A/N: Thanks to all who read and reviewed the first chapter! Your response was greatly appreciated!

The springs in the couch creaked in protest as Henry leaned against the back of it while simultaneously resting his feet on the coffee table. Just because his son was not allowed to do this didn't mean Henry couldn't. He took a swig from his beer as he turned on his television, surfing channels in the hope of finding something at least mediocre. He felt quite content as he listened to the sounds of the television, not quite loud enough to drown out the rain assaulting his windows.

It had been quite some time since it had rained like this, but he welcomed it as long as he wasn't out on his boat when the rain started to fall. However, being inside and listening to the rainfall didn't bother him. It might if it carried on for days on end but that rarely happened in this area. He chuckled slightly at the presenter of the cooking show he was watching before leaning forward and placing his beer on the table in front of him by his feet.

A knock on the front door interrupted him just as he was leaning back again. He switched off the television and pushed himself into a standing position, and started towards the door, grumbling in irritation as whoever was at the door knocked again.

He hadn't expected to find the SBPD's Head Detective standing on his doorstep looking slightly dishevelled, lacking his normal work jacket.

"Spencer," he greeted and Henry was quite certain that he detected a sigh around that one word.

"Detective," Henry greeted back, feeling slightly wary as to what the detective was doing here, "what can I do for you?"

"I'm here to drop off your son," Lassiter said, stepping aside to allow Henry to see the passenger side of the detective's car where, sure enough, he was just able to make out the slumped form of his son, his hair poking out over the top of something dark that was stuffed between his head and the window.

"What'd he do now?" Henry asked as he rubbed a tired hand over his face.

"He collapsed at a crime scene," Lassiter answered, his tone even.

"What?" Henry looked back over at the slumped form of his son, but it was too difficult to make out any actual details through the rain splattered window.

Before Lassiter could answer he had already made his way out into the rain, the detective following behind him as they both made their way to the car. Lassiter lifted one hand and knocked against the window just by Shawn's head with a sharp, "Spencer."

"Don't do that," Henry scolded without taking his eyes off of Shawn. His son stirred however at the rough treatment of the window, the tremors no doubt going through his head. Shawn shifted in his seat, his head moving away from his makeshift pillow just enough that Henry was able to pry the door open without receiving an armful of Shawn.

Shawn turned his head slightly but when he caught sight of his father he fell back against the seat with a groan. Out the corner of his eye Henry saw Lassiter give a small smirk.

"I was going to take him to the hospital," Lassiter explained, "but he didn't want to go."

"He wanted to come here?" Henry questioned in surprise.

"He wasn't clear," Lassiter said simply. "I think we should get him into the house."

Henry had frowned slightly at the detective's first words but pushed his thoughts aside as he had to agree with the second statement. It wasn't doing Shawn any good sitting in the car; neither was it doing them any good standing around in the rain.

"Shawn?" Henry said questionably as he leaned down to get a closer look at his son. He looked like hell. He was shivering hard, the dark circles under his eyes standing out in stark contrast against his pale skin, a slight flush from a fever evident. "Do you think you can stand up?"

Shawn rolled his head in the direction of his voice and blearily cracked one eye open, peering at his father with a feverish glance.

"He was pretty out of it earlier," Lassiter said needlessly. Henry could probably have figured that out by himself judging from how his son was looking now.

As if to defy the detective's words, Shawn placed one foot on the asphalt, the small action seeming to drain him of energy.

"Alright," Henry mumbled before looking at Lassiter, "give me a hand, will you?"

It was clear that Lassiter would really rather not but that the man was smart enough to know that he didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. With a sigh and a slight scowl on his face he stepped forward, taking a hold of Shawn's right arm and started pulling him out of the car, the blanket that had been laid over Shawn falling to the floor in the process. Henry grabbed a hold of his son's left arm as soon as he could, earning a mumble of disagreement from Shawn who was clearly dissatisfied with his new position.

"It wouldn't hurt you to help a bit, Shawn," Henry chastised lightly as they, quite literally, dragged Shawn back to the house.

Shawn mumbled something in response but didn't attempt to get his feet under him. Lassiter shifted his grip on Shawn's right arm, bringing it further around his shoulders. Henry let Lassiter hold onto his son as he went to close the front door, Lassiter obviously not pleased with the situation as Shawn was now leaning heavily against him. The detective glared briefly at Henry when he returned to carry his half of Shawn again.

"No way," Lassiter said as Henry eyed the staircase. They changed course and instead steered towards the couch where Lassiter surprisingly helped set down Shawn carefully, and dare Henry even think it, gently.

