Author's note: And the spirited discussion continues! The three choices Shawn has later are the results of me polling my various friends. But I chose the choice I thought would have been the best for Shawn. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in Psych, but I do love pineapple!

Shawn's POV

When I finally stopped running, I realized that it was nightfall and I was nearing my dad's house. The lights were on inside; my dad must have taken Juliet home already and was still up. Yet, I didn't want to go inside. Quietly, I snuck around back and unlatched the door to the garden shed. Hidden inside was my dad's emergency grab bag, filled with clothes, money, and more beef jerky than was probably necessary. I dumped out the bag and repacked the jerky and the money; I'd stop by the Psych office and grab some of my clothes I had stored there. Quickly, I overturned a heavy garden pot and threw all the clothes inside, covering the rim with a board when everything was in. Hopefully, my father wouldn't notice the change for a while (though I highly doubted that; my hopes were more hinged on the weather, as there was not too much to do this time of the year in gardening).

Walking back to the Psych office seemed to take forever, but when I finally got there I threw as many clothes and personal items as I could find into the bag. When it was full, I zipped it up, carried it outside to where my motorcycle was parked, and strapped it onto the bike.

"You leaving?"

The words startled me, making me jump. I let out something between a yelp and a scream before I realized that Gus had spoken. I had not expected Gus would be here at this time of night; I turned and looked at him warily. He was standing on the doorstep of the Psych office in his fire-truck pajamas, holding a strong flashlight and looking tired. The pain in his eyes as he comprehended what was going on cut me to the bone, and I snarled back a reply.

"There's no reason for me to stay."

Gus growled. "There's plenty of reasons! What about Juliet? What about your dad? And what about me?! I'm a reason, Shawn! You left once, what will I do if you leave again?!"

I shrugged. "I don't know, find a nice girl, settle down, get married. Live a normal life."

Gus frowned. "What about you? What about your normal life? Shawn, what about Juliet? Have you even thought what this is going to do to her?"

"She's better off without me," I replied harshly. "Gus, I almost got her shot today! Instead, Lassie wound up being the big hero and he's probably going to pay for it with his life. Let's face it, Gus, I'm really nothing. I've been a liar all along, to my friends, my boss, my family, and to myself. I missed the signs on this case, and that miss has caused a lot of trouble!"

"Everyone messes up, Shawn," my friend stated matter-of-factly. "How you deal with that is what makes you a boy or a man."

"A boy or a man? Have you been hanging out more with Lassie lately?"

"Well, we do dance on occasion."

I rolled my eyes. "Gus, I'd love to stay and chit-chat, but I really have to be going, so..."

Gus snorted. "Where will you go? This is your home!"

"No it isn't!" I shouted. "Really, do you think I can live here while Jules hates me and I've let everyone else down? Gus, I'm pathetic. All that I own is strapped to my bike, and half of it was stolen from my dad. I'm worthless, Gus!"

"Not to me!" Gus shouted. I stopped, stock still, as Gus slowly inched closer. "You think I don't understand, you think I don't know you? Shawn, I'm your best friend! I know you inside and out. I know you feel like you have to fly, I know you feel like you have to run, but listen to me. Out there, you will never be happy. You will never make another friend like me, never get another girl like Jules, never be with people who consider you family. And speaking of family, what will your dad do? The last time you left, it tore him apart. You both have come so far; you've earned his respect, and you've always had his love. Are you going to throw all that away?"

Gus frightened me. I'd never before seen such an earnest look on his face, such a conviction in his voice. "What if I'm really not who you think I am?" I said quietly. "What if all I am is a loser who uses people then dumps them when he's had enough?"

"I refuse to believe that," Gus stated.

I stood there for a moment. A long moment. Then, I strapped my helmet on and straddled my bike. "I need to leave town for a few days; there's something I've got to do," I said. "Tell Juliet... tell Juliet I'll text her, okay?"

Gus's eyes narrowed. "You coming back?"

"I hope so," I said, then I revved up my engine. With a nod for goodbye, I steered my motorcycle to the street and took off down the road, heading east in the direction of the rising sun. I didn't once look back.

I only headed east for a half hour though, until I hit the 101 (it took a half hour because I have to deal with weaving through horrendous traffic). Then, it was north for about four and a half hours. I made one pit stop a couple hours in, and during that time I sent Jules a text. "You deserve better." Just that, no emoticons, no nothing. It was as if there was nothing else to say, just the truth.

I got into San Jose at around ten in the morning. I stopped for a waffle at IHOP, but I couldn't force it down. It tasted dry and prickly to me, and I have a distaste for pointy things. Especially when they keep getting stuck in my throat.

