Chapter 7
Authors Note: writing this in the summer cabin, watching 'Secret Window' and enjoying the sun that’s hitting across the grass outside. Lol. Anyway, on to Don Juan!

Her day was finally done, she had to admit that though she had always liked her job, this case had proven to give her a new refreshing reason to get up in the morning. She would have said herself that there might be some ulterior feelings underneath the Don Juan DeMarco case besides just a psychiatrist/patient relationship. Yet there was no butterfly in the stomach feeling she usually associated with crushes.

She was able to talk to him without feeling awkward or shy, nor were there any tell-tale signs of true attraction. Of course he was cute, any man posing as Don Juan would have to be handsome, but she didnt find it difficult to breathe whenever she was in his presence...

Looking at him made her happy with the world, she was glad to see that not everyone had been corrupted into the mind-set this generation had enforced on it's people. She sighed as she turned off the engine of her car, she had obviously been watching too many Sci-Fi movies to have that mind-set.

She was disheartened by the fact another of her patients would have to be institutionalized for definitely longer than a week. The womans name was Martha Greeby and was obviously suffering from severe catharsis.

In the middle of their session Martha had stood up abruptly and threw books across the room, her stapler had gone through the screen of her window, and it had taken two nurses, a security guard, and Katarina herself to calm the woman down.

Their sessions would have to be held in a proofed room with guards standing outside for her protection. Katarina wasn’t going to give up on her though, she had never passed her patients on to another psychiatrist.

It was her form of honor, she had started with them and as such would finish with them no matter what the result. The ones that were helped sometimes still kept in touch with her, and the ones that weren't she still saw and treated.

There was a threat, of course, to her protection but it was a risk she was willing to take. She refused to see anyone she helped as 'crazy' and only a handful of them were considered 'legally insane' by the government.

The phone rang as soon as she got inside, hurrying to drop her brief-case and bags she picked up to a woman sobbing on the other end.

"It's okay." she said soothingly into the receiver, "Take a breath, breathe, Tara, breathe."

"No, it's not okay." Katarina heard her sniffle and wanted to sink down onto the sofa and lay down, "Jon cheated on me and you say that everything'll be okay?"

"I thought you were over him," Katarina rubbed her hand over her eyes, she had been helping her friend through this for the past couple of weeks but so far nothing she said had gotten through.

"I was!" Tara said heatedly, "But then he called today and said that he wanted to stop by and pick up a few things... he came over and now all of his boxes are gone."

The crying had started all over again and Katarina sunk down against the side of her wall and ran a hand through her hair. "You were going to leave the boxes on the side of the street and, I think you said, 'make a huge sign and let people take his shit, for all you care.'"

"I know... can I come over? Are you doing anything tonight?"

It was ten o'clock judging by the clock on her VCR, "Sure," she said, "You alright driving? Do you want me to pick you up?"

"No, I'll be fine." Tara assured her, "Thanks so much, Rina."

"Anytime." She mentally shrugged, so what was another night of no sleeping? It wouldn’t matter in the long run anyway, "I'll get out the ice- cream and the good 'you're scum, die, Jon, die,' movies."

That provoked a laugh from Tara, and as they hung up Katarina stood and moved her things from the entrance of the hall to her study. She then ran upstairs to change her clothes, a short-sleeved black shirt and gray jeans were nice, but not if they were going to watch movies.

Four-and-a-half hours later, after 'Lethal Weapon 1 and 2' had been seen Rina was about ready to keel over in fatigue. The movies had been great, anything with Mel Gibson was, at least in her opinion, but it had been at least a week since she'd had a good night's sleep, and she had to report to work in five hours.

"You're right." Tara admitted helping her clean up the popcorn, soda bottles, and ice-cream bowls.

"About what?" Katarina asked.

"Jon, me, the whole thing. When you said that I could wallow over it or get out and go do things... move on instead of letting him win by isolating myself with the boxes..."

"That was mean of me to say," she sighed, "I was just-"

"Right." Tara said quietly, "And if you hadn't snapped me out of whatever I was doing, I don’t like to think about the consequences."

"You going to be ok now?"

"Yeah, sure." Tara waved a hand as if it didn’t matter, "I'll go home to Sparks and... I'll see you tomorrow..."

"Drive safe!" she waved as the car pulled out of the driveway. It was now almost three-thirty and she'd have to be up by seven if she were to get to work on time.

She collapsed into bed not even bothering to change her clothes, jeans and a t-shirt were easy enough attire to sleep in anyway.