A/N: No song for this chapter
Chapter 17
Belle took Sami back to the loft, and called Phillip along the way to make sure he wasn't there. The last thing Sami needed was to see her sister in a sham of a marriage when she warned her before her "disappearance" about falling her heart. Sami came into the apartment and Shawn followed them when he caught the two in the hall.
"Sami I'm glad to hear you're alight, my mom just called to tell me." He said and hugged his cousin; even though the two weren't close she didn't deserve what happened to her, no matter what she had done in the past.
"Thank you, it's been a long year. Belle, I think I'm going to go get a shower, why don't you two talk. Belle was just telling me she needed to talk to you." Sami said and tried her best to sneak out of the room without being noticed, or that she took Belle's purse with her. Shawn just looked at Belle, but neither knew what to say, Sami's comment caught them both off guard
As Sami went upstairs, she climbed up the fire escape to the roof and then took the stairs out of the building, heading straight to Belle's car in a hope to runaway from all the pain that was building up within her. She could feel the anguish and just wanted to get away, go to the one place she always felt safe. As she headed out of Salem, she instinctively went to Green Mountain Lodge, remembering what it once meant to her. As she walked into the Honeymoon Suite, the only room left she closed the door and leaned against it as she finally let the tears fall.
"Why Ej? Why did you have to abandon me after everything." She sobbed and sat there leaning against the door, not even having the strength to make it too the bed.
It took nearly an hour to realize that Sami was not in the apartment any longer and Belle became panicked. She seen the window open to the fire escape but Sami was nowhere in sight.
"I have to find her." She said and then noticed what was missing, her purse with her keys and wallet. Sami was running away. As she called John, she knew that things were not looking well for her sister. Sami was in no state to be alone, let alone driving to go knows where.
"We'll find her Izzy, have Shawn drive you over to the Pub and I'll meet you there. Just stay calm." He said and hung up, dialing Ej before anyone else. Ej was just getting ready to walk into the Dimera Mansion when he heard his phone go off and instinctively knew it couldn't be good news.
"Wells," he started but John shocked him with his words and Ej instantly leaned against the wall, trying to grasp what was happening. He just got her back, he just took her home and she was already gone again. He couldn't handle this, he couldn't loose her again.
"Do you have any idea where she would go? You know her better then any of us." John said and Ej knew he was right but he couldn't think. He couldn't imagine why she would run away when she just got home.
"I'll go to a couple of places and look, call me if you hear anything." He said and hung up running back to his car in hopes he could find her before anything happened to his Samantha. It took him about five minutes of driving before he realized where she would go, she wanted to feel safe and there was only one place that still held that for her.
"Damn it Samantha, why do you always have to be so difficult." HE said and headed to Green Mountain Lodge, not at all surprised to see Belle's car, horribly parked in the back. As he walked into the lobby his suspicions were confirmed. "Yes, did a women come in here a little bit ago," he said and held up a picture he still kept in his wallet. As the man nodded he sighed with relief.
"Ej, we're at the pub did you find her?"
"She's at Green Mountain Lodge, I'm heading to her room to check on her now. She used Belle's credit card to get a room." Ej said and John laughed, knowing exactly what Sami was doing. She was making Ej come look for her so she could finally have a conversation without him running out on her. When he knocked on the door he could feel her presence on the other side and his heart ached for her, knowing the one thing he had to do was the one thing breaking her heart in pieces.
"Samantha." He said and pulled her into his arms as she opened the door, not at all surprised to see him there. "You had everyone so worried, if you wanted to come here you should have let someone know. You were supposed to be with Belle." He said and kissed her forehead as a sign of relief. "Why did you run away?"
"To think, to see you." She answered and closed the door before heading over to the bed.
"What do you mean to see me?" He said and as she smiled he figured it out. "You ran away because you knew I would come looking for you. That I would not stop until I seen you were safe with my own eyes."
"I deserved that, I deserved an explanation for why you are so quick to leave me when you love me with everything in you. Your heart, and your soul they have always been mind and nothing can change that. So why leave? Why run away when all you ever wanted to do was marry me?" She said and he walked over to the bed, hitting his knees in front of her and wiping away her tears.
"Because I love you, I love you more then my self and that means your safety comes before everything else." He said and went to get up but she grabbed his hands forcing him to stay.
"You love me, so you're leaving me? I don't understand."
