Author's note: Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing.
This one is rated T, and it take place just between 3X03 and 3X04. This was something I really needed to happen on the show but didn't, so I filled in the blanks.
Hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts!
She hates him.
She hates him, and she loves him, and she is furious with him, and she is drawn to him.
She wants to slap him, wants to see him bleed, but at the same time she wants him to comfort her, wants to listen to him as he whispers words of reassurance in her ear.
It is two in the morning on another day when her best friend is no longer in this world, and Andy can't sleep.
If she is honest with herself, she hasn't been able to sleep since the day she held Ryan in her arms, begging him to stay with her, to keep fighting for his life.
Because every time she closes her eyes, she can hear the gun fire, and Milo crying, and Ryan's elaborated last breaths, and the monitor's sharp beep, letting them know that his heart is no longer pulsing.
It is two in the morning on her first overnight shift since the last time she talked with her childhood friend, and she already had a workout session at the gym, got the keys and sneaked in there, even though she knows it is not allowed, and she might get in trouble.
Not that she cares. She doesn't care about anything anymore, and her new captain's way of punishing her for disobeying the rules is at the very bottom of the list of things she doesn't care about.
At the gym, she punched the bag hard, over and over again, until the skin of her knuckles became red and itchy inside the gloves.
She already had a shower, the water turning ice cold about half way through, but she couldn't bring herself to move, her limbs feeling like stones that were attached to her body, and she had no control over them. Her hair was lathered in shampoo as she just stood there, the water running over her head, and she thought of nothing, staring into the wall.
And that is how she finds herself creeping on the catwalk, silent like a thief in the night, lurking outside his office.
And it is him again. The man who she feels something towards, something she never felt for any other man in her life, and yet he keeps hurting her again and again, in every chance he gets, it seems.
And somehow deep inside of her, in a twisted spot deep down in the pit of her stomach, Andy knows it will always be him. She will always want the one man who is just out of her reach. She will keep waiting for this man, sending him longing glances across two sides of a big room. She will keep loving him, the man who breaks her heart time after time. She will keep waiting for him to come and pick up the pieces.
She can see through the crack in the blinds that the lights are still on, even though that as battalion chief, he is under no obligation to stay in the station overnight like the rest of them are.
Andy thinks that he might be sticking around to monitor her, to keep track of her, to wait for her to fall apart. It makes her blood boil, the thought of him waiting for her to screw up, like everyone else does.
Or maybe it is just the habit. Maybe he is just so used to spending the night with his team, that the idea of going home to get a good night's sleep is just unthinkable for him.
Andy walks back and forth on the catwalk, trying to get her thoughts in order, trying to prevent herself from doing the one thing she knows she shouldn't. She feels everything, and she feels nothing at the same time, and as she hears the rain falling hard on the roof of the barn, she makes her way to the closed door of his office.
Because he can't possibly do anything that will hurt her further. She has nothing left to give, so he has nothing left to take. Her heart belongs to him anyway, whether she likes it or not.
She thinks about barging, thinks about stepping in, uninvited, and damned the answers she deserves. But she is tired, too exhausted to start another war against him, one she is bound to lose, so she just knocks softly on the door, then pulls the strands of hair that fell on her face behind her ear, as she waits anxiously for his answer, not knowing if he is going invite her in, or kick her out.
"Come in." She can hear him call. Andy places a hand on the doorknob, but it is shaking, and she has to use the other to stabilize it and push the door open.
Her breath catches in her throat as she sees him sitting in the big leather chair, going through a huge stack of paperwork. In the moment it takes him to look up at her, she gives him a small once over, can't help herself. She notices the way his brow furrows in concentration, the way he bites down on his lower lip, the way his big hands flip through the pages.
And then his eyes meet hers, and she sees nothing in them.
"How is the view from your high throne up here?" She spits.
"Herrera, I am going to let this one go, because you are grieving the loss of your close friend, but just so you know I have no intention of tolerating this kind of insubordination for much longer." His voice is completely still as he answers, and just like his face, Andy can't read any emotion in it.
He gets up from his chair, standing high above her, looking down. He won't let her forget the fact that she is his subordinate even for a moment, even in the middle of a stormy night, away out of range of any curious eyes.
"Say it." Andy demands. She crosses her arms around her chest and looks up at him, defying.
"What do you want me to say?" He asks, pretending the two of them don't know what she intended.
"Save it." She breathes.
"You are walking a thin line, Herrera. If I send you home again, it will be written in your personal record."
How can she hate so much a man she is so in love with?
He takes a deep breath before he gives voice to the one thing she knew was coming, but still dreaded to hear. "I recommended Bishop as the next captain of station 19."
Andy walks across the tiny office, paces back and forth, her hands pulling at her hair. "That is funny." She gives out a little sound that is supposed to resemble a laugh, even though neither of them find the situation they are in the least bit amusing. If anything, the joke is on her. "Because I have this vivid memory from not long ago of you saying that we can't be together, because you wanted me to be captain." She yells now, her tones are high, but she doesn't care if she wakes all of her friends, or the entire block, for that matter. "And now you're telling me that not only I don't get to have the man I want, but also I don't get to have the job I deserve? The job I worked so hard to be worthy of?"
"Andy…" He whispers her name and takes a step closer, and all she wants to do is to melt into his body, fade into him until they will become one.
"Don't." She stops him with a hand on his chest, keeping him away.
Because she knows. She knows that if she only let him get close enough for her to smell him, close enough for her to remember how his mouth tasted against her exploring tongue, how his body felt when he moved against hers , she might fall apart.
She might start to cry in front of him, she might let out all the feelings that have been bottling up inside of her, and he has no right to see her at her worst.
