Thank you for the great response to Stronger. I'm new to the world of RB fanfiction, and I'm excited to see where the characters I love end up, in imagination if not canon. This one's heading in a pretty angsty direction, so be forewarned if that's not your thing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rookie Blue. Lyrics are from Next to Normal; I don't own that either.

I imagine it's remarkable

Exuberant, austere

Wish I were here

That's not my alarm clock, Andy thought absently as she became aware of the light floating through her closed eyelids. The beeping that had stirred her from sleep was indeed faster and lower-pitched than the tones to which she was accustomed each morning. Less annoying, too, she pondered. She reached out to silence the unfamiliar sound, but instead of feeling the smooth plastic of the snooze button beneath her fingers, her hand met something bulky. She forced herself to open her eyes and focus on the object in question. A bed rail. Wait, what? Lifting her head seemed insurmountable, so she slowly turned her gaze from side to side, taking in her immediate surroundings. The mystery beeps were coming from a screen mounted on the wall; after a moment of watching rhythmic lines cross the display, she recognized it as a cardiac monitor. An IV bag filled with clear fluid hung on a pole beside the bed, dripping into a line that led to her forearm. Okay, so that's… there. (Needles hadn't ever been her favorite.)

She turned her concentration to everything else she could feel, her left hand exploring gingerly. Plastic prongs were blowing air up her nose. Her watch was gone, replaced with a scratchy laminated-paper band. She rotated her arm this way and that to read it: bar codes, strings of numbers, her last-then-first name. None of this makes sense, she thought with frustration. Chris and I responded to that domestic disturbance, and… how did "you take the left, I'll go right" end up here?

Her throat felt like someone had coated it in sandpaper and then set it ablaze. She attempted to cough, only to feel a sharp pain along the right side of her chest. "Ow," she whimpered, her voice sounding alien to her.

Something stirred just then near her feet, and she craned her neck down to see what was happening without having to move more than necessary. Sam was in a chair perpendicular to the end of the bed, his head resting on extended arms along the edge of the mattress. He sat up and immediately looked toward her face, his eyes widening when he saw that hers were open.

"Hey, you," he said with a soft smile as he scooted the chair closer to her and reached for her hand. The just-off-undercover stubble and dark circles beneath his eyes led Andy to wonder exactly how much time had passed between her last recollection and the present moment. "Welcome back."

"Thanks." She nodded slowly. "Why does it feel like Sasquatch is pinching me in the ribs?"

Sam chuckled briefly as his fingers intertwined with hers. "Well, you got a couple of them broken, and then one punched a hole in your lung. Rib, not Sasquatch." His expression faded into one more solemn. "Do you remember anything about what happened?"

She sighed. "I wish I did." Her free hand inched toward her aching thorax until it found something protruding from her side. She looked up at Sam with alarm. "What the-"

"Chest tube," he replied evenly, putting on his patented 'I promise everything is fine' face. Andy immediately recognized it as the look that had coaxed countless terrified victims out of hiding places. Is that what I am? "It's helping get your lung reinflated. Nothing to worry about."

Andy leaned her head back against the pillow, her discomfort and worry becoming more difficult to ignore with each passing second. "How is this nothing to worry about?"

Sam knew she wasn't talking about her injuries. He looked at her with concern and what she swore was a fleeting remnant of guilt. "You've been pretty out of it for more than a day, Andy. We'll figure out whatever's missing. Wait, hang on a second." He fumbled in the sheet until he grasped an oversized remote control, pressing a red button near the top. "The nurse has been checking in on you every couple of hours. She told me to let her know when you woke up."

A young woman in burgundy scrubs appeared in the doorway less than a minute later. "Hi, Ms. McNally. I'm not sure you remember me from earlier, but I'm Laurie, your nurse for this evening. How are you feeling?"

Andy contemplated her response. I just woke up in the hospital with no recollection of the last 30 hours, so… fantastic, obviously. Nah, Andy knew too much about getting attitude for things beyond her control. It wasn't this woman's fault. She took as deep a breath as she could muster. "Like Sasquatch is pinching me in the ribs," she eventually replied, flatly.

Laurie approached the side of the bed not occupied by Sam. "Yeah, I believe it," she responded with a sympathetic grimace. "Do you want to try some pain medication?"

"I'm fine," Andy responded quickly, her rote answer emerging from her mouth of its own volition.

Sam lifted his head and fixed her with a dubious expression. "Wrong answer, McNally. Try again."

