Over

A/N: Major Spoilers for 4x10 The Cost of Doing Business.

Part Two: Now What?

It's over.

Suspect in custody and a clean take-down, a pat on the back before his world goes down in flames. He doesn't know exactly what is coming but he knows he is going to hate it, he is going to hate Greg and Jules and who ever nominated her for that stupid award before the day is out.

He wonders if this time they can do it at a bar, coffee just isn't going to cut it. She will leave and he will get shitfaced and Sarge can pick him up, he figures he owes him that much. Couldn't he have just waited until tomorrow to let Jules know? Done it in front of the team where they could have razzed her and teased her and been so proud they could burst; it would have been better than a double-double home delivery.

Maybe Boss was worried about jealousy, they were all a little competitive. He figures Ed is due for the honor but he has been slipping, maybe it's the downside of having a new baby in the house, all those sleepless nights.

Sam wishes he had a fussy infant to go home to; one with his eyes and her perfect nose and puffs of her chocolate hair. They never really had a chance to discuss children.

Now they never will.

His shoulders slump and somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear the General drilling it in from the age of seven, "Real men do not cower and sulk, real men stand tall." Screw that. He is going to sulk and wallow and drink until he can't see straight and this all becomes numbing blackness. The General has no idea how much this all hurts, something else to add to the museum of scars covering his heart.

Another one gone.

It's almost like he is a jinx, a curse, a cautionary tale- don't get too close to Samuel Braddock he will ruin your life and destroy your career, that is if he doesn't get you killed first.

She moves into step beside him, her legs stretching to match his longer strides, and he wishes she wouldn't. She needs to stay away from him, he just demolished her life. The foot of space separating them isn't enough, the wreckage hasn't settled yet.

"That was a good take-down."

He knows it's her way of comforting him, something ripping deep inside him at her words. His hand flexes uselessly at his side, resisting the temptation to take her slender one and laces his fingers with hers.

He won't make this worse for her.

It's too late to make it right, to stop them before they became a them. He probably wouldn't if he could. His list of regrets doesn't go that deep- that he walked a little slower with Sarah that day, that he hadn't been such a good shot, that he hadn't taken the shield with him, and now- that he had just stayed upstairs, but he can't picture a day when he will ever regret being with her, regret them.

He doubts Jules feels the same.

"Good talk." It might be the last compliment he is allowed to pay her and it's stupid. Not important. Nothing about how he could get lost forever in her doe eyes, how he loves to listen to the sound of her voice wafting from the shower, how she is the first thing on his mind when he wakes up- not work, not his best friend, not his little sister, but her and how that gave him a reason to keep going.

Just 'good talk", like Jules would ever be less than 100 percent focused. He doesn't doubt that she would keep to the code, he is the question mark.

Jules is damn good at her job, she is killer shot, great negotiator, and has a real ability to read people, profiling they called it but the ways Jules does it it's more like connection. He does not have that gift, he is still struggling to understand what he wants, how can he know what anyone else does?

He wants her and look where that gotten them.

Sam is not going to take her down with him if he can help it at all. He doesn't care that it was her who showed up at his apartment all those months ago, he wanted her, craved her from the moment he saw her, his own personal sexy sniper chick.

Maybe if that was all it was they would have been okay, some mutually shared attraction and a no strings relationship- it could have worked.

Then he messed it up and fell for her.

The first time he had been in love he was fifteen and he broke up with her because she wouldn't stop nagging and just let him play his video games. His buddies fully agreed with his decision and he barely regretted it under the light of their approval.

The next time love walloped him, he sat in a coffee shop and heard that she loved him and was leaving him in the same breath and no one even knew, well almost no one. It wasn't something he could talk about in the locker room. It was Jules.

There is going to be no support this time, just judgment. They risked the team's future and if Sam could he would give up every video game he ever owned for just five more minutes of being Sam & Jules.

He is pretty sure his high school buddies wouldn't approve.

"Would you have continued the relationship secretly if you could?"

"Yes."

Sam thinks he made a mistake, not in telling Toth the truth but in that coffee shop all those years ago. He had been thinking about it, thinking about giving up the job for her but then his stupid pride got in the way. He wouldn't have let her give up the team, her family, for him but if she had just considered it, just met him part way, not said that she loved him as part of a breakup speech, he would have left. He could be the rookie on some other team but he wasn't willing to take that step if she wasn't in the same place he was, that well rehearsed speech about being shot not holding her back told him she wasn't.

