You Have the Right to Remain...Dead? Part 15

[musicalluna]

Title: You Have the Right to Remain...Dead? Part 15
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: All the regulars/None
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Suspense
Warnings: Little tiny bit of gore.
Complete: Yes
Summary: When an officer is murdered late one night while on duty, Karen forbids Shawn from getting involved, afraid he won't take the case as seriously as he should. But since when has a little thing like being banned from a case stopped Shawn Spencer?
A/N: I've been working on this story for over three months now. Up until three weeks ago, however, it was coming out really rather crappy. That was when I met my Psych fanfiction soul-mate centipede. She helped me work out all the kinks in my story and helped me realize the full-potential of this story. Thanks to her, this story is the best it can be. She was my encouragement, my grammar-nazi, and my holy-crap-I-have-to-do-that-because-that-idea-is-brilliant girl.

Thanks so much for rocking my Psych world!
Disclaimer: Psych and all related characters are unfortunately not even marginally owned by me. How tragic is that?
 

The first thing Shawn noticed when he woke up was the pain in his throat.

The second thing he noticed was Gus.

"Shawn!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet from the bedside chair. "You’re awake, finally."

Shawn blinked groggily, his fingers running over his neck, and he remembered what had happened. "Am I…?" he started, his voice quiet and raspy. The pain stopped him from continuing.

"You’re in the hospital," Gus confirmed, "You’ve been asleep for two days."

Well, that explained the short beard he currently sported. "Bell?" he asked hoarsely, and this time the pain wasn’t so bad.

"Dead. They shot him, remember?" Gus shuddered. "It was horrible. I thought you were going to die, Shawn."

Shawn thought it was wiser not to mention that he had, too.

"You were right, though. The badges all had Bell’s fingerprints on them, and there was a hotel reservation in Los Banos where Officer Lief lived. The guy was a total whack-job. He was kicked out of the Academy for being a psychotic sociopath! And you went after him by yourself, you idiot. Did you know he was crazy?"

Shawn pointed to his throat, indicating that he couldn’t answer with a shrug. Gus glared. "You did know. You’re an idiot, you know that? Apparently he had a trust fund that was cleaned out right before his ‘death’ and that was how he was financing his whole executionary lifestyle. They found—"

The door to the room opened and Henry appeared, cup of coffee in hand, already glaring stonily at them. "I see you’re finally awake," he said darkly. Shawn smiled weakly.

Oh, he was so in for it.

"Get out of here, Gus," Henry said, stepping inside.

"I’d really like to—"

"Out. Now." Henry said, and there was no arguing with his tone.

Gus glanced at Shawn apologetically and then exited the room, trying not to look at the elder Spencer. Henry closed the door carefully behind him and then turned to Shawn, his white knuckled hands clutching the coffee cup the only indication of the anger he was about to unleash.

"What were you thinking?"

Shawn had dozens of answers for that, none of them short enough, and none of them something that would satisfy whatever ridiculous requirement his father had come up with. He shrugged.

"So when you called me, in the middle of the night, completely haywire because you were sleep deprived and drinking energy drinks, this is what case you were working on," he stated.

Shawn suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. They both knew exactly which case he had been working on. It was a stupid rhetorical question.

The dam finally burst. "Shawn, what the hell could you have possibly been thinking?!" he demanded furiously, and then cursed loudly as coffee splashed from the cup in his shaking hands onto his skin. "You knew this guy was dangerous! You knew he’d killed eleven police officers! What will it take to get it through your thick skull that you cannot do this job like that? You don’t carry a gun, you’re not a threat! Shawn—I—" He slammed the cup down on the table beside the bed, using the coffee that spilled onto his hand as an excuse to let out a colorful string of curses. Then he rounded on Shawn again. "You act like I’m trying to ‘bring you down’ to ‘cramp your style’ but what you can’t seem to realize is that you make stupid decisions. And not even small stupid decisions, no, no, you make stupid decisions that could cost you your life!"

