fic: where you were wandering upside down (Rookie Blue, ensemble)
Title: where you were wandering upside down
Authors: threeguesses and lowriseflare
Fandom/ Pairing: Rookie Blue, ensemble, Oliver/Zoe, Andy/Sam
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5400+
Summary: The one with the dinner invitation.
Author's note: Goes AU after 2x13. Part of the Surprisingly Cohesive Comment!fic Universe(tm).
Never let it be said Oliver doesn't have restraint: he waits a full week after the suspension ends before cornering Sam.
"So, brother--" Oliver pauses as the rooks beat a noisy retreat towards the door, Epstein and Diaz looking for all the world like three-fifths of a boy band in their v-necks. Jerry called them the New Kids on the Block for two weeks before anyone bothered learning their names. "Zoe," he continues, which is explanation enough. "It's that time again."
Sam skims off his wet socks with an expression of supreme distaste. The locker room's all slush and silt, tracked straight out into the hallway. "Getting a jump on the holiday season, are we?"
Oliver makes a face, trying to decide how delicate he wants to be about this. "Something like that." He hams it up, big gestures: "Christmas come early, this Friday at six, be there or be square." Oh, screw it: "And er, Sammy? Bring McNally."
Sam's head comes up then, eyebrows crawling all the way to his hairline. Like he's working himself up to being indignant or something, like he thinks they were being fucking sly. Which, whatever, Oliver does not have time to disabuse him of that particular illusion gently--Zoe's cooking a roast tonight, and McNally's probably waiting in the damn hallway, so. "I'm just the messenger here, brother," he tells Sam, shrugging. He's slung his bag over his arm before he remembers. "Oh, also: bring salad."
He gets home and Izzy's doing her math homework at the kitchen table, potatoes boiling away on the stove. "Where's Mom?" he asks, dropping a kiss on top of her pale, pretty head. Lucky for them, all three of his girls take after Zoe in the looks department. Izzy pats his arm distractedly.
"Mom's here," Zoe says now, coming in with six-year-old Mia hitched up on one hip. She plants a kiss on his mouth, friendly; it's only a few days since he's sleeping in the bedroom again and Oliver leans into it, smells her familiar lavender soap smell. He's been with Zoe since they were seventeen years old.
"Gross," Izzy mutters before returning to her algebra. Oliver slings Mia over one shoulder, rolls his eyes.
"How was your day?" Zoe asks, draining the spuds in the sink and sending Izzy upstairs to get her sister. "Dinner in five minutes." She turns back to Oliver, raises her eyebrows. "You ask Sammy about Friday?"
"It was good, and I did," he tells her, pulling a beer out of the fridge with his free hand and pressing the cold bottle against the back of her neck. She ate up the whole Swarek-done-in-by-a-rookie thing, Zoe did, has been playing along at home ever since the Christmas party McNally's first year.
("That's the one," he told Zoe as McNally waltzed past with another round of ridiculous candy cane shots; from December 1st to New Years, The Black Penny always forgot it was a respectable cop establishment. He meant 'that's the one who tackled Sammy' and not 'that's the one Sammy has a thing for' because he likes to pay at least some lip service to the Bro Code, but Zoe knew right away anyways.
"Huh," was all she said. Only then she tried to switch the music to a slow dance--twice. Oliver took another swig of beer and consigned Sam's soul to god.)
"What'd he say?" Zoe asks now, letting her head loll forward. Oliver rolls the bottle down towards her nape, cooling the flush from the stove.
"Er, not much actually." Mia's squirming on his shoulder now, reaching around with her sticky-hot hands. Oliver sets her on the ground and gives her what she's after, the twist-off bottle cap; this brand is wide-necked, these little picture puzzles on the inside lid. Oliver's pretty sure they're supposed to be a test of how blitzed you are, but it turns out they're also the perfect difficulty level for six-year-olds. "He's bringing the salad, though," he tells Zoe brightly.
Zoe dishes out a forkful of green beans onto each plate. "Well, that's all that matters."
"'Great Beer'," Mia sounds out slowly. "Look Dad, I solved it!" She waves the cap at Oliver, who can just make out a picture of a bee and a figure-eight on its underside.
Zoe rolls her eyes, opening her mouth to say something about the dangers of commercialism or alcohol or maybe just teaching reading-comp via pictionary, but then Izzy and Maddie come thundering down the stairs and it's dinner time. Afterwards, she sends Mia back up for a bath while Oliver quizzes Maddie for the vocabulary test she's got in the morning: excavate, frigid, gorge. The spelling's been tripping her up--Maddie isn't a reader the way her sisters are, although she tests off the charts in math and science--so they go through the list twice, slowly, a bowl of ice cream with two spoons melting on the kitchen table between them.
"How'd she do?" Zoe asks him later, the two younger girls in bed and Izzy listening to her headphones in her room, the unbearable moony acoustic stuff she's into since last summer when she discovered boys. Used to be they'd listen to the Beatles together whenever he drove her anyplace, friends' houses or soccer practice; Oliver counts it among his greatest accomplishments in parenting that she knew all the words to Rubber Soul by the time she was four.
"Maddie?" he says now, pulling back the duvet. Zoe's washing her face at the sink in the master bathroom, glycerine soap and the ribbed cotton tank top she always sleeps in. Zoe has the palest shoulders Ollie has ever seen. "She'll be fine."
And she is.
*
For the rest of the week Oliver almost forgets about the invitation, truth be told, annoyed looks Sammy shoots him in the locker room aside (like a dinner is going to blow their non-existent cover or something, the damn idiot). Monday through Wednesday the roster has him with Nash, who's competent and knows when to be quiet. Sometimes they talk about their kids, Christmas coming up and what's cheap to put in the stockings, but mostly they just drive. Nash insists they take basically every domestic that comes over the radio, but other than that she's a good riding partner.
Then, as fate would have it, come Thursday there's a schedule change (everything's been in flux since Sam and Andy got reinstated, no set pairs yet). Next to Oliver's name, in Best's neat handwriting, is a one Officer McNally.
So. So much for quiet then.
She's waiting in the car by the time he gets out there after parade, hands folded in the passenger seat and back perfectly straight like the very model of a modern major general--or, at the very least, like a rookie police who's not coming off one hell of a suspension for conduct unbecoming. She looks greener than she did on her first day, cuffs and collar immaculate. Oliver hides a smirk. "McNally," he says, sliding behind the wheel and setting his coffee down into the console. Since she can't get him to quit caffeine completely Zoe's got him drinking it with skim milk and some terrifying all-natural sugar substitute; the whole affair is sort of watery and sad. "How you doing this morning?"
