Initially I was going to start this story from the end of episode 3x08, but decided I needed to include some of the earlier conversations for what I wanted to write to make sense. I hope I kept Sam & Andy in character, but it's hard when I don't think they'll ever actually talk about stuff like this. lol

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, favoriting and following my recent stories. It means a lot knowing people are enjoying what I write. Please leave a review on this story and let me know what you think of it! :)

Fly Away With Me

Andy was very excited about her best friend's upcoming nuptials. As soon as Traci talked about a destination wedding, Andy couldn't wait to plan a vacation for her and Sam. It was a perfect opportunity for them to get away. While she was alone with Sam in the equipment room, Andy decided to bring it up.

"So, the wedding is gonna be in the Dominican Republic. I was thinking maybe we could take a week or two, and have our first vacation together," she suggested.

"Great," he said less than enthusiastically. Weddings were not on his list of favorite things to talk about. And adding their first vacation into the mix? Yeah, bottom of the list.

"What? Come on. We've never been anywhere together. I mean, we've never been to a cottage. We've never even been camping," she said, trying to get him as excited as she was.

"We went to Sudbury."

Andy wasn't amused. "Oh yeah, I forgot. How romantic." She fought the urge to roll her eyes at him. "C'mon, your best friend and my best friend are getting married. It's a big deal."

Sam on the other hand thought that was exactly the problem, marriage and shared vacations were a big deal. "What's wrong with City Hall?" he deadpanned.

Andy couldn't believe what he was saying. "City Hall? That's your idea of a dream wedding?"

"Why do people have to get married at all?" he asked rhetorically before walking out to Parade. Andy was bothered by the fact she couldn't read his expression, but she had this unnerving feeling he wasn't joking.

It had been a long day and Sam was looking forward to picking up Andy from the hotel and going home.

"I heard you're not coming to my wedding," Jerry said as he walked next to Sam down the hallway.

Sam was shocked. He'd never said that. Well, at least not in those words. "What? Who told you that?"

"Word on the street," his friend replied.

Sam blew out a frustrated breath. He still hadn't gotten used to Andy and Traci sharing everything.

"It's too bad, cause I thought you'd be my best man," Jerry said casually, waiting for Sam's response.

Sam stopped and turned toward his friend, throwing an arm around his shoulder and squeezing. "I thought you'd never ask." He was happy for his friend. He wanted his friend happy and if marriage would bring that to him, he'd be there to support him. But, unfortunately, Jerry's girlfriend's best friend was his girlfriend, and marriage is like a cold. It travels quickly among friends. He was nowhere near ready to have any marriage discussions with Andy.

"Alright, so this is the thing with the best man. He usually comes to the wedding," Jerry said.

Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably. How could his friend's pending wedding cause so many of his own fears to surface? "You couldn't just have it at City Hall, huh?" No one gets ideas about being the next to get married from witnessing a wedding at City Hall, he thought.

"Okay, you know what? Why don't you just tell Andy the truth," Jerry said, knowing an important part of Sam's history that few others knew. The wide-eyed look on Sam's face, however, told him to drop it, so he did...kind of. "It's not such a big deal. So, you're afraid of flying," he said, teasing his friend about another fear he wouldn't openly admit.

"I never said that. I just take hate taking my boots off at the airport."

"Okay," Jerry said as he threw an arm around his friend in brotherly comfort. Sam blew out a breath and shook his head slightly thinking about all the dirt Jerry had on him. It figures, he's the one under pressure when Jerry was the one getting married. "Just talk to her. You know you're going to have to at some point, so do it before my wedding."

As Sam neared the hotel, he saw Andy round the corner and followed her in his truck. Finally getting her attention, she got in and started talking about the case, but he stopped her.

"You want me to take you home?" he asked, putting his arm on the back of Andy's seat.

"I mean, Gail had a tough shift. Maybe I should be with her," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. She wanted to be there for Gail, but she hated the thought of spending the night away from Sam.

