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Days Like These, pt. 3

Sharon leaned briefly against the door as it clicked shut. Her hands felt icy cold all of a sudden; her fingers shook a little when she turned the lock.

Unaware of anything being out of the ordinary, Jack had strolled past her into the kitchen area and deposited the bakery bag on the counter. He was now in the process of pulling out a cake box decorated with dark-blue abstract designs.

"I got us some croissants for tomorrow morning, too." He pulled a smaller paper bag out, held it up with a tempting smile. "Hm? Of course, the almond flour kind for me… who said the French had the monopoly on good breakfast pastry?"

Sharon simply watched him in silence, standing, arms crossed, by the sofa. Her eyes following his movements as he folded the bag and dropped it into recycling.

"Ah, speaking of breakfast... I forgot we ran out of soymilk this morning. You didn't happen to get a chance to stop by the supermarket, did you?"

This time, she couldn't keep a note of disbelief from her expression, her chin lowering, eyes narrowing a fraction; glancing up at her continued silence, Jack noticed the reaction, and his hands momentarily paused above the cake box.

"Never mind," he said after a second, and the silence stretched on as he finished unwrapping the cake.

"... So, would you like a slice?" The light tone and persuasive smile were back. "I know it's almost nine and you have your rules about dessert and sugar and so on, but I think this is worth a little cheating, no?"

The scene was too absurd for words. Sharon just shook her head, stunned almost, at the whole parody of it.

"Are you sure? Wanna ask the kid if he'd like some? Can't go wrong with Cara Venezia's flourless chocolate…"

Her body had instinctively tensed when he'd brought up her foster son. "Rusty and I already ate." She hated how all emotion had drained out of her voice. Jack must have heard it, too, because he gave her a wary look before clearing his throat.

"Well… alright, then, it'll keep, I suppose." He folded the box and put that in recycling too. By the time he'd transferred the cake to a large platter and put it in the fridge, it was becoming hard to ignore the heavy silence.

Jack let the fridge door close with a sigh, and turned to her. "Okay, Sharon. I can see you're still upset." There was an almost resigned note to his words.

"I'm not upset, Jack. I'm…" But 'angry' was no longer true, either. She wasn't angry anymore. She was just sad. Sad and very, very tired. And she wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

"Well, whatever you are, I assume you'll only feel better if you get it off your chest," he sighed again, shuffling over to the sink to get a glass of water, "so go ahead. I'm listening."

It was as perfect an opening as he could've given her, but somehow Sharon couldn't take it, falling back on familiar refrains instead.

"Frankly, I'm a little surprised to see you back here." Her tone was soft, with that undertone of sarcasm that she so easily slipped into whenever Jack was near.

"Because you made it painstakingly clear that you don't want me around?" With a quiet scoff, he walked over to the sofa. "Look, Sharon, if it bothers you that much to have me stay over, I'll find a hotel."

He'd have to, by the end of the night.

"I just thought you might have left town again, after today."

Jack paused to give her a long look. "Well… I didn't. Guess you don't know me as well as you think."

The words echoed oddly in the silent living room, a bitter aftertone lingering in the air.

Sharon averted her eyes for a moment, fixing the corner of the coffee table with a sad gaze. "Jack," she said quietly, and looked back to him. "I'm filing the papers for divorce."

The silence before had been tense and uncomfortable; now, it was deafening. Jack simply stared at her for a half a minute, then he turned and pulled out the sheets and pillows for the sofa, setting them on the corner cushion before taking a seat, himself. He crossed one leg over the other and sipped wordlessly from his water glass, and soon it became obvious that he had no intention to say anything at all.

The complete lack of reaction left Sharon at a loss.

"Did you…" Hear? Understand? Either of those sounded ridiculous and condescending, because of course he'd heard her, but … she had no idea what to make of his response. "Jack, did you understand what I just said?"

He gave her an impatient glance. "Yes, Sharon, I heard you."

And then nothing, again.

Sharon shook her head, confused. "Is…I…" She stuttered, and damn it, how did he manage to leave her feeling so flat-footed? "Is there… do you want to discuss anything about this…?"

Jack let out a long-suffering sigh. "Sharon," he told her. "You're tired. I'm tired. Why don't we call it a night, and we can 'discuss this' in the morning?"

Which was nothing but what she'd wanted all along, yet somehow coming from him, the suggestion sounded… off. She wasn't sure what was bothering her about it.

