Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. 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. Also do not own Kevlar.
Summary: Henry and Maddie stared at the house. The seconds became what could have been hours, hours in which they waited for someone to come out or someone to find a way in.
Episode Tag to Season Five's "Yang 3 in 2D". Spoilers for this episode, obviously. One-shot.
Author's Note: Slightly alternate version of events, where Maddie arrives at the house much sooner, before everything is okay.
This story was written for Jenn1984 (an overdue character fantasies fic request) who asked: "I want a fic about what Maddie and Henry are thinking while Shawn and Gus are trapped in the house with Yin."
Reviews, feedback and constructive criticism are welcome and appreciated! Hope you like it! :)
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The Experience Of Survival
A Psych Story
by silverluna
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[FEAR. A DARK HOUSE]
No way in, as if the moment Shawn and Gus stepped inside all entryways were bricked up, locked up, barred up, chained shut. They'd need a bulldozer, a crane, an explosion to get inside.
The fine hairs on Henry's arms stood up, one by one in rapid secession. He turned his head slightly towards a blocked window, a muscle in his neck tensing deep into his jaw. He wanted to go inside, get inside, he felt it was his right.
[SAFE. IN HIS ROOM.]
Yang, at Shawn's reluctant behest, had been a recent visitor to Shawn's childhood bedroom. Henry and the rest of them stood by as she prattled on, her cheeks flushed, a gleaming smile that caused her eyes to split as if cut with knives. As she confessed . . . how she'd wished she had been a guest much sooner; she'd wandered freely, (in spite of the body chains) reaching out for his son. Her teasing words rang sharply in Henry's ears. "So, this is where it all began! . . . I wish I could go back in time and pinch those chubby little cheeks"—Henry had jerked, gripping his arms more tightly crossed, because Yang had actually put her hands on Shawn's face, pinched him like an overzealous aunt—"and tell you that nothing would ever be all right!"
Enduring it had been necessary for Shawn's sake; just what Henry did—had done, would do—for his son's sake. No matter if they never saw eye to eye.
He could have said no; could have easily refused to let Yang to cross his threshold; after all, the house was in his name. He had gotten it in the divorce; Shawn merely a distant occupant more than fifteen years ago. The knots in Henry's neck tightened; betrayed as he was by his own body, the lies itched along the skin of his arms. It had been his choice to keep Shawn's childhood bedroom as it was; had never once asked Shawn to clean it out so Henry could use it for some other function.
"It's a house over on Grayson Street!" Henry had yelled, excited panic mixing in the air.
If Henry could take the words back, would he? What could have been only seconds prior—in spite of several minutes having had passed—Henry heard himself calling for Shawn; together, he and Maddie had put the missing pieces together.
Shawn, for his fantastic memory, did not even remember, had to be prodded, had to visualize over and over and over and over until he . . . saw her face, turning around at the sound of his bicycle, or at the sound of the rain.
"That was her?" Shawn balked, the context certain only to him. "This whole thing started three blocks away?" And he was off, slipping out the door, slipping through their fingers, a little green fish vanishing back into the welcoming tide.
Henry's ears still hurt from his own urgent cries. "SHAWN! SHAWN!" The excitement was long gone; the panic sang off key.
[FEAR. A DARK HOUSE]
"Oh, my god. It's her," Maddie breathed, poking her nail against the photograph. Her own memory had lagged; this singular frame of impression had not been embossed, or tagged neat with a flare of color for easy access; she would have been content enough to let it be as is—frozen, trivial.
"You let her take a picture with Shawn?"
"She just looked so sad! She said Shawn was the luckiest, most handsomest boy she'd ever seen, and that he had kindness in his eyes."
They were echoes in her head, distant pounds, like stones or pennies falling into a well. She had . . . helped a stalker find her son, given the woman a lifelong obsession. The girl—the woman—had graciously waited until Shawn was an adult to come gunning for him. Maddie stared at the house, a lump in her throat. The last time she had felt like this was directly after her rescue from her rigged up rental car, two years ago. She'd sat on the bench, wrapped in a blanket, her heart beating fast as she took in that she was still alive. She sat there with her ex, and her son was . . . safe. He was fine, in spite of getting in the car with. . . .
She'd warned him not to get involved . . . but he'd never been good at doing what he was told. Still, Maddie reasoned, it was his active mind—and his deep concern for others, even strangers, that kept him at it, almost becoming the kind of detective Henry could be proud of—in public.
Maddie stared at the house. She imagined Henry was thinking the same thing she was, the impossibleness of not being able to get someone in. It peeved her to think that one edifice with a few locked doors and a high grade security system might keep her son from her—when he should be outside, safe. Goose, my little Goose. It's time to come home.
Henry had been beside himself to learn what she'd done, as if she'd done it on purpose, or knowingly, as if he wanted her to hop in a time machine and make the past right.
As if Shawn hadn't already seen Yang's face—as if Yang hadn't already seen Shawn's face—before Maddie arrived, as if she could have stopped him from seeing, as if the girl who would become a serial killer wasn't about to turn around at that moment.
