A/N: Hey everyone! So, as some likely noticed, this is another migration over from Ao3. Usually I'd space the chapters out a bit, but this is technically a WIP, even if it's just a collection of standalone short stories, and I may have a new chapter incoming. Just as soon as I wrestle off this gross writer's block I'm dealing with.
Still, in preparation, I'm uploading all three of the existing chapters now, so I can add the new one to both Ao3 and FFN once it's ready. Enjoy!
Early 2014
On a day when what passes for winter in LA gusts down its broad streets, the Murder Room is quieter than usual. They're in paperwork mode, wrapping up documentation for their most recent case. Save for the low-level clacking of keyboards and the occasional smart-ass remark from the front of the room, it's quiet enough for Andy to hear the wind pushing up against the windows.
There is a heavy distraction in Sharon's mood that has settled over her office like a thick fog. Andy is close enough to notice it where the others wouldn't. It might be appropriate to ask her what's up, it might not. But he recalls a throwaway comment she made weeks ago about being a refugee from the cruelty of winters back east. Weather is as good a reason as any to fade into a lull, he figures, but no reason to stay there.
With a few swipes across his phone screen, he launches Google and sets to looking up a strip mall Vietnamese joint that he'd stumbled across years ago. Time and the cyclical nature of the restaurant and real estate markets work to make the finding a difficult task. But find it he does, or at least something close enough to consider a match.
Andy frames the invitation as calling in a raincheck, making up for a post-show dinner that had been canceled by the appearance of a body in the river. He half-expects Sharon to brush it aside in favor of paperwork or some other, less specific deflection. Maybe she does too. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and looks out onto the office for a long moment before looking back to him with the suggestion of a smile.
"Sure, that would be great."
An hour or so later they're in a plastic booth with red vinyl-covered chairs, hidden from the wind blustering outside. The dining room is arranged under vivid paper lanterns that hang at odd intervals, tucked between drop ceiling tiles. Several of the fluorescent lights flicker in a rapid static pattern. It's not a high-class establishment, but it's got a certain atmosphere, warm and unpretentious.
Waiting for the food, they fill time with companionable chit-chat. It's an easy rhythm of conversation that soaks up the wait, bouncing from football to the rumor mill at work to their kids. Sharon is explaining Ricky's latest tech venture when her phone starts ringing. She breaks off mid-sentence, glances at the screen, rolls her eyes.
"I should just let this go to voicemail." The words are directed to the table as she stares at the screen. The phone buzzes on. She drums her fingertips against the tabletop. Before Andy can decide whether it's appropriate to ask who it is, she sighs and mutters an apology without looking up.
She jabs at the screen and answers with a pointed, "What?"
Few people earn this type of greeting from her. Sharon tends to keep the shroud of civility up for as long as possible before exposing her sharp ferocity. Andy's been on the receiving end of that sudden shift a few times, over the years. This, though…
"I'm out. Why?"
She stares down at her nails, then brings them idly to her lips as she listens. This can only be one person. She drops her hand before she speaks again, so her voice rings clear. "No, you may not."
This part of her, Andy hasn't quite figured out.
"Jack!" She glances around at the few other diners huddled over their own formica tabletops, immersed in their own issues. She clears her throat, lowers her voice, tries again. "I do not want you going into my home when I'm not there. Period."
Andy tries to avert his attention, picking up his own phone and pretending to check email. But there's only so much he can do, sitting directly across from her. On some level, he assumes if she didn't want him to hear, she would have excused herself.
Even while trying to read some Mets or Brewers boxscores on his phone, Andy doesn't miss the shift from annoyance to exhaustion in her voice when she says, "I don't care."
Her relationship is nothing like a marriage. Andy might not have authority to judge, but he does anyway. He glances up to find Sharon's eyes closed. She rubs at the bridge of her nose, the movement lifting her glasses askew.
"Either call me ahead of time, or-"
She drops her free hand from her face, and her voice sharpens again. "I don't care that you have a key. It's not your residence. I'm not giving you permission to enter. If I find out that you have gone through that door without my knowledge, I'll have you arrested."
