Chapter 15:

Go Left

a/n: Sorry for the delay - even writing duos get writer's block.

FYI we are nearing the final chapters.

Sam's eyes snapped open when her phone alarm blared loudly. She reached over, knocking a few things off her bedside dresser while trying to find her annoying phone. Her hand finally smacked it, and she squinted her eyes to see that it was 4:45am. She shut off the alarm and sighed loudly.

Having found it increasingly hard to get herself out of bed in the morning the past few weeks, she resorted to setting multiple alarms on her phone so she could mentally prepare herself to wake up. Normally she would just roll over at the sound of her first alarm, but this morning was different.

Cee-Cee made her way into her bedroom, the cat purring loudly as she made her way up Sam. Then the cat gave her human nose kisses before meowing loudly.

"Are you out of food?" Sam asked, scratching behind Cee-Cee's ear.

"Mm," Cee-Cee responded, to which Sam translated as "Obviously; now get up."

Sam threw the covers off, getting up to feed her pet. She sighed as she leaned against the counter, watching Cee-Cee eat like she'd been starved for the past week. "You need a friend. Should I get you a kitty friend?"

Cee-Cee munched louder on her food.

Sam looked out her kitchen window into the darkness, "Seems like I need a friend more than you do…I'm lonely, Cee-Cee."

Her cat hunched lower to the floor to relax, her eyes closing as if her food was sending her into a blissful kitty heaven.

"I'm glad food is all you need to be happy," Sam told her, crossing her arms to block the early morning chill. She imagined if Josh was there with her; he would be able to wrap his always warm arms around her and give her something good to wake up to. But no—she chose her path, and it was the path to help Elliot. She wasn't even sure if there was a path to Josh anymore, and the thought made her feel sick to her stomach. She reached into her pockets to warm her cold hands and felt a small slip of paper so she pulled it out. It was her fortune from the day before.

Sometimes the right path isn't always the easiest. Go left.

She recalled the path she jogged every morning for the past two years she'd been living with Liam. She always took the well-lit road—the path she thought was her only option. But there was always that dark trail that called to her, though she was never sure of its intent. Did it have something amazing to show her? Or was emptiness the only thing it had to offer?

Sam looked around her big apartment and realized how empty she felt. She never took that mysterious trail, but she was left with nothing but a hollowness. Maybe it was the well-lit path that, despite looking safe and promising, was the one that held nothing for her.

She made up her mind right then and there to drive to Liam's house to do one last jog there.

Sam arrived at 5:30. She stretched her legs, looking down the long road that would lead her around the bend to the dark trail that she was determined to take. She didn't bring her iPod—this was going to be one-hundred percent her.

She began running, her shoes tapping softly on the pavement as she went. She listened to the voice in her head, telling her, 'I am a warrior. Brave, strong, and knowledgeable.' It had felt like so long since she'd reminded herself of that.

All the streetlamps remained on. She rounded the first bend. Her even breathing was like music to her ears. She was calm. She rounded the second bend.

The trail was approaching fast. Her heart fluttered, but it didn't pound heavily like it normally did at this point. Her two decisions flashed in her mind, one on either shoulder—an angel and a devil. The dark trail or the lit path. What was is going to be?

Sam recalled another time she made a dark trail decision.

Take the trail on the left. And just like that, Sam's feet were leading her off the road and into the dark trail she'd been avoiding for years. When she felt the dirt beneath her feet instead of pavement, she slowed down to take in the sensation. It smelled fresher somehow. And though the trail was dark, she could see the lights at the end that was promising her a safe passage.

She stopped suddenly, however, when she heard footsteps running toward her. She almost jumped off to the side to hide in the shadows, but the sensible part of her brain reminded her that it was just other joggers cutting through the trail.

"Good morning," she called out to let the other people know she was there.

She heard the footsteps slow and she waited for them to respond, but she heard nothing until they got really close—and then she was momentarily blinded by the bright light of a cell phone. Then she heard Liam's voice: "Sam?!"

Ugh, just great…

She squinted her eyes and tried to avoid the light, "Liam—of course it's you. Since when do you jog again?"

"What are you doing here?" He asked, avoiding her question.

"Just going for a run—don't think that's a crime."

"Who is she?" a woman's voice spoke up beside Liam.

