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Rookie Blue ain't mine.

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"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense

but his own."
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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By the time he gets home from what is probably the strangest disciplinary hearing he's ever had (or heard about, really) – a weird combination of praise for a job well done, and tearing him a new one for his "conduct" – she's already gone.

Turns out he can blame her for something after all.

He can blame her for going off half-cocked. Act first, think later. It's probably her biggest flaw as a cop, for all her instincts are generally good, or at least motivated by good impulses. You can't always be led around by your heart and your guts … sometimes you have to engage your brain.

And as far as guts go, Sam feels like he's just had his stomped on.

Jesus, an e-mail? A text? "Off to Temagami to earn a merit badge, ta-ta for now."

Okay, they weren't quite like that. But still, it was colder than he'd expected from McNally.

So maybe they should have done some talking that night. Maybe he should have given her some idea of what to expect at her hearing the next day, what they'd probably hand down in the way of specifics on her suspension. And the difference between the letter of the law, and the spirit of it.

But neither one of them had really felt up to talking. As hard as he had tried to shrug off the whole fun-and-games-in-the-farmhouse thing by giving her that lopsided, devil-may-care grin, he was pretty shaken as well as pretty damn sore all over. And she was still vibrating with worry, for him, for her job (he wasn't sure which was the stronger), and she reached for him as if he were made of glass, unsure of where she could put her hands without hurting him.

Not that they'd let that stop them. But their lovemaking was careful and tinged with regret, and afterwards he felt as if the real goal for both of them had been to bring on something resembling a restful sleep.

Gawd, but she had felt good in his arms as they'd curled up together, neither one bothering to pull any clothes back on. For Sam that just would have induced more wincing, anyway. Her skin warm and smooth, her heartbeat steady. His brain had finally, mercifully, shut down as he'd buried his nose in her hair, and he had slept like the dead (with the help of one more painkiller that she had insisted he take before they turned out the lights).

They'd both been so exhausted that they very nearly didn't get up in time for their respective, separate hearings in separate rooms the next day. It had taken Ollie pounding on the door to rouse them. So really, there hadn't been any time to discuss it then either – they'd just thrown clothes on, grabbed the coffees Shaw was proffering with the briefest of acknowledgements, and run out the door.

He'd never really gotten a chance to explain to her that "no contact", if it was handed down (and he suspected it would be), wasn't something anyone was going to be checking up on, that it was really just a way of reinforcing the notion of future discretion. Sam knew, in any case, that if Frank tried it on him that he'd just retort that his private life was none of the force's business – and he knew Frank knew that was the truth.

Sam never dreamed she'd just pack her paddle and head to the land of rocks and trees for three fucking months.

It's stuff like that, that brings him right back to thinking that maybe getting into a whole relationship with McNally isn't the best idea.

He says as much to Shaw a few nights later, as they're warming their usual barstools at the Penny. By then, of course, he's found out that the whole wilderness-retreat idea had been Nash's, and that the cabin Andy was currently holed up in, belonged to Nash's ex's family. McNally hadn't talked to him – she'd talked to Nash, and apparently the consensus was to get the hell out of Dodge as quickly as humanly possible. Which is what happens when rookies get together and neglect to consult anyone with actual experience, evidently.

Oliver, unused as he is to dispensing relationship advice to Sam – because Sam has never asked before, never having had (in living memory, anyway) a relationship worth any significant amount of discussion – is being a pretty reasonable sounding board. Given that the bruises on Sam's face are still a spectacular display of purples, yellows, and greens, he's also buying, which is a bonus.

"So there's not even a phone up there?," Shaw asks.

Sam shakes his head. "Just a hunting cabin, I guess, woodstove and a dock and a canoe, not much else. Oil lamps, for all I know," he adds with a snort.

"I tried her cel a few times. Traci said the reception's pretty lousy up there."

"She might not have anywhere to recharge it," Ollie nods. He's still got the sympathy face on, and Sam's grateful once again that, if his friend has any recriminations he'd like to dish out about the whole Andy thing, he's so far keeping them to himself.

"So are you gonna head up there, Sammy?", he ventures.

But Sam's feeling a smidge bitter about the whole deal by now. "Fuck that," he growls. "If she wants solitude, she can fucking have it."

Ollie looks ready to deliver the "she's the best thing that ever happened to you, you moron" speech, but given Sam's mood, he thinks better of it.

Truth is, he's nearly gotten in his truck and lit out on the 400 North a few times now. Despite being totally uncomfortable with the whole backwoods thing. It's not like anyone in the squad would actually give him grief over it. Off the map, out of mind.

But yeah, he's pissed, and that, so far, has kept him from following her. It seemed awfully easy for her just to take off, and he's beginning to wonder how much of it was real anyway. Maybe they weren't on the same page after all. Maybe he's the only one who's …. invested. Maybe it's all just fucking doomed, so he might as well just let it implode sooner, rather than later.

And it's all made worse by the fact that, a few nights ago, the nightmares started. Just as his body had begun to heal, his mind had started cranking out the blow by blow (literally, Sam thinks) of Brennan, only in the dreams he can't see Brennan's face, he just hears the voice and feels the hammer come down on his knuckles, and the room is pitch black and it starts to fill with ice-cold water, and before Sam knows it he's floating face-down, still tied to the chair, and he wakes up thrashing and bathed in cold sweat.

Alone.

He can't help feeling that if she'd stuck by him, if he had her to hold every night, that his brain would have found some peace and he wouldn't be having to relive this shit every goddamn night. Or, at least, if the nightmares had come, he'd have been able to talk it out with her. Instead of the division shrink. It's not that Sam objects to the process of having to go for some counselling after a tough UC – he actually thinks it's a good idea. It's just that 15's shrink is pretty useless, as shrinks go.

But he doesn't have a lot of options, so he goes to the mandated appointments, and he talks about the op, and what he doesn't talk about, is Andy.

He starts getting postcards from her, heartfelt little postcards with a sentence or two about what she's doing (ziplining? Skydiving? What is she trying to prove?), and more about how much she misses him and how she's counting the days.

And he doesn't get in his truck and drive north.