Fade To Nothing
By: Kadi
Rated: T
A/N: If you made it through Chapter 1, and you're still here… thanks!
First off… I know people. I know! I warned you that I felt like I had to write this. The note at the beginning of Chapter 1 clearly points out that this wasn't going to a happy place. This is the dark, emotional, angsty place that Duff took me to. Sometimes, the best way to get out of it is just to write it and move on. I'm not happy either, the angst I write always has a payoff, but where is the payoff in this? I get it. I totally get it.
This whole idea was a result of the fact that Duff likes symmetry. He likes to use mirrors in the writing. When we began theorizing during the summer that Sharon was going to die, I suggested that was how he would use his mirror. Rusty would face Stroh for the last time after losing his mother, just as Brenda had done.
A friend of mine, who prefers to remain anonymous, stated that it would make more sense for it to be Rusty (although Rusty is that friend's fave). The symmetry could easily be found in Rusty's file being the first case to cross Sharon's desk when she took over Major Crimes, and the last case to cross it before the series ended. When it was put to me that way, it did make an incredible amount of sense. We just had a hard time believing that the series would really end on a character death, even though the clues were all there. Again, we didn't want to believe it! We didn't want either to happen.
Now that we know, and there are all these dark and traumatic feels, this idea stuck with me. I didn't just want to explore what would have happened if this had been the symmetrical path, I felt like I needed to explore it. I'm going to the dark place, and it sucks. It hurts like hell.
So I really appreciate those that are sticking around.
Much, much love & light to you all.
~K
Chapter 2
The first thing that Julio noticed when he stepped off the elevator on the eleventh floor was the cops standing in the hall. This was not the buzz of activity that was normally found at a crime scene. The atmosphere was somber. This was one of their own.
Julio squared his shoulders and strode toward the condo at the end of the hall. He nodded to the uniformed officers standing at the door and flashed his badge as he stepped inside. His eyes scanned the interior. He spotted Sykes first. Her eyes were red, and as she filled out the logbook, he watched her reach up and swipe a tear away from her cheek. Julio's gaze continued to circle the room. The Commander was seated on the sofa. She was staring straight ahead, neither moving nor speaking. There was a man beside her that he didn't recognize, but from the stethoscope around his neck and the way he was holding her wrist, Julio guessed that was her doctor. He figured Flynn or the others must have called him, although he didn't know exactly why. Patrice was on her other side, slowly stroking her back and speaking quietly.
He decided not to interrupt. A muscle in his cheek ticked as Julio forced himself to turn away. She was being taken care of right now, and he needed some answers. He turned his attention down the hall and located Tao and Flynn. Julio walked toward them. His steps felt heavier as he got closer to Rusty's room, and the detectives standing outside it. He held up his hands and gestured helplessly when he reached them. "What the hell happened?"
Flynn was leaning against the wall. His hands were shoved into his pockets. He shook his head and looked away. He had already given his statement, and he figured he would have to give it again, several times, before it was all said and done with. At the moment it wasn't another detective that was asking him, and Andy couldn't deal with that. His ears were still ringing with the sound of Sharon's cries. He hadn't managed to get her more than a few steps down the hall before she collapsed against him. All the fight had gone out of her, and she had simply folded herself against him. The screams had faded to whispered prayers and while he carried her to the sofa, she begged God to make this all a terrible dream, and to take her instead.
He held her there, and for just a few minutes, he hadn't known what to do or who to call. He hadn't known how to break that news, and he definitely didn't know how he was meant to help his wife now, but Andy knew that he had to call it in. The only problem was that every member of his team was tied to this. That was his boss's kid. His stepson. Provenza had been like an uncle sometimes, a grandfather other times, and hell, if he was honest about it, there were times when he was like a father to the kid. Buzz was like his brother. Julio and Mike had been honorary uncles. Amy had taught him what it meant to have a big sister, long before Rusty got close to Emily. That really only left him Nolan, or the new gal, Detective Paige.
It was all more than he could fathom, and really, Andy was already thinking ahead to getting his wife out of there. He was worried about what this was going to do to her health, and calling her kids. He called Chief Mason instead. He let the other man take it out of his hands, and Andy focused on what mattered. He called Sharon's doctor, because this was exactly the kind of stress and emotional upheaval that he told them to avoid.
