Guys, I'm back in the groove of writing this thing. You're getting the next chapter in probably another week or two, followed shortly by a brief epilogue of sorts, and then we're done.
Response to anonymous review:
Rock Mint Swirl: Well, this is not a request I could have predicted, but absolutely you can! Thank you for the intention, the review, and just for jumping on the bandwagon at this juncture considering the word count. Naturally, please link me to it when you're finished so I can see!
"Thank you."
Three voices float around him. He's pretty sure he's dead. He can't quite recall why, but he remembers the knowing, the absolute certainty of his imminent passing. It felt just like falling asleep.
"Thank you, Shawn Spencer."
His name? Yes… that's it. He keeps losing it, but it seems determined to return to him, in the end. Hey, if you love something, let it go. Or have it repeatedly ripped away from you. Or something.
The voices are familiar. He's heard them before, but never this clearly. He tries to orient himself, to place himself spatially. Gradually more sensory input comes to him, but it's fuzzy—recognizable, but like it's not quite real.
He opens his eyes.
He is standing somewhere bathed in light, swaying slightly in place. The details of his surroundings bend away from him, but the light seems to be coming from one spot in particular, off in the distance, and he's not there yet. And standing with their backs against that light are three people he's seen before.
An older woman, black, really reminding him a lot of Gus's mother, with a gentle smile and kind eyes, approaches him. She was killed with an intentional stroke, the last one to be taken from her son. Her long white dress floats gently around her in a type of movement caught between that of standing in a gentle breeze and being underwater. "Marianne?" Shawn whispers.
She wraps her arms tightly around him. The embrace is warm. He melts into it. "You saved him," she says over his shoulder, voice thick. He can think of no response.
She pulls away, and a man steps up then. He went much more violently than his wife, but his white clothes are unblemished. His hair looks a little fuller, his teeth a little straighter than Shawn recalls from the pictures and the memories. He offers his hand to Shawn, smile wide, and he puts his own in it to shake, moving in a daze. "You have our eternal gratitude," he says sincerely, and Shawn can only stare down at his hand. He's finally figured out what's wrong, or at least off, about the warmth.
Every other time he's talked to these people, death has felt cold.
A young woman approaches then, far too young to already be here, but she's glowing in happiness. Her long braid floats gently around her like her white clothing. She is so much more whole than she was in the moment she died. She throws her arms around him, and murmurs into his shoulder, "Thank you for saving my brother."
He places his hand on her back in reciprocation of the hug, in something of a daze, and she releases him soon after.
He doesn't know where to look. Or whether he's ready to look at anything at all. He blinks, staring into the light behind them, and finding it too beautiful, he fixes his gaze on the soft nothingness that surrounds them.
It's not that he's sure he's not ready. It's that he needs time to process what's happening. What happened.
The last thing he remembers isn't dying. Something comes to him… a gentle breeze… the open ocean… the Master's terrified face. And three of the people he died trying to protect watching from somewhere far off.
He just can't quite recall which ones.
"They're safe, Shawn," Caroline says, the words bubbling out of her. "Not just James. They're all safe. That man will never hurt anyone ever again."
He's almost too exhausted to find solace in the news.
"We're sorry for all we put you through," says Marianne regretfully. "We know it wasn't easy."
"Simply being allowed to extend our influence to earth again…" Richard shakes his head. "We forget how difficult it is there."
"And the time we had to keep you from leaving your apartment to investigate Goodwin was especially bad, we know," adds Caroline, tone rueful. "He wasn't drunk enough yet, you see. He would have felt something wrong. If you had gone any earlier than you did, it all would have been over."
"You're a stubborn thing, Shawn," Richard chuckles, a little sadly. "You kept trying. It was exhausting, holding you back."
"But we managed," finishes Marianne. "And aside from that instance—well, and the time you shut us out for months on end, but we know you had to, or at least we understand why you did—you listened. Every single time. You figured it out. You even let us talk to James."
Was he really that cooperative? He's nowhere near accustomed to being praised for being such a team player. He stares around at them, surrounding him, all smiling widely, excited but peaceful.
"Are you my welcoming committee?" he asks quietly.
