A/N: Guys, the site is further impairing my already derailed update plans ;). This chapter would've been up last night had it not been for the dreaded '503 Server Unavailable' error!

Alright so clearly I'm not going to get to finish posting this story by tomorrow night (OMG TOMORROW NIGHT!), and so my apologies for my false advertising! I did think I could do it, but turns out this story is now 50,000+ words, and more than half of it was written after I thought the story was done. Which just shows what I know! (that is, nothing!). BUT, this is the chapter where we - via Rusty - meet most of Sharon's family, and so I am calling it a partial victory since that was technically the prompt (sigh, I take my wins where I can get them :P)... and I will post the remaining chapters in the afterglow of our lovely show's return ;). (unless they take Rusty away from Sharon in which case I will be crying in a corner for possibly the remainder of the year).

Thanks everyone for your kind reviews for last chapter!

No Such Thing as a Perfect Family (13)

Rusty was beginning to lose track of names.

He'd already lost track of places, almost as soon as he and Sharon's daughter had left the departure gate where they'd first met up. She took him through seemingly endless airport corridors and doors that said 'no entrance', between large conveyor belts and wire storage boxes, until she found someone who found someone who drove them, in an awkward airport cart, up to an out-of-the-way auxiliary field. There they'd caught a ride on a small plane that had jolted them enough to make Rusty thankful he'd skipped breakfast, and through the tiny window he'd seen the city from above, he'd seen large boulevards looking flat and narrow, and stretches of concrete and sand, and the ocean and patches of green and brown he couldn't recognize, until he'd decided the sights weren't worth the queasiness, and looked away.

Then there had been another small field where the plane had landed, and when Rusty stepped out it had been so much colder than expected, and there were woody hills around already turning gold and red, and pine trees and goosebumps on his arms, and he'd realized they were definitely not in Kansas anymore.

A 'neighbor' picked them up, an older man who'd looked about a hundred to Rusty, although he was probably just around the age of Sharon's parents, and he drove slowly and spoke slowly and didn't require any conversation from Rusty, which was a huge relief, and the boy lost track of the roads they drove on, forests on both sides with flashes of large houses peeking through the trees every here and there.

He remembered their driver, whom Katie had introduced as 'Mr. Martin', but soon he lost track of other faces, because there were so many. There was the plump, middle-aged woman with black-and-silver hair who'd greeted them when they pulled up in front of the house, and she was somehow related to another neighbor and was helping with the preparations. The man strolling self-importantly across the front porch who'd introduced himself as Father Jameson and given Katie's outfit a critical look that for some reason had made Rusty mad, even though he'd looked at her the same way himself only hours before. The elderly couple who'd left the house just as the two of them were walking up the steps, and the man had patted Katie's head and the woman had tears in her eyes, and they were both neighbors too, apparently, the Reids. And there was another priest and a lawyer and soon it felt as though Rusty had met a dozen people, yet none who were actually related to Sharon.

It was all completely disorienting.

"It's a circus up here," Katie murmured when they'd finally made it past the front door and foyer, and Rusty couldn't disagree.

Once they ventured further in, the house was quieter, though. Quieter and far more imposing than it had looked from the outside (though it had looked plenty imposing from the outside, too), because the lights were dimmed and there wasn't that much sun coming in through the windows, and all the doors were closed, and the faint smell of incense and the vague whispers bouncing off the rich wooden wall panels just gave everything a somber air.

It was a house where someone had just died, and it felt like it.

"Kat," came a low voice, and a woman appeared from one of the little side hallways that ended by the majestic wooden staircase in the lobby.

And Sharon's daughter gave her a hug, and they made a few comforting noises to each other, then Katie turned to introduce Rusty. Her mood had grown subdued after getting to the house, and he couldn't blame her.

"This is our cousin Julianne," she said simply, and Julianne gave him a hug too, which made Rusty feel a little awkward because she looked almost his mom's age, plus he really hoped all of Sharon's family wasn't that huggy because he didn't think he could take that.

"Call me Julie," she told him, and she sounded nice enough. 'Julie' had straight copper hair and freckles and pale blue eyes, and he felt pretty confident he'd be able to remember her, although the rest of the faces were blending together already.

The cousins had talked for about a minute, Julie filling in Katie on how things were going, though the story was hard for Rusty to follow as it was peppered with names and references he didn't get. Then upon meaning to go upstairs and get settled, Katie had realized that she'd left her small suitcase in Mr. Martin's car, and had rushed back outside to catch him before he left, and Rusty had followed her because what else was he supposed to do?