All that he could do after that was wait. Hold her and wait. It took a while for people to start arriving. Sharon had gone silent before the first uniformed officers arrived. Mike had gotten there before the rest of the team. He was as stunned and horrified as Andy, and even a little disbelieving, but one look at the Commander had helped him to keep it together. Mike was worried that she was going into shock, and while none of the team knew all the specifics of her heart condition, Tao warned him it could be bad for her.
They waited, together, for the rest of the team to begin arriving. Only the uniformed officers had ventured down the hall to get a look at the crime scene. Amy had arrived a few minutes after Tao, with Nolan and Paige not far behind her. They had all come from the office; all of them except Julio, who had taken the day off to spend with Mark. He was called, but they knew it would be a while before he joined them. Provenza was the last to arrive. He got there just a couple of minutes after Sharon's doctor. Andy realized what had taken him so long when he saw who was with him. Provenza had picked up Patrice on the way, and left her to help Torres take care of Sharon while the rest of them focused on the horror waiting down the hall.
Andy took them back there. He walked them through everything that happened when he and Sharon got home. He didn't go into Rusty's room again. He waited in the hall, where he stood now. He had already seen it once, and that was more than enough. He stood, a silent sentinel, while the others worked, while SID and the coroner arrived, and made sure that his wife wouldn't try to make her way back to that room. He figured she was in pretty good hands at the moment, and she didn't need him hovering. She would want him to stay with Rusty, so he had.
He looked at Julio finally. Andy sighed. "I think it's pretty obvious. We left the country. Rusty's security was piss-poor, and now he's dead."
There was a deep, dangerous rumbling in his tone. Julio drew a breath. Rage was simmering underneath the surface, and that was an emotion that he could understand. Someone had messed up. He had a feeling Chief Howard was going to hear about it, and Julio couldn't blame Flynn for that. He wanted to hear that explanation too. Julio's gaze moved to Tao. "Did the doc check him out too?" He nodded his head at the Lieutenant.
Mike glanced at Flynn before he shrugged at his partner. "Yeah, he's fine. I'm keeping an eye on things." He hadn't ventured very far from the other man since he arrived. This was every parent's worst nightmare. This had been the one fear they had all shared for the last six years. It was hard to believe it happened. It was almost like they had only managed to delay the inevitable, like it was always going to come to this.
"Good." Sanchez gave the Lieutenant another hooded, cursory look, then he squared his shoulders again and stepped into the bedroom. Morales and Kendall were there, moving around the bed. There were a couple of SID techs, already taking prints and photographs. Buzz stood in the corner of the room, camera pointed at all of the activity. He looked up when Julio entered, and like Amy, his eyes were red and damp. His jaw was clenched, and he looked away quickly, almost as if acknowledging anyone else would cause his carefully constructed wall of composure to crumble. Julio's gaze moved around the room. It wasn't a very big space. The people present were crowded into it. Wes was standing at the end of the bed, quietly taking notes. Detective Paige was hovering on the other side of the bed, and Julio realized why when he finally spotted the Lieutenant.
He walked toward them and knelt down in front of the older man. Provenza was seated in the chair by the dresser. His hands were dangling loosely between his knees, and his head was bowed. "Sir?"
He sighed. His head slowly lifted. His face was red, blotchy with emotion. His eyes ached, the pain the result of tears he wouldn't let fall. Provenza had seen a lot of things in his time, a lot of horrible, senseless, and stupid things. None of it had ever made him feel quite as helpless as he did now. He met Julio's gaze, shook his head at the concern. "I told myself all the way over here that Mason was wrong. I tried to convince myself that he had the wrong kid. Flynn must have been too upset when he called him, that he was worried about Rusty but it was Gus or someone else they found." That hadn't stopped him from getting Patrice. Maybe he wanted her there for himself, even though he said that he brought her along for Sharon. Provenza's eyes drifted toward the bed again. Kendall had draped him with a sheet, so at least there was that. It didn't really help. "Then we got here," he said, "and I saw her." Provenza looked at Julio again. "We find him." His voice dropped to a low, menacing hiss. "If we do nothing else with the rest of our lives, we are going to find that son of a bitch."
