Chapter Two
By late-afternoon, Gus had called his friend about an apartment and set up a viewing for the next morning.
"You can sleep here for the night if you want," he said, gesturing to the couch in the Psych office. "Or maybe you can stay with Shawn's dad?" He said this while looking at Shawn. Shawn was busy bouncing a tennis ball off the wall and catching it and he didn't seem to be paying attention.
"It's fine, I'll stay here tonight," she said, smiling.
"Great," Gus said, glaring at Shawn. "It's actually pretty well set up to live in. There's a shower in the bathroom, back there," he pointed. "There are blankets and pillows in the closet, and if you like coffee, there's a coffee maker. You can eat whatever you find in the fridge that is marked 'Shawn' and before I forget, let me put our numbers in your phone," he said. She handed it over and watched him type for a moment.
"Thanks," she said when he handed it back.
"I put Henry's number in there too, for emergency. That's Shawn's dad," he said. She nodded, having already known that. "Now, I need to go home and start working on my real job." He said this with an air of importance, and Shawn snorted.
"That job is so boring," he said, shaking his head as he turned away from the wall, letting the tennis ball he had just thrown bounce toward them. Aislinn caught it before it could knock anything off of Gus's desk and tossed it back at him. Sadly, he caught it before it could hit his head.
"So I was thinking," Shawn began once Gus had left.
"That's dangerous," Aislinn replied automatically. It was something her mother always used to say to tease her. Shawn gave her a look but didn't comment.
"Earlier, when you were showing me your memories, you left out all the boring parts, like the things that don't matter, and I'm assuming you left out embarrassing things too since i didn't get any of those," Shawn said, his face thoughtful.
"Yeah, well, the boring things don't matter," she said, shrugging.
"So you can control what thoughts you are sharing?" He asked, leaning forward on his desk.
"I guess so. I didn't do it on purpose," she said, settling in to the couch.
"But you could," he said, trilling off.
"Maybe. I've never tried it before," she said, thinking back to the few times she had shared her memories with her mother. "I shared my thoughts with my mother sometimes, but not since I was really young, and back then I didn't know it wasn't a normal thing to do, and once I knew it was weird, I never tried it, until today."
"Well maybe if you can control what memories go out, you can control what memories come it when you touch things," he said.
"I don't see how that would be useful. What if something I block out is the important piece to figuring something else out?" She asked, frowning.
"I meant more along the lines of talking," he said, finally getting to the point. "Like mind to mind communication."
"I can't read minds Shawn," she said, but she was frowning.
"Have you ever tried? It seems to me that as soon as you touch someone you get their memories and stuff, but you pull away before you can figure out how to control them," he said.
"You mean like mind control? I'm not doing that Shawn," she said, shaking her head.
"No, not controlling their minds, just controlling what you get from them. You said you get the feelings and reasons behind what people are doing in your visions right?" He asked, standing to pace now.
"Yeah," she said slowly.
"Well maybe if you learned how to focus what you can do to only see what you want to see, you could read peoples minds," he said, coming to a stop in front of the couch.
"I'd have to be touching them Shawn," she said, shaking her head. "I still don't see how that would be useful."
"Think of it like working out. In order to lift more weight you have to work out your arms, but you also have to work out your abs and legs or something like that," he said, plopping down in an armchair.
"You got that from a book," she said, half recognizing the line though she couldn't place it.
"Well it makes sense," he said. "In order to control your gift you have to learn everything it can do."
""Yeah, that's why I was trying to find other people like me, so I can learn from them," she said, nodding.
"Well you can learn from me," he said, grinning.
"I don't think that counts Shawn," she said, almost laughing.
"Just try it," he said, holding his hands out in front of him.
"I don't even know how to start trying to learn that," she said, shaking her head.
"But don't you think it would be useful to talk without talking? If we are on a stakeout of something?" He said, still holding his hands out in front of him.
"I guess," she said, looking at his hands. "But it might take a while to get right. My mom used to think that meditation would help me control the visions but it was really boring and I couldn't concentrate."
"So she took you to Yoga classes," he continued. "Yeah I got that all up here," he said, tapping his head. She smiled.
