Behind the Curtain, part X

Special Master:

Worry, Anxiety, Terror

There was a difference, Sharon knew, between worry and anxiety. The former was almost comforting, a constant reminder of her love, a feeling she could always count upon as each of her children let go of her hand and walked alone. Each time was its own little bereavement; thousands of moments over the years, tiny cuts that never quite healed over, leaving memories like scars on the skin of her life. But the worry was always there waiting. Worry that Ricky might fall as he took his first steps. That Emily might get hurt as she dropped her hand and ran excitedly into that first day of kindergarten. That Rusty might find something he did not want to know as the elevator doors closed, hiding him and Daniel Dunn from her sight before they descended.

The worry reminded her that she had something to lose.

But also that she had something to love more than herself.

Anxiety, though, Sharon thought as she closed her bedroom door softly and turned to lean against it heavily while her hands wrapped around herself in a protective and comforting stance, anxiety was that sick feeling in her stomach. That constant twisting within that kept her up at night and made her voice shake. It was Emily moving into that first rat-trap of an apartment in Brooklyn with strangers. It was Ricky backpacking in Europe for weeks without a word. It was strapping Rusty into a kevlar vest before sending him out the door.

Anxiety was ugly.

A reminder of how powerless she really was.

This was the part of parenting that was always the hardest. Sharon slid down the surface of the door inch-by-inch before eventually curling in on herself at the floor, knees drawn up against her chest, arms wrapped around them, pulling them almost desperately into her torso. These moments, when she had to let go and stop pushing. When she had to stop and live with the worry and even the anxiety.

Ricky and Emily had given her their fair shares of worry and anxiety; but as in most respects, Rusty presented a completely new and different set of challenges. There was a fine line to be toed, that line between advocating for his autonomy and setting reasonable boundaries. Her eyes drifted shut as an old memory washed over her, curled on the floor by her bedroom door.

"I know when people want something from me, and he-he wants something."

Sharon nodded slowly, trying to find the right words. Words that would remind him that she would always know him, that she would not let go of his hand; not until he was ready. But words that would not shatter the fragile trust and understanding that now stretched between them. Words that could settle in that place between his shoulderblades, supporting but not pushing, coming to rest on his back like her palm so often longed to do.

Smiling gently, she finally said the only thing that came to mind. "I wish I could go with you."

"Me too."

Looking at him now, words were not enough. "C'mere."

And in a single movement, she finally pulled him into her arms, communicating all that those few words could not. The worry. The support. Maybe even the love she dared not voice yet. Sharon held him in her arms, holding tightly for those last moments before she knew he would walk away, all on his own. She clasped him to her, glancing briefly over his shoulder at Daniel. Enveloping Rusty in all she had to give in the hope that it might help that sick feeling in her stomach, Sharon held on.

Until they both knew she had to let go.

"Okay," she whispered, stepping back at last. Her eyes would not meet his, not yet. Sharon was not sure if it was an unwillingness to see what laid in his, or the fear of what he might see in her own. Flatly, still fighting the voices within that were screaming in protest within her, she said, "Call me if you need me."

"I will."

"Say it again," she breathed intently, meeting his eyes at last and hoping that Rusty's words might help to quell the turmoil inside, the horrible feeling that washed over her every time she looked at the man standing just down the hall.

"I will."

Mollified for the moment, she finally smiled and outwardly relaxed, feeling him drop the hand neither of them realized he had been holding since that first night in her condo all those weeks ago.

"Thank you," she whispered, and gestured for him to go on ahead of her.

Opening her eyes once more, Sharon shook her head slightly, pushing the memory away. But Daniel's words still echoed across the years. Don't worry, I'll take good care of him. But she had worried. Worried from the moment he had stepped out of her arms until the following night, after all the photographs and first aid had been taken care of, worried until he finally stepped back into the safety of her embrace. Sharon had worried.

And with good reason.

The true, debilitating anxiety with which she was now so well acquainted had come much later. It was more than those little moments of concern, considering the things that could go wrong when he got behind the wheel. More than those twinges of uncomfortable uncertainty when Rusty went off for a visit at the jail.

No, this anxiety was the cold in her veins as she clutched a stack of letters, tears streaming down her face in the hallway. It was strapping her beautiful boy into a kevlar vest and sending him out the door with nothing but a can of pepper spray, a lunch bag, and an ever-increasing pile of threatening letters hanging over his head.