The muscle in his jaw ticked again. Julio nodded just once. He looked toward the bed. "Even if I have to track him across Siberia," he promised. Before he drew his last breath he was going to put a bullet in Phillip Stroh's head. He laid a hand against the Lieutenant's shoulder and stood. Julio only lingered for a moment, then he walked to the bed. "Doc, what do we know?"
Morales leaned away from the bed. He wore a somber expression. He didn't usually go into the field himself. It usually took something big to get him to a crime scene. The murdered son of one of his closest colleagues, yes, that warranted a personal visit in his opinion. He would take care of Rusty, in so much as he could, and make sure the detectives had everything they needed to find the person responsible for his death. "He's been dead no more than twelve hours. That matches up to what the detective found when he looked at his phone," he nodded to Nolan.
"The Lieutenant gave us permission." Nolan replied. "It's a family plan. Sykes is logging everything that we've been given permission to check on scene." Normally they would have to catalogue evidence and review it later, but this wasn't a typical situation.
"Good." Julio nodded. They couldn't afford any missteps. They weren't going to let this bastard get away from them again. "What time was the last activity on his phone? Rusty's always on his phone, unless he's asleep or in class."
"Eleven last night," Nolan told him. "He was texting with his brother, Ricky Raydor." Wes had already put the phone into evidence, but he took pictures of the texts and timestamps with his own cell. He pulled up the picture and handed the device to the Detective.
Julio squinted at it, and then enlarged the picture. "Mom and Andy will get home around noon. He said to wait until next weekend before you come back down to check on her again. It's driving her crazy and she's taking it out on him." Julio sighed. "Ricky said haha that's what stepdads are for. Better him than us. Are his kids still being assholes?"
Sanchez winced and glanced toward the door. He knew that things with Flynn's kids had gotten a little rocky again, leading up to the wedding. Neither of them had shown up, and he and the Commander hadn't mentioned it. "Rusty replied, and this was the last text he sent. Yes. Charlie has always acted like a prick toward mom. I still don't know what Nicole's problem is. She's got a stick up her butt all of a sudden. I know Andy didn't do anything. We should introduce them to your dad and my birth mom, show them what bad parents really look like. Mom says to stay out of it. Andy's done all he can. She's not letting him bend over backward for them anymore. They're adults now. They can make their own choices, but she's done letting them hurt him to satisfy their mother's need to constantly paint him as the bad guy."
Julio didn't read the rest of it out loud; everyone got the gist of it. The last texts that Rusty had sent were between two brothers, talking about the deeper dynamics of their family life. He frowned at Ricky's response. I know she was furious about the wedding. My dad is a first class jerk most of the time, but I can't imagine treating him like that. I know Andy was a dick when they younger, but he's obviously changed. You're right. Let's introduce them to SB and Jack. It's late little bro. I'll see you next weekend. Andy likes football right? The Rams are playing in town. I'll take him to the game. I'm not Charlie, and we're not that close, but he doesn't deserve this crap. Besides, I'm just glad he's there to take care of mom. She could probably use a few hours without him hovering. We'll see. Let me know if you want to tag along. God, knowing mom, she'll probably want to go. Talk soon!
They wouldn't be talking soon, though. They wouldn't be able to ever talk again. Julio shook his head. This was a nightmare, but one that he was just too familiar with. He knew what it was like to lose a brother, to have him cut down way too soon, to feel like the darkness had won. Julio passed the phone back to Nolan and walked over to stand near Morales. "How did he do it?"
The note on the wall behind them made it pretty clear who he was. Morales glanced around the room. They had all seen the body before it was covered. He reached out and folded the sheet back. "Single, penetrating knife wound," Morales reported. "From the position and the trajectory, it severed the descending aorta. There are no signs of a struggle. No defensive wounds on the hands or arms. There's no splatter. He was dressed for bed," the doctor said. "I think you can tell the Commander that he probably never even knew what was happening to him."
