A/N: Well, so, 'option three' is giving me an ulcer because i can't see how it could possibly turn out okay for all involved. But I'm also a little exasperated with Rusty's (understandable! but still exasperating :P) lack of theory of mind in this instance. Poor kid is wearing his vocal chords out being all 'I can do this', and 'I can handle stress', and 'I can take care of myself' - but does he stop to consider how him going back on the streets would make others feel? Oh, Rusty.

So this story came as a result of my deep sympathy for Sharon not wanting to let him roam the streets with a big target on his clueless, self-absorbed head (you guys know I love him), even if the whole squad and SIS would be undercover nearby to protect him. I thought Rusty needs to acquire some perspective - and who better to offer perspective than my now favorite therapist and world-class amateur chess player, Dr. Joe Bowman?

Right now, this is a one-shot, just showing Dr. Joe struggling to drive his point across to a Rusty that's somewhat fixated on how HE can do it and how HE can handle stress and how HE's okay with the dangers etc. (oh Rusty). I have a plan for how this might continue following Rusty's newly-acquired perspective, but for now, we're calling this a one-shot.

Whatever It Takes

"…and before I can fully evaluate whether you can handle the stress of participating in a police action, I need to make sure you understand what this kind of action entails."

Rusty briefly considered banging his head against the desk.

"Seriously?" he threw up his hands, exasperated at having to rehash the same argument again, "I've been basically living in a police station for months! The Captain of the Major Crimes unit is my legal guardian! How is it not obvious that I get what a police action is?!"

"Well, sometimes obvious isn't enough," Dr. Joe looked relaxed in his seat, both elbows on the armrests, fingers steepled in front of him, "and we need real, tangible evidence… which, as someone who's been living in a police station for months," he arched his eyebrows a little drolly, "I'm sure you understand."

Rusty rolled his eyes, because what was even the point of arguing anymore? "Whatever. Fine. Let's get 'tangible evidence' then, that I know what it means to go after whoever's writing those letters." He crossed his arms. "So, what, do you want to like, quiz me, or something? 'cause I'm pretty sure I can recite the procedure by memory by now. Or –"

"Actually… " the therapist gave a thoughtful nod, "alright, if you're so well acquainted with police operations," he leaned forward with an almost challenging look, "let's see what you've got."

Rusty looked surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered and clasped his hands together. "Okay great, uh – so I'm thinking the first thing we're gonna have to do –"

But Dr. Joe held up a finger to stop him. "Why don't you tell me about some of the cases you've seen that made you an expert at this…?"

Rusty spared the psychiatrist a wry look at the perceived sarcasm. But the man was just giving him a totally straight face, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, and Rusty just gave up because his new motto when it came to this so-called evaluation was 'grit your teeth and take it so it can be over faster'. Anything to get Sharon to finally let him draw out whoever was writing those letters, so he could have his life back. Anything was worth it, for that.

Dr. Joe was giving him that slightly-expectant look again, resting casually against the back of his seat.

"Fine," Rusty grumbled. "Let's talk about the cases, whatever. So… " he had to think for a moment where to start, "well, obviously, there's this guy who was on house arrest and ended up murdered, this just happened, and…"

"That's a good place to start," Dr. Joe acknowledged. "Something more or less close to what your own situation might eventually be."

"My situation?" Rusty's expression grew instantly wary. "I'm not supposed to be on house arrest! I didn't do anything –"

"Civilians involved in a police operation," the psychiatrist clarified calmly.

"What…? Oh." Rusty paused, his indignation deflating. "Oh," he repeated. "Well – yeah, I guess there's the deputy guy who asked that teenage girl to help him…" He couldn't help sounding a little disturbed, because who the hell did that, anyway?

Dr. Joe clasped his fingers above the table top. "Let's talk about how that turned out…?"

And Rusty rolled his eyes again, because he didn't know the details but obviously that hadn't turned out great, given that the girl had left in tears and the deputy in handcuffs…Still –

"Yeah, that's nowhere near the same thing as 'my situation'," he emphasized with the requisite air commas. "Besides, this wasn't even a proper operation, that guy was acting by himself in some kind of… revenge scheme, without back-up or anything."

"Fair enough," nodded Dr. Joe. "So why don't you give me an example of a 'proper' operation? With back-up and everything," he mimicked.

Rusty thought for a moment, then his expression grew uncomfortable. But there was no way to turn back, now… and anyway, it was still worth it. If he could help catch the author of the letters, it was worth it.

He took a deep breath. "There was this … " he swallowed, "… this young girl, a few months ago. She was working with the FBI, because this guy they were interested in was using her to…" He grimaced, and cleared his throat. "You know what, I don't think you have the…security clearance to hear about these things."

Dr. Joe sighed. "I'm employed by the LAPD in this instance, and I have considerable leeway in terms of what information I think might be relevant to my evaluation." He gave Rusty a meaningful look, and the boy's shoulders hunched. "So…tell me about this girl."

