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The strikingly young doctor who greets them on arrival, dressed impeccably, and with a soft accent he can only place as vaguely european, isn’t what Harry is expecting after having to cross several states all the way to John Hopkins Hospital for the requested referral.
The school board had insisted on a formal assessment from a specialist paediatric psychologist after several concerning incidents at school. The latest being when Dexter had snuck in and been caught, quite literally red handed, dissecting a pig carcass in one of the pre med anatomy labs. Harry has been on enough hunting trips with Dexter to know exactly the kind of gleeful expression he had likely been donning.
No wonder the school were worried.
The doctor leads them from the parking lot, to a nearly deserted area of the hospital, exchanging polite small talk along the way, Dexter sticking to the pre-approved scripted answers exactly as they’d practiced in the car on the way up. They reach a small room containing a few chairs and large monitor when Harry is informed, in a rather blunt manner, he is permitted to observe the assessment via video link as per state medical laws regarding minors, but the accompanying sound feed won’t be accessible, typically only used for monitoring doctor safety with dangerous patients, of which, the doctor says confidently, Dexter isn’t.
Harry bites his tongue and only just manages to resist correcting the good doctor as he disappears with Dexter into one of the adjacent interview room, leaving Harry alone.
He allows himself a large yawn and full body stretch, before sitting heavily in one of the waiting-room plastic chairs, trying to work a kink out his back that painfully reminds him the drive up to Maryland had been long, fifteen hours long. The overhead strip lighting blinking slightly off beat does nothing to ease his bubbling tension.
Harry feels off balance, and already at a disadvantage with how everything has panned out so far. He instead turns his focus to observing the unfolding situation in front of him with an analytical eye. Even on the slightly grainy black and white monitor screen, Harry can tell Dexter is on edge, sitting stiffly, despite the easy smile he’s giving the prim doctor sat opposite him, only a desk between them with paper and files laid out neatly on it at perfect right angles to each other. The fact he can’t hear what Dexter is saying doesn’t settle Harry’s bristling nerves. Although at least this is somewhat familiar ground, Harry thinks, having had more than enough experience deciphering poor quality video in his line of work.
A rather bored looking twenty-something man in orderly scrubs bursts into the room, bringing a strong waft of cannabis with him, interrupting Harry’s train of thought.
‘Oh, sh-, sorry, these rooms weren't scheduled for use today.’ He says, trying and failing to discreetly hide something in his back pocket, confusion spreading across his face as he backs up.
‘There’s no sound feed, I need you to turn the mic on.’ Harry says as he stands up, using his best authoritative voice.
‘Uhh, I don’t think I’m allowed to-’ The man fidgets, eyeing the exit.
‘-I’m his father, and he’s barely thirteen, only a child. I really ought to know what’s going on.’ Harry states, giving the man an expectant look. With a heavy sigh and a shrug that says ‘I’m not paid enough for this shit’, the orderly shuffles over, leans behind the monitor tower, and a few moments later, Harry has eyes and ears back on Dexter.
‘Thanks.’ Harry adds, not looking away from the screen as the man all but runs out, the door closing behind him, alone once more.
Dexter’s somewhat monotone voice crackles through the speakers, and Harry recognises he’s finishing up the story of the time they went to see the Miami Marlins as a family, Dexter catching a wayward ball in the last inning, followed by a barbecue at the Figg’s where Gene had entertained Dexter by blowing smoke rings with his cigar late into the evening. It’s one of their most practiced tales, a truly wholesome one.
Safe ground.
Harry feels a swell of pride, Dexter’s doing great, if a little robotic in his delivery. No one would ever guess how much Dexter hates baseball, despises barbecued meat, and finds the smell of cigar smoke repulsive. He’s on top form. The doctor has been nodding along, head cocked to one side slightly, scribbling notes on his pad every so often.
Maybe this won’t be the disaster Harry has been envisioning after all.
The doctor pauses in his note taking, mid way through another of the pre prepared speeches, staring at Dexter with a guarded expression Harry can only see in profile.
‘I see your lips moving, but those haven’t been your words coming out, correct?’
Harry leans toward to the monitor, his heart rate speeding up, as Dexter visibly flinches, caught off guard.
