Carlton Lassiter's birthday goes rather badly. And then rather well. Who knew that a concussion, the Kentucky Derby, Jeopardy! and a giant teddy bear could have so much in common?

It's just another day, Carlton Lassiter told himself. Just another day, and hopefully, everyone else – namely his partner – would think of it the same way and would leave him alone. He wanted no birthday wishes, gifts, e-cards in his mailbox (), which always made him think of that Johnny Carson/Jack Webb bit about the copper clapper caper), salutations, cards, letters, e-mails with those annoying little sparkly emoticon/graphics things that slowed his computer down and caused Outlook to crash entirely. He wanted no Irish step dancers, singing telegrams, strippers…

Okay, so a stripper might not be that bad, so long as she was relatively clean and her teeth didn't look too bad.

He was only human.

Somewhat. It was seven-thirty in the morning.

He pulled into the all-night grocery parking lot, avoided a truck suddenly jerking out of a space, and parked. He was going to get a cup of coffee, and for this place's lack of décor, the woman who ran the place from eight to eleven actually had some clue about how to make coffee. Not that he was friendly toward her or anything. He would find a hard Styrofoam cup – large – and fill it up with the coffee from the black-rubber topped pot, add cream and sugar, and plunk down a dollar fifty-five at the counter. Usually after watching some moron buy six lottery tickets. A brief glimpse of himself on the security camera, a quick inhale of rich, strong coffee scent, and he would be back out to his car and on his way to work.

Going inside, chimes over the door jingling, he looked around the store, taking in the fluorescent lighting, the ugly linoleum floor, and the rack of Hostess cupcakes that would taste pretty much the same sixty years from now as they would today. He glanced down at the floormat, which was yet again folded over at the corner. He kicked it back into place and strode in. He looked toward the counter, but the woman wasn't there, which seemed odd. He looked around the store, wondering, before continuing on to the coffee bar. He was not pleased at what he saw: no full pots of coffee.

Frowning, he turned back to look around, and saw a kid in a gray flannel hoodie behind the counter. "What happened to the coffee?" he barked at the kid.

"Sorry, dude."

Carlton frowned. Sorry, dude. The answer to any and all inconveniences now offered at convenience stores, apparently world-wide, not just in California. Disgusted, he started back toward the door, but decided he'd get one of those Hostess cupcakes anyway. He picked out a package of chocolate crème-filled and tossed it onto the counter, then went to the ice-loaded barrel directly across from the register and selected a bottle of Dr Pepper. He smacked the bottle down on the counter and started to reach for his wallet, but paused.

The kid seemed a little awkward with the cash register, and at first Lassiter was just annoyed about being delayed, but then he forgot his annoyance when he saw what looked like a red liquid on the kid's hands. The red liquid was also dripping onto the register key buttons, making thick splotches on the 7, the 8, and the 9.

It was then that he felt something cold and hard pressed against the back of his neck.

"Don't move, pig."

"It's totally unlike Detective Lassiter to be late," Chief Vick said, looking irritated. "He would at least have called by now."

Juliet sighed. The departmental budget meeting was starting in five minutes, and even though Carlton was of the opinion that most of the human race's progress had been slowed to its current grind by meetings, he never was late for one. In fact, Juliet knew that her partner got a stomachache and even crankier if he was late for anything…and God forbid anybody be late for something he was on time for.

Her cell phone started buzzing, but she didn't dare even take it out of her pocket, because the police commissioner had just sat down, flanked by his lackeys, as well as some city accountants and a man called a 'Comptroller', whatever that was. She hit the key for 'ignore' instead.

Carlton's first rational thought, after waking up and his black fury faded away and his vision cleared, was that the woman was either dead or she was near death. The second thought was that the bullet now lodged in his right shoulder had very definitely hit nerves, because his right hand was numbing. He had barely had time to react, but his instincts had kicked in quickly. He had grabbed his cell phone and hit '4' before the little punk behind him actually tried to knock him out with his pistol. He didn't remember much after that – it was a blur. A struggle, a gunshot, searing pain…the lights fading out around him.

