Chapter Ten:
Safe

Santa Barbara, 1989

This. Was. Awesome.

Shawn felt like he was floating – no, flying. Though his eyes were closed and beneath his lids only darkness - none of those spotty colory drifty things he'd see before going to sleep - he felt like he was flying through Metropolis as Superman. Just without the inside-out underwear.

In fact, there'd be a much cooler costume, but he was digressing. This felt awesome.

The last thing he remembered was being dragged back into the outpatient building by a very ticked off Henry. His getaway plan so cleverly titled 'escape horrific departure of tonsils' had failed, and with his mother out of state for work, he had no one there to convince his father to see his side of the situation. Even the nurses and doctors agreed with the man's decision. The tonsils were going bye-bye.

The last thought he remembered, just before going under, was that if they wanted his tonsils so much, they surely weren't for free and he better be getting paid for them. Now all he could think about was the rush of adrenaline he felt as his body soared through the pit-dark sky's ahead.

Because this. felt. awesome.

"Shawn, come on kid, open your eyes."

He had to wonder about all the awesome possibility's he'd have with this flying thing. Obviously there'd be the fame and glory. Oh how Shawn longed for the fame and glory.

"Shawn, kiddo, come on…"

Then there were the girls. Oh man, Jenny Scott would totally dump Lenny and go straight for him. I mean, what middle school girl wouldn't want to date someone who could fly?

Yeah, fame and girls. It was just what destiny had in store for him. He knew that his eyes were closed, at least he assumed as much, but whether or not his face shared the same grin that he held inside was unknown.

Shawn was happy though. Flying towards the golden destiny ahead of him.

"Sir, I told you. It's just a mild reaction to the anesthesia…give him time."

Flying was awesome. Since he was flying, obviously he was a Superhero.

Oh! A superhero! He would fight crime – the great Shawn Spencer. No, scratch that, The Catch. His totally legit little league record would give Santa Barbra the hero it needs, but not the one it deserves.

Wait. The sensation of flying coming to a brief halt. Something about that line sounded familiar…

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down, lady! Just ten minutes ago your doctor told me that his pulse had dropped to practically zero. I won't calm down until I see this boy's eyes open."

Nah, something that awesome surely had to be a Shawn original.

Oh, and hey, he could even get Gus involved. Just not as Tap-man. There had to be a sewage waste dump around Santa Barbra somewhere - that'd give him cool mutant powers in a jiffy. Maybe he could shoot laser beams from the bottom of those tap shoes or something. They'd figure it out together, they always did.

So let's see – superpower, check. Hero adored by the city, check. Girls at his every whim, check. Jenny Scott, check. That only meant crime to fight. And for there to be crime, obviously he needed a villain. Comic book rule number uno.

That realization hit him hard, and suddenly flying didn't seem so thrilling. For some reason, the thought of a villain sent a chill down Shawn's spine. And his stomach seemed to be tossing around like he had eaten a bad burrito, the kind Officer Peters would give him when his dad pulled the night shift. Ugh, those burritos were horrible.

But seriously, could he fight a villain? Could the city trust him to fight a villain? Not that he doubted himself or anything absurd like that, it was just…well, if he failed; the city would blow up or something.

"Shawn, kid, come on! Open your eyes. It's time to wake up."

Okay, now he wanted to stop flying. He didn't ask to save the city, especially not by himself! Though he was sure they could give Gus some superpowers too, there was always a possibility he'd be stuck in this alone. And his mom would really be upset if she came home from Florida to have the whole city destroyed by Lenny the ultra-lame-basketball player (super villain name in the works.)

His mom! If he had learned anything from his comics, the villains always came after the hero's loved ones. His mom would be the first to go. Then Gus, who surely couldn't defend himself with those silly tap shoes. Having the city blown to smithereens was something he could live with, but there was no way he'd go on without those two. What was he supposed to do? He knew how to escape the back of a locked car trunk, but this…his dad hadn't taught him how to get out of this situation, not yet anyways.

His dad.

Of course!

Where was his dad when he needed him?

"It's time to wake up, Shawnie. Wake up for dad, kid."

The voice was faint, like a ringing buzz from another room. He wanted to believe it was there, but for all he knew Lennister Lameo (name still in works) had created a trap to capture him and go after his mom and Gus. He really wanted his dad…his dad always knew what to do.

