TWELVE

Sharon was no stranger to nausea these days, but the vigor of her stomach clenching startled her awake instantly. Her throat felt like sandpaper and for a moment the world around her seemed to spin. She closed her eyes firmly and gritted her teeth in a bid to calm her stomach down by the sheer force of her will. Concentrating on her breathing usually helped, so she took a number of small, measured breaths until she could be sure she would not throw up into Andy's bed. She slowly opened her eyes and found the world much steadier than the last time she had attempted to do so. It was only now, too, that she realized she was not in Andy's bedroom and that his calming presence was nowhere near either.

In a bout of almost dizzying clarity, her memories returned and she sat up with a start, a sharp headache cutting through her temples. Was that a migraine, she wondered faintly and realized there and then that her head was way fuzzier than it should be. She remembered now how Christian Elliott had walked into her office just after Andy had left it. At first she had been annoyed by the interruption, having hoped to use her time without her security detail to find a way to somehow attempt to come to terms with what had just happened. Then she had softened at the sight of one of her most trusted officer despite herself.

Elliott had smiled at her, but something had been off and before she had been able to fully grasp that fact, he had already reached out for her. Sharon was, of course, trained in basic self-defense, but not having seen the assault coming, she found herself nowhere near fast enough to even stand a chance to evade him or escape his hold. She remembered whispering his name, so shocked that her voice wouldn't comply, then he had produced a wet cloth and pressed it against her nose and mouth.

The ensuing blackness was what had preceded waking up feeling sick and hurting in a semi-dark room. Sharon carefully sat up, willing herself to concentrate on the movement and only the movement until she could be sure that the contents of her stomach would not come up again right away. She rested a hand against her stomach and took another deep breath. The air carried the scent of woodsmoke, she realized, which made it clear that she was no longer in the LAPD building. And why would anyone go through the trouble of knocking her out if he was not intent on incapacitating her to get her someplace else entirely? She wondered now how he had gotten her out of the building and into his car. Applying some pressure with her palm on her body, she realized that a bruise was forming on the left side of her ribcage and another one near her hip. If he had put her in the trunk, she would kill him, she thought, suddenly furious.

Despite those bruises and the splitting headache behind her temples, nothing else hurt. She thought of the dire warning of her old doctor to take it easy and almost snorted. Way to go, Sharon.

It took some effort to get her surroundings into focus because her glasses were gone, but she managed to make out a small bedroom. She was on a bed that had been stripped of its blankets and linens, but she supposed it was kinder than having her wake up on the wooden floor. It was tough to make out more detail in the semi-darkness, so she gave up and concentrated on putting both feet on the ground without throwing up instead. It was no small feat, but she managed to get to her feet and stay there. It seemed that getting up actually did help the nausea and she felt almost okay for a second before she realized how thirsty she was. She walked towards the door with agonizing slowness and tried the handle. Sharon was almost surprised when it opened easily. Whatever had gotten into Elliott, he had not seen it necessary to lock her up. The hallway was brighter with a light on which allowed her to get a better idea of the place she was in. The house looked reasonably well-kept but had the air (and smell) of a seldom used building with no life in it. A vacation home, maybe? She walked down the hallway, intent on being quiet in order to preserve the element of surprise. The situation had blindsided her so badly that she was intent on holding on to any advantage she could get.

The flooring was wooden and she shuffled across it, grateful for the fact that her shoes were gone as well. Even though those had been her favorite pair of pumps and she had already had to mourn another pair destroyed by her car accident.

Suddenly her clouded brain seemed to clear a little. Had Elliott of all people really kidnapped her? Sweet, reliable Sergeant Elliott she had once taken such pity on that she had asked him to come to her apartment and had cooked him dinner? Why on earth would he do such a thing to her? She paused near another door, but couldn't muster up the energy to open it. Probably just another bedroom and she needed to get somewhere with a faucet or a fridge. Her throat was so dry that she knew that once she started coughing, she would not be able to stop.

