Once again, my dear faithful friends and readers, we´ve come here together to indulge in a story. And I still don´t believe that this insanity is still going on. So let´s not question this luck that we have but enjoy it, shell we? Here we go.

Disclaimer: I don´t own anything.

Mistakes of the Past

The crowd was cheering. The headlights were hot on Shawn´s skin and he felt good, anticipating the big moment, the one moment that was always the best when solving a crime. The two people came up the stage, taking the two crones from Gus and sat down in their thrones, the thrones of king and queen of the prom.

"Looks like history repeated itself." Shawn spoke into the microphone and got a heartily laughter for it. Even the two crowned people laughed and he smiled brightly at them. "Those crowns sure are heavy." he announced and Gus agreed with him. They smiled.

Shawn turned back to the crowd and went straight from praising to accusing. "Heavy with lies." he said dramatically. The smiles in their faces were immediately wiped away.

"You see my fellow alumni." Shawn went on. "One of your classmates was murdered here tonight. His name was Peter Colter. Smart kid. He was a whiz at fixing cars. He was also the water boy for the football team. The reason you probably don´t remember him very well is because he lived in their shadow." he pointed at the prom queen and king, who by now looked very uncomfortable in their thrones.

"He worshiped them." Shawn told the crowd. "He´d do anything for them, including taking a rap for a tragic car accident that was actually caused by Howie."

Shawn turned away from the microphone and walked around the thrones until he stood right behind Howie Masterson, the king of the evening. Or so he´d thought.

"And you let him do it." Shawn addressed him, not needing the microphone to be heard. "Because you didn´t want to lose your precious scholarship. Poor Peter´s live stuck in that moment. He never recovered. That´s why he didn´t show up to take his yearbook photo and that´s why he moved away and ended up committing petty crimes. Meanwhile the two of you moved on to UCLA, you married your Prom Queen and probably never gave your old friend Peter another thought." He raised his hand to his temple. "That is … until about a month ago, isn´t that right, Eileen?"

He saw the resignation sinking into the conscience of the woman that sat on the throne before him and her husband was not much better off. Shawn went on, telling the rest of the story to the audience until he came to the great finale, recapturing the murder itself. He could see on Howie´s and Eileen´s faces that he was spot on with the way he described it.

The faces he saw in the audience were confused and disturbed by what they´d just heard and when Lassiter and Juliet walked through them, the officer´s following behind to arrest the culprits, they started mumbling to each other in concerned voices.

"Three arrests in one night." Lassiter commented when he entered the stage. "Not bad. Please tell me you have the body." he whispered at Shawn.

"It´s the fury Sabercat backstage." Shawn told him and made the detective very happy with that.

"Homicide Howie, ladies and gentlemen." Shawn announced and made the crowd perform an uncertain applause, while Lassiter and Juliet cuffed the two culprits and led them off the stage.

But Shawn was not quiet done yet. The case was solved and closed but there was some more he needed to do tonight and he would do it now or never. He faced the audience once again and spoke into the microphone.

"And now I´d just like to take the opportunity to thank someone who is not only responsible for planning all of this tonight, complete with a Rastafarian theme that you all embraced so heartily, but who is also the mastermind behind solving tonight´s crime."

He could see the disturbed and surprised look on his best friend´s face, as well as the slightly surprised faces of his parent´s, down in the crowd. And Abigail of course, who was watching him with that sweet sweet smile of her´s. The one that he´d let go, so many years ago.

"I know it´s true, I´m the psychic." he kept talking. "But oftentimes my revelations are nothing but a cryptic mess. Tonight for instance all I could see was scenes from Pretty in Pink, a giant rhombus and a t-shirt that read: "Soccer Moms are easy." Now I don´t know what these things mean, but Gus is somehow able to shape them into cold, hard evidential facts. But that is not what makes him great … no, sir."

He looked at his buddy next to him and he could tell that Gus was totally flabbergasted by what he was hearing. Shawn went on.

