Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Don't own references to Alien.

Author's Note: Soooo, I apparently last updated this story January 2014. Uh, oops? I would like to thank terracannon876 for a very encouraging, insightful PM that helped me get back into the spirit of writing on this WIP. :)

Reviews, constructive criticism, thoughts and feedback are welcome. Thanks for your support and encouragement! Happy reading!

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Chapter Eleven: Got Me, Calling Your Attention, Like A Siren

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It was funny, she considered, that she had told Henry those words about Shawn—escaping ghosts. For what it was worth, she had no idea if it was true, if ghosts could really be escaped from.

Maybe it wasn't out of the blue, or any other color that made sense to come out of, perhaps even out of the black was more appropriate, Juliet revived, not even aware how gone she had been. She blinked her eyes as if they could undo the years. Her body felt tight, small, compressed. She had no idea she could go all this time without breathing.

Juliet got up and went outside, looking for any privacy she could find, in spite of that being a little late now. She took out her phone, pressed a contact, called, and waited.

# # #

After Shawn and Gus left, Vick excused herself. Henry Spencer was going to need a warning of what was coming home to him.

# # #

"Tell me, something, lawman," Saul began. "You ever been hurt, real bad?"

Carlton bolted from sleep, springing up in the late afternoon hours in the generic bed in an unfamiliar town. He'd been fast asleep, but the dreams were hard to keep at bay.

He had gone back to his hotel room, after the bar, after the call, taken a cold shower, and then he must have fallen asleep. He'd lost a few more daylight hours, surrendered some of his resting to further bad dreams. Pacing the length of his small room, he was wide awake and gripped by his thoughts, going round and round.

Sometimes, in the constraints of a dream, he confessed much more than he'd even admitted to himself; convinced, within the constraints of said dream, that he was only talking to himself. Carlton hated that, hated waking up after hours of thinking that Saul was not Saul but a mirror version of himself, and that he was not speaking his thoughts, or even thinking them, but that they existed, processed from mirror form to mirror form—unspoken, but as plain as day.

He told himself what not to feel, what not to think, but his thoughts often had a mind of their own, veering off course, slipping into cracks, moving rocks and unearthing god knew what . . . but Carlton often felt worse when he tried to suppress all of the thoughts. After all, he allowed, he had been to a dark place—and not just within his own self.

As it turned out, being singled out and "targeted" by a serial killer was not something he had ever desired, though he'd told himself how badly he wanted it when Mr. Yang resurfaced to challenge Spencer.

Saul had not quite targeted him, or even singled him out, or stalked him—had not stalked him for long. He may have been watching, he may have had a lure. After all, Lassiter had followed someone into that building. A chill wiggled its way up Lassiter's spine, taking its time. This kind of fear was irrational, he told himself slowly, gritting his teeth. Saul's eyes were no longer on him. Saul's eyes were closed for good.

Except for inside his head. Except for in his nightmares.

Should have . . . known . . . should have . . . recognized it, he thought ruefully, ignoring his knowledge of his own then clouded judgement. But Carlton knew he had ignored too many warnings.

He'd ended up striped because of it, down to the darkest parts of his soul while his damp skin was exposed and cut, while he was held down, tasted, savored. He sat in the misery of the thoughts, resisting the terrible urge to swat them away like the pests they were. He knew he had to face his demons—or if not his, then the ones Saul had left with him, or left him with—Carlton wasn't certain whose demons they were. It was easy enough to admit they were his own.

His thoughts strayed back to his conversation with O'Hara.

Two weeks. Two weeks? Has it really been . . . ? Carlton slowly ran a hand over his face, recalling the strain in O'Hara's voice, the pleading in those two words. He almost couldn't imagine the passage of time gone in a blink of an eye—no, less of a blink, more of a slide.

The handful of hours he had been prey, when he was caused pain and caused Saul pain of his own—that was a season in hell. The hours spent were scars on his flesh and torment to his soul. It was an eternity, endless, never ending.

