A/N: Didn't expect to have this out so soon... also, once again, lack of direction seems to be working in my favour :) Read, and let me know what you think!

"Andy..." He says, not knowing really what else he can say.

She smoothes the front of her dress with her sweaty palms, hoping that she can look more composed than she feels. She'd be lying if she said that in the throes of the last few weeks she hadn't thought of him, hadn't thought of returning his call.

At the end of the day, complication between them, or not, he was always there for her, guiding her. Leading her. Teaching her. Calming her. Reassuring her. Giving her strength. The list became endless when they got together.

He was always some kind of beacon reminding her what to do even when they weren't... even when they stopped being partners. At least, in a professional sense.

"I'm sorry." Was all he could manage to choke out. It was all he wrote on the card with the flowers too. Clearly it isn't his words that have offended her into silence. That have kept her from talking to him.

Andy nods, appreciating the fact that he's a man of few words most of the time. Everyone at fifteenth seemed to know that she wasn't looking for tears, or lengthy condolences, or bear hugs. As cops, they all understood it.

"Hi." The little voice from the stroller peeps out, causing Andy to look down at Charlotte, shocked that the quivering voice she'd had not two minutes ago was already gone, and she no longer seemed impatient to go home.

Sam had had his eyes flitting between Charlotte and Andy since he approached, but she'd been solely focused on him. Sam got down on one knee in front of the stroller, deciding maybe right now he'll fare better communicating with her.

"I'm Charlotte." She announces, eyes void of tears now, voice honey sweet. "I'm two and a half."

"It's nice to meet you Charlotte, I'm Sam." He says, voice soft, and... different, somehow.

Charlotte just stares at him for a beat, taking in the stranger, but also like she's waiting for him say something else.

"How old are you?" She squeaks, frown in her eyebrows, like that was a vital piece of information to leave out and if he doesn't fill her in on the details, it's friends-off.

Andy smiles, and looks back over to Sam, who isn't quite sure if he should answer honestly, or make a cute joke about being old as a dinosaur, or a fossil, or something. At the very least for Andy's benefit.

Sam watches on as Andy runs a hand through Charlottes blond locks and tells her it's rude to ask senior citizens how old they are. It's funny, it is, but he's so taken with the look of love and affection in her eyes, and the gentleness that she's embodied when talking to the girl, that he forgets to laugh.

She doesn't seem... out of place, the way it seems she might be. Andy a mom. He didn't even know she was a god mother.

"Is that Princess Charlotte?" Franks voice calls from beside them, and coming closer.

Frank was taken with Charlotte pretty soon into the first trip to the Best residence a couple of weeks ago. He was amazing with Liv, and if this was a preview of what was to come when she was walking and talking, then Noelle was pretty much busting at the hormonal seams. Charlotte was pretty taken with the bear like man too. He was huge to her, and he always had something new for her to explore.

Today maybe his office.

When Frank came to a complete stop in front of them, he took a good look at Sam and Andy, who obviously needed to talk. And just as Andy had predicted, he picked the small girl up out of the stroller, and insisted she sit in his big comfy chair and play boss before going home.

Charlotte was thrilled.

Which just left... them.

He had a thousand questions.

For which she would have few answers.

"So, that's-"

"Jenny's daughter."

Sam nods looking down at his feet for a moment. He knew about her. He'd forgotten, but he remembered her telling him about her entire trip to Temagami. Granted he kind of tried to block out the fact that she'd gone anywhere, that those three months had happened, which was probably part of their problem in the first place.

"Your god daughter? You didn't tell me..." He starts, but he didn't want to sound accusing, he was just curious. He just wanted to know as much as he could, to help as much as he could.

"I didn't know. Just got a call one night from Claire. Friend on life support, baby girl who needs a place to stay." She says, trying to make it sound nonchalant. "The last five weeks... it's been... surreal."

Andy finally lets her facade crack, and its only for a split second. But she knows the tired, the fear, the sadness hasn't been missed by Sam.

Sam gauges the openness of her expression, and can see that she's been fighting hard to keep her guard up. To stay strong, because what else does one expect of Andy McNally. She's fine.

Her eyes look a little lost as she stares over his shoulder at Frank and Charlotte in his office. Charlotte is kneeling on the edge of his thighs, upper body lying right down on the desk while she reaches for his name plaque. Andy's face is, sad, but also bewilderingly overcome with a gaze of love for the child. Like she's filled a role that she was always supposed to be good at.

