Part 2:

Once More, With Healing

An unwelcome touch, pressure—intensifyingwhatisthat?snake?whatisthat?!—on his penis. Shawn wanted to buck and kick the hands away, stop the progress of a probing alien invasion. He didn't want it, he wasn't ready, he wasn't into it, he couldn't see who was touching him, didn't need to see, didn't matter who because he didn't want that touch getawaygetawaygetaway GETAWAY. The hands left, but the pressure stayed.

…

They were coming. Shawn could see them moving, floating, standing, out of the corner of his eye. They were waiting—waiting for him to close his eyes. They wanted him to close his eyes so they could approach him, take his blood. They were going to take his blood and his organs and his eyes and take them away from him and he wouldn't have anything left but bones and skin and there would be nothing left of him. So he refused to close his eyes. He fought the drugs they pumped into him. They all looked the same, blurry shadows standing at the edges moving, floating, standing. Waiting.

…

A man in a suit was talking to him. "You're in the Intensive Care Unit," he explained, slowly and carefully. But Shawn knew it was a lie. The reason he was in a bed, on a ventilator, hardly able to move, was that he had been drugged and kidnapped. It had all started in the Psych office; at least, he thought it was the Psych office, where he'd been abducted. At some point he'd managed to escape but was re-captured and taken to a hospital far outside the country. He knew that he must have done something wrong, to be held with no hope of escape and lied to, but Shawn had no idea what it was.

…

They were peeling him, stripping his skin from his flesh. Shawn tried to escape their clutches, scream for help, move, anything, but he was paralyzed. The buzzards continued circling him, tearing him open, plucking his organs out, even as he sobbed in terror. One finally noticed and took away his eyes so all he saw was blackness.

…

Shawn woke with a raging hangover. What, did he go to Mexico? He definitely needed to lay off the tequila. No más tequilas, gracias, estoy crudo…

He was groggy, sore, and heavy all over, and his head and mouth felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Shawn tried to lick his dry lips, but found that his tongue was too big to move. Dentist visit gone horribly wrong?

He subverted his energy to opening his eyes.

The room was dim, with muted natural light diffusing the darkness to his right. As his eyelids slowly peeled back, feeling gritty with too-long sleep, vision a little fuzzy from dry eye, he saw a little more: he was undoubtedly in the hospital, if the setup was any indication: a whiteboard with staff names scribbled into red-ink rectangles mounted high on the off-white wall, and a reflection of light across a saline bag hanging in his periphery. He pointed his eyes down along the length of the bed, thankful for the pillows that propped up his head and shoulders just enough that he could see that he was bundled under at least two heavy blankets, except for his left arm, which was bandaged like a mummy and resting on a pillow tucked closely to his side. The IV line snaked under the gauze and was held in place with tape. Crossing his eyes slightly, he saw that he was intubated, and briefly marveled at it. How had it been the very last thing he noticed?

Shawn was distracted by a quiet noise to his right, and managed to twitch his head slightly so he didn't have to strain his eyeballs out of his fuzzy skull to see what had caused it. His mother was curled up in the hard-backed chair at his bedside, snoring softly. Her elbow sat precariously on the edge of the armrest, her head leaning heavily onto her fist and wisps of unbrushed blond hair obscuring her haggard, lined face. She looked like a toddler's doll, left crumpled at the edge of the tea table, ready to topple over in an instant. He was slow to realize a second figure sitting in the chair next to his mother. Henry was slumped in sleep, too, his gauze-wrapped arms folded over his chest, chin resting on his collarbone, face in shadows. A stark white butterfly stitch was stuck to his temple, where a jagged red line marred the skin.