Yet in the three months following—of his physical recovery and his, perhaps, mental deterioration, according to some people—no, his mental re-focusing, on his new old fixation, his determination for justice—he'd barely counted the time. Sitting at a desk, going through the motions as he researched and made these plans . . . all of which had led to these last two weeks which were in and of themselves a blur, time bleeding together in a hot, dusty bore—driving, taking in the simple sights of Norton, lost to his thoughts. Or losing himself to the past—with Saul's grip still around his throat.

O'Hara was worried; she claimed she had a right to be. Could she right, that all this time he was spending inside his own head wasn't, as she'd stated, healthy? As if she was right, as if she was all right. Carlton replayed the meanness he'd offered to her, the bitterness he'd spit in her face, as if she had asked to be his rescuer, his savior, as if she wanted to hold that over his head.

Who would want that, who would ask for that? A narcissist, an egotist, a show-off. Someone who had to always be the center of attention.

Someone like . . . Spencer, who would take any bad situation with any happy accident and claim it as his own.

Yet . . . Spencer had not. Not this time.

Carlton pushed both of them from his mind; they were thousands of miles away and any threats they might make were fairly empty. Still, O'Hara was correct—two weeks had already passed and he had absolutely nothing to show for his trip in progress. (Drinking in bars and getting measly weapons pulled on him when he asked questions about Saul did not count. Nor did experiencing personal setbacks at said bars, or calling home for a broken connection. Nor did going back to his motel room to sleep, or over analyzing his recurring nightmares.) Carlton wondered if he should be more jolted by this realization—even a little unnerved—but he felt nothing of the sort, little more than a shrug. Since there was no urgency for him to go back, he could stay for months—on paid leave; he had never taken a vacation before—and accomplish nothing still. After all of the planning at his desk—the tireless searches for continuing the thread by finding links throughout the Southwest of potential Saul kills, seeking a probable non-existent relative to "notify", putting on the show for Vick that this was what he needed for closure, and making the travel arrangements—he had wanted this all along, a place to run to, a place to think less in. Think less about Saul. Maybe he'd picked the wrong destination for it.

A private-ish retreat, a hiding place. A place to compare with home and make him ponder the possibility of going back.

But this was all safe, this speculation, Carlton reflected. He knew he'd spent these wasted time getting his footing. He knew he was never going to feel comfortable here, that that wasn't the point.

And what of O'Hara's threat—how long might she sit on those words and not act?

Part of him wondered if he'd wanted a real shock, something strong that would wake him and make him want to be a detective again—go back to being what he was before all this. Go back—and forget, forget what he couldn't ever . . . without mind altering drugs, a head injury, time travel . . . Carlton smiled bitterly to himself. There was no turning off his thoughts, no banishing Saul from his nightmares either. Saul had become a part of him, a horrible part, seemingly immortal, a shadow. How did one get rid of a shadow? Standing in bright light, it would be cast, and in darkness, yet another shape around him.

When had it happened, this complacency? If anyone had asked him, if anyone had suspected—anyone, in this case, being none other than O'Hara—he knew he'd been confident to answer that he wasn't ever complacent. No, he was always striving for something better—from a student of criminology to an officer of the law, from officer to detective, detective to head detective, and in some yet to be eventuality, head detective to chief of police. He always wanted to climb that ladder, reach the top.

Or . . . he had. I still do, he reminded himself. My dreams haven't be deferred . . . or derailed . . . well . . . not forever. Right? Carlton frowned. There had been many a time he had wanted to just get back on the horse, get on with his life as if what had happened wasn't terribly serious or life altering. As if it hadn't made him reevaluate any aspect of his life.

