Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, To Kill a Mockingbird or Iron Giant.
A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! Sorry I've not been doing that well in responding in a timely manner... I've been busy! As for the chapter title... I couldn't help it. I just had to. LOL! Enjoy, and please review! :D
The Finch and the Mockingbird
Chapter Fifteen: What Does the Faux State?
Even though Shawn found that he really liked Dr. Angel Garfield, he was glad when she and the hot nurse left the room. He was having a hard enough time just being around Gus and his father right now. All the touching and poking and prodding was going to drive him insane. Every brush against his skin, no matter how gentle, had him back in that storage building, metal gavel crashing into his arm and knee.
No one had said anything to him about how close he'd been to losing his arm, but he'd figured it out pretty quickly. Even freshly woken up from a drugged stupor after being beaten almost to death, Shawn's "psychicness" was pretty unstoppable. He remembered what he'd heard his dad say while he was still under, and the bit of writing he'd noticed earlier on the doctor's chart. The way Gus kept looking at his arm as if it were about to jump off of his body and drag itself away like Pirates of the Caribbean (Gus couldn't watch that part, it freaked him out too much). It wasn't too hard to deduce that he'd been this close to losing his arm, the horror of which he couldn't even begin to process at the moment.
As it was, he'd been given the rundown by his doctor and the nurse with occasional interruptions from Gus and Dad. Two breaks in his left arm, dislocated right shoulder, shattered kneecap, bruised ribs, concussion, dehydration, blood loss... It was a pretty overwhelming list. Good news was that even though three out of four limbs were currently out of commission, they should be back in the game eventually. Maybe even within a year he'd be walking and flailing around and making an idiot out of himself for the police department (one of his dad's interruptions, obviously). But he was going to be incapacitated for a while. He was going to go into surgery tomorrow for his knee.
Apparently most of the police station had been by while he'd been unconscious, including the chief, Jules and Lassie. Some of his dad's friends, even Gus's parents had stopped by. His mom's plane would be in in a few hours. Lassie and Jules would be stopping by this evening or tomorrow to take his statement. Abigail had called his cell and left him a message; her access to phones were kind of sporadic, but she was thinking about him, she missed him, and she was planning on flying in as soon as she could to come and see him and take care of him.
Mrs. Moore had heard that he'd been rushed to the hospital, and she'd brought him a card, a small vase of flowers, and a pristine, beautifully bound fiftieth anniversary edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, because she'd remembered his interest when he'd visited the library the other day. She obviously didn't know the whole story of his traumatic experience, but the thought was nice. Thankfully, his dad had stuffed it behind a couple of pineapples, because even though Shawn hadn't said anything about it, that book was really freaking him out and he really didn't want anything to do with it ever again. It wasn't Mrs. Moore's fault, or even Harper Lee's fault for writing that book, but the plot had screwed him up pretty badly.
He appreciated the gestures, the gifts, the proof that even though he went out of his way to drive people crazy sometimes, that he still had people that cared about him, but he just wanted to be left alone. And in the rare moments that he was left alone for a few seconds, when Gus had to pee and Dad was refilling on coffee or taking a splash bath in the bathroom sink (that man really needed to stop his fretting and go home and sleep and properly bathe, Shawn had decided, but nothing he said seemed to make his dad listen to him, which meant that something at least was the same), he didn't want to be alone, because he was left with his waking nightmares about his time with Stevens.
He hadn't gone back to sleep since he'd woken up, and he didn't want to, because as bad as the memories were when he was awake, he knew that he couldn't distract himself when he was sleeping, couldn't shrug off his fear with an off-kilter joke and a totally handsome and disarming grin (he was pretty sure he'd seen a couple of the nurses swoon already), and he would be completely left alone in his own mind, which was something he wanted nothing to do with. A lot of times, having a photographic memory was a great thing, but in this case, all he wanted to do was forget, but he couldn't help himself from remembering everything in full clarity, and whenever he closed his eyes, it was like it was happening all over again. He remembered the sleepless nights he'd had after being abducted by Longmore, and he actually found himself thinking fondly of them in comparison to what was coming next.
