Wow guys, that last chapter had a lot of typos and editing hiccups. I don't know how I managed to miss so many; I promise I read through it a few times before posting it. In any case, it's been cleaned up now, hopefully completely.
So… here we are. Final chapter, epilogue coming up soon (really, don't be surprised by how short it is). With this last official chapter, the story surpasses 150k words. Long enough to be officially considered an epic novel. What can be said? For starters, I can't thank you all enough for your support throughout. Every notification I've gotten of a favorite, follow, or review has just made my day. Honestly I'm still floored that so many people have stuck with me to the end of this whole convoluted journey, and I'm so grateful. I'd like to take this opportunity to give one special shoutout, to DwaejiTokki, who has reviewed every single chapter since the beginning. Your constancy is admirable and deeply appreciated. And my gratitude, of course, goes out to everyone who has ever reviewed—as those of you who write yourselves well know, reviews especially are invaluable sources of motivation and affirmation.
And now, the big question: Will there be a sequel? Well, that depends, as it often does, on two things: assurance of readership, and inspiration. There is definite potential and some ideas have been floating around my head, but nothing solid enough to base a promise on. If you do want a sequel, hang onto hope, because it is not unlikely that there will be one—though I'm making no guarantees—but it could be a while. Honestly I'd like to take a substantial break from this story. It's taken almost three years to post the whole thing, and confession: I'd actually been planning and writing it for about a year and a half before I got an account on FF and started posting. So, basically, Ronaldo has been a pretty major project for a very significant chunk of time, and it's been a distraction from other creative endeavors. Don't get me wrong, I am so glad and proud that I got the story finished and out there, but like I said… a break would be nice.
Also if you want a sequel, and you have any expectations or suggestions at all, be sure to let me know in a review or PM what you'd like to see in one!
This will be the last AN—the epilogue is still coming, probably tomorrow or the next day, but it will come sans commentary from me. And thus it shall be a clean ending.
The last thing I shall say is one final "thank you."
His dreams are a muddled mess.
He sees a man with a new power burning inside him. He sees him in a car, driving along a very specific path, using that power to wrench control from other drivers and cause countless wrecks—so much death and injury, so much blood spilled on the streets.
He sees a series of households he's never seen before, going about their business at home, just trying to live their lives with something missing. At some point they become households he recognizes, and the scenes from when he was gone.
He sees a male college student approaching his physics professor with a ludicrous proposal that will change both their lives forever.
He sees the insides of people's veins as they burst and the blood within goes freely into the tissue surrounding.
He sees a cliffside over the sea, and a body impaled on a wooden spike being dashed to pieces against the rocks.
He sees seven friends finding an article in the paper and realizing how truly screwed up the story was of the guy they gave a lift.
He sees tears, broken glass, blood staining a pristine white floor.
He sees a wide variety of names, floating around his head. Gus, Ember, Juliet, James, Shawn, Grayson, Vincent, Carlton, Kevin, Barnabas, Clare… He recognizes all of them but he can't tell which ones are important.
He sees all kinds of dark geometric shapes waltzing across his mind along with the odd bright flash of white light thrown in there every once in a while for a little flavor.
Slowly everything fades to black.
When all he can hear is the faint sound of machines beeping, he knows he's awake. But he can't open his eyes.
Nothing hurts, per se. Some distant but sharp pain flares up every few seconds, but it's negligible. Mostly he just feels weak. His eyelids are too heavy to push up out of the way so he can see his surroundings. He feels his arms resting at his sides, but he can't raise them. His legs stretched out before him, but he can't shift them. A sheet covers him up to his chest. One of those thingies is clipped to his finger to measure his vitals. Eventually he pinpoints the source of the occasional pain to his right arm.
For a long time he lies still, not thinking, not even trying to open his eyes. Occasionally he hears murmured voices. Most of the time, he realizes they're from when he was unconscious.
Gus: "You better wake up, Shawn. They say you will, but… just, you'd better. If you die on us after all this time, mark my words, I'm gonna kill you. And take all your comic books. It doesn't matter how you are when you wake up. Just wake up."
Dad: "I hope you know how many years you've taken off my life, Shawn. Hell, you actually might. Don't you want to open your eyes and tell me just how much I don't know? With that insufferable smug ass grin? I… I miss you, son. I miss you a lot."
Lassiter: "When you wake up, feel free to not remember that you used to call me Lassie. But… not for too long, all right?"
One voice is notably missing.
