Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

Rated: K+

Author's Notes: Therapy continues. This one is six months after the last, and follows the events of 'Dry Heat'.

Thanks again, Cheri and Owl.

Sessions—Part 3

Dr. Westerfield thought maybe it had been a one-shot deal, a little psychiatric first aid, his lunch with Mark McCormick. Sometimes that was all a person needed, like checking a map along the way to a destination—the merest self-reorientation. And six months had passed since that January afternoon when he'd had his first session with the man—in the guise of a social occasion.

So the call took him just a little by surprise, coming late on a Tuesday afternoon, at the beginning of June.

His receptionist had taken the name, and relayed it, along with the call, but he thought he would have recognized the casual, 'Hi, Doc,' even out of context.

He kept his own greeting equally light, and then a, 'What's up?', also low key, though surely something was.

"Thought you might be free for, um, lunch." There was a raspy edge to the younger man's voice.

"How soon?" Westerfield thought he could make it dinner, that evening, if he had to.

Mark picked up on the concern. There was a quick laugh that ended in a slightly breathless cough.

"It's not that bad, Doc."

"You sound more like a guy who needs an internist, than a shrink."

"Well, I'm actually way better than I was on Sunday . . . and it's not contagious."

Westerfield gave a quick laugh of his own. "That's one of the pluses of my line of work; my patients seldom are."

That had been a calculated gambit, at least partly acknowledging that their last lunch hadn't been merely social. That Mark didn't immediately launch himself into flustered denial of the status was itself interesting.

Instead, the young man said hesitantly, "Maybe tomorrow?" There was still a slight rasp to it,

"No problem," Westerfield said quickly. "Are you sure you don't want to just come to the office? At least you can lie down here." That, too, was a try at humor. They both knew he wasn't the psychoanalytical type, and there was nary a couch in sight on the premises.

"Oh, I'm okay enough for a lunch, as long as we find something that can be eaten one-handed," he added cryptically. "Maybe Italian?"

"There's a place near me. Eduardo's, right down the block."

"Perfect," Mark replied, with what might have been a small sigh of relief.

They set a time—noon—and said good-bye.

After he'd hung up, Westerfield started to make a little mental wager on whether or not he'd hear from the other half of the unusual partnership. In the absence of more definitive data, though, he really couldn't calculate the odds. At any rate, the phone stayed silent for the brief remainder of the day.

00000

Westerfield hadn't stopped to analyze whether agreeing to meet in the foyer was yet another concession to Mark's negative opinion of psychiatry. The younger man was waiting at the appointed time, leaning up against the wall, wearing a sling on his left arm with a certain amount of familiarity.

He intercepted Westerfield's frown with a quick, almost cheerful grimace.

"Shot?" the psychiatrist asked, with mild alarm.

"No . . . bit," Mark sighed. "Long story. We were investigating a murder in Arizona." He gestured toward the door with his good hand and fell into place at the older man's side.

Westerfield heard the same husky undertone to the man's voice as he'd noted on the phone, and there was a little labor to his breathing as they started to walk. He slowed himself almost imperceptively.

"So who bit you?" he asked curiously.

"Not 'who', more like a 'what'. A rattlesnake," Mark said matter-of-factly, casting a quick look down into the sling. "Not too bad, but it got a little infected. That was, um, Saturday." He frowned briefly as though he wasn't quite sure of that. "Yeah, just Saturday. Seems longer." Then he smiled ruefully and added, "Time flies when you're having fun." But the smile fell off quickly, replaced by a more sober expression. "I'm glad you could meet today. Tomorrow's the funeral."

Westerfield paused in mid-step and looked suddenly up. "Ah?"

"The victim, the murder we were investigating. She was the niece of an old friend. A professor."

"Oh," Westerfield exhaled. "There was something in the papers about that a couple days ago. They made it sound like a cult killing."

"Not exactly." Mark took a few shallow breaths. Westerfield heard the raspiness again. It was a little like the way the man had sounded back in January, after he'd very nearly not escaped from a burning building.

"You're having a relapse?" Westerfield pointed vaguely to his own throat and chest.

"Ah," Mark frowned. "No . . . a little exposure to some nerve gas. That's what the murder was really about." His tone had taken a bitter edge. "And it's probably some deep, dark government secret, but Patterson can go f—"

"Nerve gas?" Westerfield asked with some alarm.

"Yeah," Mark was squinting at him, as if he was looking for some signs of being judged. "Look," he continued wearily, "it could happen to anybody."

"Not in one weekend," Westerfield replied dubiously. "Maybe not in one lifetime."

"All right," Mark conceded, "it was a little weird, but I told you, we were in Arizona."

They were at the door of the restaurant. Westerfield opened it and they passed through. The conversation stopped until they'd been seated, and then he studied the man across the table from him again.

"You're all right then?"

Mark shrugged lightly. "Yeah, no permanent damage. I got pretty lucky with the nerve gas. There was someone right there who knew what to do . . . scary, though. Screws up your vision, and it's kinda hard to breath."

Westerfield thought this might be an understatement, but he simply nodded.

"Anyway," Mark shook his head, "it was my own damn fault."

Westerfield let his eyebrows rise fractionally, in an unasked question.

"Yeah," Mark cocked his head and looked down at the sling-encumbered arm one more time. "I was supposed to be staying out of the way, on account of this . . . no," he added, after a moment's pause, "on account of there really wasn't a lot I could do. This was kind of the judge's bailiwick. And there I go, running right into the middle of it, like Daffy Duck." He grimaced ruefully. "Stupid doesn't half begin to describe it."

