Shawn threw up.

The scene had begun like this: Shawn had walked in the door, coughing from deep within his chest, Henry had looked up from the kitchen table where he was using a pair of pliers to fix the loops on some of his lead fishing sinkers, said "You're still milking that?" and Shawn had suddenly realized that the nausea had somehow twisted into his cough and had climbed up his throat and into his jaw.  He'd darted forward, thigh banging with a gimp-causing thwack off a chair he'd actually misjudged the distance to, and reached the sink just soon enough to puke all over his dad's dirty dishes.

Henry's hand reached over in Shawn's peripheral vision, flipped on the faucet, and the fake psychic had a moment to watch half-digested noodles go sliding into the drain before his stomach clenched again and he was upchucking bile.

He was spitting the taste out of his mouth, wishing he could get the burn out of his throat, when he realized that Henry's hand was on his forehead.

"Not exactly milking it then.  Your temperature's up."

"Oh, I'm milking it," Shawn rasped.  "From the stomach acid cow."

He spit again, leaning heavily on his elbows, and his hands twined into the hair at the back of his bowed head, fingers gripping hard as though to draw the headache from his skull.  Henry's calloused hand left the hot skin on his forehead and Shawn turned off the faucet, straightening slowly and turning as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve-covered wrist.

Frowning, Henry reached past him, turned the faucet back on, and filled the glass in his hand with water before turning it off again and handing the cup to Shawn.

"Swish and spit," he directed.  Shawn started to gulp water instead, trying to clear the burn searing up his throat, and Henry crossed his arms.  "You're going to regret that in about two seconds."

Shawn felt the cold water splash into his stomach, coiling around his innards and settling like a nauseatingly heavy weight for the short second he took between banging the glass onto the counter and turning to throw up again.

His dad released the back of his neck as Shawn finished.  "Go up to your room and get some sleep."

Shawn continued to lean against the sink, holding up the glass to his forehead.  The second round hadn't been quite as bad, sloshing through his system as more water than bile, and he took a small sip to settle his stomach.  He closed his eyes.

"Do you know what the problem is?"

"That you won't listen to your old man," Henry suggested.  "I do know what's best for you."

Shawn groaned, and even he wasn't sure if it was for being ill or for being Henry's son.  "Yes, thank you, Dad.  I can't figure out the motivation."

"You're probably looking too hard," he said from behind him.  "Sometimes it is what it--"

Shawn started to cough, eyes still closed.  It climbed up from his chest, ripping at his throat and his lungs. He didn't remember dropping the glass but both hands were empty by time he shoved his face into his sleeve to muffle or cut off the sound, which did nothing.  The feel of a strong hand on his arm steered him over to the kitchen table, and he opened his eyes, still coughing, to collapse into one of the chairs.

He was short of breath by time he was done.

"Nice, Shawn," Henry said from where he stood, arms crossed and peering down at him with something that could almost be concern on his face.  "Did it ever cross your mind that maybe you can't solve this case when you're not thinking clearly?"

Shawn shivered, chills chasing one another up and down his arms.  "No.  I can't figure it out.  Does someone want these people in trouble?  But why these people?"

Henry finally sat down in the chair opposite Shawn, scooting it around so he was a little closer to his son.  "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Shawn banged his forehead against the kitchen table, and it only took a moment for Henry to put his hand to the back of his hand, digging forcefully into the pressure points at the back of Shawn's skull.  He sighed into the table, feeling the some of the pain release above his eyes.

"Why hasn't anyone noticed how crappy I feel?" he asked.  He tried to make it mocking, but it ended up plaintive and a little sad-sounding, like someone had kicked him in the stomach.  "Not even Gus."

Shawn couldn't see the look on Henry's face, though his tone suggested that it was hardly sympathetic.  "You probably deserve it."  But his hand on his neck was gentle.

"Stop that," Shawn insisted half-heartedly.  "I know what you're trying to do and it won't work.  It may have worked when I was a kid, but this is not going to distract me."

"That's fine, Shawn," Henry said.

Shawn forced himself to snap up suddenly, head jerking up, pain blooming back into his head with the jerky movement, and forcing Henry to stop.  He backed off a little, settling back in the kitchen chair and watching his son.

"It's fraud covering fraud," Shawn said to himself.  "It's like revenge of the nerds, only against a bunch of corporate bosses."  He looked up at Henry, frowning with his eyebrows.  "But it's too specific to be revenge on all of Central Coast Pharmaceuticals.  Why just the bosses overseeing the sister branches?"

"This is involved in Gus's work?" Henry asked.  "No wonder Gus is angry."

"Gus isn't angry!" Shawn insisted.

Henry gave him a look that said he wasn't buying it.  "Then why isn't Gus here?"

Shawn had no answer for that.  He opened his mouth, faltered, then found something else to say.  "I just want to get this case over with.  Then we can all go home happy and pretend it never happened."

Henry scoffed humorlessly.  "Life never works that way, Shawn."

"Well it should," he answered petulantly.  "So ANYWAYS," he coughed for a second on the word, regretting his emphasis, and Henry looked like he was going to get him another glass of water.  Shawn waved him off.  "These bosses keep getting into trouble for financial fraud, but they're not the ones doing it.  Why would anyone do that?"

Henry shook his head like he was suppressing an eye roll.  "Think about it Shawn: who benefits from getting someone else in trouble for fraud?"

Shawn held his head in his hands, feeling the headache pound in his sinuses.  He smashed his thumbs into the upper corners of his eye sockets, trying to grind the pain to a manageable level.  "I have no idea."

Henry sighed.  "Forget the case, Shawn, and get some sleep."

"I can't do that," he snapped.

"This is so painfully obvious, kid.  Sometimes money is just about money."

"And I'm fine," he insisted.

"That's a lie if I've ever heard one," Henry said blandly, arms crossing.  "And I have.  Most of them from you."

