FIC: gathered love's adjectives into a suitcase [rookie blue, sam/andy, 1 of 2]
Title: gathered love's adjectives into a suitcase, 1 of 2
Authors: lowriseflare and threeguesses
Fandom/Pairing: Rookie Blue, Disney!Sam/Andy
Rating: R
Word Count: 17 000+ (I don't know, maybe we should write a novel or something?)
Summary: Sam and Andy, after the task force wraps up.
A/N: I DON'T CARE, HE SAID IT TO CORRINE.
Andy's lying in a patch of sun on the carpet when Nick lets himself into the apartment, windows wide open and the first really warm day of the year. "Half an hour to pack," he tells her, no preamble whatsoever. "We're going home."
(Andy sits up so fast she gets dizzy.)
"Who pulled the plug?" she asks as she shoves underwear into a gym bag. Nick tosses her the pair with cupcakes on them, wrapped up in a pair of his old-man cable socks. What a kid in his twenties needs with so many pairs grandpa socks is beyond Andy. He even wears them to work out in, the weirdo.
"Dunno." Nick is tearing through their tiny kitchen, although for the life of her Andy can't figure out why. Trying to figure out what pot lids he wants to save, maybe. "Could be Callaghan."
Andy makes a face. "Could be." Of course, it could also be-- god, whatever. They'll find out when they find out. "Take the fleur de sel," she tells Nick, and zips her bag closed with finality.
*
It doesn't take them very long to pack up the bare bones of their lives for the last six months, jeans and boots and a ratty paperback or two. Andy leaves all her cheap, garish makeup on the bathroom sink. "Okay," she says, standing up and hefting her backpack onto both shoulders. She looks around the apartment one more time, feeling weirdly nervous to leave it: their ancient couch that sags in the middle, the bathroom door with the broken latch and a bad habit of creaking wide open mid-pee. "I feel yellow," she announces loudly.
Nick looks up from where he's struggling to shut his overstuffed duffel. Right at the beginning of the undercover when they were both totally freaked out one-hundred-percent of the time, they started categorizing all their emotions using the Terrorism Threat Advisory Scale. "About going back?" he asks. Andy nods, coming over to sit on it for him. "Yellow-green?" he continues. "Or yellow-orange?"
Andy thinks about that for a minute. It's important not to exaggerate when color-coding: each of them only ever got to red one time. "Yellow-yellow," she decides.
Nick nods as he finally drags the zipper shut, offers a hand to pull her back to her feet. "It'll be fine," he promises, sounding confident and easy. Still, he threads his fingers through hers and doesn't let go.
As it turns out, Luke decides to pick them up personally, police official vehicle and everything. Andy and Nick are in the dark about the plan until the moment the van pulls up. They spend the interim period kneeling fully-dressed on the couch by the front window, pointedly not discussing their other carpool options.
"Think they'll take us to the Barn?" Andy asks for the fifth time. She's alread sweating under her unnecessary scarf. It's springtime for sure, thaws and that dirty-melt smell under everything. She and Nick can't go outside until the last possible second, just in case anyone who shouldn't sees them with the bags.
"Maybe." Nick leans his whole body into hers. Both of them smell like Irish spring hand soap and the musty dryer in the basement. "My apartment is probably gross. I think I left some lettuce in the crisper."
Andy knows that already, actually. It's something they talk about a lot, how they left their apartments.
(How they left--)
Whatever. She still nods like it's the first time she's heard of it. Both of them are blurting.
"Calvary's here," Nick announces suddenly, nodding down through the dirty windows. Six stories down, Luke drives the van right up onto the curb.
"So," Andy says, swallowing. "This is it."
This is it.
*
"Hurry up," Luke tells them as they scramble into the van with their jackets and their luggage, before hi or how are you or sorry to uproot you with no warning whatsoever even though Nick promised Israeli couscous tonight and you had your mouth all set for it. The door's barely slid closed before they're speeding away from the apartment in what might or might not be the direction of the 15, Andy's not sure yet.
"Did we get made?" she asks anxiously. She doesn't think they did--they've been hugely careful, no contact with anybody at all (no late-night pickups at the Alpine Inn, that's for sure)--but stuff happens. She's not having the easiest time getting her bearings. "Luke?"
"You didn't get made," Luke says, eyes on the road. He's still got the beard, plus a navy-blue down vest like he might have a bear to go wrestle right after he leaves here. "Hastings rolled this morning. You're done. Guns and Gangs is grateful for your service."
Guns and Gangs is grateful, jesus. Andy makes a face at Nick in the backseat. Sometimes she randomly remembers how she was like a week out from getting married to Luke, and it feels like it happened to somebody else altogether.
("I don't even really hate Jo anymore," she told Nick, when the whole story came out over beers one night in the living room. "I mean, I wouldn't invite her to a chick flick or anything, but still."
"She doesn't really seem like the kind of lady to watch chick flicks, the way you describe her," Nick pointed out reasonably. Andy threw a pretzel at his head.)
"You'll get debriefed back at the station," Luke's saying now, turning the van onto Dundas. Suddenly the way Andy's sweating has nothing to do with her scarf.
Nick steps up to the plate like a champ. "Gang know we're coming back?" He actually manages to sound halfway-casual, weird Sesame Street phrasing aside. Andy feels like she's about to upchuck all over the TPS issue floor mats.
Luke's expression in the rearview suggests he hates Big Bird and any allusion to 15 being one big happy family. Probably he didn't go in for any of Best's 'we're all in this together' pep talks last year either. "Not sure, Collins," he growls. "I was a little busy figuring out how to safely remove you." Then, looking over at Andy: "Guess they'll figure it out when we get there." He might be shooting her some eye-messages, but Andy can't read anything with his mountain man beard in the way. She had the same problem when he told her Sam made detective.
("They were trying to promote him for years," was all Luke would say. "He has his pick."
"Does he know where we are?" Nick asked, but Luke just shrugged.
"I'm not the one who decides his level of access.")
Either way, Andy's hands are definitely shaking by the time they hit the parking lot. Nick feels very far away in the back seat. He reaches up and tugs the end of her ponytail as Luke's parking the van, though, and that helps a little. They've gotten real good at steadying each other out. Still: "Orange," Andy murmurs in his ear as they cross the slushy concrete, hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets to hide them. Nick's looking like possibly he's at a heightened terror threat, himself.
Inside 15 it smells exactly like she remembers, a coffee/floor cleaner/sweat kind of smell. The familiarity of it makes Andy's chest clutch. She remembers Sam telling her that once, how strange it could be to come back in feeling like a completely different person, not knowing who or what else might have changed while you'd been gone.
(206 bones in the human body, she thinks, apropos of nothing. Glances up at the empty detectives' bullpen and wonders again why he took the promotion after all this time.)
"Holy shit." That's Dov coming down the hallway in their direction, Gail close on his heels. Both of them are wearing their uniforms. He's gained back most of the weight he lost after the Tyler Marks thing, looks less like a little kid dressed as a cop for Halloween. "You guys are back?"
Andy shoots a look at Nick out of the very corner of her eye, picks up the baton. "We're back," she says, grinning widely. The expression feels a little weird on her face, muscles she hasn't used in a while--Lindsay, the addict she just spent half a year pretending to be, wasn't much for smiles. "Hey, guys."
Gail stares at them for a long, cool minute. Turns on her heels and walks away.
So. They're batting a thousand as soon as they get in the door, basically.
"She, uh. Missed you," Dov explains apologetically. Andy remembers when they found out Gail wasn't shit-canned after all, two weeks into the UC and her name coming up in a casual conversation with one of Luke's Guns and Gangs underlings. Nick waited until the guy left and then--very calmly and systematically--went into the kitchen and broke three plates so all the debris fell in the sink. Andy cleaned up the pieces while he took a shower. Later, when they were watching a blurry Friends rerun on the junked-out tv, she had him lie down with his head in her lap like Sam never, ever did, and set herself the task of scritching his unfamiliar hair until he fell asleep.
"Yeah," Nick is saying now, no inflection. His jaw is really, really tense. Andy doesn't know how to help him so she moves forward to hug Dov instead, breaking the moment.
Dov may feel more solid, but he definitely still smells like Axe and boy. "And I mean, obviously I missed you too," he announces somewhere in the vicinity of Andy's hair. He's hugging back hard, like he really actually did; Andy feels bad all over again for leaving without a word. 'Part of the job,' Luke had told her--Sam too, actually, way back in JD's one-room apartment when she was giving him hell for the disappearing act.
(He took it back later, though: "I'm sorry," he said, both of them laid out sleepily across the floor. "As soon as I left I wanted to come back, say goodbye properly."
Andy rolled up onto her elbows. "And what would that have entailed?" she asked coyly, blowing right over the admission.
He said a lot of shit in the cover apartment, is something she only noticed later. Copped to stuff he never quite acknowledged again.)
Anyway.
"Is Trace around?" she asks Dov. If there's someone whose arms Andy really wants to launch herself into right now, it's Traci.
Dov shakes his head. "Nah," he says. "She's out on a call with--" He breaks off mid-sentence, then: "A murder victim," he finishes lamely. "There was a murder, and she is...looking at the victim. Of the murder."
Andy laughs. "With Detective Swarek?" she asks, and oh, that is weird to say out loud. She keeps the smile pasted across her face; between that and the way Nick's grinding his molars to powder, they probably look like they just escaped from a nuthouse. "You can say it."
(So he's not in the building right now, then, is what that means. Andy doesn't know if she's relieved or disappointed.)
