As Rusty walked to his usual desk after school he noticed the busy murder room and concluded easily that the team had yet another case they were working on. As he went to sit at his desk he diligently looked around him to make sure he wasn't being watched before he swiftly pulled yet another letter from his backpack and quickly stashed the menacing note in the cabinet above his desk.
Since the first letter he received and the reaction it got from both DDA Rios and Sharon he had stopped telling people they were still coming regularly. He used to receive one every two to three weeks; however, recently they had started coming much more regularly and now he was getting one almost every other day. He had long ago stopped opening them. He knew what they contained, harsher and more terrifying threats. The last one he had opened had been over a month ago and it contained the promise that this shadowed stranger would find him so they could repent their sins together. Rusty was so shaken be the letter he could barely hide it form Sharon and part of him didn't want to.
Rusty had become very comfortable with Sharon over the past year and he truly viewed her as his mother. He wished he could be brave enough to take the armful of letters to Sharon and let her take hid burden and comfort him that everything would be okay, and nothing was going to happen to him, and he could live with her for as long as he wanted, and she would keep him sage no matter what. Rusty didn't want to carry this burden alone, but he had always done everything for himself and on his own that he had no idea how to ask for help.
The issue went beyond his stubbornness to take care of himself. Rusty was convinced that once the letters where discovered he would immediately be taken away from Sharon and either shoved into witness protection or placed in a foster home with eight other kids and hateful parents who used them for the social aid check that came every month rather than to provide them with a safe home. It had happened before and Rusty would not let it happen again.
Sharon had promised him that he could stay with her but Rusty was still scared that even if Sharon wanted him to stay she would push him to leave under the pretense of keeping him safe.
He couldn't do it anymore. He had never lived a stable life. From his mothers neurotic behavior to the nightmare he endured living on the street and how he was so close to being stable, to having a family, to being normal. All he wanted was to be normal and if he acknowledged the letters then his small world of normal that he had managed to create would slip through his fingers and he would be on his own again.
No! He could not tell Sharon about the letters he could not handle the fallout and he wasn't sure Sharon would fight for him the way he needed her to.
Rusty braced himself, as he always did, to have a steel resolve before he went around the corner to find Buzz and get the next round of homework assignments.
The day ended earlier than the team expected and it was only six o'clock when Sharon tolled Rusty to get his things together.
The two met up outside of Sharon's office where Rusty said almost immediately that he was done with his homework and if could watch a movie when they got home.
Sharon smiled at him and said that she didn't mind but that Catherine was waiting for them at the condo and it might be nice to have dinner together.
Rusty looked confused.
"I thought she was too busy with her internship to come visit."
"I thought so too, but the truth is I'm not sure she's doing so well."
The two looked at each other and Rusty didn't seem to understand.
"Doesn't she talk to you all the time? Wouldn't she tell you if something was wrong?"
Sharon looked at him tenderly, recognizing the similarities between her daughter and foster son.
"Sometimes Rusty it's hard to recognize and talk about the hard things you are going through. Katie doesn't address an issue she has until it's impossible to avoid and at that point it's sometimes more difficult to deal with.
Rusty looked at his feet awkwardly.
"But what if she doesn't want to burden you with her problems?"
"I'm her mother. It's my job to take care of my children and even if I can't fix their problems I'm there to comfort them and be on their side. When someone is carrying too much and having trouble it doesn't do them and good to keep it to themselves and it doesn't hurt someone who cares about them to listen to them. Katie has tried so hard to be independent that she forgets I'm here when she needs me."
Rusty didn't say anything and the two headed home in silence.