to her left

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Juliet O'Hara sat up in bed, her head bowed, forehead touching her bent knees, hands covering her face, as she reminisced the past twelve hours:

She stood on the grass in the cemetery, flanked by Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster. Before them was a scene so easily imagined, yet that much harder to grasp.

Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective and her own partner, stood before her a few feet away, his stance tense and strained. His hands were in front of him, bound with his own handcuffs. Behind him, grasping the back of his collar, was the man whom they had been searching for, yet didn't realize until fifteen minutes ago. His face, careworn and rugged, wore the expression of absolute certainty-this man he held under his grip was guilty and therefore must die. No mind that he was a cop and simply trying to do his job-no, he had not completed his task of putting his son's killer behind bars for life, and so he must be eliminated. Someone had to pay. He grasped Lassiter's collar still tighter and jabbed the butt end of the pistol harder against the back of his neck, so that Carlton inadvertently flinched. The three onlookers stared, mouths open, august. They waited, tense, hoping for an opening-a space in time where Lassiter's attacker had a slight distraction, giving Carlton time to get away.

Juliet squeezed her eyes shut harder, as she tried to put the unwanted display of images from her mind, yet she could not. The mental movie continued to play over and over in her brain, no matter how many times she tried to replace it with something better. She, being a cop, knew that these types of situations always had the potential of happening, yet it always seemed a shock to her when they actually did. I mean, my own partner! she thought.

"We almost witnessed a murder back there!" She recalled her words to Shawn and Gus after the near disaster had been averted. "But we didn't," Shawn had replied.

She smiled ruefully at that memory. Shawn always seemed to be able to find the smallest amount of water in the glass. For him, it seemed, there was something good to salvage in every situation. Even the worst ones.

Without warning, her mind wandered back to the stand-off in the cemetery. She recalled Carlton's face as he stood before her, being held as a hostage. Him, of all people. She wondered how Shawn and Gus managed to deal with it so frequently. In his eyes, she had read fear. Carlton had been afraid. She then realized that Carlton's bravado and boasts were simply a front he used to hide his real vulnerable self from the outside world. Typical men. What was the point of hiding every emotion, just to save face?

Mr. Salamatchia, his hand still gripping Carlton's collar, eyed the three witnesses before him carefully. "Put the gun down, Miss Detective," he ground out, directing his gaze to Juliet. She continued to point the Glock at the suspect. Instantly, the gun moved from Carlton's neck as Salamatchia aimed it at her. "I said, put it down! Drop your weapon! Or I'll kill him now!"

Juliet moved her eyes briefly from the attacker to her partner, and met his. A silent exchange was spoken between them with their eyes alone. Carlton gave a slight nod, and mouthed out, Just do it, as he motioned to her with a wave of his hand to put the gun down. She stared for a moment, waiting to see of he really meant it, and then, slowly, bent over and lowered her weapon to the ground. She knew that without a weapon or backup on the way, their chances of surviving this hostage situation, of Carlton surviving it, were slim. Yet she also knew that if she did not comply with him, Carlton would surely die.

Suddenly, she became aware that the two men beside her were making noises. "Please tell me that one of you has a weapon," she said in her best I'll-kill-you-if-you-get-us-into-any-more-trouble voice. She wasn't looking at them, as she was trying to keep their suspect in her sights. Salamatchia then turned the gun on Shawn, then back to Juliet and back again, as each of them moved. Shawn started to speak. "It's nothing, just a cordless phone." His hand moved inside his pocket. He held the object up to show Salamatchia. "Totally way out of range," he added, typical Shawn-like.

Gus was indignant. "You took our cordless phone to a crime scene?!" he shouted at his friend incredulously. Shawn ignored him. But Salamatchia was seething. "No weapons!" he shouted. Salamatchia was still pointing his gun at anyone who moved. Juliet heard Shawn moving around, as he talked to himself under his breath: "One, two, three-"

At that moment, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the cordless phone leave Shawn's hand and fly high through the air. It sailed overhead and hit a tree. Shawn cursed.

At that moment, several things began happening. Just as Shawn opened his mouth, Salamatchia also swore, then moved the gun back to the base of Carlton's unprotected neck. "You really shouldn't have done that," he growled. Then he pulled the trigger and there was a loud bang as the gun went off.

