A/N: Hey, everyone, sorry for the long wait between updates again. Apparently, the internet on cruise ships costs money and there is no 4G in the middle of the ocean. But I've been working on this the whole week, waiting to post it for you guys when I got back. So, as always, read, review, and enjoy!
Andy looked at the computer screen, confused. How was it possible that all the work she'd done at the crime scene the other night was useless? Gail leaned her head on the half wall next to the desk Andy was sitting at, smirking. "Trouble in paradise?"
Andy shot a glare up at Gail. "You know, you'd have a lot more friends if you were decent to people."
"Mmmmm, yeah, I probably would. Then again, I'd actually have to work and be nice to people, so…. yeah, that's not happening." She smiled her usual smile and tilted her head. "So, what's really going on?"
"Nothing," Andy muttered. "I did all that work at the crime scene, went through an hour and a half of Sam's special hell, and it was all for nothing."
"What do you mean?" Gail's forehead creased in confusion.
"None of them are in our databases. I ran all the fingerprints we found on the barrier, and none of them match anything we have in the database. Nothing. Not a single person there had any record at all, even driving tickets." She shook her head. "How is that possible?"
Gail shrugged. "I don't know. But that's probably why Sam had you on the perimeter."
"What?" Andy's defenses immediately rose.
"He knew you were the best at figuring out how the puzzle pieces with the weird edges fit together," Gail said as if it were obvious. "Why? What'd you think I meant?"
"Nothing," Andy said quietly, almost to herself. Gail shrugged and walked away, cool as always. Andy knew her frustration was mostly coming from Sam and Marlo, but it was true that the pieces didn't fit together. How was it possible, that out of ten to fifteen people, none of them had a criminal record? They were all completely clean, which didn't make any sense at all.
"Hey, McNally." Frank's voice reached her from across the room. She looked up from her work and turned to face him. "Take Collins. There was a break in on Westmoreland Street. Everyone else is at the fire on Church. Two of the rooks can take over the desk work for the day."
She nodded. "Yes, sir." Chloe came over for to take over her work when she heard Frank's announcement. "Look into the families of all of these names." Andy indicated the list of the witnesses she'd found. Process of elimination from their descriptions and body language had helped her narrow it down to a set of names. "Write down everything you find, any charges filed against these people or their families. Don't do anything to find them, just tell me what you know when I get back." She said the last bit in a warning tone. Chloe was known to do rash, impulsive things and ignore protocol, and Andy did not need her screwing with her work. If she got the busy work from Sam, she'd do as good as she damn well could.
"Yes, of course." Chloe shot her an innocent smile. But Andy knew she was anything but innocent. Everyone knew about her encounter with Dov the night he broke his celibacy oath. Andy nodded, taking her on her word. She didn't have time to babysit the impetuous rookie, and she was hoping against hope that nearly two months on the force would have taught her she couldn't do everything she wanted.
Andy made her way to booking to grab Nick. Just thinking Nick's name made her feel tingly inside. She knew it was ridiculous to have these feelings about him, but she had been totally ready for him to kiss her when they'd been against the wall a few nights before. He had Gail, he didn't feel anything for her. And yet she still felt that tingling sensation whenever the thought of him crossed her mind.
"Collins, let's go," she said as she waled by the door of booking. "The rooks are taking over. We got a break in and all street units are at the fire. They need us now." She heard him stand up and walk behind her out to the squad car.
They arrived at the scene roughly fifteen minutes later. As Nick approached the woman at the front door, Andy sat in the car in shock. The girl who answered the door was the blonde haired, blue eyed girl from the night this be a coincidence?
The break in only got more complicated as the night wore on. Andy often wondered to herself how she got stuck working overtime both Friday and Saturday night of the same week,but then she reminded herself she had absolutely nothing better to do with her life. She had no boyfriend, despite the current situation with three men at work, she had no pets, and her best friend was spending all her off time mourning the death of the man she loved and spending time with her young son.
The girl who answered the door, Callie Brown according to her statement and Andy's personal list of suspects, and her boyfriend, Evan Rossdale, also according to both his statement and Andy's list, were in the large townhouse alone while Callie's parents were at dinner. Evan had been the boy Andy had seen at the crime scene the night before with Callie. And then the most shocking part of the case: when Andy had walked into the house behind Nick and Callie, she'd seen Evan pinning the nondescript man, Andy was pretty sure his name was Bob Smith, to the floor.
"Did you take his statement?" Andy whispered to Nick later that night. Behind them, Callie was wrapped in Evan's arms again and Bob was sitting in the chair next to the couch, handcuffed with his arms behind his back.