"Good," she says immediately, dark head bobbing once. "Great. Just, you know. Ready to work. Keeping my head down. Staying on the straight and narrow. Not looking to cause any trouble. Sir."
Oliver tries not to laugh. He likes the kid, is the kick in the pants here. He's liked her since her very first day. He gets why Sammy likes her, too, though she reminds Ollie more of his girls than anything. He can remember riding with Tommy way back when, the picture he kept tucked up in the visor of his patrol car: a skinny middle-schooler in a school uniform, long braids and a smile too big for her face.
"Sure thing, McNally," Oliver says now, turning the key in the ignition. "Let's go."
It's a quiet morning mostly, cold and clear. Christmas decorations have started going up in the malls, enough that the city seems to have reached inside itself and found some holiday cheer--either that or it's just too fucking freezing for crime, Oliver can't tell. Some of the residential streets off of Dufferin are already decked out. Oliver makes a mental note to take Zoe and the girls out one night for their annual Christmas lights tour, the nativity scene the Archdiocese always sets up, that one house at Somerset and Geary that Zoe claims is gaudier than Vegas but Oliver secretly loves. Mia's favourite is the Holiday Tiger at Bloor and Christie.
"You got a Christmas tree?" he asks McNally as they wait in line at Tims. That first watery coffee just wasn't enough.
McNally blinks at him like she's startled. She's been uncharacteristically silent since her first outburst, gripping the radio like she's desperate for a chance to get out of the cruiser. So far all they've gotten is one bogus noise complaint. "I-- sir?"
Oliver grins. (Bambi, Sam called her, way back at the beginning with a venom Ollie's pretty sure he had to work to maintain.) "Christmas tree, McNally, the thing with the lights. You got one?"
The barista hands over their coffees with a smile that suggests she might actually be a fan of the Toronto Police Service, miracle of miracles. McNally dumps in three sugars without pausing, seems to be considering a fourth. "No, yeah, I picked one up for like 30 bucks at Metro. Sam helped--"
The look on her face is pretty much priceless. Still, Oliver decides to let her off the hook; Zoe'll be asking enough pointed questions tomorrow night. "Thirty bucks is way more than I'd pay for a grocery store tree," is all he says.
"Yeah," McNally nods distractedly. Then, for god knows what reason, she puts herself right back on the hook: "So, um. What kind of salad?"
Oliver feels his eyebrows peak. "One with lettuce, probably," he tells her seriously. "Maybe throw some tomatoes in there if you're feeling really crazy."
Andy stares at him for a second before she realizes he's making fun of her (and she's not Sammy's type, not really; normally Swarek's all about the cool-headed blondes. Oliver only met Corinne a handful of times, Maddie's Christening and a wedding or two, but he remembers thinking very clearly she was three steps ahead of everyone else in the room). Then she scowls. "I'm just asking!" she protests, like she's genuinely wounded. "It was nice of your--Mrs. Shaw to invite me, I want to get off on the right foot--"
"Well, a good place to start would be not calling her "my Mrs. Shaw," Oliver tells her as she trots back across the parking lot towards the cruiser. Her ponytail swings back and forth. "And I invited you, too."
"Um. Right." Andy blushes a little, fusses with the lid on her Styrofoam cup. The radio crackles to life a second later; Oliver thinks he's never in his life seen someone look so happy about a convenience-store holdup in all his years on the force. "Crime!" she crows happily, her whole person perking up like a prairie dog. "Yeah!”
They get there after the action, the perp who did it already long gone. "I didn't actually see a gun," the guy at the cash stresses. His hands are still shaking. "He said he had one and I figured..." Oliver nods. His life would be a lot easier if more cashiers went with the 'better safe than sorry' method. McNally buys a bag of Smartfood popcorn with a ten and tells the kid to keep the change; to compensate for his losses, Oliver guesses. She's a nice girl, McNally.
The rest of their shift is spent running around looking for the someone who matches the description. McNally is shockingly gung-ho about the whole thing, leaping out of the cruiser after look-alikes at the slightest provocation. It's been so long since Oliver rode with her he can't tell if this is her usual MO or she just hates being in the car with him that bad. In the end, it's Peck and Nash who find the guy skulking around Dufferin Park with a bunch of other punks.
"Apparently the asshole was actually bragging about it," he tells Zoe in bed that night. "The rookies literally just had to follow the story back to the source."
Zoe nods, half-listening, half-flipping though Time. There's an article about NHL enforcers and the changing face of hockey. "Thank god for dumb criminals."
Oliver peers over her shoulder to read about Wade Belak and the link between head trauma and mental illness. "Also, I think McNally's afraid of me," he adds. "Just, you know, FYI for tomorrow."
Zoe raises her eyebrows, putting her magazine down on the nightstand and clicking off the reading lamp. She switched them to flannel sheets this week, which is a small thing that makes Oliver disproportionately happy and which he knows means he's forgiven for real. "Because you're so big and scary?" she asks; in the dark he can hear the smile in her voice, gently mocking.
"Hey, I'll have you know those kids think I'm a hardass," Oliver begins, but he shuts up after that because she's angling her familiar body toward his in a way that has, on many occasions, meant--
well. Oliver stops worrying about McNally's emotions real quick, that's for sure.
*
He rides with Noelle the next day, thank jesus. Sometimes he thinks Noelle is the only person in the entire Division with a brain inside her head. She's not feeling so hot, though, stomach bug or something, so mostly they sit in the cruiser and shoot the shit and watch the rookies chase their tails all morning long. It's freezing outside, too cold even to snow.
"Sammy's bringing McNally to my house tonight," he tells her, around a mouthful of hotdog. "To meet the parents."
Noelle's not listening--"I swear to god, Ollie, I need you to not be eating that thing in here," she says, rolling down her window--but then it registers and she looks at him with some interest. "Really." Sammy and Noelle have been friends even longer than he and Sammy have, same rookie class and everything. Ollie thinks she used to steal his lunch money, maybe beat him up a little. "So that's actually happening, then."
"Oh, it's happening," Oliver crows, inhaling the rest of the dog and showing Noelle his empty hands. He takes a certain amount of pleasure in busting up Sammy's secret, knocking that too-cool-for-school badboy attitude down a peg. He's not the only one either: 'Probably a bit early to start mocking him for this, eh?' Jerry asked the night after they pulled Sam out. At the time, Oliver had smacked him across the back of the head. Now though--well, he figures that grace period may be juuuust about up.
"Huh." Noelle's tucked her nose back inside the cruiser, but she's left the window down as if she suspects Oliver might have another hotdog stashed somewhere on his person. "About time Sammy sealed the deal on that," she says finally, taking another sip of her herbal tea. All morning she's been nursing it; Oliver can't for the life of him figure out why a person would give up coffee. "Meet the parents, eh?" Noelle arches one neat eyebrow. "You gonna read McNally the riot act about getting Sammy home on time?"
