Summary: "The day you lose someone isn't the worst - it's all the days they stay dead." -12th Doctor, Heaven Sent
A response to Drag's 5 Stages of grief challenge. ^^
Categories: Season,
Alternate Universe Characters: Gus, Juliet, Karen, Lassiter, Shawn
Genres: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Character Death, Tear Jerker
Challenges: 5 Stages
Challenges: 5 Stages Series: None
Chapters: 5
Completed: Yes
Word count: 2409
Read: 6239
Published: May 27, 2018
Updated: May 27, 2018
Story Notes:
A million thanks and hugs go out to insert56 for all her patience, help, and willingness to chat for 20 pages of planning. Thanks for everything~ 3
Title is courtesy of the Owl City song by the same name. I thought it fit ^^
Also thanks to Drag for the awesome challenge~ I know I'm a bit late but this story happened because of you =D
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
1. Denial by Koohii Kappu
2. Anger by Koohii Kappu
3. Bargaining by Koohii Kappu
4. Depression by Koohii Kappu
5. Acceptance by Koohii Kappu
No.
It doesn't matter if they're wearing a bone-white surgeon's coat and soft lines around the eyes that have clearly seen more than enough pain and suffering. It doesn't matter if they have percentages and weird scientific gadgets with names he couldn't pronounce and however many odd years of training with pointy objects.
They're wrong.
Just as wrong as the way it happened, wrong as the idea of losing someone you've known for years and years, which is nothing to be worried about, because it really wasn't that bad, his brain was just super hyped and spinning away from him exactly like how the bright red blood had spiraled down, down, down the drain-
Everything is going to be okay.
He was just imagining the looks they were getting from the nurses. Too much adrenaline, that was all. It wasn't as bad as he couldn't stop remembering. His memory was wrong. That was all.
Too quiet. Sit down, bounce legs for ten ticks of the clock, stand up, walk it off, walk it off, walk it off, like he could leave right now and everything outside of this one room would be perfectly normal - and then he hears the other set of footsteps, the heavy, hardened beat revealing their creator, because it's been too long and he already knows them like they're his own pulse -
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
It stops.
The doctor's mouth is moving, but he's not hearing a word.
Everything is going to be-
Burning.
Flames burst out on his tongue as he spit the black tar back into its cup. Hot, sticky droplets scatter all over the paperwork and his good suit, staining them a muddy brown and aging the crisp new paper by a hundred years.
"I'm so, so sorry sir!" The rookie immediately started mopping up the mess with his sleeves. "I didn't realize it was so hot-"
"Try scalding," Lassiter snarled.
"Carlton!" Juliet tried to get between them. "He was only trying to make you a coffee-"
"Well he made it wrong!"
His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He balled them into fists so tight that his knuckles went white and his palms screamed, but he didn't care. They deserved to scream, for failing him-
"Sit." His partner's command snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Why?" he shot back.
"Because we have work to do, Detective."
He flinched at the way she put emphasis on detective, reminding him of his job, his duty to protect and serve, of the oath he made so many years ago.
"As if words could repair bullet wounds."
It had slipped out from under his breath. He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but she'd heard, and her face instantly softened.
"Carlton . . ."
She sounded sympathetic. He hated sympathy. It was just a big fat lie. She didn't know what he was feeling. It wasn't her fault. It hadn't been her job to keep him alive -
He was dimly aware that she was still talking, but every sensitive word that dropped out of her mouth only fed the inferno inside. The burn on his tongue was rapidly blowing into a wildfire that swallowed his chest, his throat, his mouth, his jaw, like a puppeteer had slipped his hand into his soul, but God, he didn't care if the fire swallowed him from the inside out, he deserved it and worse -
. . . Fault he was dead . . .
. . . Didn't deserve to be a detective . . .
Failure. Why are you still here?
Suddenly he realized he wasn't just thinking the words anymore. His mouth had become a gun, and one by one Juliet's words had triggered the chain reaction in the barrel. He couldn't even make out his own words over the bang, bang, bang effect of his tongue against his teeth, forming thoughts he barely even recognized as his own but instantly knew that he meant.
He meant every bullet he shot.
But he wasn't aiming at her.
He was aiming for himself.
"Detective."
The quiet voice gently pried the smoking gun from his fingers. Still shaking, he whipped around and found himself nose-to-nose with the Chief.
