A/N-As stated, I will playing around with the storylines and will weave in and out of canon which is why you will see some things playing out differently here. I will even be stealing some of a storyline from "The Closer" later. It is fanfic, some of what I will be writing is canon and some is AU.
"Well, I'm certainly glad today is over." Sharon hung up her coat and kicked off her heels, curling her aching toes. Her head hurt, her feet hurt and her back hurt. She was already pulling her blouse out of her skirt and starting to unbutton it on her way toward the bedroom when she called out over her shoulder to Andy, "I'm going to change into something more comfortable before dinner."
"Sounds good to me." Andy followed her into the bedroom, watching her disappear into the bathroom while he took off his suit coat. He was hanging it in the closet when he heard her muffled "Dammit" from behind the wall.
"Everything okay in there?" He asked at the bathroom door.
"Yes," she grit out, looking at the telltale stain in her panties. Terrific. Just what she needed after a day of dealing with Winnie Davis. No wonder her head and her back had been bothering her. Groping beneath the bathroom sink where she kept her supplies she gave another muffled curse when she came up empty handed, remembering that Emily had left her note apologizing for using the last of her tampons. She'd added a box to her shopping list, but considering she hadn't had a period in two months, the need hadn't exactly felt urgent. In fact, she was rather hoping that she might have seen the last of this monthly mess. Her periods had become more erratic over the last couple years, skipping a month here and there and sometimes arriving twice in the same month, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, all part of the joys of perimenopause her gynecologist assured her, but she'd never skipped two months in a row.
"Uh…No," she amended, opening the bathroom door. "I've got a bit of a problem here. Can I ask you a really big favor?"
"Sure. You okay? "
"Yes, fine. I just started my period and I'm out of tampons. Could you run over to Rite Aid and buy me a box." At the deer in the headlights look he gave her she added, "I hate to ask, but…"
"No, no. It's fine." He pushed aside his initial aversion. While it wouldn't have been his first choice as favors went, Sharon rarely asked him for anything intimate and it actually felt kind of good to have her turn to him in this way. "Kotex, right?" He'd seen the boxes in the vanity plenty of times, going back to when he'd had to move in with her because of his blood clot after they'd just started dating. It was how he'd known that he was still going to need to use protection when they finally made love. Of course, being the efficient woman that she was, Sharon had already taken care of things, having an IUD inserted when it was apparent that their relationship was moving into greater intimacy, leaving him with no need of the condoms he'd purchased.
"Yes. U by Kotex. Make sure you get the Click, the black and purple box. They're easier to carry in my purse." And more discreet.
"Okay, U Kotex Click, black and purple box, I got it." He could do this, even if it wasn't at the grocery store where he could slide them in amongst the milk, bread, and eggs.
For all his nonchalance with Sharon, Andy stood in the feminine hygiene aisle feeling very much out of place. He'd found the Kotex, no problem, even found the click, but evidently, there was more to it than that.
Provenza and Patrice were making their way to the checkout counter when Patrice asked, "Isn't that Andy?"
Provenza followed the finger she was pointing and indeed saw Andy Flynn standing in the middle of the feminine hygiene aisle, two boxes in his hands and perplexed look on his face.
"Let's go say hello."
Provenza grimaced. The feminine aisle was one he avoided like the plague.
"Oh, come on." Patrice took his arm. "You're a big boy Louie." He huffed a bit but followed his wife.
"I knew you'd been extra moody, lately.
Andy turned to see Provenza regarding him with a raised brow and rolled his eyes. "They're not for me, obviously. They're for Sharon."
"TMI, Flynn, TMI."
Andy shook his head. "You've been married six times, you ought to be used to this stuff by now."
"Never," he shuddered.
Seeing Patrice at Provenza's side he asked, "What are you guys doing in this neck of the woods, anyway?" Los Feliz was 20 minutes away from the Provenza's small bungalow in South LA.
"I was downtown shopping so we decided to grab a pizza at Palermo's for supper," Patrice said. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
"God yes. Thank you. Sharon wanted this brand," he showed her the two boxes. "But she didn't tell me which ones. I don't know the difference between the super and the regular."
"Well, that would depend on her flow. Did she just start?"