"I don't think that's going to help much, doc." Julio looked down at the body. Blood had soaked the t-shirt. It was dried now, congealed where it had pooled. The sheets and blanket were also stained. The kid hadn't thrashed, he hadn't fought. Sanchez figured that Morales was probably right. There was cold comfort in that, and it didn't change a damn thing. He moved past the doctor and leaned down, bent close to the body. "I'm going to find him," he said quietly, "and I'm going to kill him. I promise you that. We won't let you down again."
When the detective moved away, Morales recovered the body. "We have everything we need from the scene. We're just… waiting now," he explained.
"The Commander's doctor is making sure that she's okay," Detective Paige told him.
"They're going to move the body after she leaves," Nolan said. "Flynn won't let us bring him out until she's gone. He didn't let her see him."
"He's not going to let her see him in a body bag either," Provenza stated. He took a deep breath and stood up. "None of us are. It's bad enough. We're not going to make it worse."
"I told Lieutenant Flynn that I would make sure he was cleaned up," Morales said, "you know, before…" She would have to see her son's body at some point. They couldn't prevent that. The only thing they could control now was how and when.
Sanchez frowned at them. "I understand keeping her out of here, but she's going to see this." He waved a hand at the bed. "We've got pictures and video. You don't really think we're going to be able to stop her from getting involved in this, do you? We remember who we're talking about, right? The Commander is in shock right now, but when that wears off, she will level this city looking for that son of a bitch."
"I won't let that happen." Andy spoke from behind them. He was standing in the door. He glared at Sanchez. "She lost her kid, I'm not going to let her lose herself too." Andy had already decided that he didn't care if she ended up hating him for it. He was not going to let Sharon destroy herself looking for vengeance instead of justice. He looked at Provenza. "You want to see if Patrice is ready? Let's get Sharon out of here so everyone can get to work."
Provenza nodded. "Yeah. I think it's probably been long enough." He walked out into the hall with his partner. A small, sad smile pulled at his lips. Patrice was walking toward them. Whether she had heard or just knew, he couldn't say. He met her halfway, before she could get near the room. "How is she?"
Patrice glanced at Andy as he joined them. "Devastated," she answered plainly. "She's in shock right now. Doctor Torres gave her something to keep her calm," her gaze moved to Andy. "He called in a prescription for a mild sedative. We'll pick it up on the way to our house. The doctor said it wouldn't cause any issues with her current medications. It won't make her too drowsy, so we'll have to make sure that she gets some rest. She should take it," she told Andy, "even if she says that she feels okay. It isn't going to completely suppress her emotions, but it will help, and it will keep her pressure and heart rate down when the shock wears off and she starts actually dealing with all of this."
"Yeah." Andy sighed. He shoved his hands into his pockets again. "Okay. We can do that. Think she's ready to let us move her now?" He wanted to get Sharon out of there, and the sooner the better.
"The sedative has had time to start working," Patrice told him. "I think she'll probably go now. Torres did say that he wants her to keep the appointment to see him this week. I think it's important that you make sure she goes."
He nodded and looked down. Right now, Andy was just thinking about getting her away from there. He didn't really care where they took her. Patrice thought she'd be more comfortable in their guest room, and she was probably right. Andy didn't really want to take her to a hotel. It was too impersonal. "I'll make sure she goes."
"Andy." Patrice laid a hand on his arm when he tried to step around her. She knew this wasn't easy for him either. It wasn't easy for any of them. "I gave Doctor Torres a list of your medications too. He prescribed something that you can take, it isn't habit forming. It might help." If he was going to take care of Sharon, he was going to have to take care of himself too. He had already had one heart attack. They didn't need him having another one while he was carrying the burden of stress for his family.
His jaw clenched. Tension coiled in his gut. Andy shook his head at her. "I'm fine, Patrice." He would call his sponsor later, after he was sure that Sharon was resting, when he had time to think about himself. "I need to get her out of here, and then we've gotta call her other kids. I've got to tell them what happened." How the hell he was supposed to break that news, he didn't know. Andy had made any number of notifications over the years, but this was different. This was their family, their kids.
