Shawn and Juliet won the backseat of Carlton's car in the carpool lottery while Gus sat up front. Realizing it was one of the only ways he could sit next to his bride-to-be, Shawn didn't put up much of a fight.
The drive to the retreat center was less than eventful—save for the handful of times Carlton was forced to make an unscheduled stop for the restroom needs of the apologetic mother-to-be.
Until the retreat began, almost everyone invited on this particular division retreat had been basically dreading the event. Forty-eight hours of conversation, sleeping, and meals with the people they saw every single day?
Shawn didn't realize until they were all sitting around the campfire the second night what a privilege it was to work with—quite literally—Santa Barbara's finest. Apart from work, he quite enjoyed most of these people—even Lassiter. Spending time in the mountains with his dad wasn't so bad either. And the extra time to just be with Juliet didn't hurt the situation.
Carlton was telling the haphazard story of how he'd met Victoria in the middle of an arrest and almost managed to bungle both the first impression and the apprehension of the petty thief. Shawn was sitting on a bench with Juliet leaning against him, a blanket wrapped around them both, his attention diverted between the genuine amusement of the story and the beauty of the firelight on Juliet's face.
He noticed her eyes drooping and gently whispered, "You should probably get some sleep, Jules."
She yawned. "If I can get any . . ."
"She keep you up kicking last night?" He stood up and offered his hand to help her up.
She gratefully took the offered hand and stood next to him. "I'm going to try and get some sleep," she announced to the general campfire group. "Goodnight, everyone."
A chorus of goodnights followed as she began the short walk to her cabin.
"I'll walk you to your cabin . . . keep you company while you brush your teeth," Shawn stated casually, as if she'd expect anything different.
Juliet slid her hand into his and picked up the conversation that had been interrupted by their departure. "She got hiccups at five or so and I couldn't get back to sleep. I had to get up a couple times to pee. That was most of it. She did kind of kick a lot, though."
"Maybe she missed me," Shawn shrugged teasingly.
"I'm sure she did. I did."
They'd arrived in front of the girls' cabin and Shawn lightly placed his hand on Juliet's stomach. "Do you know my voice, Baby Girl?" he asked genuinely. "Do me a favor and let your mama sleep tonight. In a couple weeks, we'll get to meet you and we'll all be together. But tonight, do you think you could sit still long enough to let Mom get some rest? She deserves it."
Juliet rubbed his hand appreciatively and opened the door. He hovered nearby, but didn't move. "Aren't you coming in?"
"I'm not allowed," he stated quickly.
Juliet rolled her eyes. "It's well before lights out and everyone else is by the campfire. Just come in."
He didn't hesitate to accept her invitation and soon found himself perched on her bed as she gathered everything she needed to complete her night time routine. "It's going to be a long time before we get to spend another night away from home," she observed absently, heading for the bathroom in the back of the cabin. "Except, maybe, the hospital or my parents'."
"Maybe we should make the best of it," Shawn suggested under his breath.
Juliet poked her head out of the bathroom and raised an eyebrow at him. "I hope you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting."
He shrugged and awkwardly traced a circle in the carpet with his shoe. "Just a thought."
"We're on a work retreat, Shawn. This cabin doesn't exactly have a 'Do Not Disturb' sign. And don't you want our first time to be when I'm not pregnant?"
"It was, as I recall," he stated, raising an eyebrow. "Kind of how we got here unless I've misunderstood some major points of the reproductive process." He heard her spit and rinse a couple times before she emerged—pajama clad, with her hair pulled up and her makeup off.
She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck as he looked up at her, his hands automatically interlocking behind her back. "There will be plenty of time for all of that. One step at a time, remember?"
He sighed. "I thought we threw that out with the engagement."
"No. Just reordered it a little. Now scram! You're taking up valuable sleeping time."
"'Scram,' Jules? Really?"
She swatted him playfully on the back of the head. He stood and took both of her hands in his, swinging them flirtatiously.
"Seriously, though, Jules, if you need anything, don't hesitate to come wake me up. I'm right next door. Even if it's a cup of water or a noise that startled you."
"Yeah, 'cause you'd totally be the first person I'd go looking for if there were suspicious noises around."
He shrugged. "You chose me, Jules."
She grinned and kissed him sweetly before sending him on his way, adding, "It was the hair, Spencer."
He briefly considered rejoining the group around the campfire, but decided on some alone time in his cabin instead. With his dad, Gus, and Lassiter all presumably still around the campfire, the empty cabin would give him some time to contemplate the changes that were so rapidly approaching in a life that up until now had meant no more responsibility than possibly coming up with hardly believable excuses for his best friend as to why his car was missing when he woke up in the morning.
Henry was as startled to see his son as Shawn was to find the cabin not empty as he'd assumed.
"Shawn!"
"Dad! You're here . . . and you're not wearing pants . . ." Shawn quickly shielded his eyes with his pillow.
"I'm going to bed, Shawn. This is what I normally wear to bed."
"But most men understand that when you're sleeping in a room with other men, you wear pants—pretend you wear pants every night."
"Don't you ever sleep in your shorts?"
