A/N: Thanks for reading this story of mine! I would not be here without you folks. Thanks once again to danceabove as well.
When Foyle turned the corner on his walk from the train station, he immediately saw her. Sam was on his steps, sitting there. Head down. Which hardly seemed like Sam.
"Hello?"
"Oh, thank God," she breathed as she stood.
"How long have you..."
She cut in quickly, "It doesn't matter."
Meeting her on the steps, he let his free hand fall briefly at her waist. "What will the neighbors say?" he mused, trying to make things lighter than they obviously were.
She shook her head. "I really don't care." There was a worried smile on her face that he could not ignore.
"Come in, then." But his eyes no longer met hers. He was clearly not himself.
Sam fidgeted as he pushed the door open. She'd been patient for weeks. For years, if she let herself think about all the time she had spent beside him. She knew she couldn't be patient now.
"You have to tell me. Please?" she said, once they had made it as far as the front hall.
But the detective was distracted by something else. "How did you know to wait for me?" Foyle asked as he threw his coat and hat down across a table.
"Andrew. I rang him, and he said you were getting back today."
As curious as Christopher was to hear about that conversation, there were bigger things to consider. "And how did he know?" the unhappily chagrined policeman wanted to know.
"His uncle. But that was all Andrew knew... just that you were headed back. Now, please, Christopher," Sam said with rising impatience. "What is the new job like? When do you start?"
"I didn't take the job."
There was a pause then while Sam tried to take that in, while she tried to place the emotion she heard in his voice. "Not yet," she supplemented, warily.
He took her hand to bring her to the front room. Once there, he gave up on the notion of having her sit. She was too agitated even to stand still.
"Things are all... when I made the plans to go to London, I thought it might be a good idea... if this was... tested," he told her.
She looked stunned for a moment; then was suddenly close to boiling over. "Tested?"
"If I was in London, and I only saw you..."
"That was the 'good idea?'" Sam backed away and moved to pull her gloves back on. She eyed him quickly and mercilessly before turning for the door.
"I'm here, Sam." His hand was on her arm. "I have put things rather badly. But the point is, I have said no to the job, and I am here," he stressed.
"But part of you wonders if just glibly turning down that job was a good idea."
"Part of me is exceedingly unhappy about not having a job, yes," he said, tensely. The gates were open now; he felt it. And after the nearly unbearable meeting he had had with his brother-in-law, he had promised himself these things would get said. "Part of me wonders how this will work between us. What you could see in me."
He paused, seeming pained, and she knew not to interrupt. "I don't always know what possible future there can be given how used to being on my own I am. How used to getting my way I am. Or," he said slowly, deliberately, "how old I am."
"Lord," was all she said in reply. But she seemed like a dam set to burst.
"Well? What?" he demanded.
She shook her head at him. "You are a smart bloke. None smarter, really. But do you ever just turn your blinking head off for a minute and listen to any other part of you?"
He looked uncomfortable. "You know I have."
And she did know that, she admitted. Because they both remembered how he had pinned her to this couch they were standing near, and how he had kissed her almost feverishly in his kitchen.
"Yes. Yes. Of course, you have... but, those would be the times that you ended up apologizing for," she explained, sharply. "While those are the times that give me hope."
How could he explain the difficult, almost oxymoronic notion of middle-aged hopes to someone like Sam? he wondered. He winced, and began to pace, before he finally told her, "I have a lot of practice at not getting my hopes up. It's something I'm rather good at. And, yes, I have put as much distance between myself and my feelings as I could, at times. As much distance between you and me as I could."
Softly now, intently, he told her as his face changed, "It all seemed a very necessary thing at the time. Whether it was wrong or right to do that, it hasn't changed the basic truth. I love you, Sam."
Sam's face lit up at that last statement. "Oh, atta boy," she crooned sweetly as she pulled him in to kiss him gently. "You love me. So, you know this can work. You know this will work." She was not quite sure enough to have that come out as a statement. It had the insecure ring of a question to it.
His silence was less than reassuring in return.
"Could we make a better mess of this?" He scratched at his head, not needing or wanting an answer. "It isn't just that I love you. That was the easy part," he told her. "The only easy part."
The small smile on his lips gave her hope. But that smile was worried, fleeting. Gone, now.
"There is a hard part; that is what you are saying. So, what is it?" Sam said, steeling herself.
"Everything else, if that makes any sense."
"None," a tense Sam assessed.
She nodded and waited for the rest of it. And the infuriating man said nothing.
"Luckily, I'm patient... well, when it comes to you," she tried lightly at last.
Christopher almost laughed. He had to wonder what Commander Howard would make of this young woman and her belief that, if anything, Foyle needed to think about this less. Not more.
… … …
She was afraid to leave that night. Afraid at how much further his determination might slip by morning if she were not there to encourage things. To hold things, and him, together.
He sensed the strain he was putting on her and so he gave her his best, most well-adjusted smile. "Breakfast, Sam? We can have breakfast in the morning."
She looked confused for a moment. And then entirely too amused. "You don't mean you'd let me stay?" she whispered. "For just a bit there, I thought maybe..."
He cleared his throat. "I meant. We'd see each other again in the morning. Let me walk you home. Don't tempt me."
"Me? I thought you were, well, tempting me. Or tempted by me. Or..." She was rattling on at an impressive speed now.
He kissed her. Whispered at her ear then and pushed a bit of her hair behind the other. "You know I love you, but... you want to hear me say that I would..."
"Want me here," she supplied, making that easier for him. "Yes. Is that so wrong, that I would want to know that?"
He was so far out of his depth that he didn't know what was wrong or right in that moment. But he knew how dangerous it was to feel as he did now: that loving Samantha Stewart – and being loved by her – made impossible things so wholly plausible.
So completely necessary.
Which didn't tell him what his brother-in-law had urged him to think about: how would things work?
But it told him what he was sure Sam would say was more important: how much in his heart he wanted this to work.