Just a quick idea that popped into my head. It doesn't fit with any other story I'm working on, so I decided to post it as a one-shot. Hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think in a review. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rookie Blue.

It Hurts More This Time

Sam was standing at his kitchen counter going through some mail when he heard the jingling of keys unlocking his front door. He hadn't been expecting her - she'd had mountains of laundry to do and wanted to clean her condo before dinner with her dad this weekend - so he was surprised she was here. He was happy though, wasn't really looking forward to spending the night alone.

As he stepped into the foyer to meet her, the smile fell off his face at her sad eyes, her frown, the general look of disappointment that graced her face. In two quick strides he was standing right in front of her. "Andy, what's wrong?"

Her eyes blinked slowly as she stood there staring at him. She tossed her keys on the table near the door as she shook her head. "She's gone. She left."

He knew who she was talking about without her saying; he could read it in her eyes. He took her hand and led her to the couch silently.

He held her tight against him when they sat down, felt her erratic deep breaths against his body. He knew she was fighting herself, trying to keep back the emotion ready to pour out. His hand cupped the back of her head, with her face tucked into the crook of his neck. His other hand stroked up and down her back, as she tucked her legs underneath her. One of her arms had already snaked its way between his back and the couch; her other hand rested against his chest.

"You were right," she said quietly.

"I didn't want to be," he said, fingers tangled in her hair.

Andy closed her eyes, hoped that would stop the tears from falling. She'd cried enough in her life over her mother. She'd made a pact with herself when she was an adult that she'd never let that woman make her cry again. And here she was. She knew it was inevitable, that the tears would come before the night was over. Still, she fought them back, tried to focus on the warm arms around her. But that only made the pressure behind her eyes worse; knowing that someone loved her enough to not say 'I told you so.'

"She left a note this time...so there's that." Before the words were out of her mouth, Sam felt the spot on his chest where her hand had been go cold as she reached into her back pocket. She held it up in front of his face until he plucked it out of her fingers.

"You want me to?"

She shrugged her shoulders, but a beat later, "Yeah."

He unfolded the piece of paper and read the few sentences scrawled in Claire's handwriting. There was no 'sorry' or 'I'll miss you.' Just a lame excuse of feeling antsy in Toronto and needing to be with her other daughter in Montreal. Andy had given him bits and pieces about Claire's other family, so he knew about the two children – one boy and one girl - she'd had with her second husband. He put the note on the cushion next to him, and let his hand resume its position on her back.

"Everything she told me about wanting to be part of my life again was a joke. She didn't...couldn't have meant any of it," she said, sniffling. "She left me again."

"You have your dad. You have Nash. You have your friends. You have me. You don't need her to make your life full, Andy. It's her loss to walk out of your life," he said, his hands rubbing comforting patterns.

It was the way he slowly and softly said the words, how he said them with love and not laced with hate toward her mother, that broke through her tough exterior. One lonely tear escaped first. Another slowly followed the same path. He heard the stuttering of her breath first, followed by the small shakes of her body. She fisted his t-shirt in her hand as he finally felt dampness soak through his shirt near his collarbone.

His hand pressed against her back, bringing her impossibly closer to him, as the fingers on his free hand massaged the back of her head. He closed his eyes, wishing there was more he could do. Wishing he could've truly protected her from Claire, but it was her own mother; how do you protect someone from that?

Andy's grip around Sam tightened as she sobbed into his neck. She couldn't make it stop. The tears kept flowing. She replayed the note over and over in her mind. Claire was leaving to be with her other daughter, the one she had two years after leaving Andy. The fact that Andy spent all these years without a mother and needing to make up for that lost time meant nothing to Claire. She resented the other woman who Claire openly gave herself to. All she'd wanted her whole life was a mother to love her.

Sam tucked her hair behind her ear, trying to get a better look at her face once he felt the shaking against his body weaken. She pulled her head back, sniffling, and swiped her fingers across her cheeks, trying to wipe away the tears. Her eyes were red and blotchy and still filled with unshed tears.

"Thanks," she said softly, her voice raspy from crying.

"For what?" he asked, cupping her jaw so his thumb could wipe away the wetness she'd missed.

"For not saying 'I told you so.'"

"Andy, I never wanted to be right about this. I'd do anything to be wrong, to bring her back, to protect you from this pain," he said.

"All she knows how to do is leave. Or maybe she just knows how to leave me." She shook her head to silence Sam when he opened his mouth. "I'm not giving her the chance to do it again. I don't care what she does. I don't care if she tries to come back. I don't care if she has some fantastic excuse for why she had to leave. I'm done. She's never been a mother to me and she never will."

"She doesn't know what she's missing, not knowing you. It's her loss," Sam said. His words brought the first smile - albeit small - to her face all night. And Sam saw in her eyes that it was a true smile, not faked. He brought his lips to hers, lightly grazed the smile they displayed before pulling back.

He grabbed a pillow off the couch and put it on his lap, before tugging Andy down. She laid her head down and placed her hand on his leg. He brushed the hair off her neck and shoulder and trailed his fingers up and down her arm with the lightest of touches. "Just relax, okay? I'm right here."

She hummed in agreement as she closed her eyes and willed any tears left in her to go away. She let herself get lost in the comfort of Sam's touch. How his fingers massaged her scalp and his other hand left a trail of goose bumps down her arm.

It wasn't long before she fell asleep, and Sam knew it the instant her breathing became light and the rise and fall of her chest evened out. He leaned down and kissed her temple lightly, not wanting to wake her.

He settled back into the couch and decided he'd let her sleep like this for a while before moving her up to his bed. She looked too peaceful to disrupt right now.

The End.