A/N; this is my first attempt at a major crimes fic, please review and let me know what you think! This idea came to me when I couldn't sleep and I wrote it in an hour so any mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer; I don't own these characters I just love them, a lot.

The first time he said I love you, I couldn't say it back. We were on the beach strolling hand in hand, my head resting on his shoulder and wind whooshing through my hair. It was so peaceful, so serene, the beach was my favourite place to be and Andy knew that. I think that's why the first time he told me he loved me was when we were on the beach. He knew I would be calm and wouldn't freak out as much. It helped, it really, really did except I just couldn't tell him. I wasn't ready. The look on his face when I told him that I simply wasn't ready to say it caused me so much pain. I stopped walking and took both his hands in mine, I knew I had to do something to stop the pain I could see in his eyes,I never wanted to hurt him like that. I needed him to know that I wasn't ready but that I knew some day not too far away I would be telling him I loved him too, I could do that, I knew I could. Just not yet.

Andy is a good man he assured me he understood and would wait for me to be ready to tell him. He wouldn't hold it against me and I shouldn't feel obliged to say it to him just because he'd said it to me. I'm so grateful for that man. So, so grateful.

The second time he said I love you I couldn't bear to see the pain in his eyes again so I cupped his cheeks and kissed him. Hard. I loved him. I knew it, I just couldn't bring myself to say it. Those 3 little words have always been hard for me to say, even more so since Jack used it to worm his way back into my life every time he came home from a multiple-week-long bender. Back then I didn't think I deserved any better so I took him back every time and then in later years when he'd reappear every few years when he'd ran out of money is take him back then. I thought he genuinely loved me so I accepted it and let him back in to my heart only to have it shattered a few weeks or at best months later. I loved Andy and I couldn't tell him because of something that Jack had done to me in the past. How was that fair? That I couldn't make the man I was with now truly and completely happy because of a man I had been with in the past. It was messed up and I hated it, hated Jack for causing this pain to Andy and I.

He told me he loved me everyday, whether it be on the phone, in person or via text, he made sure I knew I was loved and I couldn't even bring myself to tell him I was in love with him. Why did I have to have so much baggage? Why could I not quash this mans fears and simply tell him exactly what I felt?

Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Twenty-one times. That is how many I love yous it took for me to finally acknowledge my feelings for this man out loud. We were making dinner one night when Andy surprised me by remembering exactly how I liked my specialty tea, peppermint with just a sprinkling of sugar and the tea bag left in. It had been my favourite for over 49 years yet Jack had never bothered to remember it and it was in that moment that I knew I was ready to tell this man that I loved him. I pleased my mug to the side, closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. It smelled like Andy, nothing I could specifically pick out, just Andy. I grabbed his face between my hands and told him I was in love with him. Not 'I love you' but 'I am in love with you and I am so sorry it had took me so long to be able to tell you'. His eyes glistened with unshed tears as he kissed me over and over again reassuring me that he didn't mind waiting but boy was he glad that I had told him.

I had never felt more loved than I did in that moment and I couldn't ask for a better man to share that with. Every day since that day Andy first told me he loved me I have felt loved just as much, if not more by the show of small gestures we never fail to make to each other. A warm cup of coffee waiting on my desk when I arrive at the office, a heat pad by Andy's desk on days I notice his back is bothering him a little more than usual. The little things were what we used to express our love to each other with out words, then we'd whisper them to each other as we fell asleep either on the phone or next to each other. We loved each other and wanted to spend our life together.