Title: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Author: kingzgurl
Fandom: Popular
Pairing: Sam/Harrison
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: Quasi-AU, Harrison never got together with Brooke or Sam, George and Sam are still together, Nicole still ran over Brooke. Sam realizes that the old axiom is true: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." For the 2008 Kink/Cliché challenge.
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"Sam," Harrison begged, his dismay shining in his wide, chocolate brown eyes. "Choose. I'm dying here."
"George," Sam declared, her heart beginning to crack as she did so. "I choose George." It wasn't fair of Harrison to spring this on her and then make her choose so suddenly. It wasn't like him to make her choose between her best friend and her boyfriend. But he had, and she had made her decision.
"Then we're over Sammy. Have a nice life," Harrison told her seriously, the heartbreak of rejection written painfully across his face.
"Harrison, wait," Sam tried to stop him as he turned and walked away, she wanted to beg him to go back to the way they were before, she wanted him to be her best friend who could always make her smile and laugh. Instead, he walked away from her down the long deserted hallway until he could no longer be seen at all. It was as if he had never actually been there, and Sam felt something break inside of her. Unable to fight them any longer, she gave in to the tears that had been threatening to fall since Harrison had first given her the ultimatum.
--
The next year and a half passed surprisingly quickly. Harrison didn't speak to her, and as the months passed, he hardly glanced at her anymore. If their eyes happened to meet in class or in the cafeteria, they both quickly turned away, pretending they hadn't noticed the other.
Before they knew it, they were graduating. While everyone else put aside their differences for the week of festivities, Sam and Harrison continued to avoid one another. Even when George dumped Sam in the middle of the ceremony, Harrison didn't bat an eye.
Carmen and Lily tried to console her afterwards, promising a girls only Grad Night. Even Brooke and Mary Cherry had decided to join them for their last night of high school in the hopes of cheering her up. The problem was, it wasn't the girls she wanted to spend the evening with. Their words weren't the ones she wanted to hear, and their arms weren't the ones she wanted to hug her.
"Happiest Place on Earth," Sam scoffed later that night, "right." She'd been following the girls around Disneyland for a few hours, forcing herself to join in when they laughed and make small talk when they looked at her for her input, but otherwise silently hanging back. Lucky for her, she was able to slip away unnoticed in a dimly lit ride exit.
Finally alone with her thoughts, Sam walked through the relatively empty New Orleans Square. The lines for the two main attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, were short and mostly contained within the buildings, leaving only the occasional group of people walking through and a flow of people exiting the rides every few minutes. Leaning over the fence on the edge of the lake, Sam let her thoughts drift as she looked over at Tom Sawyer's Island.
"Do you remember, when we were seven, your parents lost us over there?"
The voice on her left startled Sam out of her memories. There was only one person she had ever gotten lost at Disneyland with. "Harrison," she breathed, turning to the man next to her.
"Hey Sammy," Harrison flashed his trademark lopsided grin. "I see you ditched the girls."
Even after so many months of not speaking, he could still make her smile with a simple statement. "Yeah," Sam replied, "I just wanted to be alone for a little while."
"Oh," Harrison's smile faded from his face. "Well, I'll just leave you alone then."
"Don't," Sam reached for his hand as he turned to leave. "Don't go."
Threading his fingers through hers, he let Sam pull him back to the fence and settle herself comfortably against his side. Her head still fit perfectly in the crook between his shoulder and his neck. Raising his free hand to her face, Harrison stroked her cheek tenderly before lifting her chin so she was looking at him.
"Sam," Harrison wiped away the single tear that was falling down her face. "I can't be your second choice. I can't be your rebound after George. But I can't go to college without making things right between us."
"You were never my second choice, Harrison," Sam was struggling against her tears. "You were just a different choice. You were my best friend, and no matter what choice I made, I was going to lose you."
"You didn't lose me, Sammy," Harrison closed his eyes to block his own tears. "I was always watching out for you."
That admission came as a shock. Sam had been so sure he had forgotten all about her when he walked away that spring afternoon. She knew he wasn't like that, but it had made it easier to try to pretend that it wasn't her fault they were no longer friends.
"So when Brooke was in the hospital…" Sam wondered. She'd had the same dream every night of the four months Brooke spent in the hospital after being run over. Harrison had come to her wherever she was, whether at the hospital or at the house, and had held her. Night after night, from the time she would be falling asleep until just before she woke up, he held her close and comforted her through the night. She had always told herself it was a dream, and every morning it had hurt to realize he hadn't actually been there. But maybe…
"Yeah," Harrison admitted, looking her straight in the eye. "I was there."
