This is set either right before or right after the Hindsight arc of the fourth season. I couldn't make up my mind.

The doctor's appt mentioned isn't any kind of foreboding. It was a means to have Sharon out of work on a Friday. I'm not in the business of killing off strong female leads for absolutely no reason (ahem). I originally planned for Rusty to either hear Sharon and Andy in bed or walk in on them, but MikUSC did an amazing job with that concept, so I just left well enough alone. Speaking of which, if you haven't read her stories, stop reading this trash and go read them. I enjoy other writers, too, but damn. If you need a good alternate ending for the sixth season, she hooked us up. :)

The premise for this was going to be a rainy day, but I got several requests for "whiny Andy," so I killed two birds with one stone instead.

Sharon quietly closed the door behind her when she slipped into the condo after a doctor's appointment one Friday morning. She'd scheduled it for the first appointment of the day so she could have most of her "sick day" to herself. Andy had been sick for a few days, but she'd thought he was going back to work today until she noticed his car still in his spot in the garage. With Rusty planning to spend most of the day with Gus, she'd been looking forward to having the condo to herself for a few hours. Andy had been staying overnight as a partner rather than a patient more and more recently, which she was thrilled about, but she was still getting used to the recent change. While having the day to herself would have been welcome, she wasn't disappointed that she'd have company, either. As long as said company kept the whining to a minimum, because he'd been driving her up the wall. He'd handled the blood clot situation with no problem, but a few cold symptoms and a slight fever had him acting like he was on his deathbed.

Sharon placed her purse on the rack in the entryway and stepped out of her sandals. Shoes in hand, she went quietly through her room and to her closet to change into something more comfortable. After pulling on some leggings, she realized the sweatshirt she wanted to put on was in the laundry room, and Rusty wasn't home, so she started for the laundry room in just her leggings and bra. "How was your appointment?" Andy mumbled from her bed.

Sharon jumped. She hadn't realized he was awake. She was much more comfortable with being undressed in front of him than she had been just a few weeks ago, but she hadn't yet reached the point where it didn't faze her at all. And she wished she were wearing one of her better bras. Any of them would've been better than this one, and she should've thrown it out long ago, but it was her favorite. She hadn't expected to be seen in it today, so she didn't worry about it when she put it on that morning. She sat on her bed and got back under the covers. "It was fine. I thought you were going back to work today?"

Andy sighed dramatically and looked up at her with pleading eyes. "I still wasn't up for it. I think my temperature went up again."

Sharon managed not to roll her eyes before leaning down to kiss his forehead. "You don't have a fever."

"But I still don't feel well!" Andy insisted.

"I know, honey," Sharon said patronizingly.

Andy gave her a suggestive look. "Rusty didn't come home last night, did he?" Sharon shook her head. He'd texted her the afternoon before that he was staying at Gus's, and his car hadn't been beside hers when she got back from her appointment. "Well, there's one thing that I'm pretty sure I am up for..."

Sharon gave him a look of mock reproach. "Sorry, honey, but you know the rules. If you're too sick to go to work, then you're too sick to play."

Andy shook his head. "No, no, that's school. Not work. And it doesn't apply to adults."

Now that Andy brought it up, it was sounding pretty good to Sharon, but she wanted to mess with him a little first. "I don't know, Andy, that may be a little strenuous for you. You're not having a relapse on my watch." She wasn't worried about germs. After being intimate right before his symptoms appeared when he was probably already contagious and then sharing her bed most nights that week, if she hadn't gotten it by now, she probably wasn't going to get it.

"Of a cold?! I think I'll be all right."

Sharon raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Just last night, you were sure it was the flu."

Andy looked sheepish. "Um...It's possible that I was exaggerating just a tiny bit."

Sharon choked back a laugh. "You don't say."

Andy pulled his pajama top off and coughed into it before discarding it on the floor. "I think someone needs a little attitude adjustment." Sharon squealed softly as Andy pulled her closer for a powerful kiss. He reached around her to unhook her bra, but he struggled with it. He hadn't had this problem with any of her other bras, what the hell?

"I've got it." Sharon knew just how to manipulate the hooks to get it off. She held her arms behind her and fiddled with the clasp for a few moments before she got it undone. "I should've thrown it out a long time ago, but I just can't part with it yet."

