She slept surprisingly well that first night, on a pillow of Shawn, exhausted from recent events both traumatic and therapeutic.

Daylight brought a renewed sense of courage and sharing breakfast with Shawn, such a simple, normal thing to do with someone you felt so strongly about, bolstered her confidence further.

She was ready to take on the world again. Well, as much as the world was ready to take on her.

Until she'd attended some mandatory counseling about her experience she was on medical leave. That idea didn't thrill her, but there wasn't anything she could do about it besides jump through the hoops and pray there weren't that many.

Shawn seemed to be worried about her quick recovery, concerned that it wasn't quite right somehow, but she laughed and brushed away his concerns. She was a cop. It was understood, drilled into you at the Academy, that sometimes bad things happened and you picked up and moved on because criminals weren't going to take a holiday because of it.

And so once she'd shot down the idea of having Lassiter come to her, he said nothing more.

She went to take a shower, silently thanking Gus for being such a dear friend and fetching some things for her from her apartment, though she smiled in amusement at how much he'd packed. She wasn't moving in to Shawn's apartment for goodness' sakes. She'd be back home this afternoon after she finished giving her statement.

If she couldn't go back to work she could at least go home and clean up there.

The warm water cascaded over her and she slicked back her hair, rolling her eyes and chuckling when she realized that she'd left her shampoo in her bag.

She stepped out of the shower and bent to dig it out, then stood, her eyes skimming over the foggy mirror unintentionally.

And just like that she was back in the past, seeing the shadow in the mirror that didn't belong.

She spun around and recalled how he'd grabbed her, his hands sliding on her water-slick skin. She could feel them, pinching, grasping, trying to get a firm hold on her. She stumbled back, like she did then, and landed on the floor, cracking her head on the edge of the tub. She could feel the heavy weight of him as he pinned her down, gasping with fresh terror as the thought that he was going to rape her flashed through her brain. NO, she thought frantically, NO!

He wasn't here, he couldn't be here, he was dead and gone and- She screamed, eyes squeezed shut, hands desperately clenching handfuls of the bathrug and prayed she'd wake up to the reality she was so sure had come to pass.

It had to have come to pass.

If it didn't, if she was still there, still in that room, still in those hands-

Fingers wrapped around her wrists and she lashed out as she had so many times, her eyes popping open in shock when her leg actually rose up into the air, her knee hitting something that caused a whoosh of warm air to bloom over her face.

She stared up into the shocked eyes of Shawn, bulging slightly from having the wind knocked out of him.

He collapsed, just barely missing landing on her as he shoved to the left, landing on his side, one arm going to cover his abdomen, the other covering the first, as he gagged and wheezed trying to suck in air.

She gaped for a moment, then looked around and realized that she wasn't at home, wasn't in that filthy room. She was in Shawn's bathroom-safe-and Johnny Dunslow was dead.

"Shawn?" she said, kneeling and brushing her wet, trembling fingers over his cheeks, cupping his face with her hand. "Shawn, are you okay?"

He coughed and nodded, then pried his eyes open and looked up at her.

"I'll live," he croaked. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she reassured him, wincing as she helped him sit up and realized she was stark naked and still dripping wet.

He was, however, less concerned about that-a fact that did not go unnoticed-and more concerned with what had brought him in here at a dead run.

"I heard a thump and then a scream," he said, rubbing his stomach with one hand. Damn but that girl had some muscles on her. And hella good reflexes too. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," she repeated. "I slipped. It's nothing. I-"

He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, his thumb unconsciously rubbing back and forth. "Jules. You don't have to tell me. But you know you can, right?"

She bit her lip, then looked down, feeling a hundred times and idiot and a fool, but the look in his eyes, the tone of his voice... She couldn't help it.

"I stepped out to get my shampoo that I'd forgotten and I saw my own shadow in the mirror," she confessed quietly. "I... I flashed back to when he took me. I was in the shower then and I saw his shadow in the mirror. It was just..." She trailed off.

"Scary."

She looked up.

"And perfectly normal," he added when he'd caught her eyes.

"I-"

"Jules," he said, taking her hand in his and the covering it with his other one. "I don't pretend to know what you're going through, but I'm pretty sure this isn't something you can just bounce back from. And that's okay. No one will think less of you if you have to take some time to get back up to speed. We just want you to get there, however long it takes."

With her free hand she brushed at the sudden tears that had sprung up, completely forgetting the fact that she was already wet.

"I don't want to take time," she said in a pained almost-whisper. "I just want my life back."

He pulled her into a hug, ignoring the way his shirt went damp almost immediately.

"And you can have it back. It's just going to take some time."

Her face buried against his shoulder, she mourned the loss of her innocence and wept for what had been taken from her. She knew he was right for the most part, she'd be able to go back to work and go out with her friends on the weekends and pay her bills and do all the normal things that she'd done two weeks ago without even a thought.

