Title: Brain Freeze
Pairings: Sam/Jules, Steve/Jules
Rating: PG (just to be safe)
Word Count: 969
Warnings: Spoilers for Follow the Leader and Severed Ties.
Disclaimer: You know the drill. I don't own Flashpoint, but my birthday is in 12 days :D

A/N: Ok, so I'm back *inserts fanfare music and applause*... and I guess this is just my take on what happened in Follow the Leader. I am totally 100% against Steve and FOR Sam/Jules, because you might be wondering throughout the story which side I'm on. Jam for life :P I know there has to be some way for them to be together again... and I'm thoroughly convinced that they still love each other. Grr... Steve... He's ruining my life. Anyway, I thought Follow the Leader was a great episode (minus Steve), but a somewhat bittersweet for die-hard Jam fans like me. Anyway, enjoy the story... It might be a bit crappy seeing as I took a fairly long break from writing and wrote nothing at all. More Sam/Jules stories are on the way! Forecast for this season of Flashpoint: Jammy with a chance of Steve

Dedicated to my Jammers... you know who you are :P

To this day, the most difficult part of being an elite police officer on a tactical team like the SRU has not so much been the physical pain of the job, but the emotional pain that follows you and haunts you every single day.

Weeks go by, people get killed, negotiations are failed, and you absentmindedly mutter your signature catchphrase, "I'm fine", as a way of avoiding an unwanted date with Dr. Luria.

With the job comes truckloads of guilt, regret and sacrifices that you have to make to be at the top of your game one hundred and ten percent of the time. And at this point, it was the sacrifices that were troubling Julianna Callaghan the most.

"I love you Sam, but I'm not going to let getting shot stand in the way of me going back."

"You mean I'm not going to stand in your way."

It had been months since she had so ruthlessly dumped her teammate and ex, Sam Braddock, on his ass, so to speak, and now, after the frightening and nearly deadly events of the past several hours, she was beginning to wonder why she had done it.

The answer seemed so simple at the time. The team comes first. Ever since that day, Jules' feelings for Sam were nothing more than a strained friendship, almost forced, seeing as they had to get along to work in sync as a team. But now she couldn't help but wonder if there was still some sort of a spark between them.

Just the other day, when Sam had told her that he liked that she spoke her mind, a million unwanted thoughts and feelings that she hoped would remain locked away for good had been resurfaced, just with that one simple phrase.

"Sam you did everything you could. You pull back now! Now Sam!"

God knows how many times she had called his name right then. More than the others for sure. Hot tears were stinging her eyes and her voice was wavering and quaking. Spike had tried to pull her away to safety, but she resisted. Sam was still out there, and they were about to lose another for no reason, just like they had lost Lew. She couldn't let that happen.

Sam had an uncanny knack for getting personal with their subjects, but this time he had gone too far. They were down to less than a minute before the bomb went off and Sam was still trying to talk down that kid, as if in attempt to make up for what happened to Darren Kovacs. But by some miracle, Sam had pulled away and come sprinting to safety, pressing himself up against Jules to shield her from the flying shrapnel. He was trying to protect her, she was sure of it.

Jules was trying to put together all the pieces and signs that she could recall to see if she could come up with a logical explanation for her feelings for Sam, other than the obvious. But just like trying to get 2 and 2 to equal 10, she had no such luck. Was she still in love with Sam? The answer terrified her either way, so she chose to remain undecided.

And then there was Steve. He was exactly the way she remembered, only more weathered looking, probably due to his trying job. Her heart skipped a beat when he flashed her the famous 'Steve smile' that he would when she sat quietly and studied on the bleachers while watching his basketball practice. The relationship between them had never flourished though. He was extremely popular, she wasn't, therefore their status remained as one of the 'admiring from a distance' sort, the way you would admire a puppy in the pet shop window that you knew you couldn't have.

Nevertheless, it seemed to Jules that fate had given her a second chance to be with Steve. A chance that the cheerleaders and high school cliques had never let her have. She questioned herself though, just as she was questioning her feelings for a certain blonde sniper:

After not seeing someone for ten years, do you really still know them? Or are they just a small fragment of a memory from a bitter time that you're not sure you really want to relive?

If only Sam had never left Afghanistan… If only Greg could have been seen by the other paramedic… If only there weren't so many rules…

"We have the rules for a reason. You break them, you go home."

Jules had heard that phrase countless times throughout her training and career with the SRU. You can't be in love with your colleague. What an idiotic rule. You're supposed to get along and treat each other as family, right? Then why not be in love?

Screw the rules, Jules thought. It's not like Spike was thinking straight when Lewis was standing on the landmine, and no one's going around saying you can't be best friends with someone on your team because it's a distraction. Unconditional love for your best friend and unconditional love for well, your lover, are the same thing, aren't they?

Jules was convinced that Spike and Lew would have taken a bullet for each other any day, just as Greg would for Ed, or Sam would for her, even now.

Whatever the answer to whatever the question, Jules' heart was in ruins. She was too tired and confused to think rationally about anything. The pain from all the grief and regret she felt coursed through her; a cold harsh pain that could otherwise be described as brain freeze, minus the ice cream. But that was just part of the job, whether she liked it or not.

For now, everything remained up in the air. Only time would tell.

Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Peace, Love and Jam :)