Notes: Thank you for reading. :)

Do Not Disturb

"I told them." Rusty kept his eyes on his burger as he said it, staring at the wrapper until the red logo and the white paper blurred together. He wasn't sure why it was so hard to look at her now, or why he'd been so afraid earlier. It just... was.

"I know."

Carefully, his eyes flickered up to meet hers, and he found her watching him from her side of the booth with that warm expression, the loving one, the one that when turned on him made him feel that everything would be okay.

"You do?"

"I saw you through the window."

"Oh." He twirled a fry through the ketchup cup. "You were right. I had to tell them myself."

Sharon was too nice to say I told you so. She just pressed her lips together, and he watched her struggle not to look too obviously satisfied. "And?" she prompted. "How do you feel?"

"Better."

"I thought you might." Sharon picked up her own burger, watching him as she ate.

"I know I shouldn't have been so afraid," he said. "I know that none of you guys, like, hate gay people. Okay? I did know that. But..."

"Fear isn't always a rational thing," she said.

"I know," he said. "Dr. Joe and I have been talking about that." He paused, eyeing her as he reached for another fry. "You were right about that too."

Sharon did a worse job of swallowing her smile this time, but somehow managed to make her voice perfectly solemn. "I'm happy that therapy has been useful for you."

So was he.

"Can I ask you something, though?" At her nod, he hesitated, not sure quite how to say it. "It's just that... no one seemed really that surprised, and..."

"Ah." Sharon swallowed the last of her burger and wiped her fingers on a napkin before he'd figured it out. Gently, she added, "What was the question?"

"Did you really not tell them?" It felt like something that Sharon would do, making him handle it on his own but trying to make it easier for him anyway.

She shook her head. "It wasn't for me to tell."

"So..." He stared at her, trying to work it out. "They already knew? Wait," he added, before she could answer. "Did you know? Before I told you?"

"I didn't know," she said, her head tilting as she watched him. "Not for sure. But I did... suspect."

"Why?" Rusty set down the fry in his hand. A little ball of tension, the same anxiety that had disappeared when he'd made his announcement began reforming in the pit of his stomach. "Because of what I did? Because that was—that had nothing to do with anything, and—"

"Oh no," she said. Sharon reached across the table, curling her fingers around his wrist. "No. Give me some credit, honey. I'm an investigator trained to observe people, good at my job, and you've been living with me for two years."

And just like that, it was gone again, and he could breathe in all the way. Rusty exhaled, unclenching his fists. Sharon's thumb rubbed a soothing little circle into the back of his hand, and it was strange how such a little thing could make him feel so... grounded.

"It's really been two years?"

But it had been, he realized, because it was July now, and he'd come to live with her in the middle of August. It felt longer, usually. But in a good way. In the sort of way where it seemed like he'd just always lived with her and Sharon had always been there.

"Almost." Sharon squeezed his wrist before she withdrew her hand, and settled back to watch him with a look he couldn't place. It wasn't a bad one, because she was still smiling, but her head tilted a little the way it sometimes did when she was thinking about something and he couldn't guess what.

But he was pretty sure that she wasn't wishing that she'd sent him back to foster care, so he didn't really care.

"We should do something." Her expression didn't change. "What?"

"I'll tell you later," she said finally. "Much later. And yes, I think this is an occasion that warrants a celebration. Did you have something in mind?"

"Not really," he said, and shrugged. "Cake?"

"At the very least," she agreed, and okay, that was weird. "Think about it. Let me know."

"I will," he promised. Rusty reached for his drink again. "So... why did you suspect, then?"

He thought that surprised her, or maybe she was just distracted thinking about... whatever she was thinking about. Sharon picked up her own drink and leaned back, her feet coming up to rest on the bench beside him as she considered the question. She'd taken her shoes off. Her toes were painted purple this time, to match her shirt.

Rusty watched her sip her drink slowly, trying not to fidget too much while she studied him.

"I can't say," she said at last, folding her arms. "Something in the way you interacted with people. Intuition. I'm not sure."

"Oh," he said. As long as it wasn't because of the hustling. But if she said that it wasn't, then he believed her. "And everyone else?"

