Chapter 10 – A Whole New Level of Fear

For what felt like hours, Shawn stood and stared at the image in front of him. In fact it might only have been a few seconds, but it was enough. More than enough. What he saw burned itself into his brain with a frightening intensity, threatening to haunt his nightmares for days and weeks to come.

The separate part of the basement wasn't much bigger than an average room, and a very small portion of it had been separated yet again from the rest by sturdy looking metal bars that were anchored firmly in the floor and the ceiling. There was a bunk bed in one corner of the cell. And beside that bunk, his father was lying on the dirty stone floor.

Shawn didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to feel. Right now, he didn't know anything. First his father had been alive and yelling, then he had been dead, and now he wasn't dead anymore. Or maybe he was dead despite it all. Normally, Shawn's mind was always busy with something. But right now, he was drawing a total blank thought-wise. It was as if somebody had reformatted his mental hard-drive and now the system wasn't booting.

There was blood, that's what Shawn saw first. Blood on the floor, and on Henry's clothes. The shirt his father was wearing had once been a light blue. One of his lucky fishing shirts. Shawn didn't know where the thought came from, but it was there, and somehow it seemed important. It had to mean that his father had been wrong. If this had truly been a lucky shirt, none of this would have happened. It couldn't be a lucky shirt, by no standards.

But now the shirt was no longer light blue, anyway. It was dirty, grimy and stained with dirt and blood, both in liberal amounts.

Henry wasn't moving. There was no perceptible movement, not even the slow rise and fall of his chest that Shawn could see, but maybe he missed it because he was shaking so badly.

Henry wasn't moving, and neither was Shawn, because all he could do was stand there and stare and think how wrong this image was. His father didn't belong in a cell, his whole life had been about being on the other side of the bars, but now this psycho had reversed that and everything was just so wrong.

Shawn stared at the image, unable to tear his eyes away. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds though, because neither Lassiter nor O'Hara had moved either.

Shawn was the first to tear himself out of the momentary stupor that had befallen all three people in the room.

"Dad!"

He barely recognised his own voice as he ran over towards the cell and fell to his knees. His father was on the other side of the bars, lying motionlessly on his back. There was a pool of congealed blood beneath Henry's head, his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving.

"Dad!", Shawn yelled again. He tried to stretch his arm through the metal bars to reach his father, to touch him and at least know that he was still alive, but no matter how much he stretched, he couldn't reach him. Short of dislocating his shoulder Shawn had no chance of reaching his father. Quickly, Shawn got to his feet and hurried over towards the solid metal door that closed off the cell. It was secured by two locks, and no amount of shaking and rattling at the door was moving it just an inch.

"Let me, Spencer."

Lassiter pushed past him and pulled out Sinclair's keychain. Shawn immediately fell to his knees beside the cell again and stretched his arm through the bars. He still couldn't reach his father, and what was even more worrying was that Henry hadn't moved a bit or had shown the slightest sign of awareness, despite all the ruckus their arrival had caused.

"Dad, come on! Wake up!"

Lassiter was meanwhile working on getting the cell door open, but there were far too many keys on Sinclair's keychain and he had to try them out one by one.

Juliet knelt down beside Shawn.

"He doesn't answer?"

Shawn shook his head and tried to stretch his arm even father through the bars. The cell was narrow, but his father was lying directly against the opposite wall.

"No, he doesn't. I don't even see if he's still breathing. And I just can't reach him. Get the damn door open, Lassiter!"

If Lassiter heard the undertone of pure terror in Shawn's voice, he didn't let it on. "I'm working on it, Spencer. O'Hara, make sure EMTs are here as soon as possible!"

Juliet got up and pulled out her radio, just as Lassiter finally found the key and opened the padlock. Shawn immediately got to his feet and physically shoved Lassiter out of the way as soon as the door was open.

"Dad!" He knelt down next to his father's prone form and put a hand against his father's throat, searching for a pulse. A sob escaped his lips as he felt his father's heartbeat flutter weakly against his fingertips. And now he could also see that his Dad was breathing, albeit very flatly an rapidly, every breath accompanied by a soft wheezing.