Such as, that almost perverse determination to prove himself. As if he hadn't already done so, as if that by investigating and solving murders, by getting the most dangerous scum who perpetrated the most heinous crimes off the streets, into maximum security prisons—building cases, supporting the evidence, testifying in court, appearing at parole hearings or appeals—whatever he had to do to keep these criminals in prison as long as possible, he wasn't going above and beyond to serve and protect. As if he worked with a pair of self-proclaimed psychic detectives—who loved childish antics as much as solving crimes—for fun.

And yet, that's why he'd gone out to that building at all. To prove himself.

Carlton sighed. Reliving it, going over every rememberable second with a fine tooth comb, analyzing it all to death, were all things he was helpless to stop. Forgiving himself, letting any of out of his sight, letting it go, all things for which he couldn't summon any courage.

So maybe what had happened wasn't his fault, directly. He hadn't asked for it, didn't want it, and had in fact tried to escape it. He'd tried talking, reasoning, he'd tried fighting back.

I tried. But it wasn't enough, Carlton reminded himself, that familiar dull anger-shame-hopeless acceptance flooding him. He touched the center of his chest; fingered the scars there. He recalled again the bar, the rednecks, his momentary lapse. The old him would have pulled his service weapon without thinking, would have been the authority regardless of the geography which put him far out of his own jurisdiction.

He wasn't gun shy: To prove it, he reached for his weapon, had it in his hands, braced, ready to fire, and was flooded with relief. But why hadn't he gotten it out?

It was less about . . . Grant, and more about testing his own abilities. Remembering what he was capable of. He hadn't quite . . . forgotten. But it was just. . . . Lassiter sighed heavily. The facts were that he hadn't walked away from the entire ordeal without a scratch, that he didn't have a crap-load of emotional baggage to sort through, that he had nothing now to reassess. He knew he was messed up, broken down, wrong. He knew he couldn't just shake it all off or pretend none of it had hurt him, or that healing was an easy process. Bad things happen, and they'd happened to him. Wasn't he the same man, just cracked . . . cracked up? It was hard to get past—it was hard to believe it could be okay again someday—and this tiny detail really scared the hell out him.

He sighed, sitting down on his bed and rubbing his temples. He changed his train of thought purposefully, deciding he needed to find the town's library. Detective deferred, he was still a good detective nonetheless. He'd come here to look for truth as much for anything else, and couldn't help having the slightest intrigue in what he'd stirred something up in that bar. Why had he received that strong a reaction when he mentioned Saul Grant? Why pull a knife on a stranger to keep him from asking questions? None of it sat well.

Carlton didn't care if any records might be digitized—wasting an afternoon or two sorting through musty old books might be good for him. He needed to search county records, see what, if anything else, could be turned up about Saul. And about the grandfather? If he was real, if he was still alive? It would be a notification like any other, wouldn't it?

Yes, Mr. Grant. Your last living blood relative was a dirty, filthy serial killer. He met his maker in Santa Barbara, thousands of miles away, at the hand of my own junior partner.

Carlton heard himself saying the words, felt the gravitas of them, felt just a touch of pleasure in them. Looking the man who might be responsible for the creation of Saul's murderous stalking dead in the eye. He knew he could do it, if it came down to it.

His body? On ice, waiting to be claimed. Just burn it, bury it, you don't care?

Of course, this man's reaction may range anywhere from volatile to indifferent. He may even claim to not be Saul's kin, or he may be in some advanced state of dementia, unable to recall any connection—blood or otherwise—to someone who may have left Norton ten years ago or more, never looking back, with the intention only to go forth and kill.

What he needed was a first name, and an address. Carlton checked his watch. Unsure of when the library may close, he decided to take his chances, since going back to sleep or sticking around here much longer were not great options. If he couldn't gain information at the library, he could take a look around elsewhere—and there were at least three more bars he could visit. After he gathered his notes and grabbed his keys, he looked at his phone.

One missed call. O'Hara.

# # #

It was growing dark by the time Juliet pulled up to Henry Spencer's house. She could see the stars twinkling above her, piercing the underside of the sky visible to her. Juliet stood in front of the door, frowning, wondering if any of the three men behind it would want to see her. Neither Gus nor Shawn had answered her previous texts, and she was nervous calling Henry's house because she thought she would get hung up on.

