A/N: Sorry for the two-week delay in posting this chapter! As you can imagine, holiday season is both wonderful and slightly hectic. Hope you all had a merry Christmas (if you celebrate it!) and that you have a happy new year (same!) and generally that you're having a lovely winter month! (unless you're in the southern hemisphere, in which case can I come visit you because i've had enough of shoveling my car out from under snow most mornings :P.)

No Such Thing as a Perfect Family (19)

Rusty had meant to slip in through the front door unnoticed, but he was too flustered to watch where he was going, and he'd misjudged the amount of force needed to open the massive door. His entry into the house was less the discreet affair he'd been hoping for, and more an ungainly blunder.

A few of the guests in the foyer gave him odd sideways glances, which the boy ignored as he tripped over his own feet in a hurry to get to the staircase and retreat upstairs.

The echo of Stephanie's words was on continuous replay in his head.

He couldn't understand the things she'd said, how she could even say something so… he'd been completely thrown, hearing the tail end of her accusations, and she sounded so angry… and he'd never thought someone could ever speak to Sharon that way, the words so vicious, so brutal…

But then… yes, the shock of Stephanie's words had frozen him, but then, what had happened next, that, Rusty understood even less.

He slammed the bedroom door behind him with a pang of relief and went straight to the window, leaning his forehead against the cool glass as he tried to put the awful, awful sound of Sharon's crying out of his mind.

His cheeks burned and his ears buzzed and his hair was in his eyes, and part of him wanted nothing more than to crawl into a dark hole and never come out.

He'd rarely felt so torn before in his life, as he had earlier on the back porch of Sharon's parents' house. Torn between getting closer and getting away, between wanting to offer comfort and wanting to offer privacy. Between feeling outraged and feeling sorry. His emotions had run the gamut: one moment he'd been furious because how could anyone be so callous to Sharon, and the next he'd been stricken, and then he'd been bewildered and then…

He just didn't know what to think.

Rusty didn't know much about siblings. He didn't have any – didn't want any, either, and if, as a child, he'd sometimes wondered what that would be like, those thoughts were quickly snuffed out by the thought that his wasn't a life he would wish on a younger sibling. Even more so once he'd grown up and … well, it was a good thing that his mother had only had one child.

But it also meant just another gaping hole in his understanding of how families worked.

He'd barely given Sharon's relationship with Stephanie a thought, since he'd arrived. They looked nothing alike, and they acted completely opposite from each other, and sure, he knew they were sisters but somehow it hadn't sunk in just what that meant…

The door opened abruptly and Rusty jumped and instinctively scrambled back a few steps, feeling for some reason as though he'd been caught doing something illicit… because it really wasn't any of his business, none of this, but he couldn't help thinking about it, or wanting to know, or caring…

"Oh – uh, hi. Didn't realize you were in here." Ricky gave him a slightly cautious smile. "Have you seen Mom?"

Rusty couldn't stop the blood from rushing to his face, or the way his features dissolved into a grimace. His heart picked up again and there was a knot in his throat and he imagined he must've looked pretty weird, as Sharon's son was giving him a slightly baffled look…

"Uh…no," he managed after a few seconds, because maybe he didn't fully understand the argument or the whole sibling thing but he was pretty sure that Sharon didn't want her son – or anyone – barging in on her and Stephanie right now. His stomach flipped again as he couldn't help thinking about what he'd heard and how did something like that make sense?

Yet in some weird way, it did.

People got angry at each other, they lashed out and said things, awful things, and they hurt each other, and that happened all the time but sometimes…

…sometimes…

…sometimes people could still find each other past the angry words and hurtful shouting. Sometimes maybe it was worth the risk of having someone who knew all your buttons. Sometimes, it seemed, it was possible to get angry and say awful things and still do the right thing in the end. Sharon and Stephanie had, at least, or so Rusty thought. So he hoped. So it had sounded...

It was a long time before he was able to stop thinking about the argument, and before the knot in his stomach relaxed in the least.

Sharon had thought she'd been exhausted before, but this was a whole new level of tired; her body simply had no energy left to even move. Just relocating from the floor to one of the chairs at the table had been nearly too much effort. And through it all, she was distantly aware that the kitchenette wasn't exactly a secluded private island, and anyone could wander in at any time, and still she couldn't entirely regain any amount of composure.

