DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters, except for Matthew and Moxie. The rest of them belong to James Duff and the Major Crimes franchise.

A/N: Thank you all for your kind reviews. I appreciate them.

Chapter 6

Sharon was able to get Matthew to watch something on the TV in the family room and when she came back, she saw Andy still standing at the counter, with his head down like he had done something wrong. "Sorry" Andy said as he stood in the kitchen. "Don't apologize, I know Jack brings the worst out in you" Sharon said as she had joined him at the counter with her phone. He handed her phone to her and then leaned up against the counter and crossed his arms. She unlocked her phone and saw that Jack had indeed left her a voice mail. She retrieved the voice mail and placed the phone on speaker for them to both listen to it.

"Sharooooon, I heard from our kids that you were involved in some sort of robbery at a bank this morning" Jack started out in the message. Sharon shook her head. "How did Emily and Ricky hear about the robbery if they don't live in the area?" she asked Andy as they continued to listen to the message. "Glad to hear everything went well and you and that little pipsqueak got out alive" he continued as Andy's hand clenched into a fist. "He's got a lot of nerve saying that" Andy muttered. Sharon ran her hand up his arm to calm him down. "He's drunk, and at a casino. You can hear the slot machines in the background" Sharon said and then she ended the playback of the message and deleted it.

Andy was surprised by this. "I don't care if he has anything else to say" she said to him as she wrapped her arms around Andy's waist and Andy pulled her into him. "I think it was our children here that might have told the others, who in turn mentioned it to their father" Andy said as he held Sharon close to him. Sharon hummed as she closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. "Too bad we can't ground them for leaking information" Sharon said which made Andy laugh a little bit.

"How are you holding up?" he asked her as he rubbed her back, still holding her in his arms. "I think we really need to have that discussion with Nicole and Dean soon and ask them if they would like to be Matthew's guardian, in the event that, you know" Sharon said to him. Andy nodded. "We will, but first I want to know how you are doing" Andy said as he moved her away so that he could look at her face. She didn't say anything.

"I know, I'm not doing good right now, I've been trying to keep it together for Matthew's sake but I can't get the picture of you having a gun to your head and what they did to you inside that bank" Andy confessed to her. "Andy" she whispered to him as she caressed his face with her hands. "Do you need a meeting?" she asked him. He shook his head no.

"When I close my eyes, I can still see them, I just needed to get everyone out of there alive, especially Matthew" Sharon quietly said to Andy and Andy listened. "I know it was difficult for you to be on the outside looking in, watching what was occurring and not being able to do anything about it" she added. They stood there in each other's arms for a couple of minutes until Andy broke the silence. "I felt helpless" he said and she hugged him tighter.

A couple of minutes later, Sharon started to speak. "I'm not going to be able to help you with whatever disciplinary action you're going to face" she said quietly. "I know" Andy whispered in her ear. "I'll face whatever I need to do, I just needed to make sure that you were okay, and I wanted to be there for you, not some stranger, me" Andy explained as Sharon stood back a little to look at him. She caressed his face. "And, technically I have been cleared by my doctor to resume field work" he said as he shrugged his shoulders.

"That's wonderful, Andy" she said as she buried her face into his shoulder. "Too bad now you have to face whatever Chief Howard and Provenza come up with on Monday" she said muffled by his shoulder. "Yeah, I climbed one hurdle and now I'm facing another one" he muttered into her hair as he continued to hold her.

Just then, Provenza pulled Sharon's car into the driveway and Andy had seen it through the kitchen windows. "Your car is here" he said, in a whisper to her. She untucked herself from him and moved towards the sliding glass door. She saw Provenza get out of her car and walk over towards where she was standing by the door. Sharon unlocked and opened the sliding door and Provenza stepped through. "Commander, your keys" Provenza said as he handed the keys back to Sharon. Andy stood and leaned against the island counter, watching Provenza as he entered.

"Thank you" Sharon said to Provenza as she took the keys from him and placed them on the counter. "The scene at the bank has been processed and Tao took the fourth guy's fingerprints. He said he's going to run them in our system to see if we can get an id on the guy to see who he was" Provenza explained to both Sharon and Andy. "Good" Sharon said to him as she glanced over at Andy. He was just standing there, not saying a word. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to check on Matthew" she said to them and then squeezed Andy's arm before leaving.

Provenza looked at Andy. "Look, I didn't come over here to lecture you about not obeying direct orders from superior officers" Provenza said and Andy shook his head. "I did what I had to do" Andy said but Provenza held up his hand. "I know" he said as he moved back to the door. "Julio followed me over here. Like I said earlier, we will deal with this on Monday" Provenza added as Andy showed him out. "Yeah, thanks" Andy mumbled to him and then Provenza walked down the driveway towards where Julio was waiting for him.

