Today is her last day at work before the real maternity leave begins. Her last half day, I should say, because Sharon has been incredibly good about staying at the office for a few hours only asking me to drop her home before pushing herself too far. Still, she regularly dozed off in the car and I had to wake her on getting home.

I like those moments. When she wakes up in the mornings I don't usually get to see her face. Most nights she sleeps in my arms, her back snug against my chest, my face buried deeply into her hair, my hand resting softly on her belly – or really on her hip most of these days because she has complained it gets to heavy once I sleep. When she wakes up in the car I can look into her face and wait for the moment of recognition when she opens her eyes and sees me, really sees me. It never fails to make my heart beat faster. There is so much love in her gaze, so much trust. I can't believe I am so loved.

Today she wakes up and turns around snuggling into me. I hear a muffled sound coming from somewhere near my chest, "I don't want to get up."

"So that's the deal? I ask you to marry me and you stop working and just stay in bed?" I quip and I can feel rather than hear her laughter.

"You're the one who asked, I just did what was expected of me."

"So you're telling me all the wooing wasn't really necessary? I could have saved myself the trouble and just outright asked you and you would have said yes?"

"Why not? I mean, look at me, I'm getting a pretty good deal here. I get to sleep in and look pretty and you can go out into the big wide world and come home telling me about all our adventures in policing the city."

"You are crazy."

"Be careful, if I wasn't I might not have said yes."

Later while I'm making breakfast she is walking about aimlessly, fiddling with her hands, looking for the non-existent pockets on her maternity dress, rubbing her stomach, and making uncoordinated little humming sounds. She used to sit, her hand on her stomach, and talk quietly our baby, but recently she has started to hum instead of whisper. It's a very new sound in her already impressive array of hums and one only reserved for our daughter. But this is not it. Something about her is off. I watch her for a while before I stop her wandering with my arms, sneaking them loosely around her.

"What's going on with you, sweetheart?"

"I don't feel well."

I can feel myself grow tense immediately pulling her into a closer embrace.

"Oh Andy," she chastises me gently. "You are always ready to come to my rescue. I'm just drained, but there is nothing wrong with our daughter, no pain, no cramps or anything like that. Please don't look so scared. I just really don't feel up to going into work today." Her head comes to rest against my chest and she sighs. "It's no use, I am going to call the Lieutenant and ask him to do the debriefing here and then he can join you guys later and introduce the new officer."

"Let me call him right now so he doesn't have to go to the office and come straight here."

"I will call him, Andy. Why don't you fix breakfast for us and we can start the day with some good food. I'm sure that'll be the best incentive for your partner to get here."

I watch her make the phone call and then go to lie down on the couch. With only her feet visible from where I'm standing she starts talking to me about the colour of the nursery we'd been looking at online yesterday and patterns for curtains. It's those little moments of domesticity I might actually cherish most about our relationship, how easily we have settled into living together and sharing our lives, not just the bed. We meet here at our home at the end of a workday and we're us, Andy and Sharon, no longer Captain and Lieutenant, two middle aged people with five children between them and a sixth on the way.

/

"Andy? Andy, are you home? Andy?" Her voice sounded through the apartment before I had even heard the door close behind her. And then she was there, in the kitchen, still in her heels, flailing her arms in an adorable fashion.

"Andy! There you are", she called and stopped, still breathing rapidly as if she'd run up all the eleven flights of stairs. I wouldn't put it past her, not even in heels and four months pregnant and finally, finally sporting the bump I had so been looking forward to. She was excited and exuberant throwing her arms up again laughing merrily. With a few rapid steps and tell-tale clicks she stood right in front of me, her hands on either side of my face.

"I am just so happy, Andy."

Way to go in stating the obvious, honey, I thought to myself. She didn't look "just so happy". In fact she looked downright excited. She had left the office earlier on her way to see Rusty. So this had to be in some way related to Rusty.

"Andy!" she admonished me. "Aren't you going to ask me why I am just so happy?"

I decided to tease her for a little bit longer. Something obviously had her uncharacteristically cheerful and I love her in that mood. I had a mind to just take her to the bedroom there and then and … no, that wouldn't work, she was too eager for me to hear what she wanted to say so urgently.

