This was written for Syncop8ed Rhythm as part of this year's Secret Santa Fic Exchange.

Nothing Psych belongs to me. Neither do any of the other shows of which I make mention, nor does Netflix. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Shawn was sleeping quite soundly. That is, he was until the insistent vibrating of his phone against the nightstand woke him up.

He blinked groggily, reaching a hand over to blindly grope for the offending device. The phone had moved across the hard surface as it buzzed, and only the shirt that Shawn had left half-hanging off the small table the night before had saved the device from landing on the floor.

The display declared Gus was calling, and Shawn dragged his finger across the bottom of the screen to answer. "'lo?"

"Shawn!" Gus sounded upset. "Where are you?"

"My bed."

"I thought you and I agreed to meet at the Psych office at nine this morning so we could go over the case!"

Shawn rolled over and sat up, holding the phone to his ear as he swung his feet over the side of the mattress. "What time is it?"

"What time- Shawn, it's nearly 9:30!"

"Only 9:30?" Shawn laughed, looking around for the pants he'd worn the day before. "The way you were acting, I'd have thought it was at least ten."

Gus made a noise of annoyance. "If I'm going to give up my Saturday morning, you are most certainly going to be here with me. Why aren't you here anyway? Didn't you set your alarm?"

Shawn tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder as he looked under his bed. "Sorry, Gus, I must have forgotten. They added new episodes of Sherlock to Netflix," he reasoned. There were no pants under the bed, but he did spot his Converse, which he pulled out as he continued, "and I might have stayed up a little later than I planned to. You know I can't resist Martin Freeman's face."

"And you didn't invite me over?" Gus exclaimed. "But whatever, Shawn. We have work to do, or have you forgotten our agreement to help the SBPD solve cases?"

"Please. How could I forget that, Gus?" Shawn finally spotted his jeans next to his door and moved to snag them as well. "Besides, I already figured out who did it."

"You what? And it didn't occur to you to let me know this sooner?" Gus sounded intrigued, if a little perturbed as well.

"Yeah!" Shawn exclaimed, attempting to maneuver a t-shirt over his head as he continued his conversation. He finally gave up and put the phone on speaker, setting it on the bed as he pulled the shirt on. "Remember how we talked to the boyfriend, Thomas Jefferson or whatever his name was, and he said he was at work that night?"

"Thomas Jeffreys. And yeah," Gus's voice sounded slightly distorted as it came through the speaker, "the manager confirmed it."

"Ah but wait until you find out what I found out!" Shawn declared, digging in one of his drawers for a pair of socks. "Before my impromptu marathon last night, I went by the convenience store where Jeffreys works to talk with the guy who had worked with him that night, Marco Gutierrez, but they said he was on break. Which got me thinking. We looked into Jeffreys and where he was that night, but what about Marco?"

"The coworker?" Gus asked. "What would he have to do with anything?"

"Think about it, Gus! What if Jeffreys didn't kill his girlfriend but the coworker did?" Shawn asked excitedly, hopping on one foot as he pulled on his socks and shoes. "We know Jeffreys and his coworker were good friends, so what if Jeffreys got Marco to do the crime for him? It would be the perfect arrangement; the cameras keep track of Jeffreys' night at work while the actual killer goes on break and does the crime, then comes back?"

"That actually makes sense…" Gus trailed off. "Do you know what time he went on break that night?"

"Yup," Shawn grinned. "The girl behind the counter couldn't resist my charms and looked it up for me."

"Shawn…" Gus sounded dubious.

"Well, she couldn't! Either way, he took his thirty minute break right during the time someone shot Melissa Douglas." Shawn grabbed the shirt off his nightstand and buttoned it over his Apple Jacks t-shirt. "It's perfect!"

"Okay then," Gus said slowly, and Shawn could imagine him thinking over the information. "We need to let Lassiter and Juliet know."

"Meet you at the police station!" Shawn grabbed his phone off the bed, ended the call, and hurried for the door, tucking the device in his pocket as he did so.

Within fifteen minutes of their phone conversation, Shawn and Gus were walking into the Santa Barbara police station together.

"Gus, please, can we get off the topic of my not being at the office this morning?"

"Spencer, this had better be good!" Lassiter snapped, looking up from his computer as he heard the two approaching. "I have better things to be doing with my morning, or haven't you heard there's a murderer on the loose? McNab!" he called to someone out of sight. "Where's that coffee?"

"Aw, come on, Lassie, you can't be that unhappy to see me." Shawn grinned mischievously.

"Gus said you'd had a vision?" Juliet prompted.