Shawn ignored him.  "Wait," he said, "no," he added, putting up a hand to indicate that Henry needed to hold his horses.  He put a hand to his temple, but he wasn't trying to call up pictures, but words instead.  "Something Gus said.  Fraud coming up fraud."  He thought about it some more, this time imagine rows on rows of numbers and charts, throwing together discrepancies.  "That's right, the fraud is fake, and there's one person behind it.  And it can't be finances, if the fraud is fraud."

"Fraud is fraud is fraud," Henry said.  It took a moment for Shawn to work through the odd phrase, and he realized that it still didn't make sense though the ex -police officer went on.  "I'm going to repeat this to you, and I hope you remember this time: Sometimes money is just about money.  It could be exactly what it looks like.  So who benefits?"

Shawn shook his head wordlessly, attacked by another case of the chills and watching Henry watch him with an unimpressed look on his face.

"Fine then.  Who has the capabilities or the access needed to do this?"

The fake psychic tried to think past his headache, but couldn't.  But there was something there.  It was nudging him from the back of his brain, and he felt that all he needed to do was draw it out.

"Finances?" he said stupidly.

Henry stood up, looking exasperated.  "You are not going to get anywhere on this case.  If you can't think, you can't solve it."

"I can solve this," Shawn insisted.  His dad shook his head and went to the kitchen cupboard.  He was ignored, Shawn too busy thinking about how he could solve this but still not solving it to pay much attention to the sound of the older man rummaging through his drawers.

"Why is this so important?" Henry asked, thumping a small tin onto the kitchen table.  Shawn jumped, the pain spiking in his head, and felt his lungs protest.  The tin made a banging noise as Henry forced it open, quite probably doing so as loudly as possible, and then pulled a thermometer from between the bandaids, tweezers, and Vaseline.  Shawn had no idea what all of that, together, could possibly mean.  "Put this in your mouth," he said, shoving the thermometer between Shawn's slightly parted teeth.

The fake psychic held it, looking displeased but obeying, as he shifted it around with his tongue.  "It just is.  It's a case.  Does there need to be more?"

"Maybe," Henry said, going back to the sink and picking up the glass from where it had fallen.  "Probably not.  If that thermometer is above 100 you're not going anywhere."

Shawn immediately pulled it from his mouth.  "Come on, this is Gus we're talking about.  It's good for him if we solve this case."

Henry gave Shawn an irritated look.  "Put that back in your mouth.  Does Gus think it would be good for him if you solved this case?"

"Gus should know better," he said, pouting.  He thrust the thermometer back between his teeth when Henry started advancing on him.  "Besides, this is all because of the promotion thing at his work."

Henry raised an eyebrow.  "There's a 'promotion thing'?"

"Yeah, it means the suspects won't be here for much longer."

Henry looked contemplative.  "I didn't know Gus was hoping for a promotion."

"Neither did I," Shawn muttered, expression disgruntled.  "I had to hear about it when Jules and Lassy did."

"The truth comes out," Henry said dryly.  He took the thermometer out of Shawn's mouth as it beeped, hands moving too quickly to allow Shawn to have at it first.  Shawn coughed in protestation.  "So it probably isn't good for Gus if you solve the case but still manage to screw him over in the promotion process.  No wonder--"

"Why didn't he tell me about it?" Shawn snapped.  He suddenly blinked, feeling distinctly surprised.  Where had that come from?

Henry didn't react, just continued looking at the thermometer for a second.  "Congratulations," he finally said.  "You're dead."

Shawn pulled the thermometer from his grip.  "Let me see," he demanded, already staring at it.  76.5 degrees Fahrenheit blinked up at him.  "I thought I felt chilly."

"Keep it in your mouth this time," Henry ordered.

"Yesshir," Shawn obeyed, grinning sardonically, thermometer back in his mouth.

The younger Spencer looked away, ignoring his father, but Henry watched him with sharp eyes and arms crossed.  "So you're upset that Gus didn't tell you."

"No I'm not," Shawn said, staring at the kitchen table, studying the contents of the tin.  He still had no idea what the Vaseline could be for.

"Shawn, why would Gus benefit from not telling you?"

The fake-psychic covered his not-answer by coughing, leaving him breathless and nearly dizzy.

"It's all motivation, kid," Henry continued, pushing the glass forward with his hand.  "Who would benefit from fake fraud?  And why would Gus not tell you?  It's pretty obvious."

"You--" Shawn started, taking the thermometer out of his mouth, but the ring of his cell phone cut him off, which was fine as he'd really had nowhere to go with that but "You suck."

He managed a "Yeah?" into the phone before he had to pull it away from his mouth, shoving the cell against his chest as the coughing fit hit.  He barked, trying to muffle it with Henry looking on with concern and irritation, and made a face at the taste of the crap he had to swallow back down his throat.

"Yeah?" he asked again, sounding wheezy.

"What was that?" Gus's voice asked, sounding suspicious.

"Gus!" Shawn cried.  "Listen, I know you're pissed, and I can't say I really get it--"

"Yeah, that's great, Shawn-"

Shawn stood up, walking out of the room to get away from his father's hard gaze, and went on.  "--but I was talking to Dad and he says we need to figure out the motivation--"

"--so I'm waiting for another interview--"

Neither seemed particularly concerned that the other one wasn't actually listening.  "--and with fraud being pretend fraud, he still says we need to look at the finances--"

"--and someone started a rumor about me being 'Bad Luck Burton' so I have a little time to spare before they call me up--"

Shawn paced around a chair in the living room, ignoring his dad, who had come to lurk in the doorway, arms crossed and leaning against the door jamb.  "--and I know I've been making some mistakes but--"

"--so I was looking at some of the financial spread sheets that have been really bothering me and--Zenk," he said shortly, followed, Shawn could hear, by a very distant "Guster."  "--the pattern's focal point--"

Something struck Shawn, fast and hard, and he could've smacked his face onto the counter in his dad's living room if the thought of doing something that violent to his aching head hadn't actually sent sympathetic pain shooting through his skull.  "Hold on, Zenk's there?"

