** For authors notes, disclaimer etc. see chapter 1

Last Resort 4/?

"Sandra come in, sorry to keep you waiting." She's sorry to keep me waiting? She needs to be sorry for a hell of a lot more than that! I just about made it here without getting a string of speeding tickets or killing myself by wrapping the car round a tree. Keeping me waiting for a quarter of an hour is only the beginning of what she needs to be sorry about. "Take a seat and tell me what's got you so worked up that you needed an emergency appointment."

"Gerry thinks I've lost my bloody mind and I'm starting to agree with him! What the hell was the whole trying to ignore him thing about?" She's giving me that tolerant "I'm really listening" face and it's really pissing me off tonight. "I've spent the last two days not even being able to do my job properly because I'm trying to avoid being alone with him and am hyper aware of his every bloody move and mine so are you going to tell me what this was supposed to achieve because other than risking my job and being committed by the MET shrink I can't see anything!"

"The point of the exercise was to see if you could spate yourself on a physical day to day basis from Gerry Sandra in the hope that would then give us some pointers in how to help you distance yourself emotionally." Please tell me I'm not the only one who hasn't got a fucking clue what she's talking about? I mean are you hearing this?

"How can I separate myself as you put it, we are a small team we work in each other's pockets it's not possible for us to avoid each other we're constantly in close proximity. I thought I made that clear when we first started talking about this."

"Yes but you're in charge of the office, the allocation of work and so on. Tell me what happened today. I realise you can't talk about your case but in as much detail as you can." Oh yeah that is going to help! Completely reliving the humiliation and insanity of my day is going to make me feel better!

"There's nothing to tell. We're working a case, Jack and Brian had gone to check on some details which meant Gerry and I were alone in the office. He came in and asked a perfectly reasonable question and I freaked out and locked myself in the bloody ladies! Then we needed to go join the other and again he very reasonably pointed out that one care would make more sense and I screamed at him! I swear I wouldn't blame him for thinking I have turned into a complete basket case!"

"I see." Oh! My! God! That's it I'm leaving I was doing better at this on my own it's time I went back to that instead of spending a third of my salary on this rubbish.

"That's all you can say? I think I should go this clearly is a complete waste of time." Impassive. She's always been good at that but tonight she's taking it to new heights!

"No but before I say anything else I want you to think for a second about what you've just told me and see if you can pick out the glaring inconsistency in what you're telling me you want and the reality of that you are doing." She's staring at me like I should immediately come up with an answer to her stupid statement.

"I still don't know what you're talking about."

"Well this morning when you arrived at the office and were starting the day you were all together and it was up to you to decide how the rest of the working day was going to go correct?" I see where she's going with this now but she doesn't understand the dynamic of our team. Yeah I'm the boss but provided the work isn't suffering and they aren't taking the piss I let them decide themselves who should be doing what. I don't argue with them I've learned it doesn't achieve anything.

"Yeah but Jack and Brian had to go check out the address I…."

"Why did they "have" to Sandra? Surely if you decided one of them should stay behind and you go or Gerry then that's what would have happened."

"Well in theory yeah but….."

"You were in a situation where your "homework" for want of a better word was to ensure that you didn't find yourself in a situation exactly like the one you found yourself in this morning yet you still chose be left at the office with Gerry. The fact that you didn't stop it when you could do suggests to me that you really are finding it hard to deal with the idea of not having him close on a day to day basis which means I find it hard to believe that you actually want to get over him either. If you aren't honest with yourself and me then you won't make any progress and you'll end up having so many of these sessions you'll be funding my retirement to the Costa del Sol." Can you believe she just said that? I really am going to go this time. How dare she suggest that I'm not trying? If she'd been in my office earlier she'd have seen how hard I am bloody trying.

"I don't know what you mean I am being honest I may be the boss but we don't work like that most of the time which is why it's so bad that I lost it with Gerry earlier and "pulled rank" he knows something's going on I don't really do that unless they are completely going off the rails." God I sound so defeated but that's exactly how I feel right now. Now that I'm away from the office and can think clearly I'm starting to realise that maybe I could have done things a little differently but I can't think logically when he's around. Now she's making notes and not saying anything and I feel like I've failed some sort of test. She's right at this rate I'll be single handedly buying her a Spanish villa because I can't seem to take one step forward with this whole situation without taking two back!