Carlton sat in his empty room, his eyes involuntarily fluttering, his mind floating somewhere between awake and asleep.
"Useless."
The dark figure sat perched in his regular seat on the windowsill. Where he had been sitting almost constantly since New Year's Eve, taunting Carlton every chance he got. He would keep him up all night, recapping everything that he couldn't do, all the ways he had failed that day.
"Please just let me sleep," Carlton said, rubbing his hand over his face. For the last month and a half, he had sat in limbo in the long-term care facility. The dark figure would talk all night, and during the day people would be constantly coming to check on him. The chronic exhaustion was beginning to set in, making it increasingly difficult for Carlton to make sense of anything that was happening around him. The lights and colors ran together and he felt completely incapable of comprehending any of what he was seeing in a given moment. He felt delirious, unable to distinguish reality from the world the dark figure had trapped him in.
He knew Marlowe had been gone for a week, but it wasn't until Juliet had come by a few days ago that he understood why.
"She was really hurting, Carlton. You kicked her out. You yelled at her. All she wants to do is help you. She's trying so hard."
"I just can't anymore," Carlton tried to justify, still processing what he was being told. How could he have done that to her? He hadn't remembered it at all. "I don't want her to see me like this. She doesn't deserve this."
"No, she doesn't. But she also doesn't deserve to be yelled at," Juliet said, her arms crossed tightly in front of her as protection. "Carlton, you don't deserve this either. But you have each other. You can lean on each other."
"You'll break her if you lean on her," the shadow interrupted, a haunting sneer in his voice.
"I can't. I can't put this on her. I can't let her see me like this anymore."
So Marlowe stopped coming. Carlton missed her so much it hurt but he couldn't bring himself to tell her. Every time he thought about texting her that he loved her or he missed her or that he wanted her to come back and he was sorry, the dark shadow would talk him out of it, reminding him of all the reasons he had kicked her out in the first place.
"I just want to go home," Carlton tried to reason with the shadow, desperation leaking out of his voice.
"No you don't," it reminded him, "You can't even sleep in your own bed at home. How are you going to make it up the stairs?"
He didn't have an answer. Because as much progress as he had made in therapy, slowly gaining the ability to walk without help and even stand up on his own, he still couldn't make it up the stairs. Which meant that he still couldn't sleep in his bed with Marlowe or tuck Lily in. What was even the point of going home? So that he could be stuck on a couch in the living room like the grandparents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
"Hello!" he heard his partner's voice echoing into his empty room.
"O'Hara?" he asked, squinting at the back-lit silhouette of his pregnant partner, not sure if he could trust his brain to tell him if she was really there.
"Who are you talking to?" She asked, entering the room with her work bag. "And why are all the lights off? It's not even five!"
"I um..." He watched her float through the room, turning on lights before taking a seat next to him on the edge of the bed. "Just myself."
"Well, now you can talk to me." She began pulling out paperwork and files and images, spreading them out on the bed. "I need help on a case."
"Don't you have a new partner?" He asked, afraid to look at the words and images being spread out in front of him. He was barely able to make sense of the childish games the therapists were putting in front of him. There was no way he could solve a case. "And why are you here anyways? It's late."
"McNab?" Juliet asked, side eyeing Carlton. "Yeah, he's doing well and all, but he's not you. I need my partner for this. And Selene took Shawn and Gus to WrestleMania in LA tonight. Apparently she knows The Rock."
"Of course she does," Carlton said, still unsure what to make of Guster's new flame. He had had a lot of bizarre relationships in the time that he had known him, but Selene definitely took the cake. "You didn't want to go?"
"A room full of people screaming and eating fried foods and drinking beer? Yeah, me and this baby belly were perfectly happy staying behind. Besides, this way I get to come spend time with you!"
He hated the way that that sounded, like someone trying to convince a teenager that they weren't babysitting, just "hanging out" with them. Still, he was cautiously pleased that she had come. As embarrassed as he was to have people seeing him in his current state, O'Hara felt different. They had been partners for twelve years. They had seen each other at their worst more than a few times and gotten each other to the other side no matter how little the other wanted the help. There was no judgment between them. They just were, and it was okay.
"What've you got?" He asked, reluctantly.
