Somewhere I Belong

Chapter Three

A/N: Thank you to middiegurl08, wItHouT a tRacE fReAk, thebondgirl, and jtsideout389 for your kind comments! Enjoy!

Almost three months later

At first he didn't know what to think. Darkness surrounded him. His whole body felt numb and he was groggy. It almost felt like he was disconnected from his entire body. Opening his eyes was quite a struggle. After what seemed like forever he finally won and squinted to adjust to the bright lights. Looking to his left he noticed that he was on a bunch of machines. That meant he was in the hospital. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what happened. The last thing he remembered was stopping at a stoplight while he was transferring Adisa Teno with Danny. Bits and pieces of the shooting finally came back to him and his eyes darted open with the recognition of what had happened to him. But what about Danny? What happened to Danny? How long has he been out of it? There were flowers all over his room, but other than that he was alone. Reaching out, he managed to hit the call button for the nurses' station. A few seconds later, a short, middle-aged woman greeted with a smile as he entered his room.

"Well hello there!" The woman greeted. "It's good to see you're awake. Are you in a lot of pain?"

He shook his head no. He was in some pain, but nothing that he couldn't endure on his own. "How long have I been out of it?"

"I'm going to go get the doctor." The nurse replied, dodging his question. "He'll be able to answer your questions much better than I can."

He was frustrated that he had to wait for the doctor in order to find out how long he had been out of it and tried to gauge how much time had passed. Looking out the window, he saw the sun was shining. Maybe it had only been a few days? He quickly turned his attention away from the window when he heard footsteps.

The doctor came into the room and stood to the side of Martin's bed. "Hello Martin. My name is Dr. Thompson. I've been monitoring your case from the beginning. How are you feeling?"

"I've been better." Martin replied sarcastically. "Do you know anything about Danny Taylor?"

Dr. Thompson thought for a moment before recognizing the name. "You mean the man who was in the shooting with you?"

"Yes. Is he ok?"

"Oh yes. He was only hit in the shoulder and is fine. He's been released for quite a while now."

"That's good." He was relieved that Danny was ok.

"Are you in any pain?" Dr. Thompson asked, looking at Martin's chart.

"Not really."

"Ok." Dr. Thompson looked up from the chart with a serious face. "Do you know what day it is?"

"No." He was very curious about what day it was and how much time had passed. "How long have I been out of it? A few days?"

"Actually, I'm afraid it's been longer than just a few days. You've been in a coma for about three months." Dr. Thompson replied.

"Three months?" He couldn't believe that he had lost that much of his life.

Dr. Thompson nodded. "Do you remember what happened to you?"

Martin just nodded, too shocked to say anything.

"You were shot three times in the chest. One of the bullets just narrowly missed your heart and the other ones penetrated your lungs. Your lungs collapsed and we didn't want to take any chances. That's why we had you on a ventilator to help you breathe. You lost a lot of blood and fell into a coma. Eventually your lungs healed enough so that we were able to take you off the ventilator, but you still remained in a coma."

"Am I going to be ok now?" He croaked out.

Dr. Thompson gave him a reassuring smile. "We'll have to run a few tests first, but I'm confident that you'll make a complete recovery."

The nurse that had come into his room earlier reentered the room. "Dr., we need you in Room 312."

"Ok." He looked back at Martin. "If you have any other questions, feel free to have me paged. And I'm sure that one of the nurses will be happy to call your family and let them know you're awake."

"Thanks." Martin nodded as Dr. Thompson left.

"My name's Hilary." The nurse smiled, walking up to Martin's bed.

"I'm Martin." He greeted. Then he realized it was stupid of him to introduce himself. She had probably been taking care of him for the past three months and already knew his name.

"Is there anyone specific you want me to call?" Hilary asked. "Like maybe your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" Martin repeated. "I don't have a girlfriend anymore."

