Chapter Text
He'd barely gotten down the steps when his phone rang, and Chaz assumed Mowbray wanted to catch him before he left the building. "Carolyn, you just caught me. I'm halfway to my car. What's up?"
He stopped, blinking, as the confusion started in his eyes and migrated outward across his face. "He's what? For what? No, that--" With a frustrated sound, Chaz turned and started back up the stairs, wet socks still squishing in his boots. "Hold that thought. I'll be in your office in five minutes."
Two of those minutes were spent detouring past the vending machine with the Lunchables in it. Not as calorically dense as the lemon pies by Mowbray's office, but he needed something to relieve the aftertaste of the Cadbury creme eggs he'd taken off Lakeland, and lemon pie was just going to make it worse.
Mowbray's door was open and he knocked on the doorframe. "Tell me this is another system glitch."
"Is that what we're calling him now?" Dr. Mowbray snorted as she tapped away on her computer, and then paused and blinked. "Wow. That was very unprofessional of me. I'm sorry. I'll stop." Then she spun her chair and looked at Chaz. "So, apparently, Shadow has behaved 'aggressively'," she only barely managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice and her fingers free from air-quotes, "today, with enough incidents to warrant a call to, well, you. I thought it was better to call you now than when you were half-way home."
"Carolyn, I'm technically a consulting psychologist. You can be as rude about the staff as you want to be. Especially if we're talking about Markham. I assume we're talking about Markham? Because I'm pretty sure no one else could piss Shadow off enough that he'd be anything like aggressive." Chaz paused, chewing on the edge of his fingernail, and then slid into a chair beside the desk, absently setting down the food he meant to eat. "Unless they were running, but since you haven't mentioned anyone getting eaten..."
"I promise you that if someone were getting eaten, I'd be a little more upset. Probably. But no, it was Markham. I'm pretty sure I don't consider anyone else a glitch here. Ahem. Anyway, Shadow became, uh. Well, according to this, verbally aggressive at him, more than once, and then got a bit nasty with housekeeping when they got into his room to do the daily clean." Mowbray blew a lock of hair out of her face. "And since it was an officially documented complaint, I have to deal with this. Even if it is mostly Marcus."
"Weird. Especially that it's just happening now." Chaz stared into space, for a long moment, then shook his head. "Do we have any idea what this was about? I mean, I'll be glad to go down and talk to him about it, but do we even know what he was upset about? 'Cause some things, we can change, but other things..." He sighed. "He's not going to be happy until he can go outside, again, and I really hope it's not that, because I can't fix that."
Mowbray shook her head. "Incident report just says that Dr. Markham offended him - 'Patient states that Dr. Markham was offensive and would not be tolerated in his room.' is what's in the notes as the cause, but there's no clear detail. The verbal aggression was... I guess Shadow started getting snappy, maybe cursing at him? You'd think Marcus would've gotten used to that by now. I'll get more in a bit, I'll ask him what even the hell was going on there." She leaned back and rubbed her temples. "I'd really like it if I could have just one peaceful day here, just so I could catch up on paperwork, maybe take my lunch break at lunch..."
"Staffing problems," Chaz reminded her. "If Idlewood actually had enough staff, you'd have time for paperwork, lunch, and golf. Best I can do is new software, though, and the guys are still working on that." He stood up and offered his hand to Mowbray. "I'll go talk to Shadow. And I'll call a few people who have worked on me, and see if I can interest them in at least consulting, here. Smaller patient load, no HMO bullshit... I'm sure there are some advantages."
He had to joke, because the reality of it was just too horrifying. They couldn't get anyone to work here, because of those few people who had the clearance, even fewer were willing to work on the site of a massacre executed by the patients, some of those patients still alive and in residence. And who the hell was he to ask, when he wouldn't do it, himself? But, he was a consultant, at least. He was here all the time. He'd designed the most effective treatment to date. So, really, whatever else could be said, he'd paid his dues.
"Whatever you can do. Hell, throw Quantico washouts at us and we'll put them in security uniforms." Mowbray snorted and stood up, shaking Chaz's hand. "One day I'll get back on the golf course and show everyone how bad I am, again. But enough of my whining! Go see Shadow. It could just be he's having a bad day, we all get them. And if it's something more, he's more likely to tell you than me."