Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I do not own any of the characters of Psych and am not affiliated with the show or USA Network. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

When the Hammer Drops by Okapi

CHAPTER 1

The dark blue car was nearly hidden in the shadows of the suburban street. It was the deepest hour of night, before the turn to morning. To any cars passing by at that hour, which were very few, it appeared to belong to a resident of the neighborhood. On closer inspection, though, two figures could be seen within, which was a wholly unusual thing for such a place. People there just didn't sit in cars on the street overnight. But then, neither did they expect their houses to be ransacked by thieves. And it was exactly that occurrence that the two police detectives in the blue Crown Vic were hoping to prevent. All-night stakeouts, however, take a toll, and Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara were both feeling the effects. It didn't help that they'd been on duty most of the previous night in the process of making the final arrests in a big drug case. They'd been finishing their paperwork on that case and anticipating a much needed night off when the call had come in to the station. It was a strong tip on a rash of home invasions which they'd been working on for weeks. The leads had all grown cold on the case, so a new, promising tip was welcome in every way except for the timing.

Juliet O'Hara sighed and tried to stretch her legs again, which she was able to do well enough in the spacious vehicle. Still, she couldn't quite work out the kinks and discomfort that had more to do with lack of sleep and abundance of stress than they had to do with her seated position. She sighed again and glanced at her partner. Carlton Lassiter was sitting back with his head against the headrest, staring at the house they were watching with half-lidded eyes. He'd long ago thrown his tie and suit coat into the back seat. Juliet had always wondered if he was able to sleep with his eyes open on these long stakeouts, but she'd never been able to actually catch him at it. She reached for the thermos that was on the seat between them.

"It's empty," he said quietly without moving his head or even his gaze.

She sighed again, feeling a flash of irritation. It was getting to the worst part of an overnight stakeout for her. The hours between 4AM and 6AM were always the most uncomfortable, leaving her feeling frustrated, achy, slightly ill and wanting nothing more than to be home in her bed sleeping. If the coffee was gone already, the hours were only going to be harder to endure.

"I'm sorry," he said, still unmoving. "I drank more than usual. It's been a really long couple of days."

"No kidding," she said with exasperation, cursing the suburbs for their lack of all-night coffee shops within walking distance. "Next time I'll try to remember to bring two thermoses."

"And more snacks," he said. He finally moved, sitting up and reaching out for the steering wheel as he stretched his arms.

"That's your department," she quipped.

He cleared his throat and glanced at her quickly before looking away again. "Um, listen, O'Hara. There's something I've been meaning to ask you about."

She raised her eyebrows and turned slightly in her seat to look at him.

"It, uh, has to do with the Mallon case."

She wrinkled her nose, remembering the case involving a deadly virus and a doctor who had tried to release it on the public. She herself had been exposed, but hadn't contracted the virus, luckily. "What about it?" she asked apprehensively, wondering why he was bringing it up so seemingly at random.

"Well, I was thinking about the briefing," he said, glancing at her. He seemed uncomfortable. "You know, the briefing you ran."

She remembered the briefing. He had tried to give her advice on how to run it, but in standard Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective fashion, he had managed to sound fairly condescending in the process. And then he had proceeded to talk over her while she was trying to speak to the other officers. She'd been quite irritated by it at the time, but she was over it now. Apparently Lassiter wasn't. Her partner could be fairly obtuse when it came to his effect on other people, but he was getting better about it, and more aware of when he was doing it. She'd been his partner for long enough to know that his behavior sprang more from a lack of social awareness than from actual arrogance, and that his focus on the law and on doing his job well tended to crowd out his concern for social graces like tact and politeness. He was improving in those areas, though, and she liked to think that perhaps her influence had something to do with it. Still, sometimes, he could be a total ass, and she'd just learned to endure those times and move on. And for those instances she couldn't endure, she'd learned that she could get away with telling him to "shove it." If he deserved such a rebuke, he generally realized it at that point.

"Do I really come across as pompous when I run a briefing?" he asked quietly as he stared at the house, his voice was tinged with both curiosity and a hint of apprehension.

