Thanks for all the lovely feedback! Here's the next to last. TGIF everybody!

(x)

Jim let the word 'closure' roll around in his head for another day or two, before he asked Lee if she thought he needed any. Now he stood in a small but well-kept city park by a faded, wooden picnic table at half past nine at night. The park was empty except for the two of them. In his hands, he carried a crumpled brown paper bag.

A bag that held all of the pieces left of his relationship with Barbara.

A tie set from the last Christmas they shared. A random receipt from their favorite Chinese food restaurant. The pictures from their trip to the beach two summers ago. The ticket stubs from the benefit where Barbara and her army of psychopaths terrorized Lee and Gallivan "saved" the day. The 'Dear Jim' letter she left for him, telling him that when she closed her eyes all she saw was Zsasz and his murderous glare. And a wine glass. It had been the last survivor of a set of four gifted to them at their engagement party. He broke down the glass into pieces beforehand. He didn't know what would happen if he threw a whole wine glass into an open fire, but good sense told him a handful of glass shards were likely to burn a little more easily.

Renting the fire pit had been Lee's idea.

The cold winter wind bit his nose and the tops of his ears while in front of them the small wood fire crackled and popped orange sparks in the air. Jim looked over at Lee. "You ready?"

She huddled next to him, shielding herself from the cold, creating warmth between them. "Whenever you are."

Jim set down the paper bag on the frostbitten grass and slowly, methodically dropped each item into the fire. He'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't feel something. But he didn't have to name it. He'd leave that for Madeline to sort out at their next session.

The tightly-woven fabric of the ties melted apart. The shards of broken glass sparkled at first and then blackened completely with soot. The fire burned through the receipt and the ticket stubs in mere seconds.… They were just that fragile.

Jim smelled a high, sour stench as he dropped the 4X6 photographs into the flames. He watched the smiling images of himself and Barbara melt away like a broken film reel suddenly ending a movie.

Last but not least he held the smooth, no doubt expensive parchment paper on which Barbara wrote him her final letter. Jim pressed his lips together in a thin line and squared his jaw.

Good-bye, Barbara.

He let go, and the letter fluttered down until it rested upon the embers of the fire. Red and orange trails burned their way through the paper, curling the edges, consuming the words 'Dear Jim', until there was nothing. Until only ashes remained.

Lee leaned into him, holding her gloved hands lovingly against her stomach. She looked up at him when she whispered, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said.

And underneath that?

Jim Gordon pressed out a long, deep breath, feeling the hot fire and cold wind at the same time. He inhaled the sharp chill of the winter wind and smelled the charcoal and the burned wood of the flames that rose up from his life with Barbara. When he looked up into the embers that floated lazily above the fire, he thought of the butterfly, the one that had been trying to tell him something.

He pulled Lee close and he said, "I'm trying to be."

(x)

Wayne Manor was quiet most of the time, but especially so at night. The sudden, all but complete silence of his home crushed him at first, the stark contrast a constant reminder of what used to be. Now, Bruce settled into the smooth, cool cushions of the leather couch in his father's… in what would to him always be his father's study. He curled up against the arm of the sofa to read the last chapters of Getting Past Your Past.

Bruce decided he didn't care for the name. It felt kitschy and overdone, and it didn't really capture the essence of the writing at all. He wondered if Dr. Scott liked it or didn't. He'd heard somewhere that authors infrequently got to name their books and often it was the publishers who chose their titles. Bruce scanned through the pages carefully but quickly, looking for what the doctor said would be there. Looking for...

MW.

Bruce stopped. His mouth parted open. His gaze snapped back to the top of page.

...held sessions with MW for six months. A mother and a philanthropist, MW agreed to let me include transcripts from our therapy in this book. But only if I used our closing session and only if I told it exactly as it happened. At first, I wasn't certain how to make the content useful, or more honestly, if I felt comfortable broadcasting the conversation we had. This was, of course, before I understood what book I was writing.

Shortly after, I realized all too quickly that she was right. It had to be the last session.

Bruce read through the dialogue of their final session, where he learned that his mother had at one point experienced a terrifying nightmare where her home, their home, collapsed and crumbled in the grip of a hurricane. In the dream, by some miracle, she survived, but no matter what she did she couldn't find A., her husband… or her son.

Me, Bruce thought. She couldn't find me.

Devastated and heartbroken, his mother searched and searched until she finally stirred herself awake, gasping for breath and terrified. Now, at the end of her treatment, his mother made a new dream. One where she successfully found them all and together they escaped outside while Wayne Manor fell, completely leveled to the ground.

I asked her, "I wonder why you didn't change the part where the house is destroyed. With lucid dreaming, it's an easy fix."

