"Watch out!"

The warning is a screamed out, desperate sound and he listens to it, but he doesn’t really hear it, it doesn’t really register.

Then suddenly everything is ringing in his ears, and he’s soaring, and he gasps but nobody can hear him.

He hits the ground hard and rolls, over and over… and it hurts, hurts, hurts goddamn it, he just wants it to stop…

All he can focus on is the hurt. He thinks he hears himself cry out as the fiery tendrils of pain consume him.

The burning agony lasts an eternity in a second.

He’s suddenly worried he might be dying and he if he knows that he might be dying, then this is a stupid way to die. Really, really dumb, and he knows it and he wants to cry because it’s all so stupid.

Then…

It stops.

Everything stops, because for the life of him he can’t breathe, can’t draw even a tiny sobbing breath to pray to the god he’s never completely believed in anyway…

…and he wants to shout but there’s no breath left in his body…

(He is worried, then, because this might be dead, and if this is death then every body was fucking wrong.)

He struggles so hard, but all that happens is the night around him rears up and consumes him until everything goes black, like the end of a movie.

The blackness is everything. He realises it doesn’t hurt anymore, but he kind of wishes it did. Then feeling goes completely and all he knows is that there is nothing but the dark and the suffocation…

And he is scared.

He was always scared, did they know that? Did they know that? Did they ever even suppose…?

He was always happy, and strong, and cheerful… but then again, sometimes he was lying.

(A lot of times he was lying.)

Then suddenly the dark shatters and he draws a gasping breath and the darkness fades, but the agony returns and he tries to scream but nothing leaves his lips. His eyes widen as pain rips through him, strong and unyielding.

He still can’t stop seeing everything, can‘t stop remembering.

His eyes focus and he sees the road stretched out before him. It was raining before and the road is wet. And his bike went sliding across the asphalt, spinning and bouncing and scratching, but he wasn’t on it when it did that, so why does it matter?

Now it’s lying opposite him, crashed and broken and almost hidden by the long grass on the side of the road, but the lights are still on. Funny, that. The lights are still on.

The lights reflect off the tiny fragments of broken glass littering the wet road, making them sparkle and look pretty. The lights also illuminate the dark patch of blood pooling beneath him, which he can see but not feel.

But the lights are at the wrong angle, so they just miss the car crashed against the tree, the completely totalled car.

That green car, that came speeding down the road much too fast (such a narrow road, why would he go on such a narrow road? He supposed he could swerve and avoid any cars or trucks that came up behind him, his being the smaller vehicle).

The green car with the rowdy drunken teens, driving the wrong way down the one way road, and the three teenagers sticking out of the sunroof, cheering and waving their beers like a prize.

(What was it that his father told him? "You ever act like a hoon, I’ll kill you myself. I’m not picking your squished body up off the pavement." Endearing, no?)

And the pretty red-haired girl, not as drunk as her friends apparently, screaming, "Watch out!"

The warning which never does register, properly, because he doesn’t know which way to swerve, the road it too narrow, and that car is too big, and what’s he supposed to do? Swerve into the grass, which he does, but the car is faster, gets to him faster.

So now he’s lying, hurting, blood pooling beneath him and he wishes the sound in his ears would stop, because all he can hear is a wheezing gasping breathing… no, wait, that’s him… (which probably isn’t good, he supposes idly, but at least it is breathing, right?).

He remembers seeing at least eight people squashed all together into the car, the driver, the passenger, the three people sticking out the sun roof and three more pushed into the back. And now he’s looking at the totalled wreck, and waiting for eight people to walk out, but nobody has yet.

He closes his eyes… just for a second, he tells himself… but when he opens them again it has started to rain, lightly. He looks across to the bike. One light’s flickered off. The other one illuminates the shards of glass, and the rain, and he has one ear leaning against the ground and he can hear the rain falling, which is better than hearing his chest wheeze and fight for air, he thinks.

