Love and Marriage
Chapter Seven

That night, Martin was late coming home again. That was a bad thing for Sam because she was slowly losing her nerve to talk to him. She was going to wait up for him and talk to him before she went to sleep, but eventually she gave up, crawled into bed and turned off the light.

About ten minutes later, Martin entered the bedroom. He saw that Sam was already in bed and probably asleep since the light was off. He had wanted to apologize for the things he said last night, but he wasn't going to wake her up to do so. The days of her wanting him to wake her up when he got home were over. He released a deep sigh as he changed for bed and pulled back the covers.

Sam waited for Martin to get into bed and settle down before talking. "Martin?"

He was surprised that Sam was still awake, and even more surprised that she was talking to him. "Did I wake you up?"

"No." She was still resting on her side and not facing him. A part of her was afraid to face him. Even though the room was dark now, she couldn't face him.

"I'm sorry about last night." He whispered.

Without thinking, she automatically replied, "you should be." She regretted saying that as soon as it came out. "I didn't mean that. I just…"

"No, you meant that. But that's ok." He interrupted. He let her comment slide because he didn't want to fight with her. He just wanted one conversation where they didn't fight. "The point is, I'm sorry."

He was apologizing to her? Wow. That hadn't happened in a very long time. She took a deep breath before bringing up work. Keeping in mind that Leslie wanted the conversation to not turn negative, she decided to start the conversation out with a simple question. "Can I ask you something?"

"Are we going to end up fighting again?" He asked hesitatingly.

Despite herself, she smiled at the humor of his question. "Well it's always a possibility, but it's not what I want." She admitted.

He was glad to hear that she wasn't in the mood to fight tonight either. "It's not what I want either. So ask away then." As he laid there waiting for her question, he realized that this was probably the longest they had gone without fighting in a while. It felt nice.

Finding the courage to bring this up, she asked, "Why was I the one that had to move to White Collar?"

Her question caught him off-guard, but then again he wasn't sure what he was expecting her to ask. After a few moments of silence, he answered her question with another question. "Why are you asking me that?" She had transferred almost seven years ago, leaving for White Collar Crimes shortly after returning from their honeymoon. "Why are you bringing that up now? That was a long time ago."

"I'm curious." Came her reply. She was curious; that wasn't a lie.

He sighed. "I don't know."

"You should have been the one to transfer." Her voice was no longer a whisper. It was getting louder, but she tried to make sure that she didn't start yelling at him. She would take Leslie's advice and try to talk about this with Martin without fighting. "You would have been better at the job than I am and besides that, I was a part of the Missing Persons Unit for many more years than you."

"Maybe," he calculated his words carefully, "but I assumed that you were fine with it."

"Well I'm not." She replied. "I hate that job."

"Since when?" He asked, surprised by this revelation.

"Since the second day I started working there." She answered.

He hadn't known that she was so unhappy with her job. When it came time for them to stop working together, the only job opening in the New York office was in the White Collar Crimes division and Jack told him that they had wanted Sam. He had thought about offering to trade with her and be the one to leave the team, but she had seemed ok with the decision.

Or was she? Had he really been that blind to what she was going through? How could he have been so oblivious to the fact that she hated her job? She hadn't said anything to him about it. "I didn't realize that you hated that job." He turned over on his side to face her and propped his elbow up against the pillow. Even though she had her back to him, he still felt like he should face her while they talked about this.

"Well I do and I have for a long time." She replied matter-of-factly. Now came for the hard part. "I've also been mad at you for a long time for letting me leave the team. I still think that you should have been the one to leave."

"Really?" He was surprised that she had been harboring anger towards him. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to react to that.

"I just thought that you should know that." Sam replied, shifting her body around until she got more comfortable. She intended for that to be the end of their conversation but Martin had other ideas.

He was curious and didn't want to let the conversation end there. "If you hate your job, why haven't you quit? You've been working that job for almost seven years now. That's more than enough time to realize that you want a different job."

She sighed and turned to lie on her back, turning her head around to face him. "I don't have an answer for that. I guess it was easier to hate my job and blame you than look for a new one."

