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Chapter 13- Information.

Andy woke with her body aching all over.

She had the mother of all headaches, and her ribs were on fire.

Her mouth still had the metallic taste of blood in it, memories forced to the surface as she recalled the last things that she could remember.

Her memory had huge gaps in it, but she recalled the beating she took. Those memories would forever stay burned into her brain.

Hearing what sounded like floorboards creaking, Andy opened her eyes and took her surroundings in.

She was in a dark room, laying on a bed and covered with a blanket. Her sore wrist had a support cast on it, the pain reminding her how godzilla had stomped on it when she tried to cover her face with her hands when she fell from the chair in the warehouse.

The room she was in now smelled like flowers, fabric softener assaulting her senses from the blankets pulled up to her chin.

The room looked homey and lived in?

There was a bottle of water next to the bed, Andy realizing that she was beyond thirsty when she saw it.

Shuffling to sit up, Andy reached out just as the door opened and she let out a scream that tore through the room.

The sound made an image flash through her mind, one where she remembered opening her eyes just for a second and seeing shoes rush into the room followed by gunshots and yelling.

The guy that had been standing in front of her demanding answers when she woke up in the warehouse lay on the floor in front of her with his eyes empty as blood seeped onto the cement next to his shaved head.

"Andy" her name drew her attention and she found her eyes opening to see a familiar face lurking in the doorway. "You're okay".

"Gail?".

Every ounce of her flooded with relief at knowing that she wasn't in danger anymore.

The knowledge also made her burst into tears.

"Hey, you're okay" Gail said coming closer, Andy wincing in pain as she sat the rest of the way up.

Gail wrapped her arms around Andy while she cried. She didn't blame her for the lapse in emotion, Andy had been through a pretty bad beating and wasn't even conscious when she was found.

Sam wanted to take her to the hospital but Gail had convinced him to bring her here instead. The hospital was too risky if anyone came looking for them.

"How did you find me?" Andy eventually asked.

"I didn't, but someone else did" Gail said avoiding eye contact. Andy still didn't know that Sam was alive, or that he had found her. He didn't want her to know anything yet.

"Oh..." Andy suddenly threw back the covers and made an attempt to find her feet even though everything screamed in pain and her face contorted.

"Andy, where are you going" Gail stood up when she saw Andy reach out awkwardly for her shoes on the floor in the corner.

"Sophie, I need to find her"

"She's okay. We have her"

That seemed to soothe Andy and she sat back down on the end of the bed and just gaped at Gail.

"How are you even here? And who is WE?".

And there it was, her need to know.

"I'll tell you everything, but you need to eat first okay. And shower. You've been here for three days" Gail dodged Andy's questions. She really didn't know if she was ready for she truth yet.

"Okay. Where are we?".

"A safehouse" Gail moved towards the door. She'd get Andy something to eat while she grabbed a shower. The bathroom was adjacent to the bedroom so Andy would find it easily enough. And Gail had left a pile of clothes on top of the dresser next to the bed, so she'd have everything she needed.

"I'll get you food while you shower okay?" Gail left Andy sitting on the bed as her mind raced away and she tried to make sense of what was happening.

"She okay?" Sam asked when Peck made it into the kitchen.

"She's awake" those two words made Sam's hand falter. He knew that now he would be forced to face her and tell her the truth because they were all in hiding and there was no way around it.

"Sam, really? You need to give her time to get used to the idea okay. It's not like you need to go up there right now and face her"

But he wanted to.

Right now.

"Just go... I dunno, do something?" Peck nodded towards the door telling him that she'd be okay if he would rather leave.

Sam shook his head, he was so done with the hiding and running.

"Ookkaayy" Peck said smiling.

Sam turned back to the stove and carried on with dinner. He and Peck took turns making meals. And tonight he was going to go with something that would hopefully make Andy remember him...

She had been here for three days, bordering unconsciousness but he wasn't at all surprised after the bad beating she'd taken.

He found her three hours after she'd been taken after nearly throwing Nico through a brick wall when he heard that Quinn was looking for him after word spread that Nico was changing sides and moving over to join Vega for a better offer than what his blood ties to his family were.

Sam didn't wait for backup, he went alone and lucky for him, Vega himself only had two goons with him at the warehouse, they didn't see Andy as much of a threat.

Sam walked right in through the front door and asked to be given the girl, when one of Vega's guys shot at him, he returned the favor and put a bullet in Vega's head when he punched Andy off the chair. He wounded the other two, but unfortunately they would both live.

He let Peck talk him into bringing Andy home, to his mothers house because she was afraid of word spreading about him and Andy so he drove to the hospital and sent her inside looking for Monica. When Monica came out she just about fell over when she saw Sam.

She ran off and returned with a gurney before slipping Andy in through the back door to the x-ray department.

After running the x-rays and giving Andy the once over Monica agreed to let Sam take her wherever they were going on condition that he'd call if she got any worse. Peck left her number so that Monica could call her and let her know how Andy's x-rays looked.

Twenty minutes later Sam carried Andy up to Sarah's room and set her down, Peck listening intently to Monica when she made that call.

Thankfully it wasn't too bad, although a fractured wrist and a cracked cheekbone weren't fun, bruised ribs were painful. Really painful.

There was the possibility of a concussion so Sam had to wake Andy up every hour, but there were no signs of internal damage or bleeding.

Sam spent those hours between waking her sitting and watching her while Peck kept his mother company and away from the bedroom.

Callaghan had been on the phone yelling at Sam for leaving the scene where three people had been shot and Peck's blue Yaris was seen driving away, well he had been until Sam explained that he left the scene with Andy in bad shape.

