A/N: I want to apologize profusely for how long this chapter took for me to write. I wanted it to be good and I got really bad writer's block at the beginning. I can't promise that the next chapter will come out any faster because november-january are the busiest months of the year for me

Chapter 12: Safe and Sound

Never in his life had Shawn ever been so quiet before. He's always been known as the guy who says or does anything to lighten the mood, but today that guy was nowhere to be found. Instead, the members of the SBPD who continued to the hospital watched as the usually hyper psychic paced back and forth frantically with a hand on his lips, clearly deep in thought.

An hour. They've been waiting in the hospital with no word on Lassiter's condition for an hour. This extended period of time has granted Shawn the perfect opportunity to let his thoughts flow freely. Many images of Lassiter's pale face or cut up stomach made itself known to Shawn's mind, but his thoughts always drifted back to one thing—more specifically one phrase— "I love you, Shawn".

Every time the phrase repeated itself in his head, Shawn felt the edge of his mouth start to smile. The tall handsome Irish man, who he's had his eyes set on from the very beginning, loves him.

Continuing to pace back and forth while trying to sort his thoughts, he only stopped when a familiar face stepped in front of him. "Not now, Jules," he said simply said as he attempted to step around her.

Quickly reaching up to grab his shoulder, she prevented his persistent pacing. "Shawn, listen to me. I need you to calm down, okay? Lassiter is going to be fine."

Shawn nodded his head at the words, but didn't really acknowledge them. Inside he still felt like it was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't pushed Lassiter into telling Juliet, then they never would have been leaving the station at that point and he wouldn't have been taken. He brought his attention back to the woman standing in front of him when a sudden hand was being waved in front of his face.

"Don't go silent on me, Shawn. Just tell me what thoughts are going through your head right now," she pleaded gently as she let go of his shoulders and reached for his hand instead.

Letting her suggestion register in his head he looked down to where she was now holding his hand in a comforting manner. "I pushed him, Jules," he blurted out. "I pushed him and I shouldn't have. Maybe if I didn't push him so hard about it then this wouldn't have happened."

Juliet frowned at Shawn's outburst. "What do you mean, you pushed him, Shawn? Did you two get in a fight?"

Surprisingly enough Shawn actually laughed at her question. Him and Lassiter fighting? Unheard of. Sure they've had small arguments here and there, but they never had an actual fight. "No, no. Not a physical fight. More like I pushed him to do something he didn't want to do. Something he wasn't ready to do."

"Well, what was it? What were you pushing him to do?" Juliet asked cautiously, chewing on her lip.

Shawn glanced down to the floor and took the small opportunity to rub his eyes free of the moisture that was starting to build up. "You know, that's actually the funny part," he chuckled slightly before continuing. "When you look at Lassiter, you see someone who just got out of a serious relationship, and someone who wasn't ready to start a new one, let alone with a man, right?"

He paused just long enough to watch her nod her head in response.

"Well, that's how he saw himself too. He was very paranoid at the beginning that someone would find out and his badass detective image would be ruined," he paused yet again to take a deep breath and forced himself to say what he was trying to say in the first place. "I pushed him to tell you, Jules. I wanted him to tell you about us when we got to the restaurant."

Juliet was shocked. Her mouth dropped open slightly as she registered what he said. Finally she understood why Shawn had insisted on riding with Lassiter to the restaurant.

He watched as she processed this and he mentally smacked himself. "Don't take it personally, Jules. He didn't want to tell anyone. Gus only knew because I'm a blabbermouth, but I felt like you had a right to know which is why I was pushing him so hard."

"How long have you been together?" She asked simply after removing any shock from her face. This wasn't her time or place to feel betrayed by her partner, by her friend. Hell, the man in question was probably currently stuck in a hospital bed, being poked and proded by medical staff.

Shawn felt himself laugh slightly at the memory of how they got together, but that's a story for another day. "Only about two months, but they've been the best two month of my life."

Juliet couldn't help the smile her lips formed at the sight of Shawn being so happy from a simple thought of Lassiter. "I'll put the whole not-being-told thing to the side for now, but don't think I won't have a word with him when he's up."

