A/N: The third to last chapter! Hope you like it. Please review! I have a really long, boring work week and your thoughts and comments will totally lighten my life. :D I have the last two chapters about half written so hopefully it won't be too long a wait.

Chapter 18: Wretches and Kings

It was too bright. Dov groaned and turned his face into the pillow trying to block out the sunlight seeping between the half closed blinds. Why the fuck didn't I close those? The ill-considered final double whiskey hammered at his temples and he briefly considered calling the station and telling them he was dying, but slowly the night before began to filter into his brain and he knew he couldn't. Oliver himself had helped him into a cab. There was no way Oliver would ever let him live this down, or keep his mouth shut long enough for Dov to get away with a hangover day.

Another memory surfaced through the pained, sleepy fug that was Dov's brain and he groaned aloud. He hadn't… He couldn't have… Gail would have called her brother and had him thrown in the drunk tank. This was definitely not the drunk tank.

Dov closed his eyes and let his mind relax. It was only a dream. A really fucking horrifying dream, but a dream nonetheless. He seriously needed a girlfriend. One who wasn't Gail. Preferably one who was so diametrically opposite of Gail that she made him forget there ever was an infuriating blonde with exactly the right combination of sass and heart who he had been in love with by varying degrees for almost five years. Yeah… that probably wasn't ever going to happen. Still, something had to change. Something had to change quickly, before the nightmare he'd had last night became a horrifying reality.

He knew from past experience that all it took for him to fuck everything up was a little bit of mind altering substance and Gail Peck within touching distance.

"Hmmph" The sleepy grumble was followed by a slim hand sliding over Dov's bare torso, enclosing him in a loose hug before his brain had time to realize he wasn't alone.

He wasn't alone, and when his eyes flew open in surprise and he finally took in more than the brilliance of the sunlight he realized this was not his bed. A feeling somewhere in between horror and happiness gripped him and for a moment he could neither breath nor move. What the fuck happened last night? The question echoed around and around his mind, but hard as he tried Dov couldn't piece it together. The last clear memory he had was of Oliver telling him to take two aspirin and drink a litre of water before bed. There were a few wispy images after that, but he was still clinging firmly to the hope those were all a bad dream.

Slowly, trying not to wake her (he hoped it was a her, the alternative would open up a whole other can of worms Dov was entirely too hung over to think about), Dov tried to extricate himself from the bed and the arm wrapped around him. The arm tightened and Dov felt a warm body press flush against his back. Soft breasts pressed deliciously against his shoulder blades and long hair tickled neck.

Then suddenly the warm body intent on using him as a human teddy bear stiffened. For a moment they were both frozen and then the arm was quickly pulled back and the warm body at his back withdrew, leaving him cold. Slowly, tentatively, knowing what he was going to see and dreading it, Dov turned around.

Gail's eyes were like saucers. Her mouth was glued shut and her cheeks were flushed. She clutched a sheet to her chest.

Dov opened and shut his mouth several times, but no words would come out. This was not how this was supposed to happen. He was not supposed to get so drunk he forgot what would probably, judging by the mixture of shame and self-loathing on Gail's face, be the only time he made love to her. He was supposed to woo her so slowly that she thought it was her idea when they finally fell into bed together. He was supposed to be everything Nick and Chris and all the others before were not. He was supposed to be The One. He wasn't supposed to be the embarrassing one night stand. It was not supposed to be this way.

"I'll just… I'll go…" Dov finally found his voice. Judging by the flicker of relief on Gail's face he knew he'd said the right thing.

Looking remotely dignified wrapped in a duvet and scrambling around on the floor for clothes you don't remember discarding is next to impossible. Dov certainly did not feel dignified. He felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. Say something! He commanded his mouth, but there were no words he could think of that would transform this particular nightmare into anything else, so instead he gathered his scattered clothing and clutched them to him as he edged out of the room.

"See you at work?" Dov barely waited for Gail's acknowledging nod before stepping out of her line of sight and pulling on his clothes as fast as possible. By the clock above her stove he knew he didn't really have time to go home, he just hoped no one remembered what he was wearing last night. The last thing he or Gail needed was something suspecting he hadn't made it home.

Calling a goodbye and feeling like the world's biggest ass, Dov let himself out of the apartment and nearly ran out of the building and down the street. Only when he was three blocks away did he slow to a more reasonable pace.

When he'd said he needed something to change, this was not what he had in mind.