As if Henry, had he been out chasing his adventurous son in the rain, wouldn't have been kind to a strange, sad girl. Or maybe . . . he would have just shuffled Shawn off, making apologizes over his shoulder. Maddie sighed. She felt that . . . it wouldn't have mattered, that eye contact was all the woman . . . Yang . . . would have needed, a singular moment of sight upon their son. And it was over.
They wanted in. Maddie did not want to enter the house herself, but she knew Henry did, knew he would go inside if he could only find a way in.
What if . . . this was the end? That the last time they would ever see Shawn alive he had been a blur, his adult form streaking out of Henry's house—once theirs, when they were a family—down the block, then another, another, turning a corner, all before everyone else had connected two and two?
Maddie put her fingers to her mouth. Inside her body was a coldness, right under her breasts. She stared at the house, its squat frame, its neglected front. Perhaps, like its occupants, it had never known love, or compassion, or rationality. Its silent blankness offered no clues as to what might be going on inside.
Inside. While they were outside. Shawn and Gus, they could be hurt . . . into her mind seeped the sharpness of unknowing.
Shawn often hid his fear well, but Gus, Maddie considered,must be terrified. His mother, she should be here too. Slowly, Maddie shook her head. This was no good. She and Henry would have to serve as the boys' familial lifeline; it was no good to drag other loved ones into this until more was known. "Gus has a such a weak stomach," Maddie whispered, squinting at the upper windows. She hadn't, she realized suddenly, heard either one of them scream. Unwittingly, she stepped forward. "Henry," she breathed.
Gus, Henry scoffed, overhearing Maddie. He was stabbed with guilt at the omission. Gus was in there too; had followed Shawn into the house as if he were a pull toy, almost as if he had no free will. Henry released a stammering breath. No matter how it looked to outsiders, he knew that Gus was not along for the ride or another one charmed—blinded—by Shawn's reckless pursuits. Gus would do anything for his son—would follow Shawn to the ends of the earth.
Maybe . . . maybe he had already. Henry chewed his lip. He thought of himself as a parent much like the Gusters—but in a more distant, detached way. Shawn would have only suffered—and pushed him further away—had Henry acted to smother and coddle Shawn in that way. That's what he told himself.
Henry's body hitched with nervous energy. For the second time in his life, he wished possessed a superpower, X-ray vision, super strength, flight—whimsical desires he'd felt out for merit as a child before his father had steered him in the direction of police work. But if he had just one of these now, he might be able to help Shawn. If he could see into the house . . . he could make a prediction on its weakest spot, could see what was happening to his son and his son's best friend—and the urgency to put himself in harm's way would shoot his adrenaline through the roof. Then he might be able to bust through the walls, break windows, bend back bars. He could gather Shawn in his arms, and Gus could climb onto his back, and he could lift them up, weightless, and bring them all safe to the ground.
Outside, it was safe. Henry glanced around; the SBPD was primed but had no way in. He wanted to search with them, in spite of not wearing his Kevlar vest, or possessing his gun, but Maddie had rushed away from their house—his house—in spite of being told to stay put. She was next to him, staring at the darkened house—the unimaginable fortress—that Shawn and Gus disappeared into—an open door, hiding the teeth of its locks.
All this time . . . all this time. She had been . . . just down the road. Almost in breathing distance of all of them—just three blocks away—until Shawn's late teen years, when the family split up. Henry huffed his air angrily. He glared at the structure. His child was in there. His child had been targeted—and his ex-wife, and himself—but his child, since Shawn had been a child, had been in her thoughts. She had kept his picture in her house, as if they were childhood friends, or family. She had . . . Henry's thoughts turned red, then black.
She had worked thirteen years to become "good enough" to taunt his son—to get as close to him as she could—what she must have wanted since that day in the rain, the day she moved in.
He was chilled; anything involving Shawn in any possible danger always filled his veins with ice. And he was furious that Maddie had . . . without being able to see the future . . . set their son up. He stole a glance at her: her face drawn, her eyes moving quickly like fish trapped in a bowl. She looked seconds from crying; he could count the times upon one hand when she had cried during their marriage; her emotions were always carefully in check. She'd had no idea, just as he hadn't . . . but, how was she supposed to know? Henry forced himself not to blame her too much; Shawn, he amended, should be the first one to judge her—which he never would—because he absolved her everything.
Because . . . how could she have known? Not a single member of their family knew how the future would turn out, could see it or feel it.
For the not the first time, Henry recalled the physical presence of Yang strolling through his house; even with armed guards, and in spite of her needed participation, he didn't like it. He'd never get used to the idea of letting that woman in, doing it mostly willingly. He could share the burden with Maddie in all this, he decided. Bear it like a coffin—as long as that coffin did not hold the remains of their son.
