Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." – Groucho Marx
o o o o
22 May, 2001
"Call me when you land, okay?" Derek leaned down and kissed Sammie, the ends of her short blonde hair tickling his fingers as he cupped the back of her head. Just yesterday he'd mourned the loss of her long, blonde hair and the next time he saw her, she'd be completely bald.
"I will," Sammie nodded and pushed up on her toes to kiss him again. "I love you."
"I love you too. Be careful. No death by Viper."
"I will. No death. And you too."
"Come on, guys. Be gross later," Keira groaned and picked up her trumpet case and carry-on when people began boarding their flight. Pejmon came running up with his cymbal case and his parents trailing behind him. Sammie and Derek exchanged a last kiss and Sammie turned to hug Andria and James. Derek, Andria and James watched along with Pejmon's parents and Keira's mother as the plane taxied out to the runway, raced away and started flying west to Santa Clara. Pejmon's parents left rather quickly, just speaking briefly, but Keira's mother and Andria spent time talking together with the comfortable ease of two women whose daughters have been friends since childhood.
"Are you having dinner with us?" James asked as they sat in hard, plastic seats waiting for the conversation to end. Derek shook his head; the only reason he stayed was to keep James company.
"Not tonight. I work tonight. You and me, we'll hang out soon, though, okay?"
"Yeah, 'cause Sam's not here anymore," James picked at a loose thread in his cargo shorts and stared at the stained carpet.
"Hey, now, kid. C'mon, don't do that," Derek leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, turning his head to look at James.
"You've already got Sam. You don't have to hang out with me anymore."
"James, you were never a way to get to Sam. You know that. I didn't need your help getting to Sam."
"Yeah. You just needed to grow a brain."
"Hey. James, what's going on?"
"Nothing," James pushed himself up and, ignoring Derek, walked over to Andria, mumbling quietly enough that Derek had no chance of hearing the words, much less awkwardly translating the words into English and comprehending them. Baffled, Derek walked with James and Andria to the short-term parking where his bike sat forty-five years away from the Murdoch's sedan.
Derek let the Murdoch's pull out first and sat straddling his bike for a quarter of an hour staring at the handlebars in utter confusion. He didn't know what James was so upset about – he hadn't been ignoring the teenager, hadn't done anything to warrant anger, he didn't think. Once home, Derek took Clooney for a quick walk and tossed a ragged tennis ball for a while before heading back to the apartment from the empty lot down the street.
An hour sat between that moment and when he needed to get himself and Clooney ready to go to the police station and his thoughts wandered to Sammie. Walking through his apartment, his eyes lingered on the evidence of Sammie's presences littered everywhere: a single blue sock, sheet music Derek couldn't read, a set of red Chuck Taylor's in the corner, a discharged, cracked reed that must have missed the trashcan, black hair bands on every surface. Sitting down on his bed, he glanced at the stack of CD cases on his dresser, the ones she insisted he borrow and hear, the slightly smaller stack right next to his bed, the ones of her playing. Derek leaned back so his head hit the pillow, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He could feel her presence most here. Even as he loved that his pillow smelt like her, a twinge of guilt hit him like a soccer ball to the gut. They had broken her promise. He would marry her, though. He knew they'd be together for the rest of their lives, so what did two years really matter? If anything, he'd just love her even more by the time he managed to put a ring on her left hand.
Reaching over, Derek hit the play button on his CD player and waited until the music started playing before he closed his eyes. The piano came first, slow and cheerful, before the clarinet began working it's magic on his heart.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
3 June, 2001
"Bonding time!" someone shouted laughingly as corps members started sitting in their little cliques with their dinner after afternoon practice. Tired laughter rippled through the group. Sammie lay down flat on her stomach with her plate up by her head. Someone dropped an ice cube on her back above her tank top and she groaned.
"Pej, I hate your guts," she mumbled into the grass of the local high school's practice field.
"I hate yours too."
"Go die."
"You first."