"You know about all that?" Dov asks, sounding surprised. "None of us knew what they were telling you guys and what they weren't. So do you know about, like--"
"McNally!" Luke calls impatiently, voice booming. He was picking up their reinstatement paperwork at the desk, is looking at them now like they're keeping him from something way more interesting (a North American Grizzly, probably). "Collins. You ready to do this, or what?"
Luke debriefs them one at a time, which Andy doesn't entirely appreciate, one because it reminds her of how they split up pairs of suspects to try and crack them, and two because she hasn't done a hell of a lot of important shit without Nick in the last six months and it makes her feel weirdly exposed.
Traci barges into the room halfway through her interview, though: "You," she crows, delighted, then holds up a hand before Luke can stop her. "I know, I know. Just one second." She flings her arms around Andy, squeezes tight and familiar, and if Andy's been doing a fair-to-passable job of keeping her feelings on the cool end of the color spectrum, at least outwardly--well. Possibly she has some yellow-orange tears to swallow down at the sight of Traci's face.
"Come find me the second you get done," Traci orders, planting a smacking kiss on her cheek when Luke tells her to get lost for like the fourth time, this time with the word order involved. "I'll call my mom and see if she can take Leo tonight, we'll go to the Penny."
"Sure." Both Andy's voice and shoulders go teenager-high, all this hunching vulnerable body language she doesn't love. Lindsay was real good at keeping her head up. "I'll find you," she promises, checking herself. Traci breezes out the door with a giant shining grin. For the first time since she arrived at 15 this morning, Andy feels like she has something to look forward to.
Surprisingly, Luke's expression is only mildly annoyed when she looks back over. "Just a few more questions and you're done," he says, capping his pen with finality. At first Andy wonders why the hell he's letting her off the hook after all that rank-and-file crap he was pulling on Traci not two seconds ago; like, at the very least he should chew her out for wasting valuable bear-trapping time or something.
Then she remembers he could conceivably still know her face well enough to tell she's about to lose it.
"I'm fine," she says quickly, shaking her head because nope, uh-uh. Pity from Luke is a rock bottom she is just not willing to hit. "All good, I swear. We can go through the rest no problem." She hopes Nick isn't waiting around for her outside.
"Relax, Andy." Luke is already stacking papers back inside the heavy manila file folder. "Collins answered the same questions. Your corroboration is just a formality."
"If Nick says it it's true," Andy declares, no hesitation. Which, apparently, is good enough for TPS records because three minutes later she's out the door, fully reinstated with orders to take a day off to unwind. ("Eat some salad," Luke says. "Read a book. Get some vitamin C." Andy would resent the babying if not for the fact that he saw her and Nick's fridge on the semi-regular and--yeah. Fruit and veg was not something drug addict Lindsay did a whole lot of.)
When she gets out there, though, turns out Nick's not the one waiting.
Andy actually gasps when she sees him, leaning against the bulletin board with his arms and ankles crossed, Toronto's Most Wanted leering down over both his shoulders. "Um," she says, stopping cold in the middle of the hallway (and god, god, she knew this was going to happen, that coming back meant dealing with everything she may or may not have run away from; there is no reason for the sight of him to send shock waves clear down into her bones). "Hi."
"McNally." Sam just looks at her, same unreadable, faintly amused expression on his face as always, eyebrows raised like anything from I need my keys back to I love you, let's get a dog could be lurking behind his expression and there wouldn't be any way to tell. "Welcome back."
"Thanks." Andy wipes her suddenly-sweaty palms on her jeans. She has no idea what to do here--like, do they hug? They didn't even really hug when they were dating, Most of their prolonged physical contact definitely came loaded down with a certain kind of intent--how it felt like foreplay even when he was brushing by her in the kitchen on the way to the coffee, his solid body warm against hers. They never quite learned how to comfort each other, or something. "How are you?"
Sam shrugs. "No complaints." If Dov's gained weight then he's definitely lost some, mostly in his face but around his rib cage too, Andy's pretty sure. She wonders for a second what happened there, if he'd feel different under her hands. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled to the elbows, those hard knots of bone in his wrists.
Andy swallows. She can hear the rustle and hum of 15 all around her, home sounds, a ringing phone and Traci laughing somewhere down the hall. Reminds herself that he's the one who broke her heart. "Sam," she starts, then completely fails to follow it up in any meaningful way.
"You're fine, McNally," Sam tells her, pushing himself up off the wall. Andy isn't though, all her nerves set to screaming terror-alert red. "Nash is waiting at her desk." He gets within a foot of her and stops, and Andy flashes back to that day she got shot, his heavy hands all over her face behind the trailer. ("What did you want, exactly?" she teased him later, when they were rehashing how long they'd liked-liked each other like a couple of six graders. "Like, what precisely was your game plan there?"
"I was going to kiss you," Sam said, completely steady.)
"You look good," he's saying now, that same oddly level stare. Andy feels the blush all over her body. Because god, she definitely does not, stringy addict hair that hasn't been trimmed in months and a gross old hoodie; it is possible she was standing here staring at his neat rib cage and wishing she'd washed her face, maybe took it to another level and applied some lip chap. He does not look bad, is all.
"Shut up." She's half smiling though, self-conscious and weirdly shy. As a rule she’s almost never been shy around Sam, that first time in the cover apartment aside. She wanted him to like her so damn bad.
"Uh-huh." Sam grins. Fast and shallow, sure, but it's still the first break she's seen in his expression so far. "Go find Nash," he tells her, and Andy wants to ask him all kinds of questions, try out how Dectective Swarek sounds in her mouth (she's going to have to call him 'sir' again, which was categorically not a thing either of them hated), but.
(But.)
She goes.
*
Andy heads into the locker room and has a shower while Traci finishes some paperwork, all her toiletries and a slightly musty-smelling tank top still in her locker just where she left them. She's doing up the hooks on her bra when Nick comes in.
"Sorry," he says, but then sits down on the bench beside her anyway--after all, it's not like it's anything he hasn't seen before. Andy pulls the tank top over her head and waits. She's known Nick to stay awake for thirty-six hours at a stretch and hardly show it, but right now he looks like he's about to completely drop. Judging by the expression on his face, he's definitely talked to Gail. "Are you sorry we did it?" he asks quietly.
Andy sits down hard, her wet hair cold and chilly against her upper back. She can feet it soaking right through her shirt to her skin, goosebumps rising. "I don't know," she says after a moment. They've had this conversation before too, usually late at night in the double bed they shared in the apartment, one or both of them having a hard go falling asleep. Their answers changed basically every single time. "Are you?"
Nick shrugs, stretching his long legs out in front of them. For the last six months, his name's been Lee. "I don't know either," he says.
Andy nods and rests her head on his shoulder. She always hung out with a lot of boys growing up, but she's never had a guy friend like Nick before. She doesn't actually know exactly what they are. "We're going to the Penny, if you want to come out for a while," she tells him. "Also, you owe me a couscous dinner."
That gets a smile out of him, just like she was pretty sure it would: "I'll meet you over there," he promises, heaving himself up off the bench and heading for the exit. Andy smiles back. Once he's gone she does what she can with the stubby end of an eye pencil she finds on the back of the shelf on her locker, pinches her cheeks until she's marginally less pale. Studies her unfamiliar face in the mirror for a good long time.
Waiting in the bullpen with wet hair makes her jumpy and cold. People keep coming up to say hi, and it takes Andy a good ten minutes to realize she's flinching a little with every new face. By the time Traci's paperwork is finished she's actually looking forward to the Penny, white noise and a steady supply of beer that will keep her sociable enough to pass for Andy instead of Lindsay. But when they pull into the parking lot Traci doesn't turn the engine off right away.
"Look, Andy. There are a couple of things we need to--" She blows out a breath, turning sideways in the bucket seat so they're facing each other. "There's some stuff. That changed when you were gone."
Somehow Andy doesn't feel like Traci's gearing up to tell her about the Penny's new decor. "Stuff."
"Uh-huh." Traci fingers the wheel, one of Sam's old habits; Andy guesses they must be riding together a lot. Then she changes tracks entirely: "Are you and Collins...?"
Oh. That surprises Andy maybe more than it should. "No-o. No," she says confidently, even though it takes a weird beat to get out. And like, they aren't, they've never even almost, but it is possible spending the past half-year seeing him at bedtime and in the morning and all hours of the day have kind of blurred the lines a little.
(By around month two they were climbing all over each other, no personal space left anyplace. Nick started it, Andy remembers, an arm around her shoulders during a Seinfeld marathon. For a split second before he noogied her, she was sure she was about to get kissed.)
"Just friends," she insists, smiling at Traci hard.
"Really?" Traci doesn't look entirely convinced.
"Really," Andy promises. Then, because she can't take it one more second: "Sam has a girlfriend, right?" She means to say it bluntly, to let Traci off the hook, but instead it comes out sounding more like a shrill, panicky accusation. It's cold again now that the sun's set; she can't believe she was lying on the warm floor of the apartment just this afternoon. "That's the thing? You can tell me, it's fine."
"Andy..." Traci shakes her head, one leg tucked up underneath her. "That's between you and Sam," she says vaguely.
Which--what? "Seriously?" Andy's eyes widen. "You're my best friend, and you're not gonna tell me?"
Traci makes a face. "Yeah, I'm your best friend," she says, more heat behind it than Andy's expecting. "And Swarek's not the only one you disappeared on."
Which--oh.
"Trace," Andy starts, feeling roughly two centimeters tall, but Traci holds up a hand to stop her.