Next, I passed the turn off for San Jose State University. I thought about pausing there for a moment, maybe reliving some of my fun brief college experience, but the errand I was on drew me like a magnet, and I continued towards the regional preserve. A couple of hours later, after bouncing over several rutted logging roads, I came to the exit I was most dreading. The small dirt road that led off the logging road in the direction of the Calaveras Reservoir; the road that held the shack.

It was smaller than I remembered it, but it still looked old and rickety. I parked my bike and climbed off slowly. The afternoon sun was slanting through the evergreens, but it was bitterly cold up here in the high country, and I felt no warmth from it. "Hello raccoons," I called out warily. "I'm here, just going to go into this creepy shack, so don't feel like you have to sink your teeth into me." I let my voice trail off and waited. I heard no sound, either from the raccoons (though I doubted they'd answer) or from the shack. I walked up to it, my feet crunching on gravel and patches of old icy snow.

"Hello?" I asked quietly. I wished right then that Gus was with me, but no. I know he'd have come with me if I'd asked him, but I had to do this alone.

"Sometimes," I said aloud in a western drawl as I slowly walked up to the shack, "a man has to face his fears."

Who was I kidding? I turned around to run again, but stopped in my tracks. Something was glinting from the window of the shack. I stood still for a moment, wondering if it was someone looking at me, but the glint was of a metallic kind. Curiosity got the better of me, and I cautiously turned back around and climbed onto the front porch. The boards creaked, and the wind rustled the trees. I reached out an experimental hand and pushed on the door. It swung open.

I looked around the shack. Everything was how I remembered it; it looked as if the police had hardly touched anything. I doubted a "thorough" investigation had ever taken place. Lassie would be furious.

"Lassie!" I thought as I examined the shack's sparse furnishings. "I have no idea how he's doing! I never even thought once to ask Jules how my friend... (enemy? girlfriend's cop partner?) ...is doing."

I pondered over Lassie's label, then finally settled on "frienemy." I then pondered on how my frienemy was doing. Jules had said he was near death, that he had been shot. I'd been shot once. I remembered how painful that was, the hot searing bullet burning it's way into my shoulder. I could barely stand it. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like taking two hits to the chest. "Let's hope I never have to," I whispered to no one in particular.

The sunlight was slanting through the window in a longer strip now; I wondered how long I just stood there. On the windowsill, or what passed for a windowsill, there was still a glinting object. "What is that?" I asked, and I shuffled forward.

It was a picture. More or less, it was a picture in a damaged, metal frame. It had been the gold paint that had been glinting in the sun. I blew the dust off the portrait; no one had done that in a while. The picture was one of a man (I recognized him as the man I scared to death so many years ago) holding a woman next to him, and what looked like their daughter. I set the picture down almost reverently, but the stand broke and the picture crashed to the floor. The glass broke as well, and I carefully extracted the photo. I noticed, with some surprise, that there was something else behind the photo; a paper, folded into a tight square. Squinting in confusion, I pulled that out as well and opened it. It was a letter.

I moved to a dusty chair and sat down for a while, holding the letter in my hands. I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it, but finally my curiosity took over and I opened it up.

"Dear Greg," I read, "you will never know how much it hurts me to write this letter. Greg, I will always love you. I pledged that on the day of our marriage, and I truly meant it. I will always treasure every day we spent together, will always remember them. Most often, I will be pining for them and for you. Yet, Greg, I cannot live in the past as you do. Ever since our daughter died, you've become a changed man. You are constantly drinking, and drinking won't bring her back, Greg. Savannah wouldn't have wanted you to do this to yourself. I've tried everything with you; counseling, hiding the liquor, pleading with you, the works. Don't you think I miss our daughter? Don't you think I need you too; I need your help, need you to hold me and comfort me. Please Greg, I know you're going up to the cabin this weekend. Remember what the doctor said; too much drinking and your liver will shut down. Please consider what you will do next, because you have to make a choice, Greg. Me or the past. Because I will not tolerate any more of you drunk. I am better than that, and I know you are better than that. Make your choice. Please choose me. Amelia."

I put the letter down and stared at the wall. "He chose... poorly," I stated, trying my best for the knight templar accent. But it was no fun quoting movie lines to an empty room. I reread the letter again, feeling as though it were a clue to a murder case. Oddly enough, I had so much in common with the man who killed my friend Anthony. Words began to jump out at me, then whole phrases. "Cannot hide in the past... choice... me or the past... I know you are better than that..."

"Is it odd to think that something so obscure and totally not related to you at all can be just what you need to read at the moment?" I called out to the empty room. Silence. It was getting on my nerves. "Come on, Invisible Gus, say something!" I yelled out. All I heard in return was the snapping of branches outside and the slight moaning of the wind.

