A hit to the face, and a broken heart.
A prequel to Four O'Clock is the Worst Time in the Morning. I know I promised you guys a sequel, and it is coming! One and a half chapters written and counting. But, I want to get a little way into it before I start publishing it. Here's something to tide you over, and I have two other prequels in mind, maybe more.
This can be read as a stand alone, but you need to know that my version of Shawn had a heart transplant as a young boy.
Enjoy!
Once in a hospital room, Shawn told Lassiter about the first time he'd run away. He never counted the time he ran off to join the circus, or the time he'd hidden in the trunk of his Uncle Jack's car because he'd wanted to treasure hunting. He did tell Lassiter about the time he actually ran away from home, rather than running to something. Show of hands, who wants to hear the story?
The first time Shawn ran away, he had just turned fourteen. His parents had done nothing but fight for the past two years, and Shawn hated it. He spent more time at Gus's than he did at his own home.
Shawn was sitting in his room, headphones on, music playing, pillow over his ears. His parents had been fighting for hours. He carefully lifted the corner of the pillow. Maybe they'd made up. Maybe he could go down for dinner. Maybe they'd be okay.
"...What am I supposed to think Henry?"
"Maddie, this is not my fault! Don't you blame all our problems on me!"
"You! You and your 'career' and the way you treat our son, and the hours you're out of the house! How are we supposed to have a real partnership, if you're never around?"
"I'm never around? What about you? How many 'business trips' have you been on in this month alone? Shawn barely even sees you!"
"Don't you dare! Don't you blame this on me! At least I hug Shawn, tell him I love him."
"You've got everything twisted around! You always do this! Every time we fight, you manage to bring it round to something that you can win at! We are supposed to be discussing the bills, and the fact that you spent three hundred dollars on a new suitcase!"
"That's it! I've had it! Dr Laredo offered me a place on a conference on PTSD. It starts tomorrow. I had refused because I wanted to spend some time with my husband, but I don't know why I bothered!"
Shawn flopped back onto his bed and screwed his eyes shut. He put the headphones more firmly onto his ears. That way he didn't have to listen to Maddie coming up stairs and packing. A moment later, the song finished and there was a pause between tunes. He heard his mother thunder back down the stairs dragging that three hundred dollar suitcase after her, and he heard the front door slam behind her as she fled the house.
She didn't even come to say goodbye.
Shawn waited about half an hour before he ventured downstairs. He was hungry. His parents had forgotten dinner in their anger.
He tiptoed down, carefully. He looked into the living room and saw his dad. Henry was sitting on the sofa, with an open bottle of scotch. As Shawn watched, Henry lifted it and drank a good mouthful right from the bottle. Shawn swallowed. He'd go to Gus's.
Gus was reading a comic book (Blue Beetle) when there was a noise at his window. He looked and saw Shawn clinging onto the window frame and knocking on the glass. He rushed over and opened it to let his friend in.
"Shawn? What are you doing here?"
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"Sure. But... What's going on? Why did you climb in through the window? We have a perfectly good door."
"I... my parents are fighting again."
"Okay." That was all Gus needed to know. "Here." He passed Shawn a comic from his stack.
It was a couple of hours later when there was a knock at the bedroom door.
"Burton, get your butt downstairs. Mom's Aunt Jo is sick. She had a heart attack. We have to go. Pack an overnight bag."
"What? Joy, what's going on?"
"Just get ready and get downstairs!"
Gus looked at Shawn. Shawn looked at Gus.
"Go man, your family needs you." Shawn said, unable to meet his friend's eyes.
"You sure? What will you do?"
"Go home, I guess. I can't stay here forever."
"Shawn..."
"I'll be fine Gus." Shawn grinned and climbed up onto the sill. "I always am."
Shawn got home in a really bad mood. He didn't want to have to deal with his drunk father. He wanted his Mom. He wanted to hang out with Gus. He slammed the front door behind him and headed towards the stairs.
"Shawn?" Henry stood. The scotch was half gone. "Where the hell have you been? I thought you were upstairs."
"Like you care." Shawn muttered.
"What did you say to me?"
"I was at Gus's."
"What the hell, Shawn? It's a school night! And it's nearly ten o'clock!"
"So what?"
"So what? Do you care about anyone but yourself?"
"Do you?" Something inside Shawn snapped. "Do you care about me? About Mom? No! You just care about your stupid job! About making me just like you! I don't want to be like you! I'm not you!"
"Oh, you'd rather be like your mother? Just disappear at the first sign of trouble?"
"She only disappears because she can't stand to be around you! I don't blame her!"
