Thank so much to everyone who's followed this story. You all gave me a wonderful welcome to writing for this fandom, and it's been great getting your feedback and sharing your thoughts on this lovely - and scarily addictive - 'Major Crimes' sandbox.
As hinted at, this is indeed the last chapter. I'm not sure what I'm going to do after I post it, but it might include hiding under a table and crying into some sort of chocolate-containing dish! So I wanted to make sure to thank you all beforehand ;).
No Such Thing as a Perfect Family (28)
" – I will, yes. I love you."
Rusty could hear the soft words as he walked from his room to the kitchen. She'd taken to making these phone calls in the her bedroom – both the previous night and now she'd retreated there to talk to her family – but the door was ajar and so he didn't think that she meant to keep him out. She probably just needed the quiet space.
He could still notice that sadness about her, and she still looked too tired. Yesterday she'd lasted about twenty minutes into their early dinner before her blinking had become slower, her breaths more effortful. He was keeping his promise to her kids, though: he hadn't budged from the table until she'd finished at least a reasonable portion of her salad.
When she walked into the living room a couple of minutes later, she looked startled to see him rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. "Rusty."
There was something about the sound of his name from her lips, in the quiet of their home, that made his heart run to a calmer beat.
Sharon walked up to the counter, both hands in the pockets of her sweater as she cocked her head at him. "Were you still hungry?"
"Not really." Well… he was usually a little hungry at any given time, but dinner had been pretty filling. "I made you some tea." He poured it from the kettle into a mug, then placed it on the counter. He slid it to her a little hesitantly because technically she hadn't asked for tea, but…
Her hands curled around the steaming mug, and Sharon smiled. "Thank you."
"Uh… you're welcome." He was still not entirely used to this – not the taking care thing, that he'd done before for years, but feeling so quiet and peaceful about it, and being thanked for it, that was definitely … new. New, and … nice.
Although by the looks of it Sharon wasn't planning on letting it go on for much longer.
"Honey." She'd settled in her usual corner of the couch, mug in hand, and was watching him replace the tea box in its cabinet. "I'm very grateful for everything you're doing." Her voice was warm. "But Rusty, you don't have to take care of me."
"I don't mind," he said honestly. Sharon's smile grew even more tender.
"I know. But you should focus on your own priorities – like school," she expounded at his look (and seriously? Sharon.) "There's plenty that requires your attention, don't spend so much time worrying about me." She took a sip of the hot tea. "I'm fine."
Was she really? It was hard to tell. Things were much better than the previous week, yes, but she still seemed a little off kilter. Rusty still wished that there were better ways to help. But he couldn't bring her father back any more than she'd been able to bring his mother back. Sometimes people were gone for good and there was just no way to fix it.
But there were still ways to help. Little ways. He couldn't fix things for Sharon, but he could wake up earlier and make her breakfast. He could bring her tea and make sure she ate dinner and keep her quiet company if she was feeling restless… And he'd do more than that if she'd let him, it wasn't like he hadn't carried a household (so to speak) before, but he'd kind of tried to explain that over dinner and Sharon had in turn tried to ban him from doing the dishes.
So he was sticking to the little things. For as long as she let him… and maybe just a little longer, because he really, really wanted her to be okay.
"Don't worry," Sharon repeated in a gentle voice, and brought the mug to her lips again, and he kind of half-shrugged, not really knowing what to say.
"Okay… do you want some honey with that?"
He could see the corners of her lips curling above the rim of the cup.
"No, thank you." She leaned back against the cushions and gazed at him fondly. "Did you finish your homework for tomorrow?"
And Rusty had to roll his eyes, because he was almost an adult basically and …
"…no. Almost…? I've got like, one thing left!"
She hummed. "Did you want me to look over your English essay?"
Sharon.
Her phone rang a few minutes later, and when she saw the caller ID an odd sort of heat spread to her cheeks, that had nothing to do with the hot tea mug in her hands.
When she let just a little too long pass without answering, Rusty glanced up a little curiously from where he was working at the dining room table. "Your phone is ringing," he informed her, and Sharon couldn't help a dry look because yes, thank you, she hadn't noticed.
There was nothing left to do but pick up. She almost hoped it was a case.
Almost.
"Yes, Lieutenant…"
It was all her fault. She wasn't sure how exactly, but she'd cracked open a door and it hadn't been entirely intentional, but she was an adult and inadvertency wasn't a plausible defense at her age.
