Shandy. One-shot. Almost crack? This was inspired by a tumblr post about 'amnesia fic lacking secondhand embarrassment', and since that happens to be one of my favourite things, I thought I'd write a little one-shot. (Little turned into 8 pages and 4k words, oops!)

Enjoy!

Tabula Rasa

Besides being a bit confusing, it was… well frankly, having retrograde amnesia was a pain in the ass. Not least because, at some point in the last five years, she seemed to have rearranged her entire kitchen and the storage layout of her crockery. All she wanted was a goddam mug to make a nice cup of tea, was that too much to ask?

She could feel Andy's eyes on her over the counter island. She'd sent Rusty to bed for the same behaviour, but Andy wouldn't be leaving without an expressed request to do so. He had been hovering – watching her like a hawk – since she was released from the hospital on strict bedrest and constant family monitoring. Nobody seemed to question that Andy would take her home, and while she appreciated a familiar face she had yet to work out just how familiar that face was, or how appropriate it would be for Taylor to find out. Andy was a mystery - he knew her address without asking, and had a key to her front door on his own keyring. But it wasn't until she spotted a picture on her home desk of the two of them at what looked like a wedding that it really clicked.

She and Andy were a thing. A very serious thing.

How in the Sam Holy Hell… never mind. She was too sore and too tired to think about it tonight.

She was also a little too afraid of the answer to outright ask him herself.

The doctor had assured her again and again that she should recover most of her memory. The last five years were hazy, but fragments were coming back every hour – some in blurry black and white, others in vivid technicolour. The year and month didn't seem to worry her; current political events seemed familiar though without great detail in her mind. She remembered Rusty without problem – maybe not the intricate particulars of his long journey with her, but she remembered some of the subjects he was taking at college, and that was recent enough to give hope that she would get the rest back too. The poor boy had cried in her arms when she recognised him, and she also knew enough to understand the significance of why his hug was precious.

She remembered taking over the Major Crimes Division. And the hostility she met there. She could recall with alarming alacrity the feel of her building's metal staircase as she ran barefoot down eight flights, and the eventual firefight encounter with Wade Weller.

She remembered the entrance code to her parking garage, and that was only changed a couple of months ago.

But despite the sad looks and long gazes and gentle attentiveness, she could not recall anything at all about her supposed relationship with the womanising, hot-headed, overly dramatic Lieutenant Flynn. She wasn't even sure of the extent of said relationship, except for a picture of an unbelievably intimate embrace between the two of them on the dance floor of someone else's wedding, and the sense that she was breaking his heart a little more each hour it didn't come back to her.

And she tried not to feel too guilty about that when she gave up the search for a teacup and excused herself to go to bed, hoping he would get the message that he could see himself out.

Her room, however, was not the refuge she was hoping for; instead it was littered with small tokens of a life that she was only half-convinced was hers. Logically of course she knew it was hers. And she didn't feel foreign in this space, only confused. She smiled at the picture on her dresser of her three children posed with her at Christmas. The swell of love in her heart felt like coming home.

Turning around she saw bedding that was obviously new, but tasteful and definitely something she would pick for herself. She looked in the closet and - perhaps mercifully - saw only her own clothes there, arranged as they always had been. On the bedside table on her usual side of the bed was a pair of cheap reading glasses perched on top of a book - a fluffy chick lit piece of nonsense that her daughter probably got her for her last birthday and that she secretly loved. The bookmark was only a chapter or two in.

"At least I won't waste too much time catching up on that" she muttered to herself. Her head thrummed with the lasting effects of her concussion, but the thought of reading no longer gave her a migraine, which was comforting and probably the only reason the doctor let her home so soon.

She found a nightie without much fuss and changed. In the bathroom she reached for her hair brush and toothbrush without much thought. Both moments gave her triumphant pause; perhaps normalcy was not so far off after all. Her reflection looked the same as she remembered - she shuddered to think of waking up feeling years older, and was glad her amnesia was classed as 'temporally graded' with high hope for a full recovery.

She left the bathroom in relatively good spirits. Turning off the main light and flicking on just the lamp, Sharon slid into bed and reached for the book, reading the blurb. She didn't remember it at all, but she wasn't overly worried by that. What surprised her - took her quite aback - was the bookmark when she flicked it open.

A business card for Serve. She turned it over - on the blank side was the date and time of her apparent visit. Her heart beat faster. It was an old tradition of hers, to save the cards of very nice dinner places and date them so she remembered the evening. It had started in college, when 'nice' was anything slightly above 'cheap burgers' and remembering good eating spots was more important than remembering a bad date's name. She had kept the habit ever since. It was nice to have those memories.