Henry's hand seemed to move of it's own accord, and he gave his son a solid backhand across the face, sending him falling backward. He hit his head on a small table, and bounced back against the wall.
Henry's eyes grew wide as he realised what he'd just done.
"Shawn..."
His head was bleeding. Shawn's hand went to the wound and he examined the blood on it as though it were something amazing.
"Shawn, you need to go to the hospital." Henry said; his voice weaker than Shawn had ever heard it.
The boy got up, painfully slow, and made his way past his father, up the stairs to his room. He didn't slam the door. Henry wanted to follow, make sure he was okay, but he wasn't sure he'd be welcome. He looked at the bottle in his hand and was disgusted with himself. He threw it against the wall and it shattered.
Shawn heard the bottle smash and flinched. He pulled a large rucksack from the bottom of his wardrobe, and began stuffing it with clothes and other essentials. He checked he had his pills, the immunosuppressant's and the blood thinners. He grabbed the first aid kit and quickly patched his head. His t shirt was already soaked in blood. Head wounds always bleed a lot. He reminded himself. And the pills make me bleed worse. He pulled a rolled up sleeping bag from beneath his bed and strapped it to the top of the rucksack, before pulling it onto his back. He climbed out the window and didn't look back.
He walked for an hour or so, till he was on the other side of town. He found a doorway that was wide and deep, and rolled his sleeping bag out. He curled up and closed his eyes. He didn't even check to see what the building was. He just tried to go to sleep.
He woke up to hands touching him and he freaked, pulling back and fighting as hard as he could.
"Easy, man." A kid a year or so older than him said. He was filthy and dressed in ragged clothes. "I was just checking if you were holding."
"I don't do drugs." Shawn replied, and at the time, it's true. The kid looks him over.
"Go home. Sissy boy, you won't last a week." And he left.
Shawn felt the cold now that he was awake, and sat up, pulling the sleeping bag tighter around him. The motion made his head spin, and he puked on the concrete. Concussion. A dim part of his brain catalogued. He knew he shouldn't go back to sleep. He'd seen that much on television. He looked at his watch. It was gone 2 in the morning. He wondered if his dad had even noticed.
About four hours later, the door opened and a woman came out. She was about fifty, and had dark hair. She smelled like fresh earth. She looked him over and tutted.
"You can't stay there."
"Sorry, ma'am. I'll get out of your way." Shawn got to his feet swaying slightly.
"I have pots that won't clean themselves." The woman said in a no nonsense tone and then walked inside, leaving the door open behind her. Shawn wasn't sure what to think. He hesitated a moment, but then followed her inside.
"You clean the floor, and wash any dishes, and I'll feed you. Help yourself to any drinks." She waved her hand. Shawn looked around the room. It was a restaurant, decorated all over with knick knacks and memorabilia. It had a lot of personality. "Josephine, get your butt out here!"
A girl of about eighteen came out, and looked at Shawn expressionless.
"Get the kid here a glass of milk and some fruit or something! We can't expect him to help us out on an empty stomach."
Shawn wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he sat at one of the booths and ate the banana that was put before him, and downed his pills with the milk.
"What's this? I won't have addicts around." The woman snapped.
"I'm not an addict, ma'am. These aren't drugs. Well, they are. But they're the legal type drugs, I have a heart condition."
"Right." She looked at him, assessing, and then nodded once. "You really should have that head looked at, boy. And it's Molly."
"Yes, ma'am." They exchanged smiled.
"so, you'll let me take you to the hospital?"
"No, ma'am." Shawn replied.
"Josephine! Bring that damn first aid kit, too!"
Shawn spent the day working in the diner, and it was surprisingly fun. He got big tips by ingratiating himself with the customers, he danced around to the jukebox while sweeping the floor, and washing the pots degenerated to a soap fight with Jo. After closing, Molly sat him down in one of the booths and put a burger and fries in front of him.
"So, what are you gonna do with your life, kid?" Molly asked. Jo rolled her eyes and slid a strawberry milkshake in front of the boy. "You gonna spend your life on the streets and sweeping floors?"
"Not me, ma'am. I'm going to do everything." Shawn replied through a mouthful of fries.
"Everything? That's a little ambitious."
"Not really, I'm going to do absolutely everything"
"Absolutely everything? How come?" Jo asked.
Shawn looked at Molly, and then at Jo. He shrugged and pulled his pill bottles out of his pocket.
"I had a heart condition as a kid. I had to have a transplant. I nearly died. I don't want to waste the rest of my life doing nothing, or working in some boring office. Or living down to my dad's expectations."
"What was that last one?" Molly asked, eyes narrowed.
