Notes: Well, that was distressing to watch. :( I've got a half-finished WIP about Julio so I will come back to him, but for now here is Sharon.

Unravel (Internal Affairs)

Rusty made her coffee.

And tea.

Sharon smelled the coffee when she walked in the door. When she dragged herself into the kitchen on her aching feet, she saw the teapot sitting on the counter beside a takeout bag, and Rusty setting plates on the counter.

He'd even remembered to put a couple of potholders between the teapot and the counter. She smiled unexpectedly at that.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said quietly, leaning against the refrigerator with one hand as she stepped out of her shoes. "You didn't have to do all this."

"I wasn't sure which you wanted," he said. "And... Jack drank all of the wine, so."

"You—" Her throat swelled shut abruptly, twisting the rest of her reply into a strangled little choking sound. Sharon ground the heel of her palm against her forehead and blinked, ignoring how her throat hurt when she swallowed. She was not going to cry. Not yet.

Then he hugged her, just turned and wrapped both arms around her without word or warning, or maybe it was that her exhaustion had finally caught up with her and left her too slow to see it coming but either way, caught off-guard, she felt a few tears roll down along the sides of her nose before she squeezed her eyes shut to keep the rest of them in.

She must look awful, if her touch-averse son was offering spontaneous hugs for the second time in a day. She certainly felt awful. Awake for almost thirty-six hours, she was dirty and exhausted beyond words, and her feet were so tender that she rocked forward and leaned into Rusty, letting him take some of her weight. That was before she started assessing the emotional damage.

The lieutenant had tried to talk to her on her way out, and so had Andy. She hadn't had the heart for either of them then. Tomorrow, maybe, she would have found the right words.

"Sharon?"

"I'm all right," she said, and though her voice was strained she was pleased to note that it was steady. Encouraged, she drew in another breath. "Exhausted, but all right."

"Julio didn't kill anyone, did he?"

"No." Sharon exhaled, long and slow through her mouth, and then she straightened up and tried not to wince. "He did not. I need to sit down."

"I'll bring you some tea," he said. "Or coffee. Whichever you want. Or both."

"You don't..." Sharon lowered herself into her chair, hissing quietly as the muscles in her lower back twinged and protested the movement. "Tea, please. I've been awake long enough."

"And—and I got you a sandwich from that place down the street you like," Rusty said, pointing to the bag still sitting on the counter. "I wanted a burger anyway. I think it's still warm."

He brought her the grease-stained paper bag in one hand, her teacup precariously balanced in his other hand, and the plates tucked under his arm.

"Thank you." She didn't trust herself to say more than that and tried to busy herself with unpacking the food. He'd gotten her the fried chicken sandwich and the largest order of fries. Sharon took one and popped it into her mouth whole, relishing the crisp shell and the soft interior and above all else, the salt. She ate two more in quick succession.

If there was ever a time for indulgence, it was now.

Rusty started to arrange fries on top of his hamburger. "So like, is Julio going to be okay, or...?"

"Time will tell," she said. "I hope so. I do not want to have to arrest him, or any of my detectives, ever again."

He didn't know that story, she realized, when he paused and stared at her, his mouth half-open as he debated whether or not to ask.

Sharon shook her head. "Some other time."

"Right."

"To answer your question," she said, "Julio was very lucky today."

She was trying not to dwell on Julio too much right now. Later, when she was clearer-headed, when the part of herself that she had learned to ignore, the small little voice that said she should've given Jack just one more chance, was silent and she was sure that the personal wasn't bleeding into the professional, then she would sit down and look frankly at the actions she had taken and the ones she hadn't and plan for the future.

There was something else she needed to address tonight.

Sharon set down her sandwich and considered her son. He ate as he normally did, and appeared more or less unfazed by recent events.

"Rusty," she said quietly, and shook her head. "I want to thank you, for stepping in the way you did—"

"It wasn't a big deal, Sharon, and—"

"And I want to apologize," she went on. "For—" Not for Jack, she reminded herself. Not for Jack. "For—for having asked you to."

