Everything We Are - Chapter 13

by Kadi

Rated: M

Disclaimer: It's not my sandbox, I'm only visiting for a time.

By Sunday afternoon the house was quiet. Rusty had gone back to his apartment, and Ricky had gone with him. Charlotte was running errands for her mother, and really the older three just needed to get out of the house. It was understandable. They'd all been cooped up in there for a couple of days. Now that the ordeal seemed to be more or less over, it was time for life to begin settling down again. Dunn had taken the deal, and would go in front of a judge early the next morning. Despite that, there still seemed to be a bit of a cloud hanging over all of them. As though it wasn't quite settled yet.

After all of the activity the previous few days, the silence in the house was almost eerie. Andy wandered through, a bottled water in his hand and upon finding the lower level empty, he peeked outside. There was that moment of panic, illogical and irrational though it might be, which swept over him when the emptiness of the house took him back to Friday evening. For just a moment his heart seized again, and a sharp pain moved through his chest. Then he spotted them.

Out beyond the deck, where the yard opened on the other side of the pool, Ian was pushing a large toy truck through his sandbox. His wife sat in a wooden lawn chair near by, hair half pulled back and shades covering her eyes. She was curled in the chair, knees drawn to her chest and arms wrapped around them, as though despite the summer sun, she was still chilled. Andy remained at the door for a moment, just watching. Every once in a while Ian would run back to his mother, holding something new and interesting. He would watch her smile or laugh, and the child ran back to his play. Then her smile slowly melted, faded away. Something twisted inside him, and Andy pushed through the door.

He crossed the deck and moved down the steps. He strode toward them with slow, measured steps. When he reached them, Andy drew another chair nearer to where she sat and dropped into it. Ian was busy burying and uncovering his dinosaurs. Andy glanced at her, squinted against the sunlight. "He seems to be doing alright."

"He does," she agreed quietly. "I'm hoping in a few days, he'll hardly remember at all." They were the ones that would remember. "Are the kids still gone?"

"Yeah," he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed them at the ankles. "Might be a while, they were going a bit stir crazy."

"I can understand that." Her head tilted, a small smile touched her lips. "When you're young you can't fathom being held down in one place. Now I try to figure out how to get as many errands done in one trip as possible so that I don't have to go out again."

Andy snorted. He felt the same way. "Getting old is hell."

"Indeed." Her lips pursed. Thinking of being young reminded her of another topic. "Jack called," she said, and then shrugged. "I was going to tell you last night, but..." She waved a hand in the air. But then Dunn had been found, and she was ashamed to admit, she'd forgotten.

He grunted, frowned at her. "What did he want?" His annoyance was immediate upon hearing the name. He might have been friendly with the guy once, but things changed.

Sharon tipped her shades up and looked at her husband, a little surprised at his tone. No, Andy didn't particularly appreciate Jack, and Sharon didn't always appreciate his ex-wife either. Still, he was sounding more brusque than usual. "He wanted to check on all of us. He was worried."

"Right." Andy sniffed. "He has a funny way of showing it." The guy hadn't shown hardly an ounce of worry for her or their kids in the thirty years that they were married. Now he was concerned?

She understood his ire, and part of her even agreed. At the same time, Sharon sighed quietly. "Andy." The call had meant something to her, and she wouldn't apologize for that.

He stared at her, eyes narrowing. He saw the hurt in her gaze, but there was something else. That indulgent look she got at times, with all of them, and he was certainly no stranger to it. He recognized it quite well, as though she were putting up with his antics but didn't quite agree. "You're kidding me right," he drawled.

Sharon remained silent. She looked away, let her gaze wander back to Ian. She dropped her shades back over her eyes and drew a breath. She wasn't going to argue with him. She felt the tension coiling in him and chose to ignore it, at least where it concerned Jackson.

"Don't do that," he muttered under his breath. "Do not get all passive aggressive on me."

Her tongue swept over her teeth and Sharon sighed. "I am not going to argue with you about Jack," she said calmly. "He was worried, he called, and whatever else he is or has done, has no bearing on this situation, and really, I appreciate that you would be upset on my behalf but it's none of your business, Andy."

