They were stuck with each other.
Having both been assigned to pick up a prisoner from Sudbury and transport him back to the Metro Toronto area, Andy and Sam headed down the Gardiner Expressway toward the exit to the 401. Radio chatter was all that filled the cruiser, as both of them were struggling to find something to start a conversation that wasn't loaded with tension.
By the time they were driving up the 400 through Barrie, deeper and deeper into OPP territory, Andy decided enough was enough. She had to say something; otherwise it was going to be a long 4½ hours to the Sudbury Jail.
Andy tested the waters. "How weird is it to be driving in the cruiser, knowing that we have no jurisdiction?" she asked Sam.
"If anything were to happen, all we could do would be to offer assistance. Whether or not it would be accepted…" Sam replied distractedly, settling back into silence.
That was all she was going to get out of him? Drastic times called for drastic measures. Knowing that hours of silence loomed ahead of them, Andy took the plunge.
"You know, I hate the way things are between us, Sam," she offered quietly.
"Yeah, well, we all make our choices, McNally," even if he thought the choices she was making were obviously wrong.
"I want you to know, that night…the night of the blackout, I didn't go to your place with the intention of sleeping with you." Andy continued, choosing her words carefully.
Like she had to clarify what "that night" was! Dear God, don't make him have to rehash it all. "We are not having this conversation, McNally." Sam already knew that she regretted that night and wished that he could do the same. Even with all of the tension in their relationship right now, he couldn't bring himself to regret those few minutes together.
Andy continued like Sam hadn't even spoken. "I was just sitting alone at home, replaying everything over and over in my head. It wasn't just knowing that I killed him – seeing his face when I shot him…I was also the feeling when I pulled the trigger. It was all of the panic, the resignation that I felt knowing I had to – that there was no other way. I don't even know if I'm explaining it right…"
Sam looked over at Andy, her eyes distracted as she relived that moment.
"However you felt is the right way to explain things, Andy. Believe me, I've been there…I know what you mean. You don't have to explain–"
"But I do, Sam. Just sitting there, reliving it over and over again…I felt like I was losing myself – like I'd never feel normal…or have any peace, again."
Sam just listened.
"All I could think of was that Sam understands…he gets it - he'll help me, and before I knew it, I grabbed my keys and was out the door. I don't even remember how I got to your place. All I knew was that each step was taking me closer and closer to the one person who could help ground me – help me find me again."
Sam nodded, unnecessarily prompting Andy to continue, as her eyes were still focused through the windshield on something in the distance.
"When you opened the door – the look in your eyes…the concern…the caring…the understanding…it made me feel – something other than myself slipping away. You made me feel, Sam, and I knew that for however long, you could make it all go away." Andy's eyes came back into focus and settled on her partner.
"And even with all of that, you chose to stop. Why, Andy? Why didn't you just take what you needed…take what I could give you?" Sam asked, even though somewhere deep inside of him, he already knew the answer.
"The lights came on…and what we were doing became…real."
"It was real for me, too, Andy." Sam said softly. Andy's eyes met his briefly before she looked away and continued.
"And then my phone rang…it was Luke." Things were starting to make sense, now, Sam thought.
"They were signs, Sam. If the lights' coming on wasn't one, then Luke's phone call had to be."
"That's a load of bullshit, Andy, and you know it. Signs are for people looking for excuses for the choices they make. Signs are for people who can't make their own decisions or trust their gut. You aren't that person, Andy." Although, in that moment, because of the events of the day, maybe she had been that person. Pretty understandable to be second guessing yourself after taking someone's life, even if it was kill or be killed…even if the guy deserved it. That thought gave Sam pause.
"We both deserved better than me being there as a reaction, Sam – a reaction to the shooting…a reaction to Luke not being there for me because he was on a case. You deserved better than that."
Although in the days that followed, Sam hadn't done much to deserve much more than Andy's disappointment and resentment – his brush off and sarcasm when she approached him about the Bibby case, the retraining exercise when he went off on Luke the way he did, and in the interrogation room, when he practically told her that he didn't want her for a partner anymore. She had thought their partnership was strong enough to weather the backlash of those 5 powerful minutes. Maybe she was wrong.
Sam asked the question that was bothering him since their discussion that morning. "Where did you get the idea that I wanted to request a different partner, McNally?" Was he a mind reader now? Andy looked at him in shock and disbelief. Had he suffered a head injury in the retraining exercise? Could he not remember the words that were a slap in her face?
"In the interrogation room, you said right now, we're partners. It sounded like that was the last thing you wanted to be, and that you couldn't wait until I was reassigned. What else was I supposed to think?" she asked, struggling to suppress the hurt in her voice.
"Damn it, Andy! I was just reacting to you siding with your boyfriend – right in front of him, I might add. What did I tell you about partners backing each other up?" He didn't add that having said what he did, he had hoped at some point they might be something more.
"Like you backed me up when I tried to talk to you about the Bibby case?" Andy asked accusingly.
"I thought that I'd apologized for that, McNally. What you did took a lot of courage, and I promised myself that no matter what happened or didn't happen between us, that I'd always have your back. You can't keep throwing it in my face every time you have a problem with an argument I bring up."
"Yeah, well, if you're my partner, start acting like it and quit punishing me, just because you don't like the choices I make." Realizing how quickly their discussion was escalating into a full-blown argument, Andy took a deep breath and tried a different approach.
"This tension between us sucks, Sam. You can't tell me that you like it any better than I do. So what do you propose we do about it, if we can't be friends?" Like she said to Traci, things with Sam were complicated, and Andy was struggling to hold on to simple in her life right now. Simple seemed to be slipping though her fingers the more and more this conversation progressed.
"Let's just start working on being partners before we try something crazy like being friends, McNally. Can we just agree on that?" Sam was getting a headache, but still felt that he needed to say the words that she needed to hear.
"At some point, Andy, you're going to need ask yourself why you chose me instead of Callaghan to come to that night. You could have just as easily called him, probably should have if he's your boyfriend. And if he cared about you the way you deserve, he'd drop everything to be with you – to be there for you. You're going to need to think long and hard why that was."