Hiiiii. Author's note about this…thing I wrote here is at the end. I'll shut up until then lol. :)

Disclaimer: Totally Spies isn't mine. Sing it with me now, "Totally Spies isn't mine!" Ugh.

Anyway, see you at the bottom.

"Can I come in?"

A gentle knock on his door accompanied by a familiar voice that he hadn't heard in a while left him sitting up straight in his chair. Seeing it was indeed whom he thought it was, a soft, happy smile lit up his old face.

"Of course, you needn't ask," he said, still smiling as he immediately got up to greet the young woman he had been expecting. Wrapping her in a gentle hug, he held her for a moment before pulling back and glancing at her face. And immediately his smile couldn't help but falter. It couldn't help but fade at how…different she looked. And it wasn't in a good way.

There were dark circles under her green eyes signalling lack of sleep and that determined spark that had always been in them seemed extinguished. Her lips, although wearing a smile looked as if it were forced. Even her hair, the vibrant crimson shade seemed dull. In fact she looked as if she was barely managing in holding herself together.

A disapproving frown settled on his lips as he kept looking at her. It had only been two years but it looked as if she had aged several in that time. Instantly he was reminded that this was one of the crucial reasons why he had chosen to never get married. To avoid the heartache; the very same that she was enduring right at this moment.

"How are you, Sam?" he asked even though he honestly didn't need to. After all he did know why she was like this. Why she was no longer the happy, care-free, individual she had been when she'd left WOOHP. He knew exactly why and exactly whom was responsible for her misery.

"I'm good," she said, awkwardly tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear as she pushed another smile on her lips which looked just as strained as the last one had been. "|I just finished moving out this morning. Of course there still is a thing or two left behind to deal with, but it won't take long," she shrugged before waving her hand airily. "But enough of that, how is everything at WOOHP? I hear there you've made some big changes while was gone. Did you finally get around to changing the whole WOOHP-ing system into something less painful?" She let out a small laugh and gave him a little smirk. "You know how much Clover, Alex and I hated it."

Jerry said nothing as he kept looking at her with sad, empathetic eyes. It pained him to see her like this. It pained him to see the girl he saw as his own child in this state, to see her trying to hide how upset she was by changing the subject as if it didn't matter. Well it did matter. It mattered a lot. It never should have happened.

"He should be ashamed of himself."

"Who should?" Sam said, acting clueless and looking at him curiously as if she genuinely didn't know what on earth he was talking about. Something which could not be further from the truth.

"Dean."

"…"

The moment he said that her false happiness diminished and she looked down at her feet in humiliation. Silently, Jerry watched her bite her cheek to hold back the need to cry.

"I'm sorry," he whispered a moment later, reaching over to the tissue box on his desk and handing her a tissue while realizing that maybe it had been better to just ignore the issue entirely like she had been trying so hard to.

But Sam quickly shook her head as if to tell him he didn't need to apologize. "It's okay," she said, taking in a deep breath as she stopped her tears from falling. Dabbing the edges of her eyes with the tissue she bit her cheek. "It's not like I can pretend it didn't happen by ignoring it."

All of a sudden she found herself glancing at her bare ring finger. She ran her thumb over the part where her wedding ring used to be, where it should still be but wasn't anymore.

Force of habit.

Feeling a pang in her heart she looked away from it and back at Jerry. "You'd think I'd be over it by now, you know?"

"Don't be silly, Samantha," Jerry muttered. "It takes a lot of time to get over a broken relationship let along a broken marriage."

Sam nodded her head slightly but couldn't help but be disappointed by herself anyway. Despite all the sympathy her friends and family were giving her, she knew she shouldn't be taking this long to forget about a man who only married her so he could have affairs on the side. Only because he knew she'd be stupid enough to let him get away with it.

"You know I can have her fired."

Jerry's voice made her look back up at him again. "Hmm?" she mumbled quietly, watching him with lost eyes.

"Cassie," he said leaving her to let out a long sigh. "What's the point Jer,?" Another sigh left her as she looked at him pointedly, a deep frown on her lips. "She wasn't the only one."

Jerry's eyes went wide at that revelation and he looked at Sam in shock. "She…wasn't?" he croaked out slowly.

Still frowning, Sam crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. "Nope," she glared. "Apparently there were at least seven more. "

Seeing the stunned look on her ex-boss' face Sam let out a small, bitter laugh. "Pathetic, isn't it?" she asked, before pointing to herself. "You know for being a spy, even if I wasn't on the job…" she said knowing she had quit to try and have a normal, peaceful, harmonious marriage (oh the irony). "You'd think I should have caught on ages ago." She closed her eyes tightly looking wretched. "I guess I was too busy being blind and thinking everything was okay," a small huff escaped her. "So much for being a super spy."

