When Karen had first gotten the text, she had been pondering what she was going to do without Shawn Spencer. She wasn't going to lie to herself—he was the only reason she had gotten so far.

Yet, it was so unlike him to throw that fact in her face—don't get her wrong, she had seen Shawn ruthless before (she and everyone on the squad were highly impressed with the things he could do with a gun), but this? This was just…cruel…of course, perhaps she had pushed him a little, and he had been….off…lately. Nothing she could really pinpoint, except a lack of energy. He still got amazing results, but he just wasn't as…obnoxious about it. No more rolling on the floor, banging his head against things. Instead, he gave simple, straight-to-the-points answers—and then, that last case when O'Hara had lost her tooth…she had never seen him so exhausted in her life.

Something was wrong, and Karen would probably never get to know what.

She sighed.

"How am I going to tell everyone?" She said to herself, dropping her head onto her desk and rubbing her temples. This was going to be tough.

Her phone suddenly buzzed and broke her out of her reverie. She looked at the number.

"Buzz?" She asked herself and opened the message. Reading it, something about it just didn't feel right. Something was off…something just wasn't…right.

And she had a bad feeling it was about Spencer.

When Gus woke up, he realized he was late for work. 4 hours late for work. He also realized that his alarm was turned off.

"Shawn!" Gus yelled, even though he doubted that Shawn was still around. He was going to kill his best friend. Gus grabbed his phone to check his messages and saw that there were approximately 45, 43 of which came from Shawn. Gus rolled his eyes and ignored them, going instead to check the other two messages. One was from work, telling him that they hoped he felt better (at least Shawn had covered that base). The other one, oddly enough, was from Buzz McNab, telling him to meet at the hospital.

Weird. Gus thought. Since he decided it would be better for his career if he didn't explain to his boss that he was in fact perfectly healthy (with the exception of the occasional bout of IBS) and that it was his free-loading best friend who had called in sick and turned off his alarm. For some strange, absurd reason, Gus doubted that it would go over very well.

He sighed. Sometimes, he really wanted to hate Shawn.

Gus leafed through his closet and picked a snazzy (though admittedly unoriginal) outfit and dressed himself after he took a shower.

He had his usual bland breakfast (anything too exciting would set off an inconvenient bout of IBS) and, grabbing his keys, left to go to the hospital. It had been a couple of hours since he had gotten the text, so he hoped he wasn't too late. It was probably some ridiculous scheme Shawn had hatched up.

He parked and jovially walked up to the entrance, despite his bad day, and frowned whenever he saw Juliet, Detective Lassiter, Chief Vick and Buzz sitting in a cluster of seats looking devastated.

Gus had a bad feeling in his gut when he realized Shawn wasn't in that cluster—and that neither was Mr. Spencer.

He froze in place, unsure if he actually wanted to go on, when Juliet looked up, met his gaze and gestured for him to come closer, looking utterly miserable. Gus took a deep breath and began walking forward, his heart pounding in his ears. He felt like he was about to throw up.

He was only a couple of yards from them when Juliet suddenly got up and ran to him, engulfing him with shaking arms, sobbing into his ear.

"Juliet, what's—"

"Shawn's dying!" Juliet sobbed.

Gus froze. It couldn't be true—there was ab-so-lutely NO way that could possibly be what he had heard. Never. Shawn didn't do dying—he did obnoxious, heroic, charming, even anger; but he didn't do dying.

She was wrong.

"No." Gus said. "No. Shawn doesn't do dying." Gus said firmly. Shawn wouldn't do that to him; to anyone!

"He's got—"

Gus didn't let her finish. "Shawn isn't dying."

Juliet sobbed harder, and he felt an envelope being shoved into his hand. He looked beyond Juliet and saw Detective Lassiter's firm, but pained face.

Gus felt sick to his stomach.

Detective Lassiter pulled Juliet away and with shaking hands, Gus opened the envelope, his entire being telling him to stop—but his brain telling him to do it anyways. He pulled out a thick stack of papers (noting what appeared to be a pretty hefty sum of cash in the bottom of the envelope) and paled when he saw the Will on the top. He carefully put it on the bottom of the stack and next were a bunch of papers stapled together. He frowned at it, seeing it was about brain tumors and leafed through it—pausing for a long moment when he saw the highlighted section about stage four.

"No…" Gus breathed, but didn't sound very convinced even to his own self. It made sense…the extra orange bottles he had seen lying around, the disappearances…it made perfect, damning sense.

He put the papers on the bottom and next saw a letter, written by Shawn's own hand.

Please read this to everyone, and I'm sorry you had to be the one to find me.

So, if you're reading this, there's a pretty high statisticological probability that I will be dead. And before you say anything Gus; I've heard it both ways.

Gus snorted. He had always known that most of the time Shawn messed up his words on purpose to give him a hard time.

Anyways, for Juliet, Gus, and my dad, Henry Spencer—your goodbyes are already in the mail. I couldn't tell you goodbye in person because I knew at least one of you would figure out what I was going to do. You might be asking why. It's because I didn't want to become one of those sob story heroes who suffers it out to the end. I'm not strong enough for that. I wanted to end things on my own terms, and I only had about three months left—most of which I'd probably either have to be hospitalized, bedridden or both. Please forgive my selfishness, but respect my decision. It wasn't because of anything anyone did, it was because of nature. I included a little packet in case if anyone wanted to learn more (Woody). I don't know why you would (which is why I highlighted only the important part), but there you go (except for Woody, you sick SOB, you! I requested that you do my autopsy in my Will, so have at it and hold nothing back). Lassiter, I've sent you a little something in the mail too. So that way you can know my secret. Well, I hope I get to see all of you later—a very, very, very long time from now. I have to go. I've got a case to solve for you right now on this very day. Weird, isn't it?

PS: For your information, I wrote this during the car theft case when Juliet lost her canine tooth. Just a fun fact. Two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago, Shawn was planning his death.

Gus felt all the blood drain from his face. He was sure that right now he was whiter than an albino allergic to the sun.

Two weeks.