The waitress arrives, a tiny woman balancing a tray with two basketball-sized bowls of brothy soup and several small dishes filled with garnishes. Sharon winces up at her - another witness to this mutilated corpse of a relationship - before angling away, The waitress doesn't care, anyway. She's focused on unloading the tray with short, deft movements.
Sharon speaks toward the wall. "I'm finished discussing this."
The waitress turns to Andy. "Anything else?"
He shakes his head without elaborating, not wanting to disrupt the conversation across the table. Later, he'll think that he should have spoken up, asked for some peppers or a mug of coffee that he didn't want, just to get his voice out there. Even in retrospect, though, he won't know what the point of that would have been. To piss Jack off? To be a lightning rod? To help bolster the notion that Sharon is doing just fine, thanks?
And how, exactly, would he describe his concern over the whole situation anyway?
Instead, Andy says nothing. He drinks ice water and watches Sharon sit up straighter. Her eyes dart to his, then away again. She draws a long breath through her nose. "You should know I'm getting the locks changed. I'll send the books to your office."
She flicks her tongue against her bottom lip. "Yes, I'm serious. And I need to go."
She waits a moment, but, when the tinny drone of Jack's voice continues on, she rolls her eyes and hangs up. With a heavy sigh, she drops the phone into her bag, then pushes the bag under her chair. She's still leaned over when she says, "I'm sorry about that."
"Don't worry about it." No one gets to pick their spouse thirty years down the line, after all. Not even someone as careful as Sharon.
Purse secured, she sits back up. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and arches an eyebrow at her soup. "Is this a bowl, or a bathtub?"
Her comment bats away the lingering discomfort from the phone call. He chuckles. "Well, you won't go away hungry, that's for sure."
"I guess not." She settles back into her seat. "How long do you have to wait before it's cool enough to eat?"
"Well, you could eat it now…"
Her gaze lifts to the ceiling. "How long do you have to wait before it's cool enough to eat without scalding your mouth?"
"That'll be a few minutes, at least."
She leans forward again, examining the condiment dishes, turning bottles on the table to read their handmade labels. Andy means to ask if she'd like hot sauce, but finds himself saying, "Is everything okay?"
Sharon looks up at him, eyes wide, as if he hadn't been sitting across from her while she was on the phone. Then again, it could be that she doesn't get many opportunities to answer that question. Her lips twist into a half-smile. "It's not good, but it's okay."
"You just threatened to have your husband arrested."
"Which ensures that he'll stay away from my condo." Sharon presents this as a simple fact, laying out her evidence, as if every couple goes through periods of threatening each other with police action.
Torn between asking whether Jack has often shown up to her place uninvited and suggesting that threats of arrest might not be the healthiest approach, Andy stays quiet. The failed relationships in his wake speak to his lacking expertise on the topic at hand.
She elaborates anyway. "I'm still just trying to figure out what made him move back to L.A.. I haven't even started getting used to him being here again."
This surprises him. "I thought he moved back because you're here."
She laughs like he's nailed the punchline on a particularly hilarious joke. "No," she says, the remnants of the laugh still coloring her voice. "I can assure you that isn't the reason. He knows I'm not interested in reconciling."
Andy frowns down at his chopsticks, trying to piece together an appropriate response. No one deserves this kind of purgatory. Under the circumstances, as he's beginning to understand them, Sharon deserves a medal and an annulment delivered by the Pope himself.
He can't quite break the sentiment down into a nonchalant quip.
When he glances at her, though, the corner of her mouth tips upward. "Go on," she says. "I know you want to ask."
He does want to ask. He wants to understand, so that he can do something, so that he might return some of the help and understanding Sharon has shown him. He wants to know how everything went so wrong for her. He wants to be able to tell her that it's okay: okay to be angry, okay to push back, okay to let it go. He wants to tell her that she's already moved past this.
