Author's note: I know what your thinking, Where the hell has she been? I'm sorry I've had this chapter written for a couple of months and I've been meaning to check it over but life got in the way. I had to study for finals and once that was done I forgot my charger for my computer so it was dead for 2 weeks. Than my grandmother went into the hospital and work started up again. All of this combined with my volunteer work distracted me. I'm sorry! I'm going to try and write more but you have to bear with me, I have a lot coming up.

To my fellow writers PLEASE write more JAM! I miss having new JAM stories to read. Plus reading new JAM stories always motivates me to write JAM.

I also would like to put it out there that i do not have a beta reader so the only person that looked this over is me, so sorry if there are mistakes(Especially with this chapter I wanted to get it out there as a result i did not spend as much time as I normally do checking it over). Also I have a disability when it come writing so my grammar is not the best, I apologize. Review are loved and greatly appreciated.

I own nothing but the idea for the story

Sam stood in the Kitchen chopping up vegetables for dinner, being careful not to cut himself. Normally he would be done by now but he's got a lot on his mind. It's been three weeks since Jason's funeral, two since Hasting dropped the hint to Mister and one since Mister called him. Mister said since he wasn't currently active military he couldn't divulge what Jason had been working on, it was classified. However, he did say he could still use his help in track down the SOB that did this to Jason, but he would have to do it all while being in the dark. Typically he push for intel, try to get something, anything on what the mission was, but at the same time he knows that this had to be an extremely important case for Jay to take it. Jay didn't take on secret missions, not since Sarah came into the picture, lying to her, going behind her back, just wasn't something he was conferrable with, not something he would do, so for him do so, the stakes had to be pretty damn high.

"—Jess, okay?"

Huh? Wait what?

"...Sam?"

He zoned back in and glanced up to Jules staring at him, waiting for his answer. When he looked up at Jules he saw her face change from waiting to a mix between annoyed and amused. She put down the towel she had been using to dry her hands and made her way around the island to stand next to him.

"Sam did you hear anything I just said?" she questioned as she approached, this wasn't the first time he'd spaced on her since Jason's funeral. He put down his knife and turned his body to face hers.

"That depends." he said as he his arms encircled her waist. Her arms instinctively moved to wrap around his neck. "Will I be in the dog house if I say no?" She smiled.

"I don't know, maybe. It depends on how much you make it up to me." He leaned down and kissed her, he demanded entrance into her mouth and she quickly complied. After a minute he pulled away.

"Does that get me out of the dog house?" he asked.

"It a start." she said breathless resting her head onto his, their faces were millimeters apart.

"A good one I hope." He whispered pulling her closer, when he did so his forehead never left hers but his mouth bobbed back and forth, getting extremely close to her mouth only to move away from hers again. He was teasing her and she knew it, but god he was making it hard to focus. She licked her lips and leaned up to kiss him.

"Don't do this now Sam or were going to burn dinner, later" He was about to protest but he saw the look in her eyes that told him she wanted this just as much as him, but now was not the time. He sighed kissing her one more time before he let her go. She moved out of the embrace and over to the oven to check on dinner.

"You are no fun." he teased and she laughed.

"Oh really cause last night…" she started but before she could finish he cut her off.

"If you don't want to end up with a burnt dinner I suggest you don't finish that sentence. Because if you remind me about it, I'm not going to want to wait, I'll just want to do it all over again." Jules blushed and he decided it was time to change the topic, for both there sakes.

"So what were you saying earlier?"

"I said Jess called earlier to talk to you about the gala, you need to call her back when you get a chance."

He nodded, there was a military gala being held for high ranking generals and there families as well as and a few select officers from each branch. Sam's father insisted he go since Nat couldn't due to her work schedule, lucky for Sam team one was off that night. Sam wasn't really looking forward to it, it was going to be a bunch of old military commanders telling stories about how they remembered him from when a little boy and other commanders who would skip that part all together and just simply question him about why he was no longer military and lecture him on it. The only thing that was going to make it tolerable was the fact that the special force branch had decided to send Jess as one of their representatives.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" She rolled her eyes as she pulled dinner out of the oven. The only reason Jules wasn't coming was because Commander Halloran wasn't sure which weekend the seminar she attended out in Montreal was going to be and Jules did not want to say yes only to back out later, she said it would look bad if she did, so he responded without a plus one. When they found out the seminar wasn't the weekend of the gala he offered to call his buddy and have her added to the list but she declined. She knew how crazy planning these things were and adding someone at the last minute would cause a lot of work for the party planners, plus they would have to change around tables and she didn't want to cause problems. He agreed with her logic but that didn't stop him from wanting her to change her mind.

"Sam, we have been through this a million times." she said taking off her oven mitts. "I don't want to be a hassle, plus I have plans with Winnie."

