What I Go to School For

Thanks again for all the reviews guys! It means a lot!
Huxabelle164: Thanks for your review! Yeah, I'm going through a SNate phase at the moment! I really liked your SNate fic! Hope you write more!
ihearthuxon: Aww, thanks for reviewing! Glad you liked it!
DI Samantha Hunter: Thank you for reviewing hun! Hehe, yes, they'll definitely be seeing more of each other.
Miss Sun Hill: Thank you for your review! Really pleased that you like it!
Huxonbabe: Thanks for reviewing! And thanks for reminding me about Lisa Maxwell being on PoG tomorrow! I'll definitely watch/record that!

This is the second to last installment. Hope you like it! Xx

Part 4: Easter

"I honestly don't know what to do about him," Samantha sighed. She and her older sister, Torri, were drinking cups of tea in her kitchen in Brighton. Torri's kids were playing outside in the garden, and Sam could see them from where she was sat at the kitchen table. Until recently she had dismissed the idea of having children, she was getting older and there hadn't been a steady man in her life for a long time. She had all but given up on having children, and was okay with that, but seeing Sarah and Luke playing in the garden was awakening maternal instincts that she thought had disappeared for good. She sighed before she spoke again, trying to avoid making eye contact with her sister who had always been able to read her too well. "I think I might love him."

"This is big Sam," Torri sighed. "Do you think he feels the same way about you?"

Samantha shrugged. "It's hard to tell," She began slowly. "I know he likes me, but for him his job has to come first. With me, I would jack in the job in tomorrow if I knew it was what it would take for him to be with me, and I hate that Torri, I've never been that woman before."

Torri took her sister's hand. "You need to talk to him sweetie, you can't go on like this, not knowing."

"I know," Sam sighed again. "But if he doesn't feel that way about me, I'm going to look like a complete moron. I've not even known him two months yet, and we've not spent all that much time together over that period either."

"Have you...?" Despite being married for ten years and having two children, Torri still blushed as she struggled with the question she wanted to ask.

"Yes, twice." Samantha finished for her. "But not for a while."

Torri nodded, taking a sip of tea before she spoke. She wasn't quite sure what to say, she wanted her little sister to be happy and it didn't help that she hadn't met Nate.

"You really need to talk to him," She said. "Why don't you call him now? While you're in the right frame of mind."

Samantha laughed humourlessly. "I don't think I'll ever be in the right frame of mind!" But part of her still really wanted to take her sister's advice.

Several times that day Samantha had debated calling Nate, like Torri had suggested, but she couldn't do it. She decided that she would just accept things the way they were. If Nate wanted more than just her friendship then he would have to make the first move.

She didn't see Nate until the first day back at school and even then things were too hectic for them to speak. She only saw him twice that day, once in the back to school assembly and once in the hallway but they'd been going in different directions. They didn't exchange anything more than the briefest of smiles.

Sam had intended on catching up with Nate at the end of the working day, but when she went to the car park she could see no sign of his police car. She knew that he wouldn't be at the school quite so much now, he had told her that himself, but she thought he would have found her for a chat before he left. They were still working together trying to help Rachel Tyler come forward about what was bothering her, but Nate had not spoken to her about it since before the Easter break.

When she got home, Sam poured herself a glass of wine and decided to call Nate. She had missed her over the fortnight she had been away. Talking to Torri about him had definitely helped too. She tried him on his mobile first, thinking that he might still be at work but when she got no answer she tried him home number. It rang and rang, and she was tempted to hang up but finally the call was answered.

"Hello?" Samantha was shocked to hear a woman answering the phone rather than Nate. She was so surprised that she couldn't make her mouth work. "Hello?" The voice sounded annoyed this time and Sam quickly hung up. She knew it was cowardly and that there could be hundreds of explanations but she was stung. Maybe in the fortnight she had been away, Nate had met someone new or maybe he had finally gotten his act together with Beth whom he mentioned from work occasionally.

Samantha poured more wine into her glass and went through to the bathroom, running the hot tap to fill the bath. She selected her favourite bath oil and added it to the tub. She needed to relax and a bath and a glass of wine had always worked in the past, if she'd had a hard day at the school or a problem with a student. She didn't know if it would be enough to stop her thinking about Nate and his mystery woman though.

The next morning at school she was surprised to see Nate making his way straight towards her in the corridor.

"I've been trying to call you," He said, looking stressed and flustered and not bothering with any small talk.

"Oh, sorry." Sam replied, once again totally unsure how to act around him. In truth she had turned off her mobile and unplugged the landline, and gone to bed with more wine and watched television all evening.

"It's about Rachel," He said. "She didn't come home last night!"

Samantha's eyes widened. She didn't know what to say. "What happened?"

Nate shrugged one shoulder. "Her father reported that she was missing about nine o'clock last night, he thought she might have gone to a friend's house after school but as the evening went on and he didn't hear from her, he began to worry."

"I was hoping to talk to you about her yesterday," Sam said, trying not to sound accusatory. "But I didn't see you."

