Chim was waiting for her when she got home, which she probably should've been expecting.
"I hear you've had quite the day at Dr. Wells' office." He said as soon as she sat down at the table with him.
Karen was out at the park with the kids, so they had the house to themselves, which Hen was grateful for.
"I did." She confirmed.
"That's funny," he said, and clearly he was confused and frustrated, "considering she's not your therapist."
"She isn't, but she's Buck's" Hen replied.
"So what?" Chim asked, voice getting louder, "he asked you to be there or something?"
"No," she replied, keeping her voice level. It was about time they had this conversation, she'd let him wallow in his feelings of betrayal and anger long enough, "He didn't even know I was coming."
"I don't get it." Chim continued, "It's a complete invasion of privacy on Buck's part, and now you're what? Helping him?"
Hen rolled her eyes, "He isn't invading your privacy, he can't see or hear you during your session."
"So then what the hell is he doing there?" Chimney replied, throwing his hands up in the universal sign of frustration.
"He's protecting you." Hen replied, voice rising a bit in exasperation. It was honestly getting ridiculous how blind the others were being.
"From what?!" Chin exclaimed.
"I don't know." Hen replied, evening her voice out again.
"So then how do you know he's 'protecting us'?" he asked, making air quotes.
"I don't have to know what he thinks the danger is to know what he looks like when he's in guard dog mode." She snapped back, "Neither would you, if you'd take a second to think about it."
"I don't get it." Chim said, deflating a bit and Hen sighed.
"Fine, then I'll spell it out for you." She said, "When we got our therapist assignments, he asked to switch. He said she wasn't a good therapist, that he didn't trust her, and that none of us should see her."
"I know I was there." Chim said, waving his hand in a go on fashion.
"It was strange for him to do that. He's in the doghouse and he knows it." She continued to explain, "He's been doing the extra chores, he's been man-behind, and you all have been giving him the cold shoulder. Yet the only time he's said much of anything was to apologize, he hasn't spoken up at all and he hasn't complained. Not until the therapist assignments."
"Ok, so it's strange." Chim admitted, "but I still don't get it."
"Something happened, something bad happened with that therapist, he was practically panicking at the table." Hen continued.
"Or it didn't!" Chin butted in, "We don't know that!"
"We do." Hen butted in, "Dr. Wells has clearly agreed to some sort of arrangement with him. She also clearly doesn't like him, and if that isn't an admittance of guilt then I don't know what is. Plus, whatever it is that happened, it's gotta be bad for her to have agreed to let Buck do all this."
Chim paused and considered this. "And you really don't know what it is?"
"No, I don't." Hen replied.
"But you're going to find out?" He replied, knowing her too well.
"I'm going to try." She responded, "Now, I'm going to go meet my family for dinner, and you are going to go home and think about what I've told you."
Chim scoffed, but nodded, grabbing his keys and heading out the door.
................................................................
"I switched my therapist." Chimney said to Buck while he changed into his uniform in the otherwise empty locker room. "I just thought you might want to know."
Buck shot him a look at that. He thought there might've been some progress made, when he saw him for his session yesterday, but he hadn't been expecting this.
"Ok," Buck replied carefully, "Thank you."
He wasn't really sure what else to say, and Chim clearly wasn't either, although he clearly did have something to say anyways. After a few awkward moments of silence, Chim finally found his voice.
"Look, I talked to Hen yesterday, and she pointed out some things that I hadn't picked up on." He explained, shifting his eyes between his locker and Buck, "And I guess what I mean is, sorry."
"What?" Buck startled, he hadn't been expecting an apology, "Chim, you have nothing to be sorry for! I was the one who-"
Chim cut him off before he could continue, "Look the lawsuit was shitty, ok, it was. But I was too angry to really consider both sides of it." He explained, "And yeah, I still think it wasn't a great move on your part, but I can forgive you. I do forgive you. Plus, you've clearly been bending over backwards to help us, even though we've been too stupid to notice that that's what you're doing. So I'm sorry too."
"Wow, ok, uh." Buck stuttered out, not having expected any of that at all, "You still don't have to apologize, but thanks, I guess."
"So we're good?" Chin asked, and Buck couldn't nod quick enough, "Great, cause I'm starving."
..............................................................
Eddie walked into his next appointment with a spring in his step. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this before, he just needed to schedule his appointment for when Buck was at work. He almost couldn't believe it was really this simple, as he checked in at the front desk. He waited his turn patiently in the waiting room, fighting a pleased grin off his face.
He'd never imagined he'd be this excited for a therapy session, after all it wasn't like he was actually going to open up or anything. Just chat about the weather or the latest baseball game or whatever other useless thing he could manage.
He should've expected it wouldn't be that easy though, Evan Buckley was tenacious if anything. So he really shouldn't have been that surprised when he opened the door from the waiting room to the hallway only to find Maddie Buckley standing there.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" He exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"
She met his eyes evenly, "Buck had to work."
"Right, I know that," he responded, frustrated beyond belief, "Hence the reason I scheduled my appointment for today. So what are you doing here?"
"Buck used a sibling card." She shrugged as if that explained everything.
"And what the hell is a sibling card?" He asked, running a frustrated hand through his hair.
