Disclaimer: This chapter is particularly canon-heavy (I promise, I have my own ideas and you'll start seeing some of them in the very next chapter), so it behooves me to state that "Foyle's War" belongs to Anthony Horowitz (lucky devil) and not me.

Author's Notes: No need to reinvent the wheel to deal with Andrew's relationship with Sam when canon wraps things up so neatly...

Late February, 1940

Andrew was in one of his moods – again. They had been cropping up fairly often of late, Sam noticed, making him jaundiced, irritable, and disinterested in much of anything, including herself. She'd gone to the trouble of making herself particularly smart for their evening out, but she couldn't even get him onto the dance floor, although there was lively music playing. She could barely even get him to talk at all; he simply sat drinking and staring across the room at his friend, Greville Woods, and Greville's fiancée Anne Bolton. They were the very picture of love's young dream. Andrew seemed to find their displays of affection slightly nauseating.

"Greville's talking about getting married when the war's over," Andrew informed Sam.

"What's so wrong with that?" she shrugged.

"Making plans? Nothing I suppose." After seeing each other for close to four months, Sam could read Andrew's thoughts well enough even though he wasn't sharing them. There was nothing wrong with making plans for the future except for the very real possibility that they were merely an exercise in futility, waiting to be obliterated by enemy fire. She knew the Sword of Damocles hanging over Andrew's head, understood to the best of her limited ability the awfulness of the pressure and responsibility he must feel, flying ops, trying to keep the Germans and their bombs at bay. But her understanding and her sympathy seldom seemed to go very far towards making Andrew feel any better. She'd had much better luck helping Paul Milner with his problems which were certainly quite serious, albeit not actually life-threatening. Sam wagered that if she had come out with Paul tonight instead of Andrew, she would have at least had him smiling by now, perhaps dancing as well.

"I hate it when you're in this sort of mood, Andrew," Sam muttered, then regretted her petulance. She hoped she didn't sound like a nag. That would just add to his troubles, whereas, since they were stepping out, wasn't she supposed to help ease them? But he seemed to take her rebuke in stride.

"You're right," he admitted, "I'm bloody awful company. I'm pushing off." She'd given him a quick kiss on the cheek before he left for home. Apparently his CO also thought that Andrew needed to get out of his current mood; he'd been given a weekend pass and was headed for his father's house rather than back to barracks.

...

Whether Andrew's time at home had done him any good, Sam couldn't have said, since the next thing that she knew, Greville had crashed and been badly burned. Andrew was in a right state, not only about Greville himself, but the fact that Greville had been flying Andrew's Spitfire. Something to do with the cockpit slide getting stuck; if it had been working properly, Greville would have been able to get himself out and clear of the burning wreckage with superficial injuries. Instead, Greville was being treated at Digby Manor, a huge old estate requisitioned by the RAF to care for burned pilots. It was still unclear whether or not his sight had been spared.

Sam had driven Paul and Mr. Foyle to Digby Manor several times within the past week – though it was nothing to do with Greville's accident. Someone had been wreaking havoc with the supplies in an escalating series of petty sabotages that had culminated in a piece of masonry falling off the roof and nearly killing a visiting RAF official. So there were all of the doctors and staff to interview.

Then a day or two later, the mechanic whom everyone blamed for the faulty slide – a nasty piece of work named Drake – was found dead. It seemed that half of Hastings had one reason or another for murdering the man. The list of witnesses and suspects to be interviewed never seemed to end.

...

When Sam arrived home the next evening, Andrew was waiting for her in the street. He looked as though he had been waiting for hours and was chilled to the bone. Not entirely sure as to the best course of action, Sam let him in, sat him in front of the heater, and made him a hot cup of tea.

"I had to see you," Andrew blurted out. Sam didn't know quite what to make of this statement; Andrew blew so hot and cold, depending on his mood.

"My landlady comes in and finds us we're both for the high jump." Sam tried vainly to put a humorous spin on things; Andrew seemed grim as death. "I thought you were on duty," she ventured cautiously.

"Sam, I've gone AWOL."

"What?" she spluttered in shock, "Why?"

"I can't go back," Andrew was adamant, "I don't care what happens to me."

"But you must," Sam insisted, trying to stifle her panic. When she'd brought Andrew in, she hadn't bargained on hiding a fugitive. "They'll come looking for you. Andrew, what is it?"

"I'm so tired," the words started spilling out, as though some dyke or dam had been breached, taking Andrew's recent taciturn reserve with it, "For weeks now. I don't sleep. I can't eat. I feel sick. Sometimes, I can't stand it because you're not with me. But at other times, I don't care if I ever see you again. I know that's a horrible thing to say. I don't want it to be true. But it's as if you don't exist for me. As if we never met."

"You're tired, that's all." Sam floundered for something to account for Andrew's current state; she was starting to feel distinctly out of her depth.

"I'm not just tired, Sam. When I saw Greville…and the others in that place."

"You don't need to think about them. Because it's not going to happen to you," Sam insisted. She admitted to herself, however, that seeing the patients at the Manor had put her in mind of Andrew and some of the grim fates that might await him. She could tell that Mr. Foyle had been affected in a similar fashion as well.

"It will happen to me," Andrew plunged on, "I know. He was in my plane, Sam. He flew my op. It should have been me." Sam had heard of people suffering from nervous collapse and sometimes wondered what the term had meant, practically speaking. Now she began to suspect that Andrew was going through one before her very eyes. She wanted to be supportive and to say the right things, but it became increasingly clear that there was nothing in her arsenal of ready sympathy that could cope adequately with his frame of mind.

