Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Life continued for Samantha without any more unusual activities, day in and day out she came to work and went home alone to her apartment that still gave her an occasional chill. She barely spoke to Jack, usually only during team meetings and he never paired the two of them up for an assignment. Martin continued to ask her to dinner or some weekend event, but merely as a friend. He had moved on, started dating some Trixie or Muffin, something like that. Martin didn't talk to Samantha about her.
The deposition had come and gone, she had talked openly about her feelings and realized that those feelings were actually gone, not just faded as she had thought before. Jack settled his divorce in a very disadvantageous way, but he never spoke of it to Samantha except to tell her that she was off the hook. She could tell that he was hurting, he was the first one in the office and the last to leave, his eyes were sunken from lack of sleep, and she caught him looking at her when he thought that she wouldn't notice.
She forged on, content with her work and tried to settle back into her 'post-Jack, pre-Martin routine.' She was surprised at how often she was aware of her loneliness. She had never noticed it before, but caught herself picking up the phone to call Martin, then stopping herself remembering that he had someone in his life.
On this Wednesday morning, Martin approached Samantha at her desk and asked her to go to lunch with him. Usually he'd been meeting Buffy at lunchtime so the invitation was unexpected. "Uh, sure Martin, anything up?"
"No, I just wanted to spend some time with my friend," Martin replied casually.
She reached for her jacket and left with Martin. She had expected to walk to a nearby café, but instead Martin led her to one of the government cars and without questioning him she got in. They drove to a restaurant that he knew she liked. She tried to sound upbeat, but knew that something was wrong, "Hey this is a great place, what's the special occasion?"
Martin looked at her, his eyes dull and dark, "Uh, well, I was just feeling a little blue and thought you'd be just the person to cheer me up."
Samantha nodded, "What happened Martin?"
"Jordan and I broke up," he answered.
Jordan, that was Buffy's real name, she recalled. Samantha tried to sound sympathetic, but she hadn't know much about their relationship so she thought it was going to be hard to comfort him. Still she knew that she had to try. "Martin, I'm so sorry. I didn't know anything was wrong between you two."
"Well, there wasn't anything really wrong, it just wasn't working out."
"Why don't you tell me what felt wrong, it'll feel better if you let it out," Samantha suggested.
Martin shrugged, he knew what the problem was between him and Jordan and he knew that he couldn't tell Samantha. He wondered why he had asked her to lunch anyway, but he knew the answer to that too. He wanted to be with her and still, after all this time, he wanted to be more than friends. He looked at Samantha and saw her waiting for an answer, but he wondered, "how do I tell you it's because she isn't you?" He let the silence linger and Samantha realized that he didn't want to talk about it.
She tried to make small talk to change the subject and Martin was grateful for the distraction. "So do you have your bar hopping clothes ready for tonight's surveillance?" she asked him.
"Yeah, they are back at the office. I really hope that we get something tonight, none of our other leads are panning out." He was frustrated, like the rest of the team, that they had not found the 21 year-old college student who had gone missing on Monday, but they had a lead. They knew that she was last seen with a guy in his thirties who frequented the bar they were going to go to. The whole team was working tonight and Martin and Samantha had been assigned to watch him from the inside while the others were in their cars set to follow him when he left. The hope was that he would meet with someone important or go to her after he was done at the bar.
Samantha was bored after twenty minutes. Stakeouts are not that exciting, but at least she had her eye on the suspect and wasn't waiting outside in a car growing colder by the minute. She and Martin had sidled up to the bar and were trying to look casual while watching Matt Fields, the suspect. He was an arrogant guy, hitting on several women whether they were available or not. Samantha smiled a bit though because he got shot down every time. It didn't look like he was waiting to meet anybody so they were just biding time. Despite his discouraging results, Fields continued to drink and hit on the bar patrons, showing no sign of wanting to leave.
She and Martin talked, but didn't have anything too eventful to discuss. Samantha wanted to ask Martin about Janice—was that her name?—but didn't know if he'd want to talk about it, especially while they were working. She decided to keep her mouth shut.
Martin watched Fields intently, this was their only lead and he didn't want the guy to get away. For some reason the usual banter between he and Samantha was not forthcoming tonight, so they both tried to force some conversation to maintain a cover as they watched Fields. Every so often Martin's eyes would leave the suspect and pan the crowd, he wanted to be sure he didn't miss any signals or signs from a possible accomplice.
On one such search of the crowd his eyes were drawn to the bar entrance and the appearance of Robert James. Martin immediately recalled the man that both Samantha and he had interviewed in the disappearance of a wealthy industrialist. At first he hoped that the man would not remember either him or Samantha, but then he thought back to the interview and how James had propositioned Samantha throughout. He knew that if James saw them the man would come over for a second chance at picking up Samantha. With his only thought being to avoid their cover being blown he pulled Samantha to him and kissed her. It was a smothering type of kiss because he was trying to shield both of their faces from James, who had just glanced in their direction. He realized that Samantha must have seen James as well for she had returned his kiss rather than pull away in confusion. Martin kept his arms wrapped around Samantha until he saw James enter an adjacent room then he pulled back.
Samantha's eyes were fixed on Fields, he was trying to sweet talk some unsuspecting female when all of the sudden Martin's lips were pressed against hers. The swiftness of the action took her by surprise and she reacted by instinct rather than by thought. His lips were soft and urgent and her body responded by accepting the kiss. Finally, her brain re-engaged and she realized that she was kissing Martin. A flood of emotions came over her and she became aware that she was still kissing him and enjoying it. She wrapped her arms around Martin, enjoying the closeness of his body. Then, without notice, the kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun.
"Good, I don't think that he saw us," Martin exclaimed in relief.
Samantha wondered what Martin was talking about. "Who didn't see us?" she asked tentatively.
Martin couldn't figure out why Samantha appeared confused, he knew that she'd seen James, it was why she had kissed him back, wasn't it? But instead of probing deeper he answered her question, "Robert James, he just came into the bar and I didn't want him to recognize us. I didn't know how to disguise ourselves, so I kissed you to hide our faces."
"Yeah, right, good cover," Samantha responded, trying to process the information. Inside she felt a bit disappointed knowing that Martin hadn't meant the kiss in any real way; it had just been a ruse to protect their surveillance operation. Remembering their purpose for being there she glanced at Fields, but he was continuing to make his way around the bar to all of the women.
Despite Samantha's words, Martin saw a look of confusion on her face, then he realized what she must be feeling. He had acted without thinking, but now he realized that if Samantha hadn't know why he was kissing her she would be confused given their history. He figured that she thought he was making an attempt to forgo their friendship and move beyond to a more complicated relationship. He felt horrible and wished that he could kick himself, "Oh, Samantha, I hope you know that was purely cover. You know just two agents working together in the field. Although that wouldn't have worked as well for me if you'd have been Danny." He plastered on a nervous smile and forced himself to laugh at his joke.
Samantha was just as eager as Martin to bypass the awkward situation so she agreed, "Yeah, definitely, cover." But she knew that she hadn't been pretending to kiss Martin, she had enjoyed it and wished that they weren't working so she could pursue another.
Martin's voice brought her out of her daydream, "Hey, it looks like Fields is finally ready to leave, we'd better alert the team." He left to give word to the team and Samantha sat alone pondering the seed that had been planted in her head, wondering if she had made a mistake by turning down Martin a few months ago.
TBC
