Love and Marriage

Chapter Eighty-Six

That afternoon, Sam was writing up a report when her phone rang. "Samantha Spade."

"Hey there." Jack greeted happily.

"Jack." Sam smiled. "It's good to hear from you. Of course I think I should be mad at you for not calling earlier."

"Well…you know how busy work can get." Jack used that as an excuse. In reality, he hadn't called her because he wasn't sure what to say to her. Now though, he had a specific reason to talk to her.

"Yeah. Work can be quite a handful." Sam commiserated. "But how are you?"

"Fine." Jack replied. "I'm fine."

"That's good." Sam picked up a nearby post-it note pad and started scribbling circles on the post-it while talking to Jack. "Anything new and exciting in New York that I should know about?"

"Not really." Jack thought about filling her in on the job that Martin might be getting in a few weeks, but decided to let Martin be the one to let her know that good news. "How are you doing?"

"Great." Sam replied happily. "Oh, and thanks for giving Martin last Friday off. It was nice to have him here for an extra day."

"I thought it might be good for all of you." Jack explained. "But I hear that Martin will be leaving the team soon."

"Yeah." She expected that Martin would tell the gang that he was leaving.

"First you leave and then Martin." Jack paused. "I know the team officially disbanded when you went to White Collar, but now it seems like the end of a era. I can't help but miss the days when all of us were on the same team."

"I know." Sam felt the same way. "As much as I love my new job here and all of my new co-workers, I do miss those times. But time has a funny way of changing everything."

He started to sing in a horrible pitch, "to everything turn, turn, turn…there is a season turn, turn, turn…"

Sam laughed. "Jack if you insist on continuing to sing that song, I'm afraid I'm going to have to hang up on you."

"Ok." He laughed. "I'll stop."

"Good." She was glad that she wouldn't have to put up with any more of his atrocious singing.

"I guess now that I've waxed philosophical for a bit, I should get to the real reason I called." Jack said pulling himself from the melancholy mood he was in while thinking of better days from the past.

"And just what was the real reason you called?" Sam asked, curious.

"I wanted to congratulate you on the baby." Jack told her. "Martin filled us all in on the good news and I wanted to be the first to tell you how happy I am for the two of you."

"Um, thanks." Sam was caught off guard. Martin hadn't told her that he was going to start telling everyone about the pregnancy. That wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to wait until she was farther along until she told their friends. But apparently he couldn't wait.

He could tell that there was a change in her tone of voice. "Is something wrong?"

"No." She assured him. "I just wasn't aware that Martin was going to start telling people about the baby. We haven't even told Claire yet. It just caught me by surprise."

"Oh. I haven't gotten Martin in trouble by calling you, have I?" That was the last thing he wanted to do. He really wasn't interested in stirring up trouble between them.

"No." She shook her head. She couldn't necessarily be mad at Martin for this. He was happy about this baby and just wanted to share the good news with everyone. She couldn't blame him for that. But there was still a part of her that wished he had waited a little while longer.

"Good." He breathed a sigh of relief. "It's been crazy here all day. I think I have beat Danny and Viv. Am I right? They haven't called yet, have they?"

"Um, no. Danny and Viv haven't called yet. You're the first."

"I should have made a bet on that too." Jack sighed.

"What else did you make a bet on?" Sam asked her curiosity piqued by Jack's statement.

"Danny, Viv and I sort of made a little bet on how long your break from Martin would last." Jack admitted once he realized that he should just go ahead and tell her. She'd find out anyway. If she was going to be mad, she was going to be mad. At least he was hundreds of miles away from her though because a mad Samantha was a frightening Samantha.

But instead of being mad, Sam let out a huge chuckle. "You all bet on that?" There was a slight pause. "Of course you did. Why am I so surprised by this? You guys bet on everything when it comes to Martin and I. You even bet on what day Claire would be born."

"Yeah. Danny won that bet, but just barely." Jack remembered. He was only one day off. If Claire hadn't been born at 12:09 a.m., he would have won the bet instead of Danny. But it all evened out since he won this one.