It didn't take Sam long to put two and two together. Liam asked one of his flings to move in with him—she doubted she was just a one-night stand, Liam wouldn't be jogging with her at 5:30 in the morning if so.

"Wait—isn't that your ex? The one you always used to complain about?"

And Sam couldn't even help it when she let out a laugh. She covered her mouth with her hand as she let out a few more giggles. Liam said something to the girl beside him, but Sam didn't hear, nor did she care. She found nothing but humor in all of this. The video Josh showed her was all the confirmation she needed to know that Liam had been cheating on her, but being here in front of him now—hearing his new girlfriend talk about how Liam always complained about Sam even though he was the one cheating—it was enough to allow her to release all the negative energy she had surrounding her about Liam.

"Sam, if you came back to talk things over, I—," Liam started but got interrupted.

"No, no, that's definitely not at all what's happening," Sam told him with a genuine smile. She walked past the couple, turning back with a shrug to add, "I just came to take the trail." It was all I needed. She waved as she turned around and walked toward the end of the trail, the brilliant sun rising over the horizon.

Sam took in a big, chilled breath as she felt her heart begin to finally beat normally. Her cheeks were wind-stung from the winter air and she could see her breath in front of her, puffing out like the smoke of a cigarette. She thought about looking back one more time as she stepped from dirt to pavement once more, but why? There was no going back now. There was no looking back. She was ready to leave everything - the hurt, the regret, the memories of all those broken and lonely years behind her. The gorgeous sun peaking out over the trees in the distance (that reminded her of a day she stood in front of a blistering and burning lodge) was a reminder that the future was bright.

As Sam walked toward her car, her keys jangling as she pulled them from her pocket, she couldn't get Josh off of her mind - she was used to that by now. It was the norm at this point. But she began to wonder if she was ready to start trying to help him remember again, now. He was pulling bits and pieces from his subconscious on a regular basis now, even more so through hypnotherapy. Maybe it was time to truly let the Liam fiasco go, now that he was properly medicated and it seemed that he was in a better place.

Sam drove home to get ready for work, and as she was showering she acknowledged that saving Josh was a near-constant theme in her life. She had spent so many years wishing she'd gone back down into those mines and pulled him out. She had wished she had never let Mike and Chris take him to the shed… so many things could have been different.

More than that, Sam could remember (almost too well, for her liking) the last time she'd truly saved Josh. The memory took place after his sisters were missing and things had gotten really bad for him -after he left her house that night he'd shown up drunk.

Interestingly enough, it began quite like what was happening now. She had just stepped out of the shower, cutting it short when a feeling of dread hit her stomach. Since (at the time) it had only been about six months since Hannah and Beth's disappearance, these feelings occurred rather frequently, but this one hit her particularly hard.

"Mom?" She called out once she wrapped herself in a towel and opened the door, letting the steam out.

"You need something, Sammy?" her mom called from down the hall.

"Is—is everything okay?"

"Um…yes. Did you hear something?"

"No, I just…never mind!" Sam shook her head and walked into her bedroom. Maybe she was just tired. It was close to ten at night and she only got a few hours of sleep the previous night. But as soon as she saw the blinking light on her phone showing she had a new voicemail, her stomach plummeted again.

She quickly picked up her phone and saw she missed a call from Josh. With shaky fingers, she pressed the buttons to play the message.

"…Sammy…"

Her heart began beating wildly. He didn't sound good at all.

"I just wanted you to know—."

Sam didn't even bother listening to the rest of the message. She threw her phone down and threw on her pajama shorts and a sweatshirt before rushing out the door. She vaguely heard her mom calling to her, but she didn't have time to explain.

She lived about twenty minutes from him, but it only took her seven to get there. She assumed some grace was looking over her as she sped through traffic and managed to hit all the green lights.

Pulling up into the Washington's large driveway, she pulled the keys out of the ignition as soon as she opened the door. Then she dropped them somewhere on the dark concrete but didn't bother looking for them.

"Josh?!" She yelled, running up to the door and banging on it as loud as she should. She tried the handle but it was locked. Shit! She had a key to his house but it was on her keychain that she dropped by her car. She rushed back over to her car, dropping to her bare knees where she felt the tiny pebbles dig into her skin and the rough concrete scrape her shins. She felt around frantically knocking them with her hand, causing them to slide under her car.