"Look, it's fine. You had to do what you had to do, I get it. It was just kind of a long winter, that's all." She sighs. "Gail and Luke are sleeping together, is what I wanted to give you a heads up on. And it's not like Swarek asks my advice about his match.com profile or anything, but yeah, I'm pretty sure he's seeing somebody, too." Traci shrugs. "And I'm not sleeping with anyone, because if I even look at another guy I feel totally, bone-crushingly guilty, but it's been eight months and it just--it would have been nice to have you around, is all."
Oh, god. "Traci," Andy says again, sure she's about to burst into tears and honestly not a hundred percent certain which part of that was the worst part. It feels like somebody's scraping at her insides with a salad fork. "I'm really sorry."
"It's fine, Andy, I mean it. I'm really glad you're back." Traci unbuckles her seatbelt, smiles. "Let's go get drunk."
Andy takes a huge swallow of air. She wants a crying jag and a hug, not necessarily in that order, but she's a big girl and she can recognize she only wants it to make herself feel better, not Traci. "I'm really, really sorry," she says again, pressing her nails into her palms. "I'll just-- I'm buying, okay?" Even as she says it she winces.
Traci laughs in her face, but not meanly. "I missed you," she says, coming around the van to hug Andy herself. "I mean, I was pissed. But I missed your stupid face more."
So. Andy tucks that stupid face into Traci's neck for a guilty second. Tries not to feel like the lowest person alive.
*
Inside the Penny it's beery and humid, too early in the year for the AC to be on and all the cop bodies crammed inside working better than any radiator. Andy shrugs off Lindsay's jacket and looks around. Nick's here already, sitting at their old table in the back while Dov gestures his way through a story. Gail is nowhere to be found.
(Sam is. Down the corner of the bar with his back to her and Ollie at his elbow. Right away Andy decides to make someone else get the beer.)
"There they are," Traci declares, waving. She's got her hand on Andy's wrist like she wants to keep her close. "Hey guys!" The way she says it sounds rusty, and Andy wonders if they went out together at all, Traci and Gail and Dov alone. Figures probably not.
In any case, the band's definitely back together now; Dov gets up to usher them over like an air traffic controller, pleased as punch. When Nick catches sight of Andy his whole face lights up with relief, maybe the most overtly happy anyone's been to see her all day. Andy wants like hell to tuck herself under his arm like Lindsay and not talk to anyone else for a little while.
Instead she slips her first two fingers in his belt loop and yanks hard, this thing they started doing as a joke in the apartment. Sometimes it would take her three or four tries to get off the couch, both of them overtired and Nick pulling her back down again and again: he actually ripped a pair of her jeans that way once, which both of them thought was hilarious. Probably you had to be there. "Hey," she says, then hands him a twenty and sends him up to the bar for another couple of pitchers. Tugs his Levi's one more time as he goes.
"Just friends, huh?" Traci murmurs, eyebrows raised and her voice down low by Andy's ear.
"Shut up," is the best Andy's got.
She asks about Chris and the baby, about how Leo's doing in school; she answers all Dov's six dozen questions about their UC as best she can. She keeps half an eye on Nick up at the bar while he's waiting for their pitchers, which is how she notices Sam noticing him. Half a beat later, she watches him notice her, too.
(She loves him still, and badly. She thought it was possible she wouldn't by the time she got back.)
He nods once in her direction just like maybe it's three years ago, like he's never sucked a mark on her neck or talked to her until she fell asleep or helped her prove her dad wasn't a murderer; like he didn't leave her crying in a parking lot or take a beating in a farmhouse or tell her he loved her while she cupped a grenade inside her two shaking hands. Like maybe all of that was just junk she made up to entertain herself on a particularly boring stakeout or something, waiting for a suspect to show in the passenger seat of the cruiser on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Nick comes back and sets the pitchers on the table. Andy looks away first.
*
They all end up getting drunk as skunks, as per Traci's suggestion. And it's nice: stories from the UC are easier with Nick there to round out the double act, plus Trace has apparently landed a lot of really excellent cases since they've been gone (three words: Seinfeld pig man), which gets them through the first pitcher no problem. Midway through the second they decide to call Chris, who picks up sounding super annoyed and suburban and ends up staying on the line for forty minutes. He tells them stories about his kid in a quiet voice they all have to shush each other to hear, Denise asleep in the next room. Andy swigs back beers until she finds that spot where everything is funny and doesn't look over at the bar once.
(She's good at it, finding that spot. She used to worry she was too good until Nick pointed out that an alcoholic would get there and just not stop.
Now Andy always stops.)
It's still weird though, like reuniting with your high school friends after graduation and finding all the old alliances have shifted. Andy keeps directing all her reaction faces at Nick by accident.
"I'm off," Traci announces around midnight. Andy offers to share a cab, but apparently 'Dex is picking me up', which stings for absolutely no reason at all. Andy guesses she's glad someone has been stepping up to bat on the 'dead fiance' thing, even if it's Traci's ex. Dov leaves right after, shifty about to where and with who, and then it's just her and Nick.
"Swarek's still at the bar," he tells her. He's been facing that way all night; Lindsay and Lee always sat so they could watch each other's backs. "Want me to disappear?"
Andy hesitates. She doesn't, actually; actually what she wants to do is go over to his house, maybe have him come to hers; anything to avoid facing her empty, unfamiliar apartment by herself, whatever rotten six-month-old badness might be lurking there waiting for her to come back. It's been a long time since she slept by herself. She glances over her shoulder at Sam, at the clean pleats of his backbone inside his t-shirt. "Yeah, okay," she says.
Nick makes a face like he knows she's full of garbage. "You sure?"
"No." Andy swallows down the newest lump in her throat. God, she was really not expecting to lose it so bad once she got back here. She's got the distinct sense that she's been failing in one way or another since she woke up. "I want to hear about Gail first, though," she says. Nobody mentioned her all night, like maybe she went and totally evaporated or something. It was weird.
Nick rolls his eyes. "No you don't," he replies, which means he doesn't want to talk about it yet. "Text when you get home, okay?"
Andy promises she will and Nick kisses her on the temple; when the door to the Penny closes behind him she turns around and Sam's looking right at her, so.
So.
Andy takes a deep breath and walks over. "You know what you never told me about undercovers?" she asks, sliding onto the barstool next to his and wishing she'd kept Lindsay's gross hoodie from earlier. At least then she'd have someplace to hide. "How crappy the cable plan is."
Sam raises his eyebrows. He's barely got half a beer in front of him, two big swallows maybe; it occurs to her to wonder if possibly he was waiting her out. "Did I not mention that?" he asks.
"Nope." Andy shakes her head. Then, because she's too exhausted to beat around the bush and the last time they left it the ball was in her court: "Traci says she thinks you have a girlfriend."
Sam's eyebrows don't budge an inch this time, like maybe he was expecting the question. He picks up the beer and doesn't drink. "I'm seeing someone, yeah," he says finally, thumb running over the label. "You?"
Andy doesn't answer right away either. Her heart is somewhere around her knees, throat tight with tears or jealousy or both. (And god, she can admit it now; she thought he would fall apart with her gone. Which is awful, of course it's awful, but being wrong? It's absolutely one-hundred percent worse.) "Nope," she says brightly, pulling on what feels like a horrible smile. "No one."
Now Sam does look surprised. "You and Collins...?"
"Just friends." God, Andy wishes she fucked him. For one horrible second, she really wishes she did.
"Ah." Sam finally takes that drink, swallowing half the remaining beer in one gulp. "I missed you," is what comes out when he puts it down. His face crinkles up around the eyes as he says it, sincere, and that's what gets Andy in the end.
"Yeah," she laughs hollowly. "So much so that you ran out and started screwing someone else." Which is a valid point, but she doesn't even know if Sam hears it because her voice breaks hard halfway through, tears suddenly coming so thick and fast she can't even see the bar top. Which--god. It's just about the most inconvenient time she could have picked to lose it, right the fuck in front of him and god and the new bartender she doesn't know, but sure, McNally, of course. She's drunk and tired and she loves him, so of course.
"Andy." Sam looks like she backed up a truck over his dog. Why he picks now to look like that instead of eight months ago when he left her sobbing in a parking lot is completely beyond Andy. He reaches out, puts a hand on her arm. "Come on, sweetheart."
Which-- "Don't," she orders loudly, jerking away. Sam's eyes widen; even the bartender, who up until now was at least trying to give them some privacy, glances over in surprise. Andy really doesn't give a crap. He's just--he's not allowed to call her that after everything that happened (if he called it to somebody else while she was gone). It isn't fair. "Do not."
Sam backs off in half a hot second, both palms up and out like he wants to show her he isn't packing. "Easy," he murmurs.
"You take it easy." Andy shakes her head. God, this is embarrassing, to still care so much after all this time. To let him know that she does. "Look, I'm sorry," she tells him, sniffling, wiping under both eyes and trying to pull it together. Her eyeliner comes away smeared on the tips of her fingers. "This was stupid. I'm out of line. I'm glad to be back, I'll--"
"Don't be sorry," Sam says immediately. He's still got that look on his face, stricken, like she's the one who broke his heart and not the other way around. She thinks of that last night in the hallway, I'm going to show you every day until you believe me. Reminds herself that he left her way before she ever got the chance. "McNally," he says, and his voice is so quiet. "Look. Can you let me drive you home, please?"
Yeah, probably his new girlfriend would love that. "I'll get a cab," she snaps, and then of course they're both thinking it, Gail and Jerry and how everything can unravel in a second if you aren't paying attention. Or even if you are. Andy is so, so tired.
"No you won't," Sam says, even.
No. She won't.