Other than the fact that he obviously still planned to spend the night, that is.

In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't even that big a deal, nor was it truly surprising… but still…

She cleared her throat again, and Jack gave her an almost sympathetic look, still sipping quietly from his glass:

"Was there anything else…?"

What was wrong with the man! Heat rose to Sharon's cheeks.

"Jack – there's nothing else, no… but I'd like to know that you're taking this matter seriously."

He swirled the water in the glass, and sighed once more. "Ohh as seriously as possible, I assure you." When she couldn't help an annoyed exhale, he looked up again, for the first time seeming a bit irritated. "Come on, Sharon, do we have to do this now? I get it, you're angry. I'm sorry about that – but to be perfectly honest with you, I'm kind of running out of ideas as to how to help you, here."

He shook his head, standing up to take his glass to the sink.

"Getting on your good side can really be a bit of thankless job, sometimes, you know?" The jet of water from the sink briefly filled the silence, and then Jack glanced over his shoulder. "Look, why don't we just get a good night's sleep, and hopefully we'll both feel better in the morning."

Sharon stared at him in disbelief, the confusion, the indignation, the sadness and annoyance and that bone-deep exhaustion whirling together in a chaotic mixture, that left her feeling as though the world was spinning fifty times faster. And with that, the disheartening realization that this was a familiar feeling.

How many times through the years had she stood there across from him, with the ground shaking beneath her feet?

"We can talk about the rest in the morning, if you prefer," she conceded in the end. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears, again. "There isn't… there isn't much in the way of details, anyway. Gavin has the paperwork –"

It was Jack's turn to look disbelieving. "You actually called Baker?" His grimace of disdain hadn't changed over the years. She'd forgotten how much Jack disliked Gavin, too. "Jesus, Sharon… why'd you have to go and do that? You know we'll never hear the end of it, now."

Again she tried to think of something to say in response, and failed.

Whatever she'd imagined this discussion being, the realities of it kept catching her entirely unprepared.

Jack pulled his toothbrush and sleep shorts out of his suitcase, and shuffled over to the bathroom. "You don't happen to have any antacids, do you? I'm afraid I'm gonna need them."

Sharon closed her eyes for a second, a futile attempt to stave off the growing headache.

"Medicine cabinet," she said finally in a tired breath.

And when the door to the bathroom had closed behind him, she let herself drop into an armchair, lowered her forehead in her hand and tried to figure out at which point exactly she'd dropped the reins of this conversation. It was true that she hadn't had a plan, yes... but how were things running so terribly out of her control...?

But the truth was, she'd hardly had any control over the situation at all, from the second Jack had set foot in the condo for this latest visit. He'd dropped in in the midst of such a troubled time, nearly two weeks after Rusty's misadventure, when Sharon had been reeling from that still; Jack's abrupt arrival had only knocked her further out of kilter. She hadn't been in a good place before he'd come... and after, everything could, of course, only have grown worse…

Two nights before…

Seated in her usual corner of the sofa, Sharon leafed through a folder with the latest case file, reviewing her own notes from earlier. She could only half-focus on the task... but then that was nothing new, these days.

The situation with Rusty kept taking its toll even long after it had, technically, been resolved. He was home, yes, and she wasn't angry anymore, not really… but somehow there was something inside her that Sharon couldn't quite get over. There were no words to even describe it, just the uncomfortable sensation of a weight on her chest whenever she thought about what he'd done; a weight that caused her heart to constrict and words to die down in her throat and a miserable hollow in the pit of her stomach.

She didn't know why she was having so much trouble moving on. He'd apologized twenty times over and it was obvious that he wanted to be there and that he was sorry and … but still there was something that wasn't allowing her to let go, and not knowing what it was, she had no idea how to fix it. Trying and failing over and over was leaving her constantly exhausted.

Rusty was curled up in one of the armchairs, laptop on his lap, silent as she was. He only gave her wary glances every now and then. Conversation between them was sparse and half-forced still; he initiated most of it and Sharon knew, she could see that he was trying, but she simply couldn't think of much to say in return. She did her best to be responsive whenever he spoke up, because she wasn't trying to punish him more – he was already grounded for the foreseeable future, and she didn't mean to add the silent treatment to that – only words were hard to get past that sad little something in her chest.

