Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Don't own lyrics to the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams", or references to Dylan Thomas's poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night".

Author's Note: You've made it to the last chapter; hope you liked the story! :) Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! *Hugs everyone* And for anyone who is interested in a continuation of the stories of these characters, (even of the dead one), there will be a sequel. (Which is also why there isn't much closure at the end of this one. That's on purpose. But I worked on enough closure for this story, if the sequel is not in anyone's future.) Thanks again for the support and encouragement!

Reviews, feedback and constructive criticism are welcome and so appreciated.

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Chapter Thirteen: I Can't Sleep Until This Is Done

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# # #

He had not thought about his blood, what he had lost, where it was if it was no longer in him. At first, as he was losing it, he thought about how it must be soaking his clothes, wet, torn, dirty rags that started off so clean and pressed, and then how it must be pooling, or seeping into the partially earthen floor. He didn't think about how it was on anyone else's clothes, never wondered about his partner, who had been asked repeatedly if she needed medical attention when she'd arrived at the hospital—because he didn't know. He'd gone to sleep shortly after she'd arrived on scene, after he'd seen her and made certain that, this time, she was not an apparition. Satisfied, he gave in, finally letting his consciousness tumble, down, down, down where the killer could not touch him, but where she could still hold his hand and demand his life.

For the price she'd paid, for the gold coins on his eyelids, slipped deep into her pockets. Rage, the dying lights.

Had his musings been solely drug induced; he wasn't thinking clearly, surely not? If she told him to get the hell out, he would be crushed, totally hurt . . . but would he be petty enough to let it show?

Of course he would.

He was resolved to beg for her forgiveness. If it came to that.

Carlton Lassiter sighed. He was awake now, and unfortunately aware of too many things, all at once. Still, there were things not as clear, spaces of memory filled up with too much blood.

He knew Saul was dead; he'd remembered, at least partially, the event of the killer's death. His killer—not his killer. He'd been corrected on that factoid several times as he gave his statement, embarrassed to do so, even at its barest bones. "My killer, my killer. My killer said. My killer did."

"Sir, you're not dead."

I'm not? Not dead? Lassiter had sneered to himself. It wasn't the freaking pain that made him feel dead, or even the humiliation of his mistakes which had led him to be trapped. It wasn't his rescue, or Saul's death either. He sighed, wishing he didn't have to remember, that some it could stay lost. Stay dead, buried. Gone.

He'd been awake now after being unconscious for a solid week. It wasn't the dreams that had bought him back, not even memory, it was just time to wake up. He awoke parched, shuddering, a scream churning under his tongue. He didn't know, at first, that he'd survived, that he hadn't bled out, that Juliet O'Hara had come through as he'd wished it so many damn times over. It took him a bit for his eyes to adjust. She was bending over him, with wet eyes of blue, with patient eyes, with wide eyes begging him to stay. He was in the room alone until the machines he'd alerted sent a blur of doctors or nurses in, checking on him and reassuring him with distorted voices, asking him thousands of questions.

Do you know who you are? What year is it? Who the President of the United States currently is? Where you are? What's your rank and badge number? Do you know who your real friends are? Where are they now? Is there anyone we can call for you?

As if he were some random John Doe with no memory and no ties to society at all.

They had to calm him down, sedate him, and while he floated above his body, he started to remember what he'd been convinced were his last moments on Earth.

Why, why did I tried to talk to the man at all? Lassiter thought, caught halfway in an uncomfortable dream about the last words he'd exchanged with Saul before he'd been silenced, before his wrist had been opened like a cap to a beer, nursed and savored.

"Ima gonna take you to the desert, boy, in pieces."

He shifted, wanting to awaken but also not wanting awaken ever again. The real would be too real, when his eyes came into focus and he had to face his mistakes—and their consequences—with other people in the room.

"You all worryin' for me, figuring that you're gonna somehow get me caught," Saul continued, then laughed harshly. It ended with a hacking cough. He dropped down close to Lassiter, dragging the blade through his hair. "Well, you ain't." The blade rested against Lassiter's cheek.