"So who won this time?" Sam wanted to know.

"I did." Jack replied proudly. "I guessed it would be a month, and I was right. The others were horrible mistaken."

She chuckled again and rolled her eyes. "And you're so modest."

"I do try." He laughed.

"Well I should probably get back to work now. Congratulations on winning the bet." She told him.

"And congratulations on the baby." He repeated.

"Thanks." She was glad that she could still be friends with Jack and that there was no awkwardness left over from their affair almost a decade ago. "And don't be a stranger. Remember that if you don't call me every once and a while, I will start calling you. There's no escaping me now that we live in such a technological society."

"I'll remember that." Jack laughed. "Bye Samantha."

"Bye Jack." She hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment before picking it up again. After dialing the long number, she waited as the phone rang. After the fourth ring, it was finally picked up.

"Fitzgerald." Martin answered, unable to contain a yawn.

"Hey, you sound tired." Sam greeted. "Rough day?"

"Yes, definitely." He smiled at the sound of her voice. "It's been absolutely insane around here today. But how are you?"

"Oh I'm fine." She told him.

"Are you sure? You usually don't call me at work." He really hoped that nothing was wrong and that this was just a call to say hi.

"Nothing's wrong Martin." She assured him. "I just felt like talking to you. That's ok, right?"

"That's a given." He laughed. "I was just caught off guard by your call."

"Well then consider us even." She told him. "Because I was just caught off-guard by the phone call I received from Jack a few minutes ago."

"Jack called you?" Martin asked. He wasn't sure why Jack would call her during the day. Did he tell her about the possible job opening up? He hoped not because he was looking forward to being the one to tell Sam about that.

"Yes, and he told me something very interesting." She explained.

"What did he tell you?" Martin asked.

"He told me congratulations about the baby. Now I was under the impression that we weren't telling people yet." She decided to inject some humor into the conversation. "Did you not get that memo?"

"No, I don't think I did." He replied back with a slight chuckle. "It must have gotten lost in the sea of paperwork on my desk."

"I guess so." She told him.

"Are you mad?" He really hoped not. He was enjoying the fact that they weren't mad at each other right now and that everything was going well between them. He honestly hadn't meant to cause any trouble between them and hadn't realized that Sam wouldn't want him to tell their closest friends. In his excitement he failed to think about it from her perspective.

"No." She assured him that she wasn't mad. "I'm not mad at you for that. It's partially my own fault for not making it clear that I didn't really want everyone to know yet. I just assumed that since we weren't telling Claire, then you would know that we weren't going to tell everyone else. And you know what they say about assuming…"

"Yeah. Well I'm still sorry." He apologized. "And if it will make you feel better, I will stop telling people."

"Thanks." She was glad to be able to work this out without any kind of argument. "But out of curiosity, how many people have you told so far?"

"Just Viv, Danny, and Jack." Martin told her. "But you know how bad Danny is about keeping secrets when it comes to our personal lives."

"So by now, the entire building probably knows." She sighed. That wasn't something she wanted to happen, but it had happened. So she'd deal with it and move on. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, right?

Besides, there was a silver lining to that. If the whole building knew about her pregnancy, then that witch Bethany would know about it too. She would definitely like to see her face when she hears about Martin moving down to Houston.

If she could go back to New York for one thing, it would be to take care of Bethany once and for all. In her haste, she hadn't gotten a chance to properly say goodbye to Bethany. It would have been nice to be able to rub it in her face that Martin was her husband and was going to remain her husband forever. But alas, she lost that chance.

"I have to admit that I'm glad you called." Martin put down the pen that had been in his hand.

"Really?" She smiled. "Any particular reason?"

"I just miss you, that's all." He explained.

"I miss you too." She admitted. "But look, I have spent way too much time on the phone with personal calls today. I'll talk to you later?"

"You bet." He assured her. "I'll talk to you when I call for Claire and then is it ok if I call you later tonight after she's gone to bed?"

"Yeah, that's a given." She replied. "I love you."

"Love you too." He replied before hanging up.