Psyche Evaluation - Carmen/Chase

[Written in Chase’s perspective, by Chase/Carmen]

"Would you say that you get angry easily?"

All the time.  "No," I said, "Why do you ask?"

"It's my job, Chase, and I'll be the one asking questions.  If that's all right with you?"

Psyche evaluation.  Easily the most time consuming, waste of money in any organization.  

"He's usually honest," she made that excuse for me, "please, continue?"

I'd been skipping my sessions, so they gave me a babysitter.  Carmen didn't care much for it either, but she knew how to act, put her in the dirtiest of lies and she'd come out clean as a whistle.  

"Very well, you both recently had a difficult case, if I recall?"

You'll have to define 'difficult', nothing's ever easy.  I looked to my partner; her face told me to play along, so I went with it.  "It was tough."

"Good, good, we're getting somewhere," he nodded, it looked triumphant, I wasn't sure I liked that.  "Did you think the result of that case justified your actions?"

We're there again, he's asking if injuring a suspect was wrong.  Nice curve ball, I'm not hitting it, you'll have to throw something more direct.  "What do you mean?"

Carmen pulled her lips into a satisfied smile, something I said made her happy, that was nice.

Bennett paused his tape recorder.  "Listen, Chase, you know why we're all here today.  I'd like to make an official record. If you had been attending your sessions from the designated time, we might have avoided this."

Did he just say it was my fault?

"Dr. Bennett, you're blaming him?  That's hardly professional."

She called him out, for me... That was nice too.

"I'm not here to fight the both of you, but I need to either justify this report or risk the suspect suing us for maltreatment."

Carmen breathed, one of her long, thoughtful breaths.  I knew an idea was in her head by now, and she'd expect me to follow, but how?

"I was threatened," she said that so intensely, so soft and charged that I felt chills down my neck.

"Threatened?" Bennett asked with concern.  My God, he was buying this too, but when he turned to me, I realized the pure and simple amazement on my face might have given us away.

"It's fine," she gave a weak smile, touching my arm and instantly turning my clueless expression into a more defined shock, "I think we can tell Dr. Bennett."

I froze.  What else could I do?

"Rhodes said some things, I said some things," she continued, "and then he charged at me.  Chase intercepted."

That part was somewhat true... but she sure didn't look as scared when she called Rhodes a boot-licker...  I cleaned that up.

Bennett exhaled and relaxed back into his chair, enough body language to tell me this was near the end.

"I'm sorry," she was closing the deal, "I should have..."

"No need," Bennett stopped her, "You're willing to go on record if Rhodes makes a move?"

"Of course," she replied while I couldn't muster a nod.

Within minutes, it was over.  Somewhere outside I asked her what that was, and she shrugged.

"Research," she said.

"Don't do that again," I didn't want to sound ungrateful, but I'd hate for us to be caught in a lie.  I told her exactly that.

"I'm just being resourceful, Chase," she winked, I believed her, "Rhodes has a history and Bennett knows it.  Relax, for once."

I couldn't relax, but enough time passed and Rhodes never did press charges... I remembered looking at her as we left Bennett's office and thinking--This girl... was something dangerous.  I was probably right.