Thank you so much for the reviews, favorites, and alerts. Getting feedback is awesome, and definitely encouraged me to continue when parts of this chapter gave me a bit of trouble. Sad to bring this to an end, but I think I've tortured poor Andy enough for the time being! Thanks again for reading – enjoy.
Oh, and I continue to own nothing.
When our long night is done, there will be light
Sam was pulling a baking sheet out of the oven when he heard the front door slam shut, followed by the familiar thud of Andy's bag hitting the floor.
"Sam?"
"Kitchen!" he called back, placing the metal sheet on top of the stove and pushing the oven door shut with his foot.
Andy appeared in the doorway. "Is that what I think it is?"
Sam grinned. "The garlic bread that's famous across this great land? Yes."
"By 'this great land,' I'm assuming you mean the plot the house sits on," Andy teased.
"Hey, now. People have traveled far and wide for the culinary experience you're about to have, McNally."
She raised an eyebrow. "Far and wide? Oliver lives twenty minutes away."
He pretended to think for a moment. "Well, I guess I can always just throw it out…"
"No, no, don't do that," Andy said quickly.
He smirked. "That's what I thought." As he turned back to the stove to stir a bubbling pot of sauce, he felt her hand slide across his waist and shifted his gaze toward her, amused to find a smiling face two inches from his.
"Hi," she said against his lips.
He leaned forward and kissed her. "Hi."
As the instance repeated itself several times, Sam vaguely realized that the sauce was starting to sound angry. "As much as I hate to turn my attention elsewhere, burnt dinner is not exactly what I'm going for."
She pulled away reluctantly, taking a few steps backward and hoisting herself up to sit on the opposite countertop. "Need any help?"
"Nah, I'm good. Besides, I wouldn't want you to be distracted from what I'm sure is the incredibly sexy sight of me in the kitchen."
"For the sake of your fragile ego, I'm gonna let that one go," she said, knowing that she wouldn't be able to argue the point convincingly anyway. "How was Speed Trap Day with Marcus?"
He stiffened slightly. "What happened to the concern for my ego?"
She laughed. "It got sent out of the game early."
"Well. Did you know that he collects bobble-heads?"
"I… can't say I did."
"Oh, yeah," Sam assured her as he removed a couple of plates from the cabinet above the stove. "Mostly athletes, but a few politicians and celebrities here and there. Apparently he's got an exceptional Lady Gaga."
Andy laughed. What I would give to see his face if that thing ended up on the dashboard of his squad car. She made a mental note to talk with Marcus at some point.
"And you?" Sam asked with a quick glance back at her as he ladled out pasta.
She paused. "Surveillance was okay," she responded. "And the rest was… enlightening."
He looked at her curiously. "Enlightening, huh?"
She shrugged. "Yep."
Sam nodded, knowing that particular topic was exhausted for the evening, and offered her a full plate. "Hungry?"
She hopped down from the counter. "Ravenous."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," he jokingly warned, his grin matching hers as he followed her to the table.
Talking to someone had been her idea. "Not that you haven't been amazing," she'd said hesitantly as they sat on the couch. "I just think this might be beyond you."
"You might be right," he'd agreed. (Accepting his limitations – especially where it pertained to her – had admittedly stung at first, but given the mountain she had to climb, it seemed like the least he could do.) Within a couple of days, she'd found a list of names and made an appointment. She asked him, somewhat sheepishly, if he would drive her; he told her she didn't need to ask.
He expected that things would progress slowly, with false starts and periodic steps backward. What he didn't expect was for Andy to storm out of the office a third of the way through her fifty-minute hour. He followed her out into the parking lot, where she stood beside the truck impatiently. "Let's go, Swarek!" It was the last thing she said for hours. When they got home, she lingered in the garage, strapping Sam's too-big boxing gloves to her hands and going to town on the heavy bag he'd put up in the corner a couple of years back. After about twenty minutes, she removed the gloves and walked into the house as if nothing had happened.
To her credit, she'd tried again - twice. The results were the same: shortly after walking into the building, she'd come flying back out the door (Sam's instinct to not bother going inside having proved itself right), sit in the truck with a glower until it arrived in the driveway, then unleash her inner pugilist. Following her respective encounters with the third therapist and the heavy bag (the latter significantly longer than the former), she made her way inside and sat down next to him on the couch, her bangs damp with sweat.
"They all said the same thing."
He turned to look at her. "Which was?"
She stared straight ahead. "That I might not be able to handle my job anymore."
It had to be a misinterpretation – an embellishment at least. "No trained professional in their right mind…" he started.
"Well, they did. And it apparently might take months or years before I'm anything near normal again. I might never be."
Sam ran a couple of fingertips along her shoulder, knowing there was nothing he could say that she wouldn't misconstrue as false hope or condescension. They must have given her nothing more than a worst-case scenario, but it wouldn't completely surprise him if she had gone into those offices and wheedled them for some kind of prognosis until they'd told her what she was expecting – and probably dreading to hear. He had a feeling that she would remain stagnant unless someone understood her perspective, and didn't let her get away with painting her career as an insurmountable obstacle behind which she could conveniently hide. So when he saw the stack of yellow flyers outside the parade room, he discreetly removed one, putting it in his pocket to bring home.