A shudder rippled through his core as an unbidden memory flashed into his mind's eye. Shawn quickly tried to shut it down, slamming his eyelids shut, summoning images of tacos and jerk chicken and pineapples and Juliet laughing at something he'd said and Gus giving him The Look, but the memory hit back in full force, and suddenly he couldn't breathe. His lungs shriveled and burned inside him, stomach revolted, bowels clenched, scrotum shrank with the onslaught of anxious fear; he felt hot and cold all at once; his heart was beating so fast and hard it was going to burst like the egg he and Gus snuck into the teacher lounge microwave—he saw the shadow appear behind his father, who was reaching to help him, and Shawn tried to call out to warn him—Look out!—but it was too late—the crowbar was nothing but a gray blur as it came crashing down on Henry's head even as he noticed Shawn's terrified gaze and turned to look behind him—the sickening sound of its impact, the finality of it, the thwunk that could have killed his father right there, Henry bleeding on the rug—blood or brains? blood or brains?—but he's still breathing "Get up!" and he's bleeding but he's still breathing "I said, get the fuck up!"—Shawn tried to roll over and help him, put his hand over the wound to make the blood stop pooling around his head—a rough grasp on his arm forced him dizzily upwards, hot stinking breath in his face yelling commands and he felt paralyzed and sick with fear, couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move—

"…not real. Whatever it is, it's not real, Shawn. It's okay, Goose…"

A familiar voice—his mother's—was talking softly near his ear, a gentle hand stroking his hair back from his sweat-sheened forehead, and then a warm cloth on his face. He desperately took refuge in these sensations. Slowly, his tensed muscles began to loosen, giving way to weak little tremors throughout his limbs that he hated because he wasn't cold and he wasn't scared anymore but he couldn't stop it. So embarrassing—but not as embarrassing as the hot wetness leaking from the corners of his eyes that someone was mopping up for him, ugh…

The breathing machine worked better when his sore jaw stopped clenching around the tube, and he felt his aching lungs expand, receiving the holy gift that was oxygen. As he calmed, his heart rate slowing, stomach moving back into its assigned place, he could hear someone over the low, comforting intones of his mother's voice, and knew a stranger was in the room with them, fiddling with the machinery apparently sustaining his life while he had checked out of Hotel Reality.

He shored up the strength he needed to open his eyes again, and saw his mother give his effort a watery smile before the newfound brightness in the room forced a retreat.

"It's too bright," he heard his mother say.

"Okay," said another woman—the nurse, most likely. "I'll dim it just a bit."

Shawn waited for the footsteps to make their way back to his bedside before he tried again, squinting just in case.

His mother smiled with more relief that time, her body partially obscuring his father, who was hovering silently but anxiously in the background. But Shawn's attention was caught by the nurse on the other side of the bed, who began to ask him annoyingly routine, yes-no questions, like did he know where he was (she answered her own question without giving him a chance to raise his hand—Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, SICU) and was he feeling any pain?

He shook his head to her latter question.

He wanted water. It occurred to him that his mouth was dry, and once that thought appeared it was all he could think about, and his thirst increased with every passing second until he was so desperate that he seriously considered getting out of bed in search of the nearest faucet. Shawn gave the nurse a meaningful look and tried to reach up and point to his mouth, but his left arm felt too heavy, and his right arm was functionally trapped under a blanket.

"I know you're thirsty," the nurse said kindly. "Don't worry, it's normal. But you're on a ventilator, which means you can't drink anything because there's a risk of aspiration. You could accidentally choke. We have you on IV fluids, so you won't get dehydrated, okay?"

Shawn narrowed his eyes at her, took in her Latina features—long dark hair tied back, sunkissed skin, chocolate brown eyes. Her ID badge said Katherine. She seemed trustworthy.

But he was thirsty, and dehydrated or not, he was dying—of dry mouth.

"I know," she said again. "We can swab your mouth with something wet, make you feel better. You won't be able to drink anything, though."

Without waiting for a by your leave, she left and came back a moment later with a handful of large foil packets, which she set on the overbed table, retaining one to open.

"Mom, Dad," she said, "this is something you can help with if you want."

Shawn's eyes darted towards his parents, who both shifted into attention. Jeez, he wasn't a helpless little baby…oh. He sort of was. Well, he was grateful everyone in the room had the tact to not mention that little episode he'd had a moment ago.

Katherine, using newly gloved hands, tore open the foil and revealed the stick ends of three long cotton swabs. She pulled one out and set the packet down.

"Okay," she said. "Shawn, can you open your mouth for me? I'm going to start with the inside of this cheek, get it all moisturized for you."