"I know." he said making his way over to planting a kiss on her cheek. "But it doesn't stop me from hoping you change your mind" she smiled.

"I love you." she said lean back to give him a kiss "Now let's eat I'm starving."

After they finished eating Sam offered to clean up dinner while she went upstairs to take her shower. She leaded in, gave him a kiss on the cheek and thanked him before she made her way upstairs. He noticed when he was scraping off the plates that the garbage was almost full. He made a mental note of it and after he had put the plates in the dishwasher and washed down the table, he made his way out of the house to take out the garbage. While making his way down the front steps his cell phone went off, using his free hand he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and answered it without reading the caller ID.

"Hey I was just about to call you, Jules sai-"

"Samuel." the voice cut him off and causing him to stop walking just as he reached the bottom step. Had anyone been outside they would have seen the brief moment of confusion pass over his face before being replaced with a blank expression. He moved the phone away from his ear for a second to glace at the screen to confirm what his already knew.

"I believe you have mistaken me for someone else." The voice on the other end of the line sounded serious but Sam could hear the underling amusement due to the fact that Sam grew up with a general as a father.

"Sorry Sir." There was no doubt in Sam's mind that the man on the other end of the phone was general Mister, after all who else would be calling him from a blocked number? "I thought you were Jess."

"Sorry to disappoint Samuel, how is she by the way?" Sam could hear the curiosity in his voice.

"Fine." Sam replied making sure he kept his voice neutral; if Mister wanted personal information on how Jess was coping with Jason's death he was going to have to find someone else to ask. If it had been Hastings who asked he may have answered differently but this was Misters, and as far as Sam was concerned Misters only cared about her as a solider, not as a person. "But I take it Jessica's well-being isn't why you called."

The general sighed.

"No, No it isn't. Do you have a moment?"

Sam glanced behind him at the house to make sure Jules hadn't come downstairs.

"Yeah" he breathed into the phone as he placed the garbage on the last step and took a seat. "I got a minute."

"The word CATSEND, does it have any meaning to you? Perhaps a place or a name?"

"No sorry. Why? Do you think it has something to do with Jason's death?"

"Maybe. I had someone search Jason's body, they found that word written in sharpie on his hand and flash drive hidden in his coat pocket, unfortunately it was damage in the crash. I'll have Livingstone examine it as soon as he returns."

Livingstone was one of those nerds who you just knew were going to change the world somehow. He was by far one of the best teach geeks Sam had ever met, the man could get into any secure network in 5 seconds and when it came to recovering damaged files, he was the best. Unfortunately Livingstone was off on family leave visiting his sick step father and they had no idea when he would return to work. Typically this wouldn't be a problem but Misters has had a bad history when it comes to tech's screwing him over and Livingstone is the only one Mister trusts enough to touch the flash drive.

"With all due respect sir you don't know when that will be and time may be a key factor here." The general was a little taken back by Sam's statement.

"And what do you suggest?" He countered. The answer was obvious to Sam.

"Spike." He replied automatically. "He is just as good as Livingstone and I know there is no way he is corrupt."

Mister stayed silent on the other end of the line. Sam wanted to scream, what was with the military and thinking they were so much better than everyone else?

"My team can handle this; there not some group of dead beat cops."

"Will all due respect," the general said mirroring the approach Sam had earlier. "You don't even know what this is."

"Well then, care to share on what exactly this is?" he snapped, honestly he doesn't know where it came from, he was trained better than this, raised better than this, if his dad herd him talk back to the general like that, well let's just say it wouldn't be pretty. He wants to blame Jess, she is always crossing lines and pushing boundaries but he knows that that would be bullshit. The general sighed and softened his voice.

"In due time Samuel." Sam sighed running his hand through his hair. He hated this, he hates being in the dark. "Let me run down a few more leads and if nothing pans out I will consider filling you in."

"Okay." Sam agreed.

"Very well," the general paused for a moment, choosing his next words very carefully, "And for the record Samuel, I never considered your team anything but exceptional. This has nothing to do with their abilities, just trust me when I say it's better if we keep this in the family, Okay?...Good night Samuel."

With that the general hung up. Sam stood up grabbed the garbage and made his way to the trash bin to toss it out. Every conversation he had with Misters made him feel like he was going to dislike whatever this was. He was starting to get the feeling that the 'bad guys' were closer than normal, almost like they were friends. Mister declaration of 'keeping it in the family' only re-enforced that feeling.

He made his way back inside just as Jules came down the stairs. She had one hand on the banister as the other brushed her damp hair to the side.

"Hey" she said when she spotted him coming in through the door. She was wearing a plain black shirt and a pair of grey sweat pants.

