He doesn't get the whole confidentiality thing. Or the whole therapy thing.
Shrinks are supposed to keep your $#!+ confidential, right? He's done his share of "trauma debriefings" with Meherin or one of the other NYPD shrinks—every one of whom swears those debriefings are confidential—but somehow he doubts that.
The fitness-for-duty evals…of course they're not confidential, which is why a lot of guys have gotten really good at telling the department shrinks what they wanna hear.
So why is Gormley ordering him to go to a guy in private practice, if the shrink can't tell Gormley what they talked about?
"Why am I here?" he asks, scrawling his name on the fourth—or is it fifth?—form.
"Your sergeant wanted you to do a trauma debriefing, preventative of post-traumatic stress disorder."
He hates that word "disorder," but he doesn't trust this guy enough to tell him that. He stares at the desk. "Yeah. I've done those before. With the NYPD shrink, uh, therapist. Why is this one with you?"
"Your sergeant thought the confidentiality aspect might help you…open up a bit."
He tenses at that. No way in hell is he opening up—to this guy, or any shrink, for that matter. "You're telling me you're not reporting back to Gormley?"
"No, I'm not reporting back to him—or anyone," the younger man says, and meets his eyes squarely.
He relaxes a bit, but the next words out of Dawson's mouth have him ready to bolt. "I read your file," Dawson continues, and he frowns. "You've had a lot happen in the past few years: two tours in Fallujah, a brother who was killed in the line of duty."
He slams the last form down on the chair. "I have a file? I thought this was a debriefing for what happened with Officer Tedesco."
"It is. But knowing about things in your past, triggers, will help me debrief you—and help you avoid future debacles like the one with IA."
Debacles…triggers…is this guy for real?
He bolts to his feet. "If this is Gormley's way of forcing me to talk about $#!+ I'm not ready to talk about, and I don't want to talk about, then I'm done! Tell him I'll go to Meherin—she's closer, anyway."
He's halfway to the door when Dawson says, "Detective Reagan, anything you say in this office, stays within these walls—you have my word. And I won't force you to talk about anything you're not ready to talk about."
He stops. Last shrink he'd stormed out of, the guy had told him he had to talk if he wanted to "get better"—whatever the hell that meant. "Then why bring it up if you're not going to force me to talk about it? Trying to get a reaction out of me so you can tell Gormley I need anger management?"
"No. I'm sorry if that's what it felt like. I wanted you to know that…if there were extenuating circumstances that led to you accidentally shooting Officer Tedesco, I want to know them."
"'Extenuating circumstances'? Were you an English professor in a past life, Doc? You saw the stuff on the news; I was angry. It had nothing to do with anything in my past. I hadn't slept well; I was frustrated; but that has nothing to do with why I shot Tedesco! He didn't identify himself as a cop!"
"What was your nightmare about?"
How the…damn, he'd walked right into that, with the whole 'I hadn't slept well' thing. "Stuff that's in the past. I'm over it. Don't need to talk about it.'
"Detective Reagan, I've been sitting in this chair long enough to know that the cop who says everything's in the past and he doesn't need to talk about it…is the guy who eventually ends up here because he doesn't see a reason to keep living anymore. I want to help keep you from getting to that point."
It sounds sincere, and he hesitantly walks back to his chair, slumps into it, and opens his mouth to tell the younger man about how he shot Tedesco.
He's exhausted, and pissed, when he gets home.
"What happened?" Linda asks.
"Gormley ordered me to get a trauma debriefing—with that guy you'd mentioned a while back, Dawson. He's halfway decent, but he wanted to talk about ancient history."
She frowns, confused. "What do you mean?"
He grabs a beer from the fridge, heats up the dinner she'd left in the microwave, and sits down on the couch. "Fallujah, and Joe. I'm there to talk about Tedesco, not…that stuff."
"Danny…"
He holds his hand up to stop her before she goes on the "Talking might help" spiel. He's not up to his usual retorts. He sort of feels like it actually might help, a little. But he's not ready to tell her—or anyone, much less, heaven forbid, his dad—that.
"I did the debriefing, I passed, but I'm still a house mouse 'till…the almighty PC's office decides otherwise."
He turns the game on, telling her he's done talking for the night, eats his dinner, and drinks his beer.
A/N: Should I bring Dawson in as a regular in this story, or only bring him back at 3x15 when Danny has anger management with him?