"Yep." Oliver shifts the car out of park, leans an arm around Noelle's seat to start reversing. "Curfew at the Shaw house is eleven o'clock sharp."
"Mmmhmm." Noelle watches him over the rim of her mug. "Do me a favour and take a picture of McNally's face after Mia finishes with her."
"Mia is a perfectly charming little girl," Oliver says mildly, but he's grinning.
*
"What's her name again, Dad?" Maddie asks later that night as she's setting the table. She always puts the fork on the wrong side of the plate; Izzy's following her around to correct it.
"Officer McNally," Zoe says pointedly, coming into the kitchen just as the timer on the oven starts to ding. She's wearing lipstick and the soft grey sweater Oliver got her for her last birthday, company clothes. She's got her hair pulled back off her face with a couple of combs. "Same as any adult, unless she tells you otherwise."
"Isn't she a rookie, though?" Izzy asks, frowning. She's finished with the forks, is peering at her reflection in the window above the kitchen sink and picking at some imaginary blemish on her chin. She's been in a mood since Oliver got home, though nobody seems to know exactly why. "So really she's like...closer to my age."
Oliver almost chokes on his beer. "Uh..." he begins, then completely fails to follow up in any meaningful way. Maddie is watching with some interest, gaze flicking back and forth between them. Her test went okay, she said.
"I might keep that particular observation to myself if I were you, Iz," Zoe tells her, hiding a smile. Sammy used to babysit for them, in a pinch. "Just for tonight."
Oliver catches Zoe's eye then, takes a longer pull off his beer to avoid smiling back at her meaningful glance. She taps two fingers along his arm as she passes by, which probably means behave, or maybe have mercy on Sammy's soul. Still, no way is Ollie letting that brilliant bit of math go; he's still working out how to drop it into his next ride-along with Sam when the doorbell rings.
Zoe dusts off her hands. "What on earth is he doing using the buzzer?"
Oliver shrugs. Women make Sammy do weird things, to the best of his recollection--Corinne and dancing, for instance. Also: French.
"I'll get it!" Mia crows, winding up for a run-and-slide down the front hallway in her stocking feet; Oliver winces as he hears her tiny body thud against the door. Izzy put her in a dress for reasons that pass his understanding, meaning her knocked-up legs are already on display. Half the time it looks like they beat her with a sack of oranges. From all the way around the corner he can hear her say, "Come in please," in her big-girl voice.
"You can leave your shoes on," Zoe calls. No one ever does. Privately Oliver thinks it's some kind of litmus test she does for character, that clean stretch of perpetually-swept hallway between the kitchen and the door.
Sure enough, McNally passes; she pads in in her socks a minute later, clutching a giant salad bowl to her chest like a security blanket and trailing Sammy, who's got Mia's arms wound monkey tight around his neck. She's an affectionate kid, the baby; it took them a long time to teach her the difference between "people we hug" and "people we don't".
"Why'd you ring?" Zoe asks, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Sammy on the cheek; then, before he can answer: "Got my money?" Zo and Sammy have been betting on the playoffs since Izzy was in diapers, possibly passing the same wrinkled twenty back and forth for all Ollie knows. Sammy had his money on Vancouver in the west.
"Oh, that was my fault," McNally says, blushing. She thrusts the salad bowl in Zoe's direction. "The, uh, buzzer."
"A woman with manners!" Zoe takes the salad in one arm and wraps the other one around Andy, gives her a squeeze like they're old friends. "What are you doing with Sammy?"
"Oh, you're a comedian." Sammy rolls his eyes good-naturedly, high-fives Maddie to say hello. "I got your cash right here." Izzy's standing by the fridge with a soda she's not supposed to be drinking, watching McNally the way you'd watch a perp in a lineup full of undercover cops--and, oh sweet Mary mother of Jesus, all of a sudden her sour mood makes a lot more sense.
Oliver glances over at Zoe to see if she's noticed, either the hostile glare or its cause (which--crap, closer to my age is a whole hell of a lot less funny now), but she's busy snapping Sammy's twenty and uninterested in telepathy. Oliver sighs. At least the salad looks edible; he's pleased to see that McNally's a girl who likes mayonnaise-based dressing.
"Hey Iz," Sam says after a minute, setting Mia on her feet. Oliver can tell from his tone that he's noticed the staredown. McNally hasn't, thank god; she's been watching Sammy make the rounds with an expression that's both pink and surprised by turns. That's right, Oliver thinks. He holds babies. Now wait for him to do it in a muscle shirt.
"Hey." Izzy tips her open coke bottle in salute the way Oliver has seen himself tip a beer, looking way too grown up as she does it. "You gonna introduce us, or what?"
Zoe shoots her a warning look but Sammy's game: "McNally, meet Mia, Maddie, and Izzy. Girls, meet McNally."
"Andy is fine," McNally says quickly, holding out her hand to Maddie, who's closest. She dressed up a little bit herself, earnest, this big eager smile on her face.
Not for Izzy, apparently: "Nice to meet you," she mutters when Andy turns her way, full-on sullen teenager mode. Mia's hollering for attention, meanwhile, are-you-a-police-officer-like-Sam-and-my-Daddy-do-you-have-any-pets-my-friend-Jessica-at-school-has-a-kitten-named-Fluffernutter-do-you-want-to-see-my-room? McNally nods seriously, asks after Fluffernutter's colour and size, agrees without hesitation to a tour after dinner. Now Sammy's the one with his eyes on her.
"Izzy," Zoe says pointedly, shooing them into the dining area. She's got snacks on the table, fancy cheese and these little puff pastry things Ollie is nuts for. "Want to get these guys some drinks?"
"I can help," McNally says immediately. Oliver doesn't know why the way she says it is what makes him remember she grew up without a mother. "I mean, if there's anything I can do."
Zoe just smiles at her. "Sure. You can get the salad ready while Iz fishes out the beers." Which--there's not much left for McNally to really do to the salad aside from taking the cling-wrap off, spooning it out onto the plates maybe. It's a Mia job, which is how Oliver knows Zoe is charmed; he flicks Izzy's ponytail in commiseration as she passes him on her way to the beer fridge. Sammy makes for the cheese and Oliver follows him, glad to get out of the close kitchen.
"So-o," he mutters as soon as they're out of range. "Meeting the family, eh?"
"Fuck off," Sam says amicably, loading up a cracker with some dip. "You asked us over."
"Us." Oliver pounces, even though it's probably a pretty legitimate use of pronoun. "That serious, huh brother?"
