Starting to scare myself - third posting in two weeks. If anyone think I'm trying to clear out unfinished work, they'd be right...

I originally started writing this in between seasons 1 and 2, so the general mood reflects that.

"Who first broke your heart?" she asks quietly, her head on his shoulder.

He twists his neck to look at her. "Really? This is the conversation you want to have now?"

She makes a movement he interprets to be a shrug. "It's as good as any."

He's got no reply to that, so he sighs and answers her. "Hannah Morgan."

"What happened?"

"She swapped her stickers with my friend Mark instead."

She tilts her head up to him, confused. "What?"

"Well, we were only seven. That was quite the commitment then, you know."

She growls at him in mock annoyance and lightly slaps his arm. "Doesn't count."

"Why not?" he asks, feigning hurt. "I was devastated. She was the prettiest girl in the class and she preferred my friend. Actually, I bet it's left deep psychological scars."

"I'll give you deep physical scars if you're not careful," she warns him with a smile that dampens the threat. "Be serious."

"Okay, okay." He gathers his thoughts for a moment. "Rowan Carr. I was seventeen."

"Ohhh," she exclaims, clearly delighted. "Was she the first?"

He could pretend not to know what she means, but something tells him there's no point. "Yes, nosy one, she was my first."

"Did she cruelly sleep with you and then dump you?"

"That idea seems to give you a bit too much pleasure for my liking," he says suspiciously.

She laughs. "I'm not planning on that, if you're worried. Go on."

"She was my older woman. By all of ten months." He picks a strand of her hair off the pillow and wraps it round his finger. "We were together for just over a year."

"How'd you know her? School?"

"Yeah. Well, kind of. She was a grade above me but we were both part of this volunteer programme they ran. We used to go out to retirement homes and help out. Gardening, fixing things. Stuff like that."

"Doesn't sound like you," she says, hesitantly. "I mean... I guess I just assumed you were one of the crowd as a teenager."

He chuckles. "Well, I wasn't being completely altruistic, I'll give you that. I kind of needed to do it to get back in the school's good books."

"Sam! What did you do?"

"Hey!" he objects, indignantly. "It wasn't that bad. I wasn't robbing banks or anything. Just, you know... I wasn't fantastic at actually going to school. And then when I did go... Well, sometimes I could be disruptive. In a set-the-fire-alarm-off-twice-in-a-week sense." He tries to look sheepish but it's too long ago to provoke real remorse now.

She sniggers. "Well well, who'd have thought it? Sam Swarek was a naughty boy." She stretches up to kiss his cheek. "Hate to break it to you, but that wouldn't shock anyone who's ever met you more than once."

"Do you want to hear this or not?" he threatens, his lips brushing the top of her head.

"Oh, I want to hear it," she assures him, the suppressed laughter obvious in her tone. "I'll be good," and she mimes zipping her lips with a dramatic flourish.

"Like hell you will. Anyway, there's not much more to tell. We got to know each other during the programme, I convinced her I wasn't a total waste of space and everything was great for a year. Then she decided to go to UBC and told me she didn't think we'd ever be able to handle that much distance." He pauses. "She was right, of course - we wouldn't have lasted once she left the city, never mind moved all the way to Vancouver. But I didn't want to hear that then."

"Sam!" she despairs, tugging gently on his hand. "You know that's not the whole story. How did you get together, what was she like, did you love her? You're such a man - the details are important!"

He sighs. "Andy... Really? It was a long time ago."

"Really," she persists, her voice mixing interest with mild anxiety about his past. She wants to know him through and through, until her imagination has no blanks to fill; his mystery, sexy and intriguing though it may be, stands between them and the relationship she wants to build.

He tilts her chin up with one finger. "It's not like she'll reappear," he says gently, suddenly half-serious.

She bites her lip, almost nervously. "I know. I just... I'd like to hear it."

He studies her for a moment, seeming to look for something in her expression. She assumes he's found it when he grins.