His physical pain wasn't terrible since they were keeping him doped up on drugs, but they'd taken him off the IV morphine and started giving him pain pills, so he hurt a little more than he did when he'd woken up. They would have kept him on the morphine, but he'd wanted to be lucid enough to give his statement when the detectives stopped by to get it. He needed to get all this over with as soon as possible.
He just needed this whole mess to blow over, even if it meant burying his feelings and acting like an ass, because it just needed to go away. He knew, though, as surely as he knew that Aaron Stevens and his strangled mockingbirds and twisted hatred were going to be haunting his dreams for the foreseeable future, that it wasn't going to be as simple as that this time.
In the meantime, he wouldn't sleep until he absolutely had to, and he'd do everything he could to drive his dad and Gus crazy, because that was a great distraction. And when Jules got here... well, he was dating Abigail, but Juliet had already stopped by to see him when he was unconscious a couple of times at least and had stayed the whole four-ish hours he'd been in the ER after the rescue, and Abigail had left him a teary phone message and said she'd be back from Uganda as soon as she could, and he couldn't help but remember when he'd seen Jules in the warehouse; he'd thought she was an angel and had wanted to kiss the frown right off her forehead...
But that wasn't fair. His dad had told Abigail that she didn't need to fly in immediately once he knew he was out of the woods. And Juliet had been part of the rescue. Of course she'd want to check up on him.
But Shawn kept seeing her at the drive-in movies, blue blouse perfectly complimenting her eyes and silky blonde hair, asking him out on a date, and then his telling her that he was with Abigail, and even though he really cared about Abigail, there was still something about Juliet that refused to leave his mind and heart.
So yeah, he didn't exactly know what he'd do once Juliet and Lassiter got there (other than riff on Lassie's suit or hair or general sour-patch kid sucking demeanor), but now wasn't the time to be sorting through his feelings, because morphine or not, his mind was still fuzzy from the medication, and he was exhausted, but he wasn't going to sleep...
Shawn was asleep when Juliet and Lassiter got to the hospital. It was about seven-thirty in the evening. They'd been loaded down with cases all day, but they'd finally had a chance to come down to the hospital. Juliet didn't know if he'd be up to giving his statement, but she'd convinced Lassiter to come along on the chance that he was, although she was really just wanting to see him. Truth was, she'd heard that Abigail hadn't jumped on a plane to the U.S. When she'd found out, and while she understood that Shawn was going to be okay and that Uganda was far away, she'd still felt bad for Shawn, that his girlfriend wasn't going to be there for him when he woke up. But she wanted to be there for him, even if Abigail couldn't, and it wasn't just because she was his friend and she'd been so closely involved in his rescue.
She was pretty disappointed to see that Shawn was conked out like he had been every other time she'd visited in the past couple of days, because she'd really been hoping to see him awake and vibrant, his usual self. He wasn't hooked up to as many machines as he had been before, and his color was a lot better, but his shoulder was still bandaged, his entire left arm in a cast and right knee bandaged. He looked sad, even in his sleep.
"Told you he wouldn't be awake," Lassiter said from beside her. "We should come back tomorrow."
Gus stood up from where he was sitting at the window seat. He sat down the book he was reading facedown to mark his page, and then shook his head. "No, you should stay," he said, stretching. "Mr. Spencer's gone to pick up Ms. Spencer, and I need to get something to eat, and he's been talking about seeing you all day, Juliet. He will probably wake up pretty soon." His voice sounded troubled as he remarked, "He wakes up every fifteen minutes or so."
Juliet frowned. Lassiter snapped, "We're not here to play babysitter, Guster. We came to get Shawn's statement, but if he's asleep, we'll just come back later."
"How—"
Whatever Gus was going to say was abruptly cut off as Shawn jerked awake with a hoarse shout, eyes wide, breath catching in his throat. He carefully moved his right arm, wincing as his shoulder shifted, and wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Breathing heavily, he finally croaked, "Holy crap." He then looked up, saw the detectives, looked very uncomfortable and actually a little embarrassed for a couple of moments before pasting on a lopsided grin and saying, "Hey, Jules."
