AN: This is one of my fave eps, and there was a specific scene that I always thought should've been addressed, so I came up with an excuse to address it. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review!

WARNING: There is discussion/implication of past self-harm, non-graphic.

Any plan that involved Malcolm potentially getting hurt was always a bad plan in Gil's book. The problem was, he couldn't just say that. The possibility of getting injured was inherent in police work, and Gil couldn't say that just because the kid was technically a civilian he wasn't allowed to take any of the same risks when his job required it. Malcolm was a profiler, and in order to get the best profile of Jake, the kid had to egg the man on and see what he would do. It was the right call. But it was Malcolm, and he could get hurt, so Gil's protective dad instincts insisted that it couldn't be the right call. He was an official consultant with the NYPD and it wouldn't be fair of Gil to not let him do his job just because Gil didn't want the kid to get hurt.

But it was a little more dangerous than other undercovers could be. Granted, this was barely an undercover, it was more just pretending for a few minutes, but still. This plan almost required Malcolm to get hurt. The whole idea was that the kid could see if Jake was a sadist or not by intentionally trying to make the man hurt him. Malcolm claimed it was the only way to know for sure, and really, he was right. Gil couldn't think of any other way to tell whether or not someone enjoyed hurting people other than by watching them hurt people to see if they were enjoying it.

"Sure you don't want me to do it instead?" Gil asked as a last ditch effort to try to save Malcolm from facing the wrath of someone who was likely an actual sadist.

Malcolm turned to him with that "for real?" look on his face that he had perfected as a teenager. "I'm the only one between us wearing gym clothes, and I've been told that I'm very good at acting arrogant and self absorbed."

Gil sighed and rolled his eyes, but waved Malcolm inside anyway. There was no winning against that kid.

Only waiting a single minute, Gil walked into the gym to see Jake and Bright on the mat. He stuck to the shadows, just to be sure that Jake couldn't spot him and make him as a cop. It wasn't a very busy time of day for the gym, so no one bothered him. He watched as Jake wrapped Malcolm's arm in a submission hold, and based on the look on the kid's face, it really did hurt. Gil forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. It wouldn't do any good to stop Jake before Malcolm could get the information he needed. A moment later, Bright expertly blocked Jake's hit and returned it with a palm strike that Gil couldn't help but be proud of. The kid was a fantastic fighter when he allowed himself to be. But Jake was pissed, and Malcolm's uncaring attitude was clearly only adding to the man's rage. Jake went at him again, maybe even a little harder than Malcolm was anticipating, and had the kid on the ground before Gil could even blink. His arm was twisted behind his back in a way that it would only take the slightest bit of added pressure to break his arm. Gil felt his own rage begin to grow. He began to walk towards them and make his presence known - he certainly wasn't going to allow the kid to get any more injured. But Jake wasn't done. He put Malcolm in a killer chokehold and started shouting to him about submitting. That was the last straw. Gil wasn't going to let this go any further. He had arrested too many men for assaults of various types who had started out just like Jake. But then Malcolm began to laugh and Jake immediately released him. The two exchanged a few more words before Malcolm finally brought Jake's attention to Gil. It was all Gil could do to only lift up the bottom of his shirt to reveal his badge, and not pummel the man into the ground for hurting his kid.

Gil took his attention off Jake and brought it to Malcolm. The kid was still on the ground, breathing a little heavier than Gil liked. He was in pain. The kid was maneuvering his wrist around, and poking at his palm as one would a bruise - complete with somehow being surprised when it hurt when you poked it. Gil would have to bring it up once they finished questioning Jake.

Just as Gil suspected, they didn't get enough on the man to arrest him, and Malcolm seemed pretty sure that even though he was definitely a sadist, he wasn't right for their case.

"Let's drop the case, just for a minute. You okay, kid?" Gil asked as they began to drive back to the precinct. Malcolm was still going on about the case, up in arms that the ex wife couldn't be their killer either, but Gil was more concerned about Malcolm himself.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted, just like he always did.

