Weeks pass, and life resumes to normal. Or, not quite normal. A new normal, Lassiter thinks. A normal without Henry Spencer offering suggestions and criticisms, without the Psych duo making a nuisance of themselves at the station right before miraculously solving the case. Work feels more like iwork/i than it has in a long time without Spencer around making Juliet and Buzz laugh, distracting Lassiter with a dizzying barrage of nonsense. Lassiter would rather French kiss a hippie than admit it, but he kind of misses the chaos. Somehow, he had gotten used to the whirlwind of energy Spencer provided, and he had grown to enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out how Shawn made the remarkable intuitive leaps that inevitably always led to a conviction.

He can't believe he's even thinking this, but he even misses the sound of Spencer's voice calling out "Lassie!" in greeting. He had hated that stupid, demeaning nickname until one day it occurred to him that Spencer always designated nicknames for the people he liked most: Guster was Gus and Juliet was Jules and he was Lassie, and for Shawn, that seemed to be a way of conveying affection. After he recognized that, Lassiter found that he didn't mind it so much, and it had become second nature over the years to respond to it, though his first instinct had been to cringe when he realized that Shawn had literally given him a pet name.

Lassiter knows that he should be angry now that he finally has confirmation that Spencer is a liar, but he finds that, strangely enough, he's not. Maybe it's simply that the memory of Shawn's hands and clothes covered with Henry's blood from trying in vain to staunch the bleeding is too fresh in his mind for him to feel anything other than pity.

He's believed from the very beginning that the psychic story was bullshit, clinging to that belief even after Spencer passed a lie detector test, and now that he knows that he was right all along, he can't help but feeling that the revelation is a little anti-climactic. It would have been far more shocking and upsetting to have hard proof that psychic powers really existed. Lassiter feels like he used up most of his anger on the subject a long time ago, and now he's just curious about the details of how Spencer does it.

He thinks he's mostly figured it out, but he's still missing a few key pieces of information. He remembers a snippet of an argument he heard between Henry and Shawn once, a year or so ago, not long after Henry had been brought on as the consultant liaison. Lassiter had been heading for the break room for a cup of coffee when he was stopped by the sound of raised voices coming from a nearby conference room. He knew that Shawn had been irritated because his dad hadn't been allowing him to consult on any cases recently, and he had paused to listen, his natural curiosity beating out his inclination to give the father and son some privacy.

Shawn so rarely showed his temper that Lassiter had been taken aback by the cold fury in his voice.

"You're the one who made me this way Henry, and now you won't let me use it? What the hell are you trying to do to me?"

"I raised you to be a cop, not a…whatever it is you are now. A flake. You don't take anything seriously. You don't belong here."

There was a long moment of silence before Shawn spoke again, and when he did his tone was measured and careful, like he was trying to control his anger.

"Sometimes I think I should never have come back to Santa Barbara. It's good to know that you feel the same way."

"Shawn-"

"I understand, though. You're just pissed because I'm a better detective than you ever were."

"You can be such a little asshole, Shawn."

"Yeah, well, I learned from the best."

Shawn had stalked out then, and Lassiter ducked around the corner so he wouldn't be seen.
If Lassiter remembered correctly, it was within a day or two of that argument that Henry had brought the Psych duo in on a case.

So, Henry had made him this way, whatever that meant. Trained him to be a cop. There was more to it than just that, there had to be. Lassiter looks forward to the day when he can get Shawn to explain it.

About three weeks after Henry's funeral, a high profile murder lands on Lassiter's desk. A prominent businessman found stabbed to death in a locked office, exactly the kind of offbeat puzzle that would have had Spencer all over it. O'Hara digs into the case with an intensity that Lassiter hasn't seen from her since the early days of their partnership, when she felt she had needed to prove herself to him, and every time Lassiter sees the evidence of her sleepless nights and witnesses the insane amount of hours she puts into the case, he's filled with the overwhelming urge to find Spencer and punch him in the face for ever making O'Hara doubt in her own abilities. But then he'll listen to the voicemail he still has saved and hear the way Shawn's voice breaks when he talks about Juliet and think that wherever he is, Shawn is probably punishing himself enough.

O'Hara's diligence pays off when she figures out how the businessman's former partner was able to circumvent office security via a complicated scheme involving silly putty and a dog whistle. Lassiter wonders, not for the first time, how it is that Santa Barbara has so many weirdass murders, but all he says is "Good work, O'Hara" before privately going to Chief Vick to make sure that she knows that O'Hara did all the grunt work on the case and should get all the credit.

The Chief is pleased, and maybe she also recognizes that Juliet needs the distraction and satisfaction of hard work, because one day not long after that she calls O'Hara into her office and tells her that she's going to be training a new junior detective, just the way Lassiter trained her. Vick assures both Lassiter and Juliet that she's not breaking up their partnership, only that this will be a good experience for O'Hara, but Lassiter can see the writing on the wall. O'Hara is young and smart and talented and far more personable than he has ever been; it's only a matter of time before she starts moving up the ranks, maybe even getting offers from other law enforcement agencies. Instead of feeling jealous at these thoughts, as he expected he might, he only feels insanely proud of her and proud that he might have played any part in helping shape her into the detective that she's become. His lack of jealousy might have another factor as well: he's distracted by the fact that Marlowe is about to be released from prison.

