Notes: For DeereFan, who I love a lot and who has always asked me for these two things: Poster Boy from Sharon's POV, and talking about feelings.

Reminiscence

"Anyway, I think I can get away the first week of June," Ricky said. "Are you still thinking of going to see Em?"

"I bought our tickets for..." Sharon held her phone pinned against her shoulder with her cheek and reached for her laptop, trying to search for the email without upsetting her tea. "May thirtieth. If you think you'll be able to join us, I can go ahead and—"

"Mom." For some reason, he sounded exasperated. "I want to come. You don't need to bribe me with a free vacation. I don't even know if I'll be able to make it yet."

"I understand," she said, and shifted her laptop from her thighs to the table. That freed up her spare hand to hold the tea, instead of leaving it balanced precariously on the arm of her chair. "Let me know anyway, when you're sure."

"It depends," he said. "We wanted to be on the market by then, but there's still a couple of really strange bugs in the code. Like, there was this one time..."

Sharon wasn't out of touch with technology—she appreciated the convenience of her phone and the internet, and she'd acquired a lot of knowledge from her job. But her casual familiarity paled in comparison to Ricky's intimate understanding of the minute details, and the stories he told her now were harder to follow than the ones he'd had when he'd worked for the IT department in college. Still, it was interesting and she liked hearing his enthusiasm.

So she leaned back in her chair, propped her feet up on the coffee table, and sipped on her tea as she listened to Ricky describe how an attempt to implement a better internal chat system for their client's company resulted in several thousand spam texts sent to everyone in binary code.

Opposite her, Rusty sat lengthwise on the couch, typing away on his own laptop. He must have been close enough to hear both ends of the conversation, because he laughed when Sharon did, and every now and then he looked at her and rolled his eyes. Amused, she pointed him back to his work.

"What else have you been up to?"

"I ordered my new XBox today."

"Oh, what happened to your old one?"

"Oh, um—" There was the briefest pause, a split second of silence that Sharon recognized as the sound of one of her children deciding whether or not to lie to her. "It... look, before I tell you, should know that everything is fine."

That was never as reassuring as people thought it was. "Okay," she said slowly.

"There's been a couple of B&E's around here, and—"

He said something after that, but Sharon didn't hear it.

"You were robbed?" Sharon lowered her feet to the ground, leaning forward as she listened more urgently. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rusty's head come up too. "What. Happened."

"They didn't take much," Ricky said, like her blood was running cold under her skin because she was concerned about his possessions. "They couldn't get the TV off of the wall. All they really took was the XBox and some games."

"Are you okay?" she asked. Rusty mouthed "what happened?" at her, and she shook her head.

"I wasn't even home, Mom," he said, which did very little for all of the what-ifs in her mind. "And like I said, they didn't take much. The cops think they might've been scared off in the middle, because they left half of the games and my stereo."

"You did call the police, then?"

"Of course I called them," Ricky said. "They said some of the stuff might turn up in a pawn shop later, but it hasn't yet."

"Yet?" Sharon repeated. "When did this happen?"

There was another one of those pauses.

"Ah," Sharon said.

"Just because I didn't tell you doesn't mean I didn't handle it."

"How did you handle it?"

"Mom." Ricky's voice rose in frustration, but he answered her. "I called the cops and I had the locks changed, and I'm looking into alarm systems."

"You don't have an alarm?" Sharon thought Rusty was trying not to laugh. She frowned at him, and he neatly avoided her eyes by typing faster.

"It's—I've been meaning to—" Ricky sighed. "I'm looking at options now, but I need to figure out what monitoring system works best, what type of sensors I want, and optimal range... it's a lot to consider."

"Go for the most visible," Sharon advised him. She would've told him a week ago if he'd just told her. "That's the most effective way to deter thefts of opportunity. What about a car alarm?"

"I dunno," Ricky said. "I don't really drive that much. I've got a good bike lock, though."

Sometimes, he made her want to tear her hair out.

"I've got to go, but I'll think about it," Ricky relented. "And I'll let you know what kind of alarm I decide on."

"Good," Sharon said. "Thank you."

There was another pause. "I'm really okay."

"I know," she said.

"I love you."

"I love you too." Sharon bit her tongue to keep herself from adding be safe at the end. "I'll talk to you soon?"

"I'll call you tomorrow," Ricky promised. "Night, Mom."

"Night," she said.

"Is Ricky okay?" Rusty asked, as soon as she hung up the phone.

"He was robbed," Sharon told him. "Awhile ago, apparently. You didn't know?"

Rusty shook his head. "He probably just didn't want you to worry, though," he said. "And, like... it sounded like he was fine?"

Sharon raised an eyebrow.

"I swear I didn't know."

"I know Ricky doesn't want me to worry," she said. "The thing is, when I find out later—and I do find out—I worry more."

"But he wasn't, like, not telling you," Rusty argued. "He just hadn't had a chance to."

That would be his stance. Rusty was something of an expert on what constituted ideal timing.

"Still," she said, giving him a pointed look. "I don't appreciate hearing things after the fact."

"What—no but look, Mom," he said. "I tell you, like, everything."