Lassiter crouched down beside him. "How is he?"

"He's burning up", Shawn rasped.

It was no small wonder, his father seemed in an overall horrible condition. There were numerous swellings, cuts and bruises all over his body, one eye was swollen shut, a cut above his left eye looked as if it had gotten infected, and there was definitely something off about his breathing. His whole body was radiating heat and he was completely unresponsive. But for now he was alive.

Lassiter pressed a hand against Henry's cheek and immediately withdrew it. "O'Hara, we need those EMTs in here right now!"

"On their way, it'll be just a minute."

"Tell them to hurry!", Shawn snapped. He thought his father had already spent far too much time without medical assistance. One hand on Henry's far too hot cheek, Shawn gently slapped the other.

"Come on Dad, don't do this. I need you to wake up now, all right?"

But Henry didn't react. The only obvious sign that he was alive at all were the strange wheezing sounds that accompanied each breath he drew. The sounds scared Shawn. They weren't natural, they mean that something was seriously wrong, something that might not be fixable if those damned medics didn't come here soon. Suddenly Lassiter returned to the cell, though Shawn hadn't even noticed that the detective had left. Without saying a word, Lassiter reached for Henry's shirt and tore it open.

"What are you doing?", Shawn said, his voice raised.

"You said yourself that he's burning up. I'm just trying to get his fever down."

Only now did Shawn notice that Lassiter had taken off his suit jacket and was holding it in his hand, now dripping wet. He began wringing the jacket out over Henry's chest, stomach and arms, then covered him with the wet fabric and used one of the sleeves to wipe over Henry's head.

"O'Hara!", Lassiter impatiently called over his shoulder.

"EMTs are here!", Juliet's voice replied.

The two medics entered the cell a few moments later, and Lassiter got up to make space for them to work. Shawn remained where he was, but a few moments later a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Give them some room to work, Spencer."

Shawn didn't want to move. He knew that the EMTs were only trying to help his father, and that he was actually even in their way if he remained where he was, but it was as if an inner barrier stopped him from moving. Moving meant leaving his father, and he couldn't do that.

"Spencer!"

Lassiter pulled Shawn up by the arm, non too gently, and while he really didn't want to get up and leave his father in the hands of strangers, Shawn didn't have the energy left to fight the detective. Numbly, he watched as the two medics started to work, but though he watched as they fixed an oxygen mask over Henry's face, stuck an IV-needle into his arm and did all kind of other things, Shawn didn't really notice all these things.

All he saw was his father's bruised and battered face, the left eye that was swollen shut, the long cut on his forehead which had become red and inflamed, the stubble on his face that came from nearly a week of not shaving, his one good eye that was closed with not even a flick of the lid despite all the jostling and pushing that was happening to him. It was all so wrong. Just a few hours ago, Shawn had been convinced he'd never see his father again, had been convinced he'd never see his father's face again. Now he did, and he should be glad about it. Glad and grateful. But somehow it just all felt so wrong.

After a few minutes of hurried treatment, the EMTs loaded Henry onto a gurney.

"Where are you taking him?", Lassiter's voice asked from somewhere beyond the mist that was clouding Shawn's perception.

"St. Agnes' Community Hospital. It's closest", one of the medics replied, voice clipped and his attention fixed entirely on Henry. Without another word, the two men started rolling the gurney out of the basement. Shawn just stood there and stared after them even long after the medics had rolled the gurney out of sight.

"Come on Spencer, I'll give you a ride to the hospital."

Shawn nodded numbly, but he only moved when Lassiter reached for his sleeve and pulled him out of the cell. The mist didn't ease entirely, but now that he could no longer stare down at his father's face and ignore everything else, reality came a little more into focus. By now the basement was swarmed with cops and the first teams from forensics starting to gather evidence.

Juliet was standing next to the door, giving instructions to two uniformed officers about where to start with their task of securing the scene, and Shawn was surprised to see Gus standing next to her. Gus had been waiting out by the car, hadn't he? When had he come down here? Gus caught his eye as Lassiter led Shawn into the direction of the door.

