House of Cards, Chapter 3, Part B
Title: House of Cards
Chapter: Three
Summary: Andy joins Sam undercover. Begins mid-2.10
Rating: PG/PG-13 for now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rookie Blue. Obviously.
Work is steady the rest of the afternoon and it’s pushing five o’clock when Brennan finally calls Sam up to his office; at that point Sam had almost given up on meeting the guy that day.
“You wanted to see me, boss?” he asks, rapping his knuckles on Brennan’s opened office door.
Brennan looks up from a file he’s reading and motions Sam in. “JD, come on in,” he says, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”
They make small talk for a while; Brennan leans way back in his chair and asks him how his first day’s been and who he’s working with. Between every question he pauses and kind of stares Sam down; this cold, intimidating glare that would have just about anyone squirming in their seats. Sam fidgets a bit and brushes his palms over his jeans, trying to appear nervous. On the outside he’s anxious to make a good impression but on the inside… on the inside he’s eerily calm. He shouldn’t be - thirty seconds with Brennan and he can tell that the man is a professional with eyes that catch everything and a mind that’s like a steel trap, working through every minute detail and carefully filing it away.
It hits him at different times though; the thrill of being under - sometimes it’s trembling anticipation and other times it’s stone cold control. All day long there’s been this undercurrent of excitement and adrenaline, a quiet humming throughout his body and a build up for what’s to come - he’s been able to ignore it mostly, but on the way up to Brennan’s office his hands were actually trembling. Now though, they’re steady as can be.
“Alright,” Brennan says, picking up the file he had been reading and waving it in the air. “Your file says you’re new to Toronto?”
“Well, I lived here before, several years ago, but yes, sir,” Sam replies, “My wife and I just moved from St. Catherine’s.”
Brennan nods along. “And why’d you move?”
“Just looking to start somewhere new,” Sam tells him as earnestly as possible. “My father-in-law passed away not too long ago so there was nothing keeping us there.”
The story rolls off his tongue without any trouble but Brennan eyes him disconcertingly anyway. Sam shifts in his chair and waits for the next question. “And how’d you end up working here?”
“Jason Ward’s a friend of a friend,” Sam says. “He knew about the opening, got me set up. I… uh,” he clears his throat and bobs his head, “I appreciate the job, boss.”
Brennan doesn’t respond but his eyes narrow and his cheeks pucker in like he’s trying to figure something out. “Ward’s a good guy,” he mutters. “He’s been with me for a while.” Sam expects him to dig a little deeper and ask how they knew each other; instead, he picks the file up off his desk. “Kingston Pen?”
Sam decides to go the direct, honest route. “Yes, sir. I got out three years ago.”
Brennan opens the file up and reads out off the page, “Possession, trafficking…” he flicks his eyes back over to Sam and his gaze hardens. “Not in my warehouse, understand?”
It’s not so much a question as it is a warning - a very clear warning with implicit consequences. “Yes sir,” Sam says automatically. “No worries though… I’m not in that anymore, I got out a while ago.”
A faint smile appears on Brennan’s lips and then it’s gone in a flash. Had Sam not been watching for his reaction he would have missed it. “Does that have anything to do with…” he scans the paper, presumably looking for the emergency contact information, “Candace?”
The hair on the back of Sam’s neck stands on end as soon as Brennan says her name - which he can’t say he wasn’t expecting - but he forces himself to relax and let out a meek laugh, “She has a lot to do with it.”
Brennan nods in what Sam assumes to be understanding and then tosses the file back on the desk. “Alright, get back to work,” he says, standing and extending his hand. “Let me know if you have any trouble.”
Sam gets up as well and they shake hands. “Thanks, boss,” he replies, keeping his grip firm and looking Brennan straight in the eye, “It’s good to be here.”
He’s half expecting Andy to be there when he gets out of work but when he exits the warehouse the silver car is nowhere in sight. Disappointed but not exactly surprised, he shoves his hands deep in his coat pockets and heads for the bus stop.
The bus is packed and he ends up standing for the entire fifteen-minute trip back to the cover apartment. The jerky starts and stops do absolutely nothing for the already aggravated muscles in his shoulders and the guy that’s sandwiched in next to him reeks of sweat and fish - every time they bump into each other Sam regrets pissing Andy off more and more.