She was lying in a pool of blood in the storeroom, and there was a bullet hole a few inches from the center of her chest, to the right. He looked around the room, finding only cleaning materials, mops and brooms, paper towels, and buckets. The thick metal storeroom door was locked, and his pistol and badge were both gone.

Growling in frustration and not a little pain, Carlton got to his knees and crawled to the woman. She had made his coffee every morning for three years and he had never learned her name. He finally saw the name-tag: Mirta.

"All right," he said, nodding. "Mirta. Sorry. I'm sorry." He checked her pulse, and saw that she was still alive. "Okay. You're alive. Good. I'm Carlton, by the way. I like the way you make coffee. Top-notch, gotta say. Excellent…Christ in heaven, that hurts…excellent coffee."

His mind wasn't working, but Carlton forgot about babbling and dropped down beside Mirta, suddenly realizing that as she was marginally alive, he needed to keep her that way as long as possible. He checked her pulse again and began performing CPR. She probably had kids and grandkids, all eager to see her again today. Who was eager to see him?

Frowning at his maudlin self-pity, and pushing away the pathetic fantasy he had of having a sunny-tempered blonde to come to (or go home with, actually), he settled his wobbly mind to the business at hand.

He breathed into Mirta's mouth and pumped her chest once, twice, three times, his confused and somewhat scrambled mind thinking of rinse, lather, repeat. She was still breathing. She had lost a lot of blood, but she was alive, and that helped him concentrate a little better. He kept working, hoping his breath wasn't bad. He knew that the last thing he would ever want to experience would be to wake up to an unattractive person breathing foul air into his body.

She was Indian, or Pakistani, or some such, mid-fifties, kind of plump, graying hair tied in a long braid. Hardly mattered at this point, what with her bleeding to death on a dirty floor in a storeroom. It didn't matter, either, that he was big dumb Irish mick caught in any cop's second worst nightmare (after a domestic dispute): a hostage situation. He dug in his pocket, but his phone was also gone. Damn. Slowly, ignoring the pain, he got up and looked around the room. Mops and brooms could make good weapons, if against other mops and brooms or someone really, really small and afraid of cleaning equipment (an anti-PineSol elf, maybe). Against guns…not so much.

"Wish I had watched more Jackie Chan movies, Mirta," he said as he knelt beside her again and continued monitoring her pulse. "I kinda remember…ow…remember hearing that if Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan got into a bare-fisted fight, no weapons, Lee would win, easy. But give Chan a paper clip and he mops the floor with Lee." He rubbed the back of his head, feeling a lump. "Great. Second clout must've worked. And hey, I'm babbling. I've never really babbled before. I don't generally feel babblish. Usually I yell at babblers. Babble. Interesting word. To babble. From the Latin. 'To bab', which is…um…what the Romans heard when the Barbarians talked, right? 'Bab-bab-bab', as far as they were concerned. That's where the name 'Barbara' comes from. Did you know that? I hate that name. Always did. If I had a daughter – yeah, I know, fat chance there, Carlton – I'd name her…I dunno…Sarah or…uh…well, maybe Lauren, after my sister, or Colleen, just to annoy my mother, who hates her sister Colleen, who was actually pretty nice…which is why Mother hates her. Then again, I'm not nice and she hates me, too, but that's neither here nor…uh…there." He looked around the room, rubbing the knot on his head. "Better stay awake, though, 'cause if this lump on my head means anything, it's a brain bruise, and brain bruises can cause…anybody…? Yes, Alex. Yes, I'm Carlton Lassiter. Middle name: Greene. Directly descended from the Greenes of Rhode Island. Cousin to General Nathaniel Greene, a superb military commander, I might add. Might I? Thank you. Dad was…uh…well, he left when I was ten, which was horrible, and then he came back when I was twelve, which was excruciating. Lauren was the only…my head is hurting now, in case you're wondering…good thing that came out of that, and then he left again, thank God, though that meant I was stuck with Mother and had to raise my sister 'cause Mother wasn't interested and eventually announced she was a lesbian and kind of ruined that Thanksgiving. Got a Master's Degree in Criminology at Stanford, but before that I was majoring in theatre and once brought the house down in the nude scene in Hair. Blood type O negative. Sole possession of the remote control. I like horses – I can give you the pedigrees of the last five winners of the Kentucky Derby, hand over fist, like a sonnet. And I…uh…like to read…though I tell people I only read books on military strategy, and I actually got sucked into those damned Twilight novels. Can you believe that? Seriously. I absolutely hate Jacob. Hate the sniveling little twerp. So here, for the Jeopardy round, Alex, I'll take 'Massive Head Trauma' for a thousand'. All right…'Pistol barrels, rifle butts, baseball bats'. Ding-ding…Carlton! What can cause concussions? 'Yes!' 'Oh, goody, I'll take 'Massive Head Trauma' for eight hundred, Alex'. 'Eight hundred it is, Carlton. 'This can happen if the sufferer of a massive head trauma falls asleep before receiving proper treatment' Ding-ding! Carlton! 'What are brain hemorrhages, a great big ol' peck of inconvenience, and death?' Correct!' Okay…I'll take 'How To Escape From a Storeroom While Bleeding Profusely' for two-hundred, Alex…"