"Burton Guster has been my friend since we were five. And maybe, just maybe, if any of you can look at yourselves in the mirror and know, that you´ve been only half as good a friend to someone else, as Gus has been to me … you too can be considered great. So give it up. For my best friend. Burton Guster."

He didn´t need to start the clapping this time. The crowd applauded all on its own when Gus stepped to his side, smiling widely now and not a bit confused anymore. He threw Shawn a glance and they understood each other. Shawn nodded at him, not saying a single word. But Gus understood it anyway. That was for you, buddy.

His eyes flew over the audience and saw a few faces that were more than just random old classmates, he barely remembered. His parents in the back, their eyes watery and touched. Lassiter and Juliet somewhere in the middle, their gazes approving and calm. And Abigail. Always back to Abigail. The girl he´d let go when he hadn´t been wise enough to avoid this mistake. God, how much he hated it sometimes, the fact that one couldn´t reverse the past.

In his pocket his cell phone started to vibrate, telling him that he´d received a text message. He got it out and looked at the display.

"Hey, there. If you bought a house from Keanu Reeves two years ago and wonder how you could reach him … send him a letter. - IMU"

Shawn frowned and skimmed the crowd again. No one down there stroke him as the writer of this strange message. But on the other hand, how could he be sure? Instead of wondering, he just wrote back: "Hey you. Good reference. Who are you?"

The answer came quick enough but it was only three letters: "IMU" beneath it was a winking smiley, with a tongue sticking out. Shawn chuckled.

"You don´t wanna tell me, huh?" he mumbled to himself but was far from giving up. So he wrote again.

"Not even a tip?"

The answer was confusing again. It read: "In time."

Shawn wrote: "Aw, come on, dude, where are you? Wave once for yes, twice for no."

He sent the message and looked over the crowd if someone was reading a message on his or her cell phone. No one did. He got another answer. A smiley and beneath that: "You´ll figure it out in time. Until then, just follow the instructions."

Shawn frowned. "What instructions?" he wrote but only got the same cryptic answer again.

"In time. Just remember. There are things that can be undone."

And that was it. Nothing more. He tried to get another answer but the other one just wouldn´t send anymore messages. Shawn looked down on his cell phone and frowned. What the hell had that been? A prank? To finalize his high school reunion? What a lame prank would that be?

His eyes found Abigail in the crowd again. She looked at him as if she was still waiting. Still after all those years, since he´d left her at the pier. There are things that can be undone. Shawn sighed. Maybe that was right. Maybe. And maybe he wasn´t quiet done for tonight either.

So he packed his cell phone away and made his way down the stage to meet her in the crowd. Maybe he couldn´t change his mistakes in the past but he could change the outcome of this night. And he had to make an apology before it was over.

...

Today:

Juliet O´Hara was just in the process of typing the last words of her latest case report, when her cell phone rang. She took it out of her pocket without stopping in her typing and answered it, as casually as she´d picked it up.

"Hello." she said, still typing.

"Juliet." a totally unexpected voice said. "It´s me."

The endless run of her fingers over the keyboard stopped in an instant. Her eyes darted around the station to make sure no one was in hearing distance.

"This …" she started, lowering her voice even more to be extra sure no one would hear her making a private call while she was on duty. "This is not the right time." she told her caller. "I´m at work."

A heavy silence was all she got for a response and this worried her more than every answer could have done it. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"I just … needed to hear a friendly voice."

Juliet blinked in sympathy, feeling bad for her harsh greeting. "Are you alone?" she asked.

"Yeah. At the moment."

"You shouldn´t be. Isolation only makes it worse."

"I know."

Juliet sighed. That wasn´t good. He didn´t get better at all. She´d thought he would, had hoped he would, but it didn´t happen. Not really. No matter how much he tried to kid himself. Damn, why did he have to be so stubborn?