Juliet smiled warmly, glad to see him awake. She'd be sure to ask Gus about the episode later, although she was pretty sure a nightmare was involved. She hadn't doubted he'd have them. She couldn't get the scene of his rescue out of her head, of the sight of Shawn hanging bloody and bruised from the ceiling by his broken and dislocated arms. "Hi, Shawn. Good to see you awake," she said as brightly as she could muster, and to her delight, a genuine smile lit up his eyes for the briefest moment.
"Well, you know, they didn't give me much of a choice at first," he pointed out. "If I would have been awake, I would've invoked the second amendment and refused being put into some kind of controlled coma."
"There's no such thing in the Constitution," Gus said, rolling his eyes.
"There is too a second amendment!" Shawn argued, and he seemed to actually be enjoying the back-and-forth, even though the haunted, off look in his eyes never truly faded. He was trying so hard to distract and protect himself. It broke Juliet's heart to see him hurting so much. "I know this because there is a first and there is a third, and generally, when there is a one and a three, there's a two somewhere in the middle."
"You're an idiot," Lassiter supplied. "There's nothing about the right to refuse a drugged coma, because if you're in a coma, you can't refuse anything." He paused, then added, "The second amendment is my favorite."
"Right. The right to shoot squirrels," Shawn deadpanned.
"Close. The right to bear arms." He patted his shoulder holster, looking extremely pleased with himself. "Against squirrels, and other pests." He gave Shawn a pointed look, annoyance on his face. Juliet was going to jab her elbow into his side for being so callous after everything Shawn had been through, but to her surprise, Shawn actually laughed. She realized that what Shawn needed more than anything was for things to be normal, and Lassiter threatening to shoot Shawn was pretty normal.
"So," Juliet put in, hating what she was about to do, but the sooner they got his statement, the better, and if he was able, then they should get it over with. "Do you feel like—?"
"Yeah, I'll do it," Shawn said, suddenly subdued, the lightheartedness deflating from him like air from a balloon. "Let's get it over with." When they just blinked at him, he brought his right hand to his bandaged temple with a wince. "Psychic, remember?"
Lassiter snorted, reaching into his coat pocket for his notebook and pen. "Right. And I'm here voluntarily."
Shawn smirked, then turned to Gus. "Go ahead and get something to eat, buddy," he said. "And not the cafeteria. Go to Red Robin and get a burger, and then sneak me back a shake and some fries."
"I'll stay here," Gus offered.
"Really, dude," Shawn said seriously. "You don't need to be here." Gus didn't look convinced, and he even looked a little hurt, realizing that Shawn didn't want him to hear his statement. "Gus," Shawn said. "We'll talk later, I promise. It's just..." He broke off, looking conflicted and more vulnerable than Juliet had ever seen him, and she just knew he was going to say something sad or emotional, assuring Gus that he just needed to get this over with, but then he concluded, "I just... I really need something other than the crap they serve here. I'm dying here, man."
"You've got a room full of pineapples, Shawn."
"And nobody will cut one for me."
"Because you just started eating solid food again, and the doctor doesn't want to risk the acid messing with your stomach."
"She just wants all the pineapples to herself. Don't tell me you didn't see her eyeing them when she came in here earlier."
"I just think she was trying to figure out how so many pineapples can fit into one hospital room," Gus countered dryly.
"Guys," Juliet said, stifling a grin at their silly antics, actually really happy to see Shawn engaging in this way with Gus, even if it was partly an act. "I think that Detective Lassiter and I would be able to do this a whole lot quicker if we talk to Shawn alone, if that's what he wants. Go and get something to eat, and we'll let you know if we need you."
Gus finally conceded, casting an anxious look back at Shawn, who just grinned devilishly and said in a stage whisper, "Don't forget the shake."
Gus shook his head, said, "We'll see," and promised to be back as soon as he could.
Juliet watched him go with a slight smile on his face, then turned back to Shawn. The humor had left his face. "All right," he said dully. "Let's do this."
"First," said Shawn, "I think I should give you my psychic revelation about the whole ordeal."
"We know what happened, and we know you know what happened because you were there," Lassiter said. "We don't need a contrived 'vision'; we just need to know what happened."
"Carlton," Juliet said softly.
Lassiter sighed. "Fine," he said. "Give us your 'revelation.'"
