as soon as Best left her be, Andy informed her friends that she was riding the desk for the weekend, and shooed them away so they could go patrol. She then staggered to the locker rooms to change into her uniform ( the spare one she kept in her locker ) and have her much needed breakdown.
Andy had never been more thankful for their masculine, button-up shirts than now, since they required no flexing of her abdomen and minimal arm movement, something that would not have worked now. As she made sure everything was on her belt, she noticed the red under her fingernails.
Blood.
Her blood? His blood?
It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she had blood on her hands. Literally and metaphorically, for the second time in her life.
The sobs she had been supressing since she got back from the hospital tore from her throat as she rushed to the bathroom and ran a tap. Andy scrubbed furiously as tear ran down her cheeks. Her petrified, horrified stare fixed on her hands, her bloody hands, her murderous hands.
When Sam came in a few minutes later, to check on her before he went on patrol with Epstein, she was just staring at her hands as the water gushed over them as furiously and silently as the tears dripped down her face.
"Oh Andy." Sam whispered sadly, his heart breaking at the sight of her so frightened.
She looked up, with red rimmed eyes and a desperate look about her face. She lifted her hands from the sink as he approached, her eyes darting from him to them and then back again.
"I-I..." she stuttered, desolation in her tone.
"I know. I've been there, trust me." sam told her truthfully. "You did everything right today, you saved a woman's life. You were amazing."
"I just keep thinking, wondering... If I could have done something different. Anything! If somehow we could have both made it out alive..." she sobbed, stifling her tears.
"Listen to me, McNally. Listen! You have to let this one go, you can't live your life always thinking about the 'what ifs'.". As she nodded, he wrapped his arms around her for the second time that day and just held her as she cried.
"Thank you." she said, pulling away a few minutes later and wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, "I needed that.."
"You going to be ok now?"
"I'm going to be fine.". And for the first time today, she believed it.
~~~~~~~~<<<~~~>>>~~~~~~~~
Traci had stayed behind to watch over her friend for their next shift, even though it meant riding the desk. Sam wanted to, but Oliver and Traci insisted that he would be the most help out on the streets. Andy was quiet, brooding, probably going over the scene in her head again and again. She knew she needed to stop, and she was working in it, but the had progressed into acceptance now. She was moving on slowly and traci had noticed the sparkle slowly coming back to her friends eye.
The man she had killed had finally been identified, one Henry Boshner, and the woman she had saved had been sent home. Andy stared at his picture for a minute silently, before shrugging it off and looking away: she had to let this one go.
Come lunch time, Traci decided that they needed to get out of that building before she went crazy. She and Andy went to pick up some pizzas for when their fellow cops stopped back to report in the next half hour.
