Notes: I decided to go through my unfinished oneshots folder and start finishing some of them because there's nearly twenty of them and that's just ridiculous. This one I started a year ago and then forgot about. This is set the same night as the "emotionally injured" conversation during Jailbait.
Asked and Answered
"So did you kill him?"
It was an hour later when he thought to ask. When he did, Rusty wasn't sure that Sharon had heard him at first. She was settled on the couch with her legs stretched out in front of her, a file in one hand and her third cup of tea in the other. Several moments elapsed in silence and it wasn't like it was unusual for Sharon not to answer when he asked her things but she always told him why she wasn't answering.
Her standard answer was that it was none of his business.
But he was supposed to tell her everything.
Rusty wasn't sure that she realized how unfair that was.
He was so preoccupied with his growing indignation about that that he almost missed Sharon's response. "What was that?"
She sounded distracted, and when he looked over at her again, she was still reading whatever was in that file.
"The guy," Rusty elaborated, raising his voice. "The one you were telling me about, the one you shot. Did you kill him?"
"Oh." Sharon glanced up, briefly meeting his eyes. "No."
There was a note of finality in her tone, not unlike the closing of a door, and, figuring that was all he was going to get out her, Rusty turned back to the chess board. Two hours, now, and he still wasn't sure what move to make. If he moved his knight here, Dr. Joe would move his rook there. A pawn there, a bishop there. It had been awhile since he'd played against someone better than him. It hardly ever happened. Not at Saint Joseph's, and whenever he'd snuck away to play at the park, not there.
It was nice, usually, to play with someone who could beat him, but what if Dr. Joe thought that losing meant that Rusty couldn't handle pressure? And he could. He wasn't afraid.
Not of that, anyway.
Sharon cleared her throat.
When he turned back to her, the file lay forgotten on the coffee table and she cradled the mug with both hands. "He made a full recovery," she told him quietly. "He and his mother later sued me."
"Wait, his mother?" Rusty twisted fully around in his seat, facing her. "I thought he was trying to kill her."
"He was."
"So... didn't you save her life or something?"
"By shooting her son in front of her," she said. "As you might imagine, she found the whole experience very upsetting."
"I guess," he said doubtfully. Then he remembered his mother, and how he wondered every day if she was okay and alive, and... it was different, but maybe kind of the same? But he was still pretty sure he'd never sue anyone for saving his life. "So what happened?"
"FID and the department psychologist both cleared me to return to work, the young man was sentenced to some number of years in prison for attacking his mother, and the lawsuit against me was dismissed. It was all very routine."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Did you ever kill anyone?"
"Rusty." She frowned at him. "The reality of shooting someone isn't what you see on television. I'm not going to relive the experience for your entertainment."
"I wasn't—" He mostly wasn't. Rusty shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry. I didn't mean... it's just, like... you're always in your office."
"It's one of the advantages of being the boss," she agreed, and took a sip of her tea.
"It's weird," he said.
Sharon had a life before he'd shown up. Obviously. Rusty knew that. He just... forgot, sometimes, because she never talked about herself, not really.
But maybe it wasn't so weird. The night Jack showed up, the night Rusty thought someone had come to kill him, Sharon had gone from half-asleep to up and armed in seconds, and she'd done it without making a sound.
"Okay," she said, and the way she leaned towards him caught his attention. He thought he knew what was coming. "I'll make you a deal."
There it was.
"What kind of a deal?"
He watched her try and mostly fail to hide a smile at his suspicion. "I'll answer one question," she said, and held up her hand before he could speak. "And you will not complain about your security detail for an entire week."
She said it calmly, not even sounding very irritated about it at all, but Rusty felt a swell of guilt in his stomach nonetheless because he knew that she wouldn't have asked if she hadn't really wanted it. It wasn't like he complained all the time because he wanted to annoy Sharon on purpose. He did it because it was the only thing he could do, because the stupid security detail meant that he and Sharon were stuck being around each other all the time and if he snuck away again he'd be on the next flight to that boarding school in Portland.
"So, like..." He didn't want to think about that too much, because the only thing worse than being stuck with her would be being taken away from her. "What if I got two questions and didn't complain for two weeks?"
Sharon shifted her grip on her mug, wrapping her fingers around the base. "Don't bite off more than you can chew, honey," she said dryly. "Your current record is around ninety minutes."
He did have a lot of questions for her.
Like... what if she let him go undercover and they still couldn't catch this guy? What if he had to go into witness protection after all? What would she say, if she knew what he was? Was she sorry yet that she'd taken him in?
Rusty stood, taking the few steps to sit with her on the couch.
He wasn't sure he wanted answers to any of those questions.