"Maybe you should talk to someone." she suggested again. "A specialist. Someone who can …"

"No one would understand that." he insisted, once again. "That´s why I´m talking to you. You understand. You went through the same ordeal I did. Only you never gave up hope."

"That´s not true." Juliet replied. "I gave up hope, not for long but I did. When Carlton was stabbed in that allay … I didn´t know what to do. I thought we´d lost. But we didn´t lose. We won. We beat them and we´re all alive. And it´ll stay that way. We´ll keep watching out for each other, all of us. WITHOUT … tailing each other." she hurried to add.

There was a quiet chuckle in the line. "I know." he said. "I know, I … I try. I try not to."

"It´s not easy, I know." she assured him. "Almost every time Carlton leaves the station, I see him in that allay again." She closed her eyes for a moment, willing the image away. "But I know he can watch out for himself." she went on. "We can´t protect them 24/7."

"I know."

"Listen. Everything is going to be all right. We beat them. We survived. We need to go on with our lives, otherwise they would have won."

"I know." this time he sounded frustrated.

Juliet sighed. "I need to go back to work." she told him.

"Yeah. Sorry I called."

"No. No, it´s all right." she hurried to assure him. "Just … stick to the usual time again, okay?"

"I will." he promised. "Thank you, Juliet."

"No problem. Oh and one more thing. … Go outside. It´s not good to stay alone inside. Not after what we´ve been through. You can´t tell me that the apartment doesn´t feel like a cell." After a short hesitation, she added: "The dreams will stop eventually."

There was a brief silence in the line. "How´d you know?" he asked, genuinely shocked.

"I have them too." she admitted. "Still. I wake up at night and wonder what day it is and if it really happened … that day when we charged the mansion. Or if I only dreamed it and for real we´re still looking, hoping, knowing that we´ll probably not succeed. Ever." She needed to stop herself to take a shaking breath. "But I know it was just a dream." she finished.

"How do you know?"

"I look at the picture on my nightstand. I took it with my cellphone right after we got out of that mansion and I just know that there is no way this picture would be there, if it hadn´t happened. It is my proof for it being real. I look at it and I know … that both of my partners are alive and well. That helps me find back to sleep."

Juliet sat there and listened to the silence on the other end. He didn´t need to say anything. She knew he was nodding, an expression of thoughtfulness on his face.

"Thanks for listening." he said at last. "Right back."

She heard him smile and smiled as well. It felt totally natural by now, to exchange such nonverbal signals over the phone, even though they couldn´t see each other. They´d given each other this strange sort of therapy for weeks, so it was probably a normal thing to feel that way.

Juliet chuckled and shook her head. Telephone counseling O´Hara. Tell me yours, I tell you mine. But it had done good to talk about it, maybe even more because it had been over the phone and not face to face. It had made it easier. For both of them. And maybe he was right after all. Who else should they talk to about what happened? No psychiatrist would ever understand it. Only they could. Because they´d been there. Together, even if they´d been apart.

The front door was opened and she heard the voice of her partner. When she looked up she saw Carlton walk in, closely followed by Noah Bennet.

"I need to go, Carlton just came in." she spoke into her phone. "We can talk again later."

"All right."

She hung up just when the two men reached her.

"O´Hara." Carlton almost shouted, announcing in his typical get-ready-tone: "We have a case."

Juliet raised a brow, sceptically, eying him and Noah. "We have a case?"

...

Gus was sitting in his office, working through a big heap of samples on his desk. The lab had produced at least ten new drugs (most of them only new in package and layout) and now it was his part to deliver them. For today he had twenty-seven doctors to visit and it was nothing he liked to look forward to. Not on a Friday anyway.

His cell phone started to ring and he ignored it, determined not to allow Shawn to distract him from his work. Not right now. Whatever he had to tell him, it could wait until this afternoon. He kept sorting through the pills. The phone kept ringing. Gus ignored it.

