Title : Healing
Author : Géraldine
Email : lazy.gege@ibelgique.com
Category : ESF, angst
Rating : PG - 13
Summary : Sam has a lot to deal with.
Disclaimer : They belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, NBC, Warner Brothers, and I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. So obviously, they don't belong to me. I'm not making money for this story, I just have too much free time on my hands. So I'm begging : don't sue.
Spoilers : To be safe, all four seasons
Note : Sequel to Setbacks
Acknowledgements : Thanks a lot to me beta reader, Emily.
*****
PART ONE
May 2003
"Are you nervous?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Are you nervous?"
"No."
He wasn't nervous, exactly. Simply, it had been easier before, Sam thought. When he was seeing her regularly, it had become, not natural, but.usual. It was just something he did, like a dentist appointment, but a little less fun.
It didn't feel as natural as it once had. It had been a few months since he had seen a therapist, and it felt awkward now.
Not as awkward as it had been the first time, but still.
Besides, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Was he even supposed to say anything specific?
She hadn't changed much since the last time he had seen her, he reflected. Of course, it had only been a few months. Six and a half month. It had just seemed longer to him, that's all.
Back then, he had finally caved in to the demands of his doctors that he see someone who would help him deal with the changes he was facing - with the way his body reacted, with the treatment he had to follow, with the adjustments he had to make to his lifestyle.
He had stopped seeing her shortly before the election, claiming he was on top of things and didn't need help anymore.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you thinking about?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to say," he said. "I mean, I've done this before, with you. And then I've done it again, with someone else, but I knew what was happening to me."
"What was happening to you?"
PTSD.
The four letters that had made Josh's life, and his own, more.interesting, as the two of them often joked.
"It's funny," he said, "I knew it was likely to happen, I knew what it would probably feel like, Josh had talked to me." He knew what it must have cost his friend, and he was grateful for what he had done. Too bad it hadn't prevented anything. "Yet, when I began to, you know." Lose it. "I'm trying to say that knowing didn't help."
She smiled gently. "Did you expect it to?"
"I was hoping it would, yes."
Yes, he had hoped he wouldn't have to deal with it. He had hoped that being shot would be the year's only enjoyment.
Fat chance.
"It doesn't work that way," she said.
He refrained from rolling his eyes. Well, he knew that * now *
"I'm just saying," he sighed.
"Can you tell me what happened to you when you got out of the hospital?"
Nothing, at first. Everything was fine, the election was almost over, the President was going to win, he was better, physically, he was better psychologically. But she already knew that, she was the one he had consulted, during these first few months. He had stopped coming because everything was back to normal, or as normal as things were likely to get, and he was busy enough without regular appointments with his therapist.
Things had gone on fine for a few weeks after that - between November and January. Two months of peace.
Then, this feeling that he was losing his mind, bit by bit.
Josh had tried to warn him, "It's when you think it's over, it's when you drop your guard and begin to relax, that it hits you." He hadn't paid any attention to his friend's warnings. He had tried to convince himself that just because Josh had been a victim of PTSD didn't mean he would too, he had tried to deny that he had a problem and didn't know how to solve it, just as Josh had told him he would.
It had begun when he took his car to head back home at night - he had frozen several times, as he was going to start the engine, convinced that someone was going to come up behind him.
And to think that he had told Toby, on that sailing expedition, that he had managed to convince himself that he was safe now.
And to think that he had believed what he was saying.
After three weeks, he took a cab each time he had to do his daily commute. At the inquiries of his friends, he answered that his car was in the shop, and no one questioned that.
Eventually, though, he had to either take his car again, or let the others see that there was a problem. They were already beginning to look suspicious back then.
In hindsight, Sam thought, lying to them hadn't been a smart move.
Two days after he had taken his car back to work, he froze when he put his key in the lock of the car's door. He didn't know how long he had stayed like that. It was Leo who had found him. The chief of staff had apologized at great length afterwards, saying that he should have known.
Leo, when he had come out of the building, had seen Sam facing away, staring at the key in his hand, had walked to him and had put a hand on his shoulder.
Sam didn't remember much from that night - he had a flash of Leo above him, trying to calm him down, repeatedly telling him that he was fine, that he was safe, that it was going to be all right. He vaguely remembered the doctor, filling a syringe with a sedative and turning to face him.