"Yeah, that's why I'm here. She wasn't expecting it today and she was out of these."
"Well, then, I'd get this combo pack." She grabbed a big box that was half super and half regular. "The supers will be fine for the first couple of days when it's heavier and then the regulars will work for the last few when it's lighter.
"Eh Gads. Really you two? "Provenza looked around to see if anyone was listening, and then hissed softly, "Are we really going to stand here in the middle of a store discussing the Captain's flow. It's embarrassing."
Andy gave a pointed look at the long yellow box in Provenza's hand. "No more embarrassing than buying hemorrhoid suppositories."
Provenza's face flushed. With a little huff, he slid the box of Preparation H under his arm and walked away toward the checkout counter with as much dignity as he could procure, Flynn's laughter following him all the way.
Rusty was making the salad his mother had asked him to prepare to go with dinner when he heard the door to the condo open and then shut. With a puzzled frown, he stepped around the corner to see Andy.
"I thought I heard you come home earlier? He said.
"I did come home earlier. And then I left."
"Where did you go?"
"I had to run to the drugstore and get these for your Mom. " Andy pulled the box of tampons out of the bag, grinning when the boy's face twisted with distaste.
"Future reference Andy, when I ask a question like that a simple, 'I had to run an errand for your Mom will do it. I don't need to know any of the gross details."
Andy gave a soft chuckle. "Better get used to it, kid. Periods are a part of life, one day you'll have a wife and you'll-" A look of stunned horror crossed his face. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry."
"s'okay"
"No, really. I didn't mean anything by…It slipped…I just…. "
"Andy, it's okay. " Rusty cut off the stumbling explanation, putting the older man out of his misery. "You didn't offend me or anything."
"Okay, good. " Andy let out a breath of relief and started off toward the bathroom, then thought the better of it. Rusty wasn't going to have a wife and given the kid's upbringing, he doubted he'd ever been given a proper talk about this kind of stuff. Certainly, Sharon Beck wouldn't have done it and by the time his Sharon got the boy he'd probably known more about sex, the mechanics anyway, than her so there would have been no need for "the talk". In any case, boys were typically taught about male puberty and how to keep a girl from getting pregnant with barely a reference to anything that girls and women experienced. He'd learned far more about the female side of things from the women in his life than he did from health class or anything his father had told him. "You know kid, it's still a fact of life and even if you don't have a wife you could have a daughter one day. You might want to talk to your mom about that sometime." He looked down at the box in his hand. "Well, I better get these in to her."
Rusty watched Andy disappear into the bathroom. A daughter. He'd never really thought about that before. Did he even want children? Would he be capable of being a good parent? Despite the five years of love and stability he'd had with an amazing mother like Sharon, the 13 horrific years of abuse and neglect that he'd experienced with his biological mother and the two years he'd spent homeless, selling himself on the street had left him so messed up inside he wasn't sure he would ever be healed enough to think that he could be a good parent.
"I have been patient, Gus. I waited an extra day. O-okay. Well, if you weren't ready to talk to me about it, then why text me? "
Sharon and Andy paused in setting the table with supper both looking to Rusty who was pacing in the living room on the phone with Gus.
"One of the things I love about living in a house with a kid again is realizing how happy I am to be older," Andy said.
" Mm." Sharon agreed, rubbing his shoulder and leaning in to press her lips to his in a brief kiss. "Relationships were so complicated at that age, weren't they? And breaking up is tough. Even if there's no other choice." She was so glad that she and Andy were past the complicated stage in their relationship. Sure, there were still difficulties they were facing with their annulments, but it was no longer complicated. She loved him, she was committed to him and she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. Nothing complicated anymore about that.
They sat at the table filling their plates while Rusty's conversation with Gus continued.
"Okay, I... yeah, right. But just... just know that it's incredibly frustrating and... Yeah, well, I love you, too. Okay. All right, bye."
Sharon smiled at the 'I love you'. Rusty had come such a long way with being able to express his feelings, well, feelings that weren't anger anyway. He'd always been pretty good at expressing his anger. She could still remember the first time he'd given voice to his feelings for her. He was standing in the doorway to her office about to leave when he'd said those very words, "I'm only doing this because I love you. You know that, right?" You could have knocked her over with a feather, but she had perfected the art of suppressing her emotions and keeping her face devoid of the surprise she felt at hearing things that shocked her, like those words, and her response was a matter of fact, "I do". But, as soon as her door shut, her eyes had flooded with tears of joy. He loved her.
