TITLE: Leave (companion piece to 'Don't Think Twice')
AUTHOR: Jennifoofighter
RATING: PG
KEYWORDS: MS, Sam Angst
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: Post 'The Bogie Man'
DISCLAIMER: Hank and Co. own everything Without a Trace. No copyright infringement is intended ...yada, yada, yada.
SPECIAL NOTE: This was an experiment for many reasons. I was trying to get into Martin and Sam's heads as a writing exercise for another fic and I wanted to try and write a one shot fic. It kinda worked; you don't have to read the companion piece. However, both are evidence that I am incapable of writing something really short.
SUMMARY: Sam is stuck in traffic when she realizes she has trouble moving forward. A song fic based on Matchbox Twenty's "Leave"
XoXoXoX
Sam pounded her fist on her car's horn. She knew it wouldn't cause the construction workers to move any faster or cause the other cars to move out of her way but it gave her some satisfaction to hit something. It was his fault that she was stuck in this traffic jam. She was so distracted by thoughts of Martin that she missed the orange signs warning drivers about construction delays up ahead.
He was just making her day worse and worse.
Up ahead she saw one car inch forward only to be stopped by a worker in an orange vest holding up a stop sign. He waved for a dump truck to back up and she knew that she was going to be sitting here for awhile.
Frustrated, she reached over and clicked on the radio. She pressed each button but just got commercial, commercial, commercial, and, yes, a deejay announcing that he was getting ready to play a song. She took her hand off of the button and rested her hand on the steering wheel waiting to see what song he was going to play.
The moment the soft tune began to play she immediately realized that it was going to be a sappy love song. She knew she should turn it off but something in her refused to reach over and switch the station.
XoX
It's amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all
It's unnerving
How just one move puts me by myself
There you go just trusting someone else
Now I know I put us both through hell
XoX
He broke up with her. He broke up with her at work – the office romance equivalent of a crowded restaurant. He chose to do it someplace he knew where she would refuse to make a scene. It was cruel and she didn't think he would be that way with her. She was stunned by his coldness to her as he said, "I'm just tired of playing games. And, frankly, I'm not interested in waiting around while you figure out your problems."
"Her problems." Not their problems but hers.
He basically told her that she was the problem in their relationship. She was so angry and hurt by his words; they felt like a swift gunshot wound to the chest. She had warned him that she was used to complicated relationships and he agreed to give her time. She thought he would have understood her reasons for not wanting to make their relationship public. She knew how the rumor mill worked when it came to sexual politics: a woman who slept with her two of her co-workers would be called the office slut. No one would even consider the fact that they were more than four years apart or that she hadn't even been with anyone in over a year. However, if she had been a man she would have gotten high-fives from other male agents and maybe even been seen as more desirable by the female ones.
But he refused to understand that. How could he possibly know what a slippery slope she walked on every single day being a woman in the bureau? He was used to being the golden boy who could get away with just about anything and emerge unscathed.
XoX
I'm not saying there was nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me
But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
XoX
She knew they were having some problems but she was trying her best to work through them. To try and learn to trust a man with her heart again. She was really starting to think Martin might have been the one so she decided to take a leap of faith with him and go to his cousin's wedding. It was scary to meet his family and even more so considering his father was the Deputy Director but he kept assuring her it would fun. That he wanted to be able to share her with the people he cared about. She knew that it was a big step in their relationship and it scared her to consider what that meant. It was new ground for her. She was accustomed to being secretive or only being with someone on the most superficial level. But she was starting to believe that he would be worth the risk.
So this morning she stopped by H&H Bagels, picked up his favorite and brought it to him in the office determined to make him understand that she was trying. But instead of bridging the space that was developing between them, he pulled the rug out from under her and said he was done. They were done.
XoX
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out
It's aggravating
How you threw me on and you tore me out
How your good intentions turn to doubt
The way you needed time to sort it out
XoX
She should have suspected something when the night before he hadn't come over. "I'm too tired." That's what he had told her in a lame attempt to explain why for the first time in months they weren't spending the night together. What he didn't say was that he was too tired of her.
