A/N- This chapter was brought to you by my day off, approximately four cups of coffee, and themagicm's gif sets. This updated version has a kind of sad hospital-y bit in the middle with Provenza.


Hope there's someone who'll take care of me / When I die, will I go? /

Hope there's someone who'll set my heart free / Nice to hold when I'm tired

Anthony and the Johnsons


"Flynn." There was heavy hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. "Flynn."

"Huh?" Andy blinked and straightened in his chair. Provenza stood before him, frowning. "What's-?"

"Go home, Flynn."

Andy sighed in exasperation. "We've been over this."

"Yeah, and you aren't going to do Sharon any good if you keel over. At least one of you needs to stay employed, and it's not going to be her."

"Louie. . ."

"Flynn." His partner sat down next to him, passing him a styrofoam cup of coffee, despite the hour. "It's late, and you need to get some rest. They aren't letting anyone in to see her tonight."

"It's been almost twenty-four hours. Torres said she's been doing okay."

"Yeah, and that's all the more reason for you to go home and get some rest now. Once she comes around, she'll need you. She doesn't need anyone except Torres and his team right now. I'm sorry." The old man did look repentant. "Get some rest, Flynn. I'll stay here. Take the kids home."

They both knew Provenza had played his ace.

Andy looked out across the waiting room. Rusty was sitting with his head in his hands. He hadn't moved in hours, and Andy was no longer sure if the kid was awake or not. Emily had curled up in the chair next to him. She had cried herself to sleep a while ago, but he could see her face was still blotched and sticky with tears.

Ricky was the only person still moving. He had paced the small room until Emily had snapped at him. The confrontation had quickly devolved into tears, just as Nicole walked in.

Andy had called his daughter early in the morning. She liked Sharon, he knew, but they weren't so close he wanted to call and wake his daughter up before she got the boys to school. She had been stunned by the news, but promised to come as quickly as possible to help sit vigil for a women she hardly knew.

She had walked into a whirlwind of tears and yelling and calmly grabbed Ricky's arm and towed him out of the room. She had texted her father a few minutes later to say that she and Ricky were walking through the hospital. He needed to pace, just not in sight of the others. Again, that had been hours ago. Andy knew the two of them had been alternating between walking and sitting in the chapel, but they hadn't returned.

"Yeah, okay."

He stood and pulled his phone out, walking to the corner to dial Nicole. She picked up immediately.

"Hey, sweetheart."

"Hey, Dad. Is there news?"

"No. I was thinking I could take the kids home for a bit, though. They aren't letting anyone back, and I need to be there for her when she's awake, so I should get some rest now."

"Okay." The was a pause. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't wanna. . . I don't want to be weird, but have you talked to your sponsor? Tony, is that right?"

He smiled faintly. "It's not weird, honey. I called Tom a while ago. I'm not going to a meeting now, but he said he'd come here if I need him to. He's a good guy. I'm sure he'll check in even if I don't call again."

"Good. I'm glad."

"Me, too." He sighed. "Ready to come back?"

"Yeah. I think Rick's exhausted. We've just been sitting in the chapel. I don't think he's even praying anymore. He's just sitting there. I'll go get him."

"Thanks. Are you doing okay?"

Nicole laughed slightly. "Dad, I should be asking you that. I'm okay. I like Sharon a lot, but she's not my wife. Don't worry about me."

"I love you."

"Love you, too."

She hung up, and he walked over to kneel between Rusty and Emily.

"Hey, kid."

Rusty jolted awake, startling Gus. "Whah? Whasgoingon?"

"Hey, shh." Andy rested his hand on the kid's knee as Rusty oriented himself.

"Andy?"

"Hey, nothing's changed. I'm just taking you and Em and Rick home."

"N-"

"Rusty. Provenza made a good point to me. We aren't going to get to see Sharon tonight. She's not awake, but when she is she's going to need us, and we can't be at half-mast for her then."

Rusty inhaled deeply, still half-asleep. "Okay. I guess."

Andy turned to Emily to let Rusty have some semblance of privacy with Gus.

"Em." He shook her shoulder gently. "Emily."

She slowly looked at him. Her eyes were heavily bloodshot and glassy.

"What?"

"We're going to go home for a little bit. Your mom isn't up, and I don't think we'll get to see her tonight."

"Okay." She sat up and began packing her purse up. After the fight with Ricky, the energy seemed to have drained from her. She moved like a zombie.

Andy's retreat to his own corner was interrupted by Sanchez.

"Sir."

Andy turned to look at him.

"We'll take turns, sir."

"Julio-"

The man remained staunch. "We'll take turns. She's not going to be alone. One of us will be here all the time."