"Well... that sounded more positive," she said as Rusty joined them at the table.
"He says that he thinks it's all good, but he can only talk to me about whatever it is face to face. What? "Andy was giving him that 'come on' look that he had when someone was being oblivious.
"Nothing, "Andy shrugged. "It's just... well when I think about good things that can only be talked about face to face…"
"You mean like marriage?" Rusty was dumbfounded. He wasn't ready for marriage. "Andy, I'm not even out of college yet. And then, I have law school after that. I can't... Oh, my God. This is gonna end no matter what I do. Either he's preparing some kind of, "It's for the best" way to break up with me. Or he's going to ask me to marry him and then break up with me when I say no. But getting married right now, that would be crazy. Wouldn't it, Mom?"
"It depends on how you really feel about the other person." Sharon was listening to the conversation but her mind suddenly went back to the murder of Allie King. If Allie had turned down the proposal her volatile boyfriend, a billionaire used to getting everything he wanted, would it have been enough for him to snap and kill her?
"So, you think I'm ready to get married?"
"What? No. Of course not. I think the two of you are jumping to conclusions. There's no reason to get all worked up about this until you find out what Gus really wants to talk to you about."
After supper and an episode of "Game of Thrones" Sharon left Andy and Rusty engrossed in a chess match to go soak in a nice bubble bath, hoping the warm water might soothe the war taking place in her abdomen.
When Andy got to the bedroom, having been soundly defeated, Sharon was laying in bed absorbed in book as she was most nights before bed, but by the time he returned from the bathroom having showered and brushed his teeth he found her curled up in the fetal position around a heating pad, her book set aside. There was a mug of herbal tea and a bottle of Midol sitting on her nightstand and the room was filled with the lavender and sage scent of essential oils coming from her diffuser. All that arsenal told him one thing. Sharon was feeling pretty miserable right now.
Because of his addiction, he was unable to take many prescription medications so he was more open than most of the guys he knew when it came to using natural products to fight pain and illness. But even so, he'd still thought all that aromatherapy stuff Sharon got from Summer was just a load of New Age mumbo-jumbo. How could the scent of clary sage soothe the cramps in her uterus? And yet, he had to admit, the lavender she used did seem to make him sleep better. And, when she'd rubbed some peppermint oil into his neck after he'd gotten the pinched nerve it had helped a little bit.
"Cramps bad?" He asked, sliding into bed behind her.
"Mm…you think?" It was nearly a groan. "You know, it isn't fair. If I'm going to have to deal with hot flashes, it would be nice to at least have the benefit of stopping my period. I was hoping after skipping it for two months in a row that it might be done."
Two months? Had it been that long? It wasn't something he'd really thought about, but now that she mentioned it, he realized that it had been a while. The last time he could remember was right around Halloween when he'd woken one morning, a little taken aback, to see sheets stained with small wet patches of blood where Sharon had been laying. Hearing his surprised intake of breath when she'd risen from the bed, Sharon had been slightly embarrassed at the mess, complaining about the unpredictability of her period after a couple decades of it cycling like clockwork. He'd made a flip remark about her sense of occasion with it being Halloween and all which had earned him a withering look and kept him mute on the subject now. But there was something he could do.
"Doesn't seem like your bath helped much. Would you like a back or belly rub?" One or the other had seemed to be helpful in the past. The first day or two was always hard on her, with agonizing cramps and backaches.
"My back feels like it's in a vice grip," she admitted. "The heating pad is helping with my belly."
"Back it is then." He lifted her cami and slid his hand into the back of her boy shorts. It was the only time of the month she wore the comfortable stretchy shorts, preferring to sleep in silky or satin negligees and nightgowns but not willing to take the chance she might stain them.
The moment his strong fingers rubbed into the small of her back, Sharon moaned with relief. Then he placed his thumbs on each side of her spine and dug them in with circling motions the way she'd taught him the first time he'd done this for her.
