Hey everyone. This chapter takes place before Gus' Dad may have Killed an Old Guy. I don't remember what gifts Shawn got people, but I think it was mostly different snow globes.

Lawyers: Our client does not own Psych, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this fic. Don't sue her.

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Chapter Six

The Braille Institute turned out to be nice enough and it offered much more than Shawn had been expecting. They had counseling available; something that Shawn assured them he wouldn't be needing. He'd have to stay on his toes though because judging from the looks some of the volunteers and workers there gave him, they weren't going to drop the subject that easily.

'Even though they should because I'm fine and whining about my problems isn't going to change anything.'

They also had a few offers specifically for people with low vision along with a number of different classes, and after getting a referral from Dr. Field, it was all available to him free of charge. Well, mostly free. Some of the art classes required a fee for supplies, but Shawn wasn't really interested in those classes. The only downside was that the majority of people taking the classes were much older than him. It was hard not to feel out of place in a situation like that.

When he went into the Institute, he only really planned on taking a class about learning braille; partly because he thought that was the only class they offered, but upon getting there and learning otherwise, he assured the woman giving him the tour and the rundown of the place that he didn't need to take any of the other classes because he could still see pretty well.

Living with Vision Loss, Independent Living Skills, Orientation and Mobility, and Sensory Awareness were some of the main core classes they offered. He was living just fine with his vision loss, thanks, and he didn't need to take any of those other classes because as he said before, he could still see pretty well. It would be pointless to take the classes. They'd probably have to blindfold him just for him to learn the lessons correctly; otherwise, it'd be like cheating, and he was not a cheater-cheater pumpkin-eater.

'So then why are you looking at canes for your classes?' that annoying little part of his mind that was beginning to sound suspiciously like Gus said in a smug tone.

'I'm just looking for curiosity's sake, okay?' Shawn snapped at the nagging Gus voice. 'For your information, they provide you with a cane and the only reason I agreed to take those classes was to stop all of the women at the Institute from pestering me about it!'

'I always figured you'd end up in an institution,' the Gus voice said.

'It's an institute of knowledge and learning, so shut up,' Shawn thought with a mental pout.

The Gus voice silenced itself, and with no more distractions, Shawn moved past the canes on display and left the store, it didn't have anything he wanted anyway, so that he could continue his search for the perfect presents. It was mid-December and with the holidays upon them, everyone including Shawn was rushing to get some last minute shopping in. He had taken a bus to the nearest mall since he knew the trip, even if he rode his bike, would go past nightfall, and Gus was going to be picking him up by the food court entrance later on.

With most of the people on his gift list crossed off, he just had a few more gifts to go, but he wanted them to be more personalized and special than the other gifts he got people. They were going to the ones he was closest to, though he'd never admit it to some of them out loud. That's when he saw the sign on a store's display window.

Personalized Snow Globes

It was perfect.

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Along with the snow globes, the store also specialized in engravings and other gifts of the sort. He had been able to get the rest of his shopping done there and he even had some time to spare. With his shopping bags in hand, he decided that he'd had enough of shopping for the night, so he might as well head down to the food court and wait out the rest of the time for Gus to get there. He friend was probably already on his way.

That's when the worst happened. His vision suddenly went black and he mentally screamed as his heart dropped into his stomach. It took him a moment to notice the distressed and confused voices of the people around him in the mall's massive corridors and, quickly putting the puzzle pieces together, he realized that it was just a power outage. A brief flash of lightning from the mall's skylights confirmed it.

As he calmed down a little bit, Shawn could just barely make out the faint glow of the mall's emergency backup lights. Unfortunately, they weren't nearly bright enough for him to see anything other than the glowing outlined silhouettes of the people who walked under the lights.

'That's fine, everything's fine. This is what you've been taking those classes for,' he reminded himself. 'Just calm down and think. Where are you in the mall and where is the food court?'

It seemed kind of redundant, but Shawn closed his eyes anyway so that he could concentrate and block out the eerie sight of the people's shadowed forms moving around him. He was on the second floor and the food court was on the first floor. If he remembered correctly, the stairs leading down was back a ways behind him.

'Okay, perfect. Landmarks?'

Well, if he could actually see it, there was a toy store and a jewelry store near the stairs. The toy store was on the side of the corridor he was on and just before that was a shoe store. So he needed to keep an eye out for anything shaped like lots of shoes and toys.

Feeling a bit more confident, Shawn opened his eyes even though that didn't change much and, turning around, he located the wall closest to him.

'So far, so good.'

