A/N: sorry for the delay in updating, but I was too busy making sure I didn't get killed by Hurricane Gustav to finish writing this chapter. I hope you forgive me, and won't hurl flaming javelins at me for being late. Barring further significant acts of God; like tornadoes, Hurricane Ike flooding my home, tsunamis, attacking hordes of demons, or a nuclear holocaust, I should be able to update this story every week, on Friday. Obviously you're getting this one on a not-Friday because I messed up. And if you promise not to throw flaming javelins at me, I'll work my butt off to get you the next chapter by this Friday. Deal?

Chapter 3 – Lassiter's Hallucinations

Exactly fifteen seconds after we left off last time:

Detective Carlton Lassiter was definitely having a bad day.

Lassiter nervously edged around the back of the green car, stooping low and sliding his hand into his jacket to reach for his gun. He hoped he wouldn't need it, but he had just almost gotten run over. And, he didn't know whether or not the person in the car was actually his partner nor not. All he knew was that whoever was in that car had almost hit him, then continued straight on forward and plowed into the wall of the parking garage it didn't hit with a lot of force, but it was still a strange sight to see.

Lassiter was ready for anything, a drunken wife beater, a drug crazed homicidal maniac, a serial killer, anything. He snuck along the side of the car, gun now drawn and aimed at the driver's side window. Lassiter suddenly spun forward, aiming the gun directly at the person behind the window. As he turned, Lassiter shouted "Santa Barbara police, hands on your head!"

Lassiter had not been prepared to look into the window to see his partner in the driver's seat of the car, staring straight ahead with her hands clamped on the steering wheel. Juliet looked like she'd been thrown off a cliff, her eyes had dark circles under them, her hair was disheveled, not down or up in a bun like it usually was. And she had this horrifying look on her face, worse than he'd seen her after she messed up on the Tancannah case a few months back. She also seemed completely unfazed by Lassiter's shouting, even though he was sure she could hear him even from inside the car. So as to not attract any attention to himself, Lassiter slowly put his gun away, then slowly reached for the handle on the front door.

For whatever reason, one that Lassiter had no time to contemplate, the door was unlocked, and Lassiter opened it. Then, in the few milliseconds he had before awkwardness would set in, he tried to decide on something to say. The only reason he hesitated was because Lassiter had realized long ago that he was terrible in these sorts of situations.

He finally decided on saying, "Detective O'Hara? Are you alright?" Juliet made no indication that she had heard him. Lassiter repeated his inquiry, more nervously this time.

This time, Juliet made an abrupt, startled movement, almost like she was being woken up from sleep with a hot poker. She looked around and asked, "Where am I?"

Lassiter blinked. "You're at the airport. Do you remember your name?" he asked tentatively.

Juliet currently had all of the markings of a psychological breakdown of some kind. The thing that scared him was that he'd never seen a professional detective break down like this.

She blinked back at him, taking a moment before answering. Then she shook her head a bit and appeared to snap out of it. "Yeah, my name is Juliet O'Hara." Lassiter sighed. Then, he thought of a possibility, one which chilled him to the bone if he was right.

She might be faking the whole thing, taking a page out of Spencer's book. It would certainly explain the strange act she had been putting on; trying to fool him into thinking there was something wrong with her. Spencer would surely do it, going off the map with the strangeness to escape suspicion, and Lassiter had always thought that his Junior Detective partner was a little too friendly with the fake psychic. So that must be her game, trying to get Lassiter to go easy on her by acting like a loony. But this discovery only emboldened Lassiter's resolve. No, Juliet's plan wouldn't work, not on him. But he wouldn't let her know he was on to her just yet, he would play her game, for now.

"O'Hara, you want to get out of the car so we can catch our flight?"

She paused again. "Yeah," she said. "I'll go check in our bags."

"Are you all right?" Lassiter repeated.

"Yeah, I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night. But don't worry about me; I can sleep on the plane."

Lassiter snickered. "Oh, I don't think so, O'Hara, we have to go over the files for this Miami case." Juliet's groan was noticeable, although Lassiter ignored it. Lassiter stood up and moved away from the door of Juliet's car to allow her to get out of it. As he did, he happened to catch a glance at the terminal entrance, where he could have sworn he saw…

"No, I'm just seeing things." Lassiter muttered to himself, refusing to believe that he had just seen his mortal enemy, Shawn Spencer, walk into the airport that he was about to enter. It was impossible; the Chief had assured him that Spencer would be busy on a big case, which meant that there would be no reason for him to take a vacation. And even if Spencer did take a surprise vacation, there was almost no chance that he'd be going to Miami. Right? Right?

Lassiter quickly decided that it was a bad idea to start a definite week of non-Spencer by thinking about Spencer, so he shoved the thought way out of his mind. Seriously, it wasn't even in the parking lot of the building that metaphorically represented Lassiter's mind.