"We still on for movie night?" she questioned as she made her way down the stairs, he glanced over at her and smiled.

"Absolutely." He answered as he took off his coat and shoes. They may not have normal schedule or be into the whole mushy gushy couple stuff but they still had their traditions. They started it back when they were still a secret and going out to the theater was very risky, there were way too many unknowns, what if they ran into Ed dropping Clark off at the movies? Needless to say they opted to stay home and watch movies there. Not that Sam minded, he enjoyed bantering with her over what movie they should watch and he loved listening to Jules side comments about the movie. But most of all he loved being able to hold her in his arms while they watched, something he found he couldn't really do in the movie theater. Slowly but surely what started off as a must has evolved into their favorite choice for date night. He watched as Jules took the movie out of the case and popped it into the DVD player, when she noticed he still hadn't made his way to is normal spot she walked over to him and grabbed his hand pulling him toward the couch.

"Gezz Sam your hand is freezing! How long were you outside?" He shrugged.

"Nat called so I talked to her while I was out there." He stated as he let go of her hand and made his way to couch and sat down. She raised her eye brows.

"Is that so?" He hates this, he hates lying to her. It is by far the worst part of helping Mister. He loves her and he trust her but Mister is right, it's not fair to tell her something and expect her to stay out of it. Jules is a cop just like him and the inner cop inside of her wouldn't be able to walk away and not help if she thought something was wrong and he can't do that to her. He can't tell her about some secret task force that is isn't allowed to join, it's not fair. But at the same time he doesn't want to keep this secret from her, not when he doesn't even know what this secret is. So he doesn't try to hide it, but he doesn't try to make it obvious either. As a result he can feel himself pulling away because he is afraid to hurt her and he hates lying to her face.

"Yup." His voice neutral as he stares ahead at the TV that isn't turned on yet. She can tell something is wrong, if his sister really did call, then why didn't he just finish the conversation inside? But she knows better than to ask, so she decided not to push. She reaches for the remote and turns the TV on. Sam breathes a sigh of relief that she has decided to drop the issue and tugs he on her hand. She turns around to look down into his baby blue eyes that are staring up at her.

"Come here." He holds out his arms for her. She willingly accepts his invitation and makes herself at home in his embrace. He plans a kiss in her hair just above her forehead and she lets out a sigh. He knows she suspicious and he knows that it's his fault. If he wanted to hide this from her he would be crazy good at it, the problem is he doesn't. He wants to tell her everything but he can't, so he does a half ass job at it in hopes she will figure it out. The problem is she is afraid to dig around, she doesn't know what type of secrets he is hiding and she is scared to find out. They share what's important, so for him not to tell her it's just—it's a big god if Jason's death has pushed him to a point where he no longer wants her around and this is his way of pulling away, leaving the room when he gets a phone call (not telling her who or what the call was about), distancing himself (His physical body might be with her but lately his mind isn't, it's off God knows where thinking about God knows what) well, she isn't sure she would know how to handle it. So she doesn't ask and he doesn't tell and they sit in this awkward place where there both afraid to lose the other.

"I love you." his voice is full of raw emotion and she can't help but believe him. She leans into his chest as she closes her eyes.

"Promise?"

The slight hitch in her voice is enough to cause him to shift so he can look in the eyes. His hand makes its way to her face as his thumb grazes her cheek. The motion is enough to get her to open her eyes find his for the first time since she has entered his arms.

"Always." He says it with such authority, like it's a fact and she'd be ridiculous to think anything else. She can see the underlying panic in his eyes like he is afraid she doesn't believe him and she can't help but smile. It's what she needed to see, she needed to know that they were good, that no matter what was going on with him, he still loves her and that look on his face just proved it. The relief rushes though her, he isn't pulling away from her but rather the situation and as long as that's true no matter what's bothering him, they can work through it, she is sure of it. She leans up and her lips find his. He reciprocates the kiss and they let themselves get lost in it. They both need it and want it. After several minutes she pulls back and he tucks a stray strained of hair behind her ear.

"I love you." she says as she places a hand on his cheek, He can hear the emotion in her voice and it causes his heart to do that weird thing where it explodes with love for her and causes him to fall even more in love with her.

"Always?" he questions as a smile breaks out across his face and she laughs. Always. It what he says every time one of them is in a dangerous situation at work.

'Bravo you good to go?'

'Always.'

To everyone else, SIU, the team, the chief, it sounds like he is just replying to simple question, but not to her. To her, it him telling her that no matter what happens, he will always love her.

"Always." she replies though her laugh. She can't help the smile that breaks out across her face as she leans up to kiss him.

"We're good then?" he questions running his hand though her hair.

"No." she says as she settles back down into his arms as she starts the movie. "We're perfect."