"Yeah," Gus said distantly. "He's that accountant--"

"I know who he is," Shawn cut him off.  I feel like a retard."  He caught the look Henry gave him at that moment, and turned away from the door between the living room and the kitchen.  "It is finances!"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you."

For the first time, Shawn shut up to listen.

"Listen, I' m still angry as all...get-out--"

"Get out?" Shawn asked, with inappropriate timing no doubt, but he was too tired to stop his mouth.

"--but I am going to pretend that I'm not, for the very short time we have to interact right now, because this is kind of important."

"Now you get it!" Shawn cried, triumphantly, before swooping a hand up to cover the bottom of his phone from his cough.

"You still don't have a clue as to why I'm angry, do you?"

Shawn felt bewildered, like his brain was running on high mush, trying to push through the oatmeal of thoughts he couldn't straighten.  He finished up his cough, trying to breathe with tight lungs.  "It's because I'm not listening," he guessed.  "So, uh, go on."

There was a loud, long-suffering sigh. "The fraud is covering more fraud."

Shawn pursed his lips.  "I thought we covered that already."

"No," Gus snapped, "just wait a second for me to explain.  Geeze."

"Geeze," Shawn agreed, raising his eyebrows at Henry, who simply shook his head, holding the thermometer menacingly in his hand.  Shawn wasn't sure when he'd picked it up, but he imagined his luck was out once he hung up the phone.

"I ended up running the figures without the fraudulent claims, and then I compared it with the actual supply lists."

"How busy beaver like of you."  Shawn grimaced.  He was going to chalk that one up to the fever.

"Right.  There are products missing."

Gus paused, and Shawn guessed that meant it was significant, but he couldn't figure, for the life of him, why.  "Okay.  Cool."

Gus sounded exasperated, but very close to excited.  "You're not getting it, Shawn.  I mean that, if there hadn't been the other financial fraud to cover it up, people would have noticed that the supply lists from HO arrive with anywhere from 20 to 100 more products than the actual receiving lists at the sister branches."

The metaphorical light clicked on.  "You mean someone's pushing them off the back of the truck."

"I mean someone's stealing them before they even get to us," Gus agreed.  He definitely sounded enthused.  "Someone is stealing pharmaceutical drugs, selling them for personal profit, and then thought to cover it up by fudging the numbers twice.  Once to cover the actually stealing, and second--"

Shawn was grinning.  "--to blame someone else for it."

"But not even for the stealing," Gus said.  "The guy, whoever he is, is hiding fraud in fraud.  And he did a sloppier job on it for the upper bosses so that once they started to get arrested, he would know when to get out of there."

Shawn smirked at his dad, and covered the mouthpiece.  "Told you we'd solve this," he said before turning back to the phone, ignoring Henry's expression.  "You know who would be capable of that?  An accountant."

"Well yeah, sure, but that doesn't really narrow..."

"No," Shawn cut him off.  "What is this job promotion for?"

Gus sounded annoyed.  "Shawn, what does this have to do--"

"It has to do with everything," he cut him off.  "Answer the question."

"It's for the sales rep to move into a management position--"

Shawn didn't let him finish.  "Then what is an accountant doing there?"

He let that savor for a long, slow moment, until Gus finally answered.  "Zenk."

"Lover of cheese and small dolls," Shawn assured him, grinning.

"This is--"

"Yeah, I know.  I'm going to call Lassy and Jules, get them to go over there."

Gus sounded like he was nodding. "Okay, great.  Zenk is sitting right here--none of your business--" he snapped to someone who was probably sitting next to him, "--but I'll be up soon for the interview."  He was silent a moment, and then added: "How are you going to get here?"

"Oh don't worry about that," Shawn said.  "I've got my own resources to fall back on."

There was a pause.  "You took my car, didn't you?"

Shawn ignored him.  "So I guess I'll see you soon then, with the handcuff squad in tow."

"You took my car, didn't you?" Gus repeated, tone a little harder.

"It's called the Pyschmobile, isn't it?"

He could imagine the scowl on Gus's face.  "You call it the Pyschmobile."

Shawn thought about that for a moment.  "And I'm the one who borrowed it.  It all fits together so nicely."

"You piss me off," Gus admitted, irritated.

"You know," Shawn said, "you can't really be angry at me when we make such a good team and--"

"Shut up, Shawn," Gus snapped, hanging up the phone.

"Okay," Shawn said, turning to face Henry.  "That wasn't quite what I wanted."

"You're not going," Henry said.

"Yeah great," Shawn replied, turning as the phone rang in his ear for Lassiter.

"Detective Lassiter," came the detective's brisk voice.

"Lassy!" It stopped him, the cry forcing him to cough, barking into his sleeve and the feel of phlegm on his lips.  He didn't think about that metallic taste, too caught up in the moment, and really not wanting to think about it.

"Why are you wasting my time?" Lassiter demanded over Shawn's coughing, hanging up before the fake psychic could catch his breath.

"That's just super," Shawn told the dial tone.  He tried Juliet instead, thumb mashed down on the speed dial.

"This is Detective O'Hara, how may I--"

"Help me!" Shawn cried dramatically.  He started artfully choking on his breath, which may or may not have been completely intentional.  "Oh Jules, I need you!"

"Shawn?"

"Psychic vibe!" he cried.  "At Gus's work.  I know who's behind all this!  I can feel it!"

"Are you sure, we're not having much luck--"

"Fraud in fraud, Jules," Shawn grinned into the phone.  "I am vibing with it."

"We'll be there," Juliet said over the sound of Lassiter's "Not on your life" that Shawn could hear in the background.  She hung up as she was starting to wheedle Lassy into it.

Shawn shut his phone with a satisfying, very final-sounding clack.  He turned to Henry.  "I'm going to go."

Henry's arms had dropped, but the thermometer was still in a business-like grip.  "You need to go to bed."

"And I'm going to go."