At the end of the hallway, she rounded a corner and found herself in a small entrance hall with terra cotta tiles and a row of hooks to hang jackets on. For now, they were all empty. There was a painting of a seascape on the wall and a lopsided dresser with a dusty mirror but not much else. Once this had been a happy place, she realized, but it had somehow lost its spirit through neglect. She spotted a larger door and walked towards it, very mindful to make as little noise as possible. The door opened easily as well and she was temporarily blinded by the bright light inside.

"There you are." It was Elliott's voice and somehow not Elliott's voice at all. Blinking and struggling with her bad eyesight, it took a while for her surroundings to come into focus. There was an old pine table with matching chairs and a sofa. Behind a large bay window, she could see the ocean, the dark waves a somehow threatening backdrop to the scene. Far away on the horizon, a flash of lighting appeared, but there was not sign of either rain or thunder yet. The room had once been decorated with a maritime theme, she could tell from what little was left. Another painting, a lopsided wooden sailing ship on the mantle. The bookshelf was empty and there were no pillows on the sagging sofa.

Elliott suddenly appeared in her view and handed her her glasses which were, mercifully, undamaged.

"Captain," he said and it sounded oddly formal given the fact that he had drugged and kidnapped her.

"What have you done, Christian?" she managed and her voice sounded raspy. He held out a water bottle to her and despite her overwhelming thirst, she made sure that the seal was not broken before she accepted it.

Her vision restored and her headache somewhat receding, she took a good look at her sergeant. The young man prided himself in always looking proper, but today his shirt was dirty and his pants crumpled. His eyes were too far apart and his nose too pronounced to be considered conventionally attractive, but she had always believed his light blue eyes to be kind. Now she wasn't so sure because there was an expression in them that she had never seen there before.

"What have you given me?" she asked, trying not to wonder what that would do to her already fragile pregnancy.

"Chloroform. But not a lot," he replied and gestured towards the sofa. "Would you like to sit?"

She furrowed her brow. He was being almost kind given the circumstances. It was all so confusing. Not trusting her legs a lot further, she stumbled over to the sofa and sat down, watching him fold his long limbs into an armchair that had seen better days.

"Why am I here?" she asked, beginning to be fed up by his lack of reaction. At that, he showed some spark for the very first time. The unfamiliar look in his eyes became more pronounced and there appeared a hard setting to his jaw that made Sharon uneasy.

"Oh, I think you know, Captain."

"Please, call me Sharon," she said even though she was in no mood to indulge him.

"Basic hostage training," he said dryly. "Make the kidnapper sympathize with you. Not bad."

She wanted to hurl something at him, but forced herself to stay calm. When she didn't say anything, he shrugged.

"That is exactly why you're here, Sharon. I want you to myself to tell you what you've done."

For the first time since she had met Sergeant Elliott, Sharon found herself repulsed by him. Had that man always been lurking inside her loyal officer? Because she hadn't glimpsed him a single time.

"What have I done?" she asked, already afraid of what was to come when she suddenly found fury brighten his eyes. Whatever she had done, it had made him very, very angry.

"You're just like her!" Elliott spat, suddenly on his feet again. "Cheating, manipulating, using people!"

"What have I done to offend you?" she asked calmly, almost polite, and saw immediately that it had been a mistake. To Elliott it seemed crystal clear and her having the audacity to ask what it had been seemed to shake something loose in him.

"You're married and you're sleeping around! You're pretending to follow the rules and be above it all and really you're just as bad as everyone else!"

"I'm not sleeping around!" she protested from between gritted teeth. She had been accused of that time and again over the years, always without any truth to it and hearing the familiar words from someone she had trusted and mentored for years somehow made her even angrier than the fact that he had kidnapped her.

He suddenly crouched down to level with her, his movements exaggerated, as if he was trying and failing to channel his nervous energy into them.

"I trusted you. You were always there for me. And then you start sleeping with Lieutenant Flynn!"

Sharon knew that somehow everything was supposed to fall into place any second now. The slashed tires, the cut brakes, the photos, his anger, but she still couldn't put it together.