"Shawn?"

Shawn stopped and looked at his friend. He didn't know if Gus had asked his name as a question. Could you do that? Could a name be said in a way that it was a question, and if so, what could possibly be the answer?

"Gus."

Gus looked at Shawn insecurely, his eyes darting from his face down to his clothes. There was something uncomfortable in his gaze, and as Shawn followed Gus' eyes he noticed the bloodstains on his knees. Shawn hadn't even noticed that he had knelt in his father's blood.

"It's…Dad, he must have hit his head." He shrugged helplessly. "He didn't wake up. And there was something wrong about his breathing."

Gus put a hand on Shawn's shoulder, but Shawn immediately shook it off. Gus stared at his friend for a moment, as if trying to place that behaviour according to previous experience. His facial expression suggested that he didn't quite like what he found.

"Shawn, they're bringing him to the hospital now. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"He was burning up. That can't be normal."

"Come on, let's go to the hospital. They'll be able to tell us more."

Shawn nodded numbly. "Right. The hospital."

If he only focussed on putting one foot in front of the other, it wasn't all that difficult. Just one foot in front of the other, and in no time he was out of the basement, out of that horrible house and in the back of some car. Whose, he couldn't tell. In fact, he didn't even notice who was driving. All he knew was that he was in a car and that it was moving towards the hospital, and that he didn't want to go there. Anywhere but there.

It wasn't fair. Facing the news that your father had died was bad enough. Screw the natural order of things, that situation alone wasn't fair. But Shawn had stood it. With denial and anger and tears and shouting, but he had dealt with it. In his own way, which had mostly included pushing the pain aside, but he had. And just as he had started to get used to this gigantic change in his life, suddenly there had been hope. Shawn had never known what a crushing feeling hope could be, but it had been. Just as all the emotional waves had settled, the discovery that Larry Norton wasn't who he said he was had churned up again all those feelings Shawn hadn't wanted to deal with in the first place.

And now he was on his way to the hospital where in all likelihood he would be told that his father had died after those EMTs had wheeled him out of Shawn's sight. Because that was the only possibility there was, right?

What Shawn, did you develop some hope? You really shouldn't have. Oops, sorry about that. But you've been it that before, you know the feeling. It really shouldn't be that hard anymore to deal with your father's death the second time around.

But Shawn knew for a fact that he wouldn't be able to deal with it. He hadn't really dealt with it the first time around, just pushed it into a distant corner of his mind where it hadn't hurt as much. He knew that he couldn't go through that again.

But it was out of his hands now. He was sitting in a car, and that car was driving towards the hospital, and once he arrived there, there'd be no escaping it anymore.

Shawn put his head against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes.

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Gus was worried about Shawn. Having been Shawn Spencer's friend for way over two decades had somewhat accustomed him to that feeling in everyday life. But this was different. This was way out of any league Gus thought he was able to play in.

The look in Shawn's eyes down in that basement had plain scared Gus. He had never seen his friend look like that or act like that before. Well, that wasn't entirely true, but Gus still hoped this wasn't going to be as bad as the last time had been when something had thrown Shawn that much off track emotionally.

After Henry had been brought out of the basement, Shawn had seemed to deflate. He was moving as if on autopilot, answering questions monosyllabically, following Gus wordlessly to the car that would bring them to the hospital. Gus watched his friend for the entire drive, getting more worried by the minute. If there was one clear sign that something was wrong with Shawn, then it was silence. And this was worse than just merely silence. And it wasn't the kind of silence which meant that Shawn was busy thinking something through, cocking up a new scheme. It was the kind of silence which said that Shawn's brain was in neutral, running empty because it had shut down after emotional overload.

The drive had taken an endless twenty minutes, then Buzz had stopped in front of the hospital and Shawn and Gus had been led into the waiting room.

