Just A Friend, a without a trace fanfic

Title: Just A Friend
Author: Taliesin
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Set a few days after Fallout II
Dedication: Maple Street.

Just A Friend

There were four hundred and thirty two dots on the ceiling above her hospital bed. It was the fourth time she had counted them and the fourth different answer she had gotten. Samantha sighed. It had been five days since the shooting. Five days that she had been in this bed and five days that she had wanted desperately to be somewhere else.

Samantha was not against feeling better but she didn't particularly like hospitals. She hadn't had to go into them many times as a child, except the time she broke her wrist, and had even less reason as an adult except for the occasional work related visit. They made her feel uncomfortable.

She had had plenty of visitors the last few days. Danny had been up twice and Martin and Vivian had been up as well. Van Doren had made a rather perfunctory official visit … even Keller had come up to see how she was. She glanced at the small table beside her bed to see the vases of flowers. Martin and Keller had both come bearing bunches of flowers. Martin's slightly more to her liking but she had thanked them both, not really wanting to tell either of them her true feelings about flowers.

Her mother had offered to fly out immediately but Samantha had told her that she was fine and that she didn't need to bother. To be honest, Sam had no real desire to face up to her Mother at a time like this, with her small town accent and her over-protective tendencies.

The only visit she hadn't had was ironically the one that the one that she wanted the most. In a way she didn't want to see Jack, but a part of her was telling her that she was just lying to herself. She wanted him there. She needed him there … if only for a minute.

She sighed again. The painkillers she was on were sending her body messages to sleep but her mind wouldn't let her. She kept picturing it, the bullet flying into her leg, the pain that had it had caused, seeing Jack walk into the bookstore … feeling his arms around her as he carried her out.

She was asleep when he arrived.

He sat down in the hard chair beside her bed. She looked peaceful but still not well, her face was still a little drawn and the IV drip connected to her hand ruined any illusion that she was just peacefully sleeping. Seeing her like that pulled at his heart more than he wanted to admit. He had sent her into that bookstore. She had gone willingly and he had gotten her out, willingly exchanging his life for hers, but in the end it was him that had sent her in there.

Jack tried not to let his mind wander to when he used to watch her sleep while laying beside her. How he had reached out to brush back a lock of blonde hair from her face, watching how her chest rose and fell and how her hand reached out for his as she slept.

He failed. She was so beautiful, and he should have come sooner. How had he thought that not seeing her for five days was going to make him forget? How had he thought that he could forget her at all? If being apart from Sam for five days had done anything, it had just made him miss her more, made him want to be with her, if only just to sit beside her and watch her breathe.

A woman in a nurse's uniform walked into the room an indeterminable amount of time later. Jack had lost track of time. The nametag on her chest identified her as 'Gloria Wallace.' She seemed a little startled to see Jack sitting in the room. 'Excuse me, sir?'

Jack looked up at her, shifting his gaze from Samantha for the first time in many minutes.

Gloria continued once she saw she had his attention. 'The hospital's visiting hours end in ten minutes.'

He nodded at her, 'I was just about to leave anyway. Thanks' He hadn't been, but it seemed like the thing to say. He returned his gaze to Samantha's sleeping form.

'I'm sorry, sir?'

Jack looked back up to see Gloria still standing at the end of Samantha's bed.

'Are you her husband? Or boyfriend? If you are, you are welcome to stay as long as you like.'

Jack heard the rather flat tone in her voice, as the words "If you are, then why the hell haven't you been here any sooner?" remained unsaid, but implied. He wished he could say those words, to stay with her longer, but no, there weren't anymore secrets. He instead shook his head and answered, 'No … no, I'm just a friend.'

Just a friend. His own words echoed in his head for a second. But that's what he was now, he reminded himself. He was just a friend. He had never hated the sound of the word friend quite so much, or perhaps it was the fact that it had the word 'just' in front of it.

Gloria didn't look all that convinced but nodded, 'Okay, sir. You have ten minutes.' She left the room.

Only ten minutes. He sighed. He probably should have gone a while ago anyway. He had to go home. Home to his wife and kids. Away from Samantha.

Jack dug his hands into the pockets of the dark woollen jacket that he hadn't taken it off despite the temperature in the hospital being quite comfortable. He wore this jacket almost every day and hardly ever cleaned it out and so was not surprised at the amount of things he found buried in its deep pockets. He didn't quite know what he was looking for. Something. Anything to tell her that he had been here.

He had thought about buying flowers on the way here, but then he remembered what she had told him once. That while flowers were nice to look at, they had no real meaning and the only circumstances under which she would actually genuinely enjoy receiving flowers was if they actually meant something to her, and weren't just bought to look pretty sitting on her kitchen table or desk. Jack had bypassed the florist and now continued to search his pockets

His hand brushed against something. One of the numerous pieces of folded paper that were hidden in the pockets' depths, but this one was different. It was a thicker type of paper, more rough to his touch, obviously not from the office supply cabinet. Jack brought it out of his pocket and smiled as saw it and started to unfold it.

