Note: This part is dedicated to those of you who have been politely begging me to continue this story ;) You know who you are. It would have been out sooner, but I was in the woods without internet all weekend.
Also, Part 10 is in the works.
After walking back from Sam's the night of the breakup, Andy poured herself a glass of wine and started packing a box. After less than an hour, the bottle was gone, and only that one box had been filled. She fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, waking to the sound of her early alarm going off in the bedroom. She wandered sleepy-eyed into the room and collapsed onto the bed, and hit snooze three times before getting up to get ready for work. She wasn't feeling great and had to push it, but she made it to work with just enough time to hit the shower and quickly dress before her shift.
Andy worked what was probably the most boring Saturday in recorded history, reading and rereading case files, typing up reports and making phone calls. Hung over. Swarek was out doing who knew what while she was trying to clear the never-ending pile of paperwork off her desk. She glanced over to her left. Oliver had been back for about a week and she could tell just by looking at him that he was irritated to be on a desk. His eyes followed the officers walking through the building, clearly on their way to patrol or to visit a crime scene and he'd mutter to himself. He looked up and saw her watching him.
"McNally," he said loudly. She winced slightly at the volume and he chuckled to himself. "How are we feeling this morning?"
"Feel great, sir."
"Yeah, that looks like your 'feel great' hangover face."
She raised a tired eyebrow at him and dipped her head in a nod. "I haven't really seen much of you this week. How's your shoulder?" She nodded at the brace he was wearing. The figure-8 strap wrapped over both of his shoulders and crossed in the back, immobilizing his shoulders and healing collarbone.
"Not so bad these days. At first, it hurt like crazy, but when you break a bone, they give you good drugs, so it could have been worse I suppose." He smiled.
"And I heard another month until you're back on the street?"
"That's the minimum. I'm not holding my breath. I have to go back in a few weeks for another x-ray and they'll decide then. I'm still doing the physical therapy, though. They aren't saying when they think I'll have full range of motion, or full strength back, so it might be a while before I'm wrestling creeps to the ground. Who knows? Maybe I can get Epstein to drive me around the safer parts of town."
She yawned, tucking her hair behind her ear. As she swiveled in her seat to get something out of the drawer, she turned her body towards Oliver.
"Your scar looks good," he said. She looked up. "After it fades a little, people may not even notice it."
Her hand went instinctively to feel the scar and shrugged, giving him a small smile. "I actually kind of like it. Makes me look tough."
He snorted. "Wishful thinking."
Andy yawned again and stood up. "I think more coffee is necessary. Did you need a refill?" He shook his head. She took a step towards the cart, but he stopped her.
"Hey McNally, how is Callaghan liking his new assignment?"
She paused and then turned back to look at him. "As far as I know, it's great." She smiled and walked away.
She found Traci in the locker room after shift and peered around the lockers and in the shower stalls before sitting down next to her on the bench.
"I need your help."
"What now? Do you have another uncomfortable dinner for me to sit through?"
"Luke and I broke up last night."
Traci's eyes got huge. "What?" she said slowly, in disbelief.
"Yeah. I mean I think about it now, and I see it. It was probably time. But last night, it was your basic hit and run. I'll tell you about it later."
"So you break up and what? You got drunk?"
"Just enough to feel it this morning. It probably didn't help that I forgot to eat dinner," she admitted. "The point is Luke is gone for the weekend, and I need help getting all of my stuff out of the house before he comes back."
"Not tonight though, right?" Traci was bent over and shoving stuff into her bag. "I promised I'd be home early tonight."
"It won't take long. A few hours, I swear."
"C'mon, Andy."
"And it gets worse."
"As if it could?"
"I called my landlord today, and Jessica, the girl who's moving out of my apartment, won't have all of her stuff out for a few days, so…" she looked at Traci innocently.
"You're kidding, right?"
"It'll only be for two days, max. She said I could move most of my stuff back in, but she still has boxes and furniture to move out and she's not actually going to be out completely until Monday. So I just need a spot on your couch."
"I seem to remember you having other friends that could probably put you up. I don't exactly have a lot of room."
"Traci." The look on her friend's face didn't change. "I'll wash your car, I'll do all your dishes, and I'll clean the bathroom. Whatever you want." Traci still looked annoyed. "Look, Dov and Chris already have Gail at their place, and besides, I'd kind of like to keep this new development to myself for a while," she finally said quietly, looking around furtively again.
"You mean you don't want people to know that you and Luke broke up."