"Go home," she whispered, holding his gaze firmly in her own.
Lassiter left without another word.
Bargaining by Koohii Kappu
She felt sick.
"You have to do it," she said aloud. "You've got this. You can do it. Just try." Despite the words coming from her own mouth, her limbs wouldn't obey and continued to pace. She placed the phone on the counter with a tap, hesitated, gave her head a hard shake, then picked it up again to go 'round the house for the millionth time. Concerned meows padded after her, but she took no notice, her hand still shaking above the call button.
"Just do it," she said again. "It's just one button. Press it. He'll understand everything if you just talk to him."
But she couldn't.
She stood there for a minute, staring at the phone like she was holding Pandora's Box but couldn't press the button to open it. Another minute passed. Two.
"Do it," she ordered herself, but she knew the moment she began hesitating that she was never going to.
Sighing, she went to put the phone back on the table, the storm in her stomach finally settling as she figured it was never going to hap-
Beep.
Oh, God.
Her finger slipped.
The phone had started ringing and her hand was shaking too badly to find the off button. Within seconds, the ringing had already stopped and a voice on the other end of the line was saying, "Hello?"
Juliet froze. She couldn't hang up now - he already knew she had called, which means he would know something was wrong, if he didn't already. She brought the phone up to her ear, wincing at how cold it seemed to feel.
"Ewan?"
"Julie?" He seemed surprised. "Isn't it like one in the morning in California? Why are you calling? Everything good? Who do I need to bury?"
"Nobody!" Juliet flinched again - that had come out harsher than she meant. She took a deep breath and repeated, "Nobody. I'm fine."
Silence.
"Really," she added weakly.
She could just picture him raising his eyebrows the way dad used to.
"Julie, you know you can tell me anything."
Another beat of silence.
"You watch the news," Juliet started, the sick feeling increasing with every word.
"Yes."
"So you know what's wrong."
A pause.
"I could guess."
Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Juliet sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, fingers between the cat's ears, trying to shove down the mounting anxiety in her lungs.
"It's just . . ." She faltered.
He said nothing.
"I just . . . I feel . . . fine. Like, really fine."
She waited, breath stuck in her throat.
"Okay. And?"
"And it's NOT okay!" The cat leapt with surprise and nearly fell off the chair, but Juliet didn't notice."I'm not torn up about this! I mean I was on the first day, after it happened, and I couldn't stop crying, but then the next day I was just fine. I only feel bad now because everyone else feels bad. Lassiter would never admit to it but it hurt him and he's acting like a wounded animal, growling at anyone who comes near him, and I haven't even seen Shawn and Gus since the funeral, it's like they both just vanished. And I'm more bothered that everyone else is hurt than I am by what actually happened and I feel terrible because we were friends and it SHOULD hurt."
The words tripped their way out of her mouth like a shaken soda bottle that had finally exploded. Finally, she could TELL someone. The tightness in her stomach started to ease and she suddenly realized she was crying.
"Feel better?"
"Yeah." She took a deep breath and wiped the stray tears away. "I just want everyone to go back to normal. I want Lassiter to tell me about his ridiculous new plan for catching the squirrels that throw acorns at him whenever he goes outside. I want Shawn and Gus to walk in at one in the afternoon, arguing about what they should have for breakfast. God, I'd give anything to just see Shawn with his lopsided grin again. I'd give anything."
"You'll see it again, Julie. I promise this won't last forever. It'll be okay."
She nodded but couldn't answer when another wave of guilt pounded against her throat. She ended the call with one thought still stuck in her mind:
I know I can't control my emotions. But . . . doesn't that just mean I'm heartless?
Depression by Koohii Kappu
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Five minutes.
He'd been staring at the clock for five minutes and he still didn't know the time.
10:54.
Gus blinked as the numbers sunk into his foggy mind.
Was it really only eleven?
It felt like ten years.
Half-written words glared back at him from the computer screen, berating him for not having finished such a simple task by now. Gus slid his hands back onto the keyboard, trying to oblige their demands. But everything was clouded . . . hazy. He gazed at his fingers as though they would understand what he didn't and do what he couldn't.
Tick.
He did this every day.
Tock.
He could do it now.
Tick.
He had to do it now.
Why?
What's the point?
His hands slowly fell back into his lap.
