I've noticed some of you are frustrated by Sam and Andy's misunderstandings. My opinion is that they were too drifted apart during season 4 that it'll take them some time to get back on the saddle and ride into the sunset together.
Your reviews and comments are much welcome! they make me feel this process is worthy to someone out there…
Disclaimer: the usual, you know.
"Ready?" Andy walked fast in to Sam's ICU room. She stopped when she spotted Sam's doctor, and not Traci, in there.
The doctor raised his eyes from the chart he was holding.
"Officer McNally, good to see you. How are you feeling this fine night?"
Somehow Andy got the irritating feeling he knows precisely what happened to her the other night, but she doesn't care. She knows the doctor is decent enough to not disclose any private information to someone else.
She stepped closer and for the first time noticed the doc's name tag – Dr. Jones.
"You've been pillow-talking, Dr. Jones?" she smirked.
The young doctor blushed.
"Well, you know… we hoped it's Sam's kid, but then you told my wife it wasn't so… sorry. We need to air our thoughts somehow." He shyly smiled.
"It's fine, doc, as long as you keep it to yourselves. I know exactly what you mean about airing your thoughts with a co-worker." Andy reassured him and raised her eyes to Sam "how is he?"
"All markers are great, and tests show us that he's basically sleeping, as we thought. As he is not in any immediate danger I want to take him out of ICU tomorrow to the neurological ward, hoping he'll fully recover soon."
He didn't say the rest of what he thought - 'so you two could be together'.
"How can he be asleep if he's looking at me and answering my questions?"
"Don't know. Kind of like parasomnia, I think, like sleep walking. There is too little known about these situations. Basically, he's one in a million this guy, to wake up like he did when we turn the machines off." He patted Sam's leg in friendly manner. Somehow he got to care about this patient more than usual.
At that point Traci walked in to the room, holding a cup of coffee in each hand. She handed one to Andy and asked "we're going? I have what you wanted, and I need to get some sleep before Leo wakes me up in a couple of hours."
Sam opened his eyes when Dr. Jones was done and left the room. He thought about all that had happened tonight – waking up to find Marlo at his side, her running away so abruptly, Andy coming in with Nick and then Traci's excruciating process of getting the password to the alarm in his house.
He didn't really need his glasses. He usually didn't even wear his contacts, but it was a good way to get her into his house, to make her see.
A couple of months before the tornado came and flipped his life upside down, his yearly physical revealed he needs glasses. Low number, he barely noticed the change. Andy found the letter in his pants when she did the laundry. He didn't try to hide it. Not from her. Next day she took him to the store and he bought glasses for home and contacts for work. While they were still together he wore the contacts every day, though the process of standing in front of a mirror and sticking a piece of plastic to his eyes was way too much self-pampering to his idea. When Andy disappeared that night, the contacts went with her, and the glasses were probably somewhere in his kitchen drawer.
He wanted her to be there, in his house.
Somehow it seemed like the best place for her to be, even if he was stuck here in his body shell.
So he acted as if he doesn't want to give Traci the password. And then he gave it to her.
The real password.
Not the plain numerical version he gave Marlo the only time she was in his house alone, when he forgot his cell phone on the kitchen counter and she stopped by during shift to bring it to the barn.
He wanted her to know the real password.
He wanted her to know that Marlo was in his house only a handful of times.
Always with him.
Never in the bedroom.
Never overnight.
At first he told himself all the logical excuses - her place was bigger, brighter, nicer, closer to work and to the penny.
But after that talk he had with Oliver at the cabin, he finally admitted the truth to himself - he didn't want to see Marlo in the place that screamed McNally to him every day.
As if Marlo's presence will contaminate the walls or something. He just didn't want her there.
And tonight he wanted Andy to be there. To know the real password. To see the way the house is.
To know that he is still waiting for her, even if he moved on.
Down at Sam's house, Traci reached for the piece of paper in her pocket while Andy unlocked the door with the key she brought from Sam's hospital locker. Sarah made sure all his stuff was kept there, except for his ruined clothes.
"So, what's the password?"