She really couldn't blame them; by some kind of miracle of the bonds of partnership/friendship, Carlton had taken her call and they'd had a civil conversation.

She bit her lip. Lassiter had told her he was fine, but he'd sounded too reserved, as if he'd made a mistake calling her in the first place—that first time. It was the last thing she wanted, and she'd told him as much, but the damage was done.

She could just picture him, running a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture she had seen him pick up a few weeks into his return to the station, gritting his teeth and cursing her silently in between breaths. Juliet let him tell her when he wanted to hang up, even though she felt tears welling up, sliding down her cheeks as he spoke to her with clipped speech.

Of all the things she'd said and did, she most wished she could take back what she had yelled at him and the fact that she'd chased Shawn away in the process.

Juliet was tempted to call into the house that she had brownies and cupcakes and chocolate chunk cookies, though all she had brought was an apple pie that she'd bought at a bakery after she left work. There was a coldness under her ribs; as she stood outside she wondered if she would ever be welcome anywhere again, by anyone she used to know and who used to know her. Juliet wrapped her arms around her torso, getting an alien sensation of being utterly unwanted. Funny, just earlier, something eerily Alien had been trying its damnedest to get out. All of this was her own fault, she thought, but she still wanted comfort. Maybe she should just go home, give her mother a call, and try to forget Shawn calling her a killer.

Before she could change her mind, she took out her phone and sent Shawn and Lassiter the same text, keeping it generic.

I'm sorry. I miss you and I want you to come back. Maybe I don't deserve to see you now and maybe you don't want see me again.

Maybe I am just a killer now.

Then, after wiping a wet spot on her cheek with two fingers, one to Gus.

I know you're protective of Shawn. I'm glad he's with you.

Juliet left the bakery box on the welcome mat and walked back to her car, considering her inaction, considering the radio silence that had been forced on her. But, if she had knocked at Henry Spencer's door and it had opened, what would she say? No one in his right mind would condone her behavior or her cold words, or believe for a second she hurt inside, that she was only holding herself together with spit and Elmer's Glue.

She'd lost her right to appear broken, in any way, shape or form, to not hold her head up high.

Maybe . . . maybe it was all too soon. She hadn't even given them the rest of the day, or the night to sleep on it, but since Vick had recommended she go home early, Juliet had been too restless to go home. Then. But now, she felt exhausted, as if she had been awake for a week, running on fumes. Juliet shook her head; she had no resolve to return, not in the morning, not the day after tomorrow. Maybe . . . not ever.

She backed her little green car out of the driveway.

# # #

Henry watched her leave from the family room window, the curtains pulled back just enough that he could see out but no one could see in—not that she looked. There was hesitation in the way she held herself, a thing he was not used to seeing in Juliet O'Hara. Certainly, she had approached with some confidence, but tension had taken it away from her in a very short time. Henry was aware that Gus had put his phone on silent, but Shawn had not; it stayed in his hand as text after text came in. Shawn didn't answer any of them, just let the jangley alert remind him every ten seconds. Gus's lips were pulled tight but he made absolutely no move towards Shawn or his phone. The repeated noise was giving Henry a headache, but he decided to follow Gus's lead and not make any jumpy movements towards Shawn.

When Henry had first seen his son and pulled him into a one-sided embrace, he had been confused and a bit shocked at Shawn's haggard appearance, at the nearly vacant look in his usually bright eyes. Still, he recalled this look in his son's eyes from the last time he had seen Shawn, when the kid had briefly stayed with him following his motorcycle scrape. Pulling back from Shawn, Henry patted him on the shoulder. "You hungry, kid? You, Gus?"

"I could eat," Gus said, ushering Shawn toward the open doorway.

