Author's Notes: Takes place during S3e13 Any Given Friday Night at 10PM, 9PM Central. This one kind of got away from me, but I swear it's not my fault. This episode was just chock-full of Carlton-Juliet moments and potential Lassiet moments.

Carlton unceremoniously slapped a stack of paperwork down on Juliet's desk, causing her to look away from her computer screen. Taking in the papers set before her, she sighed unhappily.

"What?" Carlton asked.

"You just bring me paperwork. When Drimmer thought he was my partner, he brought me cupcakes and coffee". A sad frown appeared on her face as she stared down at the papers set before her.

"O'Hara-he was a dirty cop".

"I know, I know, and I really wanted to be partners with you again-but cupcakes…" She stared off into the distance as if imagining said cupcakes.

He glared at her and then walked away, leaving her to the significant amount of paperwork.

"I'm only teasing," she called after him.

"And I'm only going into Chief's Vick's office to gossip. Definitely not to request a new partner, and then have you set up with some incompetent fool who brings cookies on stakeouts".

She rolled her eyes at him and then turned to look at the heap of paperwork on her desk. Ugh, it was going to be a long morning.

Juliet and Carlton approached the entrance to the T-Bird Football Training Camp. From the entrance, they had a view of multiple grass fields and…Oh what are they doing here! Carlton thought and then verbalized those very words. Shawn and Gus were walking across a grass field, quickly approaching the two detectives.

Shawn immediately jumped into his spiel and was about to share his most recent revelation, but Juliet beat him to the punch. "Vlad Alexivic? The T-Bird Kicker? Yeah. After you left I started thinking about the connection between the big toe and an athlete. And then I realized Vlad is the only kicker who kicks without a shoe".

Carlton smiled at her, thinking back to the moment she had figured it all out.

Juliet was hovering by his shoulder as he typed into the search bar on his computer. "Google missing foot. That was your plan?" She said in a disapproving tone as she read the computer screen.

He glanced up at her. "Not all of it". He was going to google many different iterations of the phrase, and then look up any missing persons' cases in the area.

Then Shawn had slammed his foot down on Carlton's desk, making a big spectacle out of himself as always. He had spouted out some psychic visions that he, or his foot or something, was having.

Yeah, Carlton didn't need to reminisce on moments including Shawn. He skipped forward in his memory.

So after Shawn left, Carlton and Juliet tossed theories back and forth about where the foot came from. Juliet's theories built on Shawn's psychic visions, whereas Carlton adamantly provided ideas that had nothing to do with or completely contradicted what Shawn had said.

"Vlad Alexivic!" Juliet suddenly exclaimed and scooted her chair closer to Carlton's. She nudged Carlton's chair with her foot, pushing both him and the chair a little further back from his computer. Leaning across him, she typed Vlad's name into the search bar. An image of him in his T-Bird uniform soon popped up on the screen. She zoomed in on his foot-his barefoot foot. Leaning back in her chair, she smiled triumphantly at Carlton. "Vlad Alexivic is a kicker for the T-Birds. He always kicks barefoot, which completely explains the smushed toe".

"Wow. I never thought I would see the day your knowledge of random sports facts would come in handy on the job. Impressive, O'Hara." Although he was hesitant to say it out loud, he was very proud of her. It was a very solid lead, and a connection he wasn't certain he would have made, what with his minimal knowledge of football.

She lightly punched his shoulder. "Rude".

He put his hands up in a defensive position. "Hey, it's a great lead. I'm just saying". He didn't mean to press her buttons, he just felt like he had to keep this barrier up between himself and others. Too overt of a compliment may give someone a deeper glimpse into Carlton's mind. He didn't feel able to trust others with the private, hidden part of himself. But slowly O'Hara was breaking down those walls, and sometimes some of his closely-guarded mushy gushy sentimentality slipped through.

Not to mention everything that had transpired with Victoria had caused his innate cynicism to seep into both his friend and romantic life. So his grumpy attitude further kept everyone at arm's length.

Rolling her eyes at him, she walked back over to her desk to further investigate the lead.

Returning his focus to the present, he tuned back into the conversation. Somehow the subject had drifted towards Juliet's attraction to football players. "And I don't know. It's just something about that uniform. Mm". Juliet looked towards Carlton, her gaze unfocused as she slipped into a daydream. She bit her lip and imagined Carlton in a football uniform, even though he clearly was not interested in the sport.

Carlton frowned at her in confusion. Why is she looking at me like that?

"Oh not this again," Shawn mumbled under his breath.

"They said the locker room guy has the key and he's on the field," Juliet told Carlton as they walked over to the field. They stopped by the sidelines, not wanting to intrude on the try-outs taking place. Many young men were on the field, tossing footballs back and forth to warm up.

