Shawn laid on the side of the road for almost 30 minutes, and was thrilled to see the maroon Crown Vic pull up. He was less thrilled to see the frustrated expression on the driver's face, but the glimpse of concern beneath the surface almost made up for it.

"Shawn, you okay?" Carlton climbed out of his car and headed over to where Shawn was stuck under his bike.

"Yeah, Carly, I told you, I'm fine. Just need a little help getting my bike off my leg."

Carlton walked over and hefted Shawn's bike up, letting Shawn slide out from under it. He propped it up and turned around, noticing Shawn favor his left leg over his right. "You hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. But I need to get home." He moved to climb back on his bike and winced when he jostled his knee.

"You're not getting back on your bike, Spencer. Get in the car, I'll have someone come pick up your bike in the morning."

And they're back to last names again. "I don't need a ride, Lassiter. I just needed a little help. I appreciate it, but I can get myself home."

Carlton walked over to Shawn and gently grabbed his arm, holding him back from getting back on the bike. "Get in the car, Spencer. You just crashed that bike, I'm not letting you get back on it."

"You don't let me do anything, Lassiter; you've made it perfectly clear we aren't anything, so you don't get to try and control me." He yanked his arm from Carlton's grip.

Carlton sighed. "Spencer, just get in the car…please."

With the glow from the headlights, Shawn could see the worry and pleading clear as day on Carlton's face. "Fine. But I have stuff to patch myself up at home. No hospitals." He limped towards the car.

"You said you were fine, why would you need a hospital?" They climbed into the Crown Vic and Carlton drove them to Shawn's apartment. They sat in slightly uncomfortable silence.

The next morning, Gus sat at a table at a restaurant. He's on the phone with a client when he glanced at the Spelling Bee on TV. The Czech boy in on screen spelling out a word. Between each letter he seemed to be waiting for something. There was a closeup of his inhaler and Gus wrote down the doctor's name, after hanging up with his client. Something seemed off about this kid. He got a call.

"Shawn? You're at the hospital?" He waved down a waitress for his check. "What happened?"

Gus met Shawn outside of the main hospital entrance. "What happened, Shawn?" He noticed the knee brace on his best friend's knee.

"Oh, that? Nothing, just got ran off the road last night. We're here to talk to Brendan Vu. I have to be missing something in all of this." He led his best friend inside the hospital and up to the kid's room.

"Ran off the road? What are you talking about?"

"Keep up Gus, I was ran off the road last night, likely by our killer. But I'm fine."

"That limp doesn't look fine, Shawn."

"Trust me, I've had worse."

"Did you get it checked out? Are you just now getting released?"

Shawn stopped walking and turned to his friend. "No, I went home last night. It was a minor accident, and Carly took me home-."

"You called Carlton instead of me?"

"I needed someone that wouldn't freak out on me."

"Is there something going on between you and Lassiter?"

"What? No, Gus, don't be ridiculous."

"Did you call your dad?"

Shawn almost got whiplash at the topic change. "No, why would I call my dad?"

"You got into an accident last night, you should call him to let him know you're okay."

"He doesn't even know I was in an accident."

"Because you didn't call him."

"All he cares about are results just like those possessed spelling bee parents. Now let's go work on our case, okay?" They headed to Brendan Vu's hospital room.

"Brendan appreciates you checking on him," Brendan's mother said. Brendan lied in a hospital bed, with his mother standing next to him and his father residing in a chair behind.

"Well, we were in the neighborhood. And, Gus here is a huge fan. He almost won the spelling bee himself."

They all glanced at Gus in surprise. "I took some bad advice."

Shawn looked around the room and noticed Brendan's inhaler. Looked just like that Czech kid's. Interesting. He turned back to the family.

"Well, Brendan's going home tomorrow. He's fine. He's more upset about missing the spelling bee."

Seemed the mother was more upset than the kid. "Well, maybe they'll decide to redo the whole thing."

They all looked at him in suspicion. "Why would they do that?"

Shawn and Gus head out of Vu's room. Shawn tried to hide how much his knee was bothering him. "Did you see the inhaler?"

"Same one as the little Czech kid?"

Shawn nodded. "Get me a seating chart. I'll bet you I know who Brendan was sitting next to on day one."

"I already checked it out."

"Nice!" They stop walking and Shawn turned to face his friend.

