This is my first fanfiction. I love writing it and I hope you will at least enjoy reading it. Please review!
This is for all J/S shippers out there and for Poppy Montgomery who thinks that Sam is still in love with Jack.
Disclaimer: I don't own them. CBS does. C'est la vie!
Taken
He has almost lost her twice. The memories are hovering near the surface while he is staring down into the cup filled with cold coffee. It is still full.
He has tried to keep the panic down all day, managing to be outwardly calm and professional – as always. But something inside him is starting to slide.
They have found nothing. There are no leads to go on. Nobody has seen anything. Vivien, Danny and Martin are still conducting interviews, but Jack can feel deep inside that it is a waste of time. This is a bad one.
One of the good things about his work is that people actually turn up again some of the time. He likes to get them back unharmed. He even likes the annoying ones who come back from trips they have not told anyone about, wide-eyed and flabbergasted by all the commotion they have caused. The relief he feels at those times is sweet. But this is a bad one. He can tell. Something has happened to her.
He lifts his face, gazing at Sam's photograph mounted on the white board with the horizontal red line. Her blond hair is tied back in a ponytail and she is wearing a blue blouse. She looks beautiful. He remembers it is the same photo he showed a drug dealer not so long ago. Someone they suspected had a hand in her abduction while she was undercover on a case. He and Martin got to her in time – barely.
Jack can feel his hands beginning to shake. He takes a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.
He has hurt her plenty in the years they have known each other. He has not meant to. You never mean to hurt what you love most. And still it happens. He has been unable to prevent that. The choices that he made for his family – good choices he still thinks – have nevertheless caused her a lot of grief… and, yeah… him, too.
Never mind. That is in the past.
Once when things turned really ugly he has been there for her. She was held hostage in a bookstore, the "Table of Contents", critically wounded by a gunshot in the leg. Jack remembers talking to another hostage he had negotiated out of there moments before. The man told him:
"She's bleeding all over the place. She's gonna die in there."
Jack is almost losing it in that moment. There is but one thought in his head – to get her out of there even if it means to give up his life.
He tries to turn his mind away from the memories. They hurt too much.
Little does he know how much Sam treasures what he has done. How much she trusts him.
Jack would not understand that trust. He knows he is responsible for what happened to her. He is her boss. If he had made different choices, given different orders, she would have been perfectly safe.
She called in sick yesterday. Today she did not turn up for work. He was instantly concerned, feeling a deep uneasiness inside. He called her but she did not take the phone. He remembers Vivien smiling at him, telling him she certainly would be there shortly.
She was not.
Fifteen minutes later they were standing at her front door. No one opened. Jack decided to break down the door. His leg still hurts from the impact. But she was not there. The apartment was tidy and peaceful. And Jack had known instantly that something was horribly wrong.
Jack puts the coffee down. He lowers his head into his hands. His mind is churning out possible scenarios. They have called her mother, spoken to her friends, interviewed the neighbors, even the man who owns the grocery store where she likes to shop. He has turned every conversation he has had with her in the last couple of days over and over in his mind. Nothing.
The phone rings. It is Danny. His voice is slightly choked. He knows he is the bearer of bad news. They have found something. In Central Park. It looks like a black coat and a pair of black shoes. Jack wills his mind to turn to a blank. It can be anyone's coat, anyone's pair of shoes. He raises his head. Through the glass-partitioning he can see Martin come down the corridor. Martin catches the look on his face and stops, eyes widening in concern. His affair with Sam has been over for some time now and Jack knows that he has a new girlfriend. He also suspects that Sam is not really over him. She seems sad at times and Martin is sweet and considerate toward her. Jack has held himself back. So much has been going on in his life. He is bruised, he still sleeps badly and he feels almost numb. It got even worse after the deposition. Jack will never tell anyone, but he has started to feel inferior, to feel like a failure. The guilt he carries around is worsening all the time. He has hoped for a long time in a secret part of his heart that maybe he and Sam still have a chance. But he is beginning to give up on it. It is not happening.
And now she is gone.