A white van had taken up most of the gravel road leading up to the house, and a couple of florists were transporting some wreaths across the yard; trying to maneuver around their van, Mr. Martin nearly backed his car right into them, causing them to jump out of the way with startled yelps. Katie ran over to the car before more damage could be done.

" – expect you to do your job properly!" Rusty jumped as an angry voice boomed not too far away, and he noticed two men involved in some sort of argument slightly further down the road, where a hearse had pulled up right behind the florists' van. "This is unacceptable incompetence!"

The man shouting had his back to him, so all Rusty could notice was that he was tall, broad-shouldered, with rich white hair and wearing a black coat… which frankly seemed like a great idea since Rusty's arms felt about ready to fall off in his flimsy T-shirt – where was it that cold in September, anyway?!

The other man was young, lanky and looked contrary: "Our records say the order was for today at 3 p.m., and –"

"I personally called and rescheduled for tomorrow, so your records are wrong," the white-haired man cut him off. "So fix them, and I need this access road cleared in the next five minutes!"

"Listen, sir, it's not that easy, we're fully booked and if your order was for today, I have an obligation to –"

"Your only obligation," the other man growled, "is to stop wasting my time with this and do your job right. You'll confirm with your company and fix the records and get me this hearse when I need it, do you understand?"

Rusty cringed; he didn't know who the angry man was, but he certainly didn't wish to be in the hearse driver's shoes. Stunningly, the young man tried to argue one more time, but following another irate reprimand ("–leave now and come back tomorrow as scheduled, is. that. clear!") he skulked off, properly intimidated. Rusty instinctively took a step back when the white-haired man turned, and another as he noticed the scowl on the man's face, and the way his jaw was clenched beneath his thick mustache. He found it safer to retreat near Katie and Mr. Martin's car, even if the elderly neighbor was likely to accidentally run him over.

"Sorry again, Mr. Martin," Katie apologized quietly as she pulled out her small luggage from the trunk, "here, let me guide you out around the van…"

"There's not enough room, wait until they're gone." To Rusty's alarm, the white-haired man had turned his attention to them, then he scowled at the florists who immediately began to move faster.

He surveyed Katie and Rusty with a stern gaze as he approached the car, his eyes lingering far longer on the boy, until Rusty began to find it uncomfortable and crossed his arms and frowned back warily. He did not like it when people looked at him like that.

The man walked around to the driver-side door of the car. "Thank you for picking them up, Mr. Martin."

"No bother," the old neighbor said affably, "Annie and I weren't going to do anything else today but try to help out… Just let me know if there's anything else you need, you seem to have your hands full here…."

The man's lips thinned in an expression of displeased agreement, but he didn't make a reply.

"Well, it is unusual to move back a funeral at the last minute this way," the priest, whose name Rusty had already forgotten, had strolled over from the front porch, "especially to a Friday. There are bound to be… inconveniences." His tone managed to be disapproving despite the innocuous words.

Katie's eyes moved silently to meet the white-haired man's with a questioning expression, as though she were waiting for his reaction before showing her own.

"We appreciate how accommodating you've been, Father," the man said briefly, "despite the… unexpected circumstances".

Rusty's shoulders tensed instinctively.

"Oh, not at all, not at all," the priest – Father Jameson, Rusty remembered suddenly –waved a dismissive hand. "It is our God-given duty to go to the greatest efforts to provide for the soul of every faithful departed..."

Katie let out an audible sigh, inadvertently drawing the attention of the white-haired man again, and he gave her another once-over. "Change into something else," he told her quietly, then his forbidding gaze swept over Rusty again, and the boy tensed further, but luckily the man made no remark. "Find me if there's anything more you need," he told Katie, and he marched off.

"That was Uncle Paul," Sharon's daughter said a moment later, when they were alone again, and Rusty sighed.

"Yeah, I figured." The retired Air Force General. The one who'd gotten them their plane and moved the funeral, and who was obviously not happy to have had to go to all the extra effort. And if he was so curt with Katie, who was his niece and had zero fault in anything, Rusty couldn't even imagine how the man felt about him.

On the bright side, at least not everyone in Sharon's family was going to give him uncomfortable hugs.

"It's the one right at the end of the hall." Katie was keeping her voice lower, now that they were back inside the house; she'd taken him upstairs, and they were walking down a hallway with a couple of doors on each side. "You can share with Ricky, I guess, there's an extra bed in here… Mom and I will share her old room."