She sighed, afraid that the conversation wasn't going to have a pretty ending. "Carlton, why are you asking this?"

He sat back and put his head on the rest again. "I don't know. My mind was just wandering and I remembered feeling that, maybe, that's what you meant, that day, but I'd never gotten a chance to ask you," he said with a small shrug.

"Can we talk about it some other time?" she asked, desperately hoping to avoid the topic, especially when working on 3 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours.

"Now seems as good a time as any."

She thought for a moment and realized that maybe the quiet, alien hour of the morning and the lack of sleep could make the discussion more bearable rather than less, so she dove in. "Okay, Carlton, I don't want to make you feel bad. But, yes, sometimes you can come across to other people..." she said with an emphasis on "other" and a vague waving hand motion to indicate the rest of the world. "...as being a little...pompous."

Lassiter's face scrunched up with a look of confusion, but Juliet knew her partner well enough to see the hint of uncertainty and embarrassment in his expression as well. She also knew that when he felt that way, he would get defensive.

"Well, it's not my fault if people can't..." he began, but then he seemed to second-guess his words. "I mean, sometimes I feel like I know what needs to be done and so..." He stopped and sighed. "I...hell...I'm not trying to be that way. Not really. I mean, I want people to do what I say, when I know what I'm doing and when I know, you know, like I said, what needs to be done."

"I know! Carlton, I understand, really."

"Is that what being pompous is? I guess maybe I am pompous," he said with a pout.

"No, it's not really what pompous is. You're not trying to just promote yourself when you come across that way...usually," she added the last with a small cough, as if clearing her throat. "I know and the chief knows and anyone who has worked with you for a while knows that you're trying to do your job. That's your first priority. Not self-aggrandizement, even if that seems to be what you're doing, y'know, to people who don't know you as well." She stopped herself, feeling that she was slipping into rambling and growing uncertain that she was making her point.

He grimaced and shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the house. After a moment he spoke again, getting to the heart of the matter that was bothering him, she suspected. "Do you think I'm pompous?" he asked with a neutral voice.

She sighed, feeling the regret that the conversation was taking place that she'd anticipated. "I was a little irritated that you didn't let me lead the briefing that day. When you do things like that, I think you're a little insensitive. Not really pompous."

His eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at her finally. "But I let you lead that briefing!"

She looked at him with one eyebrow cocked.

He stared back for a moment, mouth still open in protest as the wheels turned. Then he closed his mouth and cleared his throat as his eyes slipped to the side. "Um, well, I guess I didn't quite...what's the term?"

"Step back?"

He squinted and nodded, eyes glued on the house again. "Right. I could've given you a bit more room. And not talked over you," he said, voice getting quieter as he spoke. "Well, I see that now, and I'm sorry."

She smiled and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Don't worry about it, Carlton. It's water under the bridge."

He leaned back again and sighed heavily. They sat in silence for several long minutes, then Juliet glanced over and saw his brows knitted in consternation. She wondered for a moment what had brought on his sudden bout of introspection and self-evaluation. But then again, she'd been around him long enough to know that he had a streak of self-doubt that he buried deep under the bluster of his outward persona. It was in times like these, however, during all-night stakeouts or in the aftermath of tough, emotionally draining cases, that she'd caught glimpses of this tendency in him. She often wondered if she might be one of the only people who knew him well enough to see that side of him, besides perhaps his mother and his ex-wife. And maybe Hank.

She felt bad for his mood, but she didn't want to continue the prior conversation either. Then she remembered something and sat up straighter.

"Hey! Didn't you have a date with Lisa, the computer tech?"

He sat up straighter too and cleared his throat. His eyebrows rose and he seemed positive about the date, but there was also a hint of discomfort in his expression. "Um, yeah. Last week," he said, glancing at her only briefly before looking forward again.

She wondered why he seemed uncomfortable talking about it. They'd been able to discuss their dating habits easily enough for the past year or so, since his divorce was finalized. "Well? How did it go?"