It was a takeaway menu from a Chinese restaurant just down the road from the FBI building. They had eaten there a couple of times. He remembered the night this menu was from. They had been in the middle of a big case, a physics professor from NYU had gone missing 24 hours before and they had very few leads. It was late and they were the only ones left at the office and they had managed to drag themselves out to take a quick break before getting back to it. He had suggested the restaurant and she hadn't argued. They had both tried to avoid talking about the case but in the end that goal had proved futile. Both of their minds had been whirling, thinking of all the people who had seen him that day and who could possibly have a motive to abduct a genial elderly physics professor, or any reason he would have to leave without even telling his secretary of fifteen years. She had been the first to reach out for the menu and to start scribbling on it with a pen she had left the office unconsciously carrying, noting down what they knew so far. He had joined her a moment later, them both bent over the table trying to decipher what the other was writing, their hands touching each others every so often as they passed the menu across the table when the efforts at reading upside down grew to difficult. They had cracked the case the next day and it had been that night that Jack had realised that what he might feel for Samantha was maybe something more than just a not so simple physical attraction. He looked at the menu in his hands. Their writing twined around each other's, hers as equally hard to read as his own but maybe with a little more flair, a slightly lighter touch.

Jack had cleaned out his pockets since that night, but he had been careful never to remove this menu from them. Until now. He folded it back up and leant it against the water jug that sat on the small table beside Samantha's bed.

He looked at his watch, ten minutes was nearly up. He stood up and watched her for a few seconds. She was still so beautiful. He still wanted to brush that lock of hair from her face. He thought of all the reasons he shouldn't do it, but it was shouted down by the one reason that he should. Jack gave into temptation and softly reached down and tucked the hair behind her right ear, revelling at the softness of her skin. He cupped her cheek for just a second before withdrawing his hand to his side. He tried not to think about how good that had felt, how well their hands had fitted together, and how seeing her smile had sent a warm feeling shooting through his body … how it still did.

With one last look, Jack turned around and left her hospital room. Ignoring the beating of his heart and instead concentrating on putting one-step in front of the other. If he stooped concentrating, he knew where he would end up. Right back by her bedside. Determined never to leave it.

Samantha opened her eyes just in time to see him leave. His shoulders hunched a little in that all too familiar black jacket that he always wore and him walking out the doorway and into the austere hospital corridor. She thought to call out to him, but stopped herself. He had probably just stopped in for a minute and then seeing her had left, not wanting to stay while she was asleep.

She tried to ignore the way she had felt when she had seen him there, if only seeing him leave, and told herself that the hand she had felt across her face was all just a part of her dream.

Her gaze moved to the table at her right, in search of the water jug as her sleep had left her throat dry. A red piece of paper lay against the jug, which definitely hadn't been there before. Samantha reached over, wincing a little as her leg moved a little, and picked it up, looking at it curiously. It seemed to be advertising sweet and sour pork and egg foo yung. Had he accidentally left his take out menu on her table? She unfolded it and smiled as she read the words printed on it in two different types of handwriting, one set hers … the other his. She remembered that night. She had started to fall in love with him that night.

Gloria walked into the room. Sam liked her. She was a no nonsense nurse but still gave her a smile every time she walked past. 'I see he's gone,' she said.

She was obviously talking about Jack. 'Yeah, I woke up just as he left,' she was sill looking down at the menu.

'He must have been here about an hour and a half. He said he was 'just a friend' of yours?' One of Gloria's eyebrows was raised just slightly, willing Sam to tell her otherwise.

'Yeah, he is. Just a friend,' Sam replied. Trying to ignore the fact that he had sat and watched her sleep for an hour and a half. Because that's all they were now, wasn't it? Just friends. She still held the menu between her fingertips.

Gloria just looked at her, but said nothing. 'You should rest,' she said pointedly.

'I just woke up!' Sam protested. She ran the paper through her fingers.

'Well then you should rest some more,' Gloria said straight back to her. It was a tone that didn't leave much room for argument.

Samantha sighed and said, 'Okay.'

'Good.' Gloria gave her a smile. 'Sweet dreams.' She switched off the light as she left.

Sam heard her footsteps retreating down the corridor and settled down to rest again. She really wanted out of here. This much rest had to bad for you. She folded the red piece of paper back up, feeling the creases in the darkness and placed it back up on the table.

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the images that formed in front of her closed eyelids. Writing on a red piece of paper, smiling, his lips on hers, her hand in his.

Gloria walked down the corridor. Just a friend? She obviously didn't have the right type of friends if they were supposed to look at her like that.

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