Notes: For the sake of organization and not spamming the updates page every week, I'll group all my S3 episode tags and whatnot together this time. I might not do one for every episode, but I really liked doing them last season so there'll probably be a lot of them. There might also be more than one per episode, because I can think of four different things I want to write based off of the promo for next week's episode alone.

Flight Risk

When he came in behind her Sharon was bent over the sink, her hands cupped beneath a stream of cool water. Her glasses rested on the narrow ledge below the mirror, but she didn't need them to read the quiet concern on his face. Sharon straightened with a sigh and pressed her wet hands to her cheeks, and then to the back of her neck, her fingers sliding together.

"This is the women's restroom, Lieutenant." She winced when her voice echoed and lowered it to something quieter and more befitting of her mood. "Or aren't you aware?"

"Yeah," he said. "Well, they say your eyesight's the first thing to go."

Sharon felt the pull of a weak smile. "Your eyesight seemed fine to me before."

"Left my glasses at my desk." Provenza shrugged.

She reached for the paper towels. Sharon folded one into quarters, lining the edges up as neatly as she could, and patted her face dry. Carefully, though she wasn't sure why she bothered when her makeup was probably a lost cause and she was headed home from here, anyway.

"I don't hug," Provenza informed her, eliciting from her a strangled sort of laugh. "But since I'm here anyway, if you want to..." He cleared his throat before saying, "Talk about it..."

That lump in her throat, she told herself, was because she had spent the past five minutes staving off tears that so desperately wanted to well up in her eyes. Sharon crumpled the towel in her hand, holding onto it as she reached for her glasses. She had to swallow hard before speaking. "Thank you, Lieutenant," she said quietly. "I appreciate the offer, but I..." She tried to hide the way her hands were reaching for her pockets by turning to throw away the paper towel.

"I miss my children," she confessed, as much to her own surprise as to his. "Cases like this don't help."

He made a vague sort of mumbled "mmm" in response.

Sharon felt her lip twitch again. There was really nothing that would make her feel better but time, though hugging her children to reassure herself that they were alive and safe and not lying discarded like trash beneath an overpass would go a long way towards loosening that knot in her stomach. But she still appreciated that there was someone there to hear her.

"But I will be fine," she said and turned, leaning back against the wall. She could feel the coolness of the tile even through her jacket. "I saw you talking with Rusty."

His sudden discomfort, the way he turned ever so slightly away and cleared his throat again, didn't escape her.

That didn't help her mood any. Sharon folded her arms across her chest.

"I'm not asking," she said. On any other day, it probably wouldn't have hurt, that Rusty had gone to someone else, but it wasn't her right to dictate Rusty's actions like that because her day had been more upsetting than she would've liked. Besides... "I'm glad you're available for him, Lieutenant. But—if you could reassure me that if whatever he's hiding doesn't involve another threat to his life, I would appreciate that."

"He, uh... the kid just needed some advice," he said. "Man to man."

"But he is hiding something." Sharon shook her head at the look he gave her. "Please, Lieutenant, do you really think I can't tell when one of my children is lying to me? Not that Rusty lies," she added, and rolled her eyes. "He calls it having privacy."

In painstaking detail, she had spelled out for him the differences between privacy and lying by omission a thousand times last year. She was prepared to revisit the lecture if need be, but she hoped it wouldn't. There was a long, long list of perfectly normal things that no one wanted to discuss with their mother, and Rusty would come to her whenever he was ready.

He hadn't been ready, the last time. She had never asked him what had happened in court that had pushed him to tell her, and she couldn't say that she wasn't glad that he had told her, but... The memory of him breaking down in her office still made her heart hurt. She didn't want to put him through that a second time by asking too soon.

He could see her face reflected in the mirror.

"Sharon?"

"I'm fine, Lieutenant," she said automatically. "But... thank you."

Their eyes met, and just for a moment, she thought he might've smiled. "I'll have you know, I'm a very sensitive guy."

She couldn't help it. She laughed, short and quick but a laugh nonetheless, and stood a little straighter.

"Sharon?" Neither of them heard the door open until it was too late.

"Flynn!" Provenza barked. "This is the ladies room."

Sharon gave him a pointed look. He ignored her.

"Yeah," Andy said, leaning back against the door with folded arms. "It's nice. Clean. Smells better."

Provenza sighed loudly and pointed to the door. "Get out."

"And what the hell are you doing in here?"

"Getting in touch with my feminine side," Provenza drawled. "What's your excuse?"

"Lieutenant, is there something I can help you with?" Sharon broke in.

The two of them, Andy and Provenza, had been at odds more and more around her, recently. She had a very strong suspicion as to what was going on there; she wasn't an idiot. She even found it a little gratifying sometimes, but those weren't thoughts that she cared to entertain tonight.

"I was walking past and I heard this guy—" He jerked a thumb towards Provenza. "In here talking so I thought I'd come and see what was up. Everything okay?"