"Hey, as long as it'll come off, you won't hear me complaining." Andy turned his attention to her breasts, and Sharon lay back, prepared to endure it and try to react at the right moments. This did nothing for her, but she hadn't had the heart to tell him yet. The first couple of times, she thought there was a possibility that he wouldn't do this every time and that she could wait it out the times he did, and when it became apparent that he was going to do it every time, she felt foolish for not saying anything before. She didn't know if this was something most women enjoyed or not, but all it did for her was make her self-conscious about boob sweat. While she'd been with other men between Jack and Andy, none of them had been long-term, so there wasn't a reason to mention anything she didn't like, and this had never been a problem with Jack at all. While he turned out to be a first-class asshole, he knew just what she wanted in bed.

Sharon let out a small sigh of relief when Andy finally moved on, and they really started heating up. Lapse in breast judgment aside, he was always perfect for the rest of the ride. As they were lying together afterward, she couldn't help but think that part of her wished she still smoked occasionally. A post-romp cig sounded perfect right about now. Having Andy's arms around her was working for her too, though. A few minutes later, she reluctantly started to get up to go to the bathroom, but Andy pulled her back. "Why is peeing after sex a rule?" He moaned, knowing just where she was headed.

Sharon smiled as she cuddled back into Andy for a few more moments. "I don't necessarily have to so soon afterward, but I'm prone to getting UTIs, anyway, and even more so when I'm doing this regularly. I prefer to do it sooner rather than later."

"Oh, god, that sounds miserable. What are those like? If you don't mind me asking."

Sharon shrugged. "They make me want to get in a scalding hot bath and just pee all over myself. I've never actually done that," she clarified, "but it's tempting." She did the 'hot baths' part when she had one, but saved the peeing for the proper receptacle. "You're right. They're miserable."

Andy nodded. "Yeah, I definitely won't be complaining again...Oh, god, Sharon, go pee! Please."

Sharon laughed as she got out of bed. When she was finished in the bathroom, they stayed in bed a little while longer before finally deciding to get up for the day. Once they were dressed, or mostly dressed, in Sharon's case, she led Andy to the couch, found her sweatshirt in the laundry room and put it on over her leggings, and made tea and breakfast for Andy. It had been a busy week, and she felt bad about not being able to do more for him while he was sick. Now that she'd had time to relax, she felt guilty for getting annoyed with him, but he'd started complaining at the first sniffle, so it was hard to tell when he really did start feeling bad. He didn't feel bad enough to miss work until Wednesday, but he'd started whining on Monday. "I'm sorry I haven't been here with you more this week," Sharon said softly as she settled beside him on the couch.

"Sharon. Please. You've gotten more than your fill of taking care of me in the last few months."

"Still." Sharon lay on Andy's shoulder, but she sat up, eyes widened in horror, when they heard footsteps coming down the hall. She wasn't frightened, as they unmistakably belonged to Rusty, but she had no idea he was there. He came into the living room, still in his pajamas, and his hair was disheveled from sleep. He didn't look like he was scarred for life, but Sharon still prayed to God, Jesus, Mary, and her favorite dead grandmother that he hadn't heard them earlier. The balcony above them was having some repair work done, and the machines whirring outside were pretty loud, so she hoped that had drowned out any noise she and Andy might have made.

As Rusty got closer to the couch, Sharon could see that his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were a little too glassy to just be drowsiness. "Mo-om, your live-in made me sick," Rusty whined as he dropped onto the couch beside her and lay against her. "I don't feel good."

Sharon hummed sympathetically and felt his forehead. "I'm sorry, honey...Hmm, you're a little warm. And we do not live together."

Rusty rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Mom, if it weren't for me, you guys would still be not dating."

"Where's your car, and when did you come home?" Sharon asked, desperate to change the subject. She narrowed her eyes at Rusty. "I thought you sounded congested yesterday, but you said you were fine."

"Oh, my battery died, and I didn't feel like dealing with it, so I left it at Gus's and ubered home. And I thought I was just getting a cold, but I started feeling worse last night and didn't want Gus to get sick, so I came home."

Sharon brushed his hair back from his face. "Why didn't you call me to come get you?"

