A/N: Surprise! After editing the last 58 chapters, I decided to give y'all a brand new chapter in the form of this epilogue.
Danny stood at the pier looking out over the bay.
He heard footsteps behind him, but he didn't turn. He'd know that quiet tread anywhere. "Thanks for coming, Doc."
"You're welcome, Danny. How you holding up?"
He let out a shaky breath. "It's been a year."
"I know." The younger man leaned on the railing next to him. "What I don't know is why you thought coming back here was a good idea."
He shrugged. "Figured it would be appropriately therapeutic. Back at the scene of the crime, walk through what happened. Except for one time, I haven't been back here since it happened. Don't think my dad fishes here anymore, either."
"That's understandable. May I ask again, how you holding up?"
He flinched a little...it was the exact same question Doc had asked him during the John Russell case. "You see me every Monday; it's not like you don't know how I'm doing."
"But there is a reason you came back to the site of your last suicide attempt, and I would like to know that reason, if you can tell me."
He sighed, kicked a pebble into the water. Dang, this was hard. "I can't."
"Then tell me this, Danny: How do you think you're doing, one year later?"
He cursed quietly. He hated self-reflection, and he'd had to do way too much of it in the past 13 months. But he had asked Doc to join him here, so he supposed he'd set himself up for this...
"Before John Russell...I just had an anger issue. Now, after Russell...well, my whole family and most of the people I work with know I have PTSD. Hell, I didn't work for 10 months last year."
He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. "Spent years hiding the PTSD-and doing a damn good job of it. But now I don't have to hide it anymore. And that scares the hell out of me, Doc."
"Why does it scare you, Danny?"
He shrugged. "What if I...go off the deep end, hurt an innocent bystander, or a victim, or...my family?"
"Danny, the only way you would 'go off the deep end' would be a flashback, and we have those under control-unless you haven't been telling me everything."
He sighed. "They're under control, Doc. Meds are working. Therapy techniques are working."
"Then why are you afraid you'll snap and hurt someone?"
He kicked the pier. "Because I'm still so f-g angry at everything that happened-in Iraq, with Russell-and with everything that is happening on the job."
"So what do you do with all that anger?"
Again, a familiar question.
He shrugged. "Take it out on the punching bag, talk to Baez and Linda and Padre and you and my dad, instead of bottling everything up."
"This week alone, this is the fourth time we've talked. You're doing a pretty good job handling your anger, Danny. You're talking about it-you're not going to explode."
He nodded. "So how do I stop...being afraid...that it's all going to happen again?"
"Have a little faith in yourself, Danny. You've come a long way from who you were in my anger management class two years ago. And an even longer way from who you were a year ago. You're okay, Danny. I'll see you a week from Monday."
He pressed something into Danny's hand, and walked away.
Danny looked at it, and swallowed a lump in his throat.
He was holding a pair of over-sized dog tags. On one side was his name.
The other side read: "True strength is not trying to make it to shore by yourself. True strength is reaching out for help when you're drowning. To the strongest man I know-Doc."
Danny swallowed hard a few times, then drove home to his family.