Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
"True love never dies, for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime, but lust just pushes away." – Alicia Barnhart
o o o o
29 November, 2001
"Hey Angel," Derek smiled at her as he walked into the hospital room. Her movements were slow and deliberate, but Sammie raised her hand off the mattress a few inches in greeting. Her bed had been raised so she was propped up in a forty-five degree angle. Stopping next to her, Derek leaned down and kissed her forehead. "How are you feeling, Baby Girl?"
Sammie made a few feeble noises before giving up. The nurse who had been cleaning the reopened scar tissue on Sammie's skull looked up at Derek with a tired smile. "She's having a good day today. We had a little bit of movement in the right hand earlier. We got our thumb and index finger moving."
"Yeah?" Derek pulled up the chair next to Sammie's bed. He didn't particularly like that the nurse spoke to and about Sammie like she were a small child, but he didn't say anything. He would let the nurse slide this time – give her the benefit of the doubt. She might be tired, might have had a long day. Next time, though, he would mention it. So instead he kept his attention on his wife.
He had gone back to work a week ago and being away from Sammie twelve hours a day every other day stressed him out worse than actually working. Derek was terrified that something would happen while he was gone. When the nurse left, Derek leaned over and gave Sammie a kiss. The mangled side of her mouth felt funny beneath his lips, but he didn't mind. A funny kiss was better then no kiss. He would gladly take any sort of kiss available to him.
"I love you, Angel," Derek squeezed her hand. Sammie made a noise that he had quickly come to understand as 'I love you.' "So what's this about you moving your hand while I was gone?"
Sammie responded by flexing her fingers in his hand. Derek smiled happily and she shifted her fingers again.
"You're amazing, Baby Girl." Derek glanced at her now-bald scalp, where staples were once again holding the wound closed. Two days ago she had undergone another surgery to attach a protective titanium plate to her skull where the bone had been removed. "How are you feeling? How's your head feeling?"
Derek waited patiently as Sammie searched slowly through the index cards her mother had made for her. Each card had a word written in Italian and, beneath that, the same word was written in English. Sammie had trouble with English. She had trouble communicating at all, but English caused more trouble than Italian did. Dr. LeBlanc had explained that her first language was more cemented in her mind than the second, so she had a better chance of recalling it. She could understand English, but it took much longer and caused her vastly more frustration, so the family stuck to Italian.
Finally, Sammie held up a card that read 'Stanco – Tired.' Derek smiled at her and waited as she searched through the cards again. After two and a half minutes, she held up a card reading 'Affamato – Hungry.'
"You haven't eaten dinner yet?"
Sammie shook her head and Derek stood up to go in search of a nurse. Sammie insisted on trying to feed herself, which made Derek happy. He told her about the three-three tie the Blackhawks had with the Vancouver Canucks the night before and took over feeding her when she became too tired.
"Try to go to sleep, Angel," Derek kissed her and he pushed the rolling cart with her tray on it over to the wall a while later. "You need to rest, Sam."
Derek settled himself into his chair, getting ready to stay for a while, but Sammie was shifting through her cards. She held up a card and Derek frowned.
"The dog? Clooney? He's at my mom's house."
Sammie shook her head and kept the card raised. Derek read the card again. Sure enough, the card read 'Cane – Dog.'
"What about Clooney, Sam?"
Sammie looked frustrated. Derek felt his heart sink when he realized what was wrong. The card wasn't right. This had happened before. She knew what she wanted to say, but the information was getting garbled. Derek stood up and reached over her to pick up the cards by her side.
With the index cards in one hand, Derek slowly and very carefully moved Sammie over across the bed so he would fit next to her. Sammie watched silently as Derek eased himself onto the bed. Once he was settled, he gingerly helped her move closer until she could rest her head against his arm. Derek threaded his fingers through hers and felt her flex her fingers briefly.
Slowly, they went through the cards together. Derek had slowly got through the cards twice before Sammie squeezed his hand faintly. Stopping, he glanced at the card reading 'Casa – Home.'
"Baby Girl, you know you can't go home yet."
But Sammie was shaking her head. Lifting her left arm, she pointed at him.
"You want me to go home?" Derek asked, but she was nodding before he'd even finished his question. "No, Sam. I'm going to stay here with you."
She frowned at him and pinched his finger with her nails.
"She's right, you know."
Derek looked up away from Sammie to see Paola standing in the doorway. Paola continued into the room, dropping her bag in the chair and then walking over to the bed. She stooped and kissed her niece's cheeks.
