Chapter 9 – My psychic senses tell me that you don't really like me.
"So this is the place."
Shawn took a few careful steps around the room, his eyes roaming over everything within sight, trying to take in all the details.
"Somehow, I imagined it to look differently. More…I don't know. Spooky. No. Tawdry. Chintzy. Well, you know what I mean."
Gus shook his head with a laugh. "More like velvet curtains, robes and crystal balls?"
Shawn took another look around the Psych office, then he let himself sink down in one of the desk chairs – Gus' desk chair, to be precise.
"Yeah." He admitted. "But this actually looks pretty normal, as far as offices go. A bit juvenile, maybe. And this is where we meet our clients and work on our cases?"
Gus nodded and sat down in Shawn's desk chair. They were actually supposed to be on their way to the police station for a visit, but Shawn had insisted that they drop by the office first. So here they were, with Shawn looking around the office as if he was seeing it for the first time. Which was true, in a way.
He was nervously scratching the skin above the cast on his left arm, trying to work a finger under the plaster cast in an attempt to scratch the skin beneath. It had only been two days since he was wearing the cast, but already Gus noticed that this was starting to become a nervous tick. Shawn started scratching along his cast whenever he was nervous, or unsure about something.
Right now, he was obviously nervous about finding out more about his job as a fake psychic private detective. And Gus wasn't too sure that he'd be able to calm those insecurities entirely.
"If we work private cases, our clients come here. If we work for the police, we mostly hang around the station and you try to get a deeper insight into the cases and the investigation than we're normally granted. Or you drag us off to investigate things on our own."
Shawn leaned back in his chair and frowned. Gus knew the expression on his friend's face, it was one he normally had when he was highly discontent with something.
"What's wrong?"
Shawn shrugged uncomfortably. "So when we're working for the police, I have insight into the case files and the crime scenes, and I observe the things that the police miss. That's how I solve my cases."
Gus nodded. "Right."
"And if we work private cases, I do pretty much the same. I observe and pretend to have a psychic vision which explains it all."
"That's also right."
"So basically, I'm cheating."
Gus frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I'm cheating. I'm doing something one way, but I'm pretending to do it another way."
Gus leaned back in his chair and thought about that for a moment. "If you want to put it that way, yes. I wouldn't call that cheating, though."
"I still don't like it."
Gus was taken back by that statement. It was the first time his friend had ever uttered doubts about what he was doing, and about the way he was doing it.
"You don't like what?"
"I don't like that I pretend to be something that I'm not to get the job done. I don't like the idea that I'm lying to everybody on a daily basis."
"What you're doing might be based on a lie, I can't deny that. But even if you're not completely honest about how you do things, you're doing good. You help the police solve cases which wouldn't get solved otherwise. You're finding crimes where they would have put it off as an accident. And you help our private clients to settle matters that are bothering them. So even if you're a fraud, you still get the job done. You're helping people. And you're not hurting anybody with that lie."
Shawn shook his head and stared down at the desk in front of him. "I killed somebody, Gus. You can't say that what I do doesn't hurt anybody after that."
Gus shook his head. "But that doesn't mean that your psychic act is hurting people. Even if you weren't pretending to be a psychic, if you were an ordinary private investigator or a cop, in that situation you'd have done the exact same thing."
"But maybe I wouldn't even have come into this situation if I weren't pretending to be a psychic. Maybe things wouldn't have gone completely out of control that day."
Gus bit his lip as he thought about that. He honestly had no idea what to say to that. It was spooky to hear Shawn say something which might have come out of Henry's mouth. What was even more worrisome was that Shawn started doubting things. Before that day up in the mountains with Lassiter, Shawn had never doubted his pretense to be a psychic. Never just once.
"I don't think it matters whether you're a private investigator or whether you pretend to be a psychic. You are a private investigator, whether or not people know how you get the results that you do. It's what you do, and it's what you're damn good at."
Shawn was still shaking his head. "But that's just it. I mean, if my skills at observing and deducing are really that good, why didn't I become a cop?"
"That would have to do with your father, I think."
Shawn frowned. "But I thought he was a cop."
"Yes, he was. And he wanted you to become one, too."
"And that's what I don't get. If he wanted me to become a cop, and if I'm so good at what it takes to be a cop, why didn't I become a cop? Just to defy him?"
Gus shook his head. "No. Not exclusively, at least, though it might have played a role. You always said that being a cop wasn't what you are."