Even with his security detail ever-present, it was weeks between that moment in the hallway with the stack of letters in hand and Sharon's next full night of sleep. And when she did sleep, the nightmares would come. Four letters in as many weeks, and she was starting to fray around the edges. It was becoming hard to tell the dreams from reality.

Work was winding down, a stack of paperwork from the recent case in front of her, awaiting her signature. Rusty was sitting in the chair in the corner while he scribbled away in his notebook. It was quiet.

Until the gunshots rang out. Across the office, Rusty jumped to his feet and scrambled across the room toward her. He had nearly reached her when she felt something wet spray across her face. Then she heard the gunshot. Before she had time to do more than drop to the ground with a cry of shock, she saw Rusty's body sail past her, his earlier momentum combined with the velocity of the impact sending him flying into the window behind her. As the window shattered and he fell to the ground outside, Sharon watched with a wordless scream.

Her eyes snapped open as she woke with a start, suddenly realizing that her own scream had woken her. There was a rustle of hurried footfalls outside her door before a tousle-haired Rusty burst through it, armed with a thick book this time rather than her lamp. Sharon was sitting upright in the bed now, heart still racing but with her usual outward calm.

"What's wrong? Are you-"

A pounding at the apartment door interrupted his inquiries, and Sharon sighed, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and rising to her feet. Of course the officers outside had heard her cry as well. She touched Rusty's arm briefly as she passed.

"It's alright. Put the book back and go to bed, honey."

"But-"

Rusty started to protest, but she silenced him with a look on her way down the hall. Reaching the door, Sharon spoke quietly with the officers stationed there for a moment, assuring them that everything was alright before closing the door once more and heading back down the hall. Rusty was standing uncertainly in the hallway, halfway between her bedroom and his, no longer armed with anything more than the fearful and worried look in his eyes.

"Rusty. Go back to bed. Everything is fine."

He still looked uncertain. "But Sharon. You, like, screamed."

She attempted a reassuring smile. She was not sure she was successful. "I'm alright, Rusty. Don't you worry about me." Sharon reached up and squeezed his shoulder tentatively, comforting. "You go on and get some sleep."

He turned from her when she released him, shuffling back towards his bedroom. At the last moment, he turned back to speak again.

"Look, Sharon." He glanced down at his bare feet. "I know I should have-I wasn't-I'm sorry." He looked up at her, his lower lip trembling ever-so-slightly. "I just-I didn't want you to send me away."

Sharon's defensive posture fell away at his earnest expression. "Oh, Rusty," she breathed, taking a few steps toward him and reaching out again, this time for his hand. "You are not going anywhere unless you decide to." She squeezed his hand in hers, tears glistening in her eyes. "Alright?"

"Okay."

She smiled, genuine this time. "Don't worry. Now go back to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

And he finally turned, dropping her hand.

The irony of her words did not escape Sharon. She never could take her own advice.

The anxiety was rooted in fear. Not just the passing sense of alarm in her heart when her foot missed a step, or when Ricky called at three in the morning. It was hard; its cold steel in her mouth tasting almost coppery as her teeth clenched. It was quiet; like the simmering boil of her voice when she did speak. It was sharp; the pointed end of her misgivings digging in deeper with every moment.

And it always went away, eventually. Until now.

Holding herself together with her bare hands on the floor of her bedroom, Sharon was certain of one thing: he would never be safe. He hadn't been safe since that moment in his cubicle more than a day ago now.

"Look at me."

Sharon could feel Rusty losing his cool ever so slightly as she drew his gaze back to her face, away from the activity behind her. His eyes found hers again, and almost immediately she could see the fear drop away. Whatever familiar twisted feeling she had inside, there was also a not-insignificant layer of pride. At her son's desire to face this, head on, instead of running away. He was headed somewhere so different now than where he had intended to run that night when Stroh had chased him off a cliff. He was still running. But now he was running toward something, determined not to take this man and that night with him.

Smiling in pride and assurance, she left him one last chance to claim this new destination, this life with choices that were his own. "When you're ready."

And, ignoring the cutting edge of her misgivings, the cold steel of her fear, the simmering boil of her anxiety, she stepped away from Rusty and into the electronics room without another word.