"Look, I wanted, I was hoping to talk to you about something back at my place," he said, needing to get the thoughts Jerry put in his head out before he lost his nerve.

"Oh, that doesn't sound ominous." She narrowed her eyes, wondering what he wanted to talk about.

"It's not, really...just finishing our conversation about Jerry and Traci's wedding."

"Oookay."

"He asked me to be his best man," Sam said, pulling back out onto the street.

"That would mean you have to go," she replied.

"Yeah."

The ride to Sam's apartment was awkward. Andy tried talking about the case again, about what Gail said, but she knew Sam wasn't really paying attention. She tapped her thighs nervously and stared out the window, glad when they finally pulled up outside his apartment.

Andy always felt at home at Sam's apartment, but tonight she was uneasy and it wasn't until he waved his arm toward the couch that she walked into the living room.

"You want anything to drink? Beer?" he asked, heading to the kitchen.

"Sam, can you just tell me what's going on. I mean, what do you want? What do you need to tell me?" she called out to him as he disappeared into the adjacent room.

He walked back into the living room and handed her a beer. She fidgeted with the bottle, peeling at the label, as he sat on the couch next to her, angling his body toward her. He took a swig of his own beer trying to wet his throat which had suddenly become dry. "There was a girl..."

"What? When?" She bounced up off the couch. It was her worst nightmare. First Luke, now Sam. She got over Luke easily because in her mind there'd always been Sam, the person she wanted to be with, the person she was meant to be with, but just denied herself. But if Sam cheated, it would break her.

"No, not like that," he said quickly, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back down. "Eight years ago."

Andy waited for Sam to continue, taking a sip of her beer to ignore the brief silence in the room.

"I was ready to marry her. Told her I loved her, thought she loved me. And then she was gone." He took a deep breath thinking back to Carrie. He'd met her through mutual friends and they hit it off right away and he fell in love. They were so different though. She was a school teacher; he was a rookie cop, only on the force a couple of years. Almost immediately she started spending every night with him and they moved in together after only two months.

Looking back on it years later, he wanted to think he was just young and naive. It had always been hard for him to tell a woman he was dating that he loved them, as it wasn't something tossed around a lot when he was growing up. But eight months after their first date he said it, and meant it. Nearly two months later, he got down on one knee and proposed. It took all of his savings to buy the ring he wanted for her, but he thought she was worth it. Turned out she wanted an elaborate wedding - the big church, reception at this fancy hotel, hundreds of friends and family. She spent hours pondering the cake, deciding on one that looked more like a skyscraper than something you'd want to eat. But he went along with it. It was her dream wedding, a once in a lifetime opportunity to profess your love. But as the wedding got closer, something changed. She became distant, but he blamed last minute nerves - from her, from him, he wasn't sure, but nervousness filled their apartment. That was all he kept telling himself, until one day.

"It was two days before the wedding," he said, looking down at the bottle in his hands. "I came home from a double shift and there was a note. She was gone. Found someone else. Never admitted to cheating, but I suspected it afterwards. Put the pieces together."

"Sam, I didn't..."

"It's not something I talk about. Jerry, Oliver, they're the only ones that know." He held his beer to his lips, downing half the bottle, hoping it would wash away his feelings, before putting it down. "Marriage, it's just…it's not high on my list. My parents didn't work out, neither did yours. Jerry's first marriage, Frank's...look at Oliver and Zoe. If anyone had a perfect marriage it was them, but if they can't make it work, who can?"

Andy felt bad for what Sam went through. She knew better than most what it was like to go through something like that. Even if he had only suspected cheating, the woman leaving the way she did made it nearly as bad. It made Andy realize why Sam reacted the way he did when Luke cheated on her. He knew what it felt like to have your heart broken. But Traci and Jerry were the ones getting married, not her and Sam. All they had to do was support their best friends. She didn't understand his reaction to her being excited about the wedding and wanting to take a vacation.

