Like A River

by Kadi219

[Raydor/Flynn] - Sometimes in life, it feels like you're on a raft that is traveling a winding river, and all that you can do is just ride it and hold on through the currents. A study of life, relationships, and different kinds of love. Shandy, but with some Shack too.

26. Chapter 26

Like a River

By Kadi

Rated: M

Disclaimer: It isn't my sandbox, but after that cliffhanger, I will admit to being tempted to not give the toys back. I will, but only because they aren't really mine.

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Chapter 26

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned…"

That phrase was becoming more common place in his life since his relationship with Sharon had grown more serious. There had come a point when Andy Flynn had realized that if he was going to be able to be what Sharon needed in her life, he was going to have to once again embrace the teachings and faith of his youth. He stepped away from much of it when his marriage fell apart. To his mind, losing his wife and losing his children in favor of alcohol and long hours buried in case files and investigations had somehow removed him from grace.

It became the hardest part of getting sober when he entered AA. He had to learn to believe in something greater than himself again, to have faith once more that there was some power that could guide him through all the difficult days, some higher being that understood all of the things that he could not change and could not fix. Something that he could turn to when the darkness and the evil in the world became too much.

When Vicki had gotten remarried and his kids began to think of another man as their father, he almost gave it up. He almost slipped right back into the bottle that had taken them from him. He went to meetings instead, spent long hours talking to his sponsor. He was told to look outside of himself, to have courage and faith that there was a reason for all things. He was barely able to stomach it, and he buried his bitterness in his work. He hid from his disappointment and his children slipped farther away.

He had to look around himself finally, at parents losing children and children losing parents, and realize that no one was hurting him but his own inability to face his demons. When he accepted that Jeff was not something that he could change, and committed himself to fixing what he had broken, it began to change. It took many years and hard work to repair those damaged relationships. He chose a different kind of faith, and he let it guide him. It got him through dark times and moments so difficult and bitter that he could almost taste the bourbon that he wanted to drown his woes in. He came out the other side with an understanding that each day was different and new, each new morning was a new commitment to staying sober and remaining present in the lives of those that he cared for, and those that depended upon him.

Then Sharon had come into his life. Beautiful, stubborn, and independent; this was not the young woman that he knew in the early days of their careers. She was a woman that had been through hell and learned to be strong and immovable in the face of adversity and workplace idiocy. If he was honest with himself, he was attracted to her the first time that they tangled, when she was only a lieutenant and he was barely a sergeant, pissed off that she had gone to the dark side and wanting to make her pay for that abandonment. She hadn't flinched, she hadn't blinked; she took everything that he gave her over the years and responded in her own way. Usually by sticking him in some boring seminar or another, or slicing him with that sharp tongue of hers, using wit and class, and not a little bit of sarcasm to put him back in his place, which was miles below her.

He was insulted when she investigated him, and his ego was even a little bruised that she thought it was necessary. They reached a new understanding after that, and whatever anger he felt toward her had given way to sympathy and respect. Then there had been something else. Attraction, desire, and maybe even affection; Andy didn't know, but once he had her in his arms, wanting to keep her there was a forgone conclusion. He was lost in her almost immediately. She was everything that he didn't deserve, and everything he wanted, and nothing that he could have.

She was still married. Her marriage was still important to her, even if Jack was out of the picture. Andy had to bring her down to his level to have her. It lessened her, and he allowed it. He would never forgive himself for that. She might not have held him responsible for the choices that she made where he was concerned, but Andy held himself responsible for it.

This time he wanted to do it right. She was divorced, but he knew that was only a legal formality. Sharon believed in something that was bigger than the both of them, something that told her that her marriage remained, even after the civil divorce was final and their relationship had started again. It frustrated the hell out of him sometimes, but he meant it when he told her that he would wait for her. He was as patient as he knew how to be, even when he was hardly patient at all as they moved along the path from friends to romantic partners, and finally to becoming lovers again.