"Rowan was hot," he tells her, with a wink she knows is designed to provoke her. She sighs and shakes her head, slapping his hand to warn him she knows his game. "She was," he insists, trying to be indignant.

"Yeah yeah," she appeases him. "I've no doubt. Moving on...?"

"She was," he pauses, hunting for the word, "special. Not because she was a saint or flawless or anything like that. She was just normal. Happy with herself." He pulls a face and she recognises the look he has when he doesn't want to admit something. "Probably why I liked her. I wasn't used to people liking what they were."

She wonders if he's thinking of his sister and squeezes his hand tenderly.

"I did... Love her, I mean," he says quietly. "Well, in the way a seventeen-year-old does. And it really did end like that, no big row or anything."

She isn't sure why he's suddenly letting all of this out - he's never really confided in her before. Even when he told her about Sarah it had all come out in a rush that didn't invite further questions. Whatever it is, she's in no hurry to stop him.

"Do you know what happened to her?" she asks, curiously.

He snorts ruefully. "You won't believe it if I tell you."

"Well, now I really want to know," she chastises him.

"She did a masters degree, became a scientist. And, um... Married my friend Mark," he mumbles, like it's an afterthought.

She stares at him incredulously. "You have to be kidding. The same friend? No!"

He pulls a face. "The same friend. He went to UBC the following year, next thing I know they're together."

"I can't believe he did that," she says, irate on his behalf. "A girl would never do that."

"He did ask," he points out. "He called me first."

"And you said yes?" she exclaims, frowning. "Are you stupid? You don't give your friends permission to date your exes, even if you're over them - which I doubt you were."

He laughs. "Andy, I was eighteen and she'd been gone a year. Believe me, I was over her. Actually I'd been over several more girls by then." He waggles his eyebrows at her suggestively and she finds herself giggling rather than feeling jealous.

"Okay, okay. We'll skip that part - although I still can't believe you lost two girls to the same man. Are they still together?"

"Oh yes," he says, easily. "Long time now. They've got two children."

"You see them?" she asks, curiously.

"Not much - they stayed in Vancouver. The wonders of email keep me up to date."

"Who was next?" she asks after a moment, keen to take advantage of his suddenly-loose tongue.

"Oh no no," he says, clearly wise to her plan. "You asked who was first and I told you. Your turn."

She snorts. "Believe me, I have no exciting stories. I never lost two guys to the same person."

"Hey!" he interjects, indignantly. "You make it sound like it was two at the same time. They were ten years apart!"

"That's still quite impressive," she says, laughing.

He wriggles further down so he can nuzzle the spot below her ear. "Aw, come on. You have to give up something."

She sighs, wondering what she can tell him that will persuade him to reveal more; she's convinced there's a big story somewhere in his past, something that affected him more than the teenage romance he seems to recall fondly.

"Will a first-kiss story do you?"

"Depends," he says, suspiciously. "Not if it's a first-kiss-peck-on-the-cheek story. I want proper romance."

"And here's me thinking you're a hard-nosed man, Officer Swarek. Okay, I can give you romance, I suppose."

He chuckles. "So begrudging. That's my girl. How lucky am I?"

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" she threatens.

He winks at her and mimics her earlier action by zipping his mouth shut. "I definitely want to hear this. Go on, who was the kid behind the science block who first got his hands on you?"

She laughs. "I was fourteen - he wasn't going to get his hands anywhere, believe me."

"Oh no, believe me. Fourteen-year-old boys are desperate to get their hands pretty much anywhere possible on a girl."

"Well, this one was nice," she says, almost primly.

"I was nice," he interjects.

"Shush. His name was James and he was a bit of a geek. A nice geek."

"All geeks are nice. They have to be, to make up for the geekiness."

"Do you want to hear this or not?" she repeats.

"I want to hear this. But you have to admit that I'm right."

"You've never been a geek in your life. Anyway, I liked him a lot - actually, I guess he was the first boy I really fell for. And we were so different, so I started trying to be interested in stuff to impress him. I think I even managed to fake an interest in chess." She grins. "That didn't last long, since I couldn't play at all. I was better at pretending I was into the stuff he did with the drama club, so I managed to somehow wrangle my way onto the stage crew. Good thing too, I was never going to get through an audition for an actual part."

