"Come on Andy don't be a party pooper"

"I'm not a party pooper Dov, it's just that I'm not in the mood for the penny"

"You haven't been in the mood for a month Andy come on!"

"Not tonight ok?"

Tonight… it was Steve's birthday, so Sam and Marlo would most likely be at the Penny, so definitely NOT tonight.

She started walking home and when she was a couple of blocks away from her home she felt it for the second time that day: the numbness in her left calf.

Blaming the 4k she run that afternoon chasing a robber, she forced herself to walk home.

In the morning she woke up to the sound of her phone ringing

"Hello?"

"hello! Am I speaking with miss McNally"

"Yes"

"Oh good, I'm Lucy Giuliani, and I work for your bank, I'm calling because there are some problems that we need to figure out as soon as possible"

"What kind of problems? I'm not working today so I can come in an hour if that's ok"

"Oh very well then, we'll talk in an hour, believe me, it's better to deal with it face to face."

She was starting to feel nervous, she's always been very accurate with her documents and she's never missed a payment. So what could the bank want?

With this thoughts, she called a cab and went to her appointment.

"Good morning, I'm Andy McNally, I have an appointment with Mrs Giuliani"

"Ah, yes, Mrs. Giuliani is waiting for you…please follow me"

By the time she entered in the office she was feeling even more nervous than before.

"Good morning Miss McNally, please take a seat"

"Thanks, I admit that you had me worried with that phone call"

"I'm sorry miss McNally, but the truth is that I don't have a good news for you"

"What do you mean?"

"Where were you since last December, till June?"

"I….. I was on the job… why?"

"Did you designate Mrs Claire McNally to access to your bank account in order to pay for your mortgage and bills?"

"Yes I did"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but Mrs McNally mortgaged your house and…"

"WHAT? What does it means?"

"Your reaction tells me that you didn't know anything about this story, so my guess is that she needed money, and went on with this plan. Unfortunately, she had your authorization, so there's no proof about her bad intentions."

"What can I do?"

"Well, you can collect the money, and pay us at least half of the money, or you can call your mother and ask her to give you the money back, although I doubt she has it, or you can sell the house"

"No way, I'm going to talk to her. I'll let you know tomorrow what she's told me. I'm sorry, I need to go, I need to understand what's going on. Good bye".

"I understand. Good bye"

She all but run to her mother house, she was going to find out what she did, and she wasn't going to go away without the truth.

The problem is that, when she knocked on the door, the woman who answered was not at all her mother, but a 90 years old with an oxygen mask.

"Hi, I was looking for Clare"

"I'm Clare, who are you sweetie?"

"No, there must've been a mistake, I'm looking for my mother Clare, maybe she transferred a couple of months ago? "

"No honey, I've lived here since 1985 I'm sorry"

"How Is that possible? I was there in November"

"Oh, maybe you mean the social assistant?"

"Yes"

"Honey she doesn't live here, she came here for work, something about the fact that I used to have too many cats in this house, she was so cute, she always cleaned up, even if it wasn't her job."

"She didn't come anymore?"

"No… The new one, a real bitch, told me she went to Ottawa or something."

At this point Andy was really feeling the tears ready to spill.

"Ok, thank you and sorry for the intrusion"

"Oh Honey, no problem at all. If you see Claire, tell her I said Hi"

"Of course, good bye"

She spent the entire ride home trying to get ahold of Clare, but even at work they said at the end of may, she arrived and told them she wouldn't have come to work the next day. Or ever again.

She was starting to put the pieces together, but at the same time, she was refusing the idea of having trusted her mother, only for being backstabbed like that.

She went home, and tried to come up with a solution, but found none. So she called her dad, and told him all the story. He offered to give her all his savings, but even putting away her pride and accepting the money, the sum he had to offer wasn't enough.

So she took a free day, cause with what she was going to do the next morning, dealing with criminals and exes and pregnant ex of the ex, wasn't an option.

Her dad arrived at 9 o'clock and together they went to the bank. She signed the documents and gave up the house in the toilet factory, the one with the big lights, the one JD wanted to see, the one that made a big girl out of her.

"Andy, I know you're in denial, I've been in denial for 15 years remember?"

"Dad"

"You can't hold on to the memories of when your mother was a real mother, and I know I'm far from the perfect parent, but I'm trying to give you an impartial opinion."

"I don't want anyone to know"

"That's ok, we don't need to make a big deal of it. We can ask Traci…"

"NO!" Truth is, she didn't want to go to 15. Yes, she trusted Traci, but the fact she shared an office with the two people she was avoiding, and the fact that she didn't want anyone to know how stupid she's been, was something she couldn't overcome.

"Ok…And believe me that it's really hard for me to suggest this, but, why… why don't you ask Luke?"

"Dad, Luke is an homicide detective, and maybe yesterday he would have come in handy at some point, but.."

"You could ask it as a favour. Come on Andy, at least he can address you to someone who can investigate"

"Ok"

"That's my girl. So, where to next?"

"Actually, I want to go home, and call Luke straight away"

"Very good, the sooner, the better"

After her father left her, she decided to talk to Luke face to face, so she started walking towards his division.

And there she felt it again. The numbness. But this time she also felt some pain, like a cramp, in the right leg this time.

She decided to continue her walk, but the pain was too much annoying, so she stopped at a coffee shop, hoping a little rest would ease the pain.

Ok guys, I have a little problem with the reviews, They're not showing up on the website, but I'm reading them on my mail.

About that, I promised myself not to answer to mean reviews, cause I knew that not writing a McSwarek FF, could have caused some bad reviews. But, I think that call a FF stupid, just because you don't agree with the pairing, or because you think the characters are OOC is mean and stupid as well.

Maybe I don't realize it, but I don't really think I'm writing them OOC. As you can see, for now I'm focusing the attention mainly on Andy, and as you can see in this chapter, I've tried to make the financial problem a family problem. The fact is, that one of the main changes I've noticed this season, is that the group is not a group anymore. So, for me, it didn't feel right to make Andy run to Traci, even because I feel like Traci is getting closer to Sam than Andy right now.