His eyes snapped to her face, they flashed, growing darker. "None of my business?" He asked, growing quieter. "You are my business," he said slowly, deliberately. "It's a little something I like to call marriage, or maybe it was more convenient for you when the husband wasn't in the picture all the time."

"Okay!" Sharon stood up and walked toward the sandbox. She plastered a wide, fake smile on her face and held out her arms for Ian. "I think it's time to get cleaned up and have a nap, don't you buddy?"

He looked up at her and flashed a suitably cute smile. "But I wanna play?"

"We'll play again later, after your nap," she promised. Sharon lifted the boy out of the sandbox and quickly dusted him off, along with his favorite dinosaur toys. Afterward, she picked him up and settled him on her hip. She studiously ignored the simmering Andy behind her and walked toward the house.

Ian's socks and shoes were abandoned on the deck. She took him up to the bath and got him cleaned up before tucking him in for his nap. He wasn't completely willing to go down in his own bed, and it took longer to get him to sleep than was usual, but with some coaxing he went. Sharon picked up the laundry, and gathered other items from the upstairs hampers before she returned to the first floor. Andy was waiting in the living room. She glared at him as she walked past, completing her chore of delivering the clothes to where they needed to be. Only then did she return to the living room. She took her shades off her head, where she had slipped them upon carrying Ian into the house, and tossed them onto the coffee table.

"Alright. You want to fight, let's fight, but before we start I would appreciate if you could tell me what it is that I have done that has so bruised your ego." Her hands found her hips, while her eyes flashed.

"I don't want to fight with you, Sharon." Andy shook his head at her. "But it would be great if you could stop walking around here like a ghost. Since when does Jack call that you don't get worked up because he isn't willing to call your kids? You forgot that he called? Really? Suddenly he's concerned about our son, and I doubt he even bothered to talk to his own."

"Oh my god," she exclaimed, incredulously. "This is about Jack?" She stared at him, eyes wide. "We are honestly standing here, right now, arguing about my ex-husband?" It was utterly insane. Of all the things that they could be going on about, that was what he chose? The shoes that he'd tripped over that morning, or that his three favorite ties were still at the cleaners because she forgot to pick them up on Friday. This was his topic of choice? "Andy, you're going to have to help me out here," she said, much more calmly. "I'm a little lost at the moment. If you need to fight, we'll fight." His temper was going to need an outlet, and she could accommodate him. It was only natural given all that they'd been through.

Andy stared at her. The bewildered look in her eyes had his own narrowing. His jaw clenched. He exhaled roughly and shook his head. He ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe you could start with telling me just how damned long you've been having doubts about us? About this?" His hand waved toward the toys strewn around the living room, leaving no doubt of just what this entailed. It had been there, in the back of his mind, since the minute she'd said it. How much of it, he wondered, was terror and doubt, and how much of that was her?

The air left her lungs. She staggered back, stricken. Sharon shook her head slowly. "I..." Her voice hitched. She gripped the back of the couch and closed her eyes. "Andy." His name was a whisper, barely audible. "It's never been that I doubt us. Of course, I love you, but—"

"No, it's just raising a child together that you seem to have an issue with all of a sudden, or has it always been there?" He took a step toward her, but didn't close the gap. His own doubts were raising their ugly head. "Just how damned long has this been going on, Sharon, and why the hell haven't you said anything about it before."

Her eyes flashed, and suddenly it wasn't only his temper that was sparking the room with an electric current. "I have never had an issue with our having Ian. Yes, it terrifies me every day. From the moment that I knew about him, I never once thought about not having him. You know that. What—" She shook her head. "We discussed all of it at length, long before I ever had the amnio, we were going to do this and we weren't going to look back. The question was always whether or not I was going back to work. I have never not wanted him. Where is this coming from?" She stared at him incredulously, wondering just where his anger at her was coming from.

Andy leaned over the armchair in front of him, hands braced against its back. "You. It's coming from you," he rumbled, trying very hard to remember that there was a sleeping child upstairs. "You said yourself that you wondered if he was better off with Nicole and Jake."

