Love and Marriage

Chapter Thirty-Seven

He took the key out of the ignition and sat back in the seat. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting in the driveway, but he was sure that he'd been there for a while. He would have gone inside the house already but he was still trying to process the information from his talk with Van Doren.

"Martin, I think there's something that you need to know. Please sit down." Paula motioned to the seat in front of her desk.

He wasn't sure why she was telling him to sit and hesitantly moved to sit down. "What's going on that I need to know about?"

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this but considering the paper you just handed me, I think you should know." Paula started, sitting in her own chair and clasping her hands together on her desk. "A few weeks ago Samantha came into my office and asked me to look into any new job openings in another division."

"Oh." Martin was glad that Sam was trying to find a new job but didn't understand why she hadn't told him about it. "Well that doesn't surprise me. I know that she's been unhappy with her job ever since the transfer." Then a thought entered his mind. "Did she ask you to look only at jobs in New York or jobs anywhere?"

"She said that it didn't matter where the job was. She wanted to know what her options were."

"Options." He whispered. Why would she want options like that? Was she thinking about leaving and getting as far away from him as possible? No of course not. She wouldn't do that because she was committed to making their marriage work. Right?

She wasn't sure if she should tell Martin this because she hadn't told Samantha yet, but felt she needed to before she addressed the document that he handed her a few minutes ago. "I've been looking into it for her and have found a position that she would be extremely qualified for. It would mean a promotion for her and she would be back in a Missing Person's division again."

"That's great." Martin smiled. It would be great for Sam to get back to a Missing Person's division and this seemed like it would be a better solution than the one he came up with. He thought that he could switch jobs with Sam so that she could go back to the old team and he would take her job in White Collar. Now it seemed like he didn't need to do that.

"Martin, the position is in Houston." Paula explained.

"Houston?" Martin repeated. "As in the Houston that's in Texas?"

"I'm afraid so." Paula replied. "It's the only position in a Missing Person's division that wouldn't be a demotion for her."

He wasn't sure what to think about this. While he would have wanted Sam to take this job, the fact that it is in Houston was a major turn-off. How would they work on their marriage if she was thousands of miles away? Their family wouldn't survive that much distance. He then remembered his original reason for coming to talk to her. "What about what I'm proposing? Could we do that?"

She glanced back at the sheet, not liking what she was going to have to tell him. "Martin the FBI is not in the business of letting agents switch jobs with their spouses. I can't authorize something like this."

"Why not?" Martin asked. "Is there any written rule against it?"

"No." She admitted softly. "To be honest, I believe you are the first one to ever suggest something like this—at least you're the first that I've heard about. I heavily doubt that it would be possible. Besides, if we let you and Samantha do it we'd have to offer it to the rest of the bureau and then there would be chaos. Everyone would be wanting to switch jobs."

"But…" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. His idea and hopes to make Sam happy were being swept away.

"I'm sorry. I would like to help you but my hands are tied. I can't allow you two to switch jobs." She honestly felt bad for him, but she couldn't do anything more.

He stood up, having to get out of there to think about what had just happened. "Thanks for your time anyway."

She watched him walk to the door and called out to him. "Martin? Can you please not discuss this with Samantha yet? I haven't had a chance to talk to her about this yet. I was planning on calling her in tomorrow."

"Sure." He nodded, feeling resigned and angry.

How could Sam do that? How could she look into other jobs? Was she trying to find a new job far away from New York and him? He knew that Van Doren had said Sam came in and asked about it a few weeks ago. That was when they were still having a lot of problems, but even back then he never honestly thought that she would ever seriously consider leaving him. But that's what this represented to him. At that time she had wanted to get away from him. Did she still want that? Was she really as committed to saving their marriage as he thought she was? Or was it just an act?

He desperately wanted answers to his questions but knew that he couldn't say anything to her about it tonight since he technically wasn't supposed to know. He was angry at her and this whole situation, especially the fact that his idea was shot down without any real consideration. It would have been the perfect solution to just let him transfer to White Collar and let Sam go back to their Missing Person's unit. He didn't really want to go to White Collar but it would have made her happy. It would have been nice to be able to do something like that for her. In his mind he hoped that would serve as a type of peace offering that could signify a fresh start. But it looked like that wasn't going to happen.

Tired of sitting in the car, he grabbed his briefcase and headed inside. He noticed that she wasn't downstairs and figured that she was already in bed. Since he wasn't hungry, he decided to go right up to bed.

Looking up from the book she was reading, Sam smiled at him when he came in the door. "Hey."

"Hi." He replied, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes.

"I saved you some leftovers in the kitchen if you're hungry." She told him.

"Thanks but I'm not really hungry." He politely declined.

"Ok." She watched him closely, trying to figure out what was bothering him.

He looked over and saw a book in her hands. "What are you reading?"

"Oh this?" She closed the book. "It's your book. I was just reading it to pass the time and to try and keep me awake until you got home." She then proceeded to yawn. "But I found it's a rather boring book. I don't know how you can read it without falling asleep."

"I guess I just find the topic a lot more interesting than you do." He shrugged, heading into the bathroom.

She watched him disappear into the bathroom and wondered what was wrong with him. He was acting weird and strangely distant towards her. She hadn't done anything to make him mad at her, had she? She couldn't think of anything. He wasn't having a bad day when she talked to him at lunch, but maybe it got worse after she left.

When he came out of the bathroom after changing and taking his pain pill, he climbed into bed and started to get comfortable so that he could go to sleep.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, lying on her side so that she faced him.

"Nope." He shook his head. "Nothing's wrong. Why?"

"You're acting weird." She pointed out. Then she decided to just ask him outright if she had done something wrong. "Are you mad at me for something?"

"No." He lied, really wanting to stop talking and just go to sleep.

She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was lying but didn't know what she had done to make him mad at her. He obviously wasn't going to tell her though and she didn't want push him. Maybe she could get him to open up tomorrow. She reached over and turned off the light. For the past couple of nights she had been sleeping in his arms again, but tonight she stayed on her own side of the bed. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Came his reply. He thought about reaching over and pulling her closer to him so that she was sleeping in his arms again but instead just closed his eyes so that sleep would come to him.