Some men began jogging out onto the field for tryouts for kicker. Juliet squinted at the final player stepping out onto the field. He seemed vaguely familiar to her, perhaps something about the hair…

An explanation for that feeling of familiarity was granted a moment later. Shawn spun around and grinned at them. He had eye black and had put on jersey number 99. "That's right. It's real. Drink it in," he proudly said before putting his helmet on and catching up to his potential teammates.

"If he can go on the field, so can I". Carlton set a brisk pace out onto the field. He was about halfway to the locker room guy when a rogue football started spinning towards him. Somebody shouted "heads!", and Carlton pivoted just in time. The football landed cleanly in his grasp. With a deep inhale and an angry frown on his face, he chucked the football back in the direction it had come from. No one had expected its return, and Carlton wasn't exactly a pro football player, so it flew a somewhat respectable distance before bouncing off the grass.

Juliet pursed her lips together. No uniform, but that display was still attractive. Maybe it wasn't just the uniform, but just football in general. Her eyes widened when she realized she was staring longingly at Carlton-damn her attraction to football players-and she quickly averted her gaze from the field.

A player was walking by her, and on a whim she stopped him. "Excuse me. Do you guys sell jerseys?"

Juliet inspected the exterior of the building where their next lead lay while Carlton locked the car. "I highly doubt this place has any connections to our case," she commented. She was looking at an ice cream parlor, with a smiling cartoon ice cream cone painted on the front window. A few families with young kids sat inside, enjoying their ice cream.

Carlton walked over to stand beside her. "We have to run down all leads. Spencer would have done it, and I will do anything to continue to stay one step ahead of him in this case". While earlier he had been teasing about being ahead of Spencer, now his tone had turned dark.

"Even murder?" Juliet inquired.

"Huh?"

"I don't know, you're kind of scaring me right now".

"No, no this is just some friendly competition," he said as he patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. He then started walking towards the counter.

O'Hara shook her head before following him. "Since when are you two friends," she muttered to herself.

Behind the counter stood a 20-something guy wearing a shirt with that cartoon ice cream cone on it. A nametag pinned to his shirt read Steve. He gave them a big smile as they approached. Before Steve could ask them for an order, Carlton introduced himself and Juliet. "Hello. I'm Detective Lassiter, this is my partner Detective O'Hara. We're here ab-"

Steve's smile faded and he interrupted Carlton to say, "Are you here about money? I told Chris, you can't do that, the cops'll catch you". His eyes darted around the room, closely inspecting the occupants as if they had spies hidden amongst the customers. Eventually he settled on staring at the front door through the gap between Juliet and Carlton.

Carlton and Juliet exchanged a glance. At first Carlton had been frustrated at being interrupted by the man, but his face brightened at this intriguing new information.

"What money?" Juliet asked Steve. Maybe Carlton had been right about this place. Thank goodness he was so persistent about following this lead, she thought.

"Moni-my little nickname for Monique. I said boss-look, you can't have a goat on the premises. It's unsanitary, and sooner or later somebody's gonna come knockin'".

Of all the ridiculous…"We're not here about the goat". Carlton could not believe those words had just come out of his mouth.

Juliet placed a hand over her mouth to hide a smile from Carlton.

"We're here about a murder," Carlton clarified for him, never one to dance around the topic at hand.

"Sorry man, we're an ice cream shop with a goat. We don't exactly cater to murderers". Steve shrugged and gave them a tight-lipped smile.

"Right. Please go get the owner now". Carlton's patience was rapidly waning.

"Sorry, he's not here right now. He's volunteering at a soup kitchen," Steve replied.

Carlton barely held back an angry growl. What a waste of time.

Juliet leaned a little closer towards Carlton and whispered, "A man with a pet goat who owns an ice cream parlor and volunteers in his spare time? Doesn't exactly scream Russian mob gambling ties".

"Yes, I'm seeing that now," he murmured back to her out of the corner of his mouth. But he just really, really, wanted to stay one step ahead of Shawn in this. Yet it felt like every time Carlton resorted to Shawn-like tactics, it backfired and made a fool out of him.

Steve's eyes flitted between the two whispering detectives. A drop of sweat trickled down his forehead and he ran a hand through his hair."Tell you what-I'll give you some free ice cream, and we all forget about the goat, yeah?"

Carlton redirected his focus from Juliet to Steve. "Are you bribing cops?"

"Do you want the free ice cream or not?" Steve's voice had become shaky.

He glanced over at O'Hara for her opinion, and she shrugged. Why not? She thought. The guy was offering free ice cream, and having the goat there was a problem for the health inspector, not them.

