Look, I don't want to go okay? Just drop it." Andy sighs one last time, glaring pointedly at Sam.
He's got the letter in his left hand, and he's sitting on her couch, beer in his right. She made the mistake of leaving her mail open on the kitchen counter again. Last time he got his hands on some open mail that caught his eye, it was the results from her last blood test that said she had high levels of hCG. She wound up having to explain that it was a hormone common in pregnant women (which she was not) and they wound up discussing what if scenarios until the early hours of the morning.
Thankfully, this would be less in depth (she hoped), and it really didn't matter, but Sam would not let it go.
("Ten year reunion McNally, no guys who dumped you that you need to show up?" He had laughed.)
"Andy, that's fine, it just seems like one of those things you would be into." He smirks, tossing the paper on the coffee table, and leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You don't wanna go, we don't have to go."
"We?" Andy asks, wildly amused, glancing over her shoulder. "Oh honey," She begins, condescendingly, "If I were going, you would not be coming."
She grabs the rest of the coffee tables clutter (more mail, takeout menus, TV guide), while he looks on at her, confused, and slightly offended.
"Oh and why is that McNally? Few embarrassing stories you don't want me to hear?" He hopes to god that's it, and not that there's some ex boyfriend she's hoping to reconnect with. He knows that's farfetched, but, they've never really gone that far back into her past yet...
She snorts at him and continues making her way to the kitchen to sort her junk out on the kitchen counter, out of his view. They've only been home from shift thirty minutes, and it's a miracle they were done at the same time any more. Cases were always finding their way to him right before quitting time. Life of a detective, he guesses.
"Seriously McNally, I'll bet you were one knobby kneed band geek or something eh?" He prods, not letting it go just yet. With determination in mind, he pushes himself off the bench and makes his way into her kitchen, and sets his beer bottle down beside her, and traps her between his arms. His palms rest against the granite, and she leans her back into him, continuing the task at hand.
She unconsciously tilts her head to the side, and lets him have at her neck, as long as they stop talking about the reunion. She just really doesn't want to go. At all. No, she wasn't a nerd... not by a long shot. But she also wasn't someone she was proud of.
The hair dying phase really got out of hand, and her choice in company wasn't the wisest (anyone who looked like they belonged in a band. This was also back when she liked Nickelback...). When she did finally turn it around, she was into varsity track, basketball, soccer. Whatever could keep her on the straight and narrow, Tommy's words, not hers. But, varsity parties, well, Tommy really didn't stand a chance.
She wasn't really an "at risk" youth anymore (she never really was) but the varsity jocks? They were, interested in Andy, for sure. Towards the end of her high school days she'd really begun to fill out, and she attracted more than one girls boyfriend. Andy and the other girls didn't hit it off. Aside from certain team mates, Andy spent most of her time with the guys, which only made things worse. And Andy was not excited to drag Sam into an old gym full of the boys, and have to explain her poor choices. If she could keep her past separate, she would.
"Common. Blast to the past. Couldn't be that bad." He murmurs between sloppy kisses near her ear.
She turns in this little, cage, he's created, frustrated now, actually letting his persistence piss her off.
"Why won't you let this go?"
He shrugs and lets his look drop to the floor. A deep breath, and his eyes are back to hers, like he's gearing up for a speech.
"I just... I want to know everything." He puts it simply, but she wants more. Of course she does, it's McNally. "I told you about everything, right? And that was really hard for me. Reliving that shit with my dad, and Sarah. I know you are vague about your teens for a reason. They were tough. Puberty without a mom. I get that Andy. I didn't have my dad either."
Andy's expression has softened significantly at his bluntness. They've always been good at getting the other to do what they want, but this time she needed to understand why, and he was communicating. He'd gotten so much better at it, and she was so grateful.
"But, I want to know. Good, bad, ugly. All of it."
He's more than shocked by her reaction, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him like they were about to die. If he'd known this was what opening up was going to do... well, he would've started a long time ago. Before all the damage had been done.
"Is that a yes?" He asks breathlessly once she's kissed her lips chapped.
"That's a yes." She says, but with a but coming. He can always tell. "But, you need to really change your assumptions of what I was like."
His arms are still around her waist, and she's leaning far enough back, like she's trying to get away, but really she just needs to see his whole face right now.
His eyebrow goes up, suspiciously, and it's time for her to explain, communicate.
