Disclaimer: I don't own the show… or the characters.

Summary: Samantha Spade, Hanna Malone. Ten years, and some questions are better left unanswered.

A/N: Mariel, thank you for your advice on this! The characters in this one-shot are Sam, Hanna Malone and Dr. Lisa Harris (whom Sam is talking to), but this is a J&S fic. It's been too long since I've written anything on these two…

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Line of Duty

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The walls are still the same, but the wallpapers have faded, and the glass panels, once so solid and spotless, now look like they might shatter if you lean too heavily against them. Ten years have left their mark in lines on people's faces and scars on the furniture−and yet this place, this building, all these corridors and offices spark feelings within me that are overwhelmingly familiar.

"I must say, I was surprised when you called."

I was surprised, too. Ten years since our last meeting feels like forever.

"I didn't think you'd keep my number."

Actually, I hadn't. Old files had done that for me. Files I could never throw away, files that told the story of lives we had saved and lives we had lost and lives that were never the same again after we were done with them. These reports conjure up too many memories, scattered around in a collection of moments that have passed in a swirl of sadness and joy and tears and pain; but I still have them all, because they have her number, my writing, and somewhere on the last page, his signature.

"Why did you come?"

The tone holds curiosity. Why after ten years. Why come to me. Why today. Why−

"I met Hanna Malone."

For a moment she remains quiet, looks at me; and from where I sit I can see the strain of these past ten in her eyes.

"Did she remember you?"

You mean, did she recognize me after all this time?

Yes and no would be the appropriate answer. She remembered that his team was there. She remembered my lonely silhouette standing still in the wind, the face of a woman dressed in black, whose light hair fluttered in the breeze. She remembered being a child and not understanding why her mother had forbidden her to talk to that lady, whom she didn't know and had never approached before. And she remembered how Danny the funny agent had wrapped an arm around the lady's frail shoulders and led her away in silence.

The things she didn't remember were the one she hadn't witnessed. She hadn't felt the tears that stung my eyes, hadn't sensed the emptiness within me. She hadn't heard her father's voice in my ear, nor the words he had seemed to whisper to me on that cold morning.

"She remembered the wind."

A wry smile pulls at the corners of my lips. We all remember the wind most. It's impossible to dissociate from the place and the silence. Every time I head there, after work, during the weekends sometimes, on Sunday mornings when the city still sleeps, the wind keeps me company, and my hair still flutters like it did ten years ago. And I still stand immobile in the breeze.

"Are you usually alone?"

She doesn't come anymore. Well, maybe once or twice a year, but I'm not there when she does. I can't blame her. I can't really hate her, either. I was the one who never told her that even though she had his ring, somehow, I was the one who had his heart.

"Hanna had flowers."

Flowers and questions.

She introduced herself first, and I returned the favor. I told her my name. But even if everything about her, the way she walked, even the intensity in her gaze, was hauntingly familiar, I didn't elaborate. I couldn't bring myself to explain that he used to call me Sam; couldn't tell her that he had been the only one who could ever get away with it.

"I… She asked me whether I was the one."

The one who was with him in that moment. The one who should have died, should have taken that shot, except he didn't let me.

"She wanted to talk about that night."

"Why?"

Why? I let the question linger in the air, my eyes falling on a frame on Lisa's desk. Her daughter looks different now. Ten years and it feels like yesterday since I last walked through these walls, yet everything on the outside, all these little details that add up to make an office special, have changed and now leave me with a sour taste of left behind in my mouth.

Why did she want to talk about that night? Because she had questions. She couldn't know. We'd worked hard enough during the time we'd been together to make sure no one ever would. She wanted to talk, because the only answer she ever got from her mother was, he died in the line of duty. She was sick of hearing about duty and doing what's right and giving up your life for a noble cause.

No one had ever told her whose life her father had saved that night− ten years, and some questions are better left unanswered.

I shut my eyes once more, trying to forget. And I know it won't work− I've been trying to forget for ten years.

"You weren't responsible, Samantha."

Ha. I wasn't responsible. It's the line that hurts the most− the line I've heard over and over again until I was so sick of it I stopped talking to the people who kept repeating it. I wasn't responsible− that was the result of hours of questioning and official statements and reports. That's what was concluded, that's what Hanna heard and what her sister heard and what Maria was told.

I wasn't responsible, but I had still quit. I couldn't work on that job anymore. Couldn't enter his office. Couldn't not see him in the elevator, on the phone, in front of the white board.

Couldn't work with his ghost.

I wasn't responsible, but…

I was.

Guns out, because we didn't know what we were going to find. Flashlights on, because it was dark. An empty warehouse in the Bronx, and we were supposed to find cocaine. Our missing person that was part of a ring of drug-smugglers wasn't there.

Guess we came here for nothing, he said, putting his gun away.

Guess we did.

It was dark. Dark like his hair, dark like the light in his eyes when he walked to me−but I couldn't tell Hanna that. Couldn't tell her how he stopped an inch from my face and how his lips found mine for a brief kiss.

We're on duty, I laughed. But I didn't mind. Not really. It was dark and the warehouse was empty and it all felt so good, being able to touch each other because no one was there and no one would know and−

Flashlights dropped on the floor, his arm sneaking around my waist. His breath hot in my ear, tickling, teasing me, making me want him more. Hands roaming over my body, that overwhelming need to get closer; my fingers in his hair and his nose brushing against mine as we kissed, his soft gasp when my hand slipped under his shirt−

My hand suddenly finding my gun, because something wasn't right, there was someone behind him who'd just showed up and−

He moved to protect me, moved instinctively, moved because he cared and he needed to make sure I wasn't going to get hurt. He moved, shielding my body, and took the shot that was meant for me, a bullet finding flesh and the beating in my chest not loud enough to cover the sound of death as my own gun came alive and two men lost their lives in a warehouse that was supposed to be empty.

"So what did Hanna say?"

I stare ahead, dazed out of the memory like so many times in the past ten years.

Ten years. He forgot he was supposed to stay, forgot that his life was more important than mine will ever be, forgot to take me with him that night.

"She asked me what his last words were."

I couldn't tell her. Not Hanna, not Vivian, not Maria, not Lisa.

Hand on my cheek, a smile on cold, cracked lips when his eyes found mine and saw the tears in them, and then one last, soft whisper.

It's okay, Sam.

Oh, how I wish I could have believed his last words the way I believed every lie and truth he'd ever said against my ear.

I couldn't tell Hanna. I couldn't tell her how her father had died with my name on his lips. And I couldn't tell her why. "I told her it all went down too fast. I−I told her he didn't have the time to talk."

The voice becomes softer. "And did he?"

Has Lisa guessed the reason I'm here today? She should know. Should know that it's been ten years, and I still can't let it go.

I shake my head. "No." Ten years, and the lies are still with me. "I told Hanna that Jack Malone died in the line of duty."

He died taking the bullet that was meant for me, died with his hand squeezing mine, died with the one lie that I wish could have become a truth.

It's okay, Sam.

No. It isn't.

It will never be.

/ End