Sadness flashed over the boy's features again. "She was a CI," she said finally, "a confidential informant… the FBI was keeping tabs on her, they were supposed to pull her out if she was in danger, she even had like, a… a ... heart monitor or something. Lot of good that did…" He pressed his lips together, sighed, then gave the therapist a bleak glance. "Look, I get it, okay? I get your point. Stuff goes wrong sometimes." He crossed his arms. "I know the risks, and I'm willing to take them."

The doctor's nod was not unsympathetic. "I believe you," he said. "But let's give this just a little more."

Rusty's irritation flared again. "Why? I get it!"

"Because if and when you do take part in this operation," Dr. Joe explained calmly, "everything might go according to plan, or there might be… unexpected challenges to deal with." He arched his eyebrows. "And my job is to make sure that you understand what some of those challenges might be, and that you're equipped to deal with them."

"I'm equipped, okay?" Rusty's posture grew defensive. "You asked me your questions, you made me fill out a hundred stupid questionnaires, you saw I could handle myself under time pressure with that chess clock – yeah, I noticed that, by the way," he scowled when Dr. Joe's expression showed a flash of mild surprise. "I'm not an idiot."

The therapist couldn't entirely help a fleeting sort of amused smirk. "It's obvious that you're a very smart young man," he acknowledged.

"Yeah, I am," retorted Rusty, "and you know what else I am? Capable of dealing with whatever this police action involves! I can do whatever it takes so will you please just… sign off on it, so that Sharon will give her permission and we can finally get this nutjob who's been sending the letters?" He could feel the flush in his face at the end of his impassioned plea, and there was a note of sympathy in Dr. Joe's eyes as the man let out a long breath.

"I have no doubt that you're willing to do 'whatever it takes'," the psychiatrist agreed. "What we're trying to accomplish here today is making sure you can make a judicious, realistic evaluation of what it actually might take, and what you'd be getting yourself into."

"Okay, I said like, a hundred times that I know exactly what I'm getting myself into," protested Rusty, "but since you obviously disagree, why don't you just tell me what you think I'm missing?!"

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way," Dr Joe grimaced sympathetically. "I can't make your judgments for you. Besides, I get the feeling you wouldn't want me to, anyway." He gave the boy a knowing look and was rewarded with another disgruntled glower. "So why don't we give this a little more time, and go over some of the…challenges that you think you might expect, and whether you think you're prepared to handle them?"

Rusty groaned."I'm prepared to handle –" he trailed off with an exasperated look, as it was obvious the therapist wasn't dropping it. "Fine. Alright. Let's go over these 'challenges'," he grumbled in resignation. "But just so you know," he added, "I know what to expect and it's not like I'm going at this alone! And everyone here is really good at their jobs."

Dr. Joe sighed. "I know."

"But you're gonna lecture me on the dangers to 'civilians involved in a police action' anyway."

"Nope," the therapist leaned out of his chair to reach into his bag on the floor, "actually, I was hoping this would be more of a … collaborative effort." He turned back to the desk and pushed over a stack of blank note cards and a pen.

Rusty stared at the supplies with a suspicious look. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

"Write down names," said Dr. Joe. "People in your position, who were involved in the kind of effort you're looking at… and then we'll think about how it went down for them."

Another eye roll. "Okay first, that sounds totally useless, and second, I don't even know their names…"

"It doesn't have to be their actual names, just write down whatever you remember them as. But we won't just rely on your memory," Dr. Joe pulled over the laptop from the far end of the desk, and set it between the two of them. "Here. We'll use a search engine. These things make the news. What do you say we pull up… ten articles from the last couple of years," (he ignored Rusty's disbelieving look) "on similar kinds of police operations, and we both read them and write down the relevant names. And then we can talk."

Rusty's shoulders slumped. "Are you serious? This is like… a ton of work!" Again the psychiatrist's expression made him groan in exasperation. "Fine, whatever. That doesn't sound boring and awful at all."

Dr. Joe pulled up a specialized search engine that he had previously researched and tried out, and turned the laptop slightly so it was facing Rusty more than him. "Here you go. You can look up the articles here. But make sure you write down the cases you remember from memory, too," he tapped the blank note cards. "I'll try to come up with some."

Rusty rolled his eyes, but he pulled a note card and started to write about the girl with the heart monitor.

Almost an hour later, Rusty finished scanning the latest article, and allowed himself a second to blink away the tension around his eyes. The whole exercise had taken too much focus – and they'd done more than ten articles, too, because some weren't as relevant as they'd first thought, or the details weren't clear enough, although really most of them were just the same depressing stories over and over and over…

Rusty put down his pen and groaned. "I get it, okay?" He pushed the laptop away, having had enough. "Just so you know, it's almost always the bad stuff that makes the news," he felt the need to add, "so like, for every one of these I'm sure there are ten successful operations…"

"I'm sure you're right," Dr. Joe nodded agreeably, then he motioned to Rusty's stack of note cards. "So what've you got?"

With a sigh, the boy pushed his stack over; his eyebrows flew into his hairline when he noticed the psychiatrist's own pile of filled-out note cards. "What – where did you get all those names?"

Dr. Joe hummed neutrally. "Let's compare notes." He slid his own stack over, then pulled Rusty's up and began to glance over them.

