Oxygen Mask
Day 13 inspired by @tonystarkshomeoflostkiddos ! They wrote a heart-wrenching fic that had some wonderful Sam & Jules friendship. And I’d been thinking about this AU since rewatching Psych The Movie for the 3946398th time, so I thought I would bring it to life... set between the shules wedding and the last scene of the movie, assuming a few weeks passed between them.
Sam can hear his alarm going off, but he doesn’t want to get up. His body is still numbed by the heavy grasp of sleep. He’s warm underneath his blankets, but he knows a winter morning in Northbrook will be icy cold. Besides, if he lets the beeping go on a little longer, his mom will come in to wake him up.
Deciding to go back to sleep, Sam takes a deep breath and rolls over... well, tries to. Something pulls at his face, keeping his head from turning. He tries to wiggle a bit and figure out what it is. If Melina is up this early and trying to play a trick on him...
“Sam?”
The voice that says his name isn’t his little sister, and it isn’t his mother, either. But it sounds really, really familiar. Confusion finally makes him open his eyes.
Juliet.
The name comes to him, and then everything else does.
He’s not in high school. He’s a grown man, a police inspector. Juliet is his partner. She’s standing over him, looking concerned, and the beeping he’d thought was his alarm is a heart monitor.
He’s in the hospital.
The second wave of memories physically hurts, making him jerk at the mere memory of the bullet hitting him. There’s a throbbing in his chest, a scratchiness in his throat. He’d be hard-pressed to find a part of his body that doesn’t hurt. How the hell had he not noticed the pain before.
“Hey, hey, Sam, easy,” Juliet says, stilling him with a hand on his shoulder. “You’re alright. It’s okay. Just settle down and take a deep breath.”
He tries to do as she asks, but the apparatus over his face throws him off again. It’s an oxygen mask, he realizes. So why does it seem like it’s getting harder to breathe? He closes his eyes, struggling to inhale.
McGoldrick. He turned on us. And he’s got help. I need to tell her--
When he tries to speak, his voice is muffled by the mask. Despite the pain it causes, he lifts his arm and pulls the flexible plastic away. “Juliet. McGoldrick--”
She takes the mask from him and holds it back over his face. “Sam, I need you to listen to me, okay? Take deep breaths. I know this is startling I know you’re freaking out. But please, just lie still, and let me do the talking.”
Fatigued, Sam nods, relaxing. Juliet takes her hand off the mask and settles into a chair next to him.
“It’s been about a month,” she says. “I’m really glad you’re awake; even the doctors were starting to get worried. But you’re recovering well.”
He scowls, and she holds up a hand. “I’m getting there, I’m getting there. McGoldrick is dead.”
Sam’s eyes widen. Suddenly, he remembers another part of the story.
The Crimes of Juliet O’Hara.
He gives her a suspicious look, suddenly wary. She raises an eyebrow. “What?”
Unable to speak, Sam makes a finger gun motion with his head. It’s Juliet’s turn to look surprised. “What? No! He was shot by Allison Cowley, who’s out of jail now, apparently.”
He can’t place the name, and he thinks his expression says that.”
“Oh, right. She’s an old friend from Santa Barbara. Doesn’t like me because she tried to take me hand to hand and lost. she orchestrated the whole thing with McGoldrick, had him kidnap Iris and everything, and shot him when she was done. Real psycho.”
Sam puts in the effort to lift his mask again. “This is creating more questions than it’s answering.”
Juliet rolls her eyes fondly and reaches to replace his mask again, but he resists, noticing something on her hand. “Wait, is that a ring!?”
“Oh, yeah!” She beams, her entire manner changing drastically. “Shawn and I got married.”
“Congratulations,” Sam tries, but his voice is muffled.
Thinking about all of this new information makes his head hurt. His shooter is dead. His partner is married. But Sam keeps his eyes open just a bit longer. “Hey...” he doesn’t even have the strength to move the mask, but Juliet moves closer to hear him. “Everyone’s okay, right?”
She nods and squeezes his hand. “Everyone except you.”
Sam smiles sleepily, his eyelids heavy. “I’m alright.”
And then he finally closes his eyes again, and drifts back to sleep.