He didn't remember the panic attack itself, just that he had felt scared for hours, even after Josh and Toby had talked to him, had told him again that he was fine.
The next morning, he had woken up to see Josh at his bedside.
A very worried Josh.
"I'm sorry," Sam had said immediately.
"You should have told us," Josh had said. "I mean, why didn't you."
Sam knew what his friend was thinking. Josh hadn't turned to anyone for help, but he hadn't known what was happening to him. Sam knew it was going to happen, he knew he could turn to the others, so why hadn't he?
"I didn't know how to.I wasn't sure what was happening."
Josh nodded. "I know it's frightening to feel that way - like you're going insane."
"Yeah."
"We'll help you to get through it."
"I know."
They had.
They had also watched his every move for weeks, until he had snapped, exasperated, that he wasn't going to jump in front of a car, so could they please move on already?
Toby had smirked. "Yeah, don't hold your breath."
But they had given him more space, thank God.
Little by little, he had begun to have less flashbacks, the nightmares, which had come back with a vengeance, had faded away again, and he hadn't had another panic attack.
He had gotten better, eventually.
"So why are you here?" she asked again.
"I.I stopped sleeping."
"When?"
"Ten days? Maybe more, I don't know."
"You don't sleep at all?"
"Half an hour here and there. Maybe three hours a night."
He tried to keep his tone light, to hide the worry he was feeling. It didn't seem too bad now, in this office, with someone else in the room - he could almost convince himself that he was young, that he could afford to have a few sleepless nights.
He knew from experience that it would become a big deal again when he would go home. Few things seemed insignificant at night, when you couldn't sleep and you were reduced to staring at the ceiling, longing for sleep.
"Okay. Have you tried sleeping pills?"
"A few nights ago."
"It didn't work?"
It had worked too well, actually. He had had a nightmare, the first one in two months, and he hadn't been able to wake up. He had found himself trapped in the same dream, all night long.
He had thrown the pills in the sink the next day.
"Do you have any idea why you stopped sleeping?"
He shot her a look. "I was kind of hoping I'd be able to pay you to find out why."
She smiled. "Fair enough."
There was a silence, and he sighed. "I'm gonna have to do all the work, aren't I?"
She nodded. "Afraid so," she said, in her best no-nonsense tone.
"Yeah, always works like that." he griped.
"Sam?"
"Yes?"
"Did something happen recently?"
He thought about a lot of smart replies. He didn't utter the first one, because he didn't want to be the sarcastic patient who plays smart with his therapist. He knew she was really trying to help him.
He just wasn't sure he was ready to go down that road.
"Sam, may I ask you why you came back here? We saw each other when you were still hospitalized, and for some time after you got out of the hospital, but you told me that you didn't need help anymore, so why come back?" she asked suddenly.
He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't keep seeing the other one, the one I saw for my PTSD, because he wasn't.I don't know, I didn't like him."
"Why?"
He rolled his eyes. Why was it important anyway? "He was good, but I had the feeling he was trying to, I don't know.I know you people hear stories like mine every day, all day long, and that's okay. But, it doesn't happen to * me * everyday, and he spent too much time telling me that my reactions were nothing out of the ordinary.They were to me. But I don't know if that makes much sense."
"It does," she said.
"Great," he said.
"So, that brings us back to, 'why now'?"
He grimaced. "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't remember."
"No chance of that happening," she said.
"I don't know," he said, smiling tightly.
"You're lying," she said calmly.
"Do you think you know me well enough to draw that kind of conclusion?" he asked.
"I don't need to know you to know that you're lying. It's written all over you."
He bit his lip, and got up, walking to the window. He couldn't see anything outside. It was dark, all he could see was his reflection in the window.
He was tired, and it was showing.
He was pale, he had dark smudges under his eyes. His hair was beginning to gray a little at the temples.
He looked his age, he thought, feeling depressed at the thought. A wonder none of his friends had asked him what was wrong yet.
"Sam?"
Why was he stalling?
She was right, he knew exactly why he wasn't sleeping.
He had spent a lot of time talking to therapists since he had been shot. He could imagine the questions they would ask, and he knew how to answer them.
He had considered bringing it up with his colleagues, but they were all so busy right now.
So he had made an appointment with her, and now that he was here, he couldn't bring himself to talk about it.
He even knew why - it would make it real, it would take his fears into the light, for a stranger to look at with him, and he wasn't sure he wanted that.