Sam just gives him an eyebrow, looking annoyed. Oliver decides it is that serious and resolves to sick Zoe on him at the earliest possible opportunity. He doesn't get the chance for a while, though; Izzy comes in a minute later with a Molson for Sammy and another for him, holds them out with a wordless scowl. "How's the jump shot, Iz?" Sam asks.
Izzy shrugs. "Fine." That seems to be about all she's willing to volunteer, but Sam waits and eventually she cracks a smile. "We killed against Holy Name last week."
"Attagirl." Sam holds his free hand up for a fist-bump; Izzy makes a face, but she complies. She's a beanpole, Iz, almost as tall as Oliver. Zoe just had to take her out for all new clothes. "They're a bunch of preppy snots over at Holy Name, anyway."
A real grin this time, wide and happy. For a second Izzy looks just like the little girl Ollie remembers, singing "Drive my Car" at the top of her lungs in the backseat. "Yeah they are."
Whatever progress Sammy's making gets undone a minute later though, Maddie coming in with a basket of rolls and Andy trailing behind with the salad bowl. To look at his oldest daughter, you'd think McNally’s main responsibility at 15 Division was clubbing baby seals. "You ever play basketball in school, McNally?" Oliver asks her.
McNally blinks at him like she has no idea why he's asking, cuts her eyes over to Sammy real fast. "I... yeah, actually. I was post." Oliver supposes that's about right, her broad shoulders; Iz always looks like she should be easily knocked around but she never is.
"So's Izzy," Sam says, voicing Oliver's thought. He should know, Sammy; he has an old, fake trading card of Iz's from back when she still played house league, this ridiculous thing with stats like her favourite colour (orange) and what she wanted to be when she grew up (veterinarian) down the back. Every year the league churned those things out, and every year Oliver paid an arm and a leg for them. He has the full set in laminate put aside with his coin collection: Izzy in uniform, ages five through ten.
"Cool," McNally chirps now, beaming at a dour Iz. With the salad bowl down on the table she looks fidgety, like she can’t figure out what to do with her hands. "I played volleyball too but, you know. I kind of sucked at that."
Izzy shrugs elegantly, as if such a thing doesn't surprise her at all. "I do long jump too," she offers indifferently. To Oliver, it sounds like a grudging truce (or at least a grudging concession to her mother's warning glares). "Maddie plays soccer."
"Sweet," McNally says, and if she's faking enthusiasm for his daughters' various athletic endeavors, she's doing a damn good job, asking what position and what league and if Maddie has seen Bend it Like Beckham, which she has (Izzy, much too cool for movies about girl power or what have you, rolls her eyes). "Mia," McNally says, as the baby makes her way to the table holding her cup of milk in two careful hands, "you play any sports?"
"Gymnastics," Mia reports, climbing up into her chair.
"Gymnastics isn't a sport," Maddie counters immediately, and they're off to the races. Zoe has to come in and break it up. It's actually fine, though, as far as vaguely awkward dinners go, chicken and potatoes and what everybody learned in school today. McNally's salad's a winner, which surprises Ollie although he's not sure why. "So Andy," Zoe asks, once Mia's done reporting on rehearsals for the Christmas pageant her class is putting on in a couple of weeks (she's a sheep), "Did you always want to be a cop?"
McNally's been cutting her chicken into efficient little cubes like someone who doesn't eat family dinners that often and wants to prove she knows how. Her glance over at Zoe is halfway-startled. "I guess? I mean--" She smiles at Maddie and Mia, chugging their way through a glass of milk each to get to dessert. "When I was super little I wanted to be a farmer because I thought it would be like owning a million pets at once. But yeah." She shrugs awkwardly. "Since high school I was pretty sure."
Sammy's listening with such forced casualness Oliver knows this isn't a conversation they've had before. Ollie watches as he slices a carrot into clean segments, takes a pull off a beer that must be warm by now.
"What made you decide?" Zoe prods, leaning towards McNally in that gentle way she has. Oliver borrows it sometimes for interrogations (the young kids, mostly, newly-minted punks who really do want to tell you how the car got totaled). "Was it your dad, or--?"
"I wanted to help people." McNally makes a face, like I know that's super lame, but there you go; Sammy grins once at his carrot. "And, you know. It was what I knew."
She shrugs again, like all of a sudden she's real aware that everybody's looking at her, all three girls included. "Um, what about you?" she asks Zoe, eyes wide as if she's done her homework and is excited to put her hand up in class. "Did you always want to be a librarian?"
"I did," Zoe tells her, smiling like she's pleased to have been asked; she and Ollie have had this conversation before, certainly, but he finds himself paying attention anyway. It's like this with them now, since he moved back in. They're careful with each other. Oliver's continually surprised by everything he'd known but had forgotten, like he's getting to know her all over again. He's been taking her out on dates, too. "I was a book nerd. I always loved to read."
"Just like Sammy," Ollie adds helpfully. "Always had his nose in LIttle Women."
"Funny," Sam says, the girls giggling a little. McNally grins. Ollie wonders how much Sammy's told her, how much she's figured out on her own. It was years before Ollie could piece most of it together, a comment here and there and how he never talks about his parents; whatever Sam spent his childhood doing, Ollie'd bet his pension it wasn't reading the classics.
After everyone is finished dinner (or, at least, almost everyone--Mia still eats in stages, gnawing on a plain lettuce stalk before counting her peas for ten minutes), they move to the kitchen and the plastic place mats for dessert; ice cream over pie has a high drip factor, Zoe explains. McNally spoons out the servings like a champ while Maddie looks on like some kind of egalitarian fairy. "A little more... a little more... STOP. Now Izzy has too much."
"We should get her a measuring cup," Zoe murmurs, leaning her entire body into Oliver as he passes behind her with the plates. He sets them down carefully by her elbow, presses her into the kitchen island a little bit. Under the cashmere sweater, the skin at her hip is very warm.
"Or a food scale," Ollie adds. Sammy is trying to take his pie plain, no ice cream, but McNally gives him two scoops and tells him to eat it; Just because it isn't pistachio-- Ollie thinks he hears her say. "I bet Maddie would appreciate the increased accuracy." Some of the hair is wisping out of the combs around Zoe's neck, the same way it always escaped her ponytail in high school, and Ollie wants to put his mouth there. Has wanted to put his mouth there, since third period calculus at least. Years and years they’ve known each other.
"I think," McNally is saying authoritatively, "the only fair way to do it is to give Sam the princess place mat." Sammy raises his eyebrows. Under the table, where he thinks Ollie can't see, he's holding her hand. Maddie and Mia clutch their perfectly equal slices of pie to their chests, considering their options.
"I love you," Zoe says quietly. It's maybe only the third time she's said it since he moved back. Ollie presses his face into her hair and breathes.
