A/N: I wrote most of this ages ago but couldn't figure out what to do with it until now, and I finally decided to just post it as a stand-alone scene.
Title comes from Billy Joel's "A Matter of Trust" (1986), which applied to this scene in TWO ways! I don't own the song, and I don't own Psych.
"O'Hara? O'Hara?" Juliet looked up to find Lassiter standing in front of her desk.
Ever since the breakup, she'd found herself unable to focus at work, her mind overwhelmed with hurt at Shawn's betrayal, guilt and uncertainty over what to do with the knowledge of how he solved his cases, and, above all else, the feeling of missing him, which pervaded everything, tempting her to forsake the other emotions and just go wrap her arms around him now, forgive it all, just so she didn't have to face this longing anymore.
"You didn't hear anything I just said about the Tyson murder, did you?" Lassiter asks.
She shakes her head apologetically, but before she can actually apologize, he looks at her suspiciously. "You okay, O'Hara? What's going on with you?"
It's new for him to ask questions like that, devoid of their usual harshness, and she almost smiles at his uncharacteristic concern, but she's not sure she's ready to talk, even to her partner. "It's nothing," she says finally, waving her hand. "I'm sorry, let's get back to work."
Lassiter half-turns away, like he's going to walk back to his desk, but instead he surprises her again, turning back to look at her. "It's Spencer, isn't it?" He asks, and his voice is softer than usual, the formerly sharp edges of it sanded down. She's seen a lot of changes in her partner over the last year, after he'd met Marlowe, but this is the one she likes the most—the way he takes the time, now, to check in on her, to be a little less blunt, a little less gruff, to ask questions he probably doesn't want the answers to and have conversations he probably would rather not have. Before, she always forced him into these conversations, pulling him along, but now he sometimes reaches out of his own accord, showing her that he does care, even if it's in a very Carlton manner.
She sighs, hesitating, and then nods.
"You know, O'Hara," he says thoughtfully. "I don't know a lot about you and Spencer. And, don't get me wrong, I don't want to know anything further about you guys. Everything I know about you already, I learned against my will."
She smiles. "But?"
He shakes his head. "But—and I can't believe I'm saying this—I've never seen you as happy as you were with him. And I've never found Spencer less irritating than he was when he was with you."
Juliet looks down, hating the rush of tears that still spring to her eyes whenever she pictures Shawn.
"He lied to me, Carlton," she says, and she hates how her voice still breaks on the words.
"I know," he says, his voice gentle. It's Marlowe's influence, she thinks, again. It's nice.
"I miss him," she says, quietly.
"I know."
She takes a deep breath, trying to clear her head—it's always hard, when she's been thinking of Shawn. Once he's in her head, it's impossible to shake him out of it. It's what's made it impossible for her to concentrate on anything, these days. He's always stuck in her damn head.
She puts her hands down flat on her desk, needing to feel something solid. "I need you to tell me what to do," she says.
"And I've never had a problem doing that," he says, smiling. "You know that. But I can't—I can't tell you how to handle this kind of thing. This decision needs to come from you."
She sighs. "I know, but I don't want to make it. What if I do the wrong thing?"
"You'll figure it out," he says. "I know you will. And I can't make this decision for you, but, well…all I can tell you is that you two—and you know it gives me no pleasure to say this—you made each other better. Well, mostly you made him better, and he still has a very long way to go, but I've never seen you look anywhere near as happy as you always looked with him. And I've seen you happy many, many times. Usually on a stakeout when you're somehow always inappropriately giddy."
She smiles. "Thank you," she says.
"I know you'll figure this out, O'Hara. You'll do the right thing. You always do. And if it helps…you know that I have always wanted to arrest him."
She smiles at him again, but as he walks away, her smile falters, a feeling of uneasiness settling in her stomach. She always did do the right thing, that was the problem. And she hadn't been the one to screw this thing up in the first place. She was just tired of being the one doing the right thing. And yet—she wasn't ready to lie for him. That was the wrong thing, and she wouldn't do it. She couldn't do it, could she?
She sighed, letting her forehead fall until it rested on her desk. There was no one else in the world that could frustrate her quite like Shawn Spencer, and it made her miss him so badly that she wanted to get up from her desk right now and run to him, fall into his arms, forgive him for everything.
But it was also true that her trust had been broken. He had broken it, and he hadn't done that by mistake. He'd known exactly what he was doing, and he'd done it anyway.
Once again, she was torn. It was useless to pretend—even to herself—that she didn't still love him. Of course she did. And no matter what decision she made, she couldn't imagine a day that she wouldn't love him anymore. Clearly, it was useless for her to pretend in front of anyone that she didn't still love him, for that matter, if her conversation with Carlton had been any indication. But loving him wasn't necessarily enough. And what good was love if she didn't trust him?
She wondered if Shawn was thinking about her, wherever he was. He didn't come around the station nearly as often, anymore. He dutifully showed up when the Chief called him in on cases, but he kept a respectful distance most of the time, giving her space, like she'd asked.
She'd caught him with his eyes on her more than once, though. Sometimes he was shy about it, sometimes not, but he never stopped looking at her when they were in the same place. She wonders if he finds falling out of love as unfathomable as she does.
That was the other thing. Yes, Shawn had lied to her-a lie so big she didn't know how to see past it—but she was sure he hadn't lied about everything. She was sure, like Carlton said, that he had never lied about the way that he felt for her.
And she didn't know what to do with that.
She didn't know if she could handle going back to the way things were, although she imagined that they would never be quite the same as they had been before, if she took him back. She didn't know if she was ready yet to be in the same space as him constantly, having to see his face, having flashbacks to the look on his face that night when it all unraveled.
And yet, every morning, she woke up with her hands automatically reaching over to the other side of the bed, desperate for him, wanting the comfort of him.
Every day her heart broke again when her hands only found the empty sheets.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this! It's a bit OOC for Lassie, but that was kind of the point—I wanted him to be a little softer towards Juliet right after the breakup, and I think he does get much softer once Marlowe's in the picture. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!