A/N: Background: Samtrick broke up, Jasam got back together, Patrick saved Robin but there wasn't a romantic reunion after. Patrick took a 6 month sabbatical and spent some time with her in California.

Also, while this is very much a Samtrick story, I don't intend to bash Jasam/Jason because that is a very important relationship to Sam.

Thank you for reading and reviews are appreciated. Also, blame Zoe.

"Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were."

-Marcel Proust

She should be happy. It's her thought as the light from the chandelier explodes off her wedding ring, her husband and son across the room, matching blue eyes, tentative smiles, still learning how to be again.

She is happy. That's what she tells herself. So what if she doesn't feel it in her bones and some mornings all she can manage is a weary smile because creating new memories has to be enough to fill the cracks in her that forgetting has left.

OoO

"Mommy, I miss Patrick"

He whispers it sleepily, tucked in the new racecar bed that replaced the one she couldn't bear to pack when they left. The lump that forms in her throat chokes her back in a way that she hadn't expected, tightening her chest, reminding her of the panic attacks she had the first time Cody made her run a con. Closing her eyes, she squeezes away the tears that threaten to spill out, slow deep breaths and then looks down at him, his face now peaceful in sleep, pushes his hair away from his face, "Me too buddy" she whispers, "Me too"

OoO

His hair is no longer curling at the collar, sheared short the way it had been when they had met more than a decade ago and her fingertips tingle in remembrance of how it felt fisted in her hand, wrapped between her fingers.

It wasn't something she anticipated…how, after six months of exile, he still stole the breath from her lungs. Biting her lip, she waits for him to turn, his skin even more golden tanned than when he left, surely the effects of the warm California sun, and when he does turn, his eyes darken, dimples deepen and he smiles, wide and sure. He still looks at her like she's the only thing he wants for the rest of his life.

One of her biggest fears was that she would never know what it was like, for him to look at her with that blistering smile, for everything between them to be fraught with tension and sadness.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes" he teases, the flirtatious tone in his voice one she remembers well and it coats her skin like warm honey.

Raising her eyebrow, she takes a couple steps closer to him, "Same could be said about you, Doctor Hollywood" she teases.

That garners a chuckle, "California is great...but it's not home" he tells her, their gazes matched, and she knows exactly what he means. She used to think home was a place…but in Port Charles she leaned that sometimes a home was a simple as the people who stopped making you want to run.

"How long have you been back?" she asks.

Someone calls him over the intercom and she wants to grab onto him and not let him go but he tilts his head resigning himself to it, "A week, Em's coming back next week and I promised I'd ask if it was okay for Danny to come hang out…she's uh…missed him, a lot" he tells her, the silence passing through them with things that they do not dare to speak.

"Of course"

The words lie on the tip of her tongue, and she wonders if his lips are blistered the same, "I gotta go" he says the intercom buzzing again and she nods and lets him turn around and leave.

Never realizing how much of her that he still carried with him.

OoO

"Sonny wants me to go down to the Island next weekend"

The words make her cringe in remembrance and she has to take a couple seconds to remind her that it's not like it was before. Jason had taken over part of the legal coffee business, working with the unions down in Puerto Rico to keep the plantations running smoothly.

Nodding she smiles at him, "Okay, sounds good"

"I was hoping that maybe you could come"

His new smile is still taking some getting used to, more boyish than the one before, same eyes, crystalline blue when he's happy and grinning like that at her. She wants to scream out a yes, go down there with him, forget about the last two years but she can't.

Old Sam would have. Dropped everything to follow him down there. But old Sam didn't have a son with a birthday party on Saturday, or a family dinner on Sunday that she had promised Kristina she'd be there for moral support, "I would love to but Danny's been looking forward to that birthday party this weekend and Kristina asked me to come on Sunday to the family dinner…she needs my moral support"

Twisting her lips, she watches his shoulders slump playfully, "Okay but next time, yeah" he asks coming towards her, opening his arms and she falls in, resting her head against his chest.

This used to be the place she felt the safest but now, the arms don't feel the same, and the way she fits against him isn't quite right.

OoO

"DADDDDDYYY"

Her heart escapes her chest, trapped in her throat and she can't breathe for a moment, the air growing thick as her knees quake. Danny's little legs move under him down the cobblestone walk and she watches him throw himself into the waiting arms.

Daddy.

Swallowing the emotion, she squeezes her eyes shut and counts back from five to try and calm the tears that threaten to fall. When she looks up, he's still in Patrick's arms talking animatedly, the toy race car clutched in his tiny hand. Dimples etch deep into cheeks as the doctor nods, laughs and then looks over to her.

Internal bleeding. That's what they call it, when everything is broken on the inside but you're still walking around like there aren't shards of yourself piercing vital organs. Closing the gap, she smiles, "Danny, remember" she says but the words refuse to come and she looks up apologetically at the warm brown eyes that stare down at her.

"It's okay" he whispers, patting Danny's head before putting him down on the ground.

Biting her lip, she feels her will betray her as a tear slips out from the puddles in her eyes. Before she can reach it, he's moving his own had to swipe it with the smooth pads of his thumb. There's a moment his fingers linger, their gazes match and she almost forgets that they're in the middle of a walkway, that Lucas is waiting for her at Kelly's…that he's no longer hers to stand with under the sun, basking in the glow from both.

And it's a sharp knife that slices through taut muscle, right against the bone.