"Why…" Sam trailed off, trying to decide how to voice the questions she had. Why did he come to her? Why did he make her think it wasn't real? Why didn't he talk to her during that time when he knew she needed him most?
"Because I was hurt, Sammy," Harrison answered her unasked questions. He always seemed to know what she was thinking, and apparently the last year hadn't changed that. "I was mad at you, and mad at myself, but I needed to be with you as much as you needed me." He paused, tilting his head so his forehead rested against Sam's hair. "It was just easier to pretend that it was a dream."
"I missed you," Sam mumbled against his neck. She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding onto him as tightly as she could. It was like the dream she had occasionally, when he would come back to her, only to slip away again. This time was different, though. His heartbeat against her chest told her this was real.
"I missed you too," Harrison told her seriously, wrapping his own arms around her body.
The pair stood there for a long time, away from the stream of people coming and going from the rides, lost in their own thoughts and the feeling of being held by the person they loved. Finally, after what seemed like hours of standing there, Sam pulled out of the embrace just far enough to look up at Harrison's face.
"I love you," she whispered softly, tears shimmering in her eyes. She finally knew what Harrison was going through the day he sent her that email, and the day he told her to choose. He had put their relationship on the line, willing to risk their friendship for something that could be so much more, because the risk was worth it. And now, just as they were attempting to rebuild that friendship, as they were about to go off to college and their own lives, Sam knew she had to take the risk. Because she knew they could be great together. She'd known it since she was a kid and had told her parents that she and Harrison would get married when they were old enough.
"Sam." Harrison looked at her tear-filled eyes, and he could feel his heart breaking again. "I can't be your rebound."
"I'm not rebounding," Sam tried to convince him. Tears fell slowly from her big brown eyes, the truthfulness of her words shining in their depths. "George and I were over before Christmas, even if we didn't break up until today. I think he always knew that my heart belonged to you."
Harrison brought his hands to the sides of her face, wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. "But you were so upset after graduation…" he remembered watching her cry earlier that day, remembered fighting the urge to go take her in his arms and let her cry.
"It wasn't because of George," she told him, "it was because I was so afraid I'd never see you again; that you'd never talk to me or give me a hug when I needed it. Graduation seemed so final."
Harrison's gaze fell from her puffy eyes to her full, pink lips. She'd always been able to make him give in whenever she pouted, and this was no exception. Dropping his mouth to hers, he placed a short, chaste kiss on her soft lips. It was like a bolt of electricity shot through his body at the touch, leaving a tingling sensation in his lips, fingers, and toes.
Sam gasped as Harrison pulled away, shocked by her body's reaction to the light kiss but needing more. With a hand on the back of his neck, she pulled him down for another kiss, this one much less innocent than the first. Opening her mouth to his questioning tongue, she deepened the kiss, pulling his body flush against hers with the arm still wrapped around his torso.
Their tongues danced together, stroking and exploring gently, tangling and massaging. Nerves on fire from everywhere he touched, Sam suppressed a moan by lightly biting down on Harrison's lower lip.
"That's about what I figured."
George's voice took a moment to register in the back of Sam's mind and few seconds longer to process his words. Pulling her lips from Harrison's, she kept her eyes closed as she fought to catch her breath, her forehead resting against his and their gasping breaths mingled.
"What do you mean by that?" Sam asked when her breathing had steadied, turning to look at her very recent ex-boyfriend but not lessening her hold on Harrison.
"Just figures that as soon as we were over you'd go running back to him. Actually, my guess is you two've been together a lot longer than just a few hours. There's no way the pair of you just stopped talking last year," George kept accused the pair.
"Now wait just a minute, George," Harrison jumped in, releasing his hold on Sam and turning so he was fully facing the other man. "Sam and I didn't do anything while you were together. We didn't talk since last year."
"So I'm supposed to believe you when you tell me that you really let her just walk away?" George questioned in disbelief.
"Yes," Harrison declared. "You made her happy, and that's all I ever wanted for her."
"I'm sure," George responded sarcastically.
"If you don't believe me, then the least you can do is believe her," Harrison told him, already annoyed with George smearing Sam's reputation. He could feel Sam shaking beside him, clearly upset by George's words, and he squeezed her hand to let her know that he was there.
"Huh," George grunted noncommittally. "Whatever. I don't have to worry about that problem anymore."
"Then why don't you leave?" Harrison questioned. He was angry that George could turn his strong, independent Sammy into the silent, quivering woman standing next to him, but he wasn't angry enough to believe that he could take on the varsity quarterback in a fight.
"Maybe I will," George looked at the couple in the dim light. "I've wasted too much time here anyway." With that said, he turned and walked away, leaving Harrison and Sam holding onto each other for support in the near darkness.