They are all silent for a moment. Then Caroline speaks up: "Here's the thing, Shawn. You're on your way to that light. You're not there yet, but you've got a course set for it. And if you want to go now, you can. Of course you can."
Can. He can.
"But," picks up Richard, "we're here to help you back."
The very idea both repulses him and fills him with such longing he almost aches.
"You're psychic—good and proper. Which means that your handle on the way spirits work might be able to help you get back to your body. You can still feel it, can't you? Like an echo. Maybe you're even still connected to it."
He can, and he thinks he is. And honestly, it makes him uncomfortable. It's this dead thing, sort of attached to him, distracting from the warmth. Like a tumor.
He stares over their shoulders. The light is so, so warm, and it seems to seep into him and fill him up in a way he never thought possible.
"It's your choice, Shawn," says Caroline quietly.
His choice.
It feels like an eternity since he had a choice.
He tries to remember the man he used to be, to think of what he would say. That man would've declined in a heartbeat. Well of course he would've, he never knew what this warmth was like. But beyond that… he very likely would have declined all the same. He still had so much to do and to become.
He still hasn't lived to see the head detective start his own family.
To save countless more people's lives.
To go on so many more adventures with his best friend.
To grow old alongside him.
To keep repairing his relationship with his dad.
To marry her.
He'd take Shawn Spencer, the man he used to be, over Arashk Ronaldo any day.
"It's wonderful," he whispers. "I'd love to stay. But… but I can't."
They smile gently, but their eyes are sad. He's not sure if it's because they'd recommend a different choice, or they are considering the trials he still has ahead of him.
Feeling some need to explain, he says, "There's still so much I have to do."
Richard shakes his head, still smiling in a way Shawn can't quite explain, but somehow understands. "There always will be."
"And," he says, and stops. Then, "When I do go, I… I need to be more… myself."
The sadness in their eyes deepens, but their smiles only become all the more genuine. He's not sure he understands.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you were there in the light now," Caroline says frankly, gently.
He exhales slowly. "Then I guess I should head out while I still can, shouldn't I?"
Marianne places her hand on his shoulder. "Live a good, long life, Shawn."
"And give our love to James," says Richard.
He nods, and asks, "But what do I do? How do I go back?"
For a moment they exchange glances. "Just… pull," instructs Caroline. "Reach out, and find your body, and pull yourself back. If you want to wake up again, do not let go."
Again he nods, determined, and shuts his eyes, reaching out with his mind. It's actually much easier than he'd have expected. But it begins to make some sort of sense—he's farther away from his body than he's ever been, and it's the one thing keeping him tethered to the world. If he's looking for something physical to hold onto, he's already got a direct line to it, and nothing else is there to interfere.
But he can feel that line becoming less and less distinct, so he firmly grasps it, and tugs.
In some sense, he feels himself sailing along, and the warmth becomes more and more distant, and a chill passes through him. Marianne's voice floats around him, and he opens his eyes. They're all still there, but somehow less distinct than they were before. "One other thing, Shawn," Marianne is saying. "There's someone else who has a message for you. Well, at least a message for you to pass along. Her name is Tessa Cadbury. She wants you to tell her daughter that she loves her and always has."
Shawn blinks, confused. "Who's her daughter?"
"You know, Shawn. You know."
He's fading away fast, he can feel it. Which has the effect of them looking like they're fading around him, but that's not how he'd instinctively describe it. Their voices are becoming more and more distant to him and something tells him that this is the last time he'll ever hear them. At least… while he's still on earth.
"James is a good man," he says. "It's been a privilege to know him, and an honor to help him."
He can't make out their response.
He can't make out much of anything.
He fades into the soft white light, and it all slowly turns to black.
The minutes following the moment Shawn's pulse disappears pass by in a frenzied blur.
Gus has never known a more intense mixture of relief and terror than the moment Sebastian comes tearing into the room holding the cooler, but accompanied by no one. They can hear the distant sirens by this point, and Sebastian is in a tremendous hurry as he takes out a knife, cuts Shawn's arm, and nicks open one of the bags of blood that he takes from inside the cooler.
He holds the opening as close to the cut on Shawn's arm as he can, ducking his head down in concentration, and before Gus's eyes the thick red liquid begins to flow back into Shawn's body. Gus can only watch, mesmerized.
