Danny's getting his fifth cup of coffee (this case is going to keep him here all night) when his old boss walks in. "I need to talk to you…in private."
Sarge looks like hell—hair and tie disheveled, face ashen, right wrist in a brace…but Danny doesn't comment, just follows him to an empty office. "What's going on, Sarge? You look like crap."
"Thanks a lot." He closes the door, leans on it. "Thought you should know that your dad told me, Baker, and Garrett that you're seeing Dr. Dawson."
He shrugs. "I mean, you know I did, you're the one that sent me to anger management with him."
"He implied that it was more recently, after…after…Linda…and I, well, I just thought you should know."
He moves, opens the door.
"Sarge, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, Reagan. Get back to work."
He starts to call his dad, then hangs up and drives to 1 PP.
Baker is apparently gone for the day, so Danny lets himself in, pushing the door open so viciously that he knocks the coat-rack over. "What the hell, Dad?"
His dad turns from the window. "Excuse me, Detective Reagan?"
"What the hell did you think you were doing, telling Baker and Gormley and Garrett that I had been in therapy?"
"Trying to…get rid some of the stigma. What's wrong with that?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong? That's like—that'll give Lieutenant Gee just enough ammo to put me on modified."
"It's no different than telling someone that your wife or husband or son or daughter is getting chemo, Danny."
"There's a helluva lot of difference, Dad!"
"Enlighten me," his father says dryly.
He shakes his head, paces. "The fact that you raised me and Erin and Joe and Jamie on the whole 'Reagans don't talk about their feelings, Reagans don't do therapy' crap! You know the kind of crap a cop will get from his squad if it comes out that he's seeing a shrink, even if it's just one of those stupid trauma debriefings! You should have asked me if you could bring it up—and the answer woulda been 'hell no.'"
His father holds his hands out in a placating gesture, but Danny is in no mood to be placated. He kicks the couch angrily. "And when were you going to tell me that you had decided to be Dr. Dawson's patient?"
"What makes you think that?"
"I saw him leaving just now; there's no other reason for him to have been here this late. He didn't see me, so your secret's safe for a little while longer, but I'll be talking to him."
He sinks onto the couch, the realization hitting him. "Wait a minute, Doc doesn't want me as a patient anymore. He can't see both of us. So he decided he'd try some new Reagan blood, let the grunt go back to his depressed, lonely widowerhood."
"You're talking crap, Danny."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"If that's all you think of yourself—that you're nothing but a grunt—you're the only one. If that's all you think of Dawson—that he'd leave you to your own devices—you're very mistaken. He recommended one of his colleagues to me."
"Seriously, the unflappable Police Commissioner Reagan is going to go to a shrink? I'll believe that when pigs fly. Go to hell!" Danny yells, and leaves.