Besides, maybe talking wouldn't even help.
"Sam, do any of your friends know you're here?" she asked.
He spent a lot of time inside his head, analyzing himself. He knew himself very well.
What was he even doing here?
"Sam, do your friends know where you are?"
"No."
And they hadn't noticed that something was wrong, yet - although Toby was two days away from dragging him to the hospital again, he could feel it.
He almost smiled.
He would have, if he hadn't been so tired, if anything about the situation had been even remotely amusing.
"No, they don't know," he repeated.
"Why?"
"They'd worry."
And it would make it real, too.
"What happened ten days ago?"
It slipped before he could stop himself. "I had a check up."
"Okay."
He was still staring through the window, and she finally asked, "Sam, want to come back to sit here?"
He shook his head. "They thought there was something odd at the biopsy, so they called me back, they did more tests, and they decided that after all, everything was fine."
And he had spent two days living in the fear that the doctor would call him and tell him that he was beginning to reject the transplant again. Wondering if the months spent swallowing pills what seemed like every hour of the day had been in vain.
He turned to face her, smiling weakly. "I'm sorry, I'm just.I'm not sure how you're supposed to help."
She shrugged. "You're the one who called," she pointed out.
True. "That doesn't mean.it was an impulse."
"A good one," she said. "Sam, you've been told, I'm sure, that at the slightest sign that something was wrong, you had to call your doctor."
"Yes."
"Would you?"
"Yes, of course."
Except that he wasn't so sure.
It was entirely possible that he would be scared to hear what the doctor would have to tell him and he would wait.
He turned to face her. She was looking at him, and he had the disturbing impression that she was reading him like an open book - printed in a very large font.
He stared at her, daring her to challenge him.
She took a quick note, and Sam knew that it was going to come back in a future session.
"Anyway, when you have psychological difficulties, it's usually a good idea not to wait to see someone."
He knew that, yes.
It had been made pretty obvious to him when he had freaked in front of Leo, of all people, and spent a good hour shaking, unable to calm down.
"Why did it affect you so hard that they had to redo the tests?"
He shrugged, and turned his back on her again, going back to staring at the darkness outside.
"I'm not going to let that get away," she said. "You may not tell me, but we'll spend half an hour silently here, and - "
"Can you - ?" he said. "I'm thinking."
She stopped talking and he closed his eyes briefly.
"Sam?" she said, five minutes later.
He put his hands in his pockets and turned to face her, not making eye contact. "I . It reminded me that chances are, someday, I'll reject the transplant." He paused and frowned a little. "No, it's not exactly that. It's.It made the possibility more.real, it made it go from theory to, to a distinct possibility. Likelihood."
He groaned inwardly. What was wrong with him?
She nodded thoughtfully and he snapped. "Please, could you not do that?"
"Do what?"
"Nod like what I said is so, I don't know, insightful, that you have to take a moment to take it in."
She looked at him calmly and he sighed. "Sorry. I had promised myself not to be confrontational, but ."
She chuckled. "Don't worry about that," she said. "But back to our problem.What do you feel when you think about what might happen if you reject the transplant?"
Fear.
Helplessness.
Fear.
Some leftover anger toward the shooter.
Anger toward life, fate, or whatever - he would probably be cursing God if he was a believer, but he wasn't.
Anger toward himself, sometimes.
Fear.
Discouragement.
Anger toward her, right now.
Fear, mostly.
She nodded. "It wouldn't be the end," she said. "You could go back to dialysis. You could have another transplant."
If he had the strength to put himself through that again, which wasn't a given.
"I don't understand why it keeps me from sleeping," he said suddenly. "Is it even because of that?"
"We'll have to discuss it," she said, "but I think there's a good chance it's that. As for why it's keeping you awake.I can only take an educated guess."
He went back to sit in front of the desk. "I'm listening."
"You have a busy life, and what did you do after you had undergone the tests?"
"I went back to work."
"And have you slowed down for a few minutes ever since?"
He thought about it.
Had he?
There had been a speech to write, there had been this draft of a new law to pass through Congress, there had been Donna's birthday, and this near PR- disaster.
"No," he admitted.
"Well, maybe it came back to you at night because it's the only time you actually stop moving long enough to take the time to deal with it," she suggested. "Although, once again, that's just a hypothesis."
"Born from years of working with trauma patients," Sam said.