"I can't risk you getting hurt again and we both know my father will never give up on trying to destroy us. He wants me to be his pawn and I will never be that as long as I am with you. As long as I have you showing me there is more to life then his acceptance. I need to keep an eye on him to ensure his plans never, and I mean never include you again."
"No! I'm not giving you up; I fought too hard to come back to you. I don't care if I'm in danger, or if we always have to worry about your father. I will have you." She said and put a hand to his cheek.
"But I care, I will always be at fear for you and for what he might do to you if given the chance. Samantha, please just let me do this. Just let me protect you, I couldn't survive loosing you again it almost killed me. I never want to go back to what I was then, to the shell of a man that I was." He pulled his hands from her embrace and slowly backed away from her. "You need to go back to your family."
"Ej you are my family. You are my home. You are the only thing I have and I can't give that up. Not now, not ever." She said and stood in front of the door. Hoping it would be enough, she could say enough to change the decision she could already see in his eyes.
"Please don't make this any harder. It's hard enough leaving you already. Please." He said, his eyes begging her to stop, but she wasn't building. Just kept standing there, tears streaming down her face shaking her head.
"No! I can't let you go, I don't know how." She paused as she thought about he situation, she needed to buy time. She needed to get him to stay if she was ever going to convince him to never leave. "Give me tonight, after everything I earned that. Just give me tonight and then if you still want to go I won't stand in your way." She said and watched as he loosened his tie, she won. But would she win the war?
"Tonight, I guess there is a lot to say." He said and sat on the bed, but when she sat next to him he didn't want to talk. He just wanted to hold her in his arms and make all the pain go away. Forget all that transpired over the past two years and go back to what they were before, to the happy couple they once were. Before he could get out a word, to say anything she read his thoughts and kissed him, knowing that it was the one thing he would never deny her of. He revealed in that kiss, feeling all the comfort she use to give him, all the love and devotion that they had.
"Samantha, darling, tonight is about talking and if we start that I am not sure I'll ever be able to do anything else then to make love to you." He said pulling away, knowing it was the last thing he needed.
"Ej, I need you. I need to remember what it feels like to be loved, to be touched and to have you looking at me as if I am the only woman in the world. Don't deny me that." She said as she pulled him into another kiss, this one leaving them both lost and unable to think of anything else. There was no denying it, he wanted her, he always wanted her and tonight was no different.
As he took Sami in his arms he remembered what it was like to touch her, how smooth her skin felt against his and how she moaned as he made love to her. It was all he thought about when he believed her to be dead, the reason no other woman would ever be able to take her place, there was just no one who could make him feel the way Sami did. When both were exhausted, and falling back on the bed he instinctively pulled her into his arms, leaving no space between them and giving no room for escape. If this was the memory he would have to carry with him during their time apart he wanted it all to sink in. The way her hair smelled of jasmine, or how she left a scratch on his back by his right shoulder blade and even the was she whispered I love you.
"Ej, remember after the wedding, when I refused to talk to you. It was never about you name, or the fact I have spent all of my life fearing your family. I didn't care about what my family thought knowing I was in love with a Dimera. That was never it, it was the lie." She said and Ej wrapped his arms around her even tighter, knowing it was coming, knowing she would never just let him hold her in silence.
"Samantha,"
"Please let me finish, I hated that you sat there and listened to everything that I said. You listened to me tell you what your father did to me and my family and never said anything. You just went along as if you never met them before, that's what hurt. Sitting there day in and day out telling you all of my problems when you didn't trust me enough to tell me any of yours. You knew everything, all my darkest secrets yet you told me none of yours." She said and rolled her over to look at him, needing to look in her eyes as he said this.
"Samantha it was never that I didn't trust you. It was never that. It was that I knew you feared my family, I knew what they did to you and I knew you would never get past my name until you met me, until you felt like you could trust me. I always meant to tell you, I truly did. Just after the wedding, after you became my wife. Call me crazy but I figured you would be able to forgive your husband easier then your best friend, or the man you were dating. I must have tried a million times, but I always seen how things would end and how you would leave because of the family I came from." He said and ran his fingers down her cheek, amazed at how natural everything still felt. She didn't feel foreign to him, but as if he could outline her body with out ever looking at her. He knew her that well. As she kissed him she could feel it all over again, the passion they felt for one another was there, that was the one thing neither could deny.
