Breaking Point

The point at which something loses force or validity

The point at which a situation becomes critical

The point at which a person gives way under stress

"So how do we do this?" Ruby asked still feeling guarded.

"Well you could have a seat for starters." Doctor Erik Stevens suggested easily not making any sudden movements.

Ruby looked at the door and sighed, "Alright." She moves back to the couch and sits down, unwrapping her hands in the process to see that her aura had healed the bruises and bleeding of her knuckles.

He watches her closely, "Let's start from the beginning."

"Is this going to be a 'tell me about your childhood' type question?" Ruby asked, "A bit stereotypical don't you think?"

"Is it no longer true that the best stories start from the beginning?"

"Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end; not necessarily in that order." Ruby countered sitting back and crossing her arms in the process.

Dr. Stevens nodded as he too sat back in his chair and crossed his legs, Ruby's file and his note book resting on the one raised leg. He peers over his glasses to look at her, amber eyes shining in amusement, "That is a very well put philosophical view. However we are not here to discuss philosophy I am afraid." He fixes his posture and sighs deeply, "Tell me about your mother."

"What does my mother have to do with this?" Ruby asked suspiciously.

"I believe…" the good doctor started off slowly and taking a deep breath continues, "some of this repressed trauma that you are experiencing stems back to the loss of your mother."

Ruby stands up angrily, "Shut. Up. You have no idea what you are talking about." She goes over to the window to see the Atlesian view, "I knew this was a bad idea." She growls out and storms over to the door.

"Team STRQ." These words made Ruby stop at the door once more. Her eyes closed and head turned away, hand lingering on the handle, "Summer Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, Raven Branwen and Qrow Branwen. After their Beacon years the team graduated to become hunters and huntresses. Eventually Taiyang and Raven married, having a daughter. Raven had left after a few years. Eventually Summer entered a relationship with Taiyang, the two having a daughter, Ruby Rose."

"How do you-?" Ruby started to ask turning to face him, however her answer was given when she sees him reading from another file.

He didn't pay attention as she returned to her seat and continued reading, "Summer had helped raise Raven's daughter, Yang Xiao Long. You all lived in Patch, but your mother continued to take on missions as a huntress. There was one mission however that she-"

"Never came back." Ruby finished uncharacteristically dark in tone and glare at the man in front of her, hands balled into fists, "If you have all this information, why ask me the damn question? Did you do this with Yang? Or my team for that matter?"

"As I assured you, there is a promise of patient confidentially. What is disclosed by your team with me stays between them and myself." Dr. Stevens warned Ruby. Now the reaper felt scolded and a bit unnerved as the amber eyes that held amusement with their earlier banter, now flared with hard analyzing look that could see through her, "Now then as for why I am doing this, you were less than forthcoming with the answer for the question I asked. So feel like cooperating?"

Ruby mentally shook herself, "Alright fine. I was told my mother had gone this mission, but the details of that mission were unknown. I was really young at the time to be able to fully comprehend what had happened. Recently my uncle Qrow," this she steadied herself and thought before she continued forward. Her conversation with Qrow that night in the stands did not really have anything of importance, so she continued with her thought, "told me that the mission in question was a secret of my mother's."

"Ok and that is fine. We'll come back to that last part later, for now going back to you Ms. Rose. A young child such as yourself during that time wouldn't be expected to be able to comprehend something so terrible." He said encouragingly, secretly pleased that Ruby had returned to her seat, "So then it says here that your father did not handle the news so well with Summer's disappearance. Is that correct?"

Ruby glared, "Well what do you think? My father loss my mother with little to no information as to what the hell happened." Then coughing she took a deep breath and looked away from him, "He had completely shut down. Yang had…to…raise…" Ruby's eyes widened and her eyes started to glisten a bit, "Me."

Dr. Stevens nodded and didn't comment on what he saw in the reaper's eyes, the formation of tears and guilt, as she quickly whipped them and coughed slightly, "Your uncle? What of him?"

"He…uhm…he wasn't involved much. He stopped by when he could to check in on us, but he was always away on missions." Ruby responded, "I mean when he was home, Yang still took care of me; however I knew she was hurting too…I heard her confessing to Qrow one day about how she cannot be a kid anymore…"

Stevens nodded again and wrote down what she was saying, "She hid a lot of her own sadness and anger to take on the responsibility of raising you, your father had shut down, and your uncle was not really in the picture. Is it correct to assume then that you didn't know how to process your own emotions?"

Ruby frowned deeply and now chose to make eye contact with the doctor, "I know how to process my emotions. Where the hell did you get that idea from based on what you asked of me?"