Shawn couldn’t help it. He was furious. His dad thought he was just going to sit here and take it because he was hurt, well, screw that.

"What was I supposed to do?" he demanded, ignoring the searing pain in his throat. "Everyone was pissed at me and you sure as hell weren’t going to help me—"

"No, Shawn, you’re damn right, I wouldn’t have. Because this whole mess was your fault. If you had thought for five seconds before running off and blaming the first suspect you had, who, by the way, was a cop, then we wouldn’t be in this hospital right now and I wouldn’t have gotten a call from your best friend telling me that some lunatic had nearly murdered you in the middle of a police station!"

"Oh, so I make one mistake, and it’s my fault he tries to kill me, Dad? What kind of screwed up logic is that?!" Shawn’s voice cracked, weakening under the strain of trying to shout.

"One mistake, Shawn?! You make mistakes every time you get out of bed in the morning!" Henry laughed disbelievingly. "You can’t see how stupid you really are. You nearly died! If you had just put your damn pride aside and dealt with your mistake like any normal person, and let the Feds do their job—"

Shawn didn’t hear any more as he leaned back into his pillows, gasping for breath, his eyes wide. The stress of the argument was taking its toll and he suddenly couldn’t catch his breath. The monitor at the side of the bed started beeping frenetically as his oxygen levels dropped and Henry faltered mid-rant, realizing something was wrong. He ran to the door, shouting for a nurse, and thirty seconds later she had rushed in and put an oxygen mask over Shawn’s face, tilting his head back to help open his airway as much as possible. Gus followed her in, looking worried. "What happened? Were you two fighting?" he demanded of Henry. "You know he can’t handle that right now!"

He moved to the bedside, watching as Shawn slowly got his breathing back to normal. The nurse slipped the elastic of the mask around his head. "Keep this on for a little while and we’ll see how you’re doing. Take it easy," she ordered and he nodded, his brow furrowed as he focused on breathing.

"I was just…" Henry started and Gus turned a glare on him.

"You were just getting him worked up. That’s what you were ‘just’ doing. I know you’re upset and you might even have every right to be, but I think maybe you should come back when you can consider his health right now a priority over teaching him some lesson," he said angrily.

Henry’s face hardened, but he turned and walked away, disappearing into the hall.

Gus sighed and glanced at Shawn. He was eyeing him appreciatively.

"Oh, don’t you look at me like that. You were an idiot, but he can rant at you later when you’re capable of breathing without thinking," he said.

Shawn raised an eyebrow and managed to rasp out, "You were listening?"

Gus rolled his eyes. "Your dad was yelling Shawn. Everybody in the entire wing could hear him."

Shawn groaned.

~ * * * ~

Gus slipped out of the room around noon to get something to eat, and Shawn, somehow finding himself exhausted again, closed his eyes. He was on the brink of falling asleep when he heard the sound of the chart at the end of his bed being picked up. He ignored it, too sleepy to really care what his doctor wanted. He dimly heard the sound of the chart being put back and he assumed that his doctor had gone.

A hand fell on his arm, resting there a moment before squeezing gently. His father’s voice was little more than a murmer. "I was worried, kiddo. I’m…sorry."

Shawn lay silently for a second, and then finally muttered raspily, "I know. Me too." He opened his eyes ever so slightly, looking out of the corner of his eye to see his dad staring at him, taken aback.

They gazed at one another for a moment and then Henry’s hand squeezed ever so lightly on his arm and Shawn let his eyes slip closed again. He was asleep in minutes.

~ * * * ~

Later that afternoon, Shawn’s doctor stopped in and let them know that Shawn would be free to go home within the next couple of days as long as he promised to take it easy. Gus convinced them to keep him another three days.

"Guuuus!" Shawn whined, his voice weak, when the doctor had gone. "Why did you do that?! It’s so boring in here!"

