Sam woke up with a headache. And confusion. What the hell happened? he wondered. I was standing there...and the body...oh, dammit, CATH...and then Noah...and now I'm lying down...
NOAH.
Sam's eyes opened immediately, and he gazed up at the familiar features of the man beside him, watching him with his eyes full of worry. "Who are you?" Sam growled suddenly, staring at Noah with a hostile expression that the young man had only seen him used when facing a dangerous fugitive before. "Noah's dead! I saw him...." Sam closed his eyes for a moment, hating to show any sort of weakness but.... He was just so tired of it all, tired of all of the loss, Noah, Catherine, the baby. He fought back the creeping blackness tickling the edges of his mind once more at the memory of the young marshal he had loved like a son. He wasn't going to let some imposter..... "Whoever the hell you are, you're not Newman. Noah's dead." Not fair, not fair at all for that young man to be gone like that. All his fault. "Who are you?" he demanded once more.
Noah stared at Sam in shock for a moment not quite able to believe how he was reacting, treating him like he was some sort of stranger, like it was his fault, like he didn't want.... He felt a stinging in his eyes that he angrily fought back. This wasn't his fault! He wasn't the one who who had walked away. How could they call themselves his friends and.... "You know who I am, Sam, unless amnesia is catching, that is, and you would know that I wasn't dead if you had bothered to come looking for me!" Noah couldn't help it any longer, the pain spilling out. Why hadn't Sam looked for him? Man never gave up on anyone so why had he left him behind? "You were there, I remember that you were there. Why? Why did you leave me?" Catherine's words, her reassurances that Sam cared for him, had almost made him believe things would be like they were before but.... He struggled to keep from slumping to the floor in tears. He just wanted to go home and it suddenly seemed that would be impossible.
"Noah's dead," Sam whispered, watching the boy carefully as he spoke. Something about him.... But it couldn't be, was only wishful thinking. He had been there when Noah died, he knew that.... Both his sons gone, Catherine.... The room started to swim once more. Why, why was his family....
Noah hesitated for a moment, the rush of anger still fresh but at the same time seeing that expression on Sam's face, the look of total despair.... Suddenly he understood. And he knew he had to convince Gerard of the truth. Noah shook his head, looking around him as if searching for his badge, for some sort of ID that would prove to Sam that he really was here, alive.
"What can I do to prove to you...?" he murmured softly, racking his brain. "They'd have given you my personal items...my badge... You better not have let Bobby or Cosmo go through my wallet. I'm not loaning them that twenty."
Sam watched silently, scowling, as the young man thought hard. Wanting so badly for it to be true, for this young stranger to really be Noah, yet convinced it was some cruel joke of a criminal mind. How could even a criminal be that evil though, to torment him in this way, especially with Catherine....
Suddenly Noah's head shot up, a smile spreading across his face. "Sam, do you remember that stakeout we were on, Markum case, the guy that had an identical twin brother that was a traveling salesman? Team was running all over the state trying to figure out who was who." Sam was staring at him, expressionless now but at least he didn't look openly hostile. "We got stuck out in the middle of nowhere and while we waited you told me about fishing. I swear I didn't know it involved so much. You told me about your favorite fishing spot, back in the middle of nowhere up in Minnesota on this stream that you didn't even think had a name, biggest fish ever, right next to this great big oak tree that looked so close to dead that you were surprised every time you came up that it was still there. You told me it was a secret, you'd never told anyone else about it...you said it was just outside this place called Coffee Pot Landing." Noah anxiously watched Sam, hoping for some sign that he believed him, that he believed him even just a little bit. Sam had to believe him. He wanted to go home. He just wanted to go home. "Sam?"
"Noah? Oh, my God." Sam whispered, his eyes widening in hope as he tried to pull himself up only to find that he had somehow ended up hooked to monitors that were keeping him from moving. Now how had that doctor.... Bandage in the bend of his arm too. He reached up, impatiently tugging at the wires, fighting down another wave of dizziness. "Son...."
"It's me, Sam. I promise it's me," Noah said as he slowly approached, bending over the gurney, still not sure of Sam's feelings only to suddenly find himself being hugged hard by the other marshal. Sam gazed up at him, dark eyes full of hope.
"Son, where in the world have you been? And what the hell happened?"