Instead, Andy reaches for the bean sprouts, dumps half of them into his soup. "It's none of my business." He tips a blob of hoisin into the broth and mixes it. Without looking up, he adds, "As long as he isn't threatening you, anyway."
In his peripheral vision, she tilts her head toward him. "Then it becomes your business?"
"I'd say so, yeah. I don't like it when people terrorize my friends."
She dips her head, concealing something in her expression, then dismisses it with a short shake of her head. "I don't think you have to worry about that," she says, her tone lightening. She sprinkles some fish sauce into her bowl. "He never cared enough to inconvenience himself."
She could be talking about the weather, for the lack of emotion in her voice. Something about her words combined with that nonchalant tone sets Andy on edge.
But Sharon isn't telling her own story right now. "And given that all of his old buddies have moved on from the public defender's office, he wouldn't be able to sweet talk his way out of trouble, the way he used to."
She swirls her garnished soup with a flat-bottomed spoon. The steam wafting from the broth curls the hair framing her face and fogs the lenses of her glasses. She squints into her bowl and quirks an eyebrow at what she finds. "This looks like a challenge, Andy."
"Sorry, there's no glamorous way to eat pho."
This earns the smallest hint of a genuine smile. "Ah. Now you tell me."
Even with food and conversation, her mood is darker than before, making itself known in downcast eyes and short answers. At the same time, Andy's curiosity ramps up. He turns over what she'd said after her phone call. By the time his bowl is empty and hers is tepid and abandoned, he's worked up the nerve to tackle the question she'd hinted at before.
It's reckless, asking this, even despite her earlier permission. It's like he's slashing through some very strategically placed red tape in their friendship, breaching some kind of boundary. Sharon hasn't been cagey about her past, sprinkling hints here and there. But she seems most comfortable in a state of detached propriety, not discussing the specifics. Like an heir who never admits his net worth; the details are uncouth. Andy can't help but consider whether he's being pushy, feeling so driven to understand why she'd keep choosing this for herself.
Having been considered worse things along the way, he decides to take the plunge.
"Okay," Andy takes a deep breath. "So why are you still married?"
For several seconds Sharon's only answer is to cup her tea mug between her hands and draw out two long syllables. "Hm. Well…"
In her silence, he's struck with a jolt of self-doubt, a moment of freefall where he's afraid he's upset the entire balance of this, whatever this is. He clears his throat. "That is what you were expecting me to ask, earlier, right?"
She grins, or curls her mouth in a way that's passing for a grin today. "Yes."
"Oh. Because I figured then that you already had an answer."
"I do." She nods slowly, releases her mug, skims the surface of the soup with her spoon. She opens her mouth and, after a moment, closes it again.
He makes a process out of folding his napkin and arranging his chopsticks and the empty garnish dishes within his bowl. Eventually, though, Sharon's continued silence spurs Andy to give her an out. "Don't worry about it, you don't need to-"
She holds up her hand, quieting him. "No, it's fine." Her attention remains on the motion of swirling through her soup, her brows lightly furrowed."It's just that I don't have a good answer. It's hard to explain."
The way she thinks, he doubts that. "Lucky for you, it isn't a test." This tips her grin into something more genuine, so he adds, "Your answer won't be graded."
A short laugh breaks through her facade. "Well, in that case," She rests the spoon on her discarded napkin and folds her hands on the table. With a glance around the room, she leans back into her chair, settling in.
"Having been brought up Catholic…" She trails off, no doubt trying to gather the thousands of nuances within that phrase into a short explanation. It's an unnecessary step.
"Oh, I know that baggage. Believe me."
"Of course." Her expression warms along with her voice. "Well, then, you're familiar with the idea that marriage isn't just a personal decision. It's one that involves your entire family, their entire family," she rolls her hand in a circle, "the parish, the priest, God, whomever else cares to know."
"Right."
"And, like I told you at Nicole's wedding, my marriage was rather sudden." She looks away, a smile hinting across her lips. It's as complex and layered as her memories must be, looking back. "Marrying Jack was the one time I just followed my gut. I did it because it felt right at the time."
