A/N: It was brought to my attention by a kind samaritan that a good chunk of the party is over here on FFN, as opposed to Ao3. So I decided to join in! Apologies to those of you who've seen this before...the only good news I have for you is that the first chapter of Resolve's sequel is nearly finished and should be up (both here and elsewhere) shortly.

I'll be reposting the rest of my stories here, as well.

As for this one, the first chapter re-purposes what happened at the end of 6x09. If you want to avoid reading a retelling of the office scene, look for the set of three line breaks:
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and scroll until you hit the second set of three line breaks. Then read on!

When he returns to the office, Andy convinces Buzz to trade desks with him. He isn't above playing the guilt card, if he needs to, but Buzz doesn't argue. He doesn't even roll his eyes at the suggestion. They spend a half hour carrying armloads of stuff back and forth across the Murder Room in near-silence, until nothing of them remains at their old desks.

The back office is too empty, now. It's like an open sore. It's about to be invaded, that space that still screams Sharon to Andy, and he can think of few things worse than sitting within earshot when that happens.

He knows where she is right now. Even still, he expects her to walk out that door any second, pulling on her jacket as she goes, heels clicking against the tile.

Sharon's plaques, her artwork, her heavy glass nameplate, the blotter, the flowers on the table, they're all packed away or gone. The lemon yellow loveseat — that resale shop find they'd moved in after the explosion — now lives in Rusty's room at home.

But it all might as well still be there, for as much as anyone else belongs in that office.

Andy swiped one memento, one thing that wouldn't be missed, before Facilities came to do a deep clean. (Joke's on them. That room was spotless.) The insert from the doorplate nearest to his old spot, proudly reading "Commander Sharon Raydor," now lives in the top drawer of his desk, next to a long-ago-fired beanbag round.

(He's pretty sure Sykes swiped its twin from the other door.)

Two more items joined the knick-knacks from his old desk on top of the new one. Two framed photos, two little reminders that he hadn't needed before. One is a professionally shot portrait, from Sharon's promotion ceremony, of himself and Sharon and Rusty. Their little family-within-a-family, recorded on a proud day, a star glinting from each side of her uniform collar.

The other is a little grainy, a little blurry in places. This one Andy shot himself, on his phone, as he held it up in the dying light of a San Diego evening. He'd captured Sharon, loose and happy, looking at him sidelong with a sly smile as the sunset cast red-orange light onto her. In short, she was breathtaking, and even as the moment happened, he'd known he wanted to keep her like that forever.

She'd gotten a little flustered when he held up his phone. "What are you doing?"

"Taking your picture."

With an eye roll and a short laugh, she asked, "Why?"

"Because you're beautiful." She looked down, and he knew she was blushing, even if sunlight overpowered the sight. "And because we're on vacation, and vacation is about making memories."

That's when he earned the look in the photo. He tapped the shutter button just before she reached for his phone. "If you're interested in making a memory," she said, voice silky, "then you should put the phone down."

She did that for him, slipping the device into her jacket before sidling up to him. "Because I can think of much, much better things to be doing during a sunset."

To demonstrate, she nibbled at his earlobe, running one hand across his chest as the other threaded into the hair at the nape of his neck. From her, in a public setting — okay, semi-public, given their sandy surroundings had cleared as the sun sank into the Pacific — the advance was a surprising, sweet, and undeniably sexy move. And, of course, she was right. Making out on the beach, like teenagers who snuck out after curfew, was one hell of a memory, one that only got better as the night went on.

A clearing throat breaks his train of thought. Steeling himself for the conversation he's about to have, Andy settles the frame next to his monitor and turns to find his partner staring at him, cross-armed and frowning.

"What the hell are you doing here, Flynn?"

"Working, hopefully." He aims for a smirk, knowing it'll fall short. "Someone's gotta make the mortgage payment."

"You still have a week of leave on the calendar."

"All's quiet on the homefront, and I've been accused of hovering . So I thought I'd come in and hover professionally."

"Uh-huh. And stare daggers at our new captain professionally, too?"

Andy holds his hands out. "It is a tradition. I wouldn't want the guy to feel left out."

"This poor asshole has no idea what he's getting himself into." Provenza shakes his head. "But even so, you don't need to be here to see it."

"Look, it's never gonna get any easier. I might as well rip the bandage off with the rest of you."

"Fine. Fine." He takes a few steps toward his desk, before turning back with a point. "But don't forget. I still have your wife on speed dial."