"Well, being home with me would be good start," I deadpanned.

She looked at me for a moment and made an annoyed huff, "I come home to you every night – am I usually this happy?" That woman, I swear, she must have seen what I was thinking.

"Oh my dear, dear Andy," she continued clearly on a roll now. "Do you feel pushed back? Are you jealous because this incredibly good mood of mine has nothing to do with you?"

How I love Sharon like that, she can play me so easily, plays off of me so easily.

"Let me guess. You're pregnant?"

She threw her head back in roaring laughter exposing her long neck. "I am indeed. Have I told you yet? It's yours!"

I couldn't stop myself from kissing her, from pulling her close and devouring ever inch of her I could reach with my hands, lips firmly on hers. For a moment, there was nothing but the two of us, our bodies, our hands, our lips, the sound of our breathing and Sharon's humming. I could just so easily loose myself in her. I wanted to loose myself in her because she grounds me in a way no woman has ever been able to.

"Good, because I have to tell you, it's so much more fun kissing you when you're actually carrying my child and not someone else's!"

"Our child."

"That's what makes it perfect, you having our baby."

The playfulness had disappeared leaving us in a moment of content quietness still tightly embraced. I could feel her lean into me and I shifted my arms so I could take on a little more of her weight.

"What made your day so special?" I finally asked looking right into her upturned face and she gave me a dazzling smile in return.

"Rusty. He asked if he could call me Mum. You know he's called me Mum once or twice when it's been just the two of us. But this was like he was asking me officially."

Her eyes were so bright, sparkling with pure unadulterated joy. The adoption had been one thing, but this really was the more significant step for Rusty, for them. I would have been jealous if it had been anyone but her children to make her "just so happy". I kissed her again, longer this time and when we pulled apart, she rested her head against my shoulder.

"I feel like I am walking on air. My boy wants to call me mum! And he even made up the cutest of reasons. He said he doesn't want to confuse the baby by calling me Sharon when his brother and sister call me mum. His brother and sister!"

/

The administrator turns out to be quite a surprise, because it's actually a woman. Okay, well, Sharon would have my hide for that comment. It's not the fact that she is a woman that is surprising about her. She is the same age as Amy Skyes and also has a military background. Absolutely everything about her speaks field and action. You only need to see her walk in and it's clear. She introduces herself as Detective Sergeant Alex Myers and apparently she is on loan from Special Operations and comes with a recommendation from Commander McGinnis herself. I cannot for the life of me see how she would fit into this role. I know Sharon likes to mentor young women on the force, but this seems like very odd fit, particularly since she won't even be here to mentor her into becoming an administrator.

When Provenza gets back from the meeting with Sharon, he calls me into her office, although it is technically his office now. I look at him swivelling around in her chair, the bobble head doll already on the desk - he has clearly taken residence and marked the place as his. I find myself gazing at the window wistfully remembering the moment with Sharon when I felt the first movements of our daughter. That seems like a lifetime away now, although it can't have been more than a few weeks.

My partner's rough voice interrupts my daydreaming. "Do not go there, Flynn. Whatever you two idiots have been up to in this office, wipe it off your mind. Ye Gods, I do not want to know!"

We haven't been up to anything in this office, not ever. Not for lack of trying on my part, but except for that one special moment, we've never even hugged, much less kissed. But Provenza doesn't know that and I like to keep him guessing.

He motions for me to sit down and proceeds to introduce me to my new role during Sharon's maternity leave. I am to be the administrator while that newbie Alex gets to do the actual work. I am furious. I know that I am taking over part of Sharon's role while Provenza is taking over the other and that's what is expected of us as the two senior staff in the absence of our Captain - but I'll be completely off fieldwork! I'll be tied to a desk, like some old guy who they can't trust to shoot straight anymore. Me – a desk job? They have got to be kidding me! How can Taylor have approved this? Hell, how can Sharon have approved this – and without even talking to me first. Surely, she must have known! They would not have made a decision like this without her knowledge - or against her will for that matter. She approved this? I can feel anger rising up inside of me, white and hot and yearning to break out into fury.