And it is that absence that keeps him from even trying to open his eyes.
But finally, when a voice comes to him, he quickly realizes that it's happening in real time. It's not hers—he needs to stop hoping he'll hear it when he knows he never will again. But it is familiar.
"Ya look like crap, Shawn," it's saying. "White has never been your color."
He tries to lift his eyelids, and finds it difficult. He fails the first attempt, but he hears the slight skid of the chair an inch or so across the floor as Gus suddenly stands up. "Shawn?" he asks.
He supposes his eyes visibly twitched. A sign of progress. He makes another attempt, and his eyes crack open to let just some of the harsh fluorescent light in, and he immediately shuts them again with a groan.
"Shawn!" Gus's voice comes again from very, very close. "Can you hear me?"
"You're right up in my face, how could I not?" he murmurs, and finally forces his eyes all the way open, though for several seconds he's still squinting.
A hospital room, of course. Room 1284. All white and pale blue. The blinds on the windows are drawn. Gus is to his left, and other than having obviously spent the day or so that he's been here worried out of his mind, he seems to be in one piece. Shawn sees no bandages, scars, or casts—except the white bandages wrapped around his own right forearm. And other than the one monitoring him, he's not even hooked up to any machines. He seems to just be here for recovery.
"Gus," he says, and it's carried on an exhale. He'll work his way up to actual speech.
Gus breaks out into an expression that combines relief and borderline hysteria in a way only his best friend could. Tears quickly gather in his eyes.
"Don't, buddy. Just don't."
"Real men cry, Shawn," he sniffles, and wipes his nose delicately on a tissue he pulls from his pocket.
Shawn gives him a couple seconds to try to compose himself, and finally asks, "Where's everyone else?"
Gus blinks, clearly feeling that a few parts of the conversation have been omitted, namely the question "What happened?" But Shawn isn't ready for that question. Not yet.
"Lassiter's at the station," Gus starts. "He had a couple broken fingers and a mild concussion, but you know him. No rest for the weary. And he wanted to sort out… the Master's accomplices as much as possible before he gets everyone's official statement."
Traces of a sardonic smile play across Shawn's lips. "You're referring specifically to mine."
He shrugs slightly. "I mean, yours is the most important," he admits. "But don't worry about that right now, Shawn. Just focus on getting better."
He frowns, going back to what Gus said before. "Accomplices?"
Gus seems not entirely sure what to say. "Who do you know of?" he asks.
He freezes, as his brain immediately leaps to the answer to the question. "Th-the… the guy who st—who stabbed… who k…" he stammers, and swallows, unable to finish.
"Juliet's gonna be fine," Gus says quickly, in realization. "She's got a room just across the hall—she lost a lot of blood too. But she's stable, she should wake up any time now."
Juliet
fine
Juliet's gonna be fine
"She's alive?" he whispers.
The room seems to spin around him. The bed feels like it's shaking. He's vaguely aware that he's hyperventilating, and he presses a hand against his chest. Gus's voice echoes around him, and he can just feel his brain processing what he's saying it to save for later, but it doesn't clue him in just yet.
Her name is Juliet.
Juliet is alive.
"Shawn?" comes Gus's worried voice, several seconds after the fact. "Come on, stay with me."
He wants to ask how. How she could've possibly survived, when he saw how deep that knife went, and where. He wants his best friend to tell him, and he wants to receive that information from a trusted, solidly defined source.
But instead, just like that, he knows.
And he hates it.
However, that loathing is overshadowed by the information itself. "James," he says suddenly. "Where is James?"
Gus appears confused. "James…?"
He blinks, closing his eyes, reorienting himself. "Sebastian. But not Sebastian. His real name is James Randolf."
He opens his eyes to a bemused Gus. "Oh," he says. "Um, well right now he's giving his statement. Might be finished and on the way back here, not sure. And honestly… I don't know what he's telling them. I'm kind of terrified that statements are going to conflict."
Shawn stares ahead at the wall. Part of him wants to ask, flat out, what happened. Part of him doesn't want to know at all.
Part of him knows that eventually answers will come to him, whether he wants them or not.
"Shawn," says Gus slowly, "how are you feeling?"
He shakes his head slightly, still not looking at Gus, a shade of a sardonic smile on his lips. "Swell."
"I'm serious, Shawn. It was…" Gus gulps. "It was bad."
He's done thinking about this. God, he doesn't want to think about anything, ever again.
