The day Juliet O’Hara went blind was mildly overcast, not glaringly bright with sun in typical Santa Barbara fashion, which was why Juliet left her sunglasses in her car.

There were a few things that Juliet remembered quite vividly while lying in the hospital bed, sightless eyes staring in whichever direction her head turned, ineffectual: she remembered that she had thought about putting on her sunglasses anyways, despite the lack of sun, because she’d just bought them the afternoon before and they were sleek and cool looking and would make Carlton jealous. Juliet was juvenile about the things that would make Carlton jealous, the way she was with her actual brothers, always fighting over who had the newest and the best of everything.

She remembered, too, that Shawn and Gus were hanging out at the station, pestering McNabb for details on the latest case; and that McNabb was blushing and stuttering with nerves, trying to edge away, because just the other day Carlton had yelled the whole station into submission on the fact that Shawn and Gus were never to be allowed details on any case ever. But of course Shawn could charm the devil himself, and McNabb barely stood a chance.

She remembered how Gus’s mouth curved into an easy grin when he saw her, how his hand rose up in a half wave; how Shawn saw her from the corner of his eye but pretended he didn’t, so that when he turned and caught full sight of her, he could ham up his ‘surprised’ act. Juliet never understood exactly why Shawn liked to act so much whenever he was around her, or anyone, really, who wasn’t Gus. She noticed, though, couldn’t help but see how Shawn was always acting frenetic, fake, not quite authentic.

And Shawn was wearing a black t-shirt, which was rare, since he tended to go for colorful clothing; and the fabric of the sleeves was stretched tight across his biceps. Maybe it was a bit shallow of her, but Juliet had always appreciated muscles. Shawn’s hair was crazy, as always, tufted up in spikes that caught the light of the station’s lightbulbs; glinted brown and bronze and russet and auburn. His smile was very white, and very wide, when he saw her.

They didn’t stick around for long. Chief Vick sent them packing with the admonition to come back when they were called, and Carlton smirked after them as they left the station. Her partner wore a smug expression entirely too often, Juliet reflected, wryly amused.

All in all, it was a normal morning. The kind of morning she had come to expect. Routine.

What changed everything was the noise complaint phone call that dispatch fielded and sent their way, stating that everyone else was out on other business. It wasn’t exactly within Carlton and Juliet’s jurisdiction to go out on a simple house call; they were the Head Detective and Junior Detective, they were supposed to handle investigations, not disgruntled neighbours.

That’s what Juliet’s mother said to her, two weeks after Juliet got out of the hospital, in that gentle nagging tone that was just as aggressive as it was passive. She said, “What on Earth were you doing out there, anyways? It’s not your job to handle these sorts of things. Is it? Aren’t you just supposed to be…” she waved her hand vaguely. “Putting together cases? Not chasing them down?”

There was a great deal of chasing involved in her job, as it so happened, but Juliet didn’t say that.

So they were out on a house call, knocking on the front door and stating the need to talk to the occupants of the house. There was a startled noise from inside, and the sounds of things being pushed over; breaking. Then the slam of a backdoor, and well, it didn’t require genius to get what had just happened. Someone, for some reason, had decided to pull a runner on them. Carlton and Juliet exchanged alarmed looks.

They ran through the house, noting the disarray, piecing together that they had just interrupted a robbery. Without speaking, Carlton raced through the back door, following the same path as their runner, while Juliet went back to the car to call dispatch to send additional officers. What they had now was a crime scene. When she’d received confirmation of back-up, Juliet raced off after Carlton and their perp.

It was luck, really, that drew Juliet to where Carlton had apprehended the thief. Good luck or bad, that was up for debate – because the alley she skidded into, where Carlton was struggling to confine the thief, arms and heads swinging wild, that was the last place she would see. She remembered surprisingly little of it – glitter from broken bottles, the glass reflecting and refracting shifting sunlight, smudges of graffiti scrawled across the alley walls, the detritus of litter strewn on the ground. Mostly she was paying attention to Carlton and the thief, trying to figure out how she could help.

She was second in her class when it came to hand-to-hand combat. First in class was this guy who had black belts in a handful of martial arts, so she didn’t feel too bad about being beat out of it; and she knew exactly how she should enter the fight. When an opening was telegraphed by the thief, Juliet darted in; moved behind the thief, slid her arms in the space between his arms and his body, and then bent them, locked his arms up in her grip. He struggled, of course, the way they always struggle.

He was stronger than she’d thought, wirier. He used her grip as a brace to kick up both his feet, impacting into Carlton’s chest, driving Carlton back while simultaneously thrusting Juliet against the alley wall, hard. Juliet felt the breath rush out of her, felt herself knocked windless, yet still did not let go. She let a convict escape once, and had vowed never to allow it to happen again. Her resolution gave her grip strength.

He drove her back into the wall again. Her head thudded, painful; she didn’t let go. And again, and again. Juliet tried to throw him off balance, remove the traction he had to have in order to be able to fling himself backward, using her body as cushion as she impacted with the concrete. It didn’t work.

A fourth time, a fifth, and Juliet began to feel light-headed. From the corner of her eye, blurrily, she saw Carlton stagger to his feet, and sighed in relief. Thank God. Her relief proved to be a devastating distraction, however, when the thief took one last chance at breaking free, flinging himself backward with renewed violent vigor. Juliet wasn’t as prepared for this final blow, not braced for it as she had been for the others.

The back of her skull hit the wall. There was a sound in Juliet’s head. A cracking sound. Not like a bullet, but like an earth quake, like the earth opening up, like the earth breaking. Juliet would remember that sound even when she forgot so many others, though she would never be able to adequately describe it.

She must have lost consciousness. Juliet couldn’t tell if she had or not, because it wasn’t as if everything went black, the way they say it does in books, the way they show someone passing out in movies, with the screen fading into inky darkness.

No; it was more like, one instant Juliet was there, and the next, she wasn’t.

*

That was something that stayed with her. That sense of not-being. That was what woke her up in the middle of the night, those first few nights out of the hospital, when she was restless in her bed, the fear that she had ceased to exist.

She would blink and wonder why everything was dark. And then she would remember, Oh yeah, blind.

Sometimes she wouldn’t be sure if her eyes were open or closed. She would bring her hands to her face and feel with her fingertips to see if her eyelids were up or down. She would feel stupid for being reduced to this, for not even knowing whether or not her eyes were open. But it was better than not knowing, than wondering; better than thinking to herself, Of course my eyes are open, they just blinked, and then, Did I open them again after I blinked? I can’t tell. I can’t tell.

*