Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T+

Spoilers: Intense, and possible through series finale. Definitely contains spoilers for "The Rear View Mirror."

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Strike

Lassiter, as it turned out, made excellent eggs but sloppy, sloppy omelets. He seemed embarrassed by it, as he slid the lumpy masses of eggs and cheese off onto their plates. "The way I make 'em, they don't stick together well. They're really more like scrambled eggs with cheese than true omelets, but they taste good."

They did, and they weren't all that was on the menu. Lassiter fried up bacon and hash browns as well, and made a stack of toast with butter and strawberry jam. "How did you get these eggs so…so…fluffy?" Juliet asked, through a mouthful.

"I make 'em with half and half. Mom always made scrambled eggs that way."

"Half and half? The stuff I put in my coffee?"

"Er…yes?"

"My God, it makes eggs taste utterly sinful."

"Er…good?"

Juliet looked around at the breakfast table. Lincoln had got up in time for an omelet, and her own couldn't have been composed of less than three eggs. Iris's didn't look any smaller. "We must have run you out of eggs, didn't we?" she said.

"Not quite. I keep lots of eggs on hand, because I run through 'em pretty quick just on my own. No big deal."

"Is it the half and half that makes the eggs fall apart on you when you try and flip 'em?" Juliet asked.

"Yeah. I use quite a bit of it," Lassiter said. "More than mother ever used, that's for sure."

"Which would be why your eggs are almost more white than yellow," Lincoln said. "Not that I'm complaining, they are delicious."

They finished up breakfast, and Lassiter and Lincoln did the dishes while Juliet went into the living room to turn on TV for Iris and then to go tidy up the bed she hadn't really used last night. While she was in Carlton's bedroom, austere in shades of blue and gray and without decoration other than one framed black and white photograph of a sunset on the ocean with not a ship or a sail in view, she made a discovery. Unexpected, like the many discoveries she'd made this unexpected weekend, but she just had to ask, because honestly, who would have thought?

She brought it with her into the kitchen. "Carlton," she said, holding it up, "why do you have a Beanie Baby?"

"Lulu gave it to me," he said, with a shrug. "She used to collect the damn things."

Juliet looked at it, then back at him. "Why did she give you this one? It's a chicken," she said.

"It's a rooster," he corrected.

"It's a chicken. Gender doesn't signify," she said.

"It's my Chinese zodiac," Lassiter said, with a shake of his head. "Lulu's into that kind of thing."

She opened the little ear tag card, although it was attached to the rooster's wing, roosters not having external ears. "Rooster," she read. "Born in 1945, 1957, 1969 -" she pointed at Lassiter - "198...1? Hey, I'm a rooster, too!"

"That you are," he said.

Instinctively, Juliet bit back the words that formed on the tip of her tongue - "I wonder what Shawn's sign is," - because Lassiter wouldn't want to hear it and honestly, this morning, she didn't, either.

"'You are intelligent and devoted to work,'" she read, nodding along thoughtfully as she applied the proposed characteristics to both of them. "'Can be selfish and eccentric. Snakes and oxen are good for you. Rabbits are trouble!'"

"Damn those rabbits," Lincoln said. "They're almost as bad as squirrels."

"What's your Chinese zodiac sign?" Juliet asked him.

"Oh, I'm a shit-weasel."

Lassiter socked him on the arm. "Lincoln. There's a little girl in the next room."

"Wasn't that what the aliens were called in that book by Stephen King? I can't remember the title," Juliet said.

"Dreamcatcher," Lassiter said. "Yeah."

"It is so weird that you know that."

"I told you, didn't I? Gramma made me read Stephen King novels when I was a kid."

"That novel didn't come out when you were a kid," Juliet said.

"Well, I…kind of kept up on my own. I haven't read everything he's published in recent years, but I've read…most things."

"He's got the books on shelves in the guest room. Mostly hardcover," Lincoln said.

"Yeah, well, when I don't have relatives bunking with me, that room is kind of my office."

"They provide a sharp contrast to the books on profiling techniques and military strategy and civil war biographies that likewise grace the shelves in there."

