First of all, I am sooooooooooooo sorry that this has taken so long. Between work, school and planning a wedding, I have been extremely busy. In addition, as some of you already know, there was an author by the penname of Starrfiree who had blatantly plagiarized the first four chapters of my story. I wanted to make sure that issue was over before I gave him/her any more material to copy.

I cannot even express how much that has infuriated me. Plagiarism is a crime regardless of the fact that the story is only on a fan fiction site. I sent an urgent message to the support center on January 22, but I have yet to receive a response.

On the bright side however, when I first became aware of the problem (many, many thanks to BookReader2007), I sent emails to as many of my readers as I could to get the word out and some of you left reviews on Starrfiree's story about the plagiarism. Very shortly thereafter, the story disappeared, as did Starrfiree's profile and three or four other stories he/she had posted.

So at least the copy of my story was taken down, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Starrfiree hasn't made a new profile and posted under other categories. I do want to express my sincerest appreciation to those of you who supported me in this whole issue and left reviews on my behalf. Thank you soooooo much!

Anyway, here's Chapter Five. I hope you enjoy it but I'm not sure if you all are going to like the direction I've taken with this story. Please read and review!

CHAPTER FIVE

Upon opening her eyes, Sam realized yet again that she was in an unfamiliar place. As she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position on the couch, she looked around while her mind started to remember. She was alone in Ryan's living room but the noise coming from one of the other rooms told her she wasn't alone in the apartment. Her eyes eventually caught sight of a clock on the table that read 7:07 and she started to panic. When she had first run into Ryan it was already after eight thirty in the morning, so either Ryan's clock was completely wrong or she had been sleeping all day if not longer.

"Ryan?" Sam called timidly as she had no idea who was actually in the apartment with her. When no one answered, she spoke more loudly, "Ryan?" The faint sound of footsteps could then be heard growing louder as they got closer to the living room where Sam was sitting when finally, Ryan appeared in the doorway.

"Sam, you're awake." Ryan started towards her with a cup in his hand that he held out for her. "Here, I made you some more tea."

Sam ignored the cup for the moment, "Ryan, what time is it?"

Ryan turned around to look at the same clock that Sam had just seen, "Um it's about ten after seven."

Sam gave him a puzzled look, "Ten after seven … at night?"

Ryan sighed and looked at the floor before answering her quietly, "Yes."

"Oh my God! Ryan, how could you have let me sleep all day?" Sam turned away from him to pull back the curtains at the window behind the couch, hoping to see daylight that would refute Ryan's answer. Instead, she only saw darkness broken by a lone streetlamp consuming the frame. As she sat back on the couch, Sam ran her hands through her hair and exhaled in frustration. "Ryan, I told you I had to leave. I have so much studying to get done and a project to work on. Why didn't you wake me up?"

Ryan knelt down in front of her and placed the cup in her hands. "Sam, I'm sorry. I know you said you had to leave but you were so exhausted that you practically fell asleep mid-sentence." Ryan held his hands over hers on the cup and urged Sam to drink some of the tea. "Plus, you were so upset about Austin and that letter that you almost hyperventilated. Don't you remember? I'm sorry, but I thought it was more important that you get some rest."

Even though she was angry, Sam had to agree with Ryan a little – she was exhausted. All of her muscles felt like they weighed about fifty pounds each and, if she laid down again, Sam was sure she could probably sleep for another twelve hours. It was hard for her to even keep her eyes open.

"Hey, what's going on?" Both Sam and Ryan turned to see a guy standing in the doorway. He was almost six feet tall with dark hair, a goat-tee and golden-brown skin.

Ryan stood to walk to the doorway where he put his hand on the man's back and pulled him into the room. "Kirk, I want you to meet Sam." Ryan gestured to her sitting on the couch, "Sam, this is my roommate Kirk." As the man moved closer to shake Sam's hand, she noticed that he had the same build as Ryan but his eyes were a crystal blue; the same blue that she had so willingly let herself drown in every time she was with Austin. It caught her off guard so much that all she could do was stare at him until Ryan finally brought her out of her daze, "Sam? Are you all right?"

Sam blinked a few times to clear her head, before extending her hand to him. "Sorry. It's nice to meet you Kirk."

