musicalluna

Title: Our Son
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Maddie, Henry
Genre: Drama, Missing Scene
Warnings: SPOILERS for Yang 3 in 2D
Complete: Yes
Summary: Henry and Maddie's thoughts while Shawn and Gus are in the house with Yin.
A/N: Because I like writing things for Jenny.

Writing internal monologuing is hard. I hope I did these justice.

An answer for Jenny's character fantasy.

Disclaimer: I don't own anybody.

My son is brave, Maddie thinks when he bolts out the door of Henry's house, hell bent on saving a young woman he barely knows.

When did that happen? she wonders, listening to Henry bark Shawn's name, his voice sharp with a kind of fear she doesn't feel. This tendency to go rushing headlong into danger is something new, possibly unhealthy. Shawn had never done things like this as a child. He'd always been reckless, but never where his own safety was concerned. Not in big ways anyway.

This, this is like running straight into death's arms.

If something were to happen to Shawn tonight, Henry—the grief would probably cripple him. She—she would mourn, but—

She loves her son. She does.

“Maddie, stay here. Lock both doors, do not leave,” Henry orders from the doorway, his jacket in hand. She realizes he's following Shawn. He's going after him, no hesitation, no second thoughts. Afraid, but not for himself.

She remembers the night at the drive-in, sitting so still, trying not to breathe and being so scared. So, so scared.

She wonders if staying behind makes her a bad mother.

~ * ~

His son is an idiot.

A moron of epic proportions. They're chasing a goddamned serial killer, one whose fondest wish is to see Shawn dead and his idiot son is racing off after him like he can't wait to be in the slaughterhouse.

He's got two perfectly good detectives and his own father standing right here, ready and willing to go after this guy and he's gallivanting off on his own with Gus, like the two of them aren't just going to wind up so in over their heads they'll be drowning before they even realize they're in the water.

Some things never change.

“SHAWN!” he yells, but the doors of Gus' ridiculous, tiny blue car are already slamming. “DAMMIT, SHAWN!”

The headlights pop on and then Gus is pulling out, whipping the car around like he's done it a thousand times.

“Give me the keys!” he barks at Lassiter and gets a glare in return.

“Like hell,” Lassiter growls and steps past him, yanking open the door. “Get in.”

There's no time for arguing.

The three of them climb in, doors slamming shut behind them and then Lassiter is backing out of the driveway even faster than Gus had. “Hold on to your seats,” Lassiter mutters darkly.

Henry leans forward through the space between the detectives, peering ahead through the rain spattered windshield for bright blue and sees nothing. He curses. How had they gotten so far ahead of them already? “Step on it, dammit!”

“We're in a neighborhood, Henry!” Lassiter snaps back. Juliet is on the microphone, calling for backup and reporting their location—following protocol.

Protocol be damned.

Gus' car is parked on the street outside the house on Grayson, the passenger door still flung open. Shawn and Gus are nowhere to be found.

Lassiter pulls straight into the driveway and Henry sees the open mailbox, the closed front door and fear floods through him. No, Shawn, no, what the hell is the matter with you?

He leaps out of the car and heads straight for the door.

“Henry!” Lassiter yells, “Henry, back up's on the way!”

The door is locked. No, no, no, Shawn, you idiot! He slams his fist against the wood once, twice—it's not budging.

There has to be another way in.

“Henry, what are you doing?” Lassiter asks, and the resignation in his voice only fuels his determination. On the side of the house he spots a window near the ground.

It takes just a second to pull his jacket off and wrap it around his hand. He smashes the glass.

“Henry!”

Careful to avoid the dangling shards of the ruined window, he reaches inside and brushes aside the curtain. Please, please—dammit.

There's a steel grate inside.

“Oh my god,” Juliet says and Henry's stomach rolls. The house is sealed up tight. Shawn and Gus are trapped.

Lassiter follows him, yelling as Henry checks the rest of the house, smashing any window low enough to reach and finding grates inside them all. The doors don't even quiver in their frames when he takes his foot to them and with every passing second the scenarios flashing through his head grow more and more disturbing.

Back up arrives and a team of officers checks the doors and windows again, much to his frustration. He's already done that, they need to figure out another way!

Then Juliet comes running down from the front porch. “Carlton! This was in the mailbox!” Henry had forgotten all about the mailbox.

She hands Lassiter a piece of paper and it takes him just a moment to read it. “Son of a bitch!”

Henry doesn't need to know what it says. “Call for the ram,” he says.

They have to get Shawn out. Now.

~ * ~

“How much longer are we going to wait?” Henry demands five minutes later when they're all still milling around the house talking in hushed voices with their thumbs up their asses. If they don't do something soon, he's going to use the ram on the door himself.

Lassiter sighs. “Henry, it's not my call. What the hell do you want me to do?”