Juliet smiled and clapped her hands together, moving to sit criss cross on the bed next to him. He shook his head, watching her animated explanation of the kidnapping she was working on with McNab. A lot of the case went over his head, his injured brain unable to put pieces of the puzzle together the way that he used to. But as he asked questions and prodded Juliet to repeat herself, he could tell she was getting closer, shuffling papers around and writing notes on different sticky notes with her box of colored pencils she always had laying around her desk.
As the dim light of the afternoon faded into the darkness of night and the daily rustle from the halls slowly died down as the small group of night shift nurses came in, Carlton could feel Juliet beginning to tire. Talk about the case slowly transitioned into stories of the station, Juliet regaling Carlton with tales of how clumsy yet constantly optimistic McNab always seemed to be. She slowly went from leaning back on the headboard to laying on her side, her pregnancy belly supporting her like a tripod. She supported her head with her hand, her other hand rubbing the side of her belly. She looked happier, Carlton thought, and softer than she had in a while.
When she became sick, Carlton watched the bright light that was his partner become dim, buried by the dust of stress and pain and worry. Her face had looked older, something resembling wrinkles seeming to crease her forehead. Being sick had changed her and it had killed Carlton to watch. But now that she was pregnant, even if it was Spencer's, she had regained her light.
"Do you want to feel?" she asked, taking his hand before he could respond and placing it on the side of her stomach. He could feel a small bump wiggling under his palm.
He smiled, memories of when Marlowe was pregnant with Lily floating under his palm. This had been his favorite part of when Marlowe was pregnant. At night after Carlton got home from the station, they would lie together in their bed, tracing their baby's heels and elbows, imagining what their world would look like when she finally came.
"There she is," Juliet said, smiling down at her stomach.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, watching her blissful face watching her stomach. As her baby kicked, she shook her head, like she still couldn't believe that this was happening.
She looked into his eyes, studying his face. "I'm good," she sighed, her fingers tracing lines on the edges of her stomach. "I'm just a little anxious all the time."
"What do you mean?" He watched her clear eyes become glossy and her cheeks flush.
"I just, am so nervous all the time, about everything. About this baby that I still don't believe is real, about going to work and not having you as my backup..." she hesitated, and he could feel her eyes watching him. "And about you in general, I guess."
Her words felt heavy. She was worried about him because he was here and not with her. He had left her out to dry on the field, and now she was alone. Well, she had McNab, but still. It wasn't the same and they both could feel it.
"I'm sorry, O'Hara," his eyes wandered as he took in the latest hospital-room-decorated-to-not-look-like-a-hospital-room that he had been stuck in for nearly a month and a half at this point. It had almost been four months since his stroke, and he had been putting those who chose to care about him through an emotional roller coaster ever since.
"No, you don't have to be sorry!" she said quickly, putting her hand on top of his and giving it a light squeeze. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault."
"I should be out there with you. I should be home with my family. Instead I'm sitting around in this stupid room doing nothing."
"You're not doing nothing," she said, watching him carefully. "You're healing. You are recovering so you can come home and be the Carlton Lassiter that we all miss so much."
"Yeah," Carlton said, letting out a small chuckle, regretful that there was anything to be missed at all. And yet, his head finally felt clearer than it had in weeks. "So show me this case," he said, reaching out his good hand for Juliet's notes.
She handed over her yellow legal pad with a timeline sketched in the front and a list of suspects on the second page, just like she had done for every case they had ever worked together.
"McNab thought it was the girlfriend," Juliet started in, showing him pictures and pointing out holes in her own theory, doodling flowers along the edge of the paper as they talked.
Juliet's notes had helped him solve more cases than he would ever admit, especially when she first started working with him, and her twirling hearts or flowers that lined each page she used would bring him back to earth when reality got too dark.
Slowly the conversation died down, hopeful theories working themselves into contradictory circles, and before he knew it, Juliet had fallen asleep next to him on his fancy rehab bed. He watched her sleep, her face lit up by the streetlights through the window. This wasn't the first time they had shared a bed. After the Yin incident, he had slept at her house for a week. He had told himself at the time that it was for her. That she wanted him to stay and so he would do it for her. But in truth, he had been afraid to let her out of his sight. After three sleepless nights on the couch, watching headlights pass through the window, wondering which one was coming for his partner next, Juliet had cautiously asked if he would sleep next to her. It ended up being the first time he had slept since before the Yin case had started. And judging by the dark shadows that he had watched form under his partner's eyes, he imagined it was her first night of sleep too.
