Notes: Booooo, hiatus. *sad forever* BUT that means I can write all my other stories again now that there is no paralyzing anxiety about what's going to happen next on the show to stop me. And how perfect was Sharon in this episode? And terrifying. Really, really terrifying.
Zoo Story
Sharon went home.
To her son.
To the brilliant, funny, caring young man who still harbored love in his heart for his mother.
Do you still do that work you did on the side?
Her hands were still trembling in anger when she reached into her purse for her keys, and she released a long, slow breath when her fingers closed around the keyring, clenching until the ridges dug into her skin. God oh God, that video.
She willed herself as close to calm as she could manage before she opened the door. There was a certain amount of relaxation that happened of its own accord every time she crossed the threshold, a certain amount of tension that released itself with the knowledge that she was home safe in her own space. That helped.
She could hear Rusty in the kitchen. "Sharon?"
"It's me."
She set her keys and her purse on the bureau near the door and stepped out of her shoes one by one. She shrugged out of her jacket next. She held it hugged to her chest as she rocked back and forth in her stocking feet.. Her boots were in her bedroom, but she wasn't heading there just yet. Sharon left her jacket folded across the back of her couch on her way to the kitchen.
Rusty moving around the kitchen fixing dinner was usually a sight to make her smile.
Tonight, it just hurt.
"Hey," she said quietly.
"Hey."
Sharon did smile then, and watched him slice a potato into neat, even cubes. "What's all this?"
"You've been at work for, like, three days," he said. "So when you said you were finally coming home..."
The lump had never really left her throat, but it swelled at that. Sharon swallowed hard as she eased herself up onto one of the bar stools. "I'll get changed and come help you in a moment."
Rusty set down the knife he was using, his eyes flickering to and from her. "Did you talk to my mom yet?"
Sharon nodded, slowly working her feet against bottom rung of the stool. "I did."
"Thanks," he said, his eyes sliding sideways as he added something that sounded like a mumbled, "I'm sorry."
"No," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. She winced inwardly when his head came up and he froze, wide-eyed, but no. After what she'd seen, she wasn't going to let him do that. Not tonight. Sharon clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from clenching into angry fists. "You're not responsible for her."
"No," he said. "I—I know. But just... I wish you hadn't had to go through all that trouble. That's all I meant."
"It was no trouble."
His mouth opened and then slowly closed again, his face uncertain.
Sharon wondered what her own expression looked like.
"Rusty." She leaned forward, her fingers still clasped tightly together to keep herself from reaching for him. She didn't want to do this to him. She'd tried so hard to let him have his privacy, to make him believe that he didn't have to share anything with her that he didn't want to. She'd also promised that she'd never lie to him. "If you don't already know, you should be aware that interactions between inmates and their visitors are recorded."
"What, like videotaped?"
"Yes," she said. "And you should also know that before I went to speak with her, I watched the recording of your visit with your mother."
She knew the moment that sunk in. His eyes widened and he fixed her with a horrified sort of look, his face twisting into a grimace. He took several steps back, retreating away from the counter to hover near the sink.
"You did?"
"Yes."
He cringed. "All of it?"
"Yes."
"So you know..."
"I do."
God.
Lieutenant Provenza hadn't told her the full story until after they'd wrapped up their case. She was grateful for that now, because Kate Sherman's rescue couldn't have been put on hold while Sharon took a quick trip over to county jail to calmly shoot Rusty's so-called mother in the head. It was a lucky thing that when she'd made it over there, Sharon had been unarmed and a thick wall of glass had separated her from the woman who had harmed her child.
It would be a long time before she put the anguish in Rusty's voice out of her mind.
"I—I can explain."
And she'd thought her heart couldn't possibly ache for him any more than it already did. "Rusty..."
"Wait," he said, holding up his hands. "Just... just wait a minute, okay, Sharon?"
There was pride in her heart too. He would have been shouting by now, once. Once, he would have tried to handle this sort of situation on his own. Instead, he had brought his problems to Lieutenant Provenza and he was talking to her. He'd grown so, so much.
"I know it's not my fault," he said at last. "I do know that."
As much as it was possible for him to know. There were still so many years of guilt and shame that he carried around with him. Sharon knew that it would be easier with the passage of time, but... She'd had more than twenty years, almost twenty-five now, and there were still moments when against all reason, she wondered if there had been something she hadn't tried, that there had to have been something she could have done differently.
If she could have taken his pain into herself, she would have done it.
"I'm glad," she said quietly. "Because it is not your fault."
"I just... when she called, I thought that maybe..." He looked away, and she could see him swallow, struggling to accept the ugly truth "I guess not. I kinda wish I hadn't gone to see her."
So did she. She'd made Buzz play the recording over from the beginning.
