Ranger and I held hands as we walked down to our therapy sessions together and, when staff came to talk to me and ask me how I was doing, Ranger quickly thanked them for their concern and told them that we had an appointment and had to go to avoid being late. I was grateful for his thoughtfulness. While I knew that people were worried about me, it was taking all my energy to appear positive and as though the events weren't as earth-shattering as they were. Because they were earth-shattering, and no matter how much I was pretending to be okay, I wasn't. For that matter, neither was Ranger.

As Ranger and I waited for our turn, I turned to Ranger. "I heard a joke", I said. "It reminded me of me."

"What's that?" said Ranger. He was already starting to smile.

"A woman was in the hospital dying, and her husband was by her side, day and night. She woke up at one point, looked at her husband, and whispered, 'We have had a long life and you have always cared for me. When my business went under, you supported me. When our son died in the car accident, you held me. When our house burned down, you were by my side. It has made me realize something.' The husband looked at her, tears in his eyes. 'What's that, angel?' She looked at him and shook her head. 'You are fucking bad luck.'"

Ranger laughed. "Are you telling me that I am bad luck?"

I kissed him on his cheek. "No. You are the best sort of luck. However, you have to admit that I have experienced more than my share of calamities."

"Yes, but they aren't all bad. In most cases, those calamities have led to arrests of some assholes who should be off the street. That's the first thing. The second thing is that it wasn't your fault. You were just walking through a parking lot and were taken because of your beauty and your babies. It had nothing to do with what you did or didn't do. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't blame yourself for something that wasn't your fault."

Tears came to my eyes and I sighed. He pulled me into his body and kissed my temple. "I love you, okay? And I don't believe that it was your fault at all."

I sniffed his scent and listened to his slow heartbeat, and I let it calm me. About a minute later, Livy came to the door and welcomed me. As I got up, I turned to Ranger and arranged to meet him in the waiting room after our appointments.

I followed Livy into her therapy room and sat on the sofa. "What's going on?" she said. "Ranger said that you'd been kidnapped?"

I told her what had happened, from the start of the initial contact with Devlin at the office through to the rescue by Rangeman. I told her about the capture and the rape and the assault, and by the end of it I was in tears again.

"How do you feel about what happened?" she said.

"Guilty to be upsetting Ranger, worthless and dirty and contaminated from the rape and, to be truthful, that feeling was just increased when I found out that Bobo had given me an infection. I feel like I want to cut off my sexual bits to try to get rid of the contamination, even though I realize that I can't do it. It is just a compulsion that I have and I am having trouble shaking it. I have also developed the compulsion to have many showers each day. Yesterday we woke up from our nap around three, and between three and seven, which was when I went to bed, I had three showers and a bath. I knew I didn't need them. I also knew that I didn't need to spend fifteen minutes in the shower when I was there. However, I felt compelled to have the showers anyway."

"I understand. The antibiotics, however, are removing the contamination, aren't they?"

I thought about that for a moment. "I didn't think about it that way", I said.

"Steph, you have to remember that your feelings that you are dirty, contaminated and worthless are just that – feelings. They are not based in reality. They are based on things that were done to you, not by you. They are based on events that weren't your fault."

"The events are never my fault, yet things are always happening to me. I'm just a useless fuck-up."

"I don't agree with that. Can you find proof that you are a useless fuck-up?"

I thought about that for a moment before shaking my head.

"How is your depression?"

I sighed and went over my symptoms, and pulled out my phone and showed her my mood chart. She reviewed it. "This says that you've been increasingly depressed over the last month, which coincides with what I've been seeing as well. I suspect that Gabriel will want to increase your medication. That makes sense, as your pregnancy is advancing and the medication will be increasingly ineffective as you gain bulk and the babies grow." She pulled out her phone and typed a text to Gabriel. A second went by before she received a response. "Gabriel said that he'll see you after talking to Ranger."

"Thank you."

"Let's talk about your guilt."

I told her about Ranger's reaction and how guilty I felt to be causing him distress.

