A/N- Jack seemed so sure that people didn't call each other at three in the morning, didn't he?

They sold you out again/

They always do, so say it/

Just say it.

-The Mowgli's, Say It Just Say It

Sharon dropped onto her bed face-down, utterly exhausted. She had just gotten Cat to bed for the second time, and it was barely eleven. She picked her head up enough to glare at the red digits on her clock.

11:04

She buried her face in the covers and moaned. She hadn't even gone back to work, yet. The idea reminded her of the box of papers Hotchkiss had given her the week before. She still had some booklets to get through.

She fumbled for the box from her position on the bed. It was shoved half under the bed frame. She found the booklet she was looking for, and opened it. Most of the reading was pretty elementary, and it hadn't taken her long to learn it. Auditing and some of the procedures were more complicated, but she didn't think it was anything too complicated. It was common sense; anyone could do it.

She bit back a laugh. Not quite anyone, she corrected herself. Some people had an astonishing lack of common sense. Like Jack. He hadn't called. It had been eight days, and she hadn't had a single word from or about him. She had passed from anger to worry, and then complete terror around the fourth day. But no one called, not the morgue, not the hospital, not Jack's brother, Tommy. After that, she'd moved onto frustration. More than likely, Jack was still out there, somewhere, having a good time, or at least a better time than she was. Even if he had to work all day, he'd at least be around at night. She seized the pillow next to and rolled onto her back, clutching it to her chest. It was nice to just have someone to hold.

"Dammit, Jack," she growled. She sighed and tried to relax. Fretting wouldn't get her anything but high blood pressure. She closed her eyes and slowly ran through exercises she had done in her college dance classes.

Point your toes. Flex. She curled her toes back. Point. Flex. Stretch the arms. She let go of the pillow and pulled her arms back over her head, tugging on her wrists. Tense. . . and relax. The whole circuit only took a minute, and she ran through it a few times until she felt calmer. She rolled onto her side and grabbed the pillow again, breathing deeply.

Suddenly, the phone rang. She jerked upright and glanced at the clock. It was half past one, she realized with a shock. She had fallen asleep.

The phone jangled again, and she launched herself down the hall, skidding into the kitchen. She grabbed the counter with one hand and the phone with the other.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded breathy and soft.

"Shar?"

She dropped the phone and stood stock-still. It was Jack. Her mind was completely blank and she wasn't sure whether she wanted more to retrieve the phone or leave it lay. She settled for the former. If nothing else, she might figure out where he was.

She reached down slowly and picked the receiver up.

"Jack?"

"Shar! I'm so glad you answered! I-"

"Jack," she hissed. "It is one-thirty in the morning."

There was a pause. "Oh. I guess it is. Anyways-"

"Jackson. Normal people are asleep at this time. I was asleep. Your children are asleep." She stopped for a moment to listen. She didn't hear Ricky or Cat moving about.

"Yeah, about that-"

"Where are you? I've been so worried! I thought you might be dead!" Her voice cracked on the last word. "Eight days and not a single word. A single phone call would have been nice. Or maybe, you could have actually come back and we could have figured this out-"

"Hey, babe-"

"Don't you 'hey, babe' me." It was like a dam had broken. All of the anger and fear she'd been holding back were rushing out. She knew, somewhere, that she should try and slow her words, but, at the same time, she didn't feel Jack deserved it. "Don't you dare, Jackson."

"Wha-"

"Twenty thousand dollars, Jack!" she whispered heatedly. "How could you lose that? We need to pay the bills, we need to save for Ricky and the baby-"

"Sharon," he drawled. "We have plenty of money for them."

"Not if you keep going through it like this." She took a deep breath and steeled herself. "The drinking, the gambling, it needs to stop now. I don't care what it takes you, but you can't endanger our family like this." She paused again. "I'll leave you, Jack, if I have to."

"If not for me, we wouldn't be living in a nice house," his tone had suddenly turned cool. "Ricky wouldn't be going to Saint Joseph's, and we'd be in debt for years just to pay for that baby if we had to live off your cop pay."

She gasped, tears gathering in her eyes at the stinging words. The tears only served to make her angrier. "I took that job to pay for your school, Jack! Then for the down payment on the house, and for Ricky. We lived off my pay until you got a job. I can do it again," she finished sharply. She reached up and fingered the split on her lip. It was still healing. "Why didn't you just tell me, Jack? I thought we were okay. I thought everything-" she paused. "I thought everything was paid off." She stopped and leaned against the wall. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

There was a long silence. After a minute, she thought he might have hung up. Then the receiver crackled as Jack sighed heavily.

"I don't know, Sharon. Things just changed."

"Jack."

"I don't know why. I don't know how. They- we- just changed."

"That's not what I mean," she replied roughly. "Where did your paycheck go? Mine? There's hardly anything."

"You don't need to know."

She froze. He had done something illegal. The thought had barely finished, when another crept into her mind. Had he hired another woman? "Jack?" she asked quietly. "Jack, what happened?"

There was a silence.

"Jack, tell me!" She sounded desperate, even to her own ears. Some distant corner of her mind was horrified by the weakness, but she she overrode it.

"Just some bad decisions, Shar," he said finally. The words sounded almost trivial, like he had mistakenly picked hazelnut-flavored coffee instead of plain for his morning pick-me-up. "Look," he said finally. "I have a number you can reach me at if you need to."

"What?" she yelped. "Wait, Jack-"

He began rattling the digits off, and she scrabbled for a slip of paper to write them down on.

"Jack-"

"Say hi to Ricky for me, will you? Take care of yourself."

"Jack!"

The phone merely buzzed at her. Jack had already ended the call. She stood alone in the kitchen, feeling more lost than before. She contemplated calling back, but he probably wouldn't pick up. After a few minutes, she slowly hung the receiver back on its hook.

She walked over to the kitchen island and sat on one of the bar stools, looking around her. There were things that needed doing. She reached for a pad of paper and a pen. She'd start by looking for an apartment and putting the house on the market. The sooner she could get some money, the sooner she could start paying the debt that Jack had dropped on her shoulders. She could take out some space in the classifieds to get rid of the furniture that wouldn't fit in an apartment, all the books Jack left behind. They didn't have much, even though they'd been together for nearly a decade, she realized with a start.

She sighed, pushing the list away. There was nothing more to be accomplished at the current hour. She walked down the hall to her room, checking into Ricky and Cat's rooms on the way. Thankfully, they had both slept through Jack's call. Hopefully they'd stay asleep, she thought tiredly. She peeled her clothes off and threw them over a chair next to her dresser, pulled out a set of panties and an old, overlarge t-shirt and drew them on. She looked to the door and debated scrubbing her teeth.

"No," she said to herself. She crossed to the bed and pulled the covers back, fell onto the bed. She pulled the blankets up over her head, drew one of the pillows down, and curled around it.

Jack had sold her out again.

Let me know what you think?