"Didn't you always want a desert burial? Lotsa sun, dust, long quiets, nothing but rattlers for miles and miles." He smiled. "You'll fit right in, lawman."

Carlton was going to die, and he was being forced to listen to exactly how it would be done, and what would be done after his heart was no longer beating, after it had been cut out of him, tasted, digested, choked on.

Though he'd been unable to force this want to the surface then, Lassiter had thought of the killer's painful death, choking on a too big hunk of heart he thought he could chew. Tougher than it looks? Ghost-Lassiter would ask with ashy lips, cheeks transparent, eyes blinking out.

Only problem with this, besides Lassiter's death, would be the Ghost Killer haunting him into the afterlife—the afterdeath.

But he had not died, he had not gone into the afterdeath with Saul—who'd been efficiently and expertly blown away by his partner. "Came after me," he whispered. "She came after me."

Her arrival had been nothing short of a dream; Lassiter was hardly used to wish fulfillment, and found himself unable to aptly describe it—or why some Fates had chosen him to live. By all accounts, he shouldn't have. Even the survival following all of that blood loss, his body shivering with shock for too long—how did he pull through? He got enough new blood, got his wounds stitched up tight; the stitches or their pull on his skin hurt badly, but it was a life ache. His heart still beating, the new blood slowly assimilating to become his own. He wondered how many places on his body were seriously injured enough for stitches; how many just covered with bandages; he was in pain all over, despite the meds. And his mind was a real mess; no way could he go in there right now and take a look around; that was your basic suicide attempt.

But when he had come back, awake and more aware, he had looked into his own head. Saul was grinning there, dead, blood smeared across his mouth. "Lawman," he'd hissed.

Carlton resolved that he could wait for O'Hara to come back (for she must have been here, while he slept), to slip into his room and perch by his bedside, trying to grab his hand. He might just let her, as long as they were alone.

# # #

He didn't know that, at this moment that he was awake, floating under harsh fluorescent lights, his partner was fighting for his livelihood in front of IAB, that she'd gotten up early (after not sleeping restfully, though she'd applied enough makeup to give the appearance of being well-rested) and prepared her index card notes, making sure she'd memorized them for her "presentation"—making sure the words sounded natural enough to not be "prepared". She didn't want to leave too much to chance, or to emotion, but she wasn't unrealistic; emotion would not be far away. Just as well; she didn't want to sound rehearsed, or like a robot.

She'd dressed as professional as she usually did, pulled her hair back tightly to look severe—someone serious, someone with authority. Not that she was counting the Chief out, but she felt she owed this to Lassiter—in the event that something went hinky.

She thought it was extra sick to be discussing Lassiter's role—and future place in the department—without his being here. That's why it was so important she be here. There might be blood, but she resolved to not leave this room without a fight, if that's what was required.

Juliet knew that IAB had read Lassiter's statement/briefing. She had, too, learned its gist. IAB had not anticipated her appearance, but she'd parked herself in Vick's office and refused to leave, even at threats of disciplinary actions. "I have things to say to you," Juliet said, addressing the two IAB agents who had returned, headed up by Ocampo, whom she had a certain distaste for. She kept a check on scrunching her nose; and kept her face neutral, for a while.

She went off script early on, when Ocampo attempted to railroad Lassiter for misuse of his authority, for disregarding his resources and for sticking his neck out to protect Santa Barbara denizens from the vicious murderer. Juliet had realized that the gathering could be swung negatively in her direction, and resolved to defend her own actions as well as that of Lassiter's.

It was so important to be here, she told herself, because they were questioning Lassiter's continuing position as not only Head Detective but as a police officer with the SBPD. Because they were suggesting not a temporary leave of absence, or even unpaid suspension pending an investigation into Lassiter's actions, but a swift termination. Juliet knew Vick would not allow this, but she was not leaving without sticking her own neck out.

