Just a short drabble-type ficlet about Oliver and how he views his fellow officers. Enjoy!
Oliver Shaw was like a second father figure to the five former rookies.
During the course of the past year, he had taught them one very important thing to remember when doing this job. If it was the only lesson they ever learned, he would be satisfied.
He taught then that it's okay to get emotional.
While Sam was usually cool and collected both on and off the job, Oliver had a tendency to bring his family man views to the interrogation table. He was affected by cases surrounding missing children. He knew when to be cold towards a suspect and when to be friendly and open. It was an interesting game to watch at the best of times. Conversely, he had broken the hearts of observers on numerous occasions.
Then again, Oliver's strong suit wasn't in the interrogation room - it was out on the streets. He knew Toronto like the back of his hand and all the places criminals hung out were scattered about like freckles. The best diners and coffee shops knew him as if he were an old friend. He tended to joke around with the drunks and madmen they picked up and brought back to barn. This usually calmed the culprits down and made them less likely to harm any officers involved.
He also cared about the rookies in his Papa-Bear manner. While he would never admit even to himself that he enjoyed Epstein's carefree personality, the five newbies were like the younger siblings he never wanted. Each one had quirks that could get on his nerves, but they also had their specialties on the beat that supported the system as a whole. Everyone benefited.
His sarcastic, goofy nature dovetailed well with the other TO's and the three made a very knowledgeable, albeit snarky, team. They worked well together and were fantastic mentors to five former rookies.
So yeah, Oliver Shaw thought of the younger officers as family. But he also thought of Sam and Noelle as family. There lies the problem.
Andy had spent her very first day in 15 Division paired with Oliver. In just one day, she managed to bust an undercover cop, find the killer of a case, find the killer's gun, talk the killer down from killing her, and somehow salvaged the entire call. Oliver had been fairly impressed with her police-work that day, even if he didn't appear to be at first. She would be a brilliant cop one day.
However, it didn't take very long for Oliver to realize that there was something between Andy and her new training officer, Sam Swarek. Maybe she didn't see it herself but he knew Sam knew it. That's why Shaw had pushed him away from brown-eyed doe in the beginning. As time progressed, Sam didn't move on from her like he usually could.
Oliver slowly started to worry about his friend and colleague, knowing that the man had never loved someone the way he loved Andy McNally. And she was completely oblivious.
So of course he tried to poke Sam off the plank he was stuck on and try to make him take the plunge. Sam Swarek is one of the most stubborn men he knows and played dumb whenever Oliver attempted to get him to talk. Didn't he know by now that Oliver wouldn't let up easily?
Shaw tried practically everything he could think of. He offered McNally drinks at the Penny after shift when he knew Sam would be there also. He brought her name up in their conversations to get a reaction out of him. He even told him to talk to her the day she was stuck in the unstable building. None of it was enough and it was started to really annoy Oliver.
Why couldn't the man just step up the plate and take a chance? It wasn't that hard to do. The worst that could happen would be for her to reject him but Oliver knew that would never happen. The not-so-subtle glances between the two had been noticed more than once by nearly everyone in the division. Whatever Sam felt for Andy, it was reciprocated in some way or another by the latter. The timing hadn't been right before but now… it had never been more perfect. She wasn't his rookie anymore. Weeks had gone by since her romance with Callaghan had fizzled under mysterious circumstances. He hadn't been a serious relationship since before he even met her. If Peck and Diaz could get away with an office affair, why couldn't McNally and Swarek?
Maybe Oliver's reasoning behind forcing himself at Sam's house hadn't been entirely pure-hearted. Maybe he planned to get the man so wasted he could barely perform basic motions and make him open up about his former rookie. He was planning on making Sam admit to himself and Shaw that he felt something for the doe-eyed brunette and get him to finally make a move.
Swarek would probably kill his best friend when this was all said and done. But maybe, just maybe, he'll let what was meant to be happen.
Then Sam just might realize why married people are so happy.