They hadn't spoken in almost a half hour since they had decided to talk about what had happened. They were both mentally and physically preparing for the long awaited conversation to finally take place. Sam was sitting on one end of the couch with her knees hugged against her chest, facing Nick, who was at the other end, leaning forward so he was resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes down at the floor but his body was still facing her. They were both wondering who was going to break the silence; neither one of them entirely sure of how to begin this. The tension and emotion that came along with dealing with a situation as explosive as this one would only complicate matters more if they allowed their feelings to get the better of them in the worst way.
"Why did you break the mirror?" Sam asked suddenly.
The unexpected question and noise combined to startle Nick and make his heart jump a little. He looked up at her in confusion. "What difference does it make?" he wanted to know.
"You know me," she replied. "I can't focus on one thing if something else is bothering me, especially if I can't figure it out. I need to know why so we can move on and talk about what we really need to talk about. Besides, I think it does make a difference. I think it has something to do with our whole endeavor we've got going on here."
"Why do you think I did it?" Nick questioned.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to deflect this onto me. If I knew why you did it, I wouldn't have asked. Just answer the question Nick."
He sighed heavily as he ran a hand through his hair. "I broke it because I hate what I see in it," he answered honestly. "I saw the cuts on my face, and they reminded me of what I did to you. Which reminded me of what I could have had with you if I hadn't completely fucked everything up, which only reminded me of how miserable I've been for the last fourteen years without you, knowing that I broke your heart and betrayed you. I couldn't stand to look at my reflection anymore because I didn't recognize the person staring back at me as me anymore."
Sam nodded once. "So you do feel guilty for what you did," she stated more than asked.
"Of course I do," Nick said. "Did you really ever believe that I left just to hurt you? Do you honestly think that I would ever do anything to intentionally cause you pain?"
"After everything, yeah, I do," she responded. "In the weeks after we lost the baby, you would say and do these mean things just to start fights. I did it a few times too, but it seemed like all you wanted to do was to fight with me. Why did you do that?"
Nick looked back down at the floor. "I don't know," he said weakly.
"Nick," Sam said firmly, "if you're not going to be honest with me, this isn't going to work. You know that I know you better than to just accept your lame excuses at trying to avoid questions you don't want to answer. I'm sure there's things you want me to answer, and I will, as long as you answer mine too. That way we both get something relatively positive out of this. So, why did you do that to me?"
Nick tore his eyes away from the floor and looked at her again, knowing that she was right. "I was afraid that I didn't start fights and try and find reasons to be mad at you, then you were going to hate me for the miscarriage being my fault."
"But it wasn't your fault," Sam said, shaking her head.
"You didn't know that at first," he replied. "I told you that it was because I smoked or something like that, and you believed me. You said you didn't blame me and that it was just bad luck, but I was getting so nervous that you were going to eventually hate me for it. So I attacked you before you could convince yourself to be mad and resent me for losing the baby. I figured if I made you play defense enough, you wouldn't think about why you should be mad at me. Why you should hate me."
"You need to know that I don't hate you," Sam said quietly. "I never have, I could never hate you. I've come as close as possible that someone can to hate, but never gotten there. I've tried extremely hard, but know that it's impossible because despite everything that you did to hurt me, I know the real you and I know how great you really are, and I've never forgotten about that."
Nick leaned back against the arm of the couch, completely turned towards her now. "I wish there was something I could say to erase everything I've put you through, but there isn't. I'm sorry for what I did, and I know that that will never be enough, but it's all I've got to offer you. I'll gladly sit here and talk to you for the rest of my life, but I'm doing it for you, not me. You don't owe me any answers. You don't owe me anything."
"I want you to promise that you'll let me ask you anything, and you'll try as hard as you can for as long as you can not to get mad and freak out."
Nick smiled slightly. "I promise. I can't get mad at you, you've done nothing to me."
Sam nodded slowly. "I know, but some of the things I want to ask you might hurt."
"I deserve it."
She took a deep breath. "Okay," she started hesitantly. "Was there any part of you that was glad we didn't have the baby? Any part of you at all?"
Nick immediately shook his head. "Absolutely not. I mean, I was nervous as hell about it, but I wanted it to happen. It may not have seemed like the perfect situation to anyone else, but it was perfect for me. We were living together and in love, and there was no one else I would have wanted to be with in that situation. I wanted nothing more than to have a family with you. I would have given my life for you and our baby."
Sam was momentarily choked up with tears, so Nick took the opportunity to interject a quick question of his own. "Were you ever mad at me for smoking and causing it? I mean, before you found out I lied and still thought it was my fault. Was I even close to right in thinking you resented me for it?"
"I didn't blame you," she replied. "And it didn't make me mad until when we started fighting and you would go outside and smoke all the time to try and calm down. That pissed me off because I couldn't understand why you were resorting to the thing that took our baby as something to help you. I should have known it didn't add up, but I wasn't thinking clearly. That's why I would get so mad so quickly, because I was already on edge because you were smoking so much."
"Lying to you just made me really paranoid I guess," he said with a sad smile. "This really is all my fault."
"No it's not," Sam argued gently. "I did nothing to help matters. I shouldn't have left that night, I shouldn't have said what I said and just left you there after everything that had happened."
Nick shook his head. "You did nothing wrong. I shouldn't have ran away from you, from everything, just because I was scared that we wouldn't be able to deal with what happened. I took a bad situation and made it worse. I was young and stupid and had no idea how to deal with anything."
"So was I," Sam agreed. "Neither one of us did anything right, we both made a lot of mistakes. We can't change them now. Talking helps, but it can't fix or change what happened fourteen years ago."