Rusty shrugged. That had actually been his first thought, but he was working on the selfish thing. Seeing Gus with a job and being self-sufficient also gave him a little desire to be less dependent upon Sharon, but that part could wait until he was feeling better. "You're the one that's been sucking face with Andy all week, how did I get sick and not you?" He moaned. "And could those machines be any louder?"

Sharon pulled Rusty closer to her and draped a blanket over him. "Those machines are loud," she agreed, ignoring his first question entirely. "Were you able to sleep okay?"

Rusty nodded. "They woke me up when they started this morning, but I was able to sleep through it after that. But they dropped something a minute ago and woke me up again, so I gave up after that. I didn't know you were even here. I forgot you had today off. I was coming in here to tell Andy to keep his damn germs to himself." Sharon sighed in relief. Crisis averted.

Andy reached over Sharon and patted Rusty's shoulder. "Sorry, kid."

"It's fine, it's really not that bad...Wait, this is what you've been bitching about all week? Come on, Andy. Man up."

"You must not have the same thing, then," Andy grumbled. "Or I just had it worse."

"Uh-huh."

Sharon adjusted herself between Andy and Rusty until she was a little more comfortable and looked down at Rusty. "Do you want some breakfast? Or tea? There's some medicine in the kitchen that seemed to help Andy—"

"Maybe in a minute," Rusty mumbled, wanting Sharon to stay where she was for the time being.

"Okay. Let me know when you want something." While she'd originally intended to have the day to herself, spending it with her sick boys suited her just fine.

After lunch, Sharon pulled out a few photo albums and settled on the floor with them while Andy and Rusty found a movie on TV. The construction crew was gone, so they could actually hear themselves think again. Rusty had perked up a little after eating and taking some medicine, and he picked up one of the albums and started going through it. "What are you doing with these?"

"I just haven't looked through them in a long time," Sharon answered. "Emily and I were talking about a Christmas in Park City when she and Ricky were small earlier this week, and I got a little nostalgic." Sharon pushed one of the chairs over to give herself a little more room, but she froze when a little bit of gas escaped during the process. One of the downfalls of getting older was having less control over that than she used to, and she blushed furiously.

Andy heard it, but it was so faint that he wasn't even sure what it was until he saw Sharon's mortified expression and the amused grin on Rusty's face. "Yep, Mom just farted," Rusty laughed, not missing the look of confusion on Andy's face. It didn't matter how old he was, he didn't think he would ever stop finding farting hilarious.

"Rusty!"

"What, Mom, it was going to happen at some point. You just got it over with."

Sharon's face was flaming, so Andy patted her arm reassuringly. "Come on, Sharon, if you never farted, you would explode. I'll gladly take the first option any day."

"You might change your mind when the smell gets to you," Rusty cautioned. "Mom can clear a room in a heartbeat...What, he's going to know that anyway in just a matter of seconds," he defended himself when Sharon glared at him. "I'm just giving him a warning."

Andy shook his head. "I don't believe you, kid. It sounded so...dainty."

"Well, it won't smell dainty, I can promise you. The daintier they are, the worse they smell. And if it doesn't make any noise, you're done for. Mom's the reason silent but deadly is a thing."

Sharon was shooting daggers at Rusty with her eyes, but she had to admit that she was glad he was there to lighten the mood. If he hadn't been, Andy probably wouldn't have reacted at all, and then it just would've been awkward and embarrassing when the smell hit him. She also knew that if it hadn't happened then, she couldn't avoid it forever, and she was actually surprised it hadn't happened before now around him. Well, it did once in the electronics room not long after she started auditing Major Crimes when she was still in FID, but they hadn't been dating then, and no one had known it was her. It had been quiet, but no one missed the smell. She was pretty sure Buzz ended up getting blamed for that one.

A few moments later, Andy's eyes widened in recognition when the smell reached him. "Oh, my god, it was you in the electronics room that day!" Andy laughed. "Poor Buzz, we still give him hell about that sometimes."

"How do you remember that?" Sharon asked. That was years ago!" She remembered it well, because she'd been so afraid that they would suspect her, but no one had paid her any attention.

"Uh..." Andy faltered. "Let's just say it was memorable."

"Told you," Rusty smirked.

"At least I don't do it on purpose in the car, and then lock the windows and turn the heat on, like some people I can think of." Sharon gave Rusty a pointed look over her glasses.