Another pill went into his buggy, rightly signed and packed. The phone was still ringing. Gus threw a look at it, still adamant. He would give up. Even Shawn had to get the message. And eventually he did. The ringing stopped and Gus smiled victoriously. That was until his cell phone vibrated to tell him he had a text message.

Not able to suppress his curiosity, Gus made a step to the side and threw a glance at his display. Just a quick look. Reading the message wouldn´t take as long as a talk with Shawn would have taken. So he opened the message and it read: „That´s not fair, dude. I know you´re there."

And in that second, when he´d finished reading, the phone started to ring again. Gus jumped and almost dropped his phone. Angry he hammered his thumb down on the answering button.

"Shawn!"

"Dude, why don´t you answer my call?" Shawn asked, actually sounding kinda sad. Gus was almost sorry now. What if his friend had desperately needed someone to talk to? He would have just let him hang. What kind of a horrible person was he?

"Shawn I …" he started but Shawn was faster.

"We have a case." he immediately blurred out.

Gus was baffled, for a second. Then he was angry. "What case?" he demanded to know.

"Don´t know yet. But Bennet got a call and Lassie is helping him. There is something coming up, dude, I tell you."

"How do you wanna know? And don´t even try to do the psychic on me."

"Okay, then I´ll do the Marty McFly. How´s that for a change?"

"What?"

"Something is going to happen very soon. Something big. And today is the day it starts."

"What? Shawn. If that is about these prank messages, you got a few years ago, you can stop right there. That was nothing but a prank."

"That was no prank, dude. And I can prove it to you."

"Ah, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And how do you wanna do that?"

"Lassie called me a hyperactive idiot." Shawn revealed as if it was one of the biggest mysteries of the universe.

"He calls you an idiot all the time."

"But not a hyperactive idiot."

"It´s the same thing."

"No, it´s not. Gus. Don´t you understand?"

"I don´t have the time for this, Shawn."

"Time is exactly what all this is about."

"How so?"

"I don´t know but the message said it clearly. Without any doubt. It said …"

"I´m hanging up now."

"Wait. Don´t you wanna be there when …?" Gus hung up. He shook his head and put his cell phone on silent alarm. He shouldn´t have answered the phone. He´d lost value minutes. Minutes he could have used to get done with his extra work.

...

Juliet waited for her computer to show her the file, she´d opened. It came up a minute later and her mouth dropped open. The photo on that file was unexpectedly familiar.

"This … gotta be a mistake." she mumbled and started reading.

"There a problem?" Noah Bennet asked, behind her. "Good. You´ve got his file." he noticed.

"This is detective Parkman?" Juliet cried, turning around to the company man in disbelieve. "The man we´re looking for?"

"Yes." Noah frowned. "Why?"

"We´ve met this man, as a producer of a TV reality show. He was a suspect of ours. And he called himself Jay …" But in this moment Juliet had found her answer all on her own. "He was undercover?" She shook her head. "But … that doesn´t make sense. His actions concerning the show were the reason for our real culprit to commit murders. If that man is a police detective, why would he do that?"

"I don´t know what you´re talking about." Noah admitted.

"O´Hara!" Lassiter called through the bullpen. "I just got off the phone with Parkman´s partner." he told her, throwing a glaring look at the photo on her screen. "You already know." he found.

"What did he say?" she asked, still lost over that unexpected news.

"He said that Parkman here, was on a very long and well prepared undercover mission to infiltrate a ring of smugglers and extortionists within the L.A. TV-industry. Apparently they sell drugs from the inside, to the stars and their casts. Sometimes heavier stuff. Obviously their plan was to get Parkman into the society by introducing him as a producer of a crappy reality show. When the attacks started to happen on his show, they believed it to be related to their high society case." Lassiter chuckled. "Unbelievable, isn´t it? They didn´t even consider the idea it could be something else."

"Carlton."

"What?"

Noah frowned, deeply and started walking. "So he was after a group of extortionists. Maybe they kidnapped him, when he got too close."