Okay, now he's starting to tick me off. She had half a mind to ask him to step out of the room for a second – maybe Laurie knew something more about what had happened to her than Sam was telling – but she hesitated when she saw his face soften into something that almost looked like pleading. Damn it. "Okay, yeah, probably a good idea."

Laurie nodded. "I'll be right back." She held up a Styrofoam cup with a straw that Andy hadn't noticed her carrying when she entered the room. "I brought you some ice water in the meantime."

She guided the straw toward Andy's cracked lips. Andy took a tentative sip, letting out a small sound of relief as she felt the water quell the inferno in her throat, and proceeded to down half the cup. "Thank you," she murmured.

Laurie placed the cup on the table beside the bed. "Of course. I'll be back in a minute with some morphine for you."

Andy protested after her retreating form, "Oh, no – I just meant some Motrin or…" She trailed off when she saw the wrong-answer-McNally look return to Sam's face. "What?"

He exhaled slowly before speaking. "I know you're trying to think five steps ahead of me right now. How eventually I'll have to leave this room, and then you can just sneak out of here and go retrace your steps from patrol." He brought his hand to her face, lightly stroking her cheek with his thumb. "This isn't something you can slap a Band-Aid on, Andy. It's gonna take time."

I hate it when he's right. "Time sucks," she couldn't help retorting.

Sam's fingers moved down to her jaw, directed her chin up until their eyes met. "Not when you have plenty of it."

A flash of burgundy redirected Andy's attention to the front of the room. Laurie glanced at Andy's wristband, then swabbed a small port on the IV line with an alcohol pad before screwing a syringe into it and slowly depressed the plunger. "Five milligrams of morphine. This should start working in a little bit, but since you're awake now, I'm just going to check you out real quick."

For the next several minutes, Andy tried to disregard the nagging questions that lingered in her mind as Laurie flashed a penlight in her eyes and held a stethoscope to her chest. She raised her arms – which didn't feel all that great – and wiggled her toes upon the nurse's request. Laurie briefly explained how the chest tube worked, and assured her that it would probably be able to come out in the next few days. She then fiddled with a small box on the IV pole, handing Andy what looked like a small joystick attached to a cord.

"You can press that button whenever the pain comes back, and it'll give you another dose of morphine." Laurie briefly looked at Sam. "No one except the patient pushes the button."

Sam glanced up at the nurse innocently. "I have no idea what brought that on."

Laurie smiled at both of them. "Let me know if you need anything. I'll look in on you in a little while." She exited.

Andy felt a small smirk beginning to creep across her face just then, for some unidentifiable reason. The questions that had badgered her since she woke up became fuzzy, pixellated across her mind's eye, and she finally allowed herself to relinquish them. It had just occurred to her that was something hilarious about all of this.

"Sam?"

His head snapped up. "Yeah?" Uh-oh, he thought, recognizing the faraway look in her eyes as an unintended effect of the morphine and knowing anything in the world could come out of her mouth.

She composed her next words as carefully as she could, as coherent thought was starting to prove considerably difficult. "If I've been out of it for the last day and a half…" She pursed her lips in contemplation. "How did I pee?"

Sam blinked hard. "How did you…" He burst out laughing in spite of himself.

Andy, now giggling involuntarily, protested, "No, I'm serious."

Sam bit his lip to help maintain his composure. "Catheter."

"What?"

"Yep." He nodded matter-of-factly. "You're peeing in a bag."

Andy's expression turned to one of vague horror. "In front of you? That's gross."

Sam started laughing again. "Hey, maybe they'll let you keep it when you go home. Think of all the time you'll save on bathroom breaks during those cooking-competition marathons."

Andy swatted at his arm halfheartedly, her chuckles becoming louder. "Stop." She suddenly winced, her face contorting in pain. "Ugh, don't make me laugh."

Sam was immediately serious, his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry." He reached up to stroke her hair. "Push the button, Andy," he said softly.

She made a face as if she were going to argue, but didn't. Instead, she pressed the small button with her thumb, which resulted in three short beeps from the machine, and closed her eyes with a sigh.

Sam rose from his chair briefly to brush his lips over her forehead. "Sleep well," he whispered.

Andy tried to tell him that she wasn't really tired, but a blanket of exhaustion spread across her before she could get the words out. As she drifted off, her thoughts came like waves that didn't quite reach the shoreline. We'll figure out whatever's missing. In good time. Sure.