Chapter NINE

"Samantha?"

EJ walked into the kitchen and looked around, still unable to find her. He'd been looking for about five minutes now and she wasn't anywhere to be found. An hour had passed since what had happened in the living room and EJ knew that Sami hadn't left the mansion. For one thing she wasn't dress and for another her car was still here. EJ frowned, trying to think where she might be. He shoved his hands into his low slung black jeans, still all he was wearing and thought for a moment. There was one place in the vast house he hadn't checked yet and EJ turned around and headed out of the kitchen and towards the indoor pool.

When he got there he looked through the glass window on the door and was stricken by what he saw. Sami was lying face down by the pool and EJ couldn't see her head because it was hanging over the side of the pool. One arm was in the water as well and EJ could only pray her head was above water but from where he was standing it really didn't look like it.

"SAMANTHA!" he cried out in horror, his hand immediately going to the door knob.

It was locked. EJ frantically rattled the door handle, panic setting in as he tried to get to her.

"SAMANTHA!"

EJ's voice was taunt with abject fear as he watched Sami's body slowly begin to slide into the water now.

"NO!"

EJ began hurling himself against the door, using his shoulder to try and bust the hinges. The door bent but didn't give. Again and again EJ bashed against it, growing ever more frantic as he could no longer see Sami. The door gave way at last and EJ just ran. He got to the pool and didn't even slow down, diving into the water at full pelt and down to Sami's body which was now face down on the bottom of the pool. He grabbed her body and swum to the surface in a series of powerful strokes with Sami in his arms. They broke the surface as one but Sami wasn't moving and EJ's fear grew. He swam over to the side of the pool and hauled Sami's body out of the water and then his own.

An ugly purple bruise coloured her jaw line whilst the rest of her face was pale. EJ put an ear to her mouth listening for Sami's breathing but his own was too ragged for him to hear anything. He gave a choked sob, gathering Sami into his arms, his whole body shaking as he realised he should have come looking for her an hour ago. EJ was paralysed with fear, he couldn't move other than rock Sami in his arms, he couldn't think beyond the words that were tumbling out of his mouth.

"Oh God no, please no!" he sobbed, holding Sami's limp body to his tightly as tears streamed down his face, "Not like this. Please God no, don't take her from me. I can't live without her, I'll do anything. Samantha don't leave me, don't ever leave me, I love you, I love you so much!"

Sami eyes opened and she looked directly into EJ's tear stained ones unblinkingly.

"I know," she said quietly, "I know EJ."

EJ gave a ragged gasp of shock and Sami watched first relief and then horror cross over his face. He dropped her from his arms and recoiled from Sami, shuffling backwards until his back hit the wall and holding up his hands like she was the devil incarnate.

"What are you doing?" he rasped in anguish, "What are you doing to me Samantha? Why didn't you just kill me when you had the chance – why do you only know how to torture me?"

Sami drew in a pained breath and sat up as she looked at the broken man huddled up against the wall, screaming out his anguish and knew this was her one and only chance to make this right, to fix what she'd broken.

Sami had come to a minute or so after she'd slipped but hadn't moved from where she was lying. Instead Sami had just laid there and thought about so many things. It hit her how close she'd come to losing her life just then. If she'd fallen just a little differently she would have been in the water and most likely drowned by now. Her life would be over and the only thing to show for it was a seemingly never ending trail of pain and destruction.

Sami thought back to that moment in the bedroom with EJ when all of her guilt and remorse had crushed in on her and the way she'd begged him to kill her because she couldn't stand living with those feelings. Sami lay there quietly thinking about that, the pool pump providing a gentle hum in the way of background noise for her self-examinations. Why had she done that? Sami didn't really want to die, the flash of fear she'd experienced when she'd woken up and realised how close she'd come to death just now proved that. She thought of being on death row and how life had been so blindingly precious when it was all about to be taken away from her with a flick of a switch. Sami remembered the moment the lethal injection was delivered to her, remembered her screaming to be given another chance at life.

And what had she'd done with that second chance at life she'd been granted Sami pondered darkly? Run from it was the only answer she could come up with. After seeing the pain she'd caused EJ with the way she'd treated him and discarded him over the years Sami first response was to inflict more on him by asking him to kill her. Why would she do that? Why would she feel remorse for something she had done and then proceed to do more of the same?

The question plagued Sami as she lay there, trying to unravel all the things she'd avoided looking at her entire life. She'd thought of her own pain first, not EJ's. Her supposed atonement for her sins in asking for death wasn't that at all – it was her trying to stop her own pain. The only way she could have atonement was to stop EJ's pain and instead she'd just provided him with more. A tear slipped out of Sami's eye and down her cheek to mingle with the little pool of blood on the ground by her mouth but didn't care.

