Captain Fuller stared at the door for a long moment after Penball and Hanson left. He sighed and shook his head before walking back to sit behind his desk. He stared at his desk for a few seconds before pushin the unopened files aside and resting his elbows on the wood. He rubbed his face and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes while he thought.
Hanson was a good kid-a good cop-but that was just it. He was still just a kid. Maybe he had a few years on the kids he was surrounded by when he was undercover, but he was still just a baby and already he'd shot somebody. Fuller had been 4 years in active duty before he'd ever even had to pull his gun out with intention to actually shoot, as opposed to just a show to intimidate the perp. 6 more months and he'd shot someone. It hadn't been a kill shot, but it had landed the man in intensive care for a few days. He'd been almost 30 when that happened.
He remembered what it was like, being fresh out of the academy and running on pure adrenaline. They were the good days. Not to say that he didn't love his job-some days he hated it, but it was really his calling, what he was made for-but those days had been golden.
After the day he actually shot someone with intention to take their life, however, things had been different. The sun didn't shine quite as bright and good food didn't taste as sweet anymore. He'd spent a few months in a real dark place after that, and he could only hope the same didn't happen to Hanson.
He still wasn't sure if the kid actually liked him or not, if he really trusted him. Fuller was confident in the rookie's abilities, though. He trusted the kid and hoped that, eventually, it'd be returned. He only wished that something like this had happened after they'd built a solid base of trust so that, if he wound up wandering around in the dark like Fuller had, maybe he could help pull the kid out of it and get him back on track.
He'd never admit it, but he'd taken a shine to the four young cops he had working under him out in the field. Harry, Judy, Doug, and Tom. They weren't just four shields to him, like a lot of Captains looked at their underlings. He had a special fondness for Tom, especially. The boy put up a real tough front, like a big man, but Fuller could just see the turmoil. All you had to do was look in his eyes and you could see the sadness there. He sort of reminded the Captain of himself, at that age.
The way things had gone down left him feeling off and like he should have done something different. When he'd heard that shot, his heart had stopped and he hadn't wasted a second before kicking down the door. Then when he saw the rookie's face… Fuller felt a pang of empathy at the memory.
The kid had been shaken beyond belief and looked on the verge of a full-blown melt down. It didn't take too much perception to motive how much his hands had been shaking. Then, after going through all of that, he'd gotten hauled out in cuffs. Fuller had been ready to blow a gasket and throw around all the weight he could to keep those cuffs off Hanson's wrists, but the kid had just smiled and told him that no, it was okay.
It was awfully brave, for a cop to just accept being cuffed like that. It was a matter of honor and most cops would have kept with the code and let him walk to the car to take him downtown. But, even when it didn't pan out like it should've, Hanson just accept it as it was and went with it, even though Fuller could tell he was terrified.
Over all, Hanson had handled himself quite well. He had been put in a hard spot and, even though he'd messed up a few times along the way, he managed to pull himself out on top. All he had to deal with now was himself inside his own head and Fuller could only hope that, if things got dark and scary for him, he'd come to an old pro for advice. He shouldn't have to deal with that stuff alone.
He was, after all, just a kid.