A New Perspective on an Old Theme

Shawn knew that his father knew him fairly well, and once the older man calmed down enough to think, Shawn realized that his father would, more than likely, order a guard put on his door (if the man didn't take that job himself). So, Shawn knew that he didn't have much time to act.

Fortunately, the doctor, and just about every other medical personnel in the hospital, had been so impressed with his healing, they'd taken him off all the monitors, and left only the IV. Which meant that while it was going to be painful to remove, the removal wouldn't keep him from anything important . . . like painkillers.

He gritted his teeth, pulled the tape off his wrist, and really wished that his genes hadn't consisted of quite so much hair on his extremities. When he could breathe again, he swallowed and gripped the needle in his hand. Gently, ever . . .so. . .gently, he pulled the needle and the shunt from his hand and bit his lip as blood and fluid welled up from the puncture wound. He slapped a napkin over the wound and pressed down on it as he went to the wardrobe.

He opened it, stared, and a moment later, dropped his head. "Oh come on. No freakin‘ way." The wardrobe contained nothing of his own -- in fact, he almost wished the thing had been completely empty, rather than contained what it did.

Inside, was a meticulously hung, orange, yellow, blue, green -- and who the hell knew what other color -- flowered shirt and what absolutely had to be a pair of polyester, blue pants.

"It's not enough that Dad wants to send me to the psych ward ‘cause I see dead people, but he also wants to blind me before I go there. And what era exactly, did these pants come from and why would Dad even begin to have these in his wardrobe?" He grimaced as he pulled the shirt off the hanger and took off the hospital gown. "Probably left these here so he could change clothes without having to go home," he shuddered. "And I realize that it wasn't expected that I'd be leaving the hospital quite this soon, but the least he could have done was brought some of my own clothes," he sighed. "Oh well. Here goes, Shawn Spencer, instant old guy."

He put the shirt on, slowly pulled on the pants, and rolled his eyes when he saw there were two . . . shin . . . high . . . socks. He shuddered with revulsion as he tried to bend over to put them on, and thought twice about it as pain flared in his side.

"Okay, that‘s a no go . . . thankfully," he swallowed and blinked as he realized that there were no shoes to wear. "Well, that makes it easy," he commented. "No socks, no shoes, no sound, no psych ward." He shut the door of the closet and refused to look into the mirror as he passed the bathroom and went to the door. He listened for a moment, carefully pulled it open the absolutely tiniest crack he could, and peered out.

There was no one in his immediate vicinity of the hallway, yet when he looked down the corridor to the nurse's station, he saw a male orderly pushing a gurney, accompanied by a nurse. Fortunately, without looking in his direction, they walked past, and he held his breath as they were more interested in their conversation than what was going on around them.

"I'm supposed to collect the body of an Avery Johnson," the orderly said, and the nurse nodded.

"Yes, I know. I'm the one who called down. We need him moved as quickly as possible. We've got two accident victims coming in, and we need the bed space," she sighed. "And, of course, it would happen just before shift change. I still have to do the report, AND brief the nurses coming on shift. I also have to find someone to pick up room 315‘s tray . . ."

"Well, tell you what," the orderly smiled. "I saw one of the dietitians down the hall. I'll go get the tray to her, if you'll prep the dead guy for moving, so I can get him onto the gurney and transport him downstairs when I get back."

The nurse shrugged. "Well, it's not the usual routine, but in the interest of time I'll okay it -- but just this once," she said, and the orderly parked the gurney conveniently in front of Shawn's room. He went into room 315, and Shawn watched the nurse as she walked back down the hall to the nurse's station, where she was almost instantly surrounded by several incoming shift nurses.

Without stopping to think, Shawn dropped to his hands and knees, crawled out the door of his room, and popped up behind the sheet covered gurney and his head barely cleared the top. He looked around quickly and slipped under the sheet. He held his breath and lay perfectly still, or as still as possible for him, as people walked by him. He knew that if someone didn't move him soon, he was going to be sharing his space with a dead man, and then he really would be ready for the loony bin.

"Huh," the orderly's voice came to him, and the gurney started with a jolt. "They must really want the room. They loaded the body themselves. Well, hey, makes my job easier. So, here we go, one dead guy goin' downstairs." He whistled cheerfully, and Shawn held his breath as they stopped in front of an elevator.

"Hey baby. If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?" The orderly said to what Shawn assumed was a female by the smell of her lilac scented perfume, and he almost groaned aloud. He sincerely hoped the guy wasn't really trying to pick up the woman with that old chestnut.

"Nice try," the female snorted. "But I‘m so far out of your league Sammy Sosa couldn't get you a home run." Shawn barely managed to hold in his snort of laughter as the female strode away.

