Chapter Five: From Time To Time We All Are Blinded
Disclaimer: As much as I would like to own Eric Close, the F.B.I and Without A Trace, alas I only have the licence to dream. The plot is mine, my own, my preciousssssssssssss.
A/N:- My exams still haven't finished. Grrrr. But immersing myself in the fabulous world of Without A Trace takes away the pain. Revision is a lost cause. Onto the story ……… Poor Marty.
Dedicated to: Raspberry Muffin, NightMage (Thanks, I quite liked that line myself. Glad it came across as powerful. Yeah, poor old Victor I think he needs some sympathy), Spooky Bibi, Rach5 (Thanks, I need all the luck I can get!), Jtsideout389, Maelle, Without A Trace Freak (I couldn't bear writing too extreme angst so no fear!), Briana, Anny, EquestrianBabe (No horses were harmed in the writing of this fic!), Isabell, Berta101, Give Love A Break, Tea
She could feel the heat of the fire getting stronger and stronger. The flames were spreading and getting unceasingly closer. There was nowhere to escape. She could hardly breathe. Something was burning …. She was burning ……………..
Samantha woke up with a start, her heart pounding and her body covered in sweat. Someone had taken her oxygen mask away, changed the bandages on her arm and taken the wires out of her body. "Nightmare?" a Nurse asked, coming in with a glass of water. Samantha nodded and took a sip of the water thankfully.
"Could you tell me how Martin Fitzgerald is?" she asked when she had got her breath back.
"He'll be okay." The Nurse said, straightening Samantha's pillows.
"Can I see him?" she asked.
The Nurse pulled away and looked at her. "Less than twenty-four hours ago you were involved in a serious traumatic accident. You're not even allowed out of bed."
"I'm fine. Look – I can breathe unaided and no more wires. ... Please. I need to see him." Samantha pleaded.
The Nurse examined her charts. "He's drugged up on Morphine and he's in a deep deep sleep."
"I know, I just want to sit with him a bit." Samantha insisted.
The Nurse looked at her unsurely. "You work with him for the F.B.I don't you?" she asked.
Samantha nodded. "He saved my life. I just need to see with my own eyes that he's okay."
The Nurse sighed. She had seen plenty of these cases before. She was tired and nearing the end of her shift and the last thing she needed was to be bugged constantly by this patient. "Okay." She said helping Samantha out of bed. "But only for a little while."
Samantha walked slowly but steadily into the room. It was eerily silent and everything was still. She sat down in the seat next to Martin. His eyes were closed and if it wasn't for the wavy line on the machine in front of her, she would have thought he was dead. The hospital blankets were pulled right up to his chin, covering his torso and legs so she didn't know how badly hurt he was, but they had certainly cleaned up his face pretty well. He had been lucky in that respect. His hair was slightly singed and he had a graze down his left cheek but apart from that his head was untouched. He had bandages all the way up his left arm, a bit like her. Except where she just had a couple of layers, his arm was cocooned in the white material. His fingers stuck out at the end, each one connected to a wire probably tracking whether the nerves in them were dead. The guilt flooded over her. On his right arm there were medical swabs covering his arm, held in place with surgical tape and painful blisters on the palm of his hand. A transparent cable running underneath his nose was inserting oxygen into his nostrils and he was connected to a drip and many other machines monitoring his body.
Suddenly the words she had been searching for for the past ten years came to her, and she placed his right hand in hers and squeezed it gently. "Martin, I'm sorry." She started. She probably realised how stupid this was, saying this aloud but she had to get it out of her. "I'm sorry that you're lying here now, probably in so much pain when I'm here, a bit beaten up, but fine. You don't deserve this. Just like I didn't deserve to be rescued after the way I've treated you. You've probably spent the past ten years wondering what you did wrong, blaming yourself for something you haven't done and then when you come asking for an explanation, I just gunned you down acting like you were the bad person when actually it was me all along." She swallowed. She could feel the tears starting to well up and run down her face. She gave a small laugh. "God this is so much easier when you're asleep. I've run over how I was going to explain this to you a hundred times in my head but then that day you came walking right back into my life, I froze. I expected you to at least be mad at me, I expected you to shout and say all those things you must have wanted to say to me for ten years ……….. but you didn't. You were nice. And I built up a wall again to stop me from feeling guilty. I pushed you away, again, even when you were extending the hand of friendship to someone who didn't deserve it." She paused and moved her chair closer. "That day, at the Prom, when you were saying all those things, making me feel so good about myself, making me so happy, starting a sentence which I know if I'd stopped to hear the end of it, would have changed my whole life. But I ran. Now it seems so stupid and selfish but I was scared. I was scared of being truly happy for the first time in my life and I was scared of what would have happened if things hadn't worked out between us. I was afraid of putting one hundred percent trust in you, in us, in what we could have been. I was saving myself from getting hurt in the future and didn't stop to think how much it would hurt you in the present." She swallowed, the flow of tears getting heavier. "Hurt us. I kept telling myself I'd done the right thing but deep down I think I knew the truth. I've never told you this but you were the best thing in my life and – and I loved you ….."
