The Wrong Number
Futurefic. Spoilers for 6.3, This Episode Sucks. This just kind of came to me after I started watching Psych again this season. I'm flexing what few writing muscles I have, and don't really expect rave reviews or look forward to brickbats.
The Christmas party was in full swing. Juliet O'Hara was avoiding the eggnog, having seen someone pouring whiskey into it, and she whispered to several other detectives in the station to avoid it as well. She was hoping the party would go down without too much brou-haha, and even if some people did get drunk, at least there would be no gunplay.
It was past midnight, several cops were dancing with each other, springs of mistletoe had been hung up over various unexpected places, and she was trying to avoid those places as much as she could the eggnog.
Only one member of the SBPD was avoiding the party, and she glanced over to observe him as he finished up a report. He had loosened his tie, his silver-touched dark hair was disheveled, and his eyes were a little bloodshot from a long week of working a very stressful murder-for-hire case and a cold he was fighting a losing battle against. Carlton Lassiter looked every day of his forty-two years, but in spite of that, Juliet couldn't help but think he looked…yummy.
Yes. So he was a good-looking man, and sometimes Juliet rather enjoyed looking at him. He didn't appear to recognize that fact, in spite of his wide shoulders and lean, strong build, and those incredible blue eyes. He was a little vain so far as his crime-solving abilities were concerned (with good reason), and he certainly enjoyed getting media coverage when he made a big bust, but when it came to his looks he didn't seem to grasp that he had a few female admirers at the station. Joan from accounting, for instance, had even asked Juliet if he was seeing anyone. Juliet had been truthful – Carlton had a girlfriend currently incarcerated in the Women's Correctional Facility and by all accounts was quite serious about Marlowe– and had only said that he was attached. Juliet didn't want to dwell on why that statement of fact had given her the blues at the time, and still did.
She saw Shawn and Gus come in – Shawn wearing felt reindeer horns and a red, blinking nose - and smiled, waving to them as they made their way over. Shawn gave her a warm hug and kiss, and they went to her desk to sit down and discuss Christmas plans. Would she be willing to come over to Henry's for a big turkey dinner? Then in the afternoon they would all go to Gus's parents' house and eat even more food and pass out in a stupor on the couch while Gus's father watched football. Juliet glanced at Carlton and noted that he was ignoring them all, which meant that he was probably listening to their conversation.
She wanted so much to go ask him to come along to Henry's at least. After all, it wasn't as though Marlowe could get out of jail for the day, just for Carlton's sake. But she knew he would refuse. He always refused. He would go back to his empty apartment and watch a Clint Eastwood marathon and on Christmas Day would finally succumb to A Christmas Story on TBS, just for the hell of it. She had to tamp down a giggle – he had quoted several lines from the movie, word for word, to her during a stakeout last year, when boredom and lack of sleep had made them both a little punchy. "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" had nearly made her pee her pants, and when he had gone into a brilliant re-enactment of the Chinese Christmas goose scene, she had thought she was going to die.
Juliet sighed. Carlton's phone rang and he snatched it up.
"Detective Carlton Lassiter," he barked, his voice sounding rough and worn. She knew he had lost against the cold now and wasn't actually feeling well. But he would be working the holiday. Just like usual.
"Jules, what do you want for Christmas? Any particular gift? Jewelry, clothes, a pet unicorn, the entire island of Manhattan, a Kermit the Frog plastic figurine from McDonald's…"
"I'll take Manhattan," Juliet said, smiling.
"The Muppets already took it," Shawn grinned back, his Rudolph nose blinking on and off.
"Calm down, sir," Carlton said wearily, rubbing his temple. "Yes. Okay…is she lying down?"
"Something pretty would be nice," Juliet said, tuning one ear to Shawn and the other to Carlton. "How about a diamond tiara?"
"All right, then…uh…are you married to this woman? Okay, then you've done this before, so how else could she get into her current condition? So now…the hard part…take her underwear off. What? No, I'm very serious. Yes, I'll hold…while you go through your attack of the stupids."
Carlton's pen bounced on the desktop, but he otherwise paid no heed whatsoever to the three people now staring at him, goggle-eyed with astonishment. He leaned forward, looking weary, and ran a hand through his hair. "Yes, I'm here. All right. Now, tell her to scoot back a bit on the bed and put her knees up. Yes, that's another thing that got her in this current pickle, right? Okay now…uh…take a look down…under…and tell me what you see without being too descriptive. I had a large dinner and it's already not sitting well." A short pause. Carlton turned away from them, searching through some papers until he finally came upon a case file. Juliet recognized it from across the way – a home invasion robbery gone wrong, which had lead to three dead. He opened the file and perused his notes. He was the only man Juliet actually knew who could multitask.
