He'd been pushing her all week. Nothing too hard, but a little something every day. The first week she'd been so focused on pretending everything as okay she'd nearly managed to fool herself and him into believe it would be. But by week two, cracks were beginning to show through her armour. Jo's departure, Callaghan's obvious desperate attempts to bring her back to him, had warped cool calm into brittle, steely control. Sam could almost see the rage boiling just below the surface. It was eating her alive from the inside out.

He spent that week making sure nothing too hard or obnoxious crossed Andy's path, keeping anything that might tear the facade apart at an inopportune moment as far away from her as possible. If she noticed, she said nothing. When two weeks became three and the anger still seethed below an increasingly brittle veneer of calm, Sam started to poke at it. Not always. Only in those moments when it was safe for her to explode. When a blackout rage complete with screaming and breaking shit wouldn't cost her badge. Still, no matter how hard he pushed her, she refused to let it out. She refused to even admit she was angry.

Day by day, the effort of holding it together was taking away the Andy he knew, leaving behind a poor facsimile. It was enough to drive a much better man than Sam Swarek had ever been to take drastic, and potentially disastrous, action.

Sam had always been hyper aware of Andy. Her every movement was picked up, catalogued and pulled out for examination when she wasn't around. He wasn't proud of it, he didn't even mean to most of the time, but he couldn't help himself.

In a way he'd been happy about the quarantine. He wasn't particularly worried about catching a deadly disease, and at least as long as they were shut in and Callaghan was shut out, he could keep her safe. From herself. From Callaghan. From the world.

He'd given up telling himself they were merely partners - she was more than that to him, she had been for a long time now. There was no point pretending her happiness wasn't as important to him as his own. Which meant there was nothing left to do but force her hand. Make her think about Jo, or talk to Callaghan. Simply take denial off the table.

Sam made a mental note to buy Oliver a drink later. If Sam had been the one to suggest calling Callaghan, Andy would have seen right through it. He was pretty sure she'd seen through his attempt to call in Jo, given how fast she'd leapt up to stop him from calling 27 division, even though the next shift out of fifteen would be working out of 27 for as long as fifteen was under quarantine.

But when Oliver, who ostensibly liked Luke Callaghan and who managed to at least give the impression that he wasn't a gossip like the rest of them, had suggested calling Callaghan, there had been nothing for Andy to do but make the call. From the too casual way Oliver had suggested Callaghan, Sam knew his friend had seen the same worrying spiral of denial in Andy Sam had. It was comforting to know he wasn't alone worrying about her.

The conversation with Luke, brief as it was, had clearly rattled Andy, but somehow she'd managed to collect herself in a matter of minutes and lose herself in work. If it hadn't been so painful to behold, Sam might have been impressed with the bull headed way she zeroed in on the job. As it was, he'd barely resisted the impulse to say or do something, anything, to bring the full force of her anger to bear on him. He could take it. Whatever she needed he would be happy to provide, even if it was a punching bag. And then it hit him.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a plan. And if it went well, he could help Andy work off some of her pent up aggression, and have a little fun at the same time.

o o o

Andy collapsed on the mattress on the floor that was passing as a bed until she found time to furnish her new apartment. She was almost too exhausted to kick off her boots and pull a blanket over her body. Physically she was more tired than she'd been in months, but for the first time in three weeks her mind wasn't running in circles. She hated admitting it, but Sam had been right.

Hitting him had felt good. Really good. Not that she'd landed many blows. Boxing wasn't her sport at the best of times, and boxing after three weeks of restless nights, mostly on other peoples' couches, and a twenty hour shift had not improved her skills. Still, the impact of fist on flesh, even gloved fist on flesh, was amazingly cathartic. It was as if each swing released a wave of anger until all that was left was bone deep exhaustion.

She'd skipped breakfast, in part because she didn't relish the idea of eating alone, and in part because she was simply too tired. Her apartment, rented last week and unfurnished unless you counted a cheap mattress, a lawn chair and three boxes of things she'd managed to collect from the apartment she'd shared with Luke. She was determined not to see him, so she'd been trying to sneak in to pack when she knew he was at work. So far she'd been successful, but it was slow going.

Burrowing under her white down duvet, Andy could still hear Sam's laughter ringing in her ears. As her heavy eyelids fell closed, his dark eyes, corners crinkled with mirth as he ducked under her swinging fist, were all she saw. For the first time in three weeks Andy fell straight to sleep and did not stir until morning.