A/N: Sorry for the confusion for those of you, who follow this story ... I had to re-upload the previous chapters to add a title to them, and doing so meant that you all got a notice that a new chapter had been posted.

Sorry about that ...

Hope you enjoy this chapter, and please leave me a note in the box at the bottom of the page :)


[chapter three]

Sam and Andy have spent the better part of this week going through all of Tommy's things. Claire had offered to help, but Andy had declined the offer, feeling like this had been something, that she'd needed to do on her own – and for some reason it had felt like Claire would be imposing on her dad's privacy.

Andy is putting a couple of photo albums in a box when something catches her eye from the bedside table in her dad's bedroom.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she reaches out and slides Tommy's sobriety coin across the wooden surface before holding it in the palm of her hand.

"One day at a time", Andy repeats the words that are etched into the coin.


"My name is Tommy and I'm an alcoholic."

"Hello, Tommy," an array of voices replied in unison looking up at Tommy McNally, as he held his one-year sobriety coin in-between two fingers.

But it wasn't on account of them that he was prouder than he'd ever been before. It was because Andy was sitting a couple of rows down, smiling proudly up at him and that's when he realized that it wasn't just for himself that he was standing up there.

It was for her.

For Andy.

"I never thought I would be standing up here," he said. "Mostly because I never thought I had a problem with alcohol, as stupid as that might sound." Tommy nodded his head at his own words recognizing the fact that if it wasn't for Andy, then he'd probably be bottle-deep in vodka right about now – if not dead.

"But this," he said holding up the coin. "Isn't just for me, it's for my daughter too." Tommy added nodding his head to where Andy was sitting – with tears in her eyes. "She has been the pride and joy of my life ever since the day she was born, and when she gave me an ultimatum; her or the booze – there was no contest."

Drying away the tears that had already fallen, Andy inhaled a deep breath remembering that very conversation in the squad car and their talk later that evening at her old apartment where he had agreed to get help.

"I have always been a very proud man, unrelenting in fact, but when my eyes were finally opened up wide to what I had put my little girl through, then there was no choice to be made, it was crystal clear what I had to do."

"So, this," he said stretching his arm above his head, holding the coin between two fingers, "is my testament to you, Kiddo," Tommy said looking directly into Andy's eyes. "That I will take one day at a time because that's how much I love you."

Bopping her head up and down, Andy smiled through her tears.

Later that evening, they had had dinner at their favorite diner, talked about what Tommy's speech had meant to Andy and really just been together like the father and daughter team that they were.


"Andy?"

"Hmm..," she hums unable to take her eyes off of the coin that is nestled in the palm of her hand.

"You okay?" Sam asks leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest.

"I…what..?" Andy asks turning her head to look at him with confusion written all over her face.

"You okay?" he repeats his earlier words stepping into the room with his arms hanging at his sides now.

Inhaling deeply, Andy says, "I think I am."

Nodding his head, Sam walks to the edge of the bed, and sits down next to her. "What is that?" he asks eying up the coin.

"It's my dad's sobriety coin," she answers, holding her palm out towards Sam to show him the bronze coin that had belonged to Tommy.

"You were there when he got it?"

"Yeah..," Andy answers wrapping her fingers around the coin. "It was very cathartic; to see him standing up front and center telling everyone how being sober wasn't just for him..," she sighs audibly before adding, "it was for me too."

Pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers, she begins to shake as a sob is making its way out of her throat.

"Come here," Sam wraps an arm around her shoulders before cradling her quivering body against his. Pressing his lips against the top of Andy's head, he tells her that everything will be okay.

"You don't know that," she sniffles pulling out of their embrace to dry away her tears.

"You're right, I don't." He sighs, while Andy keeps her head bowed. "But what I do know is that I love you," Sam looks at her expectantly, waiting for her to repeat the same sentiment back to him, but she stays quiet.

After a couple of minutes, Andy lifts her head, and smiles meekly at him.

"That's the last of it," she bops her head to where the box is sitting on the bed.