Shawn chortled. "Oh yes, that's of course a great explanation."
Gus shrugged. "It was always enough for me. You aren't a cop, Shawn, no matter what your Dad did to make you become one. He always thought that all it took was to teach you the skills, but the truth is that you never had the heart to be a cop."
"Why?"
"My personal opinion? You're much too innocent for that. You work crimes because you're great at solving mysteries, at piecing together clues and figuring out the great picture. I see a body and run out of the room to get reacquainted with my lunch, you see a body and see the mystery that needs to be solved. You can keep that distance while working cases as a consultant, but you couldn't hold that up for long as a cop. That day up on the mountain was the first time you touched a gun during more than two years of working cases for the police. Had you become a cop, how long do you think you'd have made it without pulling a gun on somebody? How long before you had to fire a shot at somebody for the first time? That's just now who you are, and that's why you never became a cop. You solve things with your head, not with anything else. Investigating cases the way you do is the only way that you can do it without becoming somebody you aren't."
Shawn leaned back with a frown as he thought about that. Gus only hoped that his friend had understood what he had been trying to say. Once Shawn got his memory back, he'd know. Of course he'd know then, after all he had been the one who had tried to explain it to Gus in the first place.
Finally, Shawn looked back up, the frown still etched onto his face.
"I don't get it. I don't get what all the fuss is about. So I'm obviously good at noticing things because my Dad taught me how to do it. And that's good enough to justify downright lying to people?"
Gus sighed. In fact, when Shawn had first pretended to be a psychic, he had asked himself the exact same question. Did Shawn's abilities justify lying and pretending to be something he wasn't? But over the past two years he had learned that the psychic lie wasn't what stood in the foreground. Yes, Shawn wasn't being honest about how he got the information he needed to solve cases. But he did solve the cases, and he didn't break the law getting it. Well, he hardly ever broke the law. And he never did something that could possibly harm somebody else. Oh, he did plenty of things that could get him or Gus arrested, or fired, and too often he relied on his quick mind and silver tongue to get out of tight spots. But he never deliberately put anybody else at risk. And Gus was sure that Shawn would not act any differently if he was working as a 'normal' private investigator. That was why he had learned to accept the lie about being a psychic – because it simply wasn't important.
But how could he possibly make Shawn understand that solving crimes was simply what he did? That he couldn't help but notice things that didn't add up, and that he had in fact solved crimes for the police long before his psychic charade had begun?
Maybe the only way to make him understand was to make him aware of just how unusual the workings of his mind were.
"How many red lights did we have on our way here?"
Shawn frowned. "What?"
"How many red lights did we stop at during the drive here?"
Shawn shook his head, clearly confused. "Two, but why are you asking?"
"Just humor me. Two red lights. How many green lights?"
"Four."
"The two red lights we stopped at, what cars were crossing the intersection from the right?"
Shawn thought for a moment. "A white Toyota at the first intersection, then a red Jeep. None at the second red light, all the traffic was coming from the left."
"And how many coffee shops did we pass on our way here?"
"Three. One had a special daily offer of pineapple scones, maybe we should drop by there later. But would you explain to me what all this is about?"
"It's the answer to your question what all the fuss is about. It doesn't answer whether it justifies pretending to be something you're not, but it should explain to you why everybody is talking about your skills of observation and your memory."
"Because I knew how many red lights we stopped at, and how many coffee shops there were? Come on, that's not really a big deal. It's normal."
"It is a big deal Shawn, but you don't even realize it. It's a big deal because it is not normal. I drove here, I was the one who stopped at the red lights, but I couldn't remember all this. When I stop at a red light, I have all but forgotten about it ten minutes later. When you stop at a red light, you notice all the cars coming from each direction, you notice whether or not the driver in the car behind you has his seat belt on, and you can tell that the granny who is crossing the intersection in front of you had a hip surgery recently. You notice details nobody else does, and you don't forget them. It's not only that you notice all these things, but also that you never forget anything." Gus sighed. "It's actually pretty ironic that normally you never forget anything and now you've forgotten everything."
"Please stop, my side hurts from laughing."
Gus sobered immediately. "I'm sorry. It's definitely not amusing, but it is ironic. And if you want to understand why you're doing what you're doing, you need to accept that your mind doesn't work like everybody else's."