"That doesn't make me right," she smiled. "Everyone has their way of dealing with such events. I'm taking a guess, and we'll see if I was right as we go along."
He nodded. "Okay."
"I'm going to give you a prescription for sleeping pills."
He shook his head.
No way was he taking those things again.
"They're light," she said. "They'll allow you to relax a little, they won't keep you from waking up. I suppose you took strong ones, last time?"
"It seemed like a good idea," he said.
"It wasn't," she smiled.
No kidding, he thought, remembering the incoherent nightmares that had filled his sleep.
She handed him the prescription, and he reluctantly took it. "Try to sleep on your own first," she advised. "Take one if you can't."
He nodded.
"I'm serious," she said. "You're beginning to show signs of fatigue, I don't want you to run yourself down. The more you drag this state along with you, the longer it'll take you to recuperate afterwards."
"Okay," he promised.
"Will you tell your friends that you came here?"
"I don't know," he lied.
Except he knew.
He wasn't going to.
They would worry, and he didn't want them to go back to spying on him like they had in the past.
"Liar," she said easily.
"It's just that they're."
They were nice, they were worried, they were protective, they wanted so much for him to get better, and all he wanted was some peace, some space, some privacy.
"If you need some space, ask for it," she said. "Remember what I told you last time?"
"That I should be an egoist?"
She glared at his liberal interpretation of her words. "That your recovery had to take a priority over everything - your job, the feelings of your friends, everything. Besides, if you need some space, they'll allow it."
He nodded.
She rose from her seat. "Let's see each other again in two days."
"Two days?"
"Until we've taken care of your sleeping problems, we have to see each other more often," she said.
He reluctantly agreed.
"People get better, you know."
He stared at her. "Do you people have a book or something?" he asked.
"A book?"
"That's what Stanley - he was Josh's therapist, after - "
"Rosslyn, of course," she said.
"Yeah, anyway, that's what he told Josh."
"That's because it's true. Don't minimize the impact of what happened to you, but don't let it overwhelm you either."
"Because people get better?"
"They do."
"Thanks," he said, shaking her hand, not sure he believed her.
"You will believe it one day," she said.
He hoped so.
"In two days," she said, opening the door.
"Okay," he said, exiting the office.
Author : Géraldine
Email : lazy.gege@ibelgique.com
Category : ESF, angst
Rating : PG - 13
Summary : Sam has a lot to deal with.
Disclaimer : They belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, NBC, Warner Brothers, and I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. So obviously, they don't belong to me. I'm not making money for this story, I just have too much free time on my hands. So I'm begging : don't sue.
Spoilers : To be safe, all four seasons
Note : Sequel to Setbacks
Acknowledgements : Thanks a lot to me beta reader, Emily.
*****
PART ONE
May 2003
"Are you nervous?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Are you nervous?"
"No."
He wasn't nervous, exactly. Simply, it had been easier before, Sam thought. When he was seeing her regularly, it had become, not natural, but.usual. It was just something he did, like a dentist appointment, but a little less fun.
It didn't feel as natural as it once had. It had been a few months since he had seen a therapist, and it felt awkward now.
Not as awkward as it had been the first time, but still.
Besides, he had no idea what he was supposed to say. Was he even supposed to say anything specific?
She hadn't changed much since the last time he had seen her, he reflected. Of course, it had only been a few months. Six and a half month. It had just seemed longer to him, that's all.
Back then, he had finally caved in to the demands of his doctors that he see someone who would help him deal with the changes he was facing - with the way his body reacted, with the treatment he had to follow, with the adjustments he had to make to his lifestyle.
He had stopped seeing her shortly before the election, claiming he was on top of things and didn't need help anymore.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you thinking about?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to say," he said. "I mean, I've done this before, with you. And then I've done it again, with someone else, but I knew what was happening to me."
"What was happening to you?"
PTSD.
The four letters that had made Josh's life, and his own, more.interesting, as the two of them often joked.
"It's funny," he said, "I knew it was likely to happen, I knew what it would probably feel like, Josh had talked to me." He knew what it must have cost his friend, and he was grateful for what he had done. Too bad it hadn't prevented anything. "Yet, when I began to, you know." Lose it. "I'm trying to say that knowing didn't help."
She smiled gently. "Did you expect it to?"
"I was hoping it would, yes."
Yes, he had hoped he wouldn't have to deal with it. He had hoped that being shot would be the year's only enjoyment.