She showed Henry and Maddie how to use the swab, one for each side and another for the rest of his mouth, including his tongue. Shawn resisted the urge to suck the wetness from the cotton, instead allowing the nurse to carefully paint every square centimeter of his oral cavity. He closed his eyes and tuned out her warning to be careful around his stitches—now was a time to relish the relief, not worry about scars—and her suggestion that they can give him as much Chapstick as they wanted. He was fine with that, as long as it wasn't cherry-flavored. Katherine said to try not to swab him every fifteen minutes, that "He needs to rest. Try to not remind him of something we can't completely fix right now. We will do everything we can to make him as comfortable as possible. He's going to have thirst no matter what we do. A lot of medications we give cause thirst. Narcotics do it, even anesthesia. So, even giving him a little water won't do anything. He has to learn to go along with it."

Great. Shawn was already thirsty again, and here's Katherine saying to let him suffer. What kind of nurse was she?! A terrible one. He didn't like her so much anymore. What a bitch.

Someone lightly touched his hair and he jerked away, annoyed, before belatedly realizing it had been his mother's hand. He couldn't apologize by leaning into it because she had already withdrawn. Oh well.

But despite the discomfort, his bone-deep exhaustion was pulling him towards sleep. Since he knew he wouldn't convince anyone to break the nurse's dumb rules, he let sleep engulf him, the low chatter of Katherine's voice fading.

…

Shawn learned later that that had been the first time he had been awake for more than a minute or two and had been able to recognize where he was and who was with him, the first time he had been able to understand and attempt to communicate with the nurse. Of all people, it was Detective Carlton Lassiter, whose purpose for visiting Shawn was unable to ascertain unless it was because the man actually cared for him, who had filled in some missing pieces for him:

One of Henry's neighbors had witnessed the kidnapping and called 911, but by the time the SBPD had arrived, the abduction had already taken place. Henry and Shawn's phones, wallets, and keys were left in the house. The neighbor had not seen the plate number of the van that had squealed out of the driveway and careened down the street, narrowly missing mailboxes. Of course police had combed the house for clues, as well as both their past cases for any possible suspects, but they had come up with nothing. Within twenty-two hours, however, a park ranger in Los Padres had contacted them about Henry's SOS, and they had converged upon the area. No sign of the van, but the culprit was found dead, and one victim dying.

While Henry was stuck riding an ambulance to the nearest hospital, Shawn had been airlifted, and police secured the scene, an abandoned ranger station left outfitted with a ham radio in case lost hikers found their way to it. Aboard the chopper, Shawn had suffered a seizure and vomited, aspirating it into his lungs before medics had been able to turn him on his side, which led to the development of his pneumonia, and the reason for his intubation. Doctors had kept him sedated since he was in and out of surgery for the first several days—surgical intervention for a fractured cheekbone, stitching together the many lacerations across his back as well as a deep cut on the inside of his cheek and the split on the back of his scalp, debridement and grafting of his burns—and all the rest—his trauma- and drug-induced bouts of paranoia, ICU delirium, feverish attempts to pull out his respirator and tear off his bandages and escape—Shawn didn't hear because he fell asleep, and when he woke up again Lassiter had been replaced by Gus.

Since being weaned off sedation, Shawn experienced many more firsts, like the first time he was awake for a bandage change. Well, the first time he was awake and didn't think he was being skinned alive by vultures—this time he understood that the nurses were taking care of him. But still, he couldn't help the feeling that it was happening all over again, couldn't stop the traumatic memories from overwhelming his rationality. The sobbing gave him an excuse to squeeze his eyes shut; he couldn't even bear to look at himself, to see what Burgess had done to him—the horrible mass of butane burns, the uneven myriad of lacerations and still-yellow-blue-purple-black-brown-green bruises left over from bony fists and a rubber whip. He couldn't stand the sight of any of it. So he closed his eyes and tried to pretend he was anywhere else but here or there.

And when it was over, Shawn pretended that his bad reaction had been because the staff had forgotten to replenish his morphine drip, and he refused to look at the abundant supply of it being steadily delivered into his system via the IV.