And now she was looking at the proof that she had been on a date to Serve. She was not so self-delusional as to deny who the date was with, that much was obvious.

Thrusting the card back in the book and placing it on the table, she picked up her phone, unlocked it, scrolled through her contacts, and breathed a sigh of relief when she came on a familiar name.

Gavin QB

He knew them both, and was brutally honest when she needed it. Maybe he could shed some light, more than Andy's tiptoeing partner or her meddling children would dare. Everyone was being very sweet about it all, but at this point she just needed a straight answer.

He answered on the third ring.

"How goes my Captain? How's the head?"

She smiled at the frankness of his greeting. He had come to visit her in the hospital, not at all concerned if she remembered him or not, which of course she had; she wasn't sure anyone could forget Gavin regardless of whether or not they wanted to.

"Tired, but well enough" she replied.

"Well, what can I do to help?"

She took a deep breath. "Explain to me something?"

"Anything"

"Andy Flynn"

And to her embarrassment and utter devastation he barked out a laugh and got a desperate case of the giggles. She groaned into the phone; it was answer enough, really.

"Explain the unexplainable, darling you do ask the best questions"

"What about my relationship status?"

"I think the Andy Flynn question is the easier of the two"

She scrunched her face at that, confused and perplexed. Her relationship status was truly that complicated? Surely not - she knew herself well enough to know it was either 'on' or 'off' but never… her mind paused. She remembered the twenty year joke that was her non-divorce. Perhaps she deserved that assessment after all, and that just made her want to give herself a stern lecture.

She pressed on. "Just tell me one thing - have we informed Taylor of anything?"

"Oh yes, months ago"

Her eyes slipped closed. Well, if she had told her superior…

"Why didn't anyone see fit to tell me I had a boyfriend?"

Gavin laughed again, and a wave of irritation washed over her. She was getting very tired of being the butt of a joke she didn't know was being told.

"Because you refuse to say you have a boyfriend"

She rolled her eyes at herself, and a logical (if not memory-filled) sense of the situation came to her - dating, slowly; so slow that it was barely existent but existent enough to be acknowledged to their superiors. It was frustrating because a distinct lack of physical and emotional intimacy was something that sat firm in her mind when she thought back beyond the range of the amnesia. Years of excuses to not find love again, including the intrusion of her marriage. What on earth had she been waiting for? She was never reticent about affection or sexuality before - she'd had lovers and enjoyed the process of courting. If she was with Andy Flynn - Andy Flynn, the whole thing still seemed surreal - it couldn't have been much different. Could it?

"Of course, he did get injured just when you were thinking about… sealing the deal-"

She closed her eyes against everything he was implying.

"- but still, it was slow, even for you"

She rolled her eyes. "I will ignore the implications of that last part for now. Why am I dating Andy Flynn?"

Which just made Gavin laugh again, a muffled I don't know littered throughout. "Apparently he has untapped depths"

The untapped depths of his remarks made her eyes roll again. "I'll hang up on you"

"Hey babe, you're the one who wants answers"

She sighed deeply.

"I feel bad for not remembering this. I remember practically everyone else"

Gavin stayed quiet just a moment - just long enough to switch gears, to present the rare creature that was sympathetic friend. "If I know Andy Flynn and the way you two are, he's still there with you right now"

"I don't know, I'm in bed with my door closed"

He heard a huff. "Five bucks says he's on your couch"

She didn't answer, but she also didn't get out of bed to prove him wrong. Part of her felt annoyed that it might be true and that her personal space was continually being invaded when all she wanted was room to recover. Another part of her felt touched - emotional even - to think she had found a partner in someone after so long without; someone who was apparently patient enough to deal with ambiguous relationship statuses and a distinct lack of sex. Even if that person was Andrew Flynn (she was fixated on that point. Visions of his FID file flitted through her mind, clear as day).

"When did this become my life?" she asked. She hadn't set out to say it out loud, but it was a relief to let someone else know where her mind was.

"It's not so bad, is it?"

She thought about the Major Crimes squad, and about Rusty, and all the things happening in everyone's life besides her own. She had been ready for a change five years ago - empty nester, looking to move on or move up now that FID had served its purpose of giving her children a somewhat stable base. She hadn't been seeking to take over Major Crimes, but a series of events had led her life in a wonderful direction, so far as she could tell.

"No. It's not bad at all" she answered with a smile.