Even he seemed to realize how absurd that sounded, because he amended his statement a moment later. "I mean, most things. Usually. I mean, now I do." Then he decided to quit while he was behind, and took a different approach. "Anyway, I don't see what that has to do with me."

"It doesn't really," she said. "I'm only reminding you of my feelings, for when it does have to do with you."

"I never mean to—like, when my mom showed up, the first time," he said. "It's not that I didn't want you to know, exactly. It was just... I thought, I don't know. I wanted to know what I wanted to do before I knew what you wanted me to do."

"I know."

"But..." He gave her a guilty look. "With other things... I guess I never really thought about how you'd feel. When I didn't tell you about those letters, that was all about me."

"Most things are, when you're seventeen." She smiled and shook her head. "I'm not trying to make you feel bad. It's part of growing up."

"How did you feel?"

"Oh," Sharon said. She hadn't expected him to actually ask. "Well... I was unhappy."

"Yeah," Rusty said dryly. "I know."

He didn't, not really, and there were no words that she could use to truly make him understand.

Her heart was pounding. Sharon felt blood throbbing in her ears as she swallowed, pulsing angrily as she silently counted the papers she held in her hands.

There were so many of them.

"I don't need to tell you how serious this is, Captain." Taylor's voice was solemn. "Rusty never said anything to you?"

At any other time, she might have been offended by that.

Now, it was all that she could do to force her tongue to come unglued.

"No." Her voice wavered. Taylor's expression softened slightly, a sympathetic cast coming over his features. Sharon wished that he wouldn't. "No, I... Not since the first letter." What she'd thought was the only letter.

Oh God, Rusty.

Sharon's mind whirled, thinking back over the past few months. How had he kept this a secret? How had he just carried on like noting was the matter? And how had she not noticed?

Maybe there had been signs all along, things that she had attributed to Jack disrupting their routine or his discomfort and uncertainty over how to handle his relationship with Kris—

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt, as she remembered the conversation she'd overheard once, where Rusty had told Kris that there had been threats against his life. That had pricked at her for awhile afterwards, but none of her prodding afterward had yielded anything, and finally she had concluded that Lieutenant Provenza had had the right idea and Rusty had exaggerated.

She should have pushed harder to get him to talk, she shouldn't have ignored that feeling.

And now...

It was making her queasy, thinking about how easy it would have been for someone to get to him.

How easy it would be for someone to get to him now.

Sharon straightened up in her seat. "Rusty's at school right now," she said. "I'm sending someone to get him now."

"Good," Taylor said. "I want to hear what he has to say for himself."

So did she. Sharon texted Provenza rather than call. Her voice would give her away.

"You know what I'm going to say." Even Emma was trying to be kind, Sharon thought.

"And you know my answer."

"This changes—"

"Nothing," Sharon said. "This changes nothing. You don't have the authority to remove him from my care. Neither do you, sir," she added, when Taylor moved to speak. "I am Rusty's legal guardian, and I'm not surrendering that responsibility. He stays with me."

"That's not up to you, either," Emma argued. "That's up to a judge, and if you can't keep him safe—"

"Let's all take a step back ere," Taylor said, before Sharon could respond. "Our first priority here is Rusty's safety. Captain, you sent someone to get him?"

"Lieutenant Provenza has made the arrangements."

"Good," Taylor said. "Let's take a break until he gets here. I want to hear his side of things, and we'll lay out the options. All of them, Captain."

Sharon nodded. "Excuse me," she said, standing and rising. She needed to see Rusty before they did.

She needed to prepare him for what was coming.

She needed to see him, with her own eyes, to know that he was okay, and she needed to tell him that it didn't matter how angry she was about how much he'd kept from her, because she was going to fight for him. He was hers, and she wasn't giving him up.

That had been a pivotal moment.

Sharon leaned back in her chair, studying Rusty. He'd leaned forward, resting his chin on the arm of the couch as he watched her. It looked awfully uncomfortable.

"What?" he said. "You're not still mad, are you?"

"No," she said. "I was just... remembering. I was angry, but I haven't been for a long time."

Rusty squirmed, bringing one of the pillows up in between his chest and the side of the couch. Sharon wasn't sure that was any more comfortable. "I know now I should have told you," he said. "Well... I guess I knew it then, too. It felt like lying."

"It was lying."

"I guess."

"No no no," she said. "We've been over this. Lying by omission is lying."

Rusty made a face at her. "Okay but, like, you don't always need to know everything."

"Rule of thumb," she said. "If someone wants to kill you, I always need to know."

Rusty lowered his chin, clearly fighting hard not to smile, and Sharon shook her head. She'd never thought she'd be able to joke about those months.

"Like I said, I was angry." So, so angry, because what had he been thinking? (Except she'd known what he'd been thinking, and knowing made it harder to be angry.) "But, even then, I knew why you'd hidden the letters."

"I didn't want to go to witness protection," he said immediately. "Like, that whole boarding school in Portland thing."

"I know."

"Like, this is the first place where I ever really felt..." He shrugged, as best he could from his current position. "You kept saying that trials, big trials, could take years, and I was hoping it'd last until I was eighteen so I wouldn't have to move again. You were different."