Henry shook his head.  "I can't force you.  But you can believe you won't be getting your bike back for at least another week.  When you're back at 98.6 degrees."

Shawn ignored him, irritated but unable to do anything about it.  He could think of no comeback, and that ticked him off even more.  "I'm leaving."

"You're not doing yourself any favors," Henry called through the swinging door, but Shawn was already gone, tripping down the steps and feeling that band around his chest tighten until he could barely breathe.

~~~~~~~~~

Gus watched Zenk, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.  He nodded once, sharply, when Zenk caught him staring.

He could see the accountant return his nod and, from across the room, mouth: "Guster."

Gus's eyes narrowed further.  Very suspicious.

The hall was loud and growing louder, the chaos of every interviewer getting arrested throwing the system into disarray.  Ice Cold Vanilla was wearing an expression like someone had killed her grandmother before she could, trying to straighten people into categories for interviewing with a couple of PAs at her side.  Flet was following her with  a clipboard, speaking rapidly, judging by how quickly his mouth was moving, and she was nodding at intervals, forcing people to move where she needed them to, accepting answers with a clipped nod.  How she was paying attention to both PAs and the chaos around here was anyone's guess.

Despite their best efforts, it was still unholy bedlam.  Where before they had ambitious and hopeful pharmaceutical salesmen signed up in certain time slots, and had even managed something of the same working order for the second interviewer, the well-organized system had dissolved, leaving a hallway packed with ambitious and hopeful salesmen avoiding Gus like the plague and waiting for their turn.  Kathy had commandeered a group of women and had somehow tied caffeine into his bad luck, and was stating her theory in a loud voice that somehow remained above the crowd, despite the growing noise level.

Shawn still didn't manage to sneak up on him.  He came in coughing, balled fist in front of his mouth, the other on the wall, as though straightening his cough.  Gus frowned, and pretended that Shawn's show wasn't getting tom him.

"Jerry!" several people waved, while a few quiet "Shawn!" people sent them curious glances.  Gus remembered suddenly why Shawn couldn't be here.

He jerked to his feet, trying to pull Shawn around the corner, who resisted with another cough.  He straightened, refusing to be pulled, and wiped his hand on his pants.

Gus eyed the dark streaks on his friend's leg, but started speaking in a hushed, urgent voice.  "Go over here, if Tom shows up--"

Shawn shook his head, grasping for words.  Gus couldn't figure out what he was playing at.  He gasped a couple times, then finally spoke.  "Is Zenk here?"

"Yeah," Gus said, gesturing behind him with a jerk of his head, "but we need to do this quick, the president of the company is actually coming--"

"--to see what the heck his employees have been up to?" Shawn asked, grinning and rubbing his chest.

Gus scowled.  "No thanks to you.  I don't know when his flight is supposed to get here, but it would be great if you weren't here when it happened."

Shawn's face may have flickered to hurt, but Gus was still too angry to want to see it, so he didn't.  He didn't feel guilty.  Shawn had been idiotically blind to how he'd hurt Gus too much for Gus to cave now.

"Right," Shawn said, face closed.  His eyebrows, curved up and over his eyes were the only thing to indicate any sort of expression.  "Anyways, Jules and Lassy should be--right on schedule," he suddenly grinned, sweeping an arm to indicate the pair, briskly walking up to join them.

"Okay," Shawn said, trying to step out into the middle of the crowd.  Gus grabbed him, stopping the psychic vision before it could start.

"Don't do this here," he pleaded.

Shawn looked surprised, then shrugged him off.  "This is what we do, Gus.  Why are you having a problem with this?"

"I am having a problem with this," Lassiter scowled, long strides finally catching up with them.  Juliet caught up with a couple of short skips that were cute, but no one pointed out because she was in a "take-me-seriously" business suit and had a gun.  She was looking at Shawn, her face frowning like she wanted to say something, but her partner continued without allowing anyone the word in.  "What are we doing here?"

"We are making an arrest!" Shawn said, a little too loudly.  Someone next to Gus gasped, and turned to her neighbor.  Vanilla stopped, her ears apparently as bat-like as her eyes were raccoon-like, but she simply moved on as though this were below her.

"Would you do this discreetly?" he hissed.

Lassiter turned a thunderous expression on Gus.  "We're always discreet," he said, pulling out a pair of handcuffs, clacking the wrist pieces together with a sound that he probably found satisfying.

Gus cringed.

Juliet was quick to assure him, putting a placating hand on the head detective's arm without looking at him while turning her blue eyes on the worried sales rep.  "We'll do this carefully."

Shawn grinned, like he wasn't listening, and then stepped forward to take on Zenk.

Gus groaned, and put his head in his hands.

"So!" Shawn exclaimed loudly, picking up Zenk by the arm.  It probably wouldn't have worked, but the bland-faced worker let him do it, getting to his own feet with a push of his hand on his chair.  He didn't drop his laptop but closed it one handedly, grip tight.

"Why aren't you passed out somewhere?" Ice Cold Vanilla asked, somewhat nonsensically Gus thought.

Shawn grinned his white teeth at her.  "Because this is too interesting."

She raised her eyebrows by a miniscule fraction--granted, she could have lifted them off her face entirely and, invisible as they were, he probably wouldn't have noticed--but she kept on working, snapping her fingers at the PAs that had stopped to watch what his freak-of-a-best-friend was doing.

"I get the feeling you're not supposed to be here," Shawn said.  "Very psychic," he added to the two detectives, who were oddly stiff at Gus's shoulder.  He wasn't sure if he should be relieved that Shawn wasn't going to go into sudden convulsions, or worried that he was going to get them caught as fakes.

"What are you doing?" he mouthed, looking angry.

"This," Shawn began to announce, but then Juliet was darting forward, pulling him away with a familiar, too familiar, nod to Zenk.  He nodded back and she said, "false alarm!" rather cheerfully to the whole group, trying to drag Shawn back with her.

"Jules, what--?"

"Shawn," she snapped through hissed teeth, finally getting his full attention.  She jerked him down by the collar his polo, forcing his ear close to her mouth.

"That's our source."

Shawn blinked, and all Gus could do was watch him blink, mouth a little gaped.

"He's the guy who gave us the tip-off," she continued in a gentler whisper, but one that Gus could hear nonetheless.  "All the documents on Central Coast's financial situation that we have were put together by him."

"Not much of a psychic, are you?" Lassiter sneered, looking somewhat smug.  He also, Gus noticed, looked almost disappointed, as though he'd expected better from the fake psychic.

Shawn just kept blinking, the look on his face bizarre and out-of-place, and it took Gus a second to figure out why.  It was blank, like he was trying to get his gears to start turning, and it wasn't something that was a part of Shawn's natural stock of facial expressions.

"Shawn?" Juliet asked, placing two long, white fingers on his jaw.  She turned his head to look at her.  "Are you okay?"

The murmering crowd had started up again, mumbles growing louder and side-glances a little longer, but it was Sanchez's PA who left Vanilla's side, hand white-knuckled on the back of his clipboard, to direct himself to Shawn directly.

"You again?" Flet demanded.  "Would you get out of here?  I'd say please, but I'm about up to here with you," he snapped, without indicated how much "up to here" meant.

"About this high?" Shawn asked, taking his hand and holding at level with the PA's chest.  His face had riled up again into its usual expressiveness, but there was still something glassy about the expression, as though he didn't know what to think. "Or would you say it's more here?" he continued, measuring above the crown of the hip, partially faux-hawked do.

Gus grit his teeth.  Then again, probably not as glassy as he had undoubtedly imagined.

Flet snorted, his freckles somehow expressing indignation as loudly as his down-turned mouth.

"Go," Gus urged, pushing Shawn at the detectives.  He stumbled a little, for dramatic emphasis, but Gus kept pushing until Juliet was forced to steady him from running into her.  "Just...go."

"Look, Gus..."

Gus shook his head, and with a final ominous of handcuffs clacking back into Lassiter's pocket, the trio had disappeared around the corner.  He could hear Juliet telling Shawn that they had to get back to the station and he would need to stay here, but whatever reply he made was lost as they drifted away.

Vanilla snapped her fingers again at Flet, but the PA was still gripping the clipboard with hands that had bled of all their color.  "That...that idiotic, moronic--"

"Don't," Gus snapped.  "I'm angry at him too, but just don't."

The PA shook his head and Gus wanted to tell him that he didn't know either, why he was defending him.