"Okie-doke," Sam acquiesces wondering how long it's been since he's heard Andy actually telling him that she loves him.

It used to be the other way around.

Making his way to the end of the bed, his eyes catches sight of a framed photograph tucked away in the box that Andy has finished packing.

It's a picture taken out in Tommy's backyard of him, Sam and Andy. They had been at Tommy's for dinner, no more than a couple of weeks after their reunion.

Andy had urged her dad to be on his best behavior, but like any father, he had used his 'if you ever hurt my little girl again' spiel.


"While Andy's out in the kitchen with Amy," Tommy said piercing Sam with the same penetrative gaze that had scared many confessions out of criminals in his time on the force. "I think we need to set a couple of things straight."

"Such as..?" Sam asked drawing out the word, as he sat back in the chair he was sitting on.

"As you know, Andy is my only child, my little girl, and I'll protect her against anything or anyone, who tries to hurt her."

"Tommy, listen..," he began to protest, but the man sitting opposite him, held up his hand halting any words that had been on their way out of Sam's mouth.

"Let me finish, please," Tommy said before continuing. "She has been through enough as it is, and if this, " he waved a hand between Sam and the house, where Andy was in. "Is just a stepping stone for you, then as Andy's father I have to…"

"My relationship with Andy has never and will never be a stepping stone," Sam interrupted with an edge of finality to his voice.

"Marlo?" Tommy asked having heard first-hand from his daughter about the woman, who'd replaced her as Sam's girlfriend during her undercover stint.

"Is out of the picture."

"You seem certain," he noted sitting back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"I am." Sam said. "I will probably always care about her, but I love Andy, and she's the person that I want to be with."

Nodding his head tentatively, Tommy said, "I know that Cruz has a lot to juggle - what with her mental illness and everything, but I need to know that Andy won't play second violin to her if something goes south with her condition."

"She won't." Sliding forward on the chair, Sam looked at Andy's father with a look of determination in his eyes. "Marlo has a lot to deal with; yes. But my loyalties lie with Andy as well as my heart."

"That's good to know."

"You guys ready?" Andy asked popping her head through the sliding doors leading out onto the back deck in Tommy's backyard. "Because dinner is."

"Sounds great, Kiddo," Tommy smiled back. "Just setting a couple of things straight."

"Dad!" she all but scolded him.

"What..?" he shrugged his shoulders innocently.

As the two men stood, Tommy wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders, giving him a silent warning. "You hurt her again, and I'll make sure that Cruz won't be the only one, who's hospitalized, okay, Sammy?" he grinned brightly at Sam before making his way inside to where Amy was putting the food on the table.

"You okay?" Andy asked walking towards Sam with an apologetic look on her face.

"Just dandy," he quipped with his tongue-in-cheek to avoid any unkind words towards Tommy to leave his mouth.

"I'm sorry," she couldn't keep a small laugh from leaving her mouth, but she amended that with a soft kiss to Sam's cheek.

"Let's go, girlfriend," Sam quipped wrapping an arm around Andy's shoulder, as they made their way inside.


"You ready?" Andy asks pulling Sam out of his trip down memory lane.

"Yeah, yeah..," he answers nodding his head in the positive to her question. Reaching down, he grabs the box and walks to the door.

Andy looks around the bedroom that now only holds empty furniture ready to be picked up by the red-cross movers the next day.

"You coming?" Sam asks from the doorway.

"Just give me a minute," she tells him. Sam nods his head at her words, and makes his way downstairs with the box in his arms.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Andy walks to the window overlooking the backyard. With a heavy sigh, she remembers what her father told her back when he'd leased this house.


"It's been something I've wanted to do for years, Kiddo," Tommy told her. "Just never had the means to do it, and when I spotted this place for rent in the local paper, I jumped on the offer."

"So, you can afford it?" Andy asked skeptically, as always the dutiful-daughter looking out for her old man.

"I can." He said bopping his head at her question. "It's perfect for me, and I expect to see your face here on a weekly basis," Tommy informed her, pointing a finger at her, while grinning widely at her.

