Sometimes it was the people who were in your life for only a brief moment that had the most impact.

Andy couldn't have been stuck in the building with Lydia for more than six hours, but in that short amount of time she had realized some very, very important things.

At the time, she had been solely focused on calming down the hysterical woman in order to keep the building from completely collapsing on them. Yes, she had been worried for her own safety as well, but her cop instincts had kicked into full gear and her only desire was to protect the recent widow from dying.

"I never told him I loved him," Lydia had said through her hyperventilating sobs.

"He knew...he knew because you made him breakfast every morning." At that present time, the words hadn't impacted her at all, for she had said them only to reassure the woman that her husband died with that knowledge. But now, sitting on the bed, alone, with her knees drawn up close to her chin, she was hit with the full enormity.

Actions speak louder than words. She had heard that old adage a thousand times. You can tell someone you love them, but if you don't show them, through actions, then did you really, truly love them?

"I'm here when it matters," Sam had said only an hour ago. And it was true. He was there when it mattered, he always had been.

He had been there when Benny had died.

He had been there when she had killed that man on the night of the blackout.

He had been there when she needed her life to be saved from Ray Swan.

He had been there when her father had potentially murdered someone.

He had been there when she needed to talk after a brutally hard shift.

He had been there, day in and day out, whenever she needed him.

He, in the proverbial sense, had made her breakfast every morning.

She needed him. She needed him.

She swallowed thickly as her mind went over every single time he had been there for her. There had been literally hundreds of times, both professional and personal.

Yes, he was a bonafide savant when it came to time and space, except when it mattered.

The feelings she had thought had been successfully squashed were starting to worm their way back from the dark recesses of repressed emotions, but somehow they were different now, altered. Slowly, hesitantly, she started to delve into what had been stored away for the past five months, and the more she delved, the more terrified she became.

This wasn't just love, or lust, or a sexual attraction. This was a need, this was an emotional need, something dark and far too intense for her liking, and she wasn't at all pleased with it.

In the midst of her thoughts, she didn't realize she had slipped off her engagement ring.