And it's not like he's never pictured her as a mom. He has. Every case they've had to deal with young kids, he's watched her. Knows she was pretty close to Nash's kid too.

Had a vivid dream about it the same week she told him she loved him. Right when things had seemed perfect. Before everything went to hell.

"How're you holding up?" He asks, knowing it's a pretty stupid question, but he doesn't exactly want to get into the depths of this conversation in the middle of the division. "We could talk sometime."

Her gaze doesn't come back to him though, she can't tear her eyes away from Charlotte, who's now standing on Franks chair while his back is turned, digging in one of the filing cabinets. His kid isn't mobile yet, but this should be a lesson to him.

"I don't exactly have time for that, but thanks." She says kind of absently, knowing that he's trying to be supportive. What he needs to realize however is that this is not the time to repair their friendship, or whatever it is that they were before.

She starts to tidy Charlottes blankets in the stroller, and begins folding them up. She winds up knocking over a bag of Cheerios that finds its way the floor, and he immediately bends down to help her.

"I've got it." She says, trying to shoo away his hands.

"I know." He doesn't move though, keeps picking them up. "Maybe come by the Penny sometime soon. I'll buy you a drink. It seems like she's got a lot of people who wouldn't mind watching her-"

But as he moves to get the ones that have rolled further, he bumps the stroller, and Charlottes sippy cup of milk also makes its way to the floor. Its sealed and nothing comes out but still-

"Sam!" She says, a little more loudly than planned. He stops talking and just looks at her with his big eyes, now void of emotion, as though calling out to him had reminded him to stay in check. "I've got a lot going on right now. And regardless of that, my life has become anything but simple. Thanks, but I can't."

Sam is taken back by the bitter tone with which she threw the words, and has to take a second to breath so he doesn't just yell right on back. She's going through something. This is a tough time. She doesn't mean it like that. She's got a kid now. She's complicated.

"Yeah. Well, I guess I'll see you when you come back." He says, giving up, for now.

They both rise from the floor awkwardly, not really aware until now the attention they'd attracted, but everyone in the barn went back to looking busy and engrossed by their paperwork.

"I've got to get her home, put her down for a nap." Andy says, throwing her jacket on, and looking up to Franks office, making eye contact.

Once he escorted Charlotte back to Andy. Andy inspected the girls coat, and took her small hand, reminding her to thank Mr. Best and say goodbye to him and Sam.

Sam knew that for the next years of Andy's life, she would be wrapped up in toys and Disney, getting Charlotte into daycare, kindergarten, then school. Sam knew she'd be gung ho on teaching her to read, ride a bike, play sports.

("I might coach basketball." She'd said one night in bed. "Like, a kids league or something. Give back to the community."

"Oh yeah Coach Carter?" He'd chuckled, running his fingers over her ribs (which was now marked with ink).

"Yeah. It's important for kids to be active in the community." She mumbled, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before resting her head there. "That way they don't become serial killers."

"You're going to be a psycho soccer mom aren't you?" He teased, not really putting any thought into the question."Makes the kids eat dinner with the family so they don't do drugs right?"

She just smiled, and pressed her mouth hard to his, and they didn't talk much more that night.)

And here he was. Forty (almost.) No kids, no wife, no girlfriend.

(That had been another development after Andy went AWOL. If Sam hadn't been throwing himself into faking it with Cruz since Andy came back, she may not have noticed the difference in his actions after she disappeared again.

But she had, and she didn't want to be anybody's second choice.)

And another thing Sam knew? He didn't want simple anymore.

"Charlie?" Andy calls, making her way into her half boxed up bedroom, where Charlotte was sprawled across the bed, a selection of bed time books in a neat pile next to her.

Charlotte's things were mostly still sprawled out everywhere, and since Andy was actively searching for a house (she was two days short of calling a realtor) she didn't want to have to box it all up again when they found a place. So they lived like this.

"Ready." She smiles, her first book selection sitting in front of her.

Andy pads into the room and slips off her slipper boots, before opening the covers and moving into the middle of the bed. Charlotte moved from her position on her stomach, facing the foot of the bed, and was crawling up the bed towards Andy, when she put her hands under her arms, and sat Charlotte so that her back was against Andy's stomach.

"Sweetie pie, do you miss Ms. Ashley, and your friends at daycare?" Andy asks, hesitantly.