"Yeah alright," Carlton replied. Maybe a little ice cream would cheer him up after this wild goose chase.

A few minutes later, the two of them exited the shop with nothing to show for their visit save two cups of chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. The ice cream only partially compensated for the utter waste of a lead.

Seeing Juliet with dessert in her hands had made Carlton flash back to yesterday in the bullpen. She had said that she was teasing about the whole cupcake thing, but could there have been some truth behind it? Maybe working with Drimmer for a few days had made her realize she would prefer a different partner. Likely someone as opposite in personality from Carlton as she could get.

Juliet saw the wheels turning in Carlton's brain, and fervently hoped he didn't start ranting about Steve, or the crappy lead, or the whole case. But she did not anticipate the words that suddenly spilled out of his mouth. "I brought you to an ice cream parlor, and we got ice cream. I think that counts as getting you dessert". The low tone of his voice indicated he was serious, and not making a callback joke.

Huh. Maybe that conversation from earlier bugged him. I had meant it more as a joke, but he could have taken it seriously. He had lobbed a joke at her about switching partners, but perhaps that had been more a defense mechanism against pain than a light-hearted jab at her. Or he had been joking at first, but then began overthinking the whole conversation and actually started believing he wasn't a good partner. She felt a pang of guilt. I should have never brought Drimmer up. How could I have been so careless? That whole Drimmer affair had been a low point for Carlton's self-esteem, and she had casually reminded him of it.

"I'm sorry Carlton. I was completely joking earlier. Like I told you when you were on your suspension, I don't want to be partners with anyone else. I don't need you to bring me cupcakes, or ice cream. You're the perfect partner just the way you are, although you can be a little grumpy and grating at times".

Perfect partner? This is getting a bit too sentimental for me. Trying to brush it all off, he said, "Yeah, well, you'd said you were joking, but you never know with women. Say one thing, mean another".

"Ugh you're an idiot". At first she had been feeling sorry for him, but now he was venturing into dangerous territory, territory where sympathy and empathy were hard-won.

Needless to say it was a silent ride back to the precinct.

"Carlton, we have been to every place even remotely connected to Russia and all of Eastern Europe and we have found nothing. We have to start looking somewhere else". She felt exhausted from a full day of chasing leads with nothing to show for it. And if that wasn't enough to put her in a bad mood, she was still a bit annoyed at Carlton's words over ice cream earlier. And the guilt about bringing up her partnership with Drimmer didn't help her mood either.

"Maybe there's something in this stuff from Vlad's locker". He dumped the contents of the evidence box out onto the desk.

Carlton quickly dug through the items, handing off a couple of pieces of evidence to Juliet as he went. "Just a bunch of junk," he said, tossing Vlad's keys onto the desk with a thunk.

But while Carlton was fuming over their current lack of a lead, Juliet was staring at a small piece of paper. A seemingly nonsensical mix of words and numbers were scattered across the page. Miami +6? Juliet's eyes widened in realization-these numbers could be related to gambling. She showed the evidence to Carlton. Soon enough they had found a phone number on one of the scraps of paper from Vlad's Locker-a phone number that had also called Vlad twice recently.

"We've got a lead!" Carlton high-fived Juliet. "Let's go!"

This case just got way more interesting, Juliet thought excitedly as she hurried after her partner. They both had a little extra pep in their step as they raced towards the car. A strong, not to mention intriguing lead, always put the two of them in a better mood.

Juliet sprinted around the corner, gun raised, and pointed it at the suspect

"Get on your knees," Carlton shouted at the man. "Nice work O'Hara," he said to her, slightly out of breath.

Externally O'Hara had a professional, serious expression on. Internally though she was beaming. The occasional compliment from Carlton meant a lot to her. She knew she was a good detective, and didn't need outside validation. But Carlton was really important to her. It mattered a lot to her that he thought highly of her.

Carlton was always so surprised by how well they bounced off of each other in the interrogation room. They seemed to always be able to sense where the other one was going with the interrogation. And they knew when to back off and let the other one speak, or to plow ahead with their own line of questioning. It was something that they had easily fallen into, and it made interrogations a hell of a whole lot easier. Although Carlton was fully certain of his capability to interrogate a suspect alone, at this point he'd much prefer to do so with O'Hara. Sure, outside of that room they might rub each other the wrong way, but inside of it they just clicked. So it was no surprise that they had gotten a strong lead from this interrogation.

Juliet stared out the window of the car at the glistening lake as they approached their destination. "Did you ever want a house on the lake, Carlton? I think it would be nice".