Rusty froze. "What...?"

Sharing a room with a stranger, at night, even Sharon's son, even if they had already met, and spent a few hours together, and okay they were technically partners in crime in the eyes of the law … even so, he was definitely not comfortable with that plan.

"What?" Katie looked back from the bedroom doorway with a slightly confused expression. "Oh… er…"

Rusty could tell she wasn't quite sure what to make of his reaction, and he wanted, he really wanted to tell her 'never mind' and move on, but the words wouldn't dislodge from his throat because the very thought of falling asleep in a closed room with some man he barely knew was making the hairs on his neck stand on end.

Katie's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Well, Aunt Steffi is sharing her old room with Julie, and Uncle Peter's in the guest bedroom… I guess we could find an air mattress and put it in grandpa's office… or… Ricky can stay at Uncle Paul's…"

"No!" Rusty was horrified at the prospect of making one of Sharon's kids have to go elsewhere, not after everything else. "It's fine. No problem. This room's great, perfect, no worries."

He didn't care if he had to stay awake for three nights. He could do that. They had coffee in Minnesota, didn't they?

"Listen, Rusty," Katie had said after settling him in, having dropped a pile of sheets and blankets on the twin bed and gotten him an oversized jacket from a closet (it really was very cold) and shown him the bathroom down the hall. "This might get a little…crowded. Everyone loved grandpa and… Mom loved him a lot… and… it's just going to be a little… well, hard. For everyone." She'd been perched at the end of the bed and giving him that understanding, Sharon-like look, and he'd stuck his hands in his pockets and listened, even though he could've stopped her any time because he knew exactly what she was getting at. "So just… let Ricky or me know if you need anything, okay?"

'And otherwise, stay out of the way', was the unspoken end to that, and Rusty got it and he didn't mind at all because really the last thing he wanted was to be wandering around a house full of strangers.

Not to mention that the house itself was a labyrinth, too. Maybe it had been fine and appropriately sized when they had three kids and two grandparents living there, but Rusty wasn't sure how Sharon's parents could have managed it by themselves as an elderly couple, or why they'd wanted to... The upstairs floor was fairly easy to navigate, because it split into two hallways, one on either side of the large staircase, and as far as he could tell each hallway had a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom (he was having a little trouble keeping it straight which bedroom he was supposed to be in, but it didn't seem too confusing). There may also have been some closets and a terrace of some sort, although he wasn't too sure which doors were which.

The downstairs, however, really was a complete maze. There was a foyer and a lobby and a parlor (some of those may have been the same but Rusty didn't know for sure), and an open living room area which was connected to a dining room, and there was a kitchen connected to that somehow. And then there were the two hallways which were kind of parallel to the upstairs ones only not really, and there was an office somewhere that had belonged to Sharon's dad, and then there was a bathroom or two, and a door that led to the basement and then there was a door that Katie had warned him away from, just to the left side of the staircase.

"That's where grandpa is," she'd said quietly, and Rusty had etched that one in his memory because he definitely didn't want to end up in there by accident.

In short, he had firmly decided not to open any closed doors in the entire house, because he had no idea what was what.

Katie had shown him to the kitchenette at the far end of the house (which despite being a perfectly reasonable size and equipped with fridge, sink, table and counters, apparently wasn't the same as the kitchen), and they'd scavenged some ingredients from the fridge and shared a quick snack. Then she'd taken him back upstairs, and he'd been very grateful because he definitely wouldn't have been able to retrace the path without a map and a compass.

And then she'd diplomatically asked him to keep out of their hair, and she'd gone downstairs to help whichever way she could, and he'd been more than happy to follow her advice and hole up in the bedroom, close the door and try to process everything, because his head was fairly spinning.

That he was feeling out of his element would have been an understatement.

That he was feeling as though someone had yanked him out of bed in the middle of the night and dropped him from a helicopter in the middle of ocean would have also been an understatement.

He was so far out of his comfort zone, that he couldn't even see his comfort zone from here. It was in a different galaxy. A long, long time ago.

Basically, he was flipping out.

Those woods he'd seen on the drive up seemed like a pretty great place to be right about now.

Rusty groaned, and for the fiftieth time after arriving at the house, silently wished for Sharon to be there. And for the fiftieth time he immediately delivered himself a swift mental kick, because even when she did get there, he knew she wasn't coming to make him comfortable.

