Sam reluctantly deserted her post in front of the door and retreated back into the apartment, leaving the door open. She wasn't making Nick leave, but she wasn't exactly inviting him in either. It was a tricky thing, deciding what to do when someone who you haven't seen in fourteen years after they shattered your heart shows up at your front door at one in the morning. She didn't want to talk to him, but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to ignore the fact that he was here. To say that it was confusing and frustrating would be a complete understatement, leaving her with many options of what to do, but none that stood out as being the correct thing to do. Besides, knowing Nick, he wasn't going to quit without putting up a fight.

Nick hesitated for a second before stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him. He immediately pegged his surroundings as being eerily similar to the apartment the pair had shared back in Dallas. In fact, their positions were reversed from that night they had seen each other last. Sam was standing over at the edge of the living room at the island that separated the living room from the kitchen, whereas Nick was standing in front of the door. Sam had her back to him and was leaning forward, bracing herself against the marble counter top of the island. Nick glanced over at the television, confirming his previous suspicions that Sam had been up watching Seinfeld re-runs as they had done countless times together.

"I took the apartment before I knew what it looked like inside," she said, still turned away from him but able to read his mind nonetheless. Nick smiled as he was still clutching his injured hand to his chest. He walked over to her, and as soon as he was close enough for her to be able to tell he was there, she started to moved away towards the kitchen.

"Sam," he said softly and reached out with his good hand, gently keeping her in place. "I'm sorry about Jeff."

She turned and faced him, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. "No you're not."

Nick frowned in confusion. "Of course I am. Do you really think I'm glad that he's dead just because you were dating him? Is your opinion of me really that low?" he asked.

"Lower," Sam said. "You have no idea what you did to me Nick, because you never cared what your actions were going to do to me. Did you think showing up now was going to make me magically forgive you?"

"I don't want you to forgive me," he replied.

"Then what do you want? Why are you here? And don't say you don't know. If you really don't know why you're here, then just leave. I should have never answered the door, I knew it was going to be you trying to fix things."

"Then why did you answer the door? And don't say you don't know because you do know why."

Sam clenched her fists in frustration. "Are you just here to piss me off? Because you're doing a great job."

Nick shook his head slowly. "I just wanted to see you."

"Why? So you could finally understand what you did to me? Is that what you want to hear, how miserable you made me?" When Nick didn't reply to stop her, Sam couldn't help but continue. "I came back later that night. I went to Julie's, told her what happened, and we talked for a few hours. Then I decided I had over reacted a little and needed to talk it out with you because we hadn't talked about what had happened or the fact that we fought so much, we just kept fighting. I went back that night to talk to you, but you weren't there. I fell asleep on the couch waiting for you to come home. When you didn't the next day or the day after that, I was so scared. Your family hadn't heard from you either...I had no idea what happened to you. I thought something awful had happened to you and I felt responsible. I was a wreck for a whole week, unable to eat or sleep until you finally called your family and told them you had moved to Vegas. I looked like a complete idiot because I had no idea my boyfriend had moved to Vegas; I thought you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Nick said, "but I wasn't your boyfriend anymore. You told me it was over, that you didn't love me anymore. I had no other choice but to leave. If I had stayed, you would have come back that night and we would have fought for the next week and I would have ended up leaving. I just saved us both from more pain and suffering.

"No," Sam said, shaking her head. "You saved yourself from more pain and suffering by running away. You caused me so much more by leaving and having me think you were dead or something than you staying could have ever done. You just left, completely, without saying anything to me. What made you think that that wasn't going to destroy me?"

"I knew I had no other choice," Nick repeated. "Because you said you didn't love me anymore."

"So you moved to Vegas?" Sam yelled.

Nick nodded. "Yes, because you were lying when you said it!" he yelled back, startling Sam.

"If I was lying, then why did you leave? If you thought I still loved you then why would you leave me and our life completely without so much as a post-it note saying you were okay?"

"Because that told me how much you hated me. You were still in love with me, but you hated me. You hated me enough to tell me that you didn't love me anymore because you knew exactly how much that was going to hurt. You knew exactly how to inflict as much pain as possible, and you did it. That's why I left. Because you lied to me in order to hurt me as much as you could because you hated me for lying to you."

Sam rolled her eyes. "So it's my fault you left? You're really going to blame this on me?"

Nick sighed heavily. "No, of course not. That's not what I mean. It's not your fault. I just, I want you to know that I didn't leave to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you any more than I already had, that's why I left."

"To protect me?" Sam asked sarcastically, to which Nick nodded weakly. "It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter what you say now. You broke my heart and hurt me so bad that I still haven't even gotten over it Nick. You completely let me down and made me feel like I never even knew you at all, and that hurts just as much as knowing that you were able to just up and leave our life so easily."

"Do you really think it was that easy for me?" Nick asked. "It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do."

Sam scoffed. "You can't even imagine how hard it was for me."