"There are other things on my bookshelves than just Stephen King and law enforcement and military history," Lassiter said.

"Mostly leftovers from the days when Gramma force fed you classic literature. For someone who doesn't like to read, you have startlingly full bookshelves."

"It's not really that I don't like to read," Lassiter said, "or rather, that I don't like books. Reading itself is kind of painful, which is bad because I have to do a lot of it for work. But I like learning new things and I like losing myself in a good story. I'd go the audio book route but that just feels like cheating, to me. Gramma would undoubtedly call it laziness."

"At what point did you decide to lose yourself in the story of Harry Potter?" Lincoln asked, snickering. "Because you have those books on your shelves, too. All hardback, except the first one."

Lassiter's face turned scarlet, but his voice was surprisingly even when he spoke. "Is it so surprising I would enjoy a story about a boy in bad circumstances finding strength in himself and his friends and fighting to make a better world?" he said. "I just tried the first one, to see what the big fuss was about, and…got involved. I tried Twilight, too, but couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. I'm not into angsty teenagers falling in love with supernatural creatures, and I found the author's writing style to be…rather purple, just in my own personal opinion. I may have been prejudiced."

"Carlton, admitting you've tried to read Twilight might just be the bravest thing you've ever done, and you're the furthest thing possible from a coward," Juliet said. "Even if your opinion was colored by prejudice, you at least gave it a try."

"Have you ever read Twilight, Detective O'Hara?" Lincoln asked.

"No, I haven't," she admitted. "Love stories about vampires give me the creeps. It's like…necrophilia. So totally not sexy. But I did read the Harry Potter books. On Stephen King's suggestion, when he wrote about them in an article he did for some magazine or other. He likes them a lot, though he was a little critical of…which one? The fifth one, I think. Where Harry was at his angstiest."

"I remember that article. Rowling uses a lot of adverbs, which authors tend to avoid as much as possible, preferring to let the story and the dialogue inform the reader by implying emotion instead of stating it outright. King suggests cutting adverbs out of your writing as much as possible in his On Writing," Lassiter said.

"Why have you read On Writing?" Juliet asked. "Isn't that book pretty much meant just…for writers?"

"I was curious. The processes involved in the craft of writing are kind of…intriguing."

"Have you ever tried it yourself?" Lincoln asked.

"I write all the time. For work."

"Police reports, Carlton. That's not quite the same kind of craft," Juliet said.

"You could write novels about cops, solving crime," Lincoln said. "Maybe make a lot of money. People eat that stuff up."

"I don't have that kind of spare time," Lassiter said. "Not to mention, I kind of lack skill. Reading a book about writing doesn't imbue talent for it."

"How do you know you don't have talent if you don't try it?" Juliet said.

There was something shifty in Lassiter's manner when he spoke. "I'm pretty sure I can't play the clarinet, either, O'Hara. It's more than just a lack of talent, it's a lack of craft. It takes years of practice to get proficient at the art of writing, and I just don't have that kind of time - or the inclination."

Oh Carlton, something tells me you're not telling me the whole truth, Juliet thought. But what is there to lie about?

She returned the colorful Ty rooster to where it sat on the dresser in the bedroom with a final tweak to its gold lamé beak. Then she went back into the living room and sat beside Iris on the couch to watch Littlest Pet Shop on Discovery Family. The brothers finished up the dishes in the kitchen and came in to watch a little TV, Lassiter sitting on the floor leaned up against the arm of the loveseat and Lincoln taking the nearby armchair his brother had left vacant.

"There's room on the couch for you, Carlton, you know that," Juliet said.

"I'm fine," he said.

"Detective Lassiter, you're being silly," Iris said, in that moment looking and sounding so much like Karen Vick it was almost frightening.

"Oh-kay," Lassiter said, and climbed up off the floor and sat down on the loveseat next to Iris, who happily ceded space to him. Today her top featured Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and the cuffs of her jeans were rolled up to expose pink leopard print.

"Iris, while you were getting ready this morning your mom called, and it looks like you'll be staying with Detective O'Hara and I for a little bit longer today than we anticipated," Lassiter said, after a moment. "Your mom and dad will be back sometime tonight. That okay?"