Andy stepped back inside the house and started the close the door behind him when he saw Rusty pull up in his car. Rusty got out and ran to the door that Andy was holding open for him. "Andy, is mom okay?" he said out of breath. "She's okay, she's in the family room with Matthew" Andy said and then Rusty went over to the family room. Andy closed the glass door and Moxie was standing in the kitchen, wagging his tail at him. Andy looked at the dog for a minute. "You got to go out?" Andy said to the dog as he made his way to the back door. Moxie followed him and him and the dog went outside in the back yard.

"Mom!" Rusty said as he entered the family room. Sharon turned around and saw Rusty standing there. "Rusty, come here" Sharon said and motioned for Rusty to join her and Matthew on the couch. They were currently watching The LEGO Movie, and Matthew was enjoying it. Sharon turned on the couch to give Rusty a hug and he hugged her back.

"Gus was watching some show about cooking when it was interrupted by the local news saying that there was a robbery in progress at the bank just down the street and that a LAPD Commander was taken hostage" Rusty said to her as they both sat on the couch. "I'm okay, Rusty" Sharon said to him as she pulled back from their hug. Rusty glanced over at Matthew. "Was he in the bank with you?" he whispered to Sharon and Sharon nodded. "But, he followed my directions and escaped without anyone noticing him" Sharon reassured Rusty.

Meanwhile, back outside, Andy was sitting on one of the chairs in the yard as Moxie walked around, sniffing the grass, the flowers that were recently planted, and chasing the birds that happened to land on the fence. Andy leaned back in the chair. The sun was beating down on his face, and for once, he didn't have his sunglasses with him. He closed his eyes briefly, but quickly opened them as all he could see was Sharon being held hostage. He shook his head and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He placed his hands over his eyes. Moxie walked over to where he was sitting and stuck his head underneath Andy's face and started to lick it.

"Hi good boy" Andy said to the dog and started to pet him. "I almost lost her today, Moxie" Andy said quietly to the dog as Moxie sat down in front of Andy. "I don't know what I would do if that ever happened" he confessed to the dog and Moxie just sat there panting. Moxie then placed his paw up on Andy's arm and looked at him. Andy had tears in his eyes every time he thought about it. Every time he closed his eyes since this morning, he still saw Sharon with that gun to her head inside the bank. He needed that sight to go away.

Sharon still sat on the couch with Rusty and Matthew. "Where did Andy go?" she asked Rusty as she started to get up from the couch. "Oh, he took the dog out in the yard when I came in" Rusty said and Sharon looked at her watch. That was twenty minutes ago, she thought to herself. After Andy's confession to her earlier when they were standing in the kitchen together, she needed to make sure that he was okay.

She opened the back door and saw Andy sitting on a chair in the middle of the yard, and Moxie sitting in front of him. She started to walk over to where he was and Andy watched Moxie's behavior change. Moxie stood up and wagged his tail, alerting Andy that someone was approaching them. Andy didn't have to turn around to know who it was. Sharon placed her hand on his back and he looked up at her. She saw the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. "Andy" she whispered as he leaned back in the chair and she sat down on top of his lap.

He circled his arms around her body and held her close to him as they both sat there in the yard. Moxie laid down next to their chair. They sat there for a while. "I can't get that image out of my head" Andy whispered to her as he looked up at the sky. Her head was on his right shoulder and her hand was covering his heart as she sat there. "Maybe you should go to a meeting?" she said quietly to him. "I don't need a damn meeting" he said, not meaning for the words to come out as harsh as they did. He took a deep breath and muttered the words "sorry" to her.

Out of all the incidents that have happened to them over the years, this one had shaken Andy to the core. It had shaken Sharon to her core as well as she sat there, on his lap, as the tears started to fall from her eyes. Andy felt the wetness roll down his neck and felt Sharon shudder as he held her. He moved his arms around her, holding her tighter to him as she cried. They have both been in life-threatening situations before, but that was before Matthew.

The two of them sat there in the chair for a couple of minutes longer as their crying subsided. It was getting late in the afternoon. They both heard the back door open and Matthew ran out of the house towards them. "Here you are!" Matthew said to them as he sat down next to Moxie. "I told you they didn't go anywhere" Rusty said as he followed him outside. Sharon shifted to get up and Andy let go of her body so she could do so. "The movie is over and he was asking where the two of you went" Rusty explained to Sharon as Matthew took Sharon's spot on Andy's lap.

"Were you crying, Dad?" Matthew asked him as he looked at his face. "Uh, yeah, I was" Andy said to him. He looked at Matthew for a minute before asking him a question. "How are you doing?" Matthew looked at his dad and he shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't know where you or mommy were at but Rusty told me you were outside" Matthew said to him.

