Chapter 3

At 2am, she struggled under the covers, flipped onto her side and sighed. She was wide awake and any hopes of getting a good night's sleep quickly faded. She didn't have to work tomorrow but then she didn't want to spend the entire day sleeping either. So much was going through her mind she felt like her head would explode.

She had imagined having that conversation with Jack for so long that it seemed surreal that it had finally happened. She flipped onto her opposite side and stared at the other side of the bed. Empty, she sighed.

She had never realised about the things that she had subconsciously loved about Jack while they were together. Such as his weight on the opposite side of the mattress, the indent his head made on the pillow and how it stayed there when he got up.

She never plumped the pillow up after he left. On nights they weren't together it was comforting to see it there because she knew his head would soon be there again. However after he stopped coming around she angrily plumped it up, beaten it up more like and threw it in the closet where it still was, replacing it with another one. She stifled a laugh about how petty she could be. It wasn't one of her more attractive personality traits. She looked at the clock again, 2,30am.

"Damn it!" She announced to the empty room. She got up and went into the living room, as she looked around she instantly knew where she wanted to be…. And it wasn't where she was standing.

Jack let out a long sigh into the darkness of his bedroom. In her apartment it had all felt so right, telling her that he loved her, holding her, kissing her. Now as he sat up and looked around all those doubts she had mentioned came flooding back. He scolded himself and knew that he couldn't be allowed to talk himself out of this, not again. This was his chance to be happy and he had to take it. He got up and went into the kitchen.

As he poured himself a glass of orange juice the doorbell rang. It made him jump, almost spilling the glass. Cautiously he put it down and moved to the peephole to see who it was.

"Jack? Are you up? I'm sorry it's so late but I couldn't sleep."

She frowned at the still closed door feeling like an idiot about having a conversation with it. A sleepy Jack opened it, blinking at the harsh light in the hallway.

"Hey, are you ok?" He said rubbing his eyes. "Come in."

"I'm fine, it's just…well, honestly, I'm not fine."

"Come and sit down, here give me your coat." As he put her coat on the hook, he looked at her. She was obviously upset or worried about something. Please don't let her do a u-turn on me, he said to himself over and over again. Finally he sat down beside her on the sofa. Draping his arm over the back of it he gently grazed her face with his knuckles. When he did she closed her eyes and tilted her head towards his hand. He smiled, she likes that, always did.

She sighed contently when he touched her. She loved it when he did that and he knew it, that's why he was doing it. Whenever she was tense or tired he did it and everything that was bothering her just melted away. She let him do it a while longer then reached up to take his hand. She brought it down to her lap and gently stroked it while she began.

"I can't stop thinking about earlier. I mean, I don't regret it or anything, really I don't. I mean I just…"

He couldn't help but smile. She was babbling. That meant she was nervous. She hadn't babbled at him like that since the first time he leaned into kiss her.

"Sam, Sam, hold on. Take a deep breath and spit it out."

"Ok, sorry. I couldn't sleep and I realised that it was because you weren't beside me." He smiled sympathetically at her, he knew the feeling.

"Can I stay? I mean, I just want to go to sleep in your arms. That's all, for now. Is that ok?" Looking into his eyes that were filled with love for her she already knew her answer before he gave it to her.

"Of course you can, sweetheart. Come on, let's go." Not needing to talk anymore he led her to the bedroom. She hadn't slept here before or even been here before but with Jack here it felt like home.

He gave her an old t-shirt of his to wear and got into bed while she went into the bathroom. A few minutes later the light went off and she came out. His jaw dropped off at the sight of her. He wanted to long-jump the bed to get to her. She was beautiful; the t-shirt looked great on her. He would never wear it again, he thought. He could never do it the justice that she did.

She got in and cuddled up to him. He wondered what took him so long to realise that this was what he wanted.

Monday morning soon reared its ugly head. After a weekend of bliss (and no sex) all Samantha wanted was to run away with him and get lost. They had spent the weekend just eating takeout, watching old movies. They had slipped back into their comfortable routine with little effort, and yet something was different, better even.

She guessed it was because they weren't clock-watching or aware that what they were doing was an affair. On their way up in the elevator, they stood apart, not speaking. Both of them had huge, ridiculous smiles on their faces like kids who had a wonderful secret that they weren't going to tell.

"Jack?"

"Uh-huh."

"We have got to stop smiling like this, it's written all over our faces!"

"What is?" He said, still smiling but trying to feign bewilderment.