…

Shawn received a steady stream of visitors, and gifts from those who weren't able to come as often as they wished they could. Maddie and Gus were of course veritably omnipresent, and Juliet visited when she had the time off. Sometimes she managed to drag Lassiter along. Henry seemed to try to avoid Shawn whenever possible, though his mother always seemed to have an excuse ready: his father's medications made him too groggy; Henry had gone down to the station to give his statement; he had gone fishing for local halibut so he could cook up a treat for Shawn when the ventilator finally came out; Chief Vick had called him and asked for help on a case; Henry wanted to clean the house in preparation for Shawn's eventual discharge, etc. Shawn tried not to think about it.

Instead, he looked at all the colorful things nurses would deliver to his room, which his visitor of the day would pack up and deliver to his dad's house for safekeeping. There was always an influx of flowers, cards, candies (which he couldn't even eat) and well-wishes (Get well soon! See you around, Shawn! Hope you feel better. Hurry and get better!) from various people he'd known over the years—coworkers, clients, one-night stands, the churro guy. He even received a small white unaddressed envelope with just a penny in it. People brought him books and magazines (the Jonas Brothers are making a comeback? Psh!) to entertain him when he wasn't swimming through drug-induced slumbers. Gus brought his laptop and some DVDs to marathon—they watched CHiPs and Knight Rider, and were planning their next binge. Maddie had also brought him his phone, which he used to watch YouTube videos when he couldn't sleep after visiting hours and to respond to personal well-wishes. When Juliet spent time with him, she brought updates on the crime community and the latest bullpen gossip, and Shawn would sometimes be clearheaded enough to make leaps of logic about cases and people that astounded her, scrawling short notes on the mini whiteboard Gus had bought him.

The whiteboard continued to be useful even after he was extubated. His throat was sore, but also the inside of his cheek—the side with the stitches—got in the way of his teeth if he wasn't careful while speaking, resulting in teary bouts of pain when he accidentally bit down. Sometimes people had trouble understanding his croaky voice, and his abrupt changes of topic and occasional drugged slurring made it all the more difficult to decipher his speech. Except for Henry, who seemed to have been a dentist in a past life, though his visits were rarer than most.

When Shawn was moved out of SICU and into a more private room, Henry's visits become a little more frequent, and the younger Spencer slowly came to realize that his father must have hated the SICU more than he wanted to support Shawn—which he could understand, given his own experiences with the delirium and what was probably, at that point, PTSD. It was hard not to think of any gathering of more than three medical professionals as a kettle of vultures. But as Shawn and his voice regained strength, the more doctors weaned him off the narcotics, and he had fewer nightmares and panic attacks. Always a plus.

But as lucidity and coherence reigned, anxiety increased as well. He worried about scarring. A few times Shawn had tried to use the front-facing camera on his iPhone as a mirror, but each time he found he couldn't bring himself to actually look. When he asked his mom if it was bad, she responded that it wasn't—but also said that if the scars bothered him, they could always opt for cosmetic surgery when he healed up. So Shawn wasn't sure how bad bad was.

Shawn also worried about when the police were going to ask for his statement, and how much information they would want Shawn to divulge. One of his first spoken questions since hospitalization, he had asked his father, who replied that Chief Vick was keeping the hounds at bay until Shawn was well enough.

Which didn't make him feel any better. I mean, 'hounds at bay'? he thought, mentally shaking his head.

Shawn spent a few weeks being poked and prodded to ensure that his burns in particular were healing correctly, being helped to roll over so his back could heal, using bedpans, and pretending that he was okay. A physical therapist came every other day to stretch him out like taffy. His strong but gentle hands would guide Shawn's limbs into gymnastics positions, always stopping just short of breaking bones—or so it felt. The exercises were painful, but Shawn did his best to bear them out, knowing that if they weren't done, his scars would tighten and result in limited mobility. Sleeping after PT sessions was the easiest way to avoid the pain associated with flexing aching, searing muscles; so Shawn took to lying still and at least pretending he was tired, though usually he was and often drifted off into dreamland.

As the days progressed, he became livelier and more involved in conversations, back to making 80s pop references and quips. And still it wasn't until his last day, the day before discharge, that someone from the SBPD came to take his statement.

That someone was Lassiter.