"Okay, I'll try," she said, pulling her gloves off of her hands. He grinned and held his hands out to her again but she shook her head. "Let's sit on the floor in front of the coffee table. It might take a while and my arms will get sore if you aren't resting your hands on something." They both shifted, Aislinn sliding down to sit between the couch and the coffee table, and Shawn moving to sit across from her. He rested his hands on the table and Aislinn took a deep breath in to try to clear her mind, then she took his hands into hers and closed her eyes. There was the initial flash of memories, things she stored away for later, and an undertone of feelings and smells and color. She took another deep breath in, slowly, and pushed the images aside, to the back of her brain. She could still feel them, and she still watched them with a corner of her mind, but now she was focused more on reality no, she was aware of Shawn's hands in hers, and she could hear both of their breathing. She frowned. Maybe that wasn't the right way to go about it. Her connection to Shawn was in the images, and pushing them away didn't seem to make any other connection come forward. She pulled the stream of images back to the front of her mind and focused on them again. There was nothing new there, she had seen all of these memories already. She tried to slow them down, tried to focus more on each individual memory, feeling the thoughts and emotions behind each one until they were playing in front of her at a normal speed. She took another breath in and tried pausing them all together. The image froze in her mind, of a house, his dad's house, and a beach and him and Gus as children playing in the front yard. She tried pulling the memory into her, thinking that maybe she could find where that was coming from and follow the connection into his head to see what he was thinking, but suddenly the image was gone, and so were Shawn's hands. She opened her eyes, frowning in confusion.
"Whatever you just did really hurt," he said, rubbing his forehead.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't realize it would affect you." She frowned again. "What exactly happened?"
"I dunno," he said, shrugging. "It felt like you were sifting around in my brain and pulling things out."
"Oh," she said. "I won't try that again. But I think I sort of am getting the hang of it."
"Okay," he said, setting his hands back on the table, palm up. She rested her hands on his and closed her eyes, this time immediately able to pause the memories when they came in. She had never actually tried not to receive memories from things before, and now that she was able to stop them, at least sort of stop them, it seemed like the obvious thing that she should have done years ago. She looked at the memory now, trying to see it from the outside, like a movie screen, rather than being in the movie, and she managed to pull herself away from it. It took her a few moments to completely be able to pull her mind away from it. This seemed to work better. She wasn't shoving the connection away, just pulling herself back to look at it better. And now that she wasn't focused on the memory itself, she could see a thin line of changing color and light stretching from the memory towards Shawn, though she couldn't see him. In the place where she knew he was sitting she could see a faint, reddish orange glow in the general shape of a person. She followed the faint line connecting them toward the light, curious as to what it was. The closer she got, the harder it was to follow the line, until finally it was just gone. She opened her eyes, frowning, but her hands were still on Shawn's. His eyes were closed, and she was briefly surprised that he could sit still that long, but then she realized she didn't even know how long that had taken. It had felt like hours, but the sun was still up, so it couldn't have been that long.
"Shawn?" She asked, frowning. Had he fallen asleep? Why weren't the memories there anymore. He opened his eyes, tilting his head to one side.
"What?" He asked, wondering why she had stopped.
"That's weird," she said, drawing her hands away, then putting them back. She shook her head. "I don't see the memories anymore. I'm not sure what happened."
"You don't see anything?" He asked. "Maybe I ran out of memories."
"No, they should still be there," she said, though now she wasn't sure. She had seen repeats of memories earlier, so she just assumed they would keep replaying. She closed her eyes and focused back in the part of her mind where the memories always played, though she wasn't sure how she knew that. It was blank, but the line was still there, light and changing, almost shifting. She slated the memories again, just how she had stopped them, and then there they were, new ones too, of the conversation they had just had. She frowned, frustrated that she didn't seem to be able to do anything besides stop and start the memories. She sighed. Well, at least that was something. There was a little tickling in the back of her mind as she made to give up, and she frowned. It felt different from the way the memories felt. She poked at it with her mind for a moment, and suddenly there was a burst of noise, too jumbles to make out, and very loud. She automatically covered her days with her hands, and the voiced were gone.
"What happened?" Shawn asked, his face concerned. She shook her head.
"I think I just figured something out," she said, grinning and reaching for his hands again. As she had pulled her hands away and there was silence again, she had a second to catch the end of the noise, and it had definitely sounded like Shawn's voice. He gave her his hands again, and she closed her eyes, ignoring the restart of the memory slideshow and focusing on the little part in the back of her mind that tickled slightly. She didn't jerk her hands away when the loud noise overwhelmed her this time, instead she pushed it away a little, only letting parts of it come through at a time.
