You guys are freaking awesome and I say that honestly. Thank you for the words of encouragement. It helped me write a bit faster this time around :) I should be working on my 25 page paper... but I have the whole rest of the week for that... too bad it can't be on RB fanfic!

I hope it's holding your interest and that you don't yell... to much for the bit of suspense... :-D

Nikka

Andy McNally wanted her day to be over. She wanted to be at the bar with her friends, drinking a few beers and laughing about something dumb. Usually, it would be one of Dov's antics and since he had been riding with Sam that day, there was sure to be plenty to laugh about. Andy knew that she secretly loved that Sam gave Dov such a hard time. Riding with him was always so much fun after a trip with Epstein, Sam made sure to be extra nice to her after riding with Dov. She had to admit, she enjoyed Sam babying her a bit too much for her own good.

Shaking her head, Andy tried to focus on the case file in front of her. Boyd had hardly left her alone the entire day except when he stormed out of the interrogation room they had been working in to go talk to Best. This was all part of the show, make everyone think that she was being assigned for payback.

The more she thought about it, the more upset Andy was that she couldn't talk to Sam about this case. She had never gone undercover without his head before. It's not like she was really going undercover with this case, but she wasn't going one hundred percent as herself. The jitters were starting to get to her about this case and how potentially dangerous it could be if the target figured out she was a cop. And worse, there was a kid involved.

Thankfully, she had been able to tell Chris the truth about why she wasn't going to be around for the next few weeks, just not the details. The less Chris knew, the less worried he would be. Andy knew that letting him think that she was at HQ helping Boyd with a case, and that she would be home at night would convince him that she was safe. If Chris believed that, he'd keep the others at bay about what she was really doing.

Andy had sat back down in the chair to begin looking at the file that Boyd had left her with after Chris had left. She threw herself into the details of the case trying to absorb as much knowledge as she could. Sam always said that the more you knew, the safer you were. It might terrify you, but it'd save your ass.

She was so absorbed in the file, that she didn't here Jerry enter the room. He shut the door quietly and crossed his arms over his chest looking at her for a moment. This is the girl that Sammy loves. God help us if this case is more than Boyd is saying. He cleared his throat making her jump as her head snapped up towards him. Her reaction was not reassuring.

"How are you processing it all," he asked her quietly still looking to see if she could handle this. Sam believed in her with every breath he had, so he had to as well. It was a hard pill for Jerry after remembering her prostitute gig.

"I'm fine," she stated with a shrug and looked back down at the file.

"Do you think Diaz will hold up under the pressure?" He watched her face pinch a bit before nodding at him. "He has to stay quiet about where you are, even from Sam. Especially, from Sam. That won't be easy once Boyd has you in place."

Andy visibly winced at Sam's name and closed her eyes. She hated that she couldn't tell him but Boyd had been very clear. Sam had already agreed to go under and her job would help lay the foundation for his cover. He wanted this ever since that day she had busted him. Andy refused to screw up. It could mean Sam's life.

"He knows how important Sa-," she paused seeing Jerry's eyes get wider. Andy took a breath and looked at him. "Chris knows that this is important. He won't break."

Andy looked down at her paper and then felt her lips quirk again. She shook her head trying to get the smile to fall off her face. Jerry for his part raised an eyebrow at her trying to figure out what could possibly be funny about this situation.

"What's so funny McNally?"

"I give it two days before Sam is stomping around this division like a baby. Three, maybe four days before he tries to corner Chris and bully him into talking, and by then he's going to figure out you know something and hound you. It will be five days before Oliver is begging for details because Sam won't stop brooding or annoying him."

"Ye of little faith McNally," he said is a somewhat surprised voice. Jerry watched her shrug at him before looking him in the eye with a calmness that might have startled him.

"I just know my partner."

Jerry just looked at her for a moment and then nodded. Right there in that moment, he knew why his best friend loved this girl. She got him. Despite his reservations about this rookie being worthy enough, Jerry knew that Sam would never for him or anyone else who helped her go undercover. More importantly, McNally needed to succeed to keep Sam out of trouble on his next op.