"So your wrist is okay? I don't need to take you in to get it looked at?" Gil confirmed. The kid had said that Jake had only nearly broken it, which, although an important distinction, didn't mean that there hadn't been damage done.

"Yeah, it's fine," Malcolm repeated. He twisted the joint around, wincing slightly, but using the full range of motion. "It might be a little sore for a day or two, but Jake switched to the chokehold before he really did anything that would require any medical attention," he said, as if that was somehow supposed to make Gil feel better.

"A chokehold isn't a good thing, kid," Gil reminded him. He hated seeing that. Gil didn't care how important it was to the case, he hated it. As the kid's de facto dad of the past twenty years, seeing him hurt was the absolute worst thing. So having to watch the kid get hurt and not be allowed to do anything to stop it was pretty much Gil's worst nightmare. And to make matters even worse, Malcolm was being hurt by someone who enjoyed doing it, by a man who literally got off on causing others, in this case Malcolm, agonizing pain. Gil gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Turning around to kill Jake for this unforgivable sin wouldn't help anything.

"Well not in this context it's not," Malcolm replied with a smirk and a knowing look.

Gil's jaw dropped open. That kid did not just say that. He absolutely did not-

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding, Gil, I promise, I'm kidding," Malcolm insisted, his barely controlled laughter forcing Gil to relax a little bit. "I don't- I'm kidding. I'm sorry, I'm kidding."

"Anyway," Gil continued, pointedly not mentioning the previous exchange. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked once more, since he was so rudely interrupted in his helicopter parenting the last time he tried to ask the kid about it.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"So what happened to your hand? Your palm?" Gil asked, not even taking his eyes off the road.

"Oh, that," Malcolm said, trailing off slightly. Gil could see him reflexively cradle his hand out of the corner of his eye. "I just burned it a little, it's not bad, I promise."

Gil believed that Malcolm was telling the truth about it not being bad, but he definitely wasn't telling him the whole story. He glanced over and saw the kid's palm, confirming that it was in fact a very mild burn.

"How did it happen?" he asked him. Malcolm remained silent for much longer than he would have if it was something that he didn't care if Gil knew about. "Bright, how did you burn your hand?" he asked again, turning to look at the kid a bit longer than he should as the driver.

"I, uh, I burned it on a candle," he said with a shrug. But the burn was in the middle of his palm.

"Why were you holding your palm directly over an open flame?" Gil asked, his heart in his throat. He hated where this was going.

"I'm not doing it again, I promise," Malcolm insisted, his promise much more pleading than his joking one of only a minute prior. He desperately wanted Gil to believe him. Gil didn't know if he could, but the kid clearly believed what he was saying was true.

"So why did you do it?"

"Well, I needed a way to very quickly and very briefly ground myself in reality and that-"

"And that is exactly what you just promised you're not doing again," Gil interrupted. He quickly pulled into a parallel parking spot and stopped the car. He turned to face the kid and give him his full attention.

"This isn't the same thing," Malcolm claimed, once again sounding like a petulant teenager.

"How is this not the same thing? Pain as a grounding technique, that's what you just admitted to," Gil reminded him, using the term that he remembered from some of Malcolm's worst years as a depressed teen.

"This was one time, I'm not starting again, I just needed it to stop," Malcolm said. He was staring up at Gil liked a kicked puppy, and suddenly Gil hated the LeMans for making it much too awkward to pull the kid into his arms and hold him.

"But that's how it starts," Gil replied, his voice much more gentle. No matter what was going on, he needed to be gentle. He couldn't scare the kid away from him. He couldn't risk that. "The very first time, it was just one time, too." They'd done this dance, they'd been through this before. But in the moment, Gil couldn't remember any of what he was 'supposed to' say. All he knew was that his kid was hurting so deeply and there was nothing that he could do about it. "You know I would do anything to make it stop, but you can't do this. This is not the way to do it." Gil had to take a deep breath and calm himself. He could break down alone later if he really needed to, but that had to wait. In the moment, he needed to be strong for Malcolm.