When she entered, Mike immediately stepped back from the desk, pulling a chair out for her silently beside Buzz. But she shook her head politely, moving to stand behind the two of them instead. Sharon could not sit for this. She needed to be able to move in immediately; no matter how many armed men now stood at the ready, she needed to be ready as well. And the tight ball of emotion now wadded inside her would not allow her to sit. No, she would stand for this one.

The door on the monitor opened only moments after she began to watch, and Rusty stepped in. The fear that had flashed so briefly across his face earlier was gone. He was not comfortable, she could tell. But he was not giving up his control. Not to the man in the chair across the room. With satisfaction, Sharon watched as Rusty took her previous words to heart, refusing to step closer than necessary as Stroh began to speak to him, pulling at the frayed edges of Rusty's resolve that all three of them knew existed. For a while, the other people gathered around the monitor seemed to disappear, and it was just the three of them alone.

But Rusty held his ground.

"...actually, in the last ten years, you've killed more people than the State has. And you tried to kill me."

Sharon almost smiled at that. That was the Rusty she knew. Not some scared and defensive kid who lashed out at everyone who came near him. He was smart. And quickly witty. And made her laugh unexpectedly. He held his own with all the adults in his life; even, it seemed, with sociopathic serial killers.

It was almost funny. If it weren't for the screaming within her.

"...I mean, who wants to leave witnesses lying around?" Sharon heard Stroh saying to Rusty now. "You're living proof of how dangerous that can be, right?"

And immediately, Sharon went cold, a bucket of ice falling into her stomach at the words and Stroh's subsequent action.

He shifted in the chair, his shackles clinking menacingly. And Sharon's fists clenched against her body reflexively as Rusty immediately stepped back.

"Relax, okay?" Stroh held his hands up demonstratively. "I am incapable of reaching you from here."

But Rusty didn't relax. And neither did Sharon.

'Reach' was such a relative term, Sharon thought with her eyes still glued to the monitors. Stroh may not have moved from the chair, but he was inching toward her son with every word. That's what worried her about this entire situation. How easily he might bring Rusty within reach. How, with one comment, he could plant a seed that would grow into something terrible and unmanageable in Rusty's mind.

"So. Moving on. I understand that Emma Rios has asked you for an impact statement."

Rusty didn't falter.

"Yeah. What about it?"

"I was just wondering if, in addition to the dust-ups we've had, you might want to include some of the positive effects I've had on your life."

Sharon inhaled deeply, her eyes never leaving Rusty on the monitor. That, she thought with chagrin, was exactly the sort of thought that Rusty did not need festering in his mind. She watched intently as Rusty processed the words, searching his face for any sign of trouble.

"Positive effects?"

"By becoming a material witness for the State, you were taken off the streets. And out of a life of prostitution. An incredibly unsafe profession."

Sharon willed herself to breathe, standing stock-still in front of the monitors. Willed the tightly coiled sick feeling in her stomach not to explode as Stroh continued.

"You gained a mother, got a high school degree. You think anyone around here would have given a shit about you if it hadn't been for me?"

A small hiss escaped Sharon's lips at that, and she felt everyone in the room turn to look at her as one, but did not acknowledge it, her gaze still fixed on the monitors as Rusty responded.

"Okay, but what about the interest Wade Weller took in me?"

"Who?"

And for the first time, Rusty seemed indignant.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know his name. Wade Weller, the freak who you had write me threatening letters and who you ordered to kill me. Okay, that Wade Weller."

Sharon watched with growing concern as Rusty moved closer to the table separating him from Stroh, praying that he would not forget her advice in his anger. Almost as one, Sharon and Rusty both shifted their weight forward as Rusty spoke, the two of them as a single unit leaning onto the surfaces in front of them in a seamless and characteristic stance of principled conviction.

"You think I should change my impact statement because you changed my life? Well get this from me, okay?"

Eyes never leaving his face, Sharon watched intently as Rusty's anger at this man boiled to the surface. There was a time, not long ago, when Rusty would have let the fury and indignant feelings about the fairness of his past and present take over and get away from him. When words would have failed him in the face of his angry frustration. But now, Sharon saw with pride, even as the tight cold ball of anxiety twisted painfully at his proximity to the other man, Rusty took that boiling fury and channeled it into his words, into the hands bearing down on the table, and into his sharp and unwavering gaze.

