.
.
Andy had come down to the range to give Sharon a message, but he found himself stopping halfway to the shooting area. The message hadn't been urgent, and he didn't get many chances to just watch his boss (and whatever else she was becoming, which he'd think about later) in action like this. She'd spread her legs shoulder-width apart in the appropriate shooting stance, steady as a rock even in those fancy high-heeled shoes she favored. The line of her back was elegant and arrow-straight; even from this angle, Sharon gave off a "do NOT screw with me" vibe, softened just enough by the tumble of auburn hair spilling over her shoulders. Her arms were straight, elbows locked, and from what he could see, her grip on her weapon was textbook form.
Which made it curious that she was missing the big red center of the target every other shot. It didn't seem to be a sighting glitch…there was a cluster of holes close enough to dead center to be a perfect score. But above the center, up in the face area of the human-frame target, there were an equal number of holes, the mouth area almost completely blown away.
He chewed on his toothpick and considered what to do next. He could turn around and leave—the protective ear muffs she wore would keep her from knowing he had ever been there. Or he could act like he hadn't noticed…his choices were yanked away when he saw her shoulder twitch and her head turn just enough to spot him.
He tossed his toothpick in the trash as he walked the rest of the way, making his approach more obvious. She pushed aside the protective gear enough to hear him but still didn't fully turn.
"Getting some practice in early? I thought you had another month before qualifying again." He worked on making his tone casual, like he didn't see the sheen of a tear track on her cheek.
"I never know when I'll have a free hour, Lieutenant. You know what it's been like lately." Her voice was flat, and her use of his title told him he wasn't wanted there right now. At least, not as a friend.
Fine. He could play it like that, if that's what she needed.
"You having some recoil problems, Captain? Looks like you keep going high." He nodded at the tattered target.
Sharon sighed and pulled off her ear muffs. "It's not the gun. I—I guess I got distracted." She still wouldn't look at him full on, and he noticed a faint flush along the side of her face. He silently asked permission with a lift of an eyebrow, and at her shrug, tugged the pulley, bringing the target in. He ran his fingers over the head shots before folding the paper, then crumpling it.
"Pretty tight shooting for being distracted."
She bit her lip as she holstered her gun. "It wasn't a great time for me to come down here, I guess. I don't know what I was thinking."
The hurt he could see hovering in her eyes cut through him like one of her bullets. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what she'd been thinking. He'd had the same thoughts after hearing about Rusty's latest encounter with his addict mother.
"You up for a cup of coffee? Get out of here for a while?" He gave her an empathetic grin. "I know a place with great espresso."
Her shoulders unstiffened a little, then a little more as they walked to the counter to turn in her gear. He pretended not to notice when she swiped the errant tear track from her cheek.
"That sounds like a good idea. Is this a new place?" She brushed past him as he held the door for her.
Now it was his turn to flush. Maybe he was being too forward…but he could always suggest something else.
"Well, it's new…Sharon, I just got a new espresso machine." His words came faster than he'd planned, but her arched eyebrow and the beginnings of a smirk were making him nervous. "I thought, maybe if you didn't feel like being around a bunch of people, I could—you could come over, just, y'know, chill for a while."
Her full-bodied laugh surprised him, and seemed to surprise her as well.
"'Chill,' Andy? You're asking me to your apartment to 'chill?" Even with her amusement, he noticed she didn't stop walking towards the door.
"Okay, if that's too juvenile, can I ask you to, what? Visit? Come over for a chat?" She was starting to giggle, and his heart lifted. It was getting harder to be silly around Sharon—he was moving further and further away from his old departmental clowning days—but she seemed to need the lightness right now.
She gave the side of his arm a mild smack as her shoulders finally seemed to relax all the way. "Actually, 'chill' sounds like the perfect word for what I could go for right now. And some good coffee. Do you mind driving?"
He assured her he was fine taking her over to his place then bringing her back to the garage, saying all the usual clichés about LA traffic while he turned the thought over and over in his head, getting a grip on the fact that he was actually bringing Sharon Raydor to his apartment.
It'd be a notch below her elegant, tastefully furnished apartment, but at least he'd cleaned the day before, and for a guy's apartment, it wasn't too shabby. A few good prints from Italian artists on the walls, simple, functional furniture…the only area that surpassed her place was the kitchen, which sported the latest in cookware, gadgets, and an assortment of classic pieces from his mother and grandmother.
Thirty minutes later, she was sitting on his couch, shoes kicked off and legs curled under her like she was in her own home. He figured she liked it just fine.
In the kitchen, his hands shook just enough to jitter cup against saucer before he told himself to get a grip. They'd been alone before, on their "not-dates" to the wedding and the ballet, and the dinners before each event. And they'd shared some hard topics, painful ones, in her office, over Rusty, over families of victims…but this was different. And if she needed a hug…not a one-armed glancing touch or a supportive hand at the small of her back, but a real, full-body hug…he wasn't sure what he would do.
By the time he'd returned to the living room with two tiny cups of espresso, Sharon was flipping through one of his cooking magazines, and Andy had decided whatever Sharon needed from him, he'd provide, and worry about any ramifications later. And it would be what she needed, not what he wanted.
And what she needed right now, was for him to open the door on her feelings today, whether he wanted to start a conversation about Sharon Beck or not.
Andy waited until her small china cup was empty and in its saucer before he said anything. He kept his eyes on the grounds forming a pattern at the bottom of his cup, letting the discussion of LA Italian restaurants drift into silence.
"She must've said some horrible things to him, for you to go after the mouth like that."
He glanced up and caught her slightly shame-faced look. "What makes you think—"
"C'mon, Sharon. You want to know how many times I blasted someone right in the mouth for what they'd said, even if it was just me mentally putting their face on a paper target?"