'She looks a little pale, maybe this is a bad idea,' she heard in his voice, though she was sure it wasn't something he said aloud.
"I'm fine," she replied aloud, and grinned, opening her eyes. "And I think it was a good idea."
'That is really disconcerting, kinda creepy,' he thought, then opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow in question.
"It's not that creepy, you're the one who thought it would be a good idea," she replied, rolling her eyes. He pulled his hands away and the voice was gone.
"Do you think you can do that all the time now or will you have to sit and sift through their minds first?" He asked, returning the grin.
"I think I can do it all the time, now that I know how to. And I think I know how to stop most of the visions now," she said, though she didn't try explaining it all to him, knowing he wouldn't really understand it. "You're brain is really loud but he way. Though maybe that's normal."
"Nah, I have a super brain," he said, getting to his feet and stretching. "So can you give me thoughts back just like the memories?"
"I don't know," she said standing. "Come here, let me try." He stepped closer and she set her fingers against the sides of his head and closed her eyes. She could still hear his thoughts in the back of her mind, thinking about how cool it would be to be able to talk to each other without talking. She smiled a little, amused.
'Shawn?' She thought, and she could tell it had worked because his thoughts went from wondering, to surprise, and then to excitement.
'This is literally the coolest thing I've ever done,' he thought and she laughed, but it was in her mind, not out loud.
'I'm going to have to agree with you,' she thought back.
'Do you have to be touching my head and have your eyes closed?' He asked, and she opened her eyes to see he was already looking at her. She drew her hands away, breaking the connection, then touched the hand he lifted.
'Can you hear me now?' She thought, trying to mimic the annoying cell phone commercial. His face broke out into a grin.
'Awesome,' he though, and she dropped her hand, feeling a headache building.
"I think that's enough of that for the day," she said, rubbing her temples. She glanced at the clock and frowned. "How did that take less than half an hour? It felt like a lot longer than that," she said.
"It did," he agreed, then shrugged. "I hate to ditch out on you," he began and she grinned.
"But there's a hot bartender at the bar you go to that get's off her shift in an hour and you want to go flirt," she said. He grinned and shook his head.
"It's a little weird that you know so much about me but we just met this morning," he said, looking around for his motorcycle helmet.
"But you know about me too," she pointed out.
"Not really. Just unimportant things like what school you went to," he said, finding the helmet.
"What's my favorite color?" She asked, her hands on her hips.
"Purple," he said automatically. "Hm," he said frowning. "I didn't know I knew that. And your favorite food is bread. That's weird."
"Not really. I shared memories with you, and just because you didn't notice things doesn't mean your brain didn't pick up on them," she said, sitting back down on the couch.
"No, I meant it's weird that your favorite food is bread when there are so many better things out there," he said, grinning.
"Like pineapple?" She asked, returning the grin.
"I was actually assuming you had excluded pineapple, because there is nothing better than that," he said.
"It is delicious," she said, nodding. "Now go away and flirt with your lady friend."
"Lady friend?" he snorted. "What century is this again?" She tossed a pillow at him and he dodged it, then left, making sure the door was locked behind him. She sighed and looked around the rapidly darkening office. It wasn't too late, only a little after seven, but she was exhausted after the day of driving, running around, and overall stress of the morning, added to the stress of trying to control her gift. She lowered the blinds, then frowned. She hadn't brought any of her clothes inside, so she didn't have anything else to sleep in. She shrugged out of her sweater, then pulled the t-shirt over her head too, settling for the camisole she was wearing underneath that. She wondered briefly if she could get away with sleeping in her underwear, but decided to leave her jeans on, just in case one of the boys came in before she woke up. She settled into the couch, turning so her face was buried between the back of the couch and the pillow. The couch was really more of a love seat, and it was too short for her to stretch all the way out on, but she usually slept curled up anyway, so it wasn't too uncomfortable. She was asleep before the sun had fully set.
The next morning she was awoken to loud knocking, and she jumped up in surprise, almost tripping over the coffee table. She opened the front door as she would have done back home, not thinking about who would be on the other side, and only belatedly remembered that she was in a strange city and probably should be more careful about opening the door to people. Shawn was the one pounding on the door.