And that's where they had spent the past one and a half hours, waiting for news on Henry's condition. Gus was sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, flipping through a magazine for the fifteenth time when he hadn't even taken a single look at any pictures or articles the first fourteen times around. Lassiter was pacing up and down at one end of the room, his third cup of the acid coming out of the coffee machine down the corridor in his hand. Juliet had left a few minutes earlier to go outside and brief Chief Vick on the lack of news so far. And Shawn was sitting on a chair apart from the others, hands lying limp in his lap, staring down at the sickly grey linoleum floor. He hadn't moved perceptibly ever since he had sat down one and a half hour earlier.

Just as Gus was starting to flip through the magazine for a sixteenth time, there were steps coming into the waiting room. He put the magazine down to see Juliet come walking back into the room. On the other end of the room, Lassiter stopped his pacing.

"Anything new from the Chief?"

"Sinclair's being arraigned first thing tomorrow morning. The Chief started interrogating him, but his lawyer's pressing for a psych-evaluation first. She asked to inform her immediately should there be any news about Mr. Spencer. The whole station wants to know."

Lassiter resumed his pacing with a nod, but Shawn didn't even move. Juliet took a step over towards him, but Gus held her back by her wrist. She turned back to him with both eyebrows raised.

"What?"

"What are you doing, Juliet?"

"I was going to sit with Shawn."

Gus pulled her into the chair beside him.

"You don't want to do that."

Juliet frowned. "Yes, I do. He's been sitting there all on his own for the entire wait. And I can't even imagine what he's going through right now."

Gus nodded. "Exactly. You don't know what's going on inside of him right now."

"Do you?"

Gus closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. But I know that you don't want to approach when he's like this."

"Why?"

"Because if you're lucky, he's going to ignore you anyway. If you're not lucky, you're going to discover that Shawn inherited some of his father's temper. So either way, you're better off leaving him on his own right now. Whatever is going on in his head right now, he'd let us know if he wanted company."

Juliet looked at Gus for a long moment. "You've seen him like this before?"

Gus nodded. "Yeah, back when his Mom left. It lasted for about four weeks during which you'd never knew when he'd ignore you and when he'd snap at you for no reason."

Juliet shook her head. "But there has to be something we can do for him."

"Until that doctor comes out with news, I don't think there's much we can do. Shawn has his own way of dealing with things."

Juliet gave a mirthless laugh. "I thought that if there was one person I know who's always wearing his heart on his sleeve, it's Shawn."

"Yes. But things between him and his Dad are in a different category altogether. He's keeping that one so bottled up inside that most of the time, Shawn himself doesn't know what he's feeling."

"So what do we do now?", Juliet asked.

"We wait. And once the doctor comes out, we'll deal with whatever news he'll have."

Juliet shifted in her chair impatiently. "I want to do more for him."

"I know." Gus sighed. "I know. But for now, we'll just have to wait."

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Though it looked as if Shawn was in another world with his thoughts entirely, he was actually acutely aware of everything that was going on around him. He was aware of the other people here in the waiting room with him, aware of Lassiter pacing, of Gus turning pages in that stupid magazine, of Juliet and Gus talking.

But he tuned it all out. He was aware that it was all there, but he forced himself not to listen. He didn't want to listen, he didn't want to talk, he didn't want to think. Which was awfully hard because thinking was a constant process, it was what he had been raised to do continuously. Thinking. Analysing. But right now he didn't want to, so he forced himself to stare down at the spotted linoleum floor and keep his mind a blank.

And he waited. He waited for that one moment when the door to his right would open. He waited for the steps to approach and for the voice to call out.

"Family of Henry Spencer?"

For the first time in nearly two hours, Shawn raised his head. He drew a deep breath, got up from his chair and walked over towards the doctor who had just stepped into the waiting room.

"What about my father?"

The doctor looked at him and stretched out his hand. "I'm Enrique Martinez, I've been treating your father."

Shawn shook the offered hand, still staring into the doctor's eyes without saying a word. Martinez released the hand and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Spencer. Your father's condition had us worried very much when he arrived here. He was running a high-grade fever, and obviously had been running that fever for more than a day. It's one of those cases in which help really came in the nick of time, shortly after your father was brought here his fever spiked. We call that hyperpyrexia, his fever went up above the limit a human organism can handle. We had to shock-cool him to get it down, but the most important thing is that we managed and now his temperature is stable at around 103°F. I'm confident that within the next twelve hours we'll bring it down further."