"That's exactly what I mean."
"Have you told Swarek? I'm sure he has a little extra room at his place," she said and raised her eyebrow suggestively, her grin wide. "Plus, he could probably haul everything in one trip. It's going to take us forever in my car."
"It won't take that long. And as far as Swarek goes, I'm not quite ready to hear the 'I told you so', alright?" Andy argued. Traci rolled her eyes and slung her purse over her shoulder. "Besides, Luke isn't here anymore, so I can just tell people when I'm all settled, and things are a little less…confusing. I just need some time to think things through; you know, figure stuff out."
"People are going to find out. You can't keep a secret to save your life."
"Well, so far I've only told you. As long as you can keep a secret, they'll find out when I want them to." Andy looked at her pointedly and then tried one more thing. "I would do this for you in a heartbeat." She got a sly look on her face. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I have done this for you."
Traci turned to her, relenting. "Fine. Two days."
"You're a lifesaver."
"Yeah, I know." Traci walked out the door.
Andy trailed after her. "Hey, do you think you can help me get my furniture out of storage?"
They worked quickly, if not neatly. Even though Andy knew that Luke was gone, the idea that he might show up while they were cleaning everything out was first and foremost on her mind. Within a half hour, the girls had Andy's clothes dumped into suitcases, and all of her bathroom stuff tossed into a box and with hangers slung over their arms, they took all of it out to the car. Then they went back in and started packing up the rest of her stuff. The car was soon filled once, then again with coats, a garbage bag full of shoes, pillows, sheets, a mirror, a couple of plants that had seen better days, some knick knacks, some of the gear from work, all of the gear from running. There were still a half dozen boxes from the move into the house that had been sitting untouched in the closet in the guest room, and those were loaded into the car on the third trip.
On the fourth trip, they stood in the house, looking around for things they had missed. The coat closet was checked. Andy went through the kitchen and pulled out the dishes she had brought with her. She trailed her fingers over books, CDs and DVDs, extracting hers from the shelves. She walked room by room with a box, collecting the little pieces of her life she never really thought about until it came time to separate them as hers. The last thing she did was take down the pictures from her apartment that had been hanging in the guest room and tucked them in behind the car seats. Traci pulled the car out onto the dimly lit street, and Andy didn't spare a look for the house as they drove away.
Traci had drawn the line at retrieving furniture, and so at the end of their adventure, there was a large pile of boxes and clothing in one corner of the living room of the apartment. It had been pretty well cleaned out, but Jessica still had a similar pile of boxes on the opposite wall that were going out instead of coming in. Most of the furniture had been taken out, save the bed and a couple of straight-backed chairs. For a second she stood in the middle of the living room and breathed deeply, and a sudden feeling of relaxation came over her. She hadn't realized how much anxiety she'd been holding on to, since even before the breakup, and it was very slowly ebbing away. From now on, she wouldn't have to share a bathroom, or worry about doing the dishes right away. She could come and go as she pleased; she wouldn't have to think about calling if she was going to be late. Monday after work, she could come home to this place and start unpacking and then everything could go back to the way it was.
Her initial plan to keep her break up a secret lasted two weeks, which was at least a week longer than she felt could honestly expect. After getting her apartment set up, her fridge stocked, and her clothes folded in drawers and hung in the closet, she'd begged Jessica's boyfriend to help her haul the rest of her stuff from the storage unit. It had only taken a couple of trips. Now her bedroom actually had a bed and dresser, and her living room had her chairs. She'd gotten rid of her end tables and also her small dining table and chairs but those weren't absolute necessities and she could probably wait to replace them.
For Andy, one of the major perks of being suddenly single was that if she wanted, she could devote all her free time to training. The only problem was Sam. Ever since she'd gone to his house that night, she'd felt different around him. It was like seeing him and Kate in such a private moment cemented the loss she'd originally felt when they'd first begun their relationship. At work, things were alright. They kept busy, and she was able to distance herself and keep her mind focused on the work. She didn't have to think about how in love they'd seemed, or how strange it was to go home to a place without even a hint of another life in it. She liked living alone, but there was something about the presence of another person that was comforting. Even when she hadn't seen Luke, she knew he'd been there by the smell of his cologne or by the neat stack of mail he'd put on the counter.
