Shawn's blood froze; his mouth dry.

"No" he whispered hoarsely, "it's not-"

He shook his head denying Rebecca's statement passionately, Hunter watched them his face pale.

"The-they said s-someone has to, has to-"Rebecca's sobs intensified, the words broken and breathless between her tears.

Shawn released her slightly, cupped her chin in his palm, brushing his thumb tenderly across her cheek smearing tears into gentle oblivion.

"What do I have to do?" he asked quietly, shouldering responsibility for the first time in days.

**********************************************************************************
Shawn stood, Rebecca clasping his palm as he squeezed her hand reassuringly. The cold metallic door stretched before them, clouded in the stench of death and desolation.

He didn't want to be here.

No parent wanted to be here.

"I, I'll be right back" he said thickly, his voice cracking slightly with trepidation. He made his way to the door, with one hand pressed against the freezing steel he felt Rebecca tug him back.

"I love you" she whispered, placing an affectionate kiss against his bristled cheek, he enclosed a warm arm around her grasping her tightly like a drowning man clinging to a raft.

"I love you more" He replied softly, the heavy door of the morgue slid shut behind him as he entered, swiftly severing all solace with a clatter.

A shiver ran through him as he stared, the slab loomed omnipotent as he took a cautious step forward.

"It's alright Mr Hickenbottom, take your time"

The deep voice was weighted in pity, Shawn rounded brusquely, glanced questioningly from the doctor to the police officer, who'd gone unnoticed in wake of the task at hand.

"Do I, I mean is she?" he stammered, his voice sounded loud and thunderous in the silent chamber, a place for the dead, he shouldn't be disturbing their never ending slumber.

"I know this is difficult sir, but if you could just look at the body on the table and see if it's your daugh-"

"No" interjected Shawn sharply

"Sir if you could just-"

"She's not a body" Shawn snapped firmly, "She's a little girl, She has a name, and she has a family."

The police officer exchanged looks with the doctor.

"My apologies, if you could try identify the little girl?"

Shawn edged nearer the table, stared transfixed into the waxen features of the young girl, golden wisps framed once vibrant flesh, eyes closed to the world. Shawn willed himself to believe she was sleeping, that the sheet was now her comforter and she was wrapped tight in the arms of the Lord, safe and secure from the evils at which she had perished. The room seemed far too bright, as if determined to disrupt her eternal sleep, he gulped deeply, trying to swallow the nausea.

He shook his head slowly, gaze never wavering from the angelic features before him.

**********************************************************************************
Rebecca paced in the corridor, twisting her hands frantically as she did so, anxiously awaiting and dreading the moment her husband would return to her side.

She roused from her panic as the door to the morgue burst open, Shawn stumbled from the room clutching the wall for support.

He glanced up, his wife blurred in a prism of tears, her face twisted and distorted in a glaze of dread and despair.

"Shawn?"

His name was a breathless hiss, one syllable of heartbreak, a million unvoiced fears wavered in that cracked and creaking tone.

He shook his head

"No?" questioned Rebecca the word hitching with hope

"S'not her" whispered Shawn shivering, "It's not Cheyenne"

There was no relief to be heard; no gratitude to the Lord on his lips, just a flat numbness threaded in his raspy croak. He stood, haunted by the vision of the little girl, not his daughter, but someone else's nonetheless.

His stomach churned as he contemplated the fact that some devastated father was in the same position as he, driving to the morgue fervently praying that that some other child lay motionless beneath cotton sheets, that it was a different four year old daughter robbed of life and not his.

Shawn retched, wrath and anguish bubbling up from the depths of despair as the lingering image of pallid flesh and tainted youth flashed before him once more. He gagged against the sympathy, relief rotten to the core in wake of such tragedy. The flicker of happiness at someone else's melancholy, no matter how fleeting, was enough to consolidate his self loathing.

He lurched from Rebecca's troubled touch, doubled over as the floor came hurtling to meet him. The world was splitting apart at the seams, and all he could see was the festering face of the child, corrupted and sullied by her death, his mind's eye twisted and tortured her, intermingled putrid corpses with flashes of Cheyenne.

He opened his mouth to protest, to plead for mercy on behalf of the innocent. His head pounded with unanswered questions, with a reluctance to corroborate God's will. No child should be taken so brutally, ripped from their family with selfish regard for the suffering left behind. Four short years didn't even provide a chance to live.

A wealth of emotion raged within him, unable to comprehend how the God he adored could be so cruel, could punish him for unknown sin by taking his daughter, testing and taunting him with shreds of hope and failure, presenting him head on with such horrific mortality. He opened his mouth once more, determined to let the scream of mourning break free, instead he vomited, splattering the sterile floor with anguish and injustice, eyes bleeding remorse.

Rebecca draped him in consolation; her tender arms encircled his quivering form.

"It's ok, "She soothed softly, rubbing small circles of assurance on his lower back.

Shawn swallowed fresh beads of sorrow, determined not to fall apart, for Rebecca's sake if nothing else.

"We should go get Cam from my Mom and Dad's" he suggested, "He'll need to know what's happening"

Rebecca nodded; tightening her grip on her fallen husband as he sluggishly righted himself, ignoring the way the corridor span around him.

"We can tell your parents when we pick him up" Rebecca added consolingly.

"You should call your mom" Shawn said, "She'll be worried"

They made their way down the corridor, heading for the exit, hoping to leave the night terror in favour of the nightmare awaiting them outside, the blackened haze in which their daughter remained living but still unfound.

Shawn faltered in the narrow aisle allowing Rebecca to surpass him, he turned his head in the direction of the stifling tomb encrypted by steel, seeing the lifeless child on the table once more, he fingered the crucifix lightly, threading the fine chain through trembling digits.

With a snap he tore it from his neck, the chain broken as it sifted between his finger tips.

"That could have been Chey" he spat allowing the now tainted symbol to slip from his hand.