She slid her legs back, the gravel slicing her skin, but she didn't have time to worry about that. She finally was able to grasp her keys and rushed back to the front door, finding the right key as she ran.

The door opened with a bang, the doorknob hitting the sidewall hard, but she didn't even bother closing it. She screamed his name again as she ran for the stairs, taking two or three steps at a time.

Sam noticed that the bathroom door adjacent to Josh's room was closed and tried to open it, but it was also locked. She banged a few times before she backed up then shoved her body hard against the door. She didn't think it would actually work, but somehow, by some miracle, it flew open.

Josh was sitting in the bathtub. He was fully clothed and there was no water, but his knees were pulled up to his chest. He looked up, surprise written on his face despite how dazed he was. Sam noticed pills lined up all the way across the bathtub siding. They all looked different—some were blue, pink, yellow, purple; some had tiny letters dented into them, some were plain; some were very tiny, and some looked hard to swallow.

She saw that there was about a three inch gap between the right wall and where the pills started. It was overwhelmingly obvious that he started taking pills and planned on going all the way down the line until he couldn't take anymore.

"Josh…" she fell to her knees beside the tub, her arm knocking all the pills off the side, "Josh, what did you do?"

He shook his head slowly as if he didn't know how to answer her, "What are you doing here…?"

"I got your voicemail," she said quickly, her hands reaching for his wrists to make sure there were no cuts. She searched his neck and face but didn't see any marks.

"What…voicemail?" he asked, his voice slow, his speech slurred.

Sam shook her head, her hands cupping his cheeks to make him look at her. His pupils were dangerously dilated and he couldn't even try focusing on her, "Josh, we need to get you to a hospital."

"No!" He smacked her away, and she was left in shock at his harshness toward her, "I don't want to go to the hospital! There'll just be more pills and Sam—Sam, Sam, Sammmmm, I can't take anymore…!"

She looked down at all the pills she knocked to the floor but reached for him again, trying to make him focus on her, "Where are your parents?"

He only closed his eyes and rolled his head around; he didn't know.

"Sam, I don't…"

"Stay with me, Josh," she said, stepping into the bathtub with him. She never bothered to put on shoes when she left and feeling the cold porcelain on her bare feet was the first thing that made her notice.

"I don't want to stay anymore…" he murmured out but jumped when Sam screamed.

"Don't you DARE say that!" She pawed at him, grabbing his shoulders, his face, his hands, "I need you, Josh, you can't leave me, too!"

His eyes circled around in his head, then he slurred a: "I don't feel too good…"

She helped him crawl out of the tub and to the toilet where he puked for what seemed like hours. She got wet wash cloths during this time, rubbing his face and neck with cold water then warm water, rubbing his back and allowing him to rinse his mouth with mouthwash when he was between throwing up.

She wondered if she should have called 911, but Josh kept telling her not to, and she was stuck between wanting to help him herself and not feeling adequate enough to do so.

Josh was paler than she'd ever seen him before after three long hours of puking, but he finally seemed to get rid of all the toxins in his body when he began dry heaving. She rested his head on her lap and ran her fingers through his dark hair as she listened to his breathing go from panicked and shallow to slow and even.

She kept an eye on him all night, not once feeling tired as fear continued to strike electricity through her veins. Her eyes kept catching glimpses at all the pills on the floor. Did his doctors really prescribe him all of those? And if so—why? It had to have been dangerous leaving someone like Josh in charge of always knowing when to take a certain one.

When dawn started to break, and he was falling asleep, she woke him up enough to say she was moving him to his bedroom. He nodded slowly, making a poor attempt at a joke about his breath, but at least he was trying. She stood beside him as he brushed his teeth, and she was just so glad that his pupils were responding to the florescent light finally.

She laid him down in his bed, his hands then covering his face, "I'm sorry, Sammy…I—."

"Don't apologize," she told him quickly, sitting at the head of his bed. She leaned back against his headboard, prepared to continue watching him for a few more hours, "Whatever you need, Josh…I'm here for you."

He stared past her, his mind obviously running a thousand miles per minute. She wanted to ask what he was thinking. He seemed contemplative over her last statement, like he was trying to decide what the best thing to do was.