She shot him a confused look. "It's our friends getting married, not us, Sam. You're the one who said we should take this slow, that there was no rush. I'm not rushing anything."

"You were engaged, Andy. How can I ignore the fact you're obviously ready for marriage. And vacationing together, it's a big step. It's a lot of..." He wasn't sure what word he was looking for, but decided on the first that came to mind. "...commitment."

"What does that mean?" she questioned, frustration evident in her voice. "You don't want us to be serious? Then what are we? Are we just friends sleeping with each other? Is that why you run out of bed before I've barely gotten 'good morning' out? If that's the case, maybe you should look into that escort service because I want more." She was on the verge of tears, but the words rushed out of her mouth. How could Sam act like this? He was the one pissed at her for leaving for three months and not moving forward during their suspension, yet here he was not wanting to move forward at all.

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm just trying to make you understand..." How could he make her understand when he wasn't even sure what it was he was trying to tell her?

"What do you want me to understand?"

"Why I couldn't say I love you," he blurted out. "Why serious commitment...terrifies me." He knew Andy hadn't talked about marriage, but telling him she loved him was a huge step. And then the thought of Jerry and Traci's wedding had her thinking of vacationing together. He had no control over it, but his mind immediately questioned what would be next? Moving in together? Marriage? Talk of kids? He was pretty sure he was having heart palpitations just thinking about it.

"Look, I'm not gonna ask you to propose if you leave an extra set of clothes at my place for when you stay over, or if we spend a week relaxing on the beach," she said softly, beginning to understand where he was coming from. "Look, commitment is terrifying. I've had trust issues since my mom left, and Luke, well, he didn't help it any. But I need to know that you're in this for the long haul, that you want this to work."

"I do, Andy, god do I want it to."

"Then don't push me away. Don't put thoughts in my head. Don't assume that my best friend getting married makes me want to run down the aisle. All I want is to take a vacation with my boyfriend and a wedding in the Dominican Republic seemed like a perfect opportunity," she said, placing her beer on the coffee table and scooting closer to Sam so she could put a comforting hand on his leg.

"Give me time to wrap my head around all this, okay?" He covered her hand with his. He hoped with time he'd become less scared about all of this because he wanted a life with Andy.

"Just remember, we're all fearful of something. But I can be here to hold your hand, just like I know you're there to hold mine, to get through anything that terrifies us."

He wasn't sure when she turned into the calm, collected one and he became the over thinker, but it happened somewhere along the way. She meant too much to him for him to screw this up and that's what he constantly feared.

He took a deep breath and, for the first time since the conversation started, smiled. But then he quickly remembered his other fear. It didn't compare to what they had just talked about, but when he did have the courage to discuss the wedding and vacation plans, she was going to have to know about it.

"There is one problem I have with Jerry and Nash getting married so far from here," he said, embarrassed.

Andy furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"I'm afraid to fly." There, he said it. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he waited for her to laugh. He eventually turned his head toward her and opened his eyes when she remained silent.

"Seriously?" she asked. He nodded in response.

"So, we get you drunk or some over the counter drug to knock you out," she said, as if the solution were obvious.

"Andy, you don't get it. I'm terrified of flying."

"What did I just tell you? I'll be here to help you through it. I love you too much for you to miss your best friend's wedding." She said it matter of factly, like it was the simplest thing in the world. And for the moment at least, Sam decided he was going to believe that.

He lifted her hand up to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles. "It's been a long day. Wanna go to bed?"

She nodded and stood up, with Sam mirroring her actions. "You looked beautiful tonight. I don't know if I told you that," he said, his gaze traveling up and down her body.

"You did. Thank you," Andy replied sheepishly. "You looked pretty good yourself. I'll take the jeans and t-shirt look over the uniform any day."

Suddenly, Sam wasn't so tired anymore and he smiled as Andy's hand fit perfectly in his as she followed him to the bedroom.

The End