A moment later, someone that smelled of Ancient Herb walked by, and Shawn‘s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"Hey, Handsome! Long time no see!" The orderly greeted, and Shawn almost choked. Apparently the orderly was the ‘Equal Opportunity' type.

"Forget it, Andy," a bored male voice said. "I'm more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever get. Ta-ta." The other man walked off, and before Shawn could let out the breath he'd almost turned blue holding, going by the sound of heels clicking on the floor much harder than they would normally, Shawn knew that a woman had stalked up to them.

Before the orderly could say anything, a loud crack sounded, and Shawn sighed to himself as he recognized the sound of a hand meeting someone's face with more than a little force. At that rate, they'd never get out of the damned hallway and into the elevator.

"And that, Andy Payne, was for me! This one," the woman hauled off and slapped him again. "Was for my brother! Don't bother calling either of us again, because we'll both be busy washing our hair for the next decade!"

"Oh, but Baby! I didn't know he was your brother! C'mon, give a guy another chance!" However, from the sound of receding feet, the guy was out of luck. Shawn sighed with relief as the elevator door finally opened. He felt a couple of small bumps as the gurney was pulled over the threshold and the door closed.

"Oh well, there's always more where they came from,” the orderly said as he started whistling, and suddenly, the whistling changed to singing. Shawn rolled his eyes with a disgusted grimace. The guy was no better a singer than a potential mate, and Shawn all but groaned aloud as he barely recognized the tune the guy was mangling as ‘Goin‘ to the Chapel of Love‘ by the Dixie Cups. However, the words were completely his own, and were as seriously bad as his singing.

"Takin' the dead guy to the morgue. Gonna' get all chopped up. Goin' to the morgue, and we're gonna get all hacked up. Gee, I'm glad that I'm not him. Gonna' get all cut up. One dead guy going to-oo the morgue," the orderly sang, and Shawn knew he'd had enough.

"Okay," Shawn said as he sat up and threw the sheet off. "I've had enough."

"AHHHH!" the orderly let out a very unmanly scream as his face went completely white, and Shawn got off the gurney as the orderly fell back against the far wall and pointed at him frantically.

"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when I first saw the shirt too," he quipped. "But look, man, I gotta' tell ya' some things. First: your pick up technique is lousy. Getting a date isn't about you, it's always about the other person. Be nice to them, and they'll be nice to you. I'd give you the 'person to goddess', or in your case, person to goddess and god', speech, but I don't have time. Second: you can't sing, and I mean you really Can. Not. Sing. Also, I'm quite sure the Dixie Cups, not to be confused with the Dixie Chicks, would be really upset at you for annihilating what is actually a nice wedding song for couples everywhere. So, in their name, I demand you never to sing, or even whisper that song again. In fact, come to think about it, you never singing anything ever again would probably be a good idea. And third: give me your clothes."

"What?" The man almost choked, and Shawn frowned.

“You, Andy the Orderly, are my ticket out of here. So just take your coat and pants off, and I'll give you these lovely things. You may return them to Henry Spencer when you're done. Although I‘d suggest laundering them first. He‘s pretty particular about his clothes . . . ugly as they are."

"Bah-bah-bah . . ." Andy stuttered, and Shawn frowned.

"I know this is a bit unusual, but I'm in kind of a hurry here and really can't take the time to explain it all, and while this might actually be fun and lead to a myriad of other types of exchanges if we were in a different time and place, and I were desperate, as I said, I'm in a hurry. So please. Clothes. Off. Now." Shawn removed his shirt and pants as Andy fumbled with his jacket. Impatiently, Shawn stepped up to help him, and together they managed to get about half the jacket undone as the elevator opened.

"Damn you, Andre Payne!" A woman's voice screeched. "I'm telling your supervisor! This is the last straw!" She took off running as the elevator door closed.

Shawn struggled into the jacket and yanked the man's pants off by his ankles. "Sorry 'bout this, but time really is of the essence here." He dressed in the other man's clothes and watched as Andy struggled to put on the clothes he'd been given. By the time the elevator stopped, Shawn was fully dressed, but the orderly had only gotten the pants up to his hips, and several buttons on the shirt were in the wrong holes.

"See ya', Andy. Thanks for the ride," Shawn couldn't resist grinning, as he stepped calmly out of the elevator. He winked at the two younger nurses who stood in the doorway, their mouths open as they stared at the scene . . . and their minds went to an inevitable conclusion based on what they were seeing and knowing nothing of what had actually transpired.

"Well, that's one to tell Gus' kids," Shawn said to himself as he walked jauntily to the stairs, ducked into the stairwell, and ran down the remaining three flights.

By the outside door, he took a moment to compose himself, casually walked outside, and down the street, whistling all the way.