Monday night was her unofficial night with Ricky. It was the pattern they'd fallen into, this first summer that he was home from college. She didn't want to hover (didn't feel that it was right to hover, since she'd let Emily move to New York at the age of 17 to pursue her career in ballet), but she treasured the time she could carve out with Ricky between seeing his high school friends, working on his online summer school classes, and building God-knew-what out of old computer parts in the second bedroom of her condo.
She called it his room, but it wasn't. Not really. His room had been packed up before he left for Stanford, most of his childhood things in a storage unit in the basement of the condo building she'd moved into days after he left the house in which he'd grown up. He stayed in this new, bare room when he came home from school, and next summer she knew he'd likely not stay there at all. Her little boy was growing up, stretching his wings. Finding better things to do on a Monday night than sit on the couch with his aging mother, rewatching some action-adventure movie they'd seen at least fifty times.
As much as she wanted her baby to leave the nest and find his own path, it still hurt when he called her at work to tell her he wouldn't be home that night. She knew her son, and when he told her that he was going to drive up to Santa Clarita to work on his latest project with one of his fraternity buddies, she knew he was telling the truth.
She just wished it didn't have to be on a Monday night.
Sharon sighed as she hung up the phone, mentally resigning herself to another late night at the office. She didn't have to stay late. Most of her cases were wrapped up neatly, thanks in no small part to the care she'd taken to train each of her detectives, but she didn't especially welcome the idea of going home to an empty condo. At least in the Parker Center, she wouldn't be alone.
Surrounded by a building full of people who couldn't stand the sight of her, yes, but she wouldn't be alone.
She had the payroll application open on her computer and was halfway through approving expense reports when a phone call interrupted her concentration. Chief Pope. Just great. This day was already bad enough. He kept her on the phone long enough to deliver yet another long-winded diatribe about the behavior of one Andy Flynn, but once again hung up on her when she asked him just why, exactly, he was the one calling her and not Flynn's commanding officer.
Not that she really needed to ask. It was obvious, from the top brass to the lowliest patrol officer, that Assistant Chief William Pope had the hots for one Deputy Chief Johnson, and in his peanut brain, he equated love with protecting his darling protegee from the hellhounds in FID, and Captain Raydor in particular.
No matter. At some point, she'd come face-to-face with Chief Johnson, and finally figure out if the woman was worthy of the hype and slobbering devotion. Until then, she'd deal with the glorified middle man who sadly outranked her.
Oh, and Andy Flynn. Sharon heaved a sigh as she went to her file cabinet and pulled out his jacket. Lately, for his minor infractions, she'd referred him to a lower-ranking detective on her squad, a situation that sat well with neither Flynn nor Sgt. Eliot, but she was the boss and she made the rules, and she had only so much patience for the hot-headed lieutenant that had done his absolute best to annoy her over the course of her 20 years on the force. She'd have happily brushed him off this time as well, but the name Bill Croelick was enough to stop her short.
Bill Croelick. Now there was a monster. Even in FID, she knew who Bill Croelick was. Knew how letting him slip through their fingers had driven Andy Flynn into such a rage that he'd punched out one of the sergeants in Traffic for, as her report said, looking at him funny. She wasn't thrilled herself about revisiting this particular ghost from the LAPD's past. Flynn might not want to hear it, but dealing with Croelick's lawsuit hadn't been exactly fun for her either, and she wasn't in the mood to be sympathetic when he'd never bothered to thank her for saving his job the last time Croelick had reared his ugly head. Especially if his latest antics got them caught up in yet another lawsuit, which, from the gist of Pope's phone call, sounded fairly likely.
Most days she loved her job, but on days like this where she knew she'd have to be the voice of reason to defend a criminial who so richly deserved to be behind bars, she hated it. Hated especially defending herself and the LAPD policies to Andy Flynn, a good cop (his overstuffed jacket towering over her inbox notwithstanding) who had, once upon a time, liked her just fine.
That was a long time ago, before interdepartmental politics and two marriages, crumbling due to alcoholism, got in the way. Now, every time she crossed his path, he looked ready to spit nails.
Men.
The early evening sun was burning through her windows by the time Andy slunk into her office. Even after 30 years in Los Angeles, she still wasn't used to the summertime heat, but at least she could count the small blessing that she wasn't in a full suit, tie and vest.