Authors: threeguesses and lowriseflare
Fandom/ Pairing: Rookie Blue, ensemble, Oliver/Zoe, Andy/Sam
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5400+
Summary: The one with the dinner invitation.
Author's note: Goes AU after 2x13. Part of the Surprisingly Cohesive Comment!fic Universe(tm).
Never let it be said Oliver doesn't have restraint: he waits a full week after the suspension ends before cornering Sam.
"So, brother--" Oliver pauses as the rooks beat a noisy retreat towards the door, Epstein and Diaz looking for all the world like three-fifths of a boy band in their v-necks. Jerry called them the New Kids on the Block for two weeks before anyone bothered learning their names. "Zoe," he continues, which is explanation enough. "It's that time again."
Sam skims off his wet socks with an expression of supreme distaste. The locker room's all slush and silt, tracked straight out into the hallway. "Getting a jump on the holiday season, are we?"
Oliver makes a face, trying to decide how delicate he wants to be about this. "Something like that." He hams it up, big gestures: "Christmas come early, this Friday at six, be there or be square." Oh, screw it: "And er, Sammy? Bring McNally."
Sam's head comes up then, eyebrows crawling all the way to his hairline. Like he's working himself up to being indignant or something, like he thinks they were being fucking sly. Which, whatever, Oliver does not have time to disabuse him of that particular illusion gently--Zoe's cooking a roast tonight, and McNally's probably waiting in the damn hallway, so. "I'm just the messenger here, brother," he tells Sam, shrugging. He's slung his bag over his arm before he remembers. "Oh, also: bring salad."
He gets home and Izzy's doing her math homework at the kitchen table, potatoes boiling away on the stove. "Where's Mom?" he asks, dropping a kiss on top of her pale, pretty head. Lucky for them, all three of his girls take after Zoe in the looks department. Izzy pats his arm distractedly.
"Mom's here," Zoe says now, coming in with six-year-old Mia hitched up on one hip. She plants a kiss on his mouth, friendly; it's only a few days since he's sleeping in the bedroom again and Oliver leans into it, smells her familiar lavender soap smell. He's been with Zoe since they were seventeen years old.
"Gross," Izzy mutters before returning to her algebra. Oliver slings Mia over one shoulder, rolls his eyes.
"How was your day?" Zoe asks, draining the spuds in the sink and sending Izzy upstairs to get her sister. "Dinner in five minutes." She turns back to Oliver, raises her eyebrows. "You ask Sammy about Friday?"
"It was good, and I did," he tells her, pulling a beer out of the fridge with his free hand and pressing the cold bottle against the back of her neck. She ate up the whole Swarek-done-in-by-a-rookie thing, Zoe did, has been playing along at home ever since the Christmas party McNally's first year.
("That's the one," he told Zoe as McNally waltzed past with another round of ridiculous candy cane shots; from December 1st to New Years, The Black Penny always forgot it was a respectable cop establishment. He meant 'that's the one who tackled Sammy' and not 'that's the one Sammy has a thing for' because he likes to pay at least some lip service to the Bro Code, but Zoe knew right away anyways.
"Huh," was all she said. Only then she tried to switch the music to a slow dance--twice. Oliver took another swig of beer and consigned Sam's soul to god.)
"What'd he say?" Zoe asks now, letting her head loll forward. Oliver rolls the bottle down towards her nape, cooling the flush from the stove.
"Er, not much actually." Mia's squirming on his shoulder now, reaching around with her sticky-hot hands. Oliver sets her on the ground and gives her what she's after, the twist-off bottle cap; this brand is wide-necked, these little picture puzzles on the inside lid. Oliver's pretty sure they're supposed to be a test of how blitzed you are, but it turns out they're also the perfect difficulty level for six-year-olds. "He's bringing the salad, though," he tells Zoe brightly.
Zoe dishes out a forkful of green beans onto each plate. "Well, that's all that matters."
"'Great Beer'," Mia sounds out slowly. "Look Dad, I solved it!" She waves the cap at Oliver, who can just make out a picture of a bee and a figure-eight on its underside.
Zoe rolls her eyes, opening her mouth to say something about the dangers of commercialism or alcohol or maybe just teaching reading-comp via pictionary, but then Izzy and Maddie come thundering down the stairs and it's dinner time. Afterwards, she sends Mia back up for a bath while Oliver quizzes Maddie for the vocabulary test she's got in the morning: excavate, frigid, gorge. The spelling's been tripping her up--Maddie isn't a reader the way her sisters are, although she tests off the charts in math and science--so they go through the list twice, slowly, a bowl of ice cream with two spoons melting on the kitchen table between them.
"How'd she do?" Zoe asks him later, the two younger girls in bed and Izzy listening to her headphones in her room, the unbearable moony acoustic stuff she's into since last summer when she discovered boys. Used to be they'd listen to the Beatles together whenever he drove her anyplace, friends' houses or soccer practice; Oliver counts it among his greatest accomplishments in parenting that she knew all the words to Rubber Soul by the time she was four.
"Maddie?" he says now, pulling back the duvet. Zoe's washing her face at the sink in the master bathroom, glycerine soap and the ribbed cotton tank top she always sleeps in. Zoe has the palest shoulders Ollie has ever seen. "She'll be fine."
And she is.
*
For the rest of the week Oliver almost forgets about the invitation, truth be told, annoyed looks Sammy shoots him in the locker room aside (like a dinner is going to blow their non-existent cover or something, the damn idiot). Monday through Wednesday the roster has him with Nash, who's competent and knows when to be quiet. Sometimes they talk about their kids, Christmas coming up and what's cheap to put in the stockings, but mostly they just drive. Nash insists they take basically every domestic that comes over the radio, but other than that she's a good riding partner.
Then, as fate would have it, come Thursday there's a schedule change (everything's been in flux since Sam and Andy got reinstated, no set pairs yet). Next to Oliver's name, in Best's neat handwriting, is a one Officer McNally.
So. So much for quiet then.
She's waiting in the car by the time he gets out there after parade, hands folded in the passenger seat and back perfectly straight like the very model of a modern major general--or, at the very least, like a rookie police who's not coming off one hell of a suspension for conduct unbecoming. She looks greener than she did on her first day, cuffs and collar immaculate. Oliver hides a smirk. "McNally," he says, sliding behind the wheel and setting his coffee down into the console. Since she can't get him to quit caffeine completely Zoe's got him drinking it with skim milk and some terrifying all-natural sugar substitute; the whole affair is sort of watery and sad. "How you doing this morning?"
"Good," she says immediately, dark head bobbing once. "Great. Just, you know. Ready to work. Keeping my head down. Staying on the straight and narrow. Not looking to cause any trouble. Sir."