In another world they could be married by now, and he wouldn't be contemplating checking into a hotel room for awhile. He just doesn't think he can go home and see her shampoo in the shower, the blender she bought in the kitchen, her necklace on his dresser. He might need to find work somewhere else, in a city where he won't want to premeditate them accidentally running into each other, or feel the need to drive by her place just to check in the middle of the night.

The rub is, once her things are returned and he leaves, he won't have any piece of her left. It will be like they never happened.

He probably should have taken Nat up when she offered to take their picture last week. They were being dangerous, heading out for a restaurant on the outskirts of the city, nothing special but Jules had dressed up, taking over his bathroom for the better part of an hour before emerging- hair curled and a red dress that made his heart drum loudly in his ears. They looked like an honest to goodness couple and Natalie had cooed over them and grabbed her camera, demanding they smile. He had taken the camera from her and lectured her again about how this could all blow up; they didn't need incriminating evidence like a photo to fall into the wrong hands.

It had blown up anyway, because he was too hungry to think before coming downstairs.

He still doesn't have a picture of them.

He tries not to notice how the wind keeps whipping her hair across her face, the strands escaping from her ponytail. Another time, another place he would have brushed them away.

But not today, never again probably. The thought makes something ache.

"What are we going to do?"

He's ridiculously grateful for those two letters, we. There is still a we. He doubts it will outlast the afternoon but for the moment they are still a we, still a team, still Sam & Jules.

He wants to cling to it and never let go.

If he up and quits what would happen? Sam can't imagine it could get any worse. If Sarge just let her stay on, they might still have a shot. He would worry himself sick over her but it's better than the alternative; anything's better than that.

There would be questions, Toth would demand a reason, probably bring out that goddamn lie-detector again. He might not have to submit to testing but Jules would and Greg. Jules could possibly hold her own, maybe.

Sam had a first row seat after the shooting when thing slowly came to the surface, pieces of who she was without the job- panda slippers, unnatural adoration for chocolate pudding, brothers that called constantly but never came, a father who smelled of whiskey at 10 am, and a scar on her left wrist that she rubbed when she was afraid. He heard how she used to be in band, played guitar, was a bit of a trouble maker back in her wilder days and yet once she breezed back through the doors at SRU that was all gone- she was a clean slate with no history, no past outside of headquarters and the cool pants. She knew how to control her responses, she wasn't him- she might be okay.

Sarge on the other hand... speak of the devil. Sam wants to walk away. He doesn't want to hear whatever Sarge has to say, but he doesn't move. Too many years of training ingrained in him for him to just walk away when a commanding officer approaches- forever a good little solider.

Greg talks in a rush as if he doesn't want Sam to answer Jules, like Sam has any answers. "That's good work today, and again what I would expect from the law enforcement professional of the year."

Sam swears he can actually feel his heart stop for a moment, his breath catching. He tries not to let it get to him, tries to keep it all in check, but it's there- hope, a dangerous emotion given their past. "What happens now, Boss?"

It's frightening how much of his world hangs on the Sarge's answer, a bomb might do less damage.

"We go home, come back to work again tomorrow."

The air whooshes from Sam's lungs, coming out in a soft sigh. Despite the relief his stomach rolls. Now what?

Jules is speaking but he can't quiet make out her words over the blood rushing to his ears, now what? It's over- the hiding, the fear? Sarge knows and is going to let them stay on Team One, stay together? For how long?

"I have faith."

Sam knows he should be appreciative but all he can think is faith in what? That they will keep it professional? He has already admitted to both Toth and Greg that he can't keep that promise. Is Sarge assuming that Jules and him will end somewhere down the line, come to their own conclusion about the impossibility their relationship poses? Because that is not happening.

He is not letting her go again.

Sam should be grateful, should be relieved. It's over.

Just one question remains- what now?

To Be Continued...

A/N: I want to thank so many people for their support of this fic. The reviews, the alerts... it really make a writer feel good. This was originally where I was going to end this fic but I think I am going to add a few more parts- moments that happen off camera because I just would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they left SRU that day. I try really hard to keep things in canon but since the show is on-going whatever I add from this point on maybe considered AU.

As always- Reviews are love. They are so much more powerful than people realize. They motivate, give validation, brighten someone's day, help them improve. Basically reviews are the best thing ever after shirtless Sam.

~Delysia