He tilted his head and gave a half-shrug. "I think it went pretty well. She was very nice, easy to talk to," he said, then his brow furrowed. "Do you think she's a bit young for me?"

Juliet blinked and shook her head. "She's only six years younger than you, so, no, she's not too young. So what happened?"

"Well, uh," he cleared his throat again and sank down in his seat. "I think she implied that I was pompous."

"What? What makes you think that?" asked Juliet, shocked. She had talked to Lisa about the date before it happened, giving her some inside information about Lassiter in order to soften the blow in case he did something like telling her the dead clown story. Lisa had struck her as a woman with an easygoing manner and a dry and sometimes biting sense of humor, so she thought she might be a good match for Lassiter's black and white outlook on life and his occasionally sharp humor.

"She asked me if I was going to try out for the Thought Police."

"What?" Juliet repeated, aghast.

"Well, we'd been talking about police powers, surveillance, you know, the use of traffic cameras and things like that. I think she's not very happy with how common public surveillance devices are becoming," he said, then he gave another half-shrug. "I came down on the more positive side of that topic. I mean, security and traffic cameras have helped us catch a lot of bad guys."

Juliet sighed and shook her head. "Wow, that's kind of a deep subject to get into on a first date."

He nodded. "Yeah, I'm not sure how it came up. We were talking and joking around and then it just turned into that discussion. I guess I came across as heavy-handed. I mean, we talked about other things and still had a nice date. So it wasn't like she went to the bathroom and never returned or anything like that," he said with a grimace. Then his expression turned wistful. "It just had me wondering."

She understood now why he'd brought up the topic of the briefing and whether or not people viewed him as pompous. It was something that he'd probably been worrying about since the date. He looked faintly disappointed at the memory of the discussion with Lisa, and she got the sense that he'd really enjoyed the date until that point. She felt bad again and made a mental note to discuss it with Lisa. Maybe she'd misunderstood Lassiter's point of view. She would get her take on the date and encourage her to consider trying again. She sighed and sat back, feeling the small rush of alertness from their conversation leaving her too quickly.

"I wish there was a coffee shop nearby," she said mournfully.

He grunted. "Suburbs. Talk about Thought Police. I think there are community association laws preventing people from being outdoors past 9PM or something," he said dryly.

She snorted and smiled. "I wonder if we'll see the grass-length police come by when it gets light out."

"Probably right after the door-color patrol," he replied. She could see a small smile appear briefly on his lips, but then he sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "God I'm tired."

"Me too."

"The guy said tonight, right?" he asked. "It's not going to be 'night' much longer. I was really hoping this wasn't a crap lead."

"Me too," she repeated tiredly.

The caller had refused to leave a name and had only said that the "guys" committing the home invasions were going to hit again "sometime tonight." He'd given the address and had then hung up. They'd done some quick research and had found that the house in question was currently vacant, with the owner, a Mr. Ted Sommer, on an extended, month-long vacation. They'd tried to call him but had only gotten through to voicemail on his cell phone. The lead seemed really solid because the house had recently undergone some extensive contractor work while the owner was absent. They'd been suspecting the burglars were getting their information about and access to their targets through a contractor, either as workers or on the supplier-side, because all of the recent burglaries had happened to houses that had been renovated.

Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to narrow down the suspect list much beyond anyone involved in the renovations, because for most of the houses, the renovations were extensive and involved several types of contractors. None of the contractors were consistent across all of the burglaries, so the burglars were either getting information through a materials supplier or were day laborers. They had just been digging into those areas when their investigation had been put on the back burner in order to finish up the drug case they'd just wrapped.

"Well, maybe we can go home and sleep soon, at least," she said dreamily.

Lassiter just grunted. They sat in silence for another fifteen minutes, both getting dangerously close to the head-nodding stage, when something finally happened. A black, late-model pickup truck cruised slowly through the neighborhood, slowing as it passed the Sommer house. Juliet felt the shock of tension shoot through her body at the sight of it and could see Lassiter also jerk into full alertness beside her. When the truck neared, they both scooted down in their seats so they wouldn't be visible to it. Lassiter stared at the truck after it passed, then he turned back to her. Their eyes met, mirrors of pent-up anxiety and the excitement of a sudden adrenaline rush.