"You've been doing all this because I am dating Lieutenant Flynn?" It seemed pointless to deny it and 'dating' sounded like the least offensive term. The image of his hand covering hers in the café earlier came unbidden and she pushed it away. This was not the moment to entertain such thoughts. Still, a less dazed part of her recognized that the thought of Andy gave her comfort even now.

"Dating!" Elliott spat. "Screwing like rabbits is more like. I saw you! I saw you in the garage!"

Sharon's heart sank. Nothing especially untoward had happened in the parking garage, but as resident troublemaker, Andy knew exactly the spot where no security camera would pick them up and had chanced a kiss there very early in their acquaintance. It had been a little rough and probably not very aesthetically pleasing with his hands around her waist and hers in his hair, but it could hardly have been construed as them about to have sex. Somehow, however, she knew that there was no point in trying to explain that to Elliott. The deeper issue lay somewhere else.

"You were sitting across from me half an hour before that, talking about my mother with me!" Elliott seemed outraged. "And then you flip a switch and act like a slut just like that!"

She remembered the conversation. Elliott had been almost in tears when he had confessed to her that his mother had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and that she was refusing to accept it and, by extension, to take her medication. He had told her about his less than ideal childhood with an affluent, but often absent mother who had never really seemed to have gotten over the fact that motherhood was not what she had envisioned for herself. Sharon's heart had gone out to him then, her comfort had been genuine, but indeed Andy had taken her mind off it later quite effectively.

"Just because I, um, enjoyed the Lieutenant's company later on doesn't mean that I didn't feel for you earlier," she said softly. "I do realize that you are in a very tough situation."

In fact, his situation had reminded her a little of Jack and the effect his antics had on their children. He was unreliable and completely uninterested in understanding that he had a problem and that he needed help. She had always tried to prevent her children from enabling him such as she had done for so many years, but sometimes he still got into their heads.

"In fact, you reminded me of my son a little and I hurt for you," she added, hoping that he would understand that she meant what she was saying. To her surprise, there were tears in his eyes, but they were angry tears.

"I trusted you," he spat. "I thought you were better than her!"

She now remembered that Elliott's mother had cheated on his father after which he had left the family. Having herself been accused by Jack of having driven him away more times than she cared to count, she was always careful to outright believe such accusations being thrown around, but she hadn't openly questioned it because she had seen how hurt Elliott still was by it.

"Christian," she tried again, willing her voice to remain soft despite her frustration. "You know I am not your mother."

He snorted. "I thought so, too. I genuinely did! When Martinez that sleazy son of a bitch tried to charm you, I gave him hell for it! I was so glad you didn't give in to his advances. And then Lieutenant Flynn of all people!"

That was something Sharon could relate to. She herself was still completely in awe of the sheer stupidity of her decision to start sleeping with Andrew Flynn, the resident womanizer and frequent involuntary subscriber to sensitivity classes. But somehow it worked. Somehow under that surface was a really sweet man who liked to cook his grandmother's favorite Italian dishes for her and reacted to an unplanned pregnancy with mentions of some old family heirloom instead of running screaming to the hills. He touched something deep inside her and it scared the hell out of her, because she was afraid that it was the same place that Jack had touched, that had been the beginning of her ruin. She had spent so much time and effort putting herself back together. She couldn't let Andy Flynn unravel her now.

Suddenly, the whole reality of her situation became clear again and she felt fury well up inside her. She leaned forward and fixed him with a glare over the rims of her glasses.

"I am not a saint, Sergeant Elliott. I am not your mother either. Are you telling me that you took pictures of me and send them to the entire LAPD to punish me?"

He would have expected him to recoil, but he didn't. In some twisted way, she suddenly understood, this was his way of finally coming to terms with the way his mother had never accepted him. Unfortunately, Sharon was the substitute for his mother and now had to bear the brunt of a fury meant for someone else. A cruel smile appeared on Elliott's lips.

"At first I wanted to scare you, then I wanted to hurt you and when you lucked out with those brakes, I realized that taking your reputation and your good name away would hurt you much, much more."

