Juliet stands in the wide hallway with about two long strides between her and Shawn, her gun aimed at the center of his chest. Gus is an arm's length from her and the same distance from Shawn that she is, but he has half a mind to place himself between them. She must be delirious from the blood loss. Her words "You're not Shawn" echo a few times in his head, and each time they appear even more insane than before.
"Jules," he starts, voice low, and as pacifying as he can get it.
She shakes her head, lips pressed tightly together, eyes beginning to shine with moisture and never leaving Shawn. "He's not Shawn," she says, addressing Gus this time.
Shawn looks terrified, his eyes wide and his hands up. "Jules, put the gun down," he says, but his voice shakes in the way Gus's nearly did.
"Shut up!" she snaps, tightening her grip on the gun. "Where is he?"
"Juliet," Gus tries again, still with no idea how he's going to finish the locution.
"No, you're not him, you're not Shawn, just like the man who stabbed me wasn't Carlton," she screams.
Shawn turns his eyes desperately to Gus. "Buddy, little help?"
But the comparison gives Gus pause. Today has just about proven to them, or come as close to proof as eyewitness accounts can get, that it's possible for one man to make himself look exactly like another. And certainly, this man does look… identical to Shawn. Right down to the new ink on his forehead and arm and the way the natural light streaming through the hole in the ceiling tinges his hair. Gus looks at him and all he sees is his best friend, staring at him in terror.
But he forces himself to consider other factors. His reaction to Juliet's earlier query was suspect at best. Gus would've even been able to quickly accept "I just knew," but no answer came at all.
He tilts his head, squinting at Shawn's feet. He's just got on socks, which makes sense since he was abducted straight from Henry's house, but that's not the point.
"How are you able to run?" Gus asks with slowly dawning realization, looking up at Shawn's face and meeting eyes that now appear even wider than before. "Last time I saw you your feet were so messed up you could barely take two normal steps."
Shawn's mouth opens and closes once. "They're better," he says then, smiling in an apparent attempt to calm them. "Come on, guys, it's me."
Gus shakes his head slowly, keeping his eyes trained on Shawn. The question just flows out of him, before he can consider the implications of his asking it, which is probably for the best. "How old were you when you took the detective's exam and what was your score?"
Shawn stares at him, eyes wide, for all of one second before he returns his attention to Juliet, who still has her gun trained on him, and says, voice suddenly tearful, "I'm sorry, I didn't want to do it. I'm so glad you're alive. Totally confused, but glad."
Gus blinks, dumbfounded, as Juliet releases a deep gasp. It still doesn't make sense to Gus. This is obviously Shawn, his best friend since pretty much forever. Sure, his memory's messed up; they've already established that. He's gone through who knows what for such a long time. But he's back now, and everything is going to be okay. Right?
"I wish I could let you save him," Shawn says, and now tears are running freely down his face, more freely than Gus has ever seen him let them fall, "but I can't."
"We can save both of you," Juliet counters fiercely, though her words are strangely contradictory to the gun she's still pointing squarely at him.
"No!" he responds adamantly. "Both of us—you can't save any of us. You mustn't save any of us. Me, Shawn, the acrobat, the sword swallower—we are all of us going to die. We always were."
"Y-you… you don't want to do this," Gus falters. He's slowly beginning to understand what's happening—he has all the pieces, he's just too terrified of what he knows the finished product will look like to quite bring himself to assemble them all.
"No, I really don't," Shawn agrees, voice shaking violently, wiping his tattooed arm roughly across his wet face. "I wish to God I didn't have to. But I do. I have to protect my family. I have to die."
"You tell me where Shawn is right now," Juliet demands, voice echoing around the empty building, advancing by one small step towards the man, which causes him to flinch back, but he doesn't break.
Gus feels tears coming on in his own eyes, but he manages, "He's threatening your family?"
"He has been since he took me eight years ago. I've managed to keep them safe for this long. This is the home stretch. I'm so close. But I am, I am so sorry." There's a veritable waterfall pouring down each of his cheeks but he's keeping an impressive lid on the blubbering. "Please, just let him kill me. Just let me die."