It worried her, this overreaction of sorts. Was it shock? That might've excused her for the first couple of days after finding him, but it had been twelve days now and she still woke up every morning feeling like she wanted to cry, and whatever that was, it wasn't shock anymore. Something else was bothering her, and she couldn't put her finger on it, and that was equal parts frustrating and scary.

Sharon didn't like not knowing what was going on in her own head.

Or her own heart, or wherever the source of this dull anguish was that was weighing so heavily on her. Why was she having such a hard time with what Rusty had done? He'd been monumentally inconsiderate, yes, and reckless and gambling with his own life and so, so unkind, and of course she was going to be unhappy about it, but frankly she'd forgiven some pretty awful things from her other children before. Neither of them had run from her, true, but…

An icy sort of discomfort churned in her stomach, and Sharon shifted in her seat and gave up that train of thought. A soft involuntary sigh escaped her as she focused back on the case notes.

"Do you –" Rusty cleared his throat, fidgeting a little. "Do you mind if I … make some... tea?" He gave her a cautious look.

He'd done this several times so far, every now and then he'd find a pretext to make tea and Sharon would let him, even though she knew that he didn't really like tea. Or she thought she knew. Maybe she'd been wrong. She'd been wrong about a lot of things.

"Go ahead," she said softly, and forced herself to think of something more to add because again, she knew that he was trying… "There's a new honey jar at the back of the cabinet." There, that was good enough, as good as she could manage in any case, and it might've sounded almost normal if not for… everything.

"Would you like some?" He wavered halfway to getting up from his armchair, and she accomplished a small smile with only moderate effort.

"I would. Thank you."

Rusty looked almost too relieved when he jumped out of his seat, and a second later he was banging cabinet doors, causing her lips to twitch in a bittersweet grimace at the familiar sound. A few seconds later he rattled off about half a dozen flavors for her to pick from, casting anxious glances at her after each one. Once she'd picked, there was more tinkering and the sound of mugs clanging against the counter, and Sharon lowered her head above the case file again and let out another soft sigh as a familiar knot rose in her throat.

That was when they heard the sudden commotion at the front door, and things began to spiral even further downhill…

She'd opened the condo door to find Jack backed against the far wall, hands in the air, flanked by the two officers that made up the security detail. One of them had a watchful eye and a weapon trained on him, while the other studied the wallet that he'd presumably produced for identification.

He looked like he wanted to lower his hands when he saw her, but the sight of the gun made him reconsider. "Sharon!" He cleared his throat, smiled. "I have to say, this wasn't exactly the reunion I had in mind… er, can you please tell your uh, bodyguards…? ...that I'm your husband and it's okay to let me through?" He looked from one man to the other, than wriggled his eyebrows at her in a hopeful manner. "Not that the officers and I didn't have fun searching each other, but I'm a little out of shape for this kind of gymnastics...! Why do you have bodyguards, anyway? Are they giving LAPD captains new perks, these days?"

She could only stare at him, shocked.

"Jack. What are you – " But she trailed off, because she didn't really want to know. Wasn't it always the same, anyway?

She gestured to the two officers to let him go, and he lowered his hands and grinned at everyone and made a great show of adjusting his jacket.

"Thank you – oh, yes, shouldn't forget that!" He retrieved his wallet from one of the officers, then turned to her again with a jovial smile. "So. Sharon. This was certainly an exciting welcome. Can we go inside now… or is there an X-ray machine around here that I need to pass through?"

Her voice had still not started working again, so she just wordlessly moved out of the doorway, more out of habit than as an invitation, really. But either way Jack stepped inside. She managed to nod a tired thanks to the security detail before closing the door. Her head was already spinning, and Jack had only been there about thirty seconds.

"Hello, young man! Ah – no lamp this time, I see."

Sharon turned around to see Rusty standing warily in the hallway, his cheeks a little flushed. There were still enough traces of residual alarm in his expression that she didn't have the heart to scold him.

But she said it anyway, "I told you to wait in your room," because if he couldn't even follow that simple instruction when it came to his security…

"I recognized Jack's voice," the boy mumbled, and she nodded and let him off the hook, this time, reaching a hand to squeeze his shoulder in a silent reassurance that there hadn't been any danger and he didn't need to worry.

The teapot whistled, then, and after glancing at her and receiving a slight nod in return, Rusty walked over to the stove to take care of it. Sharon directed her attention back to her husband, arms crossing as she studied him with a guarded look:

"What are you doing here, Jack?" There was no way around that question, after all.