But even just knowing that she was somewhere in the house would've helped.

With the afternoon stretching on endlessly, and his heart rate refusing to go below one-fifty, Rusty found himself taking a mental inventory of whom he'd met so far in Sharon's family, as a way to keep his mind busy… and to make sure that, should he have to ever face them again (he was hoping not), he'd at least get most of their names straight.

He'd probably gotten her kids down right, and he was pretty sure it was just those two and after a night spent scheming with Ricky and the shakiest (and so far, only) flight of his life with Katie he was pretty sure he wasn't going to forget either of them anytime soon.

Cousin Julia – Julianne – Julie was the one with all the hugging and she was very nice and all, but he was going to aim to stay at least a couple of arms' lengths away. She was the daughter of Sharon's sister Stephanie.

He'd met her, too, when he and Katie were getting their snacks, and frankly between Stephanie and her mother, Rusty was really starting to wonder whether Sharon may have been adopted because there was absolutely zero family resemblance there. Not that it was any of his business, or anything. But seriously.

Stephanie was apparently a couple of years younger? Although she looked a little older than Sharon, but that may have been because she didn't wear make-up or dye her hair … It was grey and cut short, just above her ears, and she was lithe and petite and moved with a feverish, youthful sort of energy that Rusty found a little confusing in someone over the age of fifty. (He imagined Sharon may have had a wry look for him over that particular opinion.)

Her face was a little leathery and tan and it looked like she'd spent a lot of time in the sun in her life, and her eyes were icy blue, nothing like Sharon's. But she kept a casually friendly tone when she spoke to him and Katie, and beyond a couple of curious looks didn't pay all that much attention to him at all, so she was fine in his book.

Not so fine was 'Uncle Paul', the ex-General, whom Rusty had yet to see without the scowl on his face; from the bedroom window he could occasionally hear the man's terse comments as he directed various things and people around. He did not sound pleased, and he was harsh with his orders and abrupt in his gestures and he'd even snapped at his sister when Stephanie had interfered with some logistic arrangements by moving a driveway sign about three feet to the left. Which had apparently been a terrible thing to do in Paul's eyes, and even though she hadn't seemed to find his bark that scary and had only rolled her eyes and protested vocally, Rusty had made an extra mental note to stay out of the man's way.

There had been mentions of other people, Uncle Peter and Uncle Marcus and someone named Jamie and an Aunt Mary-Anne who may have possibly been Paul's wife (Rusty felt bad for her already), but he hadn't met any of them and that was really fine with him.

And then there was Sharon's mom…

Sharon's mom was scary.

Rusty hadn't met her. But he'd seen her, coming out of the room just when he'd finished going up the staircase, and she was old and frail and small but there was a slightly creepy air about her, although maybe it was just the fact that she was surrounded so heavily by the sense of death, with her all-black outfit and flanked by two equally grim-looking older ladies. She'd been silent, and moved slowly, and he'd quickly retreated down the hallway after Katie, because honestly he'd been pretty terrified of having to face her.

The sight of her and her companions had reminded him again why the house was so sinister, and everyone was wearing black and they'd all speak in grave whispers and somberly drift around the barely-lit corridors, and he just couldn't imagine Sharon in that context. He didn't even want to… it was stupid, he knew, but he was genuinely worried about what she'd be like and would she still be her, or would she be as scary as the rest of them and…

… this had all seemed a lot less frightening from a distance, but here, in the reality of it, it was all terribly sobering and Rusty was almost as afraid of what would happen when Sharon got here as he was of being here alone.

Ricky arrived shortly after five, and he dropped by the room to drop off the same duffel bag he'd had at Sharon's apartment, and he said hello and couldn't help gloating a little about the success of their plan, although his mood, too, was much more subdued.

He did ask Rusty if he was okay, and reiterated Katie's offer to let either of them know if he needed anything, and he also reiterated her subtle encouragement to try to stay out of the way, only in Ricky's case it was less subtle and more awkward. And totally unnecessary anyway, because Rusty had no intentions of coming out of the room at all, even he had to starve to death.

Which he may have hinted at to Ricky, at which point Sharon's son had looked a little concerned and assured him that he should definitely not take it quite that far. Not least of all because their mom was likely to be displeased at that turn of events, and that of course had set Rusty worrying all over again about what would happen when Sharon got there, and what she'd be like and how he should act, and at some point Ricky had just decided to let him stew in peace and left the room with the promise of coming back to get him for dinner.