"Ti amo, Samantha. Ma dovreste essere addormentato, signorina," Paola scolded lightly, with a smile, as she walked around the bed to greet Derek the same way.
"I've been trying to get her to go to sleep," Derek said, running his thumb over the back of Sammie's hand. "We were having a little trouble with 'house' and 'dog."'
"She's right, Derek," Paola sat in the chair Derek had been sitting in earlier. "You haven't slept in a proper bed in a month and a half."
ooo ooo ooo ooo
Derek pulled into his driveway later that night with Clooney in the front seat, having been successfully shooed out of the hospital room to go home for the night for the first time in over a month. The moment he turned the key in the ignition, Clooney perked up, eager to get out of the car and explore. Clooney jumped out of the car as soon as he could and started sniffing around the front yard while Derek walked up the steps and opened the front door.
Clooney ran into the house when called and Derek took a good look around the house. Their families had taken it upon themselves to move Derek and Sammie out of the apartment before their lease expired and Derek couldn't be more thankful. Their furniture was set up and waiting to be used, the kitchen was stocked with food and cooking equipment filled the cabinets, cloths hung in the closets and pictures on the wall.
Just standing in the small foyer that offered a view of both the kitchen and the living room and also the hallway that would lead to the bedroom, the spare room and… and the nursery. The nursery that Ellie would never use, that might never be used at all. Derek shook the thought from his mind and looked around, really absorbing everything for the first time. He had been in the house since they have been moved, but never for very long and he had never stopped to actually look at the house.
Clooney bumped Derek's hand with his nose and sat on his haunches, tail wagging and thumping on the hardwood floor as he looked expectantly at Derek. But Derek didn't notice the German shepherd a lick. He was staring at the photograph of his mother holding tiny baby Ellie. Fran's face was smiling, but she still looked a little sad. The nurse had offered to take pictures of them with Ellie, saying a lot of families like the pictures, the only memories they would have, and that Ellie would just look like she was sleeping.
Derek refused. He didn't want the pictures. He couldn't handle it. The rest of the family had wanted them, however. His mother and sisters, Andria, James and Sammie's grandmother, Marsala, had wanted them. But not Derek.
He couldn't bring himself to hold his own daughter and the knowledge of that weakness, that greatest failure, ate away at him.
The photo of his mother and his daughter hurt to see, so Derek reached out and took the frame from the wall. With a last look at it, he shoved it in the drawer of the wall table over which it had been hanging. He couldn't handle seeing it every time he walked through the living room.
With the offending picture out of view, Derek turned back to the other photographs decorating the walls. Whichever of his family members had decorated the house had done a nice job. There were touches he knew came from his mom and he assumed Sammie's aunts had their hands in the rest of it. Sammie would like it. He knew she would when he brought her home.
Derek smiled, his eyes stopping on their wedding picture. He would be bringing her home. He had thought for so long, for what felt like forever, that he would be saying goodbye to his angel in that hospital room, but he'd been given a second change. He'd been given a miracle and he would never stop being thankful for it.
The light shifted as the last of the sun disappeared and Derek reached out and flipped the light, turning his attention down the hallway. Two doors were open and one, the one behind which stood a pink nursery, was closed. Clooney poked his head out of the room that had been painted yellow, staring at Derek with a goofy look on his face.
Shaking his head with a half-smile on his face, Derek walked down to the dog and squatted down to scratch the dog behind his ear as he looked around the room. Sammie's upright piano sat against the far wall beneath a high window. Tall bookshelves flanked the piano on either side, each one overflowing with music books and reeds and cork grease and all sorts of other musical doodads and knickknacks whose purposes Derek would never fully understand. Derek smiled.
"Derek!" Sammie laughed and pushed his face away. "I can't play when you do that!"
"Do what?" Derek teased, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her behind the ear over the tiny bit of inked flesh.
"That!" she was dissolving in giggles as she covered his hands with hers.
"You play pretty," he whispered and kissed her cheek.
'I could play prettier if you stop," Sammie turned to look at him and he took the chance to kiss her.
Would they ever get to the place where he could sneak up on her while she played? Derek blinked and turned away from her piano. Their life was never going to be that way again and dwelling on what had been would only make it worst. Maybe one day she would be able to play the piano again, but she would never play the instrument that meant the most to her. Her mouth would never be able to form the clarinet embouchure again.
Derek turned away from the music room entirely, barely noticing his desk and computer against another wall or the other instrument cases littering the room. Sammie was coming home. That's all that mattered. They would deal with the rest later.