"You're awfully quiet," he said after several minutes of nothing but appreciative soft moans. "Just in pain or are you really worried about Rusty and this marriage thing?"
"There is no marriage thing. We don't even know what Gus wants to talk to him about." Her strained protest did not fool him.
"So, you're worried."
She sighed. "Maybe a little. It's so easy at that age to be pressured into doing something that you aren't ready for."
"You and I are prime examples of that."
"We are. I don't want Rusty to fall into the same trap that we fell into. But I know I have to be careful about what I say. My parents arguing against me marrying Jack in some ways only pushed me the other way. I wanted to prove to them that they were wrong."
"And my mother urging me to marry Sandra and being so excited about it pushed me right into proposing. I had no idea what I was getting into."
"So, what do we do? "
"We worry about today. Tomorrow will come soon enough and we can deal with it then."
Sharon was a planner, she liked to look ahead, to be prepared, but she had to admit that Andy's take one day at a time AA philosophy was starting to win her over-a little bit anyway. She was always going to worry, always look ahead at the big picture, but if she could step back from that a little she would try. "I guess you're right, I should take my own advice. There's no need in getting all worked up about it until we know what it is that Gus wants to talk to him about. And if it is marriage we just have to offer Rusty the best advice we can and hope that he makes the right decision." At Andy's negative little rumble, she looked back over her shoulder. "What? "
"We're talking about Rusty, here. "
"I know that. He's made some poor decisions, yes, but he's gotten a lot better. Look at him now. He's in college, he has goals, he's interning with the hopes of going to law school. He-" She paused at the grin crossing Andy's face. "What?"
"Nothing. It's just so easy to get your Mama Bear hackles up. Anyone who even thinks about fucking with one of your children better watch out."
"Hmph. "She flipped back over. "You might want to remind Gus about that."
"I thought you liked Gus."
"I do like Gus. He's been good for Rusty."
"But…"
"But I don't know what all of this is about and he's Rusty's first love. He has the power to hurt him. You know, I watched Emily and Ricky go through this with their boyfriends and girlfriends and when their hearts were broken, my heart broke too. But, it feels different with Rusty. I know it seems like he's tougher than they are and in some ways, he is. He's certainly been through things they can't even imagine. But emotionally, he's so much more fragile than they ever were."
"Old or new, love always has the power hurt you, Sharon. Just look how long it took me to even ask you out on a date."
"Hmm…" she hummed, tapping his hand to keep him kneading on her back. That night at the candlelit table at Serve he'd taken her hand and, playing with her fingers, told her just how long he'd had feelings for her. How many times he'd wanted to ask her out on a real date, a romantic date, and yet he'd held back, fearing rejection, fearing the loss of something he wasn't even sure was real. Until he asked her out, he could believe that she had the same romantic feelings and sexual attraction for him that he had for her. But if he asked her out and she said no, that she wasn't interested in him that way, he would know for sure that his feelings were not reciprocated and that he'd read her completely wrong. The fear that he'd been living in a fantasyland and they would never be more than just friends had been very potent, but he had to do it. He had to man up, take a chance and fight for what he wanted.
"It sucks, but as much as we want to, we can't stop our kids from getting hurt. "
"I know," she frowned. "All we can do is be there to pick up the pieces." She grabbed the heating pad's control box and clicked on the two-hour timer. As tempting as it was to sleep curled around all that heat warding off the squeezing, gripping pain that radiated down her thighs and made her insides feel like they were going through a meat grinder, it was too dangerous to keep it on all night. "I'm going to try to get some sleep before the Midol wears off and the heating pad shuts down."
"Okay. " Andy nuzzled into her hair pressing a kiss to her temple. "Good-night, sweetheart." And he continued to rub her back until she fell asleep.
"So, do you remember her from your PSB days?"
Sharon looked down at the picture of a sour-faced older woman that she held in her hand. This was their newest victim, unrelated to the Allie King murder they were still working on. Mary Conrad, a former member of the LAPD. As if she could forget that nasty piece of work.
"Oh yes, I remember her very well." She glanced up at Provenza who seemed strangely ill at ease, shifting from one foot to the other. "You know Lieutenant," she leaned in whispering softly. "You can't catch it, it's not contagious." She bit back an amused smile at the deep red flush of mortification rushing into his face.