"No," he argued stubbornly, keeping to the 'pretend you wear pants every night' part of his argument.
"Well, then I guess some things have changed in fifteen years."
Shawn sighed and climbed the ladder to his bunk, flinging himself across the bed.
"Something wrong, Kid?" Henry kindly asked.
"Dad, I'd much rather have this conversation with someone who is fully clothed."
Henry rolled his eyes and pulled a pair of sweat pants on over his shorts. "Does this meet your criteria, Sir?"
Shawn ran a weary hand over the stubble that had grown since he'd shaved at home two days before they left. He looked over seriously at his father. "It's getting so much more real," he stated solemnly. "Every day Juliet gets bigger and bigger and our little girl—our little girl," he repeated in wonder, "responds to my voice a little more. She's going to be here in such a short time. And then what? How do we know what life needs to look like as a family of three instead of an undefined, impulsive couple?"
"It works itself out, Shawn. You'll know what life changes you have to make. Some of them are more apparent than others. But you'll find a rhythm—a routine that works for the three of you. It won't look like any other family, though. I can tell you that for sure."
Shawn smirked. It was meant to be helpful, but he couldn't help but still feel the slight dig at his . . . less than conventional lifestyle.
"You'll be all right, Kid," Henry concluded with a yawn, zipping up his sleeping bag. "You'll figure it out."
Shawn spent almost an hour staring up at the ceiling of the cabin before Gus and Lassiter came traipsing in. He faked being asleep, only because he didn't want to explain to Lassie why he'd left the campfire circle so early . . . or why there were slight traces of ketchup on his world's best detective mug. When everything eventually settled down, Shawn found himself beginning to nod off and finally allowed himself to slip into a deep, restful sleep.
...
Rap. Rap. Rap.
"Shawn?"
She waited a few seconds before trying again.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
"Shawn," she repeated, this time a more pleading edge in her voice.
"Spencer, if you don't take care of this right away, I'll shoot you where you lie," Carlton mumbled.
Juliet cracked open the cabin door. "Shawn?"
"Damn it, Shawn," Henry groaned, rolling over.
Even in the fog that was Shawn's slow-to-wake-up mind, he instantly flashed back to the dozen or so times he'd heard that phrase uttered in exactly that same groggy tone.
Juliet found the porch light switch and flipped it on, hoping she could figure out which bunk was Shawn's.
In response, Gus threw the only thing he could reach at his best friend—a shoe.
"Ow!" Shawn exclaimed loudly, eliciting grumpy responses from all three of his cabinmates. "I'm up," he whispered, sliding off his bed only to trip over Gus's duffel and prompt more angry man mumbles. When Shawn finally got outside, the first thing he noticed was just how dark it still was.
"What time is it?" he asked hoarsely.
"It's just a little after four."
"God, Jules," he moaned, dazedly rubbing his eyes, "is something wrong?" He tried to focus on her face.
"I know it's early and it's a lot to ask, but will you walk with me? Please?"
Even in the dim light offered by the cabin's overhead porch light, he could see she was a little pale.
"Of course," he responded quickly, going back inside to slip on shoes and a sweatshirt. He emerged in seconds with the blanket off his bed to wrap around her shoulders.
This was a routine that had become very familiar to him in recent weeks. Whenever she was in pain—be it back pain, leg pain, or those fake contraction things—whenever she was feeling antsy or nervous, whenever the baby was kicking too much, whenever she couldn't sleep, they walked. Shawn knew which neighbors' dogs barked at them regardless of the hour of the morning. He knew exactly how long it took to walk to the 7-Eleven where he'd often made midnight supply runs. He knew how far away the park—where he imagined he'd be spending many a Saturday afternoon with his little girl in the future—was. He knew how far they had to go before they hit the bus stop where Juliet would often stop and rest.
And he knew just by looking at her in the dim porch light that she hadn't gotten much—if any—sleep.
They walked just out of earshot of the cabins before he asked, "Those Burton-Hickey things?"
"Braxton-Hicks," Juliet corrected, rolling her eyes.
"I've heard it both ways."
"A couple an hour pretty much since I went to bed. For a while it wasn't too bad, but the last couple kind of hurt."
"Not four an hour, right?"
"You did read the book I gave you?"
He flushed slightly. "I read the important stuff . . . signs of labor."
She sighed. "Of course you did."
"Hey, I didn't want to be caught unprepared on d-day."
She stopped abruptly and he watched her close her eyes and rub her stomach.
"Are they a little worse than usual?" he inquired, feeling a bit of panic start to bubble in the pit of his stomach.
She shook her head. "About normal. I'm just so tired I'm not dealing with them as well."
He touched his hand to the small of her back as they continued walking. He still retained a subtle limp from his broken ankle which slowed his pace just enough to perfectly match hers.
They walked until sunrise—at least, what would have been sunrise, had it not been for the dark clouds blocking out any ray of sunshine. When it began lightly drizzling, they started to head back. Shawn pulled his hood over his head and Juliet wrapped his blanket over hers. The rain was hardly intense enough to scare them back to camp, but Shawn wanted to make sure they didn't get caught out in anything more treacherous.