"You died, Shawn. Your heart stopped, and you were dead."
Another dry chuckle escapes him. He can feel how confused and slightly affronted Gus is in response. "I know."
Gus sits back, apparently speechless.
Over a full minute passes in silence. Shawn knows he's kind of being a dick, but he doesn't care. He's going to give himself just one minute to not care.
It's so much more than he's ever successfully given himself in his whole life.
He guesses not caring, as a last resort, comes more easily when it's really all you have left to try.
Presently his gaze wanders down to his body stretched out before him. His arms are so pale, leading that goddamn tattoo to stand out more than ever before. His eyes linger on the bandages encircling his right forearm. Something tickles at the back of his mind.
"You lost a lot of blood," says Gus, seeing where he's looking.
Realization is dawning on Shawn at a snail's pace, bright and horrible. "My blood…"
"Sebastian—um, James put it back in you," his friend supplies. "Trippiest thing I've ever seen. He keeled over in the middle of it, and then the medics arrived, or you wouldn't still have that cut on your arm. He apologizes for it; he needed an entry point."
His head is spinning. He feels hot, weightless. But also deathly ill, and he's not even sure where. His head, his heart, his stomach, all of the above… His vision starts to go a little dark around the edges.
If he had come this close to bleeding out and been saved by a standard emergency blood transfusion, and all that blood he'd lost had stayed outside his body, maybe… maybe something could have changed.
Maybe it could have been carried right out of him and replaced with something ordinary, and contained, and safe.
All at once, he loses himself. He loses his place in the hospital room. He loses Gus's presence next to him. He floats in nothing, surrounded by nothing but the crushing reality that he was this close to escaping.
But in the same stroke, he was this close to dying.
It doesn't seem like a fair tradeoff. He can't convince himself that it is. He doesn't have the energy even to try.
Spots dance before his eyes, and the thudding of his heart sounds like it's right next to his ears. And a wave of unbearable heat and unfathomable darkness washes over him, bearing him away to parts unknown.
His dreams are fairly predictable this time around.
Blood. All red, all stinking.
For the first time, though, distantly, he senses something different about this blood. It carries something that is familiar to him in practice but not in study. It's… tainted.
It's his.
This time, when he comes to, his father is sitting at his side. He's already standing as close to his bed as he can before Shawn has quite ascended to full consciousness. "Shawn," he's saying. "Gus said you passed out in the middle of conversation. How are you feeling?"
He blinks. "Peachy," he mumbles, shaking the last cobwebs of sleep from his mind. Still blinking, he turns towards his father, looking him up and down. He's wearing a fresh shirt, but it's not that—something's missing that was there before.
"Your shoulder," he says quietly, realizing. "Your sling's gone."
His dad nods. "James took care of it," he says, and the use of the name makes it clear that Gus has reported back to him, and probably everyone else, on their interaction.
Shawn's eyes widen. "Your limp?"
His dad shakes his head slowly. "Motor issues are still there—he was just able to take care of the GSW. He said he might make another attempt later, after… things have settled down." Shawn deflates, and just nods. His dad eyes him, slightly opening his mouth every few seconds as if about to speak but unsure of what he'll say, and Shawn doesn't know what to do under the scrutiny. "Had us going there for a while, son," he finally manages, smiling through the tears forming in his eyes.
"I'm okay," he says softly, without considering whether it's true.
His dad pulls the chair up a little closer to him, his mannerisms broadcasting the approach of a Henry Spencer life lesson. He looks back up at Shawn, and says, "It's okay not to be okay, Shawn."
He looks at the wall in front of him. "Thanks, O Dispenser of Wisdom," he says, absolutely nothing coloring his voice. "But I meant I'll live."
He feels through the air how poorly received the response is. He'd flip off his psychic powers if he could.
"How do you feel?" his dad asks.
"Really tired," he replies honestly after a moment. "But fine."
"Anything hurt?"
His arm sort of does, but it's not worth mentioning. He shakes his head.
"What do you remember?"
At this he looks back over at his dad, who's watching him with an expression that's trying not to betray how much he's hanging on his response, but betrays it all the same. He searches for a way to answer without answering. "Gus told me my heart stopped—"
"No, I said what do you remember," his dad interrupts, leaning forward, eyes large. Shawn stares at his father, and it's obvious that he's aware he's being too pushy, but his need to know has overwhelmed his common decency at the moment.
"Dad," he whispers, "can we… not talk about that right now? Just… not now. I'm not… ready."