"That we've had our tongues down each other's throats all weekend!"

"Oh that." He said, reaching out and giving her butt a playful pat.

She blushed and shot him a "knock it off" look as the doors opened onto their floor.

They were working on a cold case that had always bothered Vivian as it remained unsolved, but now they had a new lead. Samantha really loved this kind of case. The man who had gone missing 10 years ago had gotten a severe beating and as a result lost his memory. So he had moved away to another state and started another life.

As Samantha explained this to the daughter who had been looking for her father for so long and witnessed their first meeting since she was 12, she realised that she loved her job. Not believing that she was once willing to give it all up. She had never told anyone. It was after she had been shot and she was afraid. After visiting the office one day to give Van Doren a progress report on her recovery she changed her mind. She watched from the side as the team worked and wanted nothing more that to be in there with them.

During the day she and Jack, of course, had been totally professional, well almost.

As she walked towards the file room she heard someone walking quickly up behind her, gently shoving her into the darkened room. She was startled and was about to turn around and give her attacker a swift kick in the family jewels she was calmed by a familiar voice.

"Kiss me and no one gets hurt."

"Jack! You were a second away from getting your ass kicked, you know that?"

"Oh yeah? By whom?" He said wrapping his arms around her tightly.

"Me!" She laughed struggling to get out of his arms, but he was too strong and as he looked at her with those eyes and backed her up against the wall she was powerless to resist and stopped to return his kiss.

It was breathless and hungry, made better by the fact that someone could have walked in on them at any moment.

He went on to kiss her neck as she protested worthlessly.

"Jack, we can't let anybody find out, not yet anyway. Oh, stop doing that, I can't think or talk when you do it."

"That's why I'm doing it." He mumbled against her neck.

Suddenly he heard footsteps and ducked behind the nearest filing cabinet. She straightened up and turned the light on; trying to remember what she was doing, unable to concentrate with his breath still dancing on her neck.

"Oh, hey Samantha." Martin said awkwardly. "You find that file you were looking for?"

Suddenly she remembered what she was doing and recovered from her Jack induced haze.

"Um, no, not yet, you know it's like a maze in here!" She laughed nervously. This wasn't awkward at all, she thought sarcastically.

"This is bad, huh? I mean not bad, but uncomfortable."

She nodded, if he only knew that she was above all uncomfortable because her new boyfriend was hiding behind a filing cabinet two feet away. Did she just call him her boyfriend? Focus Samantha!

"I'm sorry Martin, it's my fault."

"No it's not. I hated the way things ended the other night. You were right; I should never have brought Jack into it. It was unfair to him and you. I never thought that you were cheating on me or anything like that but it's just….Well, he was always with you wasn't he?"

She nodded and gulped, feeling terrible.

"I um…." She didn't want to say it with Jack in the room but Martin didn't know that and he deserved the truth.

"You're right. I've loved Jack for a long time. Because of that I wanted him to be happy, even if it wasn't with me. When he went back to Maria, I tried to have a relationship and all I got was a lot of idiotic guys who only wanted one thing, until there was you. I knew how you felt and I wanted so much for us to have something real. I told you that my feelings could grow and they did but not in the way I wanted. I came to care about you as the closest of friends but it never turned into love. Like I wanted, like you deserved."

She was fighting back tears and he moved forward to hug her, desperate to ease her pain but she stepped back. She wasn't finished.

"I have to finish. I thought I could get over him but I can't, at least not now. You deserve better than this. I just want you to be happy, you know. I hope that we can get back to some kind of friendship although in the light of what I just said I'd understand if you told me to get lost."

"I wouldn't do that. I would rather work at being your friend than not have you in my life at all. Thank you for being honest with me."

As he turned to leave, he stopped and said, "Do you think that you and Jack could ever get together again?"

"I don't know. I would never say never but right now I just don't know."

"If you ever do, I want you to know that I would only wish the best for the two of you."

"I believe that Martin, thank you."

He shut the door behind him and left Samantha standing there in a sort of shock as to what just happened. She looked over to where Jack was. As he was about to come out of his hiding place the door burst open and a breathless Vivian appeared.

"There's been a sighting, come on lets go." She turned on her heel and ran back down the corridor.

Samantha looked at Jack who had shrunk back behind the cabinet.

"Go ahead, we'll talk later." He said quickly.

She went but it was on her mind all day.

When she eventually got back to the office he was gone but he had tucked a note into the side pocket of her bag.

Sam,

Come over to my place whenever you're done.

Love,
Jack xx