Where was he going? Where is he ever going? Maybe Gus was right and he’s just flotsam or jetsam or whatever… or maybe it was Henry who was right, saying he had no direction… but Gus’s way of saying the same thing sounded so much nicer, so much more bohemian… as though he was doing it on purpose, and not just trying to outrun his own shadow…

It isn’t like he’s totally disconnected, anyway. After all, he’s always left a paper trial of postcards and letters and his really long (and growing) pictorial résumé…

(What did Gus say, when he showed him it? "That’s unprofessional, Shawn; you’re not supposed to have doodles and photos with a résumé!" which is not true, anyway, it just depends on what job you’re going for…and what did Gus expect, he was just trying to spice it up a little, add some interest… and it worked, too, nobody can deny it- after all, he’s had more jobs than anyone.)

He was driving somewhere, that was for damn sure. Running from something, which is harder for him than most people, because he has a video recorder in his head… so he can run, and he can hide, but he can’t forget, which is the only thing he really wants to do, most times.

("How many hats, Shawn? Come on, kid, how many hats?" Thanks a lot for that, by the way. I spy would have sufficed, or maybe just plain old Monopoly, but what life lessons does that teach a kid?)

He remembers suddenly that he wasn’t actually running, this time. He remembers that he’s actually decided to stay put and work on his stationary life, here-

His breath suddenly catches and he makes an odd animal moaning sound, and then he coughs, and everything spins around and around because that hurts so much… and there’s a metallic taste in his mouth, and something dribbling down his chin…is it too thick to be rain? He hopes it’s just rain. He blinks the raindrops off his lashes, realising for the first time how heavy eyelids are, how hard they are to keep open-

Henry would be mad at him, he thinks, for crashing his bike. He’s always so disappointed, no matter what, and it doesn’t help that he keeps handing him more reasons for his disappointment.

But what ever happened to parents telling their children, do what makes you happy?

Gus’s parents told Gus that. So Gus went into pharmaceuticals, go figure. "That’s what makes me happy," Gus explained once, and fair enough, if that’s what rocks his socks, then go for it-

Henry always wanted him to be a cop, and everything leading up to that golden moment of, "Dad, I’m not going to be a cop," was training, and disappointment, because he never sees enough hats, never stays awake long enough on stake outs, never worships the right heroes, or learns the right lessons…

(And he was a kid, he just wanted to wear a cape, why did he have to take something like that away?)

And now he’s "psychic" and that’s the closest thing he’s ever going to get to being an actual cop, and he’s still not happy. Why, because he doesn’t have a badge and he has more fun and less pressure?

He figures, if he is dying (and he really thinks he is, because the kids aren’t getting out of the car, and this is a narrow, empty road), then even his dying will be somehow disappointing to his father.

He can already see that look, the one that says, "Why, Shawn?" Actually, Lassiter has the same look, the same longsuffering why were you born? expression and it really-

He gasps, chokes, and feels what is undeniably blood trickling down his face. Why does it have to hurt so much? Karma, for being such a liar? How is that fair? Nobody wanted the truth anyway, not really.

The rain is falling harder now, and everything still hurts, and it’s getting hard to think, now-

He stares at the totalled green car and swallows something coppery tasting. They haven’t come out, he realises finally. They’re probably dead.

And why, why, why did his father have to play hat games with him? Why does he have to be able to remember things, like the girl’s scream and their faces and the glittering glass across the wet road-

Why does it hurt so damn much, just to breathe-

His eyes open just in time to see the motorbike’s light flicker, die, and then resurrect. He thinks of Gus, who said, "I’ll never talk to you again if you crash that thing one more time!"

Because he’s scared.

In, out… in…out… gasp- choke- in… out… in, out, in, out, in…out….out…out…in… gasp-

He chokes, coughs, and keeps gasping. He wishes someone was here, anyone, just to sit beside him and hold his hand, suddenly. Gus, his dad… Juliet… hell, he’d even go for Lassie right now…

The gasping is making it harder to breathe. He panics.

That feeling from before is back. That fading-to-black-can’t-draw-breath feeling, and he can’t stop it, this time…

He closes his eyes and shudders with a now soundless oh of surprise.

He thinks he hears himself whimper and then everything fades away.

"Hey, can you hear me?"

"God, he’s a mess."

"Can you hear me?"

"Did you call the ambulance?"