"There's no place, I'd rather be," Andy told him right before walking into his arms. He gathered her in his embrace, as Tommy took in the serenity of finally being able to live in a house in a nice neighborhood and holding his little girl in his arms.

"I love you, Kiddo."

"I love you too."


Dinner had been quiet.

The only sound that had been heard in Sam's living room had been the clattering of knives and forks, as they'd made contact with the plates.

Sam had even cooked Andy her favorite dish, but even seeing the very dish that Tommy had used to cook for her when she'd been sick or down had put a damper on what had been a very sweet thing of Sam to do.

While he had taken care of the clean-up after dinner, Andy had excused herself and gone to bed. It had only been 7:30 in the evening, but somehow she'd felt like all her energy had been drained out of her.

So, that's why she at midnight can't sleep at all.

Everything that has happened since Tommy died seems to be running on a continuous cycle in her mind.

Sam is snoring softly next to her, and knowing that he's barely sleeping these days either, Andy quietly gets out of bed, and tip-toes out of the room, picking up Sam's discarded tee-shirt on the way and puts it on, as she makes her way downstairs.

Once in the kitchen, she pours herself a glass of water, feeling like her throat is made out of sandpaper. After having poured the glass for the second time, Andy makes her way into the living room where she finds the last box that she'd packed at her dad's, sitting on the coffee table.

She figures that Sam must've gone out to get it in the truck after she'd gone upstairs to sleep.

Andy feels awful that after everything that he has done for her lately, she hadn't even been able to bring herself to enjoy the home-cooked meal that he had made for her.

Chili.

At a time, it had been the only thing that could put her in a good mood, and it had worked like a charm every time.

Just not tonight.

Deciding to unpack the box, since sleep seems to be evading her tonight, Andy begins to take items out of the box, and that's when she spots them.

She vaguely remembers coming across the DVD's, and putting them in the box, but hadn't thought more of it since she'd found her dad's sobriety coin next.

The DVD's display text written in Tommy's tell-tale handwriting that only a selective few have been able to decipher successfully over the years.

Andy is one of those few.

'Andy's first day' is written in bold, black letters on the first disc, and she walks to the DVD player and pops it in before walking back to the couch to sit down.

Turning on the TV, making sure that the sound isn't too loud, Andy presses play and immediately a hospital room comes into view, and a much younger looking Claire is holding a new-born Andy in her arms, lying in a hospital bed, while her dad is filming.


"Shh…shh, Andrea," Claire hushed the crying infant lying in her arms. "Am I even doing this right, Thomas?" she asked, looking straight into the camera.

"How would I know..?" her dad's voice quipped, as he walked closer to his wife and daughter.

"Don't be glib," she warned him, as the baby began to find a contended spot in Claire's arms.

"There you go, Kiddo," Tommy cooed.

"It's Andrea, Thomas," Claire corrected him firmly.

"First off, it's Tommy, Claire not Thomas. And secondly, this baby girl of ours is going to have many nicknames, 'Kiddo' is just one of them."

"What are the others?" she asked looking right at the camera again.

"Sweetheart, Peanut, Baby Girl, Andy..," Tommy used his fingers to count off all the nicknames, that he intended to call their daughter by, and by the time 'Andy' had come up, Claire's eyes were basically bulging out of her head.

"Andrea." Claire persisted, as the camera zoomed in on the now sleeping baby.

"She's precious," he said caressing the baby's small hand that was fisted.

"She is." She agreed nodding her head. "Can we do this, Tommy?" Claire asked.

"Of course we can," he said, as the baby let out a big yawn. "Besides, it's a little late for second thoughts now, don't you think?" Tommy asked.

Claire shook her head before looking down at their baby girl laying in her arms. "I just worry. I worry about you on the job; I worry about her, about our family…"

"Shh..," his voice quieted Claire's concerns. "It would be strange if you didn't have those concerns, honey, everything is about this little one now," Tommy maintained fiercely.

"You're right."

"Our family."

