A/N
This is a Prologue of sorts, to my first intentionally long story. I have a general idea of where I'm heading with it, and hope to get at least 20-ish chapters before completion. There may be edits (I'm sorry, I'm a painter, and writing for me is kind of like doodling with words, and sometimes things have to be erased and shifted to make the bigger picture work. I have yet to touch base with a beta, but if anyone is interested in giving me some feedback on chapters before I post them, let me know, and I will send you so many good vibes and virtual hugs and I'd be gleefully grateful.)

"You can talk to me."

"For what purpose?"

"Sometimes it's beneficial to have someone who can listen, relate. Somewhere to lay down the burdens you carry alone. Take the weight off for a while."

"You like clichés, don't you?"

"And you like to be a smart ass, I reckon?" Bridget quipped right back, not missing a beat of the volley.

"If you respond with clichés, it's kind of hard to believe you're actually doing any sort of active listening. All you're really doing is picking up key words and blabbing out the corresponding phrase that will hopefully placate your client and make them feel falsely empowered. Do you have any idea how much time I've spent hearing that bullshit? How many times I was bounced around from fosters to group homes to overnights in a back alley? Know what they all say? 'This too, shall pass', 'you will be stronger because of this', 'something good is just around the corner', 'get it off your chest, you will feel better'."

Bridget took a good hard look at how she had been conducting her sessions with all clients over the past few years. Maybe she really had become what she, too, disliked and had vowed to never be. Maybe she really had started treating it as just a job to pay the bills. Maybe it was time to break that habit. … At least for Franky.

"I'm sorry. I think you're right and I'm sorry. I will have to change that. It's something I had promised myself, upon starting this career, that I wouldn't let happen. I want you to be able to talk to me so maybe we could share mutual understanding."

There. Bridget hoped her honest admission would cool the younger woman's simmering temper.

For a moment, she thought it was successful as brief confusion replaced the accusatory glare, but it wouldn't be so easy. Franky was too aware, too intuitive, too intelligent to be played that way.

And she let Bridget know it. The price for extracting painful memories of Franky's past was much higher than a little apology.

"As if you know my life? As if you can relate on any wildly imagined level? With a name like 'Westfall', I bet you grew up in a gated community of Richville, Surburbia, went to a fancy hand laid imported Italian stone school with ivy draping the walls and valet parking?"

"It's not -"

"It's not what I think? Not what it seems? Oh please, continue. This should be entertaining, watching you try to tell me how your privileged upbringing and expensive Uni degree gives you the slightest insight into my life and my head."

shaky breath "It's not ... 'Westfall'.. My name... was not Westfall."

A scoff of condescending disbelief from Franky. "Okay then, so you married rich. Got a sugar daddy or something? Arranged business marriage between two of the global elites to ensure pure wealthy blood carries on into the next generation?"

Franky was shredding Bridget's normally calm veneer.

"Never married."

"Adopted into a rich family?"

"No."

"Out with it then!"

"I've been fucking trying, Franky, but you're so bloody focused on the money and position I have now that you won't let me get my thoughts together!"

Franky holds her hands up in surrender, the mocking aura around her quickly dissipating at the reprimand.

"Alright. I'm sorry." Genuine apology replaced the former defensive criticism.

"I chose 'Westfall' when I was 19. Four years after I left home...Before that... Before... " she had to pause as the images of 'before' waged war inside her mind, forcing her to battle them back to their cages. "Webster."

"Sshhhit! Shrink's got shady secrets!"

Bridget faltered at the harsh words.

The psychologist's fallen features might as well have been a slap across Franky's face. "Fuck! I'm so sorry, I'm a complete cunt. It's the fucking teal talking."

"I grew up in a shitpot farming town. Everyone was either drunk or crazy."

"But I'm still failing to see how you could possibly relate to me. I'm a fucking murderer."

"So am I."

For the first time, Franky couldn't find words.

Bridget continued. "Or I would've been, if not for my shit aim. But I had every intention of killing. I pulled the trigger with the sole purpose of ending a life. I know how much it takes to shove an innocent person over that line and make them a killer. I know that moment when you want to just stop all of the horrible things an evil person is doing. To not have any options left. To save yourself and those you love from further harm. To avenge those who no longer have a voice... To be thrown right into fear based primal instinct. Kill or be killed. Fight to the death. I know what it is like to dread every new hour, wondering if this is the one where you die. If this is the one where you're caught off guard. If this is the one where you make a mistake and are unprepared for the consequences. What if this is the one where everything is taken from you and they win?

I know what it is like to trust absolutely no one. Because everyone else has their own hidden plans and you may just become another means to their end. Sometimes for a legitimate purpose, sometimes just for their own sick fun.

I know what it is like to lie awake at night and cry til dawn, confronted by all the atrocities I've witnessed or been a part of, the regrets, the faces, the screams, the wanting someone to just take my hand and promise me there is a way out, to tell me I've got a chance and things will be okay. To feel like there is hope to not be stuck in hell forever. That being a prisoner of my past wasn't a full life sentence. "

Bridget allowed the tears to accompany her story. Burning lines down her face, symbolising the now-invisible scars.

"I fucking know. I KNOW what it is like to let yourself feel alright for a fraction of a second. To stand up and rejoice on solid ground, for it to all disintegrate in the next moment. I know, Franky. I know what it's like to be plummeting toward certain demise, to have everything hurt, to be calling for help and everyone just walks past, like you're nothing more than a zoo animal. You're not their problem, so they don't have to care. You're not their family, so they don't have to carry the weight of you and your baggage. "

She paces, aimlessly, the agitated motion shaking loose more of her confession. Franky sits ramrod straight and still in the chair. The shift in dynamic lost on both of them.

"I know the absolute desolation and destruction that happens to your soul when person after person comes into your life, preaching and professing their help, you allow yourself to believe them and when they see what a trainwreck you really are, they see how broken your mind is, they blame you. They make you the bad person and they walk away. And it's as if you never existed to them. You gave them the power of trust and they used it to shatter what is left of you.

And you're left. On your knees, alone, surrounded by the charred remains of what could have been.