"Shawn, something's going on with that Czech kid."

"Talk to me."

"The doctor on his inhaler, Dr. Zavin, in Ventura?"

"Yeah?"

"He doesn't exist. I do training on that route. The last doctor in the book is Youngerman. I double-checked it today."

"You're saying that inhaler…"

"Is a fake."

Shawn laughed. Everything was slowly falling into place. He turned and started limping away.

"Where are you going?"

"I am going to build a doghouse!" He needed to know what killed Cavanaugh, and he needed to know it now.

Shawn sat on a bucket and worked on the roof of the doghouse. He had already fixed the walls and was now trying to figure out what he did wrong with the roofing the first time.

Henry pulled up in his truck with a coffee. He got out and walked over to his son. "I thought you gave up."

He hadn't given up on anything since he was a teenager, why couldn't his dad have a little more faith? "Yeah, well, it doesn't appear so, huh?"

"What happened to your leg?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Henry noticed Shawn working on the roofing. "You're running your roofing vertical there, huh?"

That's what it looked like, isn't it? "Yeah."

"You might want to pop a ridge beam in first."

Damn it, the ridge beam, that's what he'd forgotten. "Well, yeah, that's a given."

Henry headed into the garage and grabbed a piece of wood. He walked back over and held it in place to be the ridge beam.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm gonna help you."

"You've never helped me before, ever." Shawn couldn't believe what he was witnessing.

"You've never asked. Put a nail in here." Henry pointed to a spot on the beam.

Shawn grabbed the hammer and a nail. "All right. This is weird." He hammered in the nail.

Later, Henry offered his son a beer from the fridge. Shawn shook his head. He stared out the window at the finished doghouse. It wasn't too bad for a day's work.

Henry joined his son at the window and smiled. He was proud to see his son finish something. "Not bad." He headed into the dining room; his son followed.

""Not bad"? It's like the Park Hyatt for poodles. Will you call Jack Syklan?"

Henry grabbed a file folder off the counter and offered it to Shawn.

"What's this?"

"Your results. We had an agreement." Shawn went to grab it but his dad moved it out of his reach. "This is a derivative of methyl parathion. High-grade stuff. Whatever you're into, I want you to get out quick. I'm not kidding." He handed over the file.

Shawn flipped through file. "Wait a sec. How did you get this so quickly?"

Henry sat down and opened his beer. "Hmm? Oh, Syklan's a part of my poker game."

"So you didn't even have to call him?"

"That game was at his house."

"And I did all of that for nothing?"

"For nothing? Shawn, you've never completed a thing in your life. Now, you have."

Shawn didn't even know what to say. His dad knew he was in the military, how could he say he'd never finished anything before. He opened his mouth with a few choice words to say but then thought better of it and left the house without a word.

Carlton was sick of all these shenanigans. There was a 50-50 chance that what Shawn said would actually be useful, if only he could get them the information without making a complete idiot out of himself; though this was more subdued than his normal performances.

"Poisoned?" The Chief didn't believe what she was hearing.

"I feel somebody poisoned his food. There is a Styrofoam container, yes, and a…"Happiness is a golden poem". What?" He motioned with his hand and makes a cracking noise. "A fortune cookie!"

Carlton had had enough. "This is ridiculous."

"Is it?"

Carlton turned and looked at his new partner. She couldn't be serious. Just what he needed, a gullible partner who believed the psychic nonsense.

"Mr. Spencer, what we have now points to a medical condition, not murder. All appearances show Mr. Cavanaugh having an anaphylactic reaction," the Chief pointed out.

Gus put in his two cents. "Not to be out of line, but that could be triggered by several types of poisons or altered medications."

"Or shellfish, which he was allergic to." Carlton mentioned a more likely option.

"Those results will show up in the toxicology report, which we will have a copy of in approximately two weeks."

"No, no, no! Chief, that'll be too late." He stood up. "All the contestants will be gone-." He hit his knee against the chair and paused a second to collect himself. Carlton glanced at Shawn, reluctantly concerned. "Home. You won't be able to finish a real investigation. Chief! I sense this. Look, something got out of control and the perpetrator was willing to kill to cover it up!"

"What proof do you have?"

The room fell silent. Carlton watched Shawn's expression. He knew immediately that Shawn had proof and wasn't sharing it. Damn it, Spencer.