Then he glanced up at her, but when her fingers ran down his cheek, his pupils dilated again and he seemed completely out of focus. His eyes closed slowly, his lips parted, and she thought she heard him say, "I need to let you go…"

"What?" she asked, shocked at his words, but he was already asleep.

She stayed with him for another few hours, watching the reassuring sight of his chest rising and falling and the comforting sound of his steady, even breathing. She tried to take in everything she could about him, especially if she'd heard him right before - that he needed to let her go.

She didn't want him to let her go.

Then, without warning, his parents burst into his bedroom, demanding to know what their front door was doing completely open.

"Your son was—," she tried to tell them but they didn't let her finish.

"Anyone could have come right in and taken everything!" Bob yelled, his face flushed with anger.

Sam narrowed her eyes and stood from Josh's bed, glad that he was sleeping through this ridiculousness, "What about Josh?! Where were you two?! Do you have any idea what he went through last night?!"

Melinda looked a bit concerned as she glanced at her son in bed, but Bob was not hearing it, merely seeing the situation as a young teenage girl trying to backtalk him in his house. But as he was showing her to the door, she kept trying to tell him that Josh needed help from one doctor and not multiple ones from all over the country.

Unfortunately, it seemed to fall on deaf ears as she was promptly thrown from the Washington's house.

That was the last night she saw Josh before they all met up at the lodge a year after Hannah and Beth's disappearance. She tried constantly to text or call Josh, but he never responded to her. Thankfully, Chris was her link to him. Chris would always tell her every time he went to visit Josh—who was almost always at his therapist's office now—but that he was doing better. When Sam asked why Josh didn't want to see her, Chris just told her that he was trying to focus on getting better first. Sam hated hearing that, but was trying to respect Josh's wish. Maybe he was embarrassed about their last night together and really was trying to get it together before he showed his face in front of her again. Sam tried to understand this.

Still, she hated how a little piece of herself seemed to die each day she was away from him.

And though taking that trip to Josh's house that night got her kicked out of his life for a few months, she never regretted it because she knew she saved his life.

And even now, in the present, as Sam left the warmth of her shower to dry off and get ready, she knew that her job wasn't done. She knew what she needed to do. She had to reconnect with Josh. Back when she had first found out it was really, truly him, she had focused all of her time on trying to get him to remember. Then, when she realized he was still having schizophrenic episodes, she focused all her attention on tending to his illness. She was so obsessed with the black and white of the situation that she didn't think about all the grey areas that he'd yelled at her about during one of their first sessions.

And she saw the difference in him at their newest sessions. He was taking his medication, but he missed her friendship - it was clear from his impromptu lunch the day before and his unfaltering determination to get back inside of her life. They needed to be in each other's lives in order to live normally. It was always their curse and their blessing since they were young teenagers; separately, they searched desperately for some fulfillment that was always out of reach, but together, they were like two connecting puzzle pieces of life.

Somewhere inside of him, of Elliot, was the boy she had loved since she was a girl. It was time to bring him back to her, once and for all.

Without another thought or hesitation, Sam reached for her cellphone on the bathroom counter and called him before she had the sense to talk herself out of it. Sure enough, even though it was roughly 7:30 in the morning and she didn't even have a session with him today, Josh picked up on the third ring.

"Is this real life?" He mumbled into her ear. He was trying to sound like she hadn't woken him, but she could pick out the frogginess in his voice. It wasn't the first time she'd heard the sound of his barely-awake drawl. "This is a pocket dial, huh?" He added.

"Good morning to you too," Sam said, stifling a chuckle. She almost thought she could hear him smiling on the other end.

"Dr. Jensen. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He said in his best, gentlemanly voice. "I didn't sleep through our session, right?" He added, sounding slightly panicked at the notion.

"No, no…" Sam uttered. "It's not that. We don't even have a session today." There was a pause on the other end.

"So… this isn't a work-related, professional call?" Josh teased. Sam let it roll off of her, but she still brought her hand to her face embarrassedly as she spat out, "do you want to meet… meet me?"

"At your offi-"

"No," she interrupted, "for… coffee. Or tea." Sam writhed under the strain of the awkward silence that followed. "I have some free time after my 12 o'clock-"

"You mean… you want to see me outside of our sessions?" Josh mused, almost like he didn't believe this day would ever come. Sam didn't answer him.

