"Hillee," The sound came out a whisper as her partner fought to stay awake.

"It's going to be okay, Carlton," Juliet whispered into his ear once they got him into the ambulance.

"Ma'am, we're gonna need you to move over there." One of the paramedics who had just lifted Carlton onto the stretcher pointed to a seat in the corner of the ambulance. Juliet sighed and moved down the bench to buckle in.

The belt clicked into place and with it, she let out a breath that she didn't realize she had been holding for the last 20 minutes. What is happening? She stared at her partner, lying completely disheveled on the stretcher. His suit jacket had been removed and his shirt stained with his own vomit had been unbuttoned and moved out of the way.

They had been partners for years, and they had seen each other in every scary situation there was. They had been shot at, and actually shot, together. They had been kidnapped, taken hostage, held at gunpoint. But that was different. There was always a clear enemy. They knew who the threat was and all they had to do to stop the threat was get rid of them. But not now. Because now there was something wrong with Carlton. The problem was inside of him. She didn't know how to fix that. She didn't know how to make it go away. Instead, she was trapped in the corner as strangers moved around her partner, sticking him with needles and hooking him up to monitors.

She knew what some of it was. She had picked up plenty the year she spent in and out of the hospital with cancer, but she didn't realize how truly intimidating it looked when you were watching from the outside. When you were watching it happen to someone you care about? No wonder Shawn had walked on eggshells around her for so long. No wonder Carlton wouldn't look her in the eye for months, even after she was in remission. This could make anyone, even her big, strong partner, look like a child again.

They raced down the highway at record speed and Juliet could see cars stopped along the side of the road through the back window. Get there faster. She willed the ambulance, even if she knew they were driving as fast as they could. Something's wrong!

She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out and read a text message from Shawn about going to the store. He doesn't know anything is wrong. She thought. That nothing will ever be the same.

You don't know that. A more optimistic voice in her heart responded. He could be okay.

Do you see him? The realist in her shouted back. She looked up at her partner. His face looked like someone had taken a candle to the wax figure of his face and melted the left side. His eyes were mostly closed but she could still see them slightly rolled back through slits at the bottom. He was taking uneven breaths into the oxygen mask they had pulled over his face. That's not the face of someone who will be okay.

She looked back at her phone and texted Shawn.

Something happened to Lassiter. Going to Santa Barbara General.

The ambulance swerved to get off the highway and slowed as it turned down a few roads towards the hospital.

"We're almost there." The paramedic who had been on the phone told her. "We'll get him the help he needs."

Juliet just nodded. She couldn't form words. Even if she could, she wouldn't know what words to say.

"Thank y-" She started to say, but before she could finish the ambulance bounced over two speed bumps leading to the emergency entrance. The bouncing must have made Carlton nauseous again because he started coughing and dry heaving. His good hand swung up to his face and he began trying to pull the oxygen mask off his mouth.

"Ish ant reeth!" He slurred, fighting the paramedics who were trying to keep him from rolling off the stretcher in his attempt to sit up.

Just in time, the ambulance came to a stop and the back door swung open. Three more nurses stepped up into the ambulance to help pull it down as one of the paramedics began telling the doctors what had happened.

Juliet stared in horror at the sight of everyone talking loudly and asking questions while her partner fought the hands touching him.

"Carlton Lassiter, age 48, 180 pounds, full code, suspected right-sided stroke."

Suspected stroke.

Before they had even made it all the way off the ambulance, nurses were already swarming her partner- feeling his feet, his wrists, running their stethoscopes across his chest and prying open his eyelids to shine bright lights in his eyes.

"Ssope!" She heard her partner's voice drifting through the swarming crowd.

From her vantage point on the ambulance, she could see her partner's arms flailing around, attempting to free himself from the stretcher. He reached up his hand again, momentarily getting a grip on the tube of the oxygen mask and pulling it off his chin.

"Oshareeh!" She heard him yell. She swore he was calling out to her. He had to be saying her name. Maybe she was imagining things. The voice was broken and mangled, but she could feel it reaching out to her through the crowd and hitting her in the chest like a dagger as she jumped down from the ambulance, attempting to stay with her partner. But they were already whisking him away through the doors.

"Patient is becoming combative," she heard someone say as the others quickly worked to keep him in place.

The last Juliet saw of her partner was his limp hand hanging off the side of the stretcher as they rolled him into the bright lights of the emergency room, grabbing onto his swinging arm and leg to keep him from hurting himself, or someone else. She tried to breathe but the second she inhaled the sterile air of the hospital hit her lungs and made her start gagging. The last time she was here, she was the one being rolled in feet first. She was the one being poked and prodded. She was the one they didn't think would be okay.

