This story is a continuation of the scene in 3x05 with Sam & Andy at his truck. It started out from my frustration of not seeing a tender/affectionate hug or kiss during that scene, but morphed into a bigger story. Hope you enjoy! And please don't forget to leave a review. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rookie Blue.

Don't Walk Away

Sam and Andy walked slowly out of the station, the lack of sleep and exhausting day catching up with them. Andy still carried the brown bag of apple flips, unsure why she saved them the entire day, but wanting to share them with Sam.

When they reached his truck, Andy stopped Sam from getting in. "Hey, can we, can we just sit…for a minute? I, I just need to sit."

"Okay." A bit confused, but happy to oblige, he opened the back of his truck and they tossed their bags in before sitting on the edge.

Andy held out the brown bag to Sam and he reached in to grab one of the apple flips. "You read my mind," he said smiling.

She took the other apple flip out and licked her fingers, thinking about all the things that happened today. From almost forgetting her father's birthday to pointing a gun at an 11-year-old's head to coming face to face with her mother again. "You know that my full name is Andrea?" she asked before finally taking a bite of her apple flip.

Sam nodded his head. He'd wondered if Andy was only a nickname. Figured it probably was, but 'Andy' was listed on all her official police documents. "Really? That makes sense." He looked over at her to see where she was going with this, if this was her way of opening up about her mother.

"Yeah, I was named after my mother's best friend, whoever that is."

"Well, I'm just gonna stick with McNally, if that's okay with you?"

She started to smile, but thoughts about her mother flooded her head and prevented the smile from reaching her face. "Promise me something…" She stared at the apple flip in her hand like it held all he answers she was looking for.

"Go." Without hesitation, he'd promise her the world – and find a way to get it for her – if that's what she asked.

Andy fought not to cry as she tried to form words to express what she wanted to say. She took a deep breath before continuing. "If things go south with us…and I don't want them to and I hope they don't. But if they do, then don't, don't just walk out the door, okay? Let's promise to work at it."

Sam saw the worry, the sadness, the fear in her eyes. "You won't get rid of me without a fight."

Andy smiled. "Alright."

Despite the smile, he knew the day had been rough on her. Seeing her mom after 15 years, being forced to work with her. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Nope." She laid down in the bed of the truck and took another bite of her apple flip.

Sam briefly pondered why she didn't want to open up to him, to let him know how she was really feeling about seeing her mom again. Glancing back at her, the sadness, the hurt, the anger was back in her eyes, replacing the smile of moments earlier. He wanted to be her comfort, but he knew better than to push.

"These apple flips are good," he said, taking another large bite.

"I had to shoo Oliver away from them half a dozen times today," Andy said, laughing.

Sam chuckled and continued eating the pastry as Andy laid next to him. She sat up, putting half of her apple flip back in the brown bag. "My first birthday after my mom left...we had these," she said, looking down at the bag. Sam looked at her and urged her to continue.

"My mom always bought the cake. She knew I liked chocolate cake with real sugar frosting, none of that whipped fluffy fake stuff," she said, scrunching up her nose. "I blew out my candles and took a bite of the cake. It was white with that whipped frosting. I burst into tears. Hours later we ended up at the service station eating apple flips." She looked down at the ground, remembering again how tough it had been on her and her dad when her mom left.

Sam wrapped an arm around Andy's shoulders and pulled her against him. "So, apple flips are a thing for you two?"

Andy laughed. "No. He felt horrible that I had to eat them on my birthday that year and left himself reminders all over the place of the type of cake I liked. The following year, the cake was twice as big with extra frosting." She smiled at the memory. "I forgot about the apple flips until we were leaving my dad's this morning."

Sam finished his apple flip and hopped down from the truck. "Ready to go?" he asked, holding out his hand. Andy placed her hand in his as she jumped down. Sam hadn't moved, so she stood flush against him now. "Hey," he said, so she'd look up at him. When she did, he leaned down until his lips met hers. She quickly responded and deepened the kiss as her hands found her way to the back of his neck. When he pulled back, he remained close enough to nuzzle her nose with his. "Let's go get dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"Well, half an apple flip is not dinner."

Andy rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, we'll pick up dinner at that Chinese restaurant near your place," Sam suggested.

"Only if you get extra fortune cookies." She grinned hopefully at him.

"Deal."

Hours later, dinner finished and empty takeout containers in the trash, Andy sat on her couch, knees pulled up to her chest and arms circling her legs. She sat there staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Her eyes were glazed over thinking back to that morning when she turned around and there stood her mother. It didn't matter how long it had been since she'd last laid eyes on her, she immediately recognized her. She looked the same as the last night Andy saw her, although her hair was longer now and age had crept through her face.

"Andy darling, I can't live here anymore with your father. But you can come with me." Claire sat on her daughter's bed trying to explain that she wanted to leave her husband of more than a decade.

An innocent 12-year-old Andy couldn't comprehend what her mother was really telling her. "No, I don't want to leave daddy or my friends."

"Please honey, we'll have so much fun. It'll be an adventure. Our adventure."

"I want daddy to come with us."

