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"RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS"

# 12
Written by Anthony Crute

Samson’s Apartment…

Leonard Samson stretched out in his bed. The sheets lay loosely around him. The sun was streaming through the windows now letting him know it was at least 10am (when the sun cleared the nearby buildings.)

He was not usually one for lying in bed, sleeping in or general slothishness over his needed sleep requirement but at that moment he could have stayed in bed all day. He obviously couldn’t of course as he had to keep appointments, deciding to have a half morning had already backed his schedule up and probably added a few extra hours of work than he had lost but it had been worth it.

He titled his head to the side as he lay his massive arms over the top of the covers and looked to Dolan.

Stacey had stayed over that night, every night for the past week actually. She had the morning off and so Leonard had made sure to make some time to do whatever she wanted. She wanted to stay in bed, sure it wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when she suggested it but this was very nice indeed.

Dolan lay with her naked back to him. Her hair was a dishevelled mess yet he could see in the mirror on the far side of the room that she was still beautiful. “You’re staring at me again aren’t you?”

Her voice was flat and sleepy. Samson couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It was the third time this week Dolan had somehow known he was looking at her whilst she slept.

She smiled and rolled onto her back to face him. “You need some sort of therapy, you freak.”

Samson smiled and kissed her gently. “When giving therapy we do try not to call the patients freaks…just a rule of thumb of course.”

Stacey snorted and shook her head. She rolled sideways and pushed herself up on her elbow. She admired that Len was adult enough not to even briefly glance down at her breasts as they came uncovered. “So let me get this right Mr Super Psychologist,” she smiled “in all of your years as a psychologist and then as a psychologist to the super-heroes. All of the Doctor Octopuses, The Melters, Paste Pot F*ing Pete you’ve never once thought ‘what a freak?’”

Len was silent for a moment. He squinted his eyes for a second thinking over his career as best he could. “No…not a one,” he copied her stance as he moved onto his side “You have to think about it on a global scale…why do we live in an individual society valuing personal brilliance, personal achievement and the Chinese and Japanese focus on collectivism, everything as a group effort? We to them would be odd if not abnormal. Is it strange for those who are underappreciated, abused or unloved to want to lash out?”

“Ok…but still,” Stacy began.

“Education,” Samson smiled gently “Is the difference between an empty mind and an open one. That’s all I do, open my mind and consider there may be a different way to think about things. A different perception of the world around me for every person in the world, they’re mostly logical so once I understand that it becomes easier to trace it back to its causes.”

Dolan was silent for a moment. “I don’t believe you for a second, no one can look at….The Walrus and tell me he isn’t a freak.”

“Oh he’s a massive freak…he doesn’t have any mental problems though so I can say that with a clear conscience.” The two laughed. “I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to ask you too,”

“Anything about ongoing cases I can’t answer, other than that shoot,” Dolan was looking around the room to try and identify her clothes which were thrown around the room last night as the two got into bed.

“Would you like to move in with me,” Samson stared at the back of her head.

Dolan turned slowly to look at him “Wha-huh now?”.

“We did the whole dating thing and then started actually being together, you know calling one another boyfriend and girlfriend and all. This is a serious relationship for me and I want to move onto the next step.” He had been thinking it over for a little while now, his adventure with Spider-Man had made him think about his personal life.*

(*See the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man and Doc Samson annuals for the full story-Crossover Crute)

“Please tell me you haven’t bought an engagement ring,” Dolan raised her eyebrows and smiled. Samson laughed aloud. “What if I want to live in my apartment and you to move in with me.”

“I’m more than happy too…”

“Are you crazy! Have you seen my apartment? Why do you think I’ve stayed here all week?” She laughed and rocked back in bed to lie against him. “I have to warn you, I have a job which drives me crazy, makes me crabby and half the time I’ll be a second away from crying but I’m too tough for that so I’ll just be a bitch to you instead. Want to meet up tonight and discuss it all?.”

