Author's Note: This is the pillow talk on the same night. It's mostly revealing a bit of my completely made up back story for Sam. Apparently, all it takes is second-hand pot, frosting boobs, and some mind blowing sex to get him to open up a little. ;) Brace yourself for a switch in tone as this moves on to more serious topics.

Chapter 2: Playdough Past

"Sam…" Andy started before trailing off.

"Hmm," Sam mumbled absently as he continued to trace random patterns over her back.

Andy shifted her head on his chest enough so she could get at least a partial view of his face before continuing, "When you said you were a good cook, I had no idea you meant pastry chef level skills. Where did you learn to do that?"

"I told you my mom used to have a catering business," Sam replied absently.

"And what, you picked that up from watching her?" Andy asked, puzzled.

"Not exactly. But…" he glanced down at her," it's kind of a long story."

"I've got time," Andy tried to keep her tone casual, but she really hoped he'd say more. To her surprise, he nodded, pausing to look up at the ceiling before continuing.

"Uh, well, her catering business was actually something she did before I was old enough to remember. Apparently, it was pretty successful. She had plenty of prominent clients and a very good reputation among them. But then when my Dad went to prison for money laundering for the Irish mob, the government seized everything. They took the house, savings, everything of value. For a master financial criminal, my Dad didn't manage to have anything hidden away. No foreign bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, no secret criminal safety funds whatsoever. We were basically penniless other than a few thousand dollars for my mom to start over and the clothes on our backs. It all happened before I was old enough to even have a memory of that house or the suburb where we'd lived. I only knew the run down working class neighborhood where we ended up.

All Mom's clients dropped her. They just didn't want the taint of money laundering around them, I guess. The one most loyal client who held out the longest before dropping her at least got her in as a supplier to several high end bakeries. One of Mom's specialties was gourmet cupcakes-she was one of the first to make them trendy again I guess-and people were still happy to be able to buy those as long as they didn't have to have direct contact with her. Anyway, between that and running a small daycare in our cheap little apartment, she was able to support us. Barely.

But my mom…she had M.S. It wasn't too bad until the stress of dealing with seeing Sarah fall apart after her attack just finally wore her down. She started getting attacks much more often and lost the fine motor control of her hands she needed to continue selling to enough bakeries to keep us afloat. I found out later she'd even stopped seeing a doctor when we moved and kept her condition secret for fear that Child Protective Services would take us away from her if anyone knew. I'd always thought she told us not to talk about it to anyone out of pride. She always hated any kind of pity or being treated like a 'prison widow.'

My mother, to her dying day, clung to the belief that my father was innocent and one day there would be enough proof to push through a successful appeal and clear his name. She had this way of projecting such certainty that it made people want to believe it was more than just wishful thinking. She had me convinced to until I was about 10. I even had big plans to find some way to get through college and law school and prove it myself," he paused with a self-deprecating twitch of his lips.

"What changed your mind and made you believe she was wrong?" Andy asked softly.

"I let my father in on my big plan during one of our visits. He told me himself that she was just blinded by love and loyalty and refused to accept that he could do it. He made me promise not to waste my life of some fantasy quest to free him. Gave me a copy of Moby Dick and told me when I was old enough to understand the book I'd know not to try to be a hero chasing white whales or slaying dragons. Told me to keep my feet on the ground, become a cop, and chase down run-of-the-mill violent guys that prey on girls like Sarah and the criminal rings that generate the mountains of cash that tempt weak men like himself. Told me not to tell anyone about that conversation. To just be thankful I had a mother with that much faith and love and let her keep believing what she needed to. But he said that as I grew up I needed to learn to question things and know that people aren't always what they seem. To try to be like her without being blind to the fact that most people are more like him. Sometimes there's still a part of me that wishes the world was the way she saw it, that he wasn't guilty and I could've become the crusading Atticus Finch who proved it," he admitted quietly.

Andy paused the hand she'd been running over his chest and reached over to give his free hand an encouraging squeeze. He met her eyes for the first time since he'd begun, "You remind me of the best parts of her sometimes. You have the same ability to light up a room no matter how many times life has knocked you down. But you also make me afraid that you'll be prone to the same sort of blind spots. Except when some con plays you, you're going to lose your life not just be sentenced to a life you don't deserve."

He held her eyes while time seemed to stand still. Andy lost the ability to breathe, let alone even attempt to form coherent words for any kind of response. She knew she should say something, but she was utterly incapable of landing on anything, or even easing the giant lump that had a vice grip on her throat. This thing quivering between them had so many nuances and layers, she couldn't even begin to make sense of them. But the scope of the field of emotional landmines they were holding hands trying to navigate together was finally beginning to dawn on her.

Sam broke the moment, returning his gaze to the point on the ceiling he'd been fixated on as he . "Anyway, by the time Mom's health starting really slipping Sarah was in no shape to help. It was a couple years after her attack, but she was still barely functioning back then. So I decided I would learn how to take up the slack in the bakery business. My first attempt was such a disaster, my mom wouldn't even trust me with another expensive batch of ingredients to try again."