"They’re on their way, already-"

The words bounce around his head and he tries to open his eyes. What’s going on? There’s been an accident? His chest constricts and he hears a sort of rattle.

Oh crap.

Is that him?

It doesn’t hurt anymore.

He tries again to open his eyes and this time he manages to crack them open. He can see a blurry figure sitting beside him, but not looking at him.

Then the blurry person turns their head and looks at him, and says, "Your bike’s ruined," like that’s what is important to him right now.

He closes his eyes again and the voice turns urgent. "Hey, come on, kid," (but he’s not a kid anymore, after all, he’s like thirty, and they still call him kid?) the person says, before adding, "Open your eyes, show me you can do it."

Which is why he spent so much time someplace else, because when he was a foot and ankle model nobody wanted him to prove himself, to do just a little better, try a little harder, reach a little further for something that was damned unreachable anyway.

And he had about 57 other jobs and nobody batted an eye, because during those 57 other jobs he was good enough, and he never had to pretend to be someone else, and he never had to count the hats when he walked into a room, or straighten his collar or edit the doodles off his résumé, did he?

(And Henry told him, when he was young, "It’s not about being good enough, it’s about being better," but how is he ever supposed to be better when he never knows what the benchmark for good enough is?)

He still has to prove something to them, when he tries to get a case. And fair enough, they’re sceptical, but how many cases does he have to solve for them before they trust him? (Which is stupid, because if they trust him he’s fooling them, and he’s lying anyway, but then again, he’s always lying.)

"Hey, can you focus? Look at me. What’s your name?"

Oh yeah, he’s dying, he forgot. He blinks up at the blurry person and thinks, Shawn, but they can’t hear his thoughts and they have no idea what he’s trying to say (and they never do, anyway, like when he said, "Mom, why can’t you just try?" and he meant, for me, but she never heard that bit so she just walked away from them).

"Can you hear me?"

The voices fade and everything goes sort of quiet.

He looks at the grass, which he can see from the corner of his eye… little clumps of clover, with drops of red-

He never knew what that meant, and he still has no idea. He has a suspicion, though, that it’s just a combination of a colour and a flower with a rhyme stuck to the end, which means that his version (green and daisy, I’m so lazy) should make plenty of money… and he never has had a job in song writing, that’s definitely next, should he ever get off this road-

Ah, speak of the devil, because the glass fragments are reflecting the blue and red sirens of the approaching ambulance.

He turns his eyes back to blurry-dude, who mouths something… why can’t he hear anything?

A paramedic kneels beside him, touches him, and then the other brings a stretcher and a neck brace and how are they going to put that on when he’s on his side, hmm? But they manage, and then they gently roll him onto his back, and that’s when sensation makes an unwelcome return, and he screams.

Okay, he tries to scream. Instead, he makes a tiny gasp which he seriously doubts anybody even hears. But inside he’s screaming.

(He’s always preferred screaming inwardly, anyway, because that way nobody knows you’re mad at them. Nobody guesses that you’re angry, so if you scream inside it’s better because then you don’t start fights and toss out furious words that get tossed right back and make you angrier.

And if you don’t fight with them, then all the china stays perfectly intact, and nobody has to storm upstairs and throw clothes into a suitcase and leave the house, slamming the door behind them.

Nobody has to yell, "Let’s end this, now, then!"… not if you don’t get angry.)

Now he’s being wheeled into the ambulance, and god damn it, it hurts…why can’t this just be over? He’s still trying to scream aloud but failing miserably.
On my list, he decides… number whatever-I’m-up-to: scream out loud.

And another thing on his list: cry. Because he wants to do that now, but it hurts too badly.

He made a long list of things to do, actually, including become a water-ski instructor (done) and sell hotdogs (done) and do some sort of modelling (done)… and…. and…. go bungee jumping (done, but he intends to do it again with Gus, whether Gus consents or not).

Also on there is kiss Juliet (he’s working on it) and get Lassie to give me a hug (work in progress, again) get the chief to name something after me (she’ll do it eventually) and, oh yeah, spend an hour with dad without having an argument (which is going to take a few years; in fact, the only way he sees this happening is if he gags Henry, or if one of them has laryngitis and blocked ears).

