Dear Readers and Reviewers, yes, I'm still writing this story and I promise I will see it through to the end - it may yet take a while but we'll get there. Thank you to jbird who is as thorough a beta as I could wish for! This story would not be the same without her advice. And thank you to JackofSpade, Mariel, Diane and everyone else who has asked for an update. I'm happy you like this story.
Please note that this particular chapter is rated M!
Tomorrow
by Serataja
-Chapter 6-
Falling Toward Apotheosis, Part 1
January/Now
"I heard a whimper," Danny says, his voice jubilant. "And there she was, right beneath those bushes. She can't have been there long."
He takes one of the baby's small hands in his own.
"She's still warm. Whoever had her at least took some care of her."
Jack steps up closer, gently cupping the child's head. One of the police officers hands him a blanket and he helps Danny wrap the child.
Sam notes how expertly his hands move. This is something he used to do when his daughters were small. Now he's only seeing them a couple of times a year.
"Well done, Danny," Jack says quietly, resting his hand on the younger agent's shoulder. Danny's face is beaming with joy.
Police officers and agents have gathered around them. Some of them are cheering.
"Go down that path," Jack instructs Danny. "There's an ambulance waiting. Let the paramedics check her out. The mother should be there, too. If not, make sure you find her. Martin and Viv…"
He looks around until he finds their faces in the crowd.
"You stay here and continue the search for the kidnapper. He can't have gone far. Sam…"
He searches for her and finds her standing right at his side.
"Sam…" He avoids her eyes. "Sam, you can go home. You're leaving tomorrow so there must be a lot of things you need to take care of. I'm going back to the office."
There is exhaustion evident in his voice and Sam and Viv share a surprised glance. He is usually elated when a case like this ends well.
He turns around and walks away without acknowledging any of them further. Sam is stunned. He didn't say goodbye and tomorrow she will be gone. She follows him with her eyes and, although she is so hurt that she has to hold back tears, she takes some pleasure in the effortless way he walks these days. After he had the operation a few years ago, all the pain which was evident in his stride, has vanished. He seems like a much younger man. Seeing that still makes her happy.
Further down the path she sees him stop, as if remembering something. He turns. His black-clad figure is clearly visible against the white snow.
A gunshot rings through the air and she sees him fall.
"Jack," she cries out and starts to run. Behind her voices rise in an uproar. Martin tries to hold her back. She does not notice. Branches are whipping into her face, one of them leaving a bloody scratch on her cheek. It seems like an eternity until she reaches him. He is lying on his back. His coat has fallen open and blood is spreading on his white shirt. Sam drops to her knees beside him, pressing her hands hard onto the wound above his heart, trying to stem the flow of blood.
"Jack!"
His face has lost all color, his eyes are open but without focus.
"Jack!" she calls out to him, her voice sharp with fear.
He is not responding. The life is draining out of him.
"We need the ambulance," she screams. "We need the paramedics, now!"
His blood is soaking through her fingers. She presses down harder, trying to keep the panic at bay.
It is only a matter of minutes before the paramedics arrive. For Sam it seems like hours. She is pulled away from him. Martin tries to take her in his arms, but she fights him off.
"Don't touch me," she all but screams. "Leave me alone."
The paramedics are trying to save Jack's life. There is urgency in their movements and yet they are calm, their hands steady.
Around Sam everything is dark. She can only see him, the white snow and the red blood.
September 2001
"I'm all yours," he said one more time, watching a wicked, little smile touch her lips. She straightened up, tossing her hair out of her face, her hands on his thighs.
"You need a pillow for that knee of yours?" she asked, looking thoughtful.
"I'm not an old man," he grumbled.
She left it alone.
"Now relax," she said.
"Easy for you to say." But his eyes were half closed already and there was a smile of anticipation on his lips.
She started to run her fingertips over his skin. She wanted to explore him fully, not so much for his pleasure but for her own.
Sam's last boyfriend, apart from her brief fling with Kellar after coming to New York, had been a fellow student at Quantico. They had split up, because he was going to Cleveland and she was going to New York. It hadn't been a great love affair and there had been no regrets. She had liked the sex and his body more than the man himself. He had been well-muscled, hard to her touch, wide shoulders and narrow hips - the picture of male beauty.
Jack was fifteen years older than that man had been. Sam combed her fingers through the hair on his chest up to the hollow at the base of his throat. He lay very still. She placed a kiss there, exploring it with her tongue, nibbling her way further up his neck. His skin felt good on her lips, his taste and his smell deliciously male… no, deliciously Jack. She buried her face in his skin, smelling and tasting, enjoying the sounds he made.
Jack's body was heavy-set and he was not in the best of shapes, but to Sam, he was the most beautiful man she had ever met. He exuded a vitality, an inner glow that she wanted to immerse herself in.
She took her time hovering over him, exploring his body with her lips. She moved all the way down to his feet and upwards again, enjoying the low sounds he made. Finally she reached his face, covering it with kisses, caressing it.
Jack was breathing deeply, more relaxed than he had been in a long time.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked quietly. His lids were closed.
"Don't you like it?"
"I'm in heaven."