"Yeah," Nick nodded. He paused, taking in Andy's expression. She looked perturbed, and he wanted to make it better. "What is it?"
"All three of these people were at the scene of the break in last night," Andy began. "I was in charge of the perimeter, and I remember seeing all three of them. I did some background searches this morning, based on the people I saw and the prints we found on the barriers and nothing turned up. For anyone. What are the odds of no prints turning up for any of fifteen people? And then having one of the people break in to another of the people's houses the next day? And this guy, Bob, he didn't fumble. The wiggling of the bar in the door was very precise; he's done this before. If he had, his prints would have turned up in the system when I searched his name or shown up when I ran the fingerprints. So why didn't they?"
Nick nodded, narrowing his eyes. "And if his prints didn't show up and no charges are listed under his name, why couldn't the same be true for anyone else that was there outside that perimeter? We can't trust a damn thing we found there."
"Yeah," she said, deflating. She would have to tell Sam that she couldn't even reliably control the perimeter. Then again, if she told him about the strange circumstances of the information she found, maybe he wouldn't be so upset. Yeah right, she snorted to herself. Sam wouldn't be happy with her either way. He wasn't going to be happy with her until he let go of what had happened between them. And, from her knowledge of his stubbornness, that was not going to be any time soon. She could kiss the vacation she wanted goodbye at least until the double homicide case was closed.
"You ready to go?" Nick asked, turning to him. She nodded, glancing one more time around the house. They grabbed Bob from the chair he'd been sitting in while they'd traded facts. They'd haul him back to 15 Division, book him, and then Andy would finally be allowed to go home. She was not working on Sunday, no matter how good the overtime pay was. She needed a day off to not think about work and sleep.
"Do you want me to drive you home?" Nick asked her. Yes, she thought immediately, but she knew he didn't mean take her home like that. He just meant as a friend, like he always meant just friends. She mentally chastised herself for letting the thought even cross her mind. He never meant anything more than a friendly offer. "Andy?" Her name brought her back to reality.
"Um, no, I'm good, I brought my car," she said.
"Okay." He turned back to look at the road. And her heart sunk. She should have been prepared, she really should, but despite the mental talk she had just given herself, she was disappointed. Apparently her mind hadn't listened to the talk and had expected something she knew wouldn't come. Never in her wildest dreams could she picture a scenario where she and Nick actually ended up together. Something always got in the way. So she didn't know why she was so surprised he wasn't interested when she already knew he wasn't.
"So, are you and Swarek… friends again?" Nick asked, cautiously glancing her way.
"Nope," Andy said, emphasizing the end. "He is trying to rub his new girlfriend in my face and he won't give me any jobs that a monkey couldn't do."
"He's an ass," he said quietly. She looked over at him, curious and touched. "For doing what he's doing. With Marlo."
She smiled slightly. "Thanks. I kinda think so too. They really are perfect for each other. At least he's found someone he can be happy with."
"Don't do that to yourself." He shook his head, not taking his eyes off the road. "It's not your fault."
"Really? Because he told me he's dating her because she's, and I quote, 'not me'."
"That's his problem, not yours. If it's worth anything, he made the biggest mistake of his life by dating her instead of you." She shifted her eyes to trace his profile, watching the way his jaw clenched when he spoke about Sam. He meant what he said. And as much as she wished that made her feel better, knowing it couldn't lead anywhere didn't comfort her.
"We need to talk." Nick and Gail sat in his car after a particularly difficult case. A young girl had been taken in a copycat of one of 15 Division's worst ever nights. Gail had been abducted and held in a basement for nearly 24 hours, until they had managed to find her and get her out. But not before she'd had to go into the prison and talk to the man who'd held her, and not before she'd admitted she'd slept with Blackstone when she'd felt unwanted by Nick. Blackstone had told her about his opportunity to come home during the undercover op. An opportunity he'd passed up to go biking with Andy.
"Is this how you want to do this?" Gail could feel her world tumbling around her. She had instantly regretted going home with Blackstone when she'd done it, but she couldn't undo the past. She'd just have to live with the consequences.
"When I first met you, at that bar," he began. "You were so cold and distant. I thought, this girl is going to break your heart." Her face flickered with some unidentifiable emotion, but she didn't speak. "And here we are, so many years later."
She wasn't sure what to say. She knew nothing could make it better. The sting of her betrayal was only made worse by the fact that he had heard her confession, because he had been worrying about her and wanted to be there for her when she got out of the room. "Why didn't you come home?" She wanted to know what his reason had been for not coming back to her when he'd had the chance, even for a day.