Saul fell next to Sammie with a thud and dug into his chicken sandwich without greeting anyone. Keira sat between Sammie and Pejmon instead of over with the other trumpet players just as the rookie on the cymbal line, Hank, dropped on the other side of Saul next to Pejmon to complete their small circle.
They ate with minimal talking, too tired to create conversation. Practice had begun at six-thirty that morning and continued all day with only an hour break for lunch around noon. At five-fifteen, they were all exhausted and practice would continue longer after dinner. Sammie cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of Gatorade as Saul snagged their instructor's guitar and started playing a few chords. Everyone had a little more energy with full stomachs and a break.
Saul strummed and played a song from the new country group, Rascal Flatts, and pretty soon Keira was singing along.
"Prayin' for daylight waiting for that morning sun so I can act like my whole life ain't going wrong. Baby come back to me, I swear I'll make it right. Don't make me spend another lonely night prayin' for daylight…"
Sammie smiled, resting her head on Keira's shoulder. The last time she'd heard the song she and Derek had been sitting in her backyard talking about nothing and everything all at once. She loved how they could do that, how every minute she spent with him felt like one more minute of forever, one more minute of something so perfect she didn't have words to describe it.
The guitar was passed from person to person and everyone got a chance to play before it wound up in Sammie's lap. She only knew a handful of songs on the guitar and all from one artist, so she picked her favourite and Keira groaned as soon as she recognized Gordon Lightfoot's "Me and Bobby McGee."
"Busted flat in Baton Rouge headin' for the train feeling nearly faded as my jeans. Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained. Took us all the way to New Orleans."
Closing her eyes, she was thirteen years old and sitting next to her dad in a Coleman camping chair with the fire cackling happily a few feet away. The sun was just peaking over the tops of the trees, almost gone for the day, and the air was crisp enough to give her goose bumps. Their campsite was deep enough in the trees at Pinery Provincial Park at the bottom on Lake Huron that they could barely hear the people at the next campsite.
Her father held the old acoustic guitar she grew up listening to and played the only songs he knew how to play, his voice happy and kind, a sort of cruel joke that there could be these fleeting moments of wonderful that continually gave her hope before it was mercilessly jerked from her grasp.
"I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanna and was blowin' sad while Bobby sang the blues. With those windshield wipers slappin' time and Bobby clappin' hands we finally sung up every song that driver knew."
Still, knowing it could disappear any second, Sammie hoped, prayed that this time it would stick, that this time there wouldn't be a disappointing end, that this time there would be no end and her father would stay this way forever. And so she sang along. Maybe she would be good enough this time.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free. Feelin' good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues. Feelin' good was good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McGee."
Sammie blinked her eyes open and the Canadian forest was gone. Her voice was the only one singing and the comforting scent of the campfire, of happily burning wood, no longer tingled her nose. She finished the song on autopilot before handing the guitar back to Saul and letting other people take over the conversation. Keira looked at her like she knew what was wrong, she probably did, and squeezed Sammie's hand.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
16 June, 2011
The restaurant was loud and alive as Derek and his family sat down at the table. Most people were watching the qualifying game between Italy and Georgia for next summer's World Cup. A shout went up when Gianluigi Buffon jumped to the corner of the net, catching what looked like a sure goal off the foot of Kakha Kaladze. Startled, Sarah jumped. Derek just laughed. He was used to this environment.
"Derek! E la famiglia Morgan! Benvenuti!" Sammie's aunt Marsi stopped at their table. "Sono così felice che tu sia qui! Quando sei venuto qua?"
"Caio, Marsi. Solo pochi minuti fa," Derek grinned back. Marsi was his favourite. Short and plump, the woman made every feel welcome.
"Molto bene, Derek! Sei stato praticante," Marsi clapped, a huge smile spread across her face. "Anyone else?" Fran and Desiree laughed and shook their heads, but Sarah just offered a tight smile. "Usual drinks? Solo un momento."