Nate all but glared at her. "I haven't heard from you in weeks Samantha, I was going to go out of my way to talk to you about anything, especially Rachel seeing as Beth and I thought we had the issue under control."

"Oh, Beth," Sam replied. "That's who answered the phone last night, then." She said it more to herself than to Nate.

"Yes, it was," He replied coldly. "Do you have a problem with that?"

The corridor was beginning to swell with people, so they wordlessly headed for Samantha's office instead. She closed the door after them and leant against it, her arms folded protectively across her chest.

"Do you have a problem with that?" He asked again, looking at her in a way Samantha could never have imagined him too. The look broke her heart.

"Yes." She said. "You're the one who played hot and cold with me constantly. One minute you wanted me, then your job was more important. What was I supposed to do, Nate?"

"I'm not with Beth," Nate said, looking at her helplessly. "Beth was at my flat because neither of us had eaten so we decided to talk about Rachel's case over Chinese takeout."

Samantha didn't know whether to feel relieved or stupid. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. After all, it's none of my business who you see or who you don't see."

Nate leaned back against Sam's desk, looking across at her and thinking, not for the first time, how he had never met a woman anything like her before.

"Damn it, Sam," He pushed himself to a standing position and took a step closer to her. "Don't you see it? Don't you know how I feel about you?"

Samantha shook her head, her breathing becoming more erratic with every step Nate took towards her. "No, tell me; show me." Her voice was low and she found it hard to look at him.

He closed the gap between them, taking her hands and kissing her soundly. Sam moaned into his mouth, wrapping her arms around Nate's neck and twisting her fingers in his light brown hair.

When breathing became an issue, they pulled apart, smiling at each other. Suddenly Nate became serious, his eyes taking on a guarded expression.

"We have to find Rachel first," Nate said, knowing that Samantha would have to decide right now if she could bear coming second place in his life to his job. "Later we'll talk about you and me."

Samantha nodded, respecting and loving Nate more for putting Rachel above their own wants and needs. "I'm coming with you."

Nate looked at her with surprise. "You are?"

"Yes. Rachel is partly my responsibility too. If something has happened to her, or does happen to her, I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"Okay, let's get going then." Nate grinned at her, helping her to straighten her jacket before leaving the office, and the school, together.

"Rachel talked to me in confidence yesterday, I wanted to find you, and have you there too but she only wanted to talk to me, because she doesn't really know me. I think telling you would have been too awkward for her." Nate explained as they drove out of the school gates and towards the police station. "Obviously I can't break that confidence, but now that she has disappeared, it's important that everyone knows the essential facts."

Samantha nodded, touched and honoured that Nate trusted her like this. "Okay, I won't repeat anything you tell me." She assured him.

He smiled across at her slightly. "I know that, Sam." He said softly. "Rachel had been having trouble with a boy; a boy in her class, does the name Edward Gibson mean anything to you?"

Samantha considered it for a moment, Deansgate Comprehensive was a big school so it was hard to know all of the students. Still, the name Edward Gibson rang a bell with her, somewhere in the reaches of her mind. It clicked. "I used to teach his older brother, Jamie Gibson," She said, the memory slowly returning to her. "He was difficult to put it mildly, he was always in trouble, never handed work in on time or behaved in class. He only turned up for school when he really had to, and he was always causing fights, more often than not concerning girls in his year."

Nate nodded, glad he had chosen to confide in Samantha, her input and knowledge of the school could prove essential. "Interesting. It sounds like the apple hasn't fallen very far from the tree. It appears that Rachel and Edward had been dating for a little while, he wanted sex, she didn't but he kept trying to manipulate her into it. As you know, Rachel is a good girl and she wants to study and get good grades, so she broke up with Edward. As you can imagine, he wasn't happy about that and he and his friends have been pursuing her ever since."

"Poor kid," Sam sighed. She liked Rachel, and she was a pleasure to teach. "Where is Edward now?"

"We're holding him at the station, but he won't say anything. He claims not to have seen Rachel since before Easter." Nate explained, pulling into a parking space behind the station.

"Are you sure you want me to come in with you?" Samantha asked, suddenly feeling a little nervous. She tried to concentrate on helping Rachel.

"Of course." Nate grinned, leading her towards reception and getting her a visitor's pass. They went upstairs to CID where a room had been set aside for the case. Nate introduced Samantha to his colleagues, explaining that she was a teacher at Deansgate and knew Rachel pretty well.

She listened in to the briefing and offered to help Nate search the area for her. If they found Rachel, she would be glad of a familiar face.

The officers were leaving the briefing room, Nate and Sam were amongst them. They had each been assigned a search quadrant of the area around Rachel's home and Deansgate school. A grey haired, middle aged man who had been introduced to Sam as Jack Meadows rushed out of the briefing room after the searchers.

"Wait, everybody come back! We've found Rachel Tyler!"

Sorry for the cliffhanger again! Review, please?! Xx