"Your acting's got better," he murmurs, tapping his fingers gently across her stomach.

"Not much. So I used to stay after school, painting scenery and things like that, and one day we spent so long backstage with the paint that I nearly fainted because of the fumes." She laughs sheepishly. "I was really embarrassed and the drama teacher asked if someone would take me out for fresh air - and James volunteered."

"You're telling me he took advantage of a girl who fainted?" Sam shakes his head and she can't quite tell if he's serious.

"Nearly fainted. There was no actual fainting," she reminds him. "And, um, he didn't exactly instigate things."

He raises his eyebrows. "Andy, did you jump the poor unsuspecting geek?"

"I didn't exactly jump him," she protests. "I just saw an opportunity and took it. He was looking right at me and he seemed so concerned and, well, it just seemed like a good time to do it. Plus I think I was a little light-headed."

"High as a kite, more like."

"Possibly," she concedes. "Something must have affected me, because I wasn't normally like that."

"And how did he react?" he asks, curiously.

She snorts. "With surprise. And I couldn't even look at him because I thought I'd got it completely wrong." A nostalgic smile flits across her face and he catches a glimpse of the shy teenager she'd been then. "I was about to walk away when he grabbed my hand... And he seemed about as embarrassed as me but he said I'd just shocked him." Her face is slightly flushed and he's suddenly jealous of the boy who had been the first to cause that soft, girlish glow.

"So did he kiss you back?"

"Yep. Turned out it was his first kiss too." She grins. "We had to practise a lot so we could get better at it, obviously."

"Obviously," he echoes.

She looks at him and frowns. "Sam, are you… jealous?"

"No! Of course not." She raises her eyebrows disbelievingly and he sighs. "Okay, maybe a little."

"Of a boy who kissed me when I was fourteen? Honestly – you just told me about the girl you lost your virginity to and you're jealous of a kiss?" She laughs.

"It's not funny," he protests. "I can't help it."

She rolls him onto his back and slides on top of him. "If it helps," she murmurs, "you've got a lot further with me than he did."

"Did he not live up to your expectations?"

She pulls a face. "I was giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself there. No, he transferred to a different school. A private school. I think his parents suddenly inherited money or something." She strokes his face with her fingertips. "And we were fourteen, it's not like we were about to make any promises."

"In my experience, it's kids of fourteen who think those promises can last," he says with a chuckle, his warm palm skimming over her spine.

She dips her head to press her lips to his, just briefly; his free hand moves into her hair, trying to keep her there.

"Your turn," she murmurs, as she starts to move off him.

His hands clamp her hips in place. "I like you there," he says with a grin and wink.

She sighs in mock exasperation. "Only because you'll try to distract me. And I must be too heavy."

He snorts. "Hardly. I'll throw you off if I start to suffocate."

"Charming." She nips at his lower lip, playfully. "Come on. Your turn. Who was the next girl who broke your heart?"

"Are you practising your interrogation techniques on me?"

"Oh yes. This is how I interrogate all my suspects," she smiles, wriggling slightly to settle herself more comfortably.

"It would work," he says wryly, holding her still. "If you don't want to be distracted, you'd better stop that."

"Sorry," she says, sheepishly. "Go on. Your turn."

A shadow flits across his face, so briefly she almost misses it. There's a long enough pause for her to worry.

"Sam?"

"I don't… I'm not sure we need to talk about these things. Spoils the mood."

He smiles, but she knows he's covering something. He doesn't seem angry, more sad.

"If not now, when?" she asks quietly.

"Later?" he responds, hopefully.

She shakes her head and kisses him softly. "Now. I'm sure it can't be so bad."

He's looking anywhere but at her. "Andy, I was young, it was all a long time ago. Can't we just… I don't know, concentrate on now?"