Why couldn't she think of EJ first?

What had stopped her all of this time?

Was she really just a selfish person and that was the end of it or was it something more?

Sami closed her eyes, feeling the almost overwhelming urge to not find an answer for that question. But then that was the story of her life wasn't it? She never wanted to take responsibility for anything and especially not for EJ. Sami forced herself to relive those moments when she walked into EJ's room that fateful night and found him in obvious despair. All Sami had seen though was her own pain and betrayal and the gun had been in her hand before she realised it.

Sami had shot him, just like that.

It wasn't in the heat of passion or an accident, she'd just picked up a gun and shot a sleeping vulnerable man in the head and walked away leaving him to die. Sami gave a choked sob as she forced herself to accept that moment with no excuses and experience it fully. The pain was excruciating to think she could have done that to another human being, no matter the provocation and in such a cold blooded fashion. Then to have that person be the father of two of her children, it was nothing short of a monstrous act.

Of course she'd run back to Rafe and lapped up every moment of him sprouting that EJ had gotten what he deserved. Sami needed his rhetoric to hide behind, to reassure herself she was the victim in all of this. But then EJ hadn't died and she was back in this house with him and there was no one to champion the fantasies Sami had in her head. Sami had been left with no mantra to cling to – only the consequences of her actions.

And Sami had fallen and fallen hard out of the fantasy world she'd made for herself.

What had happened in the bedroom between her and EJ had opened Sami's eyes to the pain she'd caused him but not the reason why it was so easy for her to cause that pain. With being presented with EJ's anger and betrayal she immediately threw back her own in his face. When shown his brokenness and pain Sami's immediate response was to find relief from her own. Always it came back to her, never EJ – why was that?

Walking out of that bedroom just before Sami had thought that all she needed to do was show EJ how sorry she was, how much she loved him and then get him to admit his own love and that he forgave her and then everything would be fine between them – they could move on from there. Lying there on that cold pool floor though had made her realise that if she couldn't find an answer to why it was so easy for her to dismiss EJ in the past then they'd never have any kind of future. She'd never done to anyone the kinds of heinous things she'd done to EJ and through it all he still maintained his love for her.

Why, why, why?

The question plagued Sami, never before having gone this deeply into their relationship or even her own psyche, frightened of what she'd find there. But running away had only ruined her life so far and Sami wanted more from that life then lurching from one disaster to another and the reality was she was the disaster, not the events around her. Nothing was ever going to change if she didn't change and understand herself better. Sami thought back on her first meeting with EJ, how attracted she'd been to him and then to find out he was a DiMera, how that had felt. Then the games had started between them, spiralling down into ever greater depths until they were at the level of hell they found themselves in now.

What was it about EJ that caused almost a pathological need in Sami to try and tear down, dismiss and protect herself against every chance she got and yet still find herself drawn to him over and over again?

The answer finally came to Sami in a rush of pain so great it actually made her moan aloud.

Sami had told EJ that she'd shot him because it was the only way to be free of him but that was only the tip of the ice berg. The real question was why did Sami feel the need to be free of EJ in the first place when all he wanted to do was give her his heart? Sami finally had an answer to the question she'd never been honest about before this moment. She'd told herself that is was because he was a DiMera but that wasn't it at all.

EJ was Sami.

The revelation had hit her like a thunderbolt. EJ was all the parts of Sami that she feared – the greyness, the recklessness and huge emotion. These were all the things Sami had instinctively concluded that she needed to purge from herself in order to find her happily ever after with the men she thought she should love, the men who were going to save her. Sami couldn't accept any of EJ's love because it meant accepting those dark places in her own soul and she simply refused to do that.

The thing was though in trying to cleanse herself of the darker aspects of herself by denying EJ over and over again Sami was losing more than she could ever have imagined. She was losing her passion, her spark and that flame inside of her that had once burned so brightly. Instead all that had been left of her was a shell of a person, lost and ultimately completely alone and being unable to feel deep compassion and sympathy for another soul, only her own pain. In that last dramatic act of shooting EJ she hadn't been punishing him for taking Sydney. No, it was for being a constant reminder of all that she was and all that she'd lost. Sami hadn't shot EJ that night, she'd shot herself.

That was how she knew the truth in EJ's kisses because they truly were halves of the same whole. It was her innate comprehension of EJ on first meeting him that had her running from him, not her lack of understanding of him. Deep down she understood every move he made, every act of retribution and declaration of love. When she'd first met EJ it was to discover he was the person she was too afraid to be. Now, after years of dedicated attempts to tear that man down she'd at last broken him.