"Should I call it in?" she asked in a whisper, although there was no real reason for speaking quietly.

"Not yet," he said, watching as the truck turned a corner. He pulled out a notebook and wrote down the truck's license plate number. "Let's see if they make another pass first."

They waited another few minutes, the air in the car feeling suddenly electric. Then from the far end of the street the truck reappeared. Almost simultaneously, Juliet and Lassiter pulled out their weapons and checked them.

"Let's see how they set this up," said Lassiter, putting his gun back in his shoulder holster. They watched as the truck pulled to the curb five houses up from the Sommer house. Two men dressed in dark colored clothing got out and walked along the sidewalk with heads bowed and hands in their pockets. One of the men was wearing a ball cap with the brim pulled low and the other had a hooded sweatshirt on with the hood up. They glanced around suspiciously as they walked up to the Sommer house. After a moment, one of the men smashed out the window in the front door and reached inside, eventually getting it unlocked and open, then they both disappeared into the house.

Lassiter nodded at Juliet. "Make the call."

Juliet keyed up the handset and called the station for backup, giving the license plate number and describing the two men and saying that they had entered the residence. As she was talking, she could see faint flashes of light in the house as the men moved through it with flashlights. Lassiter shrugged off his shoulder holster and reached into the backseat for their vests, which he'd kept handy, just in case. He handed Juliet hers as she finished the call to the station, then he started to awkwardly put his on in the confines of the car.

"Backup will be here in ten minutes," she said.

He grimaced as he finished fastening his vest. "Okay, I'm going to go across now to cover the back yard."

"Right," she said, shrugging on her own vest.

Suddenly another car appeared driving up the street. Juliet and Lassiter exchanged a concerned look as the car reached the Sommer house and pulled into the driveway.

"Who the hell is that?" hissed Lassiter, slipping into the unnecessary whisper like Juliet had done.

"Accomplice?" asked Juliet with a confused shrug.

"What, he's just late to work tonight?"

They watched as a man got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Then he seemed to notice the broken window and took a step back for a moment, looking up and down the street.

"Holy crap, is that the owner?" asked Lassiter, aghast at the prospect. "I thought he was still out of town!"

"He shows up now?" breathed Juliet struggling to comprehend the horrible timing and with a dawning look of horror. "Oh my god, he's going inside!" She was thunderstruck that someone would notice a broken window in their dark house in the wee hours of the morning and would go on inside instead of walking away and calling the police.

Lassiter threw open his door and lunged out of the car. Juliet grabbed the radio handset and called in to the station again with a hasty update. She knew she sounded at least half-panicked because she was feeling the throes of full panic. When she finished she tossed the handset aside and jumped out. She ran around the front of the car and started to sprint after her partner who was already running up to the front door of the house. Wait for me, Carlton. Wait! She felt her heart pounding against the inside of her ballistics vest.

oOoOoOoO

Lassiter crouched down by the front door that was sitting half-open, gun raised, peering into the darkened house as he tried to catch his breath. He could see Juliet just exiting the car, realizing she'd fallen behind because she had probably called in the new development. Smart, as usual, his partner. But now they had to deal with the situation on their own because backup wasn't going to arrive in time to help them with the shitstorm they'd just stumbled into. He could hardly believe the colossal bad luck at the owner returning, right at this moment, if indeed that's who the man was. It felt like a bad dream, and he kept hoping he'd wake up to O'Hara poking him and scolding him for falling asleep on their watch. He squinted, trying to make out what he could in the dark interior, but the door was only partly open and nothing was visible from that vantage. He was starting to wonder why the owner hadn't turned on a light inside when a sudden glare bloomed as the man apparently did just that. The light seemed abnormally bright after a whole night of sitting in the dark. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Juliet still running up the street. Voices flared just moments after the light, a chaotic mixture of angry questioning and bellowed threats. And then there was a gunshot. He felt the sound of it go through him as if it was a bullet itself, leaving a searing pain in his chest that made him gasp. No, no, no, no! He forgot about waiting for his partner and shouldered his way into the house.