It must have been a shock to everyone for calm, measured Sharon to announce that she was about to move across the country with a ring on her finger. It's stupid, since he didn't know her then, but Andy feels a pang of loss for the young woman who'd thrown her future into hope like that. The path from there to here couldn't have been anything but disastrous.
"We had our plans," she continues, "and those plans did not involve being in our hometown or listening to our boring relatives."
"They weren't happy."
"Well," she sighs, "my parents weren't going to say anything. I made it all the way through college without being married off, after all, and I think they were getting anxious."
"Oh." Andy winces."Seriously?"
"It was a different time." She shrugs. "I had this aunt, though, my father's sister. Very independent, widowed in her mid-30s, never remarried. When I told her I was engaged - I'll never forget this - she put her hands on my shoulders and looked me square in the eyes. She said, 'Sharon, you don't have to charge at the first matador who waves his cape.'"
It's the kind of absurd advice that well-meaning relatives have been passing along for ages. But this particular delivery has Andy wanting to shake this long-lost aunt's hand. "Oh, sure. The old Irish Catholic bullfighting metaphor." He waits a beat, then adds, "Because there are so many matadors among our people."
Sharon nearly doubles over laughing, rubbing at her forehead. The weight from earlier disappears, even given the difficult topic of discussion. "Right?" She rolls her shoulders as she straightens, releasing tension he didn't realize she'd been holding. "I thought it was just as ridiculous then, but I wasn't going to say that."
"Naturally." Andy can see her, even decades up the line, fighting to keep from rolling her eyes. Like with her superiors now, Sharon would never want to disrespect her family. But she'd still have strong opinions on how wrong they were.
"But, as I'm sure you also know, there's this whole culture, outside of the Church, even, of what it means to carry on a marriage. And that's basically: once you're in, you're in." Sharon's gaze drops to the tabletop. "Which is what Aunt Margaret understood and I didn't."
Andy knows the pattern like the back of his hand. "You're raised in that environment, no one talks about thier marriage problems because there's no out anyway. It gets easy to believe that everyone is unhappy."
"Exactly. So that took up a lot of time, just thinking we could - well, I could - power through. We went to this priest in Northridge, he must've been the most conservative guy left in the city." She hones her voice into a blade, and its familiarity is oddly comforting, like a friend returning home from war. "He told me that it was my job to fix it. To make Jack honor his vows." There's no trace of regret when she adds, "I was too busy for that."
A memory surfaces, one of the few times Andy crossed Sharon's path around that time. She'd been in the booking room at the jail, dragging one cuffed dirtbag in each hand, looking small and fierce between them. "Too busy collaring crack slingers in Central."
"I was." There's a note of pride in her voice. She takes a sip of tea, hiding her smile within the mug. She loses herself in thought for a moment before saying, "I'd like to think I would have had the strength to send Jack on his way. But that became a moot point." She doesn't have to explain that part. "Once he left, it was over. I had no second thoughts on that. I just didn't tell anyone else that I knew it was over."
"Well that's your prerogative, right? It wouldn't have made your life any easier at the time, by the sounds of it."
"Yes, well, I had other motivations." Her expression twists into something else. "I hate losing." The words are tinted with a touch of confession.
Rather than question her comparison of divorce to losing, Andy focuses on the obvious. "I've caught on to that."
"And I hate admitting that I've lost."
"Yeah, I've noticed that too."
This leads her into her next point with a smile. "So I wasn't interested in admitting to my parents, my aunt," she twirls her fingers, "whomever else, that 25-year-old me, who was so certain on what she was doing, had…" she trails off, searching for the right description among the paper lanterns overhead. She finds it with a wry quirk of her lips as she meets his eyes again. "Screwed up so royally."
He frowns. "You didn't screw up, though."
Her answer is immediate. "I guess that depends on who you ask." Before he can argue the point, she continues, "Everything ended up fine. Good, even. My kids are raised and well-adjusted, at least as far as I know. I've advanced through my career, I recovered my finances. I have nothing to complain about."