"Sooo…. Is that a yes?" But of course, as she already knew, she didn't even have to ask.

She was glad she finally agreed to go out with Josh again. After running into Liam on the trail and realizing that he really did deserve what he was dealt, she decided to simply let that chapter of her life end. Looking back, she was foolish to have not seen through Liam the whole time she was with him; every time she became even slightly distant, he would tell her he had to work or go out of town. It was obvious he never wanted to help her with her depression that she so obviously had, some days worse than others. And she didn't even care to know just why he decided to stay with her or ask her to marry him. It didn't even matter anymore.

Especially now that she was sitting across a small café table from Josh. The hot tea and his warm eyes were the perfect offsets for the windy cold weather outside. December was showing itself.

She smiled as he talked to her about all the places he'd traveled to in the past ten years. London, Italy, France, Switzerland, Greece…He had so much money that when he first got out of the asylum, he decided to travel to random places on a whim to try to discover something about himself.

Sam was glad he got to see the world…but a part of her heart was cracking because she didn't get to experience all of that with him. If things had gone a bit differently, they could have ran off to these places together during stressful college times when they just needed to get away. He would have proposed (formally) in one country, and then had a wedding in another country. And then when they came back to the states, they would have a small wedding to invite all their friends. It would have been perfect. It was supposed to have been perfect.

"You're zoning out," Josh said suddenly, and it made her squeeze her mug a bit tighter and sit up straighter.

"Sorry…you were just talking about seeing all these different places…it made me daydream," she explained, hoping he would accept the vagueness of her answer, "I never got to travel like that."

He leaned back in his chair, "What stopped you?"

She gave a small shrug, "Life, I guess. I became so focused on college after you—Josh…" she winced when she realized the corner she backed herself into, "Umm…after Josh died…" (GOD it was weird to say that to him), "I didn't…I mean, seeing the world without him would…"

She closed her eyes and hung her head. She could feel his eyes on her though, and she felt the table shift a bit when he leaned forward, his elbows now on the table, "Sam?"

When her eyes met his understanding ones, her heart did a flip.

"Talk to me about Josh," he then said and it was the furthest thing she thought she'd hear from him.

"Wh-what?"

"You always bring him up in passing…but it's obvious that you want to talk about him. Or at the very least, your relationship with him…" His kind words brought a small smile to her lips, but it faltered when he jokingly said, "I promise I'll try not to get too jealous."

He mumbled a quick apology when he saw the look on her face (she didn't even know what look that could be, but she was sure it was a mixture of everything). But truth be told, she'd been wanting to talk to him about himself for awhile now. She took a sip of her tea as she tried to think of something good to start off with. But she realized there was no ideal place to start. To her, knowing Josh was just a part of her life. There was no beginning…no ending…just a glorious middle. It's like when you're watching your favorite TV show. You get to a point where you feel like you always knew these characters, and there's no end in sight to this perfection that is yours.

"This one time, Josh came to my house in the middle of the night. He could've just texted me like a normal person…he knew I always had my phone near me. But no, he decided to throw pebbles at my window. He told me he was running away to Mexico and wanted me to run away with him. I had just turned sixteen—he was still sixteen at the time—so of course, I told him I just had to write my mom a note, and that I'd be right out," Sam stopped to laugh at the memory.

Josh laughed too, "Just like that?"

"Everything was just like that with him…" She grinned and circled her finger lazily around the rim of her mug, "I could tell instantly that he was upset about something so I had to go with him."

"What happened?" he asked.

"He…got into a bad argument with his parents…" she said, even though that wasn't the full truth. Yes, his parent played a huge part in it, but another part was how his doctors recently switched his medications and Josh's mentality was suffering because of it. They were making him sick and irritable, and they made it impossible for him to sleep. He tried his best to hide his mood changes around her, but he knew she saw right through him.

"So did you guys make it to the border?"

Sam chuckled and shook her head, "No…we only drove a few hours before he—before I made him turn around." Again with the half truths. Josh had the music cranked up so loud when they first began driving that Sam could hardly hear her own thoughts. All the windows were rolled down and the end of summer wind made her bedhead hair even crazier. She kept trying to turn the music down to talk to him, but he wouldn't let her until about an hour into their drive.

"Josh, talk to me!" She begged him, because his long silence was really starting to worry her.