The front door opened onto a hallway that seemed to stretch to the back of the house. Three doors were on the right side leading to rooms off of the hall. Immediately to his left was a wide opening into the living room that was still mostly dark, with the light coming from the room beyond which appeared to be the kitchen and dining area. Lassiter felt glass crunch under his shoe as he stepped through the door. The acrid smell of gunpowder was strong. He moved to the left, into the living room, and saw the man lying in the arched opening that led to the kitchen, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. There was movement beyond the body. A dark figure was rushing across the kitchen area, heading for the open sliding glass door that led to the back yard. Another man was standing near the body, looking down at it. He was wearing a baseball cap with a snake logo, and he was holding a gun.

"Freeze, SBPD! Put down that weapon!" yelled Lassiter.

The man jerked and turned towards the back door without looking up.

"Stop!" bellowed Lassiter, taking a few steps forward.

The man continued towards the sliding glass door, but before he ran out he raised his arm and fired a blind shot behind him. Lassiter saw what he was going to do and threw himself to the floor. The man disappeared into the darkness beyond the door. Lassiter jumped to his feet again, running past the body and into the kitchen. He rushed to the open door but could see no sign of the two men in the yard anymore. There were several other yards that were adjoined, and none of them had fences, so the men could've veered off in any direction. Lassiter felt a tightness in his chest as he backed away from the door again. If he could've just moved into the house a moment sooner, the shooting may not have happened. He heard a sound behind him and assumed it was Juliet coming into the house, but when he turned back to the room he saw a flash of movement to his left, coming from the back end of the hallway that also opened onto the kitchen. He raised his gun and looked through the kitchen opening to the room across the hallway, which appeared to be some kind of bedroom or study. It was still darkened, and the figure standing in its doorway was shadowed, but he could tell that the person was holding a gun on him. His throat felt suddenly dry as bone.

"SBPD," he rasped. "Lower your weapon."

The figure shifted on his feet, fidgeting nervously. "I just wanna get out of here," came a soft voice.

"Put your weapon down," repeated Lassiter.

"Just let me out."

Something bothered him about the voice. He was pretty sure the person wasn't a woman, but the voice was somehow off. "I can't let you go," he said.

"I'm not putting down this gun. He told me not to listen to cops. Just let me go."

Lassiter started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach as he listened to the pitch of the voice and realized what he'd been fearing. "Step towards me."

"Are you going to let me out?" he said as he stepped into the hallway, the light from the kitchen finally illuminating his face.

Lassiter's stomach twisted. He was just a kid, probably no more than fifteen years old, although he was tall for his age. And he was still holding his gun on Lassiter. "Listen, you need to put that gun down," he said, trying to modulate his voice to sound less rough.

The kid looked like he was going to jump out of his skin with panic. He was sweating and his eyes were wide and wild-looking, like a cornered animal. His eyes were also bloodshot and glazed over which meant he was either high or drunk. Lassiter felt on the verge of panic himself, suddenly. He'd faced so many bad guys over the years, wielding guns and knives and other things, but he'd never faced down a young kid scared out of his mind.

"Dammit, kid, listen to me. You have to lower that gun. Put it on the ground. Please," he said, adding the last with a slight break in his voice.

"He said never listen to cops," said the kid louder, a whine to the edge of his voice as he almost danced from foot to foot in his agitation. "I just need to get out of here."