Sharon didn't need him in her life, and Andy had to come to terms with the fact that she wanted him. It had to be enough, and as he began to understand what that meant, he realized how infinitely more precious that was. He was careful when he began to dip his toes back into the river of religion. It began when he was staying with her, after he was injured. Sharon had gone to mass, and Andy was going stir crazy being shut up in the condo with only Rusty for company. He had gone with her. He thought that he would be bored out of his mind and that he would feel out of place, but had felt strangely at home.

He went with her each Sunday after that. He didn't stop going after he was able to move home again. Mass became something that they did together, and as he became comfortable with it again, he began to embrace more of the teachings that he had abandoned. It helped him to find patience in his relationship with Sharon when he thought that he was at his wit's end, and patience for Rusty when the boy drove him up the wall.

The first time that he went to confession, a few months before, he almost walked out three times. The confessional was small and made him feel claustrophobic. He soon realized that what he was feeling was the weight of too many sorrows. It was not a weight that would ever fully leave him, but he had found a way to find relief in carrying it. There was no cure for a lifetime of regrets, but he was learning how to forgive himself. It was a work in progress. He was not too old to find his way.

Father Thomas recognized that his discomfort in the confessional had only grown more intense following his heart attack. He was growing tired of being confined. They walked the grounds behind the cathedral instead, made their way through the memory and prayer gardens. The fresh air would be good for him. "It's only been a week since your last confession," the priest remarked with a smile. "You're not back at work yet, and as I understand it, someone we both know isn't letting you leave the condo much, so what could you possibly have done to get into trouble since the last time we spoke."

"You would be surprised." Andy tilted his head and grinned. "Or maybe you wouldn't. No, I think you may be right," he decided. "I think it's guidance that I need, not absolution. Sharon brought up the idea of marriage." He sighed. "I know that you can't tell us what to do. Officially, my wife is living with a man that is not me, and I'm living with a woman that is not my wife, while her husband is… well," Andy made a face. "I don't really care where Jack is. Unofficially, Sharon and I both have civil divorces, and we have been together for over a year now. Longer than that, if I'm honest about it, and I know she's discussed that with you."

"She has." The priest's lips pursed in thought. "Does the idea of marriage bother you? It would, as you say, only be a civil union. Would that be enough?" He had spoken to Sharon on the subject, at length, since the heart attack. He knew that her mind was made up.

"Do you want the truth? Or do you want the answer that I am supposed to give you?" Andy ran a hand over his face and into his hair. "I'd marry her tomorrow if we were ready for that. I know she's still reeling from all of this," he waved a hand at his chest, "and she says that when we're ready, it's what she wants…"

"You don't believe her?" Father Thomas shook his head. "Okay Andy, let's talk off the record. Marriage is a commitment of minds, as much as it is of hearts. You are choosing a life together, and you are building it based upon a love that you both share. You are questioning the rightness of that based upon ideals that are not yours, but hers. You know that Sharon has struggled with this, and you know that because there is nothing that the two of you keep from one another. You share your thoughts, and your deeds. You carry each other's burdens and sorrows. You are there for your triumphs and your joys. What is that, but marriage? Maybe not here," he gestured around them, and the holy grounds that were owned by the church, "but certainly here," he said, and tapped the other man's chest, just above his heart.

Andy frowned as he began walking again. He wanted to believe that. "In the time that I've known her, she has been very specific about her marriage and how she felt about it. I know she's done with Jack. I'm not worried about that. She wouldn't be with me now if that wasn't the case, no matter what happened between us in the past. If she's reacting," he said, "then she's going to regret it. I don't want to be something that she regrets. I think that I've given her enough of that."

"I don't think that you would be. Sharon and I are working our way through that together," he observed, "and I think what has stopped her from being able to find full absolution is the fact that she doesn't regret her history with you. She sees it as having made a decision, a conscious choice for companionship during a time of great loneliness. I believe that what she is choosing now is the future."

"Does she know what she will give up for that?" Andy sighed. He walked toward a stone bench when his chest began to ache and lowered himself onto it. "I don't know how much longer I have, I don't want to separate her from something that important to her. I know how I feel about her. I don't need to be married to Sharon to know that the rest of my life is hers."