She was asking Frank about coming back to work today. Charlotte had finally been calming down, and smiling more day to day. Andy needed work right now, she needed to immerse herself in something other than her grief, Charlotte's overwhelming grief. And most importantly, she needed Charlotte's life to be as normal as possible. That's what Jenny would've wanted. The sooner they both adjusted to this new life, the sooner they could move on.

But Frank still thought she should take the full two months they discussed at the beginning of the whole thing. He'd told her to use the end of the month and then come back, but Andy could just feel that the worse the cabin fever got, the less useful she'd be to Charlotte.

"Yep." Charlotte says quietly, reaching over to where she left the book she selected.

"Do you want to go back soon? You don't have to go for the whole day, but we could visit. Say hi to Ms. Ashley." Andy suggests, speaking softly into the top of Charlotte's head as she began to lift the first page open, revealing to Andy that she'd chosen 'The Paper Bag Princess' once again.

"I miss Emiwy." She replies, even more softly than before. Andy worried when Charlotte got quiet, it wasn't like her. Though she'd been surprised when the little girl was bold enough to reach out to Sam Swarek, she had been improving.

"We could make cupcakes for all your friends at daycare. And maybe if you feel up to it, you could go for a whole day sometime."

"Kay."

Andy decides maybe that was all she was going to get out of the girl tonight, and began.

"When Elizabeth was a beautiful princess..."

'The Paper Bag Princess', 'Green Eggs and Ham', and 'Goodnight Moon' later, Charlotte had drifted off to sleep, one arm draped over Andy's stomach.

Andy didn't want to move her for anything on the planet, and eventually, she drifted off too.

"Sweetheart, I'm just expressing a little concern-"

"I know Dad, and I'm telling you that there's no reason to be concerned." Andy replies, continuing to chop up the cucumber in front of her. "Things are good."

It wasn't a lie, not even a lie of omission. It had been a week now, since the funeral and her day at fifteen, and Charlotte had gone to visit the daycare, deciding that she wanted to stay for a half day.

Andy was pleased, but the minute she pulled out of the lot, she felt worry creep over her. Daycare had her number, they dealt with kids for a living, she was in safe hands, they knew first aid. And still Andy couldn't shake it.

The other thing she had to adjust to was driving her dads car, standard. She could do it, but she was constantly stalling, and it was basically her worst fear for it to happen with Charlotte in the car. One more thing for the to do list, get over her fear of using Jenny's car.

Not the car itself, no fear, it was manual, but the fact that it was Jenny's. She felt like she was some kind of imposter.

"Kiddo, have you even been to the Penny since..." Tommy let the sentence die on her lips.

"Since I got a kid? No, dad, I haven't. Not all of us-" She stops herself. In her state of annoyance tonight, she's been short with her dad all day, but, that would've been so far over the line. He was better now that was the point.

But Tommy knew what she was going to say.

"Andy, I know you've learned a lot watching my mistakes, and I know you want to be a responsible parent. But going out to the bar with your friends a couple times a month doesn't... I wasn't the best example, but it's okay Andy." He says, making sure Andy's really listening. "They miss you too you know. I love watching the monkey."

They both look at the couch where Charlotte is seated, still wearing her pink tutu that she pulled on in the middle of the afternoon before prancing around the living room doing "ballet". Andy had watched on from the kitchen counter, searching craigslist for houses close to the division, and Charlottes daycare.

Some cartoon with fairies is what had her attention tonight while Andy prepared their dinner, and Tommy was finally able to have this chat with her.

"Andy. Next Saturday, you're going out. I'll watch Charlie." Tommy says firmly, telling her right up front that there's no room for argument.

"No." She says, passing him the salad that she's just finished. For a brief moment, Tommy thinks he's going to have to pull out his dad voice, until she turns her back to get the rest of the dinner to the table. "I promised Oliver that I'd send some babysitting business Izzy's way at some point."

"Okay. Whatever you want kiddo." He laughs, pulling the casserole dish from Andy's hands, allowing her to go scoop Charlotte up from the couch and get her in her seat. (They had enough casseroles to last the year, and if Andy didn't have someone else's diet to think about, she'd be eating it every day.)

"Dad." Andy said, right after Charlotte begins to pick at the squiggly noodles with her fingers. "Thank you. For... everything."

Tommy smiled big at the woman across from him. Not knowing how she turned out to be the brave, competent and independent woman she was.

"Just doing my job sweetheart."