"He panicked a little because he didn't know where you went" Rusty told Sharon as she watched Matthew and Andy sit on the chair together. "Rusty, what would you think if we asked Nicole and Dean to be the guardians of Matthew in case something happened to Andy and me" Sharon asked as she turned around to face Rusty. Rusty drew a blank. He didn't want to think about that situation, but he lived in a household with cops and he knew the job was a dangerous one. "Umm, that sounds okay to me" he said and Sharon smiled. "But why are you asking me, shouldn't you be asking Nicole and Dean that question?" Rusty asked her as they walked away from Andy and Matthew.

"Well, we wanted to make sure that all of our children are onboard with this decision that we are making" Sharon said. "Did you ask Ricky or Emily?" Rusty asked her. "Well, no because they live out of town, but you live here with us, and if something were to happen to both of us, it would also affect you as well" Sharon said as they walked back into the house. "Uh, can we stop talking about this, because it's kind of creeping me out right now" Rusty said as he sat at the kitchen table. Sharon smiled at him squirming. "Of course" she said.

Andy, Matthew, and Moxie came back inside the house as Rusty was getting ready to leave. "I'm heading back to Gus's place, he had something important he wanted to discuss today but then this happened and he told me to come check up on you" Rusty said to Sharon and gave her a hug. "I'm glad everything worked out for the good this morning" he muttered. "Me too" Sharon said and then Rusty waved to the rest of them as he left the house.

Sharon took her phone out of her pocket and was about to Facetime Ricky and Emily when the doorbell rang. "Who could that be?" Andy said out loud as he walked over to the front door. Matthew stayed in the kitchen with Moxie and Sharon. Andy peeked through the window and saw Nicole, Dean, Colin, and Avery standing on the porch. He opened the door and everyone walked inside. "What are you guys doing here?" Andy asked as he saw Nicole was carrying some sort of dish. "We brought food as we thought that you probably didn't feel like cooking tonight, plus Colin and Avery wanted to see Sharon" Nicole said as she followed her father in to the kitchen and placed the dish on the counter.

Sharon was surprised to see all of them and she went to greet them as they came in to the kitchen. "Nicole, nice to see you" Sharon said as she gave her a hug. "Sharon, I'm so glad you are okay after what happened" Nicole said to her as they broke apart. Then Colin and Avery ran up to Sharon to give her a hug. "Grandma! We heard you fought the bad guys this morning" Colin said. "And we heard Grandpa helped you too" Avery chimed in. "Oh, boys, yes your grandpa did help me get the bad guys" Sharon said to them.

"Hey Matthew, do you want to go play upstairs?" Avery turned around and asked Matthew. Matthew nodded and all three boys ran up the stairs with Moxie chasing after them. "We will call you down when we are going to eat dinner!" Nicole called after them. "Okay" was all they heard from the stairway. Sharon looked at Andy and gestured for him to start the conversation that they wanted to have with them before everything this morning.

"Um, Nicole, Dean, we are actually both glad that you stopped over today" Andy started to say. "There's something we would like to ask the two of you" Sharon chimed in. Nicole and Dean, both sat at the kitchen table across from them. Nicole looked at the both of them and wondered what they wanted to ask them. Sharon nodded to Andy. "Well, you see, we've both come to the conclusion that, our job is getting more and more dangerous than before. And, if something should happen to the both of us, we were wondering if you and Dean would be guardians to Matthew" Andy said to Nicole and Dean.

"Oh my gosh, you guys don't have to ask us. We would gladly be the guardians for Matthew" Nicole said. "In the event that something happens to the both of you" Dean chimed in. Both Sharon and Andy were relieved to hear that. "We figured since the boys get along so well with Matthew that we would step in, in case, you know" Nicole said as they sat there.

Nicole then got up and started to help Sharon in the kitchen, prepare the food that they had brought over. "It just needs to be heated up" Nicole said to Sharon as she glanced at her father sitting at the table with Dean. "How's he doing with all of this?" she asked Sharon as Sharon moved things from the refrigerator out to the counter. "I don't know. We're both dealing with it that best that we can, but we know that we are here for each other in case" Sharon said to her as she trailed off in thought.

"I don't know what my dad would do without you, Sharon" Nicole confessed. "I'd be afraid he would drink again" she stated to Sharon. Sharon shook her head. "Your father wouldn't do that, after he worked so hard to get where he is today by staying sober" Sharon said as she put the casserole dish into the oven and set the timer. She glanced at Andy and Dean, who were talking about sports and other stuff, and she just hoped she would be right about that.

TBC