While You're Making Other Plans

by Glistening Sun and Miss Shannon

Chapter 27

Andy saw the sun come up from the padded chair beside Sharon's bed, having been holding on to her cold hand for hours. As much as her face seemed to be radiating heat, her hands were as cold as ice. She was sleeping now and so was their baby, curled up under her other hand. The doctor had been by more than once, nurses kept checking on her vitals every few hours, but the fever just didn't break. Andy had barely eaten and he felt faint, the days in the pool house catching up with him now that adrenaline had been replaced with dread. He could beat up assailants and bodycheck people, but he couldn't protect her from this.

However, it seemed, there was someone who could. Doc Cottle made one of his brisk entrances into the hospital room, no matter that it had an only semi-conscious Sharon in it.

"Well, well," he said. „What do we have here." Andy rolled his eyes. Never had he liked the old quack any less.

"Don't you think you should start working on your bedside manner?" Andy snarled, his voice coming out tired and drained and definitely lacking its usual vigor despite the unspeakable anger that was flaring up inside him.

Cottle just lifted his brows, unfazed by the other man's aggressive behavior. „This isn't the first time this is happening. You should have called me sooner."

"I didn't call you at all!" Andy protested. "By the way, who did?"

"I asked Emily to," came the groggy voice from the bed and Andy whirled around from where he had walked to to confront Cottle.

"Sharon, honey!" He was by her side immediately, Cottle following at an infuriatingly stately pace. She struggled to sit up, but managed, her eyes red and her face even paler than he remembered. Little pink spots had started blossoming on her cheeks, standing stark against the almost white skin.

"Hi Doc, I am glad you could make it." Sharon smiled tiredly, her hand slowly caressing her stomach.

"Preeclampsia has been ruled out, I take it?" Sharon nodded, looking somewhat relieved for the matter-of-fact way her doctor was dealing with the situation.

"Good," Cottle continued. „Then it is just your crazy pregnancy fever again, I take it." He set his doctor's bag down on the bed next to Sharon's leg.

"Crazy pregnancy fever?" Andy gasped. „What the hell?"

"She had it with Emily, too, and with Ricky. Not as badly as this time, but then she wasn't as old then as she is now."

"How dare-" Andy began, but was cut off by Sharon.

"He is right, Andy," she said, the tone of warning unmistakable. "I feel just as ancient as he says I am. "With a satisfied nod, Cottle grabbed the duvet and pulled it away to reveal Sharon's calves.

"Not swollen, good sign," he said in those clipped tones of his. "Now we do the cold compresses thing again and it will work again and they will proclaim it a medical miracle again at this hospital, because all of their fancy new age medical school bogus didn't work and my grandma's good old remedy did."

Andy was spooked. He couldn't believe that Cottle would actually trust in such a mundane method when Sharon was seriously ill. The look in Sharon's eyes, however, told him not to interfere and then, he guessed, it couldn't hurt.

"Here, Andy, come and hold my hand for a bit," Sharon said softly, reaching out for him. He took her hand between both of his and pressed a soft kiss to it.

"We need to do something about our living-arrangements," Sharon said, clearly trying to dispel his concern by distracting him while Cottle was working on her legs, humming a tune under his breath. (Was it the Grey's Anatomy theme, Andy wondered - how peculiar.)

He decided to play along, hoping that engage in making plans would somehow help her focus. "What about renting something for a while?"

Sharon wrinkled her nose. Even sick like she was, she did not approve of living with someone else's furniture. "It would take a while to find something nice." While her voice was weak, she was focused and that was progress compared to earlier, when she had mumbled in her sleep and he hadn't been able to get any coherent response from her. "What about your place?"

Andy sighed. "Mine? I'm not sure that is an entirely too good idea."

Sharon ran her thumb over the back of his head. "I don't know what it is with you and your house. I have never even seen it."

"What?" Cottle called from the foot of the bed. "You let a man father your ridiculously-late-in-life-baby and move in with you up before you ever saw his place? Are you out of your mind? He could be a serial killer with throphies of his victims on display everywhere, woman. It has happened before."

"I doubt that," Sharon said dryly, then winced. "Why do these things always have to be so damn cold?"

"To bring your fever down, young lady," Cottle replied smartly. "If you don't like it, you should have picked another pregnancy quirk. Craving for pickles or high blood pressure like any other self-respecting pregnant woman. But, no, of course Sharon Raydor has to be special."

