IT'S FINISHED! *dies* Wow, this thing took me, like, five months to finish. Sorrrry, guys!

I'd like to thank my wonderful frequent reviewers, Wragziez, embrace_the_deception, slylittlefox, and LightGirl101, and to all of my other reviewers, with special thanks to Wragziez and Antivertigo for your awesome PM conversations. =)

Enjoy!

First morning sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the large recovery room in Vegas General Hospital and effectively waking Shawn up for good this time as the light shone in his eyes. He squinted through it, head turned towards the window and then eyed the two different IV lines that snaked into one arm. He felt sloshy and altogether ill, but he wasn't hungry or thirsty or even tired anymore.

Instead, he was already getting sick of this hospital bed.

Turning his head he spotted a nurse leaning over a bed beside him, chattering on and on as she pressed this button and that switch, running tests on… apparently, by the name on the silver framing of the bed, a certain Adam Ross.

"You should know, this is the worst situation that's ever happened in this hospital. Terrible, terrible! I've never—and I'm so sorry you, one of our own patients, had to go through that! That standoff lasted, what, fifteen minutes? Twenty? And I'll tell you—"

Adam groaned. "Annie," he said hoarsely to the plump, redheaded nurse as she patched up a spot above his eye, "I appreciate your intentions, but you're talking my ear off, here."

The light-hearted jab did absolutely nothing to the portly woman's mood. "Adam Ross, you are not to be talking!" she scolded. "Your larynx is severely bruised by that awful man, Montgomery. You can't use your vocal cords for at least twenty-four hours. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," Adam grinned, nodding dutifully. Annie nodded firmly and, with a stern, "I'll be right back," she skittered out of the room with her clipboard.

Shawn smirked tiredly as soon as she was out of the room. "Yeah, Adam, don't make her get out the duct tape or anything."

"Shawn!" Adam exclaimed, too elated to even be insulted by the jab. "You're awake!"

Shawn looked down at his body sarcastically. "Really? I hadn't noticed. And I thought she said no talking."

"Screw that," Adam said nonchalantly, and Shawn snickered at the offhand statement.

"Man, you get sarcastic when you're finally safe from psychopathic killers," Tony remarked, coming in then. Out of all of them—Shawn could see a bed across from his with Greg's name on it, but apparently he was already up and about, because he wasn't in the room just then—Tony looked the best. He had a fresh new patch on his arm where he'd torn the stitches, and there was a tiny Band-Aid over his eyebrow, but that was about it.

"You look good for a corpse," he joked.

Shawn smirked back. "You look terrible for a living person. There's a fix to that face, you know. It's called plastic surgery."

Adam laughed and Tony rolled his eyes. "I'll have you know that this face has gotten me out of more messes than you've ever been in."

"Doubtful," Shawn shot back. He looked around the room, noticing a considerable emptiness. "Where is everybody?"

Tony shrugged. "Grissom managed to pull some strings to get us all in one room, but that's still, like, fifteen people. Most people went home—Gibbs is still here. Your entire team is here, Shawn. Mac and Danny are still here for Adam and, well, Greg lives here, so that's taken care of." He nodded towards Adam. "You two got the worst of it."

Adam pulled back the neckline on his white hospital gown to show extreme, nasty-looking bruises blossomed on his neck, chin, and shoulders. Shawn winced, and he laughed light-heartedly. "You didn't even see how bad it was the second day," he said, and now Shawn knew why his voice was so scratchy and hoarse.

Shawn frowned, focusing on that. "What… exactly… happened?"

"Well," Adam said slowly, and he reached across the table to the glass of water and took a sip, "after you took that miracle shot, which, by the way, thanks, that was one hell of a shot, you passed out and all the cops came running. At first they tried to arrest you, which pissed off your team leader, Lassiter.

"Anyways, I, apparently, went into shock and all that jazz, and I couldn't breathe for a few hours. They had to put one of those breathing tubes down my throat." He shuddered at the memory. "It was… terrifying. Grissom did his thing and everyone was sent to this room. Your team wouldn't leave, even after Grissom assured them you were fine and all that, and Grissom just now finally convinced them to go to the cafeteria, so that's where they are now."

"Wow," Shawn murmured. "Four days. That's an entire week Montgomery took from us. From me, at least."