"I know," he whispered. "I would do anything to change everything."
"Everything?" Sam asked teasingly.
Nick smiled slightly. "Not everything, just the bad stuff," he replied. "I wouldn't change the times in college where you would show up at the door of my classes and stare at me until I would sneak out to go for walks with you. I wouldn't change the nights that you pretended to fall asleep on my shoulder while studying or watching a movie just to have an excuse to sleep over. I wouldn't change the fact that when we were living together, I almost never had a hot shower because you always showered first and would use all the hot water on me. I would never change the nights we just stayed home, watched re-runs and just hung out because every second I spent with you was the best of my life."
Sam wiped at the tears spilling down her cheeks in a futile effort to make them stop. "I should have called you when I found out you were in Vegas. I should have followed you and told you how sorry I was and everything would have been okay, I shouldn't have just sat there and done nothing and let you get away..." she trailed off as emotion overtook her.
Nick quickly moved across the couch until he was right next to her. Her legs were on either side of him and her hands were covering her face. He gently pulled her hands down and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Don't you dare blame yourself for this," he said quietly, but sincerely. "I can't sit here and let you think that it was your fault. You weren't the one who should have done anything, it was me. I shouldn't have left, and after I did, I should have followed my gut and ran back to you and found a way to make you forgive me. But I didn't, because I'm a fuck up. There's a lot of things I didn't do, but the one thing I will do is be completely sure that you never, ever make yourself feel like this because it wasn't your fault."
Sam pulled Nick's hand away from her face, but kept a firm grip on it as she held it down by her side. "Why didn't you ever call me or anything? Why didn't you just come back?"
The hurt and pain in her voice and eyes was almost enough to make him run away again. "Because I knew things would never be the same ever again, and I knew it was my fault. I didn't want to come back and keep making things worse. I didn't want to keep hurting you, so I stayed away from you. I thought you were better off without me, and when I never heard from you, I knew it was true."
Sam pulled her hand away from his. "You're crazy," she said simply. Nick just stared back at her dumbly and didn't say anything. "I didn't run after you because it was pretty clear to me you didn't want to be with me anymore. I thought that after everything that had happened, you had just had enough and wanted to start over, without me. What was I supposed to do? What could I have done that would have made you come back?"
"Nothing," he said, forcing the word through the lump in his throat. "I should have just came back, but I didn't. And when Jess told me you were with Jeff, and living with him and everything, I thought you had moved on and forgot about me." Sam opened her mouth to argue, but Nick continued so she couldn't. "We can sit here for days and try to pin point where every little thing went wrong, but that's not going to do us any good."
Sam tried to move back farther away from Nick, but she was right up against the arm of the couch and couldn't budge any more. "Then what is it you suggest we do?" she asked.
"Say what we should have said fourteen years ago," he replied. "When we lost the baby, I was devastated. It is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me, especially since it's the reason I lost you too. I had no idea how to handle it and was terrified that for the rest of our lives, it would be hanging over our heads and haunting us forever. I was afraid you would change your mind about wanting to be with me and have a family with me."
Sam shook her head. "Why didn't you just tell me that?"
"Because I was afraid I was right."
"Well, you were wrong," she said, taking his hand in hers again. "I thought that you were the one that was going to change your mind. I didn't see how you could ever be attracted to me ever again and that that was why you were so distant and never touched me anymore. I know it sounds stupid and selfish, but it's true."
"Fuck," Nick breathed. "You should never have though that. It couldn't be farther from the truth. I was just scared and didn't want to suffocate you or make you feel overwhelmed. I just...I should have asked you. I should have talked to you, like this, back then. Why didn't you say anything then? You know you could have talked to me about anything."
"I didn't want to be an even bigger burden on you. You were already trying to deal with losing the baby and keeping me from going insane, I didn't want to start complaining that you weren't paying enough attention to me."
Nick sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he said, looking down at his hand, still being held in hers. "I don't know what else I can give you at this point. Everything I try and explain just makes it all worse."
Sam put her other hand on the side of Nick's face, making him look up at her. "No, it doesn't. It actually helps. Now I know how you actually felt and what you were thinking after all these years. It doesn't change anything, but now I know you cared."
"I still care," Nick replied softly. "I've always cared, even when it seemed like I was being a total fucking idiot, I've always cared about you. I've always loved you."
Sam moved her hand through Nick's hair, leaving it there in the soft and familiar feeling. "I don't know what to do now," she said, more to herself than to him. "I told myself not to trust you, not to fall into this again because I can't have you and then not have you, it hurts too much. I can't go through that again. I don't know what to do."
"I'm not the same person that I was back then Sam," Nick said, looking back down away from her eyes. He put his hand on her wrist, but didn't pull her hand away from his hair. "You don't want to do this with me again, trust me. I can't be what you want, I can't be what you deserve. Not anymore."
"I know that's not true," Sam replied, and Nick looked back up at her. "That other CSI, Greg, was willing to lie right to my face because you're his friend and would clearly do anything for you. Catherine came here and made me stay to talk to you and try and work this out because she cares about you much. And that cop, Brass, was shell-shocked when he saw you unconscious on the floor with a gash in your head."
Nick shook his head in confusion. "So what?" he asked.
"If you weren't the same person that I knew back then, they wouldn't be your friends. They wouldn't care about you as much as they do or want the best for you. I'm not the same exact person either, no one is after all this time."
The tears that had been building up in Nick's eyes were threatening to spill over. "I don't want to hurt you again," he whispered.
Sam genuinely smiled at him for the first time in a long time. "Then you won't," she replied with a slight shrug before slowly pulling him closer to her so that she could kiss him softly and effectively shut him up; this time without almost killing him.