Just another post-ep for "Deez Nups," this one set at the end of a long and angst-ridden night for Juliet. Not what will actually happen, of course, but this was where my reeling brain took me.

Remarkable, isn't it, how that last scene won't let one alone?

It was nearly morning when Juliet felt her mind finally beginning to clear.

She could scarcely remember having fled the reception, but every terrible instant of her talk with Shawn had perversely remained clear as crystal. Every word and every pause for breath, every tear… even the glistening of her thrown prosecco, dripping from his face and shirt. And she'd rushed out, all but drowning in the hurt and humiliation, and in her head a voice was repeating, you fool! You fool! And how she had reached her own doorstep, she did not know.

(Their doorstep, really.)

She was weeping again, her breath clouding in the predawn air.

He was the one man in her life she had so blindly trusted, and shouldn't that have been enough to warn her?

She'd always been surrounded by liars.

Her thoughts were a little clearer now, but the hurt was no less.

(She should go inside. She was cold, though still wrapped in Shawn's jacket. Colder, perhaps, because of it. But she did not rise.)

He'd probably been laughing at her, all these years.

He'd probably been laughing since that day in the café, when he'd somehow 'divined' her life story. She'd believed him almost at once, but why? Why hadn't she seen he was just like her father? Just Frank, all over again: the same charm, the same lies.

And like Frank, he always had answers for everything. Fresh lies to cover the last, and the pile had grown.

A bird started singing.

Juliet sat up, and was suddenly focused:

Answers for everything, every time.

Every single time, except tonight.

Why hadn't Shawn lied again? Just one more lie, like all the rest, would have done it. She'd have willed herself to believe it. She had wanted desperately to believe it. Even now, some small part of her mind was still whispering excuses and trying to make Shawn's words mean anything but what he had really been saying.

He had looked at her with equal parts sorrow and terror, and instead of the lie they both wanted, he'd told her…

He'd told her he hadn't had a choice. That it had been about self-preservation.

(He had a choice now – so why this? Wasn't this confession the opposite of self-preservation?)

He'd told her it was fun. (So why did it hurt so much, now?)

That they'd found a groove, and caught murderers, and that falling in love with her was never part of the plan.

(She'd seen real heartbreak on his face. That part was real, wasn't it? He'd been pleading with her, begging her to understand.)

I'm good at what I do. And what I do… is good.

Isn't it?

Isn't it…

More than a hundred criminals imprisoned – most of them murderers – and that part was certainly good.

I'm good at what I do.

And just what is it you do, Shawn? If the 'visions' aren't real, then what have you been seeing that we've missed, case after case? What happens in that head of yours to pull answers from air just like magic? (And if it's not magic – just mind – is that really any less awe-inspiring?)

Murderers caught, and lives saved. His own life at risk countless times. He'd kept her laughing through seven long years, even when frustration and fear should make smiles impossible. (That, at least, isn't a fraud.)

And what will the lawyers say, Shawn, if they find out you're phony? How much have you risked by choosing to end the lie here?

The birdsong was growing louder.

There were answers she needed, about just what he'd meant by "my ass was on the line," and how he'd really solved so many cases, and what was truly going on when he closed his eyes and touched his forehead, and claimed he was having 'a vision'… And how many more lies he'd been telling.

But she wanted those answers, now.

Because if he could risk it all for this one moment's honesty, then maybe he wasn't really like Frank.

Maybe he'd laughed at her, but then hadn't he always laughed at all the world? And laughed most at himself... And wasn't that the first thing she'd loved about him?

And now that she'd tasted his honesty, she wanted the rest.

Because maybe, just maybe, then she would somehow understand.

Juliet stood, and she stretched, and she listened to the early morning chorus.

She saw the sun was just beginning to rise.