"He can't. It'll be just you and me on this trip." Claire hadn't planned this, but she quickly resulted in begging.

But she couldn't work up the nerve to tell her daughter the details of what was going on. That she had fallen in love with another man, a professor she met months earlier. How could she explain why she wanted to leave and that it would be permanent? Instead of trying, she let Andy think what she wanted, that she hadn't already made the decision to leave. That things would be different tomorrow. That she would be happy again here. She wouldn't pull her daughter away from the only father she knew, pull her into a completely new life. She had to leave, felt she didn't have a choice. She wanted her daughter with her, but realized that wasn't going to happen. She pulled the covers of the bedspread up over her daughter and kissed her forehead.

"Goodnight mom, see you in the morning."

"Goodnight Andrea." As Claire shut off the light and backed toward the door, she knew this would be the last time she tucked her daughter in, the last time she'd watch her drift off to sleep. Once she knew Andy and Tommy were fast asleep, she slipped out the back door and began her new life.

The next morning, Andy woke up to a quiet house. She tilted her head trying to listen for voices. She was used to her parents being up before her on the weekend. She decided to get up and see what was for breakfast, but what she didn't expect to find was her father sitting in the living crying.

"Daddy, what's wrong? Where's mommy?" she asked concerned.

Tommy quickly folded the note he was reading and put it in his pocket, hoping Andy hadn't seen it. He didn't know how he was going to break the news to her. "Hey kiddo, what do you say about pancakes for breakfast?" He avoided her questions and quickly wiped the tears off his cheek with the back of his hand.

"Why are you crying daddy?"

"It's nothing kiddo, just had something in my eye. So how about breakfast?"

Andy shrugged her shoulders as children do when they're preoccupied thinking about something else and not the question being asked. "Where's mommy?" she asked as she followed Tommy to the kitchen.

He took a deep breath as he reached into a cupboard for chocolate chips to throw in the pancakes. "She had to go out early this morning, sweetie." He tried to keep it simple. He didn't want to lie, but he needed time to prepare before he sat her down and told her Claire had left them. Left the city to start a new family, a new life that didn't include either of them.

"Can we have a daddy and me special day then?" she asked excitedly.

"Absolutely kiddo, whatever you want to do all day." Tommy began cooking the pancakes as Andy sat at the table rattling off the list of things she wanted to do.

It wasn't until after dinner that night that Tommy sat her down on the couch next to him and told her that her mother wasn't coming back. She sobbed in his arms until it exhausted her to the point of sleep.

Andy hadn't moved a muscle as she thought back to the last time she saw her mother. She was the only one who insisted on calling her Andrea more often than Andy. And once she left, Andy was partly convinced her dad never called her Andrea because he was afraid it would remind her of her mother.

Andy couldn't get over how nonchalant her mother had been about being gone for 15 years. Mother, what did that even mean? Could she even consider Claire her mother? Maybe it would be easier to call her 'Claire' if she ever saw her again. She had promised to meet her for coffee, but then again, her mother had promised to always be there and then walked out one night. Maybe she'd skip out on coffee, forget Claire McNally ever walked back into her life and move forward with her own. Move forward with the people who truly were her family. What was it Claire had told her – "Andy, if you don't want to know me, you don't have to know me. You're an adult. You get to make that choice." And that's what it was, her choice. And she had to decide, whether to face her mother or run in the other direction.

Sam found her still curled up on the couch when he walked out of the bathroom. He could always read the emotions on her face - her eyes always told a story - but tonight even a stranger would be able to see the sadness radiating off her. He sat down close to her on the couch, but didn't touch her. He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs. "Wanna talk?"

"Nope." It was the same answer she gave while they sat on his truck a couple hours earlier. In her mind, there was nothing to talk about. Andy swallowed thickly as she felt her emotions bubble to the surface. She was not going to cry, not shed another tear for a mother she never knew.

"Andy."

"I'm fine. Really. See?" She forced a smile, but Sam knew it took all of her energy to curve her lips and keep her emotions in check.

"It's okay if you're not."

Andy blinked away tears. "She said she called every Sunday."

"Do you believe her?"

She shrugged her shoulders. She wanted to believe her dad, that her mother had only called occasionally and he was only trying to protect her. But she wondered when her mom made the first call. Was it the first Sunday after she left? Was it months later? How could she even think of believing this woman who had walked out on her, when her dad had always been there?

She pressed her lips together trying not to cry. Sam put his arm around her and pulled her toward him. She fell into his chest still curled up with knees close to her body and arms around her legs. She rested her head on his shoulder as she felt his hand brush up and down her side.

Sam didn't know what to say, what the right thing to say would be. He hadn't had a picture perfect childhood himself, so who was he to give advice. So, he just sat, holding her in his arms and hoping the wall she had built up all day would crumble.

"She never sent a card; not a birthday card, not a Christmas card. Why the hell should I feel guilty because I don't want to know her now?" She hated the looks Claire had thrown her way all day. These looks like she should feel guilty for not wanting to talk to the woman who walked away from her when she was only a little girl. She's the one who grew up without a mother. She's the one who didn't have a choice in the matter. She's the one with issues trusting people because of her mother.