A minute or two later, James showed up with their drinks and a steaming bread basket, glancing over his shoulder constantly to see the match on the television. He muttered under his breath when the Georgian keeper stopped a shot on goal. He put down their drinks and started his script without fully looking away from the match. "Ciao. Benvenuti a Ponsiglione's. Sono James e io – hey! Sorry!"
"You know you're supposed to do that in English, J," Derek teased. It was always dangerous coming into Ponsiglione's during a soccer match – you never knew what you were going to get. Usually, they spoke to the customers in English, but during games or if they were distracted, they slipped back into the native Italian.
"Yeah, yeah…" James gave the charming, charismatic grin that always got him out of trouble. The kid could pull a Charles Manson and all he would have to do is flash that beguiling smile at the judge, male or female, and he would get off scot-free. "So what are we feeling today? Name a meat and I'll find something I promise you'll love."
"Lamb."
"Chicken."
"Veggies."
"Sausage."
"Okay. No allergies, right?" As they shook their heads 'no,' James poured olive oil over a small dish of chopped and toasted garlic. When James had left for the kitchen, Derek opened his mouth to speak, but the entire restaurant exploded when Marco Delvecchio scored in the forty-fifth minute, seconds before the end of the first half. Their happiness was infectious and the Morgans' cheered along with them.
The four of them talked and joked as families did, tasting each other's dishes and reaching across each other instead of asking. Just as they were finishing up, Andria, Marsi and their mother Marsala came over, putting a huge, beautiful tiramisu cake with candle sparklers in front of him. Derek started laughing as all three women tried to kiss his cheek at once.
"Buon compleanno, Derek," Andria smiled at him fondly. "Even if your birthday was last week."
ooo ooo ooo ooo
21 June, 2001
"Dut, dut, dut, dut, dut." The cymbal line verbalized each beat as they marked time to their instructor Kevin and the two drumsticks he hit together as a metronome. A series of fusion crashes ended with a dramatic splash crash. Kevin kept time as he watched the visual.
"Hank, tighter movements. Sharp. Think staccato. Your movements are the beats. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Dut, dut, dut."
Sammie's arms ached. At two in the afternoon, the sun hung high and hot in the sky, beating down on them mercilessly. Sweat ran down her back and soaked into the elastic in her sports bra. The leather straps of her cymbals continually rubbed away skin with every movement.
There first competition of the year was tomorrow. All the hard work would be worth it when they stepped out on that field. There was nothing like the thrill of those twelve minutes performing on the field. She loved it and hated that this was her last year, her age-out year.
Her stomach turned over, but she ignored it. It had been doing that all day. It was doing that yesterday too. Too hot. Usually, they had a few days when the heat increased slowly and they could get used to it gradually, but, this summer, the heat jumped from a tolerable ninety-two to a hundred and one over night.
Kevin stopped them and said to grab some Gatorade. Saul and Pejmon dropped where they stood and grabbed their gallon-sized water bottles, gulping down Gatorade faster than they should. Sammie slipped off her cymbals and walked a few steps to her water bottle, but her stomach flipped again. Violently.
Pejmon cheered as Sammie emptied the contents of her stomach onto the grass. Sammie dry heaved twice before running the back of her hand over her mouth. She took a drink of water, swished her mouth and spit it back out.
"Keep drinking, Sam," Kevin tossed her an unopened bottle of Gatorade. "You're probably just dehydrated."
"Sam finally puked!" Pejmon kept celebrating even after Sammie nailed him in the head with one of Kevin's drumsticks. "It took six years, but you finally threw up! Thank you, God!"
"You're such a jerk," Sammie lowered the now half-empty Gatorade bottle.
"You can't leave the corps a heat-stroke virgin, Sam. Especially not after six years. It just wouldn't be right."
ooo ooo ooo ooo
6 July, 2001
"Nice!" James laughed as his grenade exploded a hole in the rocks. "I can't believe you can mess with the world like that."
"Red Faction is pretty tight," Derek exchanged his gun for a rocket launcher. They sat in identical hunched positions, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees and focusing on the latest cool new video game.
"Ohhh!" James mocked Derek as his character died. "Destroyed! Absolutely destroyed!"