Closing the door behind him, Derek followed the dark hallway down to their bedroom. It was more put together than their bedroom had been in the apartment. More polished. More someone-actually-took-some-time-and-designed-this-room. Sammie would like it. He liked most of it. Derek reached out and turned a picture of Marsala and Ellie facedown on the table. Better.
The alarm clock on the nightstand glowed red at him and he could feel his own exhaustion twice over. He needed sleep. Clooney was already settled at the edge of the bed, his eyes closed and his head resting on his paws.
That night, Derek slept on Sammie's side of the bed. Or he tried too. The entire bed smelt like her and Derek woke every thirty minutes and then spent another thirty trying to fall back asleep, so he eventually picked himself up and collapsed on the couch in the living room. It was there that he finally managed to fall into a proper sleep.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
4 December, 2001
Sammie regained the use of her right arm within a few days of being able to more her fingers and Derek found it difficult to stay in the moment rather than think about what she might do next. It was hard and painful to remind himself that she might not progress past this place and that that was okay. That where she was now was more than what he had been guaranteed not two months ago.
On his mother-in-law's very strict orders, Derek was spending the morning of his day off away from Sammie's side and hating every second of it. Though, the porch in front of their house stood as proof that his hospital hiatus was, if nothing else, productive. A yard of the pretty white railing at the end of the porch closest to the driveway had been removed and a curved ramp lead from the driveway up to the opening on the porch.
Mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his Blackhawks sweatshirt, Derek bit the inside of his mouth and studied the ramp. Once it was painted white and had a coat of enamel on it, the ramp would look just like the rest of the porch. The weatherman had said there wouldn't be any rain or snow for the rest week and Derek was praying that that stupid weatherman was right for once in his career.
A car drove up, stopped in front of the house and Derek watched as Marsala got out. All he could think was 'Please, don't want to go inside' because the pictures of Ellie had not been put back – one was still stuck in the drawer and the one that had been in their bedroom was now tucked on the top shelf of the closet after he'd accidently knocked it off the dresser when he bumped into it on his way to the couch.
"You must be cold," Marsala said as she walked up the sidewalk. Derek shrugged and rubbed the back of his head.
"Not really. Working kept me warm."
"It looks nice."
"It'll look better when it's finished." Derek didn't know what to say. Marsala hadn't spoken to him since he and Sammie had announced they were getting married. He wasn't sure if she had spoken to Sammie either. "Umm, what can –"
"I came to give you this," the tiny, plump woman reached into the pocket of her thick winter coat that made her nearly twice as big as she really was and pulled out a small black pouch. She held the pouch out for him and Derek took it, opening it when she looked at him expectantly.
George's crucifix spilled out into it palm.
"I can't take this," Derek shook his head and tried to hand the jewelry back.
"No. It belongs to you," Marsala closed his hand over the crucifix.
"No, it should go to one of your grandkids, not to me. That's what George would want."
"Young man, I was married to him for fifty-seven years. I think I know what my husband would want and what he wouldn't want and he would want you to have that." Marsala put her hands on her hips as well as she could is her poufy jacket and gave him a glare she'd handed down to all of her daughters and granddaughters. "My father gave this to George when we got married. He said that marriage is hard work and very day is a challenge and making a marriage work takes a lot of dedication. I was angry with you and with Samantha for getting pregnant, for being so irresponsible. But you did the right thing and you married her. You… you took care of her better than I could have asked."
"She deserves better," Derek shrugged as if it didn't matter, but hearing this felt good and made him feel a little less hated.
"What she deserves is not the point," she shook her head. "You've done everything you can for her and you're still doing everything you can for her. You're out here in the middle of winter building a ramp for her in case she comes home soon."
"I want her home," Derek whispered, more to himself than to Marsala.
"We all want her home. If you stay with her, your life is going to be very hard and a lot of work, more than any normal marriage."
"What 'if?'" Derek stared at her. "She's my wife. I'm not going to abandon her!"
"I know, I'm sorry, that didn't come out the way I meant," Marsala looked flustered. "I know you're not going to leave her. I just meant that you both have a very difficult road ahead of you and you're going to need all the help you can get. We will be here. But He'll be here too, if you let Him."
Marsala stepped towards him and reached up to put her arms around his neck and hug him. Derek stooped down for her and she pushed up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
"Ti amo, nipote."
"Ti amo, nonna."