"That psychopath put more than his hands on my partner," Juliet snapped when pressed too hard. "I was there—I witnessed that evil man—" She took a few quick breaths to rein in her anger. "He was drinking from Lassiter's wrist, after he'd slashed it open, veins and all. You are not going to stand here and tell me, to my face, that my partner does not deserve fair treatment."

Vick and both of the Internal Affairs Officers were stunned silent. Ocampo was a harder man to appease.

"Lassiter is a good man," Juliet continued, "and I can't believe for one second that you would feel he should face suspension for his actions—he was tracking this killer in the line of duty. He did everything in his power to call for backup, and then was abducted by this killer—he was almost murdered!" Juliet stepped back, trying to deliver this as rationally as possible. It wouldn't do her or Lassiter any service if she let her emotions get out of control. "I also stand behind my actions when it came time to save my partner's life. I would do it 100 times over, exactly the same." She paused, waiting. As if she expected them to ask for her badge, she pulled it from her belt.

When Vick saw what she was about to do, she intervened, shocked. She pulled Juliet aside, out of earshot of the IAB. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"Standing by my words and actions—and by my partner," Juliet told her firmly.

"Lassiter will never speak to you again if you give up your badge for his sake," Vick told her, glaring. And after all he's been through, he'll need you, she thought.

"I'm not doing this for him, I'm doing it for me—and because that bastard nearly killed Carlton—god. These office politics are crap—with no merit. And I refuse to stay silent, especially after Lassiter was doing his job and ended up in a dire situation, and now they want to yank his badge for good? How is that justice, Chief?"

Usually, Juliet's large, shining eyes had no affect on Karen, who had become very good at glossing over everyone's emotions and carrying on with her own business. But dammit, her Junior Detective was making sense. She nodded once at Juliet, then turned to IAB. "I believe this meeting is over," she told them firmly.

"It's not up to you," one of the agents told her.

"Yes, I think it is," Vick retorted. "Especially since the first meeting you had arranged was under false pretenses."

"What? False pretenses?"

"The way I understood it, you sent investigators in for department wide interviews—and instead, I come to find out as the meeting starts that your Agents came to dress down my Head Detective."

Ocampo faltered.

"On direct orders from you, no doubt," Vick continued. "Now, I feel it is best to side with Detective O'Hara—you have absolutely no basis to pull anything out from under Detective Lassiter, especially after the ordeal he has been through, protecting Santa Barbara from the serial killer's striking again."

Ocampo raised an eyebrow. "Protecting? By endangering himself unnecessarily?"

"How dare you," Vick growled, startling Juliet because she had been about to say the exact same thing. "You know what his statement said."

"It escapes you that I don't have to answer to you when it comes to my actions," Ocampo countered with some grace.

Vick allowed an angry smirk to overtake her face. "You forget that I can file an IAB report of my own on any investigator of the IAB which I see is abusing his or her position and resources. And especially since you've had it out for Detective Lassiter since Chavez's murder—" She raised an eyebrow. "What, exactly, is it about him that is threatening to you?"

Ocampo coughed, apparently not enjoying the direction this meeting had taken.

"It's that, as a team, Lassiter and I took out a serial killer," O'Hara spoke coldly for Ocampo, staring at him. "Spared the city thousands for a likely expensive trial."

"A team?" Ocampo sputtered.

"I'm saying," Juliet continued, hoping Vick would not interrupt her, "that if you have something to negative to say about him, then you better say it to me too." She was keeping her voice even, civil, but she could feel anger, hot and steely, colorlessly filling the skin of her face. "What exactly about me is threatening to you, sir?"

"As I mentioned, Ocampo is on his way out," Vick assured O'Hara. She hoped Ocampo would take this last hint and leave; O'Hara's words were worrying her and she wanted a chance to speak to her in private before O'Hara voiced something dangerous. Vick gulped, staring at the Junior Detective. The muscles of O'Hara's neck were tight, her shoulders straight and poised, her arms—hands in loose fists—hanging at her side. Her lips were closed, but it was much too easy for Karen to imagine the sharp teeth inside O'Hara's mouth, wanting—fresh meat. Or, in this case, chewy, tough and indigestible meat—but she still would go for the throat. It could cost her her job—a thing of great importance, and a thing which she had nearly surrendered willingly before, Vick recalled with a startle, when Ocampo first spoke against Lassiter.