That always hurt, because she shouldn't have been. Rusty was not an extraordinarily difficult child to love.

"But that made it harder to tell you," he went on. "Because... I didn't even think you loved me then, but I knew you cared, and—and I thought if you knew, like, you'd want me to be safe too."

She'd loved him earlier than that, earlier than she'd wanted to admit to herself.

His lip started to bleed again, after the pictures.

Rusty sat uncharacteristically quiet and still on the couch, allowing her to clean him up again. Sharon did her best to be gentle and he didn't make a sound, but her other hand cupped his chin and she could feel him flinching away every time every time she dabbed at the injury with the wipe.

When she touched him with the ointment, though, he hissed and jerked away.

"I know it stings." She sounded so calm, she thought. "It will help."

She felt Rusty tense his jaw, but he just readjusted the ice pack over his eye and nodded. Despite his protests that it wouldn't do any good, he'd held it there obediently since she'd pushed it into his hands.

She tried to be gentler this time. She let her fingers warm the ointment longer, to make it more easily spreadable, and she kept her touch as light as she could. His lip felt painfully swollen beneath her fingertips, to say nothing of his eye.

"There." She drew her hand away. "It's messy, but if you can keep it clean that'll help. I'll get you a towel to put over your pillow."

"Okay." He didn't say anything else.

It hurt to look at him. Sharon pressed her lips together, and whatever had stirred in her heart earlier when she'd hugged him goodbye in that hallway touched her again, but fiercer, and angrier, and prouder.

She should never have let him go.

She wasn't doing it again.

"Tomorrow..." She reached for another wipe to clean the excess ointment off of his chin. "Tomorrow, we're going to discuss all of the options. There are options, Rusty."

"And you're sure I don't have to go back?" he said. "He doesn't have rights?"

That was the problem, wasn't it. "You have rights too," she said. "I'm going to take care of this."

He nodded, looking unconvinced, and Sharon pressed her lips together.

He was going nowhere, and that was going to be that.

She'd kept the words to herself for a long time after that. He hadn't been ready to hear them, and Sharon had wondered herself what she was doing, getting so attached to this boy. Even after she'd told him, she'd found herself phrasing her choices in a way that highlighted the most tangible benefit to Rusty—he didn't need to pay her rent because he would need his money later, she wanted to adopt him so that he would have a legal next of kin. Love was a fuzzy word for him sometimes.

"Of course I wanted you to be safe," she said. "That was why I wanted you where I could keep an eye on you."

She still did. Even with her older kids, even knowing that it was irrational and illogical, she felt better when they were closer.

"If I'd know that then..." Rusty shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe I would've said something."

"Maybe."

"Probably not," he admitted. "I think I still would've thought... if I'd trusted you more then, I still don't think I'd have trusted Emma or anyone else. You'd have told them."

"Yes," she said. "I would have."

"I know it would've been the right thing to do." Rusty looked down at his hands. "But I didn't want you to do the right thing. It's why I was mad, when you made me go stay with Lieutenant Provenza."

"I know for a fact he fed you pizza every night." Rusty grinned at her, but Sharon's smile felt wobbly. That was harder to joke about, because she'd almost lost him. Then she had lost him, if only for days. "That was a difficult week. I don't blame you for being angry. I was too."

"With me?"

"No—well, I was not happy that you ignored your orders, of course," she said. "But mostly with myself, for allowing you to be put into that situation against my better judgment." At SIS for not debriefing Rusty properly at the end of the day, at Taylor and Provenza for having talked her into it, but mostly at herself. "And worried, too, of course."

"I think I was so mad because I didn't want to be afraid."

"It's easier, isn't it?" she said. "Being angry, rather than scared."

And she'd been terrified. So many months of not sleeping through the night, of twitching every time she heard the security guards move outside, of being half-convinced that if he stepped out of her sight she'd never see him again. It hadn't been good for either of them, and it had taken her months afterwards to learn to let go.

"Is that why you're mad at Ricky?"

"I'm not mad at Ricky," Sharon said. She'd thought that had been clear, but... "I'll make sure he knows that too."

That was enough to reassure Rusty.

"Hey, Mom?" Rusty hesitated. "I know I complained, like, all the time," he said, and Sharon's lip twitched because that was an understatement if she'd ever heard one. "And I really was mad at you, but... I did know, that you were trying to protect me."

"I am glad," she said. "Lieutenant Provenza told me once that you'd understand when you were older. I told him I didn't care if you understood or not, as long as you survived—but I did want you to understand."

"I do," he said. "I guess I kind of did then too. I just didn't want to think about it. I don't know why. I guess it was harder to be mad, if I thought you had a point."

That was the thing.

Sharon looked at him, still sprawled out across the couch, watching her and finally he was talking to her and it wasn't like pulling teeth.

It was for this, that she'd caught herself and changed her mind.

She could still see him standing there in that hallway, tears welling up in his eyes. In that moment, of all the things that Sharon wanted to say, of all the things that she needed to tell him, there was only one that had mattered.

"Whatever happens next, know I love you."