Ryan pushed between them and knelt down in front of her again. "Sam honey, why aren't you drinking your tea? Here," Ryan gently guided her hand that held the cup to her mouth and held it there until she drank some. "There you go. Listen, you just finish you're tea then I promise we will go straight to the train station. I'm sure they can switch your ticket around without too many problems."

As Sam started on another sip of tea, Ryan's words suddenly set off an alarm in her brain that caused her to choke on the hot liquid that was slowly sliding down her throat. Sam started to cough so violently that she ended up spitting the tea still in her mouth out onto Ryan's shirt. As she braced herself on the couch with her free hand in a futile attempt to stop the room from spinning, Sam tried to catch her breath which was also a near impossibility. It took several minutes before she regained her breathing and was able to look into Ryan's eyes as he patted her back.

"Are you okay Sam?" Ryan asked with a look of concern on his face.

Sam just stared at him with a mixed look of hurt, confusion and anger. "R … Ryan," she choked quietly, "How did you know I was taking a train?"

Ryan's eyes widened a little as he thought of how to respond. "Um … well, you had mentioned that you took the train here so I just assumed you were also taking a train back."

"No Ryan, I don't think I did mention taking the train to New York, back to Princeton or anywhere. In fact," Sam remembered a comment Ryan had made about five minutes earlier. "Now that I think of it, I don't recall ever telling you about that letter that I got either." She watched his cheeks redden slightly then continued in a stern voice, "What's going on Ryan?"

Ryan avoided her eyes, instead looking at the carpet underneath his knees. Finally, he stood and started pacing the room. "Okay Sam, I'm the one who wrote the letter. I knew what had happened between Austin and Shelby over the summer. Part of me wanted to tell you because she shouldn't be able get away with something like that but I knew how happy Austin was with you. It was the first time I had ever seen Austin that happy so there was a bigger part of me that just wanted to leave it alone and not ruin anything for him."

"For him?" Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing, "Ryan, what about me?"

"I … I mean, for the both of you. You know what I mean." Ryan smiled embarrassed, "So anyway, I went to Princeton and got your roommate … "

"You came to Princeton?" Sam asked in surprise.

"Yes I did. Tasha agreed to put the letter in your mailbox for me and I was going to wait until you read it and then go see you."

Sam breathed a heavy sigh of frustration, "But why bother writing the letter Ryan? Why not just tell me in person then?"

"Um, well I … I didn't want you to be angry with me for not telling you sooner. I don't know, I … I guess I wasn't really thinking. Anyway, I was going to go see you but you ran off to Austin's and then to that park and by that time you were so upset I wasn't sure what to say to you so I just watched you from the trees."

Sam thought back to that night she sat crying her eyes out in the Princeton Battlefield State Park. "That thing in the trees … that was you? I thought it was a dog."

Ryan ran his hand through his hair and smiled sheepishly, "No, it wasn't a dog, it was me. I was trying to stay low and out of sight; I didn't want to scare you. I ended up taking the same train back to New York as you did and then as soon as I saw that Carter was there to pick you up I went home. I was going to call you in the morning but, coincidentally enough, I ran into you at Bergdorf's.

Even though Ryan's explanation seemed innocent enough and she didn't think he had meant to hurt her, Sam was still angry. It had been over two months since that party when Austin and Shelby had slept together and Sam couldn't help but think about all of the occasions since then when she and Austin came so close to finally making love. That would've been the biggest mistake of her life. She had been so sure about it then but now Sam was realizing that Austin didn't care enough about her to keep from sleeping with Shelby or to tell her about it. Obviously to him, it was no big deal which told Sam that she wasn't as important to Austin as he always made it seem.

Sam pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand and looked up when Ryan nudged her arm that still held the cup of tea, "Drink your tea Sam. You'll feel better."

For some reason, that was Sam's breaking point and the walls started to shake with the echoes of her voice, "I DON'T WANT THE GOD DAMNED TEA RYAN!" In her anger, she stood up quickly to shove Ryan in the chest and the mug full of tea landed on the floor.

"DAMN IT SAM!" Sam watched as Ryan slowly tilted his head to look up at her from the mess on the floor. As the color in his face turned three shades of red, his nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed, his lips were clenched and then his breathing grew so fast it made her take a defensive step away from him. Suddenly, Sam noticed how dizzy she was and that her eyelids were closing against her will. She tried to brace herself on the arm of the couch but lost her balance and fell onto it completely.