Andy had reviewed the page skeptically. '"Support group for service professionals following a traumatic event.' I guess I should be thankful they didn't try to make it into an acronym."
Sam cleared his throat. "You can always leave if it sucks."
"It probably will."
She stayed the whole time – for that meeting and each one subsequent for months. Sam wasn't sure what happened in the basement of the Lutheran church down the street twice a week, but they were obviously doing something right. It was mostly police officers, she said, a few firefighters and one or two ex-military. Sometimes she'd arrive home bursting at the seams with ideas and questions, not seeming to care that he rarely had answers. Other nights, she'd slip inside with red-rimmed eyes, her silence a force field that he knew better than to try and penetrate. What struck him more than her immediate reactions, though, was how the sharp edges she had developed since her attack softened in microscopic increments each day. How she ate more, slept better, smiled with her eyes. How the vitality with which he'd fallen in love made itself known again, her light slowly but surely making its way back to her.
Andy's eyes closed involuntarily with her first forkful of penne. "Mmm," she smiled, attempting to savor the rich array of spices for as long as possible.
"The verdict?"
She swallowed her food and reached for her water glass, nodding after a sip. "I like it when you feed me."
He smiled. "Well, we all know what happens when you're responsible for dinner."
"Hey," she protested with a grin. "I've gotten better."
"Two words, McNally," he said from around a mouthful of green beans. "Tofu stir-fry."
"Okay, how was I supposed to know that stuff was going to fall apart before anything else could cook?"
He looked at her incredulously. "The better question is, what business did you have bringing tofu into this house when there's perfectly good meat in the world?"
"It's supposed to have all these health benefits…" she began before abandoning her speech, knowing she wasn't likely to get anywhere on this front. "And anyway, that's three words."
"Wrong. 'Stir-fry' is hyphenated, thus one word."
She placed her fork down and pushed her chair back slightly. "I'm gonna go look it up."
"Okay." He shrugged. "But I refuse to accept responsibility for anything that happens to your garlic bread in your absence."
She attempted a glare, well aware that she was doing a terrible job at concealing her laughter. "Fair enough." She scooted herself back in toward the table. "So I talked to Frank today."
He looked up from his plate. "Yeah?"
"I think I'm ready to work the streets again."
He quirked an eyebrow. "You think?"
"I know."
"Surveillance van's not doing it for you, huh?"
She scoffed. "That too. But the job I signed up for is out there. I want to get back to it, and if things happen… I'll deal."
"Yes, you will," he said with a soft smile. "Now, have you given any thought as to who you might like to ride with? Because I hear there's an officer at Fifteen who would happily lock his rookie in a holding cell if it meant partnering with you."
"Hmm." She pretended to mull it over. "How do I know this officer isn't just using me as an excuse to ditch his rookie?"
"Maybe he's thinking two birds, one stone."
"That's reasonable enough," she supposed. "And seeing me at work all day and home all night? It wouldn't be too much for him?"
Sam reached across the table to take her hand in his, the corners of his mouth lazily curling upward. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
Things weren't strained after it happened, not exactly. Just hesitant. Cautious. Talking came easier as the days passed, and she seemed okay with him touching her to an extent – his thumb running over the back of her hand, his arm around her shoulders – but she shied away from anything beyond that, and he wasn't about to rush her. She wore baggy clothes around the house – his T-shirts, oversized pajama sets printed with ducks or hearts or something. After a while he started to recognize the stiffness in her demeanor for what it was: embarrassment. Allowing herself to be vulnerable had never been her forte; it was the same reason she hadn't talked to him when she remembered in the first place. He could have told her a thousand times that letting him in didn't make her weak or needy, but it would probably have just made things worse. Maybe she just needed an opportunity to see him the same way.
"Did I ever tell you about my class trip to the circus?" he asked from his side of the bed one night.
He heard Andy shift in the darkness. "When?"
"I was seven. It was a low-budget piece of crap. A couple guys juggling, some asthmatic ponies. And clowns. A lot of clowns."
"What's a lot?"
"Any more than none." He chuckled and cringed simultaneously. "See, that was the day I learned that clowns are terrifying."
She snorted. "They're supposed to be entertaining."
"Not when they're trying to eat you. So one of them came up to the section my class was sitting in, making faces and doing… clown stuff. I stood up and ended up falling over the back of the bench trying to get away."
Andy sucked in a breath. "Bet that hurt."
"Only my pride." He grinned. "Everyone forgot about it by the next day, or so I thought. See, Angelo Freeman had been sitting next to me. Real nasty bully with a long memory and a penchant for tormenting scrawny little kids like me. A year later, everyone in the class gets invited to a costume party for someone's birthday. Couldn't tell you who now, but I do remember Angelo walking up to me on the playground and asking if I was going to the party, all friendly. I should've taken more notice, since most of our interactions involved him trying to flush my head in a toilet, but the copper instincts didn't kick in until puberty started."