The day Marlowe comes home, comes to HIS home, is the happiest Lassiter can remember feeling in years. Finally, finally, his life can get back on the track that it was derailed from when Victoria left him. His anticipation over Marlowe coming to live with him is so far from his usual cynicism that later, when it all falls apart, he can't believe that it was him filled with all that hope and expectation.

For the first few days, weeks even, it's amazing having this beautiful woman that he's been waiting for in his home, his bed, his life. But before long, it becomes apparent that maybe he's rushed into something without enough consideration. He only knew Marlowe for a very brief time before she went to prison, and while there had been lots of visits and letters in the intervening months, it's a lot different trying to actually live with someone on a day-to-day basis than it is daydreaming about living with someone. The truth is, he doesn't really know her that well, any better than she knows him, and the honeymoon phase of their relationship is over before he knows it.

Two months after Marlowe moves in with him, she's moving out after giving him a gentle "it's not you, it's me" speech, and the crushing disappointment Lassiter feels over the failure of this relationship seems multiplied by grief over Henry's death, by the feeling he has that O'Hara will be moving on soon, and by the weird, sad, unexplainable absence he's felt since Shawn left.

So maybe that's why, one night when he's driving home from work and sees Guster's silly blue car in the parking lot of a bar, he finds himself going in to catch up with the more responsible half of the Psych duo. Guster is sitting at the bar alone, alleviating Lassiter's worries that he might be interrupting a date, and his face actually lights up when he sees Lassiter, looking happy to see him in a way that he previously only looked on the occasions when Lassiter was rushing in to save him and Shawn from whichever deranged killer was threatening them that week.

"Lassie! Have a seat!" Guster gestures to the barstool next to him, and is he idrunk/i? "I'm celebrating! Have a drink with me."

"Oh? What are you celebrating?" Because Guster doesn't actually look happy.

"Promotion. Big raise, new office. Apparently, all I needed to do was show up for work every single day."

"Oh! Well, congratulations! That's great news."

Gus laughs without any evident mirth, and it actually sends a little chill down Lassiter's spine to hear Guster sounding so bleak. "Yeah, it's awesome. " He leans closer and says in a confidential manner "Do you wanna know a secret? If you ever repeat this to anyone, I'll deny it, but: pharmaceutical sales is BORING. I miss being a private detective." He sighs and rests his elbows on the bar, his forehead in his hands, and in an even quieter voice says "I miss Shawn."

"Have you heard from him?"

Gus shrugs. "A couple of postcards. One from some crazy tourist attraction in Nebraska called Carhenge. Another from Minnesota showing the biggest ball of twine in the world. He texted a few times, but not in a while. I don't think he has his phone anymore."

"How can you stand it? For the last six years the two of you seemed practically inseparable, and now you don't even know where he is."

"Shawn is…he's like more than a brother to me, you know? I know that he's hurting right now. This is how he copes, getting some distance, distracting his mind with other things. I don't have to like it, but I understand that about him. Plus," Gus hesitates before plunging on "he knows he's responsible for hurting Juliet, and he wanted to give her some space."

"So she wouldn't shoot him." Lassiter nods understandingly.

"Well, I was thinking so that she could heal, but yeah, that too." Gus pauses again, takes another sip of his beer, gathering up some liquid courage, before asking "By the way, how is Juliet?"

If he had been asked that question a few weeks ago, Lassiter knows he would have lashed out, said Juliet was pissed and heartbroken and that Spencer is lucky he left town before Lassiter could catch up to him, but what he says now is "…Better. She's been on fire lately at work, closing cases left and right, training a junior detective. Sometimes I know she's thinking about Spencer, but she's not dwelling on it. She's moving on."

Guster nods, looking pleased. "Good. That's really good to know. Shawn can be so damn thoughtless sometimes, but he never meant to hurt her."

And okay, maybe Lassiter does still have some anger bottled up about this. "Maybe he didn't mean to, but he lied to her from the day they met! He was lying to her the whole time they were sleeping together! How was she supposed to feel about that? How could she not be hurt by that?"

Gus holds up a hand placatingly. "You don't have to tell me! I know. I know how wrong it was. I know she must hate me too for the part I played in helping Shawn convince her he was –"

"Shut up," Lassiter interrupts "Don't tell me anything, don't admit to anything. The last thing I want to do tonight is get pissed off over this and end up arresting you for fraud."

Okay, and now Guster looks terrified, which is not exactly what Lassiter had in mind when he came into the bar. He sighs and signals the bartender for two more beers.

"How's your sister?" he asks, which he knows is completely out of left field, but he's trying to wipe the scared look off of the other man's face, and yep, that does it. Now Gus just looks suspicious.

"Why do you want to know about Joy? I thought we had a silent understanding that sisters were off-limits, and anyway I think she's considering becoming a nun, or possibly a lesbian…wait a minute. Isn't Marlowe out of jail by now?"

Well, crap. That wasn't the direction he wanted to take the conversation in either. "Yeah, she is. It didn't work out between us."

"Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that. Dude, could this year have sucked any more for any of us?"

Lassiter can only agree.