"Oh." Hilary's face showed her confusion. "I'm sorry. I just assumed that the blonde woman was your girlfriend. I mean, she was here everyday and she didn't look like she was just a friend of yours. No one worries about a friend as much as she worried about you…" She realized that she was babbling and abruptly stopped.

"She was here everyday?" This piqued his curiosity. Samantha hated hospitals and always avoided them. So why would she come by to visit everyday? Was he wrong to think that she didn't care about him? He had to make sure it was Samantha before he got his hopes up. "What does she look like?"

Hilary thought for a moment, conjuring up a mental image of Sam. "Oh blonde, kinda tall, pregnant, brown eyes…"

"Excuse me, what did you just say?" Pregnant? Sam? No, there had to be some mistake.

"Blonde?" Hilary repeated.

"No, after that."

"Brown eyes?" Hilary guessed, wondering why he was making her repeat what she had said.

"Before that." Martin instructed.

"Pregnant?" Hilary asked, still confused.

"You really think she's pregnant?" Martin asked, growing more and more confused.

"Oh I know that she's pregnant. It's very obvious." Hilary stated, finally realizing her mistake. He didn't know that his 'friend' was pregnant. "Oops. You didn't know."

"No, I didn't." Martin replied, wondering what this meant. Sam was pregnant. It couldn't be his though, right? They had stopped having sex weeks before the shooting. So did Sam hook up with someone else while he was in the coma and end up pregnant? Was she seeing someone else? And if she was, then why was she coming to visit him everyday? Nothing made sense to him. He hated the fact that he was in the coma for so long. He hated this feeling of being disconnected from his life and the people he cared about.

"Well do you want me to call her and tell her you're awake?" Hilary asked, hoping she hadn't caused any problems for anyone.

He thought about it for a moment. As much as he wanted to see Samantha right now, he wasn't sure what to think about this whole pregnancy thing. "No." He'd have her call someone else. He'd have her call Danny. "But can you please call one of my co-workers for me?

Samantha threw the last folder into her out box and sighed. She was finally done with the last bit of paperwork that Jack had assigned her. Wrapping her arms around her expanded belly, she took a moment to reflect upon the past few months. Her impending motherhood was starting to appeal to her more and more and she was slowly letting go of many of her fears about being a mother. It was tough going through this without Martin with her though and she worried about what his reaction to fatherhood would be once he woke up.

Sighing, she looked around the bullpen. Danny and Vivian were going over a document together and looked deep in concentration. Jack was still in his office and Sofia, the team member Jack hired to temporarily replace Martin, was going over some records on her computer. Actually, it was Martin's computer at Martin's desk, but Sofia was using it right now. Samantha always had to remind herself that Martin would be back at work someday; she had to keep that hope alive.

Martin. She was still amazed by how just thinking about his name was enough to send tears to her eyes. She was getting restless and decided to go out to the balcony for some fresh air to pull herself together. Once out there, she put her arms on the railing and leaned up against it. The past three months had been hard for her, and not just because of the pregnancy. Martin was still in a coma and, with every passing day, the doctors became less optimistic about his recovery. They said that he was completely healed. The only problem was that he wasn't waking up. She still visited him every day and sometimes more than once; however, it was getting harder and harder to just sit there and wait for him to wake up.

It hadn't taken Jack too long to realize that he needed another agent that could go into the field since she was pregnant and Vivian, although she had returned to work, wasn't ready yet. So he hired Sophia. She was nice enough, but was no replacement for Martin. No one could replace him on this team. But she was good at her job and fit in with the rest of the team.

Danny was being a very good friend to her, keeping her company when she felt particularly lonely, keeping her spirits up, and letting her vent her pregnancy hormones at him. They'd have dinner together a lot and sometimes they would go visit Martin together. Vivian had been giving her tons of advise about being a mother and they usually had lunch or dinner together once a week to talk about various mother issues. Thanks to Vivian, she was starting to trust that maybe she wouldn't completely screw up the life of her child. That was a major accomplishment for her. And Jack, well Jack had been helping her by keeping her out of the field and making sure she had enough paperwork to fill her days. Everyone had been very supportive of her and this pregnancy and she appreciated it immensely. But she still wanted Martin.