"I forgot my key," he explained, rushing in past her. "Our simple stolen book case just turned into a murder. Let's go," he said, grabbing a paper from the file on his desk. She sighed.
"I don't want to see any dead bodies," she said, pulling her t-shirt from yesterday back on. It didn't look too ruffled, and she didn't want to waste time hunting through her car for clothes. She ran a hand over her hair, wicking she had a hairbrush too, then twisted it back into a bun so it wouldn't get too tangled. She decided to leave the sweater, fairly confident that she would be able to stop the onslaught of visions now that she knew it was possible to do.
"They already took the body, but I want to solve it before Lassie does," Shawn said, grinning. "You drive."
"There's not a lot of room in my car," she warned, following him up the street. She directed him to the right car when he hesitated. The front seat was mostly clear anyway, and she unlocked the doors to let him in.
"When you get your apartment we will have to go furniture shopping," he said, seeming excited at the idea. She shook her head.
"I'm not buying anything you suggest," she said, and he huffed. "Where to? And where's Gus today?"
"At his boring job. Go up this street, turn right at the light," he said. He was practically bouncing in his seat the entire way.
"So who got killed?" She asked as he directed her out of the crowded part of the city.
"I don't know yet, I just heard it on the scanner this morning," he said.
"Why were you up so early?" She asked.
"I'm always up early. I don't sleep that much, maybe four hours a night," he said distractedly as they pulled up the driveway of the mansion house and stopped next to a squad car. "They found the books in the butlers brother's bedroom but he was gone, and they came up to arrest the wife this morning after finding a note she wrote to the brother about the books," Shawn said. "Jules texted me that this morning." His phone rang as they were getting out of the car. "Speak of the devil," he grinned. "Hey Jules," he said into the phone. Aislinn couldn't hear her half of the conversation, but got the gist of it from Shawn. "We'll be right there."
"Did they just call you to come here?" She asked, grinning.
"Yep," he said. "I love it when the have to ask for my help." She shook her head and followed him in through the already open doors, only to come to a stop at the sight of the dead husband.
"Shawn," Aislinn hissed, staring at the body. "You said the body was gone already."
"My bad," he said, shrugging. "I must have been getting a vision from the not so distant future." She hit his arm.
"Shawn," Juliet said, frowning as she walked over. "I just called you like two minutes ago."
"We were in the neighborhood," he said, his eyes flicking around the room.
"Hello," Juliet said politely to Aislinn.
"Hi," she said, smiling. She was glad the other woman wasn't scared of her, even though she had stepped away from her yesterday.
"I don't think we were really properly introduced yesterday," Juliet said, holding her hand out. Aislinn frowned for a second, half wishing she had worn her sweater and gloves, but kind of glad she hadn't. If she was going to be seeing these people a lot, maybe she should take the opportunity to learn about them. But it didn't seem fair to do that using her gift. It felt like cheating. She held her hand out for Juliet to shake. "I'm Juliet O'Hara." Aislinn felt the flash of memories begin, but she cut it off immediately.
"Aislinn Kelly," she replied, ignoring the slight pounding in the back of her head.
'I love her hair. I wish I could pull off red hair,' the thought in Juliet's voice slipped through even though Aislinn wasn't looking for it.
"I think blonde hair suits you," Aislinn said without thinking. Juliet frowned and took a step back.
"What?" She asked, her voice surprised.
"Blonde hair," Aislinn said, trying to play it off as something she had meant to say. "It suits you." Juliet's eyes widened a little, but she shook her head and turned to Shawn who hadn't been paying attention to them. Aislinn didn't follow them as they approached the dead body, and she tried her best not to look at it. She stood near the front doors, ignoring the crying wife and the forensics people who came and went.
"Any ideas?" She asked Shawn as he came over to stand by her.
"They think it was either the wife or the mistress. Though apparently she didn't know about the affair until… recently," he said.
"In other words you told her and she was really surprised," she guessed. He shrugged but didn't say anything more as some other officers came near them. Aislinn watched the crying woman for a moment, the frowned and reached over to touch Shawn's arm.
'I don't think it's the wife, she looks devastated, and what reason would the mistress have to kill him?' She thought, and Shawn jumped, nearly pulling his arm away before he realized what she was doing.
'I don't think it's the wife either,' he thought. 'The butler found him this morning and the wife was actually at the mistresses house until an hour ago.'