Callaghan had stopped moaning then and told Sam to email him a statement and that Peck didn't need to because she dropped Sophia off at Fifteen with a note explaining things before leaving to pick Sam and Andy up. He called and said that he needed her to pick him up so that he could leave the chefs car behind.

Sam had Peck call Sarah earlier pretending to be 'Sam's old partner who occasionally looked in on her mom' so that she could tell Sarah that his mother was lonely. He hated having to play the guilt card but it worked and Sarah had come to pick his mother up for a week. It was safer to have her gone.

Now, it was just the three of them laying low while Callaghan tried to cover some ground and find out what the hell was going on.

At nightfall Callaghan had called again and asked how Andy was, Sam feeling some relief at being able to tell him that she was awake and that Peck said she was lucid and okay. Callaghan had gone on to tell him that the Shaw family was back at home and that the guy that broke into their house was Izzy's boyfriend and not some hitman trying to kill them.

That kind of threw Sam for a loop, but it only added some minor relief that they weren't in any danger.

Callaghan had also told him that Vega's guys were looking for him and that they were desperate for revenge, while Quinn didn't say one single word during his interrogation after Callaghan ordered most of the Ramos family to be detained.

Nico was in hiding, but he'd called Sophia and asked where she was. She said she was at a friends after Callaghan told her to, so they were setting up a sting to arrest him.

Finishing dinner Sam looked up to find Peck still watching him from across the room. Her silence spoke volumes.

She was waiting, letting him figure out how he was going to show himself to Andy.

After her shower Andy went back to bed to sleep some more, her headache was making her empty stomach churn, but it was probably brought on by the three days of antibiotics that they'd been injecting her with after the first time she woke up and mumbled all sorts of nonsense.

Sam had been in the room then, but it didn't seem like she was really focused on much other than the fact that she was scared and confused.

"So...". Peck said when she saw that Sam had dished up for Andy and set the plate down on a tray with a glass of grapefruit juice and two advil's.

"Nope" Sam said deciding against letting Andy see him just yet.

She needed to get food into her system and hydrate herself and let her injuries start healing before he ripped the carpet out from under her feet.

"Sam, you need to do this". Peck put the tray down when he handed it to her.

"Not tonight" Sam backed away and checked his watch. He had to meet up with Callaghan and Marlo soon anyway.

"This is wrong Swarek" Peck called out in a hushed whisper just as his hand touched the front door.

Gail found Andy sitting up looking pale except for the super shiner she had covering her right eye and the purple welt that marred her cheek under that. "I've got dinner".

"Thanks" Andy said when Gail set the tray down beside her.

"Didn't know you liked grapefruit" Andy said reaching for the glass.

"I don't". Gail replied looking really smug. Maybe Sam wasn't as chicken as she thought. "Not mine" she added just to clear it up.

"We're not alone" she added when Andy had finished swallowing half the glass.

"Oh?" Andy waited, but Gail didn't say anymore. Instead she rambled on about the weather and stupid sitcom reruns while Andy ate.

Andy didn't eat much, her stomach had shriveled from lack of food, but what she did eat left her wondering how Gail knew that she would like strawberries and pineapple in her salad.

Gail could see the wheels turning, but Andy wasn't revealing much. She was thinking about Sam, Gail could tell, but she didn't want to risk looking stupid by saying something.

"How's Nick?" Gail suddenly blurted.

"He's uh, he's okay" Andy said. She'd seen Nick the day before she went to Gypsy's and ran into trouble. "He misses you".

"Do you ever miss Sam?".

Andy let out a cough that sounded more like a strangled sigh.

"Yeah... Sometimes".

She so totally wasn't over the whole Sam situation.

"But, you still hate him right?".

"What? No. I was so angry that night, and so ... Hurt. I never hated Sam, I just hated how life kinda happened to us you know".

"Life? He didn't move on Andy". Gail just went ahead and said what she was thinking, consequences be damned. It was only a matter of hours until Andy would run into Sam anyway, so why not make the inevitable more bearable?

"What?".

"Cruz. She's IA".

Andy hadn't been expecting that.

"IA?".

"Andy look, things aren't as you see them. Sam was setting up an operation just after you left, Cruz was just his cover for that. Steve's in trouble...".

She so completely lost Andy.

"Okay, let's try that again". Gail said taking a deep breath. "Sam was setting up a bust, a big one, involving some cops. Cruz is the IA part of that investigation, I'm another part of it. Steve, my brother is one of the cops being investigated okay, so I took the UC to find out if he's really a bad cop. Sam was Cruz's cover to get her into Fifteen, nothing happened I swear".

Andy was staring at Gail like she was speaking a foreign language.

"I just want you to know that. Because there's more, and when you're ready you'll know all of it". Gail patted Andy on the hand before standing up. "Get some sleep, I'm downstairs if you need anything".

Gail picked the tray up and left Andy to think her words over.

Sam walked in just as Gail stepped off the last step and stopped.

"We good?" She asked. She'd called in 'sick' and told Johnny that she was taking a few shifts off to help Sam with a few business errands, and he seemed okay about it. His first question had been if Sam would still be supplying the club seeing as some guys were out looking for him. She had informed him that they were holidaying in Mexico and all he said was 'bring me a souvenir when you come back'.

"We don't know" Sam said eyeing the staircase behind her.

"She's okay Sam. She's ready to see you".

Peck left him standing staring at fresh air after that.

***hello & thanks for reading!

So who saw the Marlo IA cover thing coming? & who's still here?

Have an awesome day!

Jelly Bean Jenna©