"Only what I feel." Shawn knew his answer wasn't enough.

Carlton was done with this, he needed Spencer to quit hiding stuff from them. "Why are you still listening to this crap?"

"Dude, what is your glitch?"

"You! You are my glitch. You were supposed to be working the inhaler problem, and what do you do? You announce to the press that there's suddenly a murder without any proof! Now you want us to believe a bunch of psychic feelings?" He needed Spencer to be honest. He couldn't work with someone who was constantly full of shit. "Cut him loose, Karen!"

The Chief immediately sent him an annoyed look.

Carlton stepped back. "I mean, do whatever you think is best, Chief."

Gus cut through the sudden awkward moment. "Mr. Cavanaugh was gonna make an announcement. What about that?"

"The Director said he'd recently spoken of retiring," Juliet said.

Shawn knew that wasn't it. "That's not what he was going to say."

"Oh, you know?"

Shawn was done with Carlton's doubt. His tone made that clear. "I know."

"Mr. Spencer, I asked you to check in about the inhaler incident. If you or your partner have anything about that, I'd be happy to hear about it. Otherwise…" She waved the two of them out of her office.

Shawn and Gus walked out of the Chief's office. "We gotta get back into the Spell Master's room."

"Are you serious?" Gus asks.

"Gus, the killer was there! There's got to be some other piece of evidence inside."

They were about to head out of the station, when Carlton exited the Chief's office. "Spencer!"

Shawn sighed. "I'll be out in a sec." Gus nodded and headed out to the Blueberry. He turned to face his ex. "What's up, Lassie?"

Carlton didn't say a word and merely dragged Shawn to a secluded hallway. "Tell me what you know, Spencer."

"I told you everything I know, Lassiter. It's all in here," he pointed at his head. "And if you don't believe me, then I have nothing more to say." He tried to move past Carlton, but was stopped by a hand on his arm.

"Give me something, Spencer. I know you have tangible proof you're not sharing. I can't go on your hunch if I don't know the whole story." He wanted to be more forceful, demand answers, but that'd never worked with Shawn. Not outside of the bedroom.

Shawn was hesitant for a minute. He couldn't blow his psychicness, not to Lassie, not now. But he needed them to listen to him about this. He nodded. "The poison is a derivative of methyl parathion. That's all I can say."

"Why couldn't you say that before?"

"Because it's more…specific than most of my visions are. Didn't want any questions."

Carlton rolled his eyes. At least he was a little honest. "Okay, we'll check it out…How's the leg?" As much as he didn't want to care about Sha-Spencer, he did and could tell he was in pain.

Shawn gave an over the top smile. "Oh the legs practically as good as new. Nothing to worry about. Now I gotta go, Gus gets hangry if he doesn't eat every hour, on the hour." He slipped past Carlton and limped out of the station.

Carlton headed off to tell Juliet to look more into the poison, not at all worrying about Shawn as he does.

2001

Shawn drove up to the house on his bike. The familiar sight was exactly what he needed to see. The mission had ended poorly and they were given a month of leave. What he really needed was to see Lassie. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his home number, not recognizing the car in the drive and wanting to check that it was okay to come up. He was shocked when a woman answered the phone.

"Lassiter residence."

"Uh, hi, I am calling to speak with Carlton."

"He's not here at the moment, may I take a message?"

Shawn didn't want to leave a message, he needed to see Carly. "Who am I speaking with?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, this is Victoria, Carlton's fiancée."

Those words tore at Shawn's heart. Fiancée? He knew he'd been out of touch for awhile, but he thought after two years that they'd had something. Something real. This news just made a bad day worse. Shawn felt like he couldn't breathe, his whole world was crashing down around him.

"Hello? Are you there?"

Shawn jolted out of his thoughts. "Sorry, I'll call back later." He quickly hung up the phone and tried to get himself together. It took him a few minutes, but eventually he was able to climb back on his bike and drive off. Maybe Gus would be happy to see him.

Shawn and Gus snuck into the Spelling Bee by stealing the new Spell Master's jacket, and headed up to the Spell Master's room.

They headed inside and Shawn slammed his knee into the desk. He dropped to the floor with a loud groan.

"Sh!" Gus looked around to see if anyone heard that.