Just then Vick comes up the driveway, an officer escorting Yang behind her. Part of Henry recoils at the sight of the woman who nearly killed his wife. Ex-wife. “This is wrong,” he says and turns and walks away. That woman shouldn't be here.

“Every fiber...” he hears Vick say and then her voice is drowned out by the sound of other voices in the crowd.

He looks up at the house and presses the heels of his palms to his head. Shawn is so stupid! Why couldn't he have just waited five more minutes? Given them all a chance to look at the note, at the house and then figure something out that didn't involve bringing the lunatic who had tried to kill his mother out into the mix all over again? It wasn't like Yin had given them a deadline!

But no, his son is so damn reckless. He wants to be the hero and save the day. He doesn't understand that in real life the heroes don't always win. The heroes don't always make it out alive.

Henry watches as Juliet walks past, her face set in grim determination, Yang's elbow clasped in her hand. Yang is grinning. She flutters her fingers at him and Henry feels nauseated, anger frothing up his spine, bubbling in his throat. His hands clench into fists.

Please, he thinks, please, not Shawn. Not tonight.

Karen and Lassiter join him after a moment, both tense and uneasy. Karen's attention is focused inward, presumably as she listens to whatever's coming through the radio in her ear and Lassiter has her pinned with a gaze like a laser beam.

Henry rubs a hand over his mouth. Now it's not just Shawn and Gus in danger, but Lassiter's partner, too. Just great.

Karen's back stiffens and both he and Lassiter move in on her. “Karen?”

“That's right, Detective,” she murmurs under her breath. “Don't give her an inch.”

Lassiter towers over her. “What's going on, Chief?”

Karen glares at him, but opens her mouth to reply. Before she can get a word out, something coming from the radio captures her attention and she barks, “O'Hara?”

“Chief!” Lassiter says, raising his voice. Henry closes his eyes and tries not to imagine the bodies of his son, Gus, and Juliet sprawled on the floor, throats slit from one end to the other.

Lassiter pushes in a little closer and Karen sticks out a hand, pressing him back, her attention still focused wholly on the radio. Finally, she relaxes, nodding. “Copy that and Juliet, be careful.”

“What the hell happened?” Lassiter demands.

“O'Hara is fine,” Karen replies. “She's in the house.”

A twinge of hope plucks at the back of Henry's sternum. This girl is really something.

She can do it, he tells himself. She can really do it. God, this waiting is killing him.

Karen frowns. “She found Allison.”

Henry holds his tongue, trying to be the patient one. Lassiter's practically scaling Karen in his efforts to keep tabs on his partner.

“Careful, O'Hara,” Karen murmurs and starts pacing, her fingers pressed to the earbud. “Come on...just get her outside!” Then in an instant, the lines on her face sharpen. “O'Hara!”

“What's going on?” Lassiter demands, chasing after her. Henry's stomach sinks, blood-drenched visions bubbling forth again.

“We've lost contact,” Karen says tersely.

“What?!”

“O'Hara!” she barks again and her voice breaks a little. She starts shouting: “All right, break down the walls, do whatever it takes!”

Henry slams his hand against the nearest object, but it does nothing to ease the helplessness he feels.

This is not how things are supposed to go.

~ * ~

There are two teams of officers tearing at the house from different angles, making agonizingly slow progress when Juliet staggers through a small flock of officers, blood on her forehead and lip, dragging Allison in handcuffs behind her.

“Take her!” she barks at the closest uniform.

“O'Hara!” Lassiter shouts and the shock is plain in his voice. “What the hell happened in there?”

“O'Hara, thank God you're all right,” Karen says, eyes sweeping over her. “What happened?”

“Where is Shawn?” Henry demands.

“There's no time for that,” Juliet pants, shaking her head. “Come on, we have to get back in there!” She turns and heads back the way she came without waiting for a reply. Lassiter follows her without hesitation, pulling his weapon out of its holster and Karen and Henry are left to follow in their wake.

Juliet leads them into the storm drain and Henry realizes that the gun she's carrying is a shotgun and not her sidearm. What on earth had happened in there?

The four of them race up the stairs and at the top, Juliet points to a closed door. Lassiter nods, points his weapon, and then smashes the door open.

“DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE!” he roars. Then, over his shoulder, “Are you guys all right?”

Shawn responds, the words stumbling out of his mouth and Henry finally gets a glimpse of them. He and Gus are zip tied to chairs on the far side of the room, but they're fine. O'Hara looks far worse then either of them. Shawn is fine.

Thank God.

~ * ~

Maddie gets the all-clear call from Henry after an hour of agonizing waiting. They're okay. Shawn is okay. She breathes a sigh of relief and the emotions creep up on her, blurring her vision a little as she moves to unlock the door.

Of course he's okay. Shawn is a smart boy.

But maybe it's time to have a talk about this reckless behavior of his.