Author's Note: This one's a little shorter than the others, but I thought the material warranted it's own chapter. Plus it means a slightly faster update time :). Thank you so, so much for your reviews on the last chapter. I got wrapped up in finishing this chapter, so I haven't responded to very many people, but I want you to know how much I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful reviews. Like I said before, they truly make my day.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rookie Blue.

Sam was sitting on her steps when she got home from work the next day. She was still half a block away when she saw him and her pace slowed to a stop.

He hadn't noticed her coming and was looking at the ground, scuffing at something with his shoe. He rubbed the back of his neck and then fiddled with the strap of his wristwatch and even from where she stood she could tell that he was anxious.

She wanted to be angry with him, to be furious that he had so quickly rushed to conclusions and kicked her out of his house without giving her the benefit of the doubt or the opportunity to explain. She wanted to be angry with him because anger was far less confusing than the swirl of emotions that weighed heavily on her chest, making it difficult to breath.

It was the overwhelming sadness she felt that was crushing; sadness for Lindsey and for him. No matter how much she wanted to be angry, she just couldn't bring herself to it.

A car horn blared behind her and he jerked his head up at the sound. She watched, almost detached, as his eyes landed on her still form and focused in recognition.

They stared at each other, neither moving, for what felt like an eternity but in reality was probably only a couple of seconds. She hiked her workbag up onto her shoulder and made the conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other and start walking again, stopping only when she reached the base of her stairs.

He stood when she reached him, brushing the dirt from his jeans. Facing her, taking in her expectant expression, his mouth gaped open and then he closed it, the muscle in his jaw twitching with words left unspoken.

When he didn't say anything, Andy sighed and with a slight, disappointed shake of her head, turned and started to climb up the steps.

He grabbed her arm as she attempted to brush by him. "Andy."

It was his use of her first name that stopped her. In the time they had known each other, he'd never once called her by her first name.

She turned back around to him and her shoulders sagged, defeated. "Look, Sam, I've had a really bad day, so if you're here to yell at me I'd really appreciate it if you could just come back later."

"I'm not going to yell at you," he promised. His voice was low and Andy thought that he sounded exhausted.

She stared at him for a long moment before asking quietly, "How's Lindsey?"

Sam couldn't handle the sincerity in her eyes, not after he had been so cruel to her. He glanced away. "She's fine."

"Good," Andy replied. "I was worried."

Again, her genuine kindness made him wince. "She told me what happened," he said. "I know you didn't say anything to intentionally upset her."

Andy narrowed her eyes. "Of course I didn't intentionally upset her," she snapped. "How could you even think that?"

"That's not…" he shook his head and looked down at the ground, "That's not what I meant."

Andy raised an eyebrow, content to wait silently as he struggled to try to find the words to say, to explain.

"I think I need to tell you what happened to Lindsey's mom," he said, squinting up at her.

Her face pinched with incredulity. "Why?"

It wasn't the reaction that he was expecting. "What do you mean, why?"

"No one at fifteen knows what happened, at least no one that I know…"

He interrupted her, his voice raised with accusation, "You asked them about my sister?"

"No," Andy responded firmly, "I asked them if anyone knew why you weren't undercover anymore. See," she pointed out, "That right there is why you shouldn't tell me, because you don't trust me."

"I wouldn't have left you with Lindsey if I didn't trust you," he said, as if his trust in her should have been implicit with the request.

"You certainly didn't trust me when you walked into your house yesterday," Andy replied, her eyes wide. "You didn't even give me the chance to explain or Lindsey time enough to calm down and tell you what happened before you assumed the worst and kicked me out."

Sam's face tightened with a grimace. "I know."

"Look," Andy replied, "I'm certain that whatever happened is very personal, and I get that, I do. I don't want you telling me something because you feel guilty and then later regretting it."

"I want to tell you," Sam told her, determined.

"Why?" She asked skeptically. "We barely know each other. We're not even friends, we're more like… acquaintances."

"We're hardly just acquaintances, McNally," Sam said firmly. "And for some reason the universe has decided to keep throwing us together, so unless you're planning on moving anytime soon, we're going to be in each other's lives."

Andy felt her tense muscles relax marginally at his rationalization and she shook her head. "I'm not planning on moving."

"Okay, if you're going to be in Lindsey's life, which I would like for you to be," he admitted timidly with a hand against his chest, "Then you need to know the full story so you don't walk into any more landmines like you did yesterday."

"What are you talking about?" Andy asked, her forehead wrinkling with confusion.

Sam sighed and motioned to the steps. "Can we sit down?" He asked, not waiting for her answer before tugging on her arm.

She dropped her workbag to the ground and allowed herself to be pulled down beside him. Feeling uneasy, she brought her knees up to rest her elbows against and looked over at him.