Sharon knew where he had learned to do that. Realized it as she herself looked down and noticed that she had shifted into an identical stance on the back of Buzz's chair, her own wrath coursing down her fingers and onto the surface beneath.

"I changed yours, okay? I. Changed. Yours."

"I know, and I never forget it, Rusty."

Suddenly, Sharon found her pride overwhelmed once more by the anxiety just under the surface breaking through. That tone was no longer casual or conversational. It was the ugly unfiltered sound of the monster within.

"But to be completely fair, to be completely honest, we changed each other's lives. As we were fated to do. And we will have the power to change each other again."

Sharon took in another series of deep breaths, pushing hard against the images and scenarios floating to her mind at those words. It was the closest to a direct threat Stroh could make, and she knew it. She stared at the shackles on his wrists and ankles projected on the monitor in front of her and felt her heart slow again.

"Change each other how?"

"Oh, I don't know, I can't see that far ahead. But our lives have been intertwined, yours and mine. A pattern has begun to emerge, wouldn't you say? And that pattern is destiny."

As Stroh moved towards Rusty again and Rusty's ire dissipated in the midst of his confusion at the words, her son stepped away from the table again, straightening.

"And when you finally see destiny, Rusty, in all her glory…"

He trailed off for a moment as they all listened intently.

"Destiny's like an arrow. Pointing toward the end."

In hindsight, of course, it all made sense to Sharon. The carefully dropped clues, the hints spelling out how detailed Stroh's plan really was. Three more times since Rusty's declaration in her office earlier that night, three more times Sharon had tried to talk him out of his decision to forgo individual security. And each time, the coiled ball in her abdomen grew tighter and more painful.

Rusty was part of that sociopath's plan. Rusty and his 'end.'

Sharon remembered, once, seeing an interview with a serial killer on Death Row. His words floated back to her all these years later. Before I met them, they were dead. After I met them they were dead. It was just a way of life.

As she sat on her bedroom floor, still curled in upon herself, she wondered if there was any hope in his existence.

Or if he really was already dead.

The first time Rusty caught her at it, Sharon was not even sure he was surprised. He walked in the front door, tossed his bag onto the couch and turned to her calmly.

"Sharon, you have got to just relax and call off the cops on my tail."

When she had eventually relented, agreeing, the look of glee on Rusty's face almost loosened the hot metal in her stomach.

"Buzz owes me twenty bucks."

It was a mark of how worried she was that she did not even comment on the gamble.

Sharon did not sleep for the two weeks Rusty went without security.

The second time he caught her was nearly four months later. Someone was careless, and after three and a half months of near-seamless invisible security, Rusty made them. This time, he shouted.

Sharon listened, trying once more to impress upon him the imminent danger.

But he didn't listen.

Three sleepless weeks later, she traded in her constant anxiety for a healthy dose of worry. And he caught her almost immediately.

The third and last time, Rusty threatened to move out.

And so Sharon made a deal. With herself this time. She traded in her peace-of-mind for his autonomy. Decided to live with the underlying anxiety for his safety during the day instead of an unmanageable all-consuming fear for his well-being every moment.

A year after Stroh's escape, and Sharon still did not really sleep. Not like she used to. There was a rhythm to her life now, with Rusty still at home but still in constant danger. The sick feeling in her stomach was almost normal now.

So when she came home that night, later than usual, Sharon stepped out of her shoes in the elevator, before she had even reached her floor. She slung them over an arm when the doors slid open and walked tiredly to the door, fumbling a little with the keys in her other hand before turning the lock and pushing open the door.

She heard him before she saw anything.

Rusty's strangled cry of, "Mom, don't-!" (she still was not used to hearing him say it)

Then her eyes found him, sitting on a chair just inside the door, a bleeding gash over his eye, looking horrified at something in the hallway over her shoulder.

And as something collided with her skull, hard, behind her, Sharon caught Rusty's eyes one last time while she fell. This was not worry. This was not anxiety.

This was terror.

And yes, I am just going to leave it there. Rage at me if you want, but that's just how I see it. And you know, I'm just plain evil. Love to hear your thoughts on this and the season in general, of course! And don't forget to check out my Mother!ship AU starting later this week, called Cui Bono.