"Yes. Okay, so you see the head? Crowning, right? Great. Now…wait, calm down, is she having a contraction? Then make her let go, unless you're into doubling the number of bones in your hand. Okay. So…tell her to push. What? What? What did she say? All right, all right, put her on the phone, then! Put her on the phone! Put her on the damned phone!" Carlton flipped through some of the case notes and found Juliet's comments. He sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut a second, apparently realizing he couldn't beat the cold that was storming his immune system. "Why does she always have to write so small? Hello? Yes? What's your name, ma'am? Stella? Listen here, Stella, you will have to push. All right, then, take it as an order! I'm aware that it hurts, and I know you're tired and your sheets are ruined and this is going to put one hell of a damper on your Christmas plans…no, I'm not saying I understand. I don't understand. I pray to God in heaven above that I never do have to experience that kind of pain, but then again I have been shot a couple of times, so…potato, pot-ah-to. Now listen. You have to push this kid out. You can't carry him around until he starts college. It's a bad look. Now, are we in agreement about the whole pushing thing? Yes? Put your husband on the phone again. Thanks." Carlton flipped through some crime scene photos. Shawn edged closer, looking, aghast, at the pictures and then at the cranky detective. He looked at Juliet, who could only make an 'I don't know' gesture.
"Is she pushing now? Yes? Good. Uh…you should actually see the muscles tightening…right, right…it won't be much longer now. Right. Head's out now? Okay. Here's the really fun part – you have to get his shoulders clear. Put your hands under the baby's neck and slowly...uh...angle him...side to side…very gently, don't pull, and ease him out. No pulling! Right, exactly. Just guide him out. That's it…right, right…good. Shoulders are out? That baby's gonna start sliding toward you now, Johnny Bench, so catch him. Got 'im? Good. A boy? Yeah. Okay. Clear his mouth. Don't cut the cord…yes, a fine pair of lungs he's got there. Yeah, I'll chew some gum. Get a shoestring and tie it about four inches from the bellybutton. Give the baby to the mother. Give it to her. Give it to her, dammit! Now, you got any newspapers lyin' around? Grab a few pages and tell her to do a little more pushing, 'cause now you've got to cope with the placenta, which is almost as horrifying as the baby itself. Yeah, okay, I'll hold again…not like I've got anything better to do…this is my punishment for working on that horse farm when I was a kid..."
Carlton flipped over a page of the report and perused the file notes, drumming his fingers impatiently. A few more Christmas partygoers were standing around now, watching this scene unfold with wide-eyed disbelief while holding cups of spiked eggnog, and he was still unaware that he now had a riveted audience. The cold had taken hold of him entirely now and he sniffed and coughed miserably. He rubbed his temples, mumbling something about NyQuil.
"What? Right. Get some towels and clean the baby up as best you can. Well, you can always get new sheets, and as he gets older, he's only going to get uglier. Boiling water?" He made a bewildered face. "What're you gonna do, have a shrimp boil at time like this? Ah…no. I don't. Only on TV. Ever watch Little House on the Prairie? Every episode had some woman having a baby during a blizzard, sometimes when she wasn't even pregnant." At that, Shawn covered his face with his hands and struggled to contain his laughter. "They never had boiling water, either. Got the placenta out? No, you are not allowed to throw up! Wrap the placenta in the paper. They'll want to examine it, for God only knows what reason. Sometimes they even pass it around, like a bowling trophy. It's a doctor thing. I can't explain it. Yeah. Exactly – like your own personal Blair Witch Project, right there in your own bedroom. Ah-ha-ha…yeah, don't stand in the corner, whatever you do! Uh-huh. Right. Well, that's nice. Huh? Carlton Lassiter. Well, I didn't pick it. I was named after my great-grandfather, a smuggler from Cillagh, County Connemara, Ireland, who was eventually hanged for horse theft. Yes, glad to help. And by the way, this is not 911, this is the Santa Barbara Police Department's homicide division and I'm a detective. Congratulations, Merry Christmas and get off my damn phone and call an ambulance." He hung up and continued reading over the file, rubbing his bleary eyes.
Chief Vick cleared her throat and Carlton finally glanced up and his body did a kind of jerk when he saw so many eyes on him. "Yes?" he asked nervously, adjusting his tie.
"Did you just…walk that man through delivering a baby?" Vick asked him, incredulous.
"Er…yeah." Juliet's heart twisted when she saw his face flush and his ears turn red. "It was…uh…the wrong number. O'Hara! I know who the killer was on that home invasion robbery…it was their son. He was after the inheritance! Wanna be in on the collar?"