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

Rated: K+

Same dear betas, Owl and Cheri, and my same unceasing gratitude.

Sessions—Part 4

The call from Hardcastle came slightly more than twenty-four hours later.

"Back from the funeral already?" Westerfield asked, after their initial greetings.

This got him a quick, acquiescent grunt and, "I figured he went over to see you yesterday. I told him I'd drive him if he wanted to go anywhere, but he left without letting me know. Took the truck, the only thing he could sort-of drive."

"We had lunch," Westerfield admitted.

"I'll bet." Hardcastle said dryly. "And he told you about the funeral." The man might have been shaking his head silently on the other end of the line. "I dropped him off at home just now. He still gets tired; he wasn't in any shape to go to the luncheon and answer a bunch of damn fool questions about things."

Westerfield detected a hint of irritation being aimed in his own direction, which was unusual. But, in the light of that, what followed was even more unexpected.

"Are you free for lunch again today?"

"Lunch, yes," the doctor admitted, "but I'm not free to talk about him with you. We settled that before, didn't we?"

"I know, I know," Hardcastle crabbed lightly. "I don't want to know what he said to you. I just want to . . . to," he faltered.

"Talk about you?" Westerfield offered helpfully.

There was a muttered, "Well, maybe."

00000

It was Thursday, his afternoon schedule was light, and so he offered to meet the man over in Santa Monica, at a small café on Montana Avenue. He half-wondered, as he drove there, if that wasn't part of the plan, to pick a venue where there was a lot of bustle, something to fall back on if the going got too . . . personal.

But to his surprise, it was a low-key place, not much of the tourist crowd, more for the locals, and Hardcastle maneuvered them to a table at the edge of the patio, where it was quieter still.

He looked subdued, like a man who had just come from a funeral, and Westerfield launched the conversation in that direction.

"Yes," the judge replied slowly. "It was a very nice service, so many people. My friend, Bob Sturgis—he was her nearest kin—he seemed very composed." He frowned down at the table and then added, "That's how it is; it doesn't really sink in until later."

Westerfield nodded his understanding.

"Mark wouldn't wear the damn sling," he said with the barest of huffs. "Didn't want him to know."

"I'd suppose not," Westerfield said with a small smile.

There was a pause in the conversation, as if both men were studying the menu, then out of that crept an off-hand, quiet muse from Hardcastle. "Funerals," he said slowly, "they make you think about your own mortality . . . Well, maybe not your own."

He left the next bit unspoken, though it wasn't too hard to figure out whose mortality was in question.

Westerfield bided his time.

"I dunno," the older man was still speaking hesitantly, as though he wasn't sure if the topic bordered too much on what Westerfield had said he wouldn't talk about, "where the heck did he get the idea that it was okay to risk his life to catch a murderer? Vangie's still dead, and he almost wound up that way, too."

Westerfield sighed. "Some people have a passionate sense of justice."

"More like a stubborn, irrational sense of justice." Hardcastle scratched his head. "But I didn't think it was contagious."

"Hah," Westerfield shook his head and smiled, "parents always think they're entirely responsible for all this personality stuff." He caught a quick, nervous look from the judge. "All right, in loco parentis, same thing. The fact is, a lot of personality seems to be hard-wired. You've both got the altruism gene in spades; he's just weighted a little heavy on the expedience scale.

"Seems likely to me that you must've noticed some of this," Westerfield continued, speculatively, "at least subconsciously, considering what landed him in your courtroom that second time."

"You've talked to Lieutenant Harper 'bout that, huh?" Hardcastle muttered. "How come it's okay to talk to him about us, but not okay to talk to me about McCormick?"

"Well," the psychiatrist smiled, "that's all a matter of public record—not to mention, a fairly entertaining story when the lieutenant tells it. But," he continued, a little less lightly, "I think, consciously or not, you picked one of the few people around who's more likely to take on a windmill than you are."

There wasn't more than a moment's consideration before Hardcastle nodded and said, "Exactly." And then, "So how the hell do I get him to stop?"

"'Stop'?" Westerfield looked at him in puzzlement. "I don't think that's one of the options. Would it be for you?"

Hardcastle appeared to be giving this some honest thought. Finally he sighed and said, "Well, probably not."

"So, your next best option is to give him a better lance, right?"

The judge frowned.

"He's half-way through law school by now, isn't he?" Westerfield prodded.

"Yeah," Hardcastle sighed again, a little more windily. "And he is starting to think like one, even though he doesn't think of himself as one."

"It'll come," Westerfield reassured. "I always thought of myself as a bit of a fraud when I was on the wards in medical school."

"Hah," Hardcastle smiled, "I spent my first six months on the bench thinking why the hell would anybody trust me with that job."

"And in the end we become what we are."

"If he lives that long," Hardcastle said soberly.

"Life is risk. Every time we get behind the wheel of a car—"

"Oh, especially him," Hardcastle said grimly.

"Well," Westerfield cocked his head, "that wasn't the point I was trying to make."

"Yeah, I know." The judge managed a thin smile. "I just wonder, sometimes, if all this," he made a vague gesture that appeared to include a lot of the preceding few years, "is just an excuse. If he won't be happy if he's not pushing the edge of the envelope, that he needs to take risks."

