Hello, all! *Waves* This is an episode tag for 3.04 where Sharon Raydor gets to have a talk with Sharon Beck.
Thanks for stopping by to read my latest bit of fanfiction. I hope you like it! I confess I started this story with something a little different in mind, but the characters just refused to cooperate.
Many thanks to the wonderful Lady Lanera for beta'ing.
Mother to Mother
She would not shoot the woman in the head. She would not shoot the woman in the head. That had been her mantra for a while now.
Rusty would never forgive her if she did. He still loved his mother.
But she might break the woman's nose. Or hit her over the head with a chair… that was certainly looking like a viable option.
Raydor's eyes shifted from the Other Sharon to Provenza's chair. It was a nice chair. Probably heavy. Someone might stop her before she could slam it over the woman's head, and that'd lead to an internal investigation. She sighed inwardly. Provenza would probably never forgive her for ruining his chair. Her eyes shifted back to the Other Sharon. Thankfully, Rusty was in school.
The woman had the gall to come to the police station and demand to see Rusty. After everything she had put that boy through. After the things she'd said to him…and here she was, thinking that all this was acceptable behavior? Did she truly believe she deserved to call herself his mother after all that?
"Amy," Raydor finally spoke, still ignoring the woman ranting at the top of her lungs in the middle of the murder room, "please help Sharon find her way into the interview room. It's about time she and I had a chat, mother to mother."
Amy hesitated briefly, but didn't have to be told twice. The Captain was rather proud that she hadn't lost the ability to command with nothing more than a change of tone. She supposed it was something that came from raising three children. Three children. Rusty was her child. Not this woman's.
"And be sure to read her the Miranda Warning." Raydor stood for a moment after Amy had taken the Other Sharon away, glaring at the spot where the Other Sharon had just stood.
"Captain," Provenza drew her from her thoughts of beating the woman to death with a chair. "Maybe you've forgotten, but we do need a reason to arrest people. "
"We have reason, Lieutenant," Sharon replied matter-of-factly. "As you pointed out a couple of weeks ago, we still have an open child abandonment case."
"Ah! Right. Right," Provenza said, obviously not quite convinced that this was a good idea. "So, who is going to interview the suspect?"
"I am." Sharon turned and walked into the interview room before any of her team could stop her.
In the interview room, Amy was standing by the door watching Sharon Beck expressionlessly. Or at least trying to. Julio was better at pretending to have no emotions. Raydor gave her young detective a small smile as she entered the room. She could see the confusion in Amy's eyes and motioned for the detective to remain where she was by the door.
Sharon Raydor took a seat across the table from Sharon Beck.
"You've been informed of your rights, Sharon." It was a statement, and the Other Sharon glared at her with pure hate. She wondered if Rusty had ever seen that look directed at him from the woman who gave birth to him. "Do you understand your rights?"
"What I don't understand is why I'm in here. You can't arrest me. I haven't done anything wrong," the other Sharon seethed.
"I asked," Sharon repeated calmly and patiently, "if you understood your rights?"
"Yes. Now, tell me why I'm under arrest."
"You aren't," Sharon replied. "Not yet, anyway."
"Then why-"
"I do plan, however," Sharon interrupted, "on arresting you for child abandonment and for foraging a prescription. But first, you're going to ask for a lawyer. Right now."
Sharon could practically hear her 'boys' in the electronics room screaming at her. Asking if she knew what the hell she was doing. That thought almost made her smile.
The Other Sharon looked confused for a moment, but was smarter than she looked. "I'd like a lawyer. Right now."
"As you wish. Detective Sykes, would you be so kind as to arrange a lawyer for Ms. Beck?"
"Yes, ma'am," Amy replied, leaving Sharon alone in the room with the Other Sharon.
Sharon wondered if her boys in the electronics room were placing bets yet. She hoped they gambled wisely.
"Now, Sharon," Raydor said easily, as though talking to a friend. "This is very important. Since you've asked for a lawyer, I can't question you. And you can't talk to me. Because if you voluntarily talk to me, it will be considered a waiver of your rights, and what you say can be held against you. I cannot question you. You cannot talk to me." Sharon paused, for a moment to let that sink in. "However, I can talk to you. And you will listen."