"We each get two a year." Maddie explained, "If you use one, you get to ask the other for a favor no questions asked."
"Yeah, of course you two have something like that." Eddie rolled his eyes and moved past her into the office.
...................................................................
"Yeah, Maddie said he was so pissed." Chim told them.
The three of them, Buck, Hen, and Chim were leaned outside the wall of Dr. Wells' office. Buck had just finished his session and now they were just waiting for Bobby to show up. No Eddie today, seeing as he'd scheduled his while they were working the day before. As ridiculous as this was, Buck couldn't say that he minded the company, or the support the other two were showing him.
"I can only imagine," Hen laughed, "he thought he'd outsmarted us."
"Thank god for sibling cards." Buck added with a chuckle of his own.
Just then the door to the hallway opened and Bobby stepped through and then froze. "Ok, now this is just getting ridiculous."
They all did their best to keep straight faces, and just about managed it. As shitty as this whole situation was, Bobby's face made him look almost constipated and it was really fucking funny.
Besides it was easier to focus on his teammates being here or the funny face cap was making than it was to focus on why he was here and who was behind the door he was parked in front of.
"Good afternoon, Cap." Chim replied, "Fancy seeing you here."
"At my own therapy appointment?" Bobby replied dryly, glaring at the three of them, then walking past them and into the office. As soon as the door was shut behind him, they all started snickering like a bunch of high schoolers.
After a minute they cooled down and Chim asked the inevitable, "So what're we watching for?"
"You'll know it if you see it" hen replied before Buck could, good natured sarcasm clear in her voice.
"Oh, c'mon!" Chim whined, "That's all we get?"
"Yup." Buck replied with a grin of his own.
"We're going to figure it out, right?" Chim turned to Hen, "We're going to crack the case of the sketchy therapist?"
"If by that you mean Hen will," Buck quipped back before Hen could, "Then maybe, she's definitely smart enough to at least stand a chance."
"Hey!" Chim sqwauked, and Hen just laughed.
...............................................................
"This is so wrong!" Chim hissed as they closed Bobby's office door behind them, "Seriously this is breaking so many rules!"
"What was it you said?" Hen mused as she opens up Bobby's laptop, "you wanted to 'crack the case of the sketchy therapist'"
"Yeah, but this is breaking-" Chim started, huffing indignantly.
"So many rules, yeah, yeah." Hen said, "Holy shit, Bobby is such an old person, look at this!"
Chim looked at where she was pointing to the sticky note that he had on his laptop with the password written on it and snickered. "No way!"
Hen chuckled and typed it in, sure enough it worked. "Alright, no complaints filed by Buck against her." Hen narrated as she looked through the records, "He was sent to see her by Bobby on, write this down, October 14th 2016, and he only had one session and then he was cleared for duty."
"That's all there is?" He asked, having scribbled the date on his arm with one of Bobby's pens.
"That's all there is." Hen confirmed, and just then they heard the trucks pulling back into the bay.
"C'mon, let's go!" Chim said as she exited out of all the tabs and shut the computer.
They quickly made their way out of the office and towards the stairs just as B-shift was hopping out of the trucks.
"Wilson! Han!" Vasquez called upon spotting them.
"Follow my lead!" Hen hissed to Chinney, who was likely to blow it for them with his visible anxiety.
"What're you two doing here?" The man asked, with a friendly wave.
"Forgot my charger." Hen explained with her own wave back, "Figured we'd stop by and grab it on our way to dinner."
"Ah, well have fun!" He replied, already heading for the showers.
They continued out to Hen's car and finally let out the breath they'd been holding as soon as the doors had closed.
"Drive! Drive! Drive!" Chim chanted, and Hen rolled her eyes.
"I'm going," she huffed, and pulled out into the main road heading for her house.
It was a short drive with little traffic, thankfully, and the two of them hurried into her house as soon as the car was off. Hen grabbed the white board, markers, and tape while Chim disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of grapes. Hen raised an eyebrow at him and he just shrugged unapologetically.
"Ok, so we're pretty sure that whatever happened, happened on October 14th, 2016." Hen said, writing the date in big bold letters at the top of the board. "So what do we know about that time period?"
"It was Buck's probationary year." Chim said, popping a grape in his mouth. "And also pre-Abby I'm pretty sure, but, like, just barely before her. Like, they'd technically met at that point cause he'd already been fired but they weren't a thing yet."
Hen nodded and drew a line branching out from the date and scrawled 'probie buck' next to it, and next to it 'pre-Abby', "which also means..."
"Buck 1.0," Chim finished, nodding and Hen drew another line off of 'probie Buck' and added that piece of information.
"Ok, and we also know that Bobby mandated the appointment." Hen added, drawing another line off the date. "But why?"
"Wait a minute!" Chim explained, pulling out his phone and tapping away, "Aha! This was a week before!" He said shoving the news article in her face.
It was the one from the fair they'd had a call to almost three years ago, the one where the boy had fallen from the rollercoaster. "Devon." She breathed out.
That made perfect sense. It'd been Buck's first loss on the job, and he hadn't been doing too well with it. Of course, Bobby had mandated him a therapy appointment. She connected Chim's phone to the printer and printed out the article, taping it to the board where she'd written Devon's name under the date.
"Ok, what else?"