Juliet O'Hara didn't scare easily. Sure, as a kid she was afraid of bugs and walking too close to the haunted house down the street, but other than that she was normally pretty strong. She had to be, as a cop. She could take down perps, chase suspects and question hostile witnesses all day long if need be. But there was still one thing that frightened her. One thing that made her hands shake and her eyes grow wide. Juliet O'Hara was afraid of needles.

It was a perfectly rational fear, she thought. After all, they were long and sharp and scary-looking, and she'd seen countless cases where someone was injected with some sort of drug and died. So it made perfect sense that she was scared of those awful, awful things.

She'd still never told anyone, though. It would be highly embarrassing to be known around the station as 'the girl who was terrified of needles'. But when the doctor pulled something long and pointy out of the bag next to the bed she was currently sitting on, Juliet decided that being known as 'the girl who was terrified of needles' was better than being known as 'the girl who ran away screaming from the hospital'.

"Are you ready, Detective?"

Juliet felt her mouth go dry, and she slowly inched further away from the doctor. She wasn't even sure why getting hit in the head with a piece of wood by an extremely beefy suspect required that she get blood drawn, but both Carlton and the Chief had insisted.

"Detective?" Dr. Hendricks came closer, a confused look upon his face. "Are you alright?"

"I... uhm..." She couldn't even speak. Not when that thing was so close to her.

"Jules!"

He couldn't have had better timing.

"Sh-Shawn." She jumped up from the bed joyfully and took a few steps towards him, making sure to stay as far away from the doctor as possible.

Shawn shut the door and smiled widely at her. "How's tricks?"

"I'm sorry, but you're not allowed in here." Dr. Hendricks opened the door again and motioned towards the hall.

"Oh, she's not contagious, is she?" He asked, moving even closer to her.

"No, but you really need to leave, Mr..."

"Spencer!" Shawn turned towards the doctor and smiled. "Shawn Spencer, I work with the police... sometimes."

"I don't care who you work with, Mr. Spencer, I was in the middle of something."

He nodded slowly, then gave the room a quick once-over. "Well, it couldn't have been that important because Jules isn't even wearing a hospital gown. Which, by the way, she looks great in." He turned back to her and winked.

She smiled softly, remembering the last time they were in a hospital room together. That's it!

And it's like a light bulb went off over her head. She could get through this, as long as she thought about something else. She smiled broadly at Shawn and sat back down on the bed.

"I'm ready now, Doctor."

"That's great, Detective, but he still needs to leave." By now Dr. Hendricks had passed mildly annoyed, and Juliet knew she needed to do something before Shawn added the Santa Barbara Hospital to the list of places he had been kicked out of.

"I need him to stay." She said, trying her best to make her voice sound sure.

He turned to her quickly, his eyebrows raised. "Jules? You okay?"

She threaded her fingers through his and watched as the doctor took the plastic off of the needle.

"I'm fine."