Andy could see Amy and Tao both nodding.

"Andy," Tao called. "It would be our honor."

There was suddenly a lump in his throat. Andy nodded and turned back to Provenza.

"If you could finish getting the kids ready, I'll go tell her nurses that you're all to have full privileges, too." He walked to the front desk and asked for one of Sharon's team. The woman nodded silently and vanished into the back.

A few minutes later, a woman with iron-grey hair emerged and introduced herself as Kelly, Sharon's head nurse.

"I'd like her squad to have familial privileges."

Kelly looked slightly taken aback for a moment, then softened. "Mr. Flynn. . ."

"They're holding vigil for her." He had to stop as his eyes watered. "They're refusing to go home, and it's the least I can do." He felt the tears start to slide down his face. "They're family. They don't need to be her next of kin, they just need to be with her. I'll fill out whatever paperwork-"

Kelly pulled a notepad out of her pocket. "Write their names down, and I'll print off a form for you to sign."

"Thank you."

She nodded silently and disappeared again as he began writing.

Louis and Patrice Provenza

Michael Tao

Julio Sanchez

Amy Sykes

Andrea Hobbs

Wes Nolan

Camilla Paige

He paused, debating about the chief. Both chiefs, he realized.

Fritz Howard and Brenda Johnson

Leo Mason

Within minutes, Kelly returned, and the paperwork was in order.

Flynn gathered his coat and keys slowly as the squad watched. He smoothed his coat over his arm and turned to face them.

"I made sure you're all allowed to see her whenever she can have visitors. They'll still call me first if anything happens, but you're all allowed to see her as soon as they let you." He swallowed. "Thank you. For everything."

The drive home was silent, and, in retrospect, Andy didn't remember any of it. The four of them made it into the condo before anyone made a noise. He unlocked the door, held it open for the kids, and almost crashed into Emily's back.

The Christmas tree was still lit up in the corner of the room. It wrapped in tinsel and lights and covered in dozens Sharon's damn angels. They had all teased her mercilessly about the collection over the years. The rest of the home was dark, but it was clear that Sharon was everywhere. She was in the organized shoes by the door, the glass over the ballet posters that reflected the light of the tree, the sofa that had suddenly become a messy nest of blankets after she had taken a downturn.

Emily whimpered, deep in her throat, before bursting into loud, heart-wrenching sobs. Rusty looked at her, then at Andy, misery clear on him face. The lieutenant wasn't expecting a tow-headed shot to the heart, but Rusty barreled into him, silently dampening Flynn's collar, rather than running. Ricky watched the display, eyes reddening, and shuffled his sister closer to the other men until they all stood in a shaking, tearful group.

Andy wasn't sure how long it took for the sobs to subside and leave only quivers in their place. They split up, taking turns in the bathroom, making tea in the kitchen and drinking it from Sharon's color-coordinated mugs. She had left a half-empty mug on the counter. It was pearly lavender stoneware, with "speak your kind" emblazoned on it in copper. One of the kids had gotten for her at some point. There was a dark lip print on on its edge, and he rubbed his thumb over it, smearing Sharon-red across his thumb. He stood there, staring at it, until the bathroom door opened again.

It was his turn. He tried to avoid looking at Sharon's things in the bathroom, but they were inescapable there, too. The vanity was crowded with mascara, concealer, and a half dozen pill bottles among their toothbrushes. The room smelled like her spruce candle and there was still a pink sticky note on the mirror. Several months before, when he was home sick, she had been called out early and left the note on the mirror for him to find.

I love you.

The three words curled across the paper in inky loops and smudged connections.

I love you, too.

When all was said and done, he couldn't get in bed. It held too many memories of Sharon. Their books were on the nightstands: hers was a copy of Shannon, his a battered history of baseball that was as familiar to him as she was. Her side of the bed had the covers thrown back. She had gotten restless at some point and gotten up to get dressed. He lifted the pillow and inhaled. It smelled like her. It smelled like rosemary and flowers and hazelnut coffee. There was some unique twist to all of that that made it Sharon, and not just a sensory bouquet. He set the pillow down, smoothing it, picked up his, and walked back out to the living room.

All three of Sharon's- their- kids were there. One of them had made sandwiches, but they sat untouched on the coffee table. Emily was huddled under a blanket between her brothers.

"Can't sleep?" She offered.

"No. Not in there, anyways." They were old enough to understand. There was no point in hiding the truth from them.

Emily's face fell anyways, but she nodded, and Andy sat down on the end of the sofa next to Rusty.

"I thought about taking some Benadryl to sleep," she said tonelessly. "But then I wondered if it'd make me sleep through my phone ringing. I don't think I can sleep."

"Try."

She turned to him.