He heaved a deep breath, his chest rising and falling with the effort, and cleared his throat. "Lindsey's mom was my older sister, Sarah." He paused and swiped his thumb under his nose. "When Sarah was thirteen, she was attacked by this group of guys. She got pretty messed up by it."

"Oh, Sam," Andy said, "You really don't have to tell me this…"

"It's important," Sam insisted, his voice hitching slightly. "It's important for you to understand about her."

Andy nodded slowly. "Okay."

"She went to counseling when she was a teenager but nothing really helped. She told me once that not a day went by that she didn't relive it." Sam said, his eyes trained forward. He pulled his bottom lip through his teeth and then raised an eyebrow. "When she was eighteen she found something that made her forget."

"Alcohol?" Andy guessed.

Sam nodded. "She was in and out of rehab throughout her twenties. To be honest, I didn't really think she'd ever get cleaned up," he confessed, somewhat ashamed for his lack of faith in his sister. "But then she got pregnant with Lindsey. She got clean and from the day she found out until the day she died she never touched another drop of alcohol."

"Good for her," Andy said genuinely. "I'm sure that wasn't easy."

"It wasn't," Sam said. "I was really proud of her."

They sat in silence for a moment until Andy coughed and asked, "So, what happened?"

Sam chewed on the inside of his cheek. "About a year ago Sarah and Lindsey were in a car accident." When he saw the look of concern flash across Andy's face he assured her, "They were okay, but Sarah was put on hydrocodone for back pain. At first she didn't want to take it but…" he shook his head, mad at himself, "I went to see them before I went undercover and I could tell she was in pain so I convinced her she needed it."

Without him having to say it, Andy could tell where his story was going. On instinct, she slid closer to him and placed her hand on his back, rubbing it comfortingly.

"Sarah was a nurse. When her prescription ran out she started slipping meds from the hospital. Different stuff… morphine, vicodin, Demerol, oxycodone." He looked over at her and one side of his mouth curled into a sad smile. "It's true what they say. Once an addict, always an addict. It was just a different vice."

Andy was having trouble putting her thoughts into words, so she just met Sam's gaze and held it steady, hoping to communicate with her eyes what she couldn't with her mouth.

His eyes were darker than she remembered, filled with hurt and pain and regret. As badly as she felt for Sam, her heart ached even more for his niece, for the little girl that watched her mother walk such a destructive path. She knew all to well what it was like to have an addict as a parent.

A woman walking her dog passed them on the sidewalk. The dog barked and they both looked up, away from each other, and the heaviness of the moment was broken.

Andy smiled politely at the lady and rubbed the dog's head while Sam cleared his throat and stretched his legs out in front of him, relieving some of the stiffness that had built up. He leaned back to brace his elbows on the step behind him and rolled his head from one side to the other, listening to his neck crack with a kind of sickening satisfaction.

He couldn't help but notice how Andy had instinctively moved her body in front of his, almost guarding him from conversation with the dog's owner so he could gather his thoughts while they idly chit chatted about trivial things like the weather.

Andy was perfectly nice, which he didn't find surprising in the slightest, but the smile that normally lit up her face was drawn and tight. The woman eventually moved on and Andy watched her go before turning back to Sam.

He bent his legs again and rested his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him. She studied his profile and noted the way his eyes narrowed before he continued, picking right up from when they had been interrupted. "It was ruled an accidental overdose."

Andy sucked in a sharp breath. She had been anticipating the outcome, expecting it even, but to hear him say it out loud was horrifying. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

He looked back at her and his whole demeanor hardened. "It wasn't accidental."

Andy couldn't keep the surprise off her face. "What makes you say that?"

"The hospital found out that it was her who was stealing the medicine and she got fired," Sam said. "She lost her job and her nursing license. She was lucky she wasn't arrested."

"That could just be a coincidence," Andy offered weakly.

Sam shook his head. "No, she planned it."

"What do you mean?"

"The day she died," he hesitated and then swallowed hard, making a harsh sound in the back of his throat, "Before she died, she took Lindsey out of school and they went to this really nice spa place. They got massages and got their hair done and their nails…"

"Oh my god," Andy breathed as her words from the day before came rushing back to her. She finally understood why Lindsey had broken down when she had offered to help her get ready before the dance and "make a spa day out of it."

"Yeah," Sam nodded, "Like I said, you stepped onto a landmine."

Andy dropped her head into her hands, feeling sick. "I can't believe I did that."

"You didn't know." Sam said quietly, blamelessly. There was another stretch of silence and then he told her, "Lindsey was spending the night with some friends and after Sarah dropped her off, she went home a swallowed a bunch of pills." He shook his head. "There's no way she didn't know what she was doing."

"Did Lindsey find her?"

