Notes: This is a birthday story for the lovely and fantastic Force Unbroken. I hope you at least had more cake than homework?
Also the first promo for S3 is out and contains approximately five second of new footage but you should all go and watch it anyway!
What Matters Most
rosabelle
One evening in late February, Sharon sat back in her chair and picked up her wine glass, studying him as she sipped from it. It took Rusty a moment to notice; he was too busy scooping himself a third helping of lasagna to feel her eyes on him, but when he glanced up in between mouthfuls, she had the look of someone who had been watching him awhile.
She smiled a little when their eyes met. "So," she said, and Rusty experienced a brief moment of confused panic. She had already asked how his day was (fine, thanks for asking) and whenever else Sharon opened with so it usually meant that there was a talk coming. He was pretty sure that he hadn't gotten into any trouble lately?
... There had been his English quiz last week, but a C- was totally not failing and they were going to drop the lowest two at the end of the semester anyway, and his other grades were fine! He even had an A in math. Almost an A. Kind of an A. His grades were fine.
That meant that whatever she wanted to talk about was coming from her end, and he didn't like feeling blindsided. Rusty gave her a wary look as he waited, glancing at her in between bites.
"Your birthday is coming up," she went on.
There was another heartbeat of panic before the sensible half of his brain started working again and Rusty forcefully reminded himself that Sharon wasn't going to kick him out the second he became an adult. She was different.
"Yeah," he said, once he could speak again. "I guess. In, like, a month. And a half. I haven't really thought about it."
"Don't you want to celebrate?"
Rusty shrugged. He'd spent his seventeenth birthday mostly preoccupied with all the ways in which it was an improvement over his sixteenth, which had been kind of a downer in itself. Sharon had taken him for a nice dinner and told him half a dozen times that he could bring a friend along, but he was sure that everyone else at school had actual parties. He'd been to one of those. Once, in third grade. He'd never had one himself. Sharon probably would have let him, if he'd asked. It had seemed like a lot to ask for then, and she'd already gotten him presents. She had gotten him a cake, too, the first birthday cake he'd had since his tenth birthday.
"Well..." Sharon seemed a little bothered by his lack of response. "If there's anything special you'd like to do, let me know. And if you'd like to do something a little bigger—within reason—I'm willing to help you out."
That got him curious, at least. "What does within reason mean?"
She smiled at his suspicion. "Well, for example," she said. "My daughter wanted to spend a weekend in San Francisco with two of her friends. I paid for the hotel and the ballet tickets. My son wanted to go skydiving."
She paused there, giving him a look that conveyed perfectly the fact that she considered that to have been a terrible idea. Which it was, he had no argument there. He'd never been on an airplane, and he had no desire to be. He desired even less to be forty thousand feet in the air without even a rickety metal box surrounding him.
"And?" he said. "Did he?"
"What do you think?" Sharon took another sip of her wine. "Just think about it. Let me know."
It was hard, sometimes, smothering his irrational resentment of her children. He had never even met them, really, but he had stalked them on Facebook and was grudgingly forced to admit that they seemed like nice people. It was just... Their mother loved them, and his had left him. And he knew that their father hadn't been around much, but that felt... different, somehow, because all Rusty really knew about fathers was that he didn't need his.
He wished...
It wasn't even about the gifts. Rusty didn't need or want a whole lot of stuff beyond the basics like his phone and his computer, his chess set, and his movie collection. It was that Sharon cared enough to buy him gifts in the first place and was sober enough to remember when his birthday was, and that she bought him things that she knew he would like. And she knew what he would like because she asked all those stupid prying questions about his day and watched his favorite movies with him and went to his chess club meets even though she had to be bored out of her mind.
"Yeah," he said, still half lost in his thoughts. "Okay."
She frowned at him over the rim of her glass. "I thought you would be more enthusiastic."
"No, it's not that," he said, suddenly feeling terribly guilty. "It's just that..." He shrugged. "That I... I have a lot of homework, and I should probably—"
"Go on, then." She made a shooing motion towards the hall. "It would be a shame if you started failing now that you're starting to get acceptance letters."
"It was just CSU LA," he said. "It's not that big of a deal."
"Of course it is." She frowned at him. "And you'll be getting more letters soon, trust me. But you've got a lot of work to do."
"Yeah..." He hesitated. "It'll... probably take me the rest of the night."
"I understand." Sharon smiled at him, but her eyebrows were drawn together. "Good night, then."