‘No.’ It isn’t very convincing, even to Harry’s ears.
‘As fun as these trips down memory lane are, I would prefer to move this session along, and it’d be a lot more useful to talk to the real Dexter Morgan’ He says evenly. Dexter gives the doctor a dark look. If he’s disturbed by the death stare, he certainly doesn’t show it, carrying on the conversation with ease, as if they were still exchanging small talk, discussing Dexter's favourite colour (definitely not red), the weather, or the motel breakfast he’d had that morning.
‘This is a safe space, nothing discussed here leaves these four walls.’ He motions to the space around them.
‘I’m no fun.’ Dexter says eventually, blandly, his face expressionless. Harry recognises it as the truest form of his son, all pretences dropped.
Dangerous territory.
The doctor pauses.
‘Fun is a distinctly objective notion, is it not? One man's modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.’
Harry watches, breath held, as Dexter eyes the doctor warily for a few silent seconds as he writes, handwriting elegant loops across the page.
‘Why do you talk like a Shakespearian sonnet?’
The doctor hums appreciatively, giving Dexter a quick smile.
‘You use humour as a defensive cloak. It’s easier to hide behind, isn’t it, when one can’t always understand the finer complexities of human emotions and respond in kind.’
Flowery words aside, Harry can’t help but agree on that topic. A slightly odd sense of humour has been something Dexter’s developed in his social repertoire in the last few months. Harry’s been keen to encourage it, even if he isn’t fully convinced Dexter always understood why the things he says are amusing.
‘What does dae-dalian mean?’ Dexter asks, sounding the word out, nodding at the doctor’s notes he’s clearly been reading upside down.
‘It means duplicitous.’ The doctor replies without missing a beat.
‘What does-’
‘Do you always try to change the subject when faced with hard truths?’
Dexter open and closes his mouth.
‘You’re a weird doctor.’
He shrugs, apparently unaffected by Dexter’s honest words. ‘Tyv tror hver mand stjæler.’
‘Pardon?’
‘For someone so young, you’re awfully well practiced in presenting as normal.’
‘I am normal.’
‘Spoken like a true normal person.’ The doctor smiles, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He gently lies his ridiculously expensive looking fountain pen down at an exact 90 degree angle to the stack of notes, before shuffling the pages.
‘Oh’ The doctor exclaims softly, jerking his hand up to examine the tip of his finger. Even on the low resolution of the screen, Harry can see the thick dark drop that falls heavily to the paper, blooming out in a perfectly neat red circle. The fact that Dexter instantly zeros in on it, eyes wide, breathing hitched and erratic, oblivious to the doctor’s triumphant grin as he watches him, reveals far more than anything he could have said.
‘I like cooking.’ The doctor says apropos of apparently nothing, absently pinching his thumb to his forefinger. ‘I find it incredibly satisfying, to feed ones soul with the work of my own bare hands.’ Dexter, gaze still fixed on the red mark, doesn’t appear to have noticed the doctor is speaking. He waits patiently, before placing a pale hand over the stain, ducking his head to catch Dexter’s fixed eye line.
‘What do you like doing?’
Dexter blinks his focus back to him, and Harry can almost see the words processing in his son’s mind.
‘I play soccer.’
‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘It’s okay.’ His voice is wooden, stiff. ‘My Dad says it’s a good activity for me to do.’
‘But what do you like doing, what makes you come alive?’
‘Hunting.’ Dexter blurts, eyes darting almost involuntarily to the doctor’s hand, still palm down, for a split second. ‘I like-’ he clamps his mouth shut with an audible click.
The doctor gives Dexter another smile that makes all the hairs on Harry’s neck stand on end.
It reminds him viscerally of a shark.
‘I’m not trying to deceive you, just opening the channels for honest conversation.’
‘My Dad says honesty isn’t always the best policy in some situations.’
‘Hm, it seems your father says a lot of things. Perhaps on that topic I agree with him, but with me, I’d prefer if you told the truth. I’ll give you the same courtesy.’
Dexter cocks his head as the two lock gazes.
‘So, hunting.’ The doctor says eventually, flicking absently through the manilla file on the table, presumably Dexter’s previous psychologist and school records. Dexter sits forward, leaning over the edge of the table.