When he finally gets to the apartment he’s not sure what he’s going to be walking into; if Andy’s going to have cooled off from the afternoon or if she’ll still be upset with him. All he can do is hope it’s the former and the she’s not mad at him anymore - he has about fifteen things he needs to talk about with her and it would be a lot easier if he didn’t have to grovel first.
He’d also like to - well, it’s possible he’s been wound up since this morning. The way her lips tasted and the feel of her body against his - it’s been running through his mind all day and he would very much like to get to try it again. See if it’s as good as he remembers.
He climbs the stairway wearily, footsteps heavy and tired, and when he reaches the top he’s surprised to find her laid out on the bed, completely passed out. As he walks closer he sees her flat on her belly on top of the covers, hair spread out over her pillow and snoring lightly.
Sam hesitates for a second - tries to decide what the probability of her slapping him would be if she woke up and found him sleeping next to her - but then toes his shoes off, slips his jacket from his shoulders and drops down on the other side of the bed. A deep, relieved groan escapes his lips as he stretches out his tight muscles and sinks into the mattress. He wants to reach out for her, pull her over to his side of the bed and curl around her, but he keeps his distance and throws his arm up behind his head.
He doesn’t even realize that he’s drifted off until a shrill alarm pierces through the silence. Disoriented, he bolts up and immediately fumbles for the gun he instinctively knows is on the bedside table.
“Holy shit, Sam,” he hears a sleep-heavy voice say, “Put that away. It’s just the oven timer.” Sam turns to find Andy stumbling from the bed into the kitchen, turning off the timer when she reaches it. “I’m making lasagna.”
His heart is seriously racing and after he replaces the gun he lets his head fall into his hands and takes a couple of deep breaths to try and get control over it. “You made lasagna?” he asks after a minute, twisting his head to the side to look at her.
“Yeah, well,” she grabs a potholder and then pulls the oven door open, waves the little bit of steam away, “Technically Stouffer’s did. But, you know,” she gets the lasagna out and drops it on the stove, “I heated it up.” When she turns around she catches his eye and sighs, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead, “Sorry, I was gonna pick you up. I just…” she trails off, gesturing towards the bed.
“Fell asleep?” Sam finishes for her.
Andy nods. “I didn’t mean to.”
Sam shakes his head and lies back down, looks at her over his feet. “It’s fine. I made a new friend on the bus.”
“Oh yeah?” she asks, her lips twitching with a grin. She’s wringing the oven mitt in her hands - indecisive, as if she doesn’t know if she’s ready to let him off the hook or not.
He gives her a half smile and holds her gaze. “He wasn’t as pretty as you and he didn’t smell quite as nice but, you know…” he shrugs. “I can’t afford to be too picky.”
She smiles like she’s pleased and finally sets the mitt down on the counter before crossing her arms. “Well, that’s because you can be a jackass sometimes.” She doesn’t sound mad though - she actually sounds kind of… amused by it.
“Yeah, I can be,” Sam acknowledges. He chews on his lip or a second and then asks, “Forgive me?”
She heaves her shoulders up and lets them drop dramatically. “I guess so,” she says, sighing with exasperation. “But only because you’re like… the only person I know right now.”
“Oh, is that the only reason?” he asks, teasing.
Her cheeks curve in as she fights a grin, but she shakes her head. “It’s possible I overreacted.”
“I shouldn’t have said it,” Sam admits, folding his hands behind his head.
“Yeah, but I was like…” she screws up her face and continues, “Tired and cranky. I hate the grocery store.”
He grins at her and then tips his head towards the oven. “How long does that lasagna need to sit for?”
Andy picks up a red box and turn it over in her hands, reading off the back, “Five to ten minutes.”
When she looks back over at him he waves his hand and then pats the spot next to him on the bed. “Come lie down until it’s ready.”
She narrows her eyes at him, like she doesn’t quite know what he’s up to, but crosses the room anyway. “Hey, so, bad news,” she says, flopping down onto her stomach. Bad news for Andy could be anything from “oops, I lost a prisoner” to “the vending machine’s out of Snickers again” so Sam waits for her to finish before starting to worry. “Boyd came by this afternoon.”
The way she’s landed has her sharp knee digging into his leg, but he doesn’t mention it. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, seemingly unaware of the fact that she’s a whole lot closer to him than she was before she popped up to get the lasagna. Sam turns his head to the side so he can look at her. “The feed was bad last night, they didn’t get anything.”
