Author's Note: I'd actually intended for this just to be a one-shot from Nick's POV, but then decided that I should write from Andy's perspective as well. I might attempt to do a third chapter from Sam's later, but no promises. Enjoy!

I worked so hard for this love of mine,
Still I got nothing to show for it
~ Sara Bareilles, Love on the Rocks ~

CHAPTER TWO

"You're my story, Sam. You."

In that moment, those were the words she needed to say. Tears were clouding her vision, and she was clutching Sam's hand as if it were a lifeline. Or was it the other way around?

She wasn't sure why the words tumbled out as they did; she only knew that she needed to say something, anything, to break the silence between them. She didn't want to sit the ambulance in silence, so she filled up the space the only way she knew how: with words.

The story she told wasn't even true. Or at least, she didn't think it was. In that moment, she had said the first thing that came to her mind and she didn't stop to pause and think if it was a memory she was pulling from her subconscious or if it was just fiction that she was making up as she went along.

She didn't think Sam cared either way.

As they unloaded him off the ambulance and onto the gurney, she felt his hand go limp in hers. An answering shudder snaked up her spine, and she barely made into the waiting area before she had crumped in tears.

She thought of Sam, and the time they'd lost together. The time they had together, marred by uncertainty, insecurity, selfishness and just plain old stupidity. The time they might never have together anymore, because she wasn't sure if he would even pull through this. He'd lost a lot of blood, most of which now lingered on her uniform and stained her hands.

Then Nick had showed up, and without a word, had gathered her in his arms, offering comfort in a tangible way that she never really felt with either Sam or Luke. He ignored her bloodstained hands, uncaring that they belonged to that of another man, and held them tightly between his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, not fully cognizant of what she was actually apologizing for. She just knew that in that moment, something had changed between Nick and her, and she wasn't sure if she liked it at all.

He said nothing, just meeting her gaze steadily, knowingly, and she knew, right there and then, that Nick Collins was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to her. There had been no judgment in his gaze, no condemnation, no anger. Just simple acceptance and an understanding deeper than anything she had ever experienced with another person.

But then he had said, "Go", the word so soft, yet so full of resolution that for a while, she hesitated. To the others sitting around them, it had been nothing more than an encouragement for her to see Sam, but she knew, beyond a doubt, what Nick was really trying to tell her.

Go, he said, and be with the man you love. The man who isn't me.

She hadn't missed the subtle shove he gave her, nor the slight tremble in his fingers as he grasped her elbow. She resisted; Nick was everything that Sam was not and she was not prepared to let him go, not even now.

Yet still Nick pushed. It seemed as if he knew that she need just a little more impetus and he was giving her that.

She didn't want it.

She wanted Nick to hold her back, to stop her from leaving, from going to Sam. She wanted him to be jealous, be angry; to yell at her and ask her why the hell she was still hung up on a man who broke her heart multiple times and who, despite his onetime declaration of love, seemed to have no trouble moving on from her.

She wanted to stop herself from moving forward, towards Sam. He was all kinds of bad news, yet he still drew her like a moth to a flame. She thought he would have been a safe harbor after the engagement disaster that was Luke, but apparently, you didn't need to cheat on a fiancée to cause greater damage.

She heard Nick whisper "It's fine," but it was delivered in a flat tone and she knew he didn't mean it. He couldn't have meant it, she told herself. Because how could it be fine that she was essentially abandoning him on the one night that he might need her the most, all for another man?

It's not fine, she wanted to tell him. It's not fine because Sam has been shot, he's bleeding all over the floor, and she wants to go to him, to make sure he's okay, but Nick needs her. It's not fine because she cannot decide who needs her more in that instant.

Nor can she decide who she wants to comfort more. Sam is fighting for his life, but Nick has just killed a man. It might have been self-defense, the proper response, but she knows what death and killing have done to Nick and what the night has in store for him.

If she stays with Nick, Sam could possibly die without her saying goodbye, and in spite of everything that has happened between them, Sam was her training, a man she respected and admired, even if her judgment of his personality was occasionally clouded by the memories of them getting naked together.

But if she goes with Sam, she knows that everything she has ever wanted, ever needed or hoped or dreamed for, everything that she has found with Nick, will be washed away. Because she knows, even if Nick will deny otherwise, that if she makes one move back to Sam, whatever she had with Nick will crack under the strain and she will never be able to mend it.

But in that moment, her heart is being torn into pieces by a man bleeding out on a hospital gurney and another with acceptance and understanding in his eyes. And she knew, in that moment, she had quite possibly lost both of them, in very different ways.

Andy McNally was right back at the beginning once again.