It felt like he had rode the Magic Mountain rollercoaster at Six Flags over fifty times. His head was spinning and his stomach was in a knot, and suddenly the sensation of flying went from being really cool to really terrifying. Someone really needed to show him where the off button was, because Shawn wanted to stop flying now. If he could just find his dad…

"Hey, there ya go. Come on, Shawnie…"

Shawn knew that voice anywhere, even flying thousands of feet in the air.

"There we are. Keep opening those eyes, Shawn. There we are."

His dad smiled down at him. "Hey kid."

"mhmhm…" Shawn moaned; his eyes barely open enough for you to see the brown puddles beneath his lids. "Iz dnt wnn be za ctch…"

Henry's eyebrows furrowed together with confusion. "Say again, Shawn?"

After much swallowing and a few ice chips later, Shawn managed to speak more clearly. "I don't…wanna be…the catch."

Like tying a brick to a flying balloon, the sound of his father's laughter seemed to bring him back down on the hospital bed that he laid in. And while the sickening feeling in his stomach took longer to disperse, just being weighted back to earth was enough for Shawn. He had plenty enough of all that flying, and he could certainly fight crime when he was older.

Though his eyes had managed to find their way open, his vision stayed blurry on the white tiled ceiling above him. When the laughter turned to chuckles, and the chuckles to silence, his dry throat cracked out, "Dad?"

A rough hand firmly grabbed his shoulder, gathering the hospital gown in a bunch as if to prove his touch was real. "Right here, kid."

Henry felt the boy relax under his grip, a wide and goofy grin plastered on his face that not even diminishing anesthesia could take away. The same stupid grin that usually pissed him off to no end, considering it was always attached with some sort of trouble.

This time though, Henry just smiled with him. "I'm right here, Shawn."

Present Day

The morning broke with a taunting and mocking sunrise that drew frustration within Juliet. Still wearing last night's clothes, which were slowly becoming the clothes from the day before that, she had quickly pulled into a parking spot in front of the Psych office and dashed to the entrance door with what little energy she had in her.

'Meet me at Psych. Now.' Gus had texted her, no more than twenty minutes ago at 6 am.

'Did you find anything? Clue? Evidence?' She had responded. No answer was received.

It wasn't like she had been woken up and dragged out of bed to be here. No, sleep was something she saw very little of since the attack on Shawn. Both she and Lassiter had seen little to none of their apartments in the past four days, having spent their nights in the station even long after the Chief had shelved the case for lack of evidence. The inconvenience of the matter wasn't what bothered her, but rather the lack of an answer given as to why she needed to be here.

His blue Echo was already in its appropriate parking space, so she wasn't surprised that the door was unlocked and even jarred open.

"Gus?" Juliet called out.

This time, she didn't need an answer. Gus stood less than five feet away from her, his arms crossed over his chest and his posture straight as could be. And while the night sky was still clearing out from the clouds, there was enough morning sunlight to see his every feature.

He didn't look much better than her; in fact, she'd go out of her way to say that he looked worst. Dark and heavy bags hung from underneath his eyes, and his wrinkled purple dress shirt hung out of his pants. Scratch that, his fireman pajama pants.

Gus stared straight ahead, his eyes never wavering out of focus, even when Juliet had stepped foot inside the office. At first, with her reactions at their slowest, she was confused to what he was looking at. Then it hit her.

Juliet frowned. "Gus…"

He barely even blinked. "I want to sell it." Gus said, his voice monotone.

"The lazy boy?" Juliet had to do a double take, eyesight switching back from Gus to the chair.

Gus only nodded, never once looking over at her. Birds outside chirped, and the distant sound of early morning board walk activity seeped through the open door, but other than that the room held complete silence.

"I…" Juliet looked ahead, "I don't think Shawn would want that."

"I don't care." Gus stated. "I want to sell it. I want it gone."

Though he tried to hide it, Juliet heard his voice crack at the last word he spoke. She looked back over at him, posture still stiff as a board and arms clenched tightly around his body, but her vantage point suddenly opened to a new sight. Behind the exhaustion and frustration were pieces of a broken friend, broken pieces she saw shattering around him.

The report echoed through her ears. Gus had found him; he had saved him. In the very chair they looked at could Shawn have taken his last breath. The very chair where he spent approximately 3 to 4 hours waiting for anybody to help him, suffering from the effects of shock and blood loss that left him so critical the doctors didn't think he'd ever recover.

But he did. He was, anyways, recovering that was. Both Juliet and Gus knew that, they were watching Shawn slowly make progress to be with the living world again. They hadn't lost him; the only thing they were losing was the chance of finding the scumbag that tried to kill him.