Before she could attribute her dizziness to the fact that she had stood up so quickly, she saw a small smile appear on Ryan's face. It was then that she connected his extreme reaction to her spilling the tea with the fact that she had drank some that morning and that he now kept trying to get her to drink more of it. With almost every last ounce of energy that she had, Sam lifted her head to look in his eyes, "What … what's in the tea Ryan?"

The smile grew while Ryan just smoothed the hair away from her face, "Don't you worry sweetness. It's having the desired effect … finally." He held her cheek in his hand and whispered soothingly, "Don't fight it honey. Just go to sleep and this will all be over before you know it."

After a quick stop back at his dorm room to grab some more money, a credit card and a heavier jacket, Austin was on a train headed for New York City alternating his attempts to call Sam's cell phone and Ryan's apartment. Although he didn't think it was very likely, Austin also tried Sam's dorm, just in case she had returned home in the midst of everything. Voice mail and answering machine greetings were all he received though. Austin really had no idea whether or not Sam was with Ryan, but it was his only hope. He couldn't bring himself to think of the other possibilities.

As he sat with his head leaned against the cool window and watched the darkened landscape fly by, all Austin could think about was how badly everything had gotten screwed up. He couldn't imagine living a single day without Sam in his life but he was slowly coming to the realization that she probably didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore. Even though it was scaring the hell out of him that he didn't know where she was, in Austin's mind, that meant that they were still together because she hadn't seen him to break it off. But that didn't keep the image of the fateful scene when he finally found Sam and she told him they were over from replaying in his mind. He saw it differently each time; sometimes she just screamed at him and others she slapped him across the face, but the end result was always the same and that's what was causing the major ache in his heart.

The hour-long train ride gave Austin quite a bit of time to try and figure out what he was going to say to Sam if he found her. What could he possibly say to her that would make any of this better? How could he prove to her that she's the one he loves with all of his breath and that he never meant for any of this to happen? Austin ran his hands through his hair and sighed in frustration when the answers weren't coming to him. Through blurred vision, he stared out the window and spoke under his breath, "I swear I will make this up to you Sam … somehow. I won't let you give up on us and if it takes me until the day I die to get you to believe in me again, so be it."

At the sound of his cell phone, Austin flipped it open anxiously without bothering to check the caller ID, "Hello?" he asked quickly.

"Austin, where are you?"

Austin rolled his eyes at the sound of Shelby's voice, "It's none of your business where I am Shelby. What do you want?"

The anger in her voice grew, "Austin, I told you yesterday before I left that you had better call me today and you never did."

Shelby was honestly the only woman Austin had even remotely thought about hitting and it took all of his strength to keep from putting his fist through the window next to him. He took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice so that the entire train wouldn't hear him, "Listen to me Shelby and listen very carefully. Do not think for even a second that you have anything over me just because you're pregnant. I told you before that I will take full responsibility for my actions, but only where the baby is concerned. You will not be a part of my life in any way, shape or form." Austin leaned his head back on the seat, "How did this even happen, Shelby? I don't remember a God damn second of it."

Shelby answered matter-of-factly, "I drove you home after the party then helped you to your room and one thing led to another."

"I couldn't possibly have been very coherent given the fact that I don't remember it. My guess is I wasn't much of a key player in the whole thing."

"Well actually, you were pretty into it but you kept calling me Sam."

Austin froze. All of the air in his lungs escaped in a whoosh as if he had been punched in the stomach. His eyes were permanently fixed on a random spot on the seat in front of him. He wanted to close them to keep the tears at bay, but his brain wasn't functioning enough to get the message out so they just spilled down his cheeks. His voice was so soft and choked when he finally responded that Shelby could barely hear him, "How … how c … could you? How could you do that to … to me Shelby? How could you have such … such little respect for yourself to do something like that?"

"Austin, I had to do something to make you see that we belong together," Shelby answered simply.

Austin's voice rose as his anger began to overcome his shock, "Oh my God! I feel like I'm talking to a German Shepard! Do you even hear yourself? So are you trying to tell me that you got pregnant on purpose?"

"Um … no I didn't get pregnant on purpose. Listen Austin … "

Austin squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, "No! No, I will not listen! I am through listening to you Shelby. I don't want to hear another word. As far as the baby is concerned, I will find some way to communicate with you where I do not have to see you or speak to you. And even then, communication will only be when absolutely necessary." Austin paused to catch his breath, "And as far as you are concerned … you no longer exist to me."