She couldn't understand how easily the ability to communicate had slipped away from them. It was the one thing that she had thought they would always share. She was surprised how easy it was to open up to him about things that she usually kept carefully guarded. She confided in him about so many things and he seemed to genuinely listen. She had thought that they would always be able to talk things out.
Of course, she also knew that things go progressively worst when she had to keep Viv's secret. She wanted to tell him so many times, especially when he would come to her with his concerns about Viv. So instead of risking confiding in him she went the other direction and talked to him less and less. It was easier to not talk than to risk betraying another friends' confidence. What she didn't realize was that in the end Martin felt just as betrayed. She knew she should have been there for him but she was mostly concerned about making sure she was okay. She should of thought about his feelings more too.
XoX
And I'm not saying there was nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
And I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just couldn't ever let you get away from me
But if that's how you're gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out
XoX
So now she was alone again. Rejected, dumped, discarded. She could feel her throat burn as the weight of what happened began to sink in. How could she be so stupid and think that he would be any different? She thought she would have learned long ago that men don't stay – at least not with her. That was why she was usually so closed off to love. She had only let her guard a couple of times in the past and in both cases she swore to never do it again.
But, Martin, he had snuck under her relationship radar and even though she swore no more mixing work and romance, he made her think it just might be possible.
And then he had to go and end it. How was a woman every supposed to learn to trust a man with her heart when they keep leaving her whenever she doesn't fit into the perfect mold of what a girlfriend was supposed to be?
XoX
I'm not saying there was nothing wrong
I didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
But if that's how you're gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
XoX
She had tried to be more open around him but each day as they relationship grew and he made it clear that he wanted more she got scared. So she reacted by being difficult, sometimes confrontational. She could admit that. It was just so hard to know how to behave around him. He was constantly blurring the boundaries that she carefully placed around her heart. So she reacted the only way she knew how: insufferable bitchiness.
She hated the way she found herself treating him but she couldn't stop herself. Hurtful things that she couldn't seemed to edit before they came out her mouth pushed him further away. And she always regretted them as soon as she said them. Sometimes she would try and apologize but her words never came out right and she could see he didn't understand. So she would try and make it up to him in other ways, namely through sex. But lately it was started to feel like they were both just going through the motions.
She knew that he had started pulling away from her but she didn't know how to pull him back. She just thought if they could both just hold out a little longer than everything would somehow work itself out. She just needed some time and a lot of patience. Two commodities that it turns out Martin didn't have.
Screw him, she thought. She was stronger than him, stronger than this. She would show him that she doesn't need him; that she can pick up the pieces and move on. She wouldn't show him that he had hurt her in any way whatsoever. Show him that she didn't need him; that she didn't love him.
XoX
Tell me is that how it's going to end?
When you know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out
I'm the one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out
XoX
Before she knew how it happened she began crying. She hitched her breath trying to stop but the tears continued to fall. She refused to cry. Crying meant that he meant more than she had imagined. Crying meant that she didn't have the control that she thought she had.
A car honked its horn behind her and she looked up and saw that traffic had started moving again. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, took a deep breath and pressed on the gas to head home alone. She could do this; she knew how to be alone.
The day was awkward for the both of them. Martin would try and check in with her but she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had hurt her. She only offered him quick answers and would dash away before he could ask her another. Instead she concentrated on helping Danny find his brother. She felt guilty that she was so grateful that Martin was so tied up with Danny's family drama that he wasn't around the office very much.
After Jack had told her that they had found Rafi she quickly finished typing up her report so she could get out of the office before Martin came back. She powered down her computer, grabbed her jacket and headed to the elevator.
She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips trying to stay awake long enough for the ride home. She heard the elevator's ding indicating that the cab had arrived so she stepped forward to board the elevator. She opened her eyes just in time to bump smack into Martin.
She was taken aback by this unexpected encounter but she steeled her nerves and said, "Sorry, I was just trying to leave."
He exited and she quickly brushed past him into the elevator. She pressed the button for the first floor and as the doors started to close his eyes met hers as he said, "Don't think twice. It's alright."