There isn't anyone left at the back tables but Andy ducks her head anyway, watching the sticky floor as they wind their way out the door. She's tipsy enough that she has to concentrate. Closing down the Penny, jesus god--it's almost more embarrassing than the crying. She should have gone home when Nick did.
Neither of them says anything in the parking lot, nothing but this huge damning silence and the hollow click of Lindsay's boots, the beep of the automatic locks. It's the worst kind of deja-vu, just get in your truck and go. When Andy closes her eyes she can still remember that awful falling feeling, when she'd first realized which he'd picked.
The truck still smells the same at least, coffee and Sam. Andy looks around for clues, signs of someone else (perfume, maybe, earrings on the dashboard). But there's nothing. She really doesn't know why that's worse.
The whole ride is silent, both of them staring out the front window at the empty streets. When they pull up outside Andy's building Sam cuts the engine, an even deeper hush settling around them like a blanket. "I'll stay here while you walk up," he says firmly, quiet in the dark. The dome light went off with the engine and Andy can't read his face at all.
She snorts. "What, you want me to flick the lights or something?"
Sam just stares for a second, like possibly he can see her face just fine, inky blackness and all. He shrugs. "Or text me." Then, when her hand's on the door to close it: "I meant it, you know, what I said before you left. I love you. Still do."
Andy's sobbing again by the time she hits the landing. It takes her a whole stupid minute to find the light-switch, how unfamiliar her apartment is after six months. She clicks it three times and slides down the wall, buries her face in her hands.
*
She startles awake two hours later, still in her jacket, lights in the living room blazing and a headache bleating wildly in her skull. The clock on the cable box says 3:38.
Which--
shit.
Andy takes a deep breath and gets her bearings, mouth dry and sweat-sock sour. Did she seriously pass out crying sitting on her living room floor? She blinks at her dusty apartment, thinks of making a scene back at the Penny. Feels a hot rush of humiliation and regret. That was...not the move of a person who knew when to stop. "Stellar job, McNally," she mutters out loud.
(love you, he said, before she slammed the truck door. still do.)
Her phone vibrates anxiously inside her pocket: when she fumbles it out she's got four texts from Nick and three missed calls. The last one's from just a minute ago, must have been what finally woke her up. if i don't hear from you in ten I'm coming over, it says.
Fuck. Sorry sorry sorry, she texts back quickly, her fingers clumsy over the keys. Alive.
She must have scared him; it's not even thirty seconds before he replies. Nick's not a great sleeper anyway, she knows, but she feels like an asshole for keeping him awake. u ok? he wants to know.
Andy promises him she is and that she'll call him in the morning. Heaves herself up off the floor. She's full sober now but the room lurches a bit anyway. There's a weird smell too, kind of garbage-y in nature and coming from the direction of the kitchen, that she's in no condition to deal with at this particular moment. She should really wash her face and go to bed.
(seeing somebody, she reminds herself firmly. Curls her chilly hands around the back of a chair.)
She pees and walks around the apartment for a while, reacquaints herself with her life before she left. She stares at a fashion magazine from last November. Drinks a glass of water standing up at the sink.
Finally she picks up the phone.
"Hey." Sam answers on the third ring. It's his thick, sleepy voice, the one she associates with working doubles and slow, half-conscious sex in the middle of the night. For a few weeks last summer they worked opposite shifts, Sam letting himself into her place at six and seven in the morning (sliding one hand between her legs to wake her up).
Well. Andy's not sleeping now. "Is your girlfriend there?" she asks, instead of hello.
"No." There's a shuffling, the quiet sheet-whoosh of someone sitting up in bed; he must have gone to sleep with the phone on the nightstand. Which, Andy happens to know, is not a thing he usually does. She doesn't know how she feels about that, if he expected her to call or just hoped. "God, McNally. 'Time is it?"
"A little after four." She double-checks, pivoting to face the cable box. The numbers flash back at her in confirmation, neon bright and irrational. Screw that, though; Andy's hit the end of humiliation. "So you're alone?"
Sam actually has the balls to sound affronted. "Yes. Christ, do you really think I dropped you off and then booty-called somebody?" There's another question under that one, Andy's pretty sure (do you really think I told you I loved you and then--), but neither of them seems to want to voice it.
Then again: "I don't know what to think, Sam," Andy hisses. "You love me so bad, why'd you run out and find someone else?" Because that's it, really, that's the sticking point. She thought about him the whole time she was gone, and it stings worse than anything to realize he wasn't doing the same. Andy never thought she was a jealous person, but there it is. If she knew who the girl was, she'd claw her stupid eyes out.
"What was I supposed to do?" Sam asks tiredly. It sounds like there's no fight left in him at all. "You made your answer real clear. Just like you made it clear again tonight."
Which--what the ever-loving fuck?
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Andy demands, but it comes out oddly shaky. All of a sudden her knees are completely gone, ass connecting with the couch with a thump. "Sam. What do you mean, 'made it clear again tonight'?"
"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'?" Sam blows a noisy breath into the phone. "I don't know what you want from me, McNally. Did you want me to wait around for some particular length of time on the off chance you'd changed your mind whenever the hell you got back?" There's more rustling, like he can't get comfortable over there. "Is that what you wanted?"
Andy doesn't answer for a moment, picking at a loose thread in the arm of the couch instead--because yes, actually, of course that's what she wanted, but when he puts it like that she sounds insane. God, she hates this so stupidly much. It feels so, so bad.
"And if I had done that," Sam continues, like he's working through all the angles of a UC op, variable by variable, "would it have fixed things? If you had asked me tonight if I was seeing anybody and I'd said no, would we be back together right now? Is that what it would have taken?"
And no, of course not, but. "It's not about how long you waited or didn't wait," Andy insists. "It's about you being the kind of person who can go around fucking other people--" Her voice catches a little, imagining him doing it, imagining him with somebody else--"when you're allegedly in love with me."
Ooh, that blow lands. "First of all," Sam says, sounding really and truly pissed for the first time all night, "enough with the allegedly, all right? That's enough. I'm telling you I love you, and I fucking mean it." He hesitates and Andy can picture him so clearly, mouth opening and closing again while he lines up his thoughts. "Second of all, sweetheart: I was trying to get the hell over you."
Andy breathes in. "And?" she asks, curling her feet up onto the sofa.
Sam sighs. "Didn't take."
The rush of relief is so intense it actually makes her nauseous. "Yeah." By which she means hers didn't take either, of course, but Andy isn't ready to come right out and say that. Her heart is still scraped clean from last time. "What--what do we do now?" she asks instead, leaning forward to press herself into herself, bent knees against her chest. She wants to be held in a big, stupid way.
(It feels weird, offering Sam the reins. Andy can't tell if she means it as a test or not.)
Either way, he's not taking the bait: "Nothing." Sam exhales, a whump in the background like he lay down in a huff or punched a pillow or both. "Look, Andy, I don't know what you want. Do you want the stupid pitch again? Garbage duty and a dog?" Boo, Andy fills in automatically, Boo Radley. She told Nick and they laughed about it together, something that made her feel better for a hot second before she swung back around to feeling awful. "I love you, sweetheart," Sam continues, "I'd do it, but it doesn't sound like you've changed your mind about your answer."
Andy presses her knees into her chest harder.
"And if this is never going to be fixed--" He finally loses steam there, no more calm TO voice or UC variables; Andy pushes her wet face against her leg so she doesn't sob out loud. "We gotta stop, okay," Sam finishes after a beat, a little ragged. "We can't keep doing this to each other."
Andy wipes at her eyes angrily. There are a lot of things she could say in reply--a lot of things she should say, probably--but the one her mouth settles on is: "Why did you become detective?"
"So I'd know where you were." Sam doesn't hesitate at all when he says it, like maybe he's handed those reins right back over. "Know what you were doing, could make sure you were safe." There's a wry kind of smile in his voice when he adds, "Sure as shit wasn't gonna trust Callaghan to do it."
Andy takes a deep breath before she answers, tries to make certain her voice won't betray her. The knees of her jeans are wet with tears and snot. "You could have found out without doing that, though," she protests quietly. It's a nice idea, what he's saying--it's a good story-- but it doesn't feel a hundred percent true. "Everybody you know in Guns and Gangs, people owe you favors or whatever. Somebody would have told you."
Sam considers that. "They would have," he allows finally, and it's a long time before he keeps talking. "I don't know, Andy. I spent a lot of years telling myself I didn't want this promotion, all right? And maybe I actually didn't, or maybe--" He stops, tries again. "I don't know. I wanted it now."
"Right," Andy says dully. "And when you see something you want, you take it?"
Sam doesn't answer for a moment. Andy can hear him breathing across the line. It feels like there's a lot more space between them than just the distance between his apartment and hers. "Maybe," he says at length, and there's a tone in his voice Andy doesn't totally recognize. It occurs to her that whether or not he spent the last six months thinking about her--he definitely spent it thinking about something. "Not always."
This time, she knows he can hear the sob in her breathing. "I want to see you," she blurts, before she even knows it's coming out. "Not to--just--" She breaks off.
Sam swallows before he speaks, this soft catch the receiver barely picks up. "You want me to come over?"
Andy does and she doesn't, logic and animal instinct all mixed up. (But. She knows which one she wants more.) "Yeah. Yeah, come over and we can just--we'll talk, okay?" She wipes at her snotty face, this gross snuffle on every inhale. Already she's calming down a bit, though, a concrete plan and someone else in her dark empty apartment. "God, Sam." Now that she's getting her wish she has the urge to backpedal, be reasonable after the fact. "It's four in the morning."
"So I'll bring coffee."
There's not even a beat of waiting there, this jangling sound like he's already picked up his keys. Andy smiles, stupidly relieved. "Okay, yeah. Coffee sounds good."