As Sami pulled away and looked up at him, the pain in her eyes started to fade, leaving something else behind, fear. Over and over he kept begging her to stay quiet, not to say anything that would ruin the memory he was to take with him. The memory of holding her in his arms knowing it was the last time he would ever feel complete.
If all I have is tonight then you're going to listen to me. I need to talk about what happened and I need to talk about it with you." She said and he could feel the memory becoming strained, see how with few words it could be tainted into something more painful then he could ever imagine.
"Please, please just let me hold you. Just let me have this. Let this be the memory I take with me when I leave." He said, running his fingers through her hair and trying to keep his heart from racing as he touched her.
"Then stay, you want this then stay! We can always have this we can have this every night, go to sleep with me in your arms and wake up knowing I'm still there. Have the future we always wanted, buying a house and having kids. Raising the family you and I never had." She said and could feel her affects on him, seeing how her words were bringing him to the brink of tears.
"I already told you I can't, no matter what how much I wish we could have that. I want you, I always want you, when I go to sleep and when I wake up. I want you in my arms and I want to see the smile you have when I tell you I love you and that I always will. I want to see how your eyes light up when I bring you flowers on my way home from the office. I want you to crawl in my lap and tell me all your troubles thinking I could ever be mad. When truth is your story telling amazes me as you try to make it all sound better."
"That's what I missed the most. You telling me everything would be ok when my world was falling apart before my eyes. Do you know that's when I fell in love with you? When you let me lay with my head in your lap and soothed away all my tears and fears about what I brought my life to."
"You mean after your non wedding to Austin?"
"Ya, I had never had someone in my life do that for me. Give me that security and love without wanting anything in return. That wasn't the only thing I realized that day. I finally saw that you were in love with me, not falling in love but really in love. There was something different about the way you looked at me."
"That's because I realized I could have you, when you kissed me that morning, even though I knew you thought I was Austin. I hoped you knew it was me, and that you seen there was always something there. But I feel in love with you long before that. Remember the photo shoot? When you flipped out on that model and fired her, leaving only you to take her place. I lost it, I wanted nothing more then to grab you in my arms right then and there but I knew it wasn't my place and I couldn't be the one to deny you Austin. That was your dream and I refused to take that from you, no matter how much I loved you. So I hung back and waited, hoping you would see what I already seen. But I wanted you from the moment I met you."
"I know, there was always something deeper with us, something beyond the surface we couldn't deny. Plus, I got to see you in all your glory that day." She said and both started laughing, remembering their initial meeting, Ej wrapped in a towel and Sami dripping from head to toe. As the two continued to stroll down memory lane, Ej ordered something, knowing Sami had to eat and he was hungry himself.
"Remember our anniversary? A year after we started dating…" he cut her off, knowing where it was going, reading her thoughts was one of his favorite games and she knew it.
"I brought you here after dinner, this same room and proposed to you on the balcony. We holed up here for the weekend. You told me it was the one place outside of my arms that you felt safe. Where you felt calm and protected as if no one could hurt you, where you could think and not worry about who heard your thoughts. Its why I came here, knowing that was what you were seeking once again."
"You're right, that's exactly why I came here. But we're not done talking. You need to understand what I went through in that room, please just let me explain and maybe you'll decide to stay with me. See I really wasn't in that much danger."
"I walked in on my father trying to strangle you, that's danger sweetheart." He said, hating how his words rang truth to something her heart just couldn't grasp.
"Ej that was my fault, I was starting to loose hope and had no fear from Stephano, that was the first day he ever came to see me. Always sending Bart to take care of me. We started arguing and I told him that you would never forgive him for what he did, that if he ever wanted to see you become a Dimera, then tell you I was dead and it was done by his own hands. I knew you would never betray what we had, that you would always look to me to save you from the ideas your father put in your head. That you would never be his pawn no matter how much he tried." He went to interrupt but she silenced him with her lips. "I wasn't afraid anymore, even before I saw you I wasn't afraid. I knew you would never let him kill me, you would walk to hell and back to save me."
"Still doesn't excuse what he did."
"Ya, nothing does but please don't give him that satisfaction. Don't give him the satisfaction that he got the better of us, that he broke us up and caused us both to forever live in misery. Why after all he's done give him that?" she said, but he never got to answer, just pulled away from her grasp as he went to answer the door, pulling in the room service tray.