Unwritten - Chapter 9

by Kadi
Rated: M

Richard and Emily stayed through the weekend, but by Monday they both had to return to their respective homes. The condo was a lot quieter without them, and though they were missed, there was a certain relief that came with having life return to normal.

Sharon found that recovering from the accident was a process. The bruises and cuts healed, and as the days passed, the cut on her cheek became a very faint, pink line. It was easily covered by makeup and was not going to leave a scar. As she moved through the first week following the accident, her body was less stiff. The muscles didn't ache so keenly and once the stitches were out of her side, she could move much more easily.

The leg, however, remained an issue. While the break was healing as it should, it was the injury to her knee that provided cause for displeasure. Physical therapy was not in anyway fun. She started that a week after her surgery. Sharon was convinced that her therapist was an evil, sadistic witch. Although the therapy regimen was targeted specifically for her knee and range of motion there, she left each session with her entire leg throbbing.

As such, two days a week, Sharon was not in the least pleasant to be around. Rusty learned, quickly, to avoid her for at least an hour after she completed those appointments. Andy gritted his teeth through the worst of her bad moods and reminded himself that he was not always pleasant to be around either.

Two weeks after the accident, Sharon was back at work, albeit for only half of the day on those which were PT days. Since she worked the mornings and had PT in the afternoon, the team was at least spared her bad mood.

Jackson Raydor was not so lucky.

He made the mistake of dropping by one afternoon, after a physical therapy appointment. Sharon glowered at him upon opening the door. She was tempted to slam it in his face. Instead, she turned away and hobbled back toward the sofa on her crutches. "Whatever it is that you want, Jack, I am neither in the mood, nor do I have the time."

Her biting tone set his teeth on edge. "I have your damned papers." Jack waved the folder at her. "I've decided to sign the damned things, but on one condition." He pointed it at her. "You call off that bulldog that you call a lawyer. I'll give you the divorce you want, but I'm not paying a single dime. We call it done, and we walk away."

"Yes, because that's what you're good at." Sharon balanced against the crutches and shot a dark look at him. "I don't know that I accept those terms, Jack. What's the matter, finally realized the magnitude of your very many mistakes? Frankly, I think it's time that I stopped footing the bill for your life style. It would be nice to have you support me for once. Actually, it would have been nice to have you support me at all."

"Oh, that's funny Sharon." He glared back at her. "That's really funny coming from you. Believe me, sweetheart, you don't want to have that argument."

"Don't I?" His condescending tone did nothing to assuage her building temper. Her eyes narrowed, they flashed with fury. Her voice lowered, dropping an octave. She took a step toward him. Her hands clenched so tightly around the handles of her crutches that her knuckles ached. "I graduated in the top ten percent of my class at Berkley," she stated. "I already had my acceptance to Law School. The only reason I didn't go was because one of us had to work, and you were already in your first year. That was the first sacrifice that I made for you." She pointed a finger at him. "I wanted to stay home with Ricky when he was born, but you couldn't find a job. You swore to me that I'd be able to take time off to be with the baby, that you'd find something even if it was mowing lawns, and instead, you started staying out all night with your drinking buddies."

"Sharon—"

"No." She cut him off. Her voice shook with the force of emotion. "You swore that you would do better, that we would be better when I got pregnant with Emily. You promised me, Jack, that everything would be okay. But how long were you screwing around on me before you walked out the door? You left, Jack. You walked out on us. You left me with a four year old and an eighteen month old so that you could run off to Los Vegas with your girlfriend. As if that wasn't bad enough, you took every penny that we had. I spent the next ten years of my life paying off your debts and untangling our finances so that I would be able to provide some kind of future for our children." Her jaw clenched. There were tears in her eyes and the fact that she was shaking only made her body throb that much more. "The drinking, the gambling, the women. But you've had the nerve all these years to say that you're the one that's had to put up with the bullshit? No, Jack. You do not get to be the injured party." Sharon shook her head at him. "You didn't want me. You didn't want our kids. Sometimes, I don't even know why you bothered getting married in the first place."

"Hell, Sharon." He threw his hands up. "I never thought you'd say yes."

Whatever anger she felt dissipated. The air rushed out of her lungs. She turned away from him. "Leave them and go." She hobbled toward the hall, intent on getting away from him and locking herself in her room. "You're absolutely right. It never should have started to begin with. Let's just call it over and be done with it."

"Dammit," He ran a hand through his hair. "Sharon, I didn't mean it like that."

"You never do. Just go, Jack. I'm tired, I'd really like to rest now. You can leave the papers by the sofa." She didn't look at him, she wouldn't. He wasn't going to have the satisfaction of seeing how much he had hurt her.