"Good night," he echoed, and fled.
Sharon knocked on his door later that night. "Rusty?"
He lifted his head. "You can come in."
"Hey," she said quietly, studying him from the doorway. She'd changed into her pajamas already, though a glance at the clock showed that it was only a quarter to ten. "How are things going in here?"
"You know how it is," he said. The homework hadn't been solely an excuse, and he lay sprawled on his bed with his book in front of him. "Biology. Super fun."
"I see." It didn't escape his notice that she was taking stock of each item of clothing strewn across the floor. "I can't believe you cleaned your room yesterday."
He huffed at her. "You think I'd lie to you, Sharon?"
"Oh, I know for a fact that you did," she said, folding her arms. "I watched you do your laundry last night. I just can't believe it."
He made a face as he slammed his biology book shut, notebook and pencil still inside, and shoved it all beneath his pillow. "Does that mean I have to do it again?"
A smile flickered across her face at his tone. She sobered slightly as she asked, "May I come in? There's something I want to talk to you about."
He hesitated. "Is that, like, an actual question, or..."
"We could talk in the living room," she said. "If you would prefer. I do want to talk to you."
He studied her face, noting the furrows on her forehead and the way that she fiddled with the belt on her robe, worrying the edges with her fingertips. It was the same expression she had worn when he'd left the dinner table that night, and Rusty's stomach did a nervous little flip when she came closer.
He squirmed closer to the middle of the bed without sitting up, giving her enough space to be comfortable on the edge of the mattress. Sharon stayed out of his room, for the most part, usually only entering on the days when slept through his alarm or to check that he vacuumed occasionally. He wasn't sure if that was because she thought he deserved privacy or because she thought his room smelled. They usually had all of their talks (and arguments and lectures and everything else) in the living room, and this was... different.
Sharon's hand settled between his shoulder blades. "I want you to let me finish before you get upset," she said, her thumb warm as she rubbed a circle in his back. "Because there's nothing to worry about, all right?"
No, actually, that sounded worrying to him. Rusty sat slowly, settling himself with the pillows against his back. Sharon faced him, one knee drawn up into her chest and her arms wrapped around it.
"Okay?" she prompted again, when he was slow in answering, and Rusty nodded slowly. "Okay. It occurred to me after you left the table that we haven't discussed what might happen once you turn eighteen, and I—Rusty, what did I just say?"
"Sorry." He closed his mouth. And then opened it again. "But—"
"Rusty." Sharon gave him an exasperated look. "I'm not going to ask you to leave."
So she knew what he was afraid of. It shouldn't have surprised him so much. She always seemed to know. It wasn't like he didn't know that Sharon loved him, because he did. He really, really knew that. But part of him would always be waiting for her to take him to the zoo. The part of him that sometimes tread on her heels at the grocery store and didn't like to try things on when they were clothes shopping. The stupid part of him. Because he didn't really think that Sharon would leave him anywhere, and he was perfectly fine going places without her.
Her hand settled on his knee, squeezing gently, when he looked away, and she pulled back just as quickly. Her fingers sought for a pocket to hide in.
"I'm well aware," Sharon went on, "that you'll be an adult and you will be, of course, free to leave if you choose. And if that is what you choose, I hope you know that I will support you and help you in any way that I can—but if I've done anything to make you feel that I want you to leave, I hope you know that nothing is further from the truth."
Rusty swallowed, lowering his head. That heavy knot in his stomach was loosening, but another was forming in his throat, one constricting and lodged in his airway. "You didn't do anything wrong. Of course I don't want to," he said, feeling wounded despite himself. How could she even think that? "But Sharon, I can't live with you forever, and like you said, I'll be an adult, and..." And what was he trying to do, make her change her mind?
"Of course you can't, and I'm not asking you to." She shook her head. "I'm just saying that you don't need to leave at this particular moment."
"So, like... when..."
"That all depends," she said. "If you stay in LA next year, I'm happy to have you stay here and save your money if you don't want to live in a dorm. Or, if you decide to go away to college, you'll need somewhere to spend your breaks and your summers. Besides," she added lightly. "You can't get rid of me so easily. I pay for your phone."
It made him smile, but then he said, "I could get a job this summer."
"You could," she agreed. "Some work experience wouldn't be a bad idea."
"Really?"
"You should ask your teachers if they know of any internships," she told him. "And there are plenty of volunteer opportunities."
"You don't get paid for being a volunteer, Sharon." And he wasn't especially fond of sick people, old people, babies, animals, the arts, or the environment.