"This is so weird. Carlton's cell phone just keeps switching over to voice mail." Juliet listened for Carlton's snarling 'You know what to do' and left another message. "Carlton, this is Juliet. Where are you?" She hung up and looked at Shawn, who looked equally concerned. It was totally unlike the SBPD's head detective to not only not show up, but not even call about it.

It was driving her crazy, and she was becoming so frantic that her grip on the phone had been so tight her hand was hurting and she was sure the receiver was now cracked. Where was he? He should be sitting there at his desk, growling at Spencer or arguing with somebody on the phone and flashing those blue eyes in her direction sometimes, either in annoyance or amusement.

"Maybe he's with a…uh…lady," Shawn finally ventured. That earned him a cold look from Juliet. He had better not be or I will kill him!

"Okay. Fine." Juliet picked up her cell phone and started to dial, but was instead startled to hear music. Loud, ugly music. "My God…what is that?"

Shawn leaned in. "G.W.A.R."

"Sounds like a bloody, vicious murder taking place in a saw mill!"

"That's how I knew," Shawn said with a modest shrug.

"Why is my phone playing G.W.A.R.?"

"Two thousand seven: Street Sense: Street Cry, out of Bedazzle, by Dixieland Band out of Majestic Legend by His Majesty out of Long Legend, by Reviewer."

Every time he finished a circuit of the room, he checked Mirta's pulse. Still holding on, if a little weak. He had gotten her bleeding to stop, anyway, with compresses made of the paper towels, and she was breathing fairly well. He was hoping that the bullet had missed her lung entirely. He, however, was still bleeding and his hand felt even number.

He forced his brain to keep working, throwing out every bit of useless trivia he knew. "Two thousand eight: Big Brown: Boundary, out of Mien, by Nureyev, out of Miasma, by Lear Fan, out of Syrian Circle, by…by…I don't remember. Hey, if guys can recite an entire lineup for a baseball team from nineteen-fifty-four, I can do the same with Derby winners, right, and maybe forget one or two? At least I'm not trying to remember Kentucky Oaks winners. I'd never make it. So I'm a chauvinist. What difference does it make now?

Mirta did not voice any opinions.

Juliet listened, bewildered, to the horrible 'music', and was vastly relieved when it finally stopped. Then she felt a chill go down her spine when she heard a voice. It was kind of distant from the phone, but every word was unmistakable.

"Dude, we killed a cop! Look at this!"

Rustling, then the sound of a turn signal. Traffic noise. "A badge. Santa Barbara Police Department."

"Check this out…wallet's got fifty bucks. Sweet! Credit cards…name was Lassiter."

"Jesus! He nailed me three years ago for that gas station robbery! We ain't keepin' those credit cards, man. Keep the dough, toss the rest. Keep the badge, though. Might come in handy!" A pause. Snorts of laughter. "You sure he was dead?"

Juliet almost dropped her cell phone. She realized she had hit the answer button when her phone had buzzed in the conference room, but she had never been so relieved at a mistake in her life. She shot to her feet and took off for Vick's office, Shawn and Gus looking at each other in bewilderment as they followed her.