She'd missed most of it, the first time around. It had taken too long for her to realize what she was hearing, and then she had stood frozen, hardly able to breathe, her angry heartbeat pulsing in her ears and tasting bile in her mouth. She had said...
To her child...
To Sharon's child...
How?
How could she became how dare she the second time around, and Sharon had left the electronics room without a word to anyone and headed straight for the district attorney's office. When she'd called Lieutenant Provenza afterwards, on her way home from county, he'd expressed a significant amount of surprise to learn that sharon Beck had survived their encounter.
"What'd you threaten her with?"
"You know me better than that, Lieutenant. I don't make threats. I make deals."
He'd been satisfied with that and promised to pass the news on to Buzz.
"So how long does she have to stay in jail?"
She could see Rusty brace himself, squaring his shoulders and stiffening his spine.
"One year," she told him. "If she follows the rules I spelled out for her. Otherwise, seven, and there's nothing anyone can do about that."
"We both know she's gonna screw it up." He said it so matter-of-factly she wanted to cry, and then he tried to smile afterwards. "Especially if you made the rules." He couldn't hold the smile for long. "But... Sharon?"
She waited.
"Whatever you told her to do, she really isn't going to do it," he told her seriously. "So, like... if her messing up will get you in trouble somehow, maybe you should just go and... take it back somehow."
Her hands were beginning to go numb. Sharon rubbed the tips of her thumbs together, her hands still knit together. "No," she said, and hoped her voice sounded even to him. "You don't need to worry about that."
"Are you sure, though?"
"Extremely."
That mollified him, some. "I'm going to go see her again."
What.
No.
No.
"Don't freak out," he said, too late to prevent an unpleasant spike in her blood pressure. "It's not like that. I don't want to, like, visit her. I just need to tell her something."
Still.
"Are you sure, Rusty?"
He nodded. "I just want her to know something. That's all, Sharon, I swear."
She allowed herself to breathe again. If he'd wanted to visit her regularly, she didn't know what she would've done. It was his right to do so, of course, and if he'd decided that he was okay subjecting himself to her, there would have been nothing she could do to stop him.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before I went to see her."
She shook her head. "You don't need to apologize for that."
"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd want to come with me," he said. "And I wanted to see her myself first. But..." he trailed off. "You probably don't want to, and that's okay, because you've already done like, way, way more than I was going to ask you to and I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate it, or—"
"Rusty."
"Would you come with me? I—I mean," he added, before she had a chance to process that, "not with me, but when my mom was in rehab and you said you'd come and wait outside? Could you do that, maybe?"
When had this happened? When had he learned to ask for what he needed?
Sharon nodded. "Of course I will."
"Really? Because that would help. I think."
"Why the change of heart?" She prodded just a little, but she wouldn't press it if he didn't want to tell her.
"It's just that... it didn't really go so well last time," he said. "And I don't think it's going to go very well this time, either."
"Rusty." She frowned at him. "You know that you don't owe your mother a thing. If you don't want to—"
"I want her to know you're adopting me," he said, and of all the things he could've said, that one surprised her. "In case it ever really matters to her, I want her to know that I'll be okay."
God.
Rusty.
"And—" She saw his lip quiver and he hugged his arms to his chest, but he held his head up. "I want her to know that I love her, because I said some things before, and that's... it's not how I want to say goodbye."
Sharon could hardly swallow this time. She shifted in her seat, biting down on the inside of her lip until it hurt, and rubbed her forehead, the composure that she'd worked so hard to maintain slipping away. "I can help with that," she said, her voice thicker than she wanted but steady.
His eyes looked bright even after she'd blinked away her own tears.
Sharon took another breath, and then another, and by the time it felt a little less like her heart was being squeezed from the inside out, Rusty had moved back to finish slicing the vegetables he'd abandoned when she'd walked through the door. He didn't say anything else, clearly done with the conversation, and Sharon had said everything she'd needed to say earlier. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough, but it was all she could do.
She stepped down from the stool. "I'll be right back to help you," she said. White blouses and cooking did not mix.
She reached across the counter, surrendering to the impulse to brush his bangs out of his eyes as she passed him. He'd been letting her touch him more and more recently. Before Ricky, but more after. Rusty ducked his head when she tried to smooth his hair back, but he was smiling.
"Sharon?"
She turned back to find him hesitating. "Yes?"
"You said you watched the whole thing?"
She nodded without speaking, unsure of where this was going.
"The thing she said about you," he said, lowering his eyes. "That's probably the only true thing she's ever told me."
She had to think to remember, because do you still do that work you did? had been the only thing running through her mind for hours.
Comprehension dawned a moment later. Rusty's head came up, their eyes meeting as he tried to be sure that she understood.
Sharon gave him a little nod and turned away because he was so obviously uncomfortable, not sure whether she wanted to cry or smile.
She loves you.