Andy decided to ignore the doctor on behalf of his own blood-pressure. "Honey, I can take you there once you're out of here. If you want to stay there, we can, but you probably won't want to, anyway."

He reached out and placed his hand on her stomach. Amidst all his worries, the baby kept up a schedule of very regular kicking, letting them know that it was okay. Sharon hummed when the baby kicked against his hand; it sounded painful. She gave him a reassuring smile and put her hand over his, looking into his eyes. It was weird how they could still smile at each other like two complete idiots after so many months of living together.

"Nice, nice, I am all done. I'll be down in the cafeteria trying not to choke on the motor oil they try to pass for coffee while reading today's paper and will return in an hour to change them. Try not to die until then, young lady and keep your man in check."

Without waiting for a retort from Andy, Cottle shuffled off. Burning his back by shooting angry looks at him didn't work as well as in the movies, so Andy focused back on Sharon.

"Do those compresses actually make you feel any better?" he asked, gently stroking her hair away from her face.

"As a matter of fact, they do," Sharon rasped, her eyes fluttering closed. "They did work when I had those fevers with my other two."

Andy rolled his eyes, safe in the knowledge that she couldn't see him with her eyes closed, slowly drifting off to sleep.

"Don't roll your eyes," she murmured sternly.

That woman.

/

"This is your house?" Sharon turned towards Andy, her hair doing an elegant flip. It was in playful curls today that went well with her sundress that fell around her and left her legs bare. She looked beautiful and – most importantly – healthy. Her eyes were bright and alert, her face its usual shade of alabaster unlike the terrifying gray it had acquired in the hospital. As glad as Andy was that Cottle's words had come true, it did make him hate the doctor a little more than before.

Andy looked down at their interlaced fingers nervously, aware of how this had to look. When she didn't say anything else, he looked up, too, trying to see his house through her eyes. Provenza had been making fun of him because of it for decades now, claiming that it was a "girly house". Which it was, technically, as it had been his aunt's. The old lady had never married and had been a successful entrepreneur, which made it even less understandable that she had taken such a liking for her then useless alcoholic nephew and had bestowed upon him her beach house.

The house wasn't one of those flashy modern ones - Aunt Sally had never been one for those. When he had first seen it, it had seemed like a safe haven after his painful divorce and despite the fact that it was too big for him and that he had planned to move out and sell for a profit, somehow he had never gotten around to it. Maybe Provenza was right and he liked living like an old lady, but he had become comfortable there. The view was good – only semi-obstructed by the Hyatt Regency that was closer to the beach – and the house was built solid and now equipped with a new kitchen and a layer of new paint. The painting he had done back when he had been afraid to ask Sharon out on a date. He had looked for a project then to keep his mind off her, which hadn't worked at all. The pistacho green of one of the living room walls had reminded her of that dress she owned, the very pale, grayish blue of the bedroom had made him think of one particular shirt she never fully buttoned.

Now, mildly embarrassed by the fact, he wished that he had painted the exterior instead, as the wood was still the same touch of dusky pink. But then again, why waste any money just to appease Provenza? When did you ever really look at your own house from the outside?

"I told you it once belonged to my aunt." He scratched his neck and froze when he saw the look in her eyes. It was that look. The one she always sported when she had just found a new blanket to buy to add to her already vast collection.

"Are you kidding? It's beautiful." She was almost giddy now, just short of clapping her hands. "Can we go inside?"

"Sure," he said and unlocked the door, glad that he had aired the place out the day before she had been released from the hospital. And he was also glad that he had finally gotten rid of the stacks of baseball magazines and knick-knacks he'd had lying around for ages. The place looked clean and tidy, which was always a plus.

Sharon walked across the dark hardwood flooring towards the open kitchen and living-room, admiring the view of the beach and – to be honest – of the back of that goddamn Hyatt Regency. Andy blinked against the bright sun, reaching for the switch for the blinds to cover the bay windows.

"Andy!" Sharon stopped him. "Leave it. The light is great. Why didn't you ever invite me over?"

There was a beat of silence before he spoke again.

"Provenza says it's a girly house," he admitted, looking at his shoes in embarrassment. "I never used to bring any women here."

