Our patience will achieve more than our force-Edmund Burke

Steve was not happy. After confirming his suspicions that Elyssa Matthews was in fact deaf, he had sent Danny to find an interpreter for her. He returned with a nurse that was fluent in sign language who was insistent upon talking to Elyssa without them present first, claiming that they came off as too intimidating. So now they were forced to wait and Steve wasn't feeling very patient today. He had a bad feeling about this case.

"She's not ready to talk gentlemen." The nurse declared as she exited the room.

"We need to talk to her now ...Kelly." Steve stated as he read her name of her badge. "The longer we wait, the less she's likely to remember and the less we'll have to go on." He added, trying to get across the importance of the task but it only seemed to irritate the woman standing before him.

"Well I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Commander," Kelly said, crossing her arms over her chest as her expression went cold. "But you talking to her right now is only going to make things worse."

"How are we going to make things worse?" Steve exclaimed. He was slowly losing the little bit of patience that he had left in him.

"Look, I don't know who gave you permission to talk to her but that girl barely knows her own name right now and you wanting to go in there and force her to recall all the gruesome details is only going to upset her further." She declared.

"Did she tell you anything?" Danny asked gently. He didn't want to add to the tension.

"Yeah," she sighed. "She said that someone stole her hearing aids. That's all she could focus on. It's not uncommon for women who have been victims of sexual assault to focus on something relatively insignificant because they can't handle the magnitude of what they've just been through. We had a woman come in once who had been severely beaten, gang raped and left for dead in an alley behind her apartment. It had taken someone over a day to find her and her main concern when she was brought in was who was taking care of her dog."

"Anything else?" Danny pushed, hoping maybe Elyssa had told the nurse something that they could go off of until they were able to talk to her themselves.

"She also said something about a guy named 'Nick' saying it was okay. She didn't say anything more about it once she realized her hearing aids were missing." Kelly said. The earlier edge in her voice was slowly being replaced with weariness.

"Okay. Thank you for your help." Steve said sincerely, knowing he had managed to end up on the nurse's bad side with his impatience. His phone rang before she could respond.

"I'm sorry about my partner. He's not always a very good with people-" Danny started to apologize as Steve stepped away to the side.

"And you wanted me to let him talk to a rape victim?" Kelly asked incredulously.

"-But he has good intentions." Danny finished. She just gave him a look before turning her attention back to the chart in her hands. "You work a lot of sexual assault cases?" Danny asked. He could tell that for some reason, this situation was personal for her.

"More than I should ever have to." She said stiffly as if trying to keep her composure. "These girls…they come in and they are so overwhelmed and just looking for someone to keep their heads above the water and you cops come strolling in, making false promises to be their saviors …..but I can count on one hand the number of times I actually seen a guy pay for what he's done to one of these girl. So I guess you could say that I've become a little disenchanted by the process." She explained.

"Trust me, I've dealt with my fair share of jerk cops but my partner and I are just trying to find out what's happened to this girl and find the scumbag who did this to her." Danny said, still keeping his voice soft. Kelly took a deep breath and let it out.

"Look I'm sorry I snapped on your partner but I've witnessed a lot of police interviews with rape victims and you wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard one of them tell a woman that she's lucky and tell her that's it's okay…of course, those are the ones who actually believe what's happened to them is a crime. I've also encountered more than my share of cops who just think these women are crying wolf. They take a statement because they have to then do nothing with it. Their insensitivity devalues the pain that these women are experiencing." For a second, there was a twinkle of that pain in Kelly's eyes but it was gone before Danny could confirm it was even there. "Elyssa's sleeping right now but I'll let you know when she's ready to talk." She promised.

"Thank you." Danny said before going to join Steve who was standing down the hall. "Is it your goal to piss off every nurse we come in contact with?" He asked once his partner was off the phone.

"I have not pissed off every nurse-" Steve said, rolling his eyes as they began to walk out towards the car.

"No, the ones who don't hate you fall in love with you. Professional relationships are clearly a foreign concept to you." Danny declared.

"I know how to be professional." Steve stated.

"Really? Cause I don't think sleeping with your partner is very professional." Danny pointed out as they got in the Camaro. Steve gave him an incredulous look as he started the car.

"At least I'm not sleeping with my boss." He muttered under his breath.

"You can sleep on the couch tonight for all I care." Danny replied."Who was on the phone?"

"Chin. He's got something for us back at the office."