Fat chance.
"It doesn't work that way," she said.
He refrained from rolling his eyes. Well, he knew that * now *
"I'm just saying," he sighed.
"Can you tell me what happened to you when you got out of the hospital?"
Nothing, at first. Everything was fine, the election was almost over, the President was going to win, he was better, physically, he was better psychologically. But she already knew that, she was the one he had consulted, during these first few months. He had stopped coming because everything was back to normal, or as normal as things were likely to get, and he was busy enough without regular appointments with his therapist.
Things had gone on fine for a few weeks after that - between November and January. Two months of peace.
Then, this feeling that he was losing his mind, bit by bit.
Josh had tried to warn him, "It's when you think it's over, it's when you drop your guard and begin to relax, that it hits you." He hadn't paid any attention to his friend's warnings. He had tried to convince himself that just because Josh had been a victim of PTSD didn't mean he would too, he had tried to deny that he had a problem and didn't know how to solve it, just as Josh had told him he would.
It had begun when he took his car to head back home at night - he had frozen several times, as he was going to start the engine, convinced that someone was going to come up behind him.
And to think that he had told Toby, on that sailing expedition, that he had managed to convince himself that he was safe now.
And to think that he had believed what he was saying.
After three weeks, he took a cab each time he had to do his daily commute. At the inquiries of his friends, he answered that his car was in the shop, and no one questioned that.
Eventually, though, he had to either take his car again, or let the others see that there was a problem. They were already beginning to look suspicious back then.
In hindsight, Sam thought, lying to them hadn't been a smart move.
Two days after he had taken his car back to work, he froze when he put his key in the lock of the car's door. He didn't know how long he had stayed like that. It was Leo who had found him. The chief of staff had apologized at great length afterwards, saying that he should have known.
Leo, when he had come out of the building, had seen Sam facing away, staring at the key in his hand, had walked to him and had put a hand on his shoulder.
Sam didn't remember much from that night - he had a flash of Leo above him, trying to calm him down, repeatedly telling him that he was fine, that he was safe, that it was going to be all right. He vaguely remembered the doctor, filling a syringe with a sedative and turning to face him.
He didn't remember the panic attack itself, just that he had felt scared for hours, even after Josh and Toby had talked to him, had told him again that he was fine.
The next morning, he had woken up to see Josh at his bedside.
A very worried Josh.
"I'm sorry," Sam had said immediately.
"You should have told us," Josh had said. "I mean, why didn't you."
Sam knew what his friend was thinking. Josh hadn't turned to anyone for help, but he hadn't known what was happening to him. Sam knew it was going to happen, he knew he could turn to the others, so why hadn't he?
"I didn't know how to.I wasn't sure what was happening."
Josh nodded. "I know it's frightening to feel that way - like you're going insane."
"Yeah."
"We'll help you to get through it."
"I know."
They had.
They had also watched his every move for weeks, until he had snapped, exasperated, that he wasn't going to jump in front of a car, so could they please move on already?
Toby had smirked. "Yeah, don't hold your breath."
But they had given him more space, thank God.
Little by little, he had begun to have less flashbacks, the nightmares, which had come back with a vengeance, had faded away again, and he hadn't had another panic attack.
He had gotten better, eventually.
"So why are you here?" she asked again.
"I.I stopped sleeping."
"When?"
"Ten days? Maybe more, I don't know."
"You don't sleep at all?"
"Half an hour here and there. Maybe three hours a night."
He tried to keep his tone light, to hide the worry he was feeling. It didn't seem too bad now, in this office, with someone else in the room - he could almost convince himself that he was young, that he could afford to have a few sleepless nights.
He knew from experience that it would become a big deal again when he would go home. Few things seemed insignificant at night, when you couldn't sleep and you were reduced to staring at the ceiling, longing for sleep.
"Okay. Have you tried sleeping pills?"
"A few nights ago."
"It didn't work?"
It had worked too well, actually. He had had a nightmare, the first one in two months, and he hadn't been able to wake up. He had found himself trapped in the same dream, all night long.
He had thrown the pills in the sink the next day.
"Do you have any idea why you stopped sleeping?"
He shot her a look. "I was kind of hoping I'd be able to pay you to find out why."
She smiled. "Fair enough."
There was a silence, and he sighed. "I'm gonna have to do all the work, aren't I?"
She nodded. "Afraid so," she said, in her best no-nonsense tone.