"Yes, well, I know that," he stammered. He couldn't help it. It felt strange knowing something so personal about the Captain. And he wouldn't have known about it if it weren't for…Flynn. His eyes moved to his second in command who was leaning casually back against a desk with a knowing smile. "Your boyfriend has a big mouth."
Sharon's smile broadened. "Yes, well…"She trailed off and began putting pictures of Mary on the murder board as the rest of team began filtering in.
Provenza couldn't have been more relieved to see them and took the opportunity to slide away to his desk trying not to think about what else Flynn had told her about that visit to the drugstore.
"As you all know our victim, Mary Conrad, was a veteran of the LAPD. I had a few run-ins with Mary at the PSB. In fact, Mary took a swing at me when I relieved her from duty." She slapped the last picture on the murder board.
"Why were you investigating her ma'am?" Julio asked.
"Well, when she'd make an arrest for fraud, Mary sometimes accepted 'thank you' gifts from banks and retail outlets.
"Oh my God, that's so against the rules."
Buzz, a man after her own heart. "Yeah, well that didn't keep her from trying to justify it. She even mentioned that FBI agents get to keep a percentage of confiscated funds."
"Lucky bastards," Provenza muttered. Mary had been in his class at the Academy and he was still trying to remember who she was. Kind of scary considering that in the late 70's there were barely a handful of women at the Academy. She should have stuck out like a sore thumb.
"But you know, Mary's main defense was that her Captain didn't like having a woman in his unit."
"Well, it was a bit of a boys club back then," Andy said, as if she needed reminding.
"Still is," she reminded him right back. "But I'm not sure though how much of a committed feminist Mary was. When I asked for her service weapon back she called me a bitch."
"Oh, well, that's shocking."
Andy shook his head with a little grin at Provenza's quip. Except for Amy and Wes who had joined the division after Sharon had become their Captain and had little knowledge of her time in FID, they had all referred to her as a bitch at one time or another.
"You canned her right?" Provenza asked.
"No, I offered her a demotion and a chance to work her way back up but she retired instead."
"Well, well, well, there's the happy couple. Sharon, Andy, how does it feel to be engaged?"
Too stunned to move, Sharon's eyes met Andy's and they stood rooted on the spot as Jack blustered into the Murder Room with a big smile. It was the smile of a snake, ready to lash out with his poison venom.
The team was also shocked speechless, but it didn't take them long to regain their wits.
"Wait, what?"
"Congratulations."
"Where's the ring?" Julio asked. "Didn't the Lieutenant buy you a ring, ma'am."
"Oh my God," Andy shook his head.
Provenza only nodded knowingly. Tao was going to have to give him his five bucks back.
"Ohh… wait. You aren't wearing a ring, are you? Well, that had to be the shortest engagement ever." Jack shook his head with mock sorrow resting a pitying hand on Andy's shoulder. "Bad luck Andy, my old man. Sorry about that. Women can be so fickle. You shell out the big bucks on a vacation, bare your soul asking them to marry you, they get caught up in the moment and say yes and then they kick you in the balls and give you your ring back."
"What the hell are you even talking about?" Andy shoved Jack's hand from his shoulder and Sharon moved in closer to the two, sliding an arm around Andy's waist. She could nearly taste the testosterone that was flying around between the two men and knew this could easily get out of hand.
"Wait, are you two really engaged or not?" Amy asked.
Sharon turned to her team…her family. This wasn't how she had wanted to tell them. Leave it to Jack to mess everything up. "Yes, we are." She rested her head on Andy's shoulder in a quick moment of affection she rarely displayed at work, the wide, happy smile on her face easing the tension in Andy and in the room.
"We just haven't announced it yet," Andy said.
"Oh no, "Jack feigned dismay, the brief flare of hope at seeing her bare finger extinguished. "Oh, God. I ruined your surprise."
Sharon's eyes, turning hard as granite, settled back on her ex-husband. "Yes, you did," she said before turning her back on him to talk to her friends. "We were going to have a little party to make the announcement. And yes Andy did, of course, give me a ring but I left it home because we wanted to tell acting Assistant Chief Howard first."