Oliver tries not to laugh. He likes the kid, is the kick in the pants here. He's liked her since her very first day. He gets why Sammy likes her, too, though she reminds Ollie more of his girls than anything. He can remember riding with Tommy way back when, the picture he kept tucked up in the visor of his patrol car: a skinny middle-schooler in a school uniform, long braids and a smile too big for her face.
"Sure thing, McNally," Oliver says now, turning the key in the ignition. "Let's go."
It's a quiet morning mostly, cold and clear. Christmas decorations have started going up in the malls, enough that the city seems to have reached inside itself and found some holiday cheer--either that or it's just too fucking freezing for crime, Oliver can't tell. Some of the residential streets off of Dufferin are already decked out. Oliver makes a mental note to take Zoe and the girls out one night for their annual Christmas lights tour, the nativity scene the Archdiocese always sets up, that one house at Somerset and Geary that Zoe claims is gaudier than Vegas but Oliver secretly loves. Mia's favourite is the Holiday Tiger at Bloor and Christie.
"You got a Christmas tree?" he asks McNally as they wait in line at Tims. That first watery coffee just wasn't enough.
McNally blinks at him like she's startled. She's been uncharacteristically silent since her first outburst, gripping the radio like she's desperate for a chance to get out of the cruiser. So far all they've gotten is one bogus noise complaint. "I-- sir?"
Oliver grins. (Bambi, Sam called her, way back at the beginning with a venom Ollie's pretty sure he had to work to maintain.) "Christmas tree, McNally, the thing with the lights. You got one?"
The barista hands over their coffees with a smile that suggests she might actually be a fan of the Toronto Police Service, miracle of miracles. McNally dumps in three sugars without pausing, seems to be considering a fourth. "No, yeah, I picked one up for like 30 bucks at Metro. Sam helped--"
The look on her face is pretty much priceless. Still, Oliver decides to let her off the hook; Zoe'll be asking enough pointed questions tomorrow night. "Thirty bucks is way more than I'd pay for a grocery store tree," is all he says.
"Yeah," McNally nods distractedly. Then, for god knows what reason, she puts herself right back on the hook: "So, um. What kind of salad?"
Oliver feels his eyebrows peak. "One with lettuce, probably," he tells her seriously. "Maybe throw some tomatoes in there if you're feeling really crazy."
Andy stares at him for a second before she realizes he's making fun of her (and she's not Sammy's type, not really; normally Swarek's all about the cool-headed blondes. Oliver only met Corinne a handful of times, Maddie's Christening and a wedding or two, but he remembers thinking very clearly she was three steps ahead of everyone else in the room). Then she scowls. "I'm just asking!" she protests, like she's genuinely wounded. "It was nice of your--Mrs. Shaw to invite me, I want to get off on the right foot--"
"Well, a good place to start would be not calling her "my Mrs. Shaw," Oliver tells her as she trots back across the parking lot towards the cruiser. Her ponytail swings back and forth. "And I invited you, too."
"Um. Right." Andy blushes a little, fusses with the lid on her Styrofoam cup. The radio crackles to life a second later; Oliver thinks he's never in his life seen someone look so happy about a convenience-store holdup in all his years on the force. "Crime!" she crows happily, her whole person perking up like a prairie dog. "Yeah!”
They get there after the action, the perp who did it already long gone. "I didn't actually see a gun," the guy at the cash stresses. His hands are still shaking. "He said he had one and I figured..." Oliver nods. His life would be a lot easier if more cashiers went with the 'better safe than sorry' method. McNally buys a bag of Smartfood popcorn with a ten and tells the kid to keep the change; to compensate for his losses, Oliver guesses. She's a nice girl, McNally.
The rest of their shift is spent running around looking for the someone who matches the description. McNally is shockingly gung-ho about the whole thing, leaping out of the cruiser after look-alikes at the slightest provocation. It's been so long since Oliver rode with her he can't tell if this is her usual MO or she just hates being in the car with him that bad. In the end, it's Peck and Nash who find the guy skulking around Dufferin Park with a bunch of other punks.
"Apparently the asshole was actually bragging about it," he tells Zoe in bed that night. "The rookies literally just had to follow the story back to the source."
Zoe nods, half-listening, half-flipping though Time. There's an article about NHL enforcers and the changing face of hockey. "Thank god for dumb criminals."
Oliver peers over her shoulder to read about Wade Belak and the link between head trauma and mental illness. "Also, I think McNally's afraid of me," he adds. "Just, you know, FYI for tomorrow."
Zoe raises her eyebrows, putting her magazine down on the nightstand and clicking off the reading lamp. She switched them to flannel sheets this week, which is a small thing that makes Oliver disproportionately happy and which he knows means he's forgiven for real. "Because you're so big and scary?" she asks; in the dark he can hear the smile in her voice, gently mocking.
"Hey, I'll have you know those kids think I'm a hardass," Oliver begins, but he shuts up after that because she's angling her familiar body toward his in a way that has, on many occasions, meant--
well. Oliver stops worrying about McNally's emotions real quick, that's for sure.
*
He rides with Noelle the next day, thank jesus. Sometimes he thinks Noelle is the only person in the entire Division with a brain inside her head. She's not feeling so hot, though, stomach bug or something, so mostly they sit in the cruiser and shoot the shit and watch the rookies chase their tails all morning long. It's freezing outside, too cold even to snow.
"Sammy's bringing McNally to my house tonight," he tells her, around a mouthful of hotdog. "To meet the parents."
Noelle's not listening--"I swear to god, Ollie, I need you to not be eating that thing in here," she says, rolling down her window--but then it registers and she looks at him with some interest. "Really." Sammy and Noelle have been friends even longer than he and Sammy have, same rookie class and everything. Ollie thinks she used to steal his lunch money, maybe beat him up a little. "So that's actually happening, then."
"Oh, it's happening," Oliver crows, inhaling the rest of the dog and showing Noelle his empty hands. He takes a certain amount of pleasure in busting up Sammy's secret, knocking that too-cool-for-school badboy attitude down a peg. He's not the only one either: 'Probably a bit early to start mocking him for this, eh?' Jerry asked the night after they pulled Sam out. At the time, Oliver had smacked him across the back of the head. Now though--well, he figures that grace period may be juuuust about up.
"Huh." Noelle's tucked her nose back inside the cruiser, but she's left the window down as if she suspects Oliver might have another hotdog stashed somewhere on his person. "About time Sammy sealed the deal on that," she says finally, taking another sip of her herbal tea. All morning she's been nursing it; Oliver can't for the life of him figure out why a person would give up coffee. "Meet the parents, eh?" Noelle arches one neat eyebrow. "You gonna read McNally the riot act about getting Sammy home on time?"