"You're right, I can't," Nick agreed. "And I can't change what I did to you, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I'm selfish and I wanted to see you even though I know that the last thing you want in the world is to see me. You can tell me how awful I already know that I am, but that's not going to change anything either."

"I don't want anything to change," Sam said. "I don't want my life to go back to how it was with you, that ship has sailed." With tears running down her face, she shook her head slowly as she said, "You're the worst thing that has ever happened to me Nick."

The ache in his chest hurt more than any broken bone ever could. "Well, then I guess losing the baby was the best thing that ever happened to you."

Sam's words had hurt, but Nick wasn't quite sure exactly what had made him say what he had just said to her. He knew it wasn't true. He knew it was the absolute worst thing he could have ever said to her. He didn't have much time at all to reflect on the reasons for why he had said such a heinous comment. He saw the anger and overwhelming sadness flood over Sam's face and into her emotional eyes and before he even had time to fully process and comprehend himself what he had just said, Sam took action, not with words but with force.

Without hesitation or thinking about it at all really, Sam felt her hand close around the handle of the large, heavy beer glass from her favorite pub in Dallas that was on the island to her right. She gripped it tightly and swing with all of her strength until the glass connect with the left side of Nick's head and face, quickly shattering on impact. She didn't remember ever hitting or seeing anything hit that hard before and knew as soon as she saw his eyes quickly fall closed that she had done some real damage. Nick was immediately knocked out cold, and he fell to the floor effortlessly. She dropped the still in tact handle of the glass in horror and looked down and the bleeding and unconscious man on her living room floor. He had a deep, wide cut that ran from the corner of his left eye all the way until it disappeared into his dark hair. The broken glass had also inflicted smaller wounds on his cheek and around his eye, and the fact that he was bleeding so much and unconscious told Sam that this was more than a serious situation.

She ran over to the phone and quickly dialed 911, ordering that there be an ambulance sent to her apartment as fast as humanly possible. She wasn't even sure if she hung up the phone as she simply dropped it on the floor and grabbed a dish towel from the kitchen, returned to the living room and put pressure on Nick's bleeding wound. In a matter of minutes, there was a loud knock at her door as someone yelled something, but all she could reply was that the door was open and to just come in and help Nick already. She was staring down at him, silently pleading for him to open his eyes and start laughing at her as if this was all a big practical joke on his part.

"Nick?" a deep male voice said from behind Sam as she was pulled away from Nick by the now arriving paramedics.

She turned and saw a police officer dressed in a neatly pressed suit with his gun drawn down by his side. "You know him?" she asked.

The man nodded. "I work with him. Nick Stokes. What the hell happened? We got a call about a domestic disturbance from neighbors, I was close and responded. The neighbors said they saw some guy pull up and throw a gun in his Jeep before coming in, thought maybe he went back out and was armed. What's going on?"

Sam felt her hands shaking violently as the paramedics wheeled Nick out of her apartment. "I'm Sam Williams, I dated Nick a long time ago back in Dallas. He came here, we got into a fight and I hit him with a glass and knocked him out. I didn't mean to hurt him, I just wanted him to shut up."

"Brass," a uniformed police officer said, addressing the man Sam was talking to.

"Yeah Mitch?" Brass replied. Mitch said something quietly to Brass before stepping back and waiting for Brass to continue his conversation with Sam. "Did Nick hit you?"

Sam felt her eyes widen. "No, God no. He didn't, I just hit him because of everything he was saying. It wasn't a physical fight until I hit him."

Brass cocked his head. "Nick's right hand was bruised, and this was a domestic disturbance call. I know you know I'm friends with the guy, but if he hurt you, you can tell me. I won't let him get away with it, I'll be the first to throw his ass in jail. Are you sure he didn't hurt you?"

Sam nodded, tears pouring from her eyes. "I swear. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than him being thrown in jail, but he didn't hit me. He would never do anything like that."

With no visible bruising on Sam's face, Brass had no reason not to believe her. "I didn't think he did," he agreed. "I know him all too well to know that's not Nick, but I just had to do my job and make sure. You're going to have to come down to the station with me and give your statement and wait for Nick to be released, give his statement and see if he's going to press charges, although I doubt he will."

All Sam could manage to do was nod weakly and follow the uniformed officer out to his cruiser, where she sat silently in the back all the way to the police station, where she sat stiffly as she gave the officer her statement of what had happened between her and Nick at her apartment. From Brass' office, he watched as she talked with Mitch in the waiting room, keeping his eyes on her even when Catherine and Greg practically ran up to him from the front door.

"What the hell happened?" Catherine asked, slightly out of breath.

Brass sighed. "Nick went to her apartment, they got in a fight, he said something and she hit him in the head with a glass. He's at the hospital now, probably with a good amount of stitches and a pretty severe concussion." Without another word, Catherine took off for the hospital to make sure Nick was going to be okay. Before following her suit, Greg followed Brass' gaze and landed his eyes on Sam.

"What did he say that made her mad enough to knock him out?" Greg asked.

Brass shrugged. "She didn't say."

Greg nodded slightly. "I could take a wild guess."