TITLE: The Visit

AUTHOR: Ceri

RATING: PG

SPOILERS: Up to the beginning of season three.

SUMMARY: Jack pays Samantha a visit after hearing some news.

I wanna hear what you have to say about me
Hear if you're gonna live without me

She can smell liquor by the time she reaches the top of the stairs. There’s a feeling in her gut – uneasy, almost sickening – that she pushes down, wrapping her coat tighter around her body instinctively. Her building isn’t the warmest, or the brightest (the super refuses to replace the bulb in the hallway), and she stumbles as she approaches her apartment, something blocking her way.

That something grasps at her ankle, and she shrieks at the top of her lungs.

“Samantha!” The soft voice is familiar, and a body rises from the floor, the hand now holding on to her shoulder. “Don’t scream. It’s me.”

She squints in the darkness, her breathing shallow and her heart pumping. Of course she knows who it is – how could she not? – but the shadows falling across his face frighten her, strangely. A door down the hall is flung open, and a head pokes out.

“Ms Spade?”

Samantha and Jack both turn towards the old man, blinking in the flood of light coming behind him. They cannot help looking guilty, even though they’ve long since had reason to.

“Hi, Mr Lohman.”

Mr Lohman eyes Jack with interest. “Everythin’ okay out here?”

She blinks again. “Oh – yes! Yes. I just tripped. Sorry to disturb you.”

The gentleman retreats back to the safe haven of ER and beer, leaving them standing awkwardly in the darkness. Samantha doesn’t move straight away; it’s as if her muscles are frozen just by his presence. He turns to her, an eyebrow raised in expectation. She nods, numb. She knows why he’s here. She knows what he’s going to say.

She can feel his breath on the back of her neck as she unlocks her front door, comforting and exhilarating and so achingly familiar, too much for her senses and her heart. Much too much for her heart.

They’re sat down on the couch before anyone speaks again. The scent of alcohol lingers on his clothes, on his skin, and his fingers fumble with the button of his suit jacket. He can’t seem to look at her, and she knows she can’t look at him. There’s too much to say, too much that can’t be said, too much hanging in the air between them that has to be ignored.

She wishes it didn’t have to be ignored.

Some things never change, though, no matter how hard they try. Their arms are touching, barely at all, but the shiver it sends down her spine is one she has felt many times before. They’re not talking, but somehow each person’s silence compliments the other’s; everything fits together, his unspoken question to her unspoken answer, deep longing pushed down to the depths of the human heart, need going through them like a pulse, perfectly in time with one another. It’s all she can do to stop herself reaching out for his hand, to feel his skin against hers, even for a second. A second is all she can hope for.

Finally it seems like he can’t stay quiet any longer. He glances over at her, his stare burning in to her exposed neck, tracing along the contours of her body that he has kissed, caressed, held in his arms more times than he could count, precious times he relives in his mind when he catches her eye. Passion is difficult to control, this they both know, and the reward for holding back is hardly enough to warrant self-control in the first place. But it has to be done, like so many things; it’s an unwritten rule they realised one morning, one sad, cold morning, when the whole world came tumbling down around them. When her smile stopped being genuine, when his desire was locked inside him. When he told her it was over.

“So I heard something funny today.”

There’s a lilt to his voice, a slur, that reminds her of the scent of liquor lingering on him – almost as if her senses had been blocked until he had spoken. She meets his gaze at last, waiting for the punch line.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he assured her, dropping his eyes to his lap and pausing before allowing his head to flop back on to the couch. “I heard you were screwing Martin.”

She never thought six words would hurt so much, would have so much sting to them – the impact left her feeling wounded, empty, defensive for reasons she couldn’t even consider. He was drunk, of course he was drunk, but he still had more power over her than even he realised.

She blinked, speechless.

“And I thought it was funny,” he continued, the slurring of his words becoming more pronounced. “Because...he’s not your kind of guy.”

She shook her head, slowly and carefully getting to her feet. “Oh? And who is my kind of guy?”