To her relief, Ocampo and the other two IAB agents took leave, with no threats to return. O'Hara did not relax, however. She looked as if she was still on pins and needles, as if IAB would come back, would try to argue with her again—she looked like, Vick realized slowly, as if she wanted blood.

"Detective, may I have a word with you?"

Juliet waited, still looking too grave for Karen's taste. She sighed, and began a subject Juliet was not expecting.

"He's been asking for you," Vick said, adding that she'd been to see Lassiter quite a few times. What she didn't add was his hollow look, how he flinched when she'd reached for his hand, but didn't offer a cruel word or scowl or anything to his usual when her fingers squeezed his. Or how he'd "allowed" her to sit with him as long as she wanted, even in silence; his unspoken want to have familiar people near. Even Buzz McNab had confessed, in confidentiality, to her a similar experience; though he certainly had not tried to touch or even barely speak to the senior detective. Lassiter had not once, McNab had told her with an eerie air, tried to chase him away.

After he'd returned, he'd wandered about the station looking haunted. Vick did not need to ask why.

Of the long list of visitors, Shawn Spencer was not among them. He'd come to the hospital once with Gus, who had gone in to leave the detective, sleeping at the time, a small sachet of Central Coast samples, but Shawn had fidgeted in the waiting room restlessly.

"You've been to see him." For the first few days and nights, Juliet had found herself glued to either a chair in the waiting room or, later, when they allowed him his first visitors, in Lassiter's room, in one of those chairs. But as he grew closer, closer to consciousness, to becoming lucid enough to exchange words with, she had grown inexplicably frightened.

"You know him; if he were—" she broke off, shaking her head. "He never asks for anyone."

Juliet's insides pitched, and she felt an inky, imperfect line of something akin to pain travel past her forehead. She imagined herself taking slow steps through the corridor, pausing at his door, spreading her fingers over its polished surface before letting her hand close around the door handle. Her voice always died in her throat when it came time to say his name and have him not only recognize her, but offer a reply. She wasn't sure if she could do this.

"Chief, I have . . . many cases requiring my attention," Juliet said, stating the obvious so she wouldn't have to deal with this not now, not now. She almost wished Vick would have just reprimanded her for speaking out of turn in front of Ocampo. This was worse. She watched Vick purse her lips, and then release her from the room with a dismissive hand gesture.

# # #

Vick returned to visit her Head Detective after she had left the station that night; she wanted to tell Lassiter of the progress of the meeting with Ocampo.

"Chief?" Lassiter asked. She had been his first visitor that he'd been consciously aware of, and was also his most consistent one. Vick noted his disappointment; he had really been hoping she was someone else. She took it in stride. She sat down and they chatted briefly and then she got to the point.

"Your partner fought Ocampo and IAB and won—you're keeping your badge, your gun, and your status, and so help me god, they will not come near you for a while."

Lassiter had to smile a little. "That was you, Chief?" he asked softly.

She was touched, and taken aback. She could only manage to nod.

He nodded back, mouthing the word.

"Don't forget Juliet."

"Never," he said, and his eyes shone.

"The Mayor also wants to give you a commendation for—"

Lassiter's mouth dipped. "I don't want it."

"What?"

"It doesn't—it's not—honorable. What happened," he said quietly. He couldn't even say he was just doing his job, that what happened could happen to anyone in the line of duty.

"Tell him—to give it to O'Hara. She's the one who—" Saul reared back by force; a spray of blood. An intense relief then, now, that Lassiter's hope of the man's death had come—before his own. "She stopped the bastard." He looked away from her.

Karen bit her lip to stop herself from dumping anything sentimental onto him, or uttering anything sounding unfriendly. She tried to gather something, a subtle mix of trite and cold comfort, but he spoke before she could.

