Heart of Glass.

Sorry, EriKaBalDel, still no Buzz eyes!


Shawn's monologue got gradually more difficult to understand. Random and rambling. His voice suddenly grew soft and shaky.

"I lost my heart." He muttered in a painfully sad voice.

"Shawn?" Lassiter climbed painfully out of his bed and made his slow way across the room. He reached out, but stopped short of touching his friend. The heat radiating from Shawn's skin was worrying. How had the nurses missed this? They'd been doing hourly checks on Shawn and bi-hourly checks on Lassiter. He pressed the call button. Foster was there in an instant. It seemed to Carlton that the Doctor had been waiting at the door. Foster's expression as he rushed to Shawn's bedside told Lassiter that he'd both feared and expected this.

A –what was the plural of nurses? A gaggle? A herd?- of nurses swarmed in after him, in a whirlwind of medical jargon. They surrounded the bed and fussed with Shawn.

"What's going on?" Carlton asked. He was ignored. "I said, what's going on!" Foster motioned and one of the nurses –a pretty brunette- was culled from the herd, and escorted Lassiter forcefully back to his bed. He protested most vehemently, but the little woman steamrolled over his objections with zen-like calm.

"What's his temp?"

"One oh two."

"Damn." Foster growled. He pulled the dressings off Shawn's back and grimaced at the yellow-green puss that was oozing from all the open wounds. "How has he gotten this bad, so fast? An infection is the last thing he needs."

New IVs were hung. Antibiotics and cooling saline solution. Lassiter didn't sleep a wink that night. He watched them tend his friend, until the fever finally broke in the early hours of the morning.


"What's going on here?" Henry's voice came from the doorway. Lassiter turned to find Henry and Gus standing there, looking shocked. Gus was carrying a pineapple with a ribbon on it. Lassiter found that oddly amusing, remembering the pineapple Jules had brought, that was still sitting uneaten on his kitchen counter.

"Shawn's back is infected." Carlton said quietly. "He spiked a fever."

"His heart?" Henry immediately asked the Doctor, his face stricken.

"It's too early to tell. But we have it under control. I doubt that there's any damage." Foster assured, leaving the gaggle of nurses gathered around the bed. He shook Henry's hand and nodded to Gus.

"Damage?" Lassiter asked, trying to get up.

"Mr Lassiter. Sit back down! If you pull your stitches, or wreck those cracked ribs..." Foster trailed off menacingly. Lassiter obediently snuggled back into his bed.

"Shawn... he was born with a damaged in his heart." Henry said softly. "We were worried he would die before his first birthday. He had an operation, a transplant, when he was about five, but he has to be careful. He's more susceptible to illness due to the meds he's on-immunosuppressant's- and his heart is weaker where they sewed it in. "

"Shawn's been off his Warfarin for a while now. That's a blood thinner. It stops clots forming. You see, where the heart was attatched to the veins and arteries, there's a weak spot. If a clot was to form at the join, it would cause turbulence in the blood, which might cause the seams to split."Doc Foster explained.

"Then why isn't he taking it?" Lassiter asked.

"Shawn... he gets himself into all sorts of trouble. He has a season pass to the ER." Henry explained.

"Yeah, it got so that the risk of him bleeding to death because of the drugs outweighed the risk of getting a clot." Gus added with a shake of his head.

"Shawn's heart is doing fine, and his temperature never went above 103." Foster assured them. "We will have to keep a close eye on him, because of the infection, and because with all the clotting enzymes in his blood dealing with his wounds, the risk of getting a clot increases."

"But he's going to be okay?" Gus asked.

"I'm confident he'll be fine. Shawn's strong, given his history, he's had to be. His fever's broken, and he's doing well." The Doc smiled.

"Thank god." Henry slumped. Lassiter decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wasn't sure if he could take this. Every time he thought he got the measure of Shawn, and through him Henry, Shawn would say or do something that threw Lassiter's world view for a loop.

"Where's Shawn's mother? Does she know?" He asked. Gus and Henry exchanged glances and checked that Shawn was still asleep.

"She knows." Gus said into a tense silence. "She's not coming. She's busy."

"A conference on dealing with Post Traumatic Stress. She's the key note speaker." Henry said neutrally.

"She isn't even coming to see her own kid?" Lassiter was incredulous. Shawn didn't have a bad word to say about his mother.

"No. Don't talk to Shawn about it. Let him think I didn't bother to call her." Henry said, and Lassiter's impression of him was changed again.


Buzz's shift was over. He had gone home and gotten changed, and eaten breakfast with Francine.

"How's Shawn?" Francine asked, putting a plate of pancakes in front of her husband. She sat down to eat her own, already dressed and ready to go to work.

"I don't know." Buzz replied, honestly, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't get chance to visit, I'll go back later. But if half of what I heard is true..."

"What?"

"One of the scumbags I was guarding... he was bragging about what he'd done to Shawn. Stevens snapped. Tried to kill him."

"Oh my goodness." She shook her head and drank a mouthful of her coffee.

"Yeah."

"Shawn will be alright. I know he will." Francine smiled. "I'll bake some cookies for you to take when you visit him and Detective Lassiter."


Vick sat in her office staring blankly at the paperwork she was supposed to be filling in. Stevens was on a suspension. He'd told her what Truman had said. She didn't know what to think.

She was already guilty enough. She was guilty that she didn't see three of her officers going bad. That she didn't help them when they needed it. She was guilty that Shawn had suffered right in front of her and she didn't notice. She didn't think she could cope if Shawn had been raped. But given how Truman was found...

Shawn was not a victim. He never let himself be one. When he was shot, he whinged a little, but he made them smile and didn't let it keep him down. How would he cope with this?

She didn't know how to deal with this. She kept her distance in the hospital, because she was scared. Scared it was true. That Shawn would be changed from the happy-go-lucky guy they all knew.

Vick looked out into the bullpen. The mood was tangible. Everyone was off. Juliet had been sitting staring at the wall for at least an hour. No one was getting any work done. No one felt like it.

Shawn had become the heart of the precinct. He would come in, and do his best to cheer everyone up.

I remember him coming in the day after he was shot, with a box of doughnuts with pineapple jelly in the middle. Vick smiled. He never fails to make us all smile, even when he's in a bad way himself.

And Lassiter may be a harsh taskmaster, but he was a legend amongst the younger cops.

Everyone was down, and no wonder.

It's ironic. Vick mused. Everyone's sad because of Shawn, and it's Shawn who always cheers us up.


I know, it's a bit short again. Sorry. And Buzz eyes are coming! All medical knowledge was beta-ed by a registered nurse. The heart thing came from the pic circulating the web of shirtless James Roday. There's a scar on his chest. I wanted to write it in.