Two Different Love Stories
This is inspired by James Duff's comments of his Reddit AMA. About how the purposeful parallels between Jack and Andy's lives and the scene that got cut where Andy gives Sharon the angel ornament. It is set immediately after Chain Reaction. None of the characters are mine. It is loosely based around my story I Don't Want To/ Don't Worry I Will Help You
Sharon Raydor has lived different love stories with two men who on the surface seemed so similar. They were both charming and could be the life of the party and get any woman's attention. They were both successful in their careers. They both had at one time or another made Sharon feel like the only woman in the world. There were also the similarities that were not good. The ones that almost kept Sharon from missing out on love this time. They both had tempers, they both had let down their families, and of course the big one, and they were both alcoholics. Sharon had been down that road before and it had ended in so much pain.
Then Sharon took a long look across her condo into the kitchen. He was laughing and joking with her sons as they did the dishes. He had insisted she go and sit down. It was Christmas Eve and they had worked all day. Then of course he had helped her kids bring the Christmas party to her at the office. Which might be the most wonderful thing anyone had ever done for her. As she sat there watching them she thought about how different they really were.
First it was how they had fallen in love. Jack had swept her off her feet. She was young and he made her feel like a one of a kind. He romanced her in all the ways she thought she wanted. Big gestures, beautiful gifts, all the right words. She was hopelessly his in a matter of weeks, married to him within a year, and pregnant with Emily a year after that. Then it all started to change. He stayed out later, drank more, and there for her much less. Especially if she needed him. Jack was never there when she needed him, including when their children were born. When Emily was born he was on a binge and gone for three days. He came home crying and apologizing. He went to rehab, She took him back. For about a year things were better. Then she started to notice the signs again only this time money was going missing too. Gambling, in addition to drinking he was gambling. She did her best for another year to hold her marriage together. Until the day she realized she was pregnant again. She gave him a choice, rehab continued treatment or leave, and he left. He left her alone, in debt, with a toddler, and pregnant, on Christmas Eve. Twenty five years later she finally had him out of her life and was moving on.
That was the story with the man of her past and while he did have a lot in common with the man of her present and future their story was in the differences between the two men. First, Andy had been sober for almost twenty years. He went to AA meetings still every single week. He did not take his sobriety for granted. He also had been in therapy. He wasn't too proud to admit that he needed help putting the rest of his life back together. He could admit when he was wrong. Those were the big differences the ones that meant they could have a future together.
Their story had started out do differently than the one she had with Jack. Nobody would ever say that Andy Flynn had swept her off her feet. At first all she saw was the hotheaded officer that was always getting in trouble or worse yet one that tried to charm his way out of a situation. Sharon had not time for that. Then when she was put in charge of Major Crimes she began to see a different side of him. She saw a side of him that was tender and soft. He was the one that insisted that she learn the victims' names and call them by them during a case. The night that Rusty ran away he had been distraught. Then at Nicole's wedding he was so adorably awkward with her. That awkwardness continued for months when he would ask her if she wanted to get something to eat after work. What he didn't know was she found it more charming than she ever would if he had the right words all of the time. Then of course he was always there when she needed him. "I will wait, in case you need me" he had told her after that awful case involving the children. When she questioned herself after a case he always knew what to say to reassure her. Not a rehearsed line but something genuine because he knew her and knew what she needed to hear. Somehow through all of that she had mange to ignore all of the feelings until a couple of weeks ago. Until the night of the Nutcracker when Rusty forced her to accept what was going on.
Now here they were, Christmas Eve, her children and the man that she loved together laughing and sharing the holiday. She smiled when she saw the small purple angel on her Christmas tree that he had given her earlier that evening. It was hidden in the Christmas village. So perfect, so subtle, filled with hope and joy of the new story that was being written between them.
The End