"If you're dead set on a job, I could ask around," she said. "Some of my friends might—"
"No, okay?" Rusty shook his head, feeling his eyes widen in growing alarm. "Sharon. I want to keep living with you. I don't want you to... to think that means I'm still a kid. Let me at least look first. You've done so much for me already."
"I was happy to," she started, but he shook his head.
"I know, Sharon, but just let me finish," he said. "I know that you love me, okay? I know that. And I—I... you know."
She smiled faintly, her head dipping in the smallest of nods.
"I just don't want to..." He shrugged. "You bought all my clothes and you paid for school and you gave me the car and the phone and the laptop, and..." And she had saved his life, again and again.
"I see," she said slowly. "Will you feel better if I remind you that you're just borrowing them from me?"
"It's not borrowing if you never ask for them back," he said. "That's giving, Sharon."
She looked like she was trying hard not to let her smile widen; her lips kept twitching and she picked at imaginary spots of lint on the knee of her pants. "How about this? We'll work out some changes to make your living situation more... agreeable to you."
"I'm not saying that I agree," he said. He knew better than to make deals with Sharon without knowing exactly what he was getting himself into first. "But hypothetically... what sort of changes?"
"Well," she said. "Hypothetically. If you feel like your life is lacking in adult responsibilities, I could find you some. For instance, you could do the grocery shopping."
"Seriously, Sharon?" It was all he could do not to roll his eyes. "That's, like, nothing."
"It is when you do it at the end of a fourteen hour day, which is what happened the last time I went to the store," she said. "If you did that one thing, I would be happy."
"I could still get a job."
"You could," she agreed. "But I meant what I said about volunteer opportunities and internships. If you see one that catches your interest, I don't want you to turn it down on the basis that it doesn't pay."
Rusty wasn't sure what Sharon got out of this arrangement, really. But... this was the longest that he'd stayed in one place for... maybe ever. Even when his mother had been better, they'd moved around an awful lot. The apartments had started out all right and gotten worse, and then there were the cars and the motels and... Just, it was really, really nice to have a safe place to come home to every night, and someone who would notice if he didn't come home.
"Okay," he relented. "Fine."
"So that's settled, then."
"I guess."
"I'll let you finish your homework, then," she said. "I'm sorry to have interrupted your fun with biology."
She laughed when he wrinkled his nose, and the back of her hand slid across his cheek as she stood. She'd half-turned away from him when she suddenly turned back, and bent to kiss the crown of his head. "You will always have a place with me. Know that."
"I know." He tried to disguise the hitch in his breath as an impatient sigh. "I do. I know."
For the longest time, turning eighteen had been an unattainable dream. When he had been fifteen and spending his nights in the backs of strangers' vans or behind clusters of bushes in Griffith Park, it had been a desperate, distant kind of thought. That was when everything would change, he'd told himself over and over. When he was eighteen, he could get a better job. A real job. He could find himself a place to live, and he could look for his mother. Everything would be better when he was eighteen.
He'd once tried to calculate the days, thinking it might help.
It hadn't.
After Sharon, it hadn't seemed to matter so much. It was okay that he wasn't an adult, because he didn't need to be. She worried about that and let him be a kid again. Then Emma had started flinging around phrases like witness protection and foster care, and all of Sharon's reassurances hadn't been enough to keep the anxiety away. The second he turned eighteen, he would be safe from anyone trying to make him go anywhere he didn't want to.
And now... when his clock read midnight on his birthday, the relief was there, like he knew it would be, but there was no dread that he would be out on his own or euphoria that he had survived the awful things. He felt exactly the same as he had a moment before, except maybe a little sleepier and a little sheepish because he still had to wake up at six to get to school on time. (Sharon had looked at him at dinner and said calmly, "I hope you're not planning to take the day off" and added something about being sure he could appreciate the value of his education now that he was an adult and it was completely unfair, but that was Sharon.)
He turned over and went to sleep without any trouble.
Now that there wasn't a psychopath trying to kill him, he didn't have to spend every afternoon hanging around the police station, but he still ended up there at least three times a week. He needed all the help he could get with math and Buzz would do that both for free and without complaining too much about it. It was always best when it was Buzz, anyway. He wasn't sure that geometry had been invented when Lieutenant Provenza had been in school.
So there was a pretty good chance that Rusty would have ended up there anyway, because math quizzes didn't care that it was his birthday and his friends weren't taking him out until Saturday. In other words, there was really no reason for Sharon to look at him over her tea and ask if he had any plans for that afternoon.