Memories of snide accusations and blustering threats made his temples pound as he thought about ways he'd handled that kind of pressure once the bottle wasn't an option any more.
She curled into herself a touch, a subtle movement only someone who'd been around her over time would catch. This was as far as she'd go, in front of someone else, to protect herself against her feelings. He was half-expecting her to deflect him further. He was surprised and oddly honored when the words came spilling out.
"It was so bad, Andy…so ugly. I know he didn't tell me everything she said, but with what he did say, I could just hear the rest. And I had to just…be mature, and supportive, and—" She broke off, breathing hard against threatened tears.
"You had to be the adult, the Mom, right? Bite your tongue in half to keep from calling her what you were saying in your head?" He moved to sit closer, taking her hand in both of his, rubbing his thumb over the backs of her fingers.
"Oh, God, yes. I wanted to grab the phone and tell her she didn't deserve to live on the same planet as him. In my head, I was marrying the eff-word to the c-word and adding a few choice adjectives to round it all out." She gave him a rueful look as he tried to keep a straight face. He couldn't imagine Sharon using that kind of language…then he did, and felt a flush of a different kind bring color to his cheeks.
"Good thing you had that Catholic school background to keep your mouth in check, huh?"
The image that brought to mind didn't help his imagination either.
The look she gave him, a quick glance from under her lashes, told him she knew, or at least suspected, what he was thinking.
"But I said the right things, I hope. Between what I learned with Jack, and what you've shared with me over all this, I don't think I handled it too badly. 'It's not her, it's the addiction' blah blah blah." Any flirtation fled her expression and she just looked like a woman worn thin from being too sad, too mad. It was a look he had seen in the faces of a lot of people who had connections with addicts.
He'd seen it in his wife's face, his daughters' faces, once upon a time.
"So, did it feel good, getting that out on the range?"
Light flickered in her eyes, like sheet lightning over the sea. She looked like she was searching for something appropriate to say, then shrugged. "Yes. Yes it did. I told her everything I couldn't say for real…all the things I can't say in front of him. And then I just let her have it."
A tremor flickered through her and against all protocol, but completely in accordance with his heart, Andy finally gave her the hug he'd wanted to since he saw that first tear. Awkward, half-sideways, and seated, it still felt wonderful. He hoped it felt half as good to her. He was letting himself get lost in the scent of her hair when she spoke again, her arms tightening around his ribs as she spoke in a hushed monotone.
"She refused…refused to see what a wonderful son she has, that she's always had." Her voice dropped lower. "So I went for her eyes."
He nodded against her hair. There was more to come. He could still see the shredded target in his mind.
"She accused him of horrible things, of causing her addiction. She used 'gay' like a razor blade, trying to hurt him for not helping her get high. I know she said more than he told me. I could see it in his eyes."
Those were the shots to the mouth. There had been a lot of those.
A suppressed sob shook her frame and he held on tight. There was no pain like suffering someone else's, and Andy sent up a quick prayer of contrition for what he'd done to others in the past.
"And then I thought of how she had let heroin take over her heart, take what should have been in there for her son, and it's his goddamn mother…" She tried to cover the quaver in her voice with a rough cough. He patted her back, dreading the return of that steely shell she'd donned in the past.
"That's when you really hit the target, right?" At the end, there had been a cluster around the bulls-eye, the center of the chest, where you aim when you want to put someone down for good.
"Yes. Yes, I did. I'd never go after her for real, not even with words." She looked into his eyes, and seemed to find what she needed there. "Rusty doesn't need my feelings cluttering up his, making him feel like he's got to defend her…humanity, or whatever he thinks she still has."
"But this was a reasonable enough facsimile, wasn't it?"
She gave him a grin that was finally, mercifully, dry and touched with a hint of sass.
"It felt good enough for me to feel bad about it. Until I knew you were standing behind me."
He leaned back into the couch, and was quietly thrilled when she followed, resting her head on his chest for a second before sitting back up. He thought he felt some reluctance there, and it gave him hope for the future.
"Glad I was there. I never…you should never feel bad about being pissed off at somebody who's done really crappy things." He shrugged with more nonchalance than he felt. "We feel what we feel, you know? We gotta brush it off when it's job-related, but when it's personal…we get to have that."
Somewhere in his supportive little speech, Andy realized he wasn't talking about Sharon Beck any more.
And the warmth in her look gave him hope she had come to the same realization.
"Sometimes, what we feel can get really complicated, Andy. Feelings…acting on our feelings leads to consequences."
He was bracing himself to be gently shot down when she very deliberately placed her palms on either side of his face. He could swear his heart skipped a beat and fervently hoped he wasn't getting ready to faint again.
"Of course," she continued, "not acting on our feelings can have worse consequences. Like missing out on something really worthwhile."
Later, he would play the moment over in his memory, and come to the same conclusion each time: she was definitely leaning in to kiss him. He was sure of it. And if her phone hadn't rung right then…hell, they might still be on that couch if they hadn't been interrupted by the latest murder.
It'd be complicated. It'd possibly be messy, and it would definitely lead to unwanted shared opinions from at least Provenza, maybe Morales, and Sykes would wear her eyebrows out raising them over the whole situation.
But it'd be honest. Hadn't his first sponsor gone over that again and again, until he was sick of the words? The worst thing an addict can do is lie. You lie to others, then to yourself…then you're telling yourself the Big Lie, that you can drink again, keep things under control this time.
This pretending, this not-dating thing they were doing…it was getting to that point. He felt her hands on his face again, felt his body react to where they seemed to be heading when she got the murder call.
They both were experts at shooting straight on the firing range. Next chance they had to talk privately, they'd find out how well they could shoot straight with each other.