These thoughts came up when Andy wasn't busy arresting criminals, or filling out traffic accident reports. When she and Sam were running, her mind was free to wander, and more often than not, it wandered to the person next to her. As per their original agreement, they tried not to talk about their personal lives, but as is likely to happen, conversation steered itself in that direction more than once and she'd had to rein herself in a little. She figured that she just needed something distract her. She'd been avoiding talking to a trainer at the gym, but after some careful thought, decided to shell out the extra money and go in for a consultation. Even though it was a 24-hour gym, the trainers weren't 24-hour and so she'd had to make a special appointment and he'd stayed late to meet with her.
The guy assigned to her was named Cory and was tall and dark-haired with a wiry build. And if the gold band on his finger was any indication, he was very happily married. He was also extremely knowledgeable. After hearing she was preparing for a race, he sat down with her and went over her latest plan revision with her training log and they came up with something she thought she could work with. She'd been trying to increase her speed, but when she tried to kick it up, she found herself tiring rapidly. But Cory said that they could fix it. He increased her weights and reps and added squat and lunge variations to strengthen her hamstrings, quads and glutes to help her power through those longer runs. He had Andy try a new and lengthier stretching routine and also talked to her about gear, ice baths and pre-, mid-, and post-run fueling.
She left that night, a little over two weeks after the breakup, with a fistful of papers, including a schedule for the neighborhood running club, which Cory helped out with. Apparently, there were a few groups all over the city that participated in any number of runs, casual and training. She'd tried to explain that her schedule wasn't very consistent or flexible, but he'd given her the calendar anyway, just in case.
By the time Andy got done with him and had done a run-through of everything they'd talked over, the crowd in the gym was significantly smaller than when she'd arrived, and she didn't know a single person left. She walked the few blocks back to the station to see if anyone from her shift was left, but didn't recognize any of the cars in the parking lot and so she kept walking. After unanswered calls to Traci, Chris, Dov, and even Gail, her finger hovered over the button she could use to call Sam. She hesitated a couple of seconds and then, shaking her head resolutely, she tucked her phone and the papers into her gym bag, turning at the corner to walk to the Penny. While not exactly next door, it was much closer than her apartment, and there was bound to be someone left there.
Her foot had just hit the asphalt in the parking lot when she heard Swarek call her name. She looked over to her left and saw him, standing with his keys in hand next to his truck.
"McNally. Late night."
She nodded and walked toward him. "Yeah. Is Traci in there?"
"No. She left a while ago."
"Chris and Dov?"
"They're gone too." By this time she was standing right next to his truck and he could read the frustration on her face. "Did you need a ride?"
Andy weighed her options. If this was seriously the last ride available to her, and she declined, she'd be in for a long walk. If she accepted, chances were she'd be in for an even longer night. She shook her head, stubbornly. "I think I can walk it."
"Yeah, I think you're wrong. Get in."
"Sam," she began, gearing herself up.
"No." He shook his head and waved a hand distractedly. "I'm tired and I don't feel like getting into it with you tonight. So just get in."
Andy exhaled loudly and walked around to the other side to climb in.
She got into Sam's car, warning bells began going off in her head. When he pulled out onto the road, she tried again.
"Really, Sam, it's not that far."
"McNally, give me a break. It's practically on the way." She stared out her window, fingers tapping rapidly against her knee, betraying her apprehension. His eyes cut to her and he frowned.
"Are you okay? You seem wound a little tight lately."
Andy ignored him, but tried again as they approached her apartment building and then drove past it.
"Really, Sam. You can just drop me here and I can walk."
"We're still a few miles away and it's dark and freezing out. You're not getting out here."
She rolled her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. "Can you at least just drop me at Traci's?"
His brows drew together and he looked at her. "Is there some reason you don't want to go home?"
"Of course not," she said quickly. Maybe Luke wasn't home. Maybe he was working and she could just wait out front for Traci to come pick her up. But when Sam pulled the truck up into the driveway a few minutes later, Luke's car was sitting there, and there was a light in the window facing the street. Andy slid self-consciously down into her seat, tucking her head against the seat, trying to make herself as small as possible. Sam turned towards her, bracing his left elbow on the top of the steering wheel and the other on the shoulder of the seat, holding his hands out in front of him.
"Okay, what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting like a lunatic?" he asked sharply.
Giving up completely, she sat up in the seat and turned to face him angrily. "Because I don't live here anymore, alright?" she practically yelled, hands clenched into fists. Sam's eyes went past her to the window, where Luke had appeared, head down, not yet taking notice of the large truck in the driveway. "Just please get me out of here, before he thinks I'm stalking him."
"We're in my truck."