"After . . . a while," he started, then paused, still not looking in Vick's direction. "I forced myself to believe O'Hara would find me. I . . . it's crap." He took in a breath through his nose. "It was crap, and I knew it, I knew . . . I was going to die . . . he was going to kill me. I knew it." Two more breaths, faster. Then more, that blurred. "But I still believed . . . in her."

A confession, some lines written in on the blank pages of a journal in the recesses of his mind.

Karen felt the weight of his sadness; his partner had been absent since he had awoken. He spoke the words before she could think. "Is she ashamed of me, Chief?" So raw, so honest.

"Wha—" she breathed, but he kept on. "Is that why . . . she stays away?"

He was giving her a puppy-dog look that usually only McNab could pull off genuinely and get away with. Vick guessed Lassiter wasn't aware of it, or he would have guarded his expression more carefully. Goddamn him, the look was getting to her. She wanted to make it go away, and not knowing the truth, she had to lie.

# # # # #

Two days passed, then three—it was the limit, Karen had decided. She left her office and went down the hall towards Juliet—this time she had to get through.

"Detective O'Hara?"

Juliet looked up slowly from the stack of paperwork on her desk. For a moment, she was glad of a reprieve because her hand was starting to cramp—then she realized who was addressing her. Her Chief looked back with patient consideration. "Chief," she said.

"I wanted to ask you, when do you plan on going to the hospital again?"

Juliet stared off into space for a few uncomfortable seconds before moving her eyes back to Vick. It was obvious, then, that she had been avoiding this task (though they had partially spoken about her lack of involvement only a few days ago, Juliet ignored that fact); that she had made herself scarce after the first few obligatory visits. She had gone once when he had been awake—but she'd cheated because she'd known he was heavily doped up; he'd been less than aware of her presence. She and Carlton had yet to really talk beyond the surface pleasantries, her heartfelt concerns. It hurt her to really think about that limitless loss—that he could have been taken—lost— Not misplaced, not stolen. It hurt her intensely, greatly, bringing along a physical ache of sharp, knife-like pain in her stomach. 'Sympathy pains'? she wondered. Perhaps. Then there were the other matters.

It didn't bother her what other people thought of him; she had seen the bad, but she also knew of much good—something only a partner like herself could know, because she was as stubbornly cheerful as he was plain old stubborn.

Without meaning to, Juliet blurted out, "How can I?"

Vick raised an eyebrow, gathering breath for what she hoped was a simple speech and a quick fix—a small bandage on a gaping hole, but as good as it was going to get for these moments.

Juliet wasn't finished. "How can I possibly understand . . . what he went through?" He was so viciously attacked—used—taunted—abused. Involuntarily, that old song "Sweet Dreams" threaded through her mind: "Some of them want to use you, some of them want to abuse you. . . ."

Vick closed her mouth, changing her tactic. "Is that what you're afraid of?" she asked gently, keeping her eyes on her Junior Detective.

Juliet kept her own eyes guarded, refusing to let through that what she had said aloud was only one of many apprehensions.

"That he won't want to see you because—" Vick continued. She, being wise to the aftermath of situations such as these, caught a little bit of what her detective was hiding, even as Juliet looked away. Juliet parted her lips several times but couldn't quite form the words she was looking for. She gave in, staring into space again with her lips pressed tight.

"Juliet," Karen said, "I'm going to let you in on a fact I'm certain you already know well." She waited until Juliet offered her full attention. In the meantime, she dropped into a chair just in case she needed to be motherly with a pat on the hand, a squeeze. This was a special case, and she could allow herself to be this person that she was usually not while on the job. "Carlton needs you," she said when Juliet looked back, ready. "He's indebted to you"—a stern raised hand warned Juliet not to interrupt—"and he was indebted to you long before all this. Since, if you don't mind my professional and personal opinions, the first year the two of you were paired up as partners."

Juliet sat still, trying not to squirm or look away. Maybe she wasn't quite as ready for this pep talk as she'd thought. But maybe . . . there was something to what her superior was telling her. "He . . . needs me," Juliet spoke softly, pinning her eyes to the desk. "More than ever? And I'm being . . . selfish?"