"Yeah, always works like that." he griped.
"Sam?"
"Yes?"
"Did something happen recently?"
He thought about a lot of smart replies. He didn't utter the first one, because he didn't want to be the sarcastic patient who plays smart with his therapist. He knew she was really trying to help him.
He just wasn't sure he was ready to go down that road.
"Sam, may I ask you why you came back here? We saw each other when you were still hospitalized, and for some time after you got out of the hospital, but you told me that you didn't need help anymore, so why come back?" she asked suddenly.
He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't keep seeing the other one, the one I saw for my PTSD, because he wasn't.I don't know, I didn't like him."
"Why?"
He rolled his eyes. Why was it important anyway? "He was good, but I had the feeling he was trying to, I don't know.I know you people hear stories like mine every day, all day long, and that's okay. But, it doesn't happen to * me * everyday, and he spent too much time telling me that my reactions were nothing out of the ordinary.They were to me. But I don't know if that makes much sense."
"It does," she said.
"Great," he said.
"So, that brings us back to, 'why now'?"
He grimaced. "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't remember."
"No chance of that happening," she said.
"I don't know," he said, smiling tightly.
"You're lying," she said calmly.
"Do you think you know me well enough to draw that kind of conclusion?" he asked.
"I don't need to know you to know that you're lying. It's written all over you."
He bit his lip, and got up, walking to the window. He couldn't see anything outside. It was dark, all he could see was his reflection in the window.
He was tired, and it was showing.
He was pale, he had dark smudges under his eyes. His hair was beginning to gray a little at the temples.
He looked his age, he thought, feeling depressed at the thought. A wonder none of his friends had asked him what was wrong yet.
"Sam?"
Why was he stalling?
She was right, he knew exactly why he wasn't sleeping.
He had spent a lot of time talking to therapists since he had been shot. He could imagine the questions they would ask, and he knew how to answer them.
He had considered bringing it up with his colleagues, but they were all so busy right now.
So he had made an appointment with her, and now that he was here, he couldn't bring himself to talk about it.
He even knew why - it would make it real, it would take his fears into the light, for a stranger to look at with him, and he wasn't sure he wanted that.
Besides, maybe talking wouldn't even help.
"Sam, do any of your friends know you're here?" she asked.
He spent a lot of time inside his head, analyzing himself. He knew himself very well.
What was he even doing here?
"Sam, do your friends know where you are?"
"No."
And they hadn't noticed that something was wrong, yet - although Toby was two days away from dragging him to the hospital again, he could feel it.
He almost smiled.
He would have, if he hadn't been so tired, if anything about the situation had been even remotely amusing.
"No, they don't know," he repeated.
"Why?"
"They'd worry."
And it would make it real, too.
"What happened ten days ago?"
It slipped before he could stop himself. "I had a check up."
"Okay."
He was still staring through the window, and she finally asked, "Sam, want to come back to sit here?"
He shook his head. "They thought there was something odd at the biopsy, so they called me back, they did more tests, and they decided that after all, everything was fine."
And he had spent two days living in the fear that the doctor would call him and tell him that he was beginning to reject the transplant again. Wondering if the months spent swallowing pills what seemed like every hour of the day had been in vain.
He turned to face her, smiling weakly. "I'm sorry, I'm just.I'm not sure how you're supposed to help."
She shrugged. "You're the one who called," she pointed out.
True. "That doesn't mean.it was an impulse."
"A good one," she said. "Sam, you've been told, I'm sure, that at the slightest sign that something was wrong, you had to call your doctor."
"Yes."
"Would you?"
"Yes, of course."
Except that he wasn't so sure.
It was entirely possible that he would be scared to hear what the doctor would have to tell him and he would wait.
He turned to face her. She was looking at him, and he had the disturbing impression that she was reading him like an open book - printed in a very large font.
He stared at her, daring her to challenge him.
She took a quick note, and Sam knew that it was going to come back in a future session.
"Anyway, when you have psychological difficulties, it's usually a good idea not to wait to see someone."
He knew that, yes.
It had been made pretty obvious to him when he had freaked in front of Leo, of all people, and spent a good hour shaking, unable to calm down.
"Why did it affect you so hard that they had to redo the tests?"
He shrugged, and turned his back on her again, going back to staring at the darkness outside.