"That sounds encouraging. I'm a fake psychic whose mind is not working quite right. With all the things I'm getting to know, I'm no longer sure that I want to remember."
Gus shook his head. "I never said that your mind isn't working right. It's just working differently than everybody else's. It sets you apart, and while that's not always a good thing, that is exactly what makes you such a good investigator. You can't help but notice all the things everybody else keeps missing."
"What do you mean, it's not always a good thing?"
Gus sighed. "For you, all this is normal. It's not even a conscious effort for you to notice these things. You still do it now, even if you don't remember anything about yourself. But that doesn't always make it easy to understand you. I often have the feeling that I'm two steps behind and will never catch up because I'm missing some crucial pieces in the puzzle. And you always have trouble understanding why you're the only one who notices these things. It's normal for you, but it's not normal for everybody else. It's difficult at times."
Shawn sighed deeply. "So in fact, nobody understands me."
"Nobody really understands how your mind works, that's a difference. At least I don't, and your father doesn't either, even though he's the one who trained you. You're different from everybody, and it also made you a bit lonely. You always had a lot of friends, but your mind always set you apart from all of them. There's always been this essential part of you that nobody, not even your friends, was able to understand. Even more so since you never went around and told everybody about your abilities. In a way, pretending to be a psychic was therapeutic for you. You can finally use your abilities to the fullest without having to explain yourself about something most people don't understand, anyway."
Gus shrugged awkwardly. "What I'm trying to say is that yes, that whole psychic thing is a lie you go by. But the fact that you're lying doesn't make you a bad person. You're just a guy with unique abilities who finally found a niche for himself. In my book, that's not a bad thing."
Shawn shrugged. "I don't know. I'm still not entirely sure that I like everything I get to know about myself."
"Honestly Shawn, I doubt any of us would. If I were in your situation, I don't know if I'd like everything there's to know about me, either. But that still doesn't make you a bad person."
Shawn shook his head and got up from his chair. "How about we just go to the police station. I'm curious to see what the place is like."
He turned and left the office, and Gus had no choice but to follow. He wasn't too sure that Shawn understood fully what he had tried to tell him about the workings of his mind. But then again, Shawn had never been able to really understand that other people weren't able to work on the same mental level that he worked on, either. But before he had lost his memory, at least Shawn had been comfortable with himself, and he had known where he stood. The fact that this seemed to change now was worrying Gus more than he cared to admit.
It was high time that Shawn somehow managed to get his memory back before he started doubting everything about himself and his life.
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A lot of people were staring at him.
That was the first thing Shawn noticed as Gus led their way into the police station. He was looking around, trying to figure out whether anything about this place seemed familiar to him, but the brutal truth was that nothing did.
There were a lot of people in the station, most of them cops on their way here or there, and Shawn had the feeling that they were all staring at him.
It was safe to assume that if he was working here, they knew him. Most of them, anyway. Some of them nodded in greeting, to which Shawn nodded in response. But they were also staring as if there was something off about him. Shawn wondered whether everybody here knew that he had lost his memory. Or maybe that was their normal reaction to him. After all, he'd be a bit skeptical around somebody claiming to be a psychic, too.
Or maybe it was because of how he looked. His face was still badly scratched, after all. And his left arm was in a cast up to his elbow. If the other cops didn't know what had happened to him, maybe that was the reason for their stares.
There were just too many damn questions, and he simply didn't know enough to figure out all the answers on his own.
So far, Shawn had always been around only few people at one time, and he had been introduced to them and had known that they were aware of his problem. But this was a tad bit overwhelming, and he didn't know where to look first.
And it was awfully warm in here. It wasn't exactly hot outside, but it was definitely turning out to be a really warm day. Obviously, somebody had forgotten to turn on the air conditioning this morning.
Gus led their way after they had passed the reception desk, and Shawn decided it might be a good idea not to lose his friend from sight. He didn't particularly want to face the embarrassment of getting lost inside a police station.
Gus rounded a corner, and in an attempt at not losing him from sight for too long Shawn quickened his steps to follow him. He hurried around the corner and nearly slammed frontally into a man walking into the other direction. Shawn quickly sidestepped and pivoted slightly to avoid a collision, and the man stopped abruptly and swayed slightly as he tried to keep his balance.
The guy Shawn had run into clearly was no cop, but a maintenance worker. He was wearing loose overalls with the logo of a repair-service on the back, there was a tool-belt around his waist and he was carrying a ladder. That would be the explanation as to why it was so warm in here. Obviously the air conditioning wasn't working properly.
