"Sharon, you need to sleep. Come to bed, please?" Andrea's voice was laced with fatigue as she padded through to the living room, finding Sharon exactly where she had left her almost two hours ago, the brunette promising that she's be 'right in'.
"I just have one more file to look over…" The older woman was already engrossed in the paper in front of her when she responded. Andrea sighed; Sharon had been doing this more and more often recently, and she was beginning to wonder if she was avoiding her. The blonde sighed and headed back to bed, sliding under the covers and curling into a ball.
It was beginning to get light again when Andrea finally felt the bed dip beside her and Sharon settle down to sleep. She fought her instinct to turn over and hold her, something that pained her more than anything she had experienced before. Sharon did not reach out to her, and, had she not been so tired, Andrea felt as though she would cry.
A matter of minutes later, Sharon's phone began to ring on the nightstand. The brunette got back out of bed and disappeared out of the room, leaving Andrea alone, again, in the bed.
By the time Andrea saw Sharon again, it was late afternoon and thanks to the capture of a serial killer. The blonde couldn't help the icy tones in her voice when they communicated, and she left the office as quickly as she could after the case had been closed; she did not have the energy or the patience to attempt conversation with her distant lover. She merely returned to her office, tied up her paperwork and headed back to the condo she had vacated recently when she had moved in with Sharon. It felt wrong, somehow, to return to the apartment they had been sharing when she felt so unwelcome.
Sharon returned home with Rusty to find the apartment in darkness. The teenager made his excuses and disappeared into his bedroom, leaving the Captain alone in the hallway, surveying the apartment sadly. She poured herself a glass of wine and curled up on the sofa with a yawn, reaching for her phone. Disappointed that she had not heard from Andrea, Sharon contemplated leaving her partner alone for a moment. Realising, though, that the two of them had barely spoken over the last few days, she picked up the phone again and called her lover, hoping it would not be too late.
Andrea's phone lit up beside her bed where she had already settled down for the night. She waited for it to stop ringing before she typed out a brief text to Sharon, explaining that she was in bed and that they would talk tomorrow. She felt guilty once she had replaced the phone on her nightstand but rolled over and closed her eyes; she was too tired to worry about that now.
The brunette felt guilty when she read the message her partner had sent; it was then that she realised just how much she had neglected her recently. She had let work get in the way of the time that they usually dedicated to each other, and every time Andrea had attempted to get her to stop, Sharon had continued, upsetting her lover even more in the process. It was with a heavy heart that she resolved to fix the mess she had unwittingly made for them, and she began to concoct a plan to regain the blonde's trust.
When Andrea arrived at her desk the following morning, she was greeted with a single white rose on her desk. She knew there could be only one sender of such an item that she smiled and immediately sent an email to Sharon, asking if she would be free to talk over lunch. She received an almost instant, affirmative, response, and began to tackle to paperwork that had, mysteriously, appeared on her desk overnight.
She stepped into the small café that Sharon had suggested for their lunch, glancing around until she found her companion sat at a table in the corner. She slid into the chair opposite her and offered a polite greeting, waiting for Sharon to speak.
"Andrea, I wanted to apologise for my behaviour recently. I haven't meant to push you away but work just got on top of me and…I'm sorry," she gushed, barely pausing for breath. Andrea reached over and took her hand, brushing her thumb over the soft skin of her partner's knuckles.
"I understand work gets busy sometimes, Sharon. You need to understand, though, there are other people around that need your attention, too. Rusty's noticed how distant you've been lately, he called me yesterday afternoon because he thought he'd done something wrong. Before that, I thought you were trying to break up with me…." she frowned dropping Sharon's hand and toying with the salt pot on the table in front of her. "You're not superwoman, honey. You need to find a balance between personal and professional, and if I'm honest, right now you stink at that." She smiled to take the edge off her words, but the meaning behind them was true.
"I know. And I'm sorry, I really am. I want to try and make it up to both of you, if you'll let me?" Andrea nodded and took her hand again, leaning down to kiss it tenderly.
"Okay. But from now on, we have a rule: no paperwork at home. Got it?"