"It's… nice," Juliet hesitated, looking around Carlton's room in the rehab center.

"Don't lie to me, O'Hara," Carlton said from his wheelchair. "You're no good at it."

"I am too!" She protested back, her blushing cheeks already giving her away. She could never lie to him. She knew it. He knew it. It simply wasn't an option.

He shot her the look that he gave her when she was trying to prove a point that they both knew was wrong, but she stuck to her guns anyways.

"It's awful here. And I'm in therapy all hours of the day." He responded, motioning to a collection of therapy balls and resistance bands that were piling up in the corner. "But I still feel the same. Just more tired."

"Carlton," Juliet sighed, reaching out her hand to cover his. "It's only been a week. You need to be patient with yourself."

"I've been patient with myself." Juliet could see her partner working through thoughts with his eyes before the words fell into sentences. His non-paralyzed hand gesturing for words that hadn't yet been said.

"You will get there, Carlton," she said softly, trying to keep her heart from dropping as she watched her partner sitting in defeat. "Do you remember what you told me? The morning after… Yin?" She watched his face distort slightly at the mention of that night.

"O'Hara-" his voice cut off and she could feel him studying her face, afraid to upset her or bring up the past.

"You brought me home and helped me inside and told me that it would take time to feel better. You said that it wouldn't happen overnight. And it did. And I do. And sometimes there are still lingering effects and nights when I still can't shake the memory of what happened, but for the most part? Most days? I'm okay. And you will be too."

"But that was in your head. No offense O'Hara, but your body still worked."

"First of all, it certainly wasn't all in my head, because a very real thing happened to my body," she explained calmly, echoing what her therapist had told her over and over again when she had used the same line to her for months on end. "And second of all, it's all connected, Carlton. If you sit in that bed mad at the world for letting this happen to you and sad about how this changed your life, then that's all that it's ever going to do. Or you could put your mind to it and get better and come home to us. That's all we want. We just want you to come home."

Juliet could feel herself becoming frustrated. She wanted him to see how badly they missed him. She wanted him to know that he was loved and they just wanted him home more than anything. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed watching him waste away in a wheelchair day after day. Why couldn't he just get better? Why was that so hard?

She felt a thumping from inside of her abdomen and put her hand on her stomach. She would never get used to this. Every time the baby kicked, she would feel her heart soar with hope. It was becoming harder and harder by the day for Juliet to control the hope that she could feel bubbling inside hers and Shawn's chest every minute.

"Feel this," Juliet said, taking Lassiter's hand and pulling it forward to touch the spot where she had felt the point of a miniature heel. "According to some fruit app Shawn got, it's the size of a banana now."

Lassiter's hand resting on her stomach, she felt the little heel begin to use her insides as a trampoline again. Smiling, she looked up to see both corners of Carlton's mouth upturned into a smile.

"Your smile is looking better already." She said, watching his eyes focusing hard on the soft tapping they could feel under their hands.

"Yeah, thanks," he dismissed, still watching his hand.

"Carlton, this baby needs to meet you. And not cooped-up-in-a-hospital Carlton. It needs to meet Detective Lassiter- head detective for the Santa Barbara Police Department. The Lassiter who had my back and saved my life and my ass more times than I care to admit. The Lassiter who taught me everything I know. It needs to meet you."

Juliet watched the corners of his mouth turn upwards again, still focused on his hand. She studied his face, noticing again how soft his features had become. The partner she had met on her first day in the SBPD was hard. He was mad at the world and spent his whole life glaring away anyone who came close to him. He gave all of his efforts to doing his job and keeping people from getting close to him. That is, until Juliet came into the picture. And she spent day after day quietly chipping away at his sharp features and icy exterior. It took about four years, but sometime between her arrival to California and when she started dating Shawn, he had become more than just her superior. They became friends. Confidants. They had a friendship truer than any relationship she had her whole life growing up in Miami. It was different than the one she had with Shawn, and the one he had with Marlowe, but it was no less cherished by either of them.

She knew his face as well as she knew her own. They had to. As partners, they had figured out how to communicate without so much as a raised eyebrow. But, since the stroke, Juliet had watched his features change. His jaw looked softer and his eyes looked gentler and distant. The edge was gone, and in its place sat the calm and mild shell of her partner- a shell that she could no longer read.

It broke her heart to see him this way, and she found herself having to spend more and more of the time that she was with him reminding herself that she was thankful that he was still here, pouring more energy into thinking about how lucky they were that he was alive so she wouldn't spend it thinking about how much she wished with everything she had that it all could just go back to the way it was and she could have her partner back.

She missed her confidant.

She missed her friend.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Juliet said, rushing into the waiting room of her OB's office where Shawn was already standing with his arms open.

"Are you okay?" He asked, placing a quick kiss on her forehead before picking up her hands for inspection.

"Yes, I'm fine. Chief Vick just wanted to talk to me before I left."

"Is everything okay?" He asked, his hand on her back as he began leading her into the back of the office.