"Oh, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. You never change. Always following the rules."
Sharon's glare came back in full force as she whipped around snapping, "What are you even doing here, Jack?" As far as she knew, he wasn't representing anyone in their cases.
"I uh…Brought the paperwork. The annulment questionnaire."
"I asked you to mail it to me."
"The mail is so impersonal."
"Exactly."
Man, she was a tough nut to crack. that wasn't anything new. He'd told her once that she was his Mount Everest, his Waterloo. She'd made the decision 22 years ago to make their separation legal and at that time she'd put a wall up that he'd never been able to completely penetrate ever again. Oh, he'd tried storming the castle a few times, even tore away a brick or two on occasion but he'd never been able to infiltrate the barriers and rules she'd put in place to keep him at bay. She was strong and she was stubborn and standing there ramrod straight with her arms crossed under her breasts and her cheeks slightly flushed with anger, she was as sexy a woman as he'd ever known. God how he still wanted her. He always wanted her, though never more so, it seemed, than when she was out of his reach. And never had she been more out of his reach than she was now with Flynn standing at her side and the talk of marriage on everyone's lips. "Is that really what you, the queen of the face to face, wants?"
What she really wanted right now was for the floor to open and Jack to fall through to hell, but that wasn't likely to happen. "Fine, you want to talk? Go wait for me in my office. I need to finish up here and then you'll have," she consulted her watch, "you'll have about five minutes."
"You're a tough lady to bargain with," he tried his most charming grin. When it did nothing to change her steely demeanor, he sighed and made his way toward her office. He hated it when she played these power games. Sending him off to wait in her office was all about showing him who was the boss.
And Sharon was always the boss.
Sharon made him cool his heels for a good twenty minutes before finally joining him in her office.
"You printed this out awfully fast." Jack held up a framed picture she had on her desk. Her mother had taken it Christmas Eve after they'd told the family about their engagement. She and Andy were standing in front of a blazing fireplace and a large Christmas tree twinkling with white lights, surrounded by their smiling children. Their arms were wrapped around each other's waists and her dress, the color of cranberries matched his suspenders. They were radiating happiness.
Sharon took the picture from him and set it back down on her desk. "Why did you come here, Jack?"
"Okay, so that's how it's going to be." He started to pull out the chair in front of her desk.
"Don't bother sitting, you won't be here long."
"Seriously? You throw something like this at me and don't expect to have a conversation about it?"
"Not here I don't. If you'd really wanted to have a conversation about this, we could have met for coffee somewhere and discussed it. But that isn't what you wanted. You knew Andy and I are planning an engagement party to surprise our friends and you just couldn't wait to let the cat out of the bag. Using our children as spies is starting to get a little tiresome and if they knew what you were doing…My God," she shook her head with disgust.
More than once the kids had innocently given Jack information about her or Andy that he'd then used against them. She hadn't told Emily or Ricky about it because it would only hurt them. Jack was so good at manipulation he had them believing that he was only interested in their lives, while surreptitiously pumping them for information on her and Andy.
"I'm here because of this." He angrily tossed the manila folder on her desk. "An annulment. You know this negates our marriage."
"Our marriage was already negated. "
"No, a divorce means our marriage is over, an annulment means our marriage never existed."
"Our sacramental marriage never existed-and that's the truth. That was the marriage where you promised before God to love and cherish me all the days of our lives, the one when you placed a ring on my finger and promised to be faithful to me. Jack, you negated our wedding vows a long, long time ago. This just makes it official."
"You can't pretend it didn't happen, Sharon!"
"I'm not pretending anything. Legally we were married and it's over, but when it comes to the sacrament of marriage, it didn't happen. I made a mistake and I'm putting it behind me. It would be better for you if you did the same."
Jack looked like she'd slapped him in the face. "Is that how you see me, as a mistake?"