"Gus! You told?" Shawn asked, giving his friend an offended look.

Gus crossed his arms. "Of course I did. I wanted to make sure they would be here so you could tell them what you'd found out."

"Oh," Shawn paused. "That actually makes sense."

"Spencer!" Lassiter interrupted.

"Okay, okay." Shawn held up both hands in mock surrender then suddenly clapped a hand to his head. "Oh! Oh! I'm getting something, guys! I'm getting something! I'm getting... I'm getting..."

"Well I'll tell you what you're not getting. Younger," Lassiter remarked, rolling his eyes. "Can't you just tell us what you see and not jump through all these hoops first?"

"I do what the spirits tell me to do, Lassie!" Shawn exclaimed from where he had thrown himself to the floor.

"Then can they tell you to hurry it up?"

Juliet was watching Shawn with a little more interest than her partner. "Are they telling you who killed Melissa Douglas?"

"Melissa Douglas!" Shawn yelped, jerking a little on the floor. "Yes! Yes! I see... I see a man with a gun!"

"Well we knew that much, Spencer," Lassiter muttered.

"But you don't know which man that was!"

Lassiter crossed his arms. "Spencer, stop yelling and get off the floor. I have work to do."

"Polo!" Shawn exclaimed, sitting up suddenly.

"What?" the other three asked at the same time.

"No, wait. Marco! Marco wasn't playing polo; he was killing his friend's girlfriend!" Shawn stood and flashed a smile at Juliet. He swung an arm towards Gus, planning to go into more details about the solution to the case.

Gus involuntarily stepped backwards as Shawn's arm came at his face, just as McNab hurried up to the group, carefully balancing a cup filled to the brim with steaming coffee.

"Here's your coffee, Det-" That was as far as the rookie got before he collided with Gus.

The cup of coffee became unbalanced and, before anyone could catch it, spilled down the back of Gus' shirt as the two men went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

"I'm going to kill you, Shawn!" Gus' voice came from under McNab as the officer scrambled to his feet.

McNab offered a hand to help Gus up. "I'm so sorry, Gus; are you okay?"

"Are you all right?" Juliet looked just as worried as McNab.

Lassiter, however, was glaring at Shawn harder than he had been a moment before. "Spencer, that was a perfectly good cup of coffee that you just spilled. Now you had better tell us what you came to tell us and get out of the station."

"You owe me a new shirt, Shawn!" Gus interjected. "And I think I'm already getting blisters; I have very sensitive skin!"

"Fine." Shawn didn't look very happy, but he continued, "I am getting a very strong feeling that if you look into the boyfriend's coworker, you will find he left on a break, killed Melissa Douglas, and came back like nothing had happened."

Juliet's eyebrows rose as Shawn continued, "And if you look at the security footage from the convenience store, you'll notice that our dear Marco just happened to change his shirt on break. He leaves in one and comes back in another. It's just hard to tell because they both look similar."

"I think we have some stills from the cameras," Juliet offered, digging through a stack of papers on her desk until she came to the file for which she was looking. After a moment, she looked up. "You're right, Shawn," she said, turning the file towards the others.

"Dude, I was right!" Shawn whispered, offering his fist to Gus behind Juliet's back.

Lassiter reached for the two photographs on the top of the stack and studied the shots. "Let's go, O'Hara. I want to ask this guy some questions." Without another word to Shawn or Gus, he headed for the door.

"Thanks, Shawn," Juliet acknowledged before hurrying after her partner.

"Well, come on, Gus!" Shawn exclaimed. "We can't miss out!"

Gus followed much more reluctantly. "Shawn, shouldn't we just let Lassiter and Juliet take care of this?"

"Gus, don't be the last piece of apple pie the day after Thanksgiving. What fun would it be if we let them do it all by themselves?" Shawn grinned. "Now come on; I'll race you!"

"Spencer!" Lassiter barked as the two consultants climbed out of Gus' little blue car. "I don't remember asking you to follow us here."

Shawn shook his head. "You didn't have to ask, Lassie. I could see it in your eyes. Besides," he continued as Gus elbowed him in the ribs, "I might have another vision or something, and it's much easier if I'm right here with you."

"Shawn, we just don't want you to get hurt," Juliet reasoned.

"Why would you think I would get hurt?" Shawn asked. "You and Lassie will both be there and it's not like we're in some dark alley. We're at the guy's work!"

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Just stay here, all right, Spencer?" Before Shawn could respond, the head detective started across the parking lot towards the store entrance.