What else was on the list?

"Can you hear me?"

"Open your eyes for me, okay? Can you do that?"

Again, having to prove himself, but he’s a competitive person, so he does it.

"That’s good," says the paramedic, in that soothing of-course-you’re-not-dying voice. "That’s really good, okay? I know it hurts, but you’re going to be at the hospital soon, alright? Just take it easy."

The paramedic says to the other one, in an aside, "God, I hate motorbikes."

Huh, like Henry, who goes on and on about the ‘death-trap’, and asks him why he would get back on that thing after nearly dying on it, and- yeah, he usually tunes out after that.

This is going to be his fault, too, you can count on that. Because everything is his fault, because he’s never better, never even good enough.

Because he doesn’t stick to one thing, and he’s flighty, and he’s never finished anything in his life, never seen anything through.

And even when he’s trying, he’s not trying hard enough. It’s enough for other people just to try, but not him, because nobody ever really believes that he is trying.

It’s always, "Come on Shawn! Just because you don’t take this seriously, it doesn’t mean that I don’t!" (Gus, and he really did take it seriously, he did, he was just nervous, and he needed something to hide behind, so he hid behind the stupid jokes and the grin.)

Or it’s, "Spencer, this isn’t a joke!" (Lassiter, and of course it isn’t, he’s just worried, but what’s he meant to do, act worried? That’s not very psychic.)

Or maybe, "Shawn, enough!" (Jules, tiredly, and he’s just trying to make her less stressed.)

And then there’s the favourite, "Stop!" (Henry and Chief Vick, because he’s right, and they know it but they don’t want to acknowledge it.)

The ambulance lurches over a bump in the road and the pain flares up. This time he can’t keep the pain away, can’t stay awake through it, so he lets himself return to that dark place.

The next time he returns to awakeness (it’s a word, of course it is, he’s used it in Scrabble) he’s not on a road, or in an ambulance… and he doesn’t hurt… and it’s not raining…

He’s in hospital.

He opens his eyes just to find a head leaning on the bed. He blinks. He tries to raise a hand, but it’s heavy. Cast, he sees.

He licks dry lips and tries to speak. "Gus." Uh oh, is that him rasping? Damn. "Gus."

Gus snores, loudly. "Magic Head," he whispers insistently. "Magic Head!"

Gus snorts and jerks awake. "How many times have I told you not to- Shawn!" he cries, tone changing to delight. "You’re awake!"

He gives Gus a lopsided sort of duh look. "Yeah," he mouths, voice abandoning him.

"Oh, here," and Gus sticks a straw in his mouth.

"Thanks." He loves this medication. It makes him all floaty and painless.

"Your dad just left," Gus informs him. "He went to get coffee."

"Am I in trouble?"

Gus slowly shakes his head. "It wasn’t your fault. It was the other car-"

(And the screamed, desperate warning, watch out! and why aren’t they getting out of the car?)

"Shawn? Shawn?"

He realises he must have zoned out and turns back to Gus. "I’m okay."

"Hardly."

Gus lists the damage. Internal bleeding, torn organs, punctured lungs, broken ribs (just about all of them, a new record), broken arm, broken leg, dislocated knee (the other one) and scrapes and bruises galore. Oh, and concussion and stitches. Lots of stitches.

"Shawn?"

"Kid?"

"Spencer?"

Damn, he did it again. He raises his eyes and sees Juliet, Lassiter and Henry crowding around him, along with Gus.

He’s sleepy, suddenly. "I made a song," he announces. "On the road." He giggles. "Green and daisy, I’m so lazy-"

"I think he’s fine," Lassiter mutters.

He giggles again and shuts his eyes.

"No, kiddo, wait for the doctor-"

But he’s already falling asleep.

In his head the flame-haired girl shrieks a warning to him.

(Five died, and three made it out alive.

One has brain damage, one’s in a coma and the other one is in critical condition.)

It’s not his fault because they were going the wrong way.

But they swerved to miss him and everything is his fault anyway.

"Watch out!"

He jerks awake with the scream ringing in his ears.

"Are you okay?" Juliet asks, whispering.

He blinks. It’s dark outside.