Senility, maybe…
She really had been so tired the night before, and being home at last had infused her with some sort of surreal lightness, and she'd felt a little disconnected, a little slow. Calling her parents' house late in the evening had made her feel equal parts wistful and longing. And when that call had ended, she'd walked out of the bedroom to find the living room silent, bathed in a soft copper light from one small lamp, and that odd sort of dreamlike pensiveness had overcome her again, the phone had been right in the pocket of her robe and …
"Hello?"
She paused at the sound of his voice, realizing that this was one of those impulses that she should've curbed, but now there was no undoing it. "Andy… Hi. I'm sorry to bother you so late."
It was just past nine-thirty, really, but a lot later than she should have been calling.
"No problem. Everything okay? You and the kid doing alright?"
Sharon cleared her throat softly. "We're fine, yes, thank you for asking. I…"
Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes; she really should've waited until the next day at the station. She seriously needed to get some sleep and make better decisions.
"I just wanted to call and say thank you," she said quietly.
There was a short moment of silence.
"Sharon, you don't have to thank me." His tone was earnest. "I just wish there'd been more that –"
"No, I do." She swallowed. "Everything you've done these last few days… You've been more than kind, through all of this, and I…" She sighed, trailing off again. "Thank you, Andy. For being there for me. I hope you know how grateful I am."
Another few seconds ticked by quietly, and then… "You're welcome."
And now he was just calling to check on her. Asked if they needed groceries. She had to smile at that because she imagined that during his health fad he'd become quite the expert at shopping for produce.
It was a brief conversation, his thoughtful inquiries punctuated mostly by 'no's and 'thank you's on her end, but at the end of it she'd made sure to let him know that she appreciated that he'd called. Which was true, if anything a little too true, as she mused while they said their brief 'goodnight's.
The typing on Rusty's laptop hadn't let up while she'd been on the phone, which told her that the boy didn't think much of the conversation. Good, because there wasn't much to be thought of, but...
But.
A glance to her watch read just past eight p.m., but her body felt far more tired than that. It was a good thing that they hadn't caught a new murder that day; even just dealing with the paperwork that had followed the carjackings had left her drained. In retrospect, she was doubly glad that Andy had called just to check on them, and not with a new case. She was still too exhausted for that.
Sharon lowered her face to inhale the calming scent of the tea, and abruptly thought that Andy would never meet her father.
Neither would Rusty.
Her eyes filled at the sudden realization. Her father was such a huge, essential part of who she was and what had given her the strength to be that person, and now there were people in her life, important people, who'd never truly understand that.
They'd never get a chance to know what a wonderful, special person her father was – had been. They'd never talk to him and listen to what he had to say, and they'd never see her with him, and he'd never meet them and she'd never know that he liked them, too…
She'd never realized how much she'd wanted him to meet Rusty.
It had been at the back of her mind, far back because there were so many other things to worry about first, but somewhere in there she'd imagined that one day…
A sob rose in her chest.
"Sharon…?"
She closed her eyes, hands still wrapped tightly around the mug. It took a moment to get the words past the knot in her throat. "Yes?"
But Rusty didn't say anything else, so she opened her eyes again and glanced over to find him watching her with a half-concerned, half-uncomfortable expression. He looked so much like he wanted to say something, but didn't know what.
There was nothing to say. She felt bad for making him uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry," he spoke quietly.
"I know, honey." With a slow breath, Sharon admitted: "It's been a long few days."
After a couple of seconds, she heard the shuffling of the chair against the carpet, and watched him get up from the table; he vacillated a little by the coffee table, shifting indecisively on the balls of his feet, before walking over to settle at the far end of the sofa.
"Uh…so did you talk to your kids tonight?"
A faint smile fluttered across her lips. "I did." Katie and Ricky had called both nights since they'd all left Minnesota – much as she'd called her own mother. "They say hello. My mother and Steffi as well; everyone sends their best."
He curled one leg under him on the couch, and looked down a little pensively. "You have a nice family, Sharon," he told her in a quiet voice. "They… love you."
When he glanced at her, she was smiling softly again. "I love them."
"I'm glad you got to be there with them," he said honestly, and she dipped her head.