'So what now?' she asked, stepping back as Shawn did to let an offer past.
'They think he fell down the stairs, but he had bruises around his neck suggesting someone tried to strangle him first,' Shawn thought, his eyes on the man. Aislinn still looked away, keeping her eyes on the crying woman. 'I want to get up there and look around. Or you could just touch the body.' She shook her head sharply and turned to glare at him.
'I'm not going anywhere near that body,' she said, half shouting it in her mind. He winced and frowned, using his free arm to rub his head.
'Fine, fine, lets go upstairs. There has to be a back way up," he thought, and they both turned toward the kitchen, breaking contact, only to find Juliet and Lassiter watching them with odd expressions on their faces.
"Oh hey Lassie, didn't see you there," Shawn said, grinning and half stepping in front of Aislinn in a protective manner, put on guard by their faces. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it, but Aislinn was glad he had. They must have noticed something weird, they wore the same expressions on their faces that the few people who had found out about her back home had worn. Shawn was probably reacting to those memories too, though he probably didn't know it.
"What are you doing here Spencer?" Lassiter asked, and she could see him shift his attention to Shawn, and she left out a sigh of relief. They must be more used to strange things around here than they had been at home.
"I was invited," Shawn said, tucking his hands in his pockets but staying between her and the cops. Aislinn peeked around his shoulder to see Lassiter glaring at Juliet who just shrugged. Now that both of them were distracted she stepped around Shawn and walked along the wall toward the kitchen.
"It's his case too," she could hear Juliet saying. Evidently they hadn't noticed her departure, though she was sure Shawn had. Sure enough, there was a hallway on the other side of the kitchen. She took it, making sure not to touch anything. She really didn't want to see a murder happen, though she was sure she would see it at some point. Shawn caught up to her at the top of the stairs.
"Sorry about them," he said, grinning. "They both still think I'm a fake so it scares them to see something actually happen. Jules it looked like we were having a conversation without talking."
"Well we were," Aislinn said, shrugging.
"Don't worry about them," he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. She assumed it was supposed to be comforting, and it was a little. "They aren't like those people in your memories." She gave him a small smile.
"I know," she said. following him to the top of the other staircase. He looked around, pointing out a footprint in the carpet at the top of the stairs.
"That's a print from a mans shoe," he said, kneeling down by it to look at it better. "It's too small to be Mr. Daniels, and the butler said no one's been up here since the death besides the wife."
"Maybe she just has big feet," Aislinn commented, and Shawn chuckled.
"No, she wears size 8 in women's," he said, tilting his head to the side, then scowling. She squatted down beside him and rested her hand over the footprint, letting the memories flow through her. "You don't have to do that. I know you don't want to see a murder."
"I'll have to sooner or later," she muttered, focusing on the images. She gasped, then stood. "It was the butlers brother. He's in love with the mistress," she said, then shook her head. "He tried choking him, but the guy fought back so he pushed him down the stairs." She tried to keep her voice even. She hadn't actually seen the death, just the man tumbling down the stairs. "He forgot to take the security tape."
"This is one twisted little family," Shawn said, grinning.
"Wait there's more," Aislinn said. She had rested her hand on the banister as she stood and gotten a flash of something. "He's still here. He dropped something in the scuffle and didn't realize it until he was outside. His wallet," she said, looking around her. "There," she pointed to the edge of a leather flap sticking out from under the table. She felt a little sick, she had seen more of the murder from the touch on the banister, but she tried not to think about it.
"Awesome," Shawn said, then frowned. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," she said. "I just want some fresh air. You can wrap this up on your own right?"
"Sure," he said as they made their way back to the other stairway. "Do you know where the guy is hiding?"
"He's waiting in one of the outbuildings. Maybe the one by the pool? Not sure," she said.
"Great," he said as they came to a stop near the front doors. Aislinn turned to go back to the car, hearing Shawn start a 'vision' behind her. It only took them about ten minutes to find the boy in the pool shed and get him into a squad car.
By that afternoon Aislinn, with the help of Gus and Shawn, had moved all her things up into her new apartment, only about twenty minutes away from the Psych office, and less than ten minutes from the police station, Shawn's apartment, and Gus's apartment. Gus had lent her an air mattress to sleep on until they went furniture shopping, which they were planning on doing that weekend, which was fine by Aislinn, the air mattress was comfortable enough.