A/N- I'm moving into my new apartment, and I just put together a desk. With two screwdrivers and a screwdriver gun thing. . . One of those electrical things that does all the spinning stuff for you. I was in Montana last week at diabetes camp, so I just saw the eppy today. Also my power just went out, so this may be late haha

Sharon contemplated the screwdriver in her hand.

"Sharon?"

Rusty peered around the desk at her. "What are you doing?"

They were sitting on the floor of his room. Somehow, he'd managed to knock the little door on his desk loose. The desk had a little set of shelves on one side, and they were neatly covered by a little wooden door. Or had been, until he'd knocked it off. He honestly hadn't been doing anything, he'd just left it open before bed- on accident- and run into it when he got up to go to the bathroom.

He'd never actually figured out where Sharon kept her repair tools. On the few occasions he'd needed a screwdriver or a hammer to put something together, she'd fetched them herself. When he was finished, he gave her the tools back. . . or forgot about them. Sharon would eventually either ask him for the screwdriver or the hammer or the super glue and he would fish it out of whatever pile of clothes and books it had ended up under. Or she would find them herself. She had a sixth sense for finding things.

"Mm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm just thinking."

"About what?" He reached over and snatched the screwdriver, shoving it into the screw that was most certainly not flush and began to twist it back into place.

"Screwdrivers."

He rolled his eyes. "Helpful. Care to clarify?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Screwdrivers and how to kill people with them."

He nearly dropped the item in question. "What?"

"That's what happened today. Kendall thought it might be a gunshot- it looked like one, admittedly- but Doctor Morales cleaned it up, and. . . It was a Phillipshead screwdriver."

Rusty frowned and looked at the screwdriver in his hand. "Like this?"

"Mmhmm."

He passed it back to her. "I'm done."

She got to her knees to peer over the dest door at his handy work. "Really? You're not just saying that because I've scared you?"

"You? Scare me? Come on, Sharon. Seriously, I've already scared you more than you'll ever scare me."

She shot him a dark glare, but sat back. Apparently he had managed to put in a single screw satisfactorily. "Mm."

He shut the door and stood. "That movie we watched last week? And the other day, when you were coming in late and I was hiding behind-"

"Fine, fine." She held up her hand. "You got me."

He reached his hand out to pull her to her feet. Spry and energetic as she was, she was on the far side of sixty and couldn't move as easily as he.

"Sharon?" he asked when she was standing. "Why did that lady want all of those guys to say they loved her? I mean, why was it that important to her?"

She pushed her hair out of her face and started out of his room. "Well, I think that love is a very powerful emotion. And. . . the desire to be loved. . . It's something that I think we all yearn for."

He wrinkled his nose, and she caught the expression, smiling back at him.

"Not necessarily in the physical sense-"

"Eugh, gross, Sharon!"

She snorted, still smiling. "You're an adult, get over it. Not in the physical sense but in the psychological sense. We all want to have friends and family, to have someone who cares about us."

"Someone who will come looking for us if we end up in a missing persons box." He recalled the conversation from years before.

She nodded. "Yes. We all need-"

"We all need a personal police captain."

She stopped dead in the hallway, eyes bright. "Oh, honey."

He didn't even bother fighting her off as she stepped in for a hug. "Gross, Sharon."

"Gross?" The word was spoken directly into his ear. "I can show you gross, mister."

"If that's going to be you and Fl-" He shrieked loudly as she landed a sloppy kiss on his cheek. "MO-OOM!"

"I had another son, don't you forget," she laughed as she threw her arm around his neck. It was tight enough that he couldn't pull away. "I know-" she kissed his forehead. "All the things-" Another one. "That gross out and embarrass my sons." She planted her lips on his forehead and blew a raspberry.

"MOO-OMMMMM! Stop it!" He wriggled from her grasp after another struggle and stood a short distance from her, trying to catch his breath.

She grinned, quirking an eyebrow.

He couldn't tell what she was thinking. He had never been able to read her well, but neither, it seemed, did anyone else. All he could tell was that she was in one of her mischievous, to-hell-with-the-rules moods. It happened occasionally after odd cases, hard cases, or particularly long days. It wasn't like she was always strict and by the book, she had her wry sense of humor and unstoppable giggles, but he had learned to love this side of her as well. The oddly unstoppable, nostalgic Sharon. It was like a puzzle piece in the upended 1000-piece box that was his life. It clicked into place, filled something that was missing. It was like one of those background pieces, the one that you didn't know was missing until you slipped it into place.

He grinned at her. "Can't catch me!" He turned on his heel and ran into the living room. He had never jumped onto her sofa and run across it before, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.