She caressed the insides of his thighs, making him spread his legs, kneeling down between them and lowering her head. He gasped in surprise when he felt her lips, then groaned with pleasure. His hands got tangled in her hair, holding her gently in place. She continued, enjoying his reactions immensely. When he suddenly stopped her, she moaned in dismay.
"Sam…"
She pulled back, afraid that she hadn't been gentle enough and somehow hurt him.
"Sam…"
He was reaching for her.
"I'm not finished yet, my love," she whispered, letting him draw her into his embrace. "You did like it, didn't you?"
"I love it. I just need to hold you, all right?"
He held her tight, breathing deeply into her hair. She wrapped herself around him, wanting desperately to give him anything and everything he needed.
At last he drew back a little to look at her. She gently rubbed the skin above his heart, wondering if he was really all right with all this. Then they got lost in each other's eyes.
After a while and never breaking eye-contact, she mounted him, guiding him inside, enveloping him fully. She saw his eyes glaze over with the pleasure her movements gave him. Oh, yes, now he was all right, now he was whispering her name - only 'whispering' was far too romantic a word for the groans that came from within his throat – now he was moving deep inside her.
Waves of physical pleasure started to roll over her, but the real pleasure she felt was on a whole different level. They had connected. Their bodies were performing an act of sex, but on another level, they were making love to each other, somewhere deep inside, with the cores of their beings. She would never have thought it could be like that.
She was close to climaxing when he slowly rolled over, burying her beneath him, starting to move faster and she felt herself not being pushed but hurled off the final cliff in a way she had never been before, sailing through the air, falling. Her body arched against his, the muscles painfully tense and, as she came, the climax rolled on and on, like the thunder of the landslide. Finally his own release came, his body shuddering with the force of it.
He collapsed on top of her and she took his weight, wrapping arms and legs around him. His warm, heavy body felt good. She could have stayed like that for a while but, after only a moment, he extricated himself from her, rolled to one side and took her in his arms. She heard him mumble something into her hair but could only make out her name and the words 'never letting you go'. She would remember them always.
The moments passed and Jack could feel that she was looking at him. He wiped at some traitorous moisture in his eyes, ashamed of his emotions.She brushed his hand away and cleared the tears off his face with tender fingers. He looked back at her.
"I'm so sorry," he said.
"What for?"
He shook his head unable to tell her that he was not sorry for the past but for possible repercussions of their actions in the future.
"It's not important," he mumbled.
"Jack, I really want to be with you."
He was silent, hoping that other words would follow, words that he yearned to hear although he couldn't say them himself, words that spoke of love. Women liked to speak of love, he knew that much.
Again she proved to be different from the women he had known in his life.
"Jack, I really want to be with you. I don't know what's going to happen to us in the future, I just want you to know."
He opened his mouth, but she put her fingers on his lips preventing him from speaking.
"Just listen to me."
He waited.
"Will you remember this - regardless of what happens to us, that you're my man?"
He nodded silently, gazing at her. She settled back into his arms. How was she supposed to know that he would remember her words, but ultimately be unable to believe in them? That he had not the same ability to hear what was unspoken in words and actions. She knew that he loved her. He didn't know the first thing about her love for him.
She fell into a light sleep, her head resting on his chest.
000
They felt they had all the time in the world.
Later in the afternoon they first had coffee and then called room service for food. And after that Sam discovered that the man she loved had more means to give her pleasure than she had imagined.
000
Jack's heart felt like it was going to burst with tenderness at any moment.
"That was incredible, Samantha Spade," he said. They had made love again and now emotion was almost choking him. There was no way he could ever give her up. She was his. She had to be.
"Yeah, you want to try again sometime?" she asked. He smiled, hiding his turmoil.
"We've got the rest of the day and the whole night. I just think my old buddy down there needs a bit of rest."
She snuggled closer, hooking one leg over his body.
"I liked what you did," she said.
"What did I do?"
"Giving me pleasure…I mean, did you even get any yourself?"
"Woman, what do you know of my pleasure?" he said with a devilish grin. "I was getting my two cents worth. Besides, I could give you back the compliment."
"Oh, I was pleased."
"Yeah, it showed."
Her eyes were dark, filled with thousands of stars, all shining exclusively for him. Jack felt at peace. The memory of Kellar's visit to the office, of the flowers he had brought for her, of her smiling at him, entered his mind and he couldn't help but feeling a sort of triumph rise in his chest. She had chosen him. She could have been with anyone but she had chosen to be with him. A moment later, as if to punish him for his feelings of victory, his heart skipped a beat when he realized that there would be other men after him. This was just an interlude. They were not meant to be together. Once they got home they could not continue this. He would hear about her dating someone else, eventually. He might even run into the guy the way he had done with Kellar. Someday she would get married and have kids and he would have to watch all that…
Her hands were cupping his face.
"Jack?"
"Mmh?"
"What is it? Is it your leg?"
He rolled onto his back.
"No," he said. "My leg's just fine. Don't worry about it."
She placed her arms on his chest, resting her chin on her hands, looking at him. His arms went around her, crushing her possessively. Sam had always been scared by possessiveness but with him it felt right. With him she yearned for it. And it made her hope that maybe, after all, they would find a way to make this last.
Forever.
TBC