It's been seven months. It's been about two hundred and thirteen days. It's been too long.

I stop and look at the building in front of me. So much has changed. And yet, nothing has. It's still the same damp looking building. It's the same colour, the same bricks, the same everything. Even the fading number 15 is still on the back door. It's not the building that's changed; it's me. I've changed.

And I've grown, or so I'd like to think. I think I've figured things out, while I was away. I finally came to understand what it is that I need. And that assignment, as amazing as it was, was not it. What I need lies here, where I am, where I've always been, and where I belong.

"You going in?" Nick comes up behind me.

He was with me, the entire time. We've come to know each other and understand each other in ways I never even thought possible.

I take another breath, trying to calm my nerves. It's like it's my first day all over again. But worse.

Luke said he had talked to Best and updated him on everything. He knows we're coming back today and we don't have to explain anything. Not to him, at least. Not to him, but to everyone else? Yeah, we've got to explain it to them. And we've got to do that without actually telling them anything.

I nod, "Yeah. Let's go."

Together we enter the 15 division. It's the one place I've always felt safe. Ironic as that is, considering my job is anything but. I don't feel safe today. I feel weak and exposed. I feel judged and I feel ridiculed. And we've only just entered.

Our presence catches the attention of most. Makes sense, I suppose, since we disappeared without any trace seven months ago.

Most of them are just in the main room, where the desks are set up. I see a few new faces but not many. That's good, I guess. And I see a lot of familiar faces. Chris and Dov smile at me. Traci gives me a knowing look and I think she knew where I was the whole time. I always thought it would have been her chosen to go. Gail...Gail actually runs towards us and hugs Nick.

So, I'm not the only one who's changed.

But that's just the rookies, or ex-rookies. Oliver gives us a friendly wave, as does Noelle. The way they all look at us, there is no way they didn't know anything about this. News travels fast, I guess.

I scan the room. Chris. Dov. Traci. Gail. Oliver. Noelle. I just can't find the one face I'm looking for.

Oliver notices my questioning and wandering eyes because he tilts his head towards the locker rooms. I smile at him and nod to everyone in the room, all still not moving, all still shocked at our return. He understands and nods back, a silent promise to keep them out of the locker room.

"I'm just going to put my stuff away, okay?" I say, mostly to Nick but everyone else can hear.

He nods, still hugging Gail. As I walk away, I see her pull away and smack his shoulder. So, she hasn't changed too much.

A smile graces my face as I walk towards the locker room. And then if falls and I feel my heart start to face.

What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What the hell am I thinking?

No.

I'm going to find Sam. I'm going to talk to him. I can do this.

I push open the door before I can talk myself out of it. And there he is.

He's facing away from me. His head is over the sink and he's washing his face with a wet cloth.

I can't help but stare at him for a moment. Oh god, did I miss him. As much as I hated it while I was gone, I could never stop thinking about this moment.

Though, in my wildest dreams, I never had the butterflies I do now. But other than that, this was exactly it. Just the two of us, alone.

He looks up into the mirror and freezes. He sees me.

I give a half smile and a weak wave, hoping it's not too much.

He's looking straight into my eyes...through the mirror. And then he turns around and any normal heartbeat I had is gone. My heart stops. It stops.

"Hi," I whisper. I know he can hear me. I know him.

He looks away for a second and I panic but I force myself to stay still and keep looking at him. I refuse to give in. Fight or flight. I'm choosing to fight this time.

"Hey," he says back.

Sensing it okay to do so, I take a small step forward, towards him, "Sam..."

"Don't say it."

"Don't say what?" I ask.

Another step. And one more.

"Don't apologize for something you're not sorry about. Don't pretend to care," he grunts and I wince, physically wince.

"Okay," I agree, holding my own. "I won't apologize for something I'm not sorry about. I won't pretend to care. But can I apologize because I really am sorry? Can I be completely honest and tell you that I do care?"