He heard the smile in her reply. "So, did you go?"
"Oh, yes," he said with a tight smile. "I show up in my homemade Superman costume, and there's Angelo. He spots me and gives me this really nasty smile before pulling on one of those horror-movie clown masks. Starts walking toward me. I just bolted, ran out the front door. He came outside after me. So I'm looking around the front lawn, desperate at this point, because I know I'll be grounded for the rest of my life if I cross the street by myself or leave the yard without an adult. There's a big oak tree on the far side of the lawn, and I just run over to it and start climbing, cape and all. Stupid thing kept getting stuck in the branches, but my priority was getting away from the scary clown. I went almost all the way up, so I was actually moving when the branches blew in the breeze. Angelo stood down at the bottom yelling at me to come down so he could eat my brains, but he was a big kid, not too coordinated, so I knew I was fine as long as I stayed up there. Which I did for the next two hours until my mom came to pick me up."
Andy was quiet for a moment; when she did speak, he heard her voice wavering with amusement. "Where did you get a cape?"
"Red towel and a couple of safety pins," Sam admitted.
He reveled in the sound of the warm laughter that followed. He'd missed it more than he'd realized.
Each night, he told her a different story, always something that had scared him. Sarah's deadened eyes when she'd come home from the hospital after being attacked; how it felt the first time he'd taken one in the vest; the look on the face of the first person he'd killed as the body crumpled to the ground. She'd started inching closer gradually, until it no longer seemed unusual for her to sprawl out on her stomach along his side, chin perched on his shoulder as his hand brushed over her spine. He could see her through the glass wall that remained between them; he just needed to shatter it.
"It came in waves for me. After Brennan."
She pushed herself up to look at him. They'd never talked about this; she'd disappeared to Temagami the next day, and it hadn't exactly been a priority upon her return. As time had elapsed, it seemed more distant and less relevant to where they were.
"The first week was fine. Autopilot and painkillers, not a bad combination. And then I was in the grocery store and saw grapefruit juice in the refrigerator case. Shouldn't have meant anything, but I left a full basket sitting there and was home before I realized I'd walked and left the truck in the parking lot."
He felt her breath catch. "How'd you deal with it?"
"Good days were good days," he said softly, looking up at her hairline as he ran a couple of fingers along it. "Bad days… I punched things." He involuntarily flexed his left hand, remembering the agony of its harsh collision with the kitchen wall when the brace had been off for less than 24 hours. "Drove around a lot. All night, one time. Decent radio and bad coffee. And soon… there just weren't as many, and then they were gone."
She opened her mouth to speak, but then cupped his face with one hand and pressed her lips to his. He froze, expecting her to pull back, but she deepened the kiss, her hands reaching around toward the back of his head. He moved slowly, followed her lead, tried not to think about how much he'd missed this. She flipped onto her back, pulling him with her so that he rested above her, her hands making their way down his sides toward the hem of his shirt and sliding it upward.
He broke the kiss long enough to look at her for confirmation. "Yeah?" he whispered.
She nodded wordlessly, urging the cotton up further. He pulled away to lift the shirt up over his head, discarding it to the side. He looked down at her, hair fanned out behind her head, a nervous smile on her lips. "You're beautiful," he murmured.
Her hands moved toward the front of her pajama top – cupcakes this time – and slowly loosened each button, shaking slightly. With a deep breath, she slipped the shirt off her shoulders, her eyes locked with his. "Still?"
The burns had long healed and the scars they'd left behind were beginning to fade, but the lacy translucent circles along her skin were still visible in the moonlight. He carefully brushed over each one with his fingers, then his lips. He felt her sharp intake of breath as he moved; when he was finished, he pulled himself up to meet her eyes.
"Always."
She insisted on cleaning up the kitchen: "You cooked, it's only fair." Sam heard water running and the contents of the dishwasher clatter as he settled on the couch, flipping on the TV.
Andy walked into the room, dropping down beside him and resting her head on his shoulder. "Anything good?"
"Pickings are slim." He continued moving through channels until Andy said, "Wait, wait. Go back. I like that movie."
He turned back to the previous channel; it was the British one with the Indian girl who wanted to play soccer. "You've seen this about a thousand times."
"I know. It's good."
"You own the DVD."
"But if it's already on…"
He rolled his eyes, putting the remote control down and stretching an arm across her shoulder. It wasn't as if he really cared; with her this close, it was generally hard to pay attention to much else anyway. (Even if he could pretty much recite this stupid movie verbatim.)
When it ended, he turned off the television, continuing to run his thumb along her shoulder. "So. Tomorrow."
She sighed. "Tomorrow."
"Onward and upward."
"Something like that."
He tilted his head to look at her. "You scared?"
"No." She smiled. "I mean… you'll be there."
He kissed her. "That I will."
She pulled away and stood, holding a hand out to him.
"Where are we going?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
She gestured toward the stairs with her head. "You know. Onward and upward." He leaned forward with a grin and took her hand, allowing her to pull him to his feet.
"Lead the way."