As a team—like partners again—they'd both remembered the shirt. Without Maddie, Henry may have never found it, may have never been to place it appropriately in the past—leaving them all wondering just how a younger Yang could have rested her hand on Shawn's shoulder, and just when—
Maddie kept staring at the house as if it would shift, shake out its kinks, look at her—open up to her. Surely, it had much to tell her; she was all ears. In return, she only wanted her little boy back—that little boy who almost disappeared into a fine summer rain.
But she couldn't have him back. It was too late. Maddie glared at the house. Shawn, her little boy, was a grown up man now. He could . . . face his attacker, the one person who had provoked such attention in the years before he lost all of his innocence. He had—gone back to her, twice, pushing his own hangups aside because he knew she could help them solve important cases. Maddie clasped her fingers together against her mouth. She was overcome with pride—and dread. What if . . . she couldn't have him back? Not his little boy self, not his adult self, not anything she knew, or had come to know?
They stood in the rain, barely feeling it. A fine rain, a fine rain to disappear in.
Henry, earlier, had already pounded the doors, broken a window only to discover there was no way in. If only he could get his hands on a crowbar, Henry figured he could jimmy one of the window or door frames. He had one in his garage, but there was no way in hell he was running back a couple streets to get it. No way in hell he was leaving. He wanted to be here like a pulse, even if Shawn—Gus—didn't know he was outside. Henry guessed that Shawn knew his parents and the police were hot on his heels as he tore out—why, why couldn't Shawn have waited just a few minutes? Henry wrung his hands, then ran both across his head. Shawn would never wait. Not as soon as an idea got into his head. Any idea, right or wrong—precise or misguided. Shawn acted faster than he thought, which was a sad irony, Henry mused humorlessly, because his son had a brilliant, quick mind. He was like a pro without nearly the right amount of experience to back it up—the way he pieced together clues that often took the best cops years and years to even consider or notice.
He couldn't leave Maddie either—unless there was the slightest chance he could gain access to the inside. But in spite of being reinstated to the SBPD, Henry knew that his current title gave him little leverage when it came to busting into hostile territory.
Still, what he might find in there. . . . Henry fought to conceal a shiver. He didn't want to think of the ending—a bad one—but the terrible thoughts marched relentlessly through his mind, the pattern clear. What he often had to tell the survivors of the deceased—when he didn't know anything and had to lie or just not tell the whole truth—when the possibilities and scenarios were too many to put a definite number on. Too often, the simple situations were the ones that had actually played out—missing loved ones shot in a alley for the contents of a wallet; a drug exchange gone awry; gang on gang violence; with greed or pride always playing out from its smallest measurement to its largest.
But this . . . what kind of greed or pride was going on behind those closed doors, those locked and barred windows? That his son . . . was some ultimate prize—
Henry clenched his fists, and stole a glance at Maddie. Remorseful, he told himself he should have worked harder to keep Shawn away from Yang the very first time she appeared—but—but would it have mattered? If she'd kept a picture of her and Shawn standing together all this time—Henry's upper lip beaded with new sweat.
"She's always had a hold on him," he muttered, not expecting Maddie to hear.
"It's my fault," she whispered. She kept studying the house, staring straight ahead.
Henry reached toward her, gently squeezing her elbow. "Maddie, it's not," he whispered back. He struggled with his next words, changing them up several times in his head. He wasn't over the sting of so many years ago—just learned—but he was also unable to completely lay blame on Maddie—or even Shawn, who had taken off on his bicycle in the first place. "It was her. She wanted him—at first sight." Henry's voice broke; unable to continue, to say, "She was always going to get to him, in spite of how many times we intervened." He couldn't. It was too much to consider; these were the thoughts that would get him as he reached the bridge of sleep, nagging him that no matter what he could have done to safeguard his son, it would have never been enough. Never, never, never.
She wasn't . . . alone in all this, Henry recalled, as if it was so easy to forget about the second killer. Not one of them—from experienced police officers to faux psychic detectives—save that dead profiler, had even surmised the existence of another. Yang wasn't even the one who had Shawn now; it was Yin. If he could get in, he would put his hands around Yin's throat, he would demand to know why. Why.
Not fully grasping the why, Henry unwittingly felt too old, as if he might not be able to handle this waiting any longer. He had a strong urge to drop to his knees, to ask the night sky how it had begun, and who had actually conceived and executed the rules of this game, and why Shawn had become the major player. "Shawn," he breathed, keeping to his feet. He felt some raindrops on his cheek.
Henry and Maddie stared at the house. The seconds became what could have been hours, hours in which they waited for someone to come out or someone to find a way in. Henry disobeyed the order that would have pushed them to the end of the driveway, so they both were in range to hear Juliet put her plan in motion.
Maddie squeezed Henry's hand hard enough to hurt, but he said nothing. He kept his eyes glued to Juliet as she escorted Yang towards the house. There was a way in.
Please. Let me hold him again, pull him tight against me, crush him with my arms, let him breathe against my chest, my little boy. Never, never, never let him go.
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The end.