"No, thank god," Sam said, "Her sponsor did. They were supposed to have breakfast or something." He sighed. "I was undercover, I didn't know any of this was going on until the next day after Oliver came and arrested me for possession. I was working to get one of the biggest drug lords in the city and my own sister died from an overdose." He shook his head and laughed mirthlessly. "Talk about irony."

Andy remained quiet, absentmindedly stroking her hand up and down his back, trying to process everything he was telling her.

"So that's what happened," Sam concluded. "Now you know."

She nodded slowly, stuck on one piece of missing information, "What about Lindsey's dad?"

Sam snorted. "The guy was an abusive drunk. Sarah was only with him for a couple of months before she got pregnant and he didn't hang around." He sucked his cheeks in and bit down on the inside. "A few years ago Sarah was writing her will and wanted me to get custody of Lindsey if something ever happened, but James," he paused to explain, "That's his name, still had rights. I looked into it and found that he hadn't been paying child support so I hired a lawyer to track him down and give him an ultimatum; he could either pay the seven years of child support he owed or sign away his parental rights and stay the hell away from them."

"Let me guess," Andy said, "He chose the second option."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. If he hadn't, Lindsey'd be with him now. What a nightmare that would've been." He clicked his tongue and then corrected himself, "Even more of a nightmare."

Andy turned to him and smiled. "Lindsey's lucky to have you."

"I don't know about that," he said, chuckling softly. He took a deep breath and then admitted, "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

"You love her and you're doing your best. That's all you can do." Andy reassured.

"She called me a jerkface yesterday," Sam confessed. "After you left."

Andy's lips curled at the ends. "A jerkface?"

Sam grinned and quipped, "Don't ever piss of a twelve year old girl, the insults will really cut you to the bone." His expression became more serious. "She thinks you'll be mad at her."

Andy's face fell and she quickly shook her head, "I'm not mad at her at all. I never was."

"I know that, but she's just worried." He paused. "I think she likes you."

"She didn't seem very fond of me when I was there," Andy admitted. "I'm pretty sure I annoyed her."

"She did mention that you talked a lot," Sam revealed, grinning.

Andy scoffed, pretending to be insulted. "I was just trying to get to know her."

Sam shrugged. "She can be pretty guarded. Tends to use sarcasm as a defense mechanism."

"I can't imagine where she gets that from," Andy teased gently, sliding closer so she could bump her hip against his.

Sam just smirked half-heartedly and then shook his head. "She's a good kid, though."

Andy nodded. "Yeah, I can tell," she said honestly.

There was a moment of quiet, both immersed in their own thoughts.

Sam was grateful that Andy had, for once, listened without asking too many questions. She hadn't pressed for more details or tried to theorize as to why Sarah had killed herself, and she hadn't gotten overly emotional, which Sam always hated. She also didn't latch on to the brief moments of noticeable anger or sadness and try and make him talk about how he felt. She'd just let him keep going, let him share at his own pace.

He could deal with her knowing the facts. There was nothing he could do about the facts. He just wasn't sure if he was ready for her to know the emotion.

He finally spoke, breaking the silence. "I'm sorry I freaked out on you."

Andy turned and afforded him a small half smile. "It's okay. I understand."

"I shouldn't have left you there without you knowing," he continued apologizing. "It wasn't fair to you and it wasn't fair to her."

"There's no way you could have predicted what we were going to talk about," Andy told him, trying to assuage the guilt he obviously felt. "As much as you want to, you can't protect her from everything."

"Well, I'm sorry," he repeated. "I was out of line."

"I forgive you," Andy replied sincerely, resting her free hand on his arm. She paused a beat and then said, "Thank you for telling me about Sarah."

He just nodded. "I know it's a lot to dump on you…"

"No, hey," Andy replied quickly, shaking her head, "It's fine. Trust me," she said, raising an eyebrow, "I understand complicated family situations."

"I know you do," Sam said quietly, his words full of deeper meaning, of knowledge.

Andy sucked in a sharp breath. Sometimes she forgot that Sam had worked with her dad, probably knew all about his issues, and been around long enough to know about her mom.

He smiled sadly at her and there was a sense of mutual acceptance, one that was hard to understand or put into words. Andy returned a shaky smile.

He sighed then and looked down at his shoes. "Andy, I don't want you to think I told you about my sister to guilt you into helping out with Lindsey. That's not why…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "I don't want you to think I expect anything from you."

Andy couldn't help but think back to the day before, when Lindsey had been worried that Hannah's invite to the dance was out of pity. She knew that the last thing Sam Swarek wanted was her pity. "I don't think that," she assured him.

"Okay. Lindsey said you offered to help her get ready for the dance," he said quietly. "Going somewhere may not be the greatest idea, but I think she'd like it if you came over beforehand."