"I wish I had a volleyball," I whispered as I looked around the room, darkened by the late afternoon shadows. Then, I took the picture, set it down on a dusty table, and looked at Greg, his wife, and his daughter Savannah. "Greg," I said, "I'm sorry I scared you. I know now you died by alcohol poisoning, but it wasn't really fair of me to make your last few moments on this earth terrifying. That being said, it wasn't really fair of you to run over Anthony either. He would have made a great cop one day." I sighed, feeling somewhat relieved, as if the score were settled now. Then, I looked up and started speaking to "Invisible Gus." (Of course, I knew he wasn't really there, but I tried to imagine what Gus would say. It's a useful technique, though kind of annoying when it branches out to everyone you know.)

"The way I see it, I have three choices," I began. "Though there could be more choices in life, like choosing to go to Canada on vacation or choosing to buy an almond snickers instead of a peanut one, I'm talking about the kind of choices in Greg's letter. First, I can run. Spend ten to twenty years abroad and gallivanting around like my uncle, then coming back to Santa Barbara after all the trouble is over. I know you will forgive me, Invisible Gus, because our bond is stronger than friendship. Our bond is one of brotherhood, of Ebony and Ivory. We are Ivany!"

I took a deep breath; it was exhausting talking to the wall. "But with the option of running," I lectured, "I'd loose the love of my life permanently, if I haven't lost her already, plus loose the shaky ground I've gained with my dad. But, I would get to see more of the world." As I sat there, thinking of traveling, I suddenly had a crazy idea. What if something bad happened to me while I was overseas? What if I died alone? Or worse, what if I was dying in a hospital in some foreign country, dying essentially alone yet worse because I'd be surrounded by people I didn't know.

Even worse still, what would I do if I found out my dad was dying? What if Gus was dying? What if, heaven forbid, Jules was dying? I cared too much about them all to leave them alone, and what if they needed me to solve a crime? What if Jules was kidnapped, and I was the only one who could find her? It had happened before, it could happen again. The future was full of horrible what ifs, but if I ran, I wouldn't be around to save or help anybody.

"Since when have you ever wanted to help anybody but yourself, Spencer?" asked Invisible Lassie in his rude, pompous voice.

"I did not ask for your opinion, thank you," I replied to myself, but he was right. When had I ever cared about anyone but myself? "When I met Abigail," I whispered.

Abigail. Abigail had changed me. Well, had started changing me. While Jules was my soul mate in so many more ways than one, Abigail had brought me out of myself, had taught me to care about someone other than myself and occasionally Gus. In fact, I even chose saving her over Juliet once. And I've never regretted it. "Call me, when you decide to stop chasing psychopaths." Those had been her last words to me before she broke it off. And there lay my second choice; should I choose to find Abigail again, find her and tell her I was a changed man and was done with detective work for good?

No, it was a stupid choice. I was trained from birth to be a living detective machine; there was really nothing else that I could really and truly enjoy doing, and anyway it wasn't like I could turn my observations on and off. Besides, Abigail needed someone as like-minded as her; she wanted to change the world. She needed someone who would change the world with her. I could never do that.

My third choice, then, would be to go back to Santa Barbara, confess what I'd done to the Chief, and come clean on everything. Not only that, but I'd have to accept without complaint the consequences that awaited me. That would be the only way to save the relationship with my dad. Gus would be with me through thick an thin. And Juliet, well...

If I left her, it would certainly mean the end. If I came back, we still might end, but at least it was a shot. At least there was a chance. And as I sat there, the shack growing darker every minute and the air getting colder, I realized that I was willing to choose for the chance to make things better, the chance to admit my failures and move on, the chance to really and truly live.

"It'll hurt," my Invisible Dad said in a slightly mocking tone.

"What day doesn't hurt, Dad?" I asked. "Seriously, I've been through enough in the last six years to know that life hurts."

"So are you going for it?" asked Invisible Gus.

I took a deep breath. For a moment, it was as if my whole life lay before me spread out like a road map, the different choices taking different turns. I know what choice one would lead me to; it was just a giant circle. I refused to take choice two, on the grounds that Abigail needed someone other than me. I took a deep breath, but before I said "yes" I heard one more invisible voice. It was Jules's voice.

"I need you Shawn, come back to me," she said sadly.

"I hear you sweetheart," I said aloud in the empty cabin. "And I've made my choice. I choose choice three; to go back to Santa Barbara and face the consequences."

I then looked down at the picture on the dusty table. I picked it up, being careful not to bend the crumbling edges. "Thank you, Greg," I whispered. I then put the picture and the note back inside what was left of the frame, placed it back to it's proper place on the windowsill, stretched, and walked outside. The sun was very low in the sky; it would be dark within an hour. Though I knew it was easy to get lost on the logging roads in the dark, I had no desire to stay the night here. I wanted to get home as soon as possible; I had too much to do.

"Goodbye," I said to the shack, and the picture glinted again in the window, as if waving goodbye for a final time. I then climbed onto my motorcycle, started the engine, and steered towards the road that would take me back to civilization. I didn't once look back.