Chapter 11

Upon arriving at the police station, Gus wasn't surprised to find that Chief Vick wasn't there yet. If it was him, Gus would have wanted to cool off too, before he came back to work. Unless of course Chief Vick was done for the day. Then her not being back would make even more sense.

Since the chief wasn't there, and Lassiter wouldn't help him even at gun point, Gus waited for Juliet to come so that he could pass the case file, and job of talking to Shawn, over to her. Fortunately Gus only had to wait fifteen minutes for Juliet to come up from the records room.

When she saw Gus standing by her desk, the file still in his hand and no Shawn in sight, her countenance fell.

"He's not back yet, is he?" Juliet asked sadly.

Gus shook his head. "Afraid not," he said.

"Well what happened?"

"Nothing good. I may very well have made things worse. I think you should try talking to him," Gus said, handing the file over to Juliet.

Juliet looked down at the file in her hand.

"I'm not off for another half hour," she said, looking up at Gus, "where do you think Shawn will be at that time?"

"Home," Gus said with certainty.

"Okay," Juliet said, setting the file on her desk, "I'll go and talk to him as soon as I can go."

"Thank you," Gus said. Then instead of going home, he just sat off to the side. He wanted to be around when Juliet came back. He wanted to know everything as soon as possible.

DoodleDoodleDoodleDoodleDoodleDoodleDoodle

Once Juliet's shift was over, she went straight to Shawn's house. He was needed back at work, and soon. Shawn's absence was not boding well with anyone at the precinct. They were all so used to him, that it was strange and empty with him gone. Everyone missed him. Well...not everyone. Detective Lassiter couldn't have been happier. And he didn't think twice about voicing his opinion that everything was better with Shawn gone.

When Juliet reached Shawn's apartment, she didn't bother to stop and think about what she was going to say. She felt that she would do better in convincing Shawn, when what she said came straight from the heart and wasn't rehearsed.

Juliet knocked on the door three times and then waited...and waited...and waited. Confused, she knocked again, this time louder, figuring that Shawn hadn't heard her the first time. Again she waited. Hadn't Gus told her that Shawn would be home? Juliet started to knock again, but was cut off by a voice coming from the other side of the door.

"Yes?" the voice asked.

"Shawn, is that you?" Juliet asked, talking loud enough to be heard through the door.

"What do you want?" Shawn's tired voice asked.

"I wanted to talk with you. Can I come in?"

For a moment nothing happened, but then the door slowly swung open. Smiling a little, Juliet stepped inside and gasped. Although she had never been in Shawn's house before, she had never imagined that it would be so clean. The walls were so white that it looked like they had been newly painted. The carpet didn't have even the smallest scrap of paper on it. The coffee table was clear of everything except a few stacked coasters, and was polished to the extent that Juliet could see her reflection in it.

"Wow," Juliet said, "I never would have imagined your home to be so clean."

"You said that you wanted to talk to me," Shawn said, shutting the door.

"Uh, yeah. I..." Juliet turned to look at Shawn, for the first time, and gasped. Even if she hadn't become so used to his new, slick, appearance, he looked bad. His dirt-stained clothes were disheveled and wrinkled; he looked more tired than she had ever seen him; and his hair, though still slicked back in some places, was also sticking up in others.

"You what?" Shawn prompted.

"You don't look well," Juliet said, her concern obvious.

"Well yeah...I had a fight with Gus," Shawn admitted.

"About the case?" Juliet guessed.

"Not you too," Shawn groaned.

"You used to be happy," Juliet said. With how bad Shawn looked, she hadn't the heart to start in on him, about some case.

"I'm happy now," Shawn said, rubbing his eyes.

"You don't look it."

"Well everyone has their off days," Shawn snapped.

"You don't have to," Juliet said softly.

"What?"

"Well, happiness is a decision you make. If you choose to, you could be happy all of the time."

"What, so you're saying that if I'm miserable, then it's my own fault." Shawn demanded in an angry growl.

"No," Juliet said, horrified. That wasn't even close to what she had meant. "What I mea–"

"No," Shawn interrupted, "just...get out. Just...please, go."

"Okay," Juliet said quietly, but before she left, she placed the case file on Shawn's coffee table.

A/N: Sorry that the chapter's so short. I had a choice of whether chapters 10,11, and 12 should be one long chapter and three short ones. As you can tell, I picked the latter and you will be getting chapter 12 shortly. Don't forget to review. :D