"Yeah," he replies.

"Your dad went home to have a shower," she tells him. "Gus went to get coffee."

"Okay."

"They’ll be back soon."

"Alright," he says agreeably.

"Shawn?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you really okay?"

"Yeah, ‘course I am."

She looks at him doubtfully. "Shawn-?"

"Just tired."

"Okay," Juliet says.

And it’s not, but he’s silent anyway.

Henry sits beside him. "They were drunk."

"I know. I could tell."

"Could you?" Henry asks.

He rolls his eyes. "It was fairly obvious, dad."

Henry snorts. "You’re lucky they didn’t kill you. I’m surprised you stood a chance on that bike."

What, the bike again? Why do they always have to go around in circles? He doesn’t say anything, and Henry looks surprised. "Shawn?"

("How many hats?" So he can remember every tiny detail-)

"What?"

("Dad, I don’t want to-" Why would he want to remember everything?)

"Shawn, are you okay?"

("How many hats, Shawn?" He has to remember things. Memory makes a good cop, right?)

"Yeah," he finally says, "just thinking."

Henry is careful for once. "About what?"

"Hats," he mumbles. "I’m thinking about hats."

"Watch out!"

And he just wants to forget.

Somehow he’s made it through a week of woodenly repeating, "I’m fine."

Then he realises that he’s not fooling anyone when Gus snaps, "No, you’re not."

He stares at the ceiling for a while. Thinks of rain on glass fragments, and blood on the road. Crimson and clover, over and over-

"Remember that hat thing?" he mumbles.

"What?" Gus asks, startled.

"The hat thing. That my dad did."

Gus blinks. "Yeah. I remember."

"Why did he do that?"

Now Gus is confused. "You know why. To improve your memory. I mean, you have a good one already and everything, it’s like photogenic, but to-" and then he stops, and silently mouths an oh of surprise and chagrin.

And then he tells Gus about the red-haired girl and the screamed warning and staring at the car and waiting for somebody to get out. And he tells Gus about crimson on the clover.

Halfway through his story Henry walks in but he doesn’t stop speaking, so Henry gets to hear about headlights splitting dark roads and not being able to breathe… and about shiny fragment of glass on the road reflecting red and blue… and he admits that he actually thought about his résumé and he laughs but not happily.

Then he reaches his conclusion… "…I was scared. And I know I’m not supposed to forget things but I just… I want to forget this, but I can’t." His voice cracks.

Henry walks over and takes the other seat opposite Gus. He cocks his head, considering it. "I guess I forgot that bit," Henry says. "I mean, some things you just have to let go…"

"But how?"

"You just have to choose to forget it," he says, and it sounds like a very bad line in a melodramatic movie… no, actually, it sounds like that Barbara Streisand song. Shudder.

But it isn’t bad advice, so he nods.

And for once it seems that it’s enough, because Henry just touches his cheek and Gus just put his hand on his shoulder.

Later Gus just sits there and he doesn’t say or do anything, which is okay because he doesn’t want him to say or do anything.

Gus just holds his hand as the tears silently track down his face.

Actually it isn’t until about four months later that he roars up to his father’s house on his new bike.

Henry just stares at him, shakes his head and walks away, but it doesn’t matter because in the hospital Henry spent three hours with him and they didn’t argue, so it’s already been crossed off his list.

And it isn’t until eight months later that he remembers something else important on his list, and they pile into Gus’s car, with Gus chanting, "Where are we going?" over and over until they get to the bungee place (where Juliet is waiting because she said she’d meet them there) and then Gus hysterically shouts, "Oh, hell no!"

And he grins, because Jules gave him a kiss on the cheek (not what he was thinking, but he’s working his way up), and Lassie is yet to hug him (although he did give him a manly pat on the shoulder) and Karen is yet to name anything after him, but things are improving.

But even though they are improving, when they ask him, "Are you okay?"

And he will never be "okay" like he was before, but he’s trying to find another sort of okay that he can live with.

So he replies, "Yes," but he isn’t really sure if that‘s the truth.

He gets to the field in the middle of nowhere, gets off the bike and walks into the middle of the field.

And then he just screams.

Aloud, for a long time.