His dad doesn't move for a moment, but after a second or two of looking at him he sits back, nodding. "Of course."
But Shawn doesn't know what else to say. What else to talk about. They are so far out of the realm of small talk. Hell, he doesn't even remember the last time he engaged in small talk.
He just knows he's not ready to put together all the pieces and potentially trigger visions of what happened.
He knows he'll have to eventually, but just for a little while… he doesn't really want to know.
"Shawn," his father finally says, and he's actually relieved to have the silence broken. "During your haircut… that whole debacle in my kitchen… you said you wanted answers."
Shawn shakes his head almost involuntarily. "I have some now," he says quietly, "and I know you guys have the rest. I'll get them eventually. Maybe even soon. Just not right now."
His dad nods. He understands. Shawn can feel it; he really does. How you might think you want something, and when it actually comes, it comes with a price, and you just want to bide your time a little before you have to pay it.
But there's something else. His dad is trying to lead into something. Not much was said definitively during that "kitchen debacle," but a few things were sure talked around, and Shawn was guilty of most if not all of it.
His mind grinds to a halt as he realizes something.
His dad has a guess as to what Shawn wouldn't tell him.
And more than that… he's not freaked out about it.
All he wants is to know.
His dad is saying, "Look, kid, I just wanted you to know that if you… if you have any questions about what happened, or, or if you have anything you want to tell me, not even anything specific, maybe just someone… y'know, someone to lend an ear, I hope you know that you can always—"
"I'm psychic, Dad."
His father stops cold. His heartbeat spikes, all his thoughts grinding to a full halt. He stares at Shawn, eyes wide.
And now that it's out there, the words just tumble out of him: "I wish I were kidding, believe me, I wish I were kidding. But it's true. Visions, ghosts, the whole shebang. Ever since…" He exhales. "My third week there. At least that was when I really became aware of it. And since then, I've only gotten better and better at it." He shakes his head, and barrels on, almost scaring himself by how matter-of-factly he's speaking. "I saw you get shot. I can't tell you how many times I saw you get shot. I felt the bullet enter your shoulder. I saw the car engine come apart and hurt Gus and Jules. I felt his wrist sprain and her head hit the concrete. I saw James's entire family die. He… The Master did this to me. It was in my blood, and it still is. And when I say that, I don't mean genetics, I mean physically… in my blood. That's why he wanted—" He stops abruptly and shakes his head, chuckling sardonically. "But I sense you already knew that."
His dad is just watching him, listening. Waiting for more. His expression is completely neutral, and even his emotions are carefully modulated. For some reason, it's worse than if he were flipping out.
"It's stuck with me, Dad," he whispers. "Just another lovely memento from this truly magical time. It's not going away. And it's so much worse than anything I ever faked before." He leans his head back against his pillow, just breathing deeply, trying not to let the truth in what he's saying overwhelm him.
"That's all," he whispers as a final lid on it before he says any more, because now that the initial tirade is over he wants to retreat into a cave and never come out. He wants to wave a hand and stop time and never restart it to have to see his dad's or anyone else's reaction. He wants his dad to up and leave. Oh God, no he doesn't. Oh God, he doesn't know what he wants.
He realizes he closed his eyes at some point. His head is leaning back against his enormous fluffy pillow and for a moment he thinks, maybe he can force himself into sleep, right here right now. Maybe he can make himself pass out before his father can say a word.
He's genuinely beginning to try this when he feels a slightly larger hand grasp his own.
Shawn has done more psychic readings than he can count, and in a great number of them, at some point the clients think about somebody near and dear to them. What Shawn has gathered is that love is not an emotion. He's never felt somebody else's love by touching their hands. But in a way, it's become identifiable, as it comes in a great many shades and combinations of emotions and thoughts. Fondness, amusement, worry, affection, disappointment, patience, belief, temperance, self-sacrifice, loyalty, acceptance.
Shawn would swear that right now, his father is feeling every single one of them, and about a hundred other things in between.
"You want to talk about it?" he finally manages.
"No," Shawn chokes out.
His dad nods. "Okay."
He releases his hand, and there they stay, sitting in silence, Shawn breathing a little faster than before, but slowly, unbelievably, starting to calm down. And against all odds, around them the world keeps turning.
He dozes. He dreams of blonde hair, a sunflower kitchen, and a broken family. None of it is quite clear or crisp as it used to be, though he strongly suspects that's due to his mental taxation instead of any actual waning of his powers. But it's enough.