"Tell you what. Sleep on it, call me in the morning, and have a conversation with that handsome Lieutenant in the meantime"

Sharon snorted. "Okay. I will"

"Okay. Talk later"

"Thanks Gavin. Goodnight"

And without fanfare the line went dead. She looked at the phone in her hand as the screen went back to the home background. The image was her children all making funny faces into the camera - no doubt Ricky had done it last time they all visited. But it gave her pause, and an idea.

Checking her door - unnecessarily, because without a doubt nobody would open it without knocking first - she clicked open her photo albums and began flicking through. She didn't use her camera often, but when she did it was always of family. The latest picture open was a picture of Emily and a couple of her dance company friends, holding up a giant card that read "Get Well Soon Mom" with hearts and messages around it; her consolation for being in the middle of a show and rehearsal for another and therefore unable to make the impromptu trip west. The next picture along was the same from Ricky - him holding up a get well card. She had also spoken to him and despite her insistence he was visiting on the weekend.

Sharon scrolled again. A selfie with Rusty at the hospital to send to her parents as proof of life (- Rusty's terminology). A blurry picture of Provenza with a handful of flowers in a hospital corridor, no doubt taken by Rusty with her pilfered phone.

She scrolled again. This time, a picture of Andy sitting in a chair next to her bed, his hand holding hers while she was still unconscious. It made her squirm a little bit - not so much from distaste, but that familiar feeling of not getting the punchline - as though even her phone knew something she didn't. She looked at herself in the bed (pale, frail, and every one of her years on display) and at Andy's face (tired, drawn and worried. The look of a concerned loved one).

The next photo along had nothing to do with her accident, and she was glad, until she looked closer. A family dinner - her, Rusty, Andy and a young man (Greg? Something starting with G-) - seated around her dinner table, obviously taken as a selfie by Rusty. She wondered if maybe they took it to send to someone. Or maybe just to celebrate a nice meal together. Still it felt intimate. She and Andy were seated next to each other, his arm resting over the back of her chair as he faced the camera. It spoke of familiarity.

"Oh, but I don't have a boyfriend" she said mockingly to herself, rolling her eyes.

She kept scrolling - innocuous things and fun things; sometimes a picture of a nice sunset from her balcony that she wanted to savour, or a pair of boots in a shop window to go back and buy when on sale. Sometimes pictures with Andy, the two of them always looking a little too close; her face always grinning just a little too much to be forced. She got the impression more than once that she was holding back a laugh, and another wave of emotion overcame her - sadness and annoyance. Why was she taking things so damn slowly? She was obviously crazy about the man. Her lack of action or even recognition of Andy's place in her life - to her friends or her family - was just not acceptable, not after so long fooling around with divorce papers and short-lived affairs that never lasted.

One particular picture was taken of them - Andy looking at something to the side, Sharon looking at him with an infatuated look on her face - and she screwed up her eyes in disapproval; she was making this face at him in public? And nobody called her on it? Did nobody care that she was apparently making a fool of herself over this guy? Or was she told by someone and in complete denial? Oh, it was probably the latter.

"You need to get yourself together, Sharon" she muttered, shaking her head. Frankly she was appalled at herself.

She looked at the time on her phone before locking the screen. Not too late.

She got out of bed, determined. She got a dressing gown, because a nightie was hardly appropriate attire for confronting anything. She hesitated at her door, reminded herself just how silly she had been (Honestly, 'taking it slow', what is that? Since when are you such a sap? Just talk to the man!), and pushed on, opening her bedroom door quietly but firmly. She looked briefly towards Rusty's room - the light was on under the door but it was shut - before turning and walking to the living room.

Andy was indeed reclined against the back of the couch, a spare blanket set up - which he obviously knew where to find - and the television on but near silent. There was a single lamp on and no other light. He was clearly trying not to disturb her.

He must have noticed her approaching, because he turned his head and his brow furrowed.

"You okay?"

"You're still here"

He didn't seem offended; he surprised her and smiled - soft, the way a lover might. She nearly blushed.

"Is that okay?"

She nodded, but surveyed his sleeping arrangements. She almost commented on his back hurting if he slept on that couch, but then considered that the alternative would be he share with her, and that was just… not happening. (Evidently, her mind sneered).

"Can I talk to you?"

He almost hurt himself moving over to make room for her so quickly, his finger pressing the mute button on the remote in the process. She took note of it - the puppy eyes and the obvious eager-to-please attitude, like he was lapping up the breadcrumbs she threw him. Once again she chided her past self, but also congratulated her a little too. She couldn't remember this version of Andy at all - gone was the obnoxious jerk, and here was this sweet and slightly bumbling boyfriend, ready to pull out the trampoline as soon as she yelled jump. She wondered if past her - before her - had noticed at all the effect she had on him, or cared.