"I'm sorry about that." Shawn said.
The man only shrugged and grunted something noncommittally as he pushed up the sleeves of his overalls and readjusted his grip on the ladder. He shouldered the ladder again and a moment later he had vanished around the corner and from Shawn's sight.
"Shawn!"
Shawn turned and found Gus waiting for him in front of an office door. He quickly jogged over towards him.
"What were you doing?"
"Nothing, I just nearly slammed into that maintenance guy."
Gus nodded. "It is awfully warm in here." He stretched out a hand and knocked on the door. It didn't take astute observation skills to figure out that this was the Chief's office, her name on the door was a pretty good indication for that.
"Enter!"
Gus opened the door and the two of them walked into the office. Shawn looked around curiously. It was actually a nice office, as far as offices in a police station could possibly go. Of course there were the obvious file cabinets standing around everywhere, but the colors were warm, and there were small touches all over the room that made it more comfortable. The sofa, for one. Pictures of a toddler on the cabinet beside the window. A framed art imprint on the wall. A glass fish on the desktop, though Shawn wasn't too sure about that. It actually looked a little strange, but there was no accounting for taste.
Chief Vick was sitting in the chair behind her desk, a file folder in front of her. A man was occupying one of the visitor chairs, watching them closely as they entered but not making any move to get up or to greet them.
"Mr. Spencer, Mr. Guster. Good of you to finally join us."
Shawn looked at the Chief with a frown, but then he realized that she had probably been expecting them a little earlier. Their detour to the Psych office had kept them.
"I'm sorry, Chief. We got a little caught up in something."
Vick frowned, but she gestured towards the two remaining visitor chairs without another word. Shawn hesitantly went over towards the one next to the other man. The man had not made any move to leave the room, so maybe he was supposed to be here. But Shawn couldn't venture a guess as to who the man was. Besides, it might be better if he refrained from guessing about things in the near future. He had been pretty wrong about his Dad and the Chief being more than just acquaintances, after all.
Chief Vick gestured towards the man.
"Mr. Spencer, this is Detective Carlton Lassiter. He's the head detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department, and you have worked with him on cases before. I asked Detective Lassiter to be here because Dr. Wilson called me about it. He thinks it might help you remember if you work through the file of that incident three weeks ago. Detective Lassiter was also there when it happened."
Shawn turned towards Lassiter and stretched out his hand.
"Nice to meet you, detective."
Lassiter raised an eyebrow and regarded Shawn for a long moment, as if trying to judge whether he was being made fun of or not. Then he bent forward awkwardly and shook Shawn's hand for a brief moment.
But he didn't say a word.
Well, now that was odd.
Although there were a lot of odd things about detective Lassiter, come to think of it. He was dressed sharp, just like one would expect a head detective as a role model for the younger detectives to look like. Dark suit, the creases impeccable. A shirt without a single wrinkle in sight, his tie fitting both the suit and the shirt, the knot tight and perfectly adjusted, and his shoes polished and without a scuff or scratch.
But something was not right.
Lassiter's left wrist was in a cast, for one thing. Vick had told Shawn that both he and detective Lassiter had been injured during whatever had gone down before he had killed that man, so maybe that cast was still a result of that. And the way he had bent forward to shake Shawn's hand had also been awkward, as if he was careful about moving certain parts of his body. His ribs maybe, or his shoulder.
But what confused Shawn most was that the head detective of the department was carrying neither badge nor gun. Even if he was still confined to desk duty due to his injuries, he should be wearing both. Shawn didn't know where that knowledge about police procedures came from, but he decided to simply accept it, just like the knowledge that he liked pineapple. It wasn't a memory floating back, no need to get excited about it.
And then there was the glaring.
Shawn wasn't sure why, but detective Lassiter was glaring at him. It didn't take a genius to guess that somehow, Lassiter didn't particularly like him. Shawn of course had absolutely no idea what their relationship was like. He only knew that he called the man 'Lassie', and that Lassiter didn't particularly like that. Well, looking at him now, Shawn had absolutely no doubt as to that fact. He didn't look like the kind of guy who was particularly keen on being called any form of nicknames. Shawn wondered why Lassiter still let Shawn call him Lassie, though. If he truly hated it that much, he didn't look like the type to hesitate to do something against it. Like shooting him.