"You know we can't do that," Juliet growls. "If you go through with this, it won't just be your life, it'll be Shawn's and everyone else this psychopath is after. Tell us where we can find him, and we can end this now."
"And the hitmen don't get the order to stand down, and my wife and children die."
"Shawn killed the hitman!" Gus blurts desperately, remembering Shawn's admission, that he'd taken down the man who'd shot his dad.
"That's right," Juliet says, realization dawning in her voice. "The Master had only one accomplice, and Shawn took him down."
This seems to give Shawn—or rather, not-Shawn—pause. "You know this?" he asks, disbelief prominent in his expression and his voice. "That there was only one?"
They hesitate. He sees that hesitation. And the deal is sealed.
He lunges forward and grabs the gun out of Juliet's hands, almost tripping on one of the pieces of roof tile littering the floor but managing to stay steady. Gus doesn't know if she didn't see it coming, or didn't have a clear shot, or did on both counts but couldn't find the resolve quickly enough to pull the trigger on someone who looked exactly like Shawn. And so Gus finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun being held by his best friend. Or at least by all appearances.
He throws up his hands immediately, and so does Juliet. Gus has to say something, and he wants to start with "Shawn" but that just won't do, so instead he asks, trying to keep his voice steady, "What's your name?"
"Wish I frigging knew," comes the somewhat strangled response.
Gus blinks, at a loss now, but Juliet cuts in, "We'll help you find out."
"What part of 'He's going to kill my family' do you not understand?" not-Shawn growls. He gestures the gun slightly towards Gus. "You. Take that gun out of your pocket."
Gus curses silently. He was hoping the man hadn't seen that, and trying to build himself up to yank it out and engage in a standoff. Any chance of doing that is now lost. He pulls the firearm slowly out.
"Put it on the floor and kick it towards me."
Gus does, all the while trying to think of what he could possibly say to improve the situation. His foot slides the weapon across the floor to the point where it stops at not-Shawn's feet.
As he bends down to pick it up, a scream, muffled by distance and numerous walls, rips through the house. It's a woman's voice, and Gus is immediately thinking of the woman Lassiter went after, and he knows Juliet is too. The sound clearly spooks not-Shawn, and he scoops up the gun quickly, shoves it into his pocket, and places both hands on Juliet's gun, rapidly aiming back and forth between them. "Don't move!" he cries, and both their hands go up.
It is at this moment that they hear footsteps behind them. Gus doesn't know whether to be relieved that the cavalry's here or worried that the extra people will make not-Shawn nervous enough to do something rash. He wants to turn and see exactly who's arrived but he's afraid to do even that. Juliet doesn't move either. He sneaks a glance at her expression, which has relaxed into a pretty stoic state except for the dead giveaway of her wide eyes shimmering with tears.
An answer as to who it is comes quickly in the form of the word "Shawn?" spoken in Mr. Spencer's voice from behind them. Gus surmises that the other set of footsteps belongs to Sebastian, but he doesn't hear anything from the man just yet.
Not-Shawn takes a step back, trying to keep all of them in range. Gus is probably the closest to him but not close enough to do anything. He is more off to his side than anyone else, though… Maybe he could inch towards him without his noticing?
"Whoa, put it down, Shawn, it's okay," comes Mr. Spencer's voice again, understandably bewildered.
"You put it down!" not-Shawn cries, and after a moment of puzzlement Gus puts together that Mr. Spencer must have come in brandishing his own gun.
He actually winces as he hears said weapon clatter slightly as he places it on the marble floor, clearly thinking he's simply dealing with a spooked Shawn. "Okay, now you," he says gently.
"No, no no no no, it's not Shawn," Juliet corrects, still not turning, even as it's obvious that it's too late. "It's the man who took Shawn."
Gus dares to sneak a glance behind him, moving only his head. Sure enough, there stands Henry, just behind them, and next to him is Sebastian, who is looking right awful, barely able to keep himself upright.