She buried her face tiredly in her arms.

It was as though the awfulness of everything had hit her, again and more forcefully than before. The shielding numbness had been stripped away somehow, too far out of her reach to get it back. Reality was slowly sinking in again, and this time it felt different, though she couldn't tell how. She didn't think she felt better, but there was…something.

At the very least she was glad her sister was there, even though the argument had left them both drained, and this must have been by far the worst fight she'd ever had with Steffi, but even so Sharon was glad. And grateful, for Steffi's presence and the drinks she'd gotten them, and for her good sense to close the door and her willingness to provide a steady supply of tissues…

…actually, now that Sharon thought about it, the tissues felt a little…

…weird.

Her hand clenched around the dry, spongy paper, and she lifted her head from her arms. "Are these Swiffer wipes?"

Her sister shrugged unapologetically. "They were handy. And I didn't know where the actual paper towels were. And hey," she arched her eyebrows, "at least they're the dry kind."

A shaky snort escaped Sharon.

Stephanie managed a small smile of her own, then she let out a tired sigh. "I'm too old for all this, Shar," she murmured. "How bad do you think it'll look if we don't go back in there?"

Sharon's grimace was answer enough, but after a moment she nodded slowly. "You can go upstairs," she offered, "I'll take care –"

Stephanie whacked her over the wrist with the dish towel. "Don't start again."

And Sharon nodded a couple of times in silent acknowledgment.

"I was hoping this would be one of those cases where it's okay to exploit the kids," her sister sighed once more. "You know they could handle everyone just fine."

Another silent assent.

"Did you see them at the service today?" Stephanie continued after a moment, in a softer voice. "They were so on top of everything. I mean, I'm used to Jules being the responsible one," she smiled a little sadly, "but it hit me today that they're really grown-ups now. And Ricky and Katie," she met Sharon's eyes, "they're such good kids. Did you notice Ricky fixing Uncle Peter's cane when the tip loosened on the way to the cemetery? And when he pulled the Martins' car up for them?"

Sharon nodded, a tender smile forming on her own lips.

"And those kids," her sister shook her head, "they worship you." She looked pensive. "You're a good mom, Sharon."

"So are you," Sharon said softly.

Stephanie smiled, and let her head fall back for a second. "I'm a lucky mom..." She chuckled: "My Jules was born a grown-up. I worry sometimes, though…" She sighed, and Sharon patted her hand.

"I know. But she's doing great," offered Sharon. "Julie's such a bright, capable young woman…"

"I know… it's weird, I used to be a lot less worried about her, but in the last couple of years it's just…" Stephanie grimaced. "Am I turning into one of those old nagging mothers with nothing better to do than butt into their daughters' lives?"

Sharon managed a small chuckle. "Probably. But I'm afraid it's a fate hard to avoid."

"I'll make sure to tell her you said that."

They both smiled again, and there was a brief moment of silence, while Stephanie took a sip from her glass and Sharon exhaled slowly, her gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

Then Stephanie put the glass down and titled her head a little curiously. "Speaking of kids…" Her eyebrows arched slightly. "What's the deal with the newest addition? Since when does your police job include babysitting?"

Unexpectedly, Sharon felt her eyes burning again, and she didn't know why, except the question brought back thoughts of everything that was waiting for her and Rusty back home, and how uncertain it all was, and her barriers must've really been down because the tears were welling up before she could stop them.

Her sister grimaced.

"Okay – you know what, never mind. I don't need to hear about it right now. Here, honey… have another Swiffer wipe."

"Sorry, I uh, don't know where Sharon is." Which was kind of true; truer, in any case, than when he'd told Ricky the same thing half an hour before. At this point there was no way to tell for sure whether Sharon was still in the kitchenette or if she might've gone somewhere else.

Either way, Rusty hoped she was alright.

He wished he could've known that for a fact. But he didn't think Sharon wanted company at the moment. And he wouldn't have known what to say to her, anyway.

Although, knowing the right words to say somehow seemed less and less important…

Katie looked disappointed. "I thought she went upstairs with grandma, but grandma's asleep and Mom isn't there or in her room…"

"Maybe she wanted some… privacy," the boy offered, a little surprised to find himself volunteering any opinion. It may have been a first since his arrival at the house.

