Time-Line Setting: Set during season one, after the fight Shawn had at school.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with anyone who does.
Shawn felt sick to his stomach as he walked down the pavement. His mind was spinning, reeling, throwing words like 'freak' and 'weirdo' at him. He had tried to drown them out but he couldn't. It was impossible because he believed in them himself. He wasn't normal; he wasn't like any other person. He wasn't sure that he was even ordinary compared to the rest of the returnees. He had powers; he had revived a bird and, now, almost killed a man because he had felt angry.
He didn't know what was happening to him. This wasn't the person he had been when he left. He had been happy-go-lucky, doing nothing but relaxing at home, going out with friends and, occasionally wondering about what the future would hold for him. Now his life was entirely different, unrecognisable from what it once was.
Home life was hell; he had thought that he would bring his family closer together by returning. His mother surely believed that, making small talk over the dinner table whilst Danny glared at him, never saying with his mouth that he agreed with what people were saying about Shawn, but saying it with his eyes every time he glanced at him.
Kyle was in a coma and the rest of his friends had either deserted him or gone to college. He knew that he was being blamed for what had happened on the beach that night. Not just by his uncle but by people at school who had been friends with Kyle, who missed him.
And as for planning for the future, he had no idea where it was going to take him. He had been going to go to college, get a job, possibly settle down but now all that seemed ridiculous. There was too much prejudice against the returnees in general that he didn't know how he would get a job or a woman if they knew the truth about him.
It had been so much easier before, although at the time he had never realised it. Now, he would have given anything to have everything back to how it was.
The sound of laughter brought him out of his stupor and he found himself aware of his surroundings again. He was on a bustling street, melding invisibly into the crowd. Over the road he could see the opening to a park. That had been the source of the laughter, a group of young children playing soccer near the entrance. He felt his heart ache when he saw them; they reminded him of when he was younger, when Danny had been his brother rather than his enemy.
He was about to move along when he saw the ball fly out of the park and into the road. He saw a young girl run out of the entrance. He shouted for her to stop but it was too late. There was the horrific sound of car brakes screeching, followed by a high-pitched scream and then, silence.
Nobody moved, every single person on the street and every car in the road had frozen solid. Shawn found his brain instantly lose track of what he had been thinking about. It was as though he had just woken up from a dream, he felt detracted from the scene, from the sight of the child crumpled in the road.
Then the noise started up again. People were screaming, crying, struggling to find their mobile phones to call for help. The driver of the car got out, his face pasty and his hands shaking, he looked at the sight in front of him and began pleading with the crowd that it had been an accident that she had just run out, he had tried to stop but he didn't have enough time to.
A woman had gone from the pavement into the road and had crouched down beside her body. She checked her for breathing and heartbeat but it was obvious that there was not going to be any. The child was lying at an angle that would have made it impossible for her to have survived. Her legs and head were twisted, facing away from her torso and as the woman stood up she declared her as having a broken neck.
Suddenly Shawn lost the smothering, clouded feeling and his mind flashed back to the bird he had rescued. He pushed his way through the mass of people and knelt down next to her.
He placed one hand on her head and one on her stomach. He didn't know what he was doing, didn't know how his powers worked but he felt obliged to try. If he was a freak, maybe he was a freak for a reason.
He could see that more and more people were gathering on the street but he tried to block them out of his mind, to focus on the task at hand. He felt his arms beginning to tingle and closed his eyes. The more he focused, the more powerful he felt.
"What the hell are you doing?" The voice jolted through Shawn, making him lose his concentration and the sensation that had been flooding his arms disappeared. He looked around and he could see Danny standing there, his face a mixture of confusion and disgust.
He turned back to the child and again tried to revive her. He couldn't think about Danny right now, there were more important things to do. He would deal with him when it was over.
He hadn't been expecting the kick to his back or the punch to his head that sent him sprawling, forcing him to lose contact with the body. His body rippled with pain as he turned around. Danny was the only person near him, the only one who could have attacked him.
Shawn tried to regain contact with the body but felt his back get kicked again, this time accompanied by Danny's cry of "she's just a kid Shawn!" Shawn tried to block Danny out; he could explain later, he just needed to save her first. He needed this, needed to find a reason for his powers other than to harm people.
His hands connected and he poured all his strength into her. His arms felt like they were on fire and he could see her eyelids begin to flutter.
"Get off her Shawn!" Danny's hands were around his neck and shoulders now, trying to tear him away. "Stop hurting her!"
It was then that Shawn realised what was happening, Danny thought that he was hurting her, trying to kill her, like in the fight at school. Sadness washed through him that his own brother could think he would stoop so low, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. Her smallest finger was beginning to twitch. Desperate to rescue her, he stopped struggling against Danny in an effort to devote more strength to her.
Danny took this opportunity to rip Shawn away. Her finger stopped twitching, her eyelids were fluttering less and less, and she was slipping away again. Shawn tried to move towards her, tried to pull himself apart from Danny who was refusing to let him go.
The first time his head collided with the pavement, Shawn hardly noticed it had happened. He still tried to move forward. The same thing happened the second time, and the third time. The fourth time he was starting to feel it, but it still didn't measure up to the importance of saving her.
The fifth time, however, he felt his body crumble and his limbs go limp. He closed his eyes as an immense wave of pain and sadness swept through him and he stopped struggling.
When the police arrived a few minutes later they got conflicting reports. Some members of the crowd said that Shawn had been trying to save the girl, others that he was trying to hurt her.
The only thing that anyone was sure of was that the ambulance had taken two bodies back to the hospital.