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Just a drink

Prompt: Andy was never offered the position on the taskforce and simply has to decide whether or not to meet Sam for drinks. (Story starts at the end of 3x13.)

Featuring: Sam & Andy

Andy stood in front of Sam in the hallway outside the locker rooms. Her eyes were glued to the floor as she worried her bottom lip and tried not to let the tears trapped behind her eyelids fall down her cheeks.

"Okay, look..." Sam was not giving up and waited several moments until her eyes met his again. "Can we just start with a drink? Just a drink?"

Her eyes found the floor again, alternating between a scuffed tile and his shoes. His eyes never moved from her face, looking for any sign, any indication that she was letting the wall she'd built up crumble. "Please. Andy, just give me a chance."

Her lips curved up briefly as her shoulders moved up and down in a non-committal answer.

"I'll be at The Penny," he said, praying she would meet him there. He stared at her a moment longer before walking toward the men's locker room to grab his things.

Without a glance toward Sam as he walked away, Andy headed off to find Traci. She needed to tell her friend how Sam had just pleaded with her. She needed Traci to tell her what to do. When she couldn't find her, Andy decided to just go home. She couldn't go to The Penny, at least not yet. And she needed some fresh air. She needed to process everything that happened with Sam, from the moment he'd said 'I love you' while she was holding the grenade to his pleading speech in the locker room.

She was confused. When Sam kept ignoring her week after week, unless it was absolutely necessary at work, she'd forced herself to acknowledge it was over between them. She didn't want to accept it at first, but she forced herself to start the five stages of grief. She was pretty sure she was past anger and in the bargaining stage…with acceptance still far away. But then he started caring; a comment here, a concerned look there. She'd tried to ignore it, figured he was trying to ease his guilt about how he broke up with her. But then there was his speech tonight, the way he pleaded with her to understand, to listen. She didn't know what to make of it all.

When she got home, she turned on a small lamp, leaving the condo mostly in darkness, and plopped down on the couch. She'd lied to Sam; she did care whether or not those three words had been said in the heat of the moment. But when he had the opportunity to say it again, he didn't. Instead, he made some lame joke. And yes, she knew that he wouldn't even been able to make that joke if it wasn't for her forcing him to watch the show with her on numerous occasions, but it didn't make it any better.

Thinking back to the conversation they had in the back of his truck where they promised to fight for their relationship, Andy decided she wasn't going to be the one to walk away. She wasn't going to be the one to stop fighting. Because the truth was, she did care and it wasn't too late. The reason he was able to break her heart was because she loved him so much, and that love hadn't disappeared when he drove off alone in his truck on that rainy night. So, she took a deep breath, grabbed her jacket and keys, and headed to The Penny.

Sam sat alone at the bar, rotating his empty glass between his fingers. Gail had vacated the stool next to him nearly an hour earlier, and he'd finally sucked it up and told Becca that Oliver wasn't coming. He had watched her sulk for a few minutes before attaching herself to some drunk guy playing pool. It was only 10pm, but the bar was already starting to empty. However, Sam didn't care if he'd only get an hour of sleep before needing to head to work tomorrow, he wasn't leaving his spot at the bar until Liam pushed him out the door to close up.

He'd stopped looking up every time the door opened because he couldn't take it anymore when someone who wasn't Andy walked through. He heard the door open again for the umpteenth time that night and thought nothing of it until he felt her warmth standing next to him. He didn't have to look up to know it was her, but he did, simply so he could look into her big brown eyes.

"Hey," she said quietly as she slid onto the stool next to him.

"I'm glad you came." He watched her peel her jacket off, took it from her and placed it on top of his on the stool on the other side of him. "I wasn't sure you would."

"I wasn't sure I would," she said, before signaling Liam for a beer.

"Why did you?"

Andy shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of the beer Liam placed in front of her. "It was a pretty good speech," she finally said. With the exception of the Grey's Anatomy joke, he'd been pretty convincing. The corner of her mouth turned up as she thought again about him walking a dog she didn't even have.

"I meant it. Every. Single. Word." He turned on the stool, his knee brushing against her thigh, so he could look directly at her. He wasn't really sure where to start with all the thoughts running through his head, and ended up taking the easy way out. "We can go out tomorrow and buy a dog, if you want." He smiled to show how sincere he was, but Andy took it another way.

"You can't joke about everything, Sam, and hope that gets you out of a situation," she replied, fingers attacking the corner of the label on the beer bottle in frustration.

"I wasn't...When I get anxious, I joke. I'm sorry about earlier, but this thing about the dog, I'm not joking."

She pushed out a small laugh as she shook her head slightly. "You wouldn't even leave clothes at my place. We've been apart for six weeks. And you want to go out tomorrow and buy a dog?" She couldn't understand what was going on in his head. She wanted things with her and Sam to work out, but fixing it by buying a dog after everything they'd been through was not the answer.

"If it'll show you how sincere I am, then yes. I'll do anything you want to make this right," he replied.

Andy swiveled on the stool so she was facing Sam, one knee nudged in between his legs. "Then talk to me. You want to make this..." She waved her hand between them. "...right, then talk. And I mean really talk. I know I wasn't perfect either, but a big wedge between us was that we didn't talk."

Sam nodded, realizing she was right. But Andy was on a roll and before Sam could reply, she continued. "Why couldn't you just tell me you wanted space after Jerry? I couldn't read your mind and until you snapped at me in the warehouse, I had no idea all you wanted was space."

"Andy, I was doing everything to show you I wanted space. Not calling you back, walking away when you asked if I was okay. I thought you were ignoring my request and that's why I went off."

"That's not telling me. And it wasn't my fault we were working together that day. Frank told me to call you to have you meet Nick and I. Based on the brush off I got that morning, I surely wouldn't have asked for your help." Once the words came out of her mouth, she realized it came out snappier than she intended. "I'm sorry, I just...all you had to do was tell me. I would've understood. I would've tried to back off and give you the space you needed."

"I'm not the only one who didn't talk about what they were feeling, Andy. Or have you forgotten the day your mother walked back into your life? Maybe if you talked about it, I would've better understood how you could forgive her so easily," he said.

"Fair enough. I'm not - I don't mean to put all the blame on you. There's enough to go around." Andy sighed and turned back to face the bar. "I...how do we do this?"

"We stop trying to be normal. Face it, we're not. We both have baggage, but that's what makes us us. We learn to deal with it," he replied confidently.

"We can never do things the easy way, can we?" She gave him a lopsided smile as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

"We're worth it. This..." he said, waving his hand between them. "...is worth the extra effort."

Andy swiveled around on her stool again so she was facing him and nodded. "So, what do we do now?"

"It's late, let me take you home." He could sit here talking with her for hours, but it was late, she'd had a long day, and they both had to work tomorrow. And if he'd admit it to himself, he didn't want to press his luck. They'd made some progress. She was giving him another chance and that's all he could ask for tonight.

Andy slid off the stool as Sam threw some bills on the bar and handed Andy her jacket. "Could we, uh, maybe stop somewhere to get something to eat? I never had dinner."

Sam smiled as he placed his hand at the small of her back to guide her out the door. "Yeah, we can do that."