Carlton was feeling a little stronger, for some reason. Maybe anger, adrenaline, disgust, or maybe he just wanted his Dr Pepper, which he had technically paid for and was still sitting on the counter. He checked Mirta again, and was pleased to see that she was still breathing fairly well. She was unconscious, and he sure wished he was, too. But he was starting to feel claustrophobic and, yes, a little spooked.

He had removed his jacket and had pressed it against Mirta's wound, which had helped even more to stop the bleeding (and ruined the jacket, but who was counting now?). He then removed his shirt, leaving his V-neck T for modesty's sake, and used it to wrap as best he could around his wounded shoulder. Three rolls of paper towels later, thick pads piled up neatly and wrapped into a kind of belt-like thing around the blue shirt, with his holster as a base, and he had a decent bandage going, and if it was a little bloody (well, very bloody, but again, who was counting?) at least the bleeding appeared to have stopped and he was thinking a little. Or not thinking. Whatever the case, he was on his feet again, looking at the door.

"Yes, Mirta, that is a door," he nodded, scratching his neck. He looked around it, and almost giggled when he saw the hinges. He looked around the room again, and stumbled around to the shelves, where he had seen a toolbox. Sure enough, there it was…locked tight. He grouched for a moment, then simply started banging it hard against the metal shelves, determined to remove its hinges. After several manful thwacks, the first hinge broke off. Another whack, and the second fell away. He dropped the box of tools on his foot, yelped with pain, and began digging around until he found a wrench.

"So let's see now…as of this moment, it's…head wound, bullet in my shoulder, broken foot…and I think I have a hangnail," he told Mirta as he got to work on the top hinge of the door.

"Okay, so where does Lassiter generally go before he comes to work?" Vick asked.

"I don't know!" Juliet said, tears filling her eyes. She struggled to pull herself together, unable to bear the notion of her partner – her friend, her…everything - lying in a pool of blood somewhere, dead or dying, with no one around to comfort him or help. She looked at Shawn, who was uncharacteristically silent. Gus, sitting in a chair in the corner of Vick's office, looked equally troubled.

"I remember seeing him at a gas station once, one morning. On Cowley, just a block or so from his house. He was getting coffee," Shawn suddenly said. "And I've seen him with the same sort of cup a few times since then."

"What gas station?"

"Um…I don't know." Shawn closed his eyes. "I see…blue silk…Little Debbie…no…Hostess cupcakes!"

"Shawn…"

"A tiny woman with black hair, graying…"

"Spencer…"

"I see Lassie yelling at me for spilling coffee on his shoe. It's not like I meant to bump into him."

"What. Station?" Vick yelled at him.

Shawn put his fingers to his temple and closed his eyes. "Davi's. Davi's! A Texaco! The prices were too high but the coffee was good!"

An entire screaming herd of squadcars pulled into the station parking lot, and numerous armed officers rushed to the door. It was locked, with the sign turned over to 'Closed'. Juliet watched in horror as they forced it open, and then she heard shouting, another crash, and what sounded like Carlton's angry voice yelling at them to stop yelling for God's sake, his head was killing him. A few moments later, she watched in utter amazement as Carlton came stumbling out alone, shoving an EMT away, his T-shirt soaked with blood, and looking dazed. "Oh my God," she whispered, but Vick wouldn't let her move.

A few moments later, a team of EMT's rushed into the building, pushing a gurney. Moments later, they emerged with a gray-haired woman on the gurney, yelling orders as they loaded her in. Juliet heard one EMT yell 'gunshot to the chest' and another was 'that cop saved her life'. She finally dodged away from Vick and rushed to Carlton, unabashedly throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly, not bothering to squeeze back tears, not caring that he was bleeding all over her blouse. He didn't exactly hug her back, but he accepted her embrace just the same, and then held her back from himself and looked down at her, expression deadly serious. She looked up at him, heart wrenching, amazed at the blueness of his eyes.

"Who was Syrian Circle's dam?" he asked her, and proceeded to pass out.

Silver balloons. Bouquets of flowers everywhere, on every available flat surface. A giant, frightening teddy bear in the chair beside the bed that made him yelp in momentary terror. Beeping. Very annoying beeping. Whoever was beeping was going to pay.

