"Can I ask you something?" Nick asked, his reflection suddenly appearing in the shattered mirror as he stood in the doorway, bracing himself by leaning against the door frame. He didn't expect Sam to answer or acknowledge his presence, so he was very surprised when she responded.

She stared at him through the mirror, refusing to turn around and face him. "Seeing as how the only way I can make you shut up is to knock you unconscious and the last time I did that I almost killed you...yeah, go for it."

Nick couldn't help but smile at that, and knew that him smiling only mad Sam more aggravated because she used to love his smile. "When was the last time I did something that made you happy?" he asked softly.

"What are you talking about?" Sam ashed, shaking her head.

"For the last fourteen years, you've hated me. Understandably so, but still. I just wanted to know if you could even remember the last time I made you even remotely happy."

"When you left," Sam replied, still only making eye contact with Nick through the mirror.

Nick's smile faded, but didn't disappear. "I knew you were going to say that." He looked down at the floor and as he turned to leave, he uttered one simple word that he knew would make Sam chase him. "Liar."

He turned and walked down the hall into the living room, where he collapsed onto the couch. It was mere seconds before Sam was towering over him with tears in her tired eyes.

"It takes a liar to know one then," she shot back the somewhat childish, but true nonetheless, response.

"So you were lying," Nick replied. "Answer the question. When was the last time I made you happy?"

A single tear trickled from Sam's left eye. "The day that I found the papers and realized that you had lied."

Nick frowned at that. "What are you talking about?" he asked softly.

"That morning," she said, wiping the tear from her cheek, "I woke up earlier than you for once. I was in the kitchen making coffee and you snuck up behind me, wrapped your arms around my waist and kissed me on the cheek and told me you loved me. You used to do that multiple times a day, but after we lost the baby you didn't do it as much, if ever. When you did it that day, it reminded me of when we first started dating and all the great years that followed and reminded me just how much I love you. Loved you."

Nick felt is own tears start to prickle his eyes. "I remember that," he said softly. "I didn't do it anymore after what happened because you flinched almost every time I got anywhere near you. You were so scared and jumpy all the time, I was afraid to hurt you or something." His voice was low and weak, matching how he felt at the time.

"You weren't going to breake me Nick," Sam said. "Maybe that would have helped and stopped us from fighting so much."

Nick shook his head slowly. "Don't," he pleaded weakly.

Sam sighed heavily. "You do realize that we have never talked about any of this, right?"

"It's been fourteen years Sam," Nick replied. "The only thing that will come of this is more fighting and more hatred."

"So you hate me now?" she asked.

Nick shook his head. "I could never hate you, you didn't do anything to me," he answered. "But there's nothing I can say to you that can change what I did and how badly I made you feel."

"Then why wouldn't you let me leave?" Sam asked angrily. "You made me stay so that you could try and fix things, make them better. You asked me to stay so that you could talk to me because if I left you knew you would never see me again."

"I know what I said," Nick said matter of factly.

Sam scoffed. "Then why did you make me stay?"

"I didn't make you stay," Nick replied. "I asked you to so that I could see what you were going to do. You stayed because you want to, not because I made you. I was about to pass out, you could have told me to fuck off and left and never had to see me ever again, but you didn't."

"Don't pretend you know me," she shot back. "Don't act like you know what I'm thinking and how I feel."

"I do," Nick answered, getting to his feet. "You stayed because you want to be here. You want to fight with me, you want to try and make this better because the way we left things is killing you just as much as it's killing me and if we leave it like this, neither one of us will be able to handle it. You don't want to never see me again, you don't want this to be the end."

Tears began to fall from Sam's eyes once more. "You have no idea what you're talking about. All those times I talked to Jess all those years after you left...she told me everything that happened to you here. The lady that pulled a gun on you, the stalker that pushed you out of the window and tried to kill, the guy that buried you alive, the serial killer you killed and that shot you and the cop that died because of you, and those kids you killed. She told me everything because she was hoping that hearing about all the terrible things that happened to you would make me realize I still loved you and would make me call you or go see you and things would go back to the way they were. She told me all of that, but did I ever call you? I knew all of it, but I never called you because I was trying to get over you."

"You asked Greg if I was okay," Nick said in his defense. "Don't try and pretend you don't care."

Sam shook her head. "I don't Nick. Whenever my phone would ring and I saw that it was Jess, I prayed that I would pick it up and she would tell me that something else happened, something worse. Every time I picked up that phone I was wishing it would be her telling me that you were dead. All those years, I was hoping and waiting for the phone call telling me that you finally got what you deserved."