Lassiter could see tears in the kid's eyes now. For a moment he wasn't sure what to do. He almost considered lowering his weapon to ease the kid's mind, but then he caught movement to his right and saw Juliet coming through the front door. She had her gun raised, aiming it down the hallway. Lassiter could tell that the kid hadn't noticed his partner yet. He didn't know how to signal her to stay back without alerting the kid, though. He could see that any spark was going to set him off, and he'd fire. He was dead certain of that. Lassiter suddenly felt like he was stuck in one of those dream hallways where he needed to reach the door at the end but the hallway kept stretching, the door forever out of reach. He wished he could wake up.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Juliet stop just inside the front door. He saw the kid changing his grip on the gun, his finger moving to the trigger, his breathing coming out in ragged gasps. He heard the sirens finally approaching and saw the kid look towards the sound, towards the front door, towards his partner. He saw the kid swing the gun around to aim it at her, finger on the trigger, arms tensing as he started to squeeze, and as he did so he also squeezed his eyes shut. Lassiter didn't hear himself yelling, but he felt his gun kick back when he fired. The kid's face registered shock and dismay as he pitched forward to the ground. Lassiter's vision seemed to tunnel for a moment, everything went black except for the image of the kid lying on the ground, eyes wide and mouth gaping. He looked so damned young and lost and frightened. Lassiter ran to his side and dropped to his knees, hardly realizing that he had let his weapon fall to the floor. He rolled the kid onto his back and saw the red stain spreading quickly across his chest. The bullet had gone in the right side of his torso. Lassiter put his hands over the wound, trying to stem the bleeding. The kid was pulling in sharp, painful gasps of air and looking around, confused. Finally, his eyes fell on Lassiter. He coughed wetly, and blood started to trickle from the corner of his mouth.

"God it hurts," he hissed, then coughed again.

"Hang on, we'll get you help," said Lassiter, pushing against the wound and feeling the blood pouring out. Too much blood. He suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe anymore either.

"Tell mom I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm sorry we left."

"Just hang on," he said again. He stared at his hands, willing them to stop the bleeding, only peripherally noticing how his vision started to swim. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Carlton," said Juliet.

"Is an ambulance here?" he asked, voice strained.

"Carlton, I think he's gone."

Lassiter looked at the kid's face again and saw that his eyes were blank, eyelids slipped halfway closed. His breath rushed out in a huff. "God damn it," he hissed. "Sonofabitch."

He drew in another breath and felt suddenly sick. He stood up quickly and backed away from the kid's body, turning and taking several steps into the kitchen. He was abruptly aware of voices and noise as other officers moved around the house. Then paramedics entered to check the two corpses. Lassiter looked over at the body of the man who owned the house. Ted Sommer, he remembered. He glanced back at the kid's body. Two dead bodies. They were staking out the house the whole night and it ended up with two dead bodies in it. He felt himself start to sway and dropped to a crouch, resting his forearms on his knees and lowering his head. He wondered for a moment if he was going to pass out. What the hell went so wrong? How did I get this so wrong? He started to put his head in his hands but then he noticed how they were soaked in the kid's blood. He dropped from the crouch onto his rear end and sat for a moment, staring at the shining red coating on his hands.

"Carlton!" Juliet's hands were on his shoulders again. Both shoulders. She was crouched down in front of him. "Carlton, listen to me."

He tried to tear his eyes away from his hands, but somehow he couldn't. "What went wrong?" he asked quietly.

"Look at me," said Juliet. His eyes finally found her face. "You did everything you could."

"I killed a child, O'Hara."

"That child had a gun, Carlton. He fired it at me! You did what you had to do."

Lassiter stared at her, confused. He didn't remember the kid firing the weapon. "He fired?"

Juliet's expression was growing more and more concerned. Somehow, he understood that he was acting strangely, but he couldn't figure out how to stop. It was like the world had shifted to a different speed around him, and he was detached from it now, drifting. He saw Juliet give one of the paramedics a small wave before she turned back to him.

"Are you hurt?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, almost choking on the suddenly overwhelming smell of blood. He swallowed hard. "No," he said thickly.

"I just want them to check you out."

He felt a sudden, unexpected surge of irritation that seemed to thankfully clear some of the cobwebs. "I'm fine, O'Hara. I don't need to be checked out." His words came out more harshly than he'd meant, and he caught the increased look of concern on Juliet's face when he looked at her again. He cleared his throat. "I'm just...I'm fine. I'm not hurt."

"Okay, Carlton. Take your time," she said, not looking at all reassured.