When he came Shawn was sitting up in bed, idly doodling on the whiteboard. A dinosaur couple were having a picnic under a starry sky, one commenting that they had picked a great night to watch the meteor shower. A huge red scribble, their impending doom, approached from one corner. Lassiter raised an eyebrow at it but said nothing, waiting for Shawn to finish his masterpiece and look up.

Shawn capped his marker and glanced toward the door, expecting Juliet's arrival.

"It's just me today, Spencer," Lassiter said. "Chief Vick sent me to take your statement."

Talk about dropping a bombshell, Shawn thought. But if he was startled his face made no indication.

When he said nothing, Lassiter cleared his throat. "Someone else can come and take the statement if you're uncomfortable."

"Your bedside manner has dramatically improved, Lassie." Shawn smirked. "Maybe I should get kidnapped more often if this is…" He trailed off at the awkward pinch between Lassiter's eyebrows. This time Shawn cleared his throat. "Have you already taken Henry's statement?"

"Yes. He stopped by the station three weeks ago. We need yours. It's possible you saw something Henry and the neighbor missed. It would help us catch the perp."

"Perps," Shawn corrected automatically, enunciating the plural. Then he remembered that one of them was dead, and that was why Lassiter had used the singular.

Lassiter sat back and pulled out his notepad and clicky-top pen. "How many attackers?"

"Two."

He nodded, frowning slightly. "Can you walk me through what happened that day? Start at your father's house," he said, before Shawn could start singing "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan or "When Will My Life Begin?" from Disney's Tangled.

Shawn sighed dramatically and tossed the marker up with a spin. Instead of catching it, it hit his hand and careened off the edge of the bed, clattering on the floor. Shawn grimaced with disappointment, and Lassiter looked unimpressed.

"You're at your dad's house," Lassiter prompted.

"Yeah, fine," Shawn said. "Unwillingly, I might add. He forced me to have dinner with him at his house in exchange for my old baseball cards. I think I have a 1983 Tony Gwynn somewhere. So, of course, we start arguing, and I try to escape—er, storm out. Right when I walk through, BLAM! Tasered. Next thing I know, my dad is army crawling toward me with his gun, but a guy comes up behind him. Smashes his head in with a crowbar. BOOM! Out cold. KO'd. Fatality. The other guy comes in through the front door and closes it, and he points a gun at me, like, 'Get up!'"

Shawn extended his arm, fingers in the shape of a pistol, and sneered, acting out the abduction as Lassiter solemnly watched and took shorthand notes.

"I tried to stop the bleeding but they wouldn't let me," Shawn continued, still holding the imaginary gun to someone's head. "They made me empty my pockets first, then my dad's. I had to comply, but I hid Henry's pocketknife. I only pretended to pull everything out. They didn't check. They didn't notice. But Henry still had his pocketknife in the left pocket.

"Then they made me help carry him out to the van in the driveway. He's super heavy. But they yelled at me like it's my fault the man ate a whole rack of ribs and a baked potato with all the toppings. After we climbed into the back of the van, they tied us both up and locked us in. It was kind of dark. No windows. They got in the front and peeled out of the driveway. Probably did a couple of donuts, by the feel of it."

"Can you describe the attackers?"

Shawn rubbed his nose. "One was masked the whole time. He was in charge. The other dude was some jerk on steroids—or heroin—who smelled like onions and looked like Steve Buscemi."

Lassiter scribbled. "Can you describe the van?"

"Gray. Windowless. Dent on the bumper. License plate 6TRJ244."

The detective looked surprised. "That's…very helpful, actually." He repeated the plate number back to make sure it was correct. "Okay. So you were abducted from Henry's house, taken in a van. Did they make any stops before Los Padres?"

Shawn shrugged. "Stop lights, I guess."

"What happened next?"

"Drove for a long time. I tried to wake my dad up, used my plaid shirt to try and stop the bleeding on his head. But he couldn't stay awake for more than a minute or two. Then we were at the shack. Cabin. Place. Whatever. They made me help carry him inside. Then they tied me to the radiator and gagged me. After they tied Dad in the chair, they left. I don't think it was too long after that that he finally woke up."

