Disclaimer: I do not own Rookie Blue or a dog, but I wish I did

When Sam woke up the first thing he was aware of was the heat emanating from the body next to him in bed. He sighed, his eyes still screwed shut, and snuggled closer. He could feel long silky hair tickling his chin and he brushed it away.

"McNally," he murmured. He felt the mattress dip and heard the duvet rustle and suddenly there was hot breath on his cheek. Then the hideous sensation of a wet, rough tongue licking the side of his face.

'What the..?"

His eyes snapped open and he sat upright.

"Boo! Get off! You know you are not allowed on the bed, you stupid mutt."

The dog barked, and then leaned forward to lick him again.

"No," Sam said, pushing her away. "Bad girl."

Boo Radley looked back at him, all big brown eyes, silky chestnut fur and great big lolling tongue.

"I said, get off the bed," snapped Sam. "Down!" He pushed the dog away until she got the hint, and jumped off the bed. But she didn't go far. She sat on the floor next to the bed, her head cocked to one side and those eyes boring into him.

"Oh for God's sake," he muttered. "Don't look at me like that."

It had been three days since he'd gone to the pound to collect a cute, well-behaved little puppy McNally would love and instead come home with this goofy, boisterous, disobedient Irish setter. She was the last dog he'd intended leaving with when he walked into the dog enclosure, he'd had his eye on either the fluffy shih tzu cross that he just knew McNally would think was adorable, or the mutt that looked like it was a mixture of at least 10 different breeds, but predominantly Labrador with a large dollop of collie thrown in. It had to be one of those two, he'd decided. But then every time he'd walked past the cage housing the setter, she'd gone mad, barking and jumping up against the bars.

"You've got a fan," said the volunteer who was showing him around. "That setter likes the look of you."

"Yeah, not quite what I had in mind," he said, walking past it towards the other cages. The shih tzu was very cute, not his sort of dog but, after all, he was buying it for Andy. The mutt was more his preference but would Andy like it? He wasn't sure. He walked backwards and forwards between the two, each time passing the setter who went mad when it saw him. Eventually he went over to its cage, and patted it through the bars.

"Male or female?" he asked the volunteer.

"Female," she said. "Name's Ginger. She's only a year old."

"Shame," said Sam. "I want a male." He turned back to the male mutt.

"Let me know when you've made up your mind," said the woman. "I'll be back at the desk."

"Okie doke," said Sam. The mutt stared at him, panting. It looked more like a Boo Radley than the fluffy thing. But he wasn't sure if he could imagine McNally with it. He walked back towards the shih tzu and the setter went nuts again as he passed.

"Would you just shut up?" he growled at it. The dog stopped barking, sat back and looked at him with her head cocked to one side. There was something about the way she looked at him with those penetrating brown eyes that made him stop in his tracks. He stared back at her for a long moment. "Ah, damn," he said.

Ten minutes later he was filling in the paper work to take the setter home.

The moment he walked in the door and watched the dog tear round his living room, jumping on the sofa and then chewing the rug, he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. Now, three days later, he was sure he had. The dog was nuts. The woman at the pound had explained that she had belonged to an elderly lady who had got her as a puppy but couldn't keep her under control and now he could see why. He was going to have to take her to obedience classes and she would need to be walked at least twice a day to use up some of that excess energy. He was also going to have to work hard to convince her to answer to Boo instead of Ginger.

Sighing, Sam threw back the covers and swung his feet out of bed and onto the floor. It seemed like every day he woke up in a foul mood and today was no exception. Waking up to a big hairy pooch licking his face didn't help. Why the hell had he ever thought owning a dog would be a good idea?


It was McNally's fault. That night he sat in the Penny, waiting for her to show up, he'd got fixated on the idea of getting a dog. A dog would bring them back together. When he'd mentioned it to her earlier outside the locker room she'd actually smiled, a tiny little smile that was like a beacon of hope in among the disappointment and fury she'd unleashed on him. They'd get a dog, and they'd share its care, and take it for walks down by the lake together. He never normally went in for all that hand holding in public stuff – a couple of times he and McNally had walked out of the station hand-in-hand but that was pretty rare – but he could just see them strolling along the foreshore, their fingers entwined, the dog trotting along beside them.

He was thinking this when Peck came and sat beside him.

"What are you doing, drinking alone?"

"Looks that way," he said.

If McNally was coming, she should have been there by now. Maybe she had gone home to get changed. Maybe she was planning on coming but not until she had kept him waiting, which would be her way of getting back at him for all the hurt he had caused her. He couldn't exactly blame her if that's what she was doing.

But it was getting late now, and every time the door to the Penny opened and he saw it wasn't her, a little bit more of the hope that had pooled in his chest drained away.

Eventually Peck, who was waiting for Nick, had said, "I don't think he's coming. I think we're drinking alone." She was right. Collins had stood her up; McNally wasn't coming either. His attempts to get her back hadn't worked.

Maybe she just needed a bit more time. Maybe it was all too much in one day. It had been a hell of a day after all. She'd been punched in the face, had a gun pointed at her head then been left holding a grenade that could have killed her. His declaration of love and his plea for her to ignore his behaviour over the past six weeks and take him back was probably just too much to cope with on top of everything else. He got that.

