Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction written for fun and not for profit. All characters belong to CBS/Viacom.
Spoilers: The Last Resort
Being There
Steve took a long swallow of beer, looked out over the ocean from the deck of the beach house, and smiled affectionately as his dad settled into the chaise beside him. Their guests were gone, and the leftovers had been put away or sent home with Jesse, and now, father and son were about to spend some quiet time together, enjoying their ocean view. When he had returned home from the precinct after filing his final report on the Reggie Ackroyd case, Steve had been pleased to find Jesse and Amanda there for dinner, and a little surprised to discover that Tanis Archer had joined them. As they enjoyed the welcome home dinner, he heard all about how Jesse and Amanda had helped solve the Computech case while he and Mark had been working on Reggie in the Last Resort.
The simple repast of cheeseburgers and French fries with coleslaw and baked beans spoke more eloquently than words of just how hard it had been for Mark to watch his son acting the part of a cop gone over the edge, and though he didn't dislike his father's more adventurous forays into the kitchen as much as his usual grumbling would indicate, tonight, Steve found the plain, familiar meat and potatoes meal comforting. The Last Resort had been a difficult and dehumanizing experience and though he knew he had just been playing a role, the stress of deceiving his friends and helping to push his former training partner to a mental meltdown had made it uncomfortably easy for Steve to see how some officers could lose it. In fact, had he known just how difficult the encounter sessions would be, he would have pulled the plug on the whole operation the moment his father had surprised him by walking in on the meeting. Dr. Sinclair was too good at his job and a couple of times, his questions had hit so close to home that Steve had almost forgotten he was acting.
"You know your son so well," Sinclair said, in a tone that spoke more of admiration than of challenge. "You two have such a strong relationship built on mutual trust that you have no doubts?"
Mark shook his head. "None at all. Steve and I never have held anything back from each other."
Steve took another swig of his beer, looked over at Mark for a moment, looked back at the beach, sighed, and tried to console himself with the thought that, just this once, what his dad didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that, on some level having nothing to do with the plan to get Reggie's confession, he was a fraud.
"Hmm . . . How about it, Steve?" The note of doubt in Dr. Sinclair's voice was so convincing Steve was almost certain the round little man could see through him like he was glass, right to the truth. "Want to say something? Want to tell your dad about some of the . . . stuff that you're holding back that he doesn't know about?"
Steve's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He was supposed to be using these encounter sessions to help draw Reggie out, but he couldn't even speak. Everything had to be realistic if the plan was going to work, but it was getting too real for him.
"Come on, Steve, I'm here for you," Mark prompted, and when he saw his father's pleading look, he felt trapped. He looked back at Reggie, and getting no help there, he faced Mark again briefly, then looked at the floor. Finding no inspiration there, either, he had to settle for honesty.
"Yeah, well, sometimes that's not enough." He risked a covert glance up, hoping his father had not heard the ring of truth in his words, but he saw the puzzled frown and knew his dad was working things out much too quickly.
"You know, I really missed this while I was at the Last Resort. We should do this every night, not take it for granted. The vast majority of people in the world aren't so lucky, and I feel like some kind of ingrate for not appreciating what I have," Steve confided in his dad as he got up and moved to lean on the rail of the deck.
"What, you mean living on the beach?"
"Yeah," Steve agreed with a smile, "that too." He looked over to his dad, and seeing the puzzled frown, he elaborated. "I was talking about you and me, about always having someone to turn to, and never having to face the world alone. As long as he had Marsha and Abby, Reggie could convince himself that he had something worth holding on to, but once he lost them, the only way he could keep going was to convince himself that they were out there somewhere. That way, once he found them again, he'd have someplace safe to run to."
"And we took that away from him," Mark said sadly.
Steve shrugged. "It was a delusion anyway."
"So, what happens now?"
"I put him in touch with someone from the Policemen's Benevolent Association," Steve said. "They'll help make sure his insurance covers his psychiatric treatment, and then when he is fit for trial, they'll see to it that he has a good lawyer."
"So, the DA is charging him?" Mark asked in surprise as he came to stand beside his son.
"He was involved in the deaths of three people, Dad, including his own wife and child, and then he hid the bodies. He has to be charged with something."
"I suppose, but it doesn't seem fair, does it?"
"I guess that's the difference between the law and justice."
Mark made an agreeable sound, but didn't really agree with what Steve had said, and the two men lapsed into silence for a while.
Steve took another pull on his beer and said, "I keep thinking that I could have helped him more. That if I had been there when he and Marsha started having problems . . . "
"Son, Reggie was an adult. If he had wanted help, he could have asked for it."
"He was also my friend, Dad, and maybe he didn't realize he needed my help."
"I suppose that could have been the case," Mark conceded, "but all he ever had to do was pick up the phone and you would have listened."