Sam blows some air out in a laugh. Of course the feed was bad, which means -
“He messed with a couple of wires and told me to leave ‘em on again tonight,” Andy tells him, scrunching her nose.
She looks so utterly disappointed - she’s actually pouting at him, her bottom lip curled out and full - that Sam can’t stop himself from having a little fun. “Why’s that bad news?” he asks, drawing his brow together and feigning oblivion.
For a second she looks absolutely stricken, this horrified expression like she’s wondering if she’s misread everything that’s transpired in the last twenty four hours, but as soon as she realizes he’s messing with her she punches him in the arm. Hard. “Asshole,” she mutters.
Sam refrains from rubbing his arm where she hit him (just barely though, it hurts like a mother) and instead grins and waggles his eyebrows. “You want me bad, huh?” he asks - quietly though, so the wire can’t pick it up. He can’t resist teasing her - the fact that he’s even able to say something like that to Andy has his heartbeat picking up a little, regardless of her answer.
“Shut up,” she demands - she’s laughing though, so he knows she’s not really mad. “You’re such a jerk, I don’t even know why I like…” she cuts herself off immediately, clamping her mouth shut tight like she was about to spill government secrets. Her eyes go comically wide and a blush flares across her cheeks until the very tips of her ears turn red.
Sam wants to give her crap for that; she can admit to all the stuff she admitted to the night before, in the cover of darkness and under the guise of sorting out a cover story - wind him up tighter than a drum and leave him that way - but turn the lights on and all of a sudden she gets shy.
He wants to give her crap for it but he doesn’t because instead of finding her hot and cold routine irritating, like he would have before he got tackled by a rookie, all he wants to do is lean down and take her pretty red ear between his teeth and nibble a bit, make his way down to her neck and spend some time there, getting to know the skin he’s spent two years trying to ignore -
Her hair’s fallen in her front of face, undoubtedly she tipped her head forward so she could hide behind it, so Sam carefully reaches out pushes it behind her ear, letting his fingers trail over her cheeks. When he reaches the lobe of her ear he tugs a bit, making her smile and lean into his hand.
“Did you have a good day?” she murmurs quietly, looking up at him with her wide, brown eyes.
Sam strokes him thumb along her hairline and responds, “It was long.”
“What’d you do this afternoon?”
“Worked in the warehouse,” he tells her. “Loaded trucks and then unloaded trucks.”
“Mmmm, manual labor,” she muses. “You sore?”
He is sore - all the way through his shoulders and down his back - but it’s from the hellish night of sleep he got cramped up on the couch and not from work. Not yet anyway. He can only imagine the old man jokes he’d be in for if he admitted to it, so he just shakes his head and says, “No.”
“That’s too bad,” Andy replies, her lips curling into a teasing smile as she slips her arms up underneath her pillow. “I was gonna rub your back for you.”
Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. That was pretty much the last thing he was expecting her to say. “Oh, I’m certain I will be later,” he offers quickly, smirk sliding into place.
Andy just shrugs. “Offer expired ten seconds ago. Guess you’re out of luck.” Then, winking at him, she teases, “In more ways than one.”
They stare at each other in a quiet acknowledgement of how different things might be if they were anywhere but in the cover apartment. Andy’s eyes have darkened and she’s biting on her lip - Sam’s hand stills in her hair and for a brief moment it seems like they’re both considering throwing caution to the wind and just going for it. Sam doesn’t realize that he’s holding his breath as he waits to see what Andy’s going to do.
After a couple of seconds she just licks her lips and then smiles at him and laughs a little before burying her head in her pillow and letting out a frustrated sigh. “We have, like… the worst timing in the world.”
Sam hesitates for minute but then - “Screw it,” he says, starting to push off the bed.
“Wait,” Andy grabs for his arm, keeping him perched awkwardly on the side of the mattress, “Where are you going?”
“To turn the cameras off,” he tells her - it is possibly the dumbest idea he’s had in a while and he can already imagine the ass-chewing he’s going to get from Boyd over this but he really just does not care. Not even a little bit.
Her eyes go wide and she starts shaking her head. “You can’t do that,” she hisses, tugging him back onto the bed with surprising strength.
