A/N- Well, this isn't making a huge step forward, but we're reestablishing the Stroh arc. I think it's been more than a decade in the making, and I want it over. *eyeroll* I don't hugely care for it and it's not the main storyline in this fic, so rest assured haha. Comments are love (:
I fought the war but the war won't stop for the love of god. / I fought the war but the war won.
Metric
Andy woke up early in the morning for the first round of vitals checks. He'd slowly been reacquainted with the fact that even the best night's sleep in a hospital was poor when someone was coming in every hour or two.
"I'm sorry, but you can't stay there," Someone said, gesturing away from the bed like he was a bad dog. The nurse didn't sound angry, and Andy thought that she'd likely seen how they'd organized Sharon's devices so they wouldn't get tangled or pulled.
"Yeah, thanks. I meant to get home to the kids, sorry." He honestly hadn't meant to fall asleep.
Sharon was still out for the count, snoring faintly. Andy discovered over the last year or so that she snored on occasion. Not loudly, but it still made him laugh. He rubbed her hand and tucked the blanket back over her, and slipped out the door with the nurse.
He looked at the woman. "I'll shoot her a text. Figure she needs the sleep more than me telling her that I'm headed home."
"It's important that you get sleep, too, sir."
He nodded. "Thanks."
She smiled at him before turning to continue her rounds. The woman in 631 was new, but she'd already had more visitors than half of the rest of the floor combined. Apparently, the woman and her husband were both cops and most of the visitors were cops and lawyers and more cops. One of the sons had been at the nurses' station earlier, chatting easily while waiting on his brother.
She turned again. "Sir?"
He looked up from his phone. "Yeah?"
"You're both with the police, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah."
"Well, thank you for your service."
The husband nodded, not smiling, just serious. "You're welcome. Thank you for your work, too. It's at least as important as ours." He sighed and rolled his shoulders. "I'll let you get going." With that, he turned and quietly walked down the hall, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went.
"Hey, Sharon. Is everything okay?" Andy was distracted as he answered the phone not too much later in the day. The coroner's crew was still in the back yard with Emma, but he was in the house with most of the rest of the squad, awkwardly looking over Emma Rios' private life.
"Is Andrea there?"
"What?"
"Is. Andrea. With. You." His wife sounded unusually short.
"Uhh." He stalled, turning in a circle and scanning the area. "Uhh, I don't see her." She had probably left with Amy already.
"Andy, the news is on, and I saw Andrea come around the corner of a house crying. Crying. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen her cry, and none of them have been at crime scenes. She's not picking up her phone when I call. Where are you, dammit?"
Oh, fuck. The thought slipped past his filter. Who the fuck let her watch the news? The doctors had stressed that she not get involved in work, and the local news was exactly that. Damn KTLA. "Uh, is Rusty with you?" She hadn't sworn at him in. . . Well, it had to have been years. Then again, he remembered, his wife and Hobbs were old friends. He couldn't recall exactly what Sharon had told him, but her friendship with Andrea dated back to before Andy knew either one of them.
"Yes. . ." her voice had risen a half-step. "Why? Is he in danger? I sent him to the cafeteria with Ricky and Em."
"No, but Sharon. . ." Andy didn't hear Provenza come up behind him, but the shorter man yanked the phone away.
"Commander," he said brusquely. "It was my understanding that you are on medical leave."
Andy could hear only the tone of the low, grumbling reply.
"And therefore I am the Incident Commander. You are not entitled to be read into this investigation. No. No. I believe you wrote the rules. I will read you in as I see fit. I am handling the paperwork just fine. No. Turn off the damn news, Sharon. Rusty is fine. I'll come by with Flynn tonight, okay? Hobbs? Uh," Provenza sighed. "I sent her out with Sykes, so maybe try Sykes' phone. Yeah, I think she's going to City Hall, but, uh, she'd probably like to go sit with you for a while. Here's Flynn." Provenza shoved the cell back to his partner and stepped out to the yard.
"Hey."
"Hey." Sharon sounded calmer, tired again. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
"No, I shouldn't snap at you. I'm just. . . It's not even been a week, and I'm so tired of being here. I want to go home, Andy, and I'm taking it out on you."
"It's okay, babe. I can take it."
"Thank you. I'll try to rein it in. But Andy, where are you? What's wrong?"
He sighed. "I'll come by tonight, okay? And I'm sure Andrea will come sooner."
"Don't leave me in the dark like this. Andy. . ."
The pleading note pulled at his heart. He looked out the back door, where the coroner's people had finally covered Emma and were taking her away. He hadn't particularly liked the woman, hell, he thought he hated her at times, but she was one of the good guys. She was driven, good at her job, she had done her best for Rusty, and, despite their arguments, she had stood by the boy. Maybe he hadn't seen it, but clearly she was a good friend, too, if Andrea's reaction was anything to go by. She was someone's daughter, maybe a sister or an aunt.
"We're at, uh, we're at Emma's house," he finally admitted.