"Everyone wants to be able to trust someone Sam," Jerry whispered making her open her eyes again. He gave her an understanding smile. "Spy or not, you did nothing wrong by thinking it was okay to believe in your husband, to let your guard down around him."

Sam returned his kind smile with a bitter one of her own. "Except that I did do something wrong by doing just that."

Not wanting her to keep beating herself up like this as it wasn't healthy, Jerry opened his mouth to tell her that this, none of this was her fault. But Sam cut him off first.

"You know the first woman he cheated on me with was the assistant wedding planner?" She put her finger on her chin in thought as her eyes narrowed. "Which means… he might have been sleeping with her while we were actually in the process of getting married. What a joke."

"It's unacceptable," Jerry muttered.

She nodded her head rigorously at that. "Yea, almost as unacceptable as my thinking he was the "one woman" type," she said, making quotations in the air for emphasis before glaring again and speaking in a tone filled with nothing but self loathing. "I mean I should have seen the hints. Right when I met him he made it obvious how much he loved female attention, the more the better," immediately her mind went back to what he'd said the very first time she had encountered him.

"Ladies please, there is plenty of Dean to go around."

Words she should have remembered back when she was saying her I Do's instead of now when he had already hurt her.

He was a player, he had always been a womanizer but she had been too blinded by her attraction to him to notice it when it would have done her some good. And she paid the price for her ignorance. She paid it big time.

"You know I can fire him."

Her ears perking up at Jerry's latest suggestion, Sam was caught off guard. "What? No, no," she said quickly, putting up her hands as if to tell him to stop. "Really, I don't want you to pick sides like that Jer. He's as much an agent of WOOHP as I am. It wouldn't be professional to fire him for something totally unrelated to his job."

But Jerry just shook his head stubbornly. "That's debateable actually. You, Clover, and Alex have done more for WOOHP than any other agent of your time. And there is no need for me to "pick sides" in this," he said, emphasizing those words. "It's common sense whom I should be supporting here."

He kept looking at her as he spoke, letting her know where his loyalties lay. "He cheated on you, not vice versa. All of WOOHP knows that and I'm sure no one thinks that what he did was okay."

"Except for Cassie and any other agent he might have fooled around with," Sam huffed before saying, "That's not why I'm here though," she gave Jerry a pointed glance. "Getting him fired I mean."

"But wouldn't it make things easier on you if he was fired?" Jerry asked knowing the knowledge that Dean was in the same building would probably just aggravate her and for good reason. "Wouldn't it help you be more comfortable and move on with your life?"

Raising an eyebrow, Sam shook her head no. "Actually, I think it would send the wrong message. It's like saying I can't handle being around him without feeling something."

"I see," Jerry nodded.

"I honestly just want…" Sam started slowly before breaking off with a sigh as she struggled to come up with the right words. A moment later she tried again. " I just want to," her face grew determined. "I need to get back to being who I was before I got into that relationship with…" she paused again, this time looking as if she had swallowed a lemon whole before she spit out his name. "Dean." She sighed. "I want to forget it all and be myself again. Me, Sam, Sam Simpson; super spy."

Seeing a glimmer of the willpower he was afraid she had permanently lost, Jerry couldn't help but smile. Sam's inner strength, her will, was one of the key reasons why he had picked her to be a spy in the first place.

Finding him silent, Sam bit her lip wondering if she'd overstepped. What if two years off was too long of a time off and WOOHP didn't want her back? After all she HAD quit and had indicated that she never wanted to return.

"You know that's why I'm here, right Jerry?" She found herself voicing her thoughts. "Unless I'm not welcome-"

"Nonsense," Jerry snapped, cutting her off and sounding outraged. How could she even think such a thing? "You'll always be welcome at WOOHP," he said firmly before smiling again. "Besides, I was never happy with the idea of you quitting anyway."

A small, genuine smile lit up Sam's face. "So… I can come back?" she asked nervously.

"Absolutely."

Her smile grew wider as she watched him with thankful eyes. "Thanks Jer. Thanks a lot."

"If WOOHP can help you move on and heal then I'd be more than happy to have you with us," Jerry said before looking at her seriously. "Just make sure you're okay with Dean still being a part of this agency because if you're not," he stopped and pointed at the phone sitting on the corner his desk. "One call is all it's going to take." A small smirk upturned the corner of his lip. "You're allowed to play favourites when you're the boss, you know. It's a perk of the job."

Sam couldn't help but laugh at his words. "Thanks Jerry, you're the best but I'm sure. Like I said, I just want to go back my old life, life before I got married and the "before Sam" wouldn't care about Dean working in the same agency."

Watching Jerry nod, she couldn't help but be glad that everything about her former husband was done and dealt with and she was free to move onto more important matters.

"So…" she started, taking a step closer and smiling wider. "Now that that's settled, catch me up. What changes have been made to WOOHP in my absence? I know Clover and Alex are wondering if they should come back to WOOHP now that I'm back."

