A/N: Well, this has been a long time coming, and it's only the second chapter! Many apologies! Send me some love! x
Andy drove to work with her bottom lip between her teeth.
Her heart felt heavy, her head hurt.
Sam was hurting, in a way she didn't recognise. Nobody ever had that effect on Sam. What made her stomach ache was the fact that she didn't even know, didn't even think; just let him straight in.
Sam's whole demeanour changed the moment he laid his eyes on Anthony. Her eyes welled, because she felt like it was her fault. It cut into her when his eyebrows pulled over his eyes. It stung, it grazed, and it throbbed as she watched him crumble over a few exchanged glances.
He even looked at her like she'd hurt him on purpose.
Tonight's shift wasn't going to be easy.
Going home would be harder.
"Hey." her first word grated over her skin.
She could only imagine what it must have felt like for him. She'd almost not come back here, thinking he wanted to be alone, and also dreading the repercussions. Andy dumped her belongings at the door, in case she had to leave right after, shuffling slowly into the living room.
Sam stood rigidly where his father stood the night before. Her mind threw back to Anthony. She saw only a slight physical resemblance between them; the way sadness looked in their eyes; the way they held pain in their gait.
But Sam exuded a warmth, despite the frigid atmosphere between them. Anthony didn't exude anything. He consumed.
It wasn't based off of any information she'd gleaned. Andy didn't know anything about Anthony Swarek besides the way he made Sam react.
"Hey." He replied quietly.
His voice was rough, exhausted. He placed his coffee down on the coffee table, but didn't move. There was a distance between them and she hated it.
"How 'bout this heat, huh?" she opened her hands up, trying to break the tension.
Sam quirked an eyebrow but remained silent.
"That was stupid." She shook her head, but after that, everything else tumbled out easily. "I just wanna know what's going on with you."
He shifted his weight, then glanced at his mug. Probably wishing he hadn't put it down so he'd have something to fiddle with; anything to keep him from making eye contact with her.
"I'm losing you, Sam." She felt her voice quiver, which in turn, made him look back up. "You won't talk to me."
She folded her arms across her chest, a false sense of protection from whatever would be inflicted.
"I hate that you're hurting, so, please…"
That's when he strode towards her. She could predict how he would brush past her, letting her breathe him in for a moment then lose the sensation immediately. She felt herself deflating already.
Andy didn't usually like surprises. Except for maybe this one.
He gathered her up in a hug. Instead of side-stepping, he caught her.
"Just…" he mumbled.
She shuddered, his breath on the side of her neck. His stubble scratching her skin.
"Just…" he repeated, yet couldn't find the end of his sentence.
Out of shock, she hadn't fully reacted to his embrace. Becoming aware, she wrapped her arms around him, too. There had been enough time being quiet and aloof. This had been building for over two weeks and it was hard to ignore how engulfed, how full, how whole she felt when she could feel his heart thump, listen to him breathe slowly, to just be there with him.
It was then that she realised there was a hell of a difference between being existent and being present.
That's all Sam seemed to be doing at the moment. He existed, moved, spoke, and operated like a human being, but was never actually in a moment. Not like now.
Andy could sigh again; the gap of silence gone.
Sam's arms began to vibrate, the way your muscles do when they're strained. she felt his heart beat between them, a drumming reminder.
This was new for both of them. As long as Andy had known Sam, she hadn't witnessed him hugging anybody. As long as they'd been together, whatever they were, a hug was a rarity.
Hugging could be harder for Sam to give in to. Maybe because it didn't have to have any other connotations besides comfort. Andy had worked out a long time ago that Sam never asked for comfort. Only now was she beginning to wonder if it was because he thought he shouldn't need it.
These thoughts made her sadder, like he'd woken her up to his struggle. Perhaps this was something he dealt with everyday. What made her more scared was wondering if Sam was an incredibly good actor, or if she was just selfishly ignorant.
A heavy feeling of unworthiness engulfed her.
"I'm sorry," she whispered shakily into his shoulder. "I didn't know."
Because she knew he wasn't going to share details of his unrest, she let him know she understood there was something deeply wrong.
His silence compacted this belief into a reality.
Sam's uneasiness around his father could mean many things; but as a cop, Sam had to know she would assume, she would connect. He had to know that Andy had seen this kind of behaviour before.