He suddenly blinks to full consciousness to find that Lassiter is seated next to him. He's actively staring right at Shawn with wide, uncertain eyes, strongly implying that he just walked in in the last few minutes and has been unsure of what to do. He stands up when Shawn fixes his eyes on him, though.
Shawn swallows. Stares for a long moment at the spica cast encasing part of Lassiter's forearm all the way up to his thumb, the large welt near his hairline.
It's all because of him.
He shakes his head, because there's a question he has to ask before he ends up distracting himself any further. "Where's…" He trails off, but he's too tired to keep up any sort of pretense anymore. "…the acrobat?"
Thankfully, Lassiter immediately fills in, "Livia Istok?" although he says it with a note of puzzlement, clearly unsure of why it's important enough that it preceded even a greeting.
Shawn nods, relieved.
"She's in custody. We ran her prints; she was taken in along with a lot of other kids at the age of nineteen when a party got busted in Rhode Island in 2008. Her birth name is Clare Cadbury."
He blinks. Pictures the person he's known as "Liv" all this time, and imagining calling her Clare. It… it makes sense, actually. It suits her. "Have you told her?"
"Not yet." Again Shawn nods, staring at the wall ahead, but he can feel Lassiter watching him. Finally the detective says quietly, "Shawn, I'm very curious to hear your take on the part she's played in all of this."
After another long moment, which he spends a little on thinking, but mostly just on gathering the necessary energy to discuss this, he raises his eyes to meet Lassiter's. "You said she's in custody. What… what did she do?"
Lassiter gazes at him, a distant cousin of pity somewhere behind his eyes. "She attacked me," he answers gently. Almost immediately, though, he subconsciously adjusts his jacket and says in a slightly deeper voice, "Nothing I couldn't handle, of course."
The news is not too surprising, though it is sobering, but the affirmation that immediately followed it very nearly provokes a smile from Shawn. He refocuses himself, and answers the question Lassiter asks with "She's a victim. Nothing but a victim. Whatever she did, you can't press charges. Even if you can… you can't."
Lassiter regards him. "Shawn, she—"
"She had to make a decision to trust somebody, and stick with it." He shakes his head slowly, tiredly. "She'd been wavering back and forth between the Master and me for too long. And… and I'd just killed her only other friend."
"Loriss?"
"I don't remember," he whispers, and tries, "The name was on my list."
Lassiter nods.
"They were pals. But she had no idea the part he was playing in all of this."
"We don't need to get into that right now, Shawn," Lassiter says, his voice gentler than Shawn has ever heard it.
He shakes his head.. "I'd like to see her," he whispers. "I need to talk to her. If… if she'll talk to me."
Lassiter looks at him for a moment, evaluating him as best he can. Shawn feels his dubiousness hanging in the air. He has a million questions about what happened at that carnival. But all he says is, "Okay, Shawn. I'll bring her in myself."
He nods. "Thank you." Swallows. "And… thank you for everything else. For saving me."
Lassiter shakes his head slowly. "Of course, Spencer. Besides, you gave us all the pieces. All we had to do was put them together and follow your directions." He looks at Shawn for a spell, and says, "We found Thornton. I spoke with him."
His brow furrows in puzzlement. "Thornton?"
By now he can sense the concern coming off Lassiter in waves, and he's too tired even to hate it. "The name you gave us."
His expression clears. "Right. Who was he?"
"Your captor's grandfather."
Shawn blinks. It shouldn't surprise him to hear that the man had a family, and a past, but for so long he's known nothing about where he came from… Eventually he came to view him as just a… a force, a thing, a thing that was slowly destroying him, and that had to be stopped.
"And oh, did he weave a tale." Lassiter shakes his head. "I didn't believe it, not one bit. But now…"
Shawn looks at him for a long moment. Tries to remember the last time he experienced an information dump that had nothing to do with divination or psychic magic or whatever the hell he uses nowadays. Just… good old-fashioned conversation.
"Tell me the story, Lassie," he whispers.
The nickname slips out of him. He blinks, trying to remember where he might've heard it. Come to think of it… he's not sure where he got "Carlton Lassiter." Well, he can say what he wants about these powers, but he could never deny that they're useful.
Lassiter looks up at the nickname's mention too, and just stares at Shawn for a long moment.
Shawn's not used to this man looking at him without a trace of scorn in his features. Part of him wants things to immediately return to how they always were.
