A/N: The timeline is kind of wacky for this story, but it's basically set after sometime in season 4, with the event's off "Lassie did a bad, bad, thing" never occurring. For some reason this chapter took me forever to write, but now that it's done I'm proud of it.

Lassiter whump up ahead

Chapter 8: 24 Hours Later

Both Juliet and the Chief didn't believe that Shawn was fit to return to work so soon. He shook his head vigorously at their comments, which he quickly discovered was a bad idea as he got dizzy and had to casually grab the back of a chair to keep from losing his balance. "See, Shawn? You have a concussion. You should be at home resting. You know what? You should actually should still be in the hospital," Juliet countered his argument with some hard evidence that he wasn't ready to be back at the station yet.

The two of them were just trying to look out for Shawn, and he understood that, but they didn't understand the deeper connection he had with this case. "Sure. Sure I have a concussion, but that's never stopped me before, has it?" He questioned the two of them, his temper quickly growing. "I can't find it in me to sit on my ass, whether it's in the hospital, or at my apartment, doing nothing, while Lassie is who knows where with the most dangerous street gang in the city!" Shawn surprised himself with his own outburst. He took a deep breath, dropped himself into the chair he was leaning on, and let his head hang down before he glanced back up and pleaded with the chief. "I'm begging you, chief. Please let me look for Lassie."

The chief looked at the psychic carefully. He seemed to have a different spark of determination connected to this case. She wasn't sure if it was just because of the disappearance of their head detective or something else, but if she was being completely honest with herself, she didn't care. "Fine, Mr. Spencer," she finally agreed with his pleas. "I am only allowing this because I know that you would go off and try to find him on your own, and this station cannot afford to lose their head detective and psychic on one case."

Shawn felt himself light up immediately at the chief's permission. "What all do you have so far?" He questioned as he stood up carefully.

The chief glanced down to the new additions to the case file since the accident. "Well, as you all know, the first 24 hours are the most crucial, and we just passed that," she began to explain, but got cut off by a very confused Shawn.

"Woah, woah, woah!" He exclaimed suddenly. "It's already been 24 hours? I was out for that long?" He had only expected to have been out for maybe a couple hours at the most, not miss a full day. That only meant that there was more time for the kidnapper to get farther away with Lassiter, and Shawn feared he would never see the other man again.

"Your concussion is on the verge of severe, Shawn. Your body needed rest," Juliet started explaining but fell silent when Shawn went back to the original topic without really acknowledging her.

"Did you get anything on the cruiser? The one that crashed into us?" He specified for the two standing in front of him.

The chief looked down to the case file and flipped a single sheet of paper over. "The car was scheduled to Officer Bryson Pratt, although he was checked in to the file room at the time of the accident."

Shawn cursed in frustration. How is it that someone can get in a cruiser when it's not scheduled to them, and get away with it? They had to have been missing something. "Has everyone been accounted for?"

"As much as I hate to say it, everyone has alibis. We have nothing to go off of," Juliet said and watched as Shawn slouched more noticeably in his chair.

Shawn felt like his world was falling apart. His apartment was broken into, he'd been in a car accident, and he lost his boyfriend all within 48 hours. And now it seemed that the police department he's devoted all his time to was doing nothing in an attempt to locate their missing head detective. "There has to be something we're missing," Shawn suddenly chimed in after moments of an eery silence. "And I don't know about you guys, but I am going to get out there and actually look for Lassie." Before either of the two women in the office with Shawn were able to say something, he was up and out the door.

Much to his surprise, Gus was waiting just outside of the chief's office. He took one look at the clear frustration on Shawn's face and he frowned. "It didn't go very well did it?" He asked although he already kne the answer.

"They have nothing, Gus," Shawn explained to his best friend. "Somehow everyone has an alibi." Shawn sighed in annoyance and dropped himself down into a bench in front of the chief's office. From there he looked up and was able to see Lassiter's desk, though he couldn't bring himself to go over there. Instead he simply pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at his home screen through the cracked glass. It was a simple picture Shawn had taken of himself kissing Lassiter's forehead after he had fallen asleep just a few weeks prior. He felt himself smile slightly at the memory, but it was cut short when he noticed Gus had been trying to get his attention. "Sorry, what?"