Samson nodded and kissed her gently and then climbed out of bed. “I best get ready, I’ve got to ring Arlette to come pick me up. I have an appointment with Killgrave.”

“Now he’s a freak,” Dolan nodded. Her face then became serious “A sick monster actually.”

Samson paused. He wasn’t sure how he would describe Killgrave.

The Vault, a little later…

Leonard Samson looked through the clear wall into the cell of Zebadiah Killgrave. He was not sure exactly what to expect but was pleased to find the cell to be quite clean and ordinary. Like that of any other.

Purple Man had come on quite a journey since Len had taken over his treatment if he did say so himself with no false modesty.

Killgrave was a sociopathic misanthropic fella who took joy in his powers to control other people to do whatever he wanted them to do. He was thought to be the world’s most prolific serial killer and thought to be untreatable. Samson however had made great leaps and bounds.

He had started the serious and exaggerated therapy by first ruling that any demand by Purple Man should be ignored. This constant treatment over a few weeks, coupled with Purple Man’s distinct refusal to request anything had led the grape coloured man into having a form of OCD carefully arranging everything in its proper place and keeping the place spotless, all to keep that which he valued most, control.

Samson had stepped up the treatment to make him respond to orders of the guards and staff of the prison. This had resulted in a violent explosion in which he had wrecked his cell, his prized book and refused to request a clean up.

All of this was for his own good…or rather the good of society and justice. Obviously Killgrave would have been happy continuing on with the way he was forever and would have probably died a happy man, even in prison knowing should the time come he had this control. This was one of the hardest decisions Samson had to make with every patient, is it right to ‘break them down’ in order to ‘build up’ a more acceptable personality. The rights and needs of society taking the more dominant stance over free will and the rights of the individual.

Killgrave was never going to see the light of day ever again and so was this ‘treatment’ right? Was it right to forcibly change this man’s personality to break down his sense of superiority for the sake of justice? So that he would feel as bad about his crimes as we did? Retribution then rather than justice? Would it be fair if Samson broke down the walls Killgrave had built around himself, to punish a man who would then be essentially a different person. Different thought processes and an altered personality?

He had to believe it was, had to.

Killgrave was sat clashing horribly with his orange jumpsuit on the bed in the corner of the room. He was sitting kind of hunched over reading through one of the new books he had acquired after he shredded the last few.

“Zebediah, it’s been a couple of weeks since I last saw you. I thought we both needed some time to reflect on everything which happened. Would you like to talk about it?”

He waited a moment. The last time he had been here the Purple Man had done nothing but answered direct questions with as short an answer as he could. The purple face of Killgrave looked up, his eyes were a dark yellow with veins of red running through them, they were filled with tears.

“Are you okay Zebediah?”

His hand moved to his face and wiped his eye as he sniffed. “I’m sorry,” he coughed to clear his throat.

“Sorry about what?”

“Everything…all of it. The things I’ve done over the years since I got my powers. Half of them the authorities don’t even know about…people who I commanded never to tell anyone what I did.”

“We have time to go through all of that,” Samson nodded. He bit down on his finger when he felt a pang of sympathy for Killgrave.

It was a ridiculous emotion to be feeling at the moment. Killgrave was a killer, torturer, rapist who he knew had come up with ingenious ways of torture telling people to count all the grains of sand on a beach until they had to be literally dragged away to hospitals days later. Telling men to take a certain type of photo of their children…horrible horrible things which would turn even the most hardened of stomachs.

Yet Samson’s empathy was making him feel for Killgrave. He did not seem to be the same man as he had once been. The walls to protect himself, the drives to control which forced his hand into unconscionable behaviour were gone.

Was he however absolved? Even with the drives which motivated him to control all those around him to replace the control he never had. The need to drive everyone away could be responsible for some of his reprehensible behaviour. It certainly kept everyone away, emotionally and physically as did his control powers as they were not even themselves when they were around him.

Could this? Should this mean that he should have been given sympathy when he finally seemed to develop a conscience. Leonard wasn’t sure but he couldn’t help but feel it at the moment. The look in the man’s eyes.

