Sharon woke up on her couch at 4am with little promise of getting any more sleep. She showered, got ready for work, and headed for Major Crimes. By the time the rest of her team arrived, she had been in her office for over an hour. After another hour, and noticing Andy still hadn't come in, she called on Provenza to see if he knew why.
"He called this morning and said he didn't feel well. He really didn't sound very good, so I told him to stay home and we'd let him know if we got a new case. I'm sure if you need something he'll answer his phone," Provenza said flatly, like he'd been instructed to pass along only the facts and nothing more.
"Oh no, Lieutenant. If he's sick he should obviously stay home." Sharon replied. At least she could finally stop rehearsing what she was going to say to him when they finally had to face each other; he'd gallantly bought her another day. And it was a relatively uneventful one at that, mostly tying up loose ends from their recent cases. Sharon was grateful because she was still moving in the haze of what had happened last night. She took the slow pace to finally try and figure out what the next step needed to be to fix things with Andy.
And she had decided to fix things. She spooked at the first sight of trouble, which wasn't fair to Andy or herself. That's why things had gotten so complicated and mean. Their momentum had never actually slowed down, Sharon just put the brakes on too soon and threw the whole machine out of balance.
Unfortunately, Andy stayed "sick" for the next few days. By the time the weekend rolled around, Sharon was questioning if it was even a ruse to begin with. Maybe he really had come down with something, and her assuming he was only avoiding her was a little conceited. On Friday evening, Sharon went home to try to collect the courage to drive to his house and force him into a conversation. It'd been four days and enough was enough. If he wanted nothing to do with her, she'd learn to deal with that. But he was going to have to tell her to her face.
Sharon went back to her condo and made sure Rusty was all set for the night. They had dinner, she changed clothes and drank two glasses of wine in hopes of calming her nerves. It was 10pm by the time she worked up the gumption to head to his house, but she decided backing out wasn't an option. She made her way down to the garage, into her car, and across town to his driveway.
After several long, slow breaths, Sharon stepped out of her car and timidly made her way to his front door. The lights were on, so she knew he was home. Another deep breath, she smoothed the front of her shirt, and rang the doorbell.