AN: Wow, so sorry it has taken me so long to update. I've had so much schoolwork, it's not even funny. Two tests today, plus a six-page paper on Gothic Architecture in Gothic Literature. And I'm nearly finished with The Iliad, which means I'm on to The Odyssey next. My phone battery is dying because I accidentally washed my phone earlier this year. They gave me a new phone but decided the battery was still okay ... which it isn't ... and it only lasts me through half the day. I'd consider buying a new battery if my contract wasn't up this year. I'll be buying a new phone anyway, so what the hell. As long as I'm not stranded on some dark, back-water road at two in the morning and my phone dies on me, I think I'll be all right.

All right! Enough rambling! On with the fic. Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed. I'll consider adding another chapter tomorrow or Friday if I have time ... College is so crazy right now, I barely have time to breathe.

Enjoy!

Chapter Two

Shawn fisted the crisp hospital-issue sheets beneath his fingers. Shawn ground his teeth painfully. Shawn sucked in a shuddering breath.

And Shawn screamed.

0 o 0 o 0

"He's damn lucky he didn't lose his liver." Henry Spencer crossed his arms over his chest, standing firmly near the foot of Shawn's hospital bed, and frowned.

His son was not stupid, he knew. And Shawn did everything for a reason – stupid reasons at times, but reasons none the less. But no matter how hard he tried, Henry could just not push forward the part of him that was worried shitless about his one and only son. Henry could not be the father that he knew he should be because he didn't know how.

And perhaps that was why he was standing with an angry frown in front of Burton Guster, Juliet O'Hara, and Carlton Lassiter.

"It was a mistake," Gus said boldly. The desperation in his voice was a clear sign that he was trying his very best to stay calm about the whole matter. But even Burton Guster had a breaking point, and this was the closest he had been in a very long time . . . "It had to be. You guys know him. He wouldn't-"

"He swallowed more than two dozen pills!" Henry nearly yelled, eyebrows furrowed pensively. Again with the anger. He couldn't shut it off. "This was no 'mistake.' He tried to kill himself. He's lucky to be alive!"

Juliet bit her bottom lip, taking a shallow breath and asking meekly, "Did anyone think that this might be . . . that it could be related to his . . . ability? I mean, all the things he sees . . . They must take some kind of tole."

Henry scoffed. "You people are still hung up on that?" He shook his head in disbelief as Juliet only looked at him expectantly. Gus swallowed nervously, his eyes widening, and Lassiter shifted only slightly from his position against the door frame. He was not entirely comfortable with being in the room with an unresponsive Shawn and his angry father. He also had sneaking suspicion of what was to come. "Well, let me set the record straight. That kid right there-" Henry jabbed a thick finger in Shawn's direction. "-is no psychic. He's a fake."

Gus closed his eyes and sighed, hanging his head as the truth seeped into the air. Oh, Shawn would not be happy. His career was over. His life was over. The young man would be lucky if the chief didn't drag him off to the big house that very minute, coma or no coma.

Lassiter seemed the least affected by the news. His only reaction was a slight huff, which to anyone else would have sounded like an I-knew-it kind of huff but in reality was an and-your-point-is? kind of huff. The head detective had figured out long ago that there was something more to Shawn's "ability." He couldn't deny that the young man was good at what he did. The acting was a little shoddy and more than a little melodramatic, but the police work was superb, rivaling that of even the eldest Spencer's. And that's all it was, when it really came down to it: police work. Lassiter was vaguely disappointed that no one else had figured it out yet. The son of a cop pretending to be a psychic? Finding clues that only a very disciplined – and trained – mind would be able to see? There was nothing supernatural about it.

Shawn was a good con man. That was all.

Juliet was the only one who seemed heart-broken about the news, and she ignorantly attempted to fight on Shawn's behalf. "But he knew so many things. He solved cases! How could he? How could he fake that?"

"Because I made him that way."

Henry's words were followed by silence. Gus shoved his hands deep in his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again, swaying slightly. Lassiter's gaze ping-ponged between Henry and Juliet, watching the latter more carefully than the former. His partner's face was contorting from mild disbelief into something akin to more-than-mild disgust.

"'Made' him?" She asked, her tone deepening as the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. Lassiter had seen this side of her only a few times. And it usually only emerged when her defenses were on edge. Who could blame her, though? Shawn was an important part of her life, whether she wanted him to be or not, and she had almost become somewhat tolerant of his persistent nature of trying to get into her pants. It was – dare she say it? – somewhat endearing the way he pursued her, even if they both knew it would never happen. It was more of a running inside joke than anything nowadays.

"Conditioned him. He sees little details, so small they almost aren't there. His photographic memory absorbs everything. He remembers it all." Henry spoke as if all children went through that kind of thing, as if it was part of puberty.

"And you made him that way?" Juliet wanted to screech, wanted to throw something at the older man. How could someone do that? To their own son? Their own flesh and blood? A faint thought of how Shawn would have turned out had his mother stayed with him and his father wafted through her mind but was quickly quashed. "You took a little boy and turned him into . . . some sick experiment?"

"I gave him the best police training anyone could ask for," Henry argued, defending himself fully.

Gus wanted to say something. Juliet was taking far too much of the heat for this conversation that had been mostly his doing. But Juliet continued: "He was a child!" She was almost hysterical, tears lining her eyes and threatening to fall with every word that shook her entire being. "He was a child, and you took that away from him. You . . . I can't believe . . . God! You're disgusting!"