Father Thomas offered him a troubled frown as he joined him on the bench. "You sound convinced that the time that you have remaining is limited. Have your doctors said something that you've not shared with your family?"

He looked away, squinted into the afternoon sunlight. Only a day had passed since his last checkup. "If I go back to work, it will probably kill me in a few years. That much stress and my heart aren't a good combination. I don't know how to give that up yet. There was a long time when my badge was all I had, all that kept me going. It was all that kept me from climbing into a bottle and drowning in it." Andy leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. His hands were clasped loosely together. He studied them, and the way that the sun glinted off of his sobriety ring. "I haven't told Sharon yet. I know that I have to, but I don't know how."

"Do you think that she will press you for retirement?" The priest wondered if that was holding him back, not just from explaining his doctor's news, but the idea of marriage too.

"No." Andy lifted his gaze. He cast a sad look at the priest. "She will let me go back, because it's what I want, and I'll lose her. She won't leave me, but I would be asking her to watch that job slowly kill me. Somehow it's been easier for us to accept that one of us might not come home on any given day. We all accept it. We go out, we save lives, we get dirtbags off the street, and we might not come home."

"I suppose if you don't go back," Father Thomas said, "then the prognosis is much different." He watched Andy slowly nod and look away. "You could find a job with much less stress, and that gives you more time with your children, and with Sharon. There are those that would say that decision is very easy."

"Yeah," he said gruffly. "They don't have a mortgage and a kid looking at law schools either," he pointed out.

Father Thomas's head inclined. His lips curved into a knowing smile. "I thought your children were out of college. Nicole is an Accountant and Charlie is a Flight Nurse?" His dark eyes sparkled. "Isn't it Sharon's child that is approaching the idea of attending law school? Rusty, I believe."

Andy cut a sideways look at him. He grunted and looked away, shaking his head. "I hate it when you do that," he grumbled. "I know to some people it sounds dumb, but choosing to walk away from everything that you've ever known isn't easy. Hell," he tossed his hands up, "that's what I would be asking Sharon to do if we got married."

"Ah," the priest held up a hand. "But are you asking her to, or is she choosing to? She came to you with the idea of marriage. What did you tell her?"

"That it doesn't matter," Andy shrugged. "I don't need a piece of paper to know what we've got. I'm not going to regret our life together because we never signed a marriage certificate. As long as she's with me, that's all I…" he trailed off as he realized what he was about to say. Andy's gaze dropped and he stared at the finely graveled path that they had walked earlier.

"All you what?" Father Thomas smiled again. "All that you need?" He stood up, and gave the other man's shoulder a friendly, comforting pat. "I think that you have your answer, Andy. Medical science is not absolute, I'm sure that your doctor told you that. You can have your job as it is now, and you can have Sharon, and enjoy the time that you are allowed. Or you can make the changes that your doctor suggests, and give yourself the opportunity for more, and know that she is beside you every day. You're not ready for marriage yet," he told him. "Neither of you are, and I think that both of you know that. The heart attack is recent, and it has created a lot of upheaval in your lives. You are moving into a new home soon, and I think, if I have come to know you as well as I believe, you will be starting a new job." He clasped the man's shoulder. "Let Sharon finish finding her way. I think that you will find that she has learned to embrace her ability to compromise." His head inclined. "And off the record, I think it will be fine."

Andy squinted up at him. "On the record?"

The priest only continued to smile as he walked away. "I will see you both in confession," he called back.

"Yeah," Andy muttered to himself, "that's what I figured." The priest could not bless them. Andy wondered if Sharon could really accept that, or if she was just trying to convince herself that she could. It didn't matter. It would have to wait. They weren't ready. There were other decisions to be made first.

