Alex is leaving his office, on his way to grab an early lunch (well, it's a late breakfast actually) between his 10 am and 12 pm sessions, when someone collides into him.
He looks up.
Danny Reagan has run into him.
"Danny, hey, what's wrong?"
Danny looks at him, his face betraying another sleepless night. "Um, I…I'm sorry, Doc. I'll see you Monday," he stammers, and tries to continue down the hallway.
"Danny, wait! What's the matter?"
"Go ask 'Amazing Grace'; you two can have a blast comparing notes on me!"
Alex sets his briefcase down and moves to block Danny from running. "You know Dr. Meherin and I won't do that. What happened?"
"O, let's see! Erin told me to leave the NYPD. I just did my mandatory psych eval, and now I have to wait to see if I'm cleared for duty…"
Alex pulls out his keys and unlocks his office door. "Have a seat, Danny. Let's talk about this for a bit."
"You've seen me a million times this week. I don't need my head shrunk any more," he grumbles, but walks inside and sits down anyway.
Alex ignores him, closing the door and putting the electric kettle on. "What do you mean Erin told you to leave the NYPD?"
Danny laughs bitterly. "I mean exactly what I said! She said that—because of how…how hard I've been taking the kid's death. The kid I shot to save my own worthless…"
"Your worthless what?"
"My life!" Danny snaps, and Alex's heart breaks. He thought they'd gotten past that…
"Your life isn't…"
"O, spare me the claptrap, Doc! If I hadn't shot the kid, he'd have screwdriver-ed me to death, and then…"
"Then what?"
"Then I wouldn't be feeling so damn guilty! You know what his mother said to me? She said she'll never—NEVER—forgive me."
"How did that you make you feel?" Alex asks carefully.
Danny shrugs. "I…it's not like…maybe I should've just let him…"
"Why, Danny? Why should you have let that kid kill you?"
"I don't know, Doc, never mind. I shouldn't have…"
He's out of his chair and halfway to the door when Alex asks, "Have you ever had a situation like this—outside of the Corps, and outside of a case—where you're off-duty and have had to kill someone to save your own life?"
"No," he whispers, stopping in his tracks.
"So this was personal. Which makes sense why it's affecting you more. You made the right choice, Danny—choosing to save your life."
Danny shakes his head, steps to the door and puts his hand on it. "So what? My life's more valuable 'cause I'm a cop? That doesn't make sense."
"That's not what I'm saying, Danny. You followed your training. You did the right thing. Now you need to let the guilt go."
Danny leans his head on the door. "And how the hell do you propose I do that?"
"Come sit down and talk to me, please."
The detective sighs, mutters a few things under his breath, then turns and trudges back to the chair. "What?"
"Walk me through what happened at the gas station the other night."
"Why? I already told you."
"Humor me."
Danny sighs. "I was heading home, stopped to get gas; saw a kid inside the gas station bent over…something. The kid saw me and came out, said a guy had tried to rob him. Kid kept coming toward me; I drew my weapon, told him to back up, to keep his hands where I could see them. He pulled out a screwdriver; I told him to drop it. A truck honked; I got distracted and turned—stupid *** rookie mistake—and then he rushed at me with the screwdriver and I…fired…twice."
"Sounds to me like you did everything by the book, Danny."
"A kid is dead. He…had his whole life ahead of him. I took it away from him."
"You know, I read your report of the incident, your description of the kid."
Danny's head comes up at them. "Then why the hell did you just ask me to tell you what happened again?"
"From your description, I would say the kid was…not mentally stable. I doubt reasoning with him any more than you did, would have worked."
"What are you getting at, Doc? If this is…some lame attempt to make me feel less guilty, it's not working," Danny snaps, and is out the door before Alex can get up and stop him again.
He sighs. He's going to have to enlist some help to get through to Danny…