He couldn't tell you exactly why it took as long as it did, but when Nick finally and completely registered what was happening, he was so surprised and confused that his brain stopped all movement from being possible. He pulled back slowly, breaking the kiss with Sam and allowed himself to see the events unfolding around him. To his surprise, they were now in his bedroom, on his bed, Sam lying underneath him and looking up at him silently. As he stared into her eyes, he saw that they were both missing their shirts; in addition, Sam's jeans had also been removed and apparently Nick's were soon to follow as Sam had already undone his belt, unzipped them and was in the process of pushing them down over his black boxers. When he stopped kissing her, Sam stopped moving her hands and instead rested them on his hips where his skin ended and the soft cotton of his boxers began.
"What's wrong?" Sam whispered.
Nick shook his head slowly. "You don't want to do this," he said, his confusion at the situation and his lingering concussion making his head spin and feel light. "I don't want to take advantage of you, you're going to regret this."
"Do you not want to do this?" Sam asked, having a hard time reading his eyes in the dark of the bedroom.
Nick laughed slightly. "Are you kidding me? Of course I do, but this isn't about me. I don't want to hurt you again, I can't hurt you again."
"This isn't about me either," Sam replied. "This is about us. And right now, everything that happened in the past doesn't matter. We can't change it and we talked about what needed to be talked about. We said what we needed to say and that's all we can do about that. What matters is what we do about it now. If you don't want to do anything about it, and don't want to see what we can get out of this, then I'll leave you alone but-"
Before she could continue, Nick silenced her with a deep and passionate kiss. He put one hand on the side of her face and caressed her cheek gently while he ran his other hand up her thigh and rested it on her lean hip. Sam took the hint and continued to push his jeans down until he could kick them off and let them fall silently to the floor. She ran her hands over his strong back before wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as possible to her own warm body. Nick broke the kiss again to kiss the sensitive spot behind Sam's left ear that he knew all too well brought a smile to her lips no matter what.
"I love you," he said softly in her ear, the warmth of his breath tickling her and sending goosebumps all over her skin.
She moved her head and kissed him soundly again before moving away just far enough to reply, "I love you too."
Nick opted out of opening his eyes for as long as possible due to the throbbing in his head. His headaches still hadn't gone away completely, and wouldn't for a few more days. He was awake, but refused to open his eyes and accept the pain in his head and apparent freezing temperatures around him. When he finally did open his eyes, he realized that the reason for this was the fact that he was only wearing his boxers and that all of the blankets were balled up in a heap to his left. He couldn't help but smile at the familiar feeling of waking up with no blankets due to the fact that Sam had stolen all of them. His smile faltered, however, when he noticed that Sam wasn't amongst the mess of blankets on the bed next to him.
Nick craned his neck to the side and looked over the bed to see that only his clothes from the night before were still on the floor; Sam's were nowhere to be found. The ache in his head got worse and instead of getting up and facing yet another defeat, he opted to lay back down and close his eyes again to try and put off more heartache. A few minutes later, just as he was about to drift back to sleep, he was startled awake by someone entering the room. He sat up straight as if he were attached to a spring and was surprised to see Sam standing at the foot of the bed.
Confused by Nick's amazement at her being there, Sam asked, "Are you okay?" When Nick didn't reply, she then asked "Do you not remember last night?"
Nick shook his head. "No, I do," he answered quietly.
Sam nodded once. "You thought that I had left."
Nick looked down at his hands in his lap. "I wouldn't have blamed you," he answered weakly.
Sam crawled onto the bed and moved over to sit next to him. She grabbed his hand and kissed him sweetly on the side of his head which caused his hurt puppy dog face to change to a small smile. "I would never do that to you," she said.
"I guess it's just me that leaves," he replied.
Sam shook her head at him. "You have to get over what you did to me," she said, even thought it sounded very odd. "I moved past what you did. I forgave you, whether you believe me or not. Last night wouldn't have happened if I didn't forgive you, if I didn't love you. But if you can't get past what you did to me, then you can't move forward."
Nick looked up at her and nodded silently. "I'm sorry," he said. "It was just hard to believe this is real I guess. I never thought we would ever get to this point, but I'm glad we did."
Sam smiled. "I am too," she said before hopping off of the bed. "Do you mind if I take a quick shower?" she asked.
"Go right ahead," Nick replied. "Grab some of my clothes if you want."
"I just ran down to the corner store and grabbed some stuff for you to eat," she said, turning towards Nick's dresser and opening a drawer that she someone knew would have t-shirts in it. "You haven't eaten in a few days and are pretty weak so you have to eat something soon or-" Sam stopped short upon finding something in Nick's drawer.
"What's wrong?" he asked, sensing the sudden tension coming over the room.
Sam nervously ran her hands through her hair. "Are you seeing anybody?" she asked, turning quickly to face Nick.
"No," he answered immediately and truthfully. "I'm not dating anyone and haven't even slept with anyone in a while, and there was never anyone here that I would describe as someone I was actually seeing."
