Fear

"Alright," said the secretary, scribbling something down on her pad. "This is your current address and correct birthdate?"

Chase glanced down at the form she handed him and nodded. He couldn't decide if he cared for this place or not. It had taken an hour for them to get to him, and while that was gratifying in the sense that he really didn't want to talk to the doctor, it did leave him stuck in a very confined office for a long time.

You need to calm down, he tried to tell himself. These people have no reason to care about what's going on with you.

Then why were they so obsessed with everything about him? They were charting everything! Why should they care so much what he ate or how often he slept? And the questionnaire had asked about anxiety and depression. Wasn't everyone anxious and depressed? That was so stupid.

"Ok," said the secretary, making a note on the computer.

She didn't comment on any of his answers, and Chase wasn't about to bring them up either. However, she must've been making a note of it on his file.

"Doctor Kimble will see you in room 304; end of the hall on the left."

Chase nodded, still not saying a word to the woman and made his monotone march down the hall, trying desperately not to give away how incredibly nervous he was. His heart was thudding in his ears and he could feel his face was hot and flushed.

He entered the room and saw that the doctor hadn't yet entered, though he could hear someone speaking with another patient nearby who was presumably somewhat hard of hearing.

One thing that was a little comforting was that this room was not an examination room, but some type of office. There was a large wooden desk, and several books and files on the shelf. Chase tried to let that relax him, but his blood pressure continued to spike as his anxiety grew and he couldn't relax or wait.

Quickly as he could, Chase searched the room. He had no idea what exactly he was looking for: a camera or microphone maybe. His mind was just forcibly asking him to search for anything that didn't make sense being there. The problem was he had no idea what should be there and therefore couldn't tell what shouldn't. There were any number of things that might serve as a weapon, but the doctor was also going to prescribe him something that he was supposed to take, so poison would've made far more sense.

"Stop!" he called out, accidentally saying the word aloud. "You are not under attack here. This is ok."

He forced himself to sit down in the chair across from the desk, trying to breathe normally. He couldn't even recall how to breathe normally anymore. Instead he focused his attention on the very large circular clock on the wall to his left. The seconds ticked on, far slower than Chase felt they should be, but steadily all the same. After what the clocked deemed as six minutes or so, the door opened and Chase spun around, his body tense and readying itself for a fight.

"Mr. Martin?" said the doctor, examining what was supposedly the same chart the secretary had held. "I'm Doctor Kimble. I see you were referred to us by Doctor Shills. He says you're experiencing some fear and anxiety, and it means you're having trouble sleeping. Why don't you tell me what's going on there?"

"Not much to tell," said Chase, wrapping his arms around himself.

The man waited, but Chase didn't elaborate.

"Look Chase," said the doctor. "Can I call you Chase? The fact of the matter is that this is clearly a big interference in your life. You're an artist, right?"

Chase nodded.

"You don't leave your apartment for days on end, and you seem to have only a few close connections."

Chase shrugged.

"I'm an introvert."

"Me too," said Kimble, not unkindly. "But you can't completely close yourself off from the world."

"I got to church," Chase protested. "Go to stores, out to eat occasionally. Besides, I live with Justine now. I see her everyday."

"Right," said the doctor. "Miss Harper… she's the one who actually scheduled the appointment with Doctor Shills, yes?"

"What's your relationship with her?"

"Does it matter?"

Kimble sighed softly and poured two glasses of water, pushing one to Chase, which he didn't touch.

"Chase, I know this must be scary for you. Justine mentioned that you had some kind of break-in a while back and that it had a pronounced effect on you."

Chase scowled.

"The man pointed gun at me and would've killed Justine. Yeah… it got to me a bit."

"Perfectly understandable," said the doctor, taking a sip of the water. "But if you're still being affected by something like that…"

"I'm not."

"You can't sleep, and you're constantly on edge. Now, you're mentioning signs of paranoia. Chase, that's textbook post-traumatic stress disorder. Your brain is trying to defend itself form something that shocked you and it is having trouble distinguishing friend from foe."

"No, I'm not!"

"Chase," he said again. "You're exhausted, and snapping and everyone. I would really like you to at least try some treatment. If you try and things get worse, or you don't get better after a few months, we can change things around. Maybe you don't trust me, but you have to know that you can't keep going as you have been. You'll end up destroying yourself."