He is not her family, he is not her lover, and he lost the right to call himself her friend a long time ago. He is just her battalion chief, and she is just one of his lieutenants.
"Just, give me a reason." She begs. "Just something, a little thing, anything, to justify the decision you made. Explain to me why you asked me to let you know what I wanted, and a few moments later you pushed me away? Explain to me how come we fell in love with each other, and yet we can't be together? Tell me why you promised me a promotion, only to give it to someone who used to be my friend, but right now I am pretty sure she just used me all along?"
Robert says nothing, just stares at her with these deep dark eyes that reflects no emotion at all, and makes Andy want to scream, because she knows well enough she wears her feelings on her sleeve, and that he can read all of them on her face in a moment. "I am so sick of men getting to make decisions about my life for me! I am so sick of you thinking you know what's best for me!" Andy yells.
He takes a step towards her, grips her biceps in a firm hold.
"No, let me go!" She wiggles and moves, trying to get out of his grasp. When she finally manages to push him away, she starts to throw her fists against his chest. "I hate you!" she calls and pushes him back. "I hate you!" She screams again at the top of her lungs, and closes the distances between them, only to shove him back another step. She keeps yelling that she hates him, keeps moving them back, until he hits a wall.
He doesn't flinch, doesn't try to stop her, even though they both know he is stronger than her, and he could have just grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of his office. But he does nothing, let her hit him and curse him and blame him for everything that is wrong in this world.
Maybe he believes that he deserves that. This is his punishment for all the lies and the secrets, and to be frank, it is a small penalty to pay for the extent of the hurt he caused her.
He never meant to harm her. His second love. The one person who crept into his heart for the first time in fifteen long years, and never got out of. But even though his intentions were pure, he ended up causing her pain nonetheless. Maybe that is all he knows how to do. Maybe he shouldn't have opened up to her in the first place.
Maybe he shouldn't have let her in.
She is not sure when, but during the time she used him as her own personal punching bag, she started crying, and only realizes it as the first warm and salty teardrop makes its way down her cheek and to her neck.
When she has him pressed against one of the walls, she looks up at him, and for the first time that night she can see an emotion in his eyes, as he watches the tears streaming down her face faster now.
And it breaks her.
Her legs give in, her knees fold under her weight, and she is on the floor, her hands covering her face, hiding her tears from him.
He sits down by her in a blink of an eye, his hands taking her wrist in a feather light touch and pulls her hands away from her face, so he will be able to look at her as she sobs quietly.
"Andy, please don't hide away, not from me. Please." He begs, then wraps his arms tightly around her middle. She wants to free herself, away from his grip and his touch, but she is weak and tired, so she lets him hold her.
Her face finds the place where his neck meets his shoulders, and she breaths him in as she cries, her tears wetting his shirt.
He takes her face in his hands and places her forehead against his. For a moment they just sit there, in the dim lit office in the wee hour of the night, the sounds of their heavy breathing filling the air, the only thing keeping the room from being completely silent. His thumb brushes one of her tears away from her cheek, his lips find the other one, kissing another tear away.
"No, no, stop." Andy protests, shaking her head. "You don't get to comfort me! You don't get to kiss my tears away! You chose your career and your promotion over me!" She yells as she tries to rise herself from the floor. She tries to push herself up with her palms, but his reflexes are quick, and he holds onto her, reluctant to let her go when she is obviously still so agitated.
Andy sits back down and starts to hit him on the chest again. "I hate you!" She screams, but as she looks into his eyes, she falls into his body.
Her arms wrap around his neck, and she cries into his chest this time. "My best friend is dead." She hiccups. "I watched him die in front of me, I held his entire blood volume in my hands. My best friend is dead, and he jumped in front of a bullet shot by a child who didn't know better so I could live." She cries.
"Shhh.." Robert whispers into the top of her head, placing a soft kiss there. He strokes her hair gently, running his fingers through her soft locks, still a little wet from the shower she had earlier, as he murmurs. "I am here. You are safe."
"My best friend is dead, and the other friend I thought I had accepted a job that I earned." She pulls away from him, and this time he doesn't stop her, doesn't do anything to keep her body pressed tightly against his. She wipes her tears away with her own hands, trying to compose herself, even though she is not sure why. They are obviously the only two people around, and the both of them watched as she melted down, so what importance does her appearance have anyway?
"And the man I love keeps letting me down and breaking my heart, time after time." Andy muttered.
She makes her way through his office to the door slowly, and a part of her wants him to follow her.
She wants him to hug her middle tightly and promise her that everything is going to be alright. She wants him to tell her that he chooses her. She wants him to take the pain away from her, and carry some of it on his shoulders. She wants him to lead her to her bunk and peel away every piece of clothing she has on. She wants him to make her feel, make her feel pleasure, make her feel anything else but anger and hurt. She wants him to hold her as she sleeps, and maybe if he spoons her, the nightmares won't be as bad, and she will finally be able to close her eyes and not see the black of death and the red of blood in her mind's eye.
She gets to the door, and places a shaking hand on the doorknob again. She can't help the temptation, so she twists her head back, only to find him sitting at the exact same spot on the floor where she left him.
But she wants him, wants him so bad she gives him one last chance.
"Robert, please say something that will make me stay." She begs.
There are tears in her eyes when he says nothing, the silence providing her answer and breaking her heart further at the same time.
She manages to open the door, then close it behind her. She leans on the other side of it for a second, letting another tear stain her cheek, and swearing to herself this is going to be the last one she cries over him.
And it is him again.
The man who keeps crawling back deep under her skin, the man who makes her feel everything. The man who makes her feel something at all.
And it is him again.
The man she loves. The man she hates.