Steve didn't say anything, but he knew that this time his dad just didn't understand. Reggie had never been the kind of guy to talk about things easily with anyone. That was part of the reason he and Marsha had drifted apart. He couldn't open up to her. It was a common problem among cops. The job could be so awful that it was easier to clam up completely than to try to pick and choose what you could share with your friends and family and what you couldn't, risking something horrible slipping out and shocking them in the process.
"I just had no idea how much difficulty Steve was having."
"You figured your kid was fixing toilets for a living," Delroy had said, not challenging, but just sadly commenting on the naïveté of civilian relatives.
"Hey, Sinclair, educate the guy," Edith had urged. "Trot out the suicide and divorce statistics for cops."
"That's not necessary, is it, Doctor Sloan?" Sinclair had asked.
"No, I know how hard Steve's job is, but what I didn't know was that he didn't feel like talking to me about it."
Steve almost groaned with the effort of not telling his dad that, no, he did not know how difficult being a homicide detective really was. He wasn't angry so much as astounded that Mark was oblivious to his own ignorance about the pressure cops faced and about how many truly terrible cases Steve had sheltered him from over the years while allowing him the pleasure of solving the more convoluted, if less heartbreaking, puzzles.
Suddenly realizing that it was his turn to speak, Steve snapped, "You're not the problem here, Dad."
Like Doctor Sinclair had done before, his father looked through him like he was made of glass and asked, "Well, then, what is the problem?"
Mark had gone on to ask about the shooting in the park, and Reggie had jumped in and things had gotten a little hairy from there, but by then Steve knew that his dad knew that something else was going on.
"You know," Steve began, and finding his voice weaker than he expected, he cleared his throat and tried again. "There are some things about my job that I have never told you about." Looking over at his dad, he added, "and I never will."
Mark nodded slowly and looked him in the eye. "I kind of figured that out," he said, "and I won't ask you what those things are, but I would like to know why you can't tell me."
"It's not that I can't, Dad, I won't."
"If you're so in love with your dad, why didn't you tell him what happened in the park that night?" Reggie challenged him out in the hall where Steve had taken him after he nearly attacked Mark in the encounter session. Then he got a mean glint in his eye and went on tauntingly, "Maybe you're afraid he won't love you anymore."
Steve raised his hands, not sure whether he wanted to choke his friend or knock him on his ass. Then, regaining control of himself, he let his arms drop to his sides and walked away.
"First of all, I want you to know that it's never been anything I am ashamed of." Steve was surprised when his father didn't sigh in relief. "I am a good cop, an honest cop, and I am proud of the way I do my job. I get results, I do it by the book, and I would never do anything to mess that up."
"I know that, Son," Mark said with a smile. "I have never had any doubts about that."
To his surprise, Steve was the one sighing in relief. He hadn't realized how important it was that his dad had absolute faith and complete trust in him.
"These, uh . . . sessions . . . they got pretty rough," Steve said as he led his dad into his room.
"Yeah, but you know, they might do some good if we can just start talking . . . "
Steve hadn't been able to get together with his dad to discuss what Reggie had in mind, so he could only hope Doctor Sinclair had managed to fill him in before he came to visit. As it was, Mark was staying in character all the time in case Reggie happened by, and Steve wouldn't know if he had been warned about the escape plot until he had a chance to speak to him later.
"I'm sorry about this, Dad," Steve said as he took his father's keys and left him bound and gagged on the bed. "I'm really sorry," and he found that he was sorry, not for making a break for it, that was necessary to get Reggie to reveal his guilt, but for a multitude of other sins he couldn't even name.
"Sometimes, in my line of work, you come across things that you just can't fathom," Steve explained shakily. "Things that make you certain that evil exists in the world and that Satan is real because you can't comprehend one human being doing that to another without being pushed to it by a greater power."
"I can imagine," Mark said.
"No, Dad, I'm sorry, but you can't," Steve said bluntly, "and I thank God for that." These things were harder to discuss than he had ever imagined the would be, but he had to continue, afraid that if he stopped now, he would never finish and his dad would be forever watching him for signs of an imminent breakdown. "You can't imagine what I am talking about because you just have to see it. I'm talking about things that go beyond rape and murder, even beyond torture."
Steve covered his mouth with one hand and forced himself to swallow back the taste of rising bile. He could see the moisture in his dad's eyes, the pain there that he felt for his only son, and he made himself continue, knowing that it was the only way to end his father's pain.
"There are things that happen in this world that I think God should stop," he said, knowing that even if Mark found his words sinful, he wouldn't judge him for it. "Things that, well, you just wouldn't think a human being would have the stomach for. Things that make you realize that not every person walking around in this world is really, wholly human, that some of them are broken or missing something. I've actually had Amanda pulled off a couple of cases before she even got to the crime scene because I knew when I got there that I just couldn't cope with knowing she'd seen it, too."
"Does she know about that?" Mark asked.
"No," Steve replied dryly, "and she would hurt me if she ever found out, so you better not tell her."