Despite the careful manhandling, Shawn almost toppled forwards, his fall prevented by Henry's hand pressing against his chest, slowly pushing back against the couch.

"Ow," Shawn croaked, promptly bringing a hand up to rub against his temple.

"What happened?" Henry asked as he eyed his son's obvious discomfort.

Carlton sighed, shook his head, then sighed again before shrugging.

"All I know is what I told you earlier," he said in the end as he rubbed a hand over his face, exhausted from the day's events. "We were at a crime scene, Spencer turned up and it wasn't long before he fainted."

Shawn mumbled in disagreement but Lassiter ignored him.

"What on Earth was he doing at a crime scene in that condition?" Henry asked as he stepped forward to free Shawn from his jacket when he couldn't stand watching the shivers that kept wrecking through his son's body.

"G' 'way," Shawn mumbled, his words slurring as he tried to bat Henry's hands away.

"Don't be an idiot, Shawn," Henry scolded as he won out a little too easily for his liking as Shawn slumped back in defeat allowing Henry, with some help from Carlton, to rid Shawn of his damp jacket. He draped it over the back of one of the chairs before returning to his son who was now attempting to disappear into the couch.

"I'm pretty sure he has a fever," Lassiter supplied needlessly from the sidelines.

"Really?" Henry returned sarcastically, making sure the detective saw his eye roll before he turned his back on him.

Shawn had now toppled sideways, allowing the upper part of his body to lie slumped over the end of the couch, while one foot was still resting on the floor, the other hovering a few inches above it. Lassiter materialised at his side and it took the two of them to drag Shawn onto the couch in a more comfortable position, and while Henry took care of his son's shoes, Lassiter went in search of a blanket before realising there was one draped over the back of the couch. Mentally smacking himself he pulled it off and handed it wordlessly to Henry.

"Thanks," Henry said as he quickly covered his son with the blanket. "His jeans were pretty clammy too."

"No," Lassiter blatantly refused and he quickly turned around and headed towards the door.

"Do you want some coffee?" Henry called after the detective, deliberately waiting till the man had disappeared from the living room. A smile tugged at his lips as he heard Carlton's footsteps stop before retreating slowly back towards the living room.

Carlton sauntered back into the living room, stopping just inside the room as he leaned against the wall on his right. He took his sweet time checking the time on his watch before answering, "I'll have to call O'Hara, but coffee sounds good."

As Lassiter left again to go and call his partner, Henry let his eyes drift back down to the couch. Shawn was curled up as tightly in a ball as he was able and he had pulled the blanket up so far that only his hair was visible. It was true that he could already see that his son had a fever. The tremors running through his body, the glazed eyes and the slight flush to his skin were more than enough to confirm his suspicion. However, he was still shocked at the amount of heat radiating off the skin as he pressed a hand against Shawn's forehead, pushing his hair away in the process.

"What were you doing, Shawn?" Henry asked quietly even though he knew he wouldn't get an answer from his unconscious child.

Once Carlton had talked to O'Hara and assured her that he had not neglected Shawn anywhere but had brought him to his father's, he and Henry sat down in the kitchen, both placed so they could just see Shawn on the couch. Lassiter looked like coffee was long overdue and he gladly and almost eagerly accepted the cup Henry handed him.

"What's the case?" Henry asked once the younger man had had a chance to take a couple of sips from his coffee, already looking healthier than just five minutes prior.

"A body was found up in the mountains by a pair of tourists. Pretty gruesome," Carlton said in that tone that Henry recognised as one he had used himself when he was on the force. In order to keep distanced you had to look at everything objectively, and not think that you were looking at the aftermath of what one human being was willing to do to another.

Henry didn't grace Lassiter's words with an answer but instead nodded mutely and turned his attention to his own coffee.

"How's fishing lately?" Lassiter asked and if he thought he was inconspicuously changing the subject he should remember who he was talking to, but Henry let it slide.

"Been pretty good, but not the best," Henry answered, taking a moment to cast a glance into the living and watched as Shawn head moved further into the couch.

"He's pretty sick," Carlton commented, though his blue eyes was resting on Henry when he said this rather than looking towards the living room.

"I can see that," Henry responded quietly as he ran a hand over his head, missing the time when he actually had hair.

"I probably should have taken him to a hospital," Lassiter said vacantly as he now looked down at his nearly empty coffee mug.

"If Shawn didn't want to go it was probably easier just to bring him here," Henry replied as he stood up to pour the detective another coffee. It was true though; at least here Henry had a chance to make sure Shawn didn't bolt at the first chance he got. Not that he looked like he was capable of that anytime soon. "He'll be fine."

Lassiter nodded in thanks as Henry handed him back the mug.