"That being a lawyer will be too sedate for him?" Westerfield added quietly.

"Yeah," Hardcastle said flatly. "Hanging up the cleats, settling down to a desk job."

"Was it for you?" Westerfield asked. "Boring, I mean?"

"Never," the judge replied without any hesitation. "Well, maybe some of the paperwork but, hell, even NASCAR has paperwork." He grinned for a moment and then pushed ahead, intently. "To me, the law is the most challenging thing there is. It takes everything you've got, and the stakes are so high; you gotta get it right."

"Well, that might be a problem," Westerfield said thoughtfully.

"No," Hardcastle reassured him. "The kid'll be good at it. He really cares, and he's sharp."

"Oh," the doctor smiled, "I wasn't casting aspersions on his skills, just wondering how he'll handle the stakes."

Hardcastle thought about it for a moment and then nodded once, very definitively. "Well, that's what I'm here for . . . and you, maybe, too."

"To help him handle the guilt?" Westerfield smiled.

"Ah," Hardcastle cast him a brief, worried look, "not too much of that. Sometimes I think that's the only thing standing between him and no risk avoidance at all."

"But maybe a little fine-tuning?"

"Maybe." Hardcastle grinned and then, after a pause, "Hey, so I thought you said you weren't going to talk to me about McCormick."

Westerfield gave a palms-up gesture and a small shrug. "Believe it or not, we've mostly been talking about you."

Hardcastle frowned and fell silent, as if he was running a brief review of the conversation that had just passed. He opened his mouth but Westerfield continued.

"It just seems that the main thing on your mind right now is Mark."

"That happens a lot. He worries the hell out of me sometimes."

"And you were feeling guilty yourself, that maybe he does what he does for you?"

Hardcastle nodded. Then, after a moment of nervous silence, "I think he was feeling not very useful. He likes feeling useful."

"But you set him straight on that, I imagine."

"Mostly . . . I think." The judge smiled ruefully. "It's kinda hard, you know, when he goes out and fetches something important, but I just know he got it in some crazy way, maybe even illegally. But there it is, and it's what I needed, and . . . damn, I can't very well yell at him too much, if I'm using what he's brought."

"Hypocritical, huh?" Westerfield said sympathetically.

"Damn straight," Hardcastle replied with feeling. "And when he does the really insane things, and winds up flat on his back, well, what the hell am I supposed to do then? It's damn hard to be angry and relieved at the same time." The judge frowned. "Hey," he looked up slowly, "we're still not talking about McCormick?"

"No," Westerfield shook his head once, with certainty. "This is definitely about you."

"Yeah, well, he's the only person who makes me this crazy. So, what the hell do I do about it?"

There was the barest moment's pause before Westerfield said, "Ground him."

Hardcastle gave him a look of absolute bafflement.

"Doc, much as I'd like to, I can't. Hell, that didn't even work when he was a parolee. He's a grown man, for Pete's sake."

"Oh," said Westerfield sagely, "you noticed, eh?"

Hardcastle narrowed his eyes.

"Yeah," Westerfield nodded his agreement, "a fairly competent adult, by most measures. Maybe a little impulsive at times."

"Impulsive," the judge muttered.

"But all in a good cause," the doctor went on. "And I thought we'd already concluded that that was not your doing. He came that way. In fact, it's possible you've even been a moderating influence on his behavior. I mean, he hasn't been back to prison since he started staying with you."

"Yet," Hardcastle muttered again.

"But the most important thing is, he is an adult." Westerfield shrugged again lightly. "It's always a dicey thing between parents and adult children."

The nervous look again.

"Or any such archetypical relationship. Mentor and pupil. Batman and Robin. There comes a time when the older has to recognize the independence of the younger. And part of that independence is the right to make their own mistakes, and learn from them."

"If they're survivable," Hardcastle shot back sharply.

"I think he understands the risks better than you realize."

"And still he does this crazy stuff," the judge said with mounting frustration.

"The stakes, in these cases, seem to be very high, which means a higher risk may be justifiable," Westerfield added soberly,

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Remind him of his part in the equation—his own worth, not just to you, but inherently, as a person. Try to get him to factor that in. I have a feeling he hasn't had much practice thinking about the idea. Altruism comes easily to people who think everyone else is worth more than they are."

Hardcastle shook his head slowly. "If he hasn't figured that out by now . . ."

"Keep reminding him. How many years was he being told otherwise?"

"Too many," the judge said flatly.

"May be a long row to hoe, then," Westerfield said practically.

Hardcastle nodded and finally replied, slowly, "'S'okay. I can handle that. Might scare him a little, though. He's gonna think I'm up to something."

"Well, he'll be right, in a way."

The judge grinned for a moment, and then his eyebrows went up in a question. "Doc, we're definitely talking about McCormick now."

"Nope," Westerfield reassured him, "still you. How you deal with him, that's all."

Hardcastle gave him a look of bemusement. "You psychiatrists sure have a strange way of looking at things."

"That's why I get paid the big bucks," the doctor grinned, as he picked up his menu.