MCMCMC

The October wind was cool, but not altogether unpleasant. The air was damp, filled with a fine mist from the waves that were crashing against the pylons of the pier. Andy watched the rolling tide as it moved toward him, watched the waves crest or break against the solid wooden supports. The sun was shining bright and warm overhead. He lifted his face toward it and his eyes squinted against the brightness. A hand at his back had him smiling. From the corner of his eye he saw her move against the rail. The wind was lifting her hair, making a mess of the carefully arranged waves and layers that it was in when she left the apartment that morning. He noted that her arms were bare. She had left her blazer in the car, opting to enjoy the sunlight as much as he was. The deep blue blouse was one of his favorites, and it was plastered against her body by the wind.

It had been almost six weeks since his heart attack and surgery, and more than a week since the last time that he saw his doctor. He had left the follow-up appointment with a lot to think about. He told Sharon that everything was good, and that was true, but it wasn't everything that he spoke to his cardiologist about. His recovery was progressing like it should. His pain had lessened considerably as his body healed. His leg still ached if he was too active, and there was discomfort in his chest when he moved. Gone was the keen throbbing and sharp, breath stealing pain that he experienced in those first days. His blood pressure was good, and his incisions had healed well. He was still going to cardiac rehab twice a week; that would continue for at least another few weeks. His heart was still recovering, learning to adapt itself to the damage that was done with the heart attack. The pain meds were gone, however, and thankfully so.

At six weeks post-op, Andy had finally approached the subject of returning to work. It wasn't going to happen yet, but he wanted some idea of when he could expect to be cleared, at the very least, for desk duty. The news on that front wasn't good. Andy wanted a few days to think about it before he broached the subject with Sharon, even after his conversation with Father Thomas. He looked at her now, enjoyed the way that the sun set off the red and gold highlights in her hair. His arms were braced against the wood rail in front of them. Andy reached across and wrapped his hand around hers. He drew it over and held it between both of his wide palms; their fingers laced together and he studied the delicate line of her hand as it lay in his.

He could feel her eyes on him. She was patient, waiting. They came to the pier when they needed to talk. This was their place, where they could air their concerns and their hurts, their hopes and their thoughts. Andy drew a breath and finally met her gaze. "I went by HR this morning. I was going to drop by the murder room, but everyone was out on a call." His fingers stroked the back of her hand. "It's over, Sharon. I'm done. Doc is going to let me keep my badge, but he was pretty clear on what that would mean. If I come back, with our stress and the hours, best case scenario, I'm dead in five years." He heard the hitch in her breath and watched her look away from him. Her fingers tightened around his. "You know, it could be a really good five years, and who knows how accurate it is. It could be completely off, but it's not worth the gamble to me." Not when he had her to lose, not when he had his kids to leave behind, and grandkids to watch grow.

Her jaw clenched. Sharon's throat ached as emotion welled within her. She could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. She had known that he was keeping something from her, that there was more that he was thinking about from his visit with the doctor than whether or not he felt ready to resume certain previous physical activities. She exhaled quietly and took a moment to swallow the sudden sorrow that his words brought. "If you give it up now? What then?" Sharon looked at him. "How long do we have you?"

"It could be ten years," he told her. "It could be twenty. There's no way of really knowing. Doc said the first heart attack is usually a warning, you correct the problem and you move on. We did that, and we're keeping an eye on it. If I do what I'm supposed to do, you'll probably be stuck with me for a while."

Sharon turned. She lifted her other hand to his face. "I don't mind being stuck with you." She wished that he had mentioned this sooner, but he had obviously needed to think about it. Her hand dropped to his chest, to rest above his beating heart. "So, retirement then?"

"Better, actually." Andy grinned at her. "I thought this might happen, you know, I've been doing a lot of reading. So I talked about it with the doc, and I put some feelers out. I'm not coming back to Major Crimes, but I'm keeping my badge. You know, we talked about a desk job, and that's not for me, but I found something that I could live with. It turns out that old guys like me are exactly what the academy likes to get their hands on. I'll be teaching a whole new generation of cops how to get around each and every single one of your rules."

Her brows rose in surprise. "You're serious?" She thought that he was joking at first, but as she studied him, she realized that while he was having a good deal of fun at her reaction, he wasn't kidding around. "You turned in transfer papers?" They wouldn't reach her desk yet. His medical leave wasn't officially ending for another month, at the very least. Sharon expected that she would receive his transfer request by the end of the week.