"And what did he do?"

"Tried to get free. I tried to warn him about the camera in the room, but nooo. Anyway, he kept moving, so the baddies knew he was awake, which is what they were waiting for…Wait. Why don't you just use the camera footage? Why do I need to give my statement?"

"It wasn't recording. There was just a display."

Shawn visibly deflated.

Lassiter resisted the urge to cringe. "Sorry…Do you need a few minutes?"

The younger man shook his head, rubbing the tip of his finger along the slightly raised scarring on his wrist.

"Better to get it over with, right? Like ripping off a Band-Aid."

"Sure."

"Buscemi guy came and revealed his identity. Typical evil monolog, sob story. Freaky stuff."

"What about the masked man?"

"He wasn't there anymore. I don't know if he left or what, but I only saw him again once—well, twice, actually, when Buscemi guy took me out and back inside again."

Lassiter waited for him to continue, then gently—as was possible for him—prompted him, "Can you take me through what happened at the ranger station?"

"You mean how I got my boo-boos?"

"Yes," he conceded the terminology.

Shawn touched his hair and face uncomfortably, as though he were itching but reluctant to scratch, fingering the surgical stitches near his temple where they had fixed his cheekbone. Lassiter was strangely patient. It was a little irksome. He felt the childish urge to push Lassiter's buttons, but he was honest-to-god drawing a blank. That wasn't supposed to happen. Usually he could get on the detective's nerves in a matter of seconds—all he had to do was enter a room or breathe in his general direction—a snide comment, an annoying quip, an animal noise—something. What the hell?

Out of the corner of his eye, Shawn noticed Lassiter tug at his tie. So, he was feeling the heat, too.

"I can come back later," Lassiter offered. "Or send someone else, if you'd prefer."

A strand of an idea niggled in his mind. Shawn grasped at it. "There was a camera in the room. You could just find the footage."

Lassiter blinked, shook his head slightly. "There is no footage," he said. "It wasn't recording, only displaying a picture on a monitor in the other room."

Shawn felt like they had already gone over that. "Oh." He sighed. "Okay, look, there's not much to tell that the evidence photos and my dad don't. The guy beat me up, he—we—he, like, whipped me with something, and then he flambéed my ass."

He picked at his blunt nails. As soon as they had grown out a little, his mother had filed down the ragged edges, which kept snagging on his blankets and sending sharp pains down his fingers and into his arms and up to shoulders. Why did they have to keep the hospital so cold that he needed the kind of blankets that caught his nails, anyway?

"How did your dad get free?"

Shawn relaxed a modicum at the question, coming back to less horrible territory.

"Buscemi guy left me unattended, so I dragged myself over to him and got his pocketknife out, gave it to him. Dad cut himself free, I guess. I was a little too busy impersonating a crème brûlée. Don't remember anything after that, really."

"Okay. Spencer, can you think of anything that might help us find or identify the missing perp? Now we have a plate number to run, but he could have ditched the van first chance he got."

Shawn started to shake his head, but then stopped, suddenly remembering something. He subconsciously lifted a finger to his temple, eyebrow cocked.

Masked man extends the gun, pointing it directly at his head. His shirt sleeve rides up slightly, revealing mottled skin.

"The masked guy," he said. "He has a skin condition. The kind the one model has."

Lassiter stared at him blankly.

"Uhhh…Blotchy skin. Different colors. Like those stupid sexy jeans that kids wear with the holes everywhere and all splashed up with bleach."

Recognition sparked in blue eyes. "Vitiligo?"

"Gesundheit."

"No, it's…"

Lassiter whisked out his phone, typed into the browser, and turned the screen so Shawn could see the Google Images results, which displayed several profiles and hands exhibiting the contrasting pigmentation.

"Oh, yeah, that," Shawn said.

The detective wrote it down. "Could you see the color of his skin? Dark, light?"

"A bit of both. That's what vertigo means."

"Vitiligo. I mean, which one seemed predominant? Could he have been African American, Caucasian?"

Shawn considered the question, searching his memories for any other flash of skin, the shape of his face behind the ski mask, anything.

"Dunno…But he smokes Marlboro cigarettes and has a small pet—maybe a cat."