"What the hell do you mean, 'not Shawn'?" Mr. Spencer scoffs, but his eyes are wide.
"The rundown?" says Juliet, and, brusquely: "He can make himself look like other people, and he made himself look like Lassiter today to take Shawn and attack me. He was trying to distract us, just now."
"I'm sorry," not-Shawn says again, to Henry this time, fresh tears now flowing. "He's got targets painted on my wife and kids."
It seems Mr. Spencer can only stand still, staring at the man who looks like his son but is not acting like him at all. Just hearing the words "my wife and kids" come out of his mouth is strange for all of them. "You're all pulling my leg, right?"
"If only," not-Shawn responds sardonically.
"Shouldn't have dropped that gun," Sebastian mutters to Mr. Spencer in much the same tone. After a moment he asks, "Where's Detective Lassiter?"
"Hopefully doing better than we are," Juliet answers, rather unhelpfully, but Gus can't blame her.
He groans, rolling over as his breath returns to him. Upon impact he heard but did not feel a crack; after performing a swift inventory, he concludes that although he's sore in a couple places and will probably have some bruising, he has sustained no real injuries, and at the moment just finds himself with the air thoroughly knocked out of him. He pushes himself painfully to his knees. Next to him is the impossible acrobat, facedown on the floor, unmoving.
He rolls the woman over onto her back. She appears to be out cold, and in support of this notion is the smear of blood left on the marble floor where her head was, and the one of commensurate size near her temple.
He quickly checks her pulse, and finding it present albeit slightly slow, he looks up in frustration. He can't just leave her here to cause more trouble later. He'll have to handcuff her to something. He knows how callous it is but for a moment all he can think is how much easier it would have been if she'd simply died in the fall.
Lassiter reaches into his pocket for his only pair of cuffs even as he glances around to survey the area they've fallen into. They are currently in a very wide hallway with some extremely large windows to one side and a wall bearing a couple doors on the other. It terminates in a dead end behind them, but far in front of them there is another door.
Two long strides bring him to the nearest door, one in the wall, which leads to what he quickly discovers to be two large, connected rooms. Another dead end. He returns to the woman, hauls her a couple yards to that first door, and cuffs her right wrist to the handle. She doesn't seem to be especially strong and she ought to be foggy from her injury; her breaking the handle should be next to impossible.
Now that he has a second to think, something that's been nagging him in the few minutes since it happened is allowed to come to the forefront of his mind.
"You can't go down there," Livia said.
Down?
But Spencer was decidedly on the floor above them, now three floors above him… O'Hara and Guster followed him. They're all up, not down.
It puts up a lot of red flags for him. Something is wrong here. The most likely explanation is that she was trying to intentionally mislead him, and it's a red herring rather than a genuine slipup. Or, perhaps, Spencer escaped and ascended three floors, somehow missing the ground floor. It's certainly not out of the question, in such a labyrinthine building. Either way, Lassiter saw the man with his own two eyes up there, and that's where his partner and a civilian are. Up is the only logical way to go. Assuming he can even find a way. Once they've regrouped they can leave the house and apprehend the Master from there.
It occurs to him that this is going remarkably well. They know that Shawn is okay, and at least one perpetrator has been incapacitated. Part of him is immensely relieved; it occurs to the other part that he should be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The timing of the gunshot that rings out from somewhere above at the precise moment this thought occurs to him is almost hilarious.
Juliet stares blankly at Gus's unmoving body sprawled beside the man who looks exactly like Shawn. It happened so fast, she's still not sure she's processed it. He made some move not-Shawn didn't like… then the sound of gunfire… and Gus crumbled forward as far as he could've. They all shouted at the same time, and Juliet is harboring the small hope, based on the lack of any obvious blood, that the man didn't shoot him anywhere vital and he's only not moving now because he hit his head upon his collision with the floor, and the crack was drowned out in the rest of the noise.
"Don't move!" not-Shawn orders, his manner almost frenzied as he points the gun around rapidly at each of them. His scope has narrowed significantly, since Gus was further out than the rest of them.