Shawn put his hand to his head, moving uncomfortably because of his shoulder. He had to lower it pretty soon into his breakdown, though. "Once upon a time, there was a really smart guy who had a great future ahead of him, but he got accused of a crime he didn't do and went to jail for twenty-five years before being eligible for parole, and it made him into a bitter and angry incarnation of the Iron Giant."
"But the Iron Giant was really sweet," Juliet felt compelled to put in.
"When he goes all nuclear-war mode," Shawn explained.
"Loved that part," Lassiter put in begrudgingly.
They both stared at him. "What?" he said. "I can't watch movies?"
"Anyway," Shawn said after a couple of seconds. "He blamed my father, who really had nothing to do with the case, but whose testimony was a big nail in the guy's coffin anyway. During the twenty-five years in prison, he concocted a plan based on his favorite book from college, which he then started acting upon several months after his release so that people wouldn't automatically suspect him. He planned on a big deal, drawing it out, even though he was working alone and it was a risk. But working alone didn't quite turn out well, for he got caught strangling poor mockingbirds for his game by an environmentalist, who he then killed, but wasn't able to get out of the woods without risk of detection.
"So he hid the body in the woods, hoping that no one would find it until well after his plan had gone into motion, but some hikers stumbled along the body the next day, so he had to speed things up. He started by putting those mockingbirds in front of places connected with my dad and I. Then he skipped the rest of the buildup because of time constraints due to the investigation on the murder, so he grabbed me, broke into Herman O'Dell's place – the guy who actually killed Alicia Tyler, and that one witness on Stevens' defense and Jim Morton, just to name a few – and dragged him back to his hideout, where he proceeded to murder O'Dell and lure my dad to conclude his plan."
He finished in a rush. His right hand, which had found its way back up to his temple again during the latter part of his speech, was lowered to the bed beside him. He seemed deflated, exhausted, his fingers now picking at the white blanket that covered his legs and torso. Even through the blankets, Juliet could see the lump where his bandaged knee was lying, useless. She shuddered to think what it looked like under the wrappings. She'd sprained her knee once in high school when she'd landed wrong after a handspring in cheerleading. It had swollen up, turned a rainbow of dark colors, and had taken nearly six weeks to heal. But this... a shattered kneecap? She was glad that Shawn was under enough medication to keep the pain down, and she wondered how he'd handled it so well when it had happened, when he'd been with Stevens. He hadn't had a choice, but maybe he had. He had fought back, from everything she'd heard, and he hadn't given up. Shawn was much braver than any of them, even Juliet herself, gave him credit for. She knew that her partner would never admit it, but even he would have to respect Shawn's courageous response to the horrible situation he'd been forced into, even if he wouldn't acknowledge it, even to himself.
"Jules?" She realized she'd been staring. She cleared her throat, looking around awkwardly, avoiding both his and her partner's eyes.
"Sorry," she stuttered. "We, uh, we had a lot of the basics figured out, actually, but we hadn't connected Carter Johnson's death exactly with the rest of it," she admitted.
"We would have," Lassiter put in quickly. "But we were kind of preoccupied chasing you all over the damn state." It was an exaggeration, but it fulfilled its purpose and breeched the subject that none of them really wanted to talk about. Shawn had distanced himself from the case, treating his synopsis like he would any of his other psychic revelations. It was a delay tactic, because even though he said he wanted to get it over with, she knew that he also wanted to avoid reliving his nightmare for them.
"Right," Shawn said awkwardly. He was stiller than she'd ever seen him before, which probably had something to do with two limbs being completely out of commission, but his fingers were fidgeting nervously at his side. "Guess you'll need to know the specifics now, right?"
"I'm sorry—" Juliet started, but Shawn cut her off.
"It's fine. Fine." She knew it wasn't, but she let it go, because he had taken a deep breath and was steeling himself to go through this a second time.
He started with his dad's phone call to him early the morning before last, ordering him to come and catch a cat that had left a dead bird on his porch. Despite his struggle with having to relive this, he started off pretty easily, even cracking a couple of lackluster jokes about his lazy, animal-harassing father. They let him do so without comment, knowing he was just trying to deal with this the only way he knew how. When he got to the part about setting the live trap, though, Juliet couldn't help herself from saying, "Oooh, so that's the story about the raccoon. I was wondering."