"You should tell him that when he's awake." Came a voice from the doorway.
Samantha jumped and wiped her wet eyes on the back of her hand furiously. "Oh, hi Cassie, I didn't see you there." She said, taking a deep breath.
"I wasn't eavesdropping." Cassie said walking up to the bed. "I'd just come to say sorry."
"For what?" Samantha said distractedly, trying to regain her hold on her emotions after her release.
Cassie sat down on the chair next to Samantha. She had come out the least hurt out of the three of them with only some minor burns to her hand. "For nearly killing you and Agent Fitzgerald."
Samantha heaved a sigh. "It's all part of the job. We understand the risks."
"I was being selfish. I thought that if I ended it all then I would be in paradise, nothing else could go wrong in my life but I didn't stop to think that it would have been a permanent solution to the pain and also how much it would affect the people around me." Cassie continued. "When you guys showed up and said those things, I realised how stupid I was being. I didn't want a way out anymore. When I dropped the match, I didn't mean to do it, believe me, I'd heard what Agent Fitzgerald had to say, I didn't want to end things, I didn't want to blow the whole place up but the flame hit my finger and it fell out of my hands …. Please believe me that I didn't mean to do it."
Samantha took her eyes off of Martin's sleeping form and looked at the girl with untidy dark hair, looking at her pleadingly, wanting her to understand. Samantha did understand. She had been that girl. "I know." She said softly. "I know what must have been going through your head when you decided to end it. I know how you must have felt, the pain, the inner anguish. I've been there myself Cassie." She said.
Cassie Roberts looked surprised that this confident, successful F.B.I Agent had just been as weak as her. "Who saved you?"
A look of haunting pain came into her eyes as she looked back down at Martin. "The same person who saved you." She said quietly.
"Wow, you've known each other from high school – must be fun working together." Cassie enthused.
Samantha shook her head. "Not really. Actually, just before we walked into that barn to get you, we had been arguing over something which had happened ten years ago. It was my fault – there's this void between us which is also my fault. And for him to come back and save me again …………."
"What happened?" Cassie asked.
Samantha took a deep breath. Maybe it would be good to actually talk to someone about it. "We were in our last year of High School. Martin was the cool kid, head boy, captain of the sports teams with his ultra-rich friends, always surrounded by a crowd of pretty girls, and I, I guess I was a bit of a dork, but I'd always believed that it was okay to be different." She sighed. "My life at home was like hell – abusive drunks as parents ……… one day I decided I'd had enough and I was going to give up at trying to make my life work. I went round the back of the bike sheds at school and was about to throw a dozen pills into my mouth when Martin showed up and stopped me. I didn't think he'd ever looked at me twice but he said he wanted to help – and he did. We started dating and it was the most surreal thing. I had climbed twenty rungs of the social ladder in twenty minutes because I was with Martin but he wasn't like that. He was kind and sweet and handsome and most importantly he understood me. He was there for me when I needed him most and he was this amazing guy who really cared ……………….." she trailed off.
"What happened?"
"We went to the Prom and during the very last dance, Martin began to tell me something and I was scared of what he was about to tell me so I just ran off and I didn't talk to him again for another ten years."
"You just ran off and left him?" Cassie exclaimed, flabbergasted.
"Yeah, stupid, huh?" Samantha said, looking sideways at her. "I've never told anyone that before. I want you to know that now you've got a second chance at things, don't mess things up. Be there for those you love but at the same time let people into your life who want to be there for you. Understand?"
Cassie nodded. "I'm sure that you and Agent Fitzgerald will work things out."
"Maybe." Samantha muttered.
"And when he wakes up tell him what you were telling him before." Cassie smiled, standing up. "And say 'Sorry' and 'Thank you' from me." She said before leaving the room. As she left, the Nurse came back in.
"Agent Spade, you really need to leave and get back and get some rest." She instructed.
"Two more minutes."
"You shouldn't even be here-"
"Please?" Samantha pleaded.
The Nurse gave her a look. "Two more minutes – that's it." She said firmly, closing the door behind her.