Chase let out a long breath and ran his hands through his hair trying to think. He couldn't deny there was some sense in what the man was saying. Like it or not, he couldn't keep going like this. Already his focus and his energy levels were shot to hell. He grew irritable too easily and had trouble focusing even during the day. He didn't trust the doctor, but he also knew that he didn't want to cause Justine more pain than he already had. Besides, the lying about the gun was bad enough.

"What would this treatment involve?"

"Well there's a few we can try. I would like to try some psychotherapy but I doubt you're really ready to talk to someone yet. So, for now, I'm going to prescribe you some prozac, and after a few weeks, we'll see if you're ready to talk to someone."

"And if I'm not?"

"Well there's a few things we can try. There's prolonged exposure therapy, but I don't think getting you more comfortable around guns is a good path right now. Likely some form of group therapy would be our next attempt. But there's not point in getting ahead of ourselves. One step at a time. Try the pills, please. If they don't make things better we'll talk about alternative medications. Talk to the receptionist and come back in about five weeks, alright?"

Chase nodded, taking the slip of paper the man handed him, though he still wasn't sure if he wanted to actually follow through with this treatment. After scheduling a follow-up appointment and heading out to the car, Chase googled some information about exposure therapy. Honestly it didn't sound all that different than throwing a kid in the deep end of pool to teach them how to swim. Still, if that was something that would help, he was already sort of doing that.

Ok, he wasn't going down to the ghetto and exposing himself to gangsters, but he was familiarizing himself with his handgun. It had become a habit of his to visiting a shooting range regularly and spend a while shooting at the targets. Somehow, the recoil of the gun and the flash of muzzle were more relaxing than lying in his bed at night. Maybe it was the control of the situation, or maybe it was because he wasn't being surprised by the gunfire, but it did calm him down. The side-effect was that he also was getting to be a better shot, which made him feel at least a touch more secure. If he did ever have to fire the handgun at someone, he felt confident in his aim.

It was just too bad it didn't help him sleep at all.

Twenty minutes later, Chase inserted the magazine and chambered the first round, switching the safety of his weapon off. Chase moved one foot back, using the weaver stance he'd been taught, letting his body utilize the position it had begun to remember. Finally, Chase lifted the pistol, taking careful aim at the target.

Breathe, he told him. Then hold a breath, pull the trigger.

Bang.

The shoot hit the second inner-most ring, and he fire twice more in quick succession.

Bang. Bang.

Two more holes appeared in his target, within an inch of his first shot. He couldn't help but imagine Big Charlie, his face stunned into silence at the holes Chase would've put in the man's chest. Twelve more times Chase fire the gun, and twelve more holes appeared in his target. He still was far from a perfect shot. Three of his shots ended up being too far to the right, but most of his grouping was pretty good.

He swept the empty cases into the bucket and began to reload the weapon, resetting.

All-in-all, after his hour was up, Chase felt a little more calm and a little more relaxed than he had going in. The one downside was that he was certainly going to get home late, well past dinner. Justine likely would be upset by it. More than once Chase had considered tell her the truth of where he went, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. So far he'd managed to excuse the time by claiming that he liked to find nature trails and go hiking. This was again, a half-truth, because he actually did sometimes go on this nature hikes, just not as often as he said he did.

Twice, Justine had accompanied him during a hike like this, the second time being more annoying than the first, because the first time would've been a visit to the gun range. Instead, the pistol had sat in the trunk while they'd walked along a trail near the river and back. Justine had never said anything about it, but she did seem to suspect that he wasn't being entirely honest about his trips.

Still, he didn't really know what the alternative was. It wasn't like he liked the idea of telling her that he'd bought a gun after they'd agreed not to and was regularly practicing with it. This had also begun to interfere with his time at the church. While Chase had tried to tell himself that it was due to his sleeplessness and anxiety, he knew better. In his heart he had no doubt that lying to the woman he cared so deeply about was poisoning his own heart and making him a harder man than he wanted to be.

Maybe taking the drugs the doctor prescribed really wouldn't be such a bad idea. Regardless, Chase knew he would ultimately need to tell Justine what he was really doing. Just… not tonight. This week, or next maybe, but not right now. After all, telling her right now would only upset her and he was still responsible for helping her with the methadone treatment.

Yes, he decided. He would tell her… eventually. Just not right now.

He got back at 7:23, and embraced her softly. So he told her about the psychologist and the prescription he'd been given. He agreed to fill it and even agreed to have her help him with the pills the same way he helped her. It made Justine smile. It made her happy, and it made his guilt worsen.