"I'm his fiancé. I am his family."

The nurse nodded, "Alright, come on," and Andy followed her through the double doors into the ICU.

Luke's room was the first they came to and Andy hovered in the door for a moment before she could bring herself to enter. He was pale and there were leads hooking him up to monitors along one wall, but he was breathing on his own. She didn't know much, but she was taking this as a good sign.

He was her family. She'd meant that. It felt surreal, but it was true. They'd been engaged less than twenty-four hours, and if she was really honest with herself she hadn't been quite sure when she said yes that this was really what she wanted.

But she wanted it now, maybe more than she'd ever wanted anything A family. A real family. Not the pathetic excuse for one she and Tommy had been faking for 14 years. With his drinking the image of her mother away and her pretending the pain didn't still catch her off guard some days. They were definitely not one of those picture perfect, white fence, cheesy Christmas card type of families. She loved her dad. She would always love him, no matter how many times he screwed up. But he was hardly the picture perfect father, no matter how well h was doing in his AA meetings, he was sill the kind of father you didn't brag about to your friends.

Luke on the other hand, was as near to perfect as she could imagine. And he loved her. She didn't know why, but she knew he did. He wanted to take care of her. It was an outdated, chauvinistic idea, but Andy had never been cared for. She'd been taking care of herself for as long as she could remember, the idea of a man wanting to take care of her was foreign, but not unwelcome. If they had kids she knew they would admire Luke, probably drag him to school for show and tell, asking him on all their field trips, because having a detective as a father was cool – she knew that from experience. But unlike her father, Luke was rock solid.

She looked at his pale face and squeezed his limp cold hand. Solid and strong. And he loved her. He told her every day. She looked down at the diamond sparkling on her finger. IT wasn't exactly her style, but it was gorgeous and he'd clearly spent a lot of money on it. He'd planned a proposal, a beautiful romantic proposal at the lake, and she'd ruined it, yet he'd smiled and given her an out without making her feel like he wanted her to take it. He knew her. Yet he loved her anyway.

And now he was lying in the hospital and might never wake up and it was all her fault.

o o o

Sam sank into the hospital chair Andy had vacated seconds earlier and let his head fall back against the wall.

Andy was in with Luke. He didn't know how long the hospital would let her stay, but he planned to wait her out. There was no way he was letting her take a cab home alone after tonight. He wasn't even sure she should go to the house she shared with Luke, not tonight. There would still be blood on the floor, and even if there wasn't, how was she supposed to sleep in the apartment where her fiancé, Sam grimaced at the word, had been shot? No, he would take her to Tommy's or Nash's. She was not going to be alone tonight.

She loved him, Callaghan. Really and truly. Sam realized he hadn't really believed that before. Somehow he'd convinced himself that Andy was doing what Andy always did - trying to fix things by being perfect. Trying to make up for almost leaving Luke by moving in, trying to make up for having a alcoholic father and absentee mother by making a commitment to spend her life with that person who is right on paper but not quite right in reality. But now he knew he'd been fooling himself.

Andy trusted Sam. Liked him even. But she loved Luke. Loved Luke like Sam loved her.

Detective Jo Rosati took the seat next to him. She looked as drained as Sam felt. As if she'd been running all day and crash landed here without really knowing where here was or why they was there at all. Sam knew she and Luke had been partners for three years, but he suspected there was something more than just a partnership.

Why did life have to be so complicated?

"Coffee?" He asked, standing up.

Jo jumped, as if she hadn't even realized there was someone else in the room. "Sure." She tried to force a smile, but her lips trembled and her eyes were red-rimmed and damp, "Black."

He found a coffee cart on the first floor and ordered two regular medium-roast. He added two packs of sugar to his, slapped lids on the cups and headed back to the second floor hallway outside the ICU.

There were cops milling about in the hallway, everyone waiting for news about Callaghan. Sam paid no attention to them. They were here for Callaghan. He was here for Andy.

They sat in silence for a long time. Sam finished his coffee and set the empty cup on the floor. Staff Sergeant Best and most of the other officers headed back to the division. By midnight only Jo and Sam remained.

"So you and McNally, huh?" Jo turned to look at him.

Sam didn't have the energy to lie, but there really wasn't anything to say. He was in love with Andy McNally, he was past the point where he could deny that, but she did not love him back. "We're partners."

"Right," there was doubt in her voice. "You're sitting in the world's most famously uncomfortable chairs all night, letting someone else get credit for your collar, because your partner's boyfriend got shot?"

"Fiancé," He corrected her. The word felt wrong in his mouth and he wondered how many times he would have to say it before it stopped feeling like a cosmic joke. "They're engaged."

Jo glared at him. "I know." She rose and he wondered if she was going to leave. But she threw her empty coffee cut in the trash and turned back. She settled next to him again with a heavy sigh. "Believe me, I know McNally and Callaghan are engaged."

Something in her tone made Sam look at her. Obviously she had feelings for Callaghan, but this was something else. "So you and Callaghan, huh?" He echoed her earlier question.

She shrugged. "It was a long time ago."

Sam remained silent. It didn't really matter. Even if Jo and Callaghan had been engaged years ago when they'd been together, the reality was that today Callaghan was engaged to Andy McNally and there wasn't a damn thing either of them could do about it.

o o o