"Well, then let's leave before he thinks you're stalking him. Can you please just drive?" Sam looked at her thoughtfully and then nodded and reversed out of the driveway. They were a block or two away when he finally spoke.
"When you say you don't live there, you mean…?"
"We broke up, okay?" He nodded silently, digesting her words. He looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and after a minute or two, he tried again, his voice a little unsure.
"So where have you been living?"
"At my old apartment," she mumbled, avoiding his eyes. He looked at her suspiciously.
"Just a lucky break that it was vacant?"
"Yeah, something like that." She suddenly realized that they he had not turned back toward her apartment and they were headed in the opposite direction. "Where are we going?"
"I have a feeling that I'm going to need food to get me through the rest of this." He scratched his head absently and glanced at her. "Feel like pie?"
She leaned her head back against the seat and breathed in deeply, preparing herself. "As long as it comes with coffee."
Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a booth with red vinyl seats with two glasses of water, two desserts and two cups of coffee steaming in front of them. Andy got the most sinful looking piece of chocolate cake available, and Sam had the tallest piece of apple pie either of them had ever seen. They were two bites in before Sam spoke.
"So, are you okay? With the breakup and the move and everything?" Even to him, the questions seemed inadequate. He knew there was more to say, but he was still feeling a little shell-shocked and the words weren't coming to him.
She nodded and swallowed. She'd been preparing for this conversation for the last two weeks, and he was dragging it out, which was irritating. "Yeah, it's been two weeks. The novelty has pretty much worn off."
He looked surprised. "Two weeks. That's a long time to keep something like this to yourself. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Maybe to avoid having this conversation?" she mumbled and then shrugged. "I guess I just needed some time to sort everything out. Boxes to unpack. That sort of thing."
"So, what happened?" Swarek asked, looking down at the food in front of him. He'd actually lost most of his appetite after the first couple of bites. It tasted good, but he felt something, like a snake uncoiling inside him. It took him a while to figure out that it was nerves.
"With Luke?" she asked. He nodded. "You don't want to know. It's long and not very interesting and I don't really come off very well." He smirked in spite of his discomfort and she continued. "It's more weird than anything else. I mean, you get used to doing things together, as a unit. Like shopping for groceries. It was kind of strange to only buy the things I want. You get in the habit of picking up the other person's favorite cereal or whatever."
"Yeah, I can see that."
Andy took a final bite of her cake and pushed the last half over to him. He slid his plate over to her, a good 2/3 of his slice still left. He took a forkful of the chocolate cake and put it in his mouth, staring at her thoughtfully as she dug into the apple.
She looked up him with a small look of surprise, eyes sparkling. "This is delicious."
He nodded. "Yeah it is."
Andy licked a spot of spiced apple filling from the corner of her mouth. They'd been sitting quietly now for a few minutes and she looked up at Swarek, saw him staring at her with his coffee cup held up like he was about to take a drink. But it continued to hover there, and while his eyes continued to rest on her, his mouth was unsmiling. There were still a couple bites of cake left in front of him, but despite his earlier claims, he didn't seem at all interested in food. Finally, the silence got to her.
"What are you thinking?" she asked him quietly.
"Honestly?" He raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded and took a sip of her coffee. "Honestly, a lot of things."
"Tell me one thing."
He looked at her, his expression a little clouded. "You're not going to want to hear it."
"Tell me anyway."
"I guess I was thinking that I kind of wish I didn't know."
Andy blew out a shaky breath. "Okay…"
"It's just that there's this…this feeling between us…this tension. Still." He shook his head and brought the cup to his lips, stealing just a taste, and then finally set it on the table. "And it seems like you're about to ask me to make a really hard choice."
"Well, I'm not." He looked up in surprise. She shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. "I've thought about it and things between us are finally almost normal again. I don't think we should risk it." She stabbed the last bite of crust and stuck it in her mouth, then pushed away her plate. "The things we said, that feeling…it was a long time ago."
"It wasn't that long ago," he said quickly.
She looked down, crushing her napkin between her fingers and continued, angry at herself and at him for each excuse that rolled out of her mouth. "We both have things going on in our lives right now and I don't think we should make things more complicated than we have to. You and Kate seem to be in a good place," she said, praying for the tiniest shred of denial. Sam was staring at her in mild disbelief and then he nodded.
"Yeah, we are."
She swallowed. Her mouth was dry from nervousness and she took a large drink of water.
