He's speeding. Is that considered ironic? Since he's a cop and all.
He is over the speed limit, and yeah, okay, he's not above flashing his badge if he gets caught, because he's not garden variety speeding. He's at least 30 over, and it's raining and his wipers are on the fastest interval to wipe the spray away.
The truck grips the road like dry pavement though, and that's why he bought it in the first place.
He knows what Ollie would say if he were here. Just one of those sidelong looks, where all the joking stops and he gets all serious, like Sam is just that on edge, and then he'd say, "Sam…". With just that right tone of warning in his voice.
And Sam would feel that heaviness in his gut again. That sudden jump of his heart like he's standing outside… naked. Or something. And he just never realized…
He always drives fast.
It's the easy thing, the thrill, and that same sense of being naked, but in a different way. A good way. It's putting your foot on the throttle and pushing down and then rushing forward and you don't know what's going to happen, because there isn't time to react. You may end up with a scare or you may end up dead or maybe you'll go fast enough that you dissolve.
It gets your heart pumping.
Like undercover work and drawing your weapon and… provoking rookies who look at you with deep brown eyes full of faith.
He leaves the 400 and then he has to slow down. Less traffic to run interference for him and he doesn't want to stop, not for a light, not for a siren. Her voice had that edge to it when she called. Like that wounded place inside of her—the one that doesn't seem to heal—is getting bigger. Enveloping.
The lights fade behind him and this is out of the city, out of the suburbs. The houses set back on acres of land, their lawns made of forest. What the fuck is she doing…
She might as well push paper the rest of her life if she stays with Callaghan. Everything on an even keel. Blue ink and vows in triplicate. She knows it too. He knows she knows it. She's been chickening out, and he sticks around because he feels it coming. That big day when she breaks out.
The door to her cell has been open for a while now. She just hasn't been able to trust it.
He feels his own words coming back to him, but in Ollie's voice: He's trying to fix himself. Maybe that way you'll love him back.
Ollie needs to shut the hell up. Or his own brain. Whatever.
He almost misses her car. In the rain and the dark he sees a glint and then a shadow, and then he slows and there she is. Hazard lights blinking, but they're buried by the weather. He swings around then pulls up behind her, leaving the truck running, the headlights burning.
She stands in the illumination and she's wearing a vinyl rain poncho, but the hood is down and her hair is soaked through, tied back but escaping, wet on her face.
He feels that jump of his heart. Like he's hurtling. Forward or back, he isn't sure anymore.
He pulls the hood up on his jacket and goes.
Outside it's colder, despite the summer. Quiet though, except for the rain on the pavement and the metal of the cars and the vinyl of his hood.
"What are you doing out here?" he demands when he gets up close. But not too harsh.
"Look, I'm sorry," she says, and she looks miserable. Frustrated. "I wouldn't have called, but I just… I can't get the lug nuts off, and Luke is still…" She trails off and looks away and goes back down to where she's been working on the tire.
Callaghan is still in the hospital, that he knows. But her dad, Nash, Diaz… she had a dozen people she could have called.
She called him.
He hunkers down next to her, next to the wheel with the flat tire. The car is half on the grass shoulder, jacked up, all the lug nuts off except one. She's putting the wrench back on it, straining as she tries to pry it loose.
"McNally," he says, quietly.
"Goddamn it!" She breaks a bit. She hits at the wrench in frustration. "Nothing works like it's supposed to!" The car shudders a bit on the jack.
"McNally," he says, louder, and he grabs her wrist. "Stop it."
She looks at him and breathes. The rain runs down her face. "I just… needed some space. I took a drive."
He wonders what's going on. Luke is on the mend and out of danger. This isn't worry. This is… pain. He wants to ask and he doesn't. He wants to help and he doesn't. It's a fine line between protecting and possessing…
He's still holding her wrist. He drops it.
"Hang on," he says, and he walks back to his truck and gets the thread-loosening spray he bought on the way. He stuffs a dry rag in his pocket.
Next to the wheel, Andy gets down on her heels beside him and shelters the rim, keeping the water off. He dries the metal and then sprays the locked threads of the bolt. He stays down, using his back to turn away the rain.
It takes a few minutes, so they wait.