The other part doesn't have the energy to hope such a thing is possible.
"Shawn," and he wants to say something, but he stops himself.
Shawn hears it anyway.
Do you remember?
Do I remember what? he wants to ask, but before he can voice it, he quickly realizes he really doesn't want to ask it after all.
If there's a part of this whole calamity of a year, of a day even, that he can't remember… well, thanks be to God.
Finally, Lassiter only says, "We thought we'd lost you."
Shawn tries at a smile. He can't find it in himself to produce a real one, and drops the farce altogether. "No," he says simply, tiredly. "I'm here to stay."
He realizes, too late, that his tone might have been a bit too neutral in expressing this. And Lassiter notices.
Doesn't matter.
What would old him say right now?
"Storytime, Lassie?" he tries.
Lassie doesn't smile either. He just nods, takes a notepad out of his jacket, smooths it over, and begins to speak.
It's nice to be fed a stream of information that he didn't have to gather himself, although of course when Lassiter gets to the part about the grandfather murdering the healer, he realizes he's seen it before. He can't remember when, but he can taste the barest hint of blood as he thinks about it.
When the tale is through, Lassiter leaves to retrieve Livia… Clare. While he waits, Shawn slips into a light doze, but even that is filled with screams… slowly fading ones, though.
He wakes up to the sudden realization that these screams he's been hearing for so long were from a dying future. In fact, now, one that's entirely gone.
They are from what would have happened if they had failed.
He's visited shortly by his mother. He cannot deny his happiness at seeing her, though the mere thought that she's the only one he really cares about who managed to entirely escape any harm wrought by that man is sobering. And when she tries to embrace him, and he automatically flinches away from her overwhelming relief and remaining worry and emotional fragility… the look on her face. He can tell they warned her he may not be ready for touch. But it hurts her, all the same.
She stays with him until there's a knock at the door about an hour later, and immediately rises. By now it's obvious to Shawn that the nurses have told them he is to have only one visitor at a time. He's not sure what that kind of thing is based on, but he appreciates it.
"I'll be right outside, Goose," she tells him, and walks out. Seconds later, the young woman he's been calling Livia enters.
She looks like she hasn't smiled for a week. Her hair's down, and pretty greasy, like she hasn't done any hair care for a few days. A few stitches hold together a small gash near her hairline. Her dress is simple—a white T-shirt and leggings. She walks cautiously, slightly hunched over, and comes to stand directly across the room from the head of his bed. "Shawn?" she asks quietly, searchingly.
Somebody must've told her. He nods, and goes right into it: "Clare." For a moment her expression doesn't change; then something questioning appears in her eyes. "Clare Cadbury," he elaborates. "That's your name. Sound familiar?"
Her expression goes blank. He can practically—no. He can hear her testing it out in her mind, trying it on. He can sense how unreal it feels to her. "No," she says flatly.
He tries at a sympathetic smile. "Mine didn't either."
"Sucks."
"Majorly."
Traces of a smile tug at her lips briefly before dropping off her face, her expression reverting to something very solemn, and deeply unhappy. She stares at his arm for a long moment. "They tell me you died," she says softly, and her voice cracks.
The smile drops from his face as well. He gives the tiniest of nods.
She can't meet his eyes. She shakes her head, and for a moment, presses her hand to her mouth, before moving it to her heart and saying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I… that I had any part of it."
"Li—" and he cuts himself off, cursing himself for the slipup, but she's already continuing: "I screwed up. I made the wrong move at every turn."
"Not true. You made enough right moves that we're both still around today."
She doesn't respond. And suddenly, he senses her underlying uncertainty.
She never saw anything firsthand.
Of course, there's enough physical evidence and eyewitness testimonies that build a consistent enough picture that she has every reason to believe that the Master was a deeply twisted and evil man… except her personal history with him. And that's a very strong factor.
"You killed him," she whispers, and she's not talking about the Master. "The cops told me… he was a bad man, and he hurt people." She bites her lip, and seems to decide, finally, that that's not good enough of an excuse. "Shawn, you bashed his head in."
He's silent. He just looks at her. The right words, if they exist, don't come to him.
"I saw him," she whispers, trying for all she's worth to remain composed. "I saw him. That night. I'd just had dinner with him. I… saw what you did to him." Her voice cracks horribly.
His arms pumping as he swung that bookend up, down, up, down, Loriss's skull cracking beneath his hands, the taste of someone else's blood in his mouth—
"The M—" She stops. "He told me you were out of your mind. Was there any truth to that?"