"Yeah." He pushed back from the rail and pulled her over to stand in front of him. Andy's arms moved to rest loosely around her waist. "I checked around a little bit, tried to figure out what my options would be if this happened. What? You thought I was only sitting at home watching television and keeping Rusty entertained?" He made a face at her, but his dark eyes were sparkling with humor. "I figured that I was going to have to retire, go into the private sector, you know. Then I got a call from Chief Howard. He said that he didn't know what my plans were, but I guess someone might have mentioned that I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of being a desk monkey for the rest of my career?" He watched her cheeks color and grinned when she looked away from him. "Yeah, you're busted." It hadn't really bothered him, people speculated all the time about what others might do, and his return was a big question mark for all of them. "Howard mentioned that I should check out my options at the Academy. So I did. There's a new class starting right after the first of the year. I'll start then. Gives me plenty of time to finish getting back on my feet. It's just a couple of classes, Basic Peace Officer 101, three days a week, but I keep my pension, my badge, and we stay a two salary family."

"Andy." Sharon laid her hands against his chest and let them slide down the front of his simple, tan, button down shirt. "I have told you, more than once, that I don't care about that." She wanted him healthy and whole, and outside of that, nothing else was important to her.

"I know." His hands settled against her hips, "but I do." He had ideas about their future, ideas about how it should look and what it would be like. When he retired, he wanted her by his side, but more than that he wanted to know that the future they were creating was being built by both of them. "I don't know if I'll like it," he said of his new job, "I might go crazy inside a couple of months, but this is something that I need to do."

"I am going to miss you," she admitted, "but I would rather have you with me for as long as I can, than lose you too soon." She toyed with the buttons of his shirt for a moment. When Sharon looked up at him again, her eyes were moist, but she was smiling. "If this is what we need to do to keep you healthy, and to make you happy, then of course I support it. But if you are only doing this out of some kind of... I don't know, misguided financial obligation, then don't. Andy, we have time."

"It's not only that," he assured her. "Sharon, I'm not ready to give up my badge yet, and I don't want to be stuck behind a desk. I've done the lecture circuit, you know, and it wasn't bad. I don't know if I'll like doing it full time, or if I will be happier consulting somewhere, but you're right. We have time. Right now, this is what I've got. There's only so much sitting around the house that I'm going to be able to stand. I'm already going crazy, and it's only been a few weeks." He was thankful that he could drive again. He didn't like being dependent on everyone around him, and no matter how often they all said otherwise, he felt like a burden.

"Okay," she told him. She could accept that he had made the decision that was best, not just for himself, but for all of them. "You will also have plenty of time to spend with the kids," she pointed out. His schedule would be more flexible, making him more available to his children and grandchildren. Another thought occurred to her and she smiled brightly. "We might actually be able to take a real vacation." It wasn't only that he would no longer be within her report structure, but they would no longer be in the same division. They would be able to schedule time off without it severely impacting the rest of their team.

"Yeah. You know," he grinned down at her, "maybe some place far away from LA and all the crap that has gone on here lately. Just the two of us, for the first time." It was hard to believe, in all the time that they had been together, that they had never been able to go away before. There was always something to hold them back, their work, the kids, or his health. That could change now. They could make it happen.

"Maybe," she said carefully and at length, "it could be something like... a honeymoon?" Her hand stroked his chest, where his tie would have been, and along the length of the scar that would always remind them of how close they had come to losing him. Sharon drew a breath before he could speak and let it out slowly. "I have been thinking about it," she told him, "and I know that you said that you would have no regrets, and I believe that. I have no reason to doubt that you love me, Andy, or that you are committed to our life. The truth is, I think that I would have regrets." Sharon's hands dropped away from him. She walked around him toward the center of the pier, moving several paces before she stopped again. The wind swept her hair across her face and she pushed it back. "I have, consistently, put things ahead of you; ahead of us," she admitted. "Our children are always going to come first, for both of us, but putting that aside... I think that it is time that I make this a priority." She gestured between them. "I'm not saying that we are ready now, but I think that when we are, it is a step that I would like to take with you."