"You and me both," Shawn chuckled as he shoved his hands in his pockets. For the short few minutes he and Juliet were talking, he almost forgot why they were in the hospital in the first place.

Numbly he found his way to the row of chairs against the far wall. He let himself drop into the first open chair he saw and placed his head in his hands. Lassiter didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve anything that happened to him in that warehouse, and he especially didn't deserve to have that word possibly permanently scarred on himself.

Nothing Juliet was currently saying to him as she gently rubbed his back to keep him calm was registering in his head. Instead, his mind kept flashing back to the warehouse. From the flash of hope in Lassiter's eyes, to the mangled cuts on his stomach, to the sudden kiss that was followed by the words that continued to echo in his head.

Only the calling of his name accompanied with Juliet shaking his shoulders pulled him from the trance or daydream he was previously in. He looked at her with his eyebrows furrowed at her change in action. Without saying anything she simply turned slightly and pointed to where ad doctor was now standing in the waiting room.

"Family and friends of Carlton Lassiter?" The doctor seemingly repeated himself now that he had the attention of more people in the small room.

In what seemed like a split second, Shawn jumped up from the chair and found himself in front of the man with the clipboard. "How is he?" he questioned when Juliet joined him at the front of the waiting room.

The doctor, whose name tag read Stanton, glanced back down to his clipboard before he looked back up at the group that had formed around him. "Well, for starters, he's severely dehydrated so he's been placed on a fluid line. He also has an open oblique tibial shaft fracture-" Stanton paused at the confused looks he was receiving and explained what he was talking about. "Er, his tibia fractured at an angle and pierced through the skin, so we had to go in and surgically fix it before it could be casted. There are several cuts that run along his abdomen and only one required stitches."

Shawn let out a small breath of relief he wasn't aware he was holding once the doctor stopped talking without mentioning the word the cuts spelled out. He was sure that Lassiter's coworkers don't need to know that small detail. "Can we see him, please?" He pleaded slightly to the doctor who holds all visitation power.

Reluctantly Dr. Stanton nodded his head at Shawn's plea. "Yes. However, since he just got out of surgery, I'm only going to allow close friends and family at the moment. He's currently in room 312 down that hallway," he explained as he pointed towards the hallway he was talking about.

After a quick nod of understanding the visitation rules, Shawn turned and took off down the hallway. 312 was the last room on the right, and he paused outside with his hand on the door handle. With a small glance into the room, he saw a still figure in the bed. Two days of hell later and Lassiter is finally safe in more or less one piece.

One shaky breath later, Shawn turned the metal door knob in his hand and pushed the door open slowly. The room was silent, say for the steady beeping of the few machines Lassiter was hooked up to. For the first time in the short few months they've been dating, Lassiter finally looked peaceful in his sleep. Sure he was currently sedated, but that didn't change the fact that he was finally getting the rest he deserved after working so hard on this case.

Making his way across the small room, Shawn glanced up and down the form lying in the bed, keeping track of the injuries Dr. Stanton had listed only minutes ago. Any of the cuts he mentioned were hidden under the plain white blanket he was tucked under.

As a matter of fact, the only part of him that wasn't under a blanket, besides his head obviously, was his leg. The cast stopped short of his knee, and was elevated slightly by an extra pillow under his heel. Shawn couldn't help the quiet chuckle at the thought of them having matching casts.

Carefully Shawn let himself drop into the lone chair next to the bed Lassiter was immobilized in. He reached his hand out slowly to lift up the blanket and take Lassiter's hand in his.

The second their hands connected Shawn felt himself grin as a small tear escaped from the corner of his eye. Everything was going to be alright. Lassiter will recover quickly and soon enough everything will go back to normal. Leaning forward slightly, Shawn placed a gentle kiss on the back of the hand he had yet to let go.

"You never struck me as a crier," a quiet voice croaked out as Shawn pulled his head away from the edge of the bed.