Andy dressed well; she had to give him that. Usually, he was immaculately put together. Today, though, he looked….rumpled. Faded. Rather than slamming into her office, he eased the door open and slumped into the chair opposite her desk. No barking about wasting his time or demanding to know who he'd pissed off to get FID up his ass. He hadn't looked this defeated since he'd sat in that chair just over ten years ago and she'd told him he had two choices: AA or unemployment.
Stubborn ass that he was, he chose AA and had been clean and sober since. She'd never doubted his commitment to sobriety until today. Doubted his sanity, sure, and doubted his ability to keep his foot out of his mouth for longer than ten minutes at a time, but…this was different. He was barely hanging on, and to see him breaking down over a complete waste of oxygen like Bill Croelick broke her heart.
"Lieutenant," she started, but he held up his hand.
"I know I shouldn't have shoved him. I know I fucked up."
The situation was dire indeed if Andy admitted to making a mistake on the job. Usually these conversations involved Sharon making accusations and Andy blaming whatever had happened on Provenza, but today…he couldn't even come up with a defense. He just shook his head and stared at the floor.
Given that he usually stared at her cleavage, she was a bit thrown.
"Andy," she said softly. He didn't bother to look up. "I know this is hard. We all have cases that stay with us."
He snorted at that. God forbid he ever think that she struggled with the cases she investigated in FID, even when it meant bringing conduct charges against people she'd once considered friends.
"We all have those cases," she continued, struggling to keep her voice neutral, "but you can't let it ruin your career. You're better than that."
His shrug was more telling than any comeback he could have hurled at her. Andy Flynn, God's gift to Priority Homicide, couldn't even defend himself.
Sharon knew she had an unhealthy savior complex, knew that it was a bad idea to get further into Andy's head than she'd already delved, but she couldn't stand to see him looking so pitiful. "That's it," she said as she clicked her mouse on the shut down command, "we're getting out of here. I'm buying you some cheap, greasy dinner and we're going to talk about this."
"That's not necessary, Captain. Just give me my punishment and we'll call it a day."
She stared him down over the rim of her glasses. "Your punishment is that you have to eat a meal with me and talk about this. So let's get it over with, hmmm?"
If he'd put up a fight, she would have been relieved, but he just shoved himself out of the chair and followed her through the halls of the Parker Center. Down the elevator, across the street to the parking garage, and in the passenger seat of her battered department-issued Crown Vic without saying a word. She drove them to a diner in Sunset Gulch, the same diner she'd taken Jack years ago when she needed him to sober up before going home to their children. He didn't put up a fight either in those days, and she was a little disgusted with herself - and with Andy - that the comparison was so easy to make.
She should have been at home with her son, rewatching a Die Hard or a Star Wars movie, and instead she was paying for a fancy grilled cheese sandwich for a man who didn't even have the balls to look her in the eye. If he kept moping like this, she was going to leave him in the diner with the check and without a ride back to the Parker Center, and watch a movie by her own damn self because it would be a lot more satisfying than being the plus-one at Andy's pity party.
"More coffee?" the waitress asked. Andy didn't even bother to look up, which was even more disturbing. She was young and blonde, probably a struggling actress. The type that Andy Flynn on his game would have fallen all over himself to impress. Sharon waved her away.
"Hey," she said softly, "you alive over there?"
He sighed, his focus intent on the napkin he was shredding into pieces. Sharon was about to give up when he said, "You ever just want to say enough and walk away?"
"Frequently." Andy looked up at that, surprised. "Usually when I have you yelling at me about something idiotic you've done that I have to explain."
Finally, a smile.
"But you don't want to say enough and walk away. Andy, that's never been in your nature."
It might have been too much, claiming to know anything about Andy's nature, but he squared his shoulders. Like she said…stubborn.
"I've got you breathing down my neck, the Pope wanting to burn me at the stake, and the Chief…" he trailed off, his obvious displeasure at letting down his commanding officer warming her heart.
Andy Flynn, notorious bad boy and player, was beating himself up because he'd disappointed a woman he'd once claimed to hate. Sharon suddenly wished she knew him better; wished she'd known his mother or the sister he spoke about on occasion. Wished she had some context as to how he could treat her so coldly and yet offer blind devotion to Brenda Leigh Johnson.
She really did have to meet the Deputy Chief, one of these days, if only to satisfy her own curiosity.
"I'm not breathing down your neck," she said mildly. "Just buying you dinner."
"Why?"
Wasn't that the question. Why indeed. She pursed her lips as she ran through all the possible right answers. Because she needed to file a report, and she wasn't likely to get his statement when he was moping at his desk. Because she didn't like Pope any more than he did, and handling Andy with kid gloves was bound to piss him off. Because she was hungry, and even an overpriced grilled cheese was better than dining on vending machine fare.