To her surprise and mild amusement, Shawn actually looked as horrified as she'd seen him at her words. "Raccoon? Where do those masked demons come into this?"
Lassiter rolled his eyes. "When we went to your father's house early this morning to check up on him, there was an angry raccoon in a cage in the front yard. We called animal control to come and get it."
"Wow," said Shawn. "I'd bet you anything Dad left it there so he could taunt me with the furry little bandit later. He's never understood my... aversion... to raccoons."
"Honestly, I don't get it either," Juliet admitted. "I think they're kinda cute."
"Until they rip out your eyeballs and eat them for dinner," Lassiter said darkly.
"See?" Shawn almost beamed, though the mirth still didn't fully reach his eyes. "Lassie gets it!"
"I'm still not afraid of them," Lassiter pointed out.
"That makes one of us," Shawn answered. Then he sighed, his eyes hardening as he tried to get his mind back on track again.
"We can take a break if you want," Juliet offered, seeing how pale he was. "Or we can come back tomorrow. Maybe you should rest. Maybe it's too soon."
Shawn just shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice had picked up a monotone timbre that she'd never witnessed in the enigmatic psychic. "That's when Gus called me about a murder in front of the Psych office – the second mockingbird. That's when I realized that there was something more going on, but before I had a chance to look into it, psychically or otherwise, I got the call from the chief about the environmentalist." He went through everything that had transpired at the station, which both of them already knew because they had been there, so it didn't take too terribly long. "I went back to my place after that, and I did some digging, some meandering in the psychic realm, and finally realized that there was something significant about the act of killing a mockingbird that had something to do with the book, but the spirits weren't in a particularly giving mood, so I went to the library."
He paused, his voice hoarse, reaching his arm out pitifully for the cup of water on the table beside his bed. The movement must have hurt his shoulder, and it tugged at the IV lines in his arm. He hissed slightly in pain, and Juliet jumped to her feet, grabbing the cup and gently pressing it into his hand. "Shawn," she said seriously, looking into his green eyes from above a clear plastic cup of water, which both of their hands were still touching either side of the cup, their fingertips meeting and brushing against each other lightly. It was like an electric charge shot through her hand. Realizing that they had been staring at each other, she quickly released the cup and stepped back, fixing him with a chiding look. "Let us help you," she said calmly.
"I can handle it," Shawn muttered, slowly and shakily lifting the straw to his mouth and taking a couple of sips of water. Even though he usually tried to con everyone (especially Gus) into doing things for him on a regular basis, this was different. He was being his quirky and annoying self, but now, when he was actually vulnerable and helpless, he felt like he had something to prove, that he wasn't the weak and pitiful victim. He didn't want to be pitied. Juliet had seen this kind of reaction many times in her years on the force, but seeing Shawn like this hurt her in a deeper way than usual.
"I know you can," she conceded. "And so can I."
Frowning slightly, Shawn handed the cup back to her, and she set it on the table. His eyes stayed locked on her as she moved, unnervingly serious. He finally broke the stare and went back to glowering at the covers and picking at the threads with his fingertips. Lassiter had watched the exchange in silence, an unreadable expression on his face.
Shawn described his visit to the library, calling Mrs. Moore the most kick-ass librarian ever invented, even if her get well gift had kind of inadvertently sucked.
"I called Gus when I got back to my place," he went on, and his voice was soft and subdued as he methodically went through Stevens' attack on him in his apartment, the fight, and then getting knocked out. "When I woke up, I was hanging from the ceiling in the storage building," he said. He cleared his throat, refusing to even look in their direction now as he began to relive the torture. Juliet felt hot anger rise up from somewhere deep within her as she listened to how Stevens had promised Shawn water if he would play along and prove he was psychic, and how he'd not only blatantly broken that promise, but had followed up with calling Henry so that he could torture Shawn over the phone.
