Running for Home - 51. February 1, 2022

February 1 2022

I met with my new psychiatrist for the first time today. One Dr. Karla Sofen, a blue-eyed bombshell blonde who’d probably make more money as a model than as a psychiatrist. Of course, her sex appeal does nothing for me. It felt weird to be back with a psychiatrist for this level of intensive care again. It was a lot of the same-old, same-old, but she has some quirks about her. Some I’m comfortable with, others… well I guess they just taking used to, just like any other doctor-patient relationship. It just sucks with psych doctors the most because you need to be so open and vulnerable with them that a bad fit can do harm even if they are on the skilled side as far as psychiatry goes.

Today’s session was more of a get-to-know-you session than much else. She wanted to get as much background as possible, which is difficult because I have to ride the line between what I can and can’t tell her about given my history with Freedom Force and my descent into hell in Iraq. She did have my patient history from the psychiatrist I saw in L.A., even if my visits were only once every five or six months by the time my relationship with Dom imploded. We’re going to be focusing a lot on that, what happened before my move to Xavier’s along with during my captivity. I know that is what I need more than anything else. I need to sort out all the fucked up feelings I’m having, and this guilt in particular. I haven’t been able to talk about it with anyone, least of all Bobby. I want him to understand, I really do, but I have to sort some of this shit out first. It’s all a mess. For now I just want him there for me, to hold me. He’s doing that in spades.

Bobby finally told me last night how he dealt - or didn’t deal with - my disappearance. It struck me this morning that he had complete faith that I hadn’t run out on him (and everyone else). Of course, that faith in me came at the cost of worrying about the worst. It didn’t help that it all started with him being awoken by a frantic phone call from Jubilee, who was wondering if Bobby knew where I was and why I wasn’t answering her texts and calls. So he tried me, with the same results. Bobby left Emma a message about what was happening and then hopped on the first flight he could get onto from New York to L.A.

Jubilee had been in contact with the police by the time he arrived, and they were less than helpful. Apparently what help they were initially offering kind of dried up even more when the officers she was conversing with found out I was a gay mutant, and that I might be kidnapped by my angry mutant ex-boyfriend as opposed to a scorned flat-scan ex-girlfriend. The police didn’t really make any moves until it had been over a day since I was last seen, which is apparently illegal in California. There’s this myth that police can’t take a missing person report until it’s been 24 hours since they were last seen, but it’s untrue. Some cops tell people that just because they’re lazy fucks and missing persons often turn up in that time frame if you are just patient.

What followed was the worst two-and-a-half weeks of Bobby’s life, he said. He and Jubilee tried to do some investigating themselves, but neither of them are detectives with any experience in crime-solving. Emma hired X-factor when it became clear that neither the police nor Bobby and Jubes were having any luck catching a lead or a hole in Dominik’s alibi. Bobby said that he didn’t go into Dom’s bar because he would have been recognized, and he couldn’t see my heat signature from outside. Jubilee had gone in once and tried to sweet-talk some of the staff but got rebuffed pretty quickly. None of them would have known about the secret chamber deep beneath the building, anyway.

If Bobby and I were reversed in roles in this whole debacle, I probably would have just gone into the bar guns blazing. Then again, I know Dom and what he’s capable of so it’s easy to think I could have got some information out of him and at least figured out whether he was part of something or not.

Thus began Bobby’s waiting game. Emma had ordered Jubilee back to the School, as classes were beginning, but Emma hired a sub for Bobby’s classes. That surprised me initially, but I guess she figured out pretty quick that he wasn’t leaving L.A. until we were certain that I was either somewhere else or I was dead. Bobby probably would have been useless trying to teach while this was going on, anyway.

It’s a good thing Bobby gets along with Jamie and Theresa, since they were his primary contacts with X-factor for this investigation. Dealing with Monet St. Croix while stressed out is not something I’d wish on anyone. I understand why she’s a useful member of the team - what with the enviable mix of telepathy, flight, super strength and invulnerability she possesses - but damn she likely has no bedside manner. Bobby said that Julio and Ben met up with him a few times while they weren’t investigating and helped keep him calm. In some ways, though, seeing the two lovers holding hands and exchanging a quick kiss here and there wrenched his heart pretty badly. What if he never got to experience that with me, ever again? But they also gave him something to hope for, a confidence he wanted to have in himself as a gay man in a committed relationship.

I don’t know Julio - Rictor, that is - very well since he was a couple years below us in the School. And I don’t know Ben - or Shatterstar as he goes by for a mutant name - I don’t know him at all because he didn’t come to the school until he and Ric were seventeen, three years after I left. But if Ric and Ben can be good role models for Bobby, power to them. Maybe we can hang out with them sometime. X-factor’s offices are in New York, anyway, so we could stay in Bobby’s condo and make a weekend of it. Maybe have Pete and JP along too. Or we could all go on a camping trip, since that isn’t a gay stereotype at all. Oi.

I’m glad Bobby got tired of waiting and came when he did. I have a suspicion that if he hadn’t, things would have become much worse for me. Dom had never brought alcohol downstairs with him before. Judging from the amount of tequila that spilled when he cracked Bobby over the head, that bottle was almost full if not completely unopened. I wonder if that was among the ‘worst of my futures’ Destiny had foreseen?

I don’t know. To have this happen to me is still a pretty shitty future situation, all things told. But I still have Bobby. I still have friends. I still have a home, a job, a will. I’m not going to let my issues get in the way of having a good life. That’s what I’m trying to tell myself, every day. Today I think I’m doing a bit better job than the last few days. Maybe it’s because I’ve had good success with my psychiatrists in the past and Dr. Sofen seems like she knows her shit. If Emma recommended her then I know she more than passes muster. Thank God my health insurance will cover her fees. I just hope that in the process of sifting through all of the crazy I don’t accidentally take something out on Bobby, or drop something on him that he isn’t equipped to handle.

But I have to trust him, and trust that even if he can’t handle something he has supports for himself as well. Between all of the things around us, we should be able to hobble through this mess together. My one other worry, though, is that the trauma of this situation is producing an artificially enhanced sense of bond between the two of us.

I need to stop worrying and just love him, just let it be.