“We could even maybe made some kind of reconciliation with your victims. Make up in part for what you did…we first have to discuss some things though.”

Purple Man nodded. “You want to see if I’m well…not ill anymore.”

“So you considered yourself ill?”

Killgrave was silent for a minute. He lowered his head and closed the book which he had open. “I was ill…I had to be. How could someone sane do the things I did, I was ill or I was evil…do you think there is such a thing as an evil person?”

“Evil?” Samson stopped for a moment and considered. He thought back against all the things he had seen in his life, all the things he had heard about. “Evil, pure malevolent evil no, not at all. Even Hitler…he and if were not sugar coating it you did evil things, evil things but there were reasons. Those reasons don’t give an out, they don’t give a blameless explanation but they do give an explanation.”

“So you think I was ill?”

“No...and yes,” Samson shook his head. “You have, or had a sociopathic personality amongst other problems which is itself a disorder but it’s…its difficult to explain and I’m not supposed to be the one doing all the talking.”

“I think I’m going to pay for everything I’ve done. I’ll be surprised if I don’t get the electric chair and I think I deserve it. My problem is I think I deserve it, after all the things I saw in my youth and I’ve turned out worse than all of them. I can’t sleep anymore, I feel numb and hate myself at the same time.”

“Sounds like all the classic symptoms of depression, that we can do something about,” Samson felt appeased. He could do something to help Killgrave yet it didn’t feel like a betrayal of all those who he had hurt or of justice. Depression was a straight forward disorder in the sense that there were few ethical grey areas as with personality disorders.

“Why would you do that, I’d be tempted just to let me rot here in my own hate, it’s no more than I deserve.”

Samson sighed. He was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve with his patients. He was polite, he showed he cared for them but to expose yourself was not the way to healthy therapy. The fact was though he’d already been more frank with Killgrave than he should be and had hardly used complete positive regard as he should so in for a penny in for a pound.

“It’s my job. You have a mental disorder that I can treat and so that’s what I’m supposed to do. I look out for the best interests of my patients and my clients and where they’re separate as in this case I balance those needs in line with my opinion.” Samson kept his eyes on Killgrave as he explained this. The purple figure just continued to nod. “You are my patient and so I treat you but the government and the public who are seeing justice done by you paying for your crimes are the ones I’m serving. While you were different before I started treating you, you were still you and you have to be held to account.”

He paused for a moment and nodded. In saying it he had clarified his own position in his mind on this matter. He would still debate it for many years how responsible people with obvious personality dysfunctions are for their own behaviour…the argument would be they are as responsible as other people with more acceptable personality types are after all everyone’s personality is created by their biology and the environment and they have no say over it. At the moment however, with this case at least he stood with the law, Killgrave would be punished for his crimes.

“I apologies but we will have to leave it here. I think this session has went too far of course to be of any real use to either of us. I’ll make sure the doctors here get you’re prescription and we can talk again in a few days when your new meds have had a chance to work.”

Leonard got up and began to walk down the corridor to leave the block. He was aware of Killgrave starring at him all the way along.

The Office of James Rhodes…

“So what can you tell me?” Jim Rhodes flipped open a new page on his note pad and sat back in his chair holding his pen. He fixed Len with a stare and Len couldn’t help but think that he was being sized up. It was always the way he felt whenever Jim looked at him.

“He’s facing some hard times ahead of him. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to come of anti-depressants again in his life without serious danger from suicide. There could of course be serious repercussions from constantly being on them.”

“Then he’s never coming off them,” Jim nodded “he needs to be held accountable. Justice has to be done. Is he going to be any trouble?”

“Has he been any so far with that inhibitor running?” Samson queried with a raised brow. Jim had a dislike it seemed for most of his prisoners, which was understandable him being a superhero.