"I swear, one day, Sammy…" he started, a deep edge in his voice, "I'm going to become a psychologist and I'll put all of these fuckers that call themselves psychologists out of business! They don't know shit or care about their clients, they're just there for that fucking huge paycheck all the fickle parents hand over to them." Before Sam even had a chance to respond, Josh continued, "And then when I'm a dad—Sammy, I'm gonna be the best damn dad ever, you know why? 'Cause I'm actually gonna listen to my kids. Do you think my dad listens to me? Fuck, I try to tell him about what these new meds are doing to me and…and you know what he said? You know what he said? He said it's not like your mind can get any more fucked up!"

Sam's mouth dropped open upon hearing this. She always knew that Bob was not the greatest parent…he was often distant and uninterested in anything his kids were doing, though she did see times where he tried to make an effort.

"I know, exactly!" Josh agreed when he saw her shocked face, "And my mom…my mom just doesn't say anything, it's like she's afraid to stand up for me. And I feel like…like my sisters hardly even know our parents. There have been so many times when I'd help Hannah and Beth make something for Father's Day or whatever and he just doesn't seem to care! What kind of father doesn't dote on his little girls? It makes no fucking sense!"

Sam bit her lip when she felt tears in her eyes at his strong words. Sure, she was a large part of Washington's life, but there were still a lot of parts she didn't see or know about. The twins hardly ever spoke about Bob and Melinda, and it was the same with Josh. She wondered why they even had kids in the first place.

Then again…ever since her parents got divorced and her dad remarried, she hardly ever talked to him and he didn't make it a point to reach out to her. It was like he was trying to start a new chapter in his life and that meant erasing her.

"Josh, can you pull over?" Sam asked him because the more riled up he got, the faster he was driving. He saw that she was scared so he did as she asked, turning off the car, then placing his forehead on his hands that were on the steering wheel.

"I just don't know, Sammy…" he said after a few minutes of silence in the dark car, "Would your mom care if I just took you away with me? I'll ask nicely…"

Sam laughed gently, glad that Josh still kept his sense of humor, even though she was sure he was also pretty serious about the question, "What about Beth and Hannah?"

She spotted a small grin curve his lips, "We can just adopt them."

"HA!" She laughed loudly this time, covering her mouth with her hand, "Why would we adopt them?"

Josh shrugged, "I mean…I guess Beth would be okay. But Hannah still needs a lot of guidance, so we need to adopt her."

Sam shook her head, still giggling, as she looked out her window. They talked for a long time about all the places they would go and before Josh started the car up again to drive Sam back home, he said, "Thanks for running away with me."

"Sam?" Josh asked, and Sam snapped herself back to the present, "You zoned out again."

"Sorry…it's hard thinking about the past without remembering so many little details."

"I want to know the details," he said, taking a sip of his coffee, "Tell a full story to me."

"Umm…okay. Let me think," she tapped a finger to her chin, "Okay: my seventeenth birthday party. I wanted so badly to have it at the beach but of course it decided to rain that day. So Josh decided to host my party at his house—he basically lived in a mansion. Anyway, so it was supposed to be some of our friends, but we somehow ended up with about thirty other teenagers we hardly even knew," Sam laughed, "I think Emily invited a couple…then they invited a few more…then so on. It got pretty crazy. I stuck around Josh for the most part. Then this one guy found out I was the birthday girl and wanted to give me my birthday present.

"Josh was beside me and instantly asked the guy what he got me," Sam giggled again, "The guy said something like better than anything you got her, man," She deepened her voice to mock the bothersome guy, "So Josh takes it as a challenge and asks him again what it is. The guy went all vulgar and said his…dick…in a box. Then Josh said that he didn't even see a box so it must be pretty small."

Josh laughed at her retelling, "I think I might have a crush on Josh, too."

Sam rolled her eyes at the absurdity of the statement. When he got his memories back, she swore she was going to remind him he said that.

"The guy left me alone for awhile after that, but he came back around when I wasn't near Josh. He was trying to get me to go upstairs with him—but then all of a sudden, the music stopped then Josh walked into living room where I was…and—."

"The song from Dirty Dancing started playing?" Josh suddenly cut into her story.

Sam pointed at him excitedly, "Yes! And…wait," she faltered when she realized that he guessed it, "How did…you know that?"