Carlton's eyes went wide and he gave a gasp, before he collapsed onto the ground, as Salamatchia let him go. Juliet was completely frozen for what seemed like a long moment. Then she jumped into action, grabbed her gun from off the ground, aimed and fired. The bullet hit Salamatchia in the right side of the chest, and he fell in a heap beside Lassiter. She could hear Shawn and Gus give a collected gasp, then Gus making weepy noises. But all this was as if she were in a haze. She was running toward her partner, yet it felt like she was trying to run through molasses.

Then she was kneeling by Carlton's body, yelling his name. He lay face-down, prostrate on the ground, a bullet hole in his neck. Seeing this, she froze again, her hands in midair, staring at it. She thought she heard Gus heaving somewhere to her left. Running footsteps sounded behind her, and then she felt a hand at her back. She started, and then heard Shawn's soothing voice: "Jules, it's okay, I'm here."

"No!" she cried. "It's not okay! My partner is dead!" She pushed at Shawn's hand which he had placed on her shoulder, trying to push him away. "No! I have to do this!" She then grasped her partner's limp arm, and pulled him onto his back.

As soon as she saw his face staring up at her, her hand went straight to her mouth. She felt sick.

He was covered in blood, all over his face and clothes. He lay motionless, completely still. Yet it was his eyes that made Juliet stop in her tracks. They stared upward, straight ahead, in a blank stare.

"NO!" she cried. "NO!" She pushed and pulled at him, trying to get him to move. It was in vain. He was gone.

Everything began spinning before her eyes, the bright colors swirling together to form a great, unidentifiable mass. Shawn was still trying to verbally comfort her, his voice coming from somewhere above her. Gus was still crying, and making weird noises. Yet nothing was making sense anymore. She seemed to be falling into it...

"CARLTON!"

Juliet awoke with a great start, her chest heaving, her hands, her whole body shaking. What was that? She put her hand to her chest, trying to calm herself. Why in the world had she had a nightmare involving her job, of all things? She was a cop, a detective, for crying out loud! She sucked air in, trying to get her normal heartbeat back.

When, (several long minutes later) she had finally succeeded in calming herself (at least to some degree), Juliet decided that she needed to call someone. No matter it was -she glanced at the clock on her nightstand-3:00 in the morning. She was going to call him. She needed the reassurance that he was okay, or she wouldn't feel safe going back to sleep again.

Juliet reached for her cellphone on the nightstand by her bed, and hit 1 for speed dial. The phone buzzed for 7 rings before it picked up, and a familiar groggy voice spoke, "Carlton Lassiter speaking."

Juliet suddenly felt awkward and didn't know what to say. "Uh, hi, Carlton." She pause a second, then added, "This is Juliet."

"O'Hara?" Carlton was immediately on the alert. "What's wrong? Is it an alert from the Chief?"

"Oh, eh, no, nothing like that." Juliet tried to keep her voice sounding normal, but Carlton had quickly picked up on the upset tone of his partner's voice.

"Okay, then, what's wrong then?"

"Oh, ah, nothing."

"You called me on my cellphone at 3:00 am for nothing?!"

"Uh, well-You see-" Juliet stuttered. Then she let it all out in a rush. "I-just-woke-up-from-a-nightmare-where-Salamatchia-uh-shot-you."

Silence. A long sigh. Then:

"O'Hara, you don't have to worry. I'm fine. These things happen when you're a cop." He paused. "Or a detective."

"I know." She tried to keep her voice from cracking. "It's just-I mean-it just doesn't usually happen to you. I mean, you're the best of us." She let out her own sigh.

"I know," he replied. "But sometimes the "best of us" show themselves to be vulnerable too."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Carlton Lassiter admitting that he himself was actually human? "Did you just say what I thought you said?"

He sighed again. "Yeah, I actually said that."

"Carlton, this is huge! You finally admitted that you have a sensitive side!"

"Stop it right there," he hissed. She immediately deflated. "If this gets out to that little twerp of a psychic and his little side-kick, I shall personally shoot him."

Big silence.

"Okay, okay, I won't say anything. Cross my heart and hope to die-"

"O'Hara..."

"I promise."

"Fine."

"I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm glad you are, too."

"Good night."

"Night."

"See you in the morning."

"See you."

THE END

I hope this wasn't too weird. Sorry if I made Juliet too touchy-feely. But she is sometimes a little out-of-line emotionally even in the show, especially the first few seasons. (Though I do like her that way. It makes her more realistic, especially when most, if not all, female TV show cops are so in-your-face-kick-you-in-the-pants style. It's so refreshing to see TV cops actually have a human, non-professional side to them. Even the Chief can get that way once in in a while.) Please let me know what you thought of this story, and also if you have any story ideas for me. Thanks!