Okay, I've re-read and tweaked this chapter to the extent that it doesn't really make sense to me anymore. They're just words on a page by now. So I'm just going to post this and then I can focus on chapter 3. Needless to say I'm not very happy with this, but, hey, at least *spoiler* is there.

Sam wakes up the next morning confused and disoriented until a slight throbbing pain in his gut reminds him what happened and where he is. His eyes open slowly and as he turns his head he sees Andy sitting where he had found Collins when he woke up the first time around. This was what he wanted yesterday, but the relief he had expected to feel at the sight of her isn't there.

"Hi," she says, her voice soft.

He smiles through the fog of sleep that is engulfing him, caused by the pain medication making it harder to wake up properly. "Hi. Are visiting hours this early?"

She shakes her head, smiling back at him, her eyes never leaving his face. "I persuaded the nurse to let me in anyway."

"Really?"

"I can be very persuasive."

"Yes, you can, McNally," he agrees, his voice raspy, turning his head towards the bedside table, trying to work out how to pick up the cup that is very inconveniently located on the side of the bed where the IV needle is sticking out of his hand. Before his eyes even land on the cup she is on her feet pouring him a glass of water. He lifts his head and lets her bring the cup to his lips so he can drink. When he is done she pulls the cup away, somehow knowing exactly how much he wants to drink.

His head falls back on his pillow and he closes his eyes. How is it that she knows just what to do and how to take care of him? And how is it only when she sits back down that he realizes he didn't even stop to think about taking the cup from her when yesterday he refused to let Collins help?

"So whose is this?" She asks him teasingly and he opens his eyes to see her holding up a flimsy pink scarf. "I wouldn't have thought this was your color."

He looks at it for a few seconds. "That's Marlo's," he says at last.

Andy puts it down on the windowsill behind her. "Right." Her eyes are on the floor, but she glances up at him briefly before asking, "So she was here?"

"Yeah. She came by last night. She must've dropped it." And she must have realized that once she got outside and then decided it was not worth coming back for it, he thinks.

Andy nods, still looking at the floor. "That's good," she says. "I just mean no one's seen her. Luke said he thinks she'll probably be fired if she doesn't quit."

Sam doesn't tell her that she already did. It is no longer his business. "And you're worried what'll happen to you?"

She looks up at him at last. "I'm worried what'll happen to all of us. You and Nick, too."

Sam opens his mouth to point out that the only reason anything might happen to Nick is that she chose to share Marlo's secret with him, but she looks so genuinely worried that he can't bring himself to. "All Collins is going to get is a slap on the wrist, I wouldn't worry too much. He didn't seem to."

Andy doesn't seem surprised that Collins and Sam have talked about it and he assumes that they've already discussed it. Clearly sharing is a big deal with the two of them. Very healthy and well-adjusted. The word 'normal' springs to Sam's mind, but he squashes it down. Somehow he no longer has a taste for 'normal.'

"And what about us, then?"

"Well, I'm sure you'll be fired. I'll probably get a medal for catching this bullet," he jokes.

She winces and he isn't sure if it's because of the idea that she'll lose her job or it's the reference to his injury.

"It'll be fine," he tells her reassuringly. Except he's not really sure it will and he can tell that she knows.

"Luke was so angry," she tells him. "Because we lied to him, about Kevin Ford."

Sam sighs. "Well, we couldn't exactly tell him the truth, could we?"

Andy shrugs, but doesn't say anything. She knows as well as he does that Luke is too by-the-book to ever bend the rules for a colleague, and he would have never done anything untoward to protect Marlo's career. If he had found evidence pointing to her - and without the forged log entry her fingerprints on Ford's computer would have pointed straight at her - he would have followed that evidence down a path that would have ended Marlo's future in the police force. Evidence that wouldn't have solved the case, which is how Sam has rationalized it to himself and he expects Andy has been doing the same. Except that got harder when Ford went after all of them.

There is no denying that a large part of the responsibility for that is his, and he has made Andy responsible too by bringing her into it.

"Look, I made you do it," he tells her. "Just make sure they know that. Tell them you didn't want to, and I made you."

"You didn't exactly hold a gun to my head," she objects. "I didn't have to do it."

"Maybe you felt like you did?" He suggests.

She sighs loudly. "I don't really think a review board is going to care too much about my feelings."

He looks at her carefully but her eyes are back on the ground. He isn't sure which feelings she's talking about. How obligated she felt to help her former T.O., or her feelings for him?