Jerry was trying not to think about all the ways that this could go wrong and end badly. The fallout would leave them all forever changed. There was no getting any way around that. Jerry looked up at the ceiling before pulling out a chair across from Andy and began going over the files

Three hours later, both Jerry and Andy were mentally exhausted from going back and forth about the information in the files. Jerry had run out things to ask Andy. She had answered quickly without having to think too hard after the first hour. She was getting her story in place. It was becoming second nature for her. Jerry was secretly impressed with her. He'd never seen anyone take to a role so quickly or completely, well aside from Sam of course. It gave him chills to watch her as she became Gabriella Scott. She was so into her new persona that she had stopped answering him when he called her Andy or McNally.

Convinced the she had this down, Jerry got up to go. He looked at both of their phones and realized that they had stopped beeping buzzing about thirty minutes ago. Clearly, they had been missed, but who ever was trying to reach either of them, had already given up.

"Ready to call it a night?"

"Yea," she muttered seeming to get introverted once again.

"What's wrong?"

Andy's eyes shot up to look him in the eye. He could see the tears that were forming, threatening to spill onto her cheeks. Despite how she had carried herself through the prepping phase, she was terrified. Jerry felt slightly annoyed with himself for not noticing until he remembered what Sam had told him about. Andy McNally doesn't show weaknesses to anyone she doesn't trust. She holds everything in, so when you see it, whatever IT is, it's big. A pang of anxiety shot through him.

"What is I screw this up," she asked him. Almost without taking a breath, Andy launched into a nearly full blown panic attack. "What is I give something away because I'm so knew? What if they catch on or I dont get the right information? What if Sam gets hurt because I do something wrong now?"

Jerry was slightly surprised by her rant. She was getting agitated and had gotten up to pace the room. He watched as she flailed her arms about as she shot questions off at him in a rapid fire sequence not allowing him to get a word in edge wise. He took his chance when she seemed to stop for a moment.

"You won't screw this up McNally. You won't let him down. He trusts you with his life, this is no different," Jerry stressed to her trying to calm her down. "You have to trust you as much as he does."

"It's that simple?" She asked sniffling a bit as a blush took over cheeks.

"It's that simple." Jerry looked at her for a moment. "For a whole month after the Gabe and Eddy thing, he was in awe at how effortless it was. How much of a natural you were. Sam lives for the adrenaline rush and he's damn good at what he does, but he always works alone. You blew his mind with how you handled yourself in that op and how you didn't let him down." He finished his little speech seeing her revert back to introspection. "Don't let him down now. He taught you too well."

Andy thickly swallowed her emotions and looked at Jerry. Still processing everything he had just said, she nodded at him. "I know. I won't."

"Good," he replied simply looking down at his phone that was vibrating again. "It's Traci probably wondering where we both are. Can I drop you off at her house?"

"No, I um," she looked a bit uncomfortable. "I live with Chris now."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Isn't that kinda crowded with Dov there and there little game room in the third bedroom?"

"Jerry, its-"

He cut her off without hearing what she had to say. Honestly, he didn't want to know what it was, he just wanted to know that she was affecting Sam with her actions. "I don't need to know anything, but I think your partner would like an explanation." He raised his hand to silence her again. "He's not your keeper, but he worries about you more than you think or he should."

When she didn't reply he said something he knew was probably best unsaid at the moment. "He loves you, you know?"

For the first time since Jerry had asked her not to let Sam down, she looked him in the eyes. There was a resolved there, and an honesty that almost took his breath away. "I know," she nodded. "I love him too."

The Penny was crowded when Boyd walked in and it took him a moment to take in his surroundings. He saw the rookies to his left at their table. While they seemed to be talking animately, it was clear by the worried looks they kept sending their phones that something was wrong. He smirked enjoying just a bit that he was the cause for their worry and they didn't even know it yet. This group of rookies had sure as hell caused him a fair share of problems since they came to the 15th.

Looking towards the bar, Boyd found his target fingering his glass of scotch while looking in the mirror behind the bar at every person that walked through the door. Boyd knew that he'd been seen, but was being ignored. He watched as his target looked down at his silent phone again and then raised the glass to his lips, finishing it in a gulp and then signaling for another. It was always a lot easier to talk to his target after his senses had been dulled a bit by the alcohol. Boyd smirked a bit. He might just had a shot at this.

"Sammy," Boyd said coming up along side of him. He ordered a drink and settled onto the barstool. "Think I've got a job for you in a few weeks. In the fact finding phase right now, but I hope within a month, two tops."

He watched as Sam ran his tongue across his teeth and then took a sip from the glass that had been refilled in front of him. "Not interested Body, I already told you that."