Samantha stood up and leant over Martin. He was still just as gorgeous as he was ten years ago but now in a more rough and ragged way. Back then he didn't have the weight of responsibility he had nowadays, he hadn't had to rely on coffee instead of a goodnight's sleep, life had been so much simpler in high school. She cupped his face in her hand. He had stubble on his chin from where he hadn't shaved in a couple of days and she thought it made him look even cuter. "I'm sorry for everything." she said before bending down and placing a lingering kiss on his lips before leaving the room.
…………………………………………………………..
Martin walked out of the elevator into the empty corridor. Empty. That was unusual for a start.
Even though it had taken him 45 minutes to dress for work he was glad to be back, wearing his suit and I.D with a gun on his belt, doing something to take his mind off his injuries. Although he walked with a limp, the burns on his legs had healed quite well and a couple more days he would be able to take the dressings off for good. The wounds on his body still needed treatment but they didn't hurt like they used to and his right arm was almost back to normal – the blisters had gone and although the skin on his arm was still sensitive, he could do with not wearing any bandages. His left arm on the other hand…………………. He could stand having pain. Pain you could treat with painkillers but not being able to feel anything at all…….. it was so frustrating. The burns on his actual arm were still very bad and his whole arm had to be kept bandaged up. His hand itself ….. he could move his fingers about – he could even hold things (although he still couldn't handle buttons or laces) – but he could not feel what he was holding. The sessions with the physiotherapist would see him closing his eyes and picking different objects up but he had no idea what they were, what they were made out of, whether it was hot or cold or had sharp spikes coming out of it - he couldn't feel anything. It was messing with his head and the last couple of days had seen him practically go about his daily tasks one-handedly rather than use his left hand.
He made his way down to the office and paused to have a look through the blinds. No one was by their desks, instead they were all gathered in a big group in the centre. He didn't like how this was looking. Suddenly there were hushed whispers of "He's coming." and Danny walked out of the door up to him. "Heya buddy. Welcome back to work." he greeted.
"What's going on?" Martin asked warily as Danny began to lead him to the door. He should have known something was up when Jack and then Danny phoned to double-check and triple-check that he was definitely coming back today.
As they walked through the door everyone started cheering and party poppers started going off. Everyone was grinning at him. There was a massive banner on the wall which read "Welcome Back Martin!". "What's all this for?" he asked.
"You're the office hero Fitzy!" Danny said, slapping Martin on the back before leaving him.
The whole room was full of other Agents, mostly people he had never spoken to before in his entire life. They were all gathering round him now, showering him with different coloured string and paper, shouting different things, raising glasses of sparkling wine. He blanched at the attention. Back when he was head boy, he lapped it up but now he felt embarrassed and uncomfortable.
Jack approached him and shook his hand. "Welcome back."
"Seriously, you don't have to do this ………" Martin said.
Jack grinned. "You deserve it."
"If I'd known then I wouldn't have come in today." Martin said, laughing good-naturedly as Vivian shook his hand.
"I'm glad you're back." she smiled.
The talking died down to low murmurs as Samantha emerged from the crowd.
Martin waited for her to walk forward expectantly. He didn't really know what she would say or what to say in reply. He guessed this brought back a whole lot of different memories from the past for both of them. The moments that followed the one behind the bike shed.
Danny had visited him the most when he was still in hospital and Jack and Vivian had found the time to pop in a few times but Samantha always seemed to miss visiting hours. He resented the fact that it seemed like she didn't care that he was in there because he had saved her life - until he found out that she had visited. Quite a few times. When he was asleep. He found grapes, flowers and magazines on his bedside table and when he asked the nurses, they told him that a pretty blonde lady with a bandage had brought them.
Martin had felt hurt that, after all the years, the fact that she had been the one to run off and the small matter that he had just risked everything to save her life, they still couldn't talk. He knew it wasn't ungratefulness on her part. She had not come to see him when he was awake because she wanted to avoid the conversation, she wanted to avoid digging up the past – and yet it was because they had not talked about it that they couldn't move on, get over it, work on their friendship.
She looked well. She no longer had a bandage on her arm and although she had chopped an inch off the end of her hair where it had caught on fire, no one would have guessed from looking at her what she had gone through and how close to death she had been.
"Heya." she said holding out her hand. Martin shook it. He knew that he would seem distant and unfeeling but at the moment that was all he could manage towards her.
"Are you okay? she asked, biting her bottom lip, aware that everyone was looking at them. "Well, I mean obviously you're not okay because your arm's in a bandage and you've got burns over your body but ….." she said nervously. She didn't know what to say to him. How do you thank someone for saving your life twice.
