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chapter one

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she turns up the light
anticipating night falling tenderly around her
watches the dusk
the words won't come
she carries the act so convincingly
the fact is sometimes she believes it
she can be happy with the way things are
be happy with the things she's done
-Vienna Teng, The Tower

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Samantha crossed her arms and tapped her fingers nervously against her rib cage as the plane began its descent upon the runway at La Guardia. She had barely uttered a word since she and Jack boarded the plane to return to New York; she had been far too preoccupied with trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.

A voice overhead warned them to remain in their seats until the plane came to a complete stop on the runway, and she tugged at the metal clasp of her seatbelt. In the stuffy cabin air, she felt like she was suffocating.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

The cabin shook as the wheels of the plane touched down on the ground with a loud 'thud', announcing their arrival back in New York. Jack must have mistaken her involuntary head movement as an answer because he looked surprised when she finally found enough voice to answer him.

"I have no idea what I'm doing." Her voice cracked, "I just know that it's... it's time."

The plane slowed to a halt as it pulled even with its gate. She slowly rose from her seat and reached up to retrieve her small carry on bag from the overhead compartment, clutching it to her side as she stood idly by. They waited their turn before joining the steady stream of passengers moving deliberately towards the door, exiting the plane and proceeding on to baggage claim.

She felt Jack's eyes on her as they stood waiting, but she couldn't force herself to turn and meet his gaze. Instead, she shifted her eyes among the crowd, watching as mothers fawned over their children, husbands embraced their wives, old friends reunited joyfully, and businessmen shook hands. Her neck burned at Jack's stare, and she was surprised that the sensation was nothing more than pins and needles. But then, she supposed, her emotions had run the gamut in the past two days and there was nothing left for her to feel but numb. Numb, and unusually alone.

In front of them the conveyer belt began its familiar hum and whir, and their eyes scanned the checked luggage as it passed by. She leaned forward when her suitcase came into view, grasping the handle and hauling it off to the side. She tapped her foot quietly as she waited while Jack did the same with his own suitcase.

"You know I'm going to have to take your gun." Jack tugged the handle of his suitcase upwards and it clicked as it reached the locked position.

She nodded tersely. "I know."

He walked a few steps behind her as they made their way through the crowds in the terminal and out onto the sidewalk. Sam winced as her eyes adjusted to the late evening sunlight, feeling herself glare up at the offending sky that seemed far too colorful and vibrant for a day like today.

"What did you tell the rest of the team?" She inquired, locating the line of travelers waiting for the next available cabs and leading him toward it.

Jack leaned against a concrete pole that was supporting the overhang. "I didn't. All they know is that we found Emily, that she's going to be fine, and that you had to shoot Jeff Henry to prevent any further harm." He paused and his eyebrows arched into an expression that she couldn't read. "It's your call; you said you didn't want this to become a three ring circus."

She sighed and turned away, remembering what her mother used to say about disaster under the big top. "Yeah, well, I think it's time to bring in the clowns." She laughed bitterly, and they moved to the front of the line.

"You heading home?" he asked.

She looked him in the eye as he squeezed her shoulder and motioned for her to take the first cab that pulled up to the curb. "I guess I am. You?"

"I guess." He shrugged and stepped forward to open the door for her. "Sam?"

"Yes?"

Jack leaned in to run his hand along her cheek. "It's going to be okay."

When the door of the cab was shut firmly behind her, she felt a shiver run down her spine at the realization that it was the first time that she did not believe something Jack Malone said.

Her heart lurched, remembering a time when she thought she could believe everything that her sister said; knowing that the first lie always stung the most, but the subsequent ones do not get much easier.

"We can't do that, Em." Sam warned as she sat on her mother's sofa with her sister, trying to explain what was going to happen next.

"Why not?"

"Because I already told Jack."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because it's time. It's time to stop running, it's time to stop pretending that it didn't happen. Because it did, all of it, and I'm..." her voice caught, and she pursed her lips together. "I'm tired, Em. I'm just so... tired."

"Sam..." Emily scooted closer to her, reaching out to clasp their hands together. Her voice came out as a whisper: shaky, uncertain, and full of emotion. "I never asked you to do any of this... I would have been okay."

Sam closed the remainder of the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Emily's neck as the tears began to flow. "None of this was 'okay.' No matter what happens, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I couldn't let him keep doing that to you."

They sat in the dark, the only sound to break the eerie silence was their sniffling as they cried together.