"I know." Her smile was full of sympathy and understanding. "I understand all of it. She's lost a child, and there is nothing that will ever make that better. You can't protect her from her grief, Andy. She's going to feel this. She has to feel this. The only thing that any of us can do is make sure that she comes out the other side of it alive. Let her be part of that phone call. She is their mother, Rusty was their brother. Let her take care of them, while you take care of her." If he smothered Sharon, he would only make it worse.
"Shit." Andy pulled a hand out of his pocket. He rubbed it over his face and into his hair. He knew she was right, but goddammit, how was he supposed to let Sharon do this? He just wanted to wrap her in a blanket, wrap himself around her, and block it all out. He wanted to protect her from what was going to come, but Patrice was right. That wasn't who Sharon was. She would probably feel better if she could take care of Ricky and Emily. They were going to need her, and she was going to need them. All he could do was keep an eye on all of them. "Alright. I'm hearing you," he told her. "Let's just get her out of here, okay? Morales needs to take Rusty…" His voice hitched and he looked way. "I just want to take her away from it. Can we do that? Can we worry about getting Sharon out of here, and then we'll worry about the rest. That's all I can handle right now."
"Yes." Provenza shared a look with his wife. It was too much for all of them. They would keep an eye on Flynn and Sharon, but right now, there was a lot to be done. One step at a time, and the first one was making sure that Sharon was gone before Morales put her son in a body bag and loaded him into the Coroner's van. "You and Flynn will take her back to the house. All of their meds were in Sharon's carryon bag, Flynn got those out, and tossed a couple of changes of clothes into a small duffel." They were releasing that from the scene, but it was all they could do for now. Sykes had logged it in.
"Let's go then." Andy walked past Patrice, and this time she let him go. He knew that Provenza would stay behind to work the scene as incident commander. Mason hadn't sent another division out, but then, Andy wasn't entirely sure that Mason knew his ass from a hole in the ground most of the time. If it weren't for Sharon telling him how to do his job, he was pretty sure the Assistant Chief would be lost. He couldn't think about that right now. Andy walked in to the living room and took a moment to study his wife. Doctor Torres was packing up his bag. Andy nodded to the other man as he rounded the end of the sofa. He lowered himself to the coffee table and leaned forward to lay his hands against his wife's legs. He waited for a moment, while the officers that were standing around in the living room and kitchen moved out of the condo or went down the hall. When they were alone, with only Patrice and Provenza hovering nearby, and Torres taking his time to pack up, Andy rubbed his hands up and down the sides of her calves. "Hey babe."
Her hands were folded together in her lap. Her head was lowered, gaze intent upon her fingers. The quiet rumble of his voice had her eyes lifting. Andy ground his teeth together. Her eyes were a dull, muddy color, more hazel than green. The light that had been in them that morning was gone. He had prayed that he would never have to see her like this. That just reminded him that he should have called Father Stan when he called her doctor. Andy cursed himself for forgetting. The priest would know what to say right now. He would call him when they left, he decided, and have the Priest meet them at Provenza's house. Andy lifted a hand and reached out to sweep her hair away from her face. He tucked it behind her ear and let his thumb trace the curve of her cheek. Sharon only blinked at him.
His brows drew together in a deep frown. Andy looked up at the Doctor. "I thought it was just a mild sedative? She looks like she's blissed out."
Torres's brows lifted in surprise at the terse note in his tone. He'd never known the Lieutenant to be anything but supportive and polite in his appointments with the man's wife. "It is. I didn't want to risk anything stronger with the medications that she's on right now. The fact is, the Commander is emotionally spent at the moment. That, along with the travel fatigue that you're both feeling, and the sedative, has put her in a more relaxed state."
Sharon's hand moved. It covered his, where it still rested against her knee. "Andy." She drew his gaze back to her. "I am perfectly capable of speaking on my own behalf, thank you." She spoke gently, but clearly. Her thumb stroked the back of his hand.
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. "You sure?" He knew she wasn't all that steady at the moment. Her entire world had just been blown apart. She blinked and nodded again. Andy didn't care what the doctor said, or how she sounded. He was going with blissed out. "We're going to get out of here now. I guess Patrice told you that we're heading to their place for a couple of days?" He waited for her to respond. She blinked again and her chin lifted in what might have been a near nod. "We'll stop and pick up the meds the doc prescribed, maybe pick up something to eat." Her lip curled. He saw the disdain flash in her dull eyes. "I know, I'm not all that hungry either, but you know as well as I do that keeping up the diet is a big part of you getting better. You might not care right now, but I do, and so do a lot of other people."