Every day people were giving their lives to help others. Good people. People who went out to their jobs knowing that they might come home that night in a coffin, but still never wavering, never stopping because some stranger needed their help.
What am I doing?
The screen blinked at him, probing him gently, waiting to be filled.
Gus stared back.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
He stood up and turned off the monitor. Folded his papers, clicked his pen closed. As the door rattled shut behind him, he was dimly aware of his boss asking him a question. Annoyed at first, but then increasingly worried.
Gus didn't care.
He was going home.
Acceptance by Koohii Kappu
On March 3rd, 2009, Officer Buzz McNab was shot on a seemingly routine case. Reports say that the criminal had hidden a gun and tried to shoot the detective who incriminated him, but McNab had jumped in and taken the bullet at the last second. An ambulance arrived as soon as it possibly could, but the damage was already done.
Six hours later, he died on a table in the OR.
The story spread quickly. He was recognized by the city as a hero and awarded for his bravery. The Mayor himself came to the funeral to give the medal to his now-widowed wife, Francine. As she walked off the stage, shoulders wracked with sobs, all but four people in the crowd clapped solemnly for the Hero of Santa Barbara.
Buzz's funeral was the last time those four friends would be together in the same place for a long time.
As soon as the funeral ended, Shawn went back to his dad's house, collapsed on his childhood bed and didn't get up for almost two days.
On March 6th, three days after the funeral, Gus walked out on his job without a word and never came back.
On March 10th, Lassiter was sent home after he went off on a tangent in the middle of a work day. It was two weeks before anyone saw him at the station again.
Juliet told everyone she was fine, but she couldn't look anyone in the eye and never talked unless spoken to. One morning she admitted to the chief that she often woke up crying without understanding why. It was one of the few known times Vick was caught giving a hug at the station.
On March 30th, a crying Gus told his best friend that he wanted to start up Psych again. He tearfully explained that he thought helping people was the only thing worth living for and that Buzz had understood that. When he finally finished his speech, out of breath from hiccuping and talking non-stop, he was surprised to see that Shawn was openly weeping.
On the first day of May, Shawn and Gus came back to the station for the first time in a month.
It felt like everything had changed. The normal box of donuts was missing from the coffee table in the break room. People seemed slower and quieter than normal. Instead of meeting with bright grins and high fives, they got sorrowful half-smiles and sympathetic pats on the back. Gus held his head high, though his bottom lip still trembled. Juliet kept staring at the floor. Lassiter looked like he wanted to say something, but wouldn't dare to open his mouth. Shawn sat on the edge of Juliet's desk and played with a pen, clicking it in, out, in, out, in out-
"Spencer, shut it."
Shawn looked up, surprised. "I was just making sure the pen still worked, Lassie."
"Fifty times?"
"You never know, maybe we got brain-zapped by aliens and just don't remember it. Maybe it's actually been a week since I last checked the pen, Lassie. It's very important that all the pens in police departments work properly." He clicked it again, very, very slowly. "Yup, still works."
There was stunned silence for a moment, and then Juliet smiled, Gus rolled his eyes, and Lassie made a grab for the pen while Shawn pulled it away with a teasing grin.
"That doesn't make any sense, Spencer! And if you don't stop clicking it right now I'll sho-"
Lassiter cut himself off, realizing what he'd been about to say. Just like that, the smiles were gone and they all unconsciously avoided looking over at Buzz's empty desk.
There was a beat of awkward silence.
Then:
"Aliens don't exist, Shawn."
And just like that, Shawn and Gus launched right back into one of their usual arguments, Lassiter growled and tried not to slap them both, and Juliet helped them case both their points. A minute later they were all laughing. A warm pang settled in Shawn's chest as he looked over at Buzz's empty desk, forcing himself to take it in.
Things weren't quite back to normal just yet. But he knew that eventually, everything was going to be okay.
End Notes:
"How close to the ending, well nobody knows.
The future's a mystery, and anything goes.
Though love is confusing and life is hard
You fight to survive 'cause you made it this far.
It's all too astounded to comprehend -
It's just the beginning, this isn't the end.
It's just the beginning, this isn't the end."
-Adam Young
But it is the end of this story~ This took a long, long time for me to finish, even though it's only 2,500-ish words. I hope you enjoyed it~ Even if you didn't, please tell me what you thought, it makes me feel like it was all worthwhile =D Thanks for reading ^^
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.