"And I'm still adjusting to my…situation. I'm training, and I'm thinking about starting a new project."
"You don't have time for anything else," he said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
She waved him off. "That's not really the point."
"So, basically, what you're saying is that you've figured this out and I don't get a say in any of it." His voice was low and just below the surface, she heard anger sizzling.
"What else would you say?"
He hesitated. "Well, you kind of sprung this on me, so I'm not really sure. I think I need some time."
"And I think this just needs to be settled. Otherwise it's going to come up every day at work, or every time we hang out. And considering your situation, I think we need to figure this out tonight." She looked up from the napkin that was inexplicably in a couple dozen pieces now and spoke quietly. "Let's just make it easy. If I asked you to make that decision right now, could you and know without a doubt that it was the right choice?"
He looked her straight in the eye, and after a long pause, he shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Is there even a choice that needs to be made?" She held her breath, furious at herself for asking. But the question had just come out, with no thought at all.
He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. He hadn't expected her to be this…practical. Other than the fact that she that was clearly nervous just having the conversation, she seemed unaffected, almost cold. It made him falter.
"I guess I'm not sure."
She bit her lip and nodded. "Then I don't really see the point in leaving this unfinished." She poured herself another cup of coffee, more to keep her hands busy than because she actually wanted one. "It wouldn't be fair to any of us." She looked towards the counter, praying for their server to bring their bill.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. "So, then where does this leave us?"
"I guess at the same place we were an hour ago. We work together, and train. We're friends. Nothing has to change."
"If you say so." He leaned back in the booth and folded his hands behind his head.
"You don't have to patronize me."
"Well, apparently I do, because you're kidding yourself."
"It'll be fine. Like we never had this conversation." She nodded, more to convince herself than him.
"And he bought that?" Traci rolled her eyes as she looked in the rear view mirror. It was still bitterly cold out and Andy had taken only a few steps outside before changing her mind about running to work.
"I don't know that 'bought it' is entirely accurate, but he accepted it. It's the best thing." Andy avoided looking at her.
"You are the world's worst liar." Traci looked over her shoulder and switched lanes.
"Fine; it's the easiest thing."
"This is not easy. This is the most ridiculous case of self-denial I've ever heard."
"It's not self-denial if he's not available to me. And he's completely into her. I'm too late."
"Not that it would kill you to be single for a while, but you could have at least heard him out."
"Trust me; I couldn't have." Andy crossed her legs, leaning into the door.
"Why not?"
Andy shook her head.
"Andy."
She turned toward Traci, eyes glistening and shrugged defeated. "Because it was easier than actually hearing him say that he was choosing her. I don't think I could deal with that."
"But you just gave up."
"I want everything to be easy again. And if we had been there any longer, going over the 'what if's', things would never be easy with us again. So just drop it, okay?" Andy had her head turned toward the window, blinking rapidly to stop the sudden stinging in her eyes.
Traci looked over at her friend, concerned. She reached over and squeezed her hand briefly and flipped on the radio, letting the music fill the car as she drove the last few blocks to Division 15.
Sam sat in the driver's seat of his truck in the parking lot. He'd just watched Nash and McNally get out of Nash's car and walk towards the station. Neither one of them looked in his direction; even though he knew they had probably seen him. He leaned his head back, both hands gripping the steering wheel and exhaled loudly. When he'd dropped Andy off at her apartment late the night before, he'd watched her walk in, watched the light come on in the upstairs window of the building. And he continued to sit there until the random thoughts momentarily stopped racing through his head and he was able to concentrate on the short drive home.
He caught a quick glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror and cringed. He hadn't slept more than two consecutive hours all night. Kate had stayed at her place, and so he was free to pace the house, to stare mindlessly at the television without having to make excuses.
Months before, before he had even met Kate, he'd started pushing his feeling for Andy behind a wall in a dark corner of his mind. There'd been a little hiccup in the plan when they'd had that big fight, and then again when she'd gotten into the car accident. But as time passed, little by little, the ache became less, the irrational hope faded away, and he felt like he might be able to actually move on, might actually be able to have an actual friendship with Andy, and a real relationship with Kate. And now, Swarek? he asked himself. He leaned his forehead between his hands on the steering wheel and tried to collect himself and his errant thoughts before he had to go in for parade.
The outburst in Luke's driveway had started it. And now, after their conversation, he could feel it. In that dark corner of his mind, where he thought he'd never again have to look, there was now a small crack in the wall that he used to think was impenetrable.