Either way they're the feelings that got her into this mess, which means she shouldn't be having them.

"I'm sorry you had to get involved," he tells her. He knows he's said it before, but it seems like the sort of thing that bears repeating.

She looks up. "I'm sorry you got shot."

He smiles slightly. "That wasn't your fault."

"I can still be sorry," she insists.

"Okay."

"You're okay though, right?" She asks, sounding worried.

"I will be," he assures her.

"You really scared me, Sam," she says, her voice a mixture of blame and a fear that still lingers. "Just walking out like that, when you knew there was someone out there who wanted to kill all of us."

Sam sighs. He had thought she meant he scared her by getting shot, but instead she wants to talk about what happened before that. "Well, if I hadn't we wouldn't have known he was already inside," he says. He's not really up for a discussion about what happened and why.

"That's not an excuse to put yourself in harm's way like that." She is no longer fidgeting and he can hear the frustration in her voice although her eyes when she looks at him are filled with worry.

"Yeah, well, I don't think I really need to explain myself to you, McNally." He's not really sure what he's doing, or why he's saying the words coming out of his mouth, but seeing her like this, consumed with worry for him, somehow makes him want to push her away, because he can't be responsible for that.

"That's not what I meant, Sam."

He opens his mouth to ask her what it is she means, then, but he already knows, because she told him in the ambulance, and he doesn't want to hear that again. Not now.

That day he listened to her story and what he told her was true, it's a great story, but now, on the other end of it, that's not enough. He let her say those words because they might be the last words he would ever hear, and Andy declaring her love for him was not a bad way to go, all things considered. But now no one is dying and nothing is going to change. She is still with Collins, and that is still the right choice for her.

He will take care of her much better than Sam can do, and he will not have her sitting in a hospital room at six in the morning because he walked in front of a bullet. He won't get her suspended, he would never let her risk her career. And he certainly wouldn't let her do it twice.

It occurs to him that they've been in this place before. The situation might've been different – no one had been shot and no one had said the word 'love' – but on the whole, this is pretty much like when he told her to choose Luke.

Because no matter what Sam wants, no matter how he feels, there's always going to be a better guy out there, who will take care of her better than he could do.

Who will make her happy instead of just making her think he will and then walking away.

"Sam?" she asks when he doesn't say anything. Can't think of what else to say. Because he wants her to go, but he doesn't want to tell her to leave.

"It doesn't matter what you meant, McNally. This is what happened, and now everything is going to go back to the way it was."

Her eyes widen in surprise. "What?"

He shrugs awkwardly, the pillows getting in his way. "This is all going to heal," he says, indicating his abdomen with a wave of his hand. "We'll all get a slap on the wrist, and then it'll be like it never happened."

"Any of it?"

He pauses, not sure how to answer that question. He knows she means what she told him in ambulance, and what he told her before the shooting. But one of those things is going to still have happened. "Pretty much, yeah," he agrees.

Her shoulders sag. He doesn't know what she was really expecting. She hadn't exactly come in all eager to hold hands or anything, but it's clear to him that she wasn't expecting their conversation to go like this.

Except then she straightens up and nods, her chin jutting forward. "Okay," she agrees. "Great."

Sam looks at her carefully, waiting for some sort of reaction, an outburst of anger, but her walls are being reconstructed right in front of him, and it is only when he sees it happen he realizes that they were down at all.

She stands up. "I should go. Call if you need anything, okay?" She offers, not sounding at all like she's expecting him to.

Sam just nods, not trusting himself to speak.

She walks out of the room but stops in the doorway to look back at him. Their eyes meet and he is reminded of a conversation they had after the break-up. He had wanted to take it back, and clearly she could sense that, but in the end he couldn't bring himself to do it. Still, she had the same look on her face then as she does now, like a dog that's been kicked but is still somehow hoping to be thrown a bone.

She pauses only for a few seconds before speaking. "Bye," she says, and then she is gone.

Oliver comes to pick him up from the hospital a week later, offering to push the wheelchair and earning himself a glare from Sam to which he responds with a grin and a pat on the back.

They're halfway to his apartment before Oliver broaches the subject that Sam has been dreading the whole ride. "So, have you spoken to McNally?"

Sam looks out the passenger door window. "Yes." He doesn't elaborate.

"And how did she seem to you?" Oliver asks, pretending he hasn't noticed that Sam really doesn't want to talk about it.