Juliet can only look at Gus, desperately searching for wherever the bullet went in. He's breathing, remarkably steadily, which eases her somewhat, but her heart's still pounding like a jackhammer. He's prone, his face turned away from them, his hands stretched above his head. The wound must be fairly small and somewhere in his front, for her not to be able to see any evidence of it.
"You shot him!" Sebastian cries, appalled. It dimly occurs to Juliet that he's the only one here who's likely never seen anyone shot before. Not that it gets easier. Certainly not when the victim is a friend.
"I shot his leg!" not-Shawn half-corrects frantically, appearing almost in tears over the action regardless. Juliet's never seen him so openly distressed before—almost hysterical. Shawn would never let anyone see him like this unless he absolutely had no other choice. She doesn't even think she's ever seen him cry.
"Th-then—then he must've hit his head or something," Sebastian stammers, gesturing towards Gus with his whole arm. He tries taking one step nearer. "Let me—"
"Don't move!" not-Shawn yells again, taking aim towards Sebastian. "God, what is wrong with you? Just stay where you are and no one gets hurt!"
"Except Shawn!" Juliet screams.
"Listen," Henry cuts in, and his voice is so calm and level, considering, that the rest of them immediately go silent. "We'll do everything we can to save your family. But first you need to do everything you can to save mine."
Not-Shawn stares at him now, face frozen in the most broken but searching expression, and he manages, "You're… You're… Shawn is your son?"
Henry dares the slightest movement of his hands to show more of his palms, a gesture surely meant to be disarming, pleading. "One father to another… help us. Please."
Tears running all down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, not-Shawn grits his teeth, roughly rubs a fist against his forehead and his nose, and Juliet can feel the time to act drawing near very rapidly, because the more flustered he gets, the more he'll realize that he's wide open to be attacked, the more he'll see that it would be best to just shoot them all now, starting with Henry, since he's the closest to a weapon.
The moment comes, even sooner than she'd thought. She sees it as if time has slowed. Not-Shawn turns his gun quickly towards Henry, takes a half-second to take aim, and it's not enough for Henry to bend down, and then suddenly a crack—a grunt—and not-Shawn falls away from Gus, who quickly drops the large chunk of ceiling that appears to have made a fantastic improvised weapon.
"Gus!" exclaim Juliet and Henry at the same time, which Sebastian quickly follows up with a bewildered "What the hell?"
Gus actually grins in pride as he leans down to pull out his pants leg right by his knee, revealing a long rip in the side with no blood visible whatsoever. "He went for my leg, and he missed. Pretending to be knocked out may or may not be a tactic I've used before."
Juliet releases laughter that is by this point obligatorily slightly tinged with hysteria as she throws her arms around Gus. But she pulls away just as quickly, and too many facets of the situation are vying for her attention, but the first thing she does is crouch down to check not-Shawn's pulse. It's there, and steady. She grabs her gun off the floor a few inches from his fingertips and straightens up.
She doesn't have handcuffs on her. Dammit. Well, why would she? When she got ready this morning it was for a simple visit with her boyfriend. She looks to the others. "Mr. Spencer, I don't suppose you've got any cuffs with you?"
Henry shows his palms. "Sorry, Juliet."
"Then we're just going to have to leave him here."
Henry's mouth opens and closes, surely running through all the reasons why that is not a favorable circumstance in his mind, and he turns to take a lingering look at the man on the floor. Juliet feels the urge to tell him what he already knows, but holds off for that reason. "Come on," she says swiftly, starting back the way they came. "Shawn can't be on this floor. In fact…" She blinks as realization dawns on her. "Damn. What's the most easily escapable as well as discreet part of most houses?"
"The basement?" Gus tries.
"We're as far from him as we can get," she spits, as she takes the lead, dashing ahead. She is quickly overtaken by Gus and Sebastian, and she curses the man they're leaving behind for making her this weak, wanting to hate him, but admittedly having a much harder time of it now that she's heard him weeping with Shawn's voice.