"I'm so sorry if my agonizing pain is inconveniencing you." Shawn looked at the floor and noticed three identical indents in the carpeting. "What's this?"

Gus glanced down. "It's a mark on a carpet. Let's go. Someone must have heard that."

"Thirty seconds. Live to air. Positions, please." A voice came through the speaker on the desk.

"Time's up, Shawn."

Shawn stood up with a grunt and headed towards the closet.

"Did you hear me, Shawn?" The Bee was about to start and they needed to get out of here.

"I've got something!" He pulled a camera and tripod out of the closet and lined it up with the markings on the floor. "Yes!" It faced the back wall. "That can't be right."

"Ten seconds. Prepare the next word." The voice rang out from the speaker.

"It doesn't mean anything, Shawn, let's go."

"Broadcast in five, four, three, two…"

Shawn picked up the camera and turned it. He looked through the lens, but it pointed at an auditorium wall. Nothing of interest.

"Hello? We need the word now. Is everything okay?" The whole auditorium waited for the next word. "Something's wrong. Send security."

Shawn rushed to the speaker and clicked the speak button. "No, sorry for the delay." He turned to Gus. "Give me a word."

"A word?"

"Yes! Something hard, but something you can spell."

Gus looked indignant. "I can spell anything."

"Except "Aggiornamento." Give me one!"

"No! You are not going to be Spell Master."

Is he being serious right now? "Gus, give me a word so we can get out of here! We're so close!"

Gus shook his head and stayed silent.

"Is everything okay up there?" The audience was still waiting for a word.

Shawn spoke through the speaker again. "Everything's fine." He racked his brain for a minute before speaking into the microphone. "Opprobrious."

Gus stared at his best friend in shock. "Where did you learn that word?"

Shawn rolled his eyes and grabbed the camera again, re-positioning it. "It was a word you studied for the spelling bee. Obviously."

"Definition please?"

"What?" Shawn was frustrated. He was so close. He moved back to the microphone. "Something disrespectful, shameful, or disgraceful." He headed back to the camera as the girl thought through the word. "Oh, wait a second! I've got something!" The camera pointed at the Czech father. "Dude, we got him! He was watching the Czech."

"Let me see." He walked over to the camera, shoving Shawn out of the way.

"We need to get to the next word." The audience was once again waiting on Shawn.

Shawn sorted through words again in his head, before speaking into the mic. "Mellifluous."

Gus was once again shocked by Shawn's knowledge. He forgot how smart Shawn was sometimes. They quickly put the camera back and slipped out of the room before the girl finished spelling the word.

Shawn and Gus ducked when the new Spell Master walked by them with security. They waited for him to pass before they walked on into the lobby of the convention center.

"So, he was watching the Czech, we have no proof. There was no film in the camera!" Gus said.

"He was using that lens for something else besides taking pictures. Now, what?" They were still missing something.

"Cavanaugh was known for ferreting out rule breakers. He once caught a kid stealing the advance word list. And everything he did had a purpose." Gus grabbed a pamphlet as they passed a table with them.

They headed inside the auditorium and to two seats, right across the aisle from the Czech father. There were two contestants left at this point, the Czech's kid, Jiri, and another speller.

Gus looked through the pamphlet. "Pfft. Look at this. Brendan Vu went down on "gladiolus.""

"So?"

"So? If I'd been able to see any of the competition, I could have told you that was the winning word from the first spelling bee in 1929."

"Okay, you're scaring me again."

"All of these words from that round were the winning words. They do that once in a while, they make it a theme round. This one won the 1985 bee. This one from 1943."

"Gus, what are you saying?"

"Guess which kid got the winning word from 1953?"

Shawn quickly put it all together. "The Czech kid." Gus nodded. Everything was falling into place. 1953 was written for the Jiri, and Cavanaugh was clearly watching his father. That must mean Gus was right, there was cheating involved. He watched the Czech as his son was given the next word. The Czech opened his dictionary and quickly found the word; he then tapped out Morse code onto his palm. Shawn looked closely and spotted a sensor.

Shawn glanced at the stage and noticed the tight grip the Czech kid had on the fake inhaler. It all made sense. The father tapped out the letters for the kid to say. "I got him."

"Let's call the chief."