"I'm not going to let that get away," she said. "You may not tell me, but we'll spend half an hour silently here, and - "
"Can you - ?" he said. "I'm thinking."
She stopped talking and he closed his eyes briefly.
"Sam?" she said, five minutes later.
He put his hands in his pockets and turned to face her, not making eye contact. "I . It reminded me that chances are, someday, I'll reject the transplant." He paused and frowned a little. "No, it's not exactly that. It's.It made the possibility more.real, it made it go from theory to, to a distinct possibility. Likelihood."
He groaned inwardly. What was wrong with him?
She nodded thoughtfully and he snapped. "Please, could you not do that?"
"Do what?"
"Nod like what I said is so, I don't know, insightful, that you have to take a moment to take it in."
She looked at him calmly and he sighed. "Sorry. I had promised myself not to be confrontational, but ."
She chuckled. "Don't worry about that," she said. "But back to our problem.What do you feel when you think about what might happen if you reject the transplant?"
Fear.
Helplessness.
Fear.
Some leftover anger toward the shooter.
Anger toward life, fate, or whatever - he would probably be cursing God if he was a believer, but he wasn't.
Anger toward himself, sometimes.
Fear.
Discouragement.
Anger toward her, right now.
Fear, mostly.
She nodded. "It wouldn't be the end," she said. "You could go back to dialysis. You could have another transplant."
If he had the strength to put himself through that again, which wasn't a given.
"I don't understand why it keeps me from sleeping," he said suddenly. "Is it even because of that?"
"We'll have to discuss it," she said, "but I think there's a good chance it's that. As for why it's keeping you awake.I can only take an educated guess."
He went back to sit in front of the desk. "I'm listening."
"You have a busy life, and what did you do after you had undergone the tests?"
"I went back to work."
"And have you slowed down for a few minutes ever since?"
He thought about it.
Had he?
There had been a speech to write, there had been this draft of a new law to pass through Congress, there had been Donna's birthday, and this near PR- disaster.
"No," he admitted.
"Well, maybe it came back to you at night because it's the only time you actually stop moving long enough to take the time to deal with it," she suggested. "Although, once again, that's just a hypothesis."
"Born from years of working with trauma patients," Sam said.
"That doesn't make me right," she smiled. "Everyone has their way of dealing with such events. I'm taking a guess, and we'll see if I was right as we go along."
He nodded. "Okay."
"I'm going to give you a prescription for sleeping pills."
He shook his head.
No way was he taking those things again.
"They're light," she said. "They'll allow you to relax a little, they won't keep you from waking up. I suppose you took strong ones, last time?"
"It seemed like a good idea," he said.
"It wasn't," she smiled.
No kidding, he thought, remembering the incoherent nightmares that had filled his sleep.
She handed him the prescription, and he reluctantly took it. "Try to sleep on your own first," she advised. "Take one if you can't."
He nodded.
"I'm serious," she said. "You're beginning to show signs of fatigue, I don't want you to run yourself down. The more you drag this state along with you, the longer it'll take you to recuperate afterwards."
"Okay," he promised.
"Will you tell your friends that you came here?"
"I don't know," he lied.
Except he knew.
He wasn't going to.
They would worry, and he didn't want them to go back to spying on him like they had in the past.
"Liar," she said easily.
"It's just that they're."
They were nice, they were worried, they were protective, they wanted so much for him to get better, and all he wanted was some peace, some space, some privacy.
"If you need some space, ask for it," she said. "Remember what I told you last time?"
"That I should be an egoist?"
She glared at his liberal interpretation of her words. "That your recovery had to take a priority over everything - your job, the feelings of your friends, everything. Besides, if you need some space, they'll allow it."
He nodded.
She rose from her seat. "Let's see each other again in two days."
"Two days?"
"Until we've taken care of your sleeping problems, we have to see each other more often," she said.
He reluctantly agreed.
"People get better, you know."
He stared at her. "Do you people have a book or something?" he asked.
"A book?"
"That's what Stanley - he was Josh's therapist, after - "
"Rosslyn, of course," she said.
"Yeah, anyway, that's what he told Josh."
"That's because it's true. Don't minimize the impact of what happened to you, but don't let it overwhelm you either."
"Because people get better?"
"They do."
"Thanks," he said, shaking her hand, not sure he believed her.
"You will believe it one day," she said.
He hoped so.
"In two days," she said, opening the door.
"Okay," he said, exiting the office.