"Don´t think so." Lassiter interrupted. "After we arrested our man at the show, Parkman got taken off the case. Of course. He screwed up."

"Carlton."

"He fought against the decision of course, claiming he would lose the chance to get close to the extortionists. But they took him off the case anyway. Rightfully so, if you ask me. The man´s a cop. He should have seen what was going on. He should have helped us."

"He had a role to play." Juliet defended the man she´d only known as an arrogant, money concerned jerk. "I´m sure he was … just so dedicated to his mission …"

"O´Hara, don´t defend this guy. He screwed up, end of story."

"You came here, asking me to help you guys find him." Juliet recalled, losing her patience.

"And we still need to find him." Noah agreed, glancing sharply at Carlton. "Unfortunately his latest case doesn´t seem to be the clue I was hoping for. The way it looks, Matt didn´t even come close to these people in L.A. to make them some useful suspects for his vanishing. Dammit."

"Except if Parkman would have investigated further on his own call." Juliet mused. "You think that´s possible?"

Lassiter beat Noah with the answer. "His partner said, they were working a new case already. A gang of car thieves. Low stuff, probably meant as punishment." he chuckled again but spared another comment when he met Noah´s gaze.

"Detectives." a new voice chipped into the talk, making them all look up.

"Chief." Carlton cried, swirling around hastily. If that behavior hadn´t betrayed him, Juliet thought, then it was the pathetic try to shield the computer screen with his body. Useless. The chief had already seen it.

"May I ask what case you´re working on?" she asked, her arms crossed over her chest. "Because I can´t remember any of your current cases to be connected to the department in Los Angeles."

"There isn´t … chief." Carlton answered, flicking a brief glance at Juliet. "That´s … a new case … I recently stumbled across."

"Ah." the chief replied with a fake smile. "And how exactly did you stumble across this case, detective?" But before he could answer, she´d raised her hand. "Let me take a guess." She turned to Noah. "Mr. Bennet. Why is it that I always see you around when my detectives are working on cases that potentially involve some strange, unexplainable things? Last time you meddled in our cases, my leading consultant was kidnapped and my head detective was almost killed. Before that my station was shot to the ground and that means … I was shot to the ground."

At this last part her smile faltered a little, obviously overcasted by the memory. But this moment only lasted a second.

"So please don´t take it too personal when I say, I feel very uncomfortable with you being here in this very moment." she told Bennet.

"I assure you, I´m not taking anything personal." Noah replied. "But please believe me, I´m not here to make any trouble. Quiet the contrary, I´m looking for help."

Karen blinked. "In what way?"

"I just reported someone missing."

She frowned. "Who?"

"A police detective, chief." Lassiter answered immediately. "A detective Matt Parkman to be precise. He works for the L.A.P.D. And he´s missing for three days now. Officially."

"And what makes you think you can do something to find him?" she asked, not quiet allowing herself to be drawn in … yet.

"We … have reasons to believe that he might be here in Santa Barbara." Lassiter claimed.

"Really." the chief crossed her arms again. "What makes you think he could be here?"

"Because I told them, chief." another new voice announced behind her. Shawn was standing in the hall, his hand on his temple in his usual psychic vibe way. "I had a vision about this Parkman." he said. "I saw him surrounded by people that were not quiet friendly. And I saw a sign that read Santa Barbara." he threw Lassiter a glance and Juliet saw him nodding at Shawn, gratefully, behind the chief´s back. "I know that is not much to work with." Shawn went on. "But Lassie´s right. I think he´s here."

Vick turned around again to look at her detectives. Her gaze was still wary and Juliet guessed that she knew exactly that Shawn was lying, that he hadn´t told them anything. But in the end she seemed to make a decision.

"All right." she said. "You may proceed. If you find anything that can help the colleagues in Los Angeles to find their missing detective … let me know."