Clooney barked once to show his annoyance at being kept awake before getting up and padding out of the living room towards Derek's bedroom where he might get some quiet. Derek grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. He glanced over at James for a second as his character re-spawned. "You gonna tell me what's been up the past couple weeks?"
"Nothing's up."
"You sure about that?"
James didn't answer. Instead, he used grenades to blow a tunnel through boulders and stared intently at the PlayStation controller in his hand. "Why didn't you tell me? Why won't you tell me?"
"About what?" Derek had a pretty good idea 'what.'
"The guy… at the community center. The one that was the reason you know what it's like."
"James… man, it… it's hard."
"Do you not trust me or something?" James kept his gaze on he controller.
"Of course I trust you, James. You're like my brother," Derek sighed, staring at his own controller. "I just don't talk about it. I've never talked about it."
"Except with Sam," James' tone was bitter.
"No, especially not with Sam."
"What?" James looked up in surprise.
"Sam doesn't know. You're the only one who knows anything," Derek still stared at the carpet.
"You didn't tell her." The statement wasn't a question, but Derek shook his head in answer anyways. "Why not?"
"I don't want her to know. I don't want her to… to pity me or anything."
"Is that what you do with us? Pity us? Is that why you stuck around in the first place?" Blue eyes flashed with fury.
"No way, James. You guys… you reminded me of me. I guess I wanted to protect you."
"I don't need your protection or your pity," James put the controller down on the coffee table and stood up, grabbing his jacket and stalking towards the door. "I thought you were my friend, man. I didn't realize I was just some dumb charity case. Some Big Brother Big Sister program shit."
"James, wait a second. James!" Derek jumped up after him. "James, c'mon."
"No, this is such shit."
"At least let me drive you home."
"I'll take a cab."
"A cab back to your house will cost you forty or fifty bucks," Derek willed the stubborn teenager to calm down. Apparently, James didn't want to waste that much money on a cab, because he followed Derek to the silver Intrepid and soon they were driving back towards Riverside. Derek put the car in park in the Murdoch's driveway. "James, I don't pity you."
"Whatever."
"I never told anyone before you." Derek's words stopped James as he reached for the door handle. "He was my football coach over at the community center. I was thirteen and, at first, he was just like a dad or uncle. He taught me how to throw and catch, the rules of the game."
"But he hit you when you disappointed him," James continued when Derek stopped.
"No," Derek shook his head. "He never hit me."
"Then what…" his voice trailed off as his eyes widened in slow, horrified realization. "Oh."
Derek stared at his hands on the wheel, feeling vile and disgusting. 'Oh.' He couldn't expect James or anyone else to say anything besides 'oh.' What else could they say?
"Why didn't you run? Or tell someone?"
"Afraid to. I didn't have a shot in hell at life without his help. And ashamed. I didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want to admit it was happening."
Neither of them spoke. They sat in silence in the idling sedan. A car drove past the driveway and turned into it's own a few houses down. Somewhere a dog barked twice before quieting again. Derek wished the earth would open to swallow him whole. James would never look at him the same way again and Derek couldn't blame him. He was disgusting. What teenager would want to be like him when they knew what he really was? And Sammie… What girl would love him when they knew the truth? What if she found out and left?
"It wasn't your fault," James' voice was uncharacteristically quiet, like he had been thinking very hard. "What happened… it wasn't your fault."
o o o o
"Any ordeal that you can survive as a human being is an improvement in your character, and usually an improvement in your life." – Viggo Mortensen
A/N:
This chapter is kind of a no-man's-land chapter. Every little bit in this chapter is vitally important for coming chapters, no matter how mish-mashed it seems right now. So, call it whatever you want, filler, prep, build-up, IDK! That's what it is. So don't come at me saying "nothing really happened blah blah blah" (The person saying that in my head has a really squeaky voice, btw. Just felt like sharing! Lol) because whatever you might not have understood will make sense soon.
