Chapter 12

The hours after Shawn had been admitted to the ICU were some of the most harrowing Henry and Gus had ever experienced. The sheer fear they'd felt every time all of the alarms in his room had gone off and they'd watched in horror as Shawn's body had writhed and then gone ridged when his heart rate and blood pressure had dropped to alarmingly low levels. The sense of helplessness both men felt every time they'd been forced to leave his room to allow the doctors and nurses to work on Shawn when he was crashing, an event that had happened more times than either of them cared to remember, and his condition really didn't seem to be improving any either, in fact, it seemed to be getting much, much worse.

As if that wasn't enough, Henry had also been dealing with the added stress of trying to contact Shawn's mother, who appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth.

"Did you reach her?" Gus asked quietly for what felt like the thousandth time when Henry walked back into Shawn's room. He hadn't moved from his best friend's side since they'd got there, and he didn't plan on doing either. His hunger and thirst didn't matter, his stiff aching body didn't matter...Nothing mattered, except Shawn. Shawn mattered.

Henry merely responded with a shake of his head, and with a look of defeat he made his way to his spot at his son's bedside.

Gus watched the older man cringe when his aching muscles protested as he sat down in the uncomfortable hospital chair. He'd never been able to understand why the seating in hospitals were always so damn uncomfortable. It just seemed to impractical to him, especially since people spent so much time sitting in them. He was brought out of his musings however when Henry let out a loud, frustrated groan, "Are you OK Mr Spencer?"

"If he..." He closed his eyes tight, and took a deep breath, unable to say that word, "Before Maddie gets here, she could never forgive..."

Gus stopped him right there, "Mrs Spencer will know you did everything you could to get in touch with her." He tried to reassure the older man, "Besides, Shawn's gonna be just fine." He kept telling himself that repeatedly, despite the fact that it was seeming more and more likely that they'd need an actual miracle to happen if the fake psychic was even going to make it through the night.

Henry wanted nothing more than for Gus to be right, after all this was hardly the first time his son's life had been on the line, but Shawn had always been more or less in control before, and this time he wasn't, for once this wasn't something the kid could just talk himself out of.

"Shawn's gonna be just fine."

Henry let out a heavy sigh, as far as he was concerned there was a fine line between being positive and being delusional, and in his opinion, Gus was damn near close to crossing that very fine line.

Lassiter and Juliet made their way to the ICU, it'd been several hours since the two of them had seen Shawn. They'd been called away to a crime scene shortly after the head detective had updated the Chief on their psychic consultant's condition. The crime scene turned out to be that of Dr Sanders', and although they knew full well who his killer was, they still had to follow police procedures, which had taken a while, so by the time the two of them had finished, it was early morning, which had to be a good sign, right? Considering they knew that the fake psychic had made it through the night, despite all the odds being stacked against it, so they were both feeling cautiously optimistic that he might actual pull through.

As they entered the ICU however, they were in for a shock, Shawn looked so much worse than the previous day, which was something neither of them had even thought possible. The fake psychic was shifting uncomfortably in his bed, stripped down to his underwear (which was more for dignity reasons than anything else), and packed with ice as they tried desperately to control his dangerously high fever.

"What happened?" Juliet asked as she moved straight to Shawn's side.

Gus, who had his eyes shut tight, was too busy pleading for God to save his best friend to notice that the two detectives were even there, and Henry's voice was so uncharacteristically shaky when he answered, "His fever just skyrocketed, it's not coming down..." that it was almost unrecognisable.

If they didn't get the psychic's temperature down soon, He'd be in big trouble.

Lassiter just watched helplessly and unsure of what to do. He knew he should probably say something, but words of comfort just weren't his forte...And plus, this whole thing was technically his fault, so he wasn't sure how kindly Henry and Gus would take to any comforting words he might actually manage to find, in fact, he wasn't even sure if he was welcome there in the first place, Maybe I should leave...

The head detective was about to do just that when Shawn's eyes started to open, and he began to squirm uncomfortably.

Gus wasted no time, and hit the call button immediately to alert the doctors and nurses.

Henry placed a hand on his son's head, "Hey, it's OK Kiddo..." He soothed softly, trying to calm him, "Shhhh, it's alright, you're safe now." He started to gently comb his fingers through Shawn's wet, sweat-filled hair, "You're in the hospital."

Shawn's eyes darted around the room in terror as he tried to figure out where he was, why he felt so horrible, and what the hell was happening to him. He was so confused and delirious that he didn't even recognise Gus, his Dad, Jules, or Lassie, never mind the doctors and nurses that had just walked in, and he was even more scared and confused when he realised there was something stuck down his throat. Desperate to get rid of the offending object, he started thrashing about in a panic and began pulling at the tube in a bid to take it out. Henry, Gus, and then the Doctor's and nurses grabbed at the psychic's arms in a desperate bid to stop that from happening, and did their best to hold him down without causing him any harm. Even though it was incredibly easy to overpower the seriously ill patient to prevent him from removing the breathing tube, everyone involved were still very concerned as Shawn's heart monitor was going out of control because of the amount of distress he was in.

Dr Samuals' told a nurse to prepare a sedative for his patient, but in the end, the fake psychic was so weak that he fell back into unconsciousness on his own, before his doctor even had chance to administer it.

After getting Shawn as stable as they could, Dr Samuals' took Henry aside, a grim look on his face, "I was really hoping to avoid this, but I'm afraid I believe the best course of action right now would be to place Shawn into a medically induced coma."

"Nope!" Gus shook his head, overhearing what the doctor was saying "No way. Shawn only just woke up." If he was in his rational mind he would've understood why Samuals thought it was their best option, and probably would've agreed with what the doctor was suggesting, but right now his best friend in the whole world was dying, so at that moment, his mind was anything but rational.

Samuals' looked over at Gus, "I understand that, but you all saw what happened when he regained consciousness, and right now Shawn really can't afford to be under such distress. Do you have any idea how close he came to crashing again? Or how disastrous it could've been if he'd managed to remove his breathing tube?" The Doctor sighed, and turned his attention back to his patient's father, "I know how hard of a decision this is to make, Mr Spencer, but I truly do believe that it'll be our best chance of saving your son."

Henry rubbed at the back on his neck as he tried to make the decision that could essentially save or end his son's life. He thought about what Madeline would do...What she'd want him to do, after all, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't right to make this sort of a decision without her, she was his mother, but the fact of the matter was, he really had no choice. He looked over at his son, his mind flashing back to how terrified Shawn had been when he'd finally woken up, seeing his son in so much distress had almost torn his heart apart...And that's how he came to his decision, "Do it."

Gus' face fell at that.

"Just...Make sure he wakes up afterwards." Henry added, almost inaudibly, hoping against hope that his decision to let the doctors put Shawn into a medically induced coma would prove to be the right one, but also being fully aware that those few stressful minutes of Shawn regaining consciousness could very well be the last time he'd ever see his son awake again.