Gus did his best to avoid rolling his eyes at the delayed reaction Shawn had. "As I was trying to say, why don't we double check the alibi's? I'm sure you'd be able to find something the chief and Juliet wouldn't have been able to," he suggested. He knew that Shawn needed to keep himself focused on working the case otherwise he'd fall into a deep hole that would be nearly impossible to get him out of.

Shawn glanced back up to Gus at the suggestion. "That sounds like a great idea, buddy!" Suddenly Shawn jumped up from the bench with a new pep in his step. If you hadn't known what had happened, you would probably think nothing was out of the ordinary. "Where should we start?"

Gus looked down to the floor in thought before he glanced back up with an idea. "Since most of the department is currently on the case, is there anyone that sticks out to you?"

Shawn thought about what Gus asked and he suddenly reached into his pocket. He pulled out a folded up piece of paper. After taking a quick second to unfold it, he held it up for Gus to see. "I snatched this on my way out. It's the list of alibi's," he explained.

Gus reached his hand out to take the single sheet of paper from Shawn and look at it carefully. He scanned through the list and looked back up. "Well everyone on here was present at the time the cruiser left, except for two people. Detective Lance Davidson was attending his weekly anger management class, and Officer Preston Webster called in sick," he read off the sheet.

"Looks like we had better pay a visit to our good friend Webster," Shawn stated as he pushed himself up from the bench.

"Shawn, Officer Webster hates you," Gus reminded his best friend. He rolled his eyes at the lack of remembrance on Shawn's face. "You outed him for cheating and he's had it out for you ever since."

Shawn raised his eyebrows at the mention of what he did. "You're right, buddy. But you know what that means? He has motive," Shawn smirked.

It took Gus a few moments to consider what they were going to do before he gave in and agreed. "Fine, Shawn. Let's just try not to get killed."

The smirk on Shawn's face widened. "You know me, Gus. I can't make any promises," he teased before quickly taking off down the hall, getting as far away from Gus as possible.

The air that surrounded him was pungent. Almost so strong it hurt his nose to breathe, though he wasn't doing that very well anyway. His chest felt heavy, as if someone was sitting on him. He struggled with every breath, but that wasn't the worst of his problems. Without attempting to look at the condition of his leg, he could tell it was bad. The pain wasn't unbearable, mainly a dull throbbing sensation from his ankle to his knee. His main concern was the blood. The sticky substance was pooled underneath him. He finally gave in with his inner pleas and opened his eyes. Refusing to look down towards his leg, he glanced up and the ceiling and grimaced. A warehouse, he thought to himself. One of hundreds in Santa Barbara.

After a few moments of taking in his surroundings, he slowly pushed himself up into the best seated position he could manage. He stretched his arms out behind him to keep himself upright. Glancing around he noticed there was one door leading to the room he was in, and it didn't have a door handle on the inside. He began brainstorming how he would get through the one sided door, but the throbbing in his leg deepened and he brought his focus back to that.

It wasn't until this moment that he finally gave in and looked down to his leg. He grimaced the second he did so. Even though it was very dark, he was still able to tell that it was broken. He wasn't able to see exactly where the blood was coming from, as his pant leg was still intact, covering his leg.

He noticed he was thinking about the worst possible conditions his leg could be in, and he started to get light headed. Head Detective Carlton Lassiter was not one to show any sort of fear in the face of danger, but in this situation he was scared out of his mind. He couldn't decide is the thought that scared him the most was his leg's condition, or the thought of not making it out. He couldn't begin to imagine what the people in his life were going through right now, and the person who he thought about the most was Shawn. The two of them had just gotten together and Lassiter wondered how Shawn was handling the situation. Shawn was known to take certain cases personally if it was connected to him, and he would throw all precaution to the wind.

