Hi guys!

Thanks so so so much for your great feedback on "The Parking Lot Redo". That had been my first ever fic, so all your super nice reviews were much appreciated! Oh, and sorry for the massive paragraph at the beginning of that one. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, ..x. Hope this one is easier to read!

Here's another short story. I have no idea what is going to happen in tonight's episode (so excited though!) so I decided to make up the ending myself.

So here are Sam's inner musings on fear and Andy. Hope you enjoy! =)

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The gunshots echoed through the shooting range as Sam hit his paper target, squeezing off rounds fast and hard. The feeling of his gun firing gave him a sense of power, a sense of control that he had recently felt slipping away.

He had always been in control of his emotions, keeping them buried deep down, so as to pretend that they didn't exist. There was an old rule that he had learned at the Academy – never, ever, get personally invested in a case or an operation.

He had kept that rule for the seven years he had been on the force, but he had broken it on this last case, the sting operation, the one where Officers McNally and Peck went undercover as prostitutes.

He hadn't really had much concern for Peck's safety, but it was an entirely different matter when it came to Andy. He had been worried enough when she had volunteered for the operation, and he had had to fight down his insane attraction to her that had only intensified when he had seen her in those black leather hooker boots – never mind that they were completely ridiculous – but when he had lost contact with her after she had walked into the gun runners' house, he had felt genuine fear.

He had only been truly afraid three times in his life: when his father hit him so hard he had coughed up blood, when his sister lay dying in the hospital, and when he had seen his first partner, his training officer, killed in front of his eyes. The last time he had felt real fear was seven years ago, and he had told himself he would never again let himself get to the point when all rationality became nonexistent.

And then last night, when Andy had gone completely off the script and entered the house, without backup, he had felt slightly scared.

And then the all too-familiar sound of a gun being loaded registered in his earpiece…and he could hear Andy trying to talk her way out of the situation…and then to hear the sound of the gun going off, and then losing contact after hearing the first shot…that was when he felt the sheer force of fear.

At that moment, he wasn't in control, he didn't have the power to change the situation, and he was rendered completely helpless by the terror that had seemed to incapacitate him. No other thoughts had run through his brain other than to get Andy, to protect her.

After the fact, when the situation had been contained and Andy had in fact gotten out unscathed (though the guy who had shot at her wasn't as lucky) he had realized what exactly his fear had meant. He hadn't been afraid for himself, or for the operation. He had been afraid for Andy, not as a fellow police officer, but as…Bang. Bang. Bang.

He squeezed off three more rounds, refusing to finish that thought. He wasn't sure how deep his feelings went for her, but he had already broken one of the two most important rules of being a cop, and he sure wasn't going to break the other one. That was why he had come down to the range in the first place – to clear his mind and regain some semblance of control in his life. Never, ever, date a fellow officer.

He could hear Andy's words mocking him – "That's fine, because I don't date cops." Damn.