Vick pursed her lips, her logic folding back onto itself. She felt the deadening weight of duty—heavy stones; this was going to take time. "Detective," she returned, "you're not selfish. What has—all that has transpired—it's a lot to handle. But—" She held the word until Juliet pulled her eyes up again. "But you still have a duty to fulfill. Because you chose to . . ."

Juliet's mouth twisted sardonically. "Be his friend, is that what you are leaning towards, Chief?"

Her biting tone startled Karen, who sat back in her chair. She hadn't meant it in so many words. Or had she?

"I don't regret it," Juliet said, leaving it to Karen to assume just what she meant. She sighed. "I just . . . I was thinking that . . ."

Karen nodded, understanding that her Junior Detective meant to spare the Head Detective any unnecessary humiliation. Juliet didn't care, at least not right now, if Carlton had frustrations to vent all over her, if he had anger in spades and wanted someone to scapegoat—but she seemed to fear that the opposite awaited her. "Do you . . . is it hard for you to—" Vick couldn't finish the thought, finding it ridiculous that Juliet O'Hara would be judgmental or critical of her partner's victimization—or its aftermath of extreme discomfort for the both of them.

"I—I don't want to hurt him," Juliet said, her eyes at her desk again. "But . . . but if he needs me, how can I deny him?" She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and looked up again, tiring of this yo-yoing. She wished Vick would spare her any more concern and just get up and leave. She wanted to again lose herself in as much paperwork as she was due.

"Juliet, this is between the two of you—but you must know that his recovery, as well as your own, will be difficult and challenging."

"My recovery?" Juliet scoffed, again pushing loose strands from her forehead.

Vick nodded and stood, leaving Juliet with look that told her she really needed to think about that. "I'd do it again," she called after Vick, her chin raised defiantly, though her voice wobbled ever so slightly. "He was—barely human."

At first Vick pretended not to hear, but then she tossed over her shoulder, "Don't tell me. Tell him." As she walked away, Karen chewed the thoughts that Juliet had not spoken aloud—the way she was blaming herself for ignoring her "intuition"—though none of them actually knew. None but, apparently, Shawn Spencer. Her forehead creased, and she almost stopped walking, but figured that the time to give this pause was not now. Recovery awaited both of her detectives and she knew that she would be required to be a strong and solid figure, a voice of unwavering reason, a mother, a friend, and through it all, as professional as needed. She was as ready to dole out tough love as well as to grant leniency when warranted.

Though the last thing Juliet O'Hara had said bothered Vick: that the murderer she had shot in the line of duty she viewed as hardly a person—hardly a human being. Vick vowed to make herself available, even more so than she was now. If Juliet, immune to the situation up until the last minute, was having difficulty admitting the killer was indeed human, then just what was her very traumatized Head Detective going to say?

# # # # #

Finally, the period of vast procrastination was through. Juliet felt ashamed that she'd let so much time pass. She went in without knocking, and interrupted Lassiter eating a glob of orange gelatin. She wrinkled her nose and wished she'd thought of bringing him some kind of edible food. It almost made her turn around, but it was too late. He'd seen her.

Lassiter paused, the spoon to his lips, disbelieving she was not more than an apparition. But then he watched her breathing, and saw that her face was tight with anxiety. He let the spoon drop. The gelatin bounced from the tray to the table. "O'Hara?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Juliet's smile was wrinkled; eventually, she escaped the pins of his eyes which had pressed her shadow against the wall, and stepped forward. "Carlton." She didn't say that he was awake, and he didn't ask her where she had been. Finally she spoke again. "It's . . . good to see you." She meant it, and it choked her up. Damn emotion. When she got to his bedside, she fidgeted before sitting down. His eyes were so haunted, so much more than she'd ever seen in all their time partnered up. She felt their individual undertows. She was going under, for sure.

Lassiter couldn't believe she was really here. It was . . . almost like then, like before; he was still not used to wish fulfillment, but he was a patient man. He had been waiting—believing that she was going to come back. "You too," he said quietly, watching her sit, watching her watching him, not taking her eyes off his.