He blinked and looked around, realizing that some of the other officers were also looking at him with curiosity and concern. Shit, I need to get off my ass and start acting normal. He wanted to rub his eyes which felt dry and sticky, but his hands were so completely coated in blood he could only hold them out as if he were offering them up in supplication, as if he were asking for forgiveness. The thought sent a tingle down his spine and made his stomach twist. He lunged to his feet, almost knocking Juliet over in the process.

"I need to wash my hands," he said through clenched teeth. He turned towards the kitchen sink but was stopped by her hand on his arm.

"You can't use the sink, Carlton. Here," she said as the paramedic approached and handed her a towel. She put the towel in his hands. He noticed her grimace as she looked at them and wondered if her look was one of pity or disgust.

"Are you hurt, sir?" asked the paramedic, looking intently at Lassiter's face. "Can I examine you?"

Lassiter suddenly felt cornered by the attention of the paramedic and his partner. "No, I'm fine," he growled, rubbing his hands roughly with the dry towel. It wasn't getting them clean, which sparked his anger. "I just want to wash my hands, god dammit."

Juliet and the medic exchanged a look, which made his anger flare even more. He seemed to be somehow digging a hole for himself the more he spoke, so he decided to try an escape instead. His face fell into a black scowl as he shouldered his way past Juliet and the medic. Sidestepping the owner's body and anyone who got in his way, he stalked out of the house.

oOoOoOoO

Juliet was fighting to keep from trembling too badly, but the adrenaline wearing off combined with Lassiter's reaction to the whole experience were conspiring against her. She was cold and tired and worried and completely unhappy. She could feel sweat soaking her shirt underneath her ballistics vest, so she pulled the vest off hoping to alleviate at least that one small discomfort. The stakeout had gone so much more terribly wrong than she ever would've imagined, but she knew that they really couldn't have done much, if anything, differently. She sighed as she watched her partner leave the house. He was not in good shape, clearly, and it frightened her. She wasn't sure if it was just that the boy he'd shot was so young, or the fact that the owner had also been killed while on their watch. One or both of those things, though, had affected him much more than she'd ever seen him affected after a violent scene on the job. She glanced at the paramedic who was still standing nearby.

"Are you okay, detective?" he asked when he saw her look.

"Yes, I'm fine. Do you have a bottle of water?"

He dug around in his bag and pulled out a bottle of drinking water. "Here," he said, and then he gave her a sympathetic look. "He's your partner, right? I think he'll be fine. Sometimes, after a bad scene like this one, people can suffer an acute stress response. It might take a few days for him to get back to normal. Just, you know, be there for him."

She blinked and nodded, considering his words. "Okay," she said, then she managed a small smile. "Thank you." She headed out of the house to find her partner.

Lassiter was standing in the middle of the yard with his back to the house, rubbing furiously at his fingers with the towel. He had taken off his vest and thrown it aside. She could see that his shirt was soaked with sweat. As she approached, she noticed that he was shaking all over and not just from the exertion of scrubbing his hands.

"Carlton," she called as she walked towards him.

He jerked violently and spun to face her. The towel dropped from his hands and his right hand moved to where his shoulder holster would be normally. He looked down, almost seeming confused about his holster being gone, and then he dropped his hand quickly and gave her an embarrassed glance. He cleared his throat and bent over to pick up the towel he'd dropped when he had startled. His face fell into a frown.

"I'm sorry," she said as she stepped up to him. "Here. Maybe this can help wash your hands a little." She opened the bottle of water and looked at him.

"Thanks," he said gruffly. His expression was so unusual, she kept looking at him for an extra few moments trying to figure it out. Fury, guilt, fear, utter despair. He looked lost. Her heart broke at the thought of her steadfast partner suffering in such a way. But she was determined that he wouldn't feel lost for long. She'd make sure of that. She poured some water into his cupped hands and watched as he tried to wash off the blood. He seemed so desperate to get it all off. "I'm sorry, Carlton, that this happened. Maybe if I had been able to follow you faster to the house, or if I hadn't walked in while you were facing off with the boy."

Lassiter put some of the water on the towel and continued to clean his hands, but his brow furrowed deeply. "It wasn't you, O'Hara. You were right to call it in," he said sadly, glaring at his fingers. "I was at the house, before they killed that man. I should've gone inside immediately."

