Alternative chapter version A: Stay the Night
"The storm's over," Lassiter said.
"How do you know?" asked Gus.
"Because I have decided that it's over."
"He's right," agreed Sheriff Darby, who had come into the staff room from his office. "I've got a green light from our pilots. We have a fully equipped S&R team waiting for us, a S.W.A.T. team in case we run into the bad guys, and our K-9 unit."
"That's what I wanted to hear," Henry said.
Everybody grabbed their jackets, and a short struggle ensued at the door, but Henry made it through first.
"Come with me." Shawn took Juliet's hand, and they walked back to the cabin. After they had gone inside, he carefully closed the door and gazed at her, and the look on his face scared her for a second. "I could really need some rest now," he muttered.
She took him by the elbow and led him to the bench again. "There you go."
"I was thinking of the bed."
"No." She glanced through the empty window frame, then back at him. "Look at me. The storm's over. They'll come for us in no time. You have to stay awake until they get here."
"Unfair."
"Why is it unfair?"
"You said it was over."
"You have a head injury. I can't let you fall asleep."
"You could have told me that sooner."
"Shawn."
"What?"
"Scoot over." She slid on the bench next to him. "We did it," she said, "and you're holding up great. Don't give up now. Consider this the fun part of the weekend. You and I, alone at last… You said it was cozy, after all."
"Yes. Sort of. A very rustic, godforsaken, slasher movie scary sort of."
"Don't you like it at all?"
"Sitting here with you? Soaking wet, bleeding, concussed and beaten?" He smiled at her. "This is way more fun than any Fall Guy marathon, and I wouldn't want to share this with anybody else but you."
She smiled back at him. "You're the cutest person in the world."
"No, that's William H. Macy. But I'm comfortable with the thought that I rank second."
They sat in silence for a while. Then Juliet shifted a little. "There's something I've been wondering about," she said. "Your father doesn't have any psychic abilities, does he?"
"No. Just the regular parent eyes-in-the-back-of-his-head super powers. Why?"
"Well – don't get me wrong, it's not like I was planning or anything, but…" She hesitated. "Do you think it might be hereditary?"
It did not happen often, but it was possible to render Shawn Spencer speechless. Two thoughts collided inside his mind and started to wrestle about who got to be processed first. Shawn could only sit and watch until one of them prevailed. Following his nature, it was the more pleasant one. She might not be planning, but Juliet obviously did not rule out the possibility of having kids one day. With him. That appreciated, the other thought cleared its throat and spoke up, which took some effort as the storm appeared to be strengthening again and caused a loud flapping noise outside. Juliet was still convinced that he was a psychic, and she was incorporating that conviction into her visions of their future together. This was more than wrong, it just was not real.
"Yeah, about that," he said and took her hand. Were there wolves in this part of the country? He thought he had heard a bark, but there was something more important to focus on. "Juliet, don't be mad at me."
"You don't want kids." She tried a smile. "That's okay, I think."
"What? No! I mean, yes, I mean, I do." This night was full of surprises. He could not believe he had just said that, but it felt right. "Yes, I do. But that's not what I meant. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm n…"
The door flew open, and five armed men in black S.W.A.T. gear stormed in, and before they knew it, Shawn and Juliet had been dragged off the bench and found themselves on the ground with the S.W.A.T. team spreading out in the cabin, which for obvious reasons did not take long. One of them yelled, "secure!", and the team was followed by two men with German Shepherds, and finally, by a man in a Sheriff's uniform, Lassiter, Henry Spencer, Declan Rand, and Gus. There was hardly any space left for Shawn and Juliet to get back on their feet again. Although the policemen had been relatively gentle with them, Shawn's shoulder was now smarting again at its best. He looked for somebody to let his frustration out on, with his father and Lassiter making it into the finals, and finally pounced at Lassiter. "You've got to be kidding me. Why now? Couldn't you have come like two minutes later? We were kind of in the middle of something."