Anthony Swarek was the drunk husband they pulled off of bruised wives; Anthony Swarek was the seething piece of flesh that drove his fist into walls and screamed into crying faces; he was the kind of person that tore souls apart.
Anthony Swarek was the bad guy.
"Are you warm enough?" Andy rubbed her hand up and down Sam's arm.
She hugged him from behind; he'd stopped shaking now. They were lying on top of the covers, clothed, but curled up.
The heat had dissipated after an earlier sprinkle of rain.
But it wasn't just the shift in breeze that raised goose bumps all over Sam's flesh. He sucked in a deep breath, like he'd been roused out of sleep.
"Yeah. I'm okay."
"Tell me about your day, or, your yesterday." Andy began. "I'm starting to lose track of the days. How was your last shift?"
Sam shifted and she let her arm slide off him. He twisted so he was on his back, able to meet eyes with her.
"Callaghan asked me to help out with a case."
She raised her eyebrows.
"What's the case?"
He let his eyes fall closed; he was completely still, glowing in the soft morning light. Andy noticed how his skin looked more pale, making the darkness of his hair stand out; a shock of jet black.
"Turns out there's more fallout from The Rouge Brother's murders. There's a new motley crew running things now."
"Not used to tradition?"
"The Brother's were a lot cleaner than these guys." he rubbed his hand over his face. "They did things for a reason."
Andy frowned.
"When you say that, it makes it sound like you admire them for it." she replied, although feeling a tinge of hypocrisy; she had naively tried to ignore the fact that Phillip Couperet was a criminal just because she felt sorry for him.
"Don't get me wrong," he sucked in a breath. "The world is a better place without them in it, but they weren't unnecessarily brutal. They were ruthless for a purpose. They had a philosophy, although," he held his forefinger up in the air between them. "I don't know how much that counts when you're a drug lord."
"There are worse people in the world." Andy added softly when he let his arm drop.
She was trying not to poke the bear, but said it to make her point clear.
"Yeah." the corner of his mouth perked up, a little sad smirk.
"These new guys though, the, uh, The Morte...they're a whole other league. I had to interview a victim's fiancee, completely messed up about it. But not as messy as the victim ended up."
"Charming," Andy commented, still frowning. "Any leads?"
Sam shook his head, his bottom lip protruding.
"Not much. We basically have to follow the line up, figure out who's running the show then pull it apart from the inside."
They both fell silent.
"We don't have to talk about Anthony." Andy finally mentioned the reason they were lying there in the first place. "But from now on," she lifted herself up onto her elbow so she could lean over him. "You gotta let me in."
Sam's pupils dilated when he focused on her.
She felt the need to clarify something, even though she assumed he already understood.
"Sam, if I knew, I never would have let him in the house, I didn't think-I-"
"Andy," he broke her off then. "Like you said, you didn't know." he let his eyes fall closed again.
"I mean what I said." she continued, causing him to open his eyes again. "I wanna do this with you."
"Okay." he nodded, brushing his fingertips across her cheek bone.
"Okay." She said back.
"Peck!" Sam yelled out from the doorway of the parade room.
Gail's head whipped in his direction, breaking her focus off Nick. Sam waited patiently as they finished their conversation; Nick placing a quick kiss on her lips. Gail looked disgruntled, but when she turned away a small smile broke across her face.
Sam started walking, Gail falling into step with him as they made their way to their squad car.
"So, how's things?" Sam split the silence in two when they were on the road.
Gail looked at him from the passenger seat with a puzzled expression.
"Fine. How 'bout you?" she sunk her teeth into a doughnut.
"You wanna fulfil the cop stereotype even more and hand me one of those?" he looked pointedly at the pink pastry box sitting on her lap.
Her eyes narrowed.
"I never pegged you for a doughnut guy." Gail commented, opening the flap and examining the contents.
"What kind of guy did you peg me for?"
She wiggled her fingers for a moment, then dove in to pick one, probably the one she liked the least.
"Here," she dropped it in his hand: jelly-filled. "I don't know," she continued. "You're kind of an enigma; it's weird to watch you do human things. I thought maybe you just functioned off of air and bourbon."
Sam raised his eyebrows, contemplating.
"That what all you rookies think?"
"Well, mostly. Dov has always had a man-crush on you. I keep telling him to man up and just call it a crush. Chris likes everybody; he's a puppy. Andy thinks the sun shines out of your ass..."
He gave her a look.