"That's not procedure, though. You had to wait for me."

He grimaced and shook his head. "I was right there. I should've stopped it."

"We were both right here, and we did the best we could. It all happened too fast. And it was just ridiculously bad luck that Sommer came home when he did."

He was scrubbing so hard that she was afraid he was going to start scraping the skin off of his hands. She tried to reach out to touch his arm, but he pulled away. He gave her a desolate look and held up the bloody towel, brandishing it as if it was a damning piece of evidence.

"That kid didn't have to die like that," he said hoarsely. "He was scared."

"Carlton, he had a gun. He fired it at me."

"He closed his eyes," he said quietly, staring into the darkness of his recollection. Then he blinked as if coming back to the moment and looked at her. "He fired the gun? I don't remember that."

Juliet shrugged. "Maybe he fired at the same time you did. I saw him turn to me. I dove to the floor and saw the flash from his gun. I was aiming to fire when you shot him, Carlton."

Lassiter looked lost again, glancing around at all of the emergency vehicles and commotion as if he'd just woken from a dream. He dropped his gaze back to his hands and the bloody towel that he was nervously turning over and over. He regarded it for a moment, a look of shame and disgust crossing his face, then he threw it to the ground. "I should've stopped it."

"You did the best you could."

"It wasn't good enough."

Juliet shivered and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "It has to be," she said sadly.

He flashed an angry look at her, light from the house catching the fire in his blue eyes. "Not for me."

She wanted to go up to him and give him a hug, but she could tell he wouldn't accept one from her. Not yet. She was also feeling the strain of the evening more intensely with each passing moment, shivering with exhaustion and wanting only to get somewhere warm where she could sit down or even take a nap. She knew they still had an ordeal ahead of them at the station, and she wasn't looking forward to it, at all. Reports to deliver, endless questions to answer, a standard follow-up investigation that was going to be hard to bear. A flash of anxiety hit her, thinking about how Lassiter was going to endure all of those things. But it was going to happen, regardless, so they'd have to deal with it. She walked over and placed a tentative hand on his arm.

"Come back inside for a minute," she said. "I'll hand things off to Dobson, then we can go back to the station."

"I'm fine here," he said. He shifted his feet and crossed his arms tightly. "I'll wait here."

She sighed. "Okay."

She went inside and explained the situation to Dobson. He told her the chief had already been called and would be waiting for them. He also said the chief had instructed a uniformed officer to drive her and Lassiter to the station. She was confused, but he just looked at her sympathetically and told her it had been a long night and they should take the ride. When she walked back outside she saw Buzz coming up the sidewalk. He gave her a small, tentative smile and wave, then he shot a concerned glance at Lassiter.

"Hi, Buzz," said Juliet, hugging herself against another bout of trembling. She realized now why the chief had ordered someone to drive them back. Neither one of them was in condition to be driving a car.

"Hi. We can go whenever you're ready."

"Go where?" asked Lassiter, apparently just noticing Buzz's presence.

"I'm going to drive you and Detective O'Hara back to the station," said Buzz.

Lassiter glared at them.

"Carlton, we're in no shape to drive. Let's get back to the station so we can clean up and get some coffee."

At the phrase "clean up," Lassiter looked down at his hands and arms as if he thought she was criticizing his appearance. Then he looked back at the house and said, "I left my gun inside."

"They'll take care of it. They need it for the investigation," she reminded him, feeling a small stab of worry that she needed to tell him that at all.

He blinked and looked at her, then looked quickly away again towards the flashing lights on Buzz's squad car. "Okay. Right."

She sighed and squeezed her crossed-arms more tightly. Suddenly a jacket was thrown around her shoulders. She turned and saw Buzz's shy smile as he stepped back again.

"Thanks, Buzz."

"No problem. Are you ready?"

She nodded and watched as Lassiter seemed to finally realize that being anywhere else would be better than staying at that house. His shoulders slumped and he trudged to Buzz's squad car. They followed in his wake.