"He wants me to be a cop. He can only see me in those terms. Because it's all he cares about. But I want to do everything. I want to live my life, not just survive."
"Your dad the one who gave you that?" she motioned to the swollen side of his face and the large gauze covering the gash on the back of his skull.
"It was my fault."
"How's that?" Molly asked. Shawn shrugged and took a mouthful of his burger. "Okay, you can bed down in the storeroom." Shawn looked at her for a long minute.
"No, thank you, ma'am." He replied.
"You sure?"
"Yes, ma'am."
He slept in the doorway again that night. He knew that Molly was one of the good guys, he trusted her, and Jo, but he didn't want to take advantage of her. When Molly opened up again in the morning, he was awake, and waiting. She didn't speak to him, and he began to wonder if she wanted him to help again.
"What are you waiting for?" She called back, and he hurried inside.
He swept floors, served food, and cleaned up his own blood. The head injury just wouldn't stop bleeding. Jo was changing the gauze every couple of hours, and Molly kept making noises about taking him to the hospital.
"I'm fine." He insisted, although he was pale with anaemia.
"No, kid. You ain't fine." Molly said matter of factly. "I'll drag you too the Doc's by your heels if you don't go yourself." He frowned and folded his arms across his chest but she just rolled her eyes.
"I don't want to." He pouted.
"I don't care." She parodied his tone, and when he frowned, she stuck out her tongue. "Get." He followed her finger into the diner, from the kitchen, his shoulders set in a dejected slump. She would have made good on that threat, if it wasn't for the voice that called out the moment they walked out into the dining area.
"Shawn? Shawn Spencer?" Shawn knew that voice. He turned slowly, a fixed smile on his face.
"Officer Hendricks! What a pleasant surprise!"
"Kid, what the hell happened to you?" Hendricks shook his head. "Tanner, go start the car, and give Henry Spencer a call." His partner rushed out into the car park. "Come on, kid. We need to get you to the hospital." Shawn's ducked his head.
"Let me go get my stuff."
He went through to the kitchen where Jo had his stuff sitting neatly by the pantry door. The girl surprised him with a tight embrace. She ran off as soon as he wriggled from her arms. Molly was waiting for him by the cop.
"You better call, y'hear?"
"Yes, ma'am." Shawn returned.
"Good. Now, take care of yourself, and don't let me catch you napping on my front porch again."
"No, ma'am."
She held out her hand and he shook it.
Hendricks drove them to the hospital in silence, and Henry was waiting for them. He apologized to Shawn, and the boy nearly died of shock. Henry wanted to tell everyone what he had done. He was a strong proponent of the truth. Shawn talked him out of it, hating himself as he did so.
He loved his mother, but... well, let's just say she wasn't the most reliable person in the world. He remembered the time they went to Texas to visit her sister, and she'd forgotten him, like so much luggage. And if they put him in foster care, he wouldn't get to see Gus anymore.
They took him off the blood thinners that day, because he'd nearly died of blood loss. They told him he needed to remember to seek immediate attention if he was hurt again. He nodded, but he didn't mean it. He didn't really like hospitals that much.
A week later, Shawn turned up at the diner with a bunch of brightly coloured flowers and a box of chocolate. Molly laughed at the flowers and ruffled his hair, careful of the still healing cut on his head. Jo took the chocolates, but scowled at him.
"Hey, kid. There are floors to sweep, you know?" Molly said, handing him a mop.
"Yes, ma'am." Shawn smiled.
"And when you're done, I want you to try my new recipe. Pineapple Upside Down Cake, with a twist."
"I don't know. I don't think I've ever tried pineapple before." He said, already working on the floors.
"Really? Oh, you'll love it." She grinned. "Jo! Fetch some of that new cake for the kid!"
Medical stuff: Anaemia is the lack of iron or red blood cells in the blood and can also refer to severe blood loss, as the body cannot make red blood cells as fast as it looses them when the patient is bleeding badly.
Transplant patients would be on immunosuppressants for life, to prevent rejection of the donor organ. They are also often put on blood thinners such as Warfarin because clots can cause damage at the place where the veins and arteries join the new organ.
Although it says on TV shows that you shouldn't fall asleep with a concussion, and Shawn certainly believed them, it is NOT true. Hospitals want to keep patients with concussions awake because the tests to show how bad the concussion is need you to be awake. They consist of asking the patient questions, as well as checking pupil response etc. It's difficult to ask the patient their name when they are asleep. That's why patients with head injuries are woken every two hours, as the doctors can't tell if their concussion is worsening while they are asleep.
I hope you liked Molly and Jo.
Reviews are better than Molly's freshly baked pineapple upside down cake.