Shawn felt horrible. No, he didn't just feel horrible, he felt like-I've-just-been-stabbed-and-then-run-over-by-a-train horrible. Oh yeah, and he had a really, really bad headache. He groaned loudly and attempted to roll onto his back when –

He yelped loudly as he was suddenly falling, landing on something painfully hard and of course he had to land face first, forcing the air out of his lungs in a long whoosh. This time he semi-whimpered, semi-groaned as he again attempted to roll onto his back. Ow, ow, triple owie.

"Shawn?"

Please say that was not the voice he thought it was. He seriously did not need that right now while he was still trying to push himself onto his back, but his arms felt like jello. Very disobedient jello, which refused to listen or respond to even his slightest request. So not fair.

"Son, what are you doing on the floor?"

Ah, so that was where he was. That did beg the question of yes indeed, why was he on the floor?

He suddenly felt hands on his shoulders helping to roll him onto his back. He didn't know whether to groan in protest at the movement causing an orchestra consisting of only tambourines to start playing loudly and out of tune in his head. This was so not cool.

"Shawn, can you open your eyes for me?"

He wanted to respond with a negative but apparently his body was working evilly and cruelly against him. He sluggishly dropped a hand over his eyes to attempt to rub away the stickiness that had settled over them making it so much harder to open them. In the end he managed to force his eyes open a crack and peered up into a very blurry, but quite unmistakable face.

"Dad?" Shawn tried to force out between his lips, his throat now joining forces with his head to torture him as much as physically possible.

"Here," Dad was back, but before he had time to process anything of what might (or might not) be going on, he felt a hand behind his head, lifting it off the hard floor. That of course did aggravate his headache, but he found he didn't care when a bottle was pressed against his lips, allowing him to soothe part of the ache in his throat, so it at least was reduced very bad ow, instead of excruciating ow. When the bottle was taken away from him his dad spoke again, "Do you want to get back on the couch? The floor can't be very comfortable or warm."

Why did he have to mention anything warmth related? Of course that had to mean that he now felt cold. Very cold. Was he actually shivering? He cracked an eye open again, not aware of when he'd shut them, and tried to look around. Everything was still horribly blurry but the room was still unmistakably his dad's living room.

"Shawn," Dad said his name again, though this time it was more in the tone of 'pay attention' rather than the questionable tone from before.

Shawn shifted his gaze to somewhere in his dad's general direction. Oh yeah, Dad had actually asked if he wanted to get off the floor.

He sniffed before forcing his arms to cooperate. He was almost sitting when his arms started to shake and he knew that this was going to hurt. After all, he had just taken this fall once already.

This time though a hand on his back steadied him before he crashed back on the floor, and at that point he didn't particularly care that it was Dad that was helping him, only that he wasn't about to fall.

"Can't I just stay on the floor?" Shawn whined, closing his eyes against the pain that had intensified in his head.

"I'll help you up," Dad's voice was so gentle that Shawn actually had to blink and look to the side to make sure that it was his father who was crouched down on the floor next to him, his hand still braced against Shawn's back.

Shawn nodded reluctantly, simultaneously wondering when he was going to learn that any head movement resulted in pain. He whimpered rather pathetically as he was guided back onto the couch, his legs refusing to give any assistance, leaving him to rely mostly on his dad to do the work.

He let gravity take care of the rest as he started to drift sideways, knowing full well that this could very easily jar the pain in his head to a new level, but he could hardly do anything about it. It wasn't like he was the one who was control of what his body was doing. Definitely not lately anyway.

"Shawn, just try to sit up for a minute, okay?" Dad again. Since when did he turn into such a chatty Kathy?

"Ow," Shawn whimpered as Henry pushed him upright to lean against the back of the couch.

"When did you get sick?"

A hand was pressed against his forehead but he didn't have the energy to push it away. It felt…nice almost. He was pretty sure Dad had just asked him a question, but it seemed way too long and definitely too complicated to answer. Instead he settled on merely moving his head slightly to the side and mumbling something of semi-coherency.

"Son?"

Apparently Meany Old Papa wasn't satisfied.

"Wha'?" Shawn grumbled, bringing an arm up to fling across his face to block out any light that might try to break through his now closed lids and aggravate any of the misery he was in.

"How long have you been sick?"

"I don't know," he answered, barely noticing that his voice was slurring when something much, much worse came to his realisation. "I…I gotta…"

"Shawn?"

He could taste the bile rising in his throat and he desperately tried to push off the couch, finding renewed energy sparked by his desire to reach the bathroom in time. That was before something was pushed into his hands, his father's voice sounding in his ear with the instruction to use whatever it was his hands were now holding.

He didn't really have a choice.

