DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters, except for Matthew and Moxie. The rest of them belong to James Duff and the Major Crimes franchise

Chapter 6

Sharon returned to Andy's room to see that he was still asleep. She sighed as she sat down on the chair next to him. She returned her hand to his and held it. She had leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes for what she thought was a couple of seconds. The next thing she knew, she felt someone caressing her hand and as she woke up, she saw Andy's eyes looking back at her.

"Hi" he whispered to her. "Hi" she said to him as she shifted forward in her chair. She smiled at him and he smiled back, this time with no pain showing on his face. "How long have you been awake?" she asked Andy as she leaned forward, moving closer to him. "An hour I think?" he answered her as he looked into her eyes. He could tell she had not been sleeping well since they had returned from their trip to Arizona.

"Why didn't you wake me?" Sharon said to Andy as she glanced at the clock in his room. It was now close to ten at night. "You looked peaceful, I didn't have the heart to wake you" he said to her and she giggled. "Hmm. How are you feeling?" Sharon said to him. "I'm still here" he said to her as took her hand and brought it up to his lips. She smiled at the gesture. She then looked up at the IV pole and noticed that the blood bag was no longer hanging and Andy's color was returning to normal. She caressed his face and leaned closer to him. "I've missed you" she said to him as she kissed his lips.

"I made a promise to you" he said to her as they looked at each other. She smiled. "You need to stop being in the hospital" she laughed as they continued to hold each other's hand. "I'm beginning to think you like it when you have to take care of me, always wanting me in bed" Andy said to her. "Hmm, in bed, yes, but not a hospital bed, hooked up to IVs and such" she said to him as she leaned forward to kiss him again.

Just then a nurse walked into his room. He checked Andy's vitals and wrote them down in his chart. "How are you feeling, Lieutenant?" the nurse asked him. "Um, I feel a little better. I'm kind of hungry" Andy said to the nurse. "Well, that's a good sign. I'm not sure what we can get you this late at night, but I will see what we can do" the nurse said to him and then he left.

Sharon looked back at Andy after watching the nurse leave the room. "Matthew stopped by to see you, but you were still sleeping" Sharon said to him. "How's he doing?" he asked her. "Um, I heard that he had a problem the first couple of minutes Rusty brought him, but Nicole was able to calm him down and when I went back to the waiting area, he was okay" Sharon told him and Andy took a deep breath and sighed. "Poor kid, he was probably scared" Andy said to her and she nodded. "I spoke to him and told him that you were going to be okay. He wanted to see you so I brought him in here for a couple of minutes" she said to him as she played around with his bracelet that she was wearing on her wrist.

"Where's he now, with Nicole?" Andy asked her as she was looking down at the bracelet. "Patrice and Provenza offered to take him home and stay with him there" Sharon said to him as she looked back up at his face, tears starting to form in her eyes again.

He looked at her and tugged on her hand to get her to move closer to him. "Come here" he said to her as she moved forward to sit on the bed with him. "I don't want to hurt you" Sharon said to him as she carefully sat down on his bed. "You're not going to, trust me" Andy said to her as he brought her down to him. She placed her hands carefully on both sides of his bed and she laid her head on his chest as he wanted her to.

"Let it out, sweetheart" he whispered to her and she started to cry. He wasn't feeling any pain at the moment so he focused on holding Sharon close to him as possible. "I thought I was going to lose you" she said to him in between the tears falling down her face on onto his sheets. "Shhh, I'm right here. You can't get rid of me that easily, haven't you learned that over the last seven months" Andy said to her as he held onto her.

Just then there was a knock on his door and another nurse came in holding a tray. Sharon sat up quickly and wiped the tears from her face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything but David mentioned that you were feeling a bit hungry. We spoke to the doctor and she said we could start to give you some liquids and soft solids" the nurse said to Andy as she sat the tray down on his tray table by the bed.

"Thank you" Sharon said to the nurse as she left the room. Andy looked at his tray with a disgusted look on his face. "Ugh, green Jell-O again?" he said, trying to not complain. He also had some chicken broth in a bowl. "Looks delicious Andy" Sharon said trying to encourage him to eat. "Do you want some?" he asked her. "No, you need to eat. I'll be fine" she said to him as she watched him take tiny sips of the broth.

Andy then ate the Jell-O and after he was done, Sharon placed the tray over to the side of his bed and sat down next to him. She needed to be as close as she could to him, without hurting him. Andy watched Sharon as she fidgeted with his hospital gown. "Do you want to see the incisions?" Andy asked her with a lopsided grin on his face. "No" she whispered to him and then glanced at the clock. "You should get some rest, Andy. I'm going to sit on the chair" Sharon said to him as she got up from his bed side and moved the chair closer to his bed.