Austin snapped his phone shut and threw it on the seat next to him. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands before he completely broke down. He didn't care that there were other passengers staring at him and wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He didn't care that he was crying like a girl. All he knew was that he loved Sam more than anything but, because of Shelby, she was gone.

Austin started to punch the seat in front of him until the guy sitting in it stood up and yelled at him. It was then that he realized he was causing a scene so he sat back in his seat and tried to calm down. While taking deep breaths, he wiped the tears from his cheeks then covered his face with his hands. He blindly reached for his cell phone when it started to ring again, "I told you, I do not want to … "

"Austin?"

Austin's head shot up, "Sam? Baby, is that you? Where are you?" There was no response. "Sam?"

"Au … Ausshin?"

Instead of easing his fear, the sound of Sam's slurred speech made Austin worry more. "Sam, what's wrong?" He waited but there was no answer. "Sam, what's the matter? Please talk to me."

"Ausshin? Is … is thats you?"

This was killing him. It was so obvious that something was wrong, that she was in trouble but he couldn't do anything to help her. "Yes baby, it's me. Please tell me where you are."

"Austin … I … is … Ry … "

"Sam?" Again, there was no answer. "Sam?" Austin looked at his phone and saw that the call had been disconnected. "SAM!"

Ryan grabbed the phone from Sam's hand and snapped it shut. "Damn it!" He cursed himself for leaving it on the table next to the couch while he and Kirk cleaned up the spilled tea before going to the kitchen. It seemed as though Sam was out cold so he hadn't given it another thought. Sam winced in pain as Ryan grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head, forcing her to meet his eyes, "You better not have told him anything Sam … if you know what's good for you," Ryan threatened. The question of 'Austin, is that you' that he heard her ask just before he took the phone made him think they hadn't gotten very far in the conversation.

Ryan released her hair and her head fell back on to the pillow. As hard as she was trying to fight it, Sam was losing the battle. Whatever he had drugged her with was knocking her out and she could do nothing but lay there while her lids slowly blanketed her eyes. Sam knew it was only a matter of time before she totally blacked out, but she willed herself not to lose consciousness completely when she heard the sound of Kirk's voice.

"Are you sure you want to do this? She doesn't seem so bad and she's real cute." Kirk watched Ryan skeptically.

Ryan turned and looked at his roommate incredulously, "Yes I'm sure. Look, you just go along with the plan and everyone will be happy, including you."

With his arms crossed over his chest, Kirk shook his head back and forth. "Unh, unh. You tell me the story behind this little love triangle first or I'm not going along with anything."

Ryan watched his roommate as he debated the ultimatum. "Hang on a second." The sound of his voice grew louder as he got closer to her and Sam knew she had to brace herself. Suddenly, she felt the heel of his boot connect with her ribs and she used every ounce of strength she had left to keep quiet. Luckily he had only kicked her with moderate force. Sam figured that he wasn't trying to hurt her, but he needed to see if she was responsive at all. For the most part, Sam succeeded in remaining numb. The only thing his kick did was cause her arm to fall loose from underneath her body until it was hanging off the side of the couch.

Ryan turned back to his roommate and paused to figure out how best to explain the situation. "Do you know what it was like to constantly be second best to Austin? To constantly be standing in his shadow and compared to him day and night? To be told that you should do everything like he does? Coach actually told me to follow Austin around and take notes of how he did everything from throwing a pass to lacing up his pads. Can you believe that?"

Ryan sighed and rubbed his temples, "At first, I was so angry at everyone and most of all, I hated Austin. I started wishing that he would break an arm or a leg so, for once, it could be my turn to shine. But the bitch of it was, Austin was always one hundred percent good to me. He treated me like a brother and he would have done anything for me. That made it harder and harder to hate him."

"Well why would you do this to him then?"