Mark chuckled slightly at the comment, suddenly sobering when he heard how inappropriate his laughter sounded. "I still don't understand why you can't talk about these things with me."
"I won't discuss them dad, you have to understand that it's a choice I am making."
"Ok, then," Mark said indulgently, "Why won't you talk about them with me?"
"Because I'm afraid if I do, I will end up like Reggie, with no safe place left to go." He stopped for a minute, fighting his feelings, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth in an effort to maintain control. Finally, he was able to continue, albeit in a voice hoarse with emotion. "Sometimes you -Jesse, and Amanda, too, but especially you- are the only good, decent things in my life."
Mark stood quietly, staring out at the ocean, knowing his son had more to say and that it would be easier if he didn't have to face him when he said it. Steve swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, took another long pull on his beer, inhaled deeply, and went on.
"By the time I get to a crime scene, the worst thing that can possibly happen already has," Steve explained. "I'm not called in to help anyone, I am called in to make sure someone is punished; and while it is satisfying to get justice for the victim and good to be able to give the family closure, there is precious damned little about my job that ever makes me happy!"
"I thought you loved your job, Son," Mark said, confused now.
"I do," Steve was quick to tell him, "and I guess there are times, like when we clear an innocent person and can tell him he is free to go, or when I close a big case and know that people can sleep a little easier, that I really am happy with what I do. But most of the time, I'm just dealing with one person who has done something terrible to another."
"I suppose you're right," Mark agreed, "but I had never thought of it that way."
"Anyway, there are days when I need to come home to people who haven't seen what I see," Steve went on, his voice thick with emotions Mark couldn't identify and wasn't sure he wanted to. "People who don't know what I know, who don't share my worries and . . . nightmares. Some days you are the only light and joy left in my life, Dad, and if I were ever to tell you about some of the worst things I have dealt with, that would be ruined forever. I would have nowhere safe to go, nowhere that I didn't have to confront the terrible things that people do to each other."
"But Steve, if you keep that all inside, sooner or later it's going to come out in some catastrophic way," Mark said desperately, suddenly knowing that he had to find a way to help his son cope with the horrors of his job before he self-destructed.
Steve smiled slightly, and Mark gave him a puzzled, worried frown.
"Would it surprise you to know that I talk to the department shrinks a good deal more than most of my colleagues, Dad?" he asked.
Unable to speak, Mark nodded his reply.
"Well, I do," Steve told him, "and not always on orders from the captain, sometimes I will call and make an appointment on my own. Having a doctor for a father has taught me a lot about the benefits of counseling for mental health. I . . . I went tonight before I came home, to talk about Reggie and the Last Resort and what it was like to find those bodies and go through all of that with you."
"I . . . I never knew," Mark replied, aghast that such a thing could slip by him totally unnoticed.
"I never wanted you to," Steve told him. "It's not that I was afraid to let you know. I just didn't want to hurt you. And it isn't that I didn't trust you with my feelings, Dad, please don't think that. I know you would always listen, care, and try to give good advice if I needed it. I just didn't want to . . . " Steve looked around as if searching for the right word, ". . . sully you with some of the horrible things I have seen."
After a while, Mark nodded slowly, finally comprehending what he had been told. Quietly, in a choked voice, he asked, "Do you want me to, uh . . . butt out . . . of your work?"
Steve felt his heart swell with love. He knew how much his father enjoyed helping with investigations, how much satisfaction he got knowing justice was done, how much pleasure he took from their working together. Yet he was offering to quit, just like that, if there was a chance that Steve needed him to back off so that he had a safe place to go where he could forget about work. That, as much as anything, was proof of how much his father loved him.
"No, Dad, I don't want you to quit," Steve assured him. "I want your help. I am a better cop for having you there when I need you. I just want you to understand that, sometimes, when it seems that I am holding something back, that I am doing it for a reason and that you don't have to worry about it."
"Ok," Mark agreed, nodding, feeling relieved that his son was doing something to take care of himself, "if there are things you want to keep from me, you do that." He turned to face his son then, and said, "But any time you want to talk, I will listen. Promise me you will never let yourself feel like you have to hold back. I am here for you, Steve, any time you need me."
"I know that, Dad," Steve said, smiling as a thought entered his head, "and that really is enough."
Father and son stood at the rail a while longer, watching the whitecaps of the surf shimmer in the moonlight, neither of them wanting the moment to end. Finally, though, Steve finished his beer, and, looking at his watch, he realized how late the hour was. Clapping his dad on the shoulder, he said, "I need to get to bed. I have an early day tomorrow."
Still looking out at the surf, Mark nodded. "Sleep well, Son. I'll see you in the morning."
Sensing that his dad was still in a thoughtful mood, Steve headed into the house without another word, but as he reached the shadows of the interior, he realized that he had something more to say. Going back out onto the deck, he slipped an arm around his father's shoulders and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "I meant what I said, Dad. Just being there for me is enough. Thank you."