A/N: Thank you for reading!
Chapter 35: Dr. Hale´s office
Danny sat on the large armchair at his psychiatrist office within the hospital. The secretary has allowed him to wait inside while the doctor arrived. Apparently, due to his delay, Dr. Hale occupied his time with another patient somewhere, evidently not here, so now Danny had to wait a little. Cross-legged, his body was quiet but his hands danced nervously above his lap, alternating between crisscrossing its fingers; pinching the slacks material or adjusting nervously the rolled up sleeves, among many other things. The wait was making Danny increasingly anxious, and the consequent quicker blood flow was making his head start to pound. Danny checked and accommodated his hair for the hundredth time, without any need to do so, and then went again to accommodate the folded sleeves of his shirt. Self-conscious of what he was doing, he placed his hands quietly on his lap. Almost instantly, as his hands stilled, Danny un-crossed his legs and then started bouncing them up and down. It was like it was inevitably for him to not relieve the tension through some movement, if not through his hands, through his legs. Danny stilled his nervous maneuvers to pay more attention when he heard someone talking outside the room. It was his partner´s voice, and then Dr. Hale´s, talking back to him. He couldn´t determine what they were talking about no matter how hard he tried to focus his hearing.
Steve sat a few feet away from Danny, but outside the closed-door, on one of the fancy leather-covered chairs of the waiting area of the psychiatric ward of the hospital. There were other people sitting nearby, waiting for theirs appointments with other physicians on the adjacent wooden doors. His partner has just been with him sitting by his side, but about twenty minutes ago, due to his increasing anxiety, Steve has asked the secretary if Danny could wait inside the office, where nobody looked nor watched him to recognize if he was the famous kidnapped detective or not.
Steve smiled apologetically to the secretary when she caught his eyes falling upon her for the hundred times.
"He´ll be here in any moment. I notified him that you´ve arrived". She smiled back, with understandment written on his middle-aged features.
"That´s ok" Steve cursed himself for letting his impatience act like if he was demanding the doctor to arrive now. But the truth was that he actually was internally demanding that. He knew that by now Danny would be walking on the walls and he suppressed the urge to step inside the office. Instead, he took a deep soundless breath and fixed his eyes on the beautiful scenery he could admire through the window of the third floor, where the psychiatric ward is located. The elegance of the tall palm trees was clouded by the thought of Danny´s impatience and the speed in which his mind must be going. Steve somehow regretted asking and encouraging him to wait alone in the office. He was about to get up and check on him when the elevator door opened on the corridor and the doctor approached, taking long steps on a hurried pace. After briefly talking with his secretary, Dr. Hale approached Steve with his hand extended and a smile half hiding below his mustache and beard.
"Doc" Steve reached and shared a very strong handshake with him.
"Sorry for the delay, Commander"
"The delay was ours, I believe" The doctor waved away his apology, but before he could reach the door to get to his patient, Steve hurried to ask. "Hey Doc., we were thinking… Danny´s friends… if we could get a consult with you too, you know, to know how to handle some things, to prepare ourselves…"
Dr. Hale halted and looked at him, nodding his agreement. "Very well, very well." He gave his total attention to Steve, took a few seconds to think and then added. "I think it's very appropriate and the right thing to do. I consider it will be beneficial for everyone" Dr. Hale smiled. Steve could tell the doctor considered the idea to be very good. "Make an appointment with my secretary right away" Steve nodded and headed towards the secretary´s desk while the doctor reassumed his entrance to his office to avoid dilating his appointment and make the detective more impatient that he should already be.
The door handle went down and Danny straightened up on the armchair, subconsciously passing his hands through his hair again and then fixing the over fixed rolled up sleeves. At the sound of the door opening and the noise of his blood stream on his ears went up, almost blocking the clacking of the doctor´s shoes coming his way. Heart hammering quickly and loudly, Danny sensed that he couldn´t hide his nervousness and insecurity from the highly experienced psychiatric as the tall bearded doctor approached him and he, with shaking legs and sweaty hands, stood up to greet him.
Entering the room, these particular gestures of evident nervousness were the first thing Dr. Hale noticed on his patient with his highly trained eyes which sometimes involuntary checked all this reactions. Only then, he focused on Danny´s appearance. The detective was very neat, elegant, with clean clothes and a very stylish haircut. Dr. Hale didn´t saw him like this before, other than in a few photos he had asked Steve to show him of his partner before the kidnapping. Every time he had visited him on the hospital, Danny had always been on bed or sitting in his room, rather disheveled or with minimal effort or resources to look like he was looking now. Dr. Hale presumed those where his working clothes, and the ones in which he felt the most confident with.
Dr. Hale closed the door and proceeded to cut the fifteen feet that separated them. It was a big office, and Danny felt analyzed already by his doctor as the tall physician approached him. Truth to be told was that Danny wasn´t being paranoid. In fact, Dr. Hale actually made a quick examination while making those long steps before reaching Danny´s side and gives him a strong handshake, as strong as the one he had shared with Steve a minute ago.
"Sorry for making you wait, Danny" He clasped his shoulder and motioned him to sit on the armchair again, while he made his way around the wooden desk to sit on his leather chair.
"That´s ok" Danny sat, kind of rigidly, and crossed his legs. Placing his hands together he interlaced his fingers and rubbed them nervously against each other. Dr. Hale smiled to him, and before also sitting down, he went to open the blinds of the big window behind him to let the beautiful cloudless sky made its appearance and soothe away some of Danny´s nervousness with its calm light blue color. Finally taking his seat, the doctor found the same color on Danny´s eyes, which, absorbing all the light, were contemplating the width of the window before focusing again on his doctor´s calm dark ones.
Danny hadn´t noticed the big window before. He had counted more than four times the thirty three diplomas and certificates hanging on fancy wooden frames from the walls, and also had checked out with his sight the ridiculously high amount of books placed apparently on alphabetical order on a big bookcase that reached the roof. On his spare time, Danny´s mind had tried to avoid thinking about opening up and he found himself wondering about evasive topics, like if Dr. Hale had any family and who took the time to tide up and clean the office. Everything was so neat. Maybe, he thought, there were patients with phobias towards disorder and the doctor required his office to look this way. Danny had also made mental notice of everything the doctor had above his desk. No family photos, nothing personal, just a closed notebook; publicity of medicines and drug labs; calendars; some discreet ornaments and two opened boxes of tissues, at the patients reach. As the neatly bookcase and the frames on the wall, the distribution of the things above the desk was impeccable.
But his safe place of mental ramblings was over now that their eyes met, and Danny prayed he wouldn´t have to use those tempting tissues strategically placed in front of him.