He exhales, and his voice trembles slightly when he confirms, "Yeah… yeah, some."
"How long?" she asks, jaw set. "How long were you out of your mind?"
His eyebrows crowd close together as he contemplates the question. And then his mind is being cast back to that hellhole and he's just—he's not ready to think about it. He can't afford to think about it. "I've been all kinds of screwed up all my life," he says softly. "It's hard to build a comprehensive timeline."
She looks down. He feels her guilt at having asked the question.
"You don't have to feel guilty about wanting to know something," he tells her, trying to sound reassuring. "It's over now. It's all out in the open. You can ask me anything."
She shakes her head, still not looking up. "That detective… Uh, Detective Lassiter? He told me everything he learned from the Ma—from his grandfather." Again she shakes her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'm… still just… processing that. I'm sure I'll have a heap of questions later, but… I don't need anything else right now."
He nods. There was a time when he'd never have been able to understand not wanting to know everything there was to know. Now… he absolutely gets it.
But there's something else, something he can't put off. "Clare… I have a message from your mother, Tessa."
Something in her eyes changes. She uncrosses her arms.
"You remember that I accidentally… well, I touched you, that day you'd been thinking a lot about her and how you parted, and I saw what happened."
She nods, tears already shining in her eyes, though there they stay, for now.
"Clare… that wasn't your mother."
Her expression freezes. For a long moment all she does is blink, which pushes out the tears, but she doesn't truly cry, not yet. "What?" she finally whispers.
"The Master had you in his sights for a long time before he recruited you. He wanted to be sure you'd say yes. So he replaced her. I have visions, you fly and twirl and climb on walls… There is a man who can make himself look like anyone he wants. And that was the person who kicked you out of the house. Not Tessa. Not your mom."
Clare takes a couple of unsteady steps, reaches out a shaking hand, and lowers herself into one of the chairs next to his bedside.
He says, as gently as he can, "She wants you to know that she loves you and she always has."
She covers her mouth, and now the tears do fall, fast and fierce. Her shoulders shake, but she doesn't make a sound, until she draws in a deep gasp and manages through the veil of tears, "She died, three weeks after I went with the… after I joined the show. A stroke. I was across the country… I couldn't even make it back home for the funeral. I felt so… so…" She finally bends over, burying her face in her hands, unable to finish, but she doesn't have to—her guilt is palpable.
He nods, and he's not sure whether it's logic or a divination or some combination of both, but things begin sliding into place, blanks being filled in. "They took her alive, when they sent in the impersonator to take her place. They kept a close eye on her, took good care of her, and gave it a reasonable amount of time after you left. Then they induced a stroke, pulled the impersonator out, and left her body at home."
She's sobbing now, but it's completely silent, except for the occasional hitch of her breath. He can't find it in himself to reach out and take her hand or even pat her on the shoulder.
"I left my sister all alone," she weeps, still not looking up at him. "I haven't spoken to her in years. I just couldn't go back home… and it wasn't even…" She breaks down again, the sentence dissolving into soft sobs.
Just hearing that she has a sister is almost enough to turn Shawn's mood around.
Not only that she'll have somebody to go home to, but… it's gratifying to find that he didn't know she had one until she told him.
But he whispers, "I'm sorry."
A few wordless minutes pass between them, Clare's quiet weeping continuing. He doesn't know what to say. There are still so many pieces missing from himself that he's not sure he'll ever gather together or even be able to find again… He's too tired to be helping others put themselves back together right now. He's too broken. But nowhere near for the first time, it has fallen to him to be the one with the most answers.
He just has to keep trucking on, like always.
Finally, when her sobs have died down to the occasional muffled whimper, he gently tells her, "The police can give you an address. They can tell you where you came from. You can go home—or if that's not what you need right now, just… just ask." He stares down at his lap. "L—Clare, I… I can't do much right now. I… I need time too. But you have no idea how much you helped me. Let me know if there's anything I can do to return the favor."
Slowly she sits up, just staring down at her hands in her lap. Her eyes are still red, her cheeks still damp, but she holds her expression for a long moment. He watches her, waiting.
She slowly stands up, crosses the room, and leaves without saying a word.
He lies alone for a long time.
Trying not to think about how uncertain he is of what the future holds.
Or how he has no idea what he even wants it to hold.
That's probably the most frightening part of all this. For years now he's had steady work, consistent friends, hobbies he enjoyed… he's known what he wanted out of life. He's known his purpose.
