Title: February

Author: Katerina

Rating: PG

Pairing: J/S, of course… with mentions of M/S

Disclaimer: Nope. Promise.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Mariel, as always, for posting and nudging.

Chapter Ten

The moment the words pass her lips, she regrets them.

She regrets them as she watches emotions she cannot name flicker across Jack's face.

She regrets them as he finally looks away from her, trying to concentrate on something, anything else.

And she regrets them as he turns to leave.

"Jack, wait." He does not stop. "I didn't mean it like that, please." He will not stop. Please, God, make him stop. "Jack, I love you."

He stops.

XXXXX

Ten minutes later, she has dried her eyes, and he has poured them cold glasses of juice. They are sitting in the kitchen once more, in a mirror image of an hour before.

"Can we start again?" she asks, quietly. He nods. After a moment, she speaks again, voice slightly rough from her tears. "I'm glad you found me."

"I didn't," he says flatly, hiding his guilt. "It was Fitzgerald."

She stiffens slightly, and focuses on the frosted glass in front of her. "Martin, you mean," she corrects him firmly. He raises his eyebrows at her, and she understands the unspoken question. "I always think of Fitzgerald as his father."

There is an infinitesimal pause before the last word, and Jack notices but does not mention it. Instead, he circles the pause with a question, just as he would do in an interview, so she doesn't realize he is honing in.

"Did you know he left, not that long after you did?"

She glances up. "Martin?"

"No," he says, eyes on hers. "Martin stayed for nearly a year. I meant his father."

Something comes over her then, an odd calmness that releases the tension of three years.

"No, I didn't know," she says, sounding almost like the old Sam. "But I'm glad."

She smiles, just slightly, Mona Lisa-like. Her fingers relax on the glass in her hands, and the wrinkle between her brows softens.

He is caught by the transformation, drawn in and lost. He has seen her look this unguarded before, but only when they were alone, curled between the sheets of her bed.

Now.

"Why did you leave?"

She jumps slightly, the unexpected question catching her off-guard. She thought they had come to an unspoken agreement; he would not ask why she had left, and they would not talk about what she had said to make him stay.

That was how they had always worked in New York.

"This isn't New York anymore," he says, as if reading her thoughts. "I need to know."

"I… can't," she says. "Please. Not yet."

He nods, accepting this with more ease than she expected.

"Then why can't I call you by name?"

He watches her as she chews on her lip, sorting through what is safe to tell him. Finally, she takes a deep breath.

"Samantha Spade did things I'm not proud of," she says, voice low. "I don't want to remember what she did. I'm not her anymore."

He wants more than anything to ask what those things are, but he does not. Will not. She will tell him when she's ready.

Now, he just wants to help.

He had known, when he left New York on the first flight he could make, that she must have left for a reason. He thought, at the time, that he knew what that reason was, but…

"Was it Martin?" he asks, and she looks away. "Did he hit you?" he presses.

"No," she says, not surprised at the question. "It wasn't him."

"Then who ­- "

"Please, Jack," she interrupts. "Don't."

So he doesn't, and they sit in silence in her sunlit kitchen.

He should have realized it wouldn't be easy. He is not sure what he was expecting: a joyous reunion, taking her back home… He should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

He remembers: Love is not kind.

She still loves him.

There is something there, below the careful facade she has created, something dark and painful, eating away at the woman who had once been Samantha Spade.

Now she has just as many demons as he.

He wants to make it right. He doesn't know if he can.

End Chapter Ten