I DO NOT OWN ROOKIE BLUE
Sam was silent for a good long while after they pulled out of Milburn Penitentiary, and into the dark, cloudless night.
Andy was quiet too. Sam knew she was desperately trying to make sense of everything she had uncovered and learned about him and his past today. Who could blame her for that?
Yet, he also understood that her uncharacteristic lack of chatter was also reflective of her genuinely compassionate nature. She was being innately empathetic to how difficult the day's events must have been for him.
God, how that very compassion had always probed so evocatively and effectively through his walls and around all of his rough, unfinished edges!
McNally, McNally. Her brain was rich, challenging and receptive. She was bold, sexy and bewitching. Yet, she could never quite conceal her compassion, at least not from him. He was always madly attracted to this contradictory strength and vulnerability within her.
He breathed deeply, inhaling the faintest sweet hint of Andy's vanilla cocoa butter hand cream. He remembered that beguiling scent so well.
It was deliciously embedded deeply in his consciousness. It was strewn all over their time together. It awakened the most intimate of memories from times spent on his sofa or hers, losing themselves in each other's embrace, and whatever prime time had to offer.
Or those magical moments shared in his bed or hers, wrapped only in a sheet of raw physical satisfaction, and genuine deep rooted happiness. God, at times like that, he honestly thought nothing would tear them apart ever.
Dammit he craved those times so much. He really didn't know how much longer he could take being around Andy, without being with her. Even so he knew he would never leave her again. She had to know it too. Surely those words "I'm not going anywhere." were engraved in her heart moments after he texted them to her several weeks ago.
"We used to watch Millionaire together." He said, in a calm yet coarse voice, as if he was contributing to a conversation in progress.
He wanted to talk to her now. He needed to talk to her now. He wanted to confide in her, the one person he had learned to trust without reservation.
Andy listened keenly not wanting to miss a word of what he told her. After all, everything he shared, pieced together fragments of the elusive, mysterious man she loved with all her heart.
He revealed a whole lot more actually, ultimately leading her to a pivotal point in the story of his past. He paused as if he was challenging her to probe for more information.
"Was he telling the truth or were you?" She asked after a moment.
She asked genuinely and without judgement. She asked only because she wanted to know Sam inside and out. She wanted to know him in ways no one ever truly had. Not even Oliver or Jerry.
Sam took a moment before he turned to answer her. He had never told a soul what he was about to reveal to Andy. He had spoken the truth when he had told his old man that he had never felt guilty for a second.
And, while he realized that his original lie really didn't matter, not to him anyway, he didn't know how it would play out to Andy. Could Andy, so virtuous to her core, ever really accept the decision he made as a child?
"He was," he said locking eyes with her.
Andy had never heard his voice so soft, unsure and wavering. She saw a fleeting look of worry and vulnerability in his eyes, before he turned away from her gaze.
"Hmm," she mumbled almost under her breath.
Again he waited before he spoke, picking his words a little more carefully than usual.
"More than you wanted to hear?" He asked with a hollow croak in his voice.
He was nervous, yet he was also filled with a new wave of reassuring calm. Everything wise, reasonable and fair within him had cried out to tell her. She, more than anyone, deserved to know this. Even more surprising was that he had actually wanted to share it with her.
She had said she wanted to know him. She had implored him to share those ugliest, darkest and harshest parts of his past with her. She had even met the man whom had inflicted such fear, sadness and disillusion into his childhood.
But, perhaps he had bombarded her with too much after all. Maybe this latest twist in the road was too much for her. Maybe she was too good and too kind for someone as tarnished as him.
"No," she said softly breaking into his thoughts. Through the corner of his eye, he could see her fingers, slowly brushing across the empty cup from her soft drink earlier today. If she moved them over just a few inches more, they would touch his knee.
He turned quickly to look into her alluring light brown eyes. He looked back to the road, but a magnetic shield in her face willed his eyes back to hers.
"You are nothing like that man, and if you ever doubt it you just need to turn around and ask me." She announced. Everything about her, from the blaze in her eyes to the tilt of her chin, all of it seemed so feisty, firm and unwavering.
He felt relief. He felt validated. He felt free. And, he felt something else. It was lightness, love and anticipation. Heck she was like the brightest light in his heart. Today she had collided with the darkest depths on his past and somehow blotted it out.
Tears began to crowd in his eyes.
"Oh yeah. Are you going to be there?" He spoke cautiously, turning to her briefly. He wondered if she could see his misty eyes.
Naturally Sam knew her answer before she spoke. Yet, he really wanted to hear her say it. He wanted to know that she wasn't going anywhere.
"Just try and get rid of me." There was that familiar lilting smile in her voice.
"Okay that sounded a bit stalkery. You do have some say." She continued to speak. There she was getting flustered and tangled up again. Man, how he loved this woman.
He spun his head to look at her then.
"I love you McNally." He said it effortlessly, yet full of certainty and vigour. It really was easy to say it this time. It was nothing like that first time when it took every ounce of strength he had to admit this level of emotion to Andy.
As she heard his words a smile sprang to her lips, transforming her whole face into a beacon of beautiful light.
"I love you Sam Swarek." She said. It spilled off her tongue as though it was obvious and evident the whole time. And she used his last name. Something she rarely did. Could she be reminding him again that she couldn't care less whom he shared it with?
He smiled at her and the road. It didn't matter how many times she said it. It always felt incredible hearing those words from her.
"So where to next?" His voice cracked a little as spoke. As an adult he had rarely been so close to tears before. He wasn't like Andy, whose tears of happiness, sadness and compassion always spilled freely.
She was silent for a moment, giving him a mischievous teasing look as she raised her eyebrows. That was really all the answer he needed.