She heard the door to the balcony open, followed by footsteps. She knew that he would come out here to check on her but she was fine. Without looking at Danny she said, "I just came out here for some fresh air."

He feigned an innocent look. "What? Did I say anything?"

"Not yet, but you would've." Sam laughed.

"Maybe." Danny conceded as they both leaned against the railing and looked out at the city. He had been trying to help Sam to deal with this pregnancy in anyway that he could. It had alleviated some of his guilt and pulled him back from the abyss. Before her admission, he was close to drinking again. Now though, he was coping better. He figured since Martin couldn't take care of Sam and the baby right now, he would do that for his friend. It was the least he could do.

The silence that fell started to get to her so she started to speak again. "I thought that by now I would be used to not having Martin around. I thought that I'd be ok by now, but it just keeps getting harder and harder."

"I know it's gotta be hard for you." Danny nodded, unsure of what else to say.

"I had a doctor's appointment today during my lunch hour. I almost completely lost it in the waiting room." She turned her head to look at him. "All the other women had their husbands or boyfriends with them and they were all talking about their plans forthe nursery or babynames,but I was sitting there by myself. It was really hard. I felt like I was all alone."

"You're not all alone though." He reminded her.

She nodded. "I know. I have great friends." She didn't really want to be sad anymore, so she brought up a happier subject. "I got to see the baby on the ultrasound machine. It was amazing." Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. It was an amazing moment to watch their child move around on the screen but the entire time she was thinking about how much she wanted Martin to be there with her, holding her hand as they found out the sex of the child.

"You know the sex?" Danny asked excitedly. When she nodded, he asked, "Well what is it? A boy or a girl?"

"It's a boy." Sam gushed.

"That's great news!" He gave her a quick hug. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." She replied, turning back to lean on the railing. She started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" He asked, not understanding where this recent bout of laughter came from. But it wasn't the first time she lapsed into spontaneous bouts of laughter. He had come to realize that pregnant women had very sudden mood swings.

"It's nothing, really." She shrugged. "It's just that if someone had told me six months ago that I would pregnant, and actually happy about it, I would have laughed in their faces for hours. But here I am having a baby boy and I'm actually really happy about that. I keep having this reoccurring dream where I've already given birth and I'm holding my son. Then Martin walks up to us and we become a family. In that moment, in that dream, I am completely happy."

She paused for a moment before continuing. "I never wanted to fall in love with someone and I certainly never wanted a family of my own. I pretty much laughed at Martin when I found out he wanted one."

Flashback

They sat together in the car watching the Carroll residence. "You really think their father's in on it with them?" Sam asked.

Martin put down the binoculars. "Doesn't look like he needs any more money. He's probably just protecting his kids."

With a small chuckle Sam said, "Yeah, remind me not to have any."

With a grin, he replied, "They don't all turn out to be psychopathic kidnappers, you know."

She studied his face for a moment and then rolled her eyes. "Let me guess -- 2.2, white picket fence, golden retriever?"

His grin became wider, revealing that a family was important to him. "Yeah, maybe. Something like that."

"Not for me. Not in this world." Sam replied with a blank face.

End Flashback

"Now look at me. Pregnant and in love." She sighed.

"It's softened you up slightly." Danny told her. "You're much more accessible now. Gone are the days of working with the Samantha Spade who only wanted to talk about work-related things. Now you're much more fun and lighter."

She rolled her eyes. "I think there was a compliment in there somewhere."

"There was." He assured her.

"So, what…" Before she could finish her sentence, Vivian came rushing out.

Vivian had a huge smile on her face, glad that she was finally able to relay some good news. "Danny! Samantha! He's awake."