~~~~~~~~

Shawn popped up between Juliet and Lassiter as Juliet was trying to talk Lassiter out of shooting him.

"That didn't go well."

"What the hell!" Lassiter snapped, nearly sending his car careening into the oncoming lane of traffic.

"Careful, Tiger," Shawn admonished, before breaking into a bout of coughing.

"I thought I told you to stay away from my car!" he growled, glaring into the rear view mirror as he stepped on the gas a little too hard.

Shawn had already moved on, over Juliet's brusk "Carlton."  "I don't get whose doing this."

Lassiter's expression went snide.  "We got that."

Juliet turned in her seat to look over the head rest at the fake psychic, who grinned weakly at her.  "Shawn, I'm starting to think you might not be okay."

Shawn wasn't sure if what came out of him next was a laugh or a cough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gus coughed politely into his hand as Flet let him into the conference room.  He was studying his clipboard, but still managed a "Good luck, Mr. Guster" before turning back into the crowd.

The woman at the front of the table looked up from the papers in her hands, and started.

"That 'Bad Luck Burton' thing was all a joke," he said quickly.

"Sit down," she said without looking reassured.

Gus strode forward for a seat, swinging it out with a hand as she went back to her questions, looking nervous.

"Why are you working here at Central Coast Pharmaceuticals?" she started.

Gus's mind blanked.  He jawed his mouth a couple of times, and then looked blankly towards the wall.  "I have no idea anymore," he said, his face a little bewildered.

~~~~~~~~

"I have no idea!" Shawn snapped, stalking in circles around Juliet's desk.  She watched him go around and around, nearly tripping over her garbage can, kicking at the corner of a small, friendly looking rug that she liked for decorative purposes, and finally taking a corner sharp enough to bang his thigh into it.  He winced, but didn't seem to notice.

"Settle down, Shawn," she suggested.  He waved her off without really listening.

"What am I missing?"  She shrugged wordlessly, and suddenly he was nearly in her face, hands slapping onto the remains of her lunch, a sandwich that skittered off its plate and ended up in a pile of reports.  Juliet carefully picked it up, hoping it hadn't stained the file folders.

"What am I missing?" he demanded.

She shook her head.  "Why is this bothering you so much?  You've made mistakes before, but you've always managed to fix them."

"Because I missed something!"  He felt hot, like bits of wire poking at his skin, and his lungs were tight again.  But the worst feeling was knowing that he had something, that he had to have something, but he simply couldn't get at it.  "I know I have everything I need!"

"Shawn," she said, her face a little worried.  "I think it would be a good idea to sit down."

~~~~~~~~~~

Gus stood up suddenly, matching his jump with the interviewer's.  He hadn't even bothered to learn her name this time, half expecting, despite his protests, for the police come in and take her away.

A PA, the blonde one from the slideshow, looked a little nervous.  "He's here!" she said to the woman.  "He's already here?"

"Who's here?" Gus asked, though he felt he already knew.

Ice Cold Vanilla appeared at the door.  "Phillip Bresner," she said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"It's the president of the company," the PA hissed unnecessarily, and her face looked as though it wasn't sure whether to be excited or worried.

Gus pushed back the chair with his knees.  "I'm going to go," he mumbled, hoping no one would hear him, as he started to back away.

"No, actually," Vanilla said, black circles staring at him.  "The president called ahead and said he wanted to talk to 'Bad Luck Burton.'"