“Why not?” he asks. Because really… it was a long night followed by an even longer day and there’s really nothing else he’d rather do than get her in bed and get her clothes off and -
“Because,” she replies, whispering, “It’s like a sign or something… we cannot do this right now.”
“A sign?” he repeats, unable to keep the skepticism out of voice.
Andy huffs a breath and then explains quietly, “Look, Boyd already thinks I’m going to screw this thing up for you…”
“You’re not going to screw anything up,” he says, trying to protest - partly because she’s really not going to screw anything up and he’s tired of her thinking that and also partly because… well he doesn’t want to sound like he’s pleading or anything but between the doe eyes and the back rubs and the lip-biting… she’s killing him a little bit here.
“Yeah, you’re the only one that thinks that,” she retorts as she sits up and crosses her legs. “You’ve proven yourself, alright? Boyd trusts you…”
“He doesn’t trust me that much,” Sam interjects. Andy fixes him with a look so he holds his hands up, “Sorry, continue.”
“I’m expendable, okay? He’s pretty much looking for anything he can find to get me out of here,” Andy says, keeping her voice soft. “And if he thinks…” she gestures between the two of them and then lowers her voice even more, “I like, seduced you or something, I’ll probably be gone tomorrow morning.”
Sam can’t help but laugh at that - a hearty, deep laugh that has her furrowing her brow. If she only knew how very little seducing it would take… Sam guesses she still hasn’t quite grasped the fact that he’s pretty much head over heels for her. “He’s not going to think you seduced me, McNally.” He starts to think about what might actually be involved in that and then stops that line of thought right away.
“Yes, he is,” she insists. “You’re like, Mr. SuperUndercover and you know, historically I’ve been…” she trails off, waving her hands in air helplessly. “Your kryptonite or something, I don’t know.”
Sam raises an eyebrow, dubious. “My kryptonite?”
Andy drops her head into her hands and groans. “I don’t know. It was a bad example.”
He understands what she’s getting at (eight months of his life) but - that’s funny. “You think if we have sex, I’m going to lose all of my powers?” he asks, trying not to laugh.
She groans again, embarrassed. “Oh my God, that’s not what I said.”
“Andy, come on, look at me,” he says gently, pulling her hands down from her face. When she finally meets his gaze her eyes are all watery and that just - well, he absolutely, 100% cannot handle her crying over this, so he decides to stop messing with her. “I understand, okay? You don’t want to give Boyd any reason to send you home.”
She nods. “Exactly.”
“So we should probably play by the rules.”
She nods again. “Right.”
“And right now the rules are - leave the cameras on.”
Another nod. “Yes.”
Sam swallows but then tells her, “Okay. I get it.”
Her eyes brighten marginally and she manages to look slightly less pitiful. It makes him feel… he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t like that she seems to think he was going to be mad at her or something. “You do?” she asks hopefully, sniffling.
“Yeah,” he says sincerely, “Of course I do. It’s fine.” Well, it’s not fine but - it’ll have to do.
He falls back onto the pillow again and pulls her down beside him. She lands on her stomach but keeps herself propped up on her elbows, looking down at him.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she tells him, running her hand under her nose. “I do, I really do, I just…”
Sam chuckles - she’s trying to reassure him, he knows that, but telling him how much she wants to isn’t really helping things. “You keep talking like that and I’m gonna go shut ‘em off, rules be damned.”
Andy smiles. “Okay. I just didn’t want you to think…”
He doesn’t wait for her to finish. “I don’t,” he promises, gently tugging on her elbow until she does what he wants and lies all the way down.
There’s a quiet moment and Sam supposes they could probably get up and eat dinner - he should fill her in on the meeting with Brennan - but right now he really doesn’t want to move. Her head is resting on his arm and her hair is cool on his neck - nothing too obvious but still… it’s nice.
“We can still like, make out in the bathroom though,” she tells him softly, yawning.
Sam grins up at the ceiling. “Oh yeah?”
Her head gets heavier on his arm as she relaxes into the bed. “Mmmhmm.”
He’s not sure how long that’s gonna last but he’s definitely not going to say no. “Good.” He pauses for a minute, knuckles running lazily up and down his sternum as he thinks, and then asks, “Hey, so… what kind of superpowers do I have?”
It takes a second but eventually he feels her whole body start to shake with laughter. Sam smiles and tugs her a little closer.