"It is, she just wanted to ask me how I've been feeling." They stopped quickly at the scale where the nurse weighed Juliet before leading them into one of the rooms.

"What?" Shawn asked, closing the door behind them giving them their own private space to talk before her doctor came in. "But you haven't even told her yet."

"Yeah, well, apparently I don't have the 'real estate to hide a pregnancy,' as she put it. She uh…" she hesitated to speak, focusing on getting comfortable on the butcher paper pulled across the tan exam table. "She thinks we're having a girl." She looked up with side eyes, waiting to see Shawn's reaction.

"Oh, does she now?" Shawn asked, but Juliet could see a hint of a smile forming in his eyes. All this time he and Gus had been spending with Lily had really prepared him to be a little girl's dad, and she was secretly hoping the baby would be a girl so she could see it.

"What do your psychic senses tell you?" Juliet asked, putting her fingers to her temple the way he used to before he matured a bit and became far less showy in the way he presented his theories to the police department. Even if she knew the truth, it didn't stop her from believing there was something other-worldly about the way he was able to put pieces of a case together and understand what had happened going off of next to nothing. Though after spending more time with Henry since their wedding, she was slowly understanding how it was possible. She had watched Henry make Shawn tell him how many hats were in whatever room they were in more than a handful of times when he was trying to prove a point.

Shawn smirked and brought both of his hands to his head, focusing hard on her stomach. "You know, all I'm seeing is placenta. The baby must be sitting on it, so I can't get a good sense."

"Yeah, okay Psychic," Juliet said, ready to tease him more when the doctor opened the door.

"Juliet," Dr. Johnson said, nodding towards her before taking a seat on a rolling stool next to the table. "How have you been feeling?"

"I'm okay," Juliet said, sighing and looking over to Shawn. She wanted to tell the doctor that she was fine, but she had played that game before and it nearly killed her. When she had spent the first few months of her battle with cancer trying to convince everyone around her that she was fine and that this wasn't affecting her, she had ended up alone, in the rain, breaking into pieces over an emptiness that she had single handedly created for herself. After that night, she had promised Shawn she would let him in more, and she did, but it was hard. He was already so worried- she didn't want to give him reason to worry anymore. "I'm just still nauseous. I'm 22 weeks now- shouldn't I be done with the nausea by now?"

"It does happen that some women's insides really don't agree with the hormones of pregnancy. It is entirely possible that because of your history and your hormone levels, you are extra sensitive to those hormones and therefore still feeling nauseous. But that's a good sign- more hormones means a healthier pregnancy. Have you been able to eat?"

"Not really," Juliet said, rubbing her hands on her belly to soothe the kicking baby. "Not as much as I should."

"Well, your weight isn't up as much as I would like it to be. I'm going to prescribe you some Zofran. It should help get the nausea under control so you can eat better." Dr. Johnson took an orange pill bottle out of her pocket and handed it to Juliet.

"Oh, I'm plenty familiar with Zofran." She rolled the bottle between her hands, watching the little white oval pills tumble over each other. As she did, memories of having to take the little white pill day after day while she was in chemo flashed around her, making her nauseous just to think about it.

"Alright. Let's take a look at this baby," Dr. Johnson said, supporting Juliet as she adjusted onto her back and pulled her shirt above her baby bump. It had gotten much bigger, no longer disappearing when she lay on her back.

"Do we want to find out the sex of the baby?" she asked, pulling out the magic ultrasound wand and squirting the thick gel onto the top.

Shawn came to stand next to Juliet, watching the black and white image form on the screen. Juliet looked to Shawn, waiting for him to confirm.

"Uh, yes," Shawn said matter-of-factly and Juliet smiled up at him.

"Well, here's your baby," Dr. Johnson said, moving the wand around revealing the baby. "We've got two arms, two legs. The heart looks to be developing appropriately, as do the lungs, brain, and kidneys. She looks healthy."

"It's a girl?" Juliet asked, giggling. "For real?" Shawn was already kissing Juliet's hand before kissing her square on the lips.

"It's a girl," He whispered, and Juliet could feel his heart pounding against her hand which he was holding to his chest.

"It's a girl," Dr. Johnson confirmed, pressing a few buttons on the screen before pulling out a printed copy of the images. She handed the pictures to the giddy couple. "And she does look healthy and completely appropriate."

"Completely appropriate," Shawn said, staring at the pictures resting on Juliet's chest, "that's the highest praise a doctor can give!"

"Your due date is eighteen weeks away, and at this rate, you are on track to have a healthy baby at the end of April. How does that sound?"

"Perfect," Juliet said, letting hope swell in her chest. Who knows how much could change by April? By then, Lassiter could be out of the hospital, home to hold his own baby and maybe even hers.

"Want to hear the heartbeat?"

Juliet nodded, watching the little baby in the sonogram as a steady whooshing filled the room. Eighteen weeks couldn't come fast enough.