"It was a weekend, Gail," he said quietly. "What did you want me to do, come back, wreck havoc on your life, and then go back to having no communication?"
"Yes!" She exclaimed.
He turned to her, surprised. Despite her current admission, he had already made up his mind. There was no way he was going to take her back. He had a new appreciation for Andy and what she'd gone through. She'd had hell from men recently, and there was no way he would ever do that to her. After that night, he had plans to pursue Andy with everything he had. Maybe moving on so soon would be insulting to Gail, but she already knew how he felt about Andy. "I'm sorry, Gail."
Gail picked up her purse and moved to open the door of Nick's truck and step out into the rain. She paused and turned back to him. "Tell her she's lucky. Good bye, Nick." She opened the door and walked out of his life.
Andy sighed as she dropped down onto her couch and turned on the TV. It was a Friday night, the first one she'd had free in two weeks, and she was spending it watching reruns of Seinfeld and drinking wine. When had this become her life?
She had barely dropped down onto the padded cushions when a knock sounded on the apartment door. She'd panicked when she and Sam had broken up and she'd gotten back from the undercover op. First she'd had an apartment, then she and Luke had bought the house together, then she and Sam had had the apartment together, but after the op, she'd had nowhere to go. Traci had taken her in for a few weeks, but she had found a smaller apartment that was close enough to 15 Division that she wouldn't have a long drive every morning.
She stood up and padded around the few boxes she hadn't yet unpacked to answer the door. And she was faced with none other than Nick. "Nick, what are you doing here?"
His face held the most pained expression she'd ever seen on it. "Gail, um…" Andy leaned closer, resting against the door. "She slept with Blackstone. The night after you and Marlo got stuck with the anthrax heroin. Apparently, she thought there was something going on between us and wanted to get back at me."
Without another word, she stepped back and let Nick inside. She motioned to the couch for him to sit while she went to the fridge and grabbed him a beer. He smiled at her slightly, gesturing at the TV. "Seinfeld? Really?"
"Jerry's humor can always make me feel better when I'm feeling like shit," she smiled back. "Here you go." She passed him the beer, which he immediately took a swig of. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Jerry and Elaine bicker with the Soup Nazi.
"How do you do it?" His voice made her turn and stare at him with a measure of confusion. "Move on, I mean."
She snorted. "Don't expect it to happen right away. I mean, when I found out about Luke and Jo, I was already into Sam and it still took me a long time to get over it. It won't happen overnight."
"I don't know how I'll ever be able to…" He trailed off and looked over to the TV again. "I don't know if I could ever trust her again. And I don't know how I can work with her if I don't trust her."
She shrugged in the most comforting way possible. "Maybe Frank will cut you some slack. He did with me. He let me have some time doing desk jobs, avoiding the detectives… Maybe he'll help you out, too. At the very least, you can ask him to keep you out of the same car as her for a while."
They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the antics of the friends in the show on TV. Eventually they moved, stretched out on the couch. Nick spread his arms out, one on the back of the couch and one on the side, and he lifted his feet to rest them on the ottoman. Andy leaned back so her feet hung over the edge of the couch and her knees were bent over his thighs. Her head rested against the pillow on the opposite end of the couch from Nick's body, and the arm holding her wine glass dangled off the side of the couch.
She relaxed, feeling totally comfortable and at ease with him. His presence sent a warmth through her, making her feel more safe and protected than she had felt in almost a year. She laid back and closed her eyes. Minutes later, she feel into a peaceful sleep, finally feeling like she would be okay if she took a few hours to really relax.
Nick smirked as he watched her doze off. He waited a few minutes before grabbing the glass from her hand and carefully placing it on the coffee table between the couch and the TV. He knew he shouldn't be feeling these things for her, especially so soon after his breakup with Gail. But he knew he'd made the right choose when he'd decided to go to Andy's to be breakup buddies again.
Dov sat outside, wondering where Chris was. A moment later, the woman he had been after for years appeared in front of him. "Gail? What's wrong?" She was standing in the rain while he was sheltered under the awning of the Black Penny.
"Nick and I broke up," she said, hiccuping slightly.
"What happened?" Dov stood up to pull her out of the rain, only to see her ever-perfect makeup was smudged and her hair was ratted.
"I cheated," she cried again. "I did it. It was me. It was all my fault. What the hell is wrong with me? I threw away the best thing I ever had because I thought he liked another woman!"
He was silent as he took in her image, then placed a hand on the small of her back and led her softly into the Penny.