"I'm going to step outside first and see how things are at home with Matthew, is that okay?" Sharon said to Andy as he watched her walk around his room. "Yes, I'm not going anywhere, for a while at least" Andy said to her and smiled. She smiled back and stepped out of his room. Andy let out a sigh as he watched her walk away. He was feeling pretty good for getting shot twice. He's been shot before when he started out on the job and a couple of years later. This time it felt different. Maybe because he was with Sharon now. He wanted to make sure that he would still be awake when Sharon came back. He thought he would turn on the TV, that should keep him awake until she came back to him. He sat back and flipped through the channels.

Sharon stepped outside and dialed Provenza's number. It rang a couple of times before he answered it. "Captain, is everything okay?" he said as he answered it. "Yes, he's awake and had some Jell-O and broth to eat a couple of minutes ago" Sharon said to him as she took a breath. "I just wanted to know how Matthew was doing" she asked him. "He's fine, just finishing up his homework and Patrice was going over it with him" Provenza said to her. "Okay, good" she said as she stopped pacing outside by the ER door.

"We got this end, Sharon. You just concentrate on taking care of Flynn" Provenza said to her and she smiled. "Thank you Lieutenant" Sharon said but before she hung up she asked him for one more favor. A few seconds later, Matthew was on the phone. "Good night sweetie" she said to him. "Good night Mommy" Matthew said back to her and then she hung up her phone.

Sharon then made her way back upstairs to the Surgery ICU floor and found her way to Andy's room. When she walked inside, she noticed that the TV was turned on, but the volume was on low. She looked at Andy and he was sleeping again. She smiled and then made her way around his bed to the chair that she had pulled up.

The chair was a recliner, so as soon as Sharon sat in it, she moved the feet up so that she could be more comfortable. She then grabbed Andy's left hand and held it in hers. She looked up at the TV to see what Andy was possibly watching while he waited for her to come back. It was some crime show and there was a police chase occurring. Sharon shook her head. 'As if we don't get enough of this in real life' she thought to herself as she changed the channel to another station. "Hey, I was watching that" Andy muttered to her in a low voice.

Sharon looked at him and smiled. "You were sleeping, honey. How could you be watching that?" she said to him as she turned the channel back on to the police chase. "There's this really hot police captain on the show, but not as hot as you, sweetheart" Andy said half-awake as he watched the TV. He smiled at her with a lop sided grin again.

"Hmm, her lieutenant seems to be intriguing as well" Sharon said as she watched this show with him. "But he's not a sexy or as smart as you are" she added as she leaned in and kissed him on his cheek. She sat back down and they watched the rest of the show. Andy fell asleep again and Sharon turned the TV off, and settled back in the recliner chair for the night, holding Andy's hand in hers.

A nurse came in after midnight to check on Andy's vitals as he was sleeping. Sharon heard a rustling noise and opened her eyes to see the nurse in the room. "Sorry to wake you honey, but I need to check your husband's vitals" the nurse said to Sharon as she shifted in her chair. "Oh, no problem" Sharon said to her as she blinked a couple of times to get the sleep out of her eyes.

"He's doing really good, honey. He might be moved to a regular room later on in the morning. We'll see what the doctor says when she makes her rounds later this morning" the nurse told Sharon as she moved around the room and then left leaving Sharon and Andy alone together.

Sharon glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was closer to 2 o'clock in the morning. She was still holding Andy's hand in hers and it felt like it was getting back the warmth unlike when she first touched his hand yesterday. She watched him sleep and questions started to flood her mind. 'Why would someone like Travis Martin do something like murder his investor and then start shooting at the police' she thought. She shook her head and continued to watch him.

Meanwhile, across town at the Flynn house, Matthew woke up and got out of his bed. He walked over to Sharon and Andy's bedroom but forgot that they weren't there. He then walked over to the guest room and knocked on the door.

A minute later, the door opened to reveal Provenza standing there in a sweatshirt and a pair of sleep pants as he stared at Matthew. "Matthew, what's the matter?" he asked Matthew. "I can't sleep" Matthew said to him. Provenza turned to look at Patrice, who was still sleeping and then walked out into the hallway with Matthew.

"Oh, well did you try reading a book?" Provenza asked him. Matthew nodded his head. Provenza sighed. "Come on" Provenza said as he started to walk back to Matthew's room. He noticed Moxie was still sleeping on Matthew's bed. Matthew climbed back on his bed and handed a book to Provenza. "Can you read this one?" he asked as Provenza took it from him. "Huh, Batman" Provenza muttered to himself and then went to go sit down on the chair in Matthew's room. He then began to read Matthew the story.

