This is the shortest one in quite a while; sorry about that. It's just kind of how it worked out.
Henry gets shotgun, due to his comparative size and his difficulty getting in and out of cars lately. He sits there flipping furiously through Carlton's notes while Carlton himself has a quick phone call with the Chief to let her know what's going on. It's clear that there are questions about Juliet's miraculous recovery that he skirts around or flat-out ignores. She sits in the back, trying to block out all the questions rolling through her own head that she would absolutely love to have answers to. They know enough for now. So instead of thinking, she just stares down at the hole in her shirt and the blood all over her stomach and clothes and hands.
By all rights, she should probably be close to dead right now. She keeps glancing over at Sebastian's hands, resting in his lap right beside her. They explained briefly right before they all mounted their bikes what he did. She still doesn't know if she believes it. But it does make about as much sense as any other explanation for her current state.
"Sebastian," she says quietly, and he turns his head slightly, not looking right at her since their heads are so close to each other, but showing he's listening. "How did you know to come here?"
"Shawn told me," he responds.
"That's what you said," comes Gus's voice from the other side of her. "But how did Shawn know?"
This time Sebastian does lean forward to look at him, his expression strange, questioning. "He's psychic."
Gus deflates, and he returns to staring at the back of Lassiter's seat. "Right."
"When did he tell you?" Juliet presses.
"And how exactly did he say it?" Gus adds. "You told us you didn't know what his situation was."
"And I didn't." He sighs quietly, staring at the empty space in front of him. "He came to me late at night, right before he vanished completely. Look… if he had just told me that the Master was a bad man, I would not have believed him. And I know that because… well, he'd tried before." He rubs a fist against his forehead in frustration. "But that was all he'd say. It was backed up by nothing but 'I have a feeling,' and it made me wonder for a bit, but the Master… had always been kind to me. Beyond kind. But that's a longer story. And then Shawn came to my door around 10:30 at night when I was getting ready for bed… and his shirt was covered with blood. Fresh blood. He was breathing hard and it was like he wasn't even seeing me. He was… in a state, let's just say. He'd been in one for quite some time, but now all of a sudden he was manic, and he said the craziest things, telling me I needed to get out immediately or I would die. He wouldn't, maybe couldn't, tell me whose blood it was or what was going on. So I got ready to call the police."
Juliet sits still with her lips pressed together, just staring at her own hands resting atop each other in her lap. She doesn't want to be hearing this. She doesn't want Shawn to have gone through any of what he has. But it's not up to her.
"And then…" Sebastian swallows. "He looked at me, finally actually met my eyes, and said, 'If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe your family.'" He pauses. Juliet has no idea where this is going. And Sebastian finally says, "My mother and father and sister have all been dead for years. But I have no doubt that Shawn let them speak through him. His voice took on different qualities and he held himself the way they used to and…" He shakes his head, and now Juliet and Gus are both staring at him, and they suddenly realize that the front of the car is now completely silent as well.
Sebastian finishes, "So I gave him a jacket to cover up the blood and told him 'Get out, right now, while you still can.'"
"You believed him about the Master because he channeled the ghosts of your family," Juliet summarizes blankly, and, feeling ridiculous for having said the words, she glances up at the reflection of her partner's eyes in the rearview mirror, expecting to see an eye roll or an expression of scorn. But he is very intentionally keeping his eyes on the road.
"That's the short of it. The long of it includes the details they gave me in the minute or two that we spoke, the things they told me about what that man and his partner did to them, and… and why." He rubs roughly at his eyes. "I still have about a thousand questions. But before I get answers, let's just make sure nobody else dies."
"I like the sound of that," Juliet says, managing to muster up a small smile.
"Shawn told you where to go after that, then?" Gus asks.
Sebastian nods. "It seemed that he was himself again but he was just clutching the jacket in his hands so I took it back and actually put it on him, and while I did he gave me an address for reference, directions from that address to get to the bike trail, a date, and a time. And he told me I'd need a bike. He said, 'Heal her. Save her. I know you can.' And then he stumbled out the door and took off at a dead run."
Juliet blinks. Shawn… knew she was going to be attacked?
Or… at least he did at one point. Surely he couldn't have known when they found him at that payphone, or he would have said something. There's no telling what he's erased from his own memory simply because it was too much.
But that's not the point. He knew. How on earth could he have known? Even if the Master had known, and for whatever reason had told him… the exact time? Really? It doesn't make any sense.
It makes about as much sense as a man being able to heal a probably-fatal knife wound in a matter of minutes.
But she had some notion that he might have known before all this. This morning, as she sat there by his bedside listening to him mutter. The things he said…
What if…
"How did you get to Santa Barbara?" asks Carlton.
"I took a couple of buses. To LA and then to here. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. I had to wait in the station for a few hours—we were just outside Salt Lake City at the time—but from there it was a pretty smooth trip."
"You've been here for half a day or so already, then," Henry says questioningly.
"Yes. But I didn't know where to go before the time that A—Shawn gave me. I… I considered going to the police. But I was afraid they'd detain me for my involvement and whoever I was supposed to heal would die." He glances around. "Um, speaking of that… are all of you police?"
"Just me and him," Juliet says, nodding towards Carlton.
"You all seem to know Shawn personally."