Immediately Shawn snapped his head up in the direction of the voice and his heart began to race as his jaw dropped at the sight of the waking man. Throwing any unimportant thoughts aside he jumped up from the chair and connected their lips in a well deserved overdue reunion kiss. He was careful to avoid the bruises on the side of Lassiter's face as he cupped his cheek. Lassiter followed suit and let his hand get tangled in Shawn's messy hair.

The only thing that separated the two was the beeping rhythm that had sped up in account for the sudden increase in Lassiter's heart beat.

Shawn let his hand linger on Lassiter's cheek as he hovered over the man below him. "In response to your earlier statement, I wanna see how you handle your emotions if I'm ever in your position." Lassiter chuckled slightly, which escalated into a coughing fit from his dry throat after not talking for a couple hours.

Reaching over to the bedside table, Shawn grabbed the plastic cup of ice chips that was left there by a nurse before he entered the room. Taking the spoon out of the cup, he gave a few small chips to Lassiter to sooth the dryness.

After the few small ice chips dissolved and Lassiter was able to swallow the water, he looked to where Shawn had returned to the plastic chair at his bedside. He took Shawn's appearance into consideration and thought back carefully to what happened a few days prior.

Vaguely he remembered the crash. Mostly just Shawn yelling something before his memory goes blank. He also remembered all the pain that followed in the days he was stuck in that warehouse. What he really wanted to know though, was how everything was handled on Shawn's side of things.

"Don't hurt yourself trying to think so hard, Lassie," Shawn chuckled at the sight of him deep in thought. "Just say the words and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

"How did you find me?" was the first and only question to come to Lassiter's mind.

Shawn sat up straighter in his chair as he faced Lassiter. "To make a long story short, I got Davidson to confess. Of course it wasn't as simple as asking him where you were. Why would it ever be that simple?" He paused to mentally kick himself for struggling with this. It was all over. Lassiter was safe, so why was he having a hard time recounting everything?

"After I accused him of kidnapping, his anger kicked in and he got physical, but I managed to get away from him. Once I found Juliet, she told me that circumstantial evidence wasn't enough to arrest him, so let's just say he's also being charged with assaulting a police consultant," Shawn smirked as he gestured slightly to the black eye forming on the left side of his face.

Anger formed on Lassiter's face and Shawn could see that he had his hands curled into firsts under the blanket. "I'm going to kill him for that. I told him not to touch you," he growled quietly.

Shawn smiled at the thoughtfulness of the statement, though there were more important matters to deal with now that Lassiter was back and awake. "You should hold off on that while you think of a way to explain to the department how we've been secretly dating for the past two months now that they know about us."

The look on Lassiter's face would only be described as a child being told their family pet had died. His jaw went slack, his eyes widened, and his eyes were filled with confusion, fear, and shock.

Definitely not the reaction Shawn was expecting and he couldn't help the small chuckle at the sight of how quickly Lassiter went from being angry to straight up scared. "You don't remember do you?"

"This is not a laughing matter, Shawn. What did Davidson do?" Lassiter once again clenched his fists as he waited to hear what Davidson did to ruin his image.

Shawn contemplated between telling Lassiter the truth and making something up on the fly. There would be now way of telling how he would react to knowing he was the one who outed their relationship. Although to be fair, he probably thought he was going to die, so he had a valuable reason for his actions. "Actually it was you," he watched as Lassiter was shocked at the short sentence. "You kissed me in the middle of the warehouse before you.. Before you said-"

"I love you, Shawn," Lassiter completed while Shawn seemed to struggle through repeating the words.

The second time hearing that statement was real. It wasn't an "I'm going to die so I want you to feel better about the situation" statement. It was a genuine "I really love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you" statement.

In what seemed like milliseconds, Shawn was up out of his chair and looking down at Lassiter. "I love you too, Carlton," he admitted to the man below him and closed the gap the separated them, connecting into a passionate kiss.

A/N: I highly contemplated having Shawn say "I love you, Lassie" vs "I love you, Carlton" because whenever I say Carlton I cringe because it just sounds weird to me. But I figured in the context of the story first names should probably be used for that first declaration of love.

PS: I don't know why I felt the need to explain this, but here there you go

Please don't forget to leave me a review as those really motivate me to keep writing and get the next chapter out asap :)