It didn't take long for Shawn to make a complete fool of himself in front of the full auditorium. Carlton watched from the side with the Chief and Juliet. His mind drifted when he saw a strip of Spencer's stomach. His gaze drifted upwards and wished for a split second that they were back at Spencer's apartment, maybe he'd stop by again tonight. He heard faintly the Chief talking about Spencer and his comment slipped out without him thinking about it. "Want me to cuff him?"

"Why, why would I want that?"

Carlton shrugged. He could think of a few reasons to cuff Spencer. "Just a suggestion." He quit zoning out and listened to what Spencer was saying.

They listened as Shawn ranted about how Cavanaugh was obsessed with cheating and had discovered that the Czech was cheating. After the Czech got rid of the biggest competition, he got rid of Cavanaugh to prevent being revealed. Leaving the only proof to be the inhaler the kid held in his hand. He then mentioned that the Czech likely drove him off the road last night.

Carlton was shocked. Why hadn't Shawn told him he was driven off the road?

Juliet spoke up when Shawn mentioned finding evidence of the poisons. Preliminary tests had shown that Shawn was right, there likely was poison in the food.

Shawn glanced at Carlton, knowing he had told Juliet to do it, grateful that he had finally listened to him and had the tests run. He waited off to the side as the father and son were taken into custody.

2001

Shawn stood next to his brothers at the funeral. The Hell Hounds watched with heavy hearts as their brother in arms was lowered into the ground. Gus stood in the crowd, there to support his best friend.

After the funeral, the brothers and their families went to their favorite bar to celebrate the life of their lost friend. Shawn was abnormally quiet; he had lost two people he loved in less than a month and he wasn't handling it well.

One of his brothers, Ryan "Cards" Jackson, sat down next to him. "Where's your special friend? I thought you were going to bring him around?"

Don't Ask Don't Tell prevented Shawn from officially dating a guy, but his team had no secrets. His brothers didn't care who he dated, as long as he was happy.

Shawn downed the last of his whiskey. "He's engaged."

"What? I thought you two were serious?"

"So did I, but I guess not. I went back to surprise him, and his fiancée answered the phone."

"Shit, Spencer, I'm sorry." Cards waved down the bartender for another round of shots.

Shawn headed home after Gus quit chasing after him. He knew that giving Gus the wrong letter had been the best option for their future, and he was right! He didn't know why his friend couldn't see that. He passed out on his couch almost immediately, exhausted from running around on this case for days.

Shawn was woken by knocking at his door around 10pm. He grumbled and shuffled to the door, not shocked at all to see Carly on the other side. He was quickly pulled into a heated kiss, and damn it felt good. But he had enough of being used by Lassie for sex. The sex wasn't helping their relationship, not like they had much of one, and maybe that was the problem. Shawn wanted Lassie-frass back in his life.

He broke the kiss and gently pushed Carlton away. "We can't keep doing this."

Carlton took a second for his head to clear. "What, why?"

"Because there's too much hot sauce on the wings and not enough milk in the fridge. I need more milk, Lassie, and if you're not willing to get some more, then you need to stop eating the wings."

Carlton stared at Shawn for a few moments, trying to figure out what he just said.

Shawn sighed. "I want more than just sex, Carly, and if you don't, fine. But then the sex needs to stop…I know you care about me, I can see it. And this sex only situation isn't helping either of us, we're still fighting like crazy, at each other's throats. We should, as much as I hate to say it, talk about us."

A million thoughts race through Carlton's mind, first that Shawn's analogies were ridiculous, yet endearing. Second that he didn't want to talk about feelings right now. Not at all, because he didn't even know what he felt for Shawn. His third thought was to bolt, which is exactly what he did. He turned and left the apartment, once Shawn finished talking, and closed the door behind him.

Shawn stared after Lassie, hoping if he stared long enough that he'd come back. After a few minutes he pushed past the slight heartbreak and headed to bed, he had an early day in the morning, teaching recruits at the nearby military base as punishment for making the papers as a psychic.

Hey everyone! Here's the second episode of the series. So I've had a lot of comments and I appreciate each and every one! I've decided not to do every episode in the series, that'd take forever, but any suggestions for what episodes I should do? Also, I also had suggestions to not do episodes at all and focus more on Shawn and Carlton. Thoughts? I want to write what y'all want to read! I can't wait to hear from you guys! Hope you enjoyed these two new chapters! :)