He walked with his hand dragging against the wall so that he could feel the entrances of the stores and move past them. With each store he passed, he would pause to see if he could make out anything that looked like shoes or toys. After a lot of walking, he stopped because he was sure he would have passed the stores by now. He didn't remember the stairs being this far away.

'A cane sure would be helpful right about now,' the Gus voice said.

'Quiet, I'm trying to think,' he mentally growled.

He had only had three classes in each course so far, and he done each class with the limited vision that he was used to, not the almost complete blindness he was faced with right now. Who was he kidding? He didn't know what he was doing and he wasn't expecting to be tested at this place, so it wasn't like he had it all mapped out in his mind like he did his apartment or the station.

Everything was far too disorienting and the more he panicked, the more disoriented he got. People swarmed around him everywhere as they too made their way out of the mall and he kept bumping into them left and right. He could only feel the way around with one hand because the other was busy holding his bags, and the sounds of the stores closing up to avoid theft kept distracting him. He was stuck and he didn't know what to do.

Then his father's voice echoed in his mind, 'Don't be afraid to ask for help.'

"Ex-excuse me?" Shawn called out to the moving shadows. "Could one of you help me please? I can't see well in the dark."

There was no answer and the shadows kept moving. Shawn's free hand tightened against the wall. He didn't want to let go, it was his connection to the environment, but he knew if he wanted to get someone's attention, he'd actually have to move into the crowd.

Steeling himself, he took a deep breath before letting go and plunging into the crowd. People moved past him in all directions, making the effort to step around him, but otherwise ignoring him.

"Excuse me," he called out again, his eyes jumping from one moving shadow to the next. "Could somebody help me, I can't see well in the dark."

Still, there was no response. Everyone was far too preoccupied with their own agenda to pay him any mind.

Deciding to take a more direct approach, he grabbed the arm of a woman, he could tell she was a woman from the outline of her dress, and said, "Ma'am, could you please help me, I-"

She pulled her arm away and disappeared into the crowd. Not about to give up that easily, Shawn grabbed the sleeve of what he guessed was a man and said, "Sir, if you could just help me for five minutes-"

"Not interested," the man grunted, pulling away.

"But... I'm not selling anything," Shawn said, watching the man's shadow merge with the other shadows.

Shawn couldn't believe how inconsiderate everyone was being. He wasn't oblivious as to how mean people could be, he'd seen enough murder cases to know the truth, but here he was, asking for help multiple times and nobody seemed to care.

'Maybe the whole 'can't see in the dark' thing would be more believable if you had the cane,' the Gus voice pointed out.

'I don't need a cane, I just need some help!' he snapped.

"Sir, could you just- Ma'am, I need some-" Shawn went back and forth between people in the crowd, not even caring at this point if he smacked into somebody and knocked them or their things to the ground. They were the ones who could see, they should watch where they're going. Everyone was going in so many different directions, it was impossible to follow the crowd out.

'I wonder if Gus is here already.'

"Could somebody please help me! I can't see anything in the dark, I'm... I'm blind. Could someone help me, I'm blind!" Shawn called out.

He was so frustrated, he almost felt close to tears and he hated it. He hated the whole situation; feeling weak and helpless and vulnerable all because the stupid lights were out.

"Sir, are you okay?" a young female voice asked, and Shawn turned around to see the silhouettes of three people standing before him.

"We saw you mow down this old chick, which was awesome, by the way, but then we heard you asking for help," a second voice, clearly male, said.

"Yes," Shawn said, his nerves still on edge. "I'm blind in the dark like this. I couldn't find my way out. Could... could you help me get to the food court entrance? A friend's coming to pick me up there."

He felt embarrassed, telling these three strangers his problem, but now that there was someone actually willing to help, he wasn't going to pass up his chance.

"Sure, no problem," the girl who first spoke said, looping her arm around Shawn's before leading him through the mall. "My name is Emma, by the way. To your right is my friend Justin and on my left is my other friend Hailey."

"My name's Shawn and I want to thank you guys for helping me," Shawn said, calming down a bit.

"It's no problem," another girl, Hailey, said with a smile in her voice.

"So why don't you have one of those white cane things?" Justin asked.

"Justin!" Emma scolded.

"What? I'm just curious!" Justin said defensively.

Shawn smiled, and said, "It's fine. Actually, I don't have one, didn't really think I'd need one. I can still see pretty well when it's bright out..."

Emma hummed in acknowledgement, and Shawn could tell that she wanted to say something on the matter but politely held back. It was the same way many of the people at the Braille Institute acted around him.

"Okay, we're at the stairs," Hailey announced.

