musicalluna

Title: A Moment Too Late
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Shawn/Juliet
Genre: Angst, Drama, Romance
Warnings: Character Death
Complete: Yes
Summary:Juliet leaves for a week-long conference on the East Coast and Shawn hates to see her go. But when she fails to call him after her scheduled arrival, Shawn’s gloom gives way to fear.
A/N: O'Spencerness, guyzos. :)
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Probably better they aren't.

Shawn headed home long after Juliet had disappeared from sight.

He’d gotten very accustomed to having her around and didn’t relish the thought of being without her for a whole week, but work was work and she had to do what she had to do. A week wasn’t so long.

He called Gus on the way home. Despite the fact that he and Juliet weren’t living together, he felt the overwhelming urge to have someone else in his apartment that night.

“Dude, I just dropped Jules’ off at the airport, you wanna come over tonight and watch some movies? I’ll rent.”

And as per their friendship, Gus seemed to sense that this was an honest-to-goodness, I-need-the-company-tonight-dude request and not an attempt to further sabotage his professional life. “You know it. You want me to bring a pack of beer?”

“Nah, I got some.”

“How about KFC?”

Shawn’s mouth watered at the very idea. “You read my mind.”

Gus grinned. “I have ESP.”

Shawn snorted. “Oh really.”

“Yeah. Extra Shawn Perception.”

He laughed outright at that and said, “I’ll see you tonight dude.”

“Don’t forget the movies,” Gus warned, and they both disconnected.

Keeping occupied at the video store prevented Shawn’s thoughts from lingering too long on Juliet’s absence, aside from the occasional glance at his watch to see how much longer her flight would be. In the end he managed to pick a couple of Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks and a couple of stupid comedies that he and Gus would laugh their butts off at later in the evening.

He kicked his shoes off as he walked in the door of his apartment, shrugging off his coat and tossing it over the back of the couch before dropping the bag of movies on the coffee table. Gus should be here any—

“I got extra-crispy everything, more mashed potatoes and gravy than your mom could eat, and two tubs of macaroni and cheese,” Gus said as he strode through the door.

Shawn groaned longingly, hurrying over to dig into the bag. “Oh my god, macaroni and cheese, where have you been all my life?”

Gus smirked and rolled his eyes but said nothing as Shawn pried the lid off of one of the Styrofoam containers, using his fingers to dig out a mouthful of macaroni and cheese. He moaned again and flopped onto the couch, holding the container close. “We don’t need anybody do we, Mac and Cheese? Nuh uh, we have each other…”

As he dug in with his fingers again Gus tossed a wad of napkins and silverware in plastic wrapping at him. “Yeah, we’ll see how Juliet reacts when I tell her you’re bailing on her for an extra-large portion of mac and cheese from KFC.”

“She’d understand,” Shawn said around a mouthful. “What do you want to watch first? Terminator?”

“Sounds good to me!” Gus called from the kitchen and returned as Shawn was prying the DVD case open with gooey fingers. “Ugh, gross, Shawn! Let me do that before you gook it all up!”

Shawn grinned to himself as he flopped back onto the couch, spooning another mouthful of macaroni and cheese into his mouth.

Gus set everything up, and then joined Shawn on the couch, contentedly cracking open a bottle of beer. “Bring on the bloodshed,” he said happily.

Two fists bumped in the middle of the couch.

Shawn reflexively glanced at the clock on the DVD player periodically as they watched the movie, despite the fact that a fairly accurate countdown was kept running in his head. When they reached the end of The Terminator and popped in Terminator II, ten minutes after Juliet was supposed to have landed and checked in, he began to get uneasy, checking the clock even more often. Halfway through Terminator II he began checking his watch too, wondering if maybe the DVD player’s had gotten messed up. But no, the times matched.

It only continued to get worse from there and out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Gus had noticed his agitation because he was sneaking glances at him just about as often as he looked at the clock. “Maybe her flight got delayed,” he suggested, understanding the cause without having to ask.

“Yeah,” Shawn said distractedly, but he couldn’t stop checking the clock. Wouldn’t she have let him know if the flight had been delayed? A flight couldn’t be delayed this long once it was in the air, could it?

Neither he or Gus paid much attention to Eraser when it was in, both too distracted by Shawn’s twitchy worry.

“Shawn, it probab—”

“I know, Gus,” Shawn said sharply and then immediately grabbed the bottle of beer Gus had brought him a half an hour ago and downed half of it, irritated by his own concern. He was being crazy. Juliet was fine. Her plane was delayed just like a thousand other planes. Hell, maybe she even forgot to call, it wouldn’t be unheard of.

He was still sulkily berating himself for being a paranoid idiot when the doorbell rang. He sighed and paused the movie, jogging around the couch to get the door. When he pulled it open he was surprised to see Lassiter of all people standing there.

“Lassie! What’s up? What are you doing here?”

The detective’s face was pinched, tight lines drawn around his mouth. He looked stricken, as though he’d like to turn tail and run rather than spend another second on Shawn’s doorstep. “Spencer,” he greeted tersely. He glanced away then, swallowing several times and coughing when that didn’t seem to help. “Spencer,” he said again, and his voice was softer, tighter. “O’Hara. She…her… I mean, god, Spencer, I—”

Shawn’s hand clenched tightly around the door, and he shook his head. “Lassie, dude, that’s so not even funny.”

Lassiter rubbed both his hands over his face, cleared his throat again and then said in a flat voice, “Shawn, Juliet’s dead. Her plane crashed. There were no survivors.”

Shawn began to shake his head slowly back and forth. “No,” he whispered. “You’re lying.”

“I wish to God I were, Spencer,” Lassiter said, and the raw sound of his voice was enough.

Shawn’s legs buckled.

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