"Andy. Are you going to sleep?"

He held her gaze and answered honestly. "I'm going to close my eyes and see what happens. I might sleep, I might not."

Her mouth twisted, but she nodded. "Fair enough."

They lapsed into silence again as the room steadily got darker.


Louie Provenza would never admit to it, but he had badged his way into Sharon's room, citing Phillip Stroh and potential danger. He didn't think the night staff truly believed him, but they let him back. Eventually. He also told them not to tell Mrs. Flynn's husband. The man had enough on his plate.

It was dark in her room, but not quiet. He wasn't prepared for that. There were overlapping beeps from various monitors, clicks as IV pumps measured medications, the creak of the blood pressure cuff inflating, and- over all of that- the hiss of the ventilator.

It seemed wrong in the deepest sense of the word. His first memories of Sharon Raydor were of a hard-ass cop who wouldn't leave him the hell alone. He hadn't known her when she was a patrol officer, only after she had transferred to Internal Affairs. She was a stick in the mud. No, she was a whole God-damn log, unbreakable and immovable.

She hadn't grown on him like she had Chief Johnson. Provenza had always wondered what the two women had seen in each other, until it hit him one day. They were the two top-ranking women in a building of men. They were each other's only allies.

She had taken his job from him, usurped his authority, won over his best friend, dated his best friend, and even seen the inside of his own house, complete with duck-shaped lamps. She couldn't desert him now.

"I refuse to allow it, Commander." The words floated into the darkness as he gripped the foot of her bed. "I refuse this promotion. I will quit." Like the threat he'd made to the hospital staff to get into the room, this one was quavering and empty. He sighed heavily. "I was supposed to be the one who would go at work. I planned on being there until the end, donating my retirement fund towards something. . . I don't know. Bike helmets for kids, or something. It wasn't supposed to be you." He moved around the bed and sat in the chair next to her.

She seemed small and unlike herself. There was an IV taped into her jugular vein- Provenza had learned that bit of anatomy from Morales once- and others in each arm. Wiring ran under the white blanket. Some of the cords were the thin ones he'd seen her wearing last time she was in the hospital, but a couple others were thicker, running to another machine that was plugged into an outlet. The ventilator was the bulkiest machinery, and Provenza was familiar with it, had seen it before on other cops. It rarely resulted in a pleasant outcome.

He sighed again and slipped his hand under hers. Her ring finger was bare, and he looked for her rings. There was a small plastic bag on a cabinet shelf. He reached for it and caught it, but it knocked the fabric underneath it to the floor. He looked away. It was the tattered remnants of her slacks and the burgundy blouse he never wanted to see again.

Both rings, her Commander's badge, watch, and phone were in the bag, same as before. He clicked the phone's home button through the plastic, and it lit up with a picture of her and Flynn, both smiling widely. Provenza's heart twisted. There were a few news alerts, and several alerts from her cardiac program. He inhaled sharply. The program must have kept running through the trauma of the previous days. He was shocked the phone wasn't dead, and glanced at the battery. Five percent. Sharon must have had it fully charged when she had gotten to work in the afternoon. He didn't know her passcode, so he turned the phone off. Flynn didn't need to see the alerts.

He tucked the bag into his pocket to give to his partner, and made a mental note to let the staff know.

"You can't leave him, Sharon. That's the one thing I'd never forgive you for. Stay."


Andy jumped suddenly, jerking back into full wakefulness. He didn't remember falling asleep, but he clearly had. The room was black, squares of carpet lit only by moonlight. He looked over, and all three Raydors were out cold on the sofa, sprawled over and under each other.

He eased himself out from under Rusty and the blanket, and stretched, before drawing his phone out of his breast pocket and heading to Rusty's room to call Provenza.

There were no calls and no texts waiting, which he interpreted as a good sign. The phone clicked on, and he tapped Provenza's name, second only to Sharon on the speed dial.

"Flynn." His parter sounded tired, but not groggy. He'd probably been awake. "It's five in the morning. What?"

"I don't know. I just wanted to call. I- something woke me up. I don't know what, but the kids are still asleep and I wanted to check in."

"Not much to check on. I'm here, and Sykes will be here in a few hours. She's not allowed visitors yet," Provenza paused to cough. "But there haven't been any changes, either. Her doc came out when he went home for the night. I think he was glad you went home. Said the same thing I told you. He said they'll try easing her off the vent later today, see if she can breathe on her own. That's about all."

"That's early, isn't it?"

There was a disgruntled huff. "I don't know. It all depends on how good her vitals are. Maybe she's better than average."

"Of course she's better than average."

"Flynn." It was soft and gentle. "Expect the best, prepare for the worst."

