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Leon Orcot (under_arrest) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-05-12 08:19:00

Who: Leon Orcot and Sharon Carter
When: This afternoon.
Where: Sharon’s Apartment
What: Leon goes to pick up Chris after an emotional day, talks about his complicated family situation.
Rating/Warnings: Talking about death of parents (one of which dies during childbirth).
Status: Complete




Leon had been at work when he had received the phone call telling him that Sharon was in the hospital for something about her pregnancy, and that Chris was freaking out. He had tried to talk Chris down over the phone, and might have done an okay job at it, but he was in the middle of a case, couldn’t leave, and couldn’t talk long.

Once work was over, Leon drove to Sharon’s place as quickly as possible. It sounded like things were kind of okay now, but he was still worried about her and about Chris.

He knocked on Sharon’s before he opened it and stepped inside. “Hey, it’s me,” Leon said. “And I brought some tea.” He had never been much of a tea drinker before whatever it was in his pipes had made him start dreaming about going for tea and cake every day with the man he was certain was involved in the drug trade, slave trade, and murder. He looked in on Chris, who was napping after tuckering himself out from all the crying he had done, and then headed over to Sharon. “How are you? Are you feeling okay? Can I get you anything before I make some tea?”

Sharon was up and pacing around. Waddling, really. She still had time before her due date, and the OB had told her to take it easy, but she was worried. There had been some strange pains, weird contractions. She felt the baby move, but she’d decided to take the cautious route and go to her OB’s office. She wasn’t expected to be sent to Labor and Delivery to be hooked up to a machine for half an hour.

And poor Chris wasn’t handling it well. The nurses were really good at consoling, but the boy was still really upset. It’d only been an hour’s worth of an ordeal, but back at home he’d curled up on the sofa and cried himself to sleep. Sharon felt awful.

She turned when Leon let himself in. “Hey,” she said, gently, and walked toward him. “I’m okay. Braxton Hicks contractions get worse when I’m not hydrated enough, apparently,” she explained. “...but Chris was a wreck. I’m so sorry he went through all this.”

Leon had no idea what Braxton Hicks contractions were, but they sounded serious. Why else would they have an ominous sounding name like that? “Are you sure you should be walking? Why don’t you take a seat?” He took a look over at Chris, and sighed a little. “Don’t feel too bad about Chris though. It’s my fault.” It was his fault for not explaining to Chris that sometimes pregnant ladies had to go to the hospital because pregnancy wasn’t all that comfortable, and it was his fault for not explaining to Sharon about what Chris had been through the last couple of months. Maybe he should have worked harder to find Chris a babysitter that wasn’t pregnant... It wasn’t something that had really crossed his mind.

Sharon moved over to the table and took a seat in the kitchen, watching Leon move around making the tea. She had an electric kettle, and by now he knew where the mugs and things were. So she trusted him to figure out what he needed and make it all work. “It’s okay, I’m okay. Just… y’know… stupid pregnancy stuff.” She leaned on her elbow on the table, watching him. “What do you mean it’s your fault?”

Leon busied himself in the kitchen. No matter what he did, he couldn’t make the tea he made taste like the tea D made, but he did okay. “Cream or sugar?” he asked her, pouring the tea into the mugs. They also weren’t the small, dainty chinawear that D loved using and that Leon always felt like he would break. He shook his head. He really had to stop thinking about this weird guy from his dreams when he was awake. It wasn’t healthy to obsess over figments of your imagination.

“When I let Chris hang out with you, I should have explained some stuff. To you and to him, I guess. I didn’t think about it though, and that’s clearly caused some problems.”

“Sure,” Sharon said. She didn’t mind either way. She was looking forward to having some tea, it sounded perfect after the long day she’d had. Well, the last couple hours especially. Her hands folded on the table as she leaned back in the chair, and she waited for him to go on. Problems were obvious. But why?

Leon finished making their tea, and brought it over to her. He took a seat, and leaned back, frowning to himself and trying to figure out exactly where to start. Eventually, he ran his hand through his hair, and took a deep breath.

“Well, our dad used to be a cop when I was a kid,” Leon said. “He was killed in action when I was seventeen.” He wondered if Sharon had known that. There had been a photo of the man on the wall, but it had happened nearly ten years ago. When Leon had first joined the force it had still been fresh in their minds, but Sharon had come several years later and probably hadn’t heard of it. “It wasn’t too long after that Mom found out she was pregnant with Chris. She was over 50 at the time, and in bad health, but despite everyone trying to talk her out of it, she was determined to have him.” She had been very determined. Leon and her had had a lot of arguments about it, and Leon had been so angry. Not only because she was determined to give birth despite the fact that the doctors were warning against it, but also because he had been used to being an only child, and wasn’t willing to accept having a younger brother.

“Long story short, she didn’t survive giving birth. I was just eighteen at the time, and training in the academy, and,” he looked over at Chris to make sure he was still sleeping. “And frankly I was still pretty angry. Not at Chris, but at everything. Definitely in no shape to take care of Chris, even if I had wanted to. So my dad’s brother and his wife adopted Chris and raised them as their own. A couple months ago, Chris got into a fight with one of his sisters. She told him that he was adopted and that he had killed his mom. He obviously didn’t take it so well, eventually tried to run away to me, and they brought him over.” He went to take a long gulp from his tea, but it was still pretty hot and all he ended up doing was burning his mouth.

Sharon interjected a quick “I’m so sorry,” at the mention of Leon’s father’s passing. She listened intently, then brought both hands up to cover her mouth for the latter half of the story. There was a silence that fell over the room--an uncomfortable one, really, as Sharon had no idea what to say to all of that. She swallowed and lowered her hands.