‘Yes. Harry lets me shoot animals.’ There’s a dark look in Dexter’s eyes, one Harry’s only seen a couple of times. It’s the look that keeps him up at night, the look he tries his very best to forget exists.
‘Harry? Your father?’
‘My foster father.’ Dexter says in a tone that sounds like an admission.
‘How interesting.’ The doctor says in a strange voice, as though that’s the most controversial thing that’s come to light so far. ‘Your…foster father…’ Harry doesn’t miss the tone of derision in the word, ‘knows you like killing animals? And he encourages it?’
Dexter nods.
The doctor places his elbows on the edge of the desk and steeples his fingers below his chin, running his tongue behind his teeth.
‘I know he doesn’t approve of it though.’ Dexter continues, shrugging nonchalantly. ‘I tried to not like it…but…’ He sighs, a world weary sigh that seems out of place from a child.
Harry decides he doesn’t like the smooth talking doctor one bit. Never met a psychologist he did truth be told, from the few times he had been mandated to see one after a particularly nasty case. Anger management problems indeed. These doctors in their sterile, clinical, black-and-white rooms had no idea.
‘Have you ever wanted to kill… a person.’ The doctor asks, sounding genuinely interested, no shred of disgust, deceit, or derision. His lack of concern tricks even Harry for a second, but then, he must have seen it all, he thinks, the broken, the troubled, the ones that can’t be saved from themselves. He wonders abstractly if he’s ever crossed paths with Brian Moser.
Dexter stares at the doctor, and Harry spends a brief few seconds wondering if the feed has frozen, before he gives a blink-and-miss it slightest incline of his head.
Harry can’t help but let out a groaned ‘please Dexter, no’ to the empty room, his mind flashing back, only a few years ago, where he’d asked the very same question. When his world had come crashing down, when he realised he hadn’t been able to save Dexter after all. He can almost taste the sea salt on his lips, feel the light breeze on his face, the hot sun on the back of his neck.
‘It’s not-I’ve never wanted to.’ Dexter’s frustrated voice brings Harry out his reverie, barely louder than a whisper, a hushed confession.
‘Is it more than that then, Dexter?’ The doctor’s voice is so silky smooth, even Harry can feel himself being sucked in, fascinated by the scene unfolding in front of him.
Dexter leans right across the desk and says something to the doctor in a low voice that the video stream doesn’t pick up. Harry feels his heart rate spike.
The doctor hums lightly, giving nothing away as Dexter flops back heavily in the chair, looking crestfallen, chin hanging to his chest.
‘In that respect, we may be something of kindred spirits.’
Harry knows that trick well. The doctor is playing into Dexter’s insecurities, pretending he is just like him, understands him, should open up to him, making him feel like he can be trusted. It’s not a million miles from the techniques Harry uses with the criminals and informants in his own line of work during interviews, getting them on his side to get a confession or tip.
Dexter looks up, hopefulness creeping at the edges for a few seconds before he looks away, crestfallen.
‘There’s something wrong with me.’ He says matter of fact. Harry hears his own uttered words echoed back through the slightly tinny speakers. 'Josh from school says I'm crazy.'
‘You’re not crazy Dexter.’ The doctor says abruptly, his voice firm, ‘Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.'
Dexter looks up as the doctor leans across the desk, placing a hand either side of his shoulders, commanding his full rapt attention.
'The way we perceive the world around us is a gift.’
‘A gift?’ Dexter asks dubiously. The doctor hums enthusiastically.
‘Yes, it is a gift, to experience the world our way, by our rules. Naturally, one must learn to be aware of the consequences of our actions, to adapt so that others do not see.’
‘Oh. Do you mean the code?’
Harry closes his eyes. This is exactly why psychologists are so dangerous for Dexter, they talk and talk and Dexter can’t help but respond in kind.
‘...The code?'
His eyebrows arch high as he leans back slightly, arms falling from Dexter's shoulders.
This is getting too close to the crux of the truth now, too difficult to explain away as the mere ramblings of a confused hormonal teenager.
Harry knows he has to do something, quickly.