"That can't be all", Shawn croaked out. It couldn't be all after what he had seen in that basement.

Martinez sighed. "No, that was only the acute danger. What happened to your father is the following. Some of the wounds your father sustained got infected. He started developing a light fever, which is a totally normal reaction, but since his condition went untreated, and since his body went without the appropriate amount of nourishment and even more importantly water for days, that infection spread. The fever rose, the bacteria spread through his body. They settled in his lungs and he developed pneumonia. That on its own is bad enough, but your father also sustained one broken and one cracked rib on his left side. We set those, but the broken rib bruised the lung, so we need to keep an eye out on that. In his momentary condition, I don't want to put him through surgery, but if we discover any internal bleeding we might have to operate."

Martinez shook his head and looked at Shawn. "I'm sorry, it's easy to get lost in all those medical terms. Right now, your father's condition is critical, but stable. What we're doing is that we keep your father on strong antibiotics against the infection and the pneumonia. We need to avoid him going into septic shock, and right now it looks good. Else he's on medication against the fever, and just to make sure we're giving him additional oxygen to relieve his lungs a little. We're re-hydrating him via IV and we're monitoring all his vital functions closely. Some definite results we'll only be able to see within the next twenty-four hours, but for now the most important thing is that he's reacting to the medication and the treatment. That's a good sign, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn nodded slowly. "I want to see him."

Martinez nodded. "Of course. But only one visitor at a time."

For the first time, Shawn turned around towards the other people in the waiting room.

"We need to get to the station, anyway", Lassiter said. "Doctor, I'm going to need your report for the file."

Martinez nodded. "Of course, I'll send it over."

Lassiter nodded at Shawn and left the waiting room. Juliet stepped up to Shawn. "Call if you need anything, all right?" She put her hand on his arm for a moment, then she turned and followed her partner out of the room. Shawn looked at Gus.

"I'm going to get some things for your Dad and you. Just give me your keys."

"Thanks Gus", Shawn said as he handed the keys over.

"No need to thank me. Now go and sit with your Dad."

Gus vanished, and Shawn followed doctor Martinez through a maze of corridors until they arrived at room 1105. Martinez opened the door for Shawn and let him in.

"We're still monitoring your father closely, but don't let all that equipment shock you. He's sleeping now, and he'll probably be asleep for a while longer. Just ring for a nurse if there's anything you need."

"Thanks", Shawn mumbled, and Martinez left. Slowly, Shawn stepped up to the bed and pulled the one visitor's chair closer. His father was still looking pale and feverish, but now that his wounds had been cleaned and dressed with bandages, looking into his face was less of a shocking experience. Of course there was the swollen eye, and there was the oxygen mask over his father's nose and mouth, but still. He was looking more asleep than dead now, that was a start.

And he was no longer wheezing with every breath he took.

Shawn settled in the chair next to his Dad's bed and simply looked at his father.

Critical but stable. Wasn't that an oxymoron? How could somebody's condition be critical and stable at the same time? Shawn didn't know. Right now, all he knew that somehow, his father was still alive. Everybody had been wrong, his father wasn't dead. That was all he could think about. His Dad was still alive. If he just clung to that thought, then maybe he'd get out of this whole situation with his sanity intact. His Dad was still alive, and that was all that counted. Now his fever needed to go down and he needed to wake up, and Shawn intended to stay here until exactly that happened.

Some beads of sweat had appeared on his father's forehead, one of the many physical signs that not all was well, at least not yet. Shawn reached for a tissue from the nightstand and wiped the sweat away. His father's skin was still too warm to the touch, and with some worry Shawn watched the IV-drips that were pouring the necessary medication into his father's body. Hadn't Martinez said they had gotten the fever down? Henry's skin still felt far too warm for Shawn's liking.

The box of tissues within reach, Shawn tried to get comfortable in the chair and settled for the wait. It was going to be a long night.