It all feels so hollow now. And what he still objectively knows to be fulfilling—like spending time with friends and helping people through his police work—terrifies him. He is so scared, scared of judgement, of abandonment, of seeing things he does not want to see, of never feeling safe in his own head again.
He doesn't know when he'll be able to return to work. And he doesn't know how to fill the time between now and when he does.
He just feels lost. Directionless.
It's not unlike how he felt from about the ages of sixteen to twenty-nine. Bouncing around jobs and states, afraid of any sort of commitment. Except this is about ten times worse. Because he has his answers. He found a job, a family, an amazing girl, a sense of purpose. And still he feels this way.
He doesn't know what it is he needs.
He just doesn't know.
His eyes snap over to the door, and he immediately looks away again because he's tired of this, but of course the door swings open, and in steps a man he hasn't seen since he got out.
James looks well, at least considering. His face and arms bear a few scratches and there are shadows under his eyes, but he's neatly groomed and well-dressed and in general just looks very put together. And his aura just feels much more… relaxed than Shawn might have guessed. More peaceful.
James comes to stand not too far off, a couple feet away from his bed with his back still to the door. Shawn's not sure whether to invite him to come around to the other side and sit down. His eyes trail over Shawn's body and Shawn can sense a totally irrational guilt within him, so in a weak attempt to try to at least distract from it, he says by way of greeting, "James."
His eyes flicker up to meet Shawn's. He smiles, inclines his head, and returns with, "Shawn."
The mutual understanding that passes between them is almost palpable. Shawn lets it simmer for a moment before saying, "Thanks for the jacket."
James nods, and Shawn is sure that if the two of them were touching he'd be seeing himself right now, covered in blood and in the throes of a manic episode in "Sebastian's" apartment in the middle of the night. He's glad they're not touching.
"Yesterday was one hell of a day," James says eventually.
"So I'm told," Shawn murmurs.
"You've got some pretty amazing friends."
A ghost of a smile graces Shawn's face at that. "I know." He takes a closer look at James. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Sure. I just woke up forty minutes ago—slept about sixteen hours after… everything, and now I'm good to go."
Shawn gives a tiny nod. "Good," he says after a moment of silence passes between them.
Another stretch of silence ensues. James steps back slightly, does some pacing, and ends his route at the foot of Shawn's bed, standing there staring into the empty air in front of him with his hands shoved into his pockets. Shawn watches him when he's moving and briefly shuts his eyes while he's not.
Finally James speaks: "I don't know what to say, my friend." He lifts his eyes. "Except… thank you. For saving my life."
He's done being thanked. He doesn't even feel like he did anything. Screw praise, he doesn't deserve it.
He's too tired.
"Thank you," he returns, "for saving mine." And before James can try drawing any contrasts, he says, "Your family sends their love."
James's eyes become very full. He fingers something in his pocket—prayer beads, Shawn is immediately sure of. He wonders where he got them. Maybe he always had them, but Shawn never saw them because he wasn't ever using them before. He meanders over to the chair next to Shawn's bed and lowers himself down into it. "Are they happy?" he asks, managing to keep his voice steady.
He tries to smile. When did he get so bad at smiling? "Yeah," is all he can muster up. "They are."
James nods, and for a long time, he just sits there, looking at nothing. Mere seconds pass before Shawn takes the cue to do the same. And there they stay, two victims of the same lunatic with two very different stories.
Shawn doesn't feel like it's time to consider how those stories end, or even where they're headed next.
Suddenly, he looks up.
The door swings open.
Two people enter the room.
"Crap," Gus says softly, automatically, when he sees that a visitor is already present. However, he is the only person in the room who cares about that rule at the moment, because the person he's supporting, wearing a hospital gown, skin just as pale as his own and golden hair falling into her face… is her.
"Oh my God" escapes Shawn's lips, and he raises both his arms towards her, a more dramatic gesture than any he's made since he woke up, and Juliet breaks away from Gus and stumbles the short distance to his bed, almost literally falling into his arms.
He holds her tighter than he ever has, smelling her hair, feeling her breath on his ear. She feels cold and fragile and a moment ago that was exactly how he felt himself, but now he just wants to keep her protected in his arms for the rest of his life. She's crying even though she told herself she wouldn't, and as he touches her, taking in her thoughts and emotions, all her fear and desperation and weakness and relief, he finally finds in himself the strength to cry too.