"Hey!" Henry stuck a finger in her face, narrowing his eyes and growling. "Don't you dare try to tell me how to be a father. You've never been a single parent." Juliet continued to glare, not intimidated in the least by the older man. "I watched his mother walk in and out of his life for years, and I saw how that affected him. I did what I did to make him strong, to keep him from having to resort to this."

"And that's supposed to make it right?" She could tell they were causing a scene. The next thing they heard was the sound of tiny shoes tap-tap-tapping their way down the hallway towards Shawn's room. A small nurse bustled in past Lassiter, abnormally strong for her size, and attempted to hush them. Juliet and Henry seemed to be done yelling at each other, but the glaring match had only just begun.

Gus glanced back at Lassiter with an expectant look, gesturing towards the two with a nod. But the detective only shook his head. He had learned not to interfere when a woman was on a rampage. As long as it wasn't directed towards him, he was going to let enough alone. And he'd be damned if he was going to berate a retired, highly decorated officer with such a large influence on his boss. No. Lassiter was brave, but he wasn't stupid.

He trained his attention elsewhere, which just so happened to be Shawn . . . A very agitated-looking Shawn. Lassiter straightened from his leaning position, watching with a dry mouth as the young man's fingers clenched at the sheets surrounding his sickly form, as his chest began to rise and fall in an alarmingly rapid manner, as the muscles in his jaw rippled, as he parted his lips and drew in a deep breath . . .

. . . and let loose the most horrifying scream Lassiter had ever heard in his life.

0 o 0 o 0

Like the world was coming to and end, he screamed. Like he was being gripped by a thousand searing fingers, he screamed. Like he was five-years-old and his parents were at it again, he screamed.

And he couldn't stop.

All heads snapped in his direction, the nurse that had been trying to quiet them only moments before rushing to the emergency call button and pressing it with a persistent force. Like bees to pollen white-uniformed men and women swarmed into the room, pushing the four on-lookers out with no more than vacant apologies and rushed excuses.

Shawn bucked and kicked and lashed out at the invading hands he could not see but could feel everywhere. They held him down, shouting orders and fumbling for the restraints attached to the bed.

Henry grimaced. He hadn't heard a scream like that in years. The death scream, his mother had called it, because it had always sounded like he was dying, like something was slithering around inside him, eating away at anything and everything. And he wouldn't stop screaming, not even when Henry and Madeleine had ceased their fighting. They were left with nothing to do but hold him until he passed out from exhaustion.

Child psychiatrists had all said the same thing: anxiety. They prescribed pills and therapy and family sessions and marriage counseling. Shawn stopped screaming, but the strain on their marriage only grew worse until, finally, Madeleine was no longer in the grand Spencer picture.

"What's happening?" Lassiter was first to speak, shooting an accusing glare in Henry's direction. It was the first time he'd spoken since entering the hospital, and the hoarseness of his voice startled even him. "What's wrong with him?"

Suddenly, the screaming subsided, and the four in the hallway looked into the room to see a nurse extracting a syringe from Shawn's IV line. The young man lay panting and sweating but ultimately unconscious again.

"Henry," Gus said sternly, giving the man a hard look. For as long as he'd known Shawn, Gus had never heard anything like that from his best friend. He'd known about the pills, sure. He'd known about the years of therapy, yea. He'd even known about the screaming – had heard about it – but had never actually witnessed Shawn at such a weak moment. "What just happened?"

The elder Spencer wiped at his face, giving a heavy sigh and shaking his head. "I honestly . . . can't say."

"Can't?" Lassiter asked curtly, rounding the man and standing so that they were eye to eye. "Or won't?"

Several people filed out of Shawn's room, avoiding any eye contact whatsoever. The last person to exit was the nurse who had tried to keep them quiet. She stopped, gaze locked with Henry's.

"Mister Spencer, may I have a word?" She stepped aside, gesturing into the hospital room. Henry nodded, giving the others one last glance before walking past the nurse into the room. The nurse followed shortly and shut the door.

"Gus, what the hell is this all about?" Lassiter was quick to turn on the other man, nostrils flaring and mouth stretched into a tight, thin line. Gus and Juliet had never seen him this way – aside from when Shawn made the detective so angry that steam seemed to be shooting from his ears. But it wasn't purely anger that was shining in Carlton Lassiter's eyes. It was defense. It was anxiety. It was . . . worry.

"I don't know," Gus admitted apologetically, crossing his arms and watching through the hospital room window as the nurse spoke in a tight-lipped manner to Henry. "I really don't."

0 o 0 o 0

Henry barely flinched when he took in Shawn's appearance. The young man was now in restraints, the velcro cuffs wrapped tightly around his wrists and ankles. His normally disheveled hair was in downright disarray. And he looked pale, clammy. Small. He hadn't looked so much like a kid since he'd been a kid.

"Mister Spencer, I hate to say this so bluntly, but your son is a danger to himself," the nurse stated unemotionally. Henry wondered how she had become – and remained – a nurse without a proper bedside manner and a clearly stoic attitude about patients and their families. "I'm recommending he be sent to our mental health ward."

AN: Well, I certainly hope that I didn't leave you hanging ... Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I left you hanging! That's my job. :) But I do want to get the next chapter up soon, so don't lose hope just yet!

Later, Gators! Catch you on the flip side.