He was right in the middle of colorfully narrating his weekend spent as an ice skating instructor in Maine when she suddenly grabbed his wrist.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, more surprised than anything else.
"What time is it?" she hissed.
He glanced at his watch. "Just after six; why? Don't worry about being late for breakfast; we should be back well before then."
"That was five," she whispered.
"Five . . . five what?"
"Five contractions in an hour," she breathed, barely audible.
He lifted his hand to his head and closed his eyes, replaying their entire conversation since he'd checked his watch an hour ago.
She watched his lips mouthing numbers as he counted. After four, his eyes snapped open and met hers, the grave expression on his face enough to confirm her suspicions.
"We should probably pick up the pace a bit," he advised, his tone low and even.
"We don't need to go to the hospital until I've had contractions every five minutes, lasting a minute each, for an hour. They're, what, twelve minutes apart now and the worst ones are twenty seconds max. So we have at least an hour and probably a lot longer."
"But it'll take us probably an hour to get back to camp and we have no way of knowing how quick it'll all go and I'll feel a lot better when we have a car nearby." He gently fingered one of her curls. "I'm not taking any chances with you—either of you." He intentionally omitted the fact that the darkening clouds were making him nervous. He was certain they wouldn't make it to the hospital they'd planned, but he was anxious about getting to one in town.
Every mile they progressed toward camp, Shawn breathed a little easier, though Juliet's breaths were getting shorter, sharper, and far more intentional. When he caught the distant sound of thunder, he felt everything in him tense and his heart rate accelerated.
"We need to keep moving," he blurted abruptly, attempting to keep some sense of relaxation in his voice.
"Give me a second," she growled, bracing herself against him and leaning slightly forward. She turned pained eyes to meet his. "It's getting bad, Shawn. What was that . . . eight minutes?"
"Eight minutes apart, forty seconds long," he whispered.
She resumed walking, trying to keep her pace brisk. "How far do you think we are from camp?"
"Maybe twenty minutes," he answered honestly.
"Two contractions," she translated, her jaw set. "I can do that."
Shawn's tension eased when he caught sight of the clearing that marked the beginning of the cabins, but just as he began to relax, the rain got harder, the sky got darker, and a flash of lightning startled them both and brought them to a complete halt.
"That's not good," Shawn exclaimed, almost as an involuntary reaction.
Juliet obviously paled and lost all semblance of the calm she'd adopted. She squeezed his upper arm as she started to panic. "We need to start driving—now."
He nodded silently and headed to his cabin, intending to ask Lassie for use of his car. Just as he reached his hand out to grasp the doorknob, there was bright flash, a loud crack, a few sparks, and subsequently, the porch light on the cabin went dark. He squinted at the single light bulb, feeling something deep inside him sink. Before he could open the door, it flew open in his face and he met his father.
"What the hell was that?" Henry exclaimed, his voice still raspy from sleep.
"I don't want to know," Shawn groaned, pressing the back of his wrist to his lips as he often did when he was stressed.
Henry had already begun his charge to meet the park ranger and find out what was going on, but pivoted to look back at Shawn. "What's wrong, Kid?"
"Uh . . . Juliet's in labor," he stated, his eyes focused on something far away.
"Damn it, Shawn! I knew you shouldn't have let her come up here."
Shawn bit back his defense and simply turned an entreating expression on his father. "Can we save the lecture? I have a girl and a kid to worry about right now."
Henry nodded brusquely. "I'm going to find the ranger. How close is she?"
"Close enough that we know the baby is coming . . . not close enough to guarantee we won't make it to a hospital.
"You get packed up and get her ready. Detective Lassiter's in the shower, but you should probably ask if he can drive you. I'll find the ranger and see what the deal is with the power." He slapped Shawn's shoulder. "And Shawn?"
"Yeah?"
"Keep your phone nearby. If it gets too close, call an ambulance."
He threw his stuff in his duffel in record time. He was almost finished when Carlton came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.
"Damn water heater gave out," he hissed.
"Power's out," Shawn responded, zipping up his bag. "Hey, Carlton, do you think I could take your car?"
Carlton froze mid-step as soon as he heard that voice utter his first name. "Spencer, what are you trying to pull?"
"Nothing," Shawn answered honestly. "I need to get Juliet to the hospital."
Carlton's face paled as realization dawned. "I'll drive. Be ready in five."
Shawn gathered his bags and almost ran into Gus as he charged out the door of their cabin.
"Shawn, what are you doing?"
"Baby's coming," Shawn stated, his voice shaking more than he'd intended. "Can you take this stuff to Lassie's car?"
"No such luck, Kid."
Shawn turned to see his dad returning from somewhere in the direction of the main cabin.
"Lightning hit a tree and it knocked a power line out on its way down. It's completely blocking the road. We can't get out and the paramedics can't get in until the firemen can clear that road."
Shawn groaned and dropped his luggage at his feet. "What am I going to tell Jules?"
A/N: We're nearing the end, everyone. Just one more chapter and an epilogue! Savor it! ;-)