BANG
He bursts in with slightly more energy than he means to, the door unlocked and a lot lighter than expected. Dexter jumps and twists on the chair, giving Harry a guilty wide eyed look. The doctor barely even registers the intrusion, sits back down fully, still watching Dexter intently, fascinated.
‘What the fuck kind of quack doctor are you?’ Harry asks before his brain and mouth fully connect. Probably a bit rude, bit late to take it back now, so he continues. ‘Asking my son if he wants to kill people…you’re putting words into his mouth.’
The doctor stands abruptly, chair scraping noisily against the floor as he smooths his waistcoat.
‘These sessions are supposed to be confidential.’ He says calmly, inspecting his nails, still without looking at Harry.
‘Special privileges.’ Harry pulls out his badge and holds it out to the doctor, who finally looks over, glancing at the badge without expression.
‘Are you even qualified to be a specialist for something this serious?’ Harry asks, as he places his hands on his hips, aware it shows off his holstered gun. The doctor eyes it with disgust.
‘I assure you, I have the very best child psychological experience in this subject.’
Harry feels himself bristle, crosses his arms defensively.
‘What subject?’
The doctor shakes his head and gives a tsk tsk tsk with a dangerously knowing smile to Harry. He feels a bit like a scalded child, despite surely being twice the age of the doctor.
‘Dexter is clearly a complicated, special, child. Or are we going to continue to pretend otherwise?’ His eyes are shining almost unnaturally, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Harry swallows, raises his eyebrows.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He bluffs. ‘Dexter’s had a tough childhood, experienced things no child should, and has a very active imagination. He doesn’t need doctors encouraging these fantastical stories.’
‘Is that what you tell yourself?’
‘I don’t want him messed around with.’ Discovered. ‘You’re manipulating him.’
'Au contraire, I think it is you that is manipulating him. I can help him.'
'Like hell you can.' Harry splutters, seeing red, feeling his temper instantly boiling over. Images of Dexter being carted off to an institution, locked up and examined like a zoo specimen, flash before his eyes.
No. Not on his watch.
He's not losing another son.
‘It has to happen.’ The doctor hums dreamily, his gaze drifting.
‘This session is over. You’ll file a report with Dexter’s school that he’s fine and I won't file a complaint against your unconventional methods. If you have anything else to discuss, you can contact me directly.’ Harry holds out one of his work cards, usually reserved for reluctant witnesses. It’s probably best to avoid the doctor calling the home phone and risk Dexter picking up.
The doctor steps close, dark eyes boring into Harry’s, as gives him a bland half smile and accepts the card. He tucks it into one of his inside pockets with a slightly sinister level of precision that somehow feels like a threat. Up close, Harry can tell the suit is tailor made, expensive, the kind of ostentatious luxury Harry despises. It’s in stark contrast to the overly clinical room with its plastic furniture, white wash walls and overhead strip lighting.
The doctor makes no movement, except for his eyes, which follow Harry’s movements as he grabs Dexter by his shoulder, and all but frog marches him out, hating that he has to put his back to doctor, unable to shake the feeling he’s being watched.
***
It’s not until several hours later, the Virginian countryside flashing past in a blur, Dexter fast asleep with his head pressed against the window, that Harry realises the doctor never gave his name.
***
A few days later, the paediatrics co-ordinator calls, asking why they missed their appointment. As Harry tries to reason with the rather confused secretary, she explains there must have been a mistake, a doctor of that description isn’t on the staff roster in the psychiatry department, there’s no clinical notes logged, and oh... terribly sorry, his file is missing, how odd, there must be a administrative error, I’ll look straight into it.
Maybe it had been a bad dream, Harry thinks, as he replaces the receiver slowly, scratching at the stubble on the chin. There’d certainly been no follow up phone call, no report, no social services at the door to take his complicated son away. Even Dexter is mute on the subject, no mention of the whole affair, carrying on with whatever passes for normal in Dexter’s world.
But the words play in Harry’s mind at night.
He’s figured out the significance of the doctor’s last words.
They weren’t the doctor’s at all, they were Dexter’s.
It has to happen.
A bad dream, he tells himself.
Everything will turn out fine.
He sure hopes so.
It has to.