Disclaimer: I do NOT own Rookie Blue!
It had been two weeks since I had moved into the Swarek household. We were beginning to fall into a very comfortable rhythm. I would wake up every morning at 6, go have coffee with Sam while he got ready for his day and wait for Nathan to wake up. At the beginning of the second week Sam let me go and wake up Nathan in the morning, it was definitely one of my favorite parts to the day. Nathan was very cuddly in the morning and I LOVED it! I would wake him up and then proceed to carry him downstairs where Sam could say his goodbyes.
This particular morning something was off with him though. When I walked into his room to wake him up I noticed that he was breaking out in a sweat and had a worried look on his little baby face. I sat down on his bed and started gently rubbing his back like I did every day before this.
"Morning baby, time to wake up."
"Mama...I want my mama!" I was completely taken back by this outburst; it was very unlike Nathan. Even though I had only known him for a couple of weeks he was apart of me and it absolutely broke my heart to see him hurting.
"Shh...baby it's Nally. It's time to get up and say goodbye to daddy."
"Noooo...I don't want you. Get my mama, you're not my mama." I honestly did not what to do, luckily Sam must have heard the screaming because he came barreling in the bedroom a few seconds later.
"Sam..I don't know what I did. He just started screaming, I'm so sorry." I was terrified, I didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to comfort Nathan. He was right I wasn't his mom. I wanted to curl up in a ball and start crying, I felt horrible.
"It's okay McNally, I'll explain later." And with that he put his full attention on his son. He scooped him up and carried him to the rocking chair on the other side of the room. Nathan must have recognized his scent because he immediately started to relax. I hoped that one day I would have that effect on him, but that day was definitely not today.
I felt completely useless, there was nothing I could do to help and I knew that Sam was already running late this morning. It was 7:55 and parade started at 8:00, he was definitely going to be late and I couldn't help but feel like it was all my fault.
Once Nathan's breathing returned to normal and had fallen back asleep Sam looked up to me. "Hey, uh can you call Boyko for me and tell him I need the day off? He'll understand."
"Yeah, sure...I'll go right now. And Sam I really am sorry, I don't know what I did to upset him."
"You didn't do anything McNally trust me, I'll explain tonight."
So I went to call Boyko, figuring that was the only thing that I could do at the moment. Nathan had calmed down, and Sam was still soothing him in his sleep. I prayed that all of this would make more sense tonight, when Sam said he would inform me about what was going on.
I didn't see Sam and Nathan till about an hour later, I was sitting on the couch watching some morning talk show that I could care less about when I heard them walking down the stairs. I muted the TV and turned my body towards the stairs. When they appeared Nathan immediately wanted to be put down and came running towards me with his chubby legs.
He crawled up onto the couch and plopped himself down into my lap. "Nallyyyy! Daddy gonna stay home!" The little boy was back to his normal self, he was jumping up and down in my lap. He was showing no signs that he even recalled what happened an hour earlier and for that I was grateful.
"I know buddy, what should we do today?"
"Moooovies! Cause it raining..."
"Well that sounds perfect to me, should we watch Batman or Spider Man?" I knew that these were his two favorites and all I wanted to do today was make him happy.
"SPIDER MAN!" Nathan had more energy than anyone I had ever met, he could make you smile no matter what.
Sam turned to me and smiled, whenever I was spending one on one time with Nathan I could always feel him out of the corner of my eye watching. "So McNally, what do you say? Wanna have a movie day with us?"
There was probably nothing in the world I would rather do then curl up on a couch and watch movies with two of the most important men in my life at the moment. "Yeah definitely, that sounds perfect." We shared a look, we had developed this 'secret' language in the past few weeks, almost like we couldn't say what we were feeling but we both felt it.
We sat and watched movies for the majority of the day, Sam on one end of the couch, me on the other. With Nathan sprawled out between us. His head was resting in my lap and out of instinct I rubbed my hands through that thick black hair of his. He fell asleep halfway through the second movie.
"Do you want me to go put him in his bed?" I asked when Sam noticed that Nathan had fallen asleep.
"No, I'll get him...I kinda miss these moments now that I'm back at work full time." Sam gently picked up Nathan without waking him and took him upstairs to his room.
I decided that I should clean up a little bit while Sam was putting Nathan down; we had made quite a mess with all of our movie snacks.
I had just finished cleaning Nathan's cup when Sam came walking down the stairs, he sat down heavily at the kitchen table and put his head down. Today was a lot of firsts for me, I had never seen Nathan that way and I had also never seen Sam break down in front of me. Well break down for a guy like Sam. He was breathing heavily clenching and unclenching his fists. He wouldn't let me see his face; I walked over and sat down next to him. I started rubbing his back slowly, hoping that it would comfort him the same way that it usually comforted Nathan. But when I touched him he flinched away like I had scalded him. So that was definitely the wrong thing to do..
"Sorry McNally, today's just been one of those days."
"Do you wanna go ahead and talk about it...I uh..kinda have plans tonight."
"Oh yeah sure, you don't have to stay today since I'm home, sorry, I just figured..."
Crap. Now he probably thinks I don't care! Why did I have to open my mouth, its not like I actually wanted to go on this date, some guy from class asked me to coffee and I thought maybe it would help get a certain someone out of my thoughts for a little bit. But now he's looking at me with those smoldering eyes, and it just makes me want to call and cancel. But I can't do this with him; he's my boss. We have to stay professional about this. Still the curious side of me won. "No, Sam. That's not what I meant at all! I wanna know what is going on, trust me. I care about him...and you. Please tell me, I didn't mean I needed to go right now."