With that, Marsala turned and left and Derek was standing in the yard holding the gold crucifix he had never seen anywhere but around George's neck as she drove away. Derek wrestled with himself for a few moments about what to do with the crucifix. Part of him thought to wear it. He knew seeing it would make Sammie unbelievably happy, happier than anything else he could do for her right now. But wearing it would be like lying. He didn't know how he felt about God – especially right now. When Sammie was having a good day, he let himself believe, but then, when she had a bad day, there was no God. How could he wear this and let Sammie believe something he wasn't sure of?
Derek closed his fingers over the precious piece of jewelry and jogged up the steps and into the house. It took him a few minutes, but he found Sammie's jewelry box hidden in the top drawer of their dresser. The first piece of jewelry he saw was the necklace he'd given her for her twenty-first birthday. Derek smiled and put the crucifix in the same compartment as the diamond solitaire, closed the lid and tucked it back into their dresser.
He'd keep it safe and maybe… maybe one day, when he was sure, he would wear the crucifix that the man he admired second only to his father had held so close. But only when he was sure.
o o o o
"Only people who are capable of lovely strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them." – Leo Tolstoy
A/N:
I so don't know what to write. I'm tired. So this is probably going to be very stream on concious. Thompbrl and Ren Kayashima are awesome. I'm talking with them now. It's Aaron Rome's birthday. He's flawless. Yesterday was the birthday of my BFF Kaff. I told her I'd buy her a cemetery plot for her birthday and that she was so old she should just go lie in the coffin and wait. I also texted her saying "OMG, IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY. YOU'RE ONE YEAR CLOSER TO DEATH." I love her very much. She's been like my sister for nearly half my life. And more than half of the life I can remember, because I really can't remember much before I was five or six. Yesterday was also the birthdays of Henrik and Daniel Sedin. I call Henrik my "flawless acorn head." Because his head is sort of acorn shaped. It's a term of endearment, really. I'm probably the only person in the world that track-tags "Aaron Rome" on tumblr. I regret nothing. I love Romer. Yann Sauvé looks like Matt Lewis. I enjoy it very much. I'm sad he got sent back to Manitoba, but I know he's not ready for the big leagues yet. The only time we'll be seeing Yann is if our Defence get's hit by the injury bug again. And if that happens I might just go postal. I like calling Yann "Suave Sauvé." It makes me laugh. No one really gets it. I don't know why. I think it's hysterical. Wait a second, our farm team isn't in Manitoba anymore. We're in Chicago now. That's so wrong. I don't like it. I want to go back to Manitoba.
Earlier, I was talking with one of my friends, she's seven years younger than I am, but we're clones and she's like my little sister and that's the sort of relationship we have and I love her to death. I call her "Bambina Torte," which means "Baby Cakes" in Italian. We're both Italian. We talk Italian to each other. I have to use a dictionary, because I'm not really very fluent at all. Anyways. We were having a conversation and somehow we got from "OMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON ROME!~~!~!" to "BUT SERIOUSLY. PATRICK KANE IS AS UGLY AS A BABOON'S BUTT!" in less than five minutes. I have no idea how it happened. But I liked it. I'm not sorry. I don't like Patrick Kane. He's a player, he uses girls like his own personal prostitutes because he knows he can, he just plain annoys me, I think he's ugly and I don't like his playoff mullet. There's only one guy in the world who can pull off a mullet and that's Tanner Glass.
I want a cupcake. I don't know why. I just do. Someone bring me a cupcake. I want a cupcake to celebrate Romer's birthday. I'll put a candle in it and blow it out and yell, "Happy Birthday, Romer!" and then I'll stuff myself with the cupcake. Or at least eat it. Because I don't think a cupcake is enough to stuff yourself on. Unless your a mouse. Or if it's one of those big cakes that's shaped like a cupcake. You know, the ones where you can carve out the middle and put something in it and then you frost it to look like a cupcake? I don't like cake with "stuff" in it. Like, jelly stuff. I mean, I love carrot cake with small bits of carrots in it or chocolate cake with fudge or whatever. But I don't like cakes with fruit fillings or that sort of stuff. If I wanted fruit fillings, I'd get a pie.
Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it and, please, tell me what you think - good or bad!
Love, Thalia
o o o o
"Ti amo, Samantha. Ma dovreste essere addormentato, signorina." - "I love you, Samantha. But you should be asleep, young lady."
"Ti amo, nipote." – "I love you, grandson."
"Ti amo, nonna." – "I love you, grandma."