Gus rolled his eyes. "Here they can watch you Shawn. You need to take it easy, and I know you won’t listen to me. If your bed had straps like these do, maybe we could talk."

Shawn pouted and then after a moment of thought, whispered, "What if I told you it did have straps?"

"Augh! Shawn!" Gus cried, disgusted. "I really don’t want to know things like that! Keep your creepy possessions to yourself!"

Shawn smirked. "You should hear what I do with—"

"NO! No, Shawn! Shut up! I’m not listening! La-la-la-la!"

Shawn grinned in amusement. Gus was so easy to ruffle.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Spencer. Mr. Guster." Gus stopped mid ‘la-la-la’ and they turned to find Karen (who looked amused), Juliet (also looking amused), and Lassiter (who looked incredibly bored) standing in the doorway.

"Chief!" Shawn exclaimed and grimaced as his throat gave a little twinge. "What are you guys doing here?" he said, keeping better control of his voice this time.

Karen half-smiled and jabbed her thumb at O’Hara. "We came by while you were sleeping too, Mr. Spencer. O’Hara wanted you to be awake when she brought the flowers though."

Shawn looked delighted. "Flowers? For me? Jules, how romantic!"

She rolled her eyes, but smiled and set them on the table beside his bed. "They’re get well flowers, Shawn, not ‘let’s date’ flowers."

He grinned and put a hand to his mouth, saying in a mock whisper, "Right, I forgot, no one is supposed to know about our secret affair." She merely rolled her eyes again, her smile growing. Shawn turned and grinned at Lassiter. "Didn’t expect you to be here, Lassie."

"Yeah, well, I didn’t have much of an option," he grumbled, his eyes fixed casually on the chart at the end of Shawn’s bed. His eyebrows drew inward a second later, and he looked up. "You had an episode this morning?" he accused.

Shawn made a face and let his head fall back on the pillows. "It was nothing."

"He and his father were fighting and his throat swelled up because he was yelling," Gus explained, eyeing Shawn disapprovingly. Shawn glared at him.

"Oh, brilliant, Spencer. Why don’t you just—"

"It wasn’t my fault!" he said irritably and winced, his hand going to his throat.

"Enough, boys. You are not helping the situation," Karen said, glaring pointedly at Lassiter. He rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively, heading back toward the door.

"Take your time recovering, Spencer!" he called back.

"I will!" Shawn retorted and then grimaced again. Gus rolled his eyes and pushed him back down.

"Shawn, that’s not taking it easy," he chastised.

"Thank you, Mom," he muttered, but accepted the juice box Gus held out, taking a sip.

Juliet smiled. "I’m glad you’re feeling better. Take it easy, okay?" She bent and whispered, "Don’t tell anyone, but the station’s not quite as interesting without the threat of you popping out from behind a pillar."

Shawn smiled, and watched her go, his head quirked slightly to the side.

Karen cleared her throat and he looked up to see her watching him, an amused look on her face. "I’m glad you’re doing better, Mr. Spencer," she said.

He smiled, "Gee, Chief…"

"Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little mistake though. I hope this whole experience has taught you something."

Shawn squirmed. "Yeah, I’m—"

"Save it. Lassiter told me what you said in my office."

The tips of Shawn’s ears burned. "Oh. How lovely."

She smiled again and said casually, "I look forward to seeing you back at work again soon." They shared a brief smile and then she said, "Well, I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you boys later."

"See you later, Chief," Gus replied.

"Oh, wait!" Shawn said, and his voice was suddenly feeble. "Can I ask…just one favor?"

Karen moved back over to the bedside, her expression serious as she nodded. "All right, Mr. Spencer, what is it?"

"Do you think…maybe…I can get a raise now?" he asked pathetically.

The corner of Karen’s mouth twitched and she straightened up. "Not a chance in the world, Mr. Spencer."

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11  Part 12  Part 13  Part 14  Part 16