"It's kind of a long story"
"I have time, I have all the time in the world."
"Okay well Laura, Nathan's mom, and I met each other are last year of college. We fell hard and fast, every minute of every day I wanted to be around her. There was something missing when she wasn't around. A few months after we graduated I asked her to marry me, she said yes but then something changed in her. She wasn't as passionate as she was before; she was starting to fade away and sometimes I couldn't even recognize the girl I loved anymore. We stayed engaged for a couple of years, with me going into the academy and her starting nursing school there was just a lot on our plate. We got married when we were 25. I don't know I guess you could say that my heart wasn't in it as much as it used to be. She had continued to change over the years and had basically become a completely different person. I don't know, I guess I thought if we got married then it would remind her of what we were when we were younger. I know it was stupid.."
This was the first chance he gave me to actually say something. He had said all of that with his head staring at an invisible spot on the table, almost as if he knew that if he looked at me he wouldn't be able to finish the story without breaking down. "No, it wasn't stupid, you loved her." I covered his hands with one of mine and squeezed it, he looked up at me and gave an almost hopeful smile. "You don't have to tell me more Sam, I know this must be hard for you."
"No I want to...you need to know this if your ever going to understand why Nathan is the way he is."
"Okay." And with that I squeezed his hands again and told him with my eyes to continue.
"We got pregnant about a year after our wedding, things weren't good between us. I could tell that she was only still with me because she didn't know what else to do and I was only still with her because I couldn't stop hoping that the girl I once knew would come back to me. When we found out I was excited, I thought that maybe this would actually fix us, bring us together and make us a family. Laura never wanted kids though, she was really driven and would rather focus on her career than having to come home to a kid every night. She didn't take care of herself during her pregnancy, I would have to force her to go to doctor's appointments and make sure she took her vitamins every day. Hell I even had to make sure she wasn't drinking half the time. But I couldn't give up hope, I thought that when she held Nathan in her arms for the first time that she would realize what a good thing this could be and how Nathan could be the best thing we did with our lives. But I was wrong once again, I was blinded by her; something about her was intoxicating to me. Its like the more she shut down the more I tried to get us back to what we used to be. She never smiled at him, whenever he would wake up crying during the night she would throw a pillow over her head and not get up. She didn't love anything about him, he was like an annoyance to her. I couldn't stand it anymore; the way she looked at him and the way she talked to him. I had to protect my son, I loved him. More than I had ever even loved her. I think once Nathan was born is when I finally took my blinders off and realized how bad things really were. We weren't happy and it showed. She didn't want to be a family, she didn't even want to be with me. I dealt with it for a while, talked to her parents and counselors. I didn't want to just give up; the girl I had fallen in love with wasn't there anymore and I thought that maybe if the right person talked to her that I could get her back to who she was. Remind her how much we loved each other. But she didn't want to be reminded, for a while she put up an act; she acted as if things were going to go back to normal. Even started paying more attention to Nathan but I could tell. I knew when she was faking it and when she was genuinely happy; I had seen both. For about a year I let her continue to fake it, the whole 'fake it till you make it thing' doesn't really work though. She never stopped faking and one day I had just had enough. I couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being this unhappy and I didn't want my son growing up in a house where his parents didn't love each other. So I filed for divorce and about six months ago it was finalized. We were through; she just packed up her stuff and left. I haven't heard from her since we signed the papers. Nothing. Nathan would mutter mama for about 4 months after, it broke my heart. How do you tell an 18 month old that his mom didn't want him? Once he finally stopped muttering her name, thats when the nightmares started. I would wake up to him screaming for her and that is what you witnessed this morning. It happens every couple of days, which is way for the last two weeks I loved you being here. He hadn't had a nightmare since you showed up, well I mean until today...so that's my screwed up life. Aren't you happy your living with the most screwed up guy there is and his kid?"
I just looked at him, he had opened up so much. He had never said that much at one time before; I looked at him with so much emotion and said, "Yeah I am, because that screwed up guy loves his kid more than any other parent I have ever met. You did the right thing Sam; you protected him. Your a good guy, and the screwed up part well that will go away with time." I looked down at our hands and noticed that at some time during his story we had laced our fingers together. Something went through me when he squeezed my hand. I wanted to stay there forever, but I looked at the clock and it was almost 3:00, my coffee 'date' was at 6:00 and I had to finish my english paper before then. I looked up at his eyes and searched for something, almost to tell him that I would be there for him and Nathan for as long as I possibly could. I rubbed my thumb on the back of his hand and started to say the thing I really didn't want to. "Umm..is it okay if I go work on some homework? I have to be somewhere at 6 and wanted to finish this paper before then." Sam immediately unlaced our fingers and stood up, I felt as if something was missing.
"Yeah sure, you can have the rest of the day off, I've got him."
"Thanks Sam, I'll uh...see you in the morning?"
"Yeah sure McNally, see ya bright and early."
And with that I walked out the back door and up the stairs to my studio apartment. I wanted to call and cancel with Derek but I knew that I should at least try and put myself out there. Nothing was waiting for me here that I could have.
A/N: My initial plan was to finish the day in this chapter but I ran out of time! If I have time tonight I will right part 2 and get it out there ASAP along with another chapter tomorrow! Hope y'all like this one, it was really hard to write..so please and feedback would be great.