But there was a part of her that she'd never have back. And that would take some getting used to.

She wanted to go in, wanted to prove to herself that she wasn't so far from the person she'd been-or the person she thought she'd been-but after Shawn got her up and dressed-and checked her head, a goose egg, but nothing more serious than that it seemed-she discovered that he'd already called Lassiter and told him to come by and do the interview here.

It wasn't until she started to speak and found it was so damned hard to get the words out that she realized she was overwhelmingly grateful for these two men in her life.

The one, her partner, for knowing that she didn't need to push herself just yet and being willing to accommodate that.

The other, her... friend? Boyfriend? Lover? Whatever he was, she thought with a shake of her head, he'd recognized that she wasn't ready to push herself just yet and had taken steps to make sure she didn't, risking her wrath in the process but considering it a worthy price to pay if he achieved his goal.

She didn't deserve them, but neither would she give them up if she didn't have to.

It took her a few tries to tell everything, mostly because she kept trying to do so in a detached manner, but she couldn't stop the emotions from coming back, washing over her, and sending her plummeting back into the abyss of pain and fear.

Each time Shawn coaxed her back into the present moment while Carlton just waited patiently, making no comment on the way she responded to the psychic or whatever changes in their relationship he might have noticed. No lips curled in disgust or rolled eyes, not a single sound of revulsion escaped him. He just looked at his notepad and waited for her to uncurl or sit down or stop shaking and blubbering.

She saw the lines tighten around his eyes, even through her tears, the way his jaw clenched, and the undue pressure he put on his pen as he wrote down what she said, the detailed descriptions she gave of her journey through Hell and her tour guide on that expedition.

Juliet felt the same signs of tension in Shawn, could practically see the fury rising off of his skin in shuddering waves, but he said nothing except in a gentle voice to soothe her and give her the strength to go on.

She didn't consider herself a small or weak woman, but after that painful and private period of revelation, where they stood so valiantly in the face of her personal dragons she saw them both in a new light.

She had her very own knights in shining armor here. And, feminism be damned, it was pretty fucking nice.

The afternoon's fleeting plans to return home and start cleaning up were scuttled by Shawn. When she protested for form's sake-after the reaction she'd had in Shawn's bathroom, she didn't really want to go back to her own place just yet-and said that she'd have to go back eventually and the longer she waited the worse it would be to set right, he just shrugged and looked at his shoes as he informed her that she's only be in the way of the cleaning service he'd arranged. It was their job to do it and it would be rude to watch over their shoulders.

She'd had to look away herself, unaccountably embarrassed by the sweet gesture.

After last night's intimacy and the morning's setbacks and steps forward, it was odd to her that she should suddenly feel so shy.

What was left, after all, to hide from him? He already knew the details of her worst shame, had seen her naked and vulnerable in her terror, and had shared her body-something that less than a handful of men could boast.

She had no more secrets from him.

It must have been that the delay of trauma was just now allowing that fact to seep in.

A trail of inflamed bridges lay behind her, smoldering into ash and falling into the gorges below with every step she took away from them, and-though she might have rebuilt them in time-she found that she wasn't interested in revisiting those lands of uncertainty and inhibition.

She was a new person, for better or for worse, and the only way to get used to it was to keep moving forward and see where the road she now walked took her.

This attitude firmly in mind, when Shawn suggested a trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo, she accepted readily.

Walking along the paths from exhibit to exhibit, her hand comfortably yet casually tucked in Shawn's, she learned a great deal about him.

They ate ice cream while he told stories of riding elephants and cuddling baby tigers in Thailand, serving as a perch for a three-toed sloth in Costa Rica, and why one should listen to New Orleans locals when they tell you NOT to taunt the alligators in the bayou.

They made up conversations for the monkeys jabbering away in their enclosure, and hand fed some seagulls the remains of their French fries after lunch. That precipitated a tale she didn't quite believe about a pier-side restaurant in Seattle where the seagulls would follow an endless race track pattern next door hoping to get a chance to show off their skills in catching tossed fries. Her skepticism got her a promise to show her one day.

She didn't let him pin down a date, but neither did she turn him down flat, a sign he took with obvious pleasure as a victory. She wondered if maybe he wasn't right to do so.

They finished the day on the beach in a secluded sandy cove that required a small climb to get to and from, watching the sun finish its journey across the sky in a blaze of color that seemed so much brighter and bolder today than it had in the past.

She was content.

"My pretty little girl... such little hands... such tiny fingers... they break so easily... must be careful because they break so easily..."

"No..." she murmured and pulled her hand down, tucking it against her chest, her fingers curled under, trying to preserve them from the rough hands that played with them, bending them back and forth until she wanted to scream, though they never bent so far that they broke. Just close enough to multiply the pain with fear. Just close enough...