Martin gave her a small smile. She was obviously flustered and at a loss for words. Putting off their first conversation since the accident until a time when hundreds of eyes were on them, obviously wasn't a good idea after all. She took a deep breath. "Thank you." she said simply looking into his eyes, trying to tell him through a look how truly grateful she was. It seemed like he understood. "I can only imagine how much pain you must be in ….. and I don't think I'm worth that …….. after everything." she said quietly.
Martin opened his mouth to say something but he got interrupted by someone shouting "Come on Sam! I think the man who saved your life, deserves more than a handshake!"
There was an awkward moment where Samantha looked unsurely at Martin but he just smiled and opened his arms. She embraced him and although he was smiling, his hold was stiff and formal …… she didn't know whether it was because the wounds on his body made it painful to hug anyone or because it was symbolic of their relationship at the moment. He held her for a bit and she rested her head on his shoulder lightly. She inhaled his smell and it took her back ten years and being so close to him again only made her miss him more. "Thank you." she said again and on impulse she leant up and kissed him gently on the cheek. There were a couple of wolf-whistles and cheers. She hated how, being young and blonde, certain Agents still couldn't get past the sexism and still saw her as the office eye-candy. She pulled away and turned without meeting Martin's gaze. She wasn't sure she wanted to know how he reacted.
Martin stood there, feeling a little lost and shaken by having Samantha in his arms again, if only for a minute. What he really wanted was to be allowed to leave and get out of the centre of this ridiculous circle. Suddenly the noise and talking stopped and Martin didn't have to look far to see why. 'What the hell is he doing here?' Martin thought as Frank Salders, the Director of the F.B.I walked towards him. If Jack was Martin's boss and Van Doren was his boss then Chief Agent Salders was the boss of his boss of his boss of his boss of his boss – the granddaddy of them all. Salders had been the Head of the F.B.I. for as long as Victor Fitzgerald had been deputy – 12 years – and Martin had seen him a couple of times during the important work dinners his father used to hold at their house. Frank Salders was a man to be respected and admired. He started as a junior Agent in Miami and worked his way all up the tree saving many lives along the way. Office talk said that if you had something to hide then he was a man to be feared and he ran a tight ship but he was fair and spent an enormous amount of his energy looking after the welfare of his agents.
"Agent Fitzgerald." he said, taking Martin's hand in a tight grip.
"Sir." Martin said.
"I'm glad you're on the mend." he said in the same gruff, authoritative voice. He then addressed the whole office. "You're probably wondering why I've taken a trip down from HQ to be with you here today." he said. "Well, quite simply, I'm here for the same reason as all of you: to honour the bravery of Agent Fitzgerald." He paused and Martin felt like he would be quite happy to sink into the floor here and now. "As I'm sure all of you know, a few weeks ago, Fitzgerald put his own life at risk to re-enter a burning building to save the life of his fellow Agent. Now, all protocols and all the handbooks in the world can tell you that this was a stupid and idiotic thing to do but the simple truth is that, no matter how much you may like to go by the book, if he hadn't done what he had done then Agent Spade wouldn't be here today. It was a brave and selfless act on such a scale that cannot go unnoticed."
Martin watched as another Agent came up and handed the Director some things. He didn't like where this was going. He felt such a fraud being rewarded for doing something he had no choice in. Samantha was hurt so he went to rescue her. It's what his heart was telling him to do. There was no other way.
"Agent Fitzgerald, I would like to give you the highest award we have in the F.B.I – the Wooselvet Award, in honour of your outstanding bravery and heroism." Frank Salders said. "Here-"
"With all due respect Sir, I cannot accept this." Martin said, interrupting the Director in mid-flow. A surprised murmur went round the room. Vivian raised her eyes in surprise, Danny looked shocked and Samantha breathed in deeply but Jack didn't blink an eyelid. His face was set and he hid any signs of surprise he might have remarkably well. But he wasn't surprised. Jack Malone knew people. And he knew Martin. Fifteen years ago, he had been just like Martin. Focussed, committed, motivated, not afraid to voice his opinion and he knew that for him, like it was for Martin now, accepting something which put him above the rest would be like degrading the work they did as a team.
Martin hastened to explain himself. "Sir, as far as I'm concerned, what I did was just part of the job. It's the work I do, the work we all do. I don't think it's justifiable to give someone an award for doing their job."
"Fitzgerald, you went far beyond what this job requires you to do. What you did was courageous, noble, heroic - "
"And very selfish." Martin finished for him. Everyone looked at him in shock. "It was selfish because I don't think I could bear to live with the guilt for the rest of my life if I just stood by and did nothing." he paused. The room was silent. "The whats the ifs the maybes …….If it was a choice between having a dead arm and a few burns or the thought of laying in bed every night and having visions of your former work colleague, who you might have had a chance to save, haunt your dreams for the rest of your lives, what would you choose?" he said confidently.