Lassiter was brought back to reality when the door suddenly jerked forward. He held his breath and watched as someone took a small step into the room. The figure hadn't stepped far enough into the room for the light to hit their face, and Lassiter couldn't make out who it was.

"Lassiter, Lassiter, Lassiter," the shadowed figure tsked slowly without moving any further into the room. Lassiter wracked his brain to put the familiar voice to a face but he couldn't get his thoughts to process correctly. The only thing he was certain of was the person was a male.

He attempted to clear his throat before he responded. "What do you want?" He croaked out, trying to ignore the voice crack that occurred halfway through.

The figure chuckled slightly at Lassiter as he leaned back against the wall. "Well, you see, Detective. It's quite simple actually," he started explaining himself. "You were getting too close to figuring me out. I had to do something to slow the department down. And you should be glad we didn't touch that little psychic of yours," he smirked evilly.

Lassiter felt his anger rise at the mention of Shawn. "Don't you dare touch him," he growled to the man who was being a coward and hiding himself. The mystery man took a small step forward, allowing the light to let his lower legs be seen. Lassiter glanced down and was surprised to see a pristine pair of dress shoes and black slacks. A detective? He thought to himself as he took in the limited appearance.

"I figured you'd say something like that. Considering your relationship with said psychic," he teased the head detective.

Never in his entire life had Lassiter ever felt this mix of emotions before. Not only was he scared out of his life, now he was shocked and confused. He let his jaw go slack at the revelation and he just stared in the direction of the attacker. "H-h-how?" He barely managed to squeak out.

"Well, it wasn't that hard to figure out. All those times you let your mask slip because you think you were alone? Should've double checked." He took two more steps forward, this time only his head was hidden in the shadows. "But the most damning piece of evidence, I must say, was when you kissed him after I broke into his apartment."

Lassiter wanted so badly to just get up and sprint out that open door, but the best he could do was scoot back slightly. Even that was very minimal due to every movement causing more pain to shoot down his leg. All he did in this moment was pray to some unknown entity in the sky that this man would not go back to the department and take it out on Shawn.

"I suppose, there's only one thing left for me to do." Lassiter simply continued to stare down the figure who was slowly leaning closer to him as he continued to pray. "Is watch your career crumble when I let the department know."

Internally Lassiter let out a sigh of relief. The whole department knowing about their relationship wouldn't be that bad, considering they were planning on making it public at some point. He was simply glad that whoever this man was, wasn't planning on hurting Shawn anytime soon.

The man brought his wrist up to his face and glanced down at it. "Well, it would appear I must be off now," he stated calmly as he began to squat down to Lassiter's level. "After all, I am late for a very important meeting."

"No.." was all Lassiter could manage to get out of his mouth. Suddenly the voice became clear and Lassiter's theory was proven correct when his attacker bent down and his face was now visible. It baffled him how someone who seemed so innocent, so determined to follow in his footsteps would be held capable of working with the most dangerous street gang in town, and capturing the SBPD's head detective. "Davidson, why?"

"I'd love to stay and chat, Detective. But as you know, the chief will suspend me if I miss any of my anger management classes." Of course Lassiter knew this. After all it was him who decided on the punishment. After his little incident the chief wanted to suspend him, but Lassiter saw potential in the younger man. He was the one who suggested the idea of anger classes in place of the month's suspension. And now he felt like it was his fault for being in this position.

So many thoughts were flooding his brain, making it hard to focus on what was going on in front of him. And he regretted that the second the hit came. Davidson had punched him square in the temple. As much as Lassiter hated to admit it, but he had been hit harder than what Davidson had just done. But then again in those situations he wasn't in a previous car accident with a concussion already present, nor had he ever had any other big injuries such as his leg this time. Nonetheless, Lassiter was actually glad to let himself fall into the darkness and ignore everything that he just went through.

A/N: Please don't forget to leave a review! They really motivate me to keep this story updated!