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Let's go see if Sam finds Andy...
Chapter 25- All I want for Christmas.
Sam hit the ground practically running, Bailey's steps slowing him down. He stopped briefly, scooped her up and then blew through the terminal looking for a sign that would point him towards departures. This was his first and only stop in a bid to find Andy because besides here he had no where else to look for her.
It was unbelievable that there were so many people taking a bus somewhere on Christmas eve, but he guessed that they just wanted to get home, or get somewhere to at least be on time to spend Christmas with their families.
Sam set Bailey down on her feet and started scanning the crowd for a face he was desperate to find. But it wasn't working, he didn't even know what she was wearing when she left.
"Andy" Bailey suddenly yelled before she took off running to Sam's left. Turning around he saw Andy take two steps before she stopped walking and stood there with her back facing them.
Sam followed Bailey's footsteps, Bailey tracing new ones as she rounded Andy and suddenly crashed into her.
Andy pushed her away just a little, before dropping her bag to the floor and bending down so that she was eye level with the eight year old.
Sam stopped a few feet away from them, and gave them a second alone as Andy spoke hushed words to his niece and wiped away her tears.
"Please Andy". Sam heard Bailey's voice draw through the crowd. She was heartbroken that Andy was leaving. Sam suddenly felt really angry with himself, he should have seen this coming. The bond that the two had formed was there from day one, he should have known that it would eventually break.
Bailey flung herself at Andy, her arms wrapping around Andy's neck as she sobbed. Andy was taken by surprise and toppled over backwards, her backside meeting the cold tiles.
But she held on to Bailey and hugged her back.
After a while, Andy managed to find her feet, Bailey cradled in her arms as she struggled with the weight of her.
Finally seeking him out, Sam saw more than he bargained for when she turned around and looked him in the eye.
Andy set Bailey down and scrounged in her pocket before pulling out some cash. She pointed over to the Santa standing across the terminal and asked Bailey to go drop the cash into his collection basket.
Bailey looked towards Sam who nodded, he'd have a clear view of her and he guessed that Andy had something to say that she didn't want Bailey to hear.
As soon as Bailey was out of earshot Andy turned to him wearing more emotions than he'd ever seen cross her face.
"What are you doing Sam?" Her voice flared before she took a step and stood next to him where she could see Bailey too.
"Coming to find out why you ran" Sam said giving Andy a really brief glance.
"I didn't run. I'm just going home, something I should have done a long time ago".
"Home?" Sam tried to swallow the word, but it was too late.
Andy took a step towards her bag and scooped it up before turning to walk away.
But Sam was one step ahead of her and when she turned around he was standing right there blocking her path and watching Bailey over her shoulder.
"Don't do this" Sam said without looking at her.
"I have to go" she said it so quietly that Sam had to look at her, had to see what was going on in her head.
"No, you don't" he countered but she looked away.
"I don't belong here Sam, I don't belong in your world".
Sam shook his head, he couldn't believe that she had just said that.
"Then where do you belong Andy? Where are you going to go?".
Andy's eyes misted over when he averted his eyes to her before looking back at Bailey who was now a few feet away from Santa across the terminal.
"It doesn't matter, anywhere".
"It does, because she wants you to stay more than anything in the world. She cried all the way here and you can't do that to her" Sam was clutching straws with that excuse, and he knew it.
"And where does she belong Sam? Foster care in a few weeks?" Andy said it so coldly that Sam flinched.
After clearing his throat Sam managed to actually talk "She told you". It was a fact, it wasn't a question.
"Yeah Sam, she did. She told me and she bawled her eyes out before asking me something. She asked me if you were sending her away because you didn't love her. She's eight years old Sam, she needs to hear that she's wanted, that she loved".
"I'm keeping her" Sam just said it straight out although it wasn't meant to come out until tomorrow morning when Bailey got up to open her Christmas presents. It was the reason behind his call to Mr Malone yesterday; he wanted to apply for full custody.
"I can't let her go, couldn't even if I had too" Sam added now watching Bailey having a fully fledged conversation with Santa.
"She doesn't know?" Andy sounded really surprised.
"I was going to tell her tomorrow. When did she tell you?" Sam looked at Andy this time not really sure that he was prepared for that answer.
"Last night".
Sam cocked his head to the side, Andy's eyes telling him more of the answer to his question than her lips had. It had been why so was so off last night when he got home.
"That's why you left?"
Andy didn't answer, this time she looked down at her feet.
"Why?".
"Because Sam, I'm just complicating things by staying. This is wrong, and I'm getting too attached here...it won't last forever". Andy shifted around looking awkward, like she hadn't meant to say that.
"Then stay Andy. Stay for her?" Him saying that seemed to hit a nerve and Andy was trying to cover it up but she was failing.
"I can't".
Sam was still watching Bailey who had resumed her walk back to them. She was about half way between them and Santa and if he didn't do something now, Andy would be gone before Bailey made it all the way back to them.
Andy took a step away, and Sam broke his gaze on Bailey to fix it on Andy when he reacted without thinking about it any more.
He reached out, wrapped his hand around Andy's arm and spun her around while pulling her closer.
It was probably the worst timing he'd ever had, and it was likely to backfire but it was all he had left to show her because words were getting him nowhere.
He'd thought about kissing her many, many times before and after the mistletoe incident, but actually doing it was something he never thought was ever going to happen.
Andy froze when his lips met hers lightly. He had caught her off guard, but she had no idea how to react. So he pulled her a little closer and kissed her even more.
For a minute he forgot about Bailey, but then she suddenly sprang to mind and Sam pulled away before looking over a bewildered Andy's shoulder to see Bailey sitting on a bench just behind her.