He didn't think it was possible to enter yet another circle of Hell, but he was clearly painfully mistaken. His throat felt about three thousand times worse after he'd just had a way too personal encounter with his spleen. Okay, it probably was not that bad, but that didn't mean he wasn't hurting.

"Dad…" it was a whispered plea for the pain to be taken away, even though he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that there wasn't much his dad could do for him, but that didn't stop him from attempting.

"Drink this."

Again a bottle was pressed against his lips and he welcomed the water even more than previously, eager to get rid of the lingering taste of bile in his mouth. Once the bottle was removed from his mouth again he blinked his eyes open and stared blearily up at his father. When his vision was still too blurry for his liking a he brought a hand up to rub at his eyes finding that it finally helped, though he was slightly alarmed to find the wetness that appeared on his hand because of it.

"What happened?" Shawn asked, his voice weaker than he would have thought possible. He did not do weak. He was exuberant and funny and alive, he was not a limp weakling.

"Detective Lassiter brought you home," Henry replied, the couch dipping as he sat down next to Shawn. "He said you collapsed at a crime scene."

Shawn groaned, but this time it wasn't from the pain.

"Lassie still here?" He inquired, automatically shifting his gaze around the room as though expecting Lassiter to jump out from behind a dead fish with a shout of jubilation around the lines of, "Here I am!"

Of course, he didn't.

"No, he had to go back to the station," Dad said and Shawn could feel him staring at him.

"It's cold," Shawn mumbled, only now noticing that his dad seemed to think that hypothermia was a fun experience for him to have as he was missing his jeans.

"They were wet," Henry said offhandedly as he followed his son's gaze.

Apparently his dad did have a heart after all as picked up the blanket that had been discarded on the floor and handed it to him. Shawn clutched it to him after a moment of staring at in slight confusion as to what he was supposed to do with it. It would take way too much effort to unfold the blanket.

"Open up."

"Hm?"

Shawn barely had time to turn to look at his father before a thermometer was shoved into his mouth to rest under his tongue.

"Da-ad," Shawn whined around the thermometer, then promptly had to take the it out of his mouth in order to cough. Under Henry's stern glare he reluctantly put it back in his mouth.

"Keep it there," Henry ordered as he rose from the couch and disappeared from the living room.

Shawn shifted his gaze forward to stare blankly at the black screen of the television. He sniffed again and jostled the thermometer slightly now that his dad couldn't see. It was a little harder to breathe without the benefit of his mouth, and he had to remove the thermometer in order to draw in a large gulp of air. His hands were shaking by the time he stuck the thermometer into his mouth once more, and he willingly let his head roll back against the couch.

He didn't hear his dad come back, only noticed his reappearance when the thermometer was removed from his mouth.

"102, it's definitely gone down," Henry mumbled as he rummaged around near the coffee table, Shawn not caring enough to attempt to lift his head. "Do you think you can stand up?"

Shawn shook his head mutely and very carefully and slowly from side to side. He didn't even want to try and move.

"Alright," Henry sighed and Shawn thought briefly that he sounded pretty exhausted. "At least lie down then."

"No," Shawn croaked.

"Shawn."

Shawn forced one eye open to peer at his dad. Another shiver ran through him.

"What?" If he had thought his dad sounded exhausted he needed a tape recorder to listen to himself. He sounded like he'd just been buried alive, then brought back to life but with all of the dirt still sticking around in his throat and lungs.

"Take these."

Shawn's gaze shifted to the hand that was now inches from his nose. Ooh drugs! He liked that idea. He liked it very much. He greedily lifted a hand and promptly missed his dad's hand by about half a meter.

Henry sighed – again – and took a hold of his son's hand, pressing the pills into it. Not that it made it any easier to get his hand towards his face, but there was no way his dad was doing that for him too. The help with the water bottle was greatly appreciated though.

"You look like hell," Dad's voice sounded as though it came from quite far away as he started to tip his body to the side to lie down on the couch, bringing his legs up at the same as pulling at the blanket.

The blanket was pulled from his hands and he whined loudly in protest, but the noise was quickly halted when the blanket was draped over him with a lot less hassle than when he had attempted to do it himself. It seemed Dad had read his mind, because just as he was thinking that he was still cold, something heavier and warmer and somewhat familiar joined the blanket. He opened his eyes a crack to look at his old duvet lying over the blanket. He sighed in contentment and pulled both the blanket and duvet tighter around him.

"Get some sleep."

Dad's voice was soft and somewhat muffled. He felt a hand brush against his forehead before fingers stroked through his hair, but he found that he didn't mind so much. The steady, comforting motion helping to lull him to sleep.

Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. :)