She raises her eyebrows. "That's a bit clichéd for you." She bites her lip. "I want… I'd like to hear." She kisses him softly, willing him to understand. "It won't change… how I feel. About you."

He still won't look at her, but he says, so quietly she barely hears, "Lucy. She was… Her name was Lucy."

He doesn't say her full name and Andy knows instantly that it's because there's only one Lucy for him. She's the one – no matter how many times he hears Lucy, it will always be her he thinks about.

"Lucy…?" she prompts.

"Lucy Smith-Ellis. We used to tease her about being posh because she had a double-barrelled name." He snorts. "She saw straight through me."

"We?" she repeats, curiously.

"Yeah… Me and Oliver." Finally, he meets her eyes. "You'd make it a lot easier on me if you just asked him about all this, you know."

She hears the pretence behind the forced jocularity of his voice. "You know he wouldn't tell me," she says lightly, trying to make it seem like she doesn't desperately need to know this story.

"Three beers and he'd tell the Pope's secrets - if he knew them. You know that."

"Well, he's apparently more loyal to you than the Pope. You honestly think I haven't tried getting things out of him before?"

He looks at her questioningly and she sighs.

"I… Look, I was interested, all right? It's not… Damn, Sam, you know I've wanted this for a long time," she admits – and now it's her turn to avoid his eyes. "I was curious."

He sits up, moving her so that she's straddling his thighs; he can't do this on his back. His hands cup her face, his fingertips gentle as they smooth the skin beneath her eyes. His touch cools her blush but she can't quell the sudden panic of vulnerability that drops into her stomach.

"Andy. Andy, look at me," he says, firmly, his voice almost hypnotic in its composure.

She forces herself to do so, finding his brown eyes almost too near. His gaze is dark, with desire rather than the frustration she so often sees whilst they're at work, and she would want to smooth out the crinkles at the corners of his eyes if they weren't the complement to his smile.

"You aren't the only one who's wanted this for a long time," he reminds her, softly.

She bites her lip. "Tell me about Lucy," she says, wishing it didn't sound quite so close to pleading.

He looks at her, resigned. "It's not… It's not a complicated story. It's no different to any other story of a failed relationship."

"I want to know," she says simply, "otherwise I'll just wonder."

He nods, his hands sliding from her face, down over her shoulders and arms to her wrists. "I was engaged to Lucy," he says, deliberately making sure he doesn't look away from her. The last thing he needs is for her to overreact.

She's silent for a while. "And?" she prompts, after just a moment.

"The long story is too long for now." He raises his head and kisses her gently. "I promise I'll tell you someday – just not now, yeah?"

She searches his face as though the answers will magically appear. "And the short story?"

He chuckles, bitterly. "I don't think Lucy could ever be a short story, no matter who's telling it. But we were engaged and it didn't work. She…" He looks at her almost defiantly. "She cheated on me."

She isn't expecting this. She thought he was going to tell her a sad story of young lovers drifting, never to quite regain their place in each other's lives. Instead, he's telling her that somebody once thought too little of him to leave him before they let another touch them like a lover.

She strokes her palm down his face, tenderly. "With who?"

He shrugs his shoulders and she knows he's trying to pretend it doesn't matter as much as it does. "Not someone I knew. A man she knew before she met me." He drops his head back against the wall. "Not just once. For months. Whilst we were living together." His face contorts into an expression of self-loathing she has never seen before. "And I never suspected a thing. She played me so well I honestly thought I was her future."

She hates how recounting this is making him feel. He looks as though he's spent years evading a memory nobody's ever dared question him about before.

"How did you find out?" she asks, wishing her curiosity wasn't overwhelming his desire not to speak of this.

"I didn't," he admits, slowly, "Oliver did and he told me. And suddenly everything I'd overlooked seemed quite different."

"You believed him? Not her?"

He snorts. "Even then I knew Oliver Shaw too well to think he would ever have told me anything unless he was certain. He didn't just see her out with a friend – he saw something once and then followed her another time to make sure."

"Did she admit it?"