Rusty told him not to worry about it.

He lay down on the bed, on that foreign bed in that foreign room in a state thousands of miles away, and couldn't quite believe he'd made it there, after all. And though he was terrified in so many, many ways, there was a small part of him that breathed easy knowing that at the very least, Emma and her schemes and the whole letters nightmare were too far away to reach him. In that small bedroom in a mansion in the woods in Minnesota, surrounded by strangers, in that small way, for a little while, he was safe.

He heard a car pull up on the gravelly road a little after seven and he knew it was her.

A weird sort of anxiety quelled in his stomach, and he couldn't keep himself away from the window, although it felt a little wrong to be creepily peeking out like that.

The car that had pulled up looked like an airport rental, but he couldn't see who was in it, although it was a man's hands on the wheel, but that didn't mean anything because anyone could've picked her up or she could've hired a driver or …

And then the passenger side door opened and even in the dimming evening light he recognized her before she'd even fully stepped out, by the way her hand gripped the top of the door and how her body moved, and again that pang of something went through Rusty's stomach, and he felt both incredibly relieved and incredibly anxious at the same time. It was all very unsettling.

Sharon hesitated a second too long before letting go of the door, and he could tell from her movements that she was still exhausted, because of course the last three days hadn't just been magically erased. But at least she was here, and she'd be able to be with her family, and say goodbye to her father, and he had to hope that would least help a little bit.

A large dog bounded up to her out of the blue and let out a single loud bark, and she backed heavily into the side of the car, startled, and he suddenly felt unaccountably angry at that stupid dog, and its stupid owner who hadn't locked him up or something. A woman he hadn't met yet showed up a second later, yelled "Pilot, no!" and scolded the dog and dragged him away, knocking over two temporary driveway signs in the process and apologizing with wide gestures to Sharon, who just waved a reassuring hand.

Then Julie rounded the corner from behind the house and saw Sharon and hurried up to her, and (of course) gave her a long hug, which in Rusty's opinion lasted a little too long, because how was Julie not noticing that it was freezing out and Sharon was only wearing one of her flimsy suit jackets! And unbelievably, even after she let go and Sharon's arms automatically crossed and she started absently rubbing her forearms with her hands, Julie still kept talking. The house was right there, a dozen yards away!

He was seriously debating whether it may not have been worth it to venture outside (assuming he'd manage to find the front door) and personally suggest moving the conversation to a place where Sharon maybe wouldn't freeze to death, when he noticed something even more alarming in the form of 'Uncle Paul' marching up from the end of the gravel road – and why, why had Julie picked this moment to randomly take off in another direction?

Sharon half turned, presumably having heard her brother approach, and Rusty couldn't see her face but suddenly Paul adopted the same dark scowl from earlier, which should've really been no surprise; he stared at her and she just stood there, arms wrapped tight around herself as the chilly wind blew her hair back, and somewhere deep inside Rusty was still hoping that the man would just suddenly smile and be nice and give her a hug and it would all be well.

He didn't.

But so quickly that Rusty didn't even see it happen he took off his coat, and as he draped it around Sharon's shoulders like a blanket and pulled it tight against her, Rusty could tell that she let her body move forward with his motion until her head was resting against his cheek, and they only stayed like that for a few seconds, but it was enough. Paul yanked the edges of the coat again to make it even tighter against the wind, and Sharon stepped back slightly to keep her balance, and when she looked up at her brother, just like that, Rusty saw the man's scowl in a whole new light.

Then she turned toward the driver of the car, and for the first time so did Rusty's attention, and the boy's jaw dropped when he recognized Lieutenant Flynn. He had to check again to make sure, but yes, there he was in the flesh, and Rusty didn't even care how or why, because there was another familiar face and that was definitely A Good Thing.

Sharon's brother led her around the car and the two men shook hands and then Paul waved his hands in a way that Rusty was pretty sure was meant to be directing Lt. Flynn where to park, and sure enough the Lieutenant got back in the car and slowly drove in the indicated direction, and finally, finally Sharon and her brother walked up the steps and went inside the house.

A/N: Next chapter we'll be seeing Sharon interact with other family members, most notably her daughter and her mother, and we'll follow her and Rusty through most of Friday's events.

Also, OMG we are literally less than 24 hours away from the mid-season premiere and I'm not sure my heart can take it anymore.

Thank you for reading, and you know I love your reviews more than Emma loves winning her cases ;)