A/N: I know it's been forever since I've updated this story, all of may stories actually, so I hope there is still someone out there who is interested in them. College has taken over my life lately and I haven't been able to work on these bigger pieces. There are a few one-shots floating around out there, none posted here, but if your interested check out the link on my profile page or go to community.livejournal.tragicfreedom. Most of them are SPD related, specifically Bridge/Z. But at any rate, I hope someone out there is still reading and enjoying this story.

This wasn't quite what Jason had in mind when he had agreed to seek help. This was the last thing he had wanted to do and Kat damn well knew it! He hated doctors, every single one of them. But he harbored a special hatred for the kind who sat across from him now. He'd dealt with her kind before, right after his father had passed away, and he had decided then that they were the bottom dwellers of the upper echelon of science. So he kept his eyes on the floor, completely avoiding even looking her way.

"So Jason, tell me about yourself."

Jason closed his eyes and tried to block out her voice.

I'm going to kill Kat! He seethed in silence until it became too much to bear.

"Nothing much to tell," he said at last, hoping she'd just shut up and let him go home.

The women before him cleared her throat and scribbled something on her notepad. No such luck.

"Why don't you start with your family," she suggested as she pushed he owl eyed glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Then we can work forward from there."

Jason shook his head and folded his hands in his lap. Why was everyone always giving him that sympathetic smile? He hated it almost as much as he hated being locked in this stuffy room.

He shrugged. "What about them?" He decided to hedge his bets; better to tell her what she wanted to hear and make his escape than stay locked up in here for the rest of the day.

She took off her glasses and folded her hands in her lap over the yellow note pad already resting there. "Tell me about your mother."

Jason pulled a face and muttered a silent curse. Heaving a sigh he gave the woman a nonchalant shrug. "She's great," he finally admitted, but the note of bitterness in his voice was not lost on the Councilor.

Seeing that she was not going to get anywhere, she decided to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on a single person or event, perhaps it would be easier for him to talk about a much broader, less painful topic. "Tell me about you're childhood then, a – a favorite memory perhaps."

Rolling his eyes, Jason racked his brain for his "favorite" memory. After a few moments of tense silence he finally settled on the happiest memory he could come up with. Just thinking of it brought a smile to his face.

"Alright," he said, clearing his throat and deciding to play along for the time being, "when I was in elementary school I met a girl named Kimberly on the playground. She was all alone by the swings, cutting cartwheels and humming to some song that I can't remember the name to anymore. I was sitting on the seesaw and from the moment she caught my eye I couldn't look away. She was so beautiful," he broke off, reveling in the memory and chuckled slightly as he thought about how carefree and foolish childhood really was. "I was so awestruck by her that before the bell rang I was convinced that she was an angel. The next day I raced back to the seesaw to watch her doing flips in the grass. This went on for a few days before I finally summoned up the courage to got talk to her…and, well, as they say, the rest is history. We instantly became fast friends and she even introduced me to her friend Billy. Before long, the three of us were practically attached at the hip. All through school until she moved away to follow her dreams we did everything together. Of course our little group expanded to include a few others from time to time, but we were the heart of it all."

He was smiling and lost in the past but the sound of irritating scratching brought him crashing back to the present. He glanced over at the woman in the chair and saw that her hand was feverishly flying across the yellow legal pad.

"Please, continue," she said once she laid her pen back down on her lap. "Tell me more about this group of friends."

Jason turned his gaze back to the pattern on the floor, "well, there was the three of us but we were quickly joined by a new student named Trini. Her family had just moved to Angel Grove from LA and she fell into our little group. We were a bunch of misfits, a jock, a gymnast, and a brain, so she fit in perfectly as a smart beauty. After middle school, Zack came along and joined the group. We got along well because we were both really into karate."

He trailed off and his eyes grew distant. "Then Tommy came along. At first we didn't get along, he was an enemy of sorts, but after a brief…misunderstanding, he came around and our little group continued to grow."

The woman was nodding thoughtfully at him, "and where does Kat figure into all of this?"

Jason was silent. He wasn't sure what any of this had to do with his near suicide attempt. What good did it do to reminisce about the past when the future was so bleak?

"Kat?" He repeated dumbly. His brain was reeling with so many memories but at the mention of her name everything else faded away in a haze of gray, leaving nothing but her face shining in his numb mind. He shook his head to clear away the fog and forced himself to focus on the question.

"Kat – she was Tommy's girlfriend when…when I came back from the Peace Conference. After they broke up we, well, we became close. I always felt kinda bad for getting that close to my best friend's ex, even despite his protests that it was perfectly fine, but…well; I guess it just never felt right."

"Why not?"

He shrugged, not really knowing why himself. He supposed that deep down it was because he had just gotten out of a bad relationship and he didn't want to get hurt again, but he knew that that was merely the excuse he used to justify his feelings. The heart of the matter was that he had always liked Kat, long before she and Tommy broke up and that in and of itself felt like a betrayal of their friendship.

Perhaps the therapist guessed his plight for she gave him a knowing smile. "Ah, I believe we have made some progress today."

She glanced at her watch and stood. "I hope that we can make as much progress next session," she said simply.

Jason stared at her in unconcealed confusion. "What? That's it?"

She nodded.

"But—but aren't you supposed to say something deep and revealing before you sent me packing," he asked incredulously, feeling his anger flaring deep inside of him.

Replacing her thick, horn rimmed glasses, she graced him with a rare smile. "I'll tell you a secret young man, and at no extra charge. From what I've heard today, you have some very lovely friends. Friends who want nothing more than to help you. It seems as if they've gone out of their way to help you already, and if you ask me, your behavior as of late is not only destructive, it is also a mockery of your friends."

Something snapped in Jason at her words but she plowed on, oblivious to the cold contempt that had settled in the deep pools of brown.

Her tone became softer and she actually reached out and touched his shoulder. Jason jumped at the gesture and, looking up, felt his gaze lock with hers.

"Don't push them away. They love you and they want their friend back. Your life has changed but who can say if it's changed for the better, but I can tell you it's changed for the good."

She walked away, leaving him alone with his anger and his thoughts. Somewhere in his hazy mind something clicked and her words fell into place. His anger rapidly burnt itself out, leaving behind a smoldering pile of ashes. He felt tired and drained and wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep for a month. He didn't even notice when Kat strolled into the room with a warm smile and wheeled him to the elevator.

His brain was numb, his whole body was numb. Out of everything she had said he could only form one coherent sentence, but it spoke volumes: live for today because yesterday is already gone.

He knew that he had a long, bumpy road ahead of him, but with his friends, and Kat, by his side he knew he could make it.

He found a small smile forming at the corners of his lips because all of a sudden, the future, though still grim, didn't look nearly as bleak.