Lassiter frowned and opened his mouth, but then shakes his head as though to say he gave up on how Spencer deduced such trivial information. Shawn counted it as a win.

He shifted with discomfort, pinching the blankets and raising them a couple of inches to take pressure off his burns. It was especially uncomfortable around the crease of his groin.

Of course, Lassiter noticed. "If you remember anything else," he said, flipping his notebook closed and pocketing it, "you have my number."

"So call you maybe?"

"Please don't start singing."

"I wasn't going to."

Before taking his leave, Lassiter went to the other side of the bed and wordlessly retrieved Shawn's marker for him. Shawn waited until he was gone to erase the whiteboard with the corner of his blanket, then began a new drawing.

…

When Henry arrived a few hours later, Shawn was drowsing on the reclined bed, lying on his side and supporting his head on his arm. He opened his eyes and watched sleepily as his father took the seat on the side of the bed he was facing and opened a kaleidoscope-colored canvas tote bag that Shawn knew belonged to Maddie. Henry pulled some Tupperware and utensils out and placed them on the overbed table, which he pulled closer to himself. Although his arms had healed, the new skin was still tight and his muscles ached if he stretched too far. He could definitely use a couple of Shawn's PT sessions.

Shawn could smell the food through the plastic, and saw it through the condensation inside. "Ooh," he murmured. "Pork chops. Is this to celebrate my last night in this torture chamber?"

Henry snorted. "I made too much for your mother and me and she insisted I bring the rest to you. Always gets her way."

Which Shawn knew was Henry's way of saying that he had cooked enough for Shawn and insisted that Maddie take a shower and get an early night while he delivered.

"You up to eat now?" Henry asked gruffly.

Shawn prodded his stomach in inquiry. "I could eat," he said, when he did not receive a negative from his body.

While Henry set up his plate, Shawn rolled gingerly onto his back in a slow, practiced manner, and then found the button to raise the bed. He moved his head pillow down to the foot of the bed and adjusted his back pillow for better support. He shifted his burned leg to the side, trying to avoid painful, quasi-inevitable friction. Once he had situated himself, Henry swiveled the table within easy reach for him and handed him a fork.

The pork chops, doused in gravy, had already been cut into bite-sized pieces for him and the corn had been sliced off the cob. Green beans and carrots were also on the plate.

Shawn's mouth watered. A home cooked meal was always an improvement on the prison food they served in the hospital. No contest.

He dug in.

Henry sat back comfortably in his chair, pulling his reading glasses and a fishing magazine out of the tote bag. As he rifled through in search of his place, he warned Shawn to slow down or he'd be in the hospital for another week with an upset stomach.

Shawn slowed, but only to talk. "Lassiter came by earlier."

"Yeah?" Henry licked his finger and turned a page.

"To take my statement. Finally."

Henry nodded, having already deduced the reason for the visit.

"He seemed surprised," Shawn said between bites. "When I said there were two perps."

A crease appeared between Henry's eyebrows, and his gaze shot up over the magazine to meet his son's eyes. "What do you mean?"

Shawn looked at him incredulously. "What do you mean? There were two guys. Like, the whole time. Buscemi guy doesn't smoke, remember? But it smelled like cigarettes. The other guy."

Henry's mind reeled, and the mention of the cigarettes sparked his own memory: there had been a red-white pack of Marlboros on the kitchen counter. Annoyance at his own oversight hardened his frown.

"But, anyway," Shawn shrugged, "I guess they'll find him. He had vertigo."

"What?"

"It's a skin condition."

"I think you mean vitiligo, kid."

"I've heard it both ways."

Henry rolled his eyes and snapped his magazine open.

Shawn ate his dinner.

When he had finished, Henry packed everything up again and fetched the pillow Shawn had tossed to the end of the bed. He gruffly waited to make sure Shawn was comfortable before picking up the bag.

"Your mother and I will come pick you up tomorrow morning. Don't sleep in."

Shawn grinned. "Or what? You wouldn't leave me here."

Henry scoffed as he passed the threshold, lifting a hand in farewell.

Alone, Shawn decided to call it an early night. He really was tired, after all…