Notes: This is canon compliant up through 4.10 ("Fifth Dynasty"), but THIS IS NOT A SHANDY STORY. It's not. I don't want to mislead anybody. They're going to break up. Canon's handling of the relationship really soured me on it, which is really all I have to say about that. I haven't decided on any future pairings for anyone yet.

I am also really annoyed with canon's refusal to let Rusty grow some self-awareness and instead having him explain the law to actual lawyers and putting him into some kind of bizarre friendship triangle with the brother of the murdered girl he helped identify and the guy who killed her, so we're not doing that here, either.

... it seems also worth noting that I wrote part of this in SChimes' living room while Daughter of Ares and DeereFan were also there, and I am not actually as bitter as I probably sound above because I have met some lovely real-life friends through this fandom so whatever falling out I've had with canon has been worth it.

This first chapter is kind of a prolonged epilogue to "Fifth Dynasty," but chapter two will move away from that into the actual story. Thank you for reading!

Crossroads

Chapter I: Unsettled

"I do love you."

Rusty said the words the same way he had the first time—unprompted and looking directly at her, and then he immediately averted his eyes. By the time Sharon processed what she'd just heard, he had turned away from her almost completely, and he was staring too intently out of the car window to see the smile that spread slowly across her face.

Rusty.

"I do know," she said, her voice low. He couldn't know how she felt her heart grow every time he said it, and it was always unexpected when he did. "And you know I love you too. Where's this coming from?"

His answer wasn't what she expected.

"Just—you know, the stuff I said the other day." Rusty tugged at his seatbelt. "I still think it's unfair that Gus can't see Paloma."

"Oh," Sharon said. It took her a moment to shift gears mentally, but Paloma Wallace, now Paloma Hernandez, soon to be Paloma Reyes, had been on Sharon's mind earlier too. "Rusty..."

"But..." Rusty shrugged. "That's different. I don't want you to think that I'm not happy with how we are, because... I am. Happy."

"So am I." She'd put the car into park but left the motor on, to keep the air conditioner running. Sharon glanced at the dashboard clock. They had awhile, and probably longer. "Do you want to talk about this?"

It was a loaded subject at the best of times. In the car across the street from the LA County Jail waiting for his other mother to be released after a year's stay was not the best of times.

To her surprise, Rusty nodded.

"All right." Sharon turned in her seat to face him. "I think it's a little unfair too, to tell you the truth."

"But it was your idea."

"Yes," she said. "Because in this case, the question isn't what's fair to Gus but what's fair to Paloma."

"I don't think it's fair that no one's going to even ask her what she wants," Rusty said. "Like, maybe her new parents are great, but what if she wants to see Gus too?"

"The problem with that is—"

"I know," Rusty said. "There's no guarantee that Gus would get custody of Paloma."

"It's likely the opposite, in fact."

"And I know that," Rusty insisted, despite all of his arguments to the contrary. "I get that. But... it seems like there should be some way that she could stay with her new family and also see Gus. If she wants to."

"I know," Sharon said. "I wish that too."

"When I think about foster care—" He wasn't tugging at the seatbelt so much as gripping it now. "I don't usually think about you."

Sharon nodded.

"I told DCFS things were great," he said, his voice flat and bitter. "They weren't really."

This wasn't something that Rusty rarely talked about. This was something that Rusty never talked about, and whenever Sharon wondered too deeply about that, about what had made his time in foster care a more painful memory than his time on the streets, it made her so angry that it took her breath away.

She wanted him to keep talking, though, so she just hummed quietly in response, and waited.

Rusty shrugged. "Paloma's probably a better kid than I was."

"No," she said sharply. "Rusty—"

"No no, Sharon, I know," he said. "The people I got, they were assholes. Definitely. But like, I would've been terrible even if they'd given me a good family."

Sharon shook her head.

"You're different," he said. "And I was terrible."

"Not so terrible." He'd only been trying to protect himself. "And you deserved a safe environment regardless."

"I know." Maybe someday, he would say it without hesitating. "I don't think I would've appreciated it, though. Not the way I do now."

"Whether or not you'd have appreciated it isn't the point." Some things, she would tell him once and give him space to think over. Others, she would repeat a thousand times. "Every child—every person, really—deserves a safe space and the security of having their basic needs met. It's what gives us room to grow."

"You think my mom knows that's what you were trying to give her?" he asked. "A safe environment?"

His segues didn't surprise her anymore, and that was less of a jump than she'd come to expect from him.

"I do hope so," she said. Sharon had made her one visit to Sharon Beck and hadn't been back. There wouldn't have been any point. She'd said everything she needed to say that first time, and Sharon Beck had taken the words to heart and behaved herself. If anything, she thought going back would have jeopardized that.

"I know, though," Rusty said. "If she doesn't."

Sharon smiled faintly. "I'm glad."

"I know, at first..." He shrugged. "It was hard, seeing her here. But now I feel like... maybe jail was the safest place for her."

"Yes." Sharon cleared her throat. Part of her had always mourned, whenever Jack had gone to rehab. But she had started sleeping through the nights again, instead of lying awake, beyond exhausted yet unable to sleep for wondering if tonight would be the night that she finally got the call that there had been an accident, that Jack had gone and killed himself or someone else.

"What if she disappears again?" She'd been wondering when he would start fidgeting. "She says she won't, but she says a lot of things. I think she's still mad at me."

She could see him going through a list of all his transgressions in his mind. He hadn't helped his mother find drugs and when she'd found them herself, he hadn't bailed her out of jail. He hadn't been angry enough that she'd had to spend a year behind bars. He hadn't visited enough. But most of all, he'd let Sharon adopt him.

She didn't regret that, not for a moment, and she knew that Rusty didn't, either, but it still broke her heart, knowing that his other mother had used his own happiness to wound him.