"Fine," Sam says, shaking his head. "Worried about her career."

"That's it?"

"Yeah."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam can see his friend nodding to himself.

"How's Celery?" he asks. He doesn't want to talk about Andy, and hopefully this is a topic that'll keep Oliver talking for the rest of the drive. As much as he doesn't want to hear about happy coupledom right now, it's better than discussing his own inability to be happy in any way.

"Oh, she's great," Oliver replies. "Well, y'know, she fusses a lot." It's clear from his voice that he doesn't actually mind that. "She has me drinking this tea that's supposed to 'heal' me. I don't know. It tastes bad enough that it might work."

Sam laughs briefly.

"She's great, though, man," Oliver goes on. "I don't know how I would've gotten through this without her." His words sound pointed to Sam's ears, so he doesn't reply.

The rest of the drive is silent, and when they pull up in front of Sam's building Oliver sits for a moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, before he pulls the key from the ignition and gets out. He picks up the small overnight bag of things Sam has had with him in the hospital, and walks ahead of Sam up the stairs.

"Are you sure you'll be okay here on your own?" He asks finally, when they are both inside and he can see Sam wince at the pain it causes when he bends down to pick up the mail from the hallway floor.

"I'll be fine," Sam insists.

Oliver walks to the living room and drops the bag on the couch. "Okay. But if you need anything, anything at all, you call me, okay? Anytime of day, doesn't matter."

"Sure. Thanks," Sam replies, looking at him just long enough to convey gratitude. All he wants to do right now is be alone.

"Okay," Oliver says again, sounding like he isn't sure it is. He walks over to Sam and gives him an awkward half-hug, avoiding his stitches. Sam hugs him back thinking he might as well just go along with this uncharacteristic display of emotion. Presumably it'll get him out the door faster.

"Be good," Oliver instructs, opening the front door.

"Always," Sam agrees with a slight smile.

He can hear Oliver laughing even after the door is closed behind him.

When he can no longer hear the sound of his retreating steps on the stairs outside, Sam pulls out his phone. His mind is made up, he's going to stick with the plan he made before Andy chased him into the parking lot and discovered Oliver's squad car. He shuffles through his contacts and locates the right number, takes a deep breath, and presses 'dial'.

When he hangs up five minutes later he realizes that he's been pacing and goes to sit down on the couch, suddenly exhausted.

The conversation has gone as well as could be expected, but not as well as he has hoped. The words suspension, mandatory therapy and review board have all come up.

It isn't a 'no', it's a 'we'll see.'

He looks at the bag Oliver put down on the sofa, unzipping it to pull out its content, and wondering for the first time who brought it to the hospital for him. There's a pair of jeans in there, which he had discarded in favor of the sweatpants that had also been put into the bag and which were less uncomfortable of his wound, some toiletries, and a paperback copy of Tolstoy's War & Peace. Whoever packed this bag did not find that book in his apartment. But the jeans are his favorite pair, and he's pretty sure they were in the hamper when he left for work that day and now they're clean.

So whoever had packed this knew which clothes he liked, and took their time to wash them, but also bizarrely thought he would enjoy Russian literature.

He drops the book on the coffee table and brings everything else through to the bedroom where he drops off the clothes before continuing to the bathroom and replacing everything from there.

Marlo's toothbrush is still in its holder. Somehow he thinks if she had been to his apartment to get his things, she would've gotten her own as well. He picks it up and drops it in the bin. She hasn't been back to the hospital since the first night after he woke up and he doesn't expect he'll ever see her again unless their hearings happen to be scheduled back-to-back which seems unlikely.

When everything has been put away he goes back to the living room and settles on the couch, picking up the remote and flicking the channels trying to find something mind-numbing to watch. At three in the afternoon that shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

He hasn't seen Andy again either, but after his phone call he isn't sure he'll be able to avoid that completely. He is still assigned to 15, so 'mandatory therapy' means going to 15, and Andy's suspension won't last forever.

He blows out a gust of air, settling on a talk show about people whose lives are more messed up than his own. At least he's not having to do paternity tests or admitting to his girlfriend that he's in love with her father.

He's never met Marlo's family but he has a fleeting vision of himself declaring his love for Tommy McNally. The idea would've been funny if not for the fact that it implied that his brain somehow still thinks of Andy in terms of 'girlfriend'.

Sam shakes his head and turns off the television. At least that's proof he's doing the right thing.

TBC