"Oh, we'll talk soon" Sharon told Nicole with a smile.

If looks could have killed, the one she immediately turned and gave Andy, would have killed him a thousand times over. Andy's face registered the defeat he felt. The delicate balancing act he'd been managing for the past few months, had finally begun to topple. He felt like he'd jumped off a high-rise building, and was now just watching the ground approach and waiting for the impact.
His family had been so enamoured with Sharon, that he didn't have the heart to set them straight once they'd built a view of who she was to him. He knew it would explode in his face, but he couldn't help himself. They treated him so very differently once they thought someone as classy as her, had chosen him. He felt a little bit less like the black sheep in every situation when she was with him, even though he knew what they'd assumed was not true.

A discussion was pending... that much he knew. How bad the fallout would be, would depend on how well he managed to express himself and that, he knew, wasn't his forte. The fact that she moved herself immediately away from him each time he was close, paired with the sideways glances she threw at him, cast a shadow of impending of doom over his afternoon.

"What's got your panties in a wad Flynn?" his partner demanded.
"Nothing. Why?" he barked back at him.
"Well it looks like someone pissed in your Cornflakes this morning, with that sour puss you've been wearing around since Nicole left" was his reasoning. "What did she need to see the Captain for anyway?"
"Fucked if I know, but I wish I did. Sharon's avoiding me like the bubonic plague, if that's any kind of indication" he told him and lowered his head to look at his shoes.
"What've you done now Flynn?" he asked, quite sure his partner had managed to trip over his own tongue in some way and make an ungodly mess of something, the way he always had a tendency to do.
"She all but screamed at you to get the fuck out with her eyeballs back in electronics" he added "so whatever it is it must be on a par with your usual level of stupid. It'd also be nice if you stopped calling her that!"
"Thanks for the never ending vote of confidence asshole" he huffed at him. "Remind me never to ask you anything important. And no, I won't. It's her NAME!"
"Just remember, when this becomes the clusterfuck of the century, I told you no good would come of it" he muttered as he wandered away in the direction of the break room, leaving Andy feeling worse than he had before their little chat.

"My office. Now!" she barked at him as she rounded the corner into the murder room.
Throwing his hands in the air with a huff, Andy followed her thinking "Another little chat I'd rather not have."
"Yes Captain?" he asked, not wanting to give away the fact that he was fully aware of what it was she wanted to see him about.
"Do you have ANY idea what it was that Nicole came to see me about earlier?" she asked and levelled a death stare in Andy's direction.
"None whatsoever" he answered. "In fact, when I asked her, she told me it was personal." He directed his gaze down toward his shoes, preferring their shine to the fire he saw in the eyes throwing challenges at him.
"She wanted advice about whether there's a trick to balancing my romance with my responsibilities. She seemed to think I would be able to offer said advice, because I boss her father around all day at work, and go out with him at night." She offered, without any inflection in her voice to give him a sense of how she felt about it all.
She then added "And before you think about telling me you had no idea she thought we were a couple, I would like you to give it some consideration, and do me the favour of telling me the absolute truth with no lies even by omission."
He stood with his mouth open a little, slightly stunned, trying to decide how best to approach it. He had run it around in his head continually ever since he realised she was pissed, and had worded and reworded the things he wanted to say. The true challenge for Andy now, was getting those things to flow out of his mouth, the way they had sounded in his mind.
She stood facing him, tapping one stiletto clad toe on the floor, demanding a response.
"Please don't start your sentence with Look Sharon" she prompted him.

"Ok, I won't. I guess I did have a feeling that Nicole saw us that way. In fact, my entire family sees us that way. I did not TELL them that we were a couple Sharon." He felt he had made a decent start.
"And it didn't occur to you to correct them?" she wanted to know, her face softening ever so slightly.
"It did occur to me. I tried several times to start the conversation, but every time I found I couldn't do it." he told her.
"I see. Why did you find yourself unable to speak Lieutenant?" she demanded of him.
"Sharon, there are multiple reasons. Firstly, they just seemed so shocked that someone like you would be friends with someone like me, that they treated me differently. Somehow it felt like they thought I might actually be worth something. Them assuming we were a couple, kind of made that overwhelmingly difficult for me. I was worried that if I set them straight, they'd think I'd mislead them to begin with, which I didn't, but you know what I mean." he offered with a sad shrug.
"I see. You said there were multiple reasons." she continued.
Flashing his slightly crooked Flynn Grin at her, he added "well getting under Sandra's skin was a bit of an added bonus. She's talked me down to my own kids so much that the thought of her having to face that maybe the kids saw me in a different light, was kind of amusing. I know I screwed up when they were kids. That's on me and I accepted that a long time ago, but I'm not the same man I was then. The least she could have done at some point is simply allow the kids to see me for who I am now."
"Is that it?" she asked.
"Look, Sharon..." he started to speak and received an eye-roll that was almost loud enough for him to actually hear. "I knew it was the right thing to do, but I didn't want to do it. You want honesty? Here it is... I didn't want to do it, because on a personal level, I wish it was true. I know I'm not good enough. I know it's never going to happen. Hell, I know that someone like you wouldn't ever be able to look at someone like me THAT way, and it's ok. You've done so much for me, been so kind to me, and helped me when you had no reason to, and now I've managed to screw that up because I live in a fantasy world. I don't know what to say to make this right...and now I'm rambling."

The shock she felt was plain to see from the expression on her face. Obviously, the answers he had given her, were not those she had anticipated. Being lost for words was not a feeling Sharon was used to.
"Andy, I need to process this" was all she could manage.
"Sure. I get it. No problem." he answered as he turned and left her office, closing the door behind him.