Stevens sits back and waves his pen around while speaking, "Well unless I misunderstood, and forgive me if I had, you didn't have many role models in your early life on how to deal with heavy complex emotions such as grief. Nor did you really have any role models on how to properly express those complex emotions other than internalizing and harboring those feelings."

"Do not go blaming them for that." Ruby said in a deadly tone.

"Did I say I was?" Stevens asked cocking an eyebrow not even phased.

Ruby stared him down, before letting out the breath she was holding, "No. No I suppose not."

He watched her for a moment before jotting down some more notes on the subject, "Does that happen often?"

"What?"

"Blurting out something before fully realizing you are doing it?"

"I mean if you are asking if I think before I act, admittedly there are times that doesn't always happen…"

He shook his head, "Not quite what I mean. Here let's back up for a moment and jump ahead to what happened last week. Your fight with Qrow when you admitted to wanting to kill Tyrian Callows."

"Ok…"

"Did you mean it?"

"What?"

"That you should have ended his life when you had the chance. Did you mean it?"

Ruby wanted to deny it, however she found herself at odds with herself. So she opted to stall for time, "Why do you ask?"

"Do you know who Sigmund Freud is?" Ruby shook her head, "He was a famous physiologist, medical doctor, and the father of the psychoanalysis." Seeing Ruby's unimpressed look, he finishes his explanation with, "Pretty much he contributed to the school of thought emphasizing the influence of the unconscious mind on behavior."

"Great history lesson, but what does that have to do with me?" Ruby asked.

Dr. Stevens smiles lightly, "It means that you unconscious thoughts and feelings can transfer to the conscious mind in the form of parapraxes." Again seeing Ruby's perplexed look, he says, "You know this as 'slips of the tongue'."

Ruby's eyes light up for the first time since they started the conversation, "So like what comes out of our mouth is what's really…on…our…min-oh crap baskets."

"Yes. So while you were not fully conscious of what you were saying, your unconscious was acting on your behalf to say what you really felt. Like you so eloquently put, we reveal what is really on our mind by saying something we didn't mean to."

Ruby stared at him before looking away, "I am…I didn't…" She placed her face in her hands and rubbed her face with exasperation, "What does that have to do with the way I grew up?"

"As I said, you internalize and harbor your feelings. You'd rather focus on other people's problems than your own. You hope that by doing this, your problems won't seem as significant."

"So it's wrong to care about other people than myself?"

"Well normally no. It is an admirable trait. However when you use it to try and forget your problems…then it is selfish and can, or in your case, will destroy you."

Ruby sat in silence and contemplated his answer for a moment, "I…I don't…I didn't realize…"

He looked at her with pity, "Freud believed that slips of the tongue provided an insight into the unconscious mind and that there were no accidents, every behavior was significant."

"So you believe that I was willing to commit murder for a just cause."

"I am saying that was what your unconscious mind must have thought." Ruby frowned deeply and got up again to go to the window, "It doesn't make you a bad person Ruby."

Ruby shook her head and then continued to stare out the window, "I must be if I admitted to wanting to play executioner. Just earlier I yelled at my sister and picked a fight with my team before going to the heavy bag."

Stevens nodded, "I see, well what if we do this then; I think we had some pretty stronger breakthroughs, so why don't we break for today."

"Breakthroughs? Seriously you call this a breakthrough?"

"You stayed right? We had an open discussion that I think went a long way." Ruby stared at him disbelievingly, "So why don't we pick up the same time tomorrow, however a bit of homework is due I believe."

"Homework?! What the hell is this, school?"

"I want you to write about how you felt when your mother didn't come home."

He didn't miss the small flash that glinted in her eyes, "What?"

"You heard me. In fact I want you to write it in this journal." He handed her a black leather bound book, "Any feelings you have-positive or negative-I want you to write down."

She hesitantly took the book from him and opened it to flip through the blank pages. She looks at him and says, "You really want me to do this?"

He nodded, "Yes and do not worry, you will only be sharing it with me. No one else will know."

Taking a shaky breath she asks, "You think this will really help?"

He stood up from his chair and went to the desk, "It can't hurt can it?"

"I suppose not. So I guess same time tomorrow?" She asks making sure she heard that part correctly.

Dr. Stevens nodded, "You got it." She went to the door and opened it. She looked back one more time, to make sure she was really good to go before exiting his office to head back to her room. Somehow she didn't feel much different, but at the same time she felt slightly lighter. It was an odd feeling, but one that at least didn't have her in turmoil for once.