A steady silence fell over the three and it stretched on for at least a full minute as each of them tried to figure out what to say.

"I'm glad you shot him," Greg's voice said from the door.

Shawn grinned ruefully as he came in, fist-bumping Tony and Adam. "Thanks. I am too."

"I heard it was one hell of a shot," he stated, crossing his arms. "Are you going to tell us how you learned to shoot like that? When not even Gibbs could take the shot but you could?"

"I didn't think," Shawn admitted. "I think that was just it—I wasn't thinking at all. I saw him and I saw the gun and I knew Adam was going to try to duck instinctively and I told myself that I wouldn't miss. And I didn't."

"Uh-huh." Tony was smirking, not looking convinced, but he grinned anyways. "You did good, kid."

"Kid?" Shawn repeated. "You're only a few months older than me."

"Still makes me older," Tony said, matter-of-fact. "And how did you-? Oh, never mind."

Shawn said it anyways. "Psychic, duh."

"Shawn!"

All heads turned towards the door but Shawn knew who it was even before the dark blur was rushing up to him, cafeteria food discarded and forgotten all over the white tiled floor.

"Buddy!" he said as Gus skidded to a stop by his bed. The grin faded on his face, however, when he saw how furious Gus was. The African American was almost shaking, fists clenched, eyes squinted and mouth in a straight line like he always did when he was trying not to blow his top. "Whoa, Gus. You're not looking too good."

"Three days, Shawn!" Gus exploded. "Three days! Three days I had to wait for you to come home! What the hell took you so long?"

"My bad," Shawn retorted, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Next time I get kidnapped by a psycho rogue CSI I'll be sure to keep an agenda with me."

Gus glared at him for a second and as soon as Shawn had pushed himself up into a sitting position he reached over and clutched him to his chest. The hug lasted about a second, and then the two broke apart, leaving the three other men smirking at the sort-of make-up.

Juliet came in then, and, like Gus' food, hers ended up on the ground as well as she rushed over to him and embraced him, this time much longer than Gus. "Don't you ever do that to me again!" she said, her voice breaking.

Shawn pushed her blonde hair back behind her ear to get a look at her face. "Jules, are you crying?" he said incredulously, but the proof was already on her face as she glared at him, slugging him in the arm.

"Of course I am!" she retorted. "I almost lost you, and, yes, I do care about you, so just shut up and get better so we can go home, okay?"

"Okay," Shawn said, raising an eyebrow. "But does this mean we get to role-play nurses, now?"

Juliet pushed away from him, scowling to hide the smile. "You're impossible," she muttered.

~.~.~.~.

Greg stood at the airport, watching Shawn's plane, the last to leave, take off for California. All four men had promised to keep in touch, but for now they had a media frenzy on their hands, and he wasn't sure it could wait any longer before it started making up rumors.

Grissom stood slightly behind him. "You ready to go home?" he asked.

Slowly Greg nodded. The frenzy could wait. Besides, how much trouble could a crowd of reporters with the idea that a Vegas CSI went on a killing spree?

"What's wrong?" Grissom asked, noticing the look on his face.

Greg shrugged. "I'm gonna miss the guys, that's all."

Grissom reached over and ruffled his spiked, dirty blonde hair. "Yeah, well, I'm sure one of our cases will bring us out to meet one of them someday."

~.~.~.~.

"DiNozzo!"

Tony jumped, rubbing at his wrists as he jerked out of his spinning chair. "Yeah, boss?"

Gibbs paused on his way to his desk, staring at him with sharp blue eyes. "Get your head in the game," he commanded. "We have a crime scene."

The agent suppressed a groan and caught a glance from Ziva from across the room as she half-smiled, half-smirked at him. Gibbs continued to his desk and snatched his gun from the drawer and swinging the backpack over his shoulder. Grabbing the keys from the drawer he chucked them at Tony… and then Tony dropped them.

Gibbs stopped again as Tony fumbled for the keys again, peering at him in concern. "DiNozzo?"

"Yeah, boss," Tony muttered, doubled over, taking a deep breath as he reached for the floor.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, boss."

Gibbs didn't answer him, but noticed that the younger man's hands were shaking and he seemed to be having a hard time picking up the keys. "Tony."