"Our family," Claire mimicked Tommy's words, as the camera zoomed in on the dark-haired baby girl snoozing contentedly in her mother's arms.


"Andy?"

Sam's voice pulls her eyes away from the TV-screen and to him standing in the doorway only wearing a pair of black boxers.

"Hey..," Andy whispers in a voice laced with grief, as she shuts the TV off and shuts out all the possible 'what-if's' from her mind.

"What are you doing?" he asks folding his arms across his chest.

"Couldn't sleep, so figured I'd unpack instead," she says shrugging her shoulders.

Nodding his head in understanding, Sam walks around the coffee table, and sits down next to Andy on the couch. "What were you watching?"

"Old home movies of my dad's," Andy says casually as if she's just told him what to get at the store tomorrow morning.

"You were watching them alone?" he asks concerned.

"Didn't want to wake you," she mumbles almost incoherently.

"Well..," he leans back against the couch, wrapping an arm around Andy's back before adding. "Feel free to wake me up next time you need me."

"It's just a couple of home movies, Sam," she insists vehemently leaning forward on the couch to avoid the sensation of his fingertips caressing her cotton-clad shoulder. "I'm fine."

Scoffing, Sam wraps an arm around Andy's waist, and hauls her to him so that her back is pressed up against the back of the couch, and her side is cradled against his. "I get it, okay?" he says. "I get that you want to take care of this alone, but the thing is Andy, that in grief there's no alone about it."

"You did." She tells him making them both remember how Jerry's death had impacted their relationship, and in some way still did.

"No, I didn't. I didn't deal with what happened, because if I had, then none of what happened last year would've happened. I've learned my lesson the hard way."

Reaching out, Andy picks up Tommy's sobriety coin, and holds it between two fingers. "I feel like I've been split down the middle, Sam. I don't even feel like me anymore."

"You're still Andy McNally," he maintains pressing his lips against her shoulder.

"Am I?" she asks looking at him with tears shining in her eyes. "Every memory, every smell, anything that I've ever associated with my dad makes me want to break down and cry for days on end, but I can't do that because I have to stay strong."

"For who?" Sam asks tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Doesn't matter," Andy shrugs dispassionately.

"It matters to me."

Taking a deep breath, she begins to explain. "I've always been the strong one, Sam. The one, who had a handle on everything. School, basketball practice, parent-teacher nights and so forth. My dad taught me very early in life, that the only person you can count on is yourself, and that if you don't protect yourself from what hurts, then you're setting yourself up for failure."

"So, to grieve is to fail?" he asks rubbing at his tired face.

"Yes."

Turning towards Andy on the couch, Sam frames her face with his hands needing her to really listen to what he's about to say. "You're not a failure, and you're not your dad. You are Andy McNally…"

"Sam..," she sighs trying to back out of his hold, but he doesn't give up on getting through to her, so she stays put.

"The man that you just watched on that movie was someone, who had hopes for the future, a future with you and Claire. Now, that future may not have gone, as he'd hoped that it would, but that man would never say that grieving is a failure, he'd say that it would be a show of strength."

Tears are running down Andy's cheeks, as she takes in what Sam is saying.

"He was a good man."

"Of course he was a good man, baby. Of course he was," Sam says. "But being his daughter doesn't mean that you have to walk in each and every one of his footsteps. You need to make a road for yourself, one that'll make you happy."

"How?" she asks running her teeth through her bottom lip.

"I'll help you," Sam promises using his thumbs to dry away the moisture on her cheeks. "Will you let me?"

Nodding her head, Andy gasps out a "Yes," before crawling into Sam's lap, and letting his arms embrace her.

"I'm here, Andy," he hums against her hair, as her arms tighten around his neck needing to feel the warmth of his body close to her own.

"I know," she breathes deeply burrowing her face into the spot between his shoulder and neck that she loves. "Wouldn't be able to breathe if you weren't."


A/N2: thank you for reading :)

Next up: It's Andy's first day back at work, and busying herself with work isn't as easy as she thought.