"Really, Shawn, stay out of the way," Juliet added quickly, following Lassiter.

Frowning, Shawn crossed his arms. "Why do we have to miss out on all the fun, Gus? We told them to come here - well, I did; you just came along for the ride - but I think that should at least entitle us to be in on the whole thing!"

"Uh-uh," Gus shook his head. "They know what they're doing, Shawn, and I would prefer not to put myself in any unnecessary danger just to watch Lassiter and Juliet arrest a guy."

"But that's half the fun of it," Shawn complained. "The watching Lassie and Jules arrest a guy part, not the danger part," he added when Gus glared at him. "Hey!" he exclaimed a moment later as a red car pulled into the parking lot.

"What?" Gus looked around.

"That's Marco!" Shawn was trying not to point at the man's car and had settled instead for jerking his head towards where the man had pulled into a parking space at the far end of the small lot. "I bet Lassie and Jules come out waving their guns in a minute," he told Gus.

For his part, Gus had stepped to the other side of the blue car, putting it between himself and Marco, who was stepping casually out of his own car. "Shawn, get down!" he hissed. "I am not watching you get shot again!"

"Technically you didn't watch me get shot," Shawn corrected. "I got shot by myself because you wouldn't wake up to answer my call that night."

Gus rolled his eyes. "I am not doing this with you right now!"

"Come on, Gus; he doesn't even know who we are," Shawn reasoned, watching Marco start across the parking lot.

"And I'd like to keep it that way," Gus shot back.

Marco was passing them now, and Shawn offered a casual wave and a smile. Gus ducked farther behind the car, trying to stay out of sight, but the other man didn't give them more than a quick glance.

Just then, the door to the convenience store swung open and the two detectives exited the small building.

Marco froze as his gaze met Lassiter's, and he spun quickly, making his way back across the parking lot faster than anyone had expected. It wasn't the largest parking lot to begin with, and the man was at his car almost as soon as Lassiter and Juliet had pulled their weapons.

"Marco Gutierrez!" Lassiter bellowed. "SBPD! We need to ask you a few questions!"

Shawn could barely see Marco's head through the window of the car, but he could tell the man was looking for something.

"Oh yeah?" Marco yelled back. "You did that already!"

"You're only making things harder for yourself!" Lassiter shouted. "Just come with us so we can talk to you!"

"Not a chance!" Marco replied. He stood up behind the shelter of his car, and Shawn could see what he had been trying to find. A black handgun was tightly clenched in his hands. "No chance you're just going to leave me alone, right?"

"Like he's going to shoot anyone," Shawn scoffed. "Not from that distance."

"Shawn, get down!" Gus insisted. "Who cares about analyzing his shooting skills?"

"Put down the gun!" Lassiter commanded.

"Seriously, though," Shawn wasn't listening. "He shot Melissa Douglas at close range. From that far, he'll be lucky to hit anything, much less his target." He cocked his head. "Though you might want to move, Gus. There's a chance a stray bullet could hit that side of the Blueberry."

Before Gus had a chance to respond, Marco shouted his reply to the detective.

"I'd rather take my chances!" the man called. And then he pulled the trigger.

Two things happened in the next second. One, Lassiter and Juliet immediately fired in response to Marco's shot. And two, Shawn felt a searing pain in his abdomen.

Accompanying the pain was a force that pushed him back onto the asphalt, and he suddenly found himself blinking up at the sky.

Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard several more gunshots and a cry of pain from Marco. The sound of running feet pounding the pavement reached his ears, then Gus' face suddenly appeared in his line of sight.

"Shawn!" Gus put a hand to Shawn's face. "Talk to me, buddy!"

Shawn blinked, trying to focus past the fire in his stomach. He managed to grin up at Gus, even though it hurt terribly. "Gus..."

"No, Shawn, don't talk." Gus looked away from Shawn's face for a moment, down towards where Shawn had his hands clenched over his midsection, then swallowed hard and looked back into his friend's eyes. "Juliet's calling for help."

Shawn chuckled, then coughed, wincing at the pain that shot through his entire body. "Good... to hear that." He could feel something wet seeping through his fingers. "Gus..."

"Shawn, you're going to be fine," Gus interrupted. "Now lie still."

Things suddenly tilted and spun around him, and Shawn blinked furiously. "Gus?"

His friend's face was weaving in and out of focus. "Shawn? Shawn!"

Shawn wanted to answer, really he did, but for some reason, his body refused to cooperate. And the more he tried, the more he felt like he was made out of stone.

"Gus..." he finally managed, just as everything went dark.