He was staring at the teddy bear's sappily happy face, irrationally expecting it to spring to life and assault him with saccharine good cheer, when the door opened and Spencer and Guster came bustling in, dressed in scrubs and wearing surgical masks. "Yes, yes, dis is dee one, Doktor…de vashectomy for dees afternoon!"

Carlton wished he had a weapon. He contemplated the IV stand for a moment, then sighed and closed his eyes. He was too tired and woozy to get overly angry. Besides which, he was having a little trouble remembering why he was in a hospital room. Surrounded by balloons, flowers, and that creepy bear.

"Heya, Lassie!" Spencer said, removing the mask and sitting down in the unoccupied chair at the side of the bed. "How ya feelin', buddy?"

"Would you mind going to my house and feeding the dog?" Carlton asked him, unable to beat away his confusion. Something had happened to him. Something apparently rather bad. The bandage on his shoulder and the bandage around his head would seem to indicate that. Either that, or a Civil War re-enactment had gotten a bit too real…

"Huh?"

"You don't have a dog, Lassie," Guster pointed out kindly.

Carlton contemplated this fact for a moment. "Good Lord…then what have I been feeding?"

"Man, he's still wonky in the head. Did you know that when they brought you in here – gunshot wound to the shoulder – only very minor nerve damage - concussion, contusions, bad mood, one year older – you were singing 'I've Got You Under My Skin' and insisted that one of the doctors was an alien?" Spencer shook his head. "I must say, you sang it quite well. Crooned from the ambulance bay to the trauma room, until they knocked you out. Had the nurses in a tizzy. We've got it all on video! Of course, before that, Jules freaked out…I mean, she totally freaked."

"What planet?" Carlton asked, his mind fogging up. Juliet freaked out? Why? She never freaks out.

"Eh?"

"What planet is the doctor from?"

"Uh…Romulak?"

"Of course."

"Better leave him alone, dude. He could come back to his senses at any time," Guster said, tugging on Spencer's arm. "He may be wonky, but you know he's got hands like iron – remember when he broke you finger?"

Shawn flexed the formerly broken finger and nodded. "Yeah. Hey, man, get well soon, all right?" he grinned at Lassiter, who only blinked in response before settling his head back on the pillow. He closed his eyes, listening to the annoying beeping, and sighed. Then he suddenly sat up, remembering, and searched around for that button that would summon a nurse (in about ten years) and began punching it insistently.

Instead of a cranky nurse, however, it was O'Hara who entered the room next. She shut the door behind her, leaning against it for a moment before finally making her way to the chair beside his bed.

"You are such an idiot!"

"Well, thank you," he nodded curtly. "And hello to you too."

"You could have been killed!"

He started to answer, but figured there wasn't much of a rebuttal to that statement. He sighed and would have shrugged if his arm weren't trussed up like a turkey. He twisted his neck a little to look at the bandaging – at least he couldn't actually feel it. Frankly, he wasn't feeling much pain at all. Just a kind of pleasant muzziness. Kind of like the effects of drinking a few beers with a good steak.

"Uh…yeah. Well. I admit – the guy got the drop on me."

"Yes," she nodded. "And what do you do? You risk your health and only made your injury worse by throwing yourself into removing the hinges from that door and just strolling out!" she said, keeping her voice low. "It's a good thing it was a flock of SWATs instead of the two guys that robbed the place! Didn't you think that they might have still been in there?"

"Well, hello!" he snapped, becoming annoyed with her. "I had a concussion. That woman – Mirta – was lying there bleeding like a…a stuck pig and I was…uh…concussed or something and had a bullet in my shoulder and there was something about the Kentucky Derby…I don't remember what…and there was something about categories on Jeopardy. I hate Alex Trebek. I mean, really – people think he's so smart, but he's got those cards with all the right answers…or questions…and insists on calling Chile Chee-leh, which just drives me nuts. I doubt even Chileans call it Chee-leh…"

"Forget about Alex Trebek! You could have died! You could have died on your birthday!"

"Oh. Well. Yeah." He cleared his throat. "And the flock of SWATs came in and started yelling and aiming guns at me. I already had a pounding headache. They nearly gave me a friggin' heart attack. Yet another stellar birthday."