"Well, right now, I'm wondering what that delicious smell is!" He sniffed the air with a smile, taking a couple of steps to get a better view of the kitchen. "Is that jasmine-peach tea? One of my favorites. Do you mind getting out an extra mug, Rusty?"

It was impossible to miss the way the boy immediately glanced to Sharon again, and this time there was no nod from her to go ahead; she didn't even meet his eyes, preferring to keep her steady gaze on the man in front of her.

"Jack."

He let out a conceding sigh, turning his smile on her again. "Alright, Sharon, I can see that I can't get anything past your keen detective senses… Well, the truth is – you know I'm hopeless at holding grudges – the truth is I couldn't stop thinking about the way we left things, last time." He gave a self-deprecating little shrug. "It just didn't sit well, you know? So I thought we could use some nice time together, get on better terms again…"

Sharon stared, wondering if she was somehow delirious. It had been a really stressful couple of weeks. Maybe she was losing her mind.

"I'm only in town for a few days," he continued, "although technically my court-appointed attorney license is still valid, but I don't know about giving that another go, after last time. No, I really just came mostly to see you…" he trailed off, frowning as he studied her more carefully for the first time, "…and now that I'm here, I'm thinking maybe I should've come earlier. Sharon, are you sick? You don't look so good."

She simply couldn't stop the perplexed staring. "No," she remembered to reply after a few seconds. "No Jack, I'm not sick."

He was still frowning. "Are you sure? Maybe you're just tired. Why don't you sit down and let me bring you that tea. You know, to start us off on the right foot…"

This time she physically took a step back when he tried to reach for her elbow. "No."

"Come on, Sharon, you look like you need it. I might as well earn my keep, so to speak – it's no bother."

She still couldn't help wondering if this was all some sort of delirious nightmare. "No, thank you."

"Come on, I can just – "

"She said no, okay? Just… drop it." Rusty sounded about as unhappy as she felt, and it occurred to Sharon that this latest trial wasn't only a disruption in her life. The last thing he needed, too, was more pressure… and she'd been doing such a terrible job handling the aftermath of him running away, and they were both so tense and uneasy and now this…

A slight shiver went through her, her hands in the pockets of the sweater tightening into fists.

Jack's eyebrows rose as he looked from her to Rusty. "Is there something I'm missing here?"

"No," Sharon said curtly. Taking a deep breath, she tried to keep her voice from shaking too much. "Excuse me."

And with that, she retreated down the hall to her bedroom in as composed - and as rapid - a manner as she could manage.

Jack looked after her, entirely unsure of what had just happened. "…I'll just… make myself at home on the couch, then…"

Now…

A sudden noise startled her from her thoughts, and Sharon looked up to see Rusty hovering uncertainly by the sofa. Her features instinctively arranged themselves into an expression of mild warning:

"What did I tell you?" she admonished.

"I know but like, I could hear Jack in the bathroom so obviously you two weren't having your private conversation or anything right now," he hurried to defend, "and like, I think I was getting thirsty so I came to get some water – you know, so that way I won't have to interrupt you later." He looked so proud of his argument that Sharon couldn't help a soft, amused huff, even though she wasn't feeling much in the way of humor at the moment.

She waved a hand toward the kitchen in a silent indication to go ahead, and for a second Rusty looked confused as to what she was expecting him to do, and she could read it on his face when he remembered that right – thirsty, water. A small smile tugged at her lips, though it faded quickly as her tiredness and preoccupation caught up again. Her eyes involuntarily wandered toward the closed bathroom door.

"So, like…" Rusty glanced back over to her while filling the world's slowest glass of water. "Did you… talk... to Jack…?"

Sharon sighed. "More or less." Less, really. "It's... a process."

Talking to Jack usually was.

"Right..." He was eyeing her warily again. "Uhm, so, do you think if I made some tea..."

Her warning look snapped back into place before he could even finish.

Then the bathroom door rattled, and Sharon wordlessly motioned with her head in the direction of his room, absently wondering if Rusty knew how lucky he could count himself that he didn't have to stay and witness whatever drawn-out, painful mess her conversation with Jack was building up to be.

Next up: Rusty's POV on what's been happening! And, finding out what exactly Jack said to Sharon that finally made her call Gavin.

Thank you for reading!