"Emma. . .?" There was a long silence, and Andy waited for her to figure it out. He knew he had another notification waiting and the first was hard enough. "Emma. Emma, oh my God. Andy-" she broke off, and he knew what she was probably seeing on the news. "Oh my God, Emma's dead? Andy, Andrea. Oh, Andy they're friends-"
"I know."
"Oh my God," it was breathy and soft this time."
"Deep breath, Sharon." He was getting her wound up, exactly what he'd been telling everyone else not to do. "Calm down."
"Don't patronize me." It was sharp, and they were both silent for a moment. He could hear Sharon finally breath in. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I think one of the medications is making me a little short-tempered."
He nodded, then remembered she couldn't see. "Yeah, I seem to recall seeing that on a list of side-effects for one of 'em."
She sighed heavily, and the noise crackled over the phone. "Go do work, honey. That's all we can do for her now. I'll call Amy, try Andrea again, see if I can get them to come over." She paused momentarily. "I think I'll try and convince Emmy and Ricky to go home. They both will have to go back to work soon, and it seems like LA might be the worst place for them now."
"That sounds smart."
"Okay." Another sigh. "I love you."
"Love you, too, babe, even when you're channeling your inner Provenza."
There was a giggle, and then they both hung up.
Andy turned to survey the scene again. "Jesus."
Ricky could hear someone crying in his mother's room when he and his siblings arrived back from the cafeteria. It didn't sound like his mother, though. When he was younger and his dad was still in and out, he'd learned the sounds of someone crying and trying to be quiet about it.
"It's not Mom," Emily said, one hand on the door.
"No."
They both looked to Rusty, who shrugged. "I don't know. I can tell it's not Sharon, but that's it." He nodded to Emily's hand. "You should go look."
"What? Why me?" By the time she'd turned to face them, both brothers had a finger to their nose. "Oh, come on."
"Emily Catherine," came their mother's voice through the door. "Richard William, Russell Thomas, I can hear all three of you."
All three groaned.
"We just got middle-named. Now we're in for it." Emily whispered, careful not to be overheard again.
"Come on in, you're fine."
Emily rolled her eyes, but pushed the door open nonetheless.
Andrea was sitting on the bed next to Sharon, the policewoman's arm around her friend. She was making a valiant effort to look composed, but whipped a handkerchief out a moment later to dab under her eyes.
"Lieutenant Provenza probably won't want this back, will he?" Andrea asked, flashing Rusty a watery smile.
The boy didn't return it. "What's wrong?"
Andrea glanced at Sharon, and both women frowned. Sharon raised a hand to finger the cardiac leads that hung over the neck of her gown. Rusty was sure his siblings knew her tell as well as he did, that they all knew she was uncomfortable.
"You might want to sit down," Sharon started. As they did so, she began explaining. "Andy was going to talk to you tonight, but I don't want you to wait for him all afternoon. He, the team, they got called out this morning to Atwater."
"Atwater Village? Isn't that kind of far for your team to respond?" Ricky asked.
"Yeah," Rusty replied slowly. "It's past Los Feliz. That's outside normal jurisdiction. Mom. . ." He looked to Andrea, and both women could see him quickly piecing things together. "Andrea, did someone. . . Emma?"
Sharon nodded, and tightened her grip on Andrea's shoulder, fingers creasing the blonde's blazer. "I'm sorry, honey. Emma's gone."
Ricky and Emily were both silent, watching. Ricky could vaguely recall his mother complaining once or twice about that Emma woman, but that had been years ago. He supposed they may have transitioned into friendship, after all, that woman from Georgia had eventually become oh, you remember Brenda Leigh.
Rusty seemed stunned. "What happened?"
Sharon looked to Andrea, whose eyes had brightened with tears again. "I don't know, Rusty. Lieutenant Provenza has been keeping me away from the investigation."
Andrea cleared her throat. "She, uh," she couldn't say the words. No one had told her, but she had seen the scene, and she wasn't stupid, the converse, really: she'd seen far too many deaths, far too much mano-a-mano violence. "We're certain Philip Stroh is back in LA, Rusty."
The boy froze, but she knew he understood as his eyes widened. "Oh my God." He looked down for a moment. "I'm sorry, Andrea. I know you're friends. That. . . Wow. . . I don't even know. That sucks so hard. Shit," he mumbled. "I'm sorry."
Andrea reached her hand out to the boy. He gripped it tightly, and they were both surprised to find her hand was the smaller one. She couldn't recall holding hands with him before, there was no reason for it: they were closer than handshake acquaintances. To Rusty, she seemed larger than life, dominating whatever courtroom or interrogation she stood in. In the hospital, her hands were warm and damp, her cuticles less than perfect.
"I guess we weren't really friends, not like you guys, but I respect- respected- her. She," Rusty paused. "I was a jerk. And she was doing her job and I was too immature to get that, like, even last year, but I understand now. People have different ways of showing they care." A sidling glance to Sharon. "And she cared, and I wish she knew that I. . . Maybe wasn't really her friend, but I like- liked- her."
Andrea had choked up again, but Sharon squeezed her hand and spoke for her. "She knew, Rusty."
"I dunno. I was kind of an asshole-"
"Language." Sharon snorted at herself as the warning slipped out. "She knew. Trust me."
"I do."
