A/N: Apologies to those that follow my Fanfic channel for Smallville stories, but I've recently found inspiration in the Canadian cop drama, Rookie Blue. This story was another one of those that I got inspired to write upon waking up from my sleep and I just dove into writing it.
I've tagged it as a McNally/Swarek fic, because it is, despite the fact that Shaw is the main character behind the story. I hope you enjoy and leave feedback!
Oliver Shaw was a romantic at heart. He'd often jokingly tell his wife that it was a curse. She'd laugh and sweetly kiss him on the cheek telling him that it was the best curse to have. But he worried that it might make him too soft, especially since his job required him to be tough. He needed to protect and serve and put bad guys in jail, not have mushy feelings when he had to tear a man from his family or a mother from her children. Some days it was a struggle not to believe every word that came out of the mouths of perps. It tested his resolve, but it helped that he went home to his wife's smiling face and hugs and kisses from his daughters.
He'd met his wife in university. They'd both taken first year Sociology with Professor Brymwald. She'd sat in the front row of the lecture hall and her blonde hair seemed to be always tied up in a messy ponytail. She was the one asking all the questions. At the back of the class— where he'd sat— he and his buddies struggled to stay awake. Usually the first one asleep wound up with a pencil sticking out of their ear. On more than one occasion, Brymwald caught them and called them out on it. The blonde in the front row would turn and glare.
Oliver Shaw had barely noticed her. It wasn't until they were assigned to their seminar groups that he began to take notice. One day she'd asked their TA whether he thought criminals were born deviant or if they became deviant based on their social upbringing. The TA replied, rather rudely Oliver felt, that deviant parents are bound to birth deviant children. Didn't alcoholics generally birth alcoholic children? The blonde had squared her shoulders and looked the TA in the eye and said, "So we're to write off all opportunity of goodness because someone is born into a situation that is beyond their control?" It was that day Oliver Shaw took notice.
He'd heard that she was a Criminology major. So instead of having an undeclared one, Oliver Shaw finally decided on one. He'd never told his friends that he'd committed to Criminology because of a girl, they'd have surely made fun of him; but he'd reached a point where he didn't care. From the next semester onward, he was in most of the same classes as the blonde from the front row. He hoped that maybe one day he'd actually ask her her name.
To look at Oliver Shaw, you'd never suppose him to be a shy person. But for over a year in university, he sat behind, beside and across the classroom from the blonde in the front row and never managed to gather enough courage to introduce himself. He'd always credited his wife for his interest in law enforcement. If he hadn't followed her into Criminology and studied a little harder just to impress her, he'd never have considered applying to Police Foundations.
One day that blonde in the front row forgot her textbook. It'd been the luckiest day of Oliver Shaw's life. It just so happened that that day he'd managed to secure a seat next to the blonde from the front row. It also happened to be the same day he'd remembered his textbook. So when she turned to him and asked if she could share his textbook, he felt like the luckiest man on the planet. And at that moment, Oliver Shaw was the luckiest man. Suddenly courage had seemed to swell within him and in the minutes that followed he discovered her name and offered to buy her a coffee after class. The rest, they say, was history.
It's safe to say Oliver Shaw knows the look. It is the look that crosses a man's face when he's head over heels for a woman. He knows it because that look stares back at him in the mirror every day.
Yes, Oliver Shaw is a romantic at heart.
That's why when he saw that same look on Sam Swarek's face, he knew his friend was in trouble.
Generally guys don't doodle hearts on paper or stare longingly at the phone waiting for it to ring. Guys who are also police officers, certainly do not. They punch things. They lock up people for stupid crimes like disorderly conduct or mischief. Sometimes they even go to Tassie's and down a few beers in an attempt to make that dancer look a little more like the girl they want, but can't have.
But Sam Swarek wasn't the kind of guy that would readily admit his growing affections toward a rookie. And certainly Oliver Shaw wasn't the kind who'd ask to hear about it, either. However, actions usually speak louder than words and so Oliver Shaw never had to ask; Sam Swarek was the kind of man who unwillingly wore his heart on his sleeve.
Everyone knew Sam Swarek was a bad speller. His reports were littered with mistakes. He was probably the only officer who'd managed to fail the written component of the Police Foundations exam. It was because of his terrible spelling that he often had his friend, Oliver Shaw, proofread his reports before he submitted them.
It was Sam Swarek's report about how his cover in Drug Squad had been blown that had first tipped Oliver Shaw off. In writing reports an officer has to be concise. Only the facts are necessary as reports were legal documents subject to examination by the Attorney General's office or a Crown lawyer. Maybe it was because Oliver Shaw was a romantic at heart that he started to notice the attention Officer Andy McNally seemed to receive in his friend's reports. After the fifth or sixth (or was it tenth or eleventh?) report, he decided to mention it to his friend. From that moment onward Noelle Williams was asked to proofread his reports.
"Hey Shaw?" Noelle Williams had asked after proofreading her fifth or sixth (or was it tenth or eleventh?) report. "What's the deal with Swarek's reports? They—"
She didn't need to finish her sentence. Oliver Shaw knew exactly what she was going to say. He nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders and asked her if she had any ideas on what they should do about it.
But Noelle Williams, like Oliver Shaw, was a romantic at heart.
And so, a deal was struck between the two officers. From that moment, they agreed to share the burden of Diaz, Peck, Nash and Epstein, leaving McNally to their friend, Sam Swarek.
Out loud the two co-conspirators hoped that the crush would dissipate; after all it was generally frowned upon for a training officer to fraternize with a rookie. Secretly though, they both hoped that Swarek would finally admit that he had feelings for the young officer. That he'd realize the race in his heart, the kick in his step and the feeling in the pit of his stomach were all symptoms of a man who was in love.
One day, Oliver Shaw took a chance. In hindsight he'd been tired, having had to ride with Epstein all week making him a little more irritable than usual. Plus it was an arson case which meant that the hose monkeys would get all the attention and credit. Maybe he hadn't been thinking straight, but he'd suggested it anyway.
"When she's out," he'd said. "It might be a good time to talk to her."
Unfortunately, not only was Sam Swarek a bad speller, he was also a stubborn man.
And so, each day Noelle Williams and Oliver Shaw would rock-paper-scissors for Epstein or Diaz or Peck or Nash. And each day they'd concoct a reason as to why Andy McNally should ride along with Sam Swarek and why Epstein, Diaz, Peck or Nash should ride with them instead.
Sometimes Staff-Sergeant Frank Best would look at them strangely, other times he barely noticed. Then one day, when Noelle Williams was sick with the flu and Oliver Shaw was at his daughter's graduation, Sam Swarek handed in his report unedited. It was then, that Frank Best understood.
"McNally," he'd ordered. "You're with Swarek."
After all, Frank Best— like Noelle Williams and Oliver Shaw— was a romantic at heart.