They looked each other over in a steady silence. They both were thinking almost similar thoughts: "Thank god you're alive. Thank god you came back. I need you. I always will. Thank god for you." Unspoken thoughts. Too sentimental to be spoken, too familiar.

Carlton had not expected this doppelganger of his partner; he expected gushing, overt concern, well-wishing, but he wasn't about to complain for the silence where she was present, where he could reach out and squeeze her shoulder if he wanted. He decided it was time to say the things he'd wanted to, that he had survived for this purpose. But saying the words were hard—not because of his pride, or because he'd changed his mind. He figured she already knew his reasons for the difficulty—he suspected it was part of why she stayed away. There was something, too, that she wanted to say, or something that she was fearful to hear.

"I'm . . . proud of you," Lassiter began, his voice hardly above a whisper. He choked up trying to say more.

At first, Juliet didn't know what to say; she tried to sort out if his voice was so low because it was physically impossible for him to put more volume into his words or if because saying the words at all were the most difficult thing he'd ever done in regards to her. Then, she tried to sort out her emotions at hearing them—should she take it as a compliment or should she go out into the hallway and spare him the war of emotion running across her face? It took her a very, very, very long time to understand that there was more behind his words than him telling her, "Job well done."

Then, the swell of emotion hit her with a violence she fought hard to keep to herself. "Oh, Carlton," she managed softly, allowing herself to sound the least bit choked up again.

"I . . . don't say it enough," he continued.

"You never say it," Juliet interrupted, holding his eyes. He let her, because he understood she had more than earned this.

"Not—not with my words," he admitted. He explained gently his one hope that had kept him alive while under the King of Hearts killer's thumb—he had been waiting for her to find him. He had such faith in her that she would arrive that he'd managed to restrain his consciousness until that moment. It sounded to her like a ridiculous fairy tale wish, so unlike him too. But still, Juliet was touched. Her stomach clenched. She listened to his straggled words as he said the things he needed to say.

Juliet had used Carlton's words ("You came for me. I knew—you would.") as a pulse, a light to guide her through the darkness as she'd waited for him to be okay. When he'd tried to smile then, after she'd found to him, she'd nearly lost it, but had bit back her tears because she knew what she had to do then. Now, she just had to ask. She had to know.

"So you don't—um—you don't . . ." Juliet rolled her eyes at herself fumbling over these words she had rehearsed several times in her head. His eyes were on her, waiting with a patience she wasn't used to; might never be used to. She forced herself to say them, "You don't want a new partner then?"

Carlton stared back blankly before his features changed to hold traces of fear, in his eyes, under them, at the corners of his mouth. She recognized the subtle signs, but she couldn't place why he was showing them here, right now, in reaction to her words. Juliet was unprepared for his next reaction—a rumbling sob that couldn't possibly be passed off as a low growl or snarl. He didn't even try to hide it; Juliet was stunned. Again, it took her much time to figure and gauge his reaction—was this a sign of PTSD? Was her old partner still inside this man in front of her, her partner who was angry and conceited, grumpy and humorless? The partner who never expressed his gratitude towards her presence, who barely looked upon anyone with anything but contempt? Juliet amended the last as she witnessed Lassiter cry, the sounds in his mouth soft yet loud against the soundless slip of tears—not many falling—in his eyes.

She hurried the rest of speech, an apology for some miscommunication that had kept them apart, that had brought him to so much harm, and was he sure he didn't blame her? Juliet felt stupid for asking for his forgiveness at a time like this. He didn't stop crying, didn't look away, and she feared she had made him so miserable—though she wasn't so certain how, or why.

That's when he'd countered her, quietly, his voice soft and wet, explaining the reason he had become so upset just now.

Juliet pushed through her discomfort, even though she wasn't sure what to do with the tables turned—even though the few times she had been in serious scrapes her own reactions were never this intense. She pushed literally too, lifting her hand from her side to reach through the rail on his bed, rest her hand on his.