"Seriously?" Just... seriously? "But if anyone yells surprise or tries to make me wear one of those stupid hats, or—or..."
Sharon laughed. "Deal," she said. "But I'm afraid the cake is non-negotiable, and so is the singing."
Also non-negotiable, he found out later, were the presents. Which, yes, he had expected—from Sharon. He'd figured he would go up to her office and they would all have a slice of cake. The four wrapped boxes, two of them wide and flat and the other two more squarish, stacked in a neat pile on Sharon's conference table were a surprise.
As was the cake itself, because they had gone all out and gotten him a chocolate cake covered in fudge frosting and buried beneath slivers of more chocolate. Happy Birthday Rusty written in yet more icing along the sides. His mouth watered looking at it.
It was enough to make letting them sing to him worth it.
"Congratulations," Provenza said dryly afterwards. "You can now be executed for murder. What's not to love?"
"Don't listen to him," Flynn told him. "He's just cranky his next birthday is his hundredth. Happy birthday, kid."
"Uh... thanks, guys." Rusty took a fork from the box Provenza handed him, and passed them down to Julio. "It's not all bad, Lieutenant. I can drive whenever I want now."
"We'll see." Sharon looked unhappy about that as she set a plate in his hand. "You can vote."
Sharon.
Rusty started in on his cake frosting end first and immediately forgave Sharon for being uptight about the driving thing, because it was rich and sweet and possibly the best thing he had ever tasted.
"You can get a credit card," Sykes said. She paused. "But, uh, you should probably be smarter about it than I was."
"Why?" Sanchez looked at her curiously. "What'd you buy?"
"What didn't I buy?" She gave Rusty another look. "On second thought, maybe you shouldn't."
"It's important to build good credit," Lieutenant Tao argued. "It'll come in handy later, if you want to buy a house or a car. Just make sure you keep up with your payments, and keep an eye on your balance. Overage fees will get you every time. If you ever want me to explain how—"
"Uh... maybe next time. Thanks, guys." He paused, because even he knew that sounded a little hasty, but he really did mean it. "Like, really, thank you. You didn't have to do all of this for me. The cake and everything... it means a lot."
"You haven't even opened your presents yet," Buzz said. "Which do you want first?"
He pointed to one of the wide, flat ones, and nearly dropped it when Sanchez passed it into his hands. "This thing weighs a ton."
He heard Sharon sigh quietly, which was strange because shouldn't she be happy—oh. Rusty understood when he tore open the wrapping paper to find himself staring at a five pound Hershey bar. The other box turned out to be a five pound Ghirardelli bar.
He tried not to grin too much. Apparently, there had been some miscommunication between Detective Sanchez and Buzz.
"Wow," he said, stacking them on top of each other. "This is enough candy for... like, a week, at least."
Flynn snorted and Sharon rolled her eyes again, but she motioned for Buzz to pass down the next gift without comment on dental hygiene.
Rusty stole a few more bites of cake before opening his next gift, and laughed out loud. "I can't believe you guys got me this," he said, grinning down at the box in his hands: a complete set of movies featuring people being eaten alive by a diverse group of monsters. "Awesome."
"We can't believe it's what you wanted," Sharon said wryly, as they handed him his last present. "Happy birthday, honey."
"Thanks." He saw her smile as she watched him tear into it, and he answered it with a smile of his own when he saw what it was. "You got me a chess clock?"
And it was a nice one, too.
"I did." She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. "If it's not the right one—"
"No, it's perfect." He met her eyes before he looked at the rest of them, all gathered around the table. "Just... thanks. For everything."
This was really not the outcome that Rusty would have predicted, when Phillip Stroh had thrown him off of a cliff a year and a half before. He would never have thought that he would end up here, with Sharon and Lieutenant Provenza and Buzz and everyone else, because that sort of thing didn't happen to people like him. He was used to things going from bad to worse to awful, and he had been running out of new lows to sink to.
He remembered that night in January, clinging to Sharon's neck with his eyes shut tight and his face buried in her hair and whispering that she had saved him again. The again was important. It wasn't just Wade Weller or Phillip Stroh or even his father that she had saved him from... though she had and he was really, really glad about that too, but the way she had really saved him was just by being there, safe and steady, day after day, and he could say the same for the rest of them.
They were all just there, whether he liked it or not, wherever and whenever he needed them.