Patrice woke up two hours later and didn't see Provenza in the room with her. She thought she would go search for him, maybe Matthew had a problem during the night. Patrice walked out of the guest room wearing her robe over her pajama top and pants. She made her way over to Matthew's room as she saw a light coming from the door crack. She slowly opened the door and the sight before her eyes melted her heart.

"Oh Louie" she said to herself as she saw Provenza sitting on the chair in Matthew's room, sleeping and snoring softly. He still was holding a book in his lap. She then looked over at Matthew who was sleeping with his head at the foot of the bed, as if he was listening to Provenza read him the story. She hated to wake him up but he would be even grumpier if she didn't and he got a stiff neck from sleeping upright in that chair.

She walked over to him and gently shook his shoulder. "Louie, Louie" she called his name softly. Provenza woke up. "What? What?" he said still sleeping as he opened his eyes and saw Patrice standing over him. "Oh, yeah, the kid came into our room last night, he couldn't sleep so I read him one of his Batman stories" Provenza started to tell Patrice as she ran her hand on his shoulder.

"I guess I must have fell asleep in here too" he said to her as he looked over at Matthew who was still sleeping. "Come on" Patrice said to him as she tugged on his hand. Provenza stood up from the chair and followed Patrice out of Matthew's room. "What time is it?" he asked her when they got into the hallway. "A little after 4 in the morning" Patrice said as they made their way back to the guest room where they were staying. Patrice had brought Matthew home from being at the hospital last night, while Provenza went back to their house and packed an overnight bag for them so that they would have some clothes with them while they spent the night at Sharon and Andy's house.

Provenza laid back down on the bed and Patrice laid next to him. "You're such a softie, Louie" she said to him. "Yeah, well don't go telling people that, especially Flynn, otherwise, I'll never hear the end of it" Provenza said to Patrice as they both went back to bed.

Sharon must have fell back asleep because the next thing she knew it was 6 o'clock in the morning and Andy was looking at her again. She smiled at him as she moved her stiff body up on the chair. "You're absolutely beautiful when you sleep, do you know that?" Andy said to her as she woke up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Sharon blushed at Andy's comment and moved closer to him as she sat up.

"Good morning" she said to him and kissed him on his lips. "Morning" he said to her as they broke apart. She caressed his face and ran her left hand through his hair. "How are you feeling?" she asked him as she looked at his face. "There's a little pain, but it's manageable" he said to her. "You don't have to be such a tough guy all the time, you know that?" Sharon said to him just as one of the nurses came in to check on Andy.

"Good morning Lieutenant! How are you feeling?" the nurse said in a chipper mood. Andy groaned as he tried to move. "I'm better than I was yesterday" he said to the nurse. The nurse checked his vitals and his temperature. The nurse removed the thermometer from Andy's mouth. "Normal temp, that's good" the nurse said as she wrote that down in his chart.

She also checked his blood pressure which was getting back to his normal rate, his pulse was good, and oxygen level was good. "Okay, the doctor should be in shortly to see you, meanwhile I placed an order for your breakfast, it should be coming up soon" the nurse said as she turned around to face Sharon. "I also ordered something small for you as well. You also need to eat" the nurse said to Sharon. "Thank you" Sharon said to the nurse as she left his room.

Sharon then turned around to look at Andy. He was looking back at her. "Why don't you go and get yourself some real food, I'll be fine here" Andy said to her. She walked back over to him and sat down on the side of his bed. "I'm not going to miss the doctor when she comes to visit you. Besides, the nurse ordered me a little something as well" Sharon said as she stroked his chin. He gave her a small smile. He knew that he'd put her through hell with everything that has happened over the last year or so. "And, Patrice is going to stop by here this morning to see how you are" Sharon said to him as she sat there. "I think they should be up by now" Andy said to Sharon as he watched her. Sharon smiled as she fiddled with his hospital gown again. "I'll call them in a little bit" she said to him as she shifted on his bed.

The nurse brought in a tray for Andy. "Okay, here is your breakfast. Looks like you graduated to all solids this time" the nurse said as she dropped off the tray. "Thanks" he muttered to the nurse. "I brought you a bagel and some eggs, dear" the nurse told Sharon as she left. "Thank you" Sharon said as she gave Andy a pointed look. Andy then looked over his food on the tray. Scrambled egg whites, toast, and the infamous green Jell-O again. He then looked over at the food Sharon had. Sharon saw him glance at her and shook her head. He sighed and began to eat his food as Sharon took small bites from her food.

TBC