Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and the kind words! Hope my version of Sam continues to ring true for you. Here's Sam the adrenaline junkie, getting a little dose of karma …

Usual disclaimer: Don't own Rookie Blue or Toronto, for that matter. Visit there a lot though. (Also: Very minor crudeness towards the end of this chapter, but you're big girls and boys, you can take it.)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? Ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! Man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"

-Moby Dick, Herman Melville

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

All that stuff about being undercover serving as a good time to reflect? Not so much, Sam thinks.

Truth is, he's far too busy immersing himself in his role, memorizing the exact nature of his target and assessing the degree of danger he's volunteered himself for. His senses on hyper alert, his nerve endings on vibrate. He remembers now just what he likes about UC: it's exhilarating, it's all-consuming, and it's exhausting, which is frankly welcome, because when he finally collapses on the bed at night he's too fried to think for even one more second, and falls instantly to sleep. Though the dreams are dark and vague and troubling, and most mornings he can't exactly claim to feel – or look – rested. It's okay, it suits his assumed persona. Bad-ass drug dealer with some demons hiding under the bed.

Sam throws himself into the intensity of playing a role. He approaches it like an actor. Writes a backstory for his character, fills in the details, figures out what hockey team JD would root for, what colour socks he'd wear, how old he was when his dad was sent to the Kingston pen. Keeps it close to the truth as he'd been taught by his mentors, the better to keep it real, but the whole time he's working to make the veneer as authentic as possible, the cop underneath is picking away at the problem like it's a big fucking tangled ball of Christmas lights or something. Tugging away at all the little knots and snarls that are Jamie Brennan. Learning his weaknesses. Learning how to take him down.

He likes the dichotomy. Taking on a new identity – there's something freeing about it. He's a tightrope walker, working without a net. When he's undercover, he has license to say and do all kinds of shit that Sam just wouldn't.

And that, of course, is when McNally comes charging back into his brain like a bull in a china shop. The night he was Gabe and she was Edie, and there was no-one he'd rather have had playing his girlfriend when the adrenaline was pumping.

The pep talk he'd given her in the car? Delivered as a mentor, but she didn't miss the subtext. Nor did she prove unwilling when he got close to her. No explanation, no apology needed when Gabe nudged noses with his lady love and then roughly – if way too briefly – claimed her mouth with his.

It was the first time he'd dared since the night of the blackout, and damned if it didn't all come flooding back. For about three seconds, he gave himself the authorization to pour out all the heat and the longing he could express in the time frame and the circumstance, knowing that she could explain it away as role-playing. He'd succeeded in tearing himself away - mind on the job, Sammy boy - but noted with some satisfaction how her pupils had dilated and her cheeks had flushed.

Gawd, she was a natural at this. Not to mention hot. How much of her response was acting, and how much was him and her? He didn't know and wouldn't ask. But that momentary permission to do what Sam was evidently too paralyzed to do – he had to admit, it was a rush.

For about three weeks, the master plan seemed to be working. He was back in a headspace which, if not exactly serene or relaxing, was in his comfort zone. He thrived on the secrecy, threw himself into the job, and didn't spend a lot of time agonizing over what she might be doing on a Saturday night, or what she'd felt when he abruptly disappeared. He was making progress with Brennan. He'd managed to sell himself well enough that they'd gone out for a beer and a game of pool a couple of times – opportunities that Sam knew were invaluable in terms of assessing his target's vulnerabilities. Brennan was letting him in, beginning to trust him. Also, Boyd was pleased – not that Boyd's approval was all that high on Sam's priority list, but it did make things run smoother.

But inevitably, the nights he spent alone in that cover apartment started to give his mind too long a leash. 135 chapters of Moby Dick, and nothing on TV but lame reality shows in re-runs … eventually that sort of thing leads to introspection, which as far as Sam was concerned was rarely a good thing. He needed to stay immersed in his character as much as possible, couldn't afford to be second-guessing himself. Which is what thinking about McNally did.

Some nights, sprawled on the couch and staring at the ceiling, he was more than a little disgusted at his own cowardice. What the fuck was wrong with him, anyway? He'd never had any difficulty with women, never been known not to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. So what the hell was he doing here, alone? Well, he'd certainly been the architect of that scenario … no-one to blame but himself.

And Herman Melville was doing absolutely nothing to mitigate the feeling.

One thing he was becoming reasonably sure of: time and space weren't doing much for him, either.

Simplest solution: stay out of the apartment as much as possible. So finding himself at that dive bar, the Alpine, often in the company of Brennan, was getting to be something of a habit. A beer or two to help slow the thought process down, watching the game on the ancient TV over the bar … simple stuff. Guy stuff. A chance to let his guard down just a little. Well, as much as he could safely do that in the presence of his target. Forget that UC had started to feel like a huge mistake.

He turns around in the bar one night, and it's almost like he knew it was going to happen. Like one of the great inevitabilities of the universe has just dropped itself on his doorstep.

There she is, eyes as big as saucers when she sees him, and admittedly Nash's eyes aren't any less bugged-out. He kind of enjoys the moment, actually. Can't help grinning and flashing the dimples.

He realizes why they're there right away. Must be the cop's version of rumspringa, the night when the rookies all get set loose on an unsuspecting city. Three and a half million people, and somehow, she finds him.

Doesn't mean he's going to get reckless. He has to keep his cover intact, and the next look he gives the two of them warns, "Don't blow this."

Christ but Andy's a sight for sore eyes, though, in that simple denim shirt and the sensible boots. Something in his chest constricts, and lower down something else hints at twitching to life, too. So distance really does make the hard-on grow fonder.

On top of that, he suddenly feels about a hundred pounds lighter. This might be fun.