"Your mother will do whatever she's going to do," she said finally, listening to him huff to himself. "And it will have nothing to do with you. That's the best that I can tell you."

"It's just, she's sober right now," Rusty said. "She hasn't been sober for this long since I was like, ten. And I think she even wants to stay that way, but all she'd have to do is talk to one of her friends from before, or decide she wants to meet a guy, or—or she could keep stealing. She's stolen stuff before."

He stopped, his eyes sliding sideways. He was always anxious when he confessed to her the specifics of his mother's behavior.

"I know," he said, slumping down in his seat. "Don't say anything."

Sharon touched his shoulder instead, squeezing hard. That would have to somehow say everything that she would like to tell him. Rusty turned to look at her.

"Look, Sharon, if you need to work, you can just, you know—"

"What, and leave you here?" She shook her head. "I don't think so. And... to be honest with you, Rusty, after our last case... I needed a personal day."

Her grief over everything that had come up during her investigation into Chandler Ryan's murder was still only half-processed.

There was a marked hesitation before Rusty said, "I didn't know she was your friend."

"She was a very good friend, for a time." Sharon rubbed her forehead. "I had no idea about, ah, a lot of things."

"Yeah."

There were moments when she felt at peace. Then there was the rest of the time. Sharon thought she'd moved past anger. She and Ginny hadn't been close in years and she'd never met Chandler herself, but... she'd seen photos in the odd Christmas card here and there, and she was just... sad. For everything.

"I met her in college," she said. "She and Jack and I studied for the LSAT together. Then—" She waved a hand and shrugged. He knew that story already. "She and Jack graduated from UCLA law the same year." Sharon had still been planning to go to law school then, after the baby was born, after Jack was settled in at work. Ginny had promised to mentor her through it.

She wondered if Jack had heard yet. Probably.

"So she's been your friend, like, fifty years."

It took her a moment to realize he was teasing her.

"Sixty," she said, and Rusty snorted. Sharon's smile faded. "Almost forty years, and she was always so vocal about there being no excuses and consequences and so on. I never expected..." But Chandler was Ginny's only child, and Sharon knew how hard it could be, as a parent, to insist that her children own up to the wrong things that they had done. If, God forbid, any of them had committed a crime... She would have gotten them the best lawyer she could afford. She would have visited them in prison. She would have loved them regardless. But she wouldn't have covered it up.

"What matters now is that she is no longer my friend." She would miss the person she'd thought Ginny had been, but she couldn't reconcile the woman she'd known with the one who would bury child molestation.

"Does she know that?"

"I think it's safe to say she has some idea," she said. When she was really unhappy about something, people never had to ask. Sharon gave Rusty a sideways look. "Speaking of friends..."

"No, okay?" Rusty fidgeted. "I haven't talked to TJ yet."

Of course he hadn't. "The longer you wait, the harder it will be."

"I know, Sharon."

"So what's taking you?" She tried to say it gently, but a wounded look crossed Rusty's face nonetheless. Sharon sighed.

"Can't we talk about this later?"

"Yes," Sharon relented. Now really wasn't the time. "But we will talk."

He'd been dodging the subject for a week. Sharon was trying to be patient and let him work it out on his own, but... things were reaching a point where Rusty could use some more direct guidance. She knew her son. He was very good at avoiding situations that made him uncomfortable, and then he persisted in thinking that he could avoid them forever, and then they inevitably blew up in his face.

"Fine." Rusty slumped down in his seat some more. "But tomorrow."

She was surprised he hadn't suggested they sit down on a Friday forty years from now. "Tomorrow's good."

She wasn't without sympathy. Apologies weren't easy to make. But they were also necessary.

Sharon patted his shoulder again, light and reassuring so that he would know she wasn't angry.

Rusty gave her a fleeting smile, and then he huddled closer to his door and lowered his chin. "She'll be out soon, won't she?"

The excitement in his voice was still evenly balanced with apprehension.

"She should be."

"Right." Rusty shifted in his seat. "Sharon? I think I'm gonna go wait out there."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." He stared down at his hands, balling them into unhappy fists. "I haven't decided what I'm going to say to her yet."

"Ah."

"But..." His expression softened into a plea. "You'll wait, right?"

"I'm not going anywhere," she promised. "Don't worry about that. Take your time."

"Right." He almost said something else. Sharon didn't know what, but his mouth opened and closed before he changed his mind and said only, "I'll just—um, I'll be out there, then."

"It could still be awhile," Sharon reminded him. "The process takes some time. Don't get too worried if she takes longer than you think she should, okay?"

He nodded, and then he got out of the car.

Sharon watched him walk away.

He didn't go far, and he didn't go in. He'd been clear about that. He was going to wait for her outside, and he was going to talk to her for a couple of minutes, and then he was going to tell her he'd see her when she had time and let her find her own way to the halfway house. She would have to find her own way, if she was going to stay clean and sober.

Sharon hoped that she had it in her.

Across the street, Rusty paced for awhile. He hovered near the pay phones, crossing and uncrossing his arms. He retied his shoelaces twice. He pulled out his phone and played with it. Every so often, he looked back at her.

Sharon smiled at him whenever he did, but she thought he was past the point of feeling reassurances now.

Rusty ran a hand through his hair and studied his phone some more.

It wasn't as long as Sharon thought it might be. Twenty minutes later, Sharon Beck walked out of LA County Jail into the hug Rusty had waited a year to give her. Sharon watched from the car. From where she sat, she couldn't tell if Rusty had found the right words to say to his mother or not, and his back was to her so she couldn't see his face. But she could see clearly how tightly he held onto her, and that said a great deal.

When she pulled away, Sharon Beck brought her hands up to cup his face, and she smiled and said something that made Rusty nod.

Sharon watched, uneasy.