—

When Andy asked Sharon to marry him, it was with the resolve that their union last as long as possible. At the time, it seemed as if his stubborn heart would be the biggest barrier. So he made his commitment to her double as a commitment to keep his shit together, health-wise. (He'd long ago resolved to keep the rest of his shit together, for her, to be the kind of partner she deserved.)

Neither of them considered that she might have to do the same.

—

In the end, Andy did something that he told himself he'd never need to do to Sharon.

He begged her to stay.

—

It's easy enough to blame his brain, the part of his subconscious that gathered potential horrors as the rest of him focused on optimism and treatments and making plans. In the daylight, it was straightforward, letting practical concerns drown out the rest. Noting appointments and dosages and side effects, keeping an eye on Sharon's body language for signs of concern, his dedication to keeping her well ate up most of his thoughts. He wouldn't have had it any other way.

But, at night, the deep corners of his mind fired up. He laid awake in bed listening to her breaths, driven to burn into his memory every second, every sensation, every feeling that rose in him as he held her; the way her fingers curled around his wrist, as if she was towing him along in sleep the way she would gently pull him into her office, toward bloodied evidence at a crime scene, to the dance floor in an ethereal white dress.

Andy had lost count of the nights he'd spent like this, the hours of rest he'd gladly given away. But, eventually, exhaustion won out. It pulled him into a deep sleep, and out came the worst-case scenario, an all-too-real possibility that some part of him had stored away.

—

—

The nightmare came quick in sleep, just as it would in the physical world. Just as he'd seen it almost play out a few weeks before.

There's always been something about interrogations, something that brings out particular elements of pure Sharonness. Her wit, her ferocious intelligence, the vice-grip control she exercises until the perfect moment, until she uses all her anger like a sword, slicing through excuses and equivocations until only the truth remains.

Andy conducted several of his best interviews at Sharon's side. She was often a sight to behold.

Maybe it was this appreciation that made an interrogation the canvas onto which his mind painted the most disturbing outcome.

One second, she was in perfect, pointed fury, on the verge of victory.

The next, she crumpled, collapsed like a skyscraper under demolition.

He was pulled to her like a magnet, out one door, across a room and into another, on feet that hit the floor an impossibly few times between here and there.

He allowed himself to think that this was like the last time. She'd be out for a few seconds, only to come to on the way to the ER. But after Julio eased her to the floor, he started chest compressions.

Sharon. Sharon. Sharon. What happened? What did you do?

Andy took her hand, oblivious to the flurry of action surrounding him. There was only his wife, lying beautiful and serene, oblivious to the panic she set off. She was gonna be a little annoyed upon lifting back into consciousness, to see everyone losing their shit over her.

With careful movements, Andy slid her glasses from her face and into the pocket of his jacket. He'd wanted to see when her eyelids started fluttering, when she started coming back to him. He was calm and sure, ready to be the first face she saw when she opened her eyes.

But she didn't move and she didn't move and she didn't move and she didn't move and Julio kept pumping at her chest and Rusty's voice choked into a sob outside the door and someone's hand landed firmly on Andy's shoulder and then nothing made sense and nothing was right and lizard-brain level grief struggled to claw its way out of him.

"Andy."

It was Sharon's voice, somehow, and for a second it was so perverse, so opposed to what he was seeing, that he was sure he'd lost his mind.

The hand on his shoulder tightened. "Andy."

—

—

He opened his eyes.

Sharon stared down at him, eyebrows lifted, mouth pressed into a firm line. Her hand was clamped on his shoulder. Blinking against the daylight streaming into their bedroom, he tried to relax out of his horror. Her mouth quirked into a sad half-grin that said she knew, roughly, what he'd been seeing. Had he been calling to her, out loud, through his dream?

"You okay?" She moved her hand from his shoulder, drew it over his shirt to rest on his chest. Snuck a check of his heart, since irony was still alive and kicking with full force.

"Uh," he started, but nothing followed. He rubbed at his eyes, considering how not okay he was, how infinitely less okay he would be if that nightmare came true, and how much of this he should tell her. When he dropped his hand, his fingers came away wet.

"Oh," she sighed, "darling."

She settled against his side, where he could wrap his arms around her. With her head on his shoulder, he held his lips to her hair until the last wisps of shock from the nightmare floated away.

Andy couldn't see in his actual life what he saw in that dream. He couldn't let it come to pass. Not in their circumstances, when things were so good. Not when there were still weapons they could use to fight.

"Sharon—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I know this is up to you. And I know you're conflicted over your choices."

"But?" The familiar one-word question didn't hold the annoyance she often laces it with. Here, it was all cautious curiosity.

