my feet. "Same time next week."

"It's over?"

He smiled. "Our session's over. I think something new will have begun by the next one, though. For this week, try to believe what you said tonight. Take thirty minutes each day and think about the good things you've done, at the camp or anywhere else. And visit Scott before you see me again."

I paused at the door after unlocking it. "Damian?"

"Yep." He was arranging the papers on his desk again.

"Thanks."

He brushed a hand over his head, his short salt-and-pepper hair falling back into place. "What are friends for?"