He doesn't say anything. I don't really give him the chance to. I just keep talking, slowly getting louder:

"Because, honestly Sam, I do care. I do care so freaking much. And you can't be mad at me for going because it is no different from you. You did the exact same thing and then you almost died. Okay? The whole freaking time I was gone, all I thought about was this moment. And how amazing it would be. And you know, I'm a little disappointed. This is not what I was expecting. This is not what I wanted or what I dreamed about."

"Andy -"

I cut him off, pretty much shouting at this point.

"No. Don't 'Andy' me. You don't have that right. You broke up with me and pretty much said you blamed me for Jerry. And then you come back when there's a chance I could die? I don't think so. And yet, I can't stop caring. When you told me you loved me, I thought it was just a deathbed confession, because those go both ways. You can say things you don't mean when you think someone is going to die. But over the past seven months, I thought long and hard about it. And you know what I came up with?"

He's silent.

"You can answer," I tell him.

He shakes his head, "No, what did you come up with?"

"That I still love you. That I've loved you for a long time. And that I think I'll love you for a lot longer than I care to admit right now. Because I am so mad at you, but I just can't stop loving you. And for me to think that you didn't feel the same way, that you didn't love me. Sam, that just, that hurt. And -"

"Okay," he puts his hands up and cuts me off. "I get it. I'm sorry. I am. About it all. Everything I did and everything I am bound to do in the future. Because, what I said, I meant it. I meant everything from 206 bones in the body to the fact that I love you. After we broke up, I wished I didn't. I tried everything to make me not. I was cruel and mean. I was trying not to love you. But it didn't work, okay? It didn't work."

I sniff, I can't help myself, and I whisper, "That was pretty close to what I had imagined, actually. But that doesn't magically fix things, Sam."

"I'm not saying it does," he shrugs.

"Then, what are you saying?"

"That I love you. Simple as that. Sometimes, the best thing is the thing you had. Or the person. And you're that for me. You're the best for me. And I'll understand if you don't want to do this again. I will, or I'll try to, but I'm saying that I do."

In my dreams, everything solved itself much quicker and easier than this. It wasn't this messy or complicated. But, they were dreams, not real life.

"I don't know what to say," I reply honestly. What's the point in lying? What good did it ever do?

I don't know what to say. I don't. Everything I'm thinking is just a mess in my head and nothing is making sense. Because all I want is to run to him and hug him and never let him go. Maybe Gail had the right idea. I should have started with that. Because I can't do it now. Not after this.

"I think I need another day," I say suddenly. I drop my bag into the locker that was always mine and leave the room. He's alone again.

I manage to keep the tears in as I head over to my old spot and tell Traci that my head hurts and I'm not ready to be back yet. She understands, knows it's more than that. She promises to let Best know and to cover for me. There's a reason she's my best friend.

Nick understands too, as he tips his head in my direction as I leave, all eyes on me.

At home, everything is quiet. When I came home, nothing had changed. Everything was so normal that it made me cry. I had hated it. Now, I wished everything could just be normal again. Now, it was the change that was making me cry.

I collapse on my bed and close my eyes. I really do have headache now.

The next thing I know, there's a knock on my door. I open my eyes and the clock is five hours later than it was the last time I looked. I clearly fell asleep.

Yawning, I grab a blanket and wrap it around myself. It's a little cold in here. I open the door and freeze.

"Sam."

"Can I come in?" he holds up a bottle of wine. I get a glance at the label - it's my favourite, expensive too.

I open the door wider and nod. And though I'm not sure why I do, I know it's the right move. He comes in and shuts the door behind him.

"Hi," I say quietly, for the second time today.

"Hey," he answers, the same thing he said earlier. "You don't know what to say yet, do you?"

I crack a small smile, "No, not really."

"Well then, can I talk?" he asks. I nod, not sure what's left for him to say. I kind of want to hear it.

He nods, "Okay. I realized, that in all I said earlier, I never apologized. I meant to. I had every intention to. But then you came in and started saying all that you did and my natural defense was not to apologize. So, I'm sorry. I really am. And I'm sorry for not apologizing before. But no matter what I said before, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for breaking up with you. That was wrong and I regretted it. I still do. I'm sorry if I made it seem like I blamed you for Jerry. That wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Sam. You said that you can't be a cop and be with me," I remind him. "And out of almost all of it, that's what cut the deepest."