Shawn spoke of the metal gavel that had smashed his arm and then his knee after he'd accidentally said his kidnapper's first name. The way that Stevens had dragged O'Dell with him and then shot him in the head in front of Shawn, then put the "evidence" on Shawn. His voice was even and his tone didn't waver. It sounded like he was reading off the most boring grocery list ever written. But his semi-good arm told another story, as it moved and picked and shifted anxiously from its place on the mattress. Juliet felt nauseated at the sheer level of detail Shawn was able to recall about his torture, at least before he started slipping in and out of consciousness. He remembered bits and pieces of what had transpired when his father had arrived, but when he got to Henry's fight with Stevens, Shawn had been pretty out of it.
"I was kinda half awake," he said dully. "But somehow I knew something had changed. I managed to make out the general idea of what was going on in front of me, even though everything was still really confusing and I was really out of it. Stevens had pistol-whipped my dad and was going to shoot him through the head, just like he did O'Dell. And I..." He paused, brows furrowed slightly underneath the bandage on his head. "I don't know what happened, really. I just knew I couldn't let him kill my dad. So I figured out that if I started to swing my legs back and forth, I could get some pretty good momentum going, even with my screwed up arms. Aaron's back was to me, and he was really focused on Dad, so I guess he didn't hear me in time. I kicked him in the side of the head, I think, as hard as I could. He fell over, I think, and then..." He sighed in frustration, eyes still averted. "And then, I don't remember. The pain was so bad at that point that I couldn't hold on anymore, not even to see if I'd given Dad a chance. And then the next thing I remember is waking up to seeing Jules over me, which made waking much more pleasant, by the way. And, uh, I think you know the rest a lot better than I do, because I'm pretty sure I passed out again after that." He wondered if he had dreamed his father's holding him close, promising that he was never going to let anything happen to him again, the sorrow and tenderness in his voice foreign but not unpleasant. Comforting.
He cleared his throat again.
Juliet exchanged a quick, meaningful glance with her partner, mind spinning from everything that had been revealed during this nearly forty-five minute interview.
"Um," said Shawn quietly, a bit of life returning to his voice, although he sounded completely spent. "Are we done? Because I'm not going to lie. Even though I love talking to you, Jules, and even though Lassie's a great conversationalist, this meet and greet was not the highlight of my day."
Replies to Anonymous Reviewers:
To Guest: Thank you so much! Hope you enjoyed the update! More soon!
To Jesusfreak: First off, love your name. :) Are you a TobyMac or DC Talk fan by any chance? Also, thank you so much for the review, and I'm glad you liked te Duck Dynasty joke. Totally wish I could take credit for it, but alas, my boyfriend was quite the clever little jokester when he thought it up! LOL! Thank you so much for your compliments, and I'm soooo glad you're enjoying it! The story will be 16 chapters with an epilogue, so we're drawing close to the end... Which makes me sad but excited at the same time, lol!
To PsychO99: Thank you for your reviews! I'm so glad you're enjoying it so much and that you were able to go on a total reading spree! XD Hope this update was to your satisfaction, and thank you SOOOO much for your support and awesome reviews!
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed chapter 14: Leahelisabeth, Sammo352z, Guest, BrokenSky49, Jesusfreak, Liberty Hoffman, thewarpedmind1, IrishPride1989, PsychO99, Clara Brighet and ElmerFudFry95! You guys are amazing! Also a huge thanks to everyone who has read, followed and favorited! :)
Our father/son talk, as well as more angst and also Lassie's POV on the whole statement scene will be in the next chapter, I promise! We've only got one more chapter and an epilogue to go, and while that kind of breaks my heart, I'm really excited about sharing the remainder of the story with you, even if I don't want it to be over. But the good news is, I'm already plotting out the sequel. Not sure when I'll get it done, but I'm definitely planning on writing one, and I've already got the general plot mapped out! Yay! Hope you all stay tuned for the remaining hurt/comfort, angst, bromance, Shules, etc., because even though we're drawing close to the end, we're not there yet, and there's still quite a bit more story to go! :)
Thank you again for supporting this story with your reviews, favorites, and follows, and just by reading it in general. Please review and let me know what you thought of this chapter as well, I LIVE for reviews! XD See you next Tuesday with chapter 16! I seriously love you guys to pieces (Reeses Pieces!)...
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~Emachinescat ^..^