He hesitates. "No… Not at first. She tried to play innocent, tried to tell me it was nothing more than a long-standing friendship. She tried to tell me Oliver was lying. Like I'd ever believe that." He picks at a stray thread on the sheet.

"What did you do?" She isn't sure why she's asking; she doesn't really believe he did anything else but the predictable walk-out.

He bites his lip and it's a show of vulnerability she's never seen in him before. "I wanted to be able to talk about it without getting angry," he says, surprising her. "I wanted to know everything, even though it didn't help at all." He shakes his head. "Such a girl," he mutters bitterly, looking away from her.

That's when she realises. Lucy didn't just break his heart; she twisted it so far that it never quite recovered its form.

She kissed his temple tenderly, her fingers teasing through the short strands of his hair. "Isn't it normal to want to know everything?"

"Don't know. Never happened before. Or since. Whatever, it didn't change the end of things. She left the house because I was stubborn and wouldn't move." He straightens his spine. "That's the short story. I haven't seen her since."

Her lips press against his, her kiss sure in its intent. She's not Lucy and something tells her he needs reminding of that right now.

She doesn't want to think about him hurting like that but it's somehow comforting to know that she isn't the only one who has been forced to experience the betrayal of someone she thought she could rely on forever. He's so good at throwing up the illusion of impenetrability that she needs the occasional reminder that he's been hurt too.

She breaks away from the kiss slowly, relishing his closed eyes and calmed expression. "One day I get the long story, yeah?"

He nods. "Promise. But maybe when we're not half-naked, okay?"

She smiles. "Not promising that."

His fingertips trail over the backs of her hands and for a moment he just strokes her skin, entwining her fingers with his. "Did you love him?" he asks quietly, looking at their hands rather than her face.

She doesn't pretend not to know who he means but no easy answer comes to her mouth. "I don't know yet. I thought I did then. And everything since is too… damaged."

"You were going to marry him." His voice isn't accusatory but she knows he's wondering how she could have made such a promise without being absolutely sure.

She sighs. "I said, I thought I did then. I didn't really question it." She grimaces. "I didn't want to question it. Then I'd have had to deal with the whole problem of you."

"Me?" he echoes, surprised.

"Yes, you. Don't try to tell me you didn't know you were an issue for Luke."

He grins and she knows he's half-proud of the effect he'd had on her relationship. "He'd have had an issue with me even if I'd never laid a hand on you."

"Well, as you did lay a hand on me," she reminds him, "he was more than a touch paranoid. And I… Well, I didn't help. I don't think I was very convincing."

He really can't hide his smirk now. "Why, Andrea. I didn't know I was such a significant part of that relationship."

"I'd have been quite happy if you weren't," she retorts, a little annoyed that he seems to have switched to treating this so lightly. "He was easy to be with. At least at first. You might not want to hear that, but he was."

"And I'm not?" It's not really a question; he knows that he's never going to give her a peaceful way through life – but then she has her own set of insecurities to throw into the mix.

"I didn't dare even contemplate you," she mumbles, slightly ashamed. "You were far more than I could handle."

The smirk has gone, replaced by apprehension. "It takes daring to be with me?"

She looks at up at him, her eyes clear. "It takes daring for me to try anything risky."

He doesn't try to tell her he isn't a risk. He knows he is. They're very different and there's no guarantee that this irresistible pull between them will sustain the vagaries of a relationship.

"I need to know you're going to risk this," he says in a low voice, knowing he has to put himself on the line to be sure of what she wants. "Are you going to dare to try this with me, even though it's never going to be the easy option?"

She hesitates and for a fearful moment he thinks she's going to pull away from him. "I can't promise not to wobble a bit," she admits, tentatively. "But I was telling the truth when I said I've wanted this – wanted you," she adds, blushing, "for a long time. And I think it's worth it."

And for now, that's enough for him.

More dialogue than I normally include, which is one of the reasons it took me so long to be happy enough to post it. I still don't think it captures what I was aiming for, but I'm so relieved to be writing again that I'll get over it!