"Ah. That makes sense. ...Mostly I was thinking about... how I reacted when I learned Mimi was dead." she props her head on her hands, elbows resting on her knees, and looks off to the side.

"Mimi?"

"...My mom's mother. She lived with us and did a lot of taking care of me until... until she had her first stroke, when I was 7. After that, I did a lot of taking care of her."

"That sounds like it would have been an awful blow."

"It was... stressful, at first? But I liked taking care of her, and I was good at it. Mom and Dad had talked about putting her in a care facility, but she hated  asking unfamiliar people for stuff and sleeping in new places, so I argued with them for her and they didn't do it." She sighs.

"How did that make you feel?"

"...Scared, when they talked about it in the first place, but also determined to change their minds. Happy and relieved and proud of myself, when they listened;  she would have been pretty miserable, if they'd done it, and I'm really glad I was able to prevent that."

Dr. Clark nods. "And it came to mind now as an example of...?"

"...when I was 12, she had her second stroke and died. I was spending the weekend at a friend's house; my parents didn't tell me till after. And I... I had a lot trouble accepting it. At first I thought they were lying to me; I was sure they must have taken her off to a nursing home without telling me. And then-" she gulps, eyes watering.

Dr. Clark waits patiently for the end of the sentence.

"W-w-when I saw her body, at the funeral, I accused dad of not taking good enough care of her, and blamed him for her death. He got mad at me, and said that in that case it must have been my fault, for leaving her in the care of someone s-so incompetent and goofing off with a friend, instead." She's crying, now.

"I believed it, for a w-while. Felt guilty and s-selfish, when I thought about making plans to hang out with friends. Kept sneaking out at night, w-when I couldn't s-sleep, to go to her grave and cry and apologize for letting her die." 

"- was that characteristic of your relationship with your father?"

She wipes her eyes. "...no. We normally get along pretty well. He told me, later, that that had been one of the worst weeks of his life. ...Part of that was that I kept accusing him of hiding Mimi from me while he was trying to comfort Mom and also plan the funeral."

She sniffles.

"When you're juggling a lot, it can get harder to remember that other people are too, and that doesn't even lighten your own burden."

Nod. Sniffle. "...Anyways, it took me a while to accept that... what had happened wasn't really anyone's fault? We'd all done our best to help Mimi. It just... wasn't enough. Sometimes you do everything you can, or everything you should, and you lose anyways."

"...of course, if s-she'd s-survived a few more years, I could have healed her..." oh no, she's crying again...

(...probably it is okay to cry in front of a therapist, actually)

Dr. Clark has a box of tissues and places them on the surface nearest the exercise ball.

"Thanks." She wipes her eyes and nose.

"...this is kinda off-topic from the stuff we actually wanted to talk about, though." <Sorry, Ceru.>

<It's okay!>

"Sometimes when a memory like that floats to the top of your mind in response to what seems like an unrelated topic, it's actually meaningful, though it's not always easy to tell why."

She shrugs. "I guess? I just... I want to figure out how to move forward."

Dr. Clark nods. "From what you said earlier - you're no longer in touch with your parents?"

...Ah. Musoka seems to be blankly staring into space (very understandable; Ceru knows she's worried about her parents), so she'll answer this one.

"Ah, sorry if we weren't clear about this, earlier; we haven't been able to contact anyone from our home universe since we were kidnapped into this one by Doctor Dimensional, about 2 days ago."

"- ah, I see." Note note. "That seems like it might also be the sort of thing you'd want to find time to process."

"...well, yeah? There's a lot of things I want to find time to do, and that's one of them, but processing the fact that I might never get to see my parents again isn't as immediately relevant as figuring out how to trust Ceru again..."

"That makes sense as a priority, I just want to make a note of it..." Scribble. "Okay. So, do you have a plan for handling fear and other emotions that could negatively affect your powers in dangerous situations, going forward?"