"I promise I'm not starting again," Malcolm repeated, his own eyes shining brighter with unshed tears. It was almost Gil's undoing. "I was just hallucinating again and I needed to make it go away and I knew that would work. I have no intention of doing it again. And I'm already talking with Dr. Le Deux about them so we don't need to talk about them."

"But did you have any intention of doing it again when you started the first time?" Gil fired back as gently as he could. He desperately wanted to ask the kid why he hadn't told him about the hallucinations before, but for the moment, he would honor the kid's request to not talk about them. Dr. Le Deux would be able to help Malcolm there much more than Gil could, but he wasn't willing to budge on discussing how the kid was hurting himself.

Malcolm remained quiet, clearly knowing that Gil was right, and there wasn't any way he could spin this or convince Gil that he shouldn't be concerned. Gil would've asked the kid if he needed to start checking him over, just to make sure that he didn't start again, but aside from the fact that Gil didn't have right to do that, it wouldn't work. If Malcolm was determined enough, he would.

"You're scaring me, kid," Gil finally said. "Talk to me." Malcolm closed his eyes as one tear fell.

"I'm sorry, I'm not ever gonna do it again, I promise-"

"You don't need to apologize," Gil interrupted. The last thing he wanted was for the kid to feel bad about telling him. He slid across the bench seat to meet Malcolm where he was. He wrapped his arm around the kid's shoulders and pulled him close. As always, Malcolm leaned into the touch, letting his head rest on Gil's chest. "I just don't want anything to happen to you. I just want to keep you safe."

"I know," the kid muttered. "Next time, if there is a next time, I'll figure something else out. I promise I'll figure something else out."

"Next time, you call me," Gil said. "No matter what's goin' on, you call me. Day or night. I will always answer, and I will always be there for you. You get yourself somewhere safe and you call me."

"Okay," Malcolm muttered into Gil's chest. From where Gil's hand was, rubbing up and down on the kid's arm, he could feel his heartbeat. Gil could feel Malcolm's heartbeat come to match his own as they both felt comforted by each other's presence. Malcolm, hopefully feeling safe knowing that Gil was right there and was going to everything he could to protect him in every way from every thing, and Gil, knowing that he had his kid right there in his arms, safe and sound. "Next time, I'll call you. I promise."

"We're gonna get through this," Gil responded. "No matter what, we're gonna get through this together. I am with you," he said, trying to infuse his words with the gentle peace that he wanted to give Malcolm.

"I know," Malcolm said with a little more conviction in his words. He emphasized it with a squeeze of his hand where it was laying on Gil's chest, clenching the man's sweater. Gil didn't remember Malcolm putting his hand there and doing that, but he certainly wasn't going to push the kid away. Likely, it was a testament to their relationship, to how often Malcolm has sought him for comfort, and how they each have unconscious movements that they don't even realize until something brings attention to it. But as long as it helped the kid, Gil didn't mind in the slightest.

A few minutes later, Malcolm continued, "we should really get back to the precinct. We do still have a murderer to catch." He sat up more fully and turned to look at Gil with a smile. It was a sad smile, but a real one.

"Oh, do we now?" Gil asked sarcastically. "Because I seem to recall JT calling and saying that he and Dani caught the ex wife burying evidence?"

"She didn't do it," Malcolm dismissed with a wave of his hand.

Gil cracked a grin and pulled the LeMans back out into the busy NYC traffic. He wasn't about to stop worrying about Malcolm, and he would be religiously checking the boy over every chance he got to make sure he wasn't hurt in any way for the foreseeable future, but he hadn't been wrong when he said that they were going to get through it. They'd done it before, and they would do it again. Of that, Gil had no doubt.