Part Two (The Sexy Part)
Authors: lowriseflare and threeguesses
Fandom/Pairing: Rookie Blue, Disney!Sam/Andy
Rating: R
Word Count: 17 000+ (I don't know, maybe we should write a novel or something?)
Summary: Sam and Andy, after the task force wraps up.
A/N: I DON'T CARE, HE SAID IT TO CORRINE.
Andy's lying in a patch of sun on the carpet when Nick lets himself into the apartment, windows wide open and the first really warm day of the year. "Half an hour to pack," he tells her, no preamble whatsoever. "We're going home."
(Andy sits up so fast she gets dizzy.)
"Who pulled the plug?" she asks as she shoves underwear into a gym bag. Nick tosses her the pair with cupcakes on them, wrapped up in a pair of his old-man cable socks. What a kid in his twenties needs with so many pairs grandpa socks is beyond Andy. He even wears them to work out in, the weirdo.
"Dunno." Nick is tearing through their tiny kitchen, although for the life of her Andy can't figure out why. Trying to figure out what pot lids he wants to save, maybe. "Could be Callaghan."
Andy makes a face. "Could be." Of course, it could also be-- god, whatever. They'll find out when they find out. "Take the fleur de sel," she tells Nick, and zips her bag closed with finality.
*
It doesn't take them very long to pack up the bare bones of their lives for the last six months, jeans and boots and a ratty paperback or two. Andy leaves all her cheap, garish makeup on the bathroom sink. "Okay," she says, standing up and hefting her backpack onto both shoulders. She looks around the apartment one more time, feeling weirdly nervous to leave it: their ancient couch that sags in the middle, the bathroom door with the broken latch and a bad habit of creaking wide open mid-pee. "I feel yellow," she announces loudly.
Nick looks up from where he's struggling to shut his overstuffed duffel. Right at the beginning of the undercover when they were both totally freaked out one-hundred-percent of the time, they started categorizing all their emotions using the Terrorism Threat Advisory Scale. "About going back?" he asks. Andy nods, coming over to sit on it for him. "Yellow-green?" he continues. "Or yellow-orange?"
Andy thinks about that for a minute. It's important not to exaggerate when color-coding: each of them only ever got to red one time. "Yellow-yellow," she decides.
Nick nods as he finally drags the zipper shut, offers a hand to pull her back to her feet. "It'll be fine," he promises, sounding confident and easy. Still, he threads his fingers through hers and doesn't let go.
As it turns out, Luke decides to pick them up personally, police official vehicle and everything. Andy and Nick are in the dark about the plan until the moment the van pulls up. They spend the interim period kneeling fully-dressed on the couch by the front window, pointedly not discussing their other carpool options.
"Think they'll take us to the Barn?" Andy asks for the fifth time. She's alread sweating under her unnecessary scarf. It's springtime for sure, thaws and that dirty-melt smell under everything. She and Nick can't go outside until the last possible second, just in case anyone who shouldn't sees them with the bags.
"Maybe." Nick leans his whole body into hers. Both of them smell like Irish spring hand soap and the musty dryer in the basement. "My apartment is probably gross. I think I left some lettuce in the crisper."
Andy knows that already, actually. It's something they talk about a lot, how they left their apartments.
(How they left--)
Whatever. She still nods like it's the first time she's heard of it. Both of them are blurting.
"Calvary's here," Nick announces suddenly, nodding down through the dirty windows. Six stories down, Luke drives the van right up onto the curb.
"So," Andy says, swallowing. "This is it."
This is it.
*
"Hurry up," Luke tells them as they scramble into the van with their jackets and their luggage, before hi or how are you or sorry to uproot you with no warning whatsoever even though Nick promised Israeli couscous tonight and you had your mouth all set for it. The door's barely slid closed before they're speeding away from the apartment in what might or might not be the direction of the 15, Andy's not sure yet.
"Did we get made?" she asks anxiously. She doesn't think they did--they've been hugely careful, no contact with anybody at all (no late-night pickups at the Alpine Inn, that's for sure)--but stuff happens. She's not having the easiest time getting her bearings. "Luke?"
"You didn't get made," Luke says, eyes on the road. He's still got the beard, plus a navy-blue down vest like he might have a bear to go wrestle right after he leaves here. "Hastings rolled this morning. You're done. Guns and Gangs is grateful for your service."
Guns and Gangs is grateful, jesus. Andy makes a face at Nick in the backseat. Sometimes she randomly remembers how she was like a week out from getting married to Luke, and it feels like it happened to somebody else altogether.
("I don't even really hate Jo anymore," she told Nick, when the whole story came out over beers one night in the living room. "I mean, I wouldn't invite her to a chick flick or anything, but still."
"She doesn't really seem like the kind of lady to watch chick flicks, the way you describe her," Nick pointed out reasonably. Andy threw a pretzel at his head.)
"You'll get debriefed back at the station," Luke's saying now, turning the van onto Dundas. Suddenly the way Andy's sweating has nothing to do with her scarf.
Nick steps up to the plate like a champ. "Gang know we're coming back?" He actually manages to sound halfway-casual, weird Sesame Street phrasing aside. Andy feels like she's about to upchuck all over the TPS issue floor mats.
Luke's expression in the rearview suggests he hates Big Bird and any allusion to 15 being one big happy family. Probably he didn't go in for any of Best's 'we're all in this together' pep talks last year either. "Not sure, Collins," he growls. "I was a little busy figuring out how to safely remove you." Then, looking over at Andy: "Guess they'll figure it out when we get there." He might be shooting her some eye-messages, but Andy can't read anything with his mountain man beard in the way. She had the same problem when he told her Sam made detective.
("They were trying to promote him for years," was all Luke would say. "He has his pick."
"Does he know where we are?" Nick asked, but Luke just shrugged.
"I'm not the one who decides his level of access.")
Either way, Andy's hands are definitely shaking by the time they hit the parking lot. Nick feels very far away in the back seat. He reaches up and tugs the end of her ponytail as Luke's parking the van, though, and that helps a little. They've gotten real good at steadying each other out. Still: "Orange," Andy murmurs in his ear as they cross the slushy concrete, hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets to hide them. Nick's looking like possibly he's at a heightened terror threat, himself.
Inside 15 it smells exactly like she remembers, a coffee/floor cleaner/sweat kind of smell. The familiarity of it makes Andy's chest clutch. She remembers Sam telling her that once, how strange it could be to come back in feeling like a completely different person, not knowing who or what else might have changed while you'd been gone.
(206 bones in the human body, she thinks, apropos of nothing. Glances up at the empty detectives' bullpen and wonders again why he took the promotion after all this time.)
"Holy shit." That's Dov coming down the hallway in their direction, Gail close on his heels. Both of them are wearing their uniforms. He's gained back most of the weight he lost after the Tyler Marks thing, looks less like a little kid dressed as a cop for Halloween. "You guys are back?"
Andy shoots a look at Nick out of the very corner of her eye, picks up the baton. "We're back," she says, grinning widely. The expression feels a little weird on her face, muscles she hasn't used in a while--Lindsay, the addict she just spent half a year pretending to be, wasn't much for smiles. "Hey, guys."
Gail stares at them for a long, cool minute. Turns on her heels and walks away.
So. They're batting a thousand as soon as they get in the door, basically.
"She, uh. Missed you," Dov explains apologetically. Andy remembers when they found out Gail wasn't shit-canned after all, two weeks into the UC and her name coming up in a casual conversation with one of Luke's Guns and Gangs underlings. Nick waited until the guy left and then--very calmly and systematically--went into the kitchen and broke three plates so all the debris fell in the sink. Andy cleaned up the pieces while he took a shower. Later, when they were watching a blurry Friends rerun on the junked-out tv, she had him lie down with his head in her lap like Sam never, ever did, and set herself the task of scritching his unfamiliar hair until he fell asleep.
"Yeah," Nick is saying now, no inflection. His jaw is really, really tense. Andy doesn't know how to help him so she moves forward to hug Dov instead, breaking the moment.
Dov may feel more solid, but he definitely still smells like Axe and boy. "And I mean, obviously I missed you too," he announces somewhere in the vicinity of Andy's hair. He's hugging back hard, like he really actually did; Andy feels bad all over again for leaving without a word. 'Part of the job,' Luke had told her--Sam too, actually, way back in JD's one-room apartment when she was giving him hell for the disappearing act.
(He took it back later, though: "I'm sorry," he said, both of them laid out sleepily across the floor. "As soon as I left I wanted to come back, say goodbye properly."
Andy rolled up onto her elbows. "And what would that have entailed?" she asked coyly, blowing right over the admission.
He said a lot of shit in the cover apartment, is something she only noticed later. Copped to stuff he never quite acknowledged again.)
Anyway.
"Is Trace around?" she asks Dov. If there's someone whose arms Andy really wants to launch herself into right now, it's Traci.
Dov shakes his head. "Nah," he says. "She's out on a call with--" He breaks off mid-sentence, then: "A murder victim," he finishes lamely. "There was a murder, and she is...looking at the victim. Of the murder."
Andy laughs. "With Detective Swarek?" she asks, and oh, that is weird to say out loud. She keeps the smile pasted across her face; between that and the way Nick's grinding his molars to powder, they probably look like they just escaped from a nuthouse. "You can say it."
(So he's not in the building right now, then, is what that means. Andy doesn't know if she's relieved or disappointed.)
