Andy could hear the crunching of cartilage beneath his knuckles, knew the grind of it against his fingers from many nights when he was a reckless kid, fighting at school and graduating to bars by the time he was in college. The suspect, a man called Bobby Rickman, grunted heavily under the weight Andy's fist. His blood began to flow from his nose and above his right eye, covering Andy's quickly bruising hand in sticky evidence. It's not that Andy was sorry; he wasn't. Rickman deserved a good punch in the face, but Andy knew it wasn't supposed to come from him. They weren't arresting him, therefore the "resisting arrest" excuse wasn't going to fly. They asked him to come in for questioning, and Rickman started running his mouth about how at least the killer was picking off the bad eggs, only killing strippers and hookers. He went so far as to say that he thought "the guy was really cleaning up the city." Maybe it was Andy's unwavering belief that Rickman was the killer, or maybe it was the smug way he disregarded the women Andy had come to investigate in the last few days. Maybe it was simply a lack of sleep. But Andy punched him, and now he was standing in Sharon's office with the new head of FID, explaining how a suspect she hadn't even gotten to question ended up in her office with a broken nose and potential lawsuit.

"Did he resist? Was he physically resisting you in any way?" Captain Delp, the man now in charge of Sharon's former team, questioned Andy.

"Well, no. I mean the dirtbag wasn't coming with us peacefully, if that's what you mean. The guy had it coming." Andy replied, hoping to placate the new captain as well as his own.

"He had it coming," Delp repeated disdainfully. "I guess he also had a visit to the hospital and enormous settlement from the LAPD coming too?" Delp retorted.

"What settlement? The guy's not going to sue me or the LAPD. He's not even that hurt." Andy was getting frustrated now, but trying desperately to keep his cool under Sharon's clearly remorseful gaze.

"You better hope to God he doesn't, Lieutenant. And while you're at it, you better also pray you escape the scrutiny of yet ANOTHER FID investigation into your professional conduct. This is what? The fourth?" Andy rolled his eyes. "Beginning today I will be auditing any case in which you were an investigating officer where unwarranted force was noted, mentioned, or even whispered about in the elevator." Andy's brow creased harder, and he took a half step toward Delp. Sharon matched his step, however, and the shadowed movement stopped Andy from going any further.

Delp looked at Sharon, clearly annoyed and ready to ride off on a wave of exaggerated grandiosity. "I'd advise you to keep your man in line, Captain. I'd hate to see this reflect poorly on your position as head of this division." With that, Delp picked up his briefcase and exited the room, leaving Sharon and Andy to stand in silence. She despised the way he'd called Andy "her man." It wasn't a secret they were dating, but she certainly deserved the respect of referring to her officer by his ranking status. He was a detective, after all, and the sly play on words left too little space to differentiate their work and their personal relationship.

Andy looked at her and began to explain his actions. "Sharon, you should have heard this asshole, going on and on about how our guy was cleaning up the streets of LA, and he wished he could have…" She didn't give him the chance to finish.

"Just," she breathed in, making her pause almost tangible in the silent room. "Just make sure you do what Captain Delp tells you to do, okay? And for God's sake, keep your hands to yourself in the meantime." She knew the last comment was petty, but frankly, she was mad as hell. What the fuck did Andy think he was doing, punching murder suspects on their front porches before they've even been interviewed.

"Keep my hands to myself? Really?" Andy heard the condescending tone in Sharon's voice and didn't take kindly to being scolded by the woman he'd woken up next to. "You don't even know what the asshole was saying! I guess it's too much to expect you to give me the benefit of the doubt. Too much to assume you'd take my side in this." Now he was fuming.

"Your side?! You don't have a side, Andy! You hit a suspect without any kind of justification! What do you expect me to do? Stand here and pretend like that kind of behavior is anything close to what I agree with?" Sharon shouldn't be shouting, she knew. She tried to keep her voice down but it obviously wasn't going very well.