Last week was kinda a sucky week for me. Soccer season is over. The boys lost in their second playoff game. It was awful. It was just really hard knowing it's probably the last time I'm ever going to see LB play. Plus, I've been on the sidelines all season taking pictures. I was seriously ready to sit down and start crying with the rest of the team. :(
But I got to hang out with my BFF Kaff yesterday and today. Yesterday we watched Tangled (PASCAL IS SO AWESOME) and today we walked together for forty minutes and talked. So that's awesome. We were supposed to go bowling with our brothers, but something came up so that was sad. They're my favourite. I love them. LB and Kaff's brother are the same age and had epic chalkboard battles during history class last year. I'll have to find the picture and post it for yall. It's hilarious. I'll let you know when I find it.
In other news: Melons. Yes. Melons. On the 21st of March, that would be fifteen days ago for those of you sans calendar, Little Brother Dearest was trying to get Mum to agree to let him and the Bonus Brothers go (unsupervised) all the way from Texas to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. That is a one thousand two hundred and ninety-seven (1,297) mile drive. None of them are over 19. Oh so surprisingly, the answer was a resounding "Are you out of your mind?" Not that that answer has deterred him any. He kept asking and bringing it up, not exactly nagging, but just being silly. Mum's tuned him out and is looking at ancient family photos from the 18 and early 19 hundreds. I'm still listening to Little Brother, just having fun with him. Finally, I say, "If you get to go to Cedar Point, I get to go to Canada." However... he didn't hear the last bit of my sentence and started freaking out thinking I'd said "I get to go with you" or something. I, of course, think it's absolutely freaking hysterical - I'm sick and twisted, what can I say - and start messing with him. After a while, he picks up the melon on the counter and says, "I will throw this at you. What did you say?" A little more teasing and I head to my room, pull out my book and start reading, still giggling. Maybe six, seven minutes later my door opens, Little Brother lobs the melon at me like a grenade, shuts the door and runs away. I come out, melon in tow, absolutely laughing myself to death. Mum didn't seem to believe Little Brother threw the melon at me, which, naturally, brought up the time Mum threw an open bag of pasta shells at Little Brother - I was there, he deserved it 100%. Damn puberty. I'm on the floor laughing so hard that I cannot breathe. So he starts making fun of me, because I'm pretty much turned red as a roma tomato, wheezing my laughter out because I have absolutely no air left and then gasping for breath when I'm about to pass out. His making fun of me only makes it worse. I laugh harder. More wheezing, brighter red, closer to death.
Which brings me to another legendary family story to share with you. Also to do with melons. My mum (6), her three younger sisters (4,3,2) and their parents (my grama and grampa) moved to and lived in Israel on a kibbutz from 1960-1961. The parents used to get up at the crack of dawn to eat and then go work at the job they were assigned that week. Sometimes they worked in slaughterhouse, etc, or to the fields. If it was harvest time and you were working in the fields, you could bring home as much as you could carry. Bananas, oranges, grapes and, this one time, watermelons. Dun, dun, dun... (Anybody see a pattern emerging?) Now, everybody got to bring home a loaf of fresh bread, little pots of butter and jam, a container of milk, tea packets. So, that day, Grama had worked in the field and brought home watermelon. Grama and Grampa were sitting on the log in the grassy area in front of where they lived and the four girls were on the ground. They had cut one of the watermelon into six pieces and were eating and laughing and my Grama (God,, love her) had an end piece. She'd eaten down into the rind and, when she'd gotten pretty close to the end, she looked at my Grampa, looked back at the watermelon, looked at my Grampa again and smashed the watermelon right into his face! Grama jumps up and starts running away and laughing hysterically and, of course, Grampa gets up and chases her. They're chasing each other around, smashing watermelons in each others faces and my mum and aunts are just laughing their little heads off. All the while, I'm 99.99999% positive, the rest of the people on the kibbutz were thinking, "When are these damn Americans gonna go home?" ... Melons... they run in the family.
Okay! I'm off! Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it and, please, tell me what you think - good or bad! ¡Adiós!
Love, Thalia