Andy can't dispute that Sharon is a great cop (as much as he hated to admit it, before) and, from all evidence, an excellent mother. But to say she doesn't have anything to complain about is to paper over something dark, some hellbent force that ripped her careful plans off the rails. He can't quite define the gloom surrounding it. It's fatalistic, somewhat self-punishing, unlike everything else he knows of her. It makes his chest burn.
"Anyway," Sharon draws out the word as she gestures to flag down the waitress. "Eventually the guilt faded and I stopped caring what anyone else thought. I arranged the separation once everyone had already accepted the idea. Avoiding a divorce came down to complacency and distraction." She twists her hand into a palm-up position, flourishing her final point."And that's my not-good reason."
When the waitress stops at their table, Sharon asks for the check. Andy figures that means she's ready to drop the topic, but she adds, "It's been easier to keep the status quo. I haven't had to deal with it, so I haven't."
"Except now Jack's here in Los Angeles again." Only after he says it does Andy catch the insensitivity in the comment. If she doesn't want to deal with it, she doesn't have to deal with it, even if the jerk is sharing a city with her again.
But Sharon nods, her mouth fixed in a firm line, then says, "Yes he is. And I get the feeling that he might try to force my hand."
Having already taken several risks, Andy has to slam on the breaks before he says, Maybe that's a good thing . The sentiment is so far beyond his business, it might as well be in Japan. He keeps quiet and reaches for the check when the waitress returns, but Sharon deflects his hand with a smile.
"Uh-uh. My turn."
Her preoccupation with the bill leaves Andy to mull over her story, the time and place in which it happened. Back then, he and Jack ran in the same shitty, toxic circles. They were never friends, but were familiar enough to exchange rounds at the bar. They were close enough, proximity-wise, to take part in several of the same good-ol-boy grouse sessions that stretched out for hours at a time; grown men sitting around bitching about their bills, their cases, their sergeants, their wives.
Andy has probably heard the other side of this story, warped to fit certain images, smoothed by tumblers of Crown, and undoubtedly forgotten by the following morning. Had he even listened, then? Would he have known or cared to notice the havoc being wreaked on the other side of the coin?
The answer is no, of course. That would have required a certain level of self-awareness, of recognizing pain being inflicted, that Andy didn't have at that point.
"I had no idea it was so bad. I mean, back then." He trusts Sharon to know what he means, even if he can't quite spell it out.
She looks up, eyebrow peaked. "Of course not."
From some far-off place, a rush of guilt courses through him. It must show, because her tone softens. "No, that's not a slight on you, Andy." She busies herself with counting out bills as she says, "If there's one thing Jack excels at, it's concealment. He hides his problems, he hides his anger, he hides his resentment."
"He hides himself. Physically, I mean.."
Sharon's response is, once again, carefully nonchalant. "When things get bad enough, yes."
Andy lets his resentment of the entire situation burn at the edges of his answer, being the typical contrast to her cool acceptance. "That's bullshit."
She holds his stare for a long moment before saying, "Yes. It is."
This reassures him, for a reason that he doesn't want to spend much time unpacking. If nothing else, Sharon is on top of the situation. She's gonna handle it her way, but it'll be handled.
Still, he's reminded of the phone call when she leans down to get her bag. Their conversation in the interim has emboldened him to clear up an earlier offer. "I'm serious about what I said before." At her questioning look, he clarifies, "If he threatens you, I mean."
"That isn't going to be a problem-"
"But if it is."
Sharon stands, crosses her arms, and says, "I'm armed and he's not stupid."
"I would disagree on the second point." And he would, vehemently, for all of the reasons she just finished discussing. But rather than go down that road, Andy says, "I'm just saying you can call me, anytime, if you need backup."
Her eyes drop to the floor as a smile, a real one, lights up her face. "Okay," she looks up again, and he feels himself returning her expression. "You might come to regret that offer, though," she says, mischievous, as she turns to leave.
"I doubt it."
He isn't sure, at first, whether she's heard him. But then she pauses and turns back to him, with a soft laugh. "Good night, Andy."