"What's up?' he asked. He looked as though he wanted to settled close to her, into her side, but at the last minute he changed his mind and placed a respectable distance between them, as though a chaperone might see.

She took a deep breath. "Why didn't you tell me about us?"

His face fell into what could only be described as joyful confused shock. It was a comical mix, but then he must have been taken off guard to be approached so bluntly. "Us?"

"I have… figured some things out"

"Oh" he said, looking around a little. "That. Well"

"Andy. You've stayed by my side since the accident and not once did you say that it's because we're in a relationship"

He was put on the back foot, left scrambling a little to catch up. Maybe he had accepted she would never remember; maybe he had hoped she would just accept his presence without it being discussed. Whatever the reason, he was looking down, fumbling a little and looking about as though the answer might be found written on his socks.

"We are in a relationship, aren't we?"

"Well, yeah" he said, confirming at least that much. "But I wasn't sure what you remembered so…"

"You were waiting?"

"Yeah. Waiting. For you to, you know, give an indication or a clue about… what you knew. You know?"

She smiled at him - the endearing way he tried to explain himself - and a tiny voice told her it wasn't so farfetched to fall for this Andy after all.

"I went trawling through my phone for pictures. You featured quite prominently"

"That's 'cause I'm the only one who reminds you to use the damn thing, besides Rusty" he said. He almost sounded proud of that.

"Well, I took a look. And I spoke to Gavin. Apparently there's some… timing issues around our relationship?"

She refused to allow herself to blush about any of the implications he might take from that. There seemed to have been timing issues about a lot of things - if the bedroom was one of those things, well that was more a comment on his expectations than on her phrasing. And maybe she was taking things slow, but that was a timing issue too so far as she was concerned. Lovesick Sharon seemed a little… pathetic really. Getting all chocked up about a boy. Going all gah-gah when he asked her to dinner. A familiar flutter started in her belly - part anticipation, part nerves - and she thought perhaps her body was remembering before her mind; confirmation that she needed to spit this out before that other Sharon re-emerged.

"No. No issue at all"

And the certainty with which he said it, even when she knew (or had made an educated guess) that their relationship had been less than linear, made her wonder just how long she had fancied him before acting on it. The Serve card came back to mind. Maybe he asked her first. Actually, he would have had to - Gavin did say she refused to use the word boyfriend, no way would she have asked him first. Besides, it would have had to be him, since she was his superior - she wouldn't have risked the implication that she somehow coerced him into a relationship within the chain of command.

"I don't remember but…" she started, her hands flailing, pointing her finger in the air like a wayward conductor. "What have we… done?"

And with that the blush she was fighting came through. She ignored it; let it burn her cheeks while her gaze held his.

"Whatever you were comfortable with"

She ducked her head, the heat of her cheeks too compelling to keeping looking in his eyes. "That's not much of an answer"

He chuckled, and then moved in next to her and put an arm over her shoulders so she was tucked into his side. She let him, and it didn't feel as strange as she expected, though she wouldn't say it felt familiar either. Andy seemed comfortable enough doing it, like he was used to this level of touch, but he didn't press. She thought perhaps his hug was an olive branch to forgive her lack of remembering their relationship; if he gained any physical comfort from it that was a bonus.

"I'm sorry I don't remember this" she said. It was the truth. She was still sceptical of a relationship with him, but the more she observed the man he was now, the more she recognised the change he had undergone since her time in IA. He was gentler, calmer - still quick to make a face or judge someone on the surface, but more likely now to soften after rather than blow up. He had obviously done a lot of work on himself and his temper. She wasn't sure if she was one of the reasons for that, and that scared her a little too.

"Sharon, it's okay. I'll just have to try extra hard to make you remember why you like me"

She looked up at him, their faces closer than she was used to, and she smiled softly. Images of Christmas with him came to mind - a dinner in the murder room years ago. The various times she had to stop herself from laughing at an insubordinate comment he had made. A moment - a flash of her touching his arm to get him to back down - came to mind and it gave her hope. She was certain it was more recent. (Maybe she had been a part in his calming change, and wouldn't that be something).

"I always liked you" she said. It was mostly true. She either liked him or wanted to toss him in a cold pool. But she never actively disliked him.

"So what pictures did you see?"

And she just barely stopped herself from answering a random collection of the most pathetic love-sick fools you have ever seen. Because as much as it might be true, the sardonic voice of her inner self didn't need to be shared until she was on a bit more even footing.

"How about we watch some television?" she said instead.

He just smiled knowingly at her and agreed. There would be time enough to walk down memory lane together.