Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Through current episodes, particularly strong from Heeeeere's Lassie and Shawn Rescues Darth Vader.

Chapter Four: Always On my Mind

Lunch break or not, it was rare in the extreme for Lassiter to voluntarily turn down the police radio and turn on the stereo. Juliet looked at him. He'd ordered her a burrito at the fast food joint they'd settled on, but hadn't ordered anything for himself, not even a cup of coffee. He hadn't had a cup of coffee all day, that she'd seen. He looked tired, and…gray. Gray suit, gray tie, gray hair, gray eyes…even his skin seemed pallid and washed out. She'd begun to suspect last week that he was coming down with something, and now she was certain of it. Stubborn man probably should have taken the day in bed.

"I hope you don't mind," he said, and even his voice was tired and gray. "I'm not in the mood for light rock and I can't stomach that pop crap you listen to on the best of days, but I won't subject you to my Sinatra."

Willie Nelson's weather-beaten voice lilted out of the speaker system. Lassiter had discovered her secret love of the Red-Headed Stranger early in their partnership, which left him one up on Shawn, who probably didn't know who Willie Nelson was outside the arena of pot-smoking jokes. Lassiter actually was one up on Shawn for a lot of observations about Juliet and her preferences, like the fact that she really didn't like the taste of pineapple in combination with anything and everything, that her favorite fictional detectives were Amelia Peabody, Mary Russell, Hercule Poirot, and Koko the Siamese Cat, that her favorite shampoo was peach-scented, that she liked to eat breaded chicken strips by tearing off one tiny piece at a time with her fingers and nibbling rather than biting off meaty chunks with her teeth like a ravenous animal. He also knew that her step-father had called her "Miss Mousie" because of her dainty epicurean nibbling.

"Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could have. Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should have. If I made you feel second-best, girl, I'm sorry - I was blind. You were always on my mind. You were always on my mind."

She wanted to talk to Lassiter about Shawn, she wanted that desperately. Two things stayed her lips - or maybe it was three things, actually. Firstly, Carlton didn't look up for conversation today. Secondly, it was going to take a lot of courage for her to admit the true depth of her mistake to him, given how he'd reacted to the relationship in the first place. Third and lastly, he'd probably kill Shawn if she told him how, instead of giving her the space she'd demanded of him, he'd called her forty-eight times in the last two days and had stood outside her apartment last night holding a boombox playing Sting. She wasn't sure what the actual intent of that gesture was, he'd probably gone for the movie reference, but his choice of songs - "I'll Be Watching You" - was not merely poorly considered, it was outright creepy. The Official Stalker Anthem. No, she couldn't just out with the news that she'd broken off her ill-considered romance.

But she'd waited all weekend just wanting to talk to a compassionate listener, had nearly called him three times, and she had to say something. Unfortunately, she didn't know what that something would be until she actually said it.

She pushed the power off on the stereo, cutting Willie off mid-song. "Carlton…why did you request a new partner, really?"

It had been months. Even before Marlowe came along and lifted his mood considerably, Carlton had been doing his best to put whatever had crawled up his ass aside and keep their partnership in roughly the same condition it had been before he discovered her entanglement with Shawn Spencer. She had no business reopening the wound, especially not when he looked so miserable already. He heaved a deep sigh.

"Why do you even have to ask?" he said in that gray tired voice.

She should just apologize and eat her burrito. But now that she was started she couldn't seem to make herself stop. "Because I don't understand. What was the big damn deal? You acted like I did something unforgivable."

"As far as I knew, you had."

"What?"

He sighed again and half-turned to face her. She didn't miss the way his mouth seemed somehow tighter at the left outside corner, more turned-down. She was suddenly at least half-scared he was having a stroke. "Try to see this from my perspective, O'Hara, and maybe you'll understand."

"But I don't see. Just tell me what you were thinking, Carlton." Almost pleading. She still wasn't certain what she was hoping he'd say. "I'm in love with you," maybe?

"I don't trust anybody, O'Hara, but damned if I didn't trust you. You were the one person on this good green earth I thought would never deceive me, never lie…and lo and behold, you lied. To me. About your involvement with Shawn Spencer. The lie of omission was one thing, but you didn't even tell me the truth when I asked you outright, not until I pressured you on it. And Shawn Spencer, O'Hara, is a professional liar. More even than that, he's a man who rarely misses an opportunity to disrespect me, to make mockery of the honest police work I've dedicated my entire life to, to make a terrific shitpile mess of every case he works on so that while he takes the glory I get the honor of cleaning up after his spastic self. Do you know how many times in the past six and a half years I've had to spend hours on the phone calming down witnesses and victims' families and former suspects who want to know why the hell the police consultants ate every goddamn thing in their refrigerator? That wasn't in the job description when I took the position of head frickin' detective and frankly I don't know why I still have to do it so often when that's what Henry's position was supposedly created for. And don't get me started on that - yeah, I know the guy was a great goddamn cop once upon a time, but he is not my boss and I don't appreciate being ordered around by a part-time liaison every time his son horns in on a case."

"I understand all of that, Carlton, but what does any of it have to do with me? I didn't tell you because I was afraid of how you'd react, and so was Shawn. And it was really none of your business. Our relationship had nothing to do with work whatsoever." Even as she said the words she hated herself for it. She wanted Carlton's sympathetic ear, not his defensive hackles. She was taking her anger and frustration at herself out on him, and that was bad.

"I can't believe that, O'Hara. If you'd been honest with me from the start then maybe I could, but you weren't, so I can't believe much of anything anymore. For all I know, in all that time you were helping him. Leaking information. Assisting his 'investigations.' Helping him steal my thunder and turn me into a walking punch line."

She gaped at him. "You…you can't honestly believe that I'd do something so underhanded. What would I even gain by doing something so monumentally stupid?"

"I don't know, O'Hara, but from my point of view at least it wouldn't be the first underhanded or monumentally stupid thing you've done, so who knows?" he said brutally.

She was furious. She was terrified. She was grief-stricken. She was in such a whirl of emotions she didn't know which was foremost. She took three deep, steadying breaths and listened to his own heavy, angry breathing.

"Carlton…?" she ventured at last in the tense silence. "Did you…have some sort of crush on me?"

He stared at her for a long moment and his throat worked reflexively. "No."

Another long silence, filled only with the sound of agitated breath and occasional bursts from the police radio.

"You're a bad liar, you know," Juliet said at last, as gently as she could.

"Yeah?" Lassiter said. The anger was gone from his voice at last and he was once more just a gray, tired man far older than his years and sick to boot. "Too bad for me, then, since that's what you seem to go for."

He unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the door, and got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. Hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders slumped in defeat he walked away toward the bus station at the end of the block. She could have gone after him - she should have gone after him - but she couldn't. She tried to call after him, but the tears she was crying stole her voice. All she could do was watch as the big green bus pulled up and he climbed on board.