"First step down... here!" Emma said, safely leading him down.

"So what brings you to the mall? Christmas shopping?" Justin asked.

"Yeah, just a few last minute things," Shawn said, his shopping bags still in his grasp.

"Last step," Emma said.

They reached the first floor and moved on in the direction of the food court. It had only been around ten minutes since Shawn met these teens, he was judging that they were teens based on how young their voices sounded and how Justin talked, and he had gotten further with them in that ten minutes than he had on his own for who knows how long.

As they walked the rest of the way to the food court entrance, the three teens chattering away about what they were doing for the holidays, Shawn's mind began to wander in the direction of 'What if I had been somewhere working on a case and this happened?' Not only would he have been just as helpless as he had been in the mall, he most likely would have been in a dangerous situation that required the use of his eyes. If someone was with him, he would be putting them in danger by not being on top of his game. Sneaking around on cases had been dangerous enough, but if he suddenly lost all of his vision...

'It'd even be dangerous with the way my vision is during the daytime, and if it continues on the path that it's been going...'

Throughout his life, he has faced one dangerous situation after another, so danger was nothing new to him. He shouldn't be afraid of a dangerous situation, and yet, it was different. He had never been worried before when faced with danger because with his photographic memory, his detective skills and his ability to read someone, he always felt like he had the upper hand. No matter the situation, he always had some form of control. Now though, he didn't know what to do.

His control was slowly being taken away and he was left floating in the dark abyss.

'Eventually it's all going to catch up to me and someone's going to get hurt. I... I don't think I can keep doing this; the cases, my whole psychic act... I'm going to have to quit Psych.'

"Oh good, it's stopped raining," Hailey said, snapping Shawn out of his thoughts.

He didn't even notice that he had been lead outside through two sets of doors. His vision didn't really improve any since there were no street lights, but he could feel the wind blowing and the scent of rain was still strong even though it had stopped.

"So what does your friend's car look like?" Emma asked.

"It's blue, very, very blue. In fact, it looks like a blueberry," Shawn said.

"I think I see it," Hailey said, sounding unsure.

Shawn looked around, but couldn't really make out any details besides headlights on the massive shadowed forms of the cars slowly making their way around the parking lot, until-

"Oh yeah, that must be it," Justin said. "Dude's flashing his lights at us."

"Thanks so much for all of your help, guys, but could you not mention the whole blind thing to my friend? He doesn't really know yet," Shawn said a bit sheepishly.

"That doesn't sound very safe," Emma murmured, unwrapping her arm from his and moving to hold his hand instead.

"Emma, drop it," Hailey said quietly.

"Yeah, sure, no problem dude, our lips are sealed," Justin said.

Emma sighed quietly through her nose, but said, "Alright, come on then."

The three walked him across the busy parking lot over to the car they spotted, and as they got closer, Shawn could see that it was in fact Gus' blue company car. Shawn didn't need to see it to know that Gus was giving him a 'where have you been?' look. Letting go of Emma's hand, Shawn carefully placed his purchases into the backseat before opening the passenger's side door.

The light in the car came on when he did, giving him a chance to see what his three rescuers looked like. As he suspected, they were in their teens and the funny thing was that they really didn't look like the sort of group to be helping out a blind guy like him. Their hair was dyed all sorts of different odd colors, Justin's hair was longer than the two girls', and they were all dressed up like your stereotypical punk goths.

'It just goes to show you that you can't judge someone by their looks,' Shawn mused.

"Thanks again guys," Shawn said with a smile.

"Bye, Shawn," Hailey and Emma said.

"Maybe we'll see you around, dude," Justin said. "Take care."

Waving at them, Shawn closed the door and Gus pulled away. As soon as they were out of the mall parking lot, Gus glanced over at Shawn and asked, "Who were those people and what were you doing with them?"

"I met them during the power outage," Shawn said simply with a shrug. "They're good conversationalists, we got so busy talking about psychic and holiday stuff that I lost track of time."

When Gus began ranting about how Shawn should be more responsible, Shawn tuned him out in favor of thinking about his current dilemma. He couldn't continue his work as a psychic detective. Sure, he could probably complete a few more cases successfully, but he'd had to throw in the towel eventually and he was really pushing it as it was. He should quit while he was ahead, it would be the smart thing to do.

'How am I going to tell Gus?'

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So, yeah, that's all for this chapter. The part with Shawn asking for help is actually pretty realistic. You'd be surprised by how insensitive people can be. Transitions between a way of thinking is tricky stuff, so hopefully that came out okay.

Review please and tell me what you think!