Exasperated at the infinite use of his name Tony got up sharply, keys in hand. "I'm fine, Gibbs," he said, frustration coloring his voice. When he caught Ziva's and McGee's expressions, and Gibbs' arched brow that said, "You are definitely not fine," he sighed.

"I'm fine, Gibbs," he repeated, and this time it was more sincere. "Gas the truck, right?" And without another word he took off towards the elevator.

~.~.~.~.

"You shouldn't be back to work so soon," Lindsay said worriedly as Adam pulled on a white lab coat.

"I was going crazy at home," Adam said under his breath. His voice was still raspy and hoarse, but it was recovering. And it was true — he'd been home for almost two days, and both of those days were filled with sleepless nights and waking nightmares. He needed to work, and maybe then he'd finally be able to recover.

The redhead pursed her lips and studied him. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked softly.

He pushed past her to get into the lab, blinking hard. "I'm fine," he said confidently. "Don't worry about me, Linds. I'll… I'll be fine."

She seemed to see right through his lie, but let him past as he threw himself into the mindless task of separating fingerprints.

~.~.~.~.

Shawn was still tired, as he set down on his dad's couch and kicked up his feet to rest on the arm. Henry walked by holding a newspaper, and in one swift movement he knocked off Shawn's legs.

"Dad!" Shawn complained. "These are brand new!"

"You've had those for four years, Shawn," Henry replied, settling into one of his comfy chairs. "How many times do I have to say it? No feet on my couch! Get your nasty shoes off the arm."

Shawn scoffed at him, bringing up his shoe to examine it. "These aren't nasty," he retorted. "The only thing on them is—"

The words caught in his throat as he stared at the all-too familiar blood stain scrubbed on the sole of his shoe. Hurriedly he pushed it away from him and then, catching his father's odd look, shrugged nonchalantly, trying to rid himself of the shaky feeling.

"Maybe you're right," he muttered, going to unlace his shoes. "Maybe I should just donate these to Goodwill or something."

"Shawn."

Henry's expression was incredibly sad as he studied him. Shawn met his eyes and then diverted them, still untying his shoe. "I mean," he continued, "it might freak out the kids or something… you don't think I'd get arrested for what happened, do you?"

"Dammit, Shawn!" Henry slapped the newspaper onto the counter, but stopped when he saw Shawn jump. The kid was shaking, muscles tense, and he seemed to concentrated on his shoe that he'd begun to pull the laces from the holes altogether.

He knelt by his son and took his hand gently as the younger man inhaled shakily. "I'm fine, Dad," he said, talking to the floor.

"You're not fine," Henry said, his voice gruff. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

Shawn's mess of brown hair shook slowly 'no', until Henry got up, releasing Shawn's hand.

"This is the first time you shot anybody," he noted, going back to the counter.

Shawn blinked. "Yeah, so?"

"So," Henry said slowly, drawing the word out. "Kid, I know how it feels, taking another man's life."

"I don't think you do," Shawn muttered, just barely loud enough for Henry to hear.

"Shawn, I've taught you everything you need to know," Henry said sternly. "You've got the skills, you've got the instincts, you've got the knowledge." With every word Shawn seemed to sink lower and lower into the couch, his expression crestfallen.

"But," he sighed, kneeling again by Shawn to look him in the eye, "I never taught you the emotional toll it'll take on you. That was my bad. I can't just say you can do something like shoot a bad guy in the head and not feel anything, no matter how much the son of a bitch deserved it."

"He deserved it," Shawn's voice floated up to him, sounding as dark and bitter as anything he'd ever heard.

Henry touched Shawn's shoulder, and his son looked up at him. His hazel eyes were angry, but when he looked into his father's they deflated into something so sad it nearly knocked the breath out of him.

"You saved Adam," Henry said gently. "Focus on that, and it doesn't hurt as much."

The corner of Shawn's mouth turned up. "Speaking of which," he said, bounding up suddenly. "Do you think we can take a road trip to Vegas and DC and New York sometime soon? Think Gus'll go for it?"

"I highly doubt it." Henry groaned as he stood up again, his back killing him.

"Well, you never know unless you ask." Smirking like he knew he was going to get what he wanted, Shawn turned on his heel and walked right out the door.

Henry watched through the window as he started up his Norton and, looking back with a smile, he waved at his father before taking off down the street.

Fin.