She just needed a bit of space. She could sleep on it tonight, and tomorrow they could start all over again. He would do everything he'd promised – cook her dinner, take out her trash, walk her dog… their dog. Their Boo Radley.

He would prove to her that he really did love her, that he'd screwed up badly after Jerry died but it had all been too much for him. He'd been so confused, so overwhelmed by the fact that the way he felt about her was affecting his ability to do his job properly that he had pulled back into himself and ending up shutting her out. He didn't mean to do it permanently; he just needed time and space. But he hadn't been able to say that to her that night in the car park at the Penny. Instead of telling her that his problem was the fact he loved her too much, he had done the one thing he'd promised he'd never do and walked away.

He drove home barely able to see out the windshield that night, and he wasn't sure if that was down to the rain or the unshed tears in his eyes. He was doing the right thing, he told himself. He really couldn't be a cop and be with her – he cared about her so much it made it difficult to think straight. And God forbid if anything should ever happen to her on the job. Losing Jerry had ripped him to bits; how the hell would he ever cope if something happened to McNally? Surely it was better to spare himself the possibility of greater pain further down the track by pulling the plug on things now?

He'd kept up that line of thinking over the next few weeks, telling himself it was better not to feel anything. He needed to be numb to keep going. Evetually he realised he was being a bastard – her pain was written all over beautiful face – but he kept telling himself that maybe it was the best thing in the long run. He hated himself for asking her for his keys back; in fact he'd only wanted an excuse to talk to her and had blurted that out because he couldn't think of anything else to say. He'd hated himself for ignoring her phone calls and texts and kept telling himself it was for the best.

And then gradually he'd found the anger and the grief beginning to slip away. He realised that throwing away what he had with McNally was stupid but he didn't know how to fix things. She'd clearly moved on, judging by the way she'd snapped, "It's not your responsibility any more" when he'd waited to see how she was after the shooting in the cells.

He'd made a complete mess of everything, he knew that now. If only he was like her, and able to express his emotions, even if that meant blurting them out at completely inappropriate times. He wished there was some way that she could read his thoughts, see how sorry he was and how much he missed her, so he didn't have to try to put the words into clumsy sentences that were bound to come out all wrong. But he feared there was no chance of her realising how he felt after the last few weeks. Things had gone too far and he didn't know how to take the first step towards sorting them out.

And then he had seen her standing there, that grenade in her hand, and it was if someone had turned a light on and he was suddenly no longer stumbling around in the dark trying to work out what to do. He could see everything clearly. He loved Andy. He wanted to be with her, she was it for him. He had to tell her. If anything happened to her… well he couldn't bear it if she didn't know how he truly felt.

So he had done a McNally and blurted out his feelings at the most inappropriate time imaginable and in the most ridiculous way. She looked like she didn't believe him, which was why he had gone to her in the locker room later to make sure she knew that he meant it. Only he had gone and screwed that up too, making some lame joke about Grey's Anatomy when he just should have said it again. I love you Andy.

Well, that was enough screwing things up. He loved her, and he hoped that she still loved him, despite everything, and he was going to make it work, no matter what it took.

He looked at his watch. It was more than three hours since he'd asked her to meet him for a drink. She wasn't coming. But he couldn't leave, not just yet. Next to him Peck sighed, looked at her watch and said, "This is a waste of time. I'm going."

He nodded. "Sure. I'll just sit here and wait a little longer."

"All right." She downed what was left of her drink and slid off the bar stool. "See you tomorrow."

"Night Peck."

"Night Sam. Hey…" She turned back to him.

"What?" "Look, you and McNally…"

"Yeah?" He didn't want another lecture from another ex-rookie. It had been bad enough having Diaz on his case.

"I hope you sort things out. I just think the two of you are meant to be together, you know? You always were, even when she was with Callaghan."

"Uh…" He wasn't sure what to say to that.

"You know, I saw the two of you, that first week we were on the job. You were in the car park here about to leave and she came out to talk to you about something."

That something was Emily Starling, and how safe she was from Anton Hill. It had been their first day together as TO and rookie. He would never forget it.

"One minute you were talking and then next… I thought you were going to kiss. It was like there was this magnetic pull between the two of you."

He raised an eyebrow at that. He wasn't about to tell Peck that that was the moment he realised he had fallen for his gorgeous young rookie, even though they barely knew each other.

"I gave Andy a hard time about it, but she said she wasn't interested in you."
Great, he thought. At least she had changed her mind later.

"I always thought you'd end up together." Gail smiled, a slightly sad, wistful smile. "I still hope you do, for what it's worth."

He studied her for a moment. Okay, so she was a bitch most of the time but there was a nice side to Gail Peck.

"Uh, thanks," he said.

"So, tomorrow's another day, right?"

"Right. Tomorrow is another day. Night, Peck." He gave her a small, tight smile and watched as she walked out of the Penny.

Yeah, there was always tomorrow to try to get McNally back, and the day after. And the day after that.

Or so he had thought.

Next: Sam squeezed his right hand into a fist. It would be so easy just to take two steps over to Callaghan and plant one right in the middle of his smug face. But he couldn't. It would cost him his job and probably any remaining chance he had with Andy if she ever found out. And if he was honest with himself, he had to admit Callaghan was right. She most likely had wanted to get away from him, after the way he had treated her. He had driven her away.