He watched her retreat down the hall and sighed again. "Shit." Jack closed his eyes. He really hadn't meant it the way that it sounded. No, he never expected that Sharon would say yes to his marriage proposal. She'd had so much in front of her, he never really thought that she'd want him of all people. But she had… and they'd gotten married, and then… it had just gone to hell. All of it. He had loved her. But the life they'd had, the life she wanted, it just wasn't something he had been able to conform to. Jack slapped the folder holding the signed divorce papers against the side of the couch. "Idiot." He never had been able to do the right thing where she was concerned.

She was right, however. It was over now. Long over, if he was honest about it. He tossed the folder onto the table by the sofa and turned away. Jack let himself out of the apartment. He'd let her have the damned divorce. At least this way, they could just walk away… and what meager savings he was putting together could remain his own.

Once inside her room, Sharon pushed the door closed behind her. She made her way to the bed and let the crutches fall to the floor beside it as she sank onto the mattress. She reached for one of the many pillows piled against the headboard and hugged it to her chest. She bent, pressed her face against it and tried simply to breathe. The pain in her chest was such that she could hardly draw a breath. A deep, ragged sob was wrenched from her as the pain found purchase to break through her resolve. A part of her wondered how it was that she could love one man so deeply, and still somehow be hurt by the other?

Sharon lay sideways on the bed and drew her knees toward her chest. Oddly, the pain in her injured leg no longer seemed to matter quite so much.

She was still laying in that position, curled across the bottom of her bed when Andy arrived. He brought takeout on evenings she had therapy and carried it into the kitchen before he went in search of her. He expected that he would find her in the bedroom, and with any luck, she would be resting after the painful session. When he stepped into the room, he moved first to the dresser and discarded his badge and gun. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his tie. Both were tossed across the chair at the dressing table before he moved to the bed. "Hey…" His greeting trailed off when he saw her face. "Sharon?"

She was staring ahead now, at the wall, not really seeing it. She had managed to cry herself out some time ago, but the evidence was written across her face in the red eyes and streaked makeup. She closed her eyes for just a moment before lifting them toward him. "Hey," her mouth managed to form a weak smile.

He frowned as he moved onto the bed with her. He lay across the mattress behind her and pulled her around to face him. "What happened?" Andy swept her hair back from her face, traced the curve of her cheek.

Sharon tossed the pillow aside in favor of moving into his arms. She shook her head and tucked her face against his chest. Her hands curled into his shirt and she settled against him. A long, soft sigh was slowly exhaled. "Jack," she managed after a moment.

His hands moved slowly up and down her back. Andy's jaw clenched. It was anger, and not jealousy that had his knuckles itching in remembered sensation. "You spoke to him?" He tried to sound neutral and knew that he failed. Whatever the son of a bitch had done or said, he'd managed to hurt her… again.

"He was here." She tipped her head back and looked up at him. "He brought the papers. He signed them, and agreed to the no-contest under the condition that Gavin backs off and we just call it finished. It's exactly what we expected would happen. We said some things, and it's stupid really. It's completely ridiculous that he can still hurt me, even after all these years. The worst part is that I keep opening myself up to it."

"You loved him, and a part of you still does." He shrugged. "Thirty years of marriage and two kids, even if it was a crap marriage, is hard to erase completely. Divorce is hard, even when it's twenty years past due." He lifted a hand and slid it into the thick curtain of her hair. His thumb stroked the curve of her cheek again. "It will be over soon enough, you can move on."

The way he looked at her, the way he held her. Somehow it managed to chase away all the darkness and the hurt. "I already have," she said quietly. Her fingers rested against his jaw. "I have you."

"Yeah," he said, a bit gruffly. "And that's not gonna change."

"Hm." She tucked her face against his chest again, felt his arms tighten around her. "Why couldn't it be you," she asked, wishing they'd had this sooner.

His heart twisted. "Because I was the drunk sitting at the bar with Jack when he should have been with you," he reminded her, with no small amount of regret.

She lifted her head and moved onto her elbow. Sharon leaned over him. "Yes." She was reminded that it was their pasts that had shaped them, molded them until they fit so well together now. Maybe, having found each other sooner, it wouldn't have worked. The past could not be rewritten, they simply wouldn't know. Her hand cupped his cheek. "You're here now," she said.

"Yes." His hand moved into her hair again, cupped the back of her head. "So are you." As she leaned toward him, he pulled her down, met the kiss that was placed against his mouth. She tasted of the salt of her tears. Andy rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. He was careful of her leg as he draped himself across her body and held her head between his hands. She gazed back at him, the emotion and longing in her eyes had a tremor running down his back. His breath caught. "Are you sure?"

"You won't hurt me," she said, and that admission went well beyond the physical. He'd held her, but hardly touched her at all since the accident. They weren't children anymore, they could restrain themselves. It had been a few weeks now, and suddenly, after the unpleasantness with Jack, she needed him more than she could say. Perhaps to remind herself that she could be loved, or simply to just to feel something other than the pain that ugliness had caused. She couldn't really say, but it was Andy that she wanted, Andy that she needed. It was Andy that she loved.