My complaints are met by Provenza with a sardonic smile, "You brought this upon yourself, Flynn. I told you to stay away from her. I told you to cool it down. But you just couldn't listen, could you? And then you had to go and get her pregnant of all things. Idiots, the both of you!" Well, he did tell me all these things.

"Flynn, seriously, are you just complaining for complaining's sake or can you really not see the reason? Go home to the Captain and your child and think again. I believe you'll find the reason right there."

/

Sharon is lying on the folded-out sofa, her stomach protruding more than ever. All the anger from earlier just disappears into thin air when I look at her. I lack words to express how I feel seeing her so relaxed and happy and so visibly pregnant.

I can't remember if I was like that when Joanne was expecting our children but I do occasionally ask myself whether it is entirely normal that I can spend such inordinate amounts of time simply watching Sharon. I don't know how many of evenings in the past few weeks I have sat by her side and watched her sleep – and I mean literally watched her sleep. I would say it's out of concern for our daughter, but that's only tangentially true. It's Sharon. I can't seem to get enough of her. She is so beautiful, more so every day and our daughter must have grown since this morning, too.

When I tell her, she laughs and holds out her arms to me. "A little more every day." She scoots over and pulls me down beside her. There's barely enough room for us but we have perfected this over the past weeks and she snuggles into me with practised ease, sighing contently.

"I've missed you."

"Me too, sweetheart. How are the little walnut and her momma?"

"Really? First you tell me I've gotten fatter since this morning and now you're calling our daughter a walnut?"

"I didn't call you fat, I said your cute baby bump had grown."

"Semantics, Andy," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand and then raised one eyebrow at me, "A walnut, really?"

"Big walnut."

"Very big walnut indeed! So tell me, how did the rest of your day go?"

"I'll make you a deal – you tell me the fruit and I tell you about my day."

She turns her head to look at me and there is something in her features that I can't quite place. It's like she already knows what I am about to tell her.

"Deal, but you start, Andy. How was the rest of your day?" She is looking directly at me while absentmindedly rubbing her stomach making her special baby hum. I'm tempted to kiss her but I know she won't let me off the hook. So I just give her a little peck on the lips and bury my hand in her hair – and then I complain about Provenza who for all intents and purposes has me chained to a desk for the rest of her maternity leave, the idiot Taylor who must have approved it all and the general incompetence of everyone involved in that decision.

Sharon gives me the eyebrow and one of her indulgent smiles, humming again. "My poor baby. It seems that behind all that grumpiness your partner is hiding a very good heart."

"Sharon, you know full well that this decision is not something Provenza would have been able to implement without the approval of both you and Taylor. What on earth were you thinking?"

And then it dawns on me that I have been had. The woman I love and my partner, sworn enemies at some point, have conspired against me – and I haven't even noticed it up to now. Maybe I do spend too much time looking at her.

Sharon grows quiet and looks at me, her hand coming to rest on my cheek. "Andy, I did not do this because I believe you aren't fit for the job – and I knew you wouldn't be pleased with your new role when I made this decision. But I am your captain, and you are the father of my child and the man that I love. Do you realise that I am in a difficult situation here? I can't be seeing playing favours, and I don't want you to..." she swallowed hard and her expression changed. "I need you to be safe, Andy."

"You are pulling me off the street so that I can be save? Sharon, I have done this for many years, I do not need anyone protecting me."

"Nor do I, Andy, and you still do it – and I'm trying to let you look out for me."

Our eyes lock, her green ones boring into mine. It's a battle of wills and she has no intention of being the one to look away first. But then the intensity of her stare weakens and is replaced by a look of utter vulnerability. It tugs at my heart to see her like that. This is Sharon, the mother and the wife, I realise. The Captain is no longer here. Sharon smiles a little and in a gesture I have come to love places my hand on her stomach,

"Can you feel this, Andy? This is our daughter – and I am protecting her as much as you with this decision. I need you, Andy, we need you. The little pomegranate and I need to know that Daddy is safe."