Notes: I also really want to write something with Provenza and Sharon talking about divorce because that was my second favorite part of the episode, but one is going to take awhile, I think.

Mothering (Trial By Fire)

It had been awhile, but Sharon remembered what it was like to be eighteen.

She also remembered what it was like to look back on eighteen at twenty-five.

So she'd said a prayer that Jeff would turn out to be the decent human being Rusty thought he was, and then she'd let Rusty take his own chances.

The outcome had been disappointing for him and relieving to her, but she was still prouder of him than she knew how to tell him for being brave enough to put himself out there. The difference between the boy curled up in his corner of the restaurant booth picking mournfully at a half-eaten hamburger and bacon cheese fries because his crush had turned out to be unrequited and the boy who had cried into her shoulder convinced that there was something irreparably broken inside him was... amazing, it really was.

When he caught her eye, Sharon gave him a sympathetic smile and took another sip of her iced tea. She'd hurt his feelings if she told him that in ten years, he would look back on this moment and laugh. A first crush was something special, and there was something endearing about him like this.

Ironically, now that he'd broken her son's heart, Sharon thought she was warming up to this Jeff.

There were reasons she didn't like to think about that explained why Rusty thought an eight year gap was practically nothing, but eight years at eighteen meant he'd fallen for someone nearly one and a half times his age. It made her nervous.

She hoped the next one would be closer to his own age. Twenty-one or younger. She could deal with twenty-one. Maybe. Maybe she could deal with twenty-one.

Sharon bit the end off of a french fry and told herself to get a grip. She'd let Emily date at sixteen. Ricky, being younger, had successfully argued that fifteen and nine months was sixteen if she rounded. Rusty was almost nineteen. That was old enough to date.

"Are you using your ketchup?" Rusty pointed to the two unopened packets on her side of the table.

"Here." She slid them across the table.

"Thanks, Mom."

Sharon wondered how long that was going to last.

The first time, she hadn't even cared that he was saying it to avoid an awkward conversation with Jeff, because it meant that at least as far as Jeff was concerned, Rusty had called her his mother from the beginning.

The second time hadn't been for Jeff's benefit, nor the third, nor this fourth.

Her heart hurt in the best possible way.

They had talked about it once, not long after she'd reassured him that he could keep his name. He'd wanted to know if he would have to call her Mom. She'd told him that he could do whatever felt most comfortable to him (though, privately, of course she had hoped), and when he'd stuck with Sharon, she'd figured that was that and let herself be grateful that he wanted her to adopt him because that was nothing short of a miracle.

Maybe this was a change he was wanting to make, and joking helped him ease into it.

Maybe he was testing it out and he would never say it again.

God, she loved this child. Either way.

Sharon swallowed and held that in, knowing that if she reacted to him, he would get skittish about the whole thing. "Are you feeling better?" she asked, hoping her low voice came across as sympathetic instead of emotional.

Rusty shrugged, glared at his hamburger, and then ate a few bites in sulky silence.

"Your first heartbreak is never easy," she said. "I know."

"Tell me about it," he grumbled.

She smiled faintly. "It's not a very interesting story."

Rusty's head came up, his brow creased in confusion. "Wait, what?"

"I was your age once, you know." She saw a flicker of interest cross his face, and sighed. "You have to remember that I was very young, all right?"

A poorly contained smile appeared as he nodded. Yes, he was listening.

"I was a little younger than you are now, actually," she said. "It was the summer before my senior year of high school, and I'd just turned seventeen. You've met my parents. You know they weren't as undemanding as I am—"

Rusty snorted. "Are you kidding me right now?"

Only a little bit. "Who do you think I learned it from?" she asked him. "They really were very strict with me. If I went out, they expected me home by eight every night, no exceptions. My mother would be horrified if she knew I let you stay out all night working."

"I'm an adult," he said.

"Oh, that would matter very little," she said dryly. "My mother is horrified that I stay out all night working. When I was a teenager, I was allowed to babysit every once in awhile if there was something I needed money for. Only on weekends during the school year, and some weekdays during the summer."

"Not that that's not, uh, totally interesting," Rusty said, in the same tone he used when she asked him if he would mind if she picked what movie they watched. "But what does it have to do with me?"

"I'm getting to that," she said. "When I was in high school, I had this friend named Terri..."

While he finished his food, she told him about Terri, the second of four children, who had wanted a job at the mall but who also needed to take care of her younger siblings while her mother worked. After much persuading, she had convinced her mother to let her work at the mall and pay Sharon to babysit her siblings out of her salary. It had been a happy arrangement for both of them; Terri had gotten to work away from home and for pay, and Sharon had liked the steady income.

"Terri had an older brother," she continued. "George. He was living in New York City at the time, and halfway through the summer he came home for a visit."

"Ohh." She saw understanding in Rusty's face.

"I'm not sure why you're smirking at me, young man," she said, as sternly as she could. "You don't have a leg to stand on here."

That only seemed to encourage him. "So how old was he?"

She cleared her throat. "Twenty-one."

"Seriously, Sharon?"

"Yes, well." She decided not to point out that four was half of eight. "He was very handsome. Very charming. We saw a lot of each other during those two weeks, with me babysitting his brother and sister and him going in and out of the house. He was always very sweet to me."

"You didn't..." Rusty wrinkled his nose, suddenly looking horrified.

"Oh no," she said. "No. I came up with every excuse i could think of to visit Terri while he was in town and I'm sure I stared at him more than was polite—" She didn't tell him that she'd written pages upon pages in her diary wondering what it might be like to kiss George, because that was far too embarrassing to be any of his business and he was snickering at her enough as it was. "No. I thought I was very mature for my age too, but I'm sure he never saw me as anything other than his little sister's friend."

"Do you wish you'd said anything?"

"Oh my God, no." Forty years later, and she cringed just thinking about it. "No. Definitely not."

"Oh," he said. "So why'd you tell me to ask Jeff out, then?"

"I find it's always better to know where you stand with someone," she said carefully. "It allows you to make more informed decisions."

Rusty hesitated. "I saw Jack yesterday."

"Ah," she said. "So did I. Today too, as a matter of fact."

"Fun."

Sharon narrowed her eyes. "Did he say anything to you yesterday?"

"Not... really," he said. "Did you win?"

She felt her lip twitch. "I did."

She would be civil to the man for the rest of their lives, for the sake of the children they shared. But after so many years of being steamrolled by him, of being talked over and having her boundaries ignored as if they were never there... she had to say, it was a nice change to emerge from their encounters feeling as though she had some kind of grasp on the situation.

She was so much happier now than she had been at this time last year. To be fair, not all of that was Jack's fault. There had been that awful six months that she'd spent terrified that Rusty would either be murdered under her nose or removed from her care. Then there had been Sharon Beck's reappearance, followed shortly by her divorce and all the drama that had entailed. (That part had definitely been instigated by Jack.)

Now all of that had blown over, and Rusty was sitting across from her, safe and happy and legally her son.

She felt so much lighter than she had before.

It was really something.

She smiled at her son.

He didn't seem to know quite why, but he answered it. "Thanks," he said quietly. "For... everything."

"You don't need to thank me," she said. "Are you ready?"

He crumpled up his empty wrapper, then fixed her with an expectant smile. "I might feel better if I had dessert, Mom."

She narrowed her eyes.

Rusty stared hopefully back.

Sharon reached for her purse.

Just this once.