"Jack…" Her tone softened. "You know I will always be grateful to you for Emily and for Ricky. I will always care about you and wish the best for you, even when you piss me off and I want to ring your neck as I do most of the time lately. But even though I didn't officially end it until two years ago, we haven't been married, really married for twenty-five years. And let's face it; if we hadn't rushed into getting married that summer we graduated, we would have realized that even if we loved each other, it wasn't going to work between us. We just weren't compatible. We wanted different things out of life. " She wanted a partner, family, stability, and monogamy, none of which he'd been able to give her. "I wasn't able to see that for a long time and maybe I was willing to overlook too much. You were my first serious relationship. Now that I've been with Andy and experienced that level of love, respect, and commitment, I can see what we were missing. "
"Andy," he scoffed. "You're seriously going to marry him?"
"I wouldn't go through this if I wasn't serious about marrying Andy. I'm not looking forward to reliving all of the most painful, humiliating parts of my life."
He flinched knowing she was referring to her time with him, but as usual, his pain came out as anger. "But you'll go through that for him."
"For us," she stressed. "I want to start our marriage out on the right foot and for me, that means getting married in the church."
"I gotta ask, why Flynn?"
"I'm not sure you really want me to answer that." She was still angry for what he'd just done, still angry for how he'd treated their children when they'd gone to him, but that didn't mean she wanted to hurt him.
"Yes, Sharon, I do. "
She stared at him for a long moment trying to decide if he was sincere or just trying to goad her into a fight, wondering how she could convey what she had with Andy in a way that he would understand. What could she tell him of a love that had sprung seemingly out of nowhere; coming at a time in her life when she'd least expected it. A love that had started with a deep friendship, her feelings growing and deepening every day until they became so powerful she could no longer imagine her life without Andy in it.
"Come on Sharon," he pushed. "You said you overlooked too much with me, but it seems to me that you must be overlooking an awful lot when it comes to that skirt chaser."
Her eyes hardened, whatever compassion she'd had for him disappearing. "Okay," she snapped. "You want to know, why Andy? Because he makes me happier than I've ever been in my whole life. Because he respects me and he loves me in a way that I've never been loved before and because I love him in a way that I've never loved anyone before. " As she spoke of Andy, she could actually feel that love, the warmth flowing from her heart all the way into her bones, melting the anger she felt toward her ex. It was a feeling she couldn't explain.
"He's a drunk you know," Jack spat out derisively. "Just like me. You just went from one drunk to another."
"He's an alcoholic," Sharon corrected, trying to keep her temper in check, something that was never easy when it came to Jack. "A recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 20 years, made amends and repaired his relationships with those he loves. So, no, he's not like you at all."
"Really? How is he moving in and living off you any different from what I did? Sounds to me like he's as much a deadbeat as you once accused me of being. "
Sharon's mouth dropped open with shock. Now that was rich, coming from the king of the freeloaders. She didn't owe Jack of all people any explanations but she also could not allow him to besmirch Andy this way. "Not that it's any of your business, but unlike you, Andy does not, nor has he ever 'lived off me'. He moved into my, now our condo because we are looking to buy a house and his house, the one that he bought himself and paid the mortgage on himself, again, something you've never done, sold faster than he thought it would and we haven't found a house yet. And unlike you who never gave me a dime of child support or sent any money home to help with the mortgage, bills, ballet classes, swim meet fees, football camps and baseball clinics, never mind college, he pays half the mortgage, half the utilities, and half the condo fees. He also paid child support when his daughter was younger, helped her with college tuition, and pretty much footed the entire $30,000 bill for her wedding so let's remember who the deadbeat is because it sure isn't Andy."
"Oh, yeah, I forgot what a paragon he is. Saint Andy. Good luck with that, I think you're gonna need it." He stalked off toward the door
"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Oh, and Jack-" she stopped him just as he touched the door handle. "He may not be a saint but you want to know what else is different between you and Andy? When he moved in last August, it was into my bedroom, not the couch."
Jack's face flushed, his blood boiling with anger and jealousy. He wanted to walk out that door and punch Andy Fucking Flynn right in the face. Instead, he hit Sharon where he knew it would hurt her most. "Yeah, the kids told me all about it."
In an instant, Sharon went from chastising herself for allowing him to taunt her into pettiness to seething with outrage. Only this time she kept it under control calmly asking, "Will I be seeing you at the tribunal?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"You know, Jack, I really don't want to fight with you. I'd like this to be as civilized as possible.
"I'm sure that's exactly what you'd like, Sharon." He tossed her an enigmatic look and walked out the door.
TBC