He walked slowly toward her. Andy wasn't surprised that she was still thinking about it. He knew that she wouldn't have raised the topic a few weeks ago if she wasn't serious about considering it. Father Thomas had all but confirmed it for him. His hands landed against her shoulders and stroked slowly down her arms. "Are you sure?" He didn't need that commitment from her, although that was not to say that he didn't want it. Andy had just never allowed himself to fully imagine it. "Sharon, when I ask you, and if this is what you want, then I will be asking, I want to know that you're absolutely sure."

"I'm sure." She smiled as her hands moved gently up his sides. "You know that I have been in counseling with Father Thomas since I revealed the real nature of our relationship." Her lips twitched toward a more sheepish smile. "I think that I have come to understand that to fully embrace all that I believe in, I have to embrace my imperfections too. There is no perfect answer to any question, even those of faith. That is why it is faith. The church will never recognize us. There is nothing that you or I can do about that. We are who we are, and it was the paths that we both traveled that brought us to this point. This is not about the house, or the insurance, or any of that," she told him, dismissing all of the convenient legal reasons they might have for finally approaching the idea of marriage. "It's about you, and me, and knowing that for everything that we got wrong along the way, for all of the mistakes, and delays, and the number of times over the years that I know that we hurt each other, that there be no doubt in twenty years..." She laid her hand over his heart again, "or ten," she whispered sadly, acknowledging that she could lose him before she had ever truly had a chance to have him, "that you were loved, completely and without hesitation. I know that you will give me all of you, and I only know one way to give you all of me, and it is yours. That is how I reconcile this to everything that I have ever known, or have been taught."

He set her away from him a bit, and still gripping her upper arms, Andy bent so that their eyes met and held. "Just so that we are completely clear," he began, voice thick but steady. "This is the last time that I am going to say it. In twenty years, or ten, or five," he said, "I am not going to regret that I loved you. Sharon, when you told me that you were ready for this, I knew what I was getting. I knew what I was walking into, and I've never looked back. I'm not going to. So don't do this for me."

She laid her fingers against his lips to silence him. "I'm not." Her thumb traced the curve of his bottom lip. "I am doing it for me. People come and go in our lives for a reason, and you were most definitely placed in my path. We're not ready now," she told him, "but we will be, and we will both know when that is. So when you ask," she smiled up at him, "be sure. I once feared that I wouldn't have anything left to give you, and I was wrong. The paths that we ended up on simply took us in different directions than we thought they would. Whatever this is, and whatever it will be, you have me. Completely."

His hands moved in to her hair. He cupped her head and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her until they were both breathless, until he could taste the salt of the sea, mingled with the salt of tears, and the sweetness of her. It was a heady mixture of hope and opportunity. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, swaying with her in the wind as he tucked his face into her neck and held on for fear that this dream would slip away, like a wisp of smoke to be carried away in the hard autumn breeze. "You always had me," he said against her ear. "I was always here."

"I know," She whispered, in a voice that was soft and barely audible above the crash of the waves against the pylons below them. "My head just had to understand what my heart already knew. We aren't lost. We belong."

There would come a day, very soon, when the hurts would be healed. Their fears would be behind them, and their future would be their present. She would bind herself to him, and the marriage that they would have would be civil, blessed and created not by the church that had observed her first marriage, but by the other institution that she had pledged herself to. It would be recognized by the laws of the state. It was not wholly a compromise. It was simply who she was.

~FIN

My heart is like a river
My heart is like these hills
They never change
I never change
and I never will

You called and I came running
You cried and now I'm here
So hold this faith
accept our faith
These are little fears

We have enough to guide us
We have enough to last
We're not alone
we never were
you and I aren't lost

Oh hold me very tightly
Hold me fast and strong
I am your love
Won't stray from you
You and I belong

My heart is like a river
My heart is like these hills
They never change
I never change
and I never will

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A/N: Thank you all for the wonderful comments and support, and thank you to everyone who helped with my research while I was writing this.