The two of them made quite a pair. They were from two very different backgrounds, one from a caring profession and one from the military but came together in the superhero fraternity. The two of them then ‘outgrew’ or changed so they were no longer those superheroes and became someone else…neither however had managed to escape the superhuman life style. One became a carer to them and one had become a jailer. They were like some strange mirror image of one another.

“Nothing too bad obviously,” Jim shrugged offhand “he’s not too imposing without his powers unlike some of the others but he’s mouthy, rude, everyone hates him…both prisoners and guards and he does have a habit of getting people riled up with stories of his ‘glory days’.”

Samson nodded. “That wont be happening,” he coughed self-consciously as he knew what he was going to say next. “He is a broken man,” he nodded, the pangs of guilt went wild inside him. This is what he had been aiming to do after all, break a man, a man who deserved it maybe but still it was not a nice feeling. “His feelings of superiority, distance and confidence are gone, shattered and he’s feeling guilt, unimaginable guilt I’d think for all of the things he’d done.”

Jim nodded and steepled his fingers. He thought it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. “Listen Doc,” Jim sighed “I know you’re a carer and I can see you feel bad about this, breaking a man is as I’m sure you’re thinking not a nice thing to do…this is a different situation though.”

Jim sat forward. “Were not bullying or torturing a man here, were trying to get justice. He was sentenced for retribution but there is no retribution if he feels no remorse. You’re not his priest, you’re not his mother. It’s not your job to absolve his sins and make him feel better for what he’s done. It was your job to measure his sanity and make him ‘healthy’ if needed. Did you do that?”

Samson thought for a moment. Healthy was a debatable topic both as a start point and an end point. Was he not healthy in the first place? “To the best of my ability he is now a more average individual at least, he will be feeling emotions he hasn’t felt in a long time…remorse being the main one.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him, if things continue to your satisfaction would you be happy to have him moved into the main population?”

“Give it a few more weeks and a few more sessions but I don’t see why not,” Samson nodded.

“Is there anything else? Would you like a staff car or is that Canadian girl coming to pick you up?”

“I thought I’d walk, it’s a nice day,” Samson nodded. He didn’t add that he had a lot to think about.

He stood and shook hands with Jim. “Oh by the way Amadeus has been asking when he could next visit, he has a few ideas for you.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Jim forced a smile and shook his head.

Leonard couldn’t help but laugh. 

NYC, a little later…

Samson had taken his jacket off and was wearing it gently slung over his forearm. It was too sunny a day for it. The ice-cream he had brought from a stand was also helping too cool him down no doubt.

He had been thinking a lot over the events of the day. He was becoming oddly excited about seeing Stacey that night and seeing what she thought about getting them moved to the next stage of their relationship.

He smiled briefly when he thought about her joke about the ring. He wondered would they ever take that step? He found it hard to imagine Stacey wanting to get married, he was sure she would either keep her own name or go for one of the hyphenated ones…maybe he should too.

There was a sudden screech of tires which made all of the people of the street turn to see what was happening. Len was so lost in thought that he was one of the last, unfortunately for him.

The steel hard fist of The Absorbing Man slammed across his face sending him splaying backwards before he managed to catch himself. “Creel!” gasped Samson as he looked up to the figure as he tried to catch his own body and get standing correctly.

Creel smiled, he was swinging his giant wrecking ball around above his head and as Samson moved forward the mass of it came down across the back of his head causing him to tumble forward to the deck and into unconsciousness.

The darkness felt like it faded quickly and Leonard found himself, his head spinning and painful looking down at something very familiar. Somewhere he’d been before, the backseat of Carl Crusher Creel’s car.

He tried to struggle as silently as he could but found himself unable to move at all. He had been bound with chains, Creel’s thick wrecking ball chains. “You awake? Good” Creel was driving. His big bald bulbous head turned in a smile.

“What do you want Creel?”

“Easy Doc…fix a problem you started. I want you to help me get my wife back!”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next Time: Doc Samson has to give couples therapy to a pair of super strong super-villains…and one of them has a new boyfriend just to make matters worse.