"But. I can't watch you die. I can't." He closed his eyes against the tears pressing on them, gave up on keeping his voice steady. "Especially not when you still have options."

She shifted, and then she was pressing kisses to his forehead, to his eyelids, to his nose, until she finally rested her forehead against his. He held her tighter, pushing onward, underlining a point he tried to make the day before. "I would gladly do anything. Anything . Without question. To keep you here with me. To help you get well." He wished he could take this truth and tuck it into her head, to make her understand how much he meant it. "That would be the furthest thing from a burden, to me. It would be an honor. One you deserve."

A few drops fell from her eyes, onto his cheek. She sighed thickly and brushed them away before slipping back to her original spot, her head tucked against his shoulder. It wasn't long before his t-shirt dampened beneath her face.

Andy ran his fingers through her hair. "Talk to me, Sharon."

She stared out the window for a few moments. The early morning sunlight made her eyes look like a spring day. With a long exhale, she curled her hand, tugging the cotton of his shirt into the middle of a fist. "I was right."

"You're gonna have to be more specific," he said, squeezing her hip.

She breathed out a laugh, a tiny recognition of the compliment. "Everything changed after that appointment."

"Not everything," he reminded her.

Releasing his shirt, she lifted her hand to trace his jawline. She searched his face. For what, he could have only guessed. "I do love you. I can't even say…" She trailed off, with a tight shake of her head.

He hated himself, a little, even before he voiced the first thought that rushed forward. But it was true, even as it was selfish, and he knew he would've hated himself even more if he never said it out loud.

"Then stay with me." He ran his thumb across her cheek. "Please. Please. Stay with me."

Her face crumpled. "I'm so scared."

"I know. I know." He held her again, as her breathing hitched and tears streamed down her face. He dropped his voice to a murmur. "I'm scared, too. It's okay to be scared about the heart thing." He smoothed a palm down her back, hoping to calm her. "But, babe, you don't need to be scared of me losing interest, or getting tired of caring, or leaving you in the lurch. Trust me."

"I—" She pulled back enough to look at him fully, her expression knotted with confusion. "Of course I trust you, Andy."

He raised an eyebrow, an emphasis to his point. "Then trust me to take care of you." After unwinding his arm from around her, he held his watch where she could see it. "Only the beginning, remember?"

He had proposed to her with those words, words he believed from the depths of his soul. They were words Sharon had passed back to him, engraved on the back of a watch she gave him, via Rusty, on the morning of their wedding. Now he needed her to believe them, to live them out by his side.

A heartbreaking sound, something like a whimper, escaped her throat. But then she echoed him, in a whisper. "Only the beginning." As she rubbed an absentminded pattern on his chest, he could see her gears cranking, all of the possibilities and probabilities and likelihoods flashing through her mind.

A few long seconds later, she said, "Okay." Her voice was back to its usual firmness.

A rush of hope shot through him. "Okay? You'll go to another appointment with the cardiologist?"

Her lips curled into a small, but real, smile. "Yes."

The sigh he released at that point flushed several days' worth of tension and fear from his body. She wasn't in the clear, not yet. But she was willing to fight, with his help.

With full awareness that he was pushing it, he said, "Can I ask one more thing?"

"While I'm in an accommodating mood?" She snorts — actually snorts , in this conversation — and Andy's love for this woman, his wife , the person to whom he promised himself forever, had never been more clear. "Go ahead."

"We both know this is getting tough. How do you feel about talking to a counselor?"

—

Andy hadn't given enough consideration to how difficult his return to work would be. His squadmates are great, of course, ribbing him about his new desk and his surprise appearance. There's hesitation in the humor, though. None of them are ready to start a new phase, to have an interloper installed as their CO.

And, as if he's walking around with a bleeding wound, they all know that Andy will feel it the most.

—

The entire group held vigil with him and Rusty during the surgery, the most excruciating hours of his life. Their devotion to Sharon was stunning in its simplicity, in its straightforwardness. Andy had called Provenza to tell him she'd gotten a heart, after six weeks of anxiety and hope that flared with every phone call. By the time he walked into the waiting room an hour later, having just seen Sharon off to the operating suite, the entire squad was assembled there, along with Patrice and Andrea. They showed up at 5 in the morning, with a tray of pastries that no one touched and boxes of coffee they drank in near-silence.

Provenza explained later on that he hadn't asked anyone to come. Just like Andy hadn't asked Provenza and Patrice to come. At being told about the surgery, each of them asked "when" and "where" and showed up.

It was a collective gesture of support that Andy will never be able to return in kind. But he'll sure as hell try.