"If I'm a cop, and I'm with you, I do stupid things. We're all human," he explains and I nod, because, well duh! "We're human and we aren't always right. When I said that, I meant that I can't think straight because I'm constantly worried about you, and I'm always following you to make sure you're okay."

"Sam, I can take care of myself!"

"I know. But I love you too much that I just, I worry and I can't do my job," he says.

"Okay, so, even if all this is true, how would we ever make it work if you can't be with me if we're both cops?" I ask. This is the part I don't get. This is where I get stuck. Because I have no solution. "Neither of us is going to be willing to give up our job. I wouldn't ask something like that of you, and you wouldn't ask me."

"I don't know," he shrugs. "But I want to try."

I smile. I can't help it. I try to not but the smile just breaks free, like's it got a mind of its own.

"Yeah," I nod. I can feel water in my eyes but they don't spill over. I'm able to fight them back...for now. "Yeah, I do too."

"You do?" he seems surprised.

I nod, "Yes. But how?"

"Why don't we...start over?"

"Start over?" I laugh. "Yeah. Sure, let's start over." I stick my hand out and say, "Hi. My name is Andy McNally and I'm a cop with the 15 Division."

He shakes my hand, "Sam Swarek, same job."

"What a coincidence," I say with a sarcastic undertone. "I haven't seen you around before."

"I'm a bit of a loner," he shrugs.

I snort and punch his shoulder, "You are not. You're anything but, Sam."

"It was a conversation starter," he says. "Besides, I thought we were just meeting? How would you know that about me? Andy, did you say your name was?"

I roll my eyes, "Maybe we can know a little bit about each other."

"Maybe," he allows. "Would you like a drink?" he holds up the bottle of wine he brought.

I nod, "That'd be nice. But, I know somewhere else we can go, if you're up for it?"

"Penny?" he asks and I nod. "Let's go."

We walk into the bar, hand in hand. There's a fair number of cops still here. It is getting late though. Oliver is here with Traci, Nick, Gail and Dov.

And again, for the second time today, my presence - our presence - catches their attention. They all turn to look at us, eyes falling to our hands.

Together, we sit with them and order drinks.

"So, did you hear about the new rookie?" Oliver says, pretending everything is normal.

No, wait. Maybe he's not pretending. It hasn't been normal for a while. But maybe, just maybe, now it is. Everything seems more normal now than it has in the past eight months.

"No, what about him?" I ask.

He launches into a story explaining the kid's background and we all crack up.

Yeah, this is normal. This is my life. Oh, I've missed it. I've missed the easiness and simplistic conversations.

When the hour is done, Sam walks me home.

"I had fun tonight," I say when we reach my door. I feel like a teenager again, hoping for a kiss goodnight.

And that's what I get. He leans in to kiss me, more passionately than I was ever kissed as a teenager. "Me too," he whispers in my ear.

"Maybe we could do this again some time?"

"That sounds like a good idea," he agrees. He gives me another kiss before bowing goodnight like a gentleman, "Night Andy. See you tomorrow."

He turns to leave and is just down the hall when I run after him. No, he's not getting away that easy. Not tonight. I've been without him for eight months. I need him.

I practically jump on him and kiss him again, "Want to come in?"

"On a first day?" he pretends to be shocked. Then he shrugs, "Yeah, alright."

"Well, don't sound so excited," I tease. I pull him back to my apartment and to my bedroom.

Collapsing on my bed, I hear him whisper the three words I really needed to hear eight months ago, "I love you."

Yeah, eight months ago would have been better and would have been so much easier. But they sound just as sweet now and I know I'll never tire of hearing them.

A/N: Well, I hope you liked it! It's not the best, I'm the first to admit that. But I hope it helps. I just had to write some sort of fix-it-fic. And this is what happened. I own nothing from those 2 710 words about this Author's Note. None of it's mine.

Good luck hanging on until season 4! WE CAN DO IT! Please leave a review?