Rusty shrugged. "Hey, you have to make your own fun around here...Ew, Mom, you outdid yourself with that one!"

"That's enough, young man." Sharon got back on the floor and started sifting through one of the albums. This one was mostly Emily as an infant. Sharon smiled to herself as she remembered when she realized she was pregnant with Emily. Jack was several months out of law school and had a good job, so she was applying to law school, per their plan. Before bed one night, she was looking over her law school applications one last time before putting them in the mail the next morning. The TV in their bedroom was on, and a commercial for a pregnancy test began playing. Sharon smiled to herself, glad that she wasn't in the market for one of those yet, and wouldn't be for a few more years...Wait a minute. When was the last time she'd actually had a period? Her birth control had made her periods so light that she hardly noticed them, and tampons were usually only necessary for a day or two, if that. She hadn't actually skipped any, though, had she? She thought back, and couldn't remember having a period for six or seven weeks, now. Yeah, yeah, Catholics weren't supposed to take birth control or whatever, but she'd only "agreed" to that so she could get married in the church where she grew up. It was none of anyone's damn business, and she wasn't willing to risk getting pregnant before she was ready. She hadn't attended church regularly since she still lived with her parents, anyway. A sense of dread came over her as she remembered running out of tampons almost two months ago. She definitely hadn't had a period since then. "Fuck, Jack, I think I'm pregnant."

Jack looked up from the magazine in his lap in surprise. "Wait, what?!"

Sharon struggled to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over. "I haven't had a period in almost two months. I've never skipped one before. I may not be, but...God, I just have a feeling that I am." She watched in disbelief as a smile spread across Jack's face. "Are you happy about this?! Jack! We're not ready to have a baby!"

Their friends had started having babies, and Jack only saw the good parts of having kids, so he'd started to get a little eager for that stage of their lives. "We'll figure it out, Sharon. You can still go to law school—"

"No, I can't." Sharon wiped her eyes. Well, she could, but her benefits were better than Jack's, and giving that up to go back to school didn't seem right. She hadn't planned to be with the LAPD long enough to be promoted out of patrol, but she'd been there for almost four years, now, and the pay raise and more stable hours that would come with a promotion sounded more family-friendly than going back to school and starting over. She had a little over a year until she would be eligible for a promotion, but she would ideally begin law school about eight months from now. If she really was pregnant, she'd be giving birth around then instead. She got out of bed and hastily dug through their closet for some clothes.

Jack watched her in confusion. "Where are you going?"

"To get a pregnancy test. I won't be able to sleep if I don't know." An hour and a positive reading later, Sharon cried herself to sleep. A couple of weeks later, though, she was coming around on the thought of having a baby. She'd gone to the doctor a couple of days after she took the pregnancy test to confirm the results, and it was becoming more real to her now. Jack drank entirely too much, and she hoped that a baby would settle him down a little bit. She also worried that he'd really mess up and lose his job. If that happened while she was in school, they'd be in enough trouble themselves, and even more with a baby. Their parents would help them out if that happened, but she wanted to avoid that at all costs. She liked her job a lot more than she thought she would, and the thought of continuing to make money instead of shelling it out to go back to school and not get paid was appealing. Not only that, but her body took to pregnancy like nothing she'd ever seen before, which was probably a big help in changing her mind about not wanting a baby. She was no longer moody, she slept better and had more energy than she had in years, and her libido was in overdrive. From what she'd read, that wasn't supposed to happen until the second trimester if it happened at all, but she had a really hard time keeping her hands off of Jack. He often joked that he wished she could be pregnant for the rest of their lives. She'd heard horror stories about morning sickness and extreme fatigue, but she'd only thrown up twice, and both times happened after she brushed her teeth. Switching from white to gel toothpaste had fixed that, for some reason, and she hadn't felt the first twinge of nausea since. (A/N: Yes, I know more than one person who was like this during pregnancy.)

Back in the present, Sharon sighed as she flipped through the album. While it was the happier times that she was remembering now, she knew looking through the pictures would bring up some dark and sad memories, too.

Thanks for reading! The future chapters will have more content from the earlier years (as well as Shandy—I'd originally intended to only write about the earlier years in this story, but I decided not to subject myself to the "OMG this isn't Shandy" whining I've seen in the reviews of other pre-Shandy stories, so there will be plenty of both.)