"Let's go people," she continued, ignoring the boneless of Gus's drop, as he fell back into his seat.  "This isn't happy hour."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What is this, happy hour?" Lassiter demanded.  Shawn whirled on him, but it was more for dramatics than anything because he'd heard him stalking this way about 20 feet off.

"Yes, Lassy, we were just about to break out the alcohol.  I suppose we should've called you first."

Lassiter scowled, which was to say his expression didn't change in the slightest.  Shawn had begun to pace again, and the detective watched him with eyes that followed his every move, as though waiting for something illegal to happen.

"What is he doing here?" he finally asked Juliet.

Juliet threw her hands up.  "You've got me!"

"Would you stop, please?" he begged.  He started to cough, but choked it off with a strangled noise.  "I need to think."

"Shawn Spencer--" Juliet started.

~~~~~~~

"--Burton Guster," Ice Cold Vanilla finished.  "This is Phillip Bresner."

Phillip Bresner was young for his position, probably somewhere in his upper forties, but the type of "in his upper forties" that still made women swoon.  It disturbed Gus that he was thinking of him in those terms, and felt that it could probably be blamed on Shawn's influence.  He looked like the picture on the back of Central Coast's brochures, one of those men with attractively peppered hair, a voice like George Clooney, and as brisk and business-like handshake as Gus had been expecting.

"I've heard a lot about you," he said, still shaking Gus's hand almost warmly, but with power.

Gus nodded, smiling despite everything because that's what you did in these situations.  "Most of it good, I hope."

"Most of it bad," the executive amended, smiling.

Gus's face felt brittle.

"But then rumors usually are.  I've been looking over your work records."  Mr. Bresner had come in with a slew of PAs and other important looking people, and here one of them handed him a document.  Tom, who Gus hadn't noticed at first, waved at him and gave him the thumbs up.  "It makes for interesting reading.  But then I've always like knowing what my employees are up to."

Gus had lost the ability to speak.

Phillip Bresner smiled.  "I like being able to come to the smaller branches.  I can see things other people don't see, because they've all gotten used to how something looks and can't judge it beyond that."

And suddenly, Gus started to think.

~~~~~~~

Shawn couldn't think.  He continued pacing, and by now he had attracted a larger crowd than simply Juliet and Lassiter.  A couple officers seemed to be waiting for him to do something amusing.

"Shawn, settle down.  You don't look so good."

"There's something," he muttered.  "I know there's something.  What is it?"

Even Lassiter sounded disturbed.  "Would you stop wearing a hole in our floors?"

"My floors too," he said absently.  "I'm walking on them."

~~~~~~~

Gus wanted to walk, to think through what was bothering him.  But it was too awkward here, and he had to settle for thinking deeply and trying to look like he was still paying attention, which, predictably, didn't work.

"Mr. Guster?"

"I'm sorry," he said.  "What were you saying?"

Shawn.  Getting used to seeing something, so that you can't see it as anything else.  Getting used to what something looked like.

"Now, I noticed in your records that the time you've filled..."

Gus nodded absently in agreement.  Shawn.  Pale and coughing, even though he had to know it wasn't working to make anyone feel sorry for him anymore.

Coughing into his shirt.  Coughing exactly where those dark spots had been on his sleeve.

Gus looked up suddenly, eyes meeting the president's, and this time he looked horrified.  "Oh no," he said, which covered everything he could say on the subject.  "He really is--"

~~~~~~~~~~

"--sick, are you even listening to me?  Shawn I think you might actually be sick, would you please--"

And Shawn was walking, around and around and around, thinking with a brain that couldn't think until he was coughing without noticing when it had started.  He leaned against Juliet's desk, coughing over her reports, coughing phlegm and little red flecks onto the white papers, coughing until there wasn't breath left just a very, very tight band that still wouldn't let him stop.  He coughed until he thought his lungs would burst, until there was nothing but the need to breathe, nothing at all except all the air around his face that he couldn't have.

Someone shouted "Catch him!" and that was it.

~~~~~~~~




Sleep.  Finally.




~~~~~~~~~

Shawn opened his eyes to a slit, and thought that something must have happened.  He remembered coughing, but he wasn't sure how that had led him to the floor, with his head on something soft.

Something soft and warm and comfortable. He nuzzled his head into it slightly, sighed, and closed his eyes.

"Mr. Spencer?" the Chief was saying.  "Can you hear me?"

He opened his eyes again.  Chief Vick looked like she was sideways, and she seemed to be crouching on the wall, her hand on his shoulder.  It took him a moment to right his world view, and he realized that he was the one sideways.

There were plenty of people around her, but he couldn't focus on them with this soft, warm thing under his head.  They looked busy, walking back in forth in brisk patterns, and he wasn't interested in joining that throng.

"I think you might have pneumonia," she said.

Shawn looked at the hand, connected to the feminine looking arm resting lightly on his stomach.  He glanced up, saw Juliet's face above him, and, much farther away, Lassiter's face above that.  He looked down at this thing his head was on, and realized that it was Juliet's lap, clad in that brown pant suit she liked so much.

His eyes narrowed, focusing on her hand, and the watch on it.  The second hand ticked around on it, but it was the date, next to the three, that caught him."Is that the date?"

The Chief looked up at Juliet, who sounded startled.  "What?"

"It's the 18th," he said.  It niggled at him.  "It's the 18th," he said again, rolling the words around in his mouth, trying them out.

His eyes snapped open.  "It's the 18th!"  He jerked up, the world went whirling, and Juliet's hand was back on his forehead with his head back in her lap, though it didn't change the anger in his voice when he finally said: "Dammit!  Vanilla told me it was the 18th.  I wasn't paying attention!"

The people around him seemed clueless, Juliet, Lassiter, and Chief Vick sharing looks that suggested "He's nuts," and he decided to fill them in, staring up at them from his position on the floor.

"I know who did it!" he said, and started to grin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gus hung up his phone without getting an answer.

"I'm really sorry," he said, turning back to the company president.  "I just realized my friend was sick, and I wanted to check in on him."

