"Found anything good?" Sam walked into the storage unit and studied the man sitting on the floor, surrounded by his life. It was hours after Trudy had told her where he was and he was still at it.
Jason looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. His heart skipped at the sight of her, the all black she was clad in, stirring memories that hadn't surfaced before. She liked wearing black, as a matter of fact, so did he! He hadn't worn much black in the last year, but he saw from the clothes around him that his current wardrobe was a departure from his usual choices.
"I'll say! This is exactly where I needed to visit a long time ago." His eyes swept the open trunks before going back to her. "Thank you for saving this stuff — it really helps put some things together for me."
She stopped near him and picked up the sonogram he'd lain ontop of the closed lockbox. "They're yours, you're more than welcome to them." She couldn't believe he'd kept Danny's sonogram! She sat on a trunk, remembering the day it was taken.
"Imagine his face when he sees how tiny he started out?" He was looking forward to seeing Danny's reaction to the photo she held. If it was anything like his, or now hers, it will be priceless.
Sam smiled at the image that pulled at her heartstrings still. "He's still the very best thing I've ever done." Her whisper was dreamy as she pictured her baby's face, smiling and happy like the gorgeous little angel that he was.
"Yeah…me too." He loved seeing her happy and smiling. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry I was always leaving you."
She looked up at the troubled expression that haunted his eyes. "You didn't. You've always been there for me, Jason…even when you hated me, you had my back."
He was shaking his head. "I don't see how that could be true when I was always running off to do something or other for Sonny or someone else. Then I left you to raise Danny…why are you so forgiving?"
"Because that's how you've always been with me - who do you think taught me how?" She shook her head at the memory of their earlier days. "You're a good man, Jason. One day I hope you'll remember that."
"You seem to think so…at one time anyway…enough to want a family with me." His whisper travelled the space between them and he wanted to know what they were really like. "Why? What did you see in a killer, Sam?"
"The rest!" Her eyes never left his as Sam saw the vulnerability so few knew he had, rise to the surface. "There's so much more to you than that…you were the very best friend when I found myself pregnant with Lila, alone and homeless. You didn't judge me, or make me feel inferior because of my mistakes. You didn't treat me like an inconvenience or a burden, and you have no idea what that did for my self esteem. When we fell in love, you treated me like an equal…my opinion and my needs mattered. They not only mattered, they were important to you! That built me up so much, Jason. It was totally different from anything I'd known before, and you gave me that. Loving you was the easiest, most natural thing I'd ever done, and it happened without either of us realizing it for a long time. It happened because of the wonderful man you are. Please don't sell yourself short."
Memories of them drinking tequila and playing dominoes surfaced in his mind, and Jason could remember coming in wet from the raging storm, to find her grabbing an umbrella to go out after him. Dr. Thomas had made him feel useless to help Michael, to empathize with his pain, to feel love for him or for Sam, and he'd needed to get away. The howling winds and pounding hurricane had not stopped her from getting ready to come after him, and her words that night had saved his soul. She saw him in a light he had no idea where from, but it gave him everything. Knowing that she could feel the intense love he felt for her, that she could see that it was as real as it felt to him, and that she loved him back in that fierce, unstoppable way, despite what others thought, had meant so very much.
"I don't understand, Sam…if we loved each other the way we did, and I can feel how much I loved you…if we were so in love and committed to each other, how in God's name did we lose it? Why did we sleep with other people?"
Sam flapped the photo absently against her fingers as she thought back to their early years. "We let them in, Jason. You and I got off track when we allowed what other people wanted, to become more important than making time for each other, than being each other's touchstone. You were running the business for awhile and I wanted a career so I wouldn't feel as dependent as I'd been then, relying on you for everything. What we failed to notice, were other people's agendas to infiltrate and destroy our relationship." Her voice waned with the pain remembering that time always brought back. "We let them."
"How?"
She told him about the woman who came to town seeking revenge for her father's death, making it her mission to break them apart as retribution for Sam killing him, even though it had been self defense from him trying to kill her for swindling him. She told him about the job that demanded her time and energy and robbed their relationship of the attention it had known, before she got super busy. She told him of the closeness he'd rekindled with the woman who would later come between them with a secret child and ultimate betrayal, and then she told him of the deepest, most painful regret that would follow her through life. Without excuses or self serving reasons, she told him of her complacency watching the kidnapping, and of the weeks spent in silence about it.
Jason watched her features as she spoke the obviously painful, torturous words, and he wondered how he could have hurt her in such a callous, unfeeling way.
"She told me about the kidnapping awhile back, and I have to admit it really threw me a gut punch when she said it. I don't understand how that could've been you - it's not who you are, Sam."
She met his eyes and accepted the doubt she saw there. "I didn't think so either, and to this day I still don't know how I could've let it happen. Feeling the way that I do about children, feeling the way that I did about you…I'll never be able to explain what happened there."