Traci flattened the paper in her hands, and started calling the symbols one by one the same way they practiced the phonetic letters back in the academy, waiting for the moment Andy realizes what she's typing.
" Fife, Niner, Alfa, November, Delta, Yankee, "
Andy pressed the buttons as told, not getting the meaning of it. And then it hit her. Her birthday was May 9th. And... well… the rest of it was pretty much self explanatory.
She looked at Traci, not knowing what to make of this. Clearly Sam changed the password after he broke up with her, because it used to be Sarah's name in there when they were together.
"Sam gave this password to you?"
"He didn't want to, at first. But I used my charms to work on him until he gave up. I think deep inside he knew I will not let him sleep until he gives it to me." Traci chuckled.
Andy turned around and looked at the place – dust was all over, and some fishy odor came from the kitchen. No one was in this house for nearly a month.
Andy didn't know how Sarah managed to go back and forth to St. Catherine's almost every day. Maybe she didn't want to leave her husband and kids alone for the night, and clearly she didn't come here.
"pheeewww" Traci waved a hand near her nose, trying to make the stench move so she could breathe "I think Sam left something on the kitchen counter the day he got shot."
They walked to the kitchen together, Andy turning the lights on as they go, where they found a bowl of what used to be fresh fruits on the marble, but now was only a pile of greenish-grayish fallouts of mold and one stray dry orange.
Andy leaned against the counter to bend down and breathed. When she raised her hands she felt the dust left on her fingers.
"Okay, that's it. I'm staying here to clean, and you're going home to your son." Andy turned around and looked at Traci.
She then strode the 5 feet to the cabinet where she knew Sam keeps his cleaning supplies. The first thing she pulled out was a paper mask Sam once bought to use when painting the house. She brought out gloves, dusters, garbage bags, a bucket and a disinfectant cleaning solution.
She turned around and saw Traci looking at her, measuring her head to toe, arms crossed on her chest.
"And what you think you're doing?"
"Cleaning"
"Andy, look at me"
Andy huffed away some stray hairs from her face, and looked at her friend.
"You know he loves you, right? He never stopped. Look what password he chose for the alarm in his house. He thinks of you every time he comes in through this door."
"So why did he tell me he wants me to be happy and that's why he's leaving me? Why did he tell me he can't be a cop and be with me and then hooked up with Marlo? Marlo! Of all people." Andy's desperate look touched Traci.
"I don't know, Andy. I really don't. You'll have to talk to him about it. Not me. Marlo is the exact opposite of you, maybe it was more... I don't know... safe. You want me to stay and help you?"
"No. I want to do this alone. I need to clean my head as well, get some weight off my shoulders. You go ahead to your lovely son, and I'll see you tomorrow." Tears were running down her cheeks by this point.
Traci hugged Andy and walked to the door. When Andy locked the door behind her, Traci smiled. Obviously Sam could have pointed to the numerical part of the board and make it easier for both of them. But he wanted Andy to know that it wasn't simply 592639. He wanted her to know it was her all along.
Traci smiled and hoped her partner will make full recovery fast. She didn't know how long Andy will be able to pull this off.
Andy worked meticulously through the house, starting from the hardest – the kitchen, and going through the living room to the bedroom.
She threw away old food from the fridge, she cleared the counter. Sam was never the kind to leave unwashed dishes in the sink, and she now thanked him for that in her head.
When she got to his bedroom it struck her – little things in his house changed during the past year, a new bowl for the fruits, a different cushion on the sofa, a new painting in the hall.
But his bedroom stayed the same.
By the look of it, the linen was clean, and only one half of the bed was used.
His half.
She looked at the neat pillow on the other side, and it looked so inviting. She had the feeling if she'll lift it she'll find her old pajama still there.
She quickly walked there and snapped it off the bed. There was nothing under it.
She huffed some air in a combination of disappointment and relief – had her clothes been there, it would have freaked her out. Who sleeps with their ex-girlfriend's PJ under the pillow when they have a new girlfriend over?
She looked around the room, trying to estimate the influence Marlo had on it. There was nothing there. She looked again and just knew it – Marlo was never there. These walls never saw her.
It made Andy happy. It made her secure.