"My pretty little girl... such blue eyes... such wide blue eyes... they see too much... must be careful they don't see too much..."

A whimper as she felt the scratchy cloth of the blindfold slip down over her head. The darkness, the not being able to see, that made the fear so much worse. Her imagination took over then and every sound, every sensation, was that much stronger. He was going to kill her, but first he was going to hurt her and she wouldn't even know how until she felt the pain...

"My pretty little girl... such sweet lips... such sweet, full lips... they should not scream... such sweet lips should not say such dirty, nasty things..."

She choked as the duct tape was applied to her mouth, the sticky, unyielding gag of the duct tape. She couldn't cry out, couldn't try to get help from the footsteps she heard walk past occasionally, even though it was obvious they didn't care what went on in here. Why didn't they care? She was in pain and she couldn't free herself and they could, they could help her, why wouldn't they help her...

"My pretty little girl... such soft skin... such soft, unmarked skin... but only innocent girls had such clean skin... bad girls, dirty girls, filthy rotten WHORISH girls didn't get such soft, unmarked skin..."

His hands were on her, pinching, poking, squeezing, bruising... He didn't stop, he wouldn't stop, he wanted to punish her but she didn't do anything wrong, she wasn't what he said, she was a good girl, she wasn't a filthy rotten whorish girl, she didn't deserve this, he wouldn't stop and he wasn't going to stop, he was going to punish her for things she didn't do until he killed her and she didn't want to die, why had this happened to her, why didn't anyone come for her, why did it hurt, why was she here, why, why why-

She shot up in bed with a gasp, the scream ripped from her throat as she scrambled from the bed and raced for the door, needing to get outside, to get away from the memories and the pain and the fear...

She tripped twice in the unfamiliar layout, going down hard, but just choking back a cry at the new pain, knowing that it would be much worse if he caught her and knowing that this time she'd fight to the death, she wouldn't go back, he'd have to kill her here and now because she wouldn't go back-

Arms wrapped around her from behind and she let out a feral roar, the sound of an animal in pain and enraged, her legs kicked, her body twisted, her head thrashed, she would not be trapped again shouted in every sound and action.

Her captor took her down, pinned her to the couch, held her in place with his own weight, his harsh panting breath blowing over her face, making the tears that tracked down her cheeks go cold and hot by turns.

She continued to fight, refused to go down, refused to be taken, kicked and screamed and sobbed and bucked, her words an unrecognizable babble of threat and promise, begging and pleading.

He didn't let her go and finally exhaustion forced her surrender, stole her will, and broke her spirit, reducing her to wordless weeping and silent prayers that it wouldn't hurt so much and please just let it end soon...

When even that died down to sniffling whimpers, the embarrassment as painful as the bruises, she realized that the voice speaking in her ear wasn't the one she had imagined.

It didn't speak of pain, of degradation, of torture, and of humiliation.

It spoke of comfort, of safety, of love, of security.

It was Shawn-not Johnny-and he was afraid-not trying to cause fear.

She went limp and he stopped talking suddenly, the only sound his harsh breathing as he tried to reign in the panic of the last few minutes. He didn't know if he'd made the right choice, but he hadn't known what else to do and he couldn't just let her run out there into the night, scared and confused, scrabbling like an animal blinded and spooked into escaping the fear that chased it any way it could.

She craned her neck and he realized she was looking at him, the crazed look from before faded from her eyes. She blinked once, languidly, almost sleepily, and he let her go-not completely, just enough to be able to sit up and bring her with him.

Without words he settled back against the corner of the couch and she curled up in his lap, taking the time to sweep her hair out of the way so her ear could lay without a barrier against his chest, letting the sound of his heart as it slowed back down to a steady beat lull her.

"Juliet?" he finally asked. "What the hell was that?"

She sounded drugged when she responded, the adrenaline high crashing and taking her back down to sleep with it, aided by the sedative effect of knowing she was safe with her psychic pillow wrapped around her.

"Nightmare," she explained. "He was back. I was back there with him."

She heard his heart thump unsteadily, faltering and then picking up speed and power as understanding came to him.

"No," she said, her fingers coming up to drift over his skin, to pet him back into the calm rhythm that would take her into sleep without the shadows and the memories. "S'okay. He's not here. He's gone. And you came. You came and you brought help. Carlton shot him. Shhh," she soothed, trying to make his heart slow down again. "It's okay."

She murmured that for a while until it began to work, and then trailed off. He thought maybe she'd gone back to sleep.

Until she spoke once more, her voice clear and completely coherent.

"Shawn?"

"Yeah, Jules?"

"You keep him away. Will you stay and keep him away?"

His throat clogged for a few brief moments, his eyes blinking rapidly to quell the liquid welling up there. "Yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "I'll stay and keep him away."

She hummed in grateful agreement and then let sleep claim her once more, knowing that he'd be there when she was ready to wake up.