“Oh, Leon. I had no idea.” She said, and turned to glance over at the sleeping kid on the sofa. “...I wish I’d known.” Sharon figured maybe she could show him that pregnancy wasn’t a scary thing. She was a healthy woman, and her pregnancy was going pretty smoothly, considering. It’d be good for Chris to see that. Leon, too, actually.

“There’s no way you could’ve known,” Leon said with a shrug. It had happened a long time ago, and while he wouldn’t say he was over it - he didn’t think it was something that people really ‘got over’ - the pain of it had faded over the years. “I really should have said something sooner.” The fact that it was something he didn’t really like to talk about didn’t mean that Sharon hadn’t needed to know it.

“I would have done things differently,” Sharon said, turning to look over at Chris, who was still sleeping soundly on the sofa. “I’m so sorry that I scared him. I’m not going to die, I’m going to be just fine.” She turned back to Leon, a nervous expression on her features. “I’ll understand if you want to find someone else to watch him from now on.”

“What?” Leon asked. “No, Chris is fine. He’s gonna have to learn that pregnancy isn’t a big scary thing sooner or later.” Not that the thought hadn’t crossed Leon’s mind when he had first gotten the call from Chris. “I mean, if you’d rather that I found someone else, I can. But Chris is comfortable around you, and that’s not something a lot of people can say.” Right now, he desperately wanted a cigarette. “I mean, just how serious are these Braxton Hinks contractions?”

“Well, pregnancy is sort of a big, scary thing.” Sharon said, unable to stop a small smirk from tugging at the corner of her lips. “But it happens every day. And it’s not like the dark ages. Women live through it all the time.” She glanced down at the mug in her hands. “Braxton Hicks contractions are normal. They’re just the uterus getting ready to give birth. They just get worse… sometimes a little painful… when I’m not well hydrated. But it’s nothing serious. It’s normal.”

Leon let out a sigh of relief that the Braxton Hicks contractions were normal. “Well, they shouldn’t give them such a scary sounding name,” he muttered, and then took another sip of his tea. It really wasn’t as good as D’s tea was. “I’m sorry that Chris was such trouble today.” Not that he thought Chris would have been a bad kid during the whole ordeal, but it was probably another huge layer of stress to have to watch a bawling eight-year-old when she was going through her own pregnancy problems. “If you think it’ll be too much trouble to take care of him during the rest of your pregnancy, I can find someone else.”

“He’s no trouble, I’m just sorry that I put him through such stress today.” Sharon replied. “I would love to continue watching him for you. I really like the kid. But I’ll understand if you think it’s better for him to stay with someone else. I can’t guarantee I won’t have other pregnancy-related stuff come up.” Sharon lifted her tea for a sip, then set the mug back down. It was still kinda hot.

“No, no. I don’t really believe in sheltering kids from shit that happens in life.” Some sheltering, obviously. Leon would never take Chris to say, a crime scene, and wouldn’t want him to see something like that, but most people never saw a murder, whereas most people, at some point in their life, had to deal with someone being pregnant around them. “Better to get him over this sort of thing now than twenty years in the future when he has a pregnant girlfriend.” Pause. “Or wife, I guess.”

Sharon snorted. “Hope for the best.” She said, and then lifted her tea for a sip. It was cooler now, and quite delicious. She set the mug back down. It wasn’t as if Sharon had a husband. These sorts of things happened… sort of whenever they were meant to? And a lot of the time when they weren’t meant to. She wasn’t going to judge anyone for the choices they made.

“Or when you have one? Some day?” She said, teasing a little.


Leon almost choked on his tea. “I - Well - Maybe. I dunno man. Maybe someday. Someday far, far away.” Leon was not equipt to deal with babies. He probably didn’t have the disposition for it. “I mean, assuming there’s ever some woman out there who wants to have kids with me.” He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a pity-party, so much as him taking a playful jab at himself, but he realized belatedly that it did sound kind of pathetic. “I mean - I’m not.”

Well, it was probably time to give up and drink some more tea.

It was absolutely adorable how flustered he got over that idea. Sharon gave a little laugh. “It’s okay. I wasn’t suggesting you go out and get some woman pregnant, or anything. You’ve got enough to deal with taking care of me all the time.” She lifted her own tea to sip from the mug, but thought better of it and set it back down.

“I mean… thank you.” As she spoke, Sharon slipped into a more serious face, a somber tone. “I was… ridiculously lonely for a while there. And having you and Chris around to hang out with? It’s helped a lot.”

Leon watched Sharon for a moment, and then sighed. “I am sorry we lost contact when you left the force,” he said. He almost asked about Veronica, since they lived together, but she and Logan had been dating for a while, and Leon knew that sometimes when people started a relationship, they didn’t spend as much time with their friends. “But hey, we’re friends, and I’m always around if you need someone who’s not eight years old with to spend time with.”

Veronica was a different story. They’d been friends for so long, it was possible each was taking the other for granted a little. And Sharon had been really feeling the lack of a man in her life (if you catch the emphasis) so having Leon and Chris around helped distract her from the fact that she was hormonal and lonely. And sometimes Chris would let her cuddle with him. He was such a good kid.

“I am, too,” Sharon said, giving him a sad smile. “We won’t let time drift us apart anymore. You’re a good man, and I appreciate the offer. I may just be texting you at odd hours to hang out, eat cheesy french fries and drink milkshakes. And I suppose Chris can come along, too.”