"You know about all that?" Dov asks, sounding surprised. "None of us knew what they were telling you guys and what they weren't. So do you know about, like--"
"McNally!" Luke calls impatiently, voice booming. He was picking up their reinstatement paperwork at the desk, is looking at them now like they're keeping him from something way more interesting (a North American Grizzly, probably). "Collins. You ready to do this, or what?"
Luke debriefs them one at a time, which Andy doesn't entirely appreciate, one because it reminds her of how they split up pairs of suspects to try and crack them, and two because she hasn't done a hell of a lot of important shit without Nick in the last six months and it makes her feel weirdly exposed.
Traci barges into the room halfway through her interview, though: "You," she crows, delighted, then holds up a hand before Luke can stop her. "I know, I know. Just one second." She flings her arms around Andy, squeezes tight and familiar, and if Andy's been doing a fair-to-passable job of keeping her feelings on the cool end of the color spectrum, at least outwardly--well. Possibly she has some yellow-orange tears to swallow down at the sight of Traci's face.
"Come find me the second you get done," Traci orders, planting a smacking kiss on her cheek when Luke tells her to get lost for like the fourth time, this time with the word order involved. "I'll call my mom and see if she can take Leo tonight, we'll go to the Penny."
"Sure." Both Andy's voice and shoulders go teenager-high, all this hunching vulnerable body language she doesn't love. Lindsay was real good at keeping her head up. "I'll find you," she promises, checking herself. Traci breezes out the door with a giant shining grin. For the first time since she arrived at 15 this morning, Andy feels like she has something to look forward to.
Surprisingly, Luke's expression is only mildly annoyed when she looks back over. "Just a few more questions and you're done," he says, capping his pen with finality. At first Andy wonders why the hell he's letting her off the hook after all that rank-and-file crap he was pulling on Traci not two seconds ago; like, at the very least he should chew her out for wasting valuable bear-trapping time or something.
Then she remembers he could conceivably still know her face well enough to tell she's about to lose it.
"I'm fine," she says quickly, shaking her head because nope, uh-uh. Pity from Luke is a rock bottom she is just not willing to hit. "All good, I swear. We can go through the rest no problem." She hopes Nick isn't waiting around for her outside.
"Relax, Andy." Luke is already stacking papers back inside the heavy manila file folder. "Collins answered the same questions. Your corroboration is just a formality."
"If Nick says it it's true," Andy declares, no hesitation. Which, apparently, is good enough for TPS records because three minutes later she's out the door, fully reinstated with orders to take a day off to unwind. ("Eat some salad," Luke says. "Read a book. Get some vitamin C." Andy would resent the babying if not for the fact that he saw her and Nick's fridge on the semi-regular and--yeah. Fruit and veg was not something drug addict Lindsay did a whole lot of.)
When she gets out there, though, turns out Nick's not the one waiting.
Andy actually gasps when she sees him, leaning against the bulletin board with his arms and ankles crossed, Toronto's Most Wanted leering down over both his shoulders. "Um," she says, stopping cold in the middle of the hallway (and god, god, she knew this was going to happen, that coming back meant dealing with everything she may or may not have run away from; there is no reason for the sight of him to send shock waves clear down into her bones). "Hi."
"McNally." Sam just looks at her, same unreadable, faintly amused expression on his face as always, eyebrows raised like anything from I need my keys back to I love you, let's get a dog could be lurking behind his expression and there wouldn't be any way to tell. "Welcome back."
"Thanks." Andy wipes her suddenly-sweaty palms on her jeans. She has no idea what to do here--like, do they hug? They didn't even really hug when they were dating, Most of their prolonged physical contact definitely came loaded down with a certain kind of intent--how it felt like foreplay even when he was brushing by her in the kitchen on the way to the coffee, his solid body warm against hers. They never quite learned how to comfort each other, or something. "How are you?"
Sam shrugs. "No complaints." If Dov's gained weight then he's definitely lost some, mostly in his face but around his rib cage too, Andy's pretty sure. She wonders for a second what happened there, if he'd feel different under her hands. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled to the elbows, those hard knots of bone in his wrists.
Andy swallows. She can hear the rustle and hum of 15 all around her, home sounds, a ringing phone and Traci laughing somewhere down the hall. Reminds herself that he's the one who broke her heart. "Sam," she starts, then completely fails to follow it up in any meaningful way.
"You're fine, McNally," Sam tells her, pushing himself up off the wall. Andy isn't though, all her nerves set to screaming terror-alert red. "Nash is waiting at her desk." He gets within a foot of her and stops, and Andy flashes back to that day she got shot, his heavy hands all over her face behind the trailer. ("What did you want, exactly?" she teased him later, when they were rehashing how long they'd liked-liked each other like a couple of six graders. "Like, what precisely was your game plan there?"
"I was going to kiss you," Sam said, completely steady.)
"You look good," he's saying now, that same oddly level stare. Andy feels the blush all over her body. Because god, she definitely does not, stringy addict hair that hasn't been trimmed in months and a gross old hoodie; it is possible she was standing here staring at his neat rib cage and wishing she'd washed her face, maybe took it to another level and applied some lip chap. He does not look bad, is all.
"Shut up." She's half smiling though, self-conscious and weirdly shy. As a rule she’s almost never been shy around Sam, that first time in the cover apartment aside. She wanted him to like her so damn bad.
"Uh-huh." Sam grins. Fast and shallow, sure, but it's still the first break she's seen in his expression so far. "Go find Nash," he tells her, and Andy wants to ask him all kinds of questions, try out how Dectective Swarek sounds in her mouth (she's going to have to call him 'sir' again, which was categorically not a thing either of them hated), but.
(But.)
She goes.
*
Andy heads into the locker room and has a shower while Traci finishes some paperwork, all her toiletries and a slightly musty-smelling tank top still in her locker just where she left them. She's doing up the hooks on her bra when Nick comes in.
"Sorry," he says, but then sits down on the bench beside her anyway--after all, it's not like it's anything he hasn't seen before. Andy pulls the tank top over her head and waits. She's known Nick to stay awake for thirty-six hours at a stretch and hardly show it, but right now he looks like he's about to completely drop. Judging by the expression on his face, he's definitely talked to Gail. "Are you sorry we did it?" he asks quietly.
Andy sits down hard, her wet hair cold and chilly against her upper back. She can feet it soaking right through her shirt to her skin, goosebumps rising. "I don't know," she says after a moment. They've had this conversation before too, usually late at night in the double bed they shared in the apartment, one or both of them having a hard go falling asleep. Their answers changed basically every single time. "Are you?"
Nick shrugs, stretching his long legs out in front of them. For the last six months, his name's been Lee. "I don't know either," he says.
Andy nods and rests her head on his shoulder. She always hung out with a lot of boys growing up, but she's never had a guy friend like Nick before. She doesn't actually know exactly what they are. "We're going to the Penny, if you want to come out for a while," she tells him. "Also, you owe me a couscous dinner."
That gets a smile out of him, just like she was pretty sure it would: "I'll meet you over there," he promises, heaving himself up off the bench and heading for the exit. Andy smiles back. Once he's gone she does what she can with the stubby end of an eye pencil she finds on the back of the shelf on her locker, pinches her cheeks until she's marginally less pale. Studies her unfamiliar face in the mirror for a good long time.
Waiting in the bullpen with wet hair makes her jumpy and cold. People keep coming up to say hi, and it takes Andy a good ten minutes to realize she's flinching a little with every new face. By the time Traci's paperwork is finished she's actually looking forward to the Penny, white noise and a steady supply of beer that will keep her sociable enough to pass for Andy instead of Lindsay. But when they pull into the parking lot Traci doesn't turn the engine off right away.
"Look, Andy. There are a couple of things we need to--" She blows out a breath, turning sideways in the bucket seat so they're facing each other. "There's some stuff. That changed when you were gone."
Somehow Andy doesn't feel like Traci's gearing up to tell her about the Penny's new decor. "Stuff."
"Uh-huh." Traci fingers the wheel, one of Sam's old habits; Andy guesses they must be riding together a lot. Then she changes tracks entirely: "Are you and Collins...?"
Oh. That surprises Andy maybe more than it should. "No-o. No," she says confidently, even though it takes a weird beat to get out. And like, they aren't, they've never even almost, but it is possible spending the past half-year seeing him at bedtime and in the morning and all hours of the day have kind of blurred the lines a little.
(By around month two they were climbing all over each other, no personal space left anyplace. Nick started it, Andy remembers, an arm around her shoulders during a Seinfeld marathon. For a split second before he noogied her, she was sure she was about to get kissed.)
"Just friends," she insists, smiling at Traci hard.
"Really?" Traci doesn't look entirely convinced.
"Really," Andy promises. Then, because she can't take it one more second: "Sam has a girlfriend, right?" She means to say it bluntly, to let Traci off the hook, but instead it comes out sounding more like a shrill, panicky accusation. It's cold again now that the sun's set; she can't believe she was lying on the warm floor of the apartment just this afternoon. "That's the thing? You can tell me, it's fine."
"Andy..." Traci shakes her head, one leg tucked up underneath her. "That's between you and Sam," she says vaguely.
Which--what? "Seriously?" Andy's eyes widen. "You're my best friend, and you're not gonna tell me?"
Traci makes a face. "Yeah, I'm your best friend," she says, more heat behind it than Andy's expecting. "And Swarek's not the only one you disappeared on."
Which--oh.
"Trace," Andy starts, feeling roughly two centimeters tall, but Traci holds up a hand to stop her.
"Look, it's fine. You had to do what you had to do, I get it. It was just kind of a long winter, that's all." She sighs. "Gail and Luke are sleeping together, is what I wanted to give you a heads up on. And it's not like Swarek asks my advice about his match.com profile or anything, but yeah, I'm pretty sure he's seeing somebody, too." Traci shrugs. "And I'm not sleeping with anyone, because if I even look at another guy I feel totally, bone-crushingly guilty, but it's been eight months and it just--it would have been nice to have you around, is all."