Well, maybe there was the explanation why the man wasn't wearing a gun.
Chief Vick interrupted Shawn in his thoughts. "I have the case file on the jewel theft here. In there is all the information on the case and on everything that happened, including your official statement. Detective Lassiter can help fill any gaps that might still remain. You can use my office. I need to go and check how long it's going to take until the air condition is working again. It's starting to get unbearably stuffy in here."
She got up from her chair and left the office. As the door closed behind her, Shawn turned towards Gus.
"Maybe we should try opening a window? I know it sounds pretty old-fashioned, but it might just work."
"This is a police station, Spencer. A place where a lot of criminals pass through every day. The windows aren't bound to open, it would contradict the whole concept of trying to keep the criminals locked up."
Shawn turned towards Lassiter as the detective spat out those acid words.
Yes, something was definitely going on between the two of them, but he had absolutely no idea where all the venom came from.
But he didn't say anything, instead Shawn turned back towards the desk and picked up the file Chief Vick had left for them.
"So everything that happened during that case is in here? And I can read it, just like that? No top secret stuff?"
Lassiter rolled his eyes and shook his head. "No, there's nothing in there you aren't allowed to read. And now go ahead and read the damned thing, I don't have all day to sit here and wait for your questions."
Again, Shawn was taken aback by the tone of Lassiter's voice, but without his memory of what had gone down between them Shawn decided that it was not a wise idea to start a conversation about that now. Instead, he flipped open the file and started to read.
Whatever Dr. Wilson had thought reading the file would do to him, Shawn doubted that it was working.
There were a lot of dry reports on the jewel theft, the scene of the crime and the pieces of evidence collected. The second part of the file contained both Lassiter's and his own statement of what had happened after Shawn had called the detective and had asked him to come to that warehouse.
Shawn immediately understood his conclusions that had led him to the warehouse, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that judged from what was in those reports, Lassiter had just gone into that warehouse on Shawn's word, without calling for backup.
Didn't exactly sound like a smart idea, especially not if Shawn considered that Lassiter believed him to be a psychic. What kind of detective followed the word of a psychic blindly, without questioning and without making sure that somebody was there to watch his back? It didn't sound like the world's best idea.
It didn't take Shawn long to read through both their accounts of what had happened. Lassiter's report was short and precise, just like Shawn would have expected the witness account of a police detective to sound like. His own account of the events was surprisingly detailed. Being told about his astute skills at observation was one thing, reading about it was something entirely different. Lassiter's report had been precise, but his own filled gaps in Lassiter's report which he hadn't even realized were there.
But even as Shawn read his own statement about how he had shot that man, it didn't bring back any memories. None at all. It was as if he was reading something that had happened to another person, and he didn't even recognize the words as his own.
Lassiter had been down, that guy – Herbert Flanders, also called Herb – had been highly unstable and threatening to kill them. Shawn had gone for his gun, they had struggled, the movement of their struggle had led to the gun discharging and Herb had ended up with a shot through the lower chest that had killed him almost immediately.
Self-defense.
An accident.
All right, it didn't sound as if it was something he'd want to do every weekend, or ever again for that matter, but if this was the trauma that caused his mind to withhold memories, Shawn didn't understand it. Killing somebody had to be bad, right now he could only imagine just how bad one had to be feeling about it, but it had been an accident. It hadn't been premeditated murder, after all. It had been a bad solution to an awful situation, but in that situation it had been the only way for Lassiter and him to make it out alive. They had barely made it as it was. He just didn't understand it.
With a frown etched onto his face, Shawn started sifting through the crime scene photos. A small clearing somewhere in the woods, the grass and plants trampled in places. A close-up shot of the body in situ, lying on the ground and staring up at the sky, his shirt saturated with blood in the front. Close-up shots of the gun lying on the ground, its barrel and handle also covered in blood. More pictures of small details which the police had found in the clearing. Pictures of shards of a broken window on a gravel road, probably stemming from the truck. Pictures of the truck on the emergency lane of the highway, its back window shot out. Bloodstains on the passenger seat, close-up shots of the steering wheel that despite its dark color clearly was also stained with blood.
Shawn looked through the pictures once, twice, then he put them back into the file, closed it and put it back on Vick's desk.
"Do you have any questions, Spencer?"