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The first time Andy had the dream she didn't think anything of it. She'd seen Nick shirtless enough. And they'd spent that entire week in the van listening to Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns on repeat because neither of them could get enough of it. Dov in handcuffs was a little harder to explain. She hadn't seen him cuffed since their first day at 15 and she'd been a little busy that day trying to get her own cuffs off before anyone else to pay much attention. She also had never seen Dov dance before.. and if her subconscious could be believed, it was for good reasons. He certainly didn't suit a Bollywood style cha cha or the role of tambourine-girl. Though he and Nick did make a beautiful couple.. if you really thought about it.

By now it had merely become a part of her normal sleep pattern. It was kind of comforting, in an odd sort of way. Two of her boys serenading her and looking rather sexy doing it. It was every little girl's dream, right? Maybe not the handcuffs... or the gyrating... but the basic premise of wanting to be pursued made some sense. A therapist would tell her that she was dreaming this because Sam was Sam and far less effusive than she wanted him to be and her career was potentially in tatters.

At least she assumed that was what they would say. She certainly didn't tell anyone about it. That was, until the morning Sam asked her flat out if she and Nick had been sleeping together.

"What? No!" Andy nearly dropped her mug of coffee. "Why would you even ask that?"

"It was five months. Undercover is intense." Sam said, looking a little defensive. "I would understand."

She supposed he would. After all he hadn't been living like a monk while she was undercover. he'd had no problem telling her that he'd fucked Gail Peck while she was gone. As if the confession hadn't been a knife through her heart. She still wasn't quite able to look at Gail without cringing. Even if it had really been just one drunken night as Sam claimed, it was a pretty horrifying mental image. Though, there was some part of her that felt extra satisfaction in fucking Sam in the apartment Gail had helped her acquire. And, besides, she supposed it could be worse, it could have been Jo.

Andy still couldn't believe the detective had the nerve to show her face at fifteen again after everything that had happened with Luke. Even with Luke working out of headquarters it made Andy unspeakably angry. And not just because Jo was at fifteen specifically to prosecute Andy for something she hadn't done. Her second suspension in eighteen months all because she'd forgotten a tray of cookies in the oven! And no one seemed to believe her. Even Sam had told her he would support her, but she could tell he thought there was something she was hiding.

Though, now that she thought about it.. Jo hadn't really been working too hard to prove Andy's guilt. It almost seemed like the blonde woman was trying harder even than Sam to clear Andy's name. When she'd asked Andy about the landlord's last inspection of the smoke detectors Andy had almost believed she might not be to blame for the fire after all. Certainly she'd been a bit of an idiot, leaving cookies in the oven for nearly half an hour... but if Jo's suspicion that the smoke detector was faulty and the stove itself was set up to spread fire like crazy were right... well... Andy might be in the clear. Though she didn't know if her career would survive the dual blow of unbecoming conduct and an arson charge.

She realized she hadn't answered Sam's comments. The silence had become oppressive as her mind wandered. She put down her mug and took Sam's hands in hers. "No. I didn't sleep with Nick."

"Then why do you say his name in your sleep?"

If Andy could have slammed her head into the table hard enough to knock herself unconscious she probably would have. Since she doubted her ability to do it in a single blow, she forced herself to meet Sam's gaze. "It's this ridiculous dream I keep having..."

By the time she had finished Sam was wiping tears of laughter off his face. Clearly the mental image of Dov doing the hokey pokey around Nick while they belted out a little :"When They Come for Me" was too much for even her stoic lover to handle this early in the morning. Andy buried her head in her hands. "I don't know why I keep having this fucking dream."

"Well..." Sam said, when he could speak.

Ten minutes later Andy dumped her now-cold coffee into the sink. "Dov was singing outside her window?"

Sam nodded. "Badly."

"Oh Sweet Jesus!" Andy shook her head. "I knew he had a thing for her.. but... what is this 1985?"

"Apparently." Sam said, looking inexplicably relieved.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tried." Sam said, still laughing. "You sleep like the dead."

"You would never do that, right?" Andy asked, not sure what she hoped he would say. There was something rather appealing about the idea of Sam serenading her.

"No." Sam said very definitely.

"You're too cool for that." She teased, leaning in for a kiss.

"Oh yeah." He replied when their lips parted. "Way too cool."

It didn't take long for the kiss to turn passionate. Andy slid onto Sam's lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as his tongue parted her lips.

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"How is everything going?"

Jo sank into one of the chairs across from Frank's desk. "I think we have another viable suspect."