Nick was completely awestruck. Sam had never, ever been a mean person. He had never heard her say anything bad about anyone else, nevermind admittedly wish death upon them. Hearing her say that struck deep and hard, and only reminded him of just how much he had hurt her. He had never intended any of this to happen; he felt like most of it was ripped out of his control and that someone else had pushed all the buttons and pulled all the levers that had gotten them to this very point. She seemed to be a completely different person now, and that was because of what he had done to her. He had immensely hurt the only woman that he had ever loved, and he had done so in the worst possible way. He should have never gone over to her house that night; he should have just let her out of his life one last time because it would have been better for the both of them.

Instead of shutting up and not offering a response to such a harsh, yet true statement, Nick felt the pressing need to reply. "I used to wish one of those situations had killed me too," he said, the honesty evident in his dark eyes. "I don't blame you for wanting me dead, but you have to know that you're the reason I'm still here. When I was buried alive in that box, running out of air so fast and being eaten alive by those fucking ants, I had the gun to my head for at least an hour. All I had to do was pull the trigger and it would have all been over, all the pain and torment. But I couldn't because the only thing I could think about was you, and I couldn't just give up and accept that I was never going to see you again or hear your voice. I knew it was a long shot that we would ever speak, let alone see each other ever again, but the thought was enough. The thought of you was the only thing that kept me from pulling the trigger that night."

Sam tore her eyes away from Nick's and looked up at the ceiling, wishing something was written there to tell her what to say or do. "I have such a hard time believing anything you say anymore," she said, looking back at him as her voice cracked with emotion. "Anything you've said to me as of the last fourteen years has either been a lie or a comment to cause me pain or start a fight. I'm guilty of instigating fights, but I never lied to you."

"Ask me anything," Nick replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I've only lied to you once, and it was to protect you. Ask me whatever you want, I won't lie."

Sam shook her head. "How can I tell if you're lying or not?"

"You're going to hate my answers," Nick replied. "I guarantee it."

"Fine," she said, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "How many women have you dated since you left?"

"Dated?" Nick asked. "None," he said. "I haven't dated any, but I've slept with a few, some that I can't even remember. The ones that I do remember I wish I didn't. I slept with a hooker, who I knew was a hooker but didn't pay her or anything because it was consensual, and then she was murdered by her pimp and I was the prime suspect until Catherine proved I was innocent. Then there was the girl I knew that I ran into at a bar I was at with Catherine, who I left with, resulting in Catherine being abducted and almost raped. And we can't forget the waitress at the diner, who I didn't sleep with, just wanted to, but that got my best friend murdered. I haven't dated any of them because I'm too fucked up and incapable of loving anyone because I'm afraid of what will come of it, and because none of them were even close to you."

"Stop trying to sweet talk me," Sam said, holding her hand up.

"I'm not," he responded. "I'm just telling you the truth about anything you want to know. I have no reason to lie to you, especially now."

"A hooker?" Sam asked. "Really?"

"I met her when I worked a case, then she called me when she got in trouble a couple times...it doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Sam replied. "You turned into a slut up here and apparently got a bunch of people killed." At the sight of Nick's face becoming immediately pale, she regretted saying that. "I'm sorry, Jess told me you blamed yourself for so much that wasn't your fault. I didn't mean that, I know it wasn't your fault even if you don't know that." Nick remained silent, and for some reason Sam just had to know more. "How many people have you killed?" she asked, her voice hardly a whisper.

"Three," Nick replied. "Two of them were kids, one was a serial killer. All of them pulled a gun and were going to kill more people if I hadn't..." he trailed off, not needing to finish his sentence. "I'm not proud of it, and I wish there had been another way, but there wasn't. I did what I had to."

Sam nodded weakly, wishing she hadn't pressed into an obviously sensitive subject. She didn't know what to do anymore and had no idea what Nick wanted from her.

"I don't want you to hate me," Nick said, reading Sam's mind yet again. "I know I deserve it and I don't blame you for it, but that doesn't mean I want it to be that way. I never wanted to hurt you, I only wanted what was best for you because I love you. I still love you Sam, I always have and I always will no matter what."

The tears were now falling freely from her eyes, propelling down her cheeks and disappearing over her collarbone beneath her shirt. "What do you want me to say?"

"That you'll stay here so we can finally talk about everything, and then you can leave and forget about me forever. But if we don't talk about this, don't try and get some sort of closure, it's going to kill me."

"I don't know if I'm that strong," Sam managed to reply through the lump in her throat.

Nick smiled and shook his head slowly. "You're not that weak."

Sorry for the little cliff hanger, next chapter will be up soon! Thanks for reading and reviewing, it means a lot! =)