The young woman didn't seem to notice that, but she did flash him a bleak glance. "Maybe…" She didn't look happy at the prospect of Sharon wanting to be left alone, which Rusty half-understood, because not doing anything was a lot harder sometimes.

That was kind of why he'd ended up in Minnesota in the first place.

He leaned a little awkwardly against the open door to Paul's old bedroom, and watched Katie pacing the floor. The motion was more agitated than Sharon's usually reserved body language, but the concentrated crease between Katie's eyebrows was identical to her mother's.

The sound of a vibrating cell went off, and the young woman reached into one of her pockets, then she frowned and reached into another, pulling out a familiar-looking phone.

"It's Mom's," she acknowledged to Rusty's questioning look. "I think it fell out of her coat pocket when we got home, I found it earlier." She'd planned to give it back, but there had been too many other things to do, and the damn thing kept going off and Katie knew how her mom was about work things…and she didn't think the extra pressure was needed at the moment.

Again Rusty found himself in full agreement with her unspoken thoughts. "If there's like, a big case emergency or something, they know to call Lt. Flynn," he offered.

"That's what I'm thinking..." Katie started to head out of the room, but she kept talking to him, and so the boy found himself having to follow her to keep in earshot. "The battery's nearly dead, anyway, I'll see if I can find Mom's charger…" She sighed tiredly. "I was using it earlier, but I have no idea what I did with it."

As she spoke, she walked into the room she shared with Sharon; Rusty stopped unsurely in the doorway.

Even at home, he was a little wary of going into Sharon's bedroom (not that that stopped him from barging in there whenever he felt the situation required it, such as when he'd thought there was an intruder in the house… or when the wireless password had automatically reset at midnight one day, right in the middle of his downloading his favorite album, and okay, maybe he could've thought better about it before knocking and waking Sharon up, but did she have to withhold the password for a whole weekend after that…!).

The prospect of going into her room at her parents' house was a lot more daunting, especially since she wasn't even in there and he felt unaccountably invasive. His whole stay at the house felt like one breach of Sharon's privacy after another, and he didn't mean to keep doing it, but everything was right there, her family and her relationships and this whole life of hers he'd never really known and how was he supposed to avoid it?

Katie just went inside the room and kept talking, and there was nothing to do but follow her, because standing self-consciously in the doorway would've just led to more awkwardness…

But like, he totally would've avoided it if he could've.

An unexpected wave of sadness washed through Rusty as he thought that, and he had to admit to himself that okay, maybe he wasn't trying all that hard to stay out of Sharon's personal business.

But he still felt bad about it.

But…not too bad.

Ugh, he was just really, really awful at figuring out the whole boundaries thing.

"Rusty…?"

The call pulled him out of his thoughts, and he looked over to see Katie giving him a slightly confused look. She must've been talking for a while, and he'd completely missed everything she'd said. He cleared his throat and took another step into the room and hurried to help her look around for the phone charger.

Sharon's old room didn't look like any teenager's room that Rusty ever seen (which granted, wasn't all that many in real life, pretty much just his and Kris's and those of Lt. Tao's kids…), but then he realized that her parents might have done some redecorating since she'd moved out a million years ago. (There was a mysterious warning bell in his head at the last part of that thought, but he wasn't sure why, only that he shouldn't let Sharon hear him say it out loud.) In fact, the room looked a little like Sharon's guest bedroom had looked, when he'd first moved in with her: comfortable and tidy but with the air of not being inhabited on a regular basis.

When he looked more carefully, though, there were a lot of small traces in this bedroom that spoke of its past. A couple of old jewelry boxes sat on the vanity table next to an ivory-and-silver brush set, and assorted trinkets decorated the window sill and the nightstand and the top of the wardrobe. They were things that held no meaning to Rusty, a small framed painting and a tiny stone turtle and lots of little boxes whose purpose he couldn't even begin to guess because they didn't look big enough to hold anything. But he imagined they all meant something to Sharon. There were also a couple of faded stickers on the headboard of the bed, and he couldn't help a smirk because Sharon was so adamant about the whole sticker thing and lo and behold.