"Yep." Oliver shifts the car out of park, leans an arm around Noelle's seat to start reversing. "Curfew at the Shaw house is eleven o'clock sharp."
"Mmmhmm." Noelle watches him over the rim of her mug. "Do me a favour and take a picture of McNally's face after Mia finishes with her."
"Mia is a perfectly charming little girl," Oliver says mildly, but he's grinning.
*
"What's her name again, Dad?" Maddie asks later that night as she's setting the table. She always puts the fork on the wrong side of the plate; Izzy's following her around to correct it.
"Officer McNally," Zoe says pointedly, coming into the kitchen just as the timer on the oven starts to ding. She's wearing lipstick and the soft grey sweater Oliver got her for her last birthday, company clothes. She's got her hair pulled back off her face with a couple of combs. "Same as any adult, unless she tells you otherwise."
"Isn't she a rookie, though?" Izzy asks, frowning. She's finished with the forks, is peering at her reflection in the window above the kitchen sink and picking at some imaginary blemish on her chin. She's been in a mood since Oliver got home, though nobody seems to know exactly why. "So really she's like...closer to my age."
Oliver almost chokes on his beer. "Uh..." he begins, then completely fails to follow up in any meaningful way. Maddie is watching with some interest, gaze flicking back and forth between them. Her test went okay, she said.
"I might keep that particular observation to myself if I were you, Iz," Zoe tells her, hiding a smile. Sammy used to babysit for them, in a pinch. "Just for tonight."
Oliver catches Zoe's eye then, takes a longer pull off his beer to avoid smiling back at her meaningful glance. She taps two fingers along his arm as she passes by, which probably means behave, or maybe have mercy on Sammy's soul. Still, no way is Ollie letting that brilliant bit of math go; he's still working out how to drop it into his next ride-along with Sam when the doorbell rings.
Zoe dusts off her hands. "What on earth is he doing using the buzzer?"
Oliver shrugs. Women make Sammy do weird things, to the best of his recollection--Corinne and dancing, for instance. Also: French.
"I'll get it!" Mia crows, winding up for a run-and-slide down the front hallway in her stocking feet; Oliver winces as he hears her tiny body thud against the door. Izzy put her in a dress for reasons that pass his understanding, meaning her knocked-up legs are already on display. Half the time it looks like they beat her with a sack of oranges. From all the way around the corner he can hear her say, "Come in please," in her big-girl voice.
"You can leave your shoes on," Zoe calls. No one ever does. Privately Oliver thinks it's some kind of litmus test she does for character, that clean stretch of perpetually-swept hallway between the kitchen and the door.
Sure enough, McNally passes; she pads in in her socks a minute later, clutching a giant salad bowl to her chest like a security blanket and trailing Sammy, who's got Mia's arms wound monkey tight around his neck. She's an affectionate kid, the baby; it took them a long time to teach her the difference between "people we hug" and "people we don't".
"Why'd you ring?" Zoe asks, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Sammy on the cheek; then, before he can answer: "Got my money?" Zo and Sammy have been betting on the playoffs since Izzy was in diapers, possibly passing the same wrinkled twenty back and forth for all Ollie knows. Sammy had his money on Vancouver in the west.
"Oh, that was my fault," McNally says, blushing. She thrusts the salad bowl in Zoe's direction. "The, uh, buzzer."
"A woman with manners!" Zoe takes the salad in one arm and wraps the other one around Andy, gives her a squeeze like they're old friends. "What are you doing with Sammy?"
"Oh, you're a comedian." Sammy rolls his eyes good-naturedly, high-fives Maddie to say hello. "I got your cash right here." Izzy's standing by the fridge with a soda she's not supposed to be drinking, watching McNally the way you'd watch a perp in a lineup full of undercover cops--and, oh sweet Mary mother of Jesus, all of a sudden her sour mood makes a lot more sense.
Oliver glances over at Zoe to see if she's noticed, either the hostile glare or its cause (which--crap, closer to my age is a whole hell of a lot less funny now), but she's busy snapping Sammy's twenty and uninterested in telepathy. Oliver sighs. At least the salad looks edible; he's pleased to see that McNally's a girl who likes mayonnaise-based dressing.
"Hey Iz," Sam says after a minute, setting Mia on her feet. Oliver can tell from his tone that he's noticed the staredown. McNally hasn't, thank god; she's been watching Sammy make the rounds with an expression that's both pink and surprised by turns. That's right, Oliver thinks. He holds babies. Now wait for him to do it in a muscle shirt.
"Hey." Izzy tips her open coke bottle in salute the way Oliver has seen himself tip a beer, looking way too grown up as she does it. "You gonna introduce us, or what?"
Zoe shoots her a warning look but Sammy's game: "McNally, meet Mia, Maddie, and Izzy. Girls, meet McNally."
"Andy is fine," McNally says quickly, holding out her hand to Maddie, who's closest. She dressed up a little bit herself, earnest, this big eager smile on her face.
Not for Izzy, apparently: "Nice to meet you," she mutters when Andy turns her way, full-on sullen teenager mode. Mia's hollering for attention, meanwhile, are-you-a-police-officer-like-Sam-and-my-Daddy-do-you-have-any-pets-my-friend-Jessica-at-school-has-a-kitten-named-Fluffernutter-do-you-want-to-see-my-room? McNally nods seriously, asks after Fluffernutter's colour and size, agrees without hesitation to a tour after dinner. Now Sammy's the one with his eyes on her.
"Izzy," Zoe says pointedly, shooing them into the dining area. She's got snacks on the table, fancy cheese and these little puff pastry things Ollie is nuts for. "Want to get these guys some drinks?"
"I can help," McNally says immediately. Oliver doesn't know why the way she says it is what makes him remember she grew up without a mother. "I mean, if there's anything I can do."
Zoe just smiles at her. "Sure. You can get the salad ready while Iz fishes out the beers." Which--there's not much left for McNally to really do to the salad aside from taking the cling-wrap off, spooning it out onto the plates maybe. It's a Mia job, which is how Oliver knows Zoe is charmed; he flicks Izzy's ponytail in commiseration as she passes him on her way to the beer fridge. Sammy makes for the cheese and Oliver follows him, glad to get out of the close kitchen.
"So-o," he mutters as soon as they're out of range. "Meeting the family, eh?"
"Fuck off," Sam says amicably, loading up a cracker with some dip. "You asked us over."
"Us." Oliver pounces, even though it's probably a pretty legitimate use of pronoun. "That serious, huh brother?"