"Well," Westerfield kept his expression non-committal, "you had some reason, right? There was something at stake that made you do what you did?"

"Oh, well, that," Mark's grimace persisted. "I suppose. It just aggravated the hell out of me to think the murderer was going to get away with it. Because we couldn't get a lousy search warrant, see?" Another shake of the head, this one seemed bemused. "When the hell did I develop such an implacable sense of justice? That's his attitude, not mine."

Both eyebrows were up; Westerfield forced them back down. He did allow himself a smile. "Hmm. You want to stick to that story? That friend of yours, the lieutenant, he did give me a little background on how you wound up with the judge."

Mark frowned thoughtfully. "That was . . . well, ah . . ." The frown deepened.

"Exactly," Westerfield nodded. Then he let the notion settle for a moment before continuing. "Is it such a bad thing, wanting justice?"

"It is when you go after it with a set of lock picks and a shaky grasp of the details. I didn't know this guy had a thirty gallon drum of nerve gas . . . I hope you realize that once I tell you all this stuff, Patterson's gonna have to kill you," he added, in an aside that was only half-humorous.

"Who's Patterson?" Westerfield asked, calmly curious.

"He's the guy the government sent to track down the stuff. It'd gone missing from a stockpile. He says I'm a loose cannon." Mark rolled his eyes upward. "God, I hate it when people like him are right."

"But he didn't find the gas; you did?"

"'Find' may not be the right term here, Doc. 'Tripped over' is more like it. The crazy guy who had done the murder, he knew Hardcastle and the sheriff were after a warrant. It was only a matter of time. He was trying to move it again."

"So you prevented that."

Mark shook his head. "Nope, the barrel was damaged. The guy knew he'd been exposed and he shot himself. Would've happened even if nobody had been around. Trouble was, he shot through the barrel, too. That's how I got a dose . . . like I said, Daffy Duck."

Westerfield was frowning. "I don't know a lot about nerve gas, but it vaporizes at low temperatures. That's how it's deployed."

McCormick nodded grimly.

"And only this fellow Patterson knew what it was, and he didn't know where it was, or that the barrel was damaged?"

Two more nods. "They were waiting on a warrant, to search the general area. They probably would have gotten it sometime Monday morning. It was a shallow cave up in some cliffs."

"After sun-up, in Arizona, at the beginning of June?" Westerfield gave a low and impressed whistle. "They would've been walking into a death trap. Most of those things are pretty odorless. That's what makes them so effective."

Mark gave this a hard squint.

"You were there, right away, I presume. Before it had a chance to spread much?"

"Well, yeah, but it had already done some spreading. I didn't know what hit me, and the other guy was dead."

"And who pulled you out?"

"Hardcastle . . . and Patterson. They'd put two and two together and were coming up, warrant or no warrant. They just didn't know I had gotten there first."

"And they were suited up; they knew it was a hazmat situation?"

"Ah," Mark frowned, "no . . . I mean, they must've figured it out when they saw me down on my knees, twitching. But by then it was a "McCormick's in trouble' situation. Hardcase hates those." His frown deepened. "They only had on gloves."

Westerfield gave another low whistle and then, after a pause, muttered, "Who says insanity isn't contagious."

Mark blanched. "It was that dangerous? I mean, I knew it was bad, but . . ."

Westerfield nodded. "Of course, at least they knew what was going on, because you were 'twitching'. Gasping, too, I presume."

"Oh, yeah," Mark's response was heartfelt. "Lots of gasping."

"And the other guy was just dead? He'd shot himself?"

"Through the chest. Dead or nearly so."

"So," Westerfield cocked his head. "Had you not been there, human instincts being what they are, they would have come charging up, having heard a gunshot, and seeing a victim on the ground. What do you suppose the judge would have done?"

The blanching was joined by a deeper frown. "Gone to him, checked him. At least a pulse. Might've tried to look at the wound, seen if there was anything that could be done. Might've stood around a bit, maybe, trying to figure things out."

"And would he have bothered to put on gloves?"

McCormick shook his head, certainty mixed with fear. "Don't think so. Nobody knew the damn barrel had been damaged."

"And he is, what, about twice your age?"

Mark nodded solemnly. "A little more."

"So you might say, without stretching credulity too much, that you did serve some useful function, getting there first and getting exposed to that stuff. A sort of canary-in-a-mine function, but very useful, nevertheless."

"Tweety Bird, not Daffy, huh?" Mark smiled thinly; the fear was still there.

"In a word . . .yes," Westerfield nodded encouragingly.

Mark sat for a moment, then took a deep breath that ended in a cough. "When he'd gotten that under control, he smiled ruefully again. "Still, the bottom line was I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I went ahead and did it anyway."

"Look," Westerfield sighed and put one hand, palm up, on the table, "if you're willing to take the blame when you do something wrong by mistake, you have to be willing to take the credit when you do something right—"

"By mistake."

"Exactly." Westerfield smiled. "It's only fair."

Mark frowned again, though more lightly this time. He gave the older man a considering look and said, "This doesn't sound much like psychiatry, you know. You aren't even trying to tell me why I do these goofy things."

"Oh, that." Westerfield shrugged. "A strong sense of altruism, reinforced by tendencies toward expedience, and imaginative behavior. The only thing that might border on pathological in there, is this proclivity towards guilt that I keep picking up on."

"I don't think Hardcastle would want you to work on that one too much," Mark replied hastily. "Trust me, it's a survival tool."

"Maybe so," Westerfield replied. "Just don't take it to extremes, that'd be my main advice." He shook his head as he picked up the menu. "That, and stay out of Arizona."