"Shawn loves it." Juliet spoke, "Maybe you should wait until he's awake and…can decide with you, or something."

Gus didn't reply, but something in his face showed that he acknowledged her words. He wasn't ignoring her, she knew that much. But as she observed him, Juliet could tell that he had long since made his decision, she surely wasn't brought here to talk him in or out of it

The chair wasn't stained, torn or damaged in any way. Aside from the clumps of dirt that a wet rag could easily take care of, you wouldn't be able to tell that something so horrific had occurred on it. Shawn didn't bleed externally all over the leather covers, and the vomit had stained the carpet another five feet away from them. Externally, there was no sign of a near death experience happening in this room. Just looking at the chair and you'd assume everything was fine.

She realized in that moment why he wanted to rid himself of the furniture.

"Oh." Juliet whispered under her breath. "Ohhh."

It all made sense.

She wasn't the one that had found Shawn. She wasn't the one to see him moments away from death. In fact, the first time Juliet saw Shawn, the doctors were talking about how much his skin color had improved. Two minutes before that, she was thinking about how she had never seen a person look so deathly pale before. All this was on the first day he had been in the hospital. If he looked as horrific as he did than, she would never be able to imagine the sight Gus had to deal with.

And he was still dealing with it. Every time he entered the office, every time he walked through the door, the chair was there to greet him. The chair was a reminder of how close he had come to losing his best friend; his other half, the other part of his soul. The chair hadn't been soiled with blood or vomit, but the sight of Shawn slumped down against the cushions, muddy, wet and dying was a stain Gus could never remove from his memory.

"I think my neighbor might want it." Juliet broke the thick silence. "If not…I'm sure I have a cousin that'll take it."

His head turned to her for the first time since she had arrived, and Juliet returned the gesture. "Yeah?" Gus rasped out.

She nodded. "Yeah."

Gus's blood-shot eyes began to glisten over, and Juliet could feel the relief flooding through him. They both hadn't noticed that the sun had fully risen until they both turned their eyes back to the chair, now illuminated completely by daylight.

His voice came out softer than a whisper, "Good." Gus had said.

Though she didn't have a reason to, after that Juliet decided to stay at Psych. It wasn't to find anymore files or evidence to their deteriorating case, or to keep Gus company. Why, she didn't really know. But it didn't matter.

Shawn felt like he was falling.

The sensation ran deep through his bones, his muscles assaulted by the very feeling. He could compare it to that split moment before you fell asleep, and suddenly it was like you were falling off a mountain or cliff. Hypnotic or hypo jerk, Gus told him. He didn't remember; he was paying attention to Judge Judy at the time. But that's what it felt like…only this time, there was no waking up – he was caught in that sudden mental drop of gravity.

It was torture; Shawn just wanted someone to catch him.

His ever powerful memory proved to be ineffective when put to use. He couldn't remember anything, where he was or why, what was going on, what day or time it was – he had nothing. All his questions and thoughts were long lost in a dark and heavy fog that clouded his mind. Whenever he tried to grab onto a thought, it would slip away and disappear in the blackness.

All he knew was that somehow, somewhere, he was falling.

"Hey, hey…"

Soft words spoke near his ear, gentle but firm, familiar yet different. Shawn couldn't put a face to the voice, which turned out to be more frustrating than he expected. There wasn't a time in his life that he couldn't recall the slightest detail in everything that surrounded him. It was just how he functioned. But he knew that for some reason, he was okay…because he trusted that voice.

"He's starting…come out of…just give…a second…Spencer."

The voices were becoming more distant and harder to figure out. Were they different people? Did he know them? The more that he heard, the more that questions piled up on each other. He had thought about opening his eyes, but he couldn't remember where his eyes were or how to peel the lids apart.

That was normal, right? Surely it had to be, because he wasn't panicking over it. You'd panic over something like that.

"A second? It's…almost four days; he doesn't…a damn second!"

That Shawn had heard and understood. Something wasn't right if his safety voice was starting to panic. He knew that he should be analyzing the situation, but he felt so disconnected from his body that he didn't know which way was left or right. One moment he'd be in his mind and clinging to his thoughts, and the next he was falling away from any connection to his brain. If he could just think through the fog…

"Hey…on, kiddo…you can…it."

In and out. It was all he knew – the voices would come in and out, his mind would go in and out, and he wasn't even sure where he would go when it happened. And though the fog wasn't lifting, everything around him seemed to get stronger and louder. The sounds, which he noted was a lot of beeping and shuffling, and the smells, which left his nostrils with a sense of familiarity but endangerment.