Sam just gives him an eyebrow, looking annoyed. Oliver decides it is that serious and resolves to sick Zoe on him at the earliest possible opportunity. He doesn't get the chance for a while, though; Izzy comes in a minute later with a Molson for Sammy and another for him, holds them out with a wordless scowl. "How's the jump shot, Iz?" Sam asks.
Izzy shrugs. "Fine." That seems to be about all she's willing to volunteer, but Sam waits and eventually she cracks a smile. "We killed against Holy Name last week."
"Attagirl." Sam holds his free hand up for a fist-bump; Izzy makes a face, but she complies. She's a beanpole, Iz, almost as tall as Oliver. Zoe just had to take her out for all new clothes. "They're a bunch of preppy snots over at Holy Name, anyway."
A real grin this time, wide and happy. For a second Izzy looks just like the little girl Ollie remembers, singing "Drive my Car" at the top of her lungs in the backseat. "Yeah they are."
Whatever progress Sammy's making gets undone a minute later though, Maddie coming in with a basket of rolls and Andy trailing behind with the salad bowl. To look at his oldest daughter, you'd think McNally’s main responsibility at 15 Division was clubbing baby seals. "You ever play basketball in school, McNally?" Oliver asks her.
McNally blinks at him like she has no idea why he's asking, cuts her eyes over to Sammy real fast. "I... yeah, actually. I was post." Oliver supposes that's about right, her broad shoulders; Iz always looks like she should be easily knocked around but she never is.
"So's Izzy," Sam says, voicing Oliver's thought. He should know, Sammy; he has an old, fake trading card of Iz's from back when she still played house league, this ridiculous thing with stats like her favourite colour (orange) and what she wanted to be when she grew up (veterinarian) down the back. Every year the league churned those things out, and every year Oliver paid an arm and a leg for them. He has the full set in laminate put aside with his coin collection: Izzy in uniform, ages five through ten.
"Cool," McNally chirps now, beaming at a dour Iz. With the salad bowl down on the table she looks fidgety, like she can’t figure out what to do with her hands. "I played volleyball too but, you know. I kind of sucked at that."
Izzy shrugs elegantly, as if such a thing doesn't surprise her at all. "I do long jump too," she offers indifferently. To Oliver, it sounds like a grudging truce (or at least a grudging concession to her mother's warning glares). "Maddie plays soccer."
"Sweet," McNally says, and if she's faking enthusiasm for his daughters' various athletic endeavors, she's doing a damn good job, asking what position and what league and if Maddie has seen Bend it Like Beckham, which she has (Izzy, much too cool for movies about girl power or what have you, rolls her eyes). "Mia," McNally says, as the baby makes her way to the table holding her cup of milk in two careful hands, "you play any sports?"
"Gymnastics," Mia reports, climbing up into her chair.
"Gymnastics isn't a sport," Maddie counters immediately, and they're off to the races. Zoe has to come in and break it up. It's actually fine, though, as far as vaguely awkward dinners go, chicken and potatoes and what everybody learned in school today. McNally's salad's a winner, which surprises Ollie although he's not sure why. "So Andy," Zoe asks, once Mia's done reporting on rehearsals for the Christmas pageant her class is putting on in a couple of weeks (she's a sheep), "Did you always want to be a cop?"
McNally's been cutting her chicken into efficient little cubes like someone who doesn't eat family dinners that often and wants to prove she knows how. Her glance over at Zoe is halfway-startled. "I guess? I mean--" She smiles at Maddie and Mia, chugging their way through a glass of milk each to get to dessert. "When I was super little I wanted to be a farmer because I thought it would be like owning a million pets at once. But yeah." She shrugs awkwardly. "Since high school I was pretty sure."
Sammy's listening with such forced casualness Oliver knows this isn't a conversation they've had before. Ollie watches as he slices a carrot into clean segments, takes a pull off a beer that must be warm by now.
"What made you decide?" Zoe prods, leaning towards McNally in that gentle way she has. Oliver borrows it sometimes for interrogations (the young kids, mostly, newly-minted punks who really do want to tell you how the car got totaled). "Was it your dad, or--?"
"I wanted to help people." McNally makes a face, like I know that's super lame, but there you go; Sammy grins once at his carrot. "And, you know. It was what I knew."
She shrugs again, like all of a sudden she's real aware that everybody's looking at her, all three girls included. "Um, what about you?" she asks Zoe, eyes wide as if she's done her homework and is excited to put her hand up in class. "Did you always want to be a librarian?"
"I did," Zoe tells her, smiling like she's pleased to have been asked; she and Ollie have had this conversation before, certainly, but he finds himself paying attention anyway. It's like this with them now, since he moved back in. They're careful with each other. Oliver's continually surprised by everything he'd known but had forgotten, like he's getting to know her all over again. He's been taking her out on dates, too. "I was a book nerd. I always loved to read."
"Just like Sammy," Ollie adds helpfully. "Always had his nose in LIttle Women."
"Funny," Sam says, the girls giggling a little. McNally grins. Ollie wonders how much Sammy's told her, how much she's figured out on her own. It was years before Ollie could piece most of it together, a comment here and there and how he never talks about his parents; whatever Sam spent his childhood doing, Ollie'd bet his pension it wasn't reading the classics.
After everyone is finished dinner (or, at least, almost everyone--Mia still eats in stages, gnawing on a plain lettuce stalk before counting her peas for ten minutes), they move to the kitchen and the plastic place mats for dessert; ice cream over pie has a high drip factor, Zoe explains. McNally spoons out the servings like a champ while Maddie looks on like some kind of egalitarian fairy. "A little more... a little more... STOP. Now Izzy has too much."
"We should get her a measuring cup," Zoe murmurs, leaning her entire body into Oliver as he passes behind her with the plates. He sets them down carefully by her elbow, presses her into the kitchen island a little bit. Under the cashmere sweater, the skin at her hip is very warm.
"Or a food scale," Ollie adds. Sammy is trying to take his pie plain, no ice cream, but McNally gives him two scoops and tells him to eat it; Just because it isn't pistachio-- Ollie thinks he hears her say. "I bet Maddie would appreciate the increased accuracy." Some of the hair is wisping out of the combs around Zoe's neck, the same way it always escaped her ponytail in high school, and Ollie wants to put his mouth there. Has wanted to put his mouth there, since third period calculus at least. Years and years they’ve known each other.
"I think," McNally is saying authoritatively, "the only fair way to do it is to give Sam the princess place mat." Sammy raises his eyebrows. Under the table, where he thinks Ollie can't see, he's holding her hand. Maddie and Mia clutch their perfectly equal slices of pie to their chests, considering their options.
"I love you," Zoe says quietly. It's maybe only the third time she's said it since he moved back. Ollie presses his face into her hair and breathes.