"I just wish..." Sam's voice was just above a whisper "I wish that you'd told me. I could have helped you!"

Emily tensed and pulled away from their embrace. "You have to understand, Sam. I never told anyone. Andrew... Oh God, I always told Andrew I needed a little more time before we talked about starting a family. I never told him..."

"You should tell him," Sam bit her bottom lip nervously, feeling guilty about the way she had attacked her brother-in-law during the interrogation. "He seems like a good guy; he'll understand."

"Andrew is a great guy. I always told myself I would tell him one day when the time was right, but there was never a 'right' time. How do you drop something like this on someone you've been married to for ten years?" A slight hint of desperation and regret tinged her sister's voice.

"I don't know," Sam answered honestly. "I'm not exactly the person to be going to for relationship advice." She half sighed, half mumbled her own distaste as she repeated Jack's words from earlier that day. "I'm told that I 'consistently make the worst choices' in the personal arena."

Emily's forehead creased inquisitively. "Who said that? Someone you work with?"

"Jack did." She pinched the bridge of her nose, not really wanting to elaborate on a relationship that she couldn't articulate without making it sound sordid and seedy. She sighed, changing the subject. "Look at us. If someone had told me eighteen years ago that you'd be the one happily married for ten years, I would have laughed in their faces."

Emily's lips formed a half smile at this. "What about you? Any guy would be lucky to have you, Sam."

She released a quick, pulsed breath that almost hid her disdain at Emily's false words. Her eyes darted to the side, the memory of what's-his-name from that morning weighing heavily on her conscience. "Work doesn't give me a lot of free time."

She heard the padding of feet from the bedroom as a door creaked open and her mother's voice called out. "Girls? You're still up? Is everything okay out there?"

Emily rolled her eyes and fiddled with the wedding band that sat on her left ring finger. "We're fine, Mom. We're just fine."

Sam ran one of her free hands through her hair, wishing she could believe a word her sister had just said.

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She felt an ache in her chest as she watched dusk fall upon the familiar New York City streets from the back seat of the cab. All around her, lives were unfolding. When she first moved, it had been one of the things that had attracted her most to the busy city life.

Her thoughts drifted to the rest of the team and how she would tell them, what she would tell them. She hadn't wanted them to get involved because her survival instinct warned that, if they did, her secret would be revealed. All along, though, she should have known; her desire to keep her secrets always ended up working against her one way or another. And she was fooling herself to think that they wouldn't find out; past experience ought to have warned her: the truth always comes out. This time, at least, she hoped her colleagues would understand her reasons for holding back.

She bit her tongue, swallowing hard as she recalled a late night cab ride that signaled the beginning of the one of her other 'secrets.' She wondered where Martin fit in the consistent stream of poor personal choices that Jack had alluded to the previous morning, feeling a familiar twinge in the pit of her stomach. She exhaled slowly, reminding herself that her former relationship with Martin hadn't exactly been as 'secret' as she had intended; the bitter twist of fate that just as the entire team found out, there was suddenly nothing left for them to know.

She marveled at how, two years later, she still didn't quite know how to act around Martin. She constantly felt him near her: close, but further from her reach than ever. She tried following his lead, but their interactions seemed to follow a roller coaster track: one day he would joke with her about secret office romances, the next she felt him unable to even look in her direction. The worst part was both seemed like a slap in the face, and she couldn't even discern which left her feeling more bitter and empty.

She slumped back against the cloth seat, the dull pain of defeat coursing through her body. Her head throbbed as she focused her energy on willing the cab to weave faster in and out of traffic.

When the cab finally came to a stop in front of her building, she pulled several bills from her wallet and thrust them at the driver, grabbing her luggage and stepping determinedly through the front door. Once alone in the safe confines of the elevator, she let her shoulders sag and rolled her head backwards before pressing the button that read '5'.

Making her way down the hall to her apartment, her eyes scanned the familiar space with regret; a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the impending changes of her life. Strange how a man who had been dead for seventeen years could still impact every aspect of her being.

She heard the familiar click as the key turned to release the lock and her apartment door opened. The air inside was thick and heavy, the early evening darkness cast haunting shadows that danced across the room, and she braced herself against the unknown.

It seemed a cruel irony that Emily was the one who had straightened her life out and begun to move past it while she herself remained locked in the same destructive holding pattern; a vicious cycle with no end in sight.

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