Carlton gave a strong nod at this order, as did almost everyone in the room. Vick gave them one last knowing glance and then simply walked away, back into her office. Juliet exhaled visibly when the door behind her closed and she wasn´t the only one.

"Thank´s Spencer." Lassiter said, honestly grateful. "That was a close call."

"No problem, man." Shawn nodded at him. "I´m always here to help." At this moment he´d spotted the computer screen. "Is that him?" he asked, frowning. "Doesn´t he look kinda … familiar?"

Lassiter only snorted.

Juliet took over the task to tell Shawn the story about the failed mission of the unfortunate detective Parkman all over again, and Shawn´s amazed and excited face was soon replaced by a thoughtful frown.

"Unfortunately we still have nothing we can use, to find out who might have kidnapped him." Juliet finished her summary and Shawn agreed, nodding. "Or Hiro Nakamura for that matter." she added.

Shawn looked up at her, brows raised. "Hiro´s missing, too?" he cried, making Lassiter snort once again.

"Kinda unbelievable, isn´t it?" Bennet mentioned. "We have two people with abilities, one of them with the ability to teleport wherever he wants to go and still they are missing in action."

"Almost as if they don´t want to be found." Shawn said, a little too heavy on the dramatic.

"Did you just say this detective Parkman has an ability too?" Carlton asked, frowning surprised at this new information.

"He´s a mind reader." Bennet affirmed.

Juliet raised her brows, Shawn whistled and even Lassiter made an impressed face, only to return to cynical the next moment.

"Wait." he spoke. "If he can read minds, how is it, that he didn´t know what his camera man was up to all this time?" He thought this over for a second, narrowing his eyes. "Maybe he was in on it after all." He shook his head. "I knew it. He was just a little too obsessed with his money. I bet he did it to get himself some nice private pension to retire in Hawaii or Florida or something like that."

"I don´t think so." Bennet disagreed and the serious tone in his words made Carlton listen for a change. "Matt is one of the most honest men I ever met. He´s a very dedicated police man, who´d never do anything to break his oath." He thought for a moment, before he added: "But he once tried to limit the use of his ability to a minimum." he recalled. "Maybe that´s the reason why he didn´t know the real culprit. Or maybe not, I don´t know. I wasn´t there, I´m not him."

"You can ask him as soon as we found him." Shawn spoke.

"Ah yeah?" Lassiter asked. "Then why don´t you make yourself useful by telling us where he is?"

At this suggestion Shawn inhaled sharply, pretending to think this over. "I´m afraid I´m not getting any locations right now." he said, shaking his head. "Maybe later. I´m sure I´ll get there. In time."

This last bit, he emphasized in a strange way, as if it was supposed to mean something. Lassiter frowned but so did Juliet. Even Bennet seemed to have noticed it. But other than usual Shawn didn´t want to share his special reference. If it had been a reference, Juliet thought. She couldn´t think of anything that would fit though. She sighed.

"I must admit, I´m out of ideas." she spoke up. "We have no suspects, no hints, no leads to where they could be. It is as if they disappeared into thin air."

"Too bad this girl isn´t here to help us." Shawn said and made everybody look at him again. "You know, the one Suresh took with him." he explained. „What was her name? Polly?"

"Molly." Bennet corrected but he sounded as if he´d just gotten the idea of the century.

"That´s it." Shawn snapped his fingers. "Molly. She could have found them. I mean that´s what she could do, wasn´t it? Finding people?"

Juliet watched Bennet staring at Shawn in shock. The man looked officially as if someone had punched him in the face. Shawn frowned irritated and spread his arms.

"What?" he asked. "Did I say anything wrong?"

"Noah?" Carlton asked.

Instead of giving him an answer, Noah reached into his pocket and got his cell phone out.

"Excuse me for a second." he said. "I need to make a phone call."

There. It´s done. Once again. I don´t need to tell you how much I rely on refiews so be kind and leave me one.

And thanks for reading.