"I'm still thinking," he informed her.
Sharon smiled faintly and sipped at her tea. She'd been holding that mug for awhile now; it had to be cold.
He had no idea why Sharon even liked tea. He'd tried it a couple of times to see what the big deal was, because if she drank it out of soup tureens it had to be good, right? All he'd tasted was hot water.
It was funny how he could suddenly think of a thousand things to ask her.
The one that came out took him by surprise.
"Were you afraid?"
She hadn't expected him to ask that question.
She was surprised that he was asking any questions, honestly.
Rusty was generally disinterested in the parts of her life that didn't involve him. Unless the area in question involved her husband, she thought wryly. Then he was full of curiosity.
She'd thought he'd ask again if she'd ever killed anyone, or maybe one of the questions she hadn't answered about Jack last summer. She'd been prepared for that.
She gave him a long look before she answered. "When?"
He shrugged, not quite looking at her. "When... all that stuff that you were saying before," he said. "About, like... court hearings and—and what was the other thing you said?"
"Depositions?"
"Yeah," he said, his voice small. "That."
"And testifying?" she asked, as gently as she could.
Rusty stiffened when she said it, slowly nodding.
"Ah," she said quietly. "Yes."
He burrowed into his side of the couch, tucking his arms and legs close to his body. Sharon tried not to sigh as she watched him. Moments like this, the ones where it hurt her heart to look at him, reminded her that as frustrating as he'd been lately, it was born mostly of fear and anxiety.
She leaned over, setting her empty mug on the coffee table as she considered how much she wanted to tell him. Not all of it was relevant. He didn't need to hear about the fight itself, and... well, there were things that she liked to keep safe and private. She wasn't planning on telling him about that one moment where she'd just known she was about to die.
She curled her arms around herself, wishing she'd held onto the mug.
"I wanted to put it behind me," she said at last. "I wanted to move on and forget that it had happened." Forget that she'd nearly killed him or he her. "And I especially didn't want to see him again."
Rusty was still now.
The night it had actually happened, she'd come home and silently laid her head on Jack's chest. He'd been well then, willing and able to hold her while she processed what had happened and telling jokes to make her laugh the next morning.
She remembered the warm, quiet comfort of lying there with him in the darkness in their cramped bedroom, finding that it was enough to know that he was awake beside her.
She remembered the cold anger and fear tangled in the pit of her stomach... and the guilt, too.
"Did—" Rusty gave her a wary look, like he was expecting a reminder that their deal had been for one question. Sharon nodded him on. He could ask whatever he liked as long as there was a respite from the constant complaining, oh dear God. "Did therapy help with that?"
"It did."
"It made you less afraid?"
If only it were that easy.
Rusty looked unspeakably disappointed when she shook her head.
"No," she said. "It made me better able to deal with being afraid."
"Oh."
"I got through it," she told him. "And so will you."
He lowered his head without replying.
If it helped him, she wasn't sorry that she'd told him. Even if she knew that she'd be lucky to make it to the second day without needing to remind him of the deal they'd made.
"Can I ask you one more thing?"
His voice was lower now, and he started to fidget again, shifting around on his end of the couch. Sharon raised her eyebrow, but nodded.
"About something else."
"All right."
"Why did you pick Dr. Joe?"
Sharon hadn't expected that question, either.
"Oh," she said. "Well... your stipulation narrowed the options down quite a bit. Dr. Joe has excellent reviews and experience working with young people in situations similar to yours. When I spoke to him, I thought your personalities would work well together."
"My situation?" he repeated. "Sharon, no one's in my situation."
If only that were true.
"You would be surprised," she said. "And because he works with the LAPD, he was convenient."
"Oh. I—I thought that maybe..."
Sharon tilted her head.
"Never mind."
"Is there a problem with Dr. Joe?" She hoped not. Sharon had no idea where she was supposed to find another chess-playing therapist who specialized in juvenile patients struggling with Rusty's particular combination of issues.
Rusty shook his head. "Never mind," he repeated. "I was just wondering."
Sharon looked him over, and saw the fidgeting increase under her scrutiny. There were things that he'd never tell her and some that he would, when he was ready. She let it go for now.
"Have you done all of your homework?"
It was unnatural for a child—any child, but in particular her child—to appear so relieved to be asked about school. "Yes?"
She held his eyes, and waited.
"Does reading count as homework?"
"Finish it before you go to bed," she told him. "Don't forget."
He reassured her by rolling his eyes when he stood up. Sharon waited until her back was to him to smile, then turned at the sound of her name.
Rusty hesitated just outside the hallway. "Thanks," he said quietly. "And—and good night."
"Good night," she echoed, and watched him go.