TITLE: The Life She Wanted

AUTHOR: Minttown1/Amber.

RATING: PG.

SPOILERS: Season one, specifically "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been."

SUMMARY: "How had she ever believed it was unimportant?"

ARCHIVAL: Just ask.

DISCLAIMER: Owned by Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Warner Bros. Television, and CBS Productions, not by me.

NOTES: Innumerable thanks to Devanie, who suggested I write a Without a Trace fic, graciously answered my questions, and checked to see that I didn't just type random words everywhere. Also, to give credit where credit's due, I was listening to Jann Arden's "Could I Be Your Girl" as I wrote this.

~*~

Samantha stared into the wavering depths of her glass, musing that it was the shallowest thing she had lost herself in since high school. She giggled, then wondered just how much she had had to drink. Too much, she knew, but it was unlikely that Jack would be calling so soon after making her leave the office, right?

And it was even less likely that Jack would be calling for any other reason. Try as she might, Samantha resented that Jack was trying to make his marriage work. She was sure that she could be more for him -- more understanding, more loving -- than his wife ever could. Jack had children, though, two beautiful little girls. He loved and wanted his daughters, and no sane judge would ever take them from their mother and give them to their adulterous, workaholic FBI agent father if he decided he wanted to try to take a shot at a relationship with one of his subordinates. Even if Jack did show up at her door with divorce paperwork in one hand and a custody order in the other, it would hardly be the life she wanted.

She laughed at herself for the second time that evening, trying to imagine her life as a stepmother. As much as she loved Jack, and there was no pretending not to, she also knew she would not make a very good part-time mother to his already confused little girls. The counter where she now sat with a shot glass and a half-empty bottle would never be used to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

His daughters, of course, were not the only problem. She saw her reflection flinch in the toaster when she thought that, poured another drink, and willed the name away. Marie. She could hear Jack's voice, Marie, still Marie, always Marie. "And what did you expect, Sam?" she asked herself aloud, willing away tears with words.

Nothing, really. She had kept her expectations low, avoided asking for anything, figuring that she would then avoid disappointment. Every look, every whisper, every touch: she had convinced herself that they all meant nothing. It had been easy to believe when it seemed that they would continue. The night that he pulled away, though, she realized just how temporary it truly was, and all those tiny moments took on significance. Jack would never again hold her. How had she ever believed it was unimportant?

Important as it was to her now, it was also over. He had told her that, and she had at least tried to accept it. What else could she do? She accepted the inevitabilities with which she was presented the same way she solved the cases to which she was assigned: sensibly. An FBI agent had to be sensible. It seemed like a fairly important quality.

Sometimes her common sense failed her, though, when either her heart was too involved or her judgment was too clouded, and both felt like problems tonight. Her objectivity was shot to hell, and she answered his eventual knock on the door without a second thought. By the time she thought to stop, his jacket was on the floor and he was tasting her drink, but she would not have stopped him anyway, would never have stopped him. This, after all, was the life she wanted.