Katie's suitcase was in the corner, and judging by the way it stood open, clothes and cosmetics and cables flung haphazardly in and on and around it, Rusty couldn't say he was surprised that Katie couldn't find the charger. Not that he was one to talk, exactly: he was hardly the epitome of tidiness, as Sharon occasionally reminded him. The little jabs used to annoy him, at first, and he'd once flung back at her that one didn't need to be a neat freak when one was living in the back of a car, okay? And she'd paused and given him a sad look, and picked up his sweater and socks and soda bottles and magazines herself, and he'd felt victorious for about eight seconds before she deposited the whole pile in his arms and told him that he wasn't living in the back of a car anymore and to figure out how to use the hamper and trash can.

Which he had, mostly.

He suspected Katie might have gotten the occasional tidiness lecture, too, when she was growing up. And maybe Ricky as well, after all Rusty was sharing a room with the man and could confirm that his suitcase looked only slightly more organized. (although at least it was closed).

Sharon didn't have a suitcase – of course, she'd probably not had time to pack one, and Rusty's stomach did an uncomfortable little twist as he recalled just how she'd ended up in Minnesota and would he ever figure out just how angry she was with him over the whole thing?

"Found it." Katie held up the bubblegum-pink hoodie she'd worn on the flight over, and dug out the charger from underneath.

After the phone was plugged in, she let out a tired sigh and looked around the room, almost as if hoping there would be something else to do. She didn't look too eager to go back downstairs to the remaining guests, and Rusty couldn't blame her – how long were those people planning on staying, anyway, it was like, six p.m. or something.

After a few seconds, Katie seemed to give up and, squaring her shoulders, walked out of the room to head back downstairs. She was given a short reprieve when a low-volume ringing went off in the hallway; Rusty noticed for the first time a phone on the small wooden table underneath one of the wall lamps. He'd heard it ring a few times the day before, too, but had never bothered to identify the source. It wasn't all that surprising that the house had a landline, not really…although, he did wonder how many phones it took to cover the whole place. Probably like... fifty. The mansion was big enough to have its own zipcode.

Maybe it did.

Katie stopped by the table to pick up, and Rusty headed back into Paul's old room, politely closing the door behind him because really, he wasn't trying to overhear every conversation in the house.

It was a good three hours later that Rusty gathered up the courage to go into the kitchenette again, and then only because he imagined that Sharon and her sister would be long gone. Well… and because he was really, really hungry.

The after-burial gathering had ended; from his window, he'd seen more and more cars pulling out of the driveway, until finally everyone seemed to have left. The caterers had milled about downstairs for a little while longer, finishing the clean-up work, and every now and then Rusty thought he'd heard some familiar voice giving muted instructions. But even that activity had died down eventually, and silence had descended upon the house.

The lights were dimmed once more and, as he walked down the staircase, the boy couldn't help the same shiver of unease that he'd felt on first entering the mansion. The stillness and the copper glow of the wall lamps reflecting off the mahogany panels still made for an unsettling atmosphere.

But he was reaaally hungry. And at least now he knew his way to the kitchenette.

It was thankfully deserted when he got there, and he quietly opened the fridge door and pulled out the leftovers of some casserole dish (it didn't look that appetizing, honestly, but it was ready-made and in a microwaveable container), and a bottle from the well-stocked soda shelf. After warming up the food, he was briefly tempted to take it upstairs, before realizing that he hadn't actually seen anyone eating in the bedrooms and Sharon must've gotten her weird house rules from somewhere… He sat down at the table with a sigh and dug into the casserole as fast as he could.

"Chewing go out of fashion these days, kid?"

Mouth full, Rusty turned toward the door and gave Lt. Flynn a stellar teenage eyeroll, and if his cheeks hadn't been stuffed with casserole he might've made a comment about a certain liquid diet and pots and kettles. As it was, by the time he swallowed, the moment had passed, and he only offered a questioning look:

"I thought everyone was pretty much done for the night," he said, an uncharacteristically polite way of asking what the lieutenant was still doing up.

The man looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, before admitting: "The Captain had some work to do in her father's study." And that reply confused Rusty for a second, before he vaguely remembered that Lt. Flynn was sleeping on an air mattress in the study, and of course Sharon wasn't thinking about that right now, but by retreating there she'd inadvertently left him with nowhere to go.

