A/N: Well. Finally. I think I'd written most of this when I posted the last chapter, then I went over it and wasn't happy with it. I couldn't get it to go where I wanted it to. Then I had a migraine which lasted a week and was basically going to work then coming home and sleeping, so when I went back to the chapter I REALLY couldn't get it to go where I wanted. I'm still not entirely happy with it, it still doesn't cover everything I wanted it to, but I've decided that discretion is the better part of valour and that posting it lets me go on and write the next one. And hopefully that one will be better. And (should) get back to the main problem at hand of getting Andy and Sam together.

Sobriety suited Tommy McNally. He stood in his daughter's doorway, held her in his arms, as she cried her eyes out and he wanted a drink. There was no use denying it. He pretty much constantly wanted a drink. He had realised that he would pretty much constantly want a drink for the rest of his life. The trick was in not having one.

One month sober – his 30 day chip often weighed heavily in his pocket – it was beginning to get easier to resist the siren call of the bottle. Today, his child distraught, was clearly going to be … complicated. Tommy McNally hadn't yet faced such a test of his sobriety, and he craved the oblivion of alcohol, to muffle the sound of his daughter's sobbing, to put her tear-streaked face a little less in focus. Tommy was lucky, then, that the first test to his recovery came when it was his daughter who needed him, his daughter for whom he had finally admitted he had a problem. His daughter for whom he had finally gotten help. He loved his daughter more than he loved being drunk, even if it hadn't always seemed that way to her. And now, she was falling apart, as he had after the demise of his marriage and so many other times, and she needed him to put her back together, as she had for him again and again and again. So he would.

He manoeuvred the pair of them over to the couch and sat with her, rubbing her back and making soothing noises. He didn't try to make her talk, he just let her cry herself out. Eventually her sobs slowed and finally stopped.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He was surprised, "What on earth for?"

"For crying all over you! Your shirt's all wet ..."

"My shirt will wash. I'm more worried about you. You want to talk about it?"

She was hesitant, "Not really."

"OK. I'll make us some breakfast, if you want?"

The idea of being babied, pretending she was five years old and none of this was happening, was incredibly appealing.

"Yes please."

"Good, because I brought bacon and eggs."

He made them into a smiley face with half a tomato for a nose, just like he had on Sundays when she was little and they were letting her mother lie in. She smiled in spite of herself, then sniffed – her nose still blocked from her crying jag.

"Were we supposed to have breakfast today?" she asked.

Her father shook his head, smiled, "No. I just thought I'd surprise you."

She had a feeling that someone from the precinct had phoned him to check up on her. She pushed the thought away. She didn't want to think about the attack, not now. She was halfway through her breakfast, mouth full of food, when without even thinking about it, she blurted out,

"I broke up with Luke."

Her father's reaction was not what she'd expected.

"Don't talk with your mouth full." He took a sip of his coffee and finally looked up from his paper. "Is that what you wanted sweetheart?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak for fear of bursting into tears again. After breakfast, her father did the dishes, packing her off to put her feet up and watch TV. She put on some sports channel, knowing he'd like it, and that she wouldn't see whatever was on the screen anyway. She drifted to sleep to the sounds of hockey and her father cursing her building's lack of hot water.

She woke, hours later, after dreamless sleep, to discover that her father had left. She found his note on the kitchen counter.

Andy,

I didn't have the heart to wake you, you looked like you could use the rest. I've gone to a meeting. Call me if you need anything. I love you sweetheart.

Dad

He reappeared a while later with take out for dinner. They talked about inconsequential things. It was nice, to have someone treat her normally; not like a woman on the edge of a breakdown.

She was reticent to tell her father anything; to trust him, lean on him. She was worried that he would let her down again, as he had so many times throughout her teenage years. She was scared that any bad news from her would drive him straight back to the bottle. Years of standing alone, of being her own support system, held her back.

She remembered how she'd never allowed her friends to come over to her house back when she was in high school, because she could never be sure whether her father would be drunk or sober. An ornery drunk, she couldn't trust him not to pick a fight with a boyfriend or say something inappropriate to her friends. She had idolised him when she was a child. He'd always worked a lot, even before her mother had left and he'd needed the overtime. When he was with her, though, he'd always given her his full attention, had made her feel like she was the most important, most precious thing in his world. It had been a treat to stay up late and welcome him home (it had irritated her mother no end how excited she'd get), and their annual camping trips, just the two of them, had always been the highlight of her year.

It had been so painful to watch him fall.

He'd always enjoyed a drink. She had vague memories from when she was small of parties her parents had thrown, her father laughing uproariously, and twirling her mother round their living room. But then he'd been transferred to homicide, where he'd always wanted to be, and slowly but surely the man who'd drunk and laughed with friends, or had a beer or two at the end of the day had become the man who propped up the bar, or sat at the kitchen table drinking into the early hours, his only companions Jack and Jim.

But even knowing that he was an alcoholic, and how many times he'd let her down, she couldn't stop herself from constantly craving his approval. She desperately wanted to be a good cop, so that he'd be proud of her. She bought his groceries, did his housework, so that maybe he'd love her enough to stop drinking; to choose her over the bottle.

She remembered feeling faintly sick when she heard Melanie say about her husband, the man who beat her, "he promised. He's never promised before." She thought of how many times her father had promised her something only to fail her. She knew Melanie's husband would hit her, just as she knew her father wouldn't be there for her – again, would instead get drunk and forget about her, or pick a fight.

But she'd never thought there'd come a time she would consider him capable of murder. And finally, finally she'd found the strength to cut him off, to tell him she wasn't going to do it any longer. She'd broken the cycle, had finally accepted that he would never love her enough to choose her over his addiction. It was painful. It was terrible. It was one of the most difficult things she'd ever done.

It was also necessary for her own well-being.

And then he'd shown up on her doorstep, and told her that horrific story – given her an insight into why he had started looking towards alcohol for oblivion, and he'd promised her that he wouldn't do it again, begged her to give him another chance. And she'd chosen to give it to him.

She'd hated herself, a little, for giving in to him, but he was her father. What else could she do?

And now she was glad that she had.