Sam paused to chuckle, "So I swiped some Playdough from the daycare center attached to my middle school and practiced with that, believe it or not. I had to stay up half the night for a week straight trying over and over again before I got coordinated enough to copy old publicity photos of my mom's most popular offerings. But I finally got the hang of it well enough to show her and convince her to let me try again with the real thing. After that, I secretly took over for her, doing everything after school. We told people that it was Sarah who helped out and found it therapeutic so I wouldn't get hassled by the local street kids who back in those days would have beaten the crap out of any kid in the neighborhood doing "girl stuff" like that. We managed to stay together and keep going for quite a while like that. But…"

Andy squeezed his hand again, encouraging him to continue. That lump in her throat somehow doubling in size at the image of Sam as a kid sitting in his room doggedly using Playdough to try to learn some grown-up skill of his mother's that probably seemed even more foreign to him her Dad's tinkering with his car had seemed to her around that age.

"But after two years, I started slipping at school enough that the teachers started noticing. I used about every excuse in the book and managed to keep them from digging deeper for about six more months. But eventually they got wise to me and their suspicions got strong enough to call Child Protective Services to take a look at my home situation. That was the beginning of the end. It didn't take them too many visits to see through the front we were putting on. They caught onto mom's health condition and put things together from there. Mom was sent to a care facility and Sarah and I went into foster care."

"How old were you then?" she asked softly, still reeling from learning how much had been thrown at him at such an early age.

"I was 13, Sarah was 15. So at least we were together for the first three years, and our foster parents were actually pretty great. But we weren't all together. And the hardest part for me was that both Sarah and my mom were actually better off in some ways. Without all the stress of trying so hard to hang on and get better, for me, they finally actually did start getting healthier, physically and mentally. Forcing things didn't work, and the guilt of relying on a little boy and watching me try so hard not to let them see how disappointed I always was that I wasn't' making things better for them…it just ate them alive. I was so angry about failing after they split us up as a family, that I finally just let everything go. And I found out a little space and relief from all that misguided effort to keep up the veneer of normality is just what they needed to start flourishing again.

Mom went into remission for a while, and Sarah started coming out of her shell a little. But me…I was running on anger at the world. Seeing things work out the way they did messed with my head. If this new local priest, Father Mike, hadn't gotten a hold of me and got me involved with boxing, I would have turned into a complete delinquent and ended up in jail, just like my old man," Sam couldn't help the bitterness from creeping in as he made that final admission.

Sam finally looked at her and added, "That's how I first met Frank. We were boxing rivals. Our matches were the biggest draw in our two neighborhoods. You would think that sort of community event would churn up racial tension. But Father Mike…there was just something about him, and he managed to make it a way everyone came together instead. He made sure we were friends first, and even though we fought like hell and both always really wanted to win, somehow that friendship didn't waver. And so the crowds made it a friendly contest too instead of a reason to break into a huge brawl. I still don't know how he managed it exactly because athletic contests around there don't usually work that way. He just had this big personality no one could resist," Sam said, shaking his head, the ghost of a smile lightening the mood a bit.

"Anyway, that is the story of how it is that I am both the badass who won Fight Night for the 15th three years in a row and someone who still remembers how to go all Martha Stewart with cupcakes," Sam rolled his eyes. "And that's also why I was a little weirded out to be having sexy visions of cupcakes mixed up with you. Because normally I feel like if I never see a Goddamned cupcake again in my life it will be too soon.," he grinned around the gruff tone and gave her a playful hug.

Andy laughed, "I'll bet. That must be why you didn't let on while I fumbled around with my amateur efforts," she teased with a grin, before turning serious again.

"Sam," she whispered, moving her hand up to stroke his cheek. "Thank you. For telling me," she clarified at his questioning look. After a lingering kiss, she added, "I want you to know that I won't ever be better without you."

Sam tried to hide it by closing his eyes before kissing her and rolling her over to go for round two. But for an instant, Andy had seen it in his eyes. She had seen that something in him had shifted and a glimmer of the connection that had been missing between them since she left for Temagami was back. And finally, finally, she felt as if a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding for weeks now relaxed into a sigh. She finally felt like maybe they were going to be OK.

She was starting to realize he had some surprising insecurities he had long practice hiding that were very different than her own. She also finally had some basis to at least start to understand why his instinct was always to step back and give others breathing space instead of at least trying to push through problems. She was beginning to form a clearer idea why he was so hurt when she left during their suspension, but she wondered now whether she really had the faintest clue why he agreed to easily to forgive her and try starting over.

AN: I don't know if I can ever picture Sam spilling his guts this much in one sitting under any circumstances, but I couldn't help wondering how things might have played out if Andy knew at least a little more about what makes him tick before the whole Jerry thing knocked him for a loop. Not sure when I'll get the next chapter out, but I'll give this much of a teaser: Sam's childhood was a lot more complicated that even he knows. Lots of dark and twisty reveals to come. Eventually.

Also, I wanted to thank the few readers brave enough to leave a review of the first slightly kinky chapter. You rock! Maybe a few more will wade in to comment on all the angst now that this has taken a more serious turn. We'll see.