Sharon was suddenly breathless with fear. Elliott had not been pretending when he had appeared to her as a loyal young man who looked up to her, maybe even worshipped her a little too much. He had seen in her a replacement for his mother, the infallible, pristine woman his mother had never been. Someone who listened to his worries and fears, who was steadfast in her assurances that he was doing well and that he was a good son. But now all that had fallen away. Now she was a fallen woman to him just like his mother had been. A healthy mind might have realized that perfect people didn't exist, that perfect mothers didn't exist. That she had genuinely tried to help him because there was some part of her that just couldn't resist mothering the motherless. But Elliott's mind had never been healthy, she understood now. He had always been lost in an illusion that had kept him docile and adoring and now that that illusion was gone and he believed that she had manipulated him and played a part, had maybe even lied to him, all he wanted to do was hurt her. The rage Sharon was faced with was not only his anger for her, it was every negative emotion he had ever felt for his mother, warranted or not.

She tried desperately to come up with some way to reason with him, but with sudden clarity she knew that he was already too far gone.

"Think of your mother," she finally said. "I know you are disappointed in her and you have every right to be, but do you really want her to see you go to jail?"

He just looked at her with empty eyes and, surprisingly, she almost pitied him now.

"And you will go to jail if you don't stop now, Christian. If you let me go, maybe you-"

Suddenly there was a crash followed by footsteps.

"Police! Don't move!"

The breath was knocked out of Sharon when she was pulled to her feet by Elliott. He smelt sour and she almost gagged when he pulled her against his chest. A second later, she heard to clicking of his gun.

"You need to remain very still," he said in a cold voice that sounded nothing like the Sergeant Elliott she knew.

"Christian, please," she said. "It doesn't have to end this way."

"Maybe it does, because my mother is dead."

Before she had a chance to process the information, the door flew open, revealing two uniformed police officers. They looked young and the male one's hands were shaking as he pointed his gun at them.

"Let her go! Back-up is on the way!"

The metal of the gun was cold against Sharon'S temple and she knew that there was a good chance that she would die today. She thought of Emily and Ricky, stupidly relieved that at least they had each other. And she thought of Andy, suddenly devastated that they hadn't found each other sooner. She had left his house so often to drive home, afraid of getting too attached to him, when she had always known that he really wanted her to stay. And attached she was to other things as well. If she died here today, her baby would die with her. That small little thing she hadn't wanted to look at because she knew that once she had, it would become real to her. And it had become real. So real that she had to fight the urge to beg Elliott to let her go if only for her baby's sake. Even now, she tried not to think of it this way, tried to avoid attachment, but she knew that it was too late for that, too.

"Back off or I'll shoot her!" To her surprise, the two officers didn't obey but came closer still. Were they out of their minds, she wondered. One of them raised his gun, a gung-ho move if she had ever seen one, but his ears were red and his eyes were wide. He was panicking and panic was never a good advisor. If he pulled the trigger now, she was more likely to get shot than Elliott. Sharon opened her mouth to shout but was preempted by Elliott who suddenly shoved her hard. Sharon stumbled and fell, her knees connecting with the hardwood floor. For a moment, the pain was all she could concentrate on, then she looked up through her hair.

Elliott was pointing his gun at the two officers, the bravado having left the male one while the female one hung back, pale and still trying to assess the situation. Just two kids being the one on call during vacation season, she thought. They were small town cops, used to petty theft and maybe disturbance of the peace by night, but not kidnapping and attempted murder. The guy was hardly older than Ricky and that settled it for her. Elliott's attention was not on her so she dove forwards and pushed his gun aside, ready to tackle him.

It happened so fast that neither of them realized that a shot had rung out before blood started to pour from Elliott's leg. In shock, Sharon stared at the gun. Her interference had caused him to pull the trigger and he had injured himself. Badly, it seemed from the look of it.

It was clear that she had hit an artery because the ferocity with which the blood was pumping out was frightening. Elliott lost his balance, slipping in his own blood. His face was suddenly grey, his eyes losing focus.