The Director looked at him with renewed respect. "Wow. That's very humbling." he said. "But when it comes down to it, for whatever reasons you did it, you still put your life at grave risk to save another Agent and that is why I insist you have this award." Agent Salders said. Martin didn't say anything but he had the look of resignation on his face. He took the shield, the certificate and his new deployment belt with the buckle shaped as an eagle, and let the Director pin the gold eagle badge on his suit as a sign of bravery. He shook hands with him again and nodded his thanks.
The room start cheering and clapping again until he heard someone order everyone to get back to work and the crowd dispersed. He headed over to his team. Jack gripped his hand again.
"That was very noble." Jack said. "I'm proud of you."
…………………………………………….
Martin looked at the clock on his desk. 7.30 pm. He leant back in his seat tiredly. After his little Welcome-Back celebrations and award presentation, he had spent the day stuck in the office researching and struggling to catch up on a month's worth of paperwork whilst the other four did all the fieldwork and ran down leads for their latest case. He hated being stuck in the office like he had for the first few weeks when he had first joined, but it hadn't been unexpected. Whilst his arm was still bad, Jack wouldn't risk him. He threw down his pen and stood up. Danny had slipped out ages ago and Vivian had left an hour ago. He glanced over at Samantha. She was seated at her computer, staring at the screen, running a search.
Samantha heard Martin get up and get ready to leave and stood up and walked up to him. She needed him to know. It was time to get it out in the open. "Martin." she said. He turned and looked at her. "I just want you to know how much I appreciate what you did for me – coming back. You've saved my life twice now."
"I'm not planning on making a habit of it." he said, grabbing his bag with his unhurt hand.
She blanched and tried to ignore his less than friendly approach. "Do you, erm, do you want to go and grab a drink?" she asked, biting her bottom lift, nervously. She really hoped he would say yes. She knew that whilst he had been civil to her all day, he was still hurting from her refusal to be open with him.
Martin felt something warm inside of him. She was finally melting, it had finally broken through to her that she had to stop treating him as the enemy. But after ten years of making excuses to himself for her, he needed to push away, reject her, let her know what it felt like. He wondered bitterly if she would be willing to talk if he hadn't just nearly died. "It's late. I need to get home." he said finally.
Samantha's heart sank but she wasn't surprised. "Okay ….. maybe some other time."
Martin didn't say anything to that. "Good night." he said turning round and heading towards the door.
Samantha watched him walk away and suddenly found the confidence to say to him what she had found so easy to say when he had been asleep. "Martin ….. that day … when I ran off ……I was afraid of what you were going to say.…." He stopped walking but he didn't turn round. Samantha felt awkward. They should be having this conversation somewhere quiet not in the middle of the office where anyone could walk in on them at any time. "I was afraid of walking past the point of no return and letting myself for fall you completely. I was afraid of reaching the point where things weren't perfect anymore and I was scared of losing you ……. I know it sounds stupid. You were the one thing that was working in my life and this amazing guy …. and I just turned it all away. I was selfish, escaping before I could get hurt, not stopping to think how much it would hurt you. I'm not asking you to understand – I don't even know what I was thinking that day anymore. I just hope that one day, you can forgive me."
Her words hung in the air. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She wished he didn't have his back to her so she could see what he was thinking.
Martin let her words sink in. He didn't know whether he felt worse now that he knew. She had left …. because she was afraid of the future ….. afraid of losing him so she walked before it reached that point ….. He felt a flash of anger shudder through him …… but deep down he understood. Considering all the people in her life up until that point had betrayed her trust and hurt her, he kind of understood her twisted logic. He just wished she had told him this ten years earlier so he could persuade her that he was never going to walk out on her. He knew he should turn round and tell her what he was thinking. Tell her that he understood – well sort of - and that he forgave her but he was tired and the sores on his back were starting to irritate him. The painkillers had worn off and he was exhausted. He just wasn't in the right frame of mind to hug and make up. "Well, it's just as well that you left when you did, since I was about to ……that day …… I was going to say …. that I thought I loved you." he said, his voice coming out frostier than he had intended. Then he walked out without a backwards glance.
His words stung. Samantha stood in the middle of the room for a while after he had left, not knowing what to think. She didn't know what she had expected but she had never felt as guilty as she had felt now. She wished that he had just turned and shouted at her, telling her she was stupid for breaking his heart over some irrational fear ….. the distance he was now putting between them and the disappointment he had in his voice was even worse.
A/N:- And there you are the end of the chapter. Now I need to go and try this new activity …….. I think people call it revision …….. Oh and reviews make me happy.