Sharon hit his chest. "Seriously? Oh, you men. I love it."

"It makes for long commutes to work," Andy warned. "And St. Joseph's is a long way off as well." Sharon didn't seem to hear him as she ran her finger along the shiny surface of the breakfast bar and then surveyed the small array of family photos on the sideboard he had inherited from his aunt.

"You should have showed me earlier," she said. "we could have moved here when I was not as big as a house."

"You're not as big as a house," Andy protested, stepping behind her to wrap his arms around her. "In fact I should probably pop out to the store and get some groceries so I can make you some lunch."

Sharon clicked her tongue then turned around. "No, seriously, Andy. This house is beautiful and much bigger than my place. You always made it sound like such a dump, I wasn't expecting this at all. Why did you keep it from me?" She paused, rolling her eyes as only she could, her voice having dropped half an octave when she spoke again: "Surely, you didn't think I would break up with you because your house is pink?"

Andy avoided her gaze, but he knew that he couldn't get anything past her if she didn't want him to. "The bay windows, Sharon? The proximity to the beach? The quiet neighborhood? This house isn't safe when Stroh decides that it's time to rip our family apart once and for all. It is much safer for us to be up on the eleventh floor in your condo building. Easier to defend against intruders."

"So you pretended that your house was terrible and hoped that I would let it rest."

Andy contemplated the statement and then found it to be true. "Yeah." He shrugged.

"Fair enough," Sharon said, then turned around in his arms, her back against his chest. She rested her head against his shoulder and looked up at him. "I want it."

"Little Peach wants it too, it seems," Andy said sarcastically, as the baby shifted under his hands. "No wonder she likes a girly house."

Sharon remained suspiciously silent after that.

"Can you see the sea from your bedroom?" she asked after a prolonged moment of surprisingly awkward silence.

"Yes. As well as the agonizingly big Hyatt Regency."

"You must get over the Hyatt Regency," Sharon said sternly. "I'd like to see upstairs."

Upstairs, she was delighted to find enough room for Rusty, a nursery and a guest room, but a little less delighted to find boxes of old junk that he should have gotten rid ages ago in all three of those rooms. He did not try to explain to her that somehow his old VHS-collection of taped episodes of Baywatch had always had a special place in his heart. So did the bundled up issues of Time Magazine, but he couldn't quite remember why.

He was steadfast in his resolve to decline Sharon's wish to move here and put them all in danger in the process, but then she sat down on his bed and cradled her belly and looked thoroughly cute and a wave of deepest affection swept over him, making him wonder how he had ended up by the side of this magnificent woman and he gave in.

They spent half an hour cuddled together in his bed where he had spent so many nights thinking about her, making plans. Sharon was adamant that they needed a new couch as his was apparently hideous and the color of hers would clash with the pistachio walls. They would need a new bed as well, as his was too narrow in her opinion and her own had suffered quite a bit of water damage lately. In the end, he agreed to all of her demands. While her period was fortunately not an issue that came up a lot these days, his other least favorite topic of conversation was still interior design and he was more than happy to leave those decisions to her. Then he put his foot down when it came to new locks for the windows and an updated alarm system, but she didn't seem to care.

"You always get what you want," he told her, his arms firmly around her and her head resting on his chest, the baby falling asleep under their joined hands.

"You think?" she blinked up at him playfully. "By the way, I also got the replacement I wanted."

Andy knitted his brow. While Provenza would take over Major Crimes until Sharon would come back from maternity leave, they would still be one man (or woman – Sharon had once famously thrown a half-peeled carrot at him for phrasing it differently) short. Sharon had requested a particular person as her replacement, but had been extremely secretive about who it was.

"Promise me not to yell at me," she said sweetly, rubbing his chest soothingly. Andy frowned. He hadn't previously been aware that he needed soothing. This couldn't be good.

"Why would I yell at you, sweetheart?" he asked her, moving his leg between hers to cuddle her even closer.

He gave an unhappy growl when Sharon moved away from him and grabbed her phone from the bedside table. "Because Provenza already has."

She pulled up the message Provenza had left for her earlier and put the phone on speaker. Andy's eyes widened when he finally managed to make sense of what the old man was yelling about at the top of his lungs.

"Elliott?" he gasped. "Your little lapdog from the Rat Squad is supposed to join our department? Are you insane?!"