"I don't think I can prepare for that." He sat heavily on Rusty's bed.

"I don't want to, either, but. . . I'll be here for you. The whole team will. We'll help you keep it together, whatever happens."

"Thank you."

They sat in silence, listening to each other breathe. Finally Andy spoke again.

"Do you think her kids would kill me if I left them here?"

There was a soft chuckle. "Rusty wants to get into law school and Emily seems too nice, but I wouldn't put it past Rick to take a swing at you."

"They have Rusty's car. They can drive themselves over."

"Yeah." A pause. "I think they'd understand. Leave a note for them and come on over."

"You aren't going to tell me to stay here?"

He could practically see the old man roll his eyes. "Since when do you listen to me?"


Andy arrived at Cedars an hour later. He'd left a message on the coffee table, simply telling the kids to get breakfast, and then join him if they felt like it.

His partner was sitting in the corner, fingers steepled together in his lap.

"Louie."

"Flynn."

"Here." He had picked up two cups of coffee, one black for him, one with a single sugar for Provenza.

"You have good timing, if nothing else. Torres got here maybe half an hour before you, said he's going on rounds and he'll be back to talk to you. I told him you were on your way."

"Thanks." Andy kept standing, knowing he'd likely be sitting much of the day. "You should get out of here. Not that I don't like seeing your ugly mug, but I don't want the day shift getting off to a rough start when they see you over here." He tried to smile, but it felt awkward.

Provenza snorted nonetheless. "Take it easy. Call me. Sykes will be here in a while."

"I will." He watched his partner leave, and slowly lapped the waiting room as he drank his coffee. The news was on a TV in the corner, muted, with the captions flickering across the bottom of the screen. He didn't have to wait long before someone reached out to tap him on the shoulder.

It was Torres, his hair ruffled, and looking tired.

"Lieutenant."

"Doc. How is she?"

"Holding steady. She's not great, but she's hanging in there, about where she was last night."

"Can I-"

"Do-"

They spoke at the same time, voices overlapping. The doctor spoke again.

"Do you want to see her?"

"Can I?"

"Yeah. I think it'll be alright. It'll be shocking, though. I want you to know that."

"Okay."

"She's still on the ventilator, so that means she's intubated. There are a couple IVs, and one of them is in her neck. She's got all the hardware for the LVAD on, too. And Lieutenant, she took a beating yesterday, so she just plain doesn't look good, okay?" The doctor maintained eye contact, speaking clearly and watching for understanding.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Okay then. Follow me."

The walked back through the double doors and down a wide hall next to the nurses' station. There was a large cart against the wall, and Torres stopped at it, pulling drawers open. He passed a filmy yellow gown, booties, and a mask to Andy, and got a set for himself.

"We gown up in the ICU because so many of the patients are so delicate. We'll grab gloves before we go into her room."

"I take it Sharon's one of the delicate patients?"

"Yes. Very much so."

They pulled nitrile gloves off another box on the wall before Torres finally led Andy another dozen steps down the hall. He strategically blocked the taller man's view as he rested his hand on the sliding glass door behind him.

"You're ready?"

Andy nodded, not trusting his voice.

Torres pushed the door open and the curtain back as Andy inhaled sharply.

His wife lay small and unmoving on the hospital bed. She didn't look like someone who had been threatening serial killers and police brass a day before. Her chest rose and fell evenly with the ventilator, and a screen in the corner beeped in time with her heart.

Andy stepped closer. He could see the edge of a bandage running up the center of her chest, and he reached for her free hand.

Torres watched for a moment, then slipped outside. The ICU wasn't particularly private, but he didn't need to be right in the man's face. He felt bad enough for them already. Sharon Flynn was a cop, a career cop, but she was one of the sweetest patients he'd had in a long time. She was patient and kind, but unforgiving towards herself, he'd found. She was almost punishing in the way she drove herself in her cases. He felt bad because she was one of his fluke patients, one of the ones who did everything right but still ended up with the short stick. It didn't help that he knew she likely wouldn't be going back to work if she made it through. Even if they could get a donor heart in time, she'd be out of work far too long to consider going back. He suspected she'd never pass a rigorous physical again, either.

He stopped to lean against the nurses' station.

"Hey, Stacy."

"Yeah?" One of the younger nurses looked up.

"Thanks for making sure she looked good and taking her tape off."

The woman's expression softened. "Of course. How's the hubby doing?"

"He's tough, but they've got a long way to go."

She nodded. "Poor guy."

"Yeah. They just got married, maybe a month ago, too."

"Really? I thought-"

"I think they've known each other for ages, from what they said. And they were engaged for a good while."

"Mmm. I hope she pulls through."

"Me, too."