Meanwhile, Rusty was browsing through the man's pile, and after double checking the first few cards, he looked confused. "But – none of these names are right! Where did you come up with them, anyway?"

"From the articles we read. And a few from memory," the therapist added as an afterthought.

"Okay, I have no idea what articles you were reading," the boy looked skeptical as he flipped through more of Dr Joe's note cards, "but I don't think you were paying a lot of attention because none of these names are actually the witnesses or CIs or whatever…" He shook his head. "I have no idea where you even… oh, okay, see, like this guy," Rusty held up a note card, "Manny Roman, from the last article. That wasn't the CI who ratted out the illegal street fighting ring, his name was Steven-something – and he was fine, by the way," he couldn't entirely keep a note of victory from his voice. "Manny Roman was like, the name of the sheriff's ai –"

The words died in his throat.

A sudden, vague suspicion began to swirl in his stomach.

He looked up from the note card to see Dr. Joe giving him a patient look.

"What is this?" asked Rusty, cagily.

"What we agreed on," the man said quietly. "They're names from the articles we read, every single one."

Without being asked to, this time, Rusty pulled the laptop over and went from tab to open tab, looking at the articles again. The first time through he hadn't read them in depth, scanning them instead for the information he wanted – but now he was looking for something else. As his eyes wandered anxiously over the words, the vague suspicion began to turn into an icy fear that settled in the pit of his stomach.

The names on Dr. Joe's cards weren't civilians.

He glanced at his stack of note cards, and at Dr Joe's much larger one. Then he looked at the man again, and his lips pressed together, his brow creasing in a fearful frown.

"What are you saying here, exactly?"

The therapist let out a long breath, his formerly lighter expression growing serious. "I'm not saying anything," he clarified softly. "The purpose of this exercise was to see to what extent you can evaluate the situation you're about to enter. And for us to discuss whether you think you're equipped to handle the … risks… it might entail."

Rusty's jaw clenched.

"This isn't – I didn't – you said the risks to me!"

Dr. Joe clasped his hands on the table. "They're all risks to you," he returned, "in that anything that happens on that police operation can impact your focus, your decisions and your behavior on the spot, and ultimately your subsequent well being – I see you're shaking your head," he said seriously, "so alright, if you disagree with me, if you tell me that whatever happens during that action, you'll be able to handle it and keep your head in the game, then I'll put that in my report right now and we don't need to discuss anything any further."

He paused and waited, giving the boy an attentive look. Rusty's cheeks were flushed, and he was instinctively pushing back in his seat.

"I can… I…" He flinched visibly at the sight of someone else appearing in the doorway.

Having come in search of the boy, Sharon was surprised, when she rounded the corner, to find him accompanied. Her eyebrows rose slightly. "Oh! I'm sorry – I didn't realize you were still here, Dr. Joe. I thought you were…done…at…"

Her voice trailed off as she noticed Rusty's expression, that had gone from wary to wide-eyed, tearful, downright horrified, and Sharon froze on the spot, because the last thing she'd wanted was to interrupt their session, and what had she done, and would it be better if she left…? Rusty was shaking his head, his lips parted slightly, and his expression was almost enough to cause tears to come to her own eyes.

"I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt…" She backed up unsurely, wavering between the wish to remove herself from the room, since her presence was obviously distressing Rusty, and her inability to leave him looking like that…

She turned a helpless gaze on Dr. Joe, who with a slight nod and a small hand signal told her to stay, but Rusty was still looking so horrified to see her that she didn't know what to do…

"Captain, SDPD just faxed us their information on our suspect, and you're never gonna guess…"

Lieutenant Provenza also trailed off, noticing the Captain's very obvious cringe at the sound of his voice. The scene he'd stumbled on was looking pretty grim, and he glanced from Raydor's desperately concerned expression to the boy's wide-eyed, stricken one, and now the kid was directing that look at him, and Provenza had no idea why, because this time he was pretty sure he hadn't done anything...?

Rusty physically closed in on himself, his teeth gritted, shoulders tense, and he looked down at the stacks of note cards again, and abruptly pushed his chair back, standing up. "I…" He shook his head, as though trying to say something, and then he looked from Sharon to Provenza and back to Sharon again, and suddenly he directed a furious scowl at Dr. Joe. "This is seriously messed up," he growled, his eyes tearful, "what the hell is wrong with you!"

"Rusty…!" Sharon was aghast at his words.

He clenched his fists and stared down at the floor, and muttering a tense, "Excuse me", rushed out of the room.

"Rusty –!" Sharon didn't quite manage to stop him, and she turned to go after him, but forced herself to pause for a moment to get the facts. Her own gaze at Dr. Joe was furious as she demanded: "What happened!"

And with a sympathetic grimace, Dr. Joe looked down at the note cards, sighed, and met her eyes again: "You wanted him to be more aware of the dangers..."

A/N: Thank you for reading! You know I love to hear from you. I think I meant to write something more in this note, but I just finished watching tonight's episode and my mind is pretty empty except for the CANNOT HANDLE.