"No," He lowered his head, brushed her lips with his. "I can't promise that. All I can promise is that I do love you, and I'll work like hell to fix whatever I break." Their noses touched, and he felt the dampness of her tears as they began anew. Andy swept them away with his thumbs, chased the salty drops with his lips. "Sharon…"

"I love you." The words had been scarce since just after the accident, but she was ready to say them again, and to keep saying them. "And that is why I love you. It's why I know that you would never hurt me." She slipped her arms around him and sought his mouth with hers. "Love me," she whispered.

"Always." His hands moved down her body, sliding over familiar curves. He offered her the touch she craved, providing entirely new reasons for her to tremble and shudder beneath him. He reminded himself of his earlier resolve, that she would always know that she was loved.

It was days before the memory of Jack reared it's ugly head again. The papers had been given to Gavin, and they'd been filed. Then, not even a week later, he had a courier bring over the preliminary court response.

Sharon flipped through it while Andy set the table for dinner. He'd been spending more and more time at the apartment, and she was finding that she didn't mind that at all. She originally thought it might be a bit stifling, after being practically alone for so many years. Instead she rather enjoyed having him around. Rusty didn't seem to mind it either.

Rusty. That was something else that Gavin was working on for her. Now that the divorce had been filed, he was putting the adoption in motion. In sixty days her divorce would be final. Thirty days after that, Rusty would be hers. They would be celebrating more than just his attending college at the end of summer.

For that reason, Sharon couldn't completely suppress the smile as she looked through the papers Gavin sent over. It all seemed to be in order. Sharon shook her head as she placed the folder on her desk. "Docket number 14-714306. It's a bit… weird, isn't it? We spend so much time planning a marriage, and then being in a marriage, and if you're lucky, working at a marriage… and then when it ends, after all the fighting and the hurting, and the tears, it all boils down to a docket number in the county clerk's office. It's just so…" Sharon waved a hand, "I don't know." She hobbled away from her desk and back toward the dining room. She took a seat at the table where Andy was laying out dinner.

He glanced at her and grinned. In his t-shirt and a pair of sweats she was utterly adorable. "Sometimes that's all you want to have left of a marriage," He reminded her. Andy set a plate in front of her and moved into the kitchen to grab a couple of glasses of water. Rusty was out for the evening, a movie with Buzz and Julio. Some action adventure thing that the three of them had been drooling about for weeks.

"Maybe." Her head tilted. "I got the best part of him in the end." At his puzzled look, she smiled. "Ricky and Emily. I guess you're right, I'll always feel something for him, and I can't regret all of it."

"Can I get that in writing?" He grinned at her. "Andy was right, I want it stamped and signed." He placed a glass beside her and then moved into what was becoming his customary spot at the table.

Her lips pursed, she pretended to think about it. "Absolutely not," she decided. "I don't want you using it against me later."

"Pity." He shrugged. "I would have framed it and put it on my desk. My desk needs a picture." His eyes lit up with mischief. "Maybe a topless one, like the guys in traffic have in their lockers." When she glared at him, he grinned that much wider. "Can't blame a guy for trying."

"Yes, actually, I can." She lifted her fork and brought it to her lips. She hummed in delight. He'd made the vegetarian scampi she loved so much.

"There's just one question remaining," He said. "Now that you're finally going to be a free woman, what do you have planned."

"Hm." Her lips curved. "Speed dating. I hear it's very popular among older women." She cut her eyes toward him and drew her bottom lip between her teeth. Despite that, a giggle escaped when his eyes narrowed.

"Speed dating?" He leaned toward her. "Really?"

"Yes." Her eyes were dancing. "Find a guy, try him on for size, and if he fits… maybe I'll keep him a while. I'm very old, so it needs to move very quickly, you understand."

"Ah." His head inclined. "Yes, I see. It is the age thing. I can understand it, I mean, you're almost ready for the senior citizen discount line…" Andy leaned closer to her. "But tell me, exactly how long is a while?"

"Oh, I don't know." She settled her chin her hand and smiled at him. "I think it just depends."

"Yeah?" His lips brushed her cheek. His teeth nipped at the soft spot just below her ear. "On what?"

She leaned back, the smile at her lips softened. Her eyes warmed. "How long do I have you for?"

"I think I can spare a few years," He rumbled. He tipped her face up and pressed a kiss to her mouth. "Thirty at least."

"Good," she said against his mouth. "It isn't nearly long enough, but I'll take it."

It wasn't a proposal, they weren't ready for that and given their histories and failed marriages there was a chance that it would never come to that. What they had was each other, and a future that was unwritten. If nothing else, they knew that they wanted to share it, in whatever way possible, together.

~FIN