"You'll have to ask them."

That was probably the only thing more awkward than telling people that he was gay. Asking them if they'd thought he was gay all along and why, if they had. "They never said anything," he said. "Neither did you."

"No," she said. "It wasn't really about whether you were gay or not. It was what you felt comfortable sharing with us."

"I guess... I guess I had to be okay with it myself first," he said. "Before I could say anything. And I needed to trust everyone."

Sharon nodded, encouraging him to go on when he hesitated.

"I was a little worried about Lieutenant Provenza," he admitted. "More than anyone else."

"The thing about people," Sharon told him, "is that they change. Some for the worse, but sometimes... when the people they love need them to grow, they do. And sometimes, the people who are capable of doing that surprise you. Lieutenant Provenza is certainly not the man I sent to sensitivity training thirty years ago."

He stared at her. "You've known Lieutenant Provenza for thirty years?"

"Twenty-eight," she said. "I transferred into internal affairs after my daughter was born. And not a word out of you about how old that makes me, are we clear?"

He thought she was trying very hard to look stern.

He looked down to hide his smile.

Sharon bit the end off another french fry and didn't bother to hide hers.

"I could've been a judge by now," she said, her smile becoming something more contemplative, as she twirled her half-eaten fry between her fingers. "If things had worked out differently."

He wasn't sure where that had come from. "Is that what you wanted?"

"Yes," she said. "To be a judge, you have to start as a lawyer. I wanted to be a prosecutor and work my way up from there. It's hard to imagine now, what that might've been like."

She didn't sound too upset about it.

"People change," she repeated. "Sometimes in ways that we don't want them to, but what we want changes too."

"Like my mom."

Sharon gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry she said those things to you."

"Me too." He hadn't even told her all of it. Rusty swallowed. "Like you said. I love her."

"I know."

"But I'm not sorry, either." He stared down at the pile of food wrappers and napkins in front of him. "And I'm really, really glad that I haven't been with her and her boyfriend all this time."

"So am I," Sharon said quietly, and cleared her throat. "Speaking of boyfriends..."

His spine stiffened.

"Someday—not tonight, but someday—you and I are going to talk. There are things that I want you to know."

That wasn't where he'd thought that was going. "Sharon..."

She ignored him. "Everything that I wish that I had known."

That quieted him. "Oh."

"You might decide you never want to get married," she told him. "And that's fine too... but if you do, I hope it's to a better man than I did."

Now she sounded sad.

He'd never really... thought about that. Mostly because it was weird, thinking about Sharon dating anyone, but he guessed that he'd always sort of assumed, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she didn't want to be. No matter what Jack had said, Rusty was pretty sure that Sharon wasn't still crazy about him, but if she hadn't divorced him in twenty years there was probably a reason for it.

But if she wanted something that she didn't have, well... Rusty couldn't think of anyone who deserved happiness more than Sharon.

"Some other night," she told him, and shook her head. "There's no rush."

Rusty just nodded his head. And he'd thought coming out had been awkward. He was pretty sure that Sharon giving him relationship advice would be way, way worse.

"I want you to be happy." She gave him one of those intent looks, the kind that made him squirm uncomfortably even when he knew he hadn't done anything wrong. "All right? Happy and safe."

"I know, Sharon."

She lowered her feet to the ground one by one, shifting slightly as she worked them back into her shoes. "Almost done?"

There were a couple of cold fries left on his tray. Rusty shook his cup, listening to the ice rattle around in the bottom. "Just about."

"I'm going to run to the restroom, if you don't mind cleaning up," she told him. "Then home. Sound good?"

He nodded. "I've got some studying to do."

He was pretty sure that he was going to go to college now. It was still kind of a foreign concept to him, but most of his friends had gone, and it was important to Sharon, and it didn't seem that bad, when he thought about it. But four more years of homework still sounded like forever.

"I'll be quick, then." The back of Sharon's hand brushed against his shoulder in another of those little touches as she stepped past him. Rusty didn't know if it was encouragement or reassurance, or even if it was for his sake or for hers. He would've been okay with either.