"Stay for me?". Sam said focusing his attention back on Andy.
"What?". She took a small step back, moving as much away from him as he allowed because he didn't want her to go anywhere.
"You felt that" Sam said, Andy's eyes widening as she listened.
Then she panicked and tried to back away, but Sam just pulled her closer and fused his lips back to hers with more feeling this time.
At first he had thought it was infatuation.
Then it became a crush.
After that he just labeled it as wanting something he couldn't have.
But now, kissing her he knew that it was more.
He knew it had been all along, even after he had admitted to falling in love with her to himself the night she fell asleep on the couch with her head on his shoulder.
He just needed her to see that.
This time when Sam pulled away, he dropped his head so that his forehead came to rest against hers.
"Stay for me". He repeated.
But Andy was still feeling the panic as she scrambled to move away.
"I don't even know what you're saying" she tried to defend herself verbally as Sam let her go and she reclaimed her own personal space.
"I'm saying that you felt as much of that as I did, and that I want you to stay". Sam pinched his eyes closed as he heard himself repeat the same words over again.
Talking so wasn't his thing.
"Are you insane?" Andy suddenly voiced really erratically.
Sam's eyes opened and he saw her looking like the scared dear he first met.
"Yeah, I am. But I'm insane over you. About you. For you". Oh wow, that was so lame.
"You don't know what you're saying" Andy was backing up, small steps taken backwards until she couldn't move anymore when her legs hit the bench Bailey was sitting on.
Bailey suddenly stood up on the bench and waved Sam closer. He gave Andy a look that screamed stay right there before moving over to Bailey who pulled him closer and whispered in his ear.
When Sam looked up at Andy he was blushing. For the first time in his life he was red and he didn't care.
"When did you get so clever?" He asked Bailey who giggled.
"She wants me to, um... Can we go home? Just quickly?".
Maybe giving Andy her Christmas present would make her understand what he was trying to say without him having to actually say anything.
He'd had the photo that Bailey took of the three of them put on the cover of a scrapbook and a few of her and Andy inside the scrapbook. He'd gotten her a few other things too, but there was one gift that he had shown Bailey that was to Andy from them both.
"Yes, good idea" Andy suddenly bolted, but in the opposite direction of where they needed to go to leave together.
"Tell her uncle Sam" Bailey said as Sam watched people fill the space between them.
"I love you Andy McNally" Sam just threw caution to the wind and yelled it out loud enough for the entire departures terminal to hear. It wasn't what Bailey had meant when she had said 'tell her', but it was what came out when his lips parted to speak. And yelling it was the only way that he could be sure that she'd hear him.
People passing by between him and Andy stopped and followed his gaze to where she stood still just before the exit door that would take her outside to the bus that was meant to take her wherever she wanted to go.
She just stood there, didn't move, didn't turn around.
"I don't want you to go". Sam added hoping that if he carried on talking she'd get it. She'd understand and she'd stay.
Andy did finally turn around, but Sam didn't find the ecstatic expression he was hoping for on her face.
She marched over to him and stopped a few feet away, her head shaking lightly.
"You're crazy, you know that right? People don't fall in love in a month and a half! You don't even know me Sam".
Sam watched her, closely. Denial running through her so deeply that her core turned to elastic and everything made sense to him.
Realization made him smile as he let out a chuckle and Andy scowled at him.
"You're falling aren't you". Sam wasn't asking her, he was calling her out on what he saw.
"What? No!" Andy said, but her voice didn't hold anything remotely close to conviction.
"You are, you did. That's why you're running. That's why you're scared. You fell in love with her, and you fell for me and you're scared of it" Sam challenged her to try and deny it, try and cover it up.
"It doesn't matter. This" Andy waved between the three of them. "Isn't going to go anywhere".
"Why not? Why not risk it and see where it goes?". Sam's hands were becoming idle, so they found the insides of his pockets while he tried to put up enough of a fight to at least get her to think about it.
"Because, I can't lose this okay. If I leave now, I'll be okay. If I stay and it comes crashing down I won't know how to handle it. Are you happy now? Did that satisfy you?" Andy's voice trembled, lost between emotion and fear as her words came out fiercely.
"You won't lose anything, I promise. You trusted me enough before, why not trust me now? Why not give me a chance?".
"Sam, I don't have anything to give okay. This" Andy motioned to herself. "This is all there is, all there will ever be. I can't take and not give back".
Bailey tapping Sam's leg made him turn around and he bent down when she pointed to his ear. Again she whispered in his ear and he stood up smiling.
"Andy, all I want for Christmas- is you".
If anyone had ever told him that he'd say that he would have probably thrown up. But now, Bailey telling him to say it made it worth giving it a shot.
Andy blushed.
A woman walking passed stopping and looking between them before mumbling something that sounded like 'I wouldn't mind him taking me home for Christmas before she walked away.
"All we want" Sam added and held his hand out for Bailey to take while he kept looking at Andy. He didn't want to look anywhere else but at her.
Andy was trying not to smile at his use of something so sentimental to her, the Christmas analogy was pretty lame but he knew that by using it and her love of the Christmas season he'd get to her. And he knew that she would figure out that he was really trying here.
"That's all there is, and it's all I want. Just you". Sam added when Andy closed the space between them.
"How can you be sure?" She asked then looked towards Bailey before saying "Nevermind".
"Just come home Andy. Tomorrow is Christmas and I have to give you your present. Just for tomorrow?" Bailey asked.
Andy nodded in agreement.
She could do one more day.
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Jelly Bean Jenna©