"Again, though, it was not your fault. You didn't choose for that to happen to you. You were going to meet a friend for dinner. Millions of people go and meet friends for dinner. There is nothing wrong with that. You shouldn't have suspected that there would have been a problem. If you were talking to a friend, would you tell her that it was her fault?"

I sighed. "No."

"Then what makes you so special? You are not Wonder Woman, Steph."

"But I have the cape!" Lula had bought me a Wonder Woman cape for Christmas a couple of years ago so that I didn't have to pin a pillowcase around my neck like I had when I was a child. It made me laugh, even if I had never used it. To be honest, I think Ranger was a little disappointed about that. He thought a naked Wonder Woman would be hot. I told him that I didn't have Lynda Carter's attributes, so he might have been a little disappointed. Although, now that I was pregnant, my attributes were growing and he might not be so disappointed after all.

Livy smiled and said softly, "Steph, you are not Wonder Woman. You are not a superhero. You are human, and you need to give yourself a break rather than assuming that you can handle anything. What happened to you was beyond horrible. You need to grant yourself the right to be angry, the right to be upset, the right to the time to recover. You don't need to push yourself, get angry at yourself for not recovering after twenty-four hours. With Ranger, you don't need to hide your feelings in jokes and subterfuge. He isn't expecting you to be a soldier and carry on as though you don't have emotions. You can be open and honest with him, and you can lean on his shoulder just as much as he can lean on yours. It's okay, Steph, to not always be tough. It's okay to admit that you are human and that you have sad and bad and upsetting feelings."

I looked at the ground. "It seems so wrong", I said after a minute. "Ranger says I hide my real self, the self that feels negative emotions, under a layer of sunshine so that I don't upset other people."

Livy smiled. "I couldn't have said it better. However, Ranger isn't going to be scared away by a little rain."

I sighed.

"Steph, you are a good person. People are drawn to you because you connect with people, because you honestly love and appreciate people. But you are allowed to have feelings, allowed to hurt, allowed to cry. You can do it behind closed doors with Ranger if you want, but you have that right to be sad. Don't repress those feelings, or you will have a bigger mess and more upsetting feelings than you have right now." She gave me a minute to swipe the tears off my face. "Let's go talk to Gabriel."

By the time I walked out of Gabriel's office, I had a new prescription for an adjunct medication that he had faxed through to the pharmacy, an appointment for another two weeks, and my face was swollen with tears. Ranger stood up and gathered me into a hug, and pulled my head into his shoulder as he kissed me on my hair. I buried my nose and just breathed, just absorbed his peace and took strength in his comfort. Ranger lightly rubbed my back as I held on tight.

"I'm sorry for shutting you out", I said quietly.

"Gabriel explained to me that you are shutting me out as a way of dealing with what has happened, a mental pause to help you accept the horror. I'm sorry for taking it personally and giving you a hard time. But babe? If you want to talk, I'm here. And I will never look down on you for you letting me see the clouds beneath your sunshine."

"They are pretty black."

He kissed me again. "That's okay, babe. So are mine."

"Livy gave me her home number, so that I can do a twenty-minute check-in on the weekend if I want. I told her that I wasn't sure if I would. I was thinking that, if you don't mind, maybe we could take Tia to the baby store with us tomorrow if we feel like it. I think doing something like that as a family would be good for us, and it would be good to finalize the rooms."

Ranger smiled. "That sounds nice. However, I want to reserve the right to cancel our plans if we don't feel like it." He slipped his hand under my hair and massaged my neck.

"I was also wondering if you wanted to look at my Pinterest boards tonight so that we can finalize the room designs. It sounds like the rooms will have to be finished soon."

"I look forward to it. I was also thinking, after Tia goes to bed, perhaps we could spend some time looking at baby clothing and ordering more. After all, we are going to need double what we had with Tia."

I laughed. "Tia was a spoiled little girl. I'm sure she has enough hand-me-downs to support two sisters."

Ranger smiled. "Our new babies can always use more." I shook my head as I laughed. "Are you ready to go home? Or, do you want to go somewhere else? Tracy said she didn't mind looking after Tia a bit longer."

"I know, but I could really use a Tia hug and a banana-blueberry milkshake."

Ranger smiled. "Then let's go home."