It's oddly intimate like this. Both of them facing and leaning, creating a dry space between. The rain tapping on their backs and heads. The occasional car drives by, slowed by the weather, but it's mostly quiet and still and dark.
"You okay?" he finally asks. And she always seems to give up a little bit when he does. Like he's the only one…
Her eyes are black in the darkness, even with the headlights of his truck splitting around his back. But they always hold sparks. Pain, uncertainty, attraction, teasing, amusement, anger: it's all in the glitter.
She nods and the water is shiny on her neck. Drops running down under her collar. His mouth is dry.
"I…" she starts, and then she stops and starts again. "Just couldn't get it to work," she says, softly, but still angry. She swallows. "The harder I try, the harder it gets."
He notices the shift to present tense, and why do they always do this? Talk in innuendo and indirect metaphors and sarcasm. Talk without talking.
He looks at her for a moment, holding her gaze. It makes his heart beat faster, so he tries to stay still. Unaffected. It's a moment that goes on a little too long, but he refuses to look away. She can run if she wants to, he won't.
She stays.
"You can't force it," he finally tells her. He never talks to anyone but her like this. Earnest and without pretense. "The harder you force it, the less it will move."
She looks away then. Like she can't stand it.
He wipes at the lug nut again with the rag and taps it with the wrench. "If it's not working," he says. "Then you have to try something different."
He looks at her again, because his blood is burning up and his mouth is dry and his head is a little light, and he smirks a little bit, because he doesn't want her to see.
She looks right at him with that wounded look that always gets him a little bit. The one that isn't too vulnerable but not too strong. She shows too much of herself. To him. To everyone.
Then her hand is sliding inside his hood, slipping around his nape, pulling him forward. She puts her mouth on his, and he almost groans as the lines holding him back snap and break.
He kisses her back, eagerly. Rain on her face and her lips, in his mouth. Her tongue warm against his. He knows her smell, her taste, the way she breathes.
He wants to push her down, on the wet grass, right now. Slide on top of her and consume her.
And that stops him.
"Andy," he says, a little too roughly, too breathlessly. He's not sure what he's even saying with her name. Only that this won't end well if it continues. "Don't."
"Why?" Her breath is tickling his lips.
"Because I can't say no to you." And he has a fistful of her poncho, pulling her toward him even as he's begging her to stop.
He hears her swallow, the thick sound of saliva in her throat, and she takes a breath and bows her head. Her hand is slipping from his nape, and he grabs at her wrist again, catches her fingers, and the sharp diamond edge of her engagement ring slides against his palm. He rubs his thumb across it.
She licks her lips and nods, without looking at him, and she pulls away.
It's odd the way these moments become normal. He puts the wrench on the lug nut and she gets back out of his way, and they just go on again. Like this is par for the course.
And maybe it is for them. For now.
Jesus, the lug nut is tight. He has to shift to get leverage and even then it takes all his weight behind his strength to get it to give.
She rolls the temporary spare over to him, and he looks up at her and says, with danger in his voice, "Get this fixed tomorrow." Like he knows she'll put it off.
She rolls her eyes at him, and that makes him smile. He likes it when she fights. Likes that spark inside of her.
When it's done, he walks her around to the driver's side door and watches as she gets in. Holds the door open as she turns the key in the ignition, making sure it starts.
The engine turns over and catches immediately, and the radio comes on suddenly, full volume.
He's besieged by Rush's Tom Sawyer, and for a moment he's almost confused as she scrambles to turn it down. The music and his knowledge of her do not match. She glances up at him with an awkward expression, and then he gets it, and he grins.
Rush. I'm a big Rush fan.
"Shut up," she grumbles. "I thought I'd check them out."
He shrugs, but he can't stop grinning, and her annoyance is just a bonus. "Drive slowly," he instructs, trying to get himself under control. "If you have problems, pull over. I'll be right behind you."
She looks at him with a faint smile. And something else. He's not sure what it is, but it makes him feel warm. "Thanks," she says.
He shrugs again and closes her door.
Inside his own truck he has his own scramble to turn down the radio. His windows are closed. She can't hear. But it still makes him jump.
She doesn't need to know everything; like how to loosen a frozen lug nut, or how to be a perfect cop.
Or that Sam Swarek started listening to love songs on the radio the day she walked into his life.
When she pulls onto the road and starts toward home, he quickly follows.
~end~