Disclaimer: A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom.
Rating: T. I always do T, unless I do M. But this is T, because it's only a conversation.

Summary: For my Vignettes series of short one-shots. In S6's "Indiana Shawn and the Temple of the Kinda Crappy, Rusty Old Dagger," when the museum director asks if it's possible to place a monetary value on his father's life, Lassiter immediately tosses off a number. Juliet seems unsurprised, but I think she might have asked him to explain it at some point. Also in that episode, when it seems Desperaux has been blown up, she snaps "Lassiter, pretend you're a person" when he's colossally insensitive to Shawn's sense of loss. Those two elements fostered this conversation. As this takes place, Juliet is with Shawn and Lassiter's waiting for Marlowe to get out of prison. P.S.: props to dragonmactir for giving me a clear image of Lassiter as a boy through her magnificent but woefully UNFINISHED tale, "The Rear View Mirror."

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Juliet watched Carlton pace the waiting room, judging him to be moderately even-tempered despite the delay in meeting with their witness.

In fact, she realized, ever since he began his who-the-hell-saw-that-coming romance with Marlowe, most of the time he ranged from un-cranky to nearly pleasant.

It was nice to see, if sometimes unsettling to those who didn't know him as well as she did. She hoped it lasted. Despite his... quirks... Carlton was a very good man and deserved his share of happiness.

They were there to interview an insurance agent who'd witnessed the hit-and-run of a mid-level drug dealer. The waiting room was accordingly filled with posters of statistics—some depressing—proving all the reasons his profession was necessary.

Carlton, apparently unimpressed, was currently half-frowning at the water cooler. "How long did the receptionist say we'd have to wait?" he asked over his shoulder.

"She didn't know. She said he was running late on an emergency assessment and would be in, groveling, as soon as he could."

"Hmmm." He came to sit across from her, long legs stretched out in front of him, possibly as relaxed as he seemed to be, although this was unlikely.

"So, Carlton... I was wondering."

One dark eyebrow went up. "About?"

"Three hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars." She'd been curious awhile and this might be a good time to inquire. Plus, she could blame it on all the posters emphasizing the value of lives, possessions and smiling people with shiny white teeth.

He glanced at her, blue eyes alert. "Where the hell did you want to go for lunch?"

"Uh, not lunch," she said with a laugh. "Isn't three hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars what you said your father's life was worth?"

Carlton's expression shifted to one of cautious understanding. "Yeah."

"I admit I'm curious as to how you arrived at that number. It's very specific."

Now he shrugged. "It changes every year." Seeing her puzzlement, he added, "Adjusted for interest and inflation."

"Oh. Wait, what? So it's not a life insurance policy?"

He scoffed. "Like either one of my folks had money for life insurance. And no, I don't have a contract out on my father. I'd do the job myself if it came to that."

She ignored the brief gleam in his eyes, because now she was really curious. "Then I'm confused."

Shrugging again, he got up and circled the room once before speaking. "When I was in school, one of my teachers started talking about the concept of intangibles—like truth, respect and honor—and how their value wasn't measured by monetary standards."

Heavy concept for a kid, she thought, but Carlton was probably no ordinary kid given what little she did know about his upbringing.

He said dryly, "Since none of those terms could even remotely be associated with my father, I got to wondering how they could be measured."

Eying her for a moment, he seemed to make a decision to tell her, and she knew before he spoke that she'd be keeping this private.

Slowly, he continued, "I came up with an arbitrary scale of dollar values—based on what a twelve-year-old would call big money—and made a chart of all the intangibles we never got from him. The birthdays he missed. Track meets blown off. Every card he didn't send, every no-show holiday, every nightmare he wasn't there to soothe, every encouraging word which never came out of his mouth. Graduations, skinned knees, the damned Tooth Fairy, you name it." He scowled. "Even my mother having to miss everything too because of her second job, because someone had to pay the bills and it sure as hell wasn't Daddy-O."

Juliet watched him, noting his eyes changing from Mediterranean blue to the chill of the Northern Ocean—and imagining what they must have looked like in the face of little boy forced to grow up well before his time.

Carlton kicked gently at the base of the water cooler. "If they were intangibles we didn't get while he was around, I assigned them even higher value, because it's one thing to ignore a birthday if you're on the other side of the world, but it's flat-out sadistic to ignore it when you're just on the other side of the damned house. "

He began pacing again, but it was more reflective than angry, and Juliet willed him to go on talking. Tidbits about her partner's childhood were few and far between, and to have his trust was... well, it was an immeasurable intangible too.