Phillip didn't look like he was about to lynch him, but Vanilla shot him a scathing glance that said "This isn't the place."

"Right," he said, "sorry.  I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Listen, Mr. Guster," Phillip started, "I wanted to ask you about--"

There was a commotion from the hallway, and Gus got a very, very bad feeling.

Ogletree burst into the conference room first, followed closely by Flet, who was trying to get him out with an "I-mean-it" but completely unintimidating scowl.

"Listen here, Mr. President," Ogletree said, snidely dramatic and loud enough for everyone to hear him.  "I will not tolerate this any longer, and I thought you had to know.  This man," here he gestured boldly at Gus, who gave him his best angry-but-nervous face, "insists on letting his friend run willy nilly around here at all hours."

The timing was perfect, as it usually was with Shawn, though his entrance was a little odd.  As far as Gus could tell, he was being held up by Juliet, his arm slung around her neck, with Lassiter, who really should have doing the holding, stalking behind both.  People appeared to be trailing in behind them, though they were stopped at the door, like some sort of invisible barrier, which remained open.

"This man!" Ogletree cried, getting into the performance now.  "Shawn Spencer!"

"Jerry?" Tom said, and Gus knew that hit had all come crashing down on him.

"Let's go Shawn," he said, trying to push him out.

"No, listen, I've got it.  You know who our real culprit is?"

"This man," Ogletree went on, addressing himself to the president, "is responsible for the lax security around this place.  He's a menace."

"But this is Jerry," Tom insisted.

"This is not Jerry!" Ogletree snapped.

One of the PAs turned to him.  "I'm pretty sure this is Jerry."

"Okay, so anyways, I realized something," Shawn was trying to say.

"That's Shawn," another one said.

A couple of people started turning their gazes towards Gus now.  "He is Jerry, isn't he?"

"Shawn!"

"He introduced himself as Dr. Gruber!"

"Maverick?" a woman asked plaintively from the door, sounding lost.

The "Maverick?" was the last straw.  Gus gave up trying to push Shawn out the door.  "Fine!" he snapped, turning on them all.  "You know what?  This is not Jerry.  This is not Dr. Gruber."  He whirled on the woman in the hall.  "And this is definitely not Maverick, the industrial spy."

"International," Shawn stage-whispered.

Gus ignored him.  "This is Shawn Spencer, the psychic detective, and my best friend."  And finally, he turned on Phillip Bresner, who was watching this take place with his eyebrows raised and nothing else.  "He's been trying to figure out what's going on here.  I'm sorry, but he has.  This is what we do.  I don't just work for Central Coast.  I'm involved in a detective agency, and we do good work.  So I'm sorry that Central Coast is not my whole life.  But this is important.  Go!"  He snapped at Shawn, who looked as though he wasn't if he should be startled or pleased.  He really did look terrible though, sweating and pale, with bags under his eyes.  How he'd missed it, Gus wasn't sure.  "Who's responsible for the fraud?"

Either way, it had apparently taken the wind out of his sales.  Shawn started to slip to the side, and Lassiter pulled him up under his armpit.  "Flet did it."

That hadn't been what anyone was expecting.  Least of all Flet.

"What?  No, I..."  He started to slink for the door and Lassiter let go of Shawn, who had steadied himself, to grab him.

"It was Vanilla," he said, turning to the secretary.

A fearful muttering went up from the doorway where his coworkers were hanging onto every word.  You weren't supposed to call her that to her face.

She mock-saluted him, with a quick touch of her hand to right above her right eyebrow.

"Flet, do you know what day it is?"

Flet looked angry, his freckles sticking out on his white face.  "The 18th."

"Yeah," Shawn smiled.  "And when did you file your two weeks notice?"

Flet looked a little triumphant, though he hid it in a quite clenching of teeth.  "The 17th.  Yesterday."

"Oh no you didn't," Shawn smiled.  "Vanilla here fixed your filing.  You quit on the 16th.  The day before anyone was arrested."

The muttering went around the room, and Flet somehow went even white under his dark hair.  "That proves nothing."

"You said you quit because of the arrests," Gus's interviewer for the day said.  "There's a room full of witnesses that heard you say it."

"Hey, yeah," another boss on Gus's left put in.  "Why would you lie about that if you didn't have anything to hide?"

"It was so clever, wasn't it?" Shawn prompted.  "As a secretary--"

"--PA," one of the PAs muttered.

"--you control people's schedules.  You call up the rental company so that your first fall guy looks guilty.  And you've been passed around recently between bosses.  How easy was it for you to get access to every file you needed?  I bet you even ended up in accounting at some point.  And covering fraud with fraud, that was cute."

"Did you do it for the money?" someone asked from the back of the room, sounding a bit like they were impressed and a little sad they hadn't thought of it first.

"Actually," Flet sighed.  "I did it because it was fun."

"What?" Gus demanded.

"It started out as an academic question," he said.  He turned to Lassiter suddenly, "I'll cooperate.  You can let go."

Lassiter grinned at him without smiling, and didn't let go.  "Sure."

"It would have worked too," he said.  "If it wasn't for you meddling kids, I guess."

Shawn furrowed his eyebrows at him, eyes a little glazed and brains a little slow.  It was Gus who got it.

"It started to snowball too fast."

"Yeah," Flet said.  "It should have been a slow build-up, and I would have had plenty of time to quit before anyone even noticed the other fraud."

"You know you shouldn't be telling us this stuff," Shawn told him.

Juliet snapped "Shawn!" and shook him a little.

Flet shrugged, and turned to Lassiter.  "Arrest me."

"Don't tell me what to do," Lassiter said, snapping the handcuffs on him.  He started to read him his rights as he led him through the crowd and out the door.  Flet paused, looking back at Shawn and then Gus.

"You know the worst part?  No one knowing how clever I was."

"Let's go!" Shawn directed at Juliet, who couldn't help but smile a little.  "I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No!  I want to see how this ends!  I want--"

But that was all, because suddenly Phillip's hand was on Gus's shoulder.