"Why wouldn't I?" She shook her head at him. "Andy, look at us. We're getting closer to sixty than either of us want to admit, and we're chasing a toddler? It's insane. But it's always going to be insane. My god, yes, yes I wonder if we are doing the right thing. Every day I wonder if keeping Ian with us is what is best for him. Andy, for him." Her voice hitched and she held up a hand when it looked like he might move. "He is the first thing that I think about every morning, and he is the last thing that I think about every night, how can you ask me that? How dare you stand there and insinuate that I don't want that little boy—"

"What am I supposed to think," He fired back. His eyes flashed. "You've never once mentioned those doubts to me before. We wonder what will happen to him when we're gone, but you've sure as hell never mentioned thinking he was better off somewhere else."

"I don't want him anywhere else," she snapped. "I wouldn't... I'm not..." Sharon shook her head, she couldn't even get the words out and her voice dipped, growing thick. She pressed the fingers of one hand against her lips when the trembled. Breathing was difficult against the sudden, painful lump in her throat. Her chest constricted painfully, and her stomach quivered. "I do sometimes wonder if we're just being selfish," she said, much more quietly. "I wonder that I'm too old, and that the best years of my life are already gone and I'm not what he needs. Andy." She gripped the back of the sofa tightly and looked down. "Every time I have to choose between him and something else, and I can't choose him, I doubt myself," she admitted painfully. "When he's sick and I have to ask Rusty or Nicole to watch him because he can't go to daycare and we can't stay home with him, I loathe myself for not being able to choose him," She said quietly. "When he has to sleep in my office until Rusty can pick him up because daycare is closed and we can't go home yet, I ask myself how I could be so devoted to my job, when he needs me more. When my child is eating drive-thru instead of real food, because the idea of coming home and making dinner makes me hurt all over. When all I want to do is pour a glass of wine and crawl into a bath, and I feel guilty because for just a second I'm frustrated that instead it's bath time, story-time, and bedtime," her voice hitched again. "I have doubts about whether or not I'm doing the right thing for him every day. Don't you?"

It was then that the fight went out of him. She worried and she doubted, and she kept pushing through everyday. He rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed. "Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, I guess I do." Andy exhaled quietly and looked toward the ceiling. His eyes closed for just a moment. "I guess I really hadn't thought about it like that. Hell, I worry about making the same mistakes again... working too much, spending too little time at home. I never really thought beyond that, I didn't have to. I have you."

"Don't," she pointed at him. "Do not put me on a pedestal, Andy. I am not, and have by no means ever been perfect. He is mine, and he is staying right here, but of course I question it. Look at us! There is more life behind us than in front of us, and... yes, I'll admit it. I'm selfish. I want this, I want all of it, but I do wonder if I am doing the right thing. But..." She shook her head. "It isn't only about Ian. I questioned myself everyday whether or not holding on to Rusty was the right thing to do, or if Emma was right and he would be safer in witness protection. I've lost sleep over whether or not staying married to a man who could care so little about his family was the right example to be setting for my other children. Ricky dates, but never seriously. Charlotte is a cynic when it comes to the very idea of marriage, and I know witnessing the disaster that was my marriage to their father is at the root of that. I just do the best I can," she shrugged. "I don't know any other way to do this."

He closed the distance between them and cupped her head in his hands. "Neither do I." Andy sighed. "Maybe... hell." He shook his head. "It's possible I just took it for granted that we were doing this at all. I think about it. The what and the why, and what will happen after."

"Hm." She tipped her head forward, so that it rested against his chest and drew a deep breath. "It's entirely possible that I took it for granted too. We should have discussed it before. That's my fault. I'm so used to doing this alone..." She chewed on her bottom lip and tipped her head back again. "You're not the only one worried about making the same mistakes… I've been the nagging wife, I know how that story ends." She had been left to raise her children alone.

His forehead lowered to hers. He drew a ragged breath. "Never." He drew her close and his arms folded arm around her. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without one hell of a fight."

"And you do like a good fight," she murmured with a small smile.

"I do," he agreed. "Just don't give up," he said, and not for the first time that weekend. "We'll keep finding a way to make this work. Telling me that you're tired and that you're worried isn't nagging. Hell, if one of us is the nagging spouse…"

"I know." She believed that, believed in them. But the mind wasn't always controllable, it went places you would rather it didn't. "I love you," she whispered. "I want this. That has never been the problem. I think it just... hearing my own doubts mixed in with the vitriol that man was spewing, combined with all of it... I'm not perfect, Andy."