MW shrugged. "It's just a house. All that really matters to me are the people inside."

Bruce felt himself swallow reflexively. A heavy lump formed in his throat.

Though I'm sure she thought I was speaking figuratively, I responded lightly and without thought. "Well, I suppose later you could always rebuild the house."

In response, MW placed her hand over her heart. "I only needed to rebuild -this- house."

From there, MW spoke about how she wanted to bring her son with her to our next appointment. She'd spoken so often and so fondly of him during our sessions that she felt it only right that I should meet him. Then I understood in an unwelcome burst of clarity the ironic truth. The moment a client is fully comfortable, so much so that they begin to look forward to their sessions much like they would a social engagement, that is also the moment when the goals of therapy have been met.

There's no good time for bad news, and though ending MW's therapy was very good news, I knew it probably would not be seen that way at first. But MW accepted my careful, delicate termination speech with humor and grace and an effortless honesty that always radiated from her, even in her most devastating moments of treatment.

She told me, "I often think that if you and I had met outside of this room that we might be friends."

She spoke a thought any of us could have, but would just as easily decide not to share. All too often in our minds, the risks of sincerity outweigh the benefits. I felt compelled to respond as best I could in kind. "I've often had that thought myself."

MW asked, "Can therapists be friends with their clients afterwards?"

There are entire books written on how therapists should answer this very question, ranging in word and purpose, but always labelled under the theme of 'setting boundaries'. Because boundaries are put there to protect. "I think a friendship is something that happens like any other relationship. It happens whether we plan for it or not. However, that doesn't change the fact that the whole point of seeing a therapist is to one day not see them any more."

I could see a trace of disappointment in her face, and I felt much more than a trace deep within myself.

MW joined me in the new direction of what would be our final session. "So… how do we end?"

"It's different for everyone," I said, "There's a poem I read that made me think of you. At times during your sessions, I've imagined you holding not just your son and your husband but also all the children of this city in your heart." Because there was just that much room. "The line goes something like 'I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.'"

MW arched an eyebrow before she said, "Madeline, you know that that poem is about death… right?"

I didn't. I do now. To my credit, I rallied. "Well, grief isn't just about death. Sometimes it's about saying good-bye." I awkwardly joked, "Though I suppose all of us, even after saying good-bye, still have the option of social media stalking."

Then she said, "You know… since you brought that up… I should tell you. I didn't just happen upon your name and number in the yellow pages."

I'd never asked her how she'd heard of me or why she chose me for her therapist. I was undeniably curious. I am after all, only human. "How did you find your way here?"

MW's voice became softer. "I saw your name on a list of referrals for psychologists who specialize in trauma-based cognitive therapy… And I remembered seeing your name about a year ago in the paper."

My heart rate kicked up. I didn't need to ask to know, and she saw that.

MW said, "So I did one of those internet searches that you just mentioned. I learned that after the incident …" It took something out of her to say it. It took something out of me to hear it. "You still worked with offenders. You still stayed at your job at the prison. In fact, according to their website, you worked there up until they shut down their therapy program." MW kept talking, thankfully, while I tried not to hear my heart pound in my ears. "I thought 'wow'. She'll get me."

MW started having nightmares after working with Children's Protective Services, walking straight into the abhorrent conditions that breed the atrocities of child abuse. It took me longer to respond than I'm willing to admit here. "You didn't want someone telling you that the solution was to leave your job."

MW said simply, "Because it wasn't."

This next part I'll write I wish I'd come up with myself. But all credit herein stays with MW.

She told me, "When I first came here, I thought that I had to be someone brave enough and strong enough to step in and save the lives of those children."

I must have looked at her very oddly, as I was unable to predict what she would say next.

MW said, "Now I've realized. It's important that you are something because you choose to be so, not because you have to be."

Bruce saw the tears fall down in wide wet drops onto the ink and thin pages of the book before he realized he was crying. Holding the book in his hand, he uttered a strangled, painful sob. He thought, I miss her so much. Even as he had the thought, he realized how useless and stupid it was. His mother was gone, dead and buried, and never coming back. And the only written words she'd left for him to find, he'd just finished reading and would never read for the first time again.

He heard his name spoken from only a few feet away. "... Master Bruce?"

Bruce looked up with wet, red eyes at Alfred, who stood in the doorway. When Alfred saw, he ran to his side. When he reached him, he grabbed him and held him tightly in his arms. Bruce felt his body collapse forward as he cried hard tears into his shoulder.

"It's all right," Alfred whispered. Though nothing was all right, the words still helped because of who spoke them. "I'm here, Bruce. It's going to be all right."