"Sure," she said.

"We thought, maybe…you'd like to go bowling with us this afternoon," he said.

Iris sat forward. "Are you kidding? That would be great!"

"Good. I'm glad you like the idea. The bowling alley opens up in," he checked his watch, "about two hours, so you can watch some cartoons and then we'll head out, okay?"

"Can I come, too?" Lincoln asked. "I haven't been bowling in…forever."

"Iris, you mind?" Lassiter asked.

"Of course not. It's more fun with more people."

Littlest Pet Shop changed to Pound Puppies, and after that came My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which happened to be Iris's favorite TV show, so they sat through the two episodes even though Iris admitted they were reruns. There was no hurry to get to the bowling alley, Lassiter said. The place was rarely crowded before evening, when leagues met there. Juliet wondered about this "old friend" he'd mentioned that worked there. It was hard to imagine him with "old friends," even though she knew he was the kind of person to hang onto what few friendships he ever made for life. Maybe this person was one of his regular informants. Juliet knew he had a handful, scattered across the city, people he depended on for an eye-level view of the streets and what took place on them, and she didn't know many of them since he was generally extremely careful to maintain their anonymity.

Iris's cartoons ended and they all got up together and left the condo for the Ford Fusion parked in the attached parking ramp. Juliet would have liked another ride in the Stingray, but it didn't have a backseat, so there was no seating four inside it, and it certainly didn't have the safety features of the Fusion. Another day.

Juliet sat in the back with Iris, who buckled her seatbelt conscientiously, and Carlton pulled the car out of his reserved spot and carefully maneuvered it down the ramp and out into the glorious warm Santa Barbara day. It would have been a good day to go to the beach, late in the season though it was getting to be, if Lassiter were the kind of man who would ever think to suggest a trip to the beach. Bowling was good, though. Bowling was fine.

It wasn't a long trip to the bowling alley Lassiter had in mind, and he pulled into a parking space near the front doors, because the parking lot was almost deserted. They went inside, where a particularly dark-skinned Hispanic woman with graying hair stood behind the rental counter. She looked up, and her slightly wrinkled face lit up in a huge smile.

"Mister Carlton!" she said, in a heavily accented voice. She then surprised Juliet immensely by scampering out from behind the counter and throwing her arms around Lassiter's middle for a huge hug. She barely came up to his chest.

"Hi, Nati," Lassiter said, not exactly hugging her back, but not pushing her away, either. "How's Brianna?"

"So good. Twelve year!" the woman said.

"Good Lord, already? Wasn't she just a baby?"

The woman caught sight of Iris. "Mister Carlton, who this? You have baby?" Her words were reproachful.

"No, Nati, she's not mine. I'm just looking after her for the day. She's my boss's daughter. Her name's Iris. And this is Juliet, my partner on the force, and I think you've met my brother Lincoln, though it's been a long time. Guys, this is Natividad. She's from Peru. She and I worked together a long time ago."

"At that secondhand store, where you got your first job, right?" Lincoln said. "I remember. But she used to call you 'Mister CJ.'"

"She made the switch along with everyone else," Lassiter said, with a dark look at his brother. "In any event, Nati understands English perfectly, but she never did get the hang of speaking it real well. She usually gets her point across, but she can be hard to understand."

Juliet stepped up and held out her hand. She reintroduced herself and said hello in Spanish. Natividad, for her part, looked somewhat insulted.

"I speak English," she said.

"I told you, O'Hara, she understands English perfectly well. She just doesn't speak it perfectly well."

"Just thought I'd…let her know she…could speak Spanish and I'd understand," Juliet said, blushing.

Lassiter turned back to the woman. "We thought we'd do a little bowling today, Nati," he said. "Can you hook us up?"

The woman gabbled happily in her heavy accent, English but almost incomprehensible, and returned behind the counter to set them up with a lane and shoes. Lassiter paid and everyone told their shoe size. Lincoln and Lassiter thought nothing whatsoever of publicly admitting they wore size twelve, but Juliet seemed unaccountably embarrassed to confess she wore a size eight.