Happy with his conclusion, Lassiter returned to his own parked car to retrieve his bags. Then, he closely followed Juliet into the building, staring into the back of her head like an owl, as if daring her to turn around. If she did, it would show that she was faking this whole thing. But, much to Lassiter's dismay, Juliet kept her eyes right in front of her, and Lassiter's stare was so intent on unnerving his partner that he accidentally crashed into the glass sliding door of the terminal.

This time, Juliet did turn around to look at him. "Carlton, are you okay?" she asked, with concern in her voice that Lassiter assumed was meant to mock him. Dammit, there was no way he was going to let her win; nobody beat Carlton Lassiter when he was on a mission, with the notable exception of Henry Spencer.

"I'm fine," Lassiter said, through tightly clenched teeth. Then he stood up, and led the way into the airport to prove his point.

Thankfully, there was no one on the line to check in at this point, probably because the flight was close to taking off. Lassiter marched up to the check in desk, and was immediately horrorstruck for the second time in ten minutes. First, the young woman attending the desk was blushing lightly, as if some smart-aleck had just sweet talked to her while getting their boarding passes. Secondly, the piece of luggage she was placing on the conveyor belt behind her was covered in pineapple stickers. Again, it was probably nothing, there was a one in a million chance that that bag belonged to Shawn Spencer.

But he had to check.

"Excuse me, but who were the two people who checked in before me?" Lassiter said.

The woman giggled a little, but stiffened up when she saw Lassiter's twitching face. "Well, the first one was nice and tan, with dark hair and those dreamy eyes…" she trailed off. "And a pineapple shirt. And I think he might have had a pineapple smoothie. And the second one was all prim and proper, with a bald head that I just wanted to rub." Her eyes lit up in realization. "He kinda looked like Bud, from the old Cosby show."

Lassiter was suddenly glad at the fact that Juliet was standing behind him, so there was no way she could have seen the color drain from Lassiter's face. Instead, the woman at the check in desk looked behind him at her.

"Are you okay? You look like you got hit by a train." She said. Juliet just groaned.

Snarling, Lassiter snatched the boarding passes from the woman's hand and proceeded to march away. As he was leaving, he heard the woman mutter, "What an odd couple."

Lassiter had to resist the urge to rip out his badge and start yelling at her, but he was too mortified by the apparent appearance of Spencer to bother. 'But there was still no way,' he told himself. 'There are a thousand people who fit those descriptions, and a thousand people who like pineapples, and a thousand people who look like Bud. Spencer and Guster are not going to ruin my case in Miami.'

Lassiter looked at his watch, and noticed that they were very late to board the plane. He took off at a run, his partner keeping a slower pace behind him, toward the boarding gate. They appeared to have gotten there in time, as the two men at the gate looked at them with shocked faces.

"My god, he was right!" The first man said.

Lassiter's face contorted into one of his least favorite looks; confusion. "Who was right? And about what?"

"The guy who boarded right before you. We were about to close the gate, but he told us to keep it open because there would be two more people boarding!" The second man said.

"And he even told us that one of them would be an angry looking man, and the other would be a tired looking woman!" the first man said. He collected their boarding passes, and Lassiter continued on into the plane.

"See George, I told you he was that psychic from the newspaper. He's amazing!" Lassiter heard the second man from the gate say as he walked in.

Resigned to the fact that some way, somehow, Spencer was on this plane, Lassiter composed himself and prepared to face the mocking of the (fake) psychic as he walked down the plane's aisle to his seat. The plane only had one aisle, so Lassiter knew he would have to see Spencer.

First, Lassiter walked past the opulent first-class seats, the ones that had their own blinds that could be drawn so that no one could see the occupants. No Spencer.

Then, Lassiter walked past second-class, which had improved leg room, but were still cramped. No Spencer.

Finally, Lassiter walked through the coach seats (sorry, the politically correct term is economy class) which were like packing sardines in a can. Still no Spencer. And no sign of Spencer either, no pineapples or blushing women or astonished men or 'psychic' antics. He just wasn't there. And this forced Lassiter to consider something he hadn't thought of before, something that would normally trouble him, but right now was happy about.

Maybe all of this had been in his head. Maybe he had imagined all of the signs of Shawn Spencer, because he clearly wasn't on this plane. Lassiter chuckled, and sat down in his economy class seat. The cramped leg room didn't even bother him. The idea of sitting down next to his overly emotionally dramatic, naive partner for five hours didn't even faze him, not in the slightest.

Detective Carlton Lassiter was having one of the best days of his life.

Juliet saw the delighted look on her partner's face, and had to say, it scared her. She forgot all about her emotional and sleeping problems and took a moment to try to hide the horror from spreading all over her face at Lassiter's ungodly smile.

And somewhere in the front section of the plane, Shawn Spencer pushed aside the drapes that covered his hiding spot/assigned seat in first class.

"Well," he remarked. "It's going to be an interesting five hours."

"Oh, you got that right." Gus said, still completely oblivious as to what was going on.

-End-

Well, I hope that it was worth the wait, and again I'm sorry for being late with this chapter. I'll make it up to you guys. Somehow. Review please, I hunger for feedback!