For a few seconds, the same thought crossed through Gus's and Henry's minds: would Shawn actually go in? He wasn't moving, just staring inside as if looking into a void. "Are you . . . going to ask me?" Shawn said slowly, still staring straight ahead.

Henry and Gus exchanged a look, with Gus shrugging behind Shawn's back. Gus took a breath. "Ask you what, Shawn?"

Shawn didn't answer, but slowly turned his head towards his father. Henry was unnerved by the way Shawn was looking at him and had to rein in an urge to grab Shawn by the shoulders and shake him hard. Shawn took a long breath in through his nose. "You don't know," he said softly, then shuffled his way into the house.

"Lock all the doors and the windows," Gus whispered to Henry, then followed his best friend into the house. Stunned and confused, Henry stood for a few seconds on his front door's threshold. Is that really my son? he thought, pained at the Shawn's manner, feeling heartsick. Shawn had grown stranger, lesser. Something was wrong, really, really wrong, and he needed to discover what it was and correct it as soon as possible. Shawn had never been this melancholy in all his life, never to Henry's knowledge.

He thought of Karen's call, the warning in her voice about the magical mystery guest Gus was bringing to his house in just the time it took to thread his little blue car through traffic.

"There's something wrong with him," Karen had told him, sympathetic and point blank. "I'm sorry, Henry, but I can't describe what it is. I just don't know how."

Yesterday, Henry had peppered Officer McNab for any sightings of his son—there hadn't been any recently at the station, but McNab confirmed that he was sure he'd seen Shawn hanging around the city central, getting smoothies and wandering around. No, he hadn't gone up to Shawn to say hello, but he had noticed that the generally happy psychic looked glum and out of sorts.

"I just thought he might be going through a tough break up," McNab confessed.

Henry kept his face blank as he thought, You don't know the half of it. "What about, can you tell me how Shawn behaved the night Detective Lassiter was, uh, rescued?"

McNab frowned, his unlined face becoming serious. "I remember he acted erratically and emotionally when he was in the station, trying to get the Chief to believe him about Detective Lassiter being in danger. He was in the throes of a powerful psychic vision."

"Powerful, how?" Henry pressed.

"He was yelling, shaking, falling down, it was all very physical. Loud, and kind of theatrical. But he was having a hard time convincing everyone at first." Buzz shook his head.

"What did he say?"

"He described Lassiter's wounds to a T, and said he'd been where Lassiter had been, in spirit, and urged us all to get there in real life as fast as possible, because Lassiter was about to be killed." McNab paled. "Freaky stuff. He was right."

Henry nodded, recalling Gus' versions of events, Gus' confession that he had been so angry that Shawn had recklessly gone alone to the hideout of a murderer that he'd punched his best friend. Gus was regretful of what he'd done and fearful he'd driven Shawn away because of it. "What about later that night? Were you there at the scene when they brought Lassiter out? Did you see Shawn at all?"

McNab nodded, an earnest shudder traveling across the tops of his shoulders. "I was outside, waiting for further orders, when the EMTs brought out the stretcher Detective Lassiter was on." For a good few seconds, McNab looked haunted. "It was bad. He was bloody—"

"Shawn was bloody?" Henry interrupted.

"Oh! Sorry, Mr. Spencer! No. I mean, he was, but I think that was from when he tipped his bike." He sighed. "Shawn looked pretty drained. He was holding Detective O'Hara's hand and they were both right by Detective Lassiter's side. But after that, I didn't see Shawn. I lost track."

"Okay," Henry said. "Thanks for telling me."

Now, he glanced at Shawn, slumped on the couch, staring into space. Gus returned from the kitchen and tried to hand Shawn a can of soda, but Shawn seemed to not notice.

# # #

Carlton stared at his phone's screen, unable to decide whether or not to read O'Hara's text. When they'd talked for the second time, there had been something different about her, something softer and raw that would have ordinarily made him feel uncomfortable but instead brought him a pang of relief he couldn't express. All he could think was it sounded like her hard shell had cracked, that underneath it was the delicate yolk of an egg, or the sweetness of a chocolate, sloshing about and maybe, soon, spilling out.