"Oh." He grimaced with some small amount of sympathy, although frankly if being in her father's study was what Sharon wanted or needed, then Lt. Flynn was out of luck because no one would dream of making her leave.

Still…

"Do you uh… want some casserole?" the boy surprised himself by asking, because really, since when did he say that kind of thing? But Sharon would feel so bad if she realized that she'd basically locked Flynn out, and … "There's more in the fridge. And like, sandwiches, too."

He cut himself off (honestly!), but Flynn just gave him an amused sort of sideways glance. "Sure, why not," he agreed, and helped himself to a sandwich from the fridge, while Rusty felt obligated to get him a plate (but only because he knew where the plate cabinet was and the lieutenant probably didn't; he was not playing host, and definitely not in someone else's house.)

When he handed Lt. Flynn the plate, another, more urgent, thought occurred to him. "How's Sharon?" After all, if Flynn had seen her in the study, that must've been much more recently than Rusty had seen her, and maybe he could get some hint as to her state of mind…

Unfortunately the lieutenant just gave an uninformative sort of shrug, and 'as well as can be expected' was not an answer, no matter what so-called adults thought. Rusty glared with some dissatisfaction, but was forced to accept the non-answer, and they stuck to innocuous small talk about Minnesota and the weather for the next few minutes while they ate.

Rusty was done with the casserole long before Flynn had finished his sandwich, but he waited for the man to be done anyway. When that happened, he took the plates to the sink and washed them, not before asking if Lt. Flynn wanted some coffee or tea. Because apparently he was doing that kind of thing now, too…?

Thankfully Lt. Flynn said that he had to make some phone calls, and he'd make his own tea in a little while, and Rusty felt beyond relieved. He still made an effort to remember where Sharon had gotten the tea bags from the previous night, though, and left the drawer open for the lieutenant. "Do you like… need anything else?" he mumbled finally, defeatedly, and did Flynn really need to look that amused at his expense?

"I'm good, kid, thanks," the lieutenant grinned, "go to bed. Have a good night," he wished Rusty, and he let out another private chuckle when the boy all but ran out of the kitchen with a hilariously relieved look on his face.

Rusty had meant to go upstairs to the bedroom, he had, but heading down the hallway he'd walked past the door to the study, and there had been a sliver of light underneath it, and he'd paused in his steps almost involuntarily.

This was really none of his business… and so on. Whatever. He gave a light knock, then reached for the doorknob and pushed the door open.

He was greeted with the sight of Sharon and Katie curled up across from each other on the wide window sill, and the space really wasn't big enough for two people but they made it work somehow, their bodies comfortably entwined, with Sharon's legs folded sideways and Katie's knees drawn up to her chest, the tips of her feet buried underneath her mother's legs. They fit around each other in a natural, effortless manner, and seeing it made something in Rusty's chest tighten a little wistfully.

Mother and daughter both glanced over at his entrance, and the boy felt heat rising to his cheeks.

"Uh – sorry, I uhm, didn't mean to… interrupt."

"You're not," Sharon shifted slightly so she could face him better, and again he noticed how Katie's body automatically adjusted to make room for her movement. "What is it?"

"Well – uhm…that's a...I…was…wanted to get a book," he finished lamely, and was honestly surprised when Sharon didn't laugh in his face because really? Even Katie had arched her eyebrows a little wryly, and she'd known him for like, two days. But Sharon only returned a tired smile and motioned him to go ahead and asked him if he'd had dinner.

Rusty mumbled something about microwaved casserole and carefully left any mention of Lt. Flynn out of it.

Making his way up the staircase after a clumsy retreat from the study, he thought about Sharon and Stephanie, and Sharon and Katie, and the sound of Sharon's tearful laughter mixed with her sister's, and the way Katie's hand absently patted her mother's leg in the window seat… and again an unfamiliar mixture of warmth, relief and longing rose in his chest.

He'd been swinging between those kinds of emotions pretty much since he'd started meeting Sharon's family. He'd arrived in Minnesota determined to hole up in the bedroom and stay out of the way, but it was impossible; the house may have been huge but it wasn't nearly big enough for him to avoid witnessing the aftermath of the death of Sharon's father. And everything he'd seen and heard had elicited in him a degree of interest and an intensity of emotion that had caught him entirely unprepared.