"You can't stay here," Sam reiterated, as gently as she could, "You've got to go back."

"I can't," Andrew was doggedly determined on that point.

"They'll find you," Sam repeated, suddenly imagining MPs breaking down her door and dragging Andrew away. She'd probably be arrested too. Andrew began to cry. "You can't run away from them forever."

"Don't make me go back," he choked out over and over again. Bereft of words, Sam knelt on the hearthrug and wrapped her arms around Andrew's heaving shoulders, holding him tightly, feeling the shudders of his wracking sobs, wondering helplessly how to make things right.

...

On the face of it, Anne Bolton was one of the easier witnesses Paul had interviewed. She was forthcoming about her feelings towards the murder victim, Drake. She admitted to being in the vicinity on the night in question. It was clear to Paul that Anne had had nothing to do with the murder itself. Then she started talking about her fiancé, Greville.

"Sam told me Greville had been hurt. She told me I should visit him. But it was only when I was there that I realized I didn't want to. Does that sound very cruel to you, Sergeant Milner? I can't see him. I don't want to see him. I want the Greville Woods I was in love with. The Greville I was going to marry. I tried to make myself visit him. That's why I was there that night. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't face him."

Paul bit his tongue in his effort to keep the sudden swell of his emotions in check. Anne wasn't Jane – he knew that – although her dark hair put him in mind of Jane. But Anne's words seemed like Jane's thoughts, finally articulated. Jane's actions had all spoken to these exact sentiments. Hearing Anne's excuses gave Paul the sensation that he had been hit squarely in the chest.

And yet he understood it more coming from Anne, he could excuse it more readily than he had with Jane. Anne and Greville were both so much younger than himself and Jane. Greville's burns were more horrific than his own injuries had been. And since they didn't yet know if Greville's sight had gone, his wounds were potentially more severe. Paul knew from Sam that Anne and Greville were in love, were engaged, but Paul and Jane had been married, they had made vows to God and each other. Wasn't the daily life of marriage supposed to take the hearts and flowers stuff of young love and turn it into something stronger?

Walking through the burn wards at Digby Manor, Paul had felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the nature of his own injuries, which had healed so well. For hands that he could use with dexterity and eyes that could see perfectly. He had spent a few idle moments trying to imagine Jane's reaction if he had come home from Norway disfigured by burns to his face and hands. Paul concluded ruefully that she'd probably have put rat poison in his beer and tried to pass it off as suicide. Somewhat to his surprise, Paul had found his own hypothesized murder rather entertaining, because he knew that Jane would never have gotten away with it. Mr. Foyle would have found her out in no time and come down on her like the wrath of God. He found it all oddly satisfying to envisage.

Paul recalled himself to the interview, thanked Anne gravely, and began getting up to leave.

"You think I'm disgusting," Anne hissed, and he could hear the self-loathing in her voice, already laced with deep pain and confusion. Her youth and fragility struck him again. She really was terribly young, and having to grow up so suddenly and in the worst possible way.

"No," he replied gently, discovering that this was actually true; he didn't find her disgusting. "But I will speak out of turn, if you don't mind," he went on, wondering how much she might mind his small interference. "This is fake," he said briefly, patting his prosthetic through his trouser leg. "It's aluminium. I lost most of my leg at Trondheim last year. I was a mess when they carried me home. Maybe not as bad as your fiancé, but there was massive scarring everywhere."

"I'm sorry," Anne murmured, contrite and embarrassed.

"You shouldn't be," Paul felt a moment's irritation that he managed to conceal. He wasn't telling her this to fish for pity or to wrong-foot her. "I'm the man I was before. I haven't changed," he continued steadily, wishing for a moment that this girl was really Jane after all. Somehow, in all their time together, Paul felt that he had never been able to express himself as clearly and coherently to his wife as to this perfect stranger. Perhaps he had never felt it so completely himself.

And perhaps what Jane could or couldn't be made to understand was simply her own problem. Anne's next words showed that she, unlike Jane, was actually listening.

"And what are you saying? That Greville is still the same?"

"He won't be if you leave him," Paul pronounced quietly, then left, hoping for Greville's sake that Anne was made of sterner stuff than Jane.

...

Sam had known that it would be impossible to keep Andrew hidden for very long. As soon as Andrew's CO had informed Mr. Foyle that his son had gone AWOL, the DCS had recognized her own poorly concealed nervousness and guilt and that was that.

But in the end, everything had sorted itself out surprisingly well. Andrew's break down the previous day seemed to have really done him some good. When his father had collected him from Sam's flat, he was calm and rational once again; willing to listen to reason and to take his father's advice. Moreover, Andrew's CO was an understanding sort, and once Andrew had re-appeared within the time limit that had been set, the issue of his going AWOL was dropped.

In fact, Andrew's entire assignment had been changed. Instead of flying with the bomber squad, he was being posted back to Debden to help train the new RAF recruits. This would have been completely tickety-boo, thought Sam, except for the fact that Scotland was so far from Hastings. She had driven Mr. Foyle to the airstrip to see Andrew off and said her own goodbyes as well. She and Andrew had promised each other to write; he seemed to think that he might be able to get leave sometimes and then they could see each other on rare weekends. Sam found the whole exchange discouraging and depressing, trying to fight back tears as Andrew put on a brave face. An odd reversal of their previous encounter.

He kissed her before climbing into his plane and flying away. Sam stood with Mr. Foyle, watching the plane grow smaller in the distance and disappear. She hoped Andrew would be all right, and that he would write her some good, long letters.