"Call an ambulance!" Sharon shouted at the two officers and shrugged her jacket off to have something to try and stop the blood flow with. She knew that it was pointless. If the ambulance didn't arrive very, very fast, Elliott would bleed out no matter what she was doing.

He looked up at her, suddenly looking like the person she knew again.

"You cooked me dinner," he slurred. "I was at your house. You held my hand and told me everything would be okay."

Sharon's heart felt heavy. It was her fault that it had come to this. She had crossed her own carefully set boundaries. Elliott had fancied her his surrogate mother. Martinez had honestly believed that he would have a chance if he asked her out. What kind of boss was she? How on earth could she have ever believed that she was capable of running a division?

She watched Elliott lose consciousness while she bore down on him with all her strength.

"Don't die on me, Christian. Do you hear me? Do not die one me!"

When Sharon had finished her tale, she leaned back in her chair, looking stricken. It was clear from the way she had told the story that she had already accepted responsibility for it all. That was also why she had reported having shot Elliott when she had really only interfered and caused the shot that had wounded him. Andy was no stranger to guilt himself, but this seemed hugely unfair. The only thing she had done wrong was having been too nice to an unstable idiot. It was weird to think that 'being too nice' would be the one thing to bring about Darth Raydor's downfall.

Chief Johnson leaned back in her chair, regarding the two of them thoughtfully. In another random act of kindness, she had not put Sharon in an interview room to tell her story, but had her sit down in her office instead. Flynn had simply refused to be removed from the room and after what they had witnessed on the lawn earlier, Provenza and Chief Johnson hadn't really put up a fight.

"For whatever it's worth, Captain, I don't think there is anything you could have done differently," the Chief said, but Sharon simply pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Andy caught Provenza's gaze over the Chief's shoulder and found him tapping his watch and weighing his head.

"Can we go now?" Andy asked the Chief. "The sun is going to rise soon and after what she's been through, I would really like to get the Captain home."

"Your home or hers?" Provenza interjected, obviously still completely unable to keep his mouth shut despite having consciously set up the scene for Andy and Sharon to hold each other in the backseat on their way to the precinct.

The Chief and Sharon rolled their eyes in perfect unison and Andy felt sufficiently creeped out by the sudden synchronicity between the two.

"Well, you do that. But I want you back here by noon tomorrow. We have a better idea of what happened, but we need to put a few other things together."

"Chief, can you please let me know when you learn something new about Sergeant Elliott's condition?" Sharon asked and smiled gratefully at the Chief's curt nod.

On the way to the elevator, Sharon suddenly stopped. Her eyes were red with exhaustion when she looked up at Andy and her little smile was tired, but there was something about her that captivated him still.

"Thank you, Andy. For being by my side through this. All of this."

She reached out and placed her palm against his cheek. "Is it true what you said back there?"

Andy really wanted to play dumb and ask her what she meant just to buy himself some time to think about what she could possibly want to hear, but he, too, was too tired for games.

"Yes, I meant it, Sharon. Very much so. Do you want to hear it again?" He cupped her cheek a little more roughly than intended because his hands were suddenly shaking. "I love you, okay? And if that dirtbag Elliott had taken you away from me, I would have shot him myself!"

To his surprise, she was smiling.

"When I was in there, I was thinking about why on earth I ended up with you," she said softly and that confused him more than anything else. This was not exactly letting him down easy, he thought bitterly. But then she took his hand and leaned into his side.

"I guess it is because you're an idiot, but you're my idiot."

And suddenly, without a doubt, Andy knew that this was her way of saying she loved him, too.

Author's Note: I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone who has been taking the time to review this story. Those reviews always make my day! There is nothing I enjoy more than reading your theories or discovering that people found the little tidbits and jokes I had such fun putting in there. I haven't written regularly for a long time and this story is such a lovely escape from this whole stupid pandemic. So thank you for reading and thank you for letting me know what you think! And just so we are clear on this: The next chapter will feature those paninis.