"What's wrong with you?" Lassiter asked. He held his freshly-sprayed rental shoes in one hand.

"I'm just a little embarrassed by my feet," Juliet said, blushing.

"Why?"

"Because they're…kinda big."

"Size eight? Are you kidding? Lulu's about your height and she wears a ten. And it doesn't bother her a bit."

"Well, the other women in my family all have very dainty little feet," Juliet said.

"You're hardly a sasquatch, O'Hara," Lassiter said, as he sat down on a nearby chair to slip off his tan work boots and into his rental shoes. He then picked out a ball from the racks by the wall and helped Iris select an eight-pound ball she could handle. It was pink, so she liked it just fine.

Juliet pulled on her shoes and selected a ball, then followed Lassiter and Iris down to the lane that Natividad had opened up for them. There were only a two other lanes being bowled at the moment, one by a man on his own and another by a small family.

Iris bowled first, and knocked down all but three of the pins. She was able to pick up the spare when her ball came shooting out of the ball return. She had decent form, for an eight year old, and probably wouldn't need bumpers after all. They bowled a few frames, and then Lincoln treated everyone to sodas and a couple of orders of mozzarella cheese sticks, and they bowled some more, and thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.

Lassiter's phone rang, the Cops theme. "Chief," he said, answering it.

"Hello, Carlton, just checking in to see how things are going," Vick said.

"Everything's great. We're bowling right now, and Iris is kicking tail. How's the cleanup going?"

"We're making progress, though at times it doesn't feel like it. We should be done fairly soon, and we're thinking we'll be back in Santa Barbara by eight or thereabouts."

They talked briefly, and then said goodbye. Almost as soon as he hung up, however, the phone rang again, to the tune of "Lawyers, Guns, and Money."

"Spencer," he said, half greeting, half warning.

"Sassy Lassifrassy," Shawn said. "I have psychically divined that you are babysitting."

"Oh, you've divined that, have you? What's it to you?"

"Let me talk to Jules," he said.

"Call her on her own phone," Lassiter said. "Or don't you know the number?"

"Come on, Lassy, I know she's there with you. At a bowling alley, no less. I psychically divined that she wasn't at Chief Vick's house, and I likewise determined that she wasn't at your place, either, which is pretty much the only other place she'd be, so of course, she's out with you. Bowling."

"By 'psychically divined' you mean you went to Chief Vick's place and found she wasn't there, then probably swung by my place and likewise found she wasn't there. But you're right. We are bowling. We're bowling with Iris, Spencer. And if you want to talk to O'Hara, call her on her phone."

"She didn't spend the night with you, did she?" Shawn asked.

"She spent the night playing Dragon Age."

"But you were there," Shawn said, plaintively. "She told me 'no boys allowed.'"

"When O'Hara and Iris had their little slumber party there were no boys in the room. And why would you think she would invite you over when she was babysitting without first getting Chief Vick's permission, which I am pretty sure she would never give?"

"But she let you babysit little Eleanor?"

"Iris. And I was the one she initially called about it. O'Hara just told the Chief she'd help me."

"Does she want her child traumatized?"

"If she wanted that, Spencer, she would have called you to babysit. Now goodbye, it's been my turn to bowl for awhile now and the natives are getting restless."

"Wait, which alley are you at?" Spencer asked.

"None of your business, because you're not dropping by to bother us. Goodbye."

He hung up the phone, slipped it into his back pocket, and grabbed his ball. While he was bowling, Juliet grew curious, so she took out her own phone and hit the speed dial.

"There's a certain girl I been in love with a long, long time. What's her name? I can't tell ya. There's a certain chick I been sweet on since I met her. What's her name? I can't tell ya." The ringtone was Warren Zevon's "A Certain Girl," and the phone was Lassiter's. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and hit the "decline" button as quickly as he could. Juliet laughed lightly, pleased even though she knew she really shouldn't be.

"It's just a ringtone," Lassiter muttered, defensively.

"What ringtone do you have set for your mother?" Juliet asked.

"'Bat Out of Hell,'" he said, and she laughed again.