The Other Sharon rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but remained quiet.
Sharon Raydor took a deep breath and hoped her plan worked. "I'm going to tell you a story. About a young girl who found herself in a position very similar to yours. Because I want you to know that I do understand your decisions. I understand the position you were in."
The Other Sharon scoffed, but remained quiet.
"When I was sixteen, I met a boy. Which was a huge accomplishment let me assure you, since I attended an all-girls Catholic school. It wasn't long before I fell madly and stupidly in love with him. He asked me to marry him when we were seventeen, and we arranged the whole thing to take place a month after we graduated high school." Sharon half-smiled at the memory of how young and foolish she had been. "My parents were not unsupportive, but they weren't exactly happy either. But I was naïve like most young people are. When I mentioned to my mother how my husband and I planned on moving back in with them after the honeymoon, my mother burst out laughing. You'd have thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard."
"Why are you telling me this? Do you think I care about you? You have no idea—"
"Don't speak, Sharon. Not until your lawyer arrives anyway."
Once again the Other Sharon rolled her eyes and closed her mouth, but not until after mumbling under her breath, "Bitch."
Sharon ignored the insult. "When my mother finally stopped laughing, she informed me that if I was old enough to get married then I was old enough to support myself. In other words, she was kicking me out. You know exactly what that's like."
The Other Sharon glared but remained silent, shifting uneasily in her chair.
"But I was young and wasn't too bothered by the news. I was sure we could take care of ourselves. It couldn't be too hard after all. I was in for a rather rude wake-up call, as I'm sure you know." She glanced across the table at the Other Sharon. "My husband and I moved to L.A. afterwards, because I was a dancer and had been offered a scholarship to UCLA's dance program. However, we soon realized that we needed money. All around campus were flyers that said the LAPD was looking for new recruits. So, I joined the academy while going to school for dance. I didn't sleep much." Sharon didn't try to hide her rather sad smile. "After graduating the academy, I paid for my husband to go to school to become a lawyer while still taking my dance classes. You see, I was very good. Very, very good."
She had been good. Not as good as her daughter, but she hadn't been as devoted to it as her little girl was to ballet. "I was good enough that I took part in a competition that if I won would have paid for me to study in New York City and guaranteed me a spot with one of the most famous dance companies in the world."
"Oh, yes, I see what you mean, Captain," the Other Sharon spat out viciously. "We're so much alike we could be twins."
Sharon ignored the interruption and continued. "I won the competition after competing against a hundred others. On the day I found out that I won, I rushed home to tell my husband . . . only to find him in our tiny studio apartment in bed with another woman." Sharon noticed the Other Sharon take notice of this. Apparently, she'd been cheated on as well. "I kicked him out and spent the entire night sobbing. The next day I had my mandatory physical for the LAPD. It was then, the day after I found out my husband was cheating on me, that I found out I was pregnant."
She knew she had the Other Sharon's full attention now. The woman was hanging on to every word and practically curling up in the chair she was sitting on. Soon. It would be over soon.
"I went to my dance class that afternoon and told my best friend everything afterwards. He wasn't much of a friend really. I don't remember how he convinced me to get into his car. " Sharon swallowed; this part was not easy to tell. "But the next thing I knew, we were at an abortion clinic." Sharon looked away in spite of herself, but quickly continued on. "He signed me in under a fake name, but before I could even be called back to speak to the nurse, I… I woke up. I couldn't believe I'd even let him talk me into stepping foot inside there. I ran out and didn't look back." Sharon looked back at the other Sharon. "I know why you didn't kill your baby. I know why you couldn't go through with an abortion. I also know that the thought crossed your mind, and that you gave it serious consideration."
Now, it was the Other Sharon's turn to look away.
Sharon continued her story. "I finally got home to find my husband sitting outside my door. He begged me to forgive him. He told me it was a one-time thing. A mistake. That I hadn't been home much, and he was lonely, and that it would never ever happen again. And I believed him," Sharon said quietly, crossing her own arms and leaning back in her chair, unknowingly copying the Other Sharon's posture. "I believed him."