"I thought you'd at least hear me out! I mean, for fuck's sake Sharon, I'm your…" She cut him off. "You're my what?" Sharon questioned. "My boyfriend? The man I'm dating? Or my subordinate officer?" Those last two words sat in the room like a wool blanket, heavy and rough. Andy stood for a moment, mouth slightly agape, wondering where all this had come from.

"Subordinate, huh? Really Sharon? What the hell? Where is this coming from?" Andy wasn't shouting anymore. His voice had taken on an exhausted, and yes, hurt, tone.

"I can't take your side in this, Andy. You can't expect me to take your side. I spent a fairly large portion of my career investigating you temper and unwarranted use of violence. And now you want me to stand in my own office, in front of a colleague, a colleague who's now in charge of the Force Investigation Division, and tell him I think you were right for punching an unarmed suspect?" Andy opened his mouth to reply, but Sharon continued without letting him get a word in. "You're not my boyfriend here. We aren't dating here." She gestured out her window, indicating the murder room and the rest of Major Crimes' offices. "Here, you have to take responsibility for your fucking temper without expecting me to have your back as the woman you've been sleeping with for the past five months." Sharon was angry, but she was also slowly slipping into a much deeper conversation than her anger had originally intended. This wasn't about Andy anymore, it was about them both.

"Sharon, I didn't expect you to have my back because we're sleeping together," Andy hated the way she deduced their relationship to the bare bones. "I expected you to have my back because you're my boss, and I though you trusted me and my judgment."

"Jesus, Andy. How can I trust your judgment when you punch idiots for no reason?!" Sharon raised her voice, the anger again bubbling to the top.

"I tried to tell you the reason!" Andy shouted back. "Sure didn't take long for DarthfuckingRaydor to return to the helm of her ship, did it? Fuck Sharon, I wasn't thinking how I would embarrass you when I hit the guy. I wasn't really thinking about you at all." Andy wasn't sure why it was important for him to say it, but he knew he'd hit a nerve. Sharon hadn't heard the term "Darth Raydor" in several years, and the ease with which Andy brought it up was unsettling, to say the least.

"Well. I guess that's it, then, isn't it?" Sharon's eyes fell and she let out a long, soft sigh. This is the thing she had been worrying about. This is the moment of reckoning.

"What's 'it'?" Andy questioned, slowly understanding where this conversation had travelled without his realizing it.

"Knowing when we're supposed to think about one another. Knowing when we're supposed to have each other's backs. Knowing when it's okay for us to be in love, and when we should look out for ourselves." Sharon was slowly shrinking into herself. She knew she was speaking to Andy, but seemed as if she was only speaking out loud to an empty room.

"We're not supposed to prioritize it like that," Andy said. "We're supposed to be in love all the time. We can work it out so both can be true, can't we?" He was slowly growing desperate at the sight of Sharon, intelligent, sexy, spectacular Sharon, retreating away from him. He could tell it was happening even though neither of them had moved.

"Can we?" She answered his question with the same question. "Does this feel like it's working to you?" Her eyes were honest—honestly pleading with him to prove her wrong. At this point, she'd take almost any modicum of proof he had to offer to the contrary.

"Sharon…" Andy didn't have a reply, but he prayed one might come to him if he opened his mouth.

"Maybe we should just…" Sharon didn't know what she was asking, she just needed him to leave her office, and quickly. "Maybe we should just get some perspective." She wouldn't bring her eyes to meet his, she just stared at the navy carpet and her own black high heels.

"You want to take a break?" Andy asked, earnestly trying to decipher how a reprimand from FID had turned into a break-up in less than fifteen minutes.

Sharon huffed slightly, and let out a very sad smile. "I always hated that expression." She said, finally bringing her gaze to meet his.

"Wonder why," Andy said cooly.

"We just…We just can't keep having this conversation," Sharon stated, imagining that was reason enough to put an end to things while things were still bearable.

"No. One time's definitely enough for me." Andy was angry again. Not out-loud passionate angry. But calm, teeth-gritting physically painfully angry. He started to make his way to the door when Sharon reached for his arm. "Andy…" This time, it was him who wouldn't let her finish.

"I'll see you in the morning, Captain." Andy bit out and walked out of her office.