Five hours later, the trio was still in the waiting room. Gus and Henry had sat mostly static while Juliet made about four trips to the cafeteria. The first two trips were muffin and coffee runs, but the last two were nothing but an attempt to keep her tense mind occupied. She was in the middle of yet another attempt to avoid the situation at hand when she literally collided into it, in the form of Dr. Tillmen exiting the door leading to the operating room hall.

Gus, who happened to look up just in time to see the Dr. approach Juliet and got up to intercept him with Henry following after him.

"How's Shawn," the all asked simultaneously.

"He's alive, but he's still in serious condition. We only just moved him to recovery. And before you ask, yes you may see him, one at time if you please. He's in room two," he stated emotionlessly, pointing to the ominous back door before departing himself.

Without much more thought they walked in silence toward his room, which at this point was not exactly a room, but more like a cubicle. Just like they did before they began to take turns seeing him, going in the same order. However, Juliet had to miss her turn to see him as right before she was about to go in her cell phone rang, telling her that Lassiter was calling. As much as she wanted to, she knew she could not ignore the call so she went further down the hall and flipped her phone open.

"Carlton, what is it?"

"Forensics just finished processing the scene back at the car plant, and I just got the profile back on the perp. Turns out he's the brother of the drug dealer Spencer busted a few months back. How's he doing by the way," Lassiter asked, clearly forcing himself to be concerned about the man for Juliet's sake.

"I don't really know yet, I haven't seen him since he went in for surgery five hours ago but the doctor says he's still in serious condition."

There was a stark silence on the other end of the line, until Lassiter spoke up.

"Alright, I'll handle our next lead, you stay with him."

"What?"

"I have to go, call me when you know something."

She would have been upset at Lassiter basically throwing her off the case for the time being, but at the moment she was thankful that he was not trying to force her to focus on work in what would have been an impossible situation. Not wanting to interrupt anything, but being too anxious to wait any longer, she entered the cubicle.

"Hey Jules," Shawn said obviously still groggy from the anesthesia.

Henry and Gus walked out of the room almost as soon as she walked in, allowing the couple some privacy.

"How are you feeling," she asked, giving him a light peck on his nearly white lips.

"Like my stomach flipped inside out and spilled on the floor."

"Okay, that's disgusting, but at least you're feeling enough like yourself to joke again. Does it hurt?"

"Not so much anymore. I don't know what they've got me on, but whatever it is, it's excellent."

"You know you need to tell me what you want me to cook for you once you can actually eat again."

"Ah Jules, I don't even want to think about food right now."

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

"Jules are you uncomfortable? 'Cause it's okay if you are."

"I shouldn't be. I see things like this happen every day. But to see it happen to you, it's different, it's scary," Juliet admitted.

"It's okay. Everything's fine. I'm fine. With a little luck, I'll get out of here in a couple of days."

"How do you know?"

"Because, if they don't let me out of here in less than a couple of days, I'll escape."

Juliet could not help but chuckle at this, earning a smile from Shawn. Two minutes of aimless chatter later, a team came to transfer Shawn to the ICU. After numerous reassurances from both Shawn and the physician on point that he was not going to die within the next ten minutes Juliet got the room number, and then decided that she should take a minute for another coffee and to update Gus and Henry.