Gus sighed, and turned.  "I'm fired, aren't I?" 

He looked up, and found himself astounded.

Phillip was grinning.  "You really don't understand what impresses me.  Do you think I'm happy when my employees have to work overtime to meet their quotas?  What do you think it says to me that you can do this job, with record sales, I might add, and fit another job in with it.  You care about a lot more than looking good."

Gus's teeth clacked shut.

"I have seen enough to know that this promotion isn't happening though."

Gus, who had started to hope again, felt his smile stiffen, though he told himself he'd been expecting it.  Deserved it, in truth.

"Actually, a lot has happened, and it's made me look at the management here.  Tom's missed a lot.  His place won't be opening up for promotion."

Gus looked at him.  "Why are you telling me this?"

Phillip smiled, and clapped a hand on his shoulder.  "Because the job Tom was going to take at HO is now open for hiring.  I'd really like to see you apply for it."

Gus was left gaping as Phillip Bresner handed him his card.  "I'm not sure when we'll start the interview process, but keep checking in with HO to find out.  I'd be terribly disappointed if I don't see you try for that position."  He smiled one last time.   "Good luck, Mr. Guster."

Gus had not time to say anything, or at least not the time to put his thoughts together before Phillip Bresner blew back out with his entourage in tow.  He stared down at the card in his hand.

Tom passed him, looking hurt.

"Look, Tom, I'm really sorry, I never meant to--"

"There is no Jerry?" he asked.

Gus shook his head.  Tom sighed.  "I really liked that guy."

Gus watched him go, still greeting people, clapping them on the back with "Can you believe how this turned out!" and it was Shawn's voice that broke the silence next.  "I told you you'd do fine."

Gus turned to see him leaning against the wall where Juliet had apparently balanced him, looking pale but please.  "I always knew you'd be able to do whatever you wanted to."

"Shawn..." Gus started.

Shawn laughed.  "Well," he said.  "You'll never take the job anyways."

Gus gaped for a second.  "WHAT?!"

"You'd never be able to leave me!" Shawn cried and Gus, for not the first, last, or even close to last time, considered kicking him in the crotch.  It was against man-code, but would make him feel infinitely better.

"Don't!" Shawn cried out in mock-fear, covering himself.  "Not my precious!"

Gus growled, helped him off the wall, and together, Shawn laughing and Gus trying to pretend that it bothered him, they worked their way toward home.

But if Shawn thought Gus was giving up one of the greatest career advancements he'd ever have the opportunity to go for just because Shawn wanted Gus to always be at his beck and call...

He could think again, Gus thought with a tight, private grin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1987

10 minutes earlier


Shawn grinned at Gus over their mountain of army men.  The battle had ended with a massacre, and GI Joes were piled up en masse for the grave.

"Hey," Shawn said.  "Hey!" he said again, smacking Gus on the head, who was too busy preparing a formation of rocks as the gravestone to pay him immediate attention.  He scowled, and went back to what he was doing.

"Don't hit me!"

"I've got a great idea!" Shawn insisted.  "You know how soldiers do this whole brotherhood forever thing?"

Gus glared at him suspiciously.  "You're not going to try to bury me, are you?"

Shawn gave him his hurt-look, which did nothing to garner any sympathy.  "No!  Why would you think that?"  Gus opened his mouth to tell him, Shawn was pretty sure, exactly why he would think that, but he cut him off before he could get started.  "Let's do the blood brother thing!"

Gus looked uncertain, propping himself up on his elbows.  "This doesn't involve blood, does it?"

"Because I'm such a good friend," Shawn said, pushing himself off his stomach and to his knees,  "no it doesn't.  Wanna?"

Gus got to his own knees, probably for self-defense in case Shawn suddenly decided to launch himself at him.  It had happened before.  "What do we have to do?"

"We promise to be best friends forever, and shake on it.  There's no going back, no doing anything important without the other one."

"That's all?" Gus asked.  This seemed too easy.  "I thought we were already friends forever."

Shawn flicked a few army men off the top of the pile.  "Yeah, well, right now it's 'going without saying'," he said, trying out the idiom.  "So I think we should say it.  So that if anyone tries to back out of this, the other person can say that they can't because they promised."

"Oh!" Gus brightened.  He'd heard about this in his special law class.  "You mean like a binding contract!"

Shawn swept a hand through his shaggy hair, conveying that, yes of course that's what he meant.  "Gotta shake on it to make it real."

"Okay," Gus said, putting out his hand.

With a sudden snort, Shawn hacked a loogey into his own open palm and offered it to Gus.

Gus was having none of that.  He jerked his hand back and out of the way.  "That's disgusting!"

"It isn't real if it doesn't have spit," Shawn stated knowledgably.  "Spit means you're willing to say you're the world's biggest fart if you go against your word."

"I'm not touching that!"

The mountain of army men was razed as Shawn went flying over it.  He pushed off the grass with a sudden leap, grabbing Gus's hand and forcing him into the dirt.  He opened his best friend's palm, Gus yelling at him to "Let go don't you dare!" and then spit an enormous wad of spit into it.

"Best friends forever," he said, trying to grab onto the spit filled hand with his own.

Gus scrambled out of the way, plastic army mean poking into his arms.  He darted to his feet, then stopped, looking into his hand.  "You spit on me," he said, wounded.  His eyes suddenly jerked up to Shawn's face, narrowing.  "You spit on me."

Gus started to work up a mouth full of spit.  This was not going to go unanswered.

With a laugh, Shawn darted out of the way.

"I'm never going to be friends with you ever!" Gus screeched, running after him.

Shawn was sing-songing as he ran away.  "It's no use, Gus!"

A gob of spit finally managed to hit him, and he stopped.  His hand pulled away from behind his ear, dripping with stretchy drool.  He started to work his jaw, gathering spit around his teeth, as Gus prepared for battle.

Shawn sent the spit flying. 

He smiled.  "We're going to be friends forever!"