"Carly had a few choice words for me about it and I think she was right. You were dealing with alot and it took more of a toll on you than anyone knew. That is so out of character with the woman I know, that it's unreal to me, even now. I've seen you with Jake - you love him! The way you are with our son, with my nephews and your sisters…that's not the woman that would ever let harm come to a child. I know that…" He could see the pain she still carried from that time and he felt a keen responsibility for some of it. He had inflicted some himself by not being honest and true to the person he'd pledged his heart and soul to, who'd loved him through so much and seen him through a lot more. He'd failed her. His betrayal aided in unravelling this strong, resourceful, loyal woman, and when she broke before his very eyes, he'd continued to fail her by siding with others against her, pushing her spiral even further. How could you be so callous with someone you loved? "I know you, Sam!"
She felt the lone tear run her cheek as the sorrow and guilt she always carried with that time, resurface in the room. She would never not regret her actions during that dark period of her life, and if there was ever one thing in this world that she could take back, that would be it - hands down! She'd never regretted anything more in her entire life. "I'm sorry, Jason. I'll be sorry until the day I die."
"I'm sorry too, Sam. So sorry I didn't show up for you, the way you always did for me."
Silence filled the room as they each took their mental corners for a moment before he brought up the incident that was also eating at him. "I'm also sorry that I could ever look you in the eyes and threaten your life."
Sam shook her head and pursed her lips, looking down at her shuffling feet. "I deserved it. You needed to protect your son and if the roles had been reversed, I would've threatened you for my child too." She thought of Jason putting Danny in danger and knew she would, even as she knew it would never happen. Jason would never knowingly endanger a child. Not like she had.
"Don't forgive me so easily. It was a shitty thing to do. I could've found another way to get my point across. I could've been less of an unfeeling jackass in the light of how I'd treated you. It's unforgivable, Sam."
She shook her head again, this time meeting his eyes. "Obviously not. If you could forgive me for Jake, I could surely forgive you for protecting him. It hurt, I'll admit that it did. But I think more because I felt that raging jealousy about Elizabeth at that time…she had given you the one thing I'd have let go of a limb to give you. She had your child and the bond that creates between two people, and I was left out in the cold with nothing. I hated her more than I hated anybody in the world, and I couldn't believe you'd kill me over her. That really stung. But as time wore on and sanity returned, I was able to see what I'd done and why your natural instinct was to protect your son. I wouldn't have expected any less from you, and if I hadn't been so blinded by jealousy and hatred at the time, I would've seen it all for what it was."
"Don't excuse that cowardly act - I don't ever get to threaten your life - ever!"
"I don't blame you, Jason…I was out of control. I would've threatened me too."
It was his turn to shake his head. "No, you wouldn't." His heart hurt with the pain he'd inflicted on someone he loved so much. "You've never wished anything bad to happen to me, Sam. Never."
"How can you be so sure? You don't remember anything."
He shook his head again, harder this time. "Never…I just know."
She rose from the trunk and walked the small space that was uncluttered. "We managed to put it behind us. It wasn't easy and it's never forgotten…but it is forgiven…on both our ends. That's the only way we were able to find each other again."
"Tell me about that. I mean, I remember the involvement of one very memorable pink and black outfit, but not much else."
Sam chuckled. "So the lingerie made the cut but the meaningful stuff didn't?"
Jason smiled. "Oh, that piece is very meaningful! Maybe next time you stop by the cabin, you could remind me what it looks like…on." His eyes roved her candidly and Sam's cheek burned with color at his proposition.
"Yea, about that…" She moved further away from him, turning her back to prevent her from seeing his reaction to her next words. "What happened the other night can't happen again. Neither of us are in that place right now."
His voice startled her when it sounded right behind her - she didn't know he'd moved to stand there. "Oh, yeah? What place is that?"
"A place where we need to complicate things with sex."
He was so close she could feel his breath brush the back of her head. "We didn't have sex, Sam…we made love." His whisper softened even more. "I was there…I remember every sweet, sweet detail."
Her cheeks were on fire now, much like the rest of her was coming ablaze. "That shouldn't have happened, Jason. We got a little emotional…carried away by…"
He was standing close. His body was responding to her in a most physical way, forcing him to softly brush the hair to tuck behind an ear, even as she refused to face him. Not that he had a problem with that…the back of her was equally as enticing as everywhere else. That firm, tight ass that he could remember gripping, that sexy, toned back that took all his strength behind every glorious push inside her. "By?"
"By the magical night."
He desperately wanted to kiss the ear exposed to him, to start there and travel down that voluptuous, sublime body. "It certainly was magical."
The ringing phone startled the silence to snap them both back to the moment and out of the trance of the cozy, moonlit cabin, where they'd travelled in remembrance. Saved by the literal bell! Sam moved hurriedly across the room as she grabbed for the phone in her pocket, latching onto the excuse she desperately needed to break his hold on her very aroused senses. She was in so much goddamn trouble.