Ryan's head turned sharply in Kirk's direction and his eyes widened before he began to pace the room. "I'm not doing this to him; I'm doing this for him … and for me. I was so excited when Austin told me he wasn't going to the Halloween Dance with Shelby. But at the time, I didn't know why I was so happy. I chalked it up to the fact that I knew how unhappy he was with Shelby and he was finally free of her." Ryan paused for a few seconds as a far-off look took over his face. He stared at a spot on the wall and spoke softly, "Then, the night of the homecoming game I finally figured everything out. Before he left the game, he looked deep into my eyes and said, 'It's your game now. Go get 'em'. That's when it hit me. It wasn't jealousy or hatred I was feeling for him … it was love."

On hearing that declaration, Sam was sure she was dreaming – she hoped she was anyway. She couldn't understand why Ryan would want to hurt her or what purpose drugging her was supposed to serve. Even though Sam wanted to move, she couldn't. Her brain was telling her muscles to move, but they weren't getting the message and all she could do was lay there and listen to the rest of the conversation.

"Okay, I knew you were in love with him," Sam heard Kirk explain. "That much I figured out from the pictures in your room and by the way you talk about him all of the time. But didn't you say he started dating Sam after the homecoming game?"

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut before opening them to look at Sam still on the couch, "Yes," he answered sadly. "I had to endure almost a year in agony of watching the two of them together all of the time. And no matter what anyone said or did, their relationship just seemed to get stronger and stronger. But finally, at the End of Summer party, I got my chance."

Kirk watched Ryan suspiciously, "Austin didn't sleep with Shelby by accident, did he?"

Ryan shook his head, "No, not really anyway. He was so drunk at that party I knew that all I had to do was spike his drink and he wouldn't know whether he was going home with Sam, Shelby or the Keebler Elves. And Shelby! It took absolutely no persuading at all to get her to take him home. She had been trying to break them up all year. All I had to do was tell her that she was the most sober of all of us to drive and leave her with a comment that he was too drunk to know what he was doing so she shouldn't take advantage of him. That sealed it right there. The next week, she had told me and many others that they had slept together."

"So Shelby isn't a part of your master plan at all?" Kirk asked.

"Only in that she's my pawn. I had expected her to go running to Sam the next day squealing that she had slept with Austin, but she never did. I don't know why but she didn't say anything until after they had left for Princeton so I had to come up with something to get her in between them somehow. I started with a little piece of information that Sam had given me – the fact that a major publisher was interested in Austin's writing. I told Shelby about that and that, even though Austin wouldn't be following in his father's million dollar footsteps, he would likely do very well for himself and probably find a little fame along the way too. Shelby was all sorts of excited about that."

"Lucky for you she got pregnant then. That fit into your plan beautifully."

Ryan stopped suddenly and looked at his roommate with a blank face before a smug smile spread over his lips, "The beauty of it is that Shelby's not pregnant. That would be the worst thing that could happen because then Austin would be bound to Shelby forever."

Kirk looked confused, "Then how did … "

"In one of my many conversations with Shelby, I planted the idea in her head. I had said once that if she had gotten pregnant, Austin would definitely come back to her because he would do the right thing. Then I subtly added a remark about even if he just thought she were pregnant, that would give her a few months to work on him before she either had to tell him the truth or pretend that she had a miscarriage. She ran with that so quickly, she barely said goodbye to me."

Kirk sat down in the chair next to the couch where Sam was still lying, "But what would you have done if Sam hadn't come to New York on her own?"

"Well, like I told Sam, I was going to go see her but my real plan was to show up at her door, after she had read the letter, as if I were there to surprise her and then I was going to console her and convince her to come back to New York with me to get away from everything. I was actually following her the next morning after she left Carter's so that I could accidentally," Ryan made air quotes with his fingers as he said the word, "bump into her. The funny thing is that I really had been to Bergdorf's earlier to get my sister a birthday present so I even had a bag in my hand which worked out perfectly."

"But if you had wanted Austin all along, wouldn't it have been easier to make Sam the bad guy in this whole thing?"

Ryan sighed, "Yes it would have, but Austin was more accessible. Sam always kept herself very well guarded. She didn't go to very many parties and if she did, it was always with Austin. Plus, I wasn't entirely sure that Austin wouldn't have forgiven her had I convinced him that she cheated. So I had to come up with another way and I could use my friendship with Sam to be sure that she wouldn't forgive Austin."

Kirk reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Sam's ear, "Okay, so now what?"

"I told you, just go along with the plan and everyone will be happy. You can work your magic on her," Ryan gestured toward Sam with an outstretched arm, "And I will have Austin."