Love and the White Wolf - Book 3

22. Transition to Training

While Dr. Strange repaired my knee, Shuri instructed Wanda to enter into my mind to find where Winter Soldier that had been laying dormant in my psyche since my transition started six years previously was. In a sense he was buried with the other traumas of my life, including killing the two men, my rape and the loss of my parents. Now it was time to bring them out, acknowledge them openly and let them dissipate so that they could never rule over me again. After Dr. Strange finished repairing the knee Shuri asked him to begin his mystical MRI while she added the serum to my IV.

Wanda looked at me kindly before she started drawing those traumatic memories out of me.

"Gail," she thought, "you aren't alone, I'm with you in this."

I saw and felt the rape again, the humiliation and pain those three inflicted on me, followed by the police officer that informed me of my parent's death and that the charges had been dropped. Feeling the fury and the anguish again was hard but Wanda was there encouraging me to let it go. It was only a memory and had no hold on me anymore. Then came the depression and that morning when I woke up, feeling nothing but numbness and took a knife to my wrist just to feel something, anything. Alison finding me in a pool of blood and calling an ambulance after calling me stupid for hurting myself.  I should have known then she was no good, as a real friend wouldn't have said such a hurtful thing when I was so broken. There were months in a psychiatric ward trying to heal, and deal with the fear, and devastating sadness that enveloped me. The loneliness and isolation continued as I drew my fears on paper until I finally started to live a life, even though it was just existing between making a living, eating and sleeping. The mugging was there and mixed in with it was meeting the handsome blue eyed man who offered hope and love. I grasped on to those good feelings like a drowning person grasped on to a life preserver. Those good memories that I had with James were there all around me, and Wanda told me to hold on to them as they were precious and meaningful.

As the good and bad memories of my marriage came Wanda asked if I wanted to keep the bad ones. Yes, I replied in my thoughts, because they're all good, even when we had bad times it was good because I knew love. He was healing as well and we were growing together. So I relived them all, feeling the strength and depth of my life with James, and relished the complexity of our relationship. The moment when James was shot in the head in front of me was there. Even knowing it was set up didn't blunt the trauma it caused me. The loss of friends, Kyle, Laurel, Donald Lambert, Sheriff Brandon... each death like a knife to the gut. The final memory was from the day before, the attack on me and the realization that I alone would have to fight for the safety of my children. Wanda was there watching with me and told me I had fulfilled the sacred duty of protecting my children from harm. Those deaths were necessary and I was not responsible for them. The men, from the moment they stepped on our property to take me and the kids by force, were responsible for their own deaths. I was strong now and no one would ever threaten my family again. I could keep the Soldier's skills, fight like him, plan like him, be strong like him, but I wasn't him. Anger and fury didn't rule my life, love did. Love for James, my children, my friends, and for what was right. I felt a surge go through me of understanding my place. I was a wife, a mother and yes, I was an Avenger. I could do what they could do as I believed it now. Wanda smiled at me in my head and welcomed me back. Then she withdrew from my mind and I saw her standing next to me, her eyes glistening. Dr. Strange was completing his mystical MRI and said the physical transition was complete. The IV bag was empty and Shuri stood there with a smile on her face.