Shawn turned towards the detective beside him upon those words. Lassiter was looking straight at him with his eyes narrowed and the expression on his face impatient.
"They never found the second guy?"
Lassiter's eyes narrowed even further. "No. Otherwise I am sure the report of his arrest would have been put into this file. And I didn't mean whether you have any questions about the case, I meant whether you have any questions that might help you get your memory back. I didn't come here because I want to talk shop with you, I came here because the Chief said it might be aiding your memory. So do you have any questions?"
In fact, Shawn had a number of questions. The first one on his mind was why don't you like me, but he swallowed it down. In a way, Lassiter was right. He wasn't here to solve this case. He already had, obviously. He was here to try and remember.
The only problem was that he didn't remember anything.
Despite seeing the file and the photos, Shawn didn't remember being brought to that hut, their escape and fall down the slope, their run down the mountain, or those minutes when they had been caught which had ended with him shooting that man. He simply didn't remember.
"Spencer, I don't have all day."
"I'm sorry, detective." Shawn drew a deep breath and started worrying the skin beneath his cast with his uninjured hand.
"I just don't know what I'm supposed to ask you. It's all in those reports, and even if something was missing, I wouldn't know. I don't remember any of this, and I don't recognize anything from the pictures, either. I know what went down now, but I don't remember it. No matter what questions I could ask you now, I don't think any would make me remember." He sighed and forced himself to stop scratching at the skin around his cast.
"I'm sorry that you had to stay here for this, detective. But somehow I doubt that Dr. Wilson was right and this has anything to do with my amnesia. From what's in this report, it was an accident. I didn't want to shoot that man, and going for his gun was our only chance at getting out there alive. I guess it was hard, but I don't think it was that much of a trauma."
Lassiter started to smirk. It gave Shawn a strangely uncomfortable feeling to see that expression on the detective's face.
"What?"
"Spencer, you had the body of a man lying on top of you while he died. His blood was all over you. As soon as we rolled him off you, you started retching and didn't stop. After we were finally out of there, you were in shock. Totally catatonic. So don't tell me it wasn't much of a trauma. If your neurologist says your amnesia might have to do with a psychological trauma, I'm sure what happened up on that mountain qualifies."
Shawn shook his head and gave the file a push with his finger so that it slid further along the Chief's desk.
"Even if that's the case, I still don't remember. I don't remember anything in that file. Not the tiniest detail. So I'm sorry that you wasted your time. We'd better get going."
Shawn got up from his chair and started to walk over towards the door. He heard Gus' chair scrape along the floor as his friend got up as well. Shawn had nearly reached the door when he heard Lassiter's voice again.
"Spencer, wait."
Shawn turned around to the detective, who was still sitting in the chair in front of Vick's desk.
"What is it?"
"The Chief said if this doesn't help bring back your memories, your neurologist wants to reenact the whole scene on location."
Shawn nodded. "Yes, he told me that. I…I'm not really sure about that. That it will help any, I mean. I don't think you need to bother taking the time for that. If looking at the file won't help, looking at a clearing in the woods won't help me either. It's been three weeks ago, what should there be left to see?"
Lassiter raised an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "I wish you good luck trying to tell that to the Chief. She ordered me to cooperate fully with whatever course of treatment your neurologist suggested. So if she tells me to come for a reenactment, I will be there."
Shawn didn't think the Chief of police and his doctor were in any position to tell him what to do and what not. He was thirty years old, why did everybody always seem to forget that?
But that wasn't Lassiter's fault. He was only following orders, after all. Shawn shrugged awkwardly.
"We'll see. Goodbye detective."
Shawn left the office, Gus following closely behind.
"You really didn't remember anything?"
Shawn stopped and turned back towards Gus. "Don't you think that if I had, I'd have said something?"
Gus took a step back and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. "All right, I'm sorry."
Shawn ran his uninjured hand through his hair and sighed. "No, I'm sorry. It's just that everybody is always asking me if I'm sure that I don't remember. I'd think I'd be the first to know if any of my memory had returned. I'm not trying to keep anything from you."
"It's just not easy." Gus admitted. "We're all hoping that your memory will come back, and we keep trying to think up ways to help you remember. It's simply frustrating that nothing seems to work."
"Tell me about it."
Shawn didn't want to admit it, but the fact that nothing had helped him remember so far scared him. Meeting his family hadn't helped, seeing his hometown, his childhood home, the place where he worked, nothing. Not even seeing the pictures of the murder scene had helped any, and Dr. Wilson had seemed convinced that it should do the trick.