"...Sir." she added, catching his expression.
She said it in such a deadpan way that it made him chuckle so he couldn't protest, even if he thought the idea was ludicrous.
Gail's personality was something that Sam always found curious; mostly because of how well she put on The Act.
Sam was a savant at The Act. He'd been mastering it for decades now. Gail couldn't be any older than Andy, so she was only in her late twenties and appeared to be better at faking it than most people.
Was she faking the small bouts of humanness that popped out sporadically? Or simply her overall personality; all candor, sneers, and sarcasm. The mean pretty girl.
If she was so good at hiding, maybe she knew how to spot whoever else did it, too. Gail was good at pretending not to notice things. Sam suddenly felt uncomfortable in her presence, as if she could hear whatever thoughts he had running through his head.
As he bit into the doughnut, groaning at the jelly dripping into his hand, he also supposed that Gail may see things, the difference was she chose not to care.
"Seriously, dude," Gail tried to wrangle the unruly middle aged man from the car.
"Take him through booking, then straight to an interrogation room." Sam ordered. "I'll be right there." he held a bloody napkin to his hand, staunching the bleeding.
The perp had been waving a pocket knife around outside a bookstore on Queen. Sam had grabbed the fist curled around the weapon only to have the man struggle free and slice a line down his palm. That was when Gail pulled out her taser in warning, the subject wide-eyed and kneeling in submission.
"Come on." she grunted, her palm flattened between his shoulder blades, the other tight on his cuffed wrists.
Sam watched them disappear through the side door into booking before he hopped up the steps on the left side of the garage and into the station. The napkin was soaked through but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
"Ollie," Sam called out as he reached the pit, a semi-bald head popped up from behind a computer.
"Whats up, Sammy" he replied, then frowned as Sam slumped down in a chair next to him.
"We got a medi-kit around here, somewhere?" he held his hand on his knee, palm-up to the ceiling.
Dov kicked one that had been sitting under the desk toward Oliver. A groan, as he reached down to pick it up.
"Not a good day, huh?" Oliver flipped the clips on the plastic box, opening the lid. "What are ya hungry for?"
He looked down at the contents as if they'd offended him.
"This looks like Zoe's vanity table. Why is there chap stick in here?"
"What's on the menu?" Sam pushed him back on track.
"Well, we've got this beautiful disinfectant," he held up the bottle with a winning grin. "A couple of bandages, some swabs," he gasped, "Oh! Some authentic..." he narrowd his eyes trying to think, "Mike Jacobs...? Some authentic Mike Jacobs gauz...check that out, you look great." he held the gauze up to Sam's chest as if trying to match his colour.
"You mean, Marc Jacobs?" Sam squinted, half amused at the improv, more amused at Oliver's effort to get him to laugh.
Oliver's face fell.
"Okay, it's sad when I try to make the reference, it's even more sad when you actually correct me."
Sam chuckled and Oliver became serious.
"You okay, buddy?"
Sam nodded, "Yeah...course."
"Officer Swarek to the front desk, Officer Swarek. Front desk, please."
Sam huffed, grabbing a piece of gauze and fisting his injured hand around it.
He got up and turned towards the front of the station, catching the eye of Annie White leaning up against the front desk.
"Annie," Sam greeted, stopping to stretch out his hand to shake.
"Oh," she chuckled. "So formal." she shook his hand for a moment, then pulled it back to clutch the strap of her hand bag.
When she didn't say anything, Sam pushed off the conversation.
"What can I do for you, today?"
"Oh, uh, well...when I hadn't heard anything, I got worried." she shrugged, a small smile stretching the side of her mouth. "I figured I'd come in and check the progress."
She seemed a little nervous.
"Well, it's an ongoing investigation so i can't tell you much, but since we spoke there hasn't been much headway. I'm sorry."
She shook her head and smiled.
"That's okay. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed. "You're hurt?" she made a motion to his hand, a bit of bloody gauze peeking out from inside his fist.
"No, no, I'm fine." he shook his head before she reached out to grab it.
He grimaced as she held it gingerly, prising his fingers away from his palm.
"Sorry," she looked sheepish as she let him take his hand back. "But I think you need stitches."
She tucked a lock of short blonde hair behind her ear. The bruise over her eye had faded a little, instead of a reddish, it had healed a little more into a greenish yellow with purple still colouring the corner of her eye.