"mhhhhggahhm…"

He wasn't too sure who had just made that humiliating sound, but he sure hoped to God that it wasn't him. It sounded like a dying cat caught between a cow giving birth and a crying baby. With his brain disconnected from everything else, it was hard to tell whether or not he was in pain. He knew that his body felt like a giant cotton ball. Somethinghurt, but the ache was so distant he couldn't find time to dwell on it before escaping from his mind once more.

"he's…pain…can…do anything?"

"We want…remember, Mr. Spencer? He…be brought…drugs…wake up…start healing."

Though Shawn heard the words like they were being tossed around in the air, he at least finally understood something. He was sleeping, which meant he could just open his eyes and get rid of all this confusion in a jiffy.

Now, where were his eyes again?

"mhm..gahhurh…"

That distant ache he had initially started to feel began to make itself known. Something really washurting. And it wasn't just a small sting or throb, this was pure agony. Leg, arm, back, butt? There was no time to figure out where the source of the torture was coming from – everything slammed down on him at once. His body suddenly went from being a cotton ball to a brick weight.

He was trapped. Trapped within a body he couldn't move or function, with pain radiating from his core to his every muscle.

"I'm right here, Shawnie."

A light switch had turned on faster than a speeding bullet. He knew that voice.

"uhrh…daauhrdd.."

"Shh, don't try and talk Shawn. Just open your eyes."

Uh, small problem with that.

"Just open them, kid."

If he knew where his eyes were, Shawn surely would've rolled them at his father's ability to judge so quickly. The man spoke his words as if he had already decided he wasn't going to open his eyes. And though that was a possibility Shawn was thinking of, he hadn't made his decision just yet.

Now he really didn't have a choice. Some help would surely be appreciated tho-

"MhmHMMGAH."

There was no doubt that the sound came from him this time. Embarrassment was long forgotten though after a bright light flooded through his eyeballs and practically straight up blinded him.

"Looking good. Pupils are starting to make improvement. We'll keep weaning him off of the Opana today, and by tomorrow he should be coherent."

Shawn didn't know who was speaking, but the stabbing pain that emitted through his skull was enough to make him hate the person. Even with the light being removed from his sight, the lingering effects left him seeing stars and blurry figures. If they wanted to ask him something, couldn't they wait until morning when he was awake? It couldn't be so important that they needed…-

Another light switch clicked on.

"Shawn, can you see how fingers I'm holding up?"

No, no, shut up. He needed to think. Something in the very back of his mind started eating its way to his brain. Something told him he couldn't go in and out this time; this was important.

"Shawn, how many fingers?"

Assuming he could see the blurry puddle of skin and bones in front of him, Shawn didn't care about fingers. There was something he was supposed to care about. Something about…cars? Or cameras? It started with a C. He knew that. He needed to know that.

"Mhm…he's still heavily medicated. It may be a little while more before we see him coherent, Mr. Spencer."

Blurry and murky figure number one seemed to upset blurry and murky figure number two. He drowned out the conversation near him with thoughts of cars and cameras, and whatever connection they had to make.

It ate at the back of his mind like a plague. Why couldn't he just remember?

"He's here. He's fighting it, I can tell. Shawn, come on kiddo."

Chapped lips broke apart, "mhm…carrrrr…"

Henry gripped Shawn's shoulder, scooting himself closer to the bed. "Shawn? What'd you say, kid?"

"…ddaad?"

His voice was too quiet for even himself to hear, but Shawn had to wonder if his raspy voice traveled the confusion he felt deep inside. And while his dry and out of focus eyes only saw puddles of colors and blurry shapes, the familiar smell of his father was impossible to miss, especially in the midst of the sterile clean environment surrounding him. He didn't need the firm hand on his forearm to know the person sitting next to him.

"I'm right here, Shawn."

The touch was warm enough to melt an iceberg. It sent a shudder through his body, one that actually brought his spine off of the bed. Like the tormenting pain radiating through his body, he didn't realize how cold he felt until warmth found itself to him. His teeth started to chatter with such a force that he could crack a nut.

Car. Camera. He knew that much, and was confident that his memory wouldn't forget. Between the pulsation pain, aching head and cold skin, he decided that the next time he drifted out from his mind; he wouldn't try and come back.

The last thing he remembered was a squeeze to his hand, and warm breath spreading across his ear.

"I'm right here, Shawn."

The voice faded away as darkness engulfed him, and with confusion put aside, Shawn welcomed it. He trusted that light would return once again. After all, his father was here. He was safe.