Soon the bag is completely empty. Around the same time Gus thinks he hears noises in the upper levels of the house. He should be the one to leave and draw their attention, but instead it's Henry. It doesn't even occur to Gus to move.
Sebastian's hands seem to be losing their dexterity by the time he's emptied the second bag back into Shawn, and Gus finally gathers the presence of mind to come forward and help him retrieve and open the third. There's still a fourth full bag and three more empty ones sitting in the cooler.
Sebastian is breathing hard enough to frighten Gus, his hands shaking violently and sweat rolling off his skin in buckets, but all Gus can do is hover nearby and lend his presence—so, he can do nothing.
And barely into transferring the fourth bag of blood back into Shawn's arm, Sebastian's eyes roll into the back of his head, and he drops like a stone to the floor. The bag falls from his hands, splattering all over Shawn's arm and bare chest, the table, the floor, Sebastian's hands. Gus barely manages to catch him under the arms before his head collides with the floor, and it's around then that his heart seems to go quiet enough that he realizes that what he dearly hopes is the medical team or SWAT is close enough that he can distinguish their footsteps.
Later, he doesn't remember what he shouts to alert them of their location. All he remembers is that as soon as they burst into the room, Shawn and Sebastian were both taken away from him. He was asked a few salient questions, was hustled up and out, and ended up in front of the mansion, where an ambulance was standing waiting. Somebody asked him if he was hurt, at some point, and surely he said no. But Juliet was in the ambulance. She was hurt, somehow, and the medics seemed confused about something. Henry was standing nearby, just watching the side of the house, apparently waiting for the others to come up the hill. Soon after the ambulance arrived, a SWAT vehicle pulled up onto the driveway, and out poured a by this point entirely too late to be useful team of armed officers along with Chief Vick.
Lassiter was hovering as near the scene as they would let him, holding his right hand delicately. Gus asked him something that he later can't recall specifically. All he remembers Lassiter saying is "He's dead."
Jaeger stumbles to his feet and takes off sprinting, cooler in his hands, as soon as the Master disappears over the edge. Lassiter doesn't have the presence of mind to try to stop him, and he'd rather not make the decision of whether Spencer or O'Hara is in more need of medical attention right now anyway. He just leaves it up to the doctor, and stays put with O'Hara for the short amount of time she remains awake, just doing what he can to stifle the bleeding, but she slips away alarmingly quickly. The bleeding is not severe, but compounded with all that she's already lost…
So he takes her into his arms and carries her through the stretch of trees, fast as he can, hoping he's not imagining that the distant sirens are getting closer. He clutches her close to his chest, doing his best to protect her from the underbrush, ignoring the definitely broken index finger and thumb on his shooting hand.
The ambulance is just pulling into the driveway when he breaks out of the trees, and he thanks God for at least providing this one instance of perfect timing. The medics quickly take her from him, and they are clearly baffled at her symptoms of extreme blood loss considering the small size of the wound, but they quickly begin an emergency blood transfusion. There are a good six or seven, and one of them asks him if he's in need of their attention, but he waves them away and sends them in the direction of the mansion's basement, assuring them that there's an actual emergency situation down there.
He would remember the strange twinge of relief he felt, as her condition began to improve, that there had been a second wound. He might not have been able to convince the medics that she was in need of a transfusion at all if there was no sign of trauma. At the very least, she'd need one eventually, and he couldn't begin to think of a plausible explanation to give when that time came.
He would remember how when Spencer and Jaeger entered the scene on stretchers, and Spencer looked dead, he couldn't gather the energy or will to ask whether it was true when he already knew it was. He wondered what had happened to Jaeger, and why he'd failed to save Spencer. He wondered... a lot of things, to do with Spencer's psychic powers and the years Lassiter had spent not believing in them, and what he'd just seen, what he at the time expected to be the last glimpse he'd ever get of Shawn.
He would remember the ludicrousness of the day's events suddenly hitting him like a physical wall, to the point that he actually reeled back and ended up sitting in the grass. The arrival of Vick and the SWAT team just made him feel sick as he contemplated how he was going to have to choose between lying on a witness report, which was of course extremely illegal, or telling the truth and being considered a madman, or at the very least "unstable" and "unfit for duty."
