Jack had shut off the light in his office, walked into the empty conference room, and stood behind Samantha Spade's chair, visualizing the curve of her shoulders as she sat hunched over files and notes, papers spread across the smooth wood as her eyes pored over the details of a case with intense scrutiny.
He liked to watch her most when she didn't know it, because he could still love her that way. Maria wouldn't have to know, OPR wouldn't, his coworkers, Samantha, and he sometimes didn't notice himself because the action was so familiar it was like moving.
In most ways, Jack could be defined as a man who never backed down, who stood solemnly behind his convictions, his decisions, right or wrong, and his instincts. He acted on adrenaline, passion, and emotion most of all because you couldn't rely on your mind alone.
Your mind helped you figure out where you were going, but your heart took you there. Your heart fueled the last leaps of faith and that was who Jack Malone was. He took leaps of faith, he took them fast and hard.
But for some reason, some reason he couldn't quite understand, he didn't, in fact, act with his heart in the matters that were dictated by it the most. He relied on his head, his head that told him, Jack, do something right for once. So he listened to his head.
Doing the right thing wasn't always right. Doing the wrong thing wasn't always right. So he was left with these twisted puzzles, puzzles he had to somehow make sense of. Listening to his head hurt more than he could've known.
So tonight, he touched the spot on the back of her chair where her head would normally be and decided to listen to his heart for once.
*
"Extra strawberries, " Martin said, placing the styrofoam container in front of Samantha as he took a seat next to her on her couch.
He kept his coat on for the moment, waiting for a signal from her to go or stay, for that look in her eyes that would finally say, Martin, I've been blind, let's stop kidding ourselves. That look, he knew, would never come. The look he would see instead would be one of pain and loneliness, loneliness so encompassing she couldn't feel exactly what she wanted anymore and that look she would fling to him would be one that said, Martin, think for me because I can't anymore.
"My mother died ten years ago today."
He folded his steepled hands into his lap, leaned back against the soft cushions, and waited.
"That's where I went -- to the cemetery."
"Alone?"
"Danny offered to come this morning, but I -- it's just something I do alone."
She didn't mention her brother and the conversation they'd had and the tears she'd shed for two men she couldn't put together in a way that seemed to make sense. She cried tears for two men she couldn't understand. Tears for a man she couldn't figure out how to love and tears for a man she couldn't figure out how to stop loving.
"She had cancer, but she went pretty quick, died in her sleep. It was peaceful, and we were with her, so I guess you couldn't ask for more than that."
"Peaceful?"
"Yeah."
"Was it always peaceful, Sam?"
She'd started letting him call her that, but it still felt wrong coming from his lips, no matter how often he said it.
"No."
He shifted closer to her, didn't seem to notice her flinch slightly at the growing contact.
"We all have our secrets, don't we?"
"We do, Sam. We do."
"When I was seeing the therapist, she said eventually it might be good for me to get in touch with Ted, Fran, Libby, Richard, and even Barry."
"Barry?"
She nodded, looking down at the blanket covering her feet.
"Why?"
"I don't really know, but she said maybe it'd be good to just talk to him because of the circumstances, because of the guilt he'd had about me getting shot in the first place."
"So did you do it?"
She pulled the blanket up to her chest, leaned her head to the side against the cushion, closer to his face.
"He actually got in touch with me. Sent me a letter."
Martin's eyes shot open in surprise.
"Did you write back?"
"Not yet, I just -- I didn't know what to say. What do you say? 'Remember that time we were in the bookstore together and, oh yeah, I got shot? Well, it's all better now and my life's only a little more screwed up than it was.' Great letter."
"It's the truth, though."
"Is the truth always best?"
"Maybe not, but it's always right."
He couldn't mistake the sadness in her eyes, bent forward to touch her cheek with his hand.
"What are you afraid of, Sam?"
"Being alone."
Martin bent closer, shyly, asking her in silence if this was okay, and, getting no resistance, continued moving closer until their lips touched and met in a kiss. Only a few seconds passed before she pulled away, putting a hand against his chest in adamant objection.
"No, no. This is --"
"This is okay, Samantha. We're adults, we're --"
"We're friends, Martin."
He stopped, stroked a hand through her hair.
"But we're together here tonight, I'm here, and you're not alone. You're not."
She leaned her head against his chest, shed a few more tears again that night against his suit and thought of them together.
You're wrong, Martin.
You are.
Yes, she thought, I am alone.
Martin, for his part, could only sit and be that friend she spoke of. Friends. Yes. It wasn't as bad as it sounded. Sounded good, in fact, sounded natural in some way. They could be this. They could trade secrets and pass notes and tease each other, see movies, be like her and Danny were, be like people in movies were.
He was okay with this. He would think for both of them. For all of them.
"Hey Sam, " he said, "I'm not him, but --"
"Martin --"
"Hold on. I'm not him, but I am your friend, so you just, just cry as much as you need to and then we'll dig into that cheesecake, okay?"
She sniffled against his shirt, smiled, grateful for his understanding, grateful that he knew why she couldn't cross that line now, not ever. Grateful she had something to lean against right now.
*
Maybe he had lied, maybe he hadn't. It was an ambiguous remark, either way, and the priest could've taken it anyway he wanted to. He took it, most likely, as the bitter, half-hearted disenchantments of a man who had in fact divulged sins in a confessional once, had in fact taken communion before God and a priest, and his mother who waved at him from the back row with her new white, laced gloves.
Father Walker, he had learned, was smarter than he let on. It was both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes he knew more about you than you thought he did and you couldn't be sure, at any given moment, how much he knew what you were really thinking behind those beautifully veiled half-truths.
So he ended up here somehow, at St. Germaine's. And it didn't feel like he thought it might. It felt comforting. It felt inviting. It felt right.
"Jack, I was hoping to see you again soon, " Father Walker spoke as he sat in the pew next to Jack.
"Felt like taking a walk."
"So you walked into the Church."
"The door was open, " he responded wryly, pulling his hands together in a fist and resting them atop the wooden pew.
"Would you like to confess?"
Jack smiled again.
"Still think I'm Catholic."
"Would you lie to a priest?"
Jack's silence answered his question, and he leaned back against the wood.
"I thought so."
They sat for a moment, one a man of God, the other forgetting how to even start a prayer, it had been so long since he'd done so.
"Italian, you know? I'm Italian. And, every good Italian is Catholic, or so I've been told. So, yeah, I'm Catholic, and yeah, I went to Mass every Sunday, went to Catholic school. Got shuffled around a lot, so much that the Church was really the only thing I could keep. It was familiar. It never changed."
"So what happened?"
"My mother died. And not the normal way; she decided something was bad enough here that she couldn't be around it anymore. And God didn't help her with that. And I prayed to Him to help her, I did. Every night. You know what I got for those prayers, Father Walker? I got a dead mom in the garage when I was sixteen."
He remembered never being able to go into that garage again, as though the poisoned air would take him as well or ask him why he didn't save her, why he had just sat there on the couch and wondered where she was instead of looking for her like he should have.
"You may be angry at God for that, but do you still believe in Him?"
He clenched his fists and shut his eyes, bowed his head between his knees.
"Yeah, I do. But maybe I don't like him so much anymore. And maybe -- maybe I've lost my faith, Father."
"We all do, Jack. It's what makes us human."
He looked up from the ground.
"How do I get it back?"
"You have to find it."