Kind of the opposite of how she felt in her own place, after sharing it with Nick for some nights. She couldn't go there, not until she'll take all reminiscent of Nick out of there.
She took her dirty clothes off and placed them in the washer and then went to take a shower.
She noticed the toilet paper is almost over, so she opened the cupboard under the sink to bring a new one out.
In there, next to the pack of toilet paper, she saw her shampoo and soap, a pack of pads, her toothbrush and a pack of new razors she forgot she had there.
Sam kept it all.
She took these out and then took a long hot shower.
Out of the shower, she took socks and a T-shirt from Sam's closet, placed her clothes in the dryer, and went to bed.
Her clothes will smell like Sam in the morning, she smiled.
Lying on her side of the bed she thought how good it was to be in a place you feel belong to. She thought about the baby she lost less than a week ago. The bleeding subsided, but it still felt remote – as if it was somebody else's child and body.
She thought how the string that could have tied her to Nick for life so quietly disappeared, making room for Sam to come back.
She wanted kids in her future. She wanted them with Sam. Now he needs to fully recover, and she'll fight for that.
As she drifted into sleep, she decided to clean her condo when the bleeding stops and she knows her body took all of Nick away. From now on Nick will have no room in her house or her heart, not that he ever did.
Until then she'll sleep here, bringing Sam to her lungs with every breath she takes.
Next morning, Andy walked rather late to Sam's ICU room only to find it empty.
All his belongings were gone, the locker next to the bed was not the same, and most importantly – Sam was not there.
Remembering something Dr. Jones said about transferring Sam to a different ward, she walked to the nurses' station.
When she got his new room number she headed back to the elevators, where she found Sam's dad wandering around.
"Mr. Swarek?" she called with no answer. She walked around to face him.
"Judge Swarek?" this time he answered
"Hey there, dear. How are you today Bambi?" his tone was NOT what Andy expected. After the first impression he left the first night they met, Andy prepared herself to be beheaded by him. But he was actually nice now. His voice was warm and friendly.
"Are you okay, sir?"
"Yeah, I just can't remember where Sammy's room is. I went to bring him his ice cream and then I couldn't go back."
Andy looked at the man's hands – they were empty.
"You know what, sir, why won't you join me and we'll go find Sammy together?"
She guided him to the elevator and down the hall in the neurological ward.
Sam felt Andy's hand on his and opened his eyes. When he saw her smile, a new sensation came back to life, and he smelled his detergent on her.
Great, she spent the night in my house. Not with Collins. She's back where she belongs.
His heart made another little dance and his eyes looked around the room. He was stopped by Andy when she placed the glasses on his nose.
You'll make a great mom, Andy. Our kids will be the happiest ever with you taking care of them.
With his glasses on, he continued his search around the new room.
A nurse flashed the erasable board to his eyes as he opened them this morning, saying they move him out of ICU, so he knew this was coming.
He was surprised to see the three people in the corner, one of them sitting in a chair.
Mom? Dad? Why are you here?! You shouldn't have come all the way down here. I would have come to you once the sedatives were no longer an influence.
He had no idea it was his own brain sedating his body, and not one of the creeps he dealt with in the past.
Oh, dad, you look so bad… I should have come visit you earlier. It's just the past year was too much. I just couldn't get away for long enough to make that trip to you by car and back, and be with you long enough.
Sarah saw the regret in her brother's eyes, and wrote something on the board.
'Don't worry, Sam. He's still here most of the time. It didn't fully get to him. But you need to come back to us soon. Okay?'
Blink blink. Sure, sis. I'll come as soon as I can, I just don't know how to get out of here.
Andy saw all this, and said nothing.
Later she took Sarah to the hallway and learned Abe, Sam's dad, had early onset Alzheimer's disease, and he's been like this ever since Sam was 7 or 8.
Andy didn't need to know what 'this' meant. She saw in her own eyes how judge Swarek turned from being the cutest kitten alive to an attacking lion.
After another week in this ward, Sam's parents decided to take him home and nurse him there. There was nothing the hospital did to him here that couldn't be done there as well. Not with what the insurance will pay.