"Then who is this for?" Sam asked as she tossed Nick a small black velvet box that contained a diamond engagement ring.
Nick made no attempt to catch the box. He allowed it to hit him in the leg and fall to the bed beside him. He sighed heavily as he looked down at the open box. "I got it for you," he answered as he looked back up at her.
That was not at all the answer she had been expecting. "When?" the one word question the only thing she could utter at the moment.
"About a month before you told me you were pregnant. I got it and had this whole elaborate proposal plan worked out, and then I got nervous that you would think it was stupid so I kept waiting and kept changing how I wanted to do it because I wanted it to be perfect," he rambled, trying to explain it to her. "I kept convincing myself I was going to mess it up or that whatever I had planned wasn't good enough until finally I had put it off long enough to the day you told me you were pregnant."
"And then you changed your mind?" Sam asked weakly.
Nick shook his head. "No. I was just afraid that if I asked you after that you were going to think that it was just because you were pregnant, not because I'm an idiot and didn't have the balls to just ask you. I wanted the timing to be right, and then you were pregnant and I didn't know what I should do and while I was trying to figure it out...everything went wrong."
Sam sat down on the edge of the bed heavily. "I had no idea," she said.
Nick smiled slightly. "That was the idea. I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted it to be perfect, but instead I just let it all fall apart." Sam didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. When he was met with only silence, Nick added "Open the box that's in there where you found the ring," he instructed.
Still sitting on the bed, Sam reached into the drawer and pulled out a battered black cigar box. She set it on her lap before turning and looking at Nick. "What is it?" she asked.
"Just open it."
Sam flipped the cover of the box open to reveal a stack of folded papers inside. She immediately recognized them as being letters, and around the stack was everything from movie ticket stubs to wine labels. The top letter was apparently the most recent, as it had the date September 13, 2010 scrawled across the front in Nick's unmistakably messy handwriting.
"What are these?" Sam asked, despite recognizing the date immediately as their anniversary.
"I wrote you two letters every year," Nick replied. "One on your birthday, and one on our anniversary. Two letters every year for fourteen years. And every year I said that I was going to send them all to you, and obviously I never did. But I told Jess that if anything were to ever happen to me to make sure that you got this box."
Sam looked at him in amazement as the tears in her eyes fell down her cheeks. "What's the rest of this?" she asked, looking through the other items in the box.
"Things that reminded me of you," he replied. "An advertisement in a magazine or a newspaper cartoon. Most of it are movie tickets of movies that I went to see by myself because they were movies I knew I would have wanted to see with you."
Sam picked up one of the movie tickets and saw that it had been for "Crazy Stupid Love" which had only come out a few weeks ago. More tears spilled from her eyes as she said, "I went and saw this by myself too. I thought of you the whole time."
Nick moved over across the bed so he was sitting next to her on the edge. "I thought about you every day, pretty much all day, and I kept these things to prove it to you if one day I died or if I ever got the chance to see you again because you deserve to know how unbelievably amazing you are."
Sam put the ticket back in the box before closing the lid and putting it on the top of the dresser. "I don't know what to say Nick."
Nick smiled. "You don't have to say anything," he replied. Sam leaned forward and kissed him, and when they broke apart Nick continued. "I love you Sam, more than anything. But you can do so much better than me."
Sam shook her head. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, knowing where this was headed.
"Because it's true," Nick replied. "I work nights. I have a crazy, dangerous job. I work on these horrible crimes and have trouble sleeping because half the time I can't stop thinking about these victims and the other half I'm too scared to sleep because I have these awful nightmares. I've spent the last fourteen years hating who I am and wanting nothing more than to run away from myself."
"I don't care," Sam replied defiantly. "You have a crazy job and work all the time. You are also the most stubborn person I have ever met and absolutely refuse to ever give up on anything or let something go. You will never stop working on something until you figure it out and you devote so much time and effort to everyone else around you that you completely neglect yourself and the things that you need and want. You smoke, you drink, you swear, and you over analyze everything. But I still love you. I love you because you listen to every little thing that I have ever said and remember all the stupid little things that matter to me. You are the most loyal and honest person I have ever met. You never take anything for granted and you always let the people you care about know that you care about them. You're the only man I've ever loved."
Nick's own tears were now falling from his dark eyes. "You've always scared me ya know," he said, catching Sam off guard. "Because I've known, since the minute I saw you, that you were the only one I would ever want to be with for the rest of my life. And that scared me because I knew it was never going to be better than you and I knew I would never be happy without you."
Sam smiled at him adoringly. "You don't have to be without me, not anymore," she said. "If this is what you want-"
Nick once again stopped her mid-sentence with another breathtaking kiss. Nothing else needed to be said or done at the moment, so nothing was. The past couldn't be changed, and the future could wait while they finally enjoyed the present that included each other.
Thanks for reading, the next and final chapter will be up by the end of the week!