Sami had stripped EJ of his fire, spirit and clarity of vision just as she'd regained her own. It was EJ who was running now, hiding from the truth and Sami who was facing it down squarely. The coin had flipped and they were on different sides now but they were still part of the same whole. It was how Sami knew what she had to do to fix this when she heard EJ at the pool room door. Now EJ was staring at her in wide eyed horror, shaken and destroyed but this time the pain she'd caused him was done in love, not fear.

"It's alright EJ," she said, crawling over to him and putting a hand out to him, "It's going to be alright."

"You're the devil," said EJ thickly, his face tight with his own pain as he shook violently, "You keep finding new ways to torture me! Please God, just stop Samantha, I can't bear it any longer!"

"I didn't do that to torture you EJ," said Sami desperately, "I did it so you'd admit the truth to yourself."

"Why do you hate me so?" asked EJ weakly, not even looking at her now, shaking his head and lost in an ocean of pain.

"I don't hate you EJ," said Sami, edging closer to the cowering man now, "I love you. I have no way of expecting you to believe that after all that I've put you through but it is the truth. I needed you to be honest with your feelings about me-"

"So you can throw them back in my face?" EJ asked her, his face darkening and twisting in pain.

"No," said Sami softly, moving closer again, "EJ I've run from my feelings for you, for myself for so long and all it caused us both was suffering in pain. If I could take it all back I would, in a heartbeat but I can't."

"I want you out of this house," said EJ numbly, still not looking at her, "I never want to see you again Samantha."

It hurt Sami to hear him say that but it hurt her even more that she'd broken this once fearless man down to such a state.

"You want me to love you like you love me," Sami corrected him, by his side now, facing him as EJ still leant back into the wall, trying to escape her but there was nowhere to go, "And I do. You stood in the Brady pub once and told me that you loved me and just wanted me to give you the chance to prove it to you but I never gave you that chance."

A regret filled tear slipped down Sami's cheek at that memory.

"I so badly what that moment back EJ," she said hoarsely, "To do it all again differently but I can't. All I can do now is tell you how sorry I am for all that I've done to cause you pain and suffering and make the same plea of you that you once made of me and pray that you'll be kinder to me than I've ever been to you EJ."

Sami drew in a ragged breath and swallowed hard, more tears falling from her eyes as she watched the same happen to EJ.

"I love you," Sami said, putting every bit of love she had for him in those three words, "And I just want you to give me the chance to prove that to you-"

Sami knew this part was going to be the hardest for EJ to hear but couldn't stop now.

"I've taken so much from you EJ," said Sami quietly, reaching up and putting a hand to his cheek and stroking it.

EJ flinched but Sami continued to caress his face tenderly.

"But now I want to give something back to you," she continued on huskily.

Sami drew in a deep breath, cupping his face that had the look of a cornered, frightened animal to it.

"You have to forgive me EJ," Sami whispered, more tears stinging her eyes, "For the shooting, for all the times I've hurt you and broken you're heart, you have to forgive me."

EJ made a pain noise and shook his head, unable to find words right then but Sami wouldn't let him run away.

"Not because I deserve it," said Sami achingly, "Because I don't and never will but because it is what you deserve."

EJ looked at her, suffering and confusion etched onto his handsome face.

"All this time EJ," Sami admitted to him painfully, fighting back more tears, "All this time I couldn't forgive you for reminding me of who I really am, what I really am. You were a mirror that I couldn't bear to look in and I couldn't forgive you for that. So I hurt you and then you did something dark and terrible by letting me think Sydney was dead-"

Sami closed her eyes and shook her head.

"And-and I couldn't forgive you for that so I did something even darker and more terrible to you," Sami choked out before opening her eyes and imploring him, "And if you don't find a way to forgive me EJ then you'll do something even worse again."

EJ drew back, recoiling from all that Sami was saying but she was determined. She reached out and put her hand to the back of EJ's neck, drawing him down so their foreheads were touching.

"You have to let me save you EJ," she begged him in little more than a desperate whisper, watching as hot tears streaked down his face, "I'm the one who did this to you, I'm the only one who can save you from it."

"I can't."

EJ had forced the wretched words out through shaking lips.

"I know it's hard my love," Sami said quietly, her own lips quivering as she stroked the back of his head, "But you have to find away otherwise it will destroy you and I don't want to live in a world without you in it."

Their eyes met, hers pleading and full of compassion, his full of fear, both of them crying hard now.

"I can't let you hurt me again," said EJ thickly, desperation making him honest at long last.

"I'm not going to hurt you EJ," Sami vowed to him, fierce determination coming to her face, "I'm going to love you like you deserve to be loved – with every part of my heart and soul and body."