If Sam hadn't looked down at Andy, he wouldn't have known she was crying. Silent tears fell slowly down her face. He hugged her tighter. She released the grip her arms had around her legs and a hand grabbed onto one of Sam's arms that was around her. Her hand was like a vise, as if she thought Sam might disappear if she let go.

Sam kissed the top of her head and closed his eyes. He wished he could've saved Andy from this heartbreak; go back in time and force her mother to stay or make Andy respond to another call so she didn't have to come face to face with her mother today. What he wanted didn't matter though. There was nothing that could change what happened. And he knew from experience, no matter how hard you wished for something, you couldn't change what had already happened.

He sat on the floor in front of the TV with his sister. She played with her Barbie dolls as he raced his Matchbox cars around the old wooden coffee table that had seen better days.

"Don't be stupid Sammy," Sarah said, giving her brother one of her typical 'you're-an-idiot' looks.

"Don't call me stupid. I don't wanna see him there." All day he'd been on the receiving end of comments from Sarah trying to convince him to go see their father. The father that was at Maplehurst Penitentiary. He woke up every day wishing his father wasn't in prison. A father he'd never known him. Sam saw photos of his father holding him as a baby, but his father was thrown in jail before his memories could remember meeting the man.

"Sammy, dad wants to see you. He was sad you weren't there for his birthday last week."

"He wasn't at my birthday." He pushed the car in his hand so it fell off the table and crashed to the floor.

"That's not fair. You know he can't."

Sam pushed all his cars off the table and stomped off to his room. He flung himself on his bed, wishing he could have a life like his friend Bobby's. He had a mom and a dad, and two brothers. No annoying sisters. No father in jail. A normal life.

But his life wasn't normal, so, the next weekend, Sam walked into the visitor's room at Maplehurst Penitentiary. After fighting this for months, he insisted on going in alone. Only a prison officer escorted him into the room. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it without an audience. He looked across the room and there he was, the man he'd seen only in photographs. "Sammy!" his father shouted and opened his arms wide. Sam slowly walked over, hesitantly hugging the man he had never met.

"I'm glad you came, buddy."

He was nervous and uncomfortable as he sat down on a metal bench attached to a table. His dad rattled off questions - How was school? What was his favorite sport? How was Sarah? - as Sam's eyes darted around the cold, sterile room. He looked at his father with wide eyes and didn't know which question to answer first.

Seeing how uncomfortable Sam was, his father looked over at the prison officer and nodded. He'd made a request that morning and the prison officers took pity on Swarek's family, so they obliged. The officer soon walked over and placed a pint of ice cream and two plastic spoons on the table.

"What's your favorite flavor?" his father asked as he took the lid off.

Sam bit his bottom lip. He liked any flavor, but what if he picked one his dad hated? What if it made him mad? He tried to read the word on the container, but it was foreign to him. Sam's lips started to quiver from nervousness and his father wasn't sure if his son was afraid of him or the setting they were in, but it saddened him that he was scared.

"How about pistachio? Ever had it?"

Sam shook his head as his father handed him a spoon and pushed the pint of green ice cream closer to him.

Sam poked at it with his spoon. He'd never had pistachio ice cream before. It was green, but not like mint chocolate chip ice cream. He spooned a tiny bit in his mouth to taste it.

"Good, huh?" his father asked, his smile showing off his dimples.

Sam looked up at him and smiled. "Mmmhmm." After a few more mouthfuls of ice cream, some of the nervousness started to wear off and he finally answered a question his father asked earlier. "School's okay. Some icky girl tried to kiss me last week!" He scrunched his nose and shook his head like it was the most disgusting thing in the world.

"It's the dimples, buddy." His father lightly poked his cheek. "We're cursed with 'em. Your momma loved mine."

They talked for another half hour, until the prison officer told them visiting time was up. Sam left the prison still wishing his father wasn't locked up, but he wasn't so nervous anymore about seeing him.

At six years old he had to make a choice, either get to know his father or not. He was young, but it had already been a hard life and he'd been forced to grow up quicker than other children his age. In the end, it was an easy decision for him. He had to know who his father was, why he made the decisions he did. Sam realized Andy was going to be faced with a similar choice about her mother. Sam shook the thoughts from his head knowing he probably had the same faraway gaze Andy had earlier.

He could tell Andy's breathing had evened out, which meant she'd probably stopped crying. Taking a chance, he pulled away from her slightly, so she was forced to look up at him. "Wanna get some sleep?"

Andy nodded, not realizing until then how exhausting seeing her mother had been on her, and padded to the bedroom while Sam shut off the lights. Already in her pajamas, she laid down in bed and rolled on her side facing the middle. Once Sam stripped down to his boxes, he joined her, rolling on his side so he was facing her.

"I meant what I said before," Andy whispered. "Don't ever just walk out or let me walk away, if things get tough. I wanna fight for this, for us."

"Me too, Andy." Sam found her hand under the pillows and gently held it in his own. "I'm not letting you go without a fight."

Andy smiled and leaned over to kiss him. When she rested her head on the pillow again, she closed her eyes, quickly drifting off to sleep with her hand still in his.

The End