Whatever was still between her and Jack was something she'd been giving a lot of thought to recently, for all sorts of reasons and she hadn't decided yet what to do about any of them. Until then, what she wanted and what she needed was a friend.

"Everything is fine," she said firmly. "But I do appreciate your offer. That was very... thoughtful of you."

He seemed willing to be that friend.

But tonight, all she really wanted to do was go home and call her children.

Or Ricky, at least. Katie would be working on a Saturday night. Sharon would have to content herself with hearing one child's voice tonight and the other tomorrow morning at the soonest hour that wouldn't earn her a lecture about overreacting.

She was prone to that.

Rusty would be shocked to hear it.

Provenza muttered something she couldn't hear but made Andy glare at him, and Sharon smiled faintly. "You two really shouldn't be in here, and—"

"Hello, gentlemen."

Too late.

Sharon tried not to sigh.

"Captain." Andrea gave her an amused look. "Am I missing something here?"

Sharon felt her face grow warm and crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably. It was really quite difficult to construct a proper explanation for what she was going standing around in the women's bathroom with her two male lieutenants.

"Whatever you think this is, it isn't," Provenza informed her. "Flynn was just leaving."

"After you," Flynn said, pointing towards the door.

"Oh no," Provenza said. "You first, and sometime before I retire, if you don't mind."

Sharon was still smiling faintly when they finally left.

Andrea raised an eyebrow.

Sharon shook her head. "They were..."

"It's been a long day," was all Andrea said.

"Yes," Sharon said quietly. Whatever levity Andy and Provenza had brought left with them, leaving her with the sobering thought that she could go home and argue with her daughter about whether or not she had a long history of unwarranted concern for her wellbeing. Cynthia Logan would give anything for the chance to fight with her daughter again.

If she had been honest with her husband in the beginning, it might have made a difference. There was no way to know, and she would have to live with that.

Sharon had let her believe that her children were alive long after they were dead, and she would have to live with that.

The right thing was not always the easy thing.

Sharon swallowed.

"Good work today," she said quietly.

"You too," Andrea said, and leaned back against the wall beside Sharon, close enough that their shoulders just touched. "Buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Some other time, maybe," Sharon said. "The only place I feel like going is home."

"I know the feeling," Andrea agreed. "I was on my way there myself when I came in here."

Sharon didn't laugh so much as let out her breath in a mostly-silent huff that was more exhausted than amused. "I'll get out of your way, then," she said. Halfway to the door, she turned back and smiled. "Have a good night, Andrea."

"You too."

Sharon came face-to-face with Rusty when she opened the door. He stood just outside of it, hovering and shifting from foot to foot like he'd been trying to decide whether or not to go in. He froze when he saw her, a sheepish sort of look crossing his face, and she almost wanted to laugh in spite of herself. "No," she said, and pointed him out to the hall.

He looked relieved to be able to take several steps backwards.

"I saw the lieutenants come out of there?" He gave her a questioning look.

She supposed she ought to be grateful that he'd hesitated instead of barging in to investigate. Sharon sighed. "Don't worry about that. I thought you'd have gone home."

"I was going to, but then I thought I might've left my, uh..." He gave up trying to think up a suitable excuse, not quite looking at her as he said, "You looked upset."

She hadn't expected that.

She could've hugged him.

She didn't.

He probably would have let her. He might not even have minded, but he had been used by too many people and she was refused to be one of them. It wasn't his responsibility to make her feel better. Instead, she touched his shoulder gently in reassurance, and somehow found it within herself to smile. "I'll be fine."

"I could drive on the way home," Rusty offered.

Sharon tilted her head. "Didn't you drive here?"

"It's not a big deal," he said, and shrugged again. "I can drop you off here in the morning before I go to class."

"Rusty," she said, prepared to tell him no. Then she paused and reconsidered, frowning as she studied his face. What if this was him reaching out to her? "You're not driving," she said. "But I wouldn't mind the company. We can stop for dinner somewhere on the way home, and I'll bring you back here in the morning with enough time for you to get to class. Deal?"

She wondered when that made him. When she raised her eyebrow, though, it quickly became a smile and a nod. "Sounds great."

"My purse is in my office," she said. "I'll be quick."

Another shrug. "I'm not going anywhere."

When she returned with her purse she found him slouched against the wall outside of the restroom, toying with the hem of his shirt. He straightened abruptly when he saw her, and she wondered about that too.

"Rusty," she said, her voice low as they moved towards the elevators. "I hope you know that..."

Her words made his shoulders tense. She watched his steps quicken as he lowered his head, and she stopped. He wasn't ready yet.

"That I love you," she said instead. She hadn't planned on that, but... she'd been planning on going straight home and telling her children. She might as well start with the one right in front of her.

He looked startled too. "Is this because of your case?"

"Yes."

"I thought so." Rusty touched the elevator button, his eyes still just avoiding hers. "But I know. I do, I swear."

But he did smile, sort of, even if it was a little crooked, and Sharon found her heart a little lighter after all. Having said the only thing that seemed important, they waited for the elevator together in silence, and when it came, he followed her.