"It was seriously nothing," he said, and kept eating like he thought it should be nothing to her. "Really. Like I said, my mom..." He shrugged, and ate another fry.

"Still," she said, because she was too tired to explain it to him. "This is never to happen again, you understand? I'm having the locks changed, and if he tries to break in again, I want you to call me immediately and I don't care what I'm in the middle of. Okay?"

"Okay."

She could tell he was saying it to appease her. She let it slide because they were going to be discussing this again and when they did, she was going to explain to him at great length how not okay it was. She was going to have to talk to Emily and Ricky too, because she didn't want them caught unaware like she had been.

And what if Jack had been drinking with Emily around?

That almost brought the tears back to her eyes.

God.

She'd promised herself once that she would sooner die than let them see their father drunk ever again.

She inhaled, silently counting to ten.

"Tomorrow..." Sharon cleared her throat. "I want you to tell me everything Jack said to you. Every last word."

Rusty nodded. "He didn't say anything that bad."

"Still."

"Okay." Rusty hesitated. "When we talked... when we left, he said he was going to go apologize to you."

"And he did." She tried to force a smile. "For the thousandth time."

It was all part of the cycle.

There was the drinking, and the assigning of blame. Now he'd gone and done it in front of her child, and it was a small comfort that at least he had picked the child that wasn't his. He always offered to her the more generous share of the blame, for her tone and her anger and her hostility. If she could just be kinder. Less judgmental. If she could support him more and be less critical of his faults, if she would just learn to forgive and forget, then, he would say, then maybe he wouldn't need to drink.

Then there was the morning after and the repenting of his sins, when he woke up and swore that he would make it up to her, that he would get help, that he wouldn't let her or the kids down again, that he would do better next time. She thought he meant it every time.

And then he would cry.

He always cried.

Then there was the lull, the calm between storms, where he would fight off his demons just long enough that she would think maybe this time, before he succumbed again and they began the whole sorry process over again.

Not trusting her hands, Sharon held her teacup in both of them.

She'd thought that Jack had finally done it, the last time. She had been so proud of him, of them, for having seen each other through... and then the gambling had come to light and he'd broken what remained of her heart.

Now he was drinking and gambling, and it was hard not to think about how it was happening on the heels of their divorce.

Sharon took another deep breath. "Enough about me," she said, her face hurting with the effort it took to maintain a smile. "Tell me about your day."

He gave her an uncertain look.

"Please," she said quietly. "It's your first week of college. You must have something to share."

And so she ate the rest of her dinner listening to Rusty talk about his classes and his professors and hoped that he would forgive her for not remembering a word of it in the morning. She nodded and smiled whenever he paused, and he found exactly enough conversation to last her the rest of her sandwich.

"I'll do the dishes," he said, when she was done.

"Thank you." There was nothing left in her to argue. "I'm going to shower, and then I'm going to bed—oh," she said, touching her pocket. She panicked briefly to find it empty, and then found her phone in the other. "Would you show me again how to get the radio working on here?"

There was something she needed to do, and she wanted to be sure he wouldn't hear her.

Rusty found her a classical music station on Pandora without saying anything to imply that she was old, and then he gave her another hug, as unexpected as the first, when he handed it back to her. Sharon squeezed him hard, and hoped he knew that this was what was in it for her. It was enough to know that her children had all grown up to be decent, compassionate people.

"Thank you," she said, brushing her fingertips against his chin when she released him. "Good night."

"Night," he said. "And—Sharon?"

She waited.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Just—I'm really sorry."

"Good night," she said again, and he gave her a little nod in return.

In the bathroom, she went to the tub instead of the shower. She drew the bath as hot as she could stand and stripped off the clothes she had been wearing for far too long. She turned up the music and found her favorite bath pillow, and then, finally alone, aching inside and out, she stepped carefully into the tub and slid low in the water to silently weep with both hands clasped over her mouth.