"That's very good Stephanie, we're definitely making progress now. Most of that matches with what other people have told me and what you've given me before. Shall we take a break for a drink and something to eat? Then we'll see if you can remember anything a little further back okay?"
Stephanie sat up on the couch she had been lying on for the past three hours, "Are we really making progress? Was that better than yesterday?"
The psychiatrist patted her on the shoulder, "Yes, you're getting better every day now. I'm very pleased. We just need to try and go a bit further back than where you started today. You still seem to struggle with a few things there. Let's go and eat and we can meet again in an hour."
They walked out of the door and Stephanie saw that Paul was sitting in the waiting area. He saw her and walked over, "Hey honey, how was it today?"
She hugged him, "He said I'm making progress every day now. He's happy that we have everything pretty much figured out from that night in Miami until when I was in hospital. We're going to go over the important things from the weeks before that again this afternoon."
Paul kissed his wife on the forehead, "That's really good Steph. Hopefully we won't have to keep coming here for much longer."
"It's just so frustrating though honey, I just want this to be over. He says we are making progress but it doesn't seem like it sometimes."
He put his arm around her as they walked towards the cafeteria, "It's only been three weeks Steph. Considering what you went through with Cena and losing your mom so suddenly I call this good progress."
They entered the cafeteria and joined the line, "But Shane lost mom too and he didn't lose his mind like I did."
"You didn't ask for this to happen Steph. It's my fault. I should have made you see someone much sooner. I feel guilty every day that this happened and I could have stopped it before it went as far as it did."
Stephanie took his hand, "You have nothing to feel guilty about. I hid it all from you and from dad, there's no way you could have known. You may have been able to tell I wasn't acting like myself but you couldn't have figured out what was going on in my head. Hell, I don't even understand it now."
They selected what they wanted to eat and Paul paid for it. They sat at a table and began to eat. Paul saw Stephanie squeeze her eyes shut briefly as if in pain, "Are you okay, are you getting pains again?"
She shook her head, "It's not too bad, just the occasional shooting pain above my eye. It doesn't happen as often as it was though."
Paul drank some of his coffee and replied, "It's healing well though, it won't be noticeable soon. That really was nasty injury, you're lucky that it won't scar."
Stephanie looked down at her food. She had not eaten much of it, just pushed it around her plate with her fork, "One thing I definitely don't feel is lucky."
Paul rubbed his forehead. It was hard trying to phrase everything he said to his wife carefully to avoid something like this happening, "That's not what I meant Steph."
"You don't know what it was like in there. You've never had to fear for your life. You've never had to try and strangle someone with your bare hands just to survive."
He took her hands in his, "Baby it's all over now, you'll never have to live through that again."
"I live through it every day, all of it." Stephanie was fighting back tears, "Especially in this place."
Unsure how to respond Paul felt powerless to help her. He decided to get her talking about something else, "Hey I've got some good news. Shane is back in the country, he's going to come over tonight and see you."
Stephanie's face brightened a little, "That's great, it's been what? Two weeks since I saw him?"
"Yes that's about right. He won't believe the progress you've made since then. So, Steph have you uh... remembered anything about what happened in that limo with John?"
"No. We're still struggling on that," she lied.