"Shawn is a consultant for the police department," Gus offers. "I'm his partner. We have a psychic detective agency."
Sebastian stares at him for a long moment, and lets out a chuckle of disbelief, eyes still wide. "Shawn works with the police. Who'd have thought it?"
He's a very different person than the one you've come to know, Juliet thinks but does not say, because to say it out loud would only make it that much more real.
"What about you?" asks Gus, a note of genuine curiosity in his voice. "What do you do? At the carnival?"
"Well." He appears a bit bashful, almost sheepish. "I'm a sword swallower."
"You're kidding." Gus sounds fascinated despite himself. "No wonder Shawn wanted to be friends with you."
Sebastian smiles for a short moment, but then his expression quickly morphs into one of remorse. "You should know… well, if you don't already… that he was in a bad way while he was with us. He told me his visions were much stronger and more frequent than usual—it seemed that he could not touch another person without seeing more than he wanted to, and it was very difficult for him. It was overwhelming. And so he soon took to avoiding touch entirely."
Juliet's back to staring at her hands, for different reasons this time. When she tried to take his hand in the hospital… he flinched away from her. But… but his psychic act is just that—an act. Even if for some bizarre reason he had to up the ante while he was at the carnival, why would he continue the charade after returning home?
Unless, of course…
Sebastian continues, "I don't know what caused that spike in intensity and I don't think he does either. But I just thought I should warn you." He's silent for a few moments. "He refused to talk about where he'd come from, and it occurs to me now… maybe he couldn't. Maybe it wasn't safe. But I can tell you that he missed all of you dearly."
It's not a surprise, of course, but Juliet appreciates his saying it. Silence hangs heavy in the air for a long minute or so.
"Jules," Gus says quietly, "before he said the address… what did you hear? What was he dreaming about?"
She shakes her head, biting her lip. "Gus, it sounded like the final showdown none of us wanted to happen, and it was going so much worse than any of us would hope. He… he said things like 'I know you're going to kill me' and he mentioned Sebastian's name, and… and… here's the kicker." She shakes her head slightly, and finally gets herself to say it: "He said, 'I want to know why she had to die.'"
She turns to Gus to meet his eyes, and he meets hers, and the look they exchange says everything they can't quite safely say out loud, but wish more and more with every passing second that they could. They can both feel the same thing in Henry's tensed shoulders, though he's not so obvious that he turns around to look at them.
What Shawn does… It's… it's all a lie. Always has been.
"Dammit," Carlton suddenly grunts, turning on his blinker and quickly merging right. Juliet looks, and ahead they can see what appears to be total gridlock. The road is only three lanes but a wreck that completely stops more than one lane has got to be pretty bad.
Gus is typing and scrolling furiously on his phone. "It looks like the accident is about a mile ahead."
Carlton nods. "The good news is I know a detour. The bad news is it adds about fifteen minutes to the journey." He leans forward, gripping the steering wheel tight as he begins to drive on the shoulder. "But I can at least push that down to ten."
He wakes up slowly, not quite able to recall when consciousness fled from him, and the only fleeting remnants he can recall from his sleep are quickly fading screams—but they sound different, somehow, from the ones that have been tormenting him of late. They're of surprise just as much as they are of fear. They don't belong to his friend's family. In fact… he's not sure they've happened yet.
The first sensation that reaches him is the cold. And it takes him a few moments to discern just why that is. Blinking rapidly as he glances around, he finds himself in a dimly lit room. Not particularly large and not at all furnished, except… except for the table he's lying on.
His body is secured thoroughly, his limbs tied down good and tight with rope and zip ties. He can barely even turn his feet, and his arms won't move at all. He feels something, a strange pressure on his right arm, near the inside of his elbow. He lifts up his head—the only part of his body that's not secured—to look down, still blinking profusely. The first thing he notices is that, inexplicably enough—though it doesn't disturb him nearly as much as it should, with every other horrifying thing to be distracted by—he's been stripped down to his boxers.
He ignores that, at least for now, in favor of investigating the sensation on his arm. And everything inside him flinches back in horrible, profound discomfort and alarm at seeing the large needle stuck deep into it. But he can't move. All he can do is follow the tube connected to the needle, filled with dark red, to its source: a cooler in the corner of the room.
He feels weak. He doesn't know how long he's been out.
And he's seen this exact scenario before.
He begins to thrash, or as near as he can come to thrashing, but it doesn't make a bit of a difference; the table's low and wide and it's either anchored to the floor or very heavy. He thinks he feels it sway slightly but it doesn't move.
"You're awake," comes an all too familiar voice from off to the side, presumably the only doorway in the room, as he can see the faint rectangular outline and the form of a person within it. "I have to say I didn't expect that. Must have gotten the dosage a bit off."
He strains to focus his vision and see through the dark, when the shutters on the heretofore unnoticed windows are drawn back, illuminating the room with a humble amount of natural light, but he flinches even at this, squeezing his eyes shut. Opening them fully again is a process which takes a few seconds as they adjust to the brightness.
Standing in the doorway holding the cord to the blinds, his hair slicked meticulously back, wearing jeans, a grey suit jacket, a blue tie, and a wide smile full of unholy anticipation, is the man who calls himself the Master.
"Welcome to the end, Mr. Spencer."