Sami started to gently kiss EJ's tears away now.

"Forgive me," she implored him brokenly, "Forgive me EJ even though I don't deserve."

More soft lingering kisses to his face as EJ closed his eyes and gave a low groan.

"Forgive me so I can save you," she whispered, "I can take all this pain away EJ, I know I can."

EJ's hands had been by his side, not touching her in any way during all of this, instead he'd been more like a rag doll lying there. Sami moved so that she was straddling him now as he sat up against the wall, taking EJ's face in both of her hands and continuing her loving kisses all over his face.

"I love you," she whispered against his lips.

"I thought you were dead," said EJ raggedly, pain dripping from every word.

"I know EJ," said Sami compassionately, "I know."

Sami had only ever really dared been honest with herself when there had been a real chance of losing EJ. Sami knew EJ had needed the same push because she'd turned him into her with the way she'd treated him. She'd hated causing EJ more pain but it was the only way to save him.

"But I had to save you EJ," Sami implored his understanding, kissing him softly now, mouth teasing back and forth against his, "I need you to believe that."

"It hurts so much," EJ groaned even as he slowly began to return her kisses.

Sami gave a little sob against his mouth and knew she was the agony EJ was talking about.

"But I can take it all away," Sami promised him, stroking the back of his head, "Let me take it all away EJ."

They started kissing properly now, EJ's tongue suddenly in Sami's mouth and she let him take what he needed from her. Despite of all the emotion between them or maybe because of it Sami could feel EJ hardening underneath her and felt her body answer his need. Still kissing Sami reached between their bodies, undoing EJ's zip and releasing his hard on. Seeing as she was only wearing her wrap still, soaking wet as it was, it was easy for Sami to simply lift herself up slowly impale herself on EJ's swollen rod. EJ broke the kiss, grimacing in pleasure. Sami began a very gentle rocking process, designed now not so much to excite as to make each other sharply aware of the other and to soothe.

EJ's hands went to her hips as Sami wrapped her arms around his neck and began to whisper all the secrets of her soul into his ear. She told him of her epiphanies, about her reasons for treating the way she had all of this time, her shame, her remorse, the anguish over what she'd done to him. Sami whispered her pleas for forgiveness in his ear for shooting him, for trying to extinguish EJ's life when it was herself she was trying to destroy. She spoke of her brokenness, her hopes and dreams – things she'd never told a living soul before in her life.

It was the single most intimate moment of Sami's life.

They weren't so much making love as making life out the broken pieces of both of them. EJ wrapped his arms around Sami's waist when she was done, sobbing into her shoulder at her confessions and remorse. He then began to choke out his whispered regrets and pain. EJ told Sami of the ways she'd hurt him, how it had felt, what it had done to him. He told of her the agony she'd caused him, the anger and tears and Sami just held him close, rocking gently and listened and understood every word.

At last there were no more words to say between them and then they were left clinging to one another, purged of so much, empty vessels ready to be filled again. EJ began to move more forcefully inside of her now and Sami buried her head in his neck, holding his so tightly neither one of them could hardly breathe. EJ's strokes were becoming more desperate now, his breathing more ragged.

"I love you," said Sami hoarsely as her body began to race towards that peak.

"I love you," EJ answered with a hoarse groan, "God so much Samantha, I love you!"

There it was, Sami's forgiveness, the thing that would lead EJ out of the dark places she'd put him in. Sami's heart swelled at knowing that, filled to overflowing with thankfulness and humbled beyond belief. EJ's hands tightened on Sami's hips and a last hard thrust from him had him cumming deep inside of her. Sami was orgasming around him at the same time as EJ's seed flooded her walls, both of them crying out in pleasure and in a coming together of spirits as much as bodies. They held each other when it was over, panting in each other's arms. Sami pulled back her head and looked at up at EJ with complete and utter love and adoration, the same expression he had on his face for her.

"Thank you," said Sami tremulously, "Thank you EJ."

Sami knew she still had a lot to prove to EJ but that could only happen over time but they'd laid the foundations now and that was the most important thing.

"Wh-what happens now?" asked EJ raggedly, clearly still overcome by what had just happened in this room and blinking at her a little uncertainly.

Sami didn't blame him for his trepidation but this time things were going to be so different between them.

"Whatever we want to happen," said Sami simply, a smile coming to her lips.

EJ nodded slowly, a slow answering smile mirroring her own.

"I want to make a life with you Samantha," said EJ sincerely, eyes full of hope for the first time in a very long time.

"Then that's what we'll do EJ," Sami promised him, cupping the back of his head and leaning in to kiss him.

The way forward wouldn't be easy but Sami knew, down to the bottom of her soul, that it would be worth it with this man by her side.