Neither woman said anything for a few moments, and Sharon wondered if the Other Sharon was lost in her own thoughts and mistakes and wondered just how similar those mistakes were to her own.
Sharon leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "Now, here is where our stories differ drastically. Here is where I start not to understand your actions, Sharon. And I want to understand you. I do. Because I want to know how I didn't end up sitting on the other side of this table where you're sitting now. I know what I did. I forgave my husband. I gave up my chance to become a dancer. I dropped out of college and gave up my scholarship. I began working full time in Internal Affairs. I continued to pay for my husband to go to law school and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Two years later, my husband was working as a court appointed attorney, had the beginnings of a serious drinking problem, and I was pregnant again. A few years after my son was born, my husband packed all his bags, cleared out our bank account, and left me a note saying that he couldn't live with me anymore. I sold my wedding ring in order to feed my children until I got paid next—
"But never," Sharon continued, forcing herself not the glare at the woman sitting across from her. "Never did I consider abandoning my children. I never once regretted my decision to walk out of the abortion clinic. I worked as hard as I could to send them to good schools and made sure they had everything they needed. I don't understand why you couldn't do that for your son. I don't understand why you chose your boyfriend and drugs over him. I don't understand how you could stand back and let your boyfriend beat the crap out of him on a regular basis. I don't understand why I worked so hard for my children, and how you couldn't do the same for your son."
"You think you're so perfect," the Other Sharon snapped spitefully. "So fucking perfect. Do you sleep better at night knowing how perfect of a mother you are? How self-sacrificing? How you've never made any mistakes?" The Other Sharon scoffed, and Sharon hoped she would finish this quickly. "You want to know why I left the little bastard?"
Sharon repeated her mantra about not hitting the woman over the head with a chair.
"I abandoned my pathetic excuse of a son, because he wasn't of any use to me anymore." The Other Sharon sneered as she leaned forward across the table, glaring at Sharon as though hoping the look alone would kill her. "He was too old to steal for me without getting caught. He was too old to make me look young and attractive, and he constantly bothered me about getting clean." The Other Sharon leaned back, looking rather satisfied with herself, as if she was proud of her own actions. "I actually thought about selling him to men for drugs. He attracted a certain crowd…Gary said he wouldn't do that, though. He didn't mind beating the kid up, but refused to use him to make some money."
Trying to maintain her composure the best she could, Sharon envisioned how easy it'd be for her to grab that chair and beat the Other Sharon with it. Her team likely would stand behind her. Hell, Julio likely would even join her in it.
"And just when I thought he could be useful again…" the Other Sharon sneered. "When I thought he could fill a prescription for me at least, he couldn't even do that. It wasn't easy finding someone who could forge a prescription. All he had to do was get it filled without asking questions. That's it! And my son couldn't even do that."
When it became obvious that the Other Sharon wasn't going to say anything else, Sharon spoke. "Sharon, I told you not to speak to me. Several times I reminded you that if you did, it would be considered a waiver of your rights and that what you said could be used against you. You just confessed to child abandonment, child neglect, possession of controlled substances, and forging a medical document."
The Other Sharon's eyes widened, and she gaped like a fish out of water for a moment. "You, you, can't do that!"
"Actually, I can, as I'm sure your lawyer will inform you if he ever arrives. However," Sharon pushed a legal pad and pen towards the Other Sharon, "if you write down everything you just told me and sign a document surrendering your parental rights over Rusty, I'll do my best to convince the DDA to make a deal."
The Other Sharon glared at her for a few moments before she picked up the pen and began writing.
Sharon remained in the interview room as the Other Sharon wrote, together they waited for the public defender and the DDA to arrive.
So...for now this story is complete. I might decided to continue it for one more chapter that would include Sharon facing her team after telling them her entire life's story, and her talking to Rusty if there's enough interest. So please, please, let me know your thoughts and anything else you'd like to see included in a future chapter.