She couldn't conceal the excitement she felt at that idea; the thought of them all working together again just like before. "That would be awesome wouldn't it?" she said, her eyes twinkling with happiness and nostalgia. "Just like old times. I think that's just what I need right now, everything to be just like it was when I left-"

"You owe me big time for this Jerry," a smooth, masculine voice suddenly said from behind her. "Do you have any idea how many hours it took me to get through these files last night?"

Sam's eyes widened in surprise. That voice….she knew that voice. She knew it by heart.

"But….it couldn't be…" Sam thought, biting her lip in confusion. Why would he be here?

Wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her or if she really had been away from WOOHP too long to remember anything clearly, Sam turned around to solve the mystery. But the moment she did her eyes widened even more when she found that it wasn't anyone else and she had been right. It was him.

Her eyes quickly skimmed over his familiar face and features; dark chestnut hair in the same style where a few bangs drifted over the right side of his forehead, tanned skin, high cheekbones, full lips, a muscular frame that towered at 6' 3", and deep, effervescent sea foam eyes.

She sucked in a breath as she kept staring at him. There was no doubt, it was him. It couldn't be anyone else.

In the back of her mind she couldn't help but notice that while she now looked like crap, he looked incredible. It had been two years since she'd last seen him but he looked just the same if not even more handsome, poised, elegant and confident. Somewhere she felt a slight pang of jealousy inside her at being so unkempt in comparison before she started to wonder if he was here to cause chaos just like before when she suddenly noticed something.

Scam…he was wearing a WOOHP employee suit. Black suit jacket, white shirt, black tie; just like he had been the very first time she had met him, laid eyes on him all those years ago before they officially became enemies.

Curious, she couldn't help but wonder why he was wearing it. Was he planning on retrying his "Mac Smit" plot? After a second of thought she gave up on that idea. No, Scam would never do that. He was much too smart and diligent to try the same plan over again especially when it had failed. Which meant there had to be another reason why he was dressed like this and was here at this time.

As she was still racking her brains to try and figure it out, suddenly Sam realized that Jerry had been silent ever since Scam's entrance. "That makes no sense," she thought to herself, furrowing her eyebrows together. Why wasn't Jerry panicking in the background? Why wasn't he rushing and calling security, calling guards to put Scam back in his cell before he attacked again? Unless…

Something else was going on here and Jerry knew what that was.

Turning to Jerry, she fixed him with a questioning stare. Seeing it, Jerry cleared his throat and started explaining. "…One of the changes we made while you were gone."

He paused, almost holding his breath as if bracing himself for how she might react to his news, making her more curious before he finally spit it out. "Sam, I'd like to introduce you to our new second in command…Tim Scam."

Whipping back around she glanced at Scam with eyes ready to pop out of their sockets before snapping her head back to Jerry. "But how is this…" she trailed off, her mind in knots as she struggled to understand the events that could have possibly led to this colossal change. "When did-"

"About a week after you left, Tim and I got to talking and he told me that he wanted to turn his life around."

"A week after I left…" Sam whispered quietly, more to herself than anyone else.

"Yes," Jerry said, nodding. "And at first I doubted his intentions, but before I knew it he was working alongside me and helping make this agency better than it ever was. I know it may be hard to believe but Tim's made some incredible contributions to WOOHP." Jerry smiled at Scam, pleased beyond words at their renewed partnership before speaking to Sam again, continuing in filling her in about everything Scam had done for the agency during her time away.

"Did I tell you we pay our employees now? That was one of his ideas that really took off. And you were talking about the WOOHPing system earlier, well Tim's been helping me devise a better method for getting agents here instead of yanking them out of their personal lives. It's in the works. His biggest input though, is completely reworking the security mainframe, we haven't had a single breakout ever since…"

But Sam wasn't even listening to anything that was leaving Jerry's mouth any longer. She stood there frozen in her place as her mind remained stuck on the very first thing he'd told her about Scam.

A week after she left, one week after. August 13th, the day she married Dean that was the day he'd chosen to become good, to become WOOHP's ally, turn his life around. When she was no longer there, no longer around…no longer part of it.

And here she'd thought she could never hate anyone more than she hated Dean Emerson.

Well, she thought as she gave him a glare, her anger fuming inside her like an active volcano just ready to erupt.

She had been wrong.

I wrote this one a whim. Got bored on a chilly, Canadian evening and just went with the mood lol. I dunno where exactly this is going or if it's going anywhere but decided to post this to get your reactions.

Like it? Would you like to see more? Anything you're wondering? I'd love to hear from you guys before I decide if I should continue this or scrap it entirely. So if you happen across this little chapter, please let me know what you thought. Thanks!

Love,

Cresenta's Lark :D

PS: Dean says the line Sam remembers back in his introductory episode "Evil Promotion Much?" Part 1 (Season 3 I believe). It's taken straight from the episode where Clover, Alex and Sam are fighting over him.