He didn't want to ruin the nice moment they were having, calmly discussing something without sarcastic remarks or hurtful accusations. But he felt he had to offer his advice. "Why don't you try and look for a job in another department?"

"I don't know." She replied, laughing softly. "I don't know much these days."

"What does that mean?" He asked gently, hoping to keep this conversation going for as long as possible. Their faces were so close to each other at this moment, closer than they'd been in a very long time. If he leaned in a few more inches he could kiss her, but would she allow that or would that ruin the nice vibe they had going on right now?

"Nothing." She moved her head away so that she was now staring straight instead of looking at him. For a moment there, she thought she saw a flicker in his eyes—the same flicker that had always graced his eyes right before he would kiss her. But he couldn't have been thinking about kissing her, right?

She couldn't remember the last time they had kissed. No, actually that wasn't true. She remembered the exact date, right down to the minute. January 10th, 7:35 p.m. She thought about what the date was today and cringed slightly. It was May 19th. God, she couldn't believe that it had been that long and she couldn't believe that it had been even longer since they had last had sex.

He decided not to push her anymore on her previous answer. Instead, he decided to keep the conversation going. "I'm sorry that I didn't offer to transfer instead. Whether or not you want to believe me, I did think about it. But Jack said that they wanted you instead of me."

She had a hard time believing that. "Jack said that? Why would they want me? I had no experience in that field, but you did." She realized that she was raising her voice again and it was sounding like she was trying to goad him into an argument so she lowered her voice. "Why didn't you tell me that you had thought about offering to switch with me?"

He thought about it for a moment. "I didn't think it really would've made a difference. Jack said that they wouldn't have allowed it."

"It would have made a difference to me." She nervously bit down on her lip. This was the longest conversation they had engaged in since…she couldn't even remember when. It was almost scary that they were getting along so well. She turned her head to look at him, and through the darkness she saw traces of the same man she married seven years ago. Sometimes she looked at him when they were fighting and barely believed he was the same man that she fell in love with and married.

But now, even through the darkness of the room, she could see her Marty trying to break through whatever walls were erected to separate them. Something between them had changed, driving them apart and making them construct walls to keep the other one out. Leslie had helped her figure out what one of her walls was and she was aware of another possible reason why she was pushing him away. Maybe Leslie could help her make sense of that though. She made a mental note to talk to Leslie about it at her next session.

He looked at her and wondered what she was thinking. Her thoughts had always been a mystery to him—one that he never thought he would get tired of trying to figure out. But he was slowly reaching that point where he didn't want to have to work so hard to figure her out.

But she had shared something with him tonight, and not just the fact that she hated her job. She had shared her life with him again, and that was something that she hadn't done in months. Even though it sounded cheesy to him, and she would laugh at him if he told her, he was honored that she thought he was worthy enough to share that piece of information with him. While he realized that the reason why she was sharing this was because of her therapy with Leslie, it was definitely a step in the right direction.

He considered bringing up what he had talked about in his therapy session, but wasn't sure that was such a good idea. The last thing he wanted to do was push her away after she had let him back in. That discussion could wait for another night.

"I'm sorry." He finally said, breaking the silence and getting her attention again.

She looked over at him, slightly curious about why he was apologizing to her. "For what?"

He held up his hand and kept a running tally with his fingers. "Not making Jack transfer me instead, not realizing that you hated your job, not making you feel like you could tell me that, and I'm sure there's more that I'm sorry about but it is kinda late."

"Yeah it is." She yawned. "But you're not the only one who needs to apologize. I'm sorry that I kept this from you for so long."

"It's…it's ok." He replied, giving her a small smile. "We should get some sleep. We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow."

"Oh yeah." She yawned again. "That's right. It's hard to believe that Kyle is going to turn one tomorrow." As much as she was enjoying the fact that they were having a nice conversation, she was exhausted and started to fall asleep.

"Danny was practically bouncing around the office today because he was so excited about the present he got for his son." He looked over at her and noticed that her eyes had closed and she was snoring very quietly. "And you're not listening because you're asleep." He chuckled. "Goodnight Sam." He whispered as he pulled the covers up to tuck her in before turning over to go to sleep.