**Author's note...I wasn't going to update so quickly, but I think this chapter was ready to go already. Hope you enjoy the other side of this story, we're starting it now. Thanks.**
September 9
So this is what Dr. Westin calls a thought journal. I've never written down my thoughts or feelings before. I wouldn't want anyone to ever find something like this. In the wrong hands, my feelings could be used as a weapon against me. Hell, I've spent most of my adult life pretending that I didn't have personal feelings.
It was never hard to pretend, before. I've become a master at masking myself behind a blank stare. Most people think I'm a broken, unfeeling, monster or machine instead of a human being and I've never cared to correct their opinion of me, before. It wasn't like they were too off target anyway and it kept everyone at arm's length, never close enough to see the real person inside, until now. Now I have to learn to quit hiding my feelings and pretending I don't care for the one person I love. It's time to try to let Stephanie in my life. The thing is I don't know if I know how.
Dr. Ben Westin and I have been working together for about seven years now. Before my visit this morning it'd been almost a year and a half since I'd stepped foot into his office. I wanted to talk about Stephanie. He just smiled at me and told me that she had the same patient confidentiality that I had. It was annoying, but I understood. I wouldn't want him discussing my problems with her. Instead he told me to tell him about Stephanie. My first thought was Ah, FUCK! My second thought was that I had to get my shit together to be able to help her, so I went with it.
First he asked how we met. I smiled at that. The memory of her coming into the diner to ask for help was about one of the cutest things I could remember seeing. She was a pretty little thing, dressed so inappropriately for bounty hunting I thought Connie must have been setting me up as some sort of joke. I soon figured out Stephanie Plum was nothing but brutally honest with me. She was broke, near starving, and soon to be homeless. She needed the job and money and wasn't joking about wanting to bring in a fucking cop wanted for murder.
If I hadn't known Joe Morelli before he was charged with murder I would have just taken the case and had her help me with it, but I figured she was safe enough. He was a decent guy, he wouldn't hurt the girl. I didn't think she stood a chance in hell of bringing him in, but I was wrong on that too. She was tougher than I thought she was. Not only that, I found her mind fascinating. She followed trails, picked up clues, and got people to talk to her that would never speak to me unless I beat them for the information. That was when I decided I'd train her for real. If she could get fit and learn some standard self-defense she'd be just fine on her own. Like everything else with Stephanie, training her wasn't easy, but I did what she'd let me do.
Ben just smiled at me as I spoke about her. Then he asked what I considered Stephanie. I raised my eyebrow at him. He said is she like a sister, a friend, a coworker? For the first time I sat there trying to put words to my relationship with Steph. I suddenly found myself telling him that she was my student, my coworker, my employee, my companion, my lover, my salvation, my strength, my life. She was my best friend, my Babe.
He smiled at me then and nodded his head. He asked if she was the angel I spoke of visiting before and after jobs. I could only nod back at him. Those nights I spent watching Steph sleep brought a sense of peace to my soul I'd never found before, but Ben knew all about that from previous sessions.
He brought me out of my thoughts by asking about the danger that Stephanie had been in over the last few years. I told him about the skips and stalkers with a cold detachment. When I was done he told me to tell him how I felt when she was hurt. I couldn't stop the laugh that escaped my lips. There wasn't an easy word for the way I felt. I was a mass of emotions ranging from hurt and anger to panic. I needed to be with her, breaking land speed records to be by her side. I wanted to kill the bastard that hurt her. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and hide her away from the rest of the world so no one could touch her again. Mostly I felt like I failed her every time she was hurt. I needed to protect her and failed.
Then he asked me if I was angry at Stephanie because she couldn't keep herself safe. I'd never been angry at her, I didn't think. I'd been angry that she wouldn't let me train her. I'd get angry that she wouldn't let me put her in a safe house. I'd been angry that she'd try to lose the guys I put on her. I'd been angry that she wouldn't listen to me. Then he asked me how I dealt with the anger I felt when she put herself in danger and wouldn't take the help I offered. I closed my eyes as I realized that I had been angry at her, really angry. I didn't want to lash out at her or yell like Morelli so I walked away. I pushed her toward Morelli or sent her off with Tank. I left her there at each police scene, because I didn't know how to deal with being angry at her.
When I quietly said, "Fuck my life." Ben nodded at me again and told me that Stephanie and I are not as different as we think we are. He told me that she was writing her feelings in a journal and thought I'd benefit from the same exercise. I agreed, reluctantly, to do this, since I made the decision to do anything I could for Steph. So we made another morning appoint for Friday and as promised I am starting the journal, though I don't know what it'll help in the end.