"He came back once long enough to get Ma pregnant again with Lauren. The stuff he missed after that?" There was bitterness in his tone now. "Like her first words? Premium value. He missed that. So did Ma, because she had to work. But I was there. And I was there for her first steps. Considered that one triple premium value. And everything I missed in my own life because I was raising my sister cost him double on top of what he already owed for short-changing her."

Coming to a stop by the water cooler, he shoved one hand through his hair roughly. Agitated. Remembering.

Wishing she dared get up and hug him—and the boy he'd been—Juliet managed, "You must have been—"

He cut her off. "I added to my chart every time some new intangible was lost. It's in a spreadsheet. Every year I update the values for interest and inflation. Three hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars is what he's up to now. It'd be more but after I turned eighteen I stopped including anything which only affected me."

That seemed wrong. "Your life still mattered," she said softly. "Your college graduation. The Academy. Your success at the station. Things he should have been there for."

Carlton waved this away. "The point is, that's how I got to the number. It's what his life is worth. Which is funny, you know, because at the same time, he's worth nothing." He looked full at her, the blue more flat as his bitterness receded. "Except as an ongoing reminder for me to work my ass off to be completely different."

Now she was on firmer ground. "You turned out fine, Carlton."

"Whatever," he muttered. "I do know I turned out better than either he or my mother expected."

"You turned out the best," she insisted. "I should know."

"Yeah?" His tone changed again, becoming a bit challenging. "You sure? Just the other day you told me to pretend to be a person."

"Oh, come on," she protested. "You were—"

"Robot Lassiter," he persisted. "I'm well aware of my reputation, thanks."

"Carlton, stop it. Desperaux had just been killed and Shawn was upset and you were being—" She stopped, not wanting to make it worse.

"An ass," he finished. "Callous. Insensitive. I know. No argument there." Yet he didn't sound apologetic. "It's just hard for me to understand the hero-worship of a thief and con artist." His cool blue gaze was shrewd. "It should be hard for you too."

Careful what you say, girl.

Carlton stepped away from the wall, moving slowly around the room but keeping his gaze on her. "Given who your father is, one might expect you to share this mindset."

She would not defend Frank O'Hara. "I wasn't suggesting you shed any tears over Desperaux," she said with a reasonable amount of calm. "I only wanted you to have some compassion for Shawn."

"Ah. Because if the positions were reversed, he'd have so honored your request to stop tormenting me."

Dammit, his sarcasm wasn't misplaced, but still. "Carlton."

"You know something Spencer has that you and I don't have? Something he's always had? Other than unmitigated gall and an addiction to pineapple and hair gel?"

Juliet felt wary. "What?"

He smiled coolly. "A dad who stuck around."

Damn. You.

"I'm not saying Henry did everything right, and I'm not saying I wouldn't like to pop him once or twice for accidentally creating a monster, but he was there, O'Hara. Every day, he was a father to your boyfriend. He tried. He stayed the course. He's still there now. You and I, we never had that."

Juliet had nothing to say.

"We had to rise above the bad examples they set for us. He ran away from every good example Henry set for him."

She remained silent. She refused to argue about Shawn's imperfections. It wasn't his imperfections which kept her with him.

Carlton had more. "Spencer's eyes light up around his biggest heroes—Desperaux, his crazy con artist uncle; hell, even Frank Damned O'Hara. He places his highest value on the kind of people you and I routinely try to put in jail." His slow pacing brought him near, and he stopped, watching her as intently as she was watching him. "I can't change one thing about my father, and you can't change one thing about yours. I just can't help but wonder—"

"Don't," she warned him, because she saw where this was going. "Don't."

Oh, but he so did anyway.

"If in some way you're trying to achieve with Spencer what you couldn't achieve with Frank."

"For God's sake, I am not trying to save Shawn," she snapped. "Are you trying to save Marlowe?"

She was instantly shocked she'd said it—but Carlton only smiled. It wasn't a smile which reached his eyes, but it was a smile.

"Touché, partner. Touché. Except Marlowe doesn't need saving from the choices she made, and she's more comfortable with the concept of honesty while sitting in prison than Spencer is while walking around a free man."

Touché, she echoed silently.

"Honesty. Another one of those high-value intangibles," he added mildly.

She could smack him right now. Twice.

The receptionist slid her window open and called out his name. Carlton glanced at the woman and then back at Juliet, and this time the smile did reach his eyes. "Don't take it to heart, O'Hara. Remember, I'm just a robot. When I'm not pretending to be a person, you can just ignore anything I say."

He headed toward the receptionist, humming.

Juliet didn't know whether to punch him, or his father, or the people who stupidly thought of him as unfeeling and oblivious to what was going on around him.

Or herself, for starting this conversation in the first place.

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