He tried to tell himself that it had only been two days, but as far as he was concerned, that were forty-eight hours too long. Especially since nothing at all had happened. Nothing, not the tiniest bit of recollection.
Slowly, Shawn was getting scared what would happen if his memory wouldn't come back. What would happen if he'd forever remain unable to remember the first thirty years of his life? He'd have to learn everything about himself again, and about the people in his life, and still it would never be the same.
The thought that this might actually be a possibility scared Shawn more than he'd ever admit.
And it wasn't as if there was anybody around that he could talk to. Of course, there were his parents, and there was Gus. His family and his closest friend. Shawn guessed that if he wanted to talk, they'd be willing to listen. But no matter how much they cared, and how much they tried to help him, they were all strangers to him.
Shawn sighed again. "Come on, let's go and grab some lunch."
Gus nodded and the two started walking down the corridor that would lead them out of the station.
On their way, the young detective that had visited his father's house together with Chief Vick came walking towards them. She was carrying a stack of folders and it took her a moment to notice them. When she did, she smiled widely at them both.
"Gus. Shawn. That's a nice surprise. What are you going here?"
"Trying and failing to jog my memory, Detective O'Hara."
Juliet frowned. "Shawn, I'm sorry."
Shawn shrugged and put some false cheer into his voice. "That's all right. Sooner or later it has to come back."
Juliet smiled, though the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "And by the way Shawn, you never call me Detective O'Hara."
"No?"
"No. You call me Juliet. Well, mostly you just call me Jules."
"Jules." Shawn tried out the name, then glanced up at her again. "And you like that?"
Juliet frowned. "Why shouldn't I?"
Shawn shrugged awkwardly. "Well, obviously I make a habit of calling detective Lassiter 'Lassie', and everybody tells me that he hates it."
Juliet smiled. "Believe me, if I wanted you to stop calling me Jules, I'd have made you stop. But no matter if you call me Juliet or Jules, there's no need to call me Detective O'Hara."
"Okay. Listen Juliet, we were just about to go grab some lunch. Do you want to come along?"
Juliet grimaced. "I'd love to, but I'm swamped with work. I think the amount of paperwork I need to get done has doubled since Lassiter is on suspension. And it's not helping that the air condition isn't working." She gestured towards the stack of folders in her hand. "I'd better get back to that. But maybe later this week."
"Sure thing. Bye Det…Juliet."
"Bye."
Juliet flashed them another smile, then she continued carrying her files over towards her desk. Shawn made sure that there was nobody around to overhear them, then he grabbed Gus' arm and dragged him along the corridor towards the exit.
"What did she mean, Lassiter is on suspension? I figured he was still on medical leave when I saw that he didn't carry a badge and gun."
Gus shook his head. "No, he's been cleared for desk duty a few days ago. But…well, let's just say that he made a judgment call the Chief didn't agree with. And now he's on a two week suspension."
Shawn heard from the tone of Gus' voice that this wasn't all there was to it. "What judgment call?"
"Going into that warehouse without backup."
Shawn stopped abruptly. "Does that mean he's on suspension because he believed what I said?"
Gus shook his head. "No. That means he's on suspension because he didn't take what you said serious enough to call for backup as he should have. It was his decision, not yours."
"Well, it seems that he's still bearing me a grudge for that."
"You mean because he wasn't exactly nice to you? Shawn, that's his normal way of talking to you. Better get used to it."
Shawn couldn't believe what he was hearing. "He's talking to me like that all the time?"
"Not all the time. But whenever he feels you're annoying him. Which is pretty much every time, but not always."
Shawn rolled his eyes. "Now that's a great explanation."
Gus shrugged. "Nobody can be loved by everybody. Besides, he's gotten kinda used to having you around, a lot of it is just acting out of habit. So what about that lunch now?"
"Sure, let's go find something to eat."
But even as they left the station at the exact moment that the air condition started working again with an audible whump and an accompanying sigh or relief from more than just one officer at the station, Shawn couldn't help the feeling that detective Lassiter wasn't the only one who didn't quite like Shawn Spencer. With every little piece he discovered about his life, Shawn found himself asking more and more often whether he liked the Shawn Spencer he was slowly getting to know. The jury was still out on that one, but he wasn't entirely sure.
