Disclaimer: Psych belongs to its creators and the USA Network. I'm not trying to make any money off it. The title comes from the Dire Strait's song "Romeo and Juliet"
Author's Note: Um, I'm still not over the finale. I'm working on it though, and this fic is just a step towards recovery.
The thing that all those romantic comedies didn't tell you, Juliet decided, was that sometimes baring your heart didn't work.
But then, no movie ended with the heroine running through and airport while a Coldplay song played in the background, only to have a conversation with the man of her dreams about bad timing. No one would see that movie.
Well, she had said that it wouldn't come easily.
She had been sitting on her couch for the past three hours trying to decide if she had disastrous-bad luck or just embarrassing-bad luck (there was a difference). Also contrary to the romantic comedy standard, Juliet was not drowning her sorrows in a tub of Ben and Jerry's, mostly because the thought of food made her sick to her stomach.
This, Juliet realized, was the problem with doing things without thinking them through first. If she'd thought about it beforehand, she would have remembered Shawn mentioning something about a date, seeming more excited about it than his usual plans. But no, she had just barreled into the concession stand and started talking without giving him a chance to let her know she'd just be making a fool of herself.
It made sense, what he'd said about timing. That was the hardest thing to accept, actually: that his rejection was completely logical. She thought it was their time, he knew it wasn't. The end.
Juliet knew that she needed to go to bed and stop thinking about it-- because even when you nab one of Santa Barbra's most notorious serial killers, the other criminals don't give you the next day off as a reward—but she was having a hard time getting motivated to do that.
She was seriously considering having a good cry (because if she had some sort of physical break from the situation, then she would get a mental one as well) when there was a knock on her door.
No one should be knocking on her door. Especially at 3:14 in A.M. If it was a robber, it was an extremely polite one. And insistent; there was another knock, and then another.
Juliet sighed and heaved herself off the couch. There would be nothing good on the other side of that door. It was probably someone's extremely late-night pizza being delivered to the wrong place, or something worse, like stupid kids who did not think ahead before pranking the detective who carries a gun. She looked through the peephole and wanted to groan.
It was Shawn.
Shawn Spencer was standing on her doorstep at 3:15 in the morning.
And like an idiot—an absolute idiot who should have been in bed, who should have put all this behind her—she opened the door. She didn't know why he was there, but it had better be good.
"Hi Jules," Shawn said, way too casually, "I was just in the neighborhood and I--"
"Shawn, what do you want?" Jules interrupted. She couldn't deal with this, him being at her house this cheerful. She looked past him and saw a familiar blue car with a familiar driver. "Is that Gus?"
Shawn looked behind him and said, "Oh yeah, I had him drive me over here. He only agreed because he wanted to give me a lecture on 'adult responsibilities.'" Shawn suddenly tuned serious and said, "We need to talk."
"We already talked, and I get it," Juliet said, suddenly very tired. "Bad timing, I understand."
"No, you don't understand." Juliet raised an eyebrow at that. Shawn sighed, "You know I'm not good at this relationship stuff. I'm horrible, actually. That's why Abigail is important."
"I know," Juliet cut in. "She's the one who got away."
"But she's more than that," and as he said, Juliet felt her stomach churn. It was stupid, but she wanted to be something more too. "I've never been in an adult relationship," Shawn continued, "And I'm probably going to mess this up. A lot. But I'm going to learn from it, and I really want to, because I don't want to mess things up for you."
The conversation suddenly went somewhere that Juliet didn't expect. "What do you mean?"
"Come on Jules," Shawn sighed. "You know me, I screw things up. Especially with things that are new to me. And I'd rather get all that out of the way now. When it's our time," --Juliet couldn't help the flips her stomach did when he said that, and the look on his face didn't help that-- "I'll be ready. And I'm not saying that you have to wait around for me in a convent or a tower or anything," he added quickly. "Be with who makes you happy, even if it's not me. But I'm really going to try." He took a deep breath and said, "I want to be so perfect for you, Jules."
And then he moved closer to her, his hand reaching out to touch her arm and the way he was moving his head she was pretty sure that he was going to kiss her and even though this was that "messing up" thing that he was trying to avoid, she wouldn't mind if he kissed her, not really—
A very loud honk from Gus's car made them jump apart from each other. Juliet looked over Shawn's shoulder to see Gus glaring at them from his car.
And with that, the moment was effectively gone. Shawn awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and said "I think I'm going to be getting another lecture."
She didn't really know how to respond to that. "I'll see you around," Juliet managed to choke out.
"Of course," Shawn said. They kept each other's gaze for another moment before Shawn turned to leave.
Juliet watched him walk back towards the car. She knew that she should go back inside, that she should wait for a future that maybe they would have. But she'd also had a really crappy night. And she just needed some sort of reassurance.
"Shawn," she yelled. By the time he had stopped and turned around, she was already in front of him and without questioning it, she hugged him. It didn't take Shawn long to hug her back, his arms coming around her waist. She buried her face in his neck and took a moment to enjoy just being next to him.
There was another beep from Gus's car horn. When Juliet pulled away, she said "Tell Gus this one's my fault."
Shawn didn't say anything but just smiled at her. If Juliet was classifying his smiles—which she wasn't—she would say that this was her favorite. It made her feel like the only person in the world.
"I have to go," Shawn finally said. "My ride gets cranky if he's up this late," he added solemnly.
Juliet thought for a second about watching him go, but decided against it. She walked back towards her house and didn't look back.
Juliet may not have had the perfect Hollywood ending. She'd found something more interesting.