"I'll be fine," Sam nodded, reassuring her.
She seemed to hold his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. She seemed longing for some kindness or attention.
"Swarek!" he whipped his head around to meet Gail's eyes across the room.
She was standing with her hands on her hips, eyes wide and mouth skewed in annoyance.
"Sorry, I-" Sam stammered. "That's my partner."
"Oh," Annie's eyes fled from his face, following Gail as she approached them.
"Sam," she said super sweetly, smiling wide.
The sarcasm behind the expression almost stung his eyes.
"If you're done having a little chat with your friend, we've got a suspect to interrogate." she winked, clucking her tongue.
Annie raised her eyebrows.
"I was just leaving." she returned curtly, glancing a smile at Sam.
He backed away with an apologetic smile, returning to the pit. He fell into step beside an impatient Officer Peck.
After half a shift spent processing their pocket knife perp, they got on the road for about twenty minutes before another call came through.
They pulled up to an industrial estate on the edge of the harbour. It was all rusted fences and cracked pavement. Gail was still in a bad mood from earlier but it was easy to ignore when Sam had way too many other things to focus on.
How much he wanted to let Andy in, but didn't want to at the same time; how paranoid he was that Anthony would show up somewhere unannounced again; the fear that Andy would find out, see through him to his past; the stronger fear that he'd show up at his house with Andy alone, again. Lastly, the most fresh; a niggling concern for his witness, Annie. Awash in extraneous worries, the last thing on his mind was their task.
"Ugh," Gail made a noise in the back of her throat.
"Yeah," Sam agreed, snapping back to reality. "You have a point."
They shone their torches above them, Sam finding the source of whatever liquid had been dripping on his head. They found themselves inside a decommissioned produce wholesaler. The owners must have gone broke and been forced to leave the property the way it was. That included leaving their stock behind to rot.
The smell was pretty noxious; not to mention the decomposition of all the fruit and vegetables being sped up by how shitty the building was. Cracks in the ceiling where the rain fell through; no ventilation, so everything was wet and rotten, and the stuffiness made the smell almost unbearable.
"There's nothing here." Gail complained.
Sam watched her torch dance over the opposite wall lined with pallets, then drop to the floor as she dropped her arm to her side in indignance.
"I don't know who keeps calling in these bogus noise complaints; there's nobody around for miles. Who would hear noise?" she continued, letting Sam lead their search with his torch pointed ahead.
"Its the job, Peck." he stepped over a puddle of what looked like liquified potatoes. "Maybe some kids pulling a prank?"
"If it's a group of punks," she responded then let her voice rise in volume, "I'm gonna find them and beat their asses!" she yelled to the room as if to warn anybody that was hiding inside.
Sam chuckled.
"I always admired you for your abrasiveness." Sam commented, flicking the torch to his left to examine a gap between stacks of boxes.
"It get's the job done quicker-"
A sharp, familiar sound broke the silence, cracking into the air, splitting it down the middle.
A thump and Peck was on the floor. He pulled his weapon out; his ears felt blocked up. Deaf with fear, he pointed into the darkness, squatting to the ground behind some boxes.
"Police! Come out with your hands up!" he tried holding his gun steady out in front of him.
He shuffled through the muck, kneeling down at Gail's side. He held his gun firm as he touched her face, then pulled on his shoulder radio.
"1519, officer down! We're in need of assistance! Back up needed! Officer down!" He looked back up and saw nothing, wasn't even sure of where the shot came from. Gail was bleeding from her shoulder, right above her vest.
"Hey, hey," he murmured, out of breath and pressing gingerly on the wound. "You're okay, you're gonna be fine..."
The blood welled up between his fingers; he felt it pulse against the palm of his hand with every heart beat. Her eyes struggled to open; a moan in the back of her throat.
"Did you hit your head? Peck?" he didn't want to jostle her, but didn't want her to fall unconscious.
Sam's radio crackled with dispatch sending out response vehicles. Backup. Medics.
If the shooter was still in the building, they were sitting ducks.
"Sam," Gail's voice shook. "Sam." she blinked once, slowly.
Her body shuddered uncontrollably, but her grip was strong when he gave her his hand.
"You're Gail Peck." he shook his head. "You're fine. You'll be fine. I promise."
Eyes wide on the blood, his heart thundered.
"You'll be fine." he whispered, whipping his head up to scope their surroundings.
"You'll be fine."