She looked down again. Her eyes closed against the sting of tears. They didn't come quite as readily as they had before. Her eyes ached with the effort, while her lids felt heavy. Sharon drew a slow breath and let it out slowly. "Can we just go?" She knew that she wasn't going to be allowed in Rusty's room, and she wasn't entirely sure she had the stomach for it. She felt like she was only failing him again, but it was the truth. In the absence of her being strong enough to take care of him now, the best thing she could do was get out of the way so that their people could do their jobs.
Andy sighed. This was going to be the hard part. The shutting down and drawing in to herself, the guilt and self-loathing. His hands stroked her legs again. "Yeah, we can get out of here. Come on." He took her hands as he stood, and helped her up with him. Andy gave her hands a squeeze before letting go of them. He looked past her to where his partner was waiting. "Can you make sure that Mason knows to… keep this quiet for another hour or two?" He wanted to make sure that they called Ricky and Emily first. The last thing they needed right now was for Sharon's other kids to hear about all of this on the news.
"I already spoke to him," Provenza said. "We're not releasing any information until one of you gives us the okay."
"I'll call you," Patrice told her husband. She laid a hand on his shoulder and let her hand stroke the length of his arm. She didn't want Andy or Sharon having to worry about remembering to update him later. "Don't work too late, okay?" She was worried about him too. Patrice gave his arm a squeeze when he only nodded. She walked over and picked up the bag that Andy had packed, along with Sharon's purse.
Doctor Torres trailed along behind them as they left the condo. Thankfully, the officers lingering in the hall outside the condo didn't say much as they passed. Patrice didn't honestly think either of them would be able to handle that at the moment. It was a silent group that rode the elevator down to the lobby. Andy held Sharon's hand, but it was not until they left the condo and moved beyond the sympathetic glances of the police personnel on site that he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his side.
Sharon closed her eyes let him guide her toward the car. She wrapped her hand in his shirt and held on. It wasn't until they reached it and stopped that she opened her eyes again. She looked up at him, waiting while Patrice unlocked the doors and put their bag in the trunk. "We should call Father Stan," she told him.
"Yeah." He shrugged at her. "I was thinking about that earlier. We can call him on the way, if you want. He can meet us there. You can talk to him before we call the kids." His hands stroked her arms. "I can call him, Sharon." He didn't mind being the one.
She nodded. "Okay." She glanced away from him for a moment. Her mind felt muddled, but she knew that was the sedative. Sharon closed her eyes for a moment. "Andy…"
She was struggling. His thumb traced the curve of her cheek. "Yeah, sweetheart. What do you need?"
She rubbed her lips together before she opened her eyes and looked up at him. She shook her head. "I don't know how to do this," she whispered. Sharon couldn't think beyond the moment they were standing in. She couldn't imagine what the next five seconds were going to look like, or the next five minutes. It was all completely blank to her. She understood what they needed to do, the steps that came next, but she didn't know how to actually do them. How was she supposed to talk to her priest about burying her son, or tell her kids that their brother was dead? She didn't know how she was supposed to do anything but take her next breath.
"None of us do," he told her. "But I've got you. We all do." He couldn't tell her it would be okay. It wouldn't be. Okay was a completely different concept for them now. He had no idea what it meant or how it was going to look. He just knew that he had to get her through the next five minutes. Andy opened the rear passenger door for her and held it. She folded herself into the car without another sound. He didn't know that he really cared all that much for these sedatives. They might be keeping her calm, and that might be good for her heart, but he wasn't sure it was really good for her. She was just too docile, and whatever else was going on, that just wasn't Sharon.
Andy closed the door when he was sure that she was settled. He drew a breath and let it out slowly before he walked around and got in beside her. As the car pulled away from the condo, he took her hand. The next five minutes were what they had to focus on. He knew that better than anyone. He lived his life hoping the next five minutes wouldn't be his last. The only thing was, the next five minutes could change everything.
-TBC-