"Sure," Andy said, nodding. "Yeah, of course I'll come over. I'd love to."

"It's on Friday," he reminded her hesitantly, "It'd be after your shift."

"That's fine. Besides," she said, smiling, "I think I still have a couple of favors to work off."

Sam grinned. "I think we can call it even on the favors."

Her brow furrowed and she let out a disappointed huff. "So you mean I'm going to have to start taking out my own trash?"

He chuckled lightly. "I'll still do all that stuff, McNally," he said, "I just meant you don't have to do anything in return."

Andy grinned batted her eyelashes at him. "My hero," she sing-songed.

He rolled his eyes at her antics and shook his head, turning to look at something across the street.

"Hey," she said, getting his attention. He looked back at her and she told him honestly, "Even if you didn't, I'd still come over. I want to."

He swallowed and nodded his head. It was only then that it became apparent to her how close they were sitting. At some point during their conversation she had reached one arm to wrap around his back and the other hand was settled on his arm. Despite the space she had put between them when they first sat down, over time they had been drawn to one another and were pressed together from hip to knee.

Andy could feel his warmth through the material of her jeans and she found herself crowding closer, seeking his heat to ward off the early autumn chill.

He was looking at her as if he could read her thoughts. When her tongue peeked out to wet her lips, his eyes darkened and flickered down to her mouth and he pulled his own lip between his teeth.

They were close enough that had they both leaned in only a couple of inches, their lips would meet. The scent of Sam's peppermint gum mixed with his faint cologne and something else Andy couldn't quite identify, maybe fabric softener. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating and so entirely Sam. Her hand curled tighter around his bicep and she took a deep breath.

A gust of wind blew Andy's hair into her face, blocking her vision. Sam hesitated for only a second and then reached out and pushed the unruly strands back, tucking her hair securely behind her ear. She closed her eyes as his fingers traced back over her cheek, catching any stray hairs, before cupping her face in his hand.

She leaned into him by reflex and held her breath as she waited for what he was going to do next.

He dipped his head slightly to touch his forehead against hers. Her eyes flew open at the contact to find him staring at her intently.

"Do you want to come over tonight?" His husky voice was barely above a whisper and his gaze was heated. "For dinner?"

"Yes," she breathed. Delicious shivers ran through her body and she nodded before squeezing her eyes closed and pulling away with a sharp intake of air.

His hand dropped from her face and he looked at her, worried and questioning. The vulnerability of his expression made her heart hurt.

"Yes," she repeated, "I want to. But I can't." She looked down at the ground and admitted reluctantly, "I have plans."

The moment was broken and he cleared his throat before chuckling humorlessly. "Right," he said, rubbing his hand through his hair.

Andy was surprised when he didn't make a disparaging comment about what those plans entailed. "I'm sorry," she said, not entirely sure what she was apologizing for.

"It's fine," He shook his head and the walls that had come down while they were sitting on steps were built right back up. He stood to his feet. "I should probably be going anyway. Lindsey's going to be home soon."

Andy nodded, her breathing uneven. "Where is she?"

"Zoe Shaw took the girls shopping," he said, looking down at her. "Andy, listen, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about Sarah. Especially people I work with."

Her eyebrows drew together and irritation rose in her chest that once again, he didn't seem to trust her. She tried to push the irritation aside, reminding herself that building trust, real trust, was a process that took time. "I'm not going to tell anyone." She gave him a significant look and repeated, "Anyone."

"Thanks." He looked like he was about to walk away but then he stopped himself. "Hey, did you want to have that talk?"

She blinked up at him, still coming out of her daze. "What?"

"Yesterday," he reminded her. "You wanted to talk about something."

"Oh," Andy said, remembering. She thought back to her resolve the day before, how she was going to tell Sam to stop… what? Pretending to kiss her? The whole thing sounded incredibly silly now. "No," she said, waving her hand. "It's fine."

He accepted her answer without a word. Holding his hand out to her, he helped her stand up and then bent to retrieve her bag, lifting it to her shoulder. "Okay," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and taking a step back. "I guess I'll see you later then."

She forced a smile. "See you later." She watched as he turned to walk around the wall that separated their steps. "Hey Sam," she called out.

He looked back at her immediately.

"Anytime." she said. "I mean it, anytime you need help, just let me know."

He smiled back at her, nodded once, and then quickly climbed the stairs and entered his house.

Andy sighed heavily and glanced up and down the street before making her way inside.

ETA: In my real life, I'm a nurse. It's not my intention to perpetuate the stereotype that recovering addicts should not use pain medicine if it's needed for fear that they will become addicted again. I feel like it was realistic in this case, but I know that everyone has their own situations and I would never want to pass blame or guilt onto someone for doing what they needed to do. As always, if you have any questions, please PM me.