Oh, god. "Traci," Andy says again, sure she's about to burst into tears and honestly not a hundred percent certain which part of that was the worst part. It feels like somebody's scraping at her insides with a salad fork. "I'm really sorry."
"It's fine, Andy, I mean it. I'm really glad you're back." Traci unbuckles her seatbelt, smiles. "Let's go get drunk."
Andy takes a huge swallow of air. She wants a crying jag and a hug, not necessarily in that order, but she's a big girl and she can recognize she only wants it to make herself feel better, not Traci. "I'm really, really sorry," she says again, pressing her nails into her palms. "I'll just-- I'm buying, okay?" Even as she says it she winces.
Traci laughs in her face, but not meanly. "I missed you," she says, coming around the van to hug Andy herself. "I mean, I was pissed. But I missed your stupid face more."
So. Andy tucks that stupid face into Traci's neck for a guilty second. Tries not to feel like the lowest person alive.
*
Inside the Penny it's beery and humid, too early in the year for the AC to be on and all the cop bodies crammed inside working better than any radiator. Andy shrugs off Lindsay's jacket and looks around. Nick's here already, sitting at their old table in the back while Dov gestures his way through a story. Gail is nowhere to be found.
(Sam is. Down the corner of the bar with his back to her and Ollie at his elbow. Right away Andy decides to make someone else get the beer.)
"There they are," Traci declares, waving. She's got her hand on Andy's wrist like she wants to keep her close. "Hey guys!" The way she says it sounds rusty, and Andy wonders if they went out together at all, Traci and Gail and Dov alone. Figures probably not.
In any case, the band's definitely back together now; Dov gets up to usher them over like an air traffic controller, pleased as punch. When Nick catches sight of Andy his whole face lights up with relief, maybe the most overtly happy anyone's been to see her all day. Andy wants like hell to tuck herself under his arm like Lindsay and not talk to anyone else for a little while.
Instead she slips her first two fingers in his belt loop and yanks hard, this thing they started doing as a joke in the apartment. Sometimes it would take her three or four tries to get off the couch, both of them overtired and Nick pulling her back down again and again: he actually ripped a pair of her jeans that way once, which both of them thought was hilarious. Probably you had to be there. "Hey," she says, then hands him a twenty and sends him up to the bar for another couple of pitchers. Tugs his Levi's one more time as he goes.
"Just friends, huh?" Traci murmurs, eyebrows raised and her voice down low by Andy's ear.
"Shut up," is the best Andy's got.
She asks about Chris and the baby, about how Leo's doing in school; she answers all Dov's six dozen questions about their UC as best she can. She keeps half an eye on Nick up at the bar while he's waiting for their pitchers, which is how she notices Sam noticing him. Half a beat later, she watches him notice her, too.
(She loves him still, and badly. She thought it was possible she wouldn't by the time she got back.)
He nods once in her direction just like maybe it's three years ago, like he's never sucked a mark on her neck or talked to her until she fell asleep or helped her prove her dad wasn't a murderer; like he didn't leave her crying in a parking lot or take a beating in a farmhouse or tell her he loved her while she cupped a grenade inside her two shaking hands. Like maybe all of that was just junk she made up to entertain herself on a particularly boring stakeout or something, waiting for a suspect to show in the passenger seat of the cruiser on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Nick comes back and sets the pitchers on the table. Andy looks away first.
*
They all end up getting drunk as skunks, as per Traci's suggestion. And it's nice: stories from the UC are easier with Nick there to round out the double act, plus Trace has apparently landed a lot of really excellent cases since they've been gone (three words: Seinfeld pig man), which gets them through the first pitcher no problem. Midway through the second they decide to call Chris, who picks up sounding super annoyed and suburban and ends up staying on the line for forty minutes. He tells them stories about his kid in a quiet voice they all have to shush each other to hear, Denise asleep in the next room. Andy swigs back beers until she finds that spot where everything is funny and doesn't look over at the bar once.
(She's good at it, finding that spot. She used to worry she was too good until Nick pointed out that an alcoholic would get there and just not stop.
Now Andy always stops.)
It's still weird though, like reuniting with your high school friends after graduation and finding all the old alliances have shifted. Andy keeps directing all her reaction faces at Nick by accident.
"I'm off," Traci announces around midnight. Andy offers to share a cab, but apparently 'Dex is picking me up', which stings for absolutely no reason at all. Andy guesses she's glad someone has been stepping up to bat on the 'dead fiance' thing, even if it's Traci's ex. Dov leaves right after, shifty about to where and with who, and then it's just her and Nick.
"Swarek's still at the bar," he tells her. He's been facing that way all night; Lindsay and Lee always sat so they could watch each other's backs. "Want me to disappear?"
Andy hesitates. She doesn't, actually; actually what she wants to do is go over to his house, maybe have him come to hers; anything to avoid facing her empty, unfamiliar apartment by herself, whatever rotten six-month-old badness might be lurking there waiting for her to come back. It's been a long time since she slept by herself. She glances over her shoulder at Sam, at the clean pleats of his backbone inside his t-shirt. "Yeah, okay," she says.
Nick makes a face like he knows she's full of garbage. "You sure?"
"No." Andy swallows down the newest lump in her throat. God, she was really not expecting to lose it so bad once she got back here. She's got the distinct sense that she's been failing in one way or another since she woke up. "I want to hear about Gail first, though," she says. Nobody mentioned her all night, like maybe she went and totally evaporated or something. It was weird.
Nick rolls his eyes. "No you don't," he replies, which means he doesn't want to talk about it yet. "Text when you get home, okay?"
Andy promises she will and Nick kisses her on the temple; when the door to the Penny closes behind him she turns around and Sam's looking right at her, so.
So.
Andy takes a deep breath and walks over. "You know what you never told me about undercovers?" she asks, sliding onto the barstool next to his and wishing she'd kept Lindsay's gross hoodie from earlier. At least then she'd have someplace to hide. "How crappy the cable plan is."
Sam raises his eyebrows. He's barely got half a beer in front of him, two big swallows maybe; it occurs to her to wonder if possibly he was waiting her out. "Did I not mention that?" he asks.
"Nope." Andy shakes her head. Then, because she's too exhausted to beat around the bush and the last time they left it the ball was in her court: "Traci says she thinks you have a girlfriend."
Sam's eyebrows don't budge an inch this time, like maybe he was expecting the question. He picks up the beer and doesn't drink. "I'm seeing someone, yeah," he says finally, thumb running over the label. "You?"
Andy doesn't answer right away either. Her heart is somewhere around her knees, throat tight with tears or jealousy or both. (And god, she can admit it now; she thought he would fall apart with her gone. Which is awful, of course it's awful, but being wrong? It's absolutely one-hundred percent worse.) "Nope," she says brightly, pulling on what feels like a horrible smile. "No one."
Now Sam does look surprised. "You and Collins...?"
"Just friends." God, Andy wishes she fucked him. For one horrible second, she really wishes she did.
"Ah." Sam finally takes that drink, swallowing half the remaining beer in one gulp. "I missed you," is what comes out when he puts it down. His face crinkles up around the eyes as he says it, sincere, and that's what gets Andy in the end.
"Yeah," she laughs hollowly. "So much so that you ran out and started screwing someone else." Which is a valid point, but she doesn't even know if Sam hears it because her voice breaks hard halfway through, tears suddenly coming so thick and fast she can't even see the bar top. Which--god. It's just about the most inconvenient time she could have picked to lose it, right the fuck in front of him and god and the new bartender she doesn't know, but sure, McNally, of course. She's drunk and tired and she loves him, so of course.
"Andy." Sam looks like she backed up a truck over his dog. Why he picks now to look like that instead of eight months ago when he left her sobbing in a parking lot is completely beyond Andy. He reaches out, puts a hand on her arm. "Come on, sweetheart."
Which-- "Don't," she orders loudly, jerking away. Sam's eyes widen; even the bartender, who up until now was at least trying to give them some privacy, glances over in surprise. Andy really doesn't give a crap. He's just--he's not allowed to call her that after everything that happened (if he called it to somebody else while she was gone). It isn't fair. "Do not."
Sam backs off in half a hot second, both palms up and out like he wants to show her he isn't packing. "Easy," he murmurs.
"You take it easy." Andy shakes her head. God, this is embarrassing, to still care so much after all this time. To let him know that she does. "Look, I'm sorry," she tells him, sniffling, wiping under both eyes and trying to pull it together. Her eyeliner comes away smeared on the tips of her fingers. "This was stupid. I'm out of line. I'm glad to be back, I'll--"
"Don't be sorry," Sam says immediately. He's still got that look on his face, stricken, like she's the one who broke his heart and not the other way around. She thinks of that last night in the hallway, I'm going to show you every day until you believe me. Reminds herself that he left her way before she ever got the chance. "McNally," he says, and his voice is so quiet. "Look. Can you let me drive you home, please?"
Yeah, probably his new girlfriend would love that. "I'll get a cab," she snaps, and then of course they're both thinking it, Gail and Jerry and how everything can unravel in a second if you aren't paying attention. Or even if you are. Andy is so, so tired.
"No you won't," Sam says, even.
No. She won't.
There isn't anyone left at the back tables but Andy ducks her head anyway, watching the sticky floor as they wind their way out the door. She's tipsy enough that she has to concentrate. Closing down the Penny, jesus god--it's almost more embarrassing than the crying. She should have gone home when Nick did.