"Actually yes. When Victoria and I were still together, I thought a lake house might be a nice place to raise kids someday".

"Yeah, it would be, wouldn't it," Juliet wistfully replied as she continued staring out the window

Carlton quickly glanced over at her in passenger seat. She was lit by sunlight coming through car window and had a small smile on her face. "You would have cute kids". Shit. Carlton didn't know where that had come from.

She smiled over at him. "You would too". Juliet laughed. "Oh my gosh. Now I'm imagining a bunch of little Carltons running around with grumpy looks on their faces and belting out orders". A bunch of mini Carltons, all with menacing stares and a stubborn demeanor in their arsenals, now that would be something to contend with. And it would also be absolutely adorable.

"An army of Lassiters. Now that I wouldn't mind". Carlton imagined a bunch of mini-hims in police uniforms, cuffing and booking criminals. All under the command of the O.G. Lassiter.

"Excuse me. Are you weaponizing your children?"

He didn't even try to deny it. "Theoretical children". The word "theoretical" actually pained him to say far more than he expected. Would he ever find someone to have kids with? Who would mother his little army of Carltons?

After dredging up Vlad's body from the lake, Carlton anxiously hoped that Shawn would show up. Oh to wipe that perpetual goofy grin off his face-that would make his day.

Soon enough, Shawn and Gus were trudging across the dirt towards the crime scene. Shawn immediately jumped into another vision, but once again the detectives shut him down.

A wide grin spread across Carlton's face as he broadly gestured to Vlad's body lying face-down on a tarp. Multiple crime scene techs were crowded around the body, taking pictures and searching for evidence on the shore.

Shawn's mouth gaped open, and he struggled to find something to say.

This was an incredible moment, and it needed to be recorded. "O'Hara write this down".

"I don't have a pen," she said.

Seriously? She was unprepared at such a vital moment? But Carlton didn't spend too much time dwelling on that. "Mark down the date and time that I, Carlton Lassiter, actually shut Shawn Spencer's cavernous piehole".

"Y'know Jules, it's a shame you missed my kick at practice," Shawn said to Juliet a little while later, finding his voice again.

"Yeah. Sorry I missed it. But at least I got to see Carlton's catch".

"It was nothing" Carlton said. He hadn't even realized she had seen it, and certainly didn't think it was memorable enough to be worth mentioning now.

Shawn replied, "Oh I'm sure it was. Could never compare to my incredible kick".

"Oh, Lassie. Your haircut is worse than Joyce Hyser's in Just One of the Guys. Thank you and good night," Shawn attempted to compensate for his lack of a retort earlier.

Carlton mouthed What and scrunched his face up in confusion.

When Gus's overexaggerated giggling died down, Juliet said, "I think it looks good".

Carlton looked over at her, a question in his eyes.

She gestured in the general vicinity of his hair. "Your hair that Shawn just tried to put down with some obscure reference. I like it". She then made her way over to Vick to speak with her.

What, he mouthed again.

When they were finally leaving the crime scene, Carlton said to O'Hara, "Remind me to buy you a pen. And a camera. Oh I wish we had gotten a picture of his face. Do you think the crime scene photographer might have caught it on camera?"

Juliet shook her head in response, knowing better than to verbally respond. This rivalry is getting out of hand.

The rap on the door echoed through the hall. After knocking, Carlton stepped back a step as he waited for O'Hara to open the door. The case had finished up yesterday with a nice finale of Shawn and Gus willingly putting themselves in a dangerous situation. But reasonably they had brought alone Carlton and Juliet as discreet back-up. The players behind Vlad's death were now behind bars. Now all that was left was some paperwork, but today both Carlton and Juliet had the day off. Normally he would go into work anyway, but she had wrangled him into watching a football game with her. He still did not see the appeal in watching men in tights running across a field, unarmed, but O'Hara had been very persistent.

The door swung open, revealing O'Hara in a blue T-Birds jersey. He had to admit she looked endearing in the jersey. Carlton might be starting to understand the appeal of a uniform after all.

"I got you something!" Juliet exclaimed, forgoing any greeting and shoving a bag into his hands.

"Why?" he asked suspiciously. "What is it?" The gift was covered with tissue paper, obscuring its identity.

She just gestured at the bag with a big smile on her face.

He gingerly extracted a jersey from the bag, pinching it between two fingers. It was a blue T-Birds jersey, identical to the one O'Hara sported except larger in size. He gave her a look that clearly said What the hell do I do with this.

Reading his expression, she told him, "Put it on. Maybe it'll get you into the spirit of the game".

"I doubt it". And he meant that wholeheartedly.

"Please. For me?" She begged.