Please be okay. Juliet thought as emotions began to leak out of her in aggressive bursts.

Her breathing got quicker, and she ran to the bushes next to the entrance and crouched down before losing her own breakfast in the dirt. She slid her back down the wall of the hospital and tucked her head into her knees, focusing on her breath.

You have to be okay.

"Jules!" She heard. She tilted her head up from her knees and through the blur of her tears, she saw Shawn running to her.

"Shawn," she cried, helplessly.

"Are you okay?" He asked, frantically checking her head, pulling up her hands to his nose to inspect every finger, running his hands down her knees, searching for injury.

"I'm okay," she said between cries, trying to control her breathing. But each time she tried to close her eyes to take a breath, images of her partner being held down flashed across her mind causing her to panic, frantically sucking in air with everything she had.

"Was he shot?" Shawn asked, cautiously, searching for answers in his eyes, but afraid to know the answer.

"No," she said, quietly, leaning into his arms. "But he looked so bad, Shawn. He was vomiting and slurring his words and couldn't hold himself up. He just collapsed right in the middle of the gas station. They think he had a stroke."

Shawn sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a kiss on the top of her head.

"Sweetheart, it's Lassiter." He put his hand under her chin and gently pulled her head up to look at him. "He is far too strong and entirely too stubborn to let something like this get the best of him. He's going to be okay. I know he will."

"He looked so bad, Shawn. He wasn't thinking straight." Juliet closed her eyes and tried to explain but it still didn't make any sense to her. "It was like he was there. I could see him. It was Carlton, but he had been replaced by a clone. He couldn't talk, he couldn't hold himself up. He was swinging his arm around like he was trying to kill someone. The paramedics had to hold him down. They were calling him combative. That's what we call our perps, not Lassiter. What if he doesn't make it?"

Reality was overtaking her thoughts and a sob tore through her throat again, ripping apart any thinly veiled composure she had managed to scrap together. Her lungs felt stiff and the air was frozen in place, refusing to come no matter how desperately she needed it.

Tears fell, blurring her vision, and she could feel snot running down her nose. Her body was falling apart, ripping at the seams of her life that she loved so deeply and her partner who she couldn't live without. Fear and exhaustion were taking over and she no longer had the means nor strength to pull herself together again.

Until Shawn grabbed her again, holding her together, gripping onto her shoulders and whispering in her ear.

"Jules, listen, you can't think like that," He swung her legs around so she was looking directly at him. "You were sick, right?"

Juliet tilted her head. "Yes?"

"You were so sick that I had to follow you through these exact doors one time when we thought you were going to die. I thought that I was going to lose you- my person- forever. That I was going to be alone because you were right here and I thought you were never going to get better. But everyone kept telling me that I couldn't think like that. That I just had to stay positive and you would make it through. And you did. That was five years ago, and you're still here. And you're stronger than ever."

Juliet gave Shawn a half-hearted smile. Sometimes she forgot how hard her being sick had been on him. How much it had shaken him. How much of an effect it had had on who he was now.

"Sweetheart, Lassiter is going to be okay. He has you and me and Marlowe and Li-"

"Oh my gosh! Marlowe!" Juliet cried, jumping up and cutting him off. "I need to tell Marlowe!"

Her hands shaking, she fumbled in her pocket to pull out her phone. Shawn grabbed her hands and caught her eye.

"Wait, I don't think you should call her yet."

Juliet looked at Shawn intensely. "Why not?"

"Because she's going to get in a car and drive here if you call her, and I don't know about you, but I don't want her on the road after hearing this, do you?"

"But she needs to know!"

"I'll go get her. You stay here with Lassiter, okay? Call me if anything changes."

"Thank you, Shawn."

"I love you," he said, kissing her on the temple before running back in the direction of his car.

"I love you too," she said back, watching him leave. She felt nervous for him to go. Scared to go inside alone, but more than that, scared for him. Scared for every person she saw walking in and out of the hospital. Her partner had been fine this morning, and now he wasn't. Now he may never be fine again.

You can't think like that. She repeated Shawn's words in her head. But it was easier said than done.

Ignoring the queasy feeling that still sat like a rock in the bottom of her stomach, she peeled herself off the cement wall and walked slowly into the brightly light hospital wing with the sterile air.

He'll be okay. He has to be. She hopelessly willed the universe.

Much easier said than done.