Before he knows it, she's running to her bedroom, and once he hears her drop something really heavy onto the floor, he follows. She's rummaging around in her closet for something on the top shelf, stretched from her toes to her arms high above her head, and Sam leans in the doorway and waits for the big reveal. She pulls a stack of books (yearbooks he guesses) down with her, and turns slowly toward him, and motions toward the bed.
He gets in on his side, back up against the head board, and she butterflies his legs open, and settles herself between them, back up against his chest. His legs move down to bracket hers, and waits for her to finish squiggling around, getting comfy.
"Ready?" She asks, like it's a bed time story or something. He just nods and kisses her temple, ready for a trip down memory lane.
"Jesus." He breathes, taking in her senior portrait once they get there. She looks a lot like she does now. Her features were a little softer, and there was a little more baby fat in her cheeks, but ultimately the same. "Very different from the purple streaks."
Andy giggles, not realizing how fun this would be. Some of these people she hasn't even bothered to think about in the last ten years, let alone miss them. But going through the signatures in the back of her book, it seems like it wasn't that long ago.
"Yeah, just a bit." She sighs.
"So, not a lot of girlfriends?" He asks, again.
"Nope, maybe four, but even then, the guys were closer." She confirms, knowing that he was having a tough time realizing these guys managed to be 'just friends' with a girl as beautiful as she was... is.
"And they were...?"
"Jonathan, Ross, and Wyatt." She says, pointing them out in a picture of the three of them at some track meet. Arms swung around each other, Andy's head thrown back in laughter. "I met them at track and field tryouts, and they suggested I do short distance, and relays. They helped me get better, and we all got really close."
It bothers Sam for some reason. Sure, they were basically just kids, and they were happy together, but somewhere in the back of his mind, some kind of insecurity was bullying his subconscious. They'd really worked hard to get here, and they learned to trust one another again. Trust wasn't the issue though. It was the fact that he'd finally figured out the phrase "Love is giving someone the power to destroy you, and trusting them not to." And right now, he's putting a whole lot of trust in her, when he doesn't know a whole lot about this situation.
He runs his hands up and down her sides, not letting on that he was affected by her past, and let her stay relaxed in their embrace. She drops her head back against his shoulder, and twists her neck so she's staring up at him.
"And they never... You didn't date any of them?" He says with disbelief. True, he'd never figured out platonic friendships with women until adulthood (late adulthood) but it seemed unrealistic.
"I can assure you they were pretty happy with their girlfriends. Believe me, it would've made my day if John had looked my way," Sam's hands stop for a millisecond, before he can block that image from his brain, "but I was always sweaty and in my track gear. We didn't used to have those little spandex shorts the girls have got now."
He's relieved to hear that, until-
"Besides, I had a thing for lacrosse players."
The books are now tossed to the foot of her bed, and long forgotten, and they've just been swamping stories about firsts, and awkward rites of passage. Worse parent interruption and embarrassment. Sam asks Andy if Tommy ever had to threaten a guy with his gun, and surprisingly, he brought it with him when he met Andy on the front porch after first dates.
He revealed that it was a girl from high school that had made Sam wary of women, and kept them at arm's length. He'd been, what is now coined as friend zoned.
He'd been bookish most of his childhood, used to really enjoy 'Moby Dick', and only really learned how to be cool from watching TV. Eventually he got good at his whole apathetic charade that even he started to buy it. Bought himself a leather jacket, learned to love cars and bikes. Traded in his classic novels for car magazines, and took up shop, dropped English Lit.
And when he finally had the courage to ask Carly Thompson out, get himself a real shot with her, she was too busy bouncing around, announcing that some beef cake asked her to go 'steady'.
"God I hate that word. No one went around giving letterman jackets to their girlfriends. Sounds like there should be an exchange of promise rings." Sam talks about her with such bitterness that Andy's found herself laughing at every little story he brings up. And God he's so jealous. Jealous that she's not at all jealous. She is the younger one in this relationship. Probably knows she's got a little more drive than a near forty year old soccer mom (Sam assumes). And again, jealous.
"Well now you're going steady with me. And I never really liked letterman jackets."
"No?" He asks, knowing that she's playing some cute game.
"Nope, I lied. Hated the lacrosse team. Horny jerks. I liked the rebels in leather. With a taste for good books."
Sam smiles broadly into her hair, laughing so low he's not sure she can hear. Seriously this girl-
"But no rings." She remarks suddenly, stiffening a bit. "Just... not yet."
His girl.
A/N: I'm really trying to work on getting better at one-shots, so please, review. Good, bad, I wanna know. Just please make it constructive :)