Frank smiled broadly. "That's more like it. What can you tell me?"

"I'd rather not get into it too much until we have something more solid to go on. But there have been a couple other fires at buildings owned by the same management company, which looks suspicious. There was also an inspection on the books for three weeks before this fire. If they completed the inspection to company policy they would have replaced McNally's extinguisher and checked the batteries and wiring in her alarms."

"But you don't have any concrete evidence?" Frank sounded defeated.

"It's circumstantial, but so is the evidence against McNally." Jo said as if she hadn't told Sam only days earlier that the circumstantial evidence against McNally was almost ironclad.

"I want her back at work."

"Give me one day to interview the manager of her building and I'll hang streamers for her welcome back party."

Frank smiled. "I can live with that."

"I'll keep you updated." Jo rose to her feet and left his office. She felt good about their new suspect, but Frank was right that it wasn't quite enough. Sure, a second suspect with similarly weighty evidence might help convince a jury that there was reasonable doubt, but it wouldn't force the crown to prosecute the management instead of Andy. She needed this interview to go perfectly. Which meant she needed Swarek to stay out of the room.

Swarek was a solid investigator and she had seen him do great things in interrogation, but she also knew that when Andy was involved he lost perspective and got reckless fast. The last think they needed was for that reckless streak to destroy their best hope at gaining some solid proof that something was wrong with the management company.

Scanning the bullpen Jo wasn't sure it she was relieved or disappointed not to see Swarek. He'd been borderline late the last few days, which she was pretty sure is a sign that regardless of what was happening with her career, Andy McNally was having a better time than Jo.

When Sam appeared, exactly thirty seconds before parade, Jo barely gave him time to get into uniform before pulling him into her office. "I'm interviewing the management today, she said as soon as the door clicked shut behind them. :You will stay behind the glass and watch. If you have something to add or a question you think I should press, you can text me or knock and I will come and speak with you. You will not enter the room under any circumstance. You good with that?"

For a few seconds she thought that he might actually challenge her, but then he nodded.

"Good." She smiled. " I told Frank we have a new suspect, so McNally should be back on the roster by the end of the week."

The slightly mutinous expression on Sam's face morphed into a genuine smile. "Thanks."

"Just doing my job." She shrugged. "Now, let's go nail this bastard."

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"Oliver!" Gail called so softly Oliver almost didn't hear her.

"You whispered, Peck?"

She glared at him for half a second before adopting that sickly sweet smile she reserved for when she really wanted something. "Switch with me?"

Oliver didn't have much of a poker face but he did his best to hide his surprise. Not only was Gail paired with Dov for the day, far from the most awkward position she could be in, but he was on booking. "You feeling okay?"

The glare returned full force. "Simple question, Oliver. You want to stay here in booking doing paper work all day, or you want to cruise the streets for criminals?"

Oliver snatched the keys from her fingers. "I'll switch, but you owe me a beer."

Gail rolled her eyes but didn't object. She watched Oliver cross the room and slap Dov on the back, saw the quick flickers of surprise, hurt, and relief on Dov's face. She felt almost guilty, but she just couldn't spend ten hours in a squad car with Dov. Not while she could still feel his fingers against her skin and hear his groans in her ears.

Last night was a terrible mistake. She'd come home from work angry and hurt and almost euphoric after breaking up with Nick and then handing out over fifteen speeding tickets to pissed off Torontonians. A bottle of wine and two movies from her Netflix queue later and she was ready for bed. When she'd heard Dov she briefly thought it was the neighbour's cat but then the wailing had coalesced into words and she'd realized she knew that voice.

The rest was a bit of a blur. She knew she'd gone downstairs to try and shut him up, but she couldn't for the life of her remember who had kissed who or when she had thought it was an okay idea to bring her obviously plastered drunk best friend up to her apartment. She did remember shoving him down onto the bed when his fingers failing at opening her bra clasp for the third time and stripping off both their clothes in record time.

Gail slumped into the chair in booking and let her head smack down against the desk. Maybe if she hit it hard enough she could erase that entire night from her memory and she and Dov could be friends again.

That was what she wanted. For the past six months Dov had really been her best friend. He'd held her hand (metaphorically, she wouldn't have tolerated actually hand holding) through the trial and the media storm that followed. He'd literally held her hand sitting in a clinic in Hamilton waiting for a procedure she would never tell another living soul about if she could help it. She loved him. But she wasn't in love with him. She never had been and she was pretty sure she never would be.