"Because it's Monday night, and I have nothing better to do."
The words surprised him almost as much as they surprised her. He raised an eyebrow, the old Andy Flynn skittering up to the surface. He was even attempting a grin as he asked, "And what is it that you're doing the other six nights of the week?"
"None of your business," she snapped. "Eat your sandwich."
He did, with gusto, all thoughts of Bill Croelick seemingly set aside as he licked crumbs off his fingers.
Sharon parked in the garage next to his maroon car, identical to her own, save for more wear and of which she'd had to defend in court.
"Are you going to be ok?" She'd asked him that question times out of mind, and always with a 50/50 shot of getting a straight answer. Tonight, now that he'd had a meal in him and a wink from a waitress, she was fully prepared for a smart remark that landed just this side of an official reprimand.
"Once you've been on the job this long, are you ever ok?"
"Andy," she started, ready to go into her practiced spiel about the stresses of the job, the benefits to the victims, the blah blah blah about psych evaluations and the need to come to terms with what they've all seen, but he cut her off.
"No, Sharon, I'm asking. Are you ever ok?"
She sucked in a quick breath. In the more than 15 years since she'd transferred to IA, nobody outside her squad had ever bothered to ask if she were ok after a tough case. Most of the LAPD just assumed that she was more than fine, happy to pound another nail in the coffin of a decorated officer. Even the younger members of FID assumed that she was untouchable, completely devoid of emotion, even after forcing yet another detective she'd known in the Academy into retirement, or worse.
No, she wasn't ok, not after spending an evening watching Andy Flynn fight to come back to himself, but she was Sharon Raydor, and admitting that she was just as flawed and weak as every other cop in the department wouldn't do her any good. She shrugged. "We do what we have to."
"Bullshit."
She choked back a laugh. Blunt, that was Andy Flynn. "If I weren't here babysitting you, what would you be doing? Getting drunk after over a decade of sobriety? Bullshit yourself, Lieutenant. You do what you have to, just as I do."
His gaze, angry and tender at the same time, made her skin tingle. She was suddenly aware of the close confines of the car, of the dim lighting in the parking garage, of the scant inches separating them. Of the decades of history bringing them together. Of the absolutely terrible idea of having a heart-to-heart with FID's most notorious repeat offender.
Why did Ricky have to ditch her on movie night?
Her breath caught as he tugged her hand off the steering wheel and laced his fingers through hers. "Bullshit," he whispered. "You didn't have to buy me dinner."
It had been years since Sharon had held hands with anyone, and the fact that she was doing so now in the LAPD parking garage scared her more than the intensity with which Andy was studying her. Years since a simple caress in the front seat led to a lot more in the backseat, but the part of herself that she tried to keep carefully cordoned off from her professional role was raring to go, security cameras be damned.
"Andy," she said as she tugged her hand away from his, "I was worried about you. Believe it or not, I care about you."
He didn't make another move to touch her. He just sat in the passenger seat, staring at her, generating enough heat with that damn smirk that she was about to burst into flame. "Oh, I believe it, Captain," he said finally.
He clicked his seatbelt free and opened the door, turning to offer what Sharon thought would be a goodnight and a thanks for dinner. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her.
Oh. Oh. Oh, teenage Sharon considered the shortest distance between her current location and the backseat before she remembered her rank and pulled away.
"Lieutenant-"
"Andy," he corrected. Before she could continue, he touched his fingers to her lips. "Believe it or not, I care about you too."
She didn't believe it, and God, she wanted him out of her car before teenage Sharon talked her into believing it. "Go home, Andy," she said. "We'll discuss the case in the morning.
"Aye aye, Captain," he said, and that grin again. Teenage Sharon was screaming at her not to let him go, but the rational part of her brain breathed a sigh of relief as he slammed the door.
Only to jump as he opened it again and slid into the passenger seat. "Chief's coming. Drive, Sharon."
In the rearview mirror, sure enough, she could make out a blonde head bobbing its way toward her car. Before she could formulate a rational argument for why his commanding officer should have no issue with the two of them in close proximity, she'd started the engine and thrown her car in reverse.
"Where to?"
He twined his fingers in hers, their hands resting against the gearshift. "Up to you, Captain. It's Monday night, and I've got nothing better to do."
God bless Ricky for having better things to do with his Monday night, she whispered to herself as she pointed her car toward her empty condo.