He opened her text and, reading it with widened eyes, pressed a hand to his mouth.

"Were you ever afraid," Saul drawled with a smug grin, "that I would get to her?" Lassiter tried to ignore him, pushing Saul's voice to the back of his mind. There were bigger fish to fry—a phrase he'd picked up while at a bar.

This was worse, much, much worse than the angry, all capital letters text O'Hara had sent before. This . . . this was sorrow, and resignation.

A sudden plan formed in his mind, to call Vick, to tell her something, to make it plausible enough to somehow get through to the Junior Detective. He should call her himself, maybe yell back this time, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Still, was it wise, getting in touch with Vick? She had made him promise to call her, for any reason at all, she'd said. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep the conversation just on O'Hara, and he wasn't ready to go all therapy session with Vick over the phone.

"It's a cop out," Saul chuckled from the backseat of Carlton's rental.

"Nobody asked you," Carlton hissed without turning around.

# # #

When the room was dark, while his father and Gus snored on the couch, with the TV turned down low, with Shawn in between them, not wanting to move, he read Juliet's texts.

He'd called her a killer at the station and she'd accepted it. Owned it, in a sort of, maybe way. Shawn pressed his head against the couch. His stomach hurt, probably from too much food; he'd barely touched his beer. He was mad at himself—crushing Jules like that was kind of a mean thing, even if she did scream at him for no reason. She had, at least, apologized for it, but he recalled the coldness in her manner, as if she considered it somehow his fault that Lassie was "on vacation".

A mirthless chuckle bubbled up and he stifled it with the back of his hand. Well. Wasn't it?

Still. He had not told another living soul that he had nearly died the night that Lassie almost did too . . . because he didn't know how. Not even Lassiter knew what had happened to him, not that he would care either if he knew. Shawn shook his head. He couldn't really imagine it, telling Juliet now, or even Gus.

Shawn pulled up Lassiter's name and typed a short message, r u alive out there? i am, i guess i am sam i am. His finger hovered over the send button but then he just pushed it, not expecting a response.

He got up from the couch and went into the kitchen for a glass of water and to run his hands over the bakery box that he knew she'd touched. Jules is as American as apple pie, he thought, remembering the quiet moments when he'd almost said "I forgive you". When he hoped that those words would be directed at him, just as quickly, because he had earned them.

His phone beeped. He gulped his water and went to look.

Spencer? Is that you? What in the name of Sweet Justice?

Shawn cracked a smile. lassie, he typed, ur alive.

And then it came in, the question he'd expected his father to demand right off the bat, the one that Gus and Jules had already asked. Are you OK? He lied, I knew it. He said he killed you.

Shawn set the phone down as if it were too hot. Wasn't it moronic—ironic?—that here was proof—further evidence—right there in plain text? He still had the misdirected text from Juliet, still foolish enough not to erase it. It didn't seem to matter. It would always be his mistake, his burden to shoulder. He went back to couch and sat on the other side of Gus; Gus had leaned onto his father's shoulder in Shawn's brief absence; a thought struck Shawn a funny way. He stared at them and wondered, recalling Gus's insistence that he and Henry had been searching for him all this time.

Shawn stretched his legs out over Gus's lap, slumping down into the most comfortable position he could, falling quickly into his first dreamless sleep in months.

# # #

Lassiter responded without hesitation; this sudden correspondence was so unexpected, and since he hadn't actually seen Spencer since. . . . Yes, he knew all about it, Spencer rushing to the station, rallying the troops, from what Juliet had told him. He knew Saul hadn't carried through his evil lie, but still. This felt like the right thing to send after getting the odd text he just had from Spencer.

He waited for some quick-witted, flippant response, something in the manner of "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," followed by some ridiculous emoticons, but nothing else reached him.