"And if you had died, I wouldn't have…I wouldn't…" Juliet wiped her eyes, and Carlton fell silent, embarrassed.

"You'd get another partner pretty quick, I'm sure," he said at last, clearing his throat. "I mean, you're a great detective. The great mouse detect-…oh, wait, that's a Disney cartoon…"

"Carlton!" Juliet said, exasperated. "Focus!"

"Sorry. Concussion. Brain bruise. Noggin knock." He grinned at her. "You've been to Disney World, right? Or is it Disney Land?"

"Carlton!"

"Sorry, sorry. I never got to go to Disney World. Or Land. Or even EuroDisney, which is so lame it's fun, or so I hear."

She sighed, covering her face with her hands, drawing in deep breaths. "Do you have any idea how terrified I was?" she finally said, holding her temper in check. "I could have lost you, Carlton."

"Ah, hell, O'Hara, I'm not much to lose," he shrugged his uninjured shoulder. "You'd be over that in a few days."

"Over that? Over you?" she said, horrified. "Is that really how you see yourself?"

"That's how everybody sees me." It was a statement of fact. He felt no self-pity or bitterness.

"Oh yeah?" Juliet shouted at him. "You ridiculous…you crazy…you…you are so…ugh!"

He was totally unprepared for Juliet to kiss him, but no way in hell was he going to bat away a brain-bruise-influenced fantasy. He moved into her, kissing her back, tasting her youth and sweetness, letting his fingers get tangled in her sun-kissed, peach-scented hair, and felt her sigh when he traced his tongue along the soft seam of her mouth, and couldn't keep from moaning when she traced her fingers across his cheek to his jaw and to his ear.

She pulled away from him just as suddenly, and he kept his eyes closed, afraid to look at her. Brain bruise or not, she was probably going to look horrified and embarrassed and then it would be awkward and she would flee from the room as soon as she could without making him feel terrible, because she was a naturally kind person and would want to spare him. He swallowed and figured he could live on that kiss for a while, because it was all he would ever get, and anomalies are never repeated. She was dating Spencer, after all. Young, fun, unserious, immature Spencer. Carlton Lassiter was forty-three, graying, grouchy and…well, not even in the field. Scratched because of age, bad knees, and a thousand personality flaws.

He jumped when she poked his chest.

"You get well fast, Lassiter."

"Uh…I…"

"Because there's a lot more where that came from. When you're all better and don't think the ER doctor is a Romulak, we'll talk about what all is in store for you.

He blinked at her, totally bewildered, but blissfully happy just the same. He couldn't wait to tell the bear all about it.

It was a concussion. Just a fantasy. He nodded vaguely to Juliet, who startled him again by stroking his hair and leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

"I'll be back tomorrow. Happy birthday, Carlton."

"Yee," was all he could manage in response. Which wasn't a word. But you get new words on your birthday, and you get to live out a crazy fantasy, too, if you're lucky. Juliet smiled at him, touched his cheek, and quietly left. He settled on his back and looked up at the ceiling, then looked at the bear. "Did that just happen?"

The bear didn't answer.

Bears never were good sources of information. He sighed and closed his eyes. A good week's sleep and he'd be back in the real world. Simple enough. Suddenly, he sat up again and began pushing the button for the nurse. An agitated woman in a white uniform came in, glaring at him.

"Syrian Circle!" he told her excitedly. "By Damascus out of Friendly Circle!"

"Oookay…"

"And she kissed me!"

"Good."

"Yes, it was, actually. The bear saw it."

She looked at the bear, then at him.

"Go to sleep, Detective Lassiter."

"It's my birthday."

"Is it?" she said, turning off the light and opening the door to leave.

"Yeah. And you know, it really wasn't that bad. I mean, all things being equal, I'd've taken the stripper over being shot, but hey...she kissed me. It's all just a fantasy, right? I'm just dreaming." He grinned at the nurse, who stared at him for a moment before rolling her eyes and leaving. Carlton settled back on the pillows and closed his eyes. He'd wake up in the real world tomorrow, and O'Hara would be a ridiculous fantasy and he'd just be forty-three and graying.

Today was just another day.

FIN