They stayed like that a while. Juliet eventually found her voice caught and nearly entombed, laced up fatally like Snow White's corset, in a complex spiderweb of thoughts, and she tore it away with her sharp tipped fingernails. "I'm not going anywhere," she told Lassiter quietly, steadily, repeating it without realizing she was, her voice like a lap of tide against a shore, just as the evening sun was going down. Then: "I will always come for you."

It was a promise she wasn't positive she could keep—like the promises that sometimes slipped out of her mouth when it came to telling surviving family members of murder vics that the killers would be found and brought to justice. Lassiter squeezed her hand so tightly she was certain she could feel them turning purple. "I will—for you," he repeated, hitches in his voice swallowing some of the words. "I will—"

In spite of everything, Juliet smiled. He was making the same possible to-be-broken promise to her. It was sweet, she decided. "I know." She shuddered a little, tightening her shoulder blades together to hide it. As he squeezed his eyes shut, she kept her eyes on his face. Wasn't she damn lucky he'd forgiven her? That he didn't hold her responsible for his misfortunes? That he was alive and that his abductor was dead? She clenched his hand harder to hide another shudder. Wasn't she damn lucky that he needed her so much—and that he'd said so?

Fuck. Yes.

And wasn't it such a strange twist of fate for him to fear the same thing she had—because, he'd been sure, his mistakes had cost him her as a partner, as his friend?

They talked for what may have been hours; no one was counting time.

"Do you remember . . . when I got there, Carlton? What was going on?" she asked carefully, worrying that she would upset him any way she asked.

His face was blank. She let him chew it over. Finally, he turned away from her, seemingly embarrassed. Remembering this was worse than breaking into tears as she looked on. "Yes," he said gruffly, still turned from her.

She sighed softly; it was his choice to look at her or not. But she was going to tell him the truth. "I was . . . Carlton, I was furious at what I saw."

He winced.

"And I . . ." Juliet forced herself to hold her tongue, to not blurt out she would have killed Saul regardless of his giving her a good—better—reason to do so. But she also didn't want to say she tried to give him a chance to surrender, that she'd prolonged Lassiter's agony out of protocol. She felt tears come to her eyes. "I felt so helpless when I saw how much pain you were in."

He still didn't look at her, and seemed to ignore the thickness in her voice. But when she spoke next, he turned back to her, the surprise written on his face at the downright coldness of her whispered statement.

"That bastard had to die."

Lassiter's mouth pulled tight as he looked her over. Underneath her words was a dark promise, or a veiled threat, directed at a dead man: "No one, NOT NO ONE, hurts my partner and lives." He breathed through his nose. This was 'Saul speak'; Juliet wouldn't use those words. But still, weren't they there, underneath? He tried to find something reassuring to say to her, but he came up empty. And feeling a little unnerved himself, he chose instead to thank her again. "You saved my life," he said gently. When he saw her start to chastise herself for not being there sooner, for not knowing, he stopped her. "I don't just mean . . . from him." He hit her with a broken smile—a gesture which made the coldness melt off her face, slip out of her eyes.

# # # # #

He kept coming back to this, in medicine induced dreams, in his lucid moments, any time he tried to think, or not think.

It was strange, wasn't it, what so much blood loss could do, how it could eat away holes in his memory, editing out little things, yet leaving him with every clear detail . . . of Saul. As he was slipping away, however, it was not the killer breathing over him, but the set face of Juliet O'Hara.

"Stay. Please, please, stay."

His mind had been more than breached; his soul more than desecrated. All around him, ruin. (And yet, a flickering light that would not die out.) He had to do one more thing or he would never be free. One more thing masquerading as many: a journey to return to his center, to heal his many wounds, and to remember just who was the better man.

The journey back might test his scars, what else that remained. But he knew he had to climb the hill to see it was a mountain or a staircase, if it was a cliff or an imaginary line set diagonally to the horizon. Would it be an arduous passage? It was easy to say yes. His first few steps taken had not been real footsteps at all but marks on the ground where he would set his feet when he finally stood up.

But he knew that he would not be making this journey alone.