"Yeah. All right". He didn't feel up to arguing right now. Besides, no one would see him in the jersey except her. And it was her idea, so he had no reason to be embarrassed by it.

When did she even have time to get this? He thought as she corralled him towards the bathroom.

Just as he was stepping out of the bathroom, he heard the tv turning on and and an obnoxious and loud announcer's voice filled the apartment. Could we watch the game without noise? This is a visual activity, right? Carlton didn't think he needed some guy telling him things he could clearly see with his eyes.

Juliet heard the squeaking of the bathroom door opening. "Hey. You're just in time. I think the players are about to…" She trailed off as she took in Carlton in the jersey. "Wow". She didn't think she had said that out loud until she noticed the panicked expression on Carlton's face.

"Sorry. Don't see you outside of work clothes often," she quickly said. Maybe giving him a jersey was a bad idea. Her stomach was a mess, filled to the brim with butterflies.

He sat down next to her on the couch. At that moment Juliet realized Carlton's eyes were focused on her jersey. Flushing a little, she shut her eyes a second, and when she opened them she fixed her gaze on Carlton's face instead of his jersey. Carlton's eyes flicked up to meet hers. Her heart skipped a beat, and she could've sworn she saw a muscle tick in his jaw. Practically simultaneously, they both turned their attention to the television.

Juliet squinted at the television screen. "Oh my… Is that Shawn?"

"What?" Carlton leaned closer to the screen. Lo and behold, there was Spencer, the whole T-Birds team trailing behind him as he trotted out onto the well-lit turf field. "He's not playing, is he?"

"No. I-I don't think so". Juliet didn't think the coach would let Shawn actually play. He was only supposed to pretend to be a kicker for a while to get some insider information on the case.

"My distaste for football has just exponentially increased". Carlton stood up and prepared himself to leave.

Realizing his intentions, Juliet snagged his arm and tugged him back down next to her.

She gave him her best puppy dog eyes, uncertain if this tactic would work on the stoic Carlton Lassiter. "Just one quarter? And then we can put on the gun sports or whatever". Were there even any gun sports? Well if there were, Lassiter was sure to find the channel that showed them.

Carlton took a deep breath and relented. "Fine. But I better not see Spencer doing cartwheels with the cheerleaders".

It soon became apparent that Shawn was just sitting the bench, and not actually playing. With this knowledge, Carlton relaxed his shoulders a bit and attempted to enjoy the game.

They watched in silence for a while. After another man was cleanly tackled to the field, Carlton said, "Maybe I should try a football tackle on our next perp. It appears to be highly effective"

"How are you able to connect everything back to your job?" Juliet asked him. He lived and breathed being a detective.

"Well, with football it isn't that hard. The team you root for-those are the cops, and their nemesis, the other team, those are the criminals. The criminals use evasive maneuvers to avoid the cops, and sometimes they turn the tables and go on the offensive against the cops".

"Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense". It was an interesting take on the game that Juliet had never heard before.

"Yeah well, this lens on football makes it somewhat watchable".

Juliet stuck her tongue out at him. Feeling a little goofy, Carlton did the same right back at her. What was wrong with him? Where was the controlled, stern detective?

At half-time, the field emptied. The T-Birds plunked down on their bench, slurping down water and Gatorade. It was at that moment that both Carlton and Juliet noticed the significant absence of Shawn from the bench.

In the middle of the field, Shawn stood with a microphone. The cheerleaders assumed a formation behind him. "This one goes out to somebody special in my life - Head Detective Carlton Lassiter of the SBPD!"

"Oh now he uses my full name instead of the asinine nickname".

Shawn started into the first verse of "My Endless Love". "My love. There's only you in my life…"

Carlton balled his hands into fists. "I'm going to kill him. Repeatedly. Preferably on television for dramatic effect," he growled in that way only Carlton could.

Juliet tried to hold back her laughter at first, but eventually she busted out laughing.

He tried glaring at her to get her to stop, but that only made Juliet laugh harder.

"My endless love," Shawn sang out, finally finishing the song after what felt like an eternity of slightly off-pitch singing and O'Hara's giggling. Carlton put his head in his hands and groaned loudly.

He was grumpy for a while after that, but ended up staying to watch the whole game. For O'Hara, he realized, he would endure the most inane of experiences or activities. Even if it involved Shawn Spencer singing a love ballad to him, apparently.

End Notes: One of my life goals is to own pet goats one day-yes, you heard that right. I love goats, they're sort of like dogs. Even more so than dogs, they'll eat everything (I worked at a zoo last summer and they would try to consume maps, paper towels, people's shirts and plastic bags). They love to be petted as well. Ok you probably didn't need to know all that, but it's out there now so oh well.