Above all, he would remember the clarity that came to him when he realized that he would gladly pay either price as long as O'Hara and Spencer lived.
Juliet wouldn't remember much. She was fairly sure she'd be fine, because… well, because this was no time to be unsure.
The blade stuck inside her was small. She'd barely glimpsed it before it embedded itself into her side, but she'd judge it to be no longer than four inches from the handle to the tip, and it was thin. But all the same… black was crowding around her vision as soon as she fell.
She would remember how Carlton immediately pulled her into his lap, how he wouldn't leave her, even as she tried to push him away with the remainder of her rapidly diminishing strength. She would remember her frustration, both at not being able to do anything, and Carlton's refusal to try. She would remember when the moment came that she truly believed that it was over, that he was going to get away and Sebastian was going to die.
It was a trifle compared to what came mere seconds after.
It must be a hallucination, she thought. Maybe she was dying, or just finally going into hypovolemic shock. At this point, she wasn't sure how she could get any more lightheaded. But even as she tried to convince herself of this, she heard his voice, clear as day, and she knew it was real, even if she didn't believe it.
She couldn't believe it.
She would remember saying "It was Shawn" over and over to her partner, just seeking some sort of either affirmation or denial, but hoping for the latter. Hoping that the clock running out didn't mean anything and she'd been the only one who really saw it. Hoping that she was on the brink of death and the nerves were firing in her brain and making her see things. Anything, anything but the most intuitive answer.
But the more she considered it, the less able she became to deny it.
Whatever the hell had really happened, the reality was looming up bigger and uglier than ever before that when this was all over, nothing could ever be the same again.
"It was Shawn."
She would remember slipping away with the words still on her lips, with Carlton's arms still around her, not able to think past reasoning that at least, in all likelihood, wherever she was going, Shawn would be there.
Henry would remember the most intense combination of frustration and despair that he had ever experienced and likely ever would again as they stood over Shawn's lifeless body in that little room. Gus would normally have been the most logical candidate to do the legwork of retrieving the medical squad, but he seemed completely out of it, just staring blankly as Sebastian prepared to try to save Shawn's life. And Henry didn't want to miss that, of course he didn't. But Shawn's chances of survival—of… of being revived were greater if Henry went to get the medics than if he stayed here just to be a witness.
And by God, was he ready to end the absolute hell in which he'd spent what felt like an eternity but was actually just a few minutes of weeping over his son's stone cold body.
So he went. Perhaps he was the better person for the job, in a way, because he remembered every detail of the sinuous path from where Shawn was to the front door. Fortunately, he didn't have to go that far, and he met the team of a half dozen doctors halfway through the house, and immediately turned and led them downstairs.
They inquired if he was hurt, and he hated that a second or a breath was wasted asking this question, but he assured them that this was an old injury and they needed to focus on his son.
By the time he made it outside, everybody involved seemed to be on their way to gathering together in front of the huge house. Henry felt no need to seek answers on what had happened. He just kept an eye on the side of the house, and soon enough, the medical team appeared, carrying Shawn and Sebastian on gurneys up the hill. He would remember the shameful moment he spent questioning why Sebastian's condition merited any attention at all.
He saw how both men were now spattered with blood, and didn't know what to make of it. He watched as three of the medics prepared the defibrillators over Shawn while two others checked on Sebastian. There were one or two others attending to Juliet. His heart couldn't afford to be pulled in so many directions at once, so he'd put off asking what had happened to her for just a few more seconds.
He would remember exactly how many times he heard the shout "Clear!" just before the pads were placed on Shawn's bare chest and his entire torso arched upwards as the electricity coursed through him—to no avail.
Three. It was three times.
Each time Henry's hopes rose and fell with the movement of Shawn's body. Each time his own heart threatened to stop as Shawn's refused to start.
Henry would not remember the chilly breeze that apparently befell them between the third and fourth attempts, lasting only a couple of seconds. But Lassiter assured him that there was, indeed, such a breeze.
The thing that Henry would remember the most clearly was the feeling he was filled to the brim with upon hearing the words "We've got a pulse."