He seemed a bit confused too, his head shaking, "I'm not really sure…it's like you were painting such a vivid picture that I just…imagine Josh putting that song on."

Her body temperature rose as she got excited. Maybe this whole memory sharing thing was really working. He did that a few times when she took him to Chris' house as well, and it seemed like that was when he had his biggest breakthroughs, "Good guess…yeah, so "Time of My Life" started playing and…" a quick laugh, "it was so embarrassing. But Josh never cared what other people thought, and it was one of his best qualities. Everyone around us was laughing but he danced toward me, mouthing all the lyrics when the male was singing."

"And he got you to dance?" Josh asked.

"Heh…yes. I let him spin me around and do his thing. Then it came to the end where…you know in the movie where Baby runs to Johnny and he lifts her? So Josh was beckoning me to do that. I didn't even think about it, I just ran to him, but then," she began giggling between every word now, "I ended up just colliding into him and we fell back on top of all our friends who tried so hard to catch our fall. It was…that moment where all of us were laughing on the floor…that has to be one of my favorite moments."

Josh was smiling largely at all of her laughing, "You said it was raining…there has to be something that happened out in the rain, right? There's always a rain scene."

She stared intensely at him, really wondering if he was in fact remembering this with her somehow, "Hm…yeah, as a matter of fact, there was. Kinda. We went out to the porch to get some fresh air after that. The wind was blowing pretty hard that night so the rain was getting blown to the porch. But as we stood at the railing…he—," she stopped herself shortly and blushed.

He saw this and chuckled, "What? It can't be any cheesier than Dirty Dancing."

Sam licked her lips, tapping the top of her mug shyly, "He went behind me and held out my arms and said—."

"Do you trust me, Rose?" they both said in unison.

"Stop that!" Sam pointed at him and though she tried to hide her tone with a humorous one, Josh seemingly knowing these things was starting to really tug at her heart. Her eyes blurred over with tears as she remembered that moment between them.

She had laughed and asked if Beth and Hannah made him recently watch more chick flicks with them. She guessed right.

"Near…far…wherever you are…" Josh sung lowly to her, both of them laughing when the wind blew the rain hard at them and made them step back from the railing, "At least Jack had good weather on his side."

"Sorry, Sam, I…I don't know—I guess you said about the railing and my mind just thought of Titanic…" Josh tried to explain, though she could tell that he was just as weirded out as she was, if not more so, because at least she knew why he might remember these moments.

She swallowed and tried to smile, "So you've seen the movie, huh?"

Josh blushed a bit and it made her smirk, "Well…who hasn't? It's a classic."

"Did you cry at the end?" Sam asked.

"Psshh!" He waved his hand at her dramatically as if to dismiss her silly girlish notions, "Of course I did!"

Sam laughed loudly at the confession and she tried not to focus too hard on the way his eyes drank her in like she was the light of his life. She wanted to melt in his gaze and show him she felt the same, but she figured he knew—from the moment he came back into her life as Elliot, he'd caught her staring at him like he was a full moon on a clear night.

"Hey, uh…Elliot?" She started, her eyes darting from him to her mug of now lukewarm tea.

"Yes, Sam?" he asked, meeting her serious and questioning tone.

"Um…well, I just moved into my new place a few weeks ago and still have yet to invite anyone over for—because I've been procrastinating with unpacking so it's kinda a mess in there—but I was just wondering if maybe you'd like to…" she peaked up at him to see him staring eagerly at her. She folded in her lips to keep from smiling hugely, "to come over and visit Cee-Cee? She really misses you."

Josh's eyes widened as he instantly played her game, "She's been asking about me? 'Cause there are times I lay in bed at night just wondering what she's up to…"

Sam nodded earnestly, "Oh yeah, she—she sometimes stays up all night meowing, calling for you."

He leaned forward, "And you waited this long to tell me? All those nights you kept us apart when we both wanted the same thing…"

"She needed some time," Sam continued, "but she wants to cook you dinner tomorrow night. Her—caterole specialty."

Sam watched as Josh's eyes lit up as he tried really hard not to laugh, "Should I wear my suit and tie?"

Sam waved her hand, "Nah, she says she prefers casual, even though she's always wearing her finest fur coat."

"What time?"

"Five?"

"I'll bring the catnip."

To Be Continued...