"So am I. And Rusty…" Sharon sighed. "I… this wasn't how I was hoping you'd meet the rest of my family, and I don't think anyone was at their best, really, but…"
"I'm glad I got to meet them, too." He was staring at the cushions as he murmured the words, but after shifting a little in his seat he met her eyes again. "They're like…seriously nice people, Sharon. I'm – that's… good. I'm glad you have them."
She took another sip of her tea, then reached one hand over to touch his arm on the back of the sofa. "I'm glad I have you, too," she said softly. "Rusty, family isn't just what you're born into." And she gave his arm a brief squeeze, and the boy managed a small smile of his own, and patted her hand lightly, and as they sat there in silence at opposite ends of the small sofa, he breathed in the faint scent of lavender wafting from her cup, and thought that he was really, really lucky.
Fin
Epilogue
Rusty hated it when Sister Margaret made them read their homework out loud to the class. Like, what was even the point of that? Obviously they could all read by now – and all that public speaking stuff was nonsense. Who learned public speaking by reading a stupid English essay out loud to a bunch of bored seniors during third period? No one.
But, it wasn't exactly a negotiation. And the last thing he needed was to go home to Sharon with another note, so he'd been on his best behavior. So if Sister Margaret wanted them to go around and awkwardly read their five-hundred word essays, that's what Rusty was going to do. As he walked to the front of the class, he exchanged a commiserating glance with the kid sitting in the front row by the window.
With a sigh, he held up his printed assignment and began:
"There's no such thing as a perfect family."
He sighed again, and fidgeted.
"Because families are made of people, and people don't always get along. Even people who love each other hurt each other… and sometimes it's the ones who love you most that hurt you the worst."
Or the ones who were supposed to love you the most. He knew all about that. But then sometimes it really was the people who genuinely loved you... His mind drifted back to the snippets of a terrible argument he'd overheard through an open window, and he read on...
"And sometimes you let down the people you love most, and you don't even know how to start over. But in a real family, in a good family, you take the good with the bad, and you make it work. Family isn't about making it work perfectly: it's about making it work when it matters, when someone needs it"
This time, he wouldn't bring home any criticisms about not respecting the prompt, or making someone else do the hard work for him. Every word he'd written himself, and he'd thought about each one, too.
He kept reading, ignoring most of Sister Margaret's tips about inflection and connecting with the audience (his audience, much like himself, only wanted the bell to ring faster); instead he let his thoughts wander back to the past week, and what he'd seen and what he'd learned, and then further back than that, too...
" – still there, even if they annoyed you or did things wrong..."
"…and everyone can say it in their own way, and maybe sometimes they don't say it at all, but it's still true."
"Family isn't just what you were born into…"
"And it's always … complicated. Everyone wants things. They're noisy and they try to tell you what to do..."
Unexpectedly, an image of the murder room rose to his mind, with Lt. Provenza yelling across half a dozen desks to Lt. Tao to hurry up some analysis, and Buzz protesting when he was asked to get the coffee …
"Everyone can get on everyone else's nerves."
Sharon and Stephanie. Ricky and Katie and the peas. Julie and her hugs (come on – they couldn't all like that, right?). And then Flynn and Provenza, and Sykes and Provenza, and of course Sharon and Provenza… and if Rusty had a nickel for every exasperated eye roll…
"But at the end of the day, they'll stick by you when you need them, and you don't even have to ask. Sometimes you don't even know that you need them, but they're there anyway. Whatever happens… whether you like it or not."
And that was the bottom of it, really.
Rusty didn't have everything clear in his head, but he kind of got that much.
He hadn't told Sharon, and she maybe didn't know it, but he knew that she was that, to him. Despite who he was. Despite what he'd done. Despite Emma and the letter and her own problems, Sharon was... there. And she'd even told him she was glad for it.
Well, he was glad for it too.
Guys, I can't even.
Thank you so much for reading, and to everyone who's reviewed the story, HUGE thanks. Your comments always made my day brighter :).
Now that this story is over (*tries to postpone the curling-under-table-crying process*), I do have a few other ideas in the works, and will try to decide which one to do next. However, I've also really enjoyed writing to prompts, and several scenes in this story were written in response to your suggestions, so I wanted to launch a quick call for future prompts. If there are any things, scenes, ideas etc. that you'd like to see me write, feel free to let me know, and I'll add them to my list of things-to-write! Because seriously... there is much left of this hiatus and I have much withdrawal still.
Thank you all again :)
~SC