Boyd managed to reign in his temper but only just barely. Sam had never turned down an op until about a few months ago about the Bergman deal with a little sideways. Boyd knew that there had been close calls in the past, Sam had always escaped being hurt, that time was no different. At least that's what Boyd had thought at the time.

He knew that something had changed drastically when Sam had stormed into his office with a rage he hadn't quite seen before. The report from the op in was thrown on his desk, but before he could respond, Sam had gone ballistic on him. He had yelled about how Boyd had been stupid enough to leave his partner in the building with an armed lunatic without going in. The signal had meant that the deal was still on, not that he should leave McNally in the build alone. Sam continued to rant about stupid it was to let her be apart of the op if Boyd wasn't going to be smart and back his team. There were other charges leveled at him, but the one that stuck was when Sam told him that he would have regretted being born if anything had happened to his partner.

That was the moment that Donovan Boyd knew that getting Sam Swarek back undercover was going to be difficult. He never realized just how much Sam held grudges until he refused an op that would have had him in and out in a month tops. Sam Swarek lived for Guns and Gangs and something changed.

"Aww c'mon Sammy," Boyd teased. "We both know you live for this. Nothing holding you back here. The uniform just constricts your talent."

Sam shook his head and shrugged. "Not this time Boyd. I live the place I'm at in my life."

Boyd took a sip from his beer and decided to go in for the kill. He knew something that he was sure Sam already knew, and now he was going to twist the knife in a bit. Hopefully Sam took the bait.

"I don't know how you deal with McNally all day," he said nonchalantly watching the man beside him tense a bit. "All she did was ask questions. A bit eager that one."

"She's not that bad once you know her," Sam stated clearly not interested in this line of conversation. "She's a good copper, likes to get the job done with minimum fallout. She only asks questions that will help her improve her performance."

Boyd shrugged and then continued. "Yeah, I figured. It will help her out though when she transfers. She gets it all out there in the open. Likes to know how everything works that one."

The way that Sam had stopped his arm midway to raising his glass to his mouth and turned to look at him with a disbelieving look, Boyd knew this was going to work out in his favor.

"Transfer?"

Boyd shrugged and took a sip of his drink before continuing. "I don't know man, something about how she just started this new thing with a guy from 15 and it was complicated. She thought transferring would easy the transition a bit and stop the fallout post Callaghan."

Sam looked at him incredulously before his eyes found their way over to the rookie table to look at Diaz who'd just opened his phone to check an message and started saying his goodbyes before walking out the door. Andy had never made it in that night and Diaz suddenly looked a lot less worried than he had throughout the night.

"That doesn't sound like McNally."

"I don't know Sammy. She seemed pretty worried people would judge her after the whole breakup thing with Callaghan. Wanted a clean break from everyone that watched that train wreck. Something about giving people time and space to get used to the new thing." Boyd used his fingers to air quote "thing" for extra emphasis. "Apparently she wants to make a real go of this relationship and transferring is how she thinks it will survive."

"Huh," Sam said clearing unsettled. "I wonder who the guy is?"

"I don't know," Boyd said with a smirk. "But he sure is a lucky bastard to get to come home to that, even if she is a magnet for trouble."

Sam continued to drink in silence for a few minutes. Boyd could see the anger building up in him that he knew something about the wonderful McNally that Sam didn't. It would eat Sam alive to think that Andy had confiding in Boyd before him.

"So tell me about this op you've got lined up?"

"You remember Jaime Brennan right?"

"He went straight, outta the game now." Sam shrugged already seeming bored. It was clear his mind was wondering back to his rookie.

"Yea, he is," Boyd continued knowing that he was about to hook him. "But we think we found a way to turn him into an informant."

"That's big," Sam said thinking about it. "That's really big."

"Huge."

"Whats the plan?"

"We've got someone in place right now, working a different angle," Boyd watched as Sam's attention was slowly being grabbed. "It's all about fact finding right now. Feeling it out. We go in after someone Brennan cares about, and with his tendencies of sniffing out a rat, this angle might work best."

"Hopefully your agent is smart enough to not raise Brennan's suspicions or you're going to be trying to identity an officer through DNA."

"I have it on the best authority that this agent is highly trained, and very highly recommended for field work. Rave reviews after a previous op."

So... was it an epic fail that I need to fix/patch up in the next chapter?