“So,” Anderson sat himself down in a cushioned and comfortable chair across from Grohm’s desk. His eyes much too preoccupied with staring at the extravagant office space, the full bookcases that lined the walls, the steps on either side the led to a more intimate looking strip of cases. “You underwent rather traumatizing experiences this last month.” Grohm walked passed him and picked up a folder that had been sitting neatly on his desk.

“How much did he tell you?” Anderson’s eyes wandered to the man before him as he leaned against the edge of the carved wood.

“He told me that you had been uneasy for months, and that you had been shot last month.” 

“That’s it?” Anderson almost sounded surprised that so little had been told. He found himself staring at the yellowy tan paper folder that was held oddly gently in the man’s hands.

“He also told me that you murdered the killer you had been hunting since November.” Despite having an inviting voice that dared Anderson to spill his nightmares in a slurry of rambles, his figure and looming presence couldn’t make him steer farther from the action.

“I did.” His head lowered as he leaned back into the seat, simultaneously he found himself physically relaxed yet violently uncomfortable.

“Tell me about that, about how you took a man’s life.” His tone was still so inviting. Anderson warred with himself, should he be doing this? What if he says something he regrets? Would this man tell Hanes about their conversations? “You have nothing to worry about, our conversations stay within these walls.” Grohm spoke, as if he was reading Anderson’s mind, as if his pale brown eyes looked right through him.

Anderson sighed, if he was honest the more he thought about it the more he couldn’t rid the backs of his eyelids of it. The sight of that man, disfigured by his own hands. That man, faceless left bruises on his knuckles that painted them green and yellow now. “It was self defense.” He stated rather bluntly, not failing to express how much he didn’t desire at all to be sitting in that chair.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t, though, one would be inclined to believe otherwise when the perpetrator had been left with a skull more concave than a face.” Those words melted into Anderson’s head, a skull more concave than a face. It echoed for a moment as his eyes closed and the fuzzy sight of his hands against the body came forefront.

Grohm’s head slowly tilted as he watched Anderson’s face stir, he could see the confliction, the forced regret, he could feel his uncomfort and anxiety. “He was going to kill his family, he did kill his family.” Anderson opened his eyes only for them to dart to the floor leftside of him. “He would have killed John- Hanes if I didn’t..” He paused, if he kept speaking he would let everything slip out, though, everything wanted to slip out. “I was prioritizing.” 

“And does prioritizing mean taking one’s life for another?” Grohm could see how close he was to getting it all out. In some sick way he wanted to hear in Anderson’s own words what it felt like to commit a crime so equal to the man who suffered the blunt force and violence that seemed to stay closed off and chained by his morals.

“It means protecting innocent people over a serial killer.” Anderson’s stern words teetered on the side of a hiss as he spoke.

“Innocence is a rare thing.” Grohm stated, the corners of his mouth twitching into a soft smile as Anderson exhaled roughly through his nose. “Are you innocent?” The question’s answer should have been simple. But what was innocence? Does it mean the purity of a child not yet tainted by the complexities and the mundane that drives some crazy.

“No. I’m not innocent.” Anderson thought about it for a moment, was he? Was he innocent? He didn’t believe so, but he didn’t quite understand what innocence meant to him.

“Why do you think so? If you didn’t commit a crime out of the need out of the desire to kill, are you not innocent? Innocent of your crime?” The way he phrased it, the desire to kill, it scratched and prodded Anderson’s ears like moths against the drums. 

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Because I-” Anderson rubbed his face and leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t feel, wrong. I didn’t feel regret, or remorse.”

“You didn’t feel as if you did something wrong, because you didn’t.” Grohm once again, simply stated.

“But I did do something wrong.” He was so close to telling this man, whom was virtually a complete stranger, everything.

“What you did was brutal, it was also passionate and in some way, intimate. The expression of untamed hunger for justice, for resolution. But it was not wrong. That man had murdered, mutilated, and carved people like roman statues. Each one a depiction of nature’s beauty in prey.” Grohm pushed his glasses flush to the nook of his nose with his knuckle. “He was flawed, and so are you. But one could kill needlessly, you, did not.”

Anderson couldn’t speak, because there were no words that came to him. Roman statues, they were made delicately with marble. This man that faced the brutal end of his hands made his statues with flesh and broken bone. “Being innocent, isn’t being innocent of a crime.” Anderson finally muttered.

“Then what is innocence?” Grohm asked, he set the folder down neatly on his desk, his hands clasped against the edge of the wood as his shoulders raised to support his weight.

“It’s…The life before you know the world.” He looked up at the man, feeling small and insignificant once again.

“Children, animals, birds.” He spoke with a sense of agreement. “Is innocence being a child? Is it being inhuman?” His questions went through Anderson’s mind like water in a forming river. 

“I think so.” He wasn’t sure, but it felt right to agree that yes, once you become painfully aware of the world, you are not innocent. 

Grohm watched Anderson closely, tilting his head as the man shifted in his seat. Was he this keenly aware with all of his patients? Is this what infuriated them? “Hanes told me you had been losing sleep.” 

“I have.” He was thankful for the subject change, however to now discuss the cause for his sleeplessness was something he wasn’t quite sure how he’d navigate.

“Is there any particular reason for this?” 

Anderson sat there in silence, his hands moving to hold his mouth and cheek. When he blinked, the visions of the man quickly flooded with the sight of the creature next to him as he committed the act. He felt the dark thick fluid against his skin once again, knowing now that it was the feeling of blood against him. He remembered feeling the fingers scratch at him as he gave into his most repressed wants, needs. “It’s a stressful job.” He opted for a simpler response.

“I can imagine, examining bodies contorted and malformed into pieces of macabre and gruesome art.” He kept the pale eyes fixed into Anderson’s.

He was quiet for a moment. He needed to let this work for him, he needed to try. Michael, are you going to try? He needed to let his mind be prodded and mended. “I haven’t been sleeping because, well I think I’m scared.” He spoke with a certain amount of tensity, as if speaking this through, letting it out of his mind and through his lips was harder for him than he would have hoped for.

“Why is it that you think you’re afraid?” Grohm leaned against his desk.

Anderson exhaled, sitting in a chair only four feet away from Grohm “I think…” He wasn’t able to quite put a word to it. Why was he afraid? Was he afraid at all? “I don’t actually know. I just, see them. I can’t sleep, I can’t think…” Anderson looked up at Grohm, he leaned back in the chair, his fingers locked together in his lap “I can barely do my job.” 

Grohm folded his arms “You put yourself in the killer's shoes, but you don’t have any problem bringing yourself back to reality. Perhaps there is something mental, going on?” 

Anderson shook his head, he leaned forward “I’m not crazy.”

“That is not what I implied. I only suggest you might be developing an anxiety or, paranoia.” He walked around the desk and sat down in the office chair, clicking a pen and opening a notebook. He asked a simple question “When did it begin, Michael?”