"Not another word, Spencer. I don't want to know what you two were up to."
Shawn stopped short. He wondered if Lassiter had figured it out by himself. "Who told you?"
"You're not the only one who 'senses' things. Besides, you two were hard to miss recently."
"Lassie, you old bloodhound. Way to go!" Shawn grinned at him, but Juliet's face had turned bright red.
"Can we go home now?" she asked.
Lassiter looked down at her, and his expression became soft. "Yes," he said and offered her his hand.
Henry put a hand on Shawn's sound shoulder. "You okay, kid?"
"Yeah. Two aspirin, and I'll be playing golf with you in no time."
"Right. Like you'd ever play golf with me." Henry hesitated for a second before he let him go. "I'm glad we found you two alive," he then said. His eyes showed that he wanted to say more, but he just patted Shawn's shoulder again.
They left the cabin. Outside, Shawn blinked into the searchlights of two helicopters hovering about a hundred feet above the place. "Did you all get here in those things?" he asked.
"No," the Sheriff replied. "We're hardly two miles off the highway." He nodded to his truck, which was standing a few yards away on a narrow dirt track leading towards the cabin. "The ambulances didn't make it here. You have the choice: the bumpy route on the ground in my truck or the helicopter ride."
Juliet shook her head. "Shawn, no."
"Pretty please? A helicopter ride, how cool is that?"
Darby winked at her. "The guys haven't had an SAR mission in weeks. Humor them."
Juliet rolled her eyes. "Just so you know, I'm doing this only because I want you to get to a hospital as quickly as possible."
"Sweet!"
Darby laughed. He took his radio and contacted the pilots, and seconds later, a man was lowered from one of the helicopters. Attached to his harness was a second one, and he waved Juliet over. "You owe me," she whispered into Shawn's ear and let the man strap the harness around her. When she had safely been pulled up and into the helicopter, it was Shawn's turn. When the man gave his colleague in the helicopter a sign that they were ready to be pulled up, a thought crossed Shawn's mind. A WWI pistol, counterfeit or not, showing up in Santa Barbara, had to pass Lassie's desk at some point. He hoped that it had not been through forensics yet. This was an opportunity not to be missed. "And by the way, the gun's a fake", he called down over the noise of the helicopter.
Lassiter turned around to face Henry. "Did he just say, 'the gun is a fake'?" he asked incredulously.
"Sounded like it."
"Dammit!" The detective kicked the next best tree. His cell phone rang. "Yes," he barked as he picked up the call.
"Detective Lassiter, this is Grace Lantigua, forensics department. Officer McNabb made it clear that you wanted the Luger on top of our list. We've just finished examining it."
"Let me guess," he said in a resigned tone. "It's not real."
"You're good. This baby gave us a hard time, but we even found out where the pistol originated. There's a manufacturer in San Mateo who officially sells replicas of the original ACP Luger. He reports that five of them, still unbranded, were stolen. Somebody used at least one of them to forge a nice expensive collectible. Not a bad profit margin, I'd say."
"Thank you."
"No, thank you. This was way more fun than reconstructing ballistic trajectories."
Lassiter put the phone back into his pocket. "I'll be damned," he sighed. "I don't know how he does it, but I swear I'll find out one day."
The procedure was not pleasant, but it did not take long. Soon Shawn sat in the helicopter next to Juliet, and after checking his blood pressure and making sure the bandage on his shoulder was still in place, the man who had taken them both aboard left him alone. Shawn leaned back and allowed himself to relax, and immediately an imperative wish to close his eyes overwhelmed him. He did not know if it was the fatigue caused by blood loss and the concussion or just plain old lack of sleep, or maybe a mixture of both, but he decided that it was safe now to give in to it. He had barely closed his eyelids when Juliet pushed him in the side. She said something, but her voice was just as far away as the noise the helicopter made. He opened his eyes again, smiled at her and allowed the world to fade to black.