It wasn't romantic- it never had been for them. She had Shawn for that, and he had Marlowe. But he definitely loved her more than he ever could have imagined.
"What is she, like twelve?" Carlton asked, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, watching the young blond in a bright pink shirt pacing in front of her new desk through the blinds in Chief Vick's office. Her wavy hair was partially tied back, wispy fly-aways framing her face.
"Not that it matters," Chief said with a rehearsed calm tone, "but she's 26."
"So this is my punishment for that 'psychic' twit outing me and Lucinda?" He hissed as he said it, still furious that this was happening to him. "Babysitting?"
"Carlton," Chief Vick said through gritted teeth, and he could tell by her "professional" voice that she was trying to be patient with him. He knew she was frustrated with him, but he didn't care. They had transferred his highly competent partner who he had been with for three years and happened to enjoy quite a bit, both during work and on their days off. And now they were sticking him with this child. Chief told him it was for his own good, that it was department policy that he could no longer work with Lucinda if they were dating. She told him it would be good for him to have a younger partner that he could teach. It all sounded like a load of crap to him, but he couldn't say anything about it, not if he wanted to be the Chief of Police one day.
"Listen," she said calmly, "I know that you are upset about Ms. Berry. I know that you have been partners for several years and you do not want a new partner. But this is happening whether you want it to or not, so I suggest you get on board. She just transferred here from Miami, scored very well on her detective's exam, and I think she will be a good balance to your... energy."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, it's no secret, Carlton, that you tend to have a shorter temper than my other detectives. I think that she will be good for you."
Carlton shook his head, frustration boiling in his blood.
"Give her a chance, Lassiter," Chief said, heading to the door to make the official introduction before sending them off on their first sting operation together. "You might actually learn something."
"Yeah," Carlton huffed, refusing to move from his seat. "I highly doubt that."
He couldn't have even imagined how wrong he would be. That girl turned woman who had had his back for the last twelve years? She had taught him more than any partner or teacher ever had. He got over Lucinda quickly. It had been a fluke- an unhealthy rebound from a divorce that had left him with a scary amount of anger. Once he met Marlowe, any romanticization over what could have been with her quickly diminished into a distant memory.
He wasn't sure when exactly it happened, but sometime in their first few years together, they become more than just partners. O'Hara's contagious energy and constant curiosity about everything, including him, was impossible to ignore, no matter how hard he had tried those first two years. Slowly but surely, question by question, reluctant hug by reluctant hug, he began opening up to her until suddenly he found himself telling her things she wasn't even asking. She was a good listener and protected his secrets as he did for her. They became each other's confidants. Their go to person when the world was against them, and so often the world felt against them. He would take a bullet for her without thinking twice about it, and he knew she would do the same for him.
Carlton eventually drifted off, getting one of the only full nights of sleep he had gotten unmedicated in the past few months. Calmed by Juliet's presence. At ease in the lack of expectation she had for him. Undisturbed by the darkness that threatened to take over at a moment's notice.
But the darkness got its notice in the morning.
Carlton woke up to the sunshine flowing through his window. He looked over and saw his partner unmoved from next to him, her hand still resting comfortably on her belly. He sat quietly, listening to the quiet hum of residents waking up on the other side of his door. He became suddenly aware of something under his hand. He sighed, frustration and embarrassment had already begun to take over. His limited sensation had kept him from the bathroom longer than he should have been before, and it wouldn't be the first time he woke up needing to change his pants. But while O'Hara was in the bed? He really was useless.
He put his hand on the sheets between them, hoping the wetness would stop before he reached his partner. But when he ran his hand between them, he could feel the sheets getting warmer as he worked his hand towards her.
Did she? he thought, as he felt his pants, realizing that only the leg closest to her was damp. He adjusted to a sitting position and pulled the sheets aside to assess the damage. When he did, his heart stopped.
The wet spot wasn't surrounding his legs, it was surrounding hers.
And it was bright red.