Neither of them says anything in the parking lot, nothing but this huge damning silence and the hollow click of Lindsay's boots, the beep of the automatic locks. It's the worst kind of deja-vu, just get in your truck and go. When Andy closes her eyes she can still remember that awful falling feeling, when she'd first realized which he'd picked.
The truck still smells the same at least, coffee and Sam. Andy looks around for clues, signs of someone else (perfume, maybe, earrings on the dashboard). But there's nothing. She really doesn't know why that's worse.
The whole ride is silent, both of them staring out the front window at the empty streets. When they pull up outside Andy's building Sam cuts the engine, an even deeper hush settling around them like a blanket. "I'll stay here while you walk up," he says firmly, quiet in the dark. The dome light went off with the engine and Andy can't read his face at all.
She snorts. "What, you want me to flick the lights or something?"
Sam just stares for a second, like possibly he can see her face just fine, inky blackness and all. He shrugs. "Or text me." Then, when her hand's on the door to close it: "I meant it, you know, what I said before you left. I love you. Still do."
Andy's sobbing again by the time she hits the landing. It takes her a whole stupid minute to find the light-switch, how unfamiliar her apartment is after six months. She clicks it three times and slides down the wall, buries her face in her hands.
*
She startles awake two hours later, still in her jacket, lights in the living room blazing and a headache bleating wildly in her skull. The clock on the cable box says 3:38.
Which--
shit.
Andy takes a deep breath and gets her bearings, mouth dry and sweat-sock sour. Did she seriously pass out crying sitting on her living room floor? She blinks at her dusty apartment, thinks of making a scene back at the Penny. Feels a hot rush of humiliation and regret. That was...not the move of a person who knew when to stop. "Stellar job, McNally," she mutters out loud.
(love you, he said, before she slammed the truck door. still do.)
Her phone vibrates anxiously inside her pocket: when she fumbles it out she's got four texts from Nick and three missed calls. The last one's from just a minute ago, must have been what finally woke her up. if i don't hear from you in ten I'm coming over, it says.
Fuck. Sorry sorry sorry, she texts back quickly, her fingers clumsy over the keys. Alive.
She must have scared him; it's not even thirty seconds before he replies. Nick's not a great sleeper anyway, she knows, but she feels like an asshole for keeping him awake. u ok? he wants to know.
Andy promises him she is and that she'll call him in the morning. Heaves herself up off the floor. She's full sober now but the room lurches a bit anyway. There's a weird smell too, kind of garbage-y in nature and coming from the direction of the kitchen, that she's in no condition to deal with at this particular moment. She should really wash her face and go to bed.
(seeing somebody, she reminds herself firmly. Curls her chilly hands around the back of a chair.)
She pees and walks around the apartment for a while, reacquaints herself with her life before she left. She stares at a fashion magazine from last November. Drinks a glass of water standing up at the sink.
Finally she picks up the phone.
"Hey." Sam answers on the third ring. It's his thick, sleepy voice, the one she associates with working doubles and slow, half-conscious sex in the middle of the night. For a few weeks last summer they worked opposite shifts, Sam letting himself into her place at six and seven in the morning (sliding one hand between her legs to wake her up).
Well. Andy's not sleeping now. "Is your girlfriend there?" she asks, instead of hello.
"No." There's a shuffling, the quiet sheet-whoosh of someone sitting up in bed; he must have gone to sleep with the phone on the nightstand. Which, Andy happens to know, is not a thing he usually does. She doesn't know how she feels about that, if he expected her to call or just hoped. "God, McNally. 'Time is it?"
"A little after four." She double-checks, pivoting to face the cable box. The numbers flash back at her in confirmation, neon bright and irrational. Screw that, though; Andy's hit the end of humiliation. "So you're alone?"
Sam actually has the balls to sound affronted. "Yes. Christ, do you really think I dropped you off and then booty-called somebody?" There's another question under that one, Andy's pretty sure (do you really think I told you I loved you and then--), but neither of them seems to want to voice it.
Then again: "I don't know what to think, Sam," Andy hisses. "You love me so bad, why'd you run out and find someone else?" Because that's it, really, that's the sticking point. She thought about him the whole time she was gone, and it stings worse than anything to realize he wasn't doing the same. Andy never thought she was a jealous person, but there it is. If she knew who the girl was, she'd claw her stupid eyes out.
"What was I supposed to do?" Sam asks tiredly. It sounds like there's no fight left in him at all. "You made your answer real clear. Just like you made it clear again tonight."
Which--what the ever-loving fuck?
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Andy demands, but it comes out oddly shaky. All of a sudden her knees are completely gone, ass connecting with the couch with a thump. "Sam. What do you mean, 'made it clear again tonight'?"
"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'?" Sam blows a noisy breath into the phone. "I don't know what you want from me, McNally. Did you want me to wait around for some particular length of time on the off chance you'd changed your mind whenever the hell you got back?" There's more rustling, like he can't get comfortable over there. "Is that what you wanted?"
Andy doesn't answer for a moment, picking at a loose thread in the arm of the couch instead--because yes, actually, of course that's what she wanted, but when he puts it like that she sounds insane. God, she hates this so stupidly much. It feels so, so bad.
"And if I had done that," Sam continues, like he's working through all the angles of a UC op, variable by variable, "would it have fixed things? If you had asked me tonight if I was seeing anybody and I'd said no, would we be back together right now? Is that what it would have taken?"
And no, of course not, but. "It's not about how long you waited or didn't wait," Andy insists. "It's about you being the kind of person who can go around fucking other people--" Her voice catches a little, imagining him doing it, imagining him with somebody else--"when you're allegedly in love with me."
Ooh, that blow lands. "First of all," Sam says, sounding really and truly pissed for the first time all night, "enough with the allegedly, all right? That's enough. I'm telling you I love you, and I fucking mean it." He hesitates and Andy can picture him so clearly, mouth opening and closing again while he lines up his thoughts. "Second of all, sweetheart: I was trying to get the hell over you."
Andy breathes in. "And?" she asks, curling her feet up onto the sofa.
Sam sighs. "Didn't take."
The rush of relief is so intense it actually makes her nauseous. "Yeah." By which she means hers didn't take either, of course, but Andy isn't ready to come right out and say that. Her heart is still scraped clean from last time. "What--what do we do now?" she asks instead, leaning forward to press herself into herself, bent knees against her chest. She wants to be held in a big, stupid way.
(It feels weird, offering Sam the reins. Andy can't tell if she means it as a test or not.)
Either way, he's not taking the bait: "Nothing." Sam exhales, a whump in the background like he lay down in a huff or punched a pillow or both. "Look, Andy, I don't know what you want. Do you want the stupid pitch again? Garbage duty and a dog?" Boo, Andy fills in automatically, Boo Radley. She told Nick and they laughed about it together, something that made her feel better for a hot second before she swung back around to feeling awful. "I love you, sweetheart," Sam continues, "I'd do it, but it doesn't sound like you've changed your mind about your answer."
Andy presses her knees into her chest harder.
"And if this is never going to be fixed--" He finally loses steam there, no more calm TO voice or UC variables; Andy pushes her wet face against her leg so she doesn't sob out loud. "We gotta stop, okay," Sam finishes after a beat, a little ragged. "We can't keep doing this to each other."
Andy wipes at her eyes angrily. There are a lot of things she could say in reply--a lot of things she should say, probably--but the one her mouth settles on is: "Why did you become detective?"
"So I'd know where you were." Sam doesn't hesitate at all when he says it, like maybe he's handed those reins right back over. "Know what you were doing, could make sure you were safe." There's a wry kind of smile in his voice when he adds, "Sure as shit wasn't gonna trust Callaghan to do it."
Andy takes a deep breath before she answers, tries to make certain her voice won't betray her. The knees of her jeans are wet with tears and snot. "You could have found out without doing that, though," she protests quietly. It's a nice idea, what he's saying--it's a good story-- but it doesn't feel a hundred percent true. "Everybody you know in Guns and Gangs, people owe you favors or whatever. Somebody would have told you."
Sam considers that. "They would have," he allows finally, and it's a long time before he keeps talking. "I don't know, Andy. I spent a lot of years telling myself I didn't want this promotion, all right? And maybe I actually didn't, or maybe--" He stops, tries again. "I don't know. I wanted it now."
"Right," Andy says dully. "And when you see something you want, you take it?"
Sam doesn't answer for a moment. Andy can hear him breathing across the line. It feels like there's a lot more space between them than just the distance between his apartment and hers. "Maybe," he says at length, and there's a tone in his voice Andy doesn't totally recognize. It occurs to her that whether or not he spent the last six months thinking about her--he definitely spent it thinking about something. "Not always."
This time, she knows he can hear the sob in her breathing. "I want to see you," she blurts, before she even knows it's coming out. "Not to--just--" She breaks off.
Sam swallows before he speaks, this soft catch the receiver barely picks up. "You want me to come over?"
Andy does and she doesn't, logic and animal instinct all mixed up. (But. She knows which one she wants more.) "Yeah. Yeah, come over and we can just--we'll talk, okay?" She wipes at her snotty face, this gross snuffle on every inhale. Already she's calming down a bit, though, a concrete plan and someone else in her dark empty apartment. "God, Sam." Now that she's getting her wish she has the urge to backpedal, be reasonable after the fact. "It's four in the morning."
"So I'll bring coffee."
There's not even a beat of waiting there, this jangling sound like he's already picked up his keys. Andy smiles, stupidly relieved. "Okay, yeah. Coffee sounds good."
Part Two (The Sexy Part)