From Ricky barging into the conference room at the station and calling Sharon 'Mom' and forgetting Rusty's name, to the look that Katie gave him at the airport that looked so much like Sharon that it was creepy, to Julie and her hugs and Paul who never smiled and Sharon's mother with her frosty demeanor and forbidding black clothes (the two of them so scary, except they were also the ones who'd agreed to move the whole funeral in the first place to wait for Sharon, and Stephanie had said that that wasn't even out of character and – Stephanie...)

Whatever he'd pictured when he'd thought about Sharon's family, reality had surprised him. Over and over again for the past two days, it had surprised him and pushed him, delighted and perplexed him, and Rusty's brain felt sore just trying to process it all, but he was learning so much… And the more he learned, the more he wanted to know, yet at the same time this vague, wistful anxiety flowed and ebbed...

He remembered again the kitchenette scene as he brushed his teeth a little while later. Was Sharon really okay now, after all that? He thought she might have looked completely exhausted in the study, except whenever her children were around it was harder to tell...

Sharon's children. His thoughts circled back to them constantly, twenty times a day. They were... well, Ricky obviously thought he was the center of the universe and was completely clueless half the time, and he was the loudest sleeper ever and... Katie had looked totally weird when he'd first met her...but... they were... nice, he guessed. Katie made good sandwiches. Ricky was really nice to Sharon – actually, around her, he was like, the most considerate person in the world (which kind of made Rusty want to roll his eyes because had she seen her son blundering around at those other times?). And they were nice to each other, too, he'd noticed the way they'd worked together over the past couple of days, and how Katie had helped Ricky settle Lt. Flynn (or as Sharon's son liked to call him, Flint), and how Ricky let his sister rummage through his suitcase when she misplaced half her own things, and didn't seem to mind when she then lost his, as well, and... they just... made a good team, Rusty had to admit. And they'd been on Sharon's team round the clock this week, for which he was really, really glad.

Of course, that didn't prevent him from rolling his eyes when he walked out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, only to narrowly avoid a collision with Ricky, and did Sharon's son just like, not bother to look where he was going and – could he please stop giving Rusty that slightly suspicious look every single time?

"Mom was looking for you a few minutes ago," the young man said, and surprise erased all of Rusty's irritation with his temporary roommate.

He gave Ricky a hopeful look. "What? Why?"

"I don't know," said Ricky, then frowned a little, hesitant, "but... she might've gone to bed in the meantime...don't wake her up if she did, okay?"

Rusty narrowed his eyes into an annoyed glare, but quickly realized that alright, he also didn't want to wake Sharon up if indeed she'd finally gone to get some rest. "I won't," he grumbled pointedly, and felt proud of himself for not adding, 'but not because you told me to'.

He started to march up the hallway toward Sharon's room, but had barely taken three steps when Katie quietly slipped out of the room; she spotted him when she looked up, and read his intentions, and grimaced apologetically. "I'm sorry, Rusty... Mom wanted to talk to you, but she fell asleep... she was really..." Katie sighed. "It's been a long day. Don't wake her up, okay?"

Behind them, Ricky winced, because he'd just said that and nearly gotten his head bitten off, and ...

"Okay," the kid said with a quiet nod, "thanks. I'll just... talk to her tomorrow."

...really?

And the kid even almost-smiled as he wished Katie goodnight...!

Rusty retreated into the room they shared, toothbrush and all, and Ricky crossed his arms and shook his head in bemusement. "You know the most I get are growls and eye rolls," he informed Katie.

Her lips pressed together in that knowing smile that looked a lot like Mom's. "What's the matter," she teased, "can't handle not being the better-liked Raydor for once?"

And he rolled his eyes, because no... but also, yes, kind of, a little. "How come he's so much nicer to you?" he wanted to know.

Katie looked thoughtful, her eyes wandering to the closed bedroom door before she answered: "Because I'm not Mom's son."

"What...?" Ricky was totally confused. "That doesn't make any – yes you are, right? I mean, you're Mom's kid too...!"

Katie tilted her head and looked up at him with an affectionate look, then her lips curled into a small smirk and she patted his shoulder. "It's okay, baby brother," she cooed consolingly, "most people don't need you to be smart to like you."

He scrunched up his face at her ribbing, and returned: "At least I'm not short."