"Maybe not." He held her tighter. "You're perfect for me." He felt her hands curl into his shirt, felt her shudder in his arms. He tipped her head back and found her eyes moist. "I'm sorry."

"No," she shook her head. "Don't be. I think..." Sharon looked away for a moment. "That man came into this house and he took more than our child. It's going to take us a while to get it back. Besides... love you, love your temper, right?"

Andy snorted. "I don't know about that. It might be mixed in with those mistakes that I don't want to make again."

"I knew who I was marrying," she told him.

"Oh yeah?" he arched a brow at her. "I thought you did that because I knocked-"

"Andy." She poked his side, her eyes narrowed. Sharon shook her head at him, because he could be so completely ridiculous and she loved him for it. "Are we okay?" They'd argued before, but never like this.

He felt the tremor that ran through her and exhaled quietly. "Yeah." He cupped her face. "We are. Even when it doesn't feel like it. It bothers the hell out of me that you didn't say anything sooner, but I think I get it. I guess I'm just used to you being the solid one." That was the crux of his problem, he realized. Her doubt shook him. He never expected it, not out of her. Maybe he had put her on a pedestal. "I love you," he said.

Her arms curled around his waist and she leaned into him. Needing that warmth, and the solid feeling of him against her. It was a sense of security that they'd lost when Dunn took Ian. It rattled them, and in more ways than just how close they came to losing their son. It had shaken the very foundation upon which they were built, but it couldn't break them. She wouldn't allow it to. She turned her face into his neck and inhaled deeply. "It's because I love you both so much that I worry," she whispered. "It doesn't mean I'm not happy. It doesn't mean that I don't want this, you, him, us."

"Same here." He held her more tightly. His cheek rested atop her hair. "Even when you drive me nuts."

"I know the feeling," she said blandly. She leaned back and tipped her face up, kissing him gently. "I'm always going to want you," she said.

"We talked about hiring a nanny," he said gently, "after you went back to work. You weren't comfortable with it then, maybe it's something we should put back on the table. Someone who would be with Ian when he's sick, when we're stuck in the office, and when—"

"No." Sharon shook her head at him. "No, Andy. I may question whether I'm doing the right thing for him, but he is mine. I won't have another woman raising my child. We may have to reevaluate in the future, as he gets older and we do too, but right now, no. We're not there yet. Let's at least wait until you're on your walker."

It was delivered so easily that he blinked at her. Andy's eyes narrowed. "My walker? Who was hobbling around here for three days because of a teeny little bruise on her—"

"You're older than I am," she pointed out. "With your penchant for fighting, you're bound to end up with a broken hip. I'm sure knee replacement surgery isn't far around the corner, and while we're at it, we should talk about your back." She made a face at him. "You aren't thirty anymore, honey, and I think sometimes you forget that."

"I didn't hear you complaining in the shower the other day," he drawled with a smirk.

"No, my back complained plenty loud for both of us later," she snorted.

Andy drew her to him again. He dropped a kiss to her mouth. "Maybe we should discuss it in more detail. In the shower. We may have done it wrong."

"Hm." She hummed. "Nice try, but no. Not right now anyway. There are a thousand things that need to be done around here, and I don't know how long Ian is going to nap in his own bed."

"Pity." He sighed. "Making up is always the best part of fighting with you." His hand slid down and landed in a playful swat against her hip.

"I'm sure." Her head tilted. "There's just one thing…" Sharon leaned up and kissed him again. "If you ever try to pick a fight with me in front of any of our kids again," she mumbled against his mouth. "I will get the beanbag gun out of the trunk-"

He chuckled quietly, but nodded. "I won't." That was a bad move on his part. He should have waited. "Well, I probably will, but I'll try harder." His temper wasn't always controllable. It was a work in progress.

"Thank you." She tipped her face up, and kissed the tip of his nose before moving away. "Oh, for the record," she drawled, heading toward the laundry room. "Jack asked about you too..."

He looked skyward and sighed. "Woman!" Her chuckle had his eyes narrowing. Andy counted to three and then he followed her. Trouble, his partner told him that she'd be trouble. Good thing he was a big fan of the subject.