For a brief, fleeting moment she wants him to say ‘me’. But it passes, and she crosses the room, leaning on the kitchen door frame for the support that she suddenly, desperately needs.

“Not him.” She wasn’t looking at him, but she knew there was a look of disgust on his face. “He’s...he’s a republican, Sam. And...he’s not your type.”

This wasn’t happening. Was it? It felt like a dream – all darkness, danger lurking in unbridled passion and anger, confusion and pain. And, after all, Jack was usually in her dreams.

Not like this, though.

“Why do you care, anyway?” she asked, turning to him – or turning on him. It was hard to tell where her loyalties lay anymore. “What business is it of yours?”

But when she meets his stare once more, she sees something she doesn’t expect to see. His eyes – God, those eyes – are filled with such agony, such sorrow (and she doesn’t think it’s just wishful thinking that sees lust in those eyes too) that she feels like the breath has been knocked out of her. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him look this way; he’s vulnerable, aching, dying in front of her. He’s lost something since the last time she saw him, and she supposes it was the revelation of her extra-curricular activities with Martin that took it away. But maybe that’s being too arrogant – maybe it’s not her at all. Maybe it’s Marie, or the kids, or something at work. Maybe she never meant that much to him, and this is just channelling his anger at what he can.

“What does it matter?” he repeats, his voice hoarse. Neither of them can break the stare. “Samantha...are you really asking me that?”

She feels braver, or maybe more stupid, fuelled by a sense of righteous indignation that she knows will pass soon if she doesn’t take advantage of it. “Why wouldn’t I?” she demands of him, hands on hips. The ache in her heart doesn’t stop, not for a second, and she has to carry on or cave in altogether. “I was just an affair, right? So I’m moving on to my next victim. The next guy who’ll pretend not to know me at work, pretend not to care. I think it’s what I’m good at now.”

She can, immediately, sense the damage she has done to him with her words; he leans back, wounded, eyes widened in drunken disbelief. The silence is deafening, crashing around the room and refusing to cease. Finally, reluctantly, she takes a step back towards the couch – a peace-making step, an apology that she can’t summon the words to actually speak out loud.

“That’s not what we were.” His voice cracks, his head hangs, the misery surrounding him too much to hold himself together against. “You know that’s not what we were.”

She has never felt such a powerful need to put her arms around him as she does at that moment, but, as always, she resists, lowering herself down on to the couch next to him, exercising so much self-control that she worries she might burst a vein in her temple. But it gets overwhelming, and she reaches for his hand as a compromise.

He freezes against her touch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. The words get caught in her throat. “It’s just...hard. To hear this from you. Jack, you said it was over. You said yourself. I’m trying to do what I thought you wanted me to do.”

He looked up, dark eyes inquisitive, eyebrows raised just slightly. The connection between them is undeniable, unshakeable, unbreakable. Neither can look away.

“I thought you wanted me to move on.”

His smile is inscrutable, his eyes clouded with bemusement and confusion. She wants to ask what brought on that smile, whether or not it was her – but she can’t find the words, find the courage to ask if she really means that much to him. She needs it to be clearer than this, but most of all, she needs it to come just from him; no prompting, no nothing, just his words and his heart and his soul.

“I thought I did too.”

Now it’s her turn to raise an eyebrow, curiosity more than evident in her gaze. When did her life, her loves become one relationship after another of cryptic smiles and veiled sentences, hidden feelings and agendas? Was it her who brought it out in her partners, or was it just that she was drawn to the men who had secrets, who were quiet and powerful and only said what they thought needed to be said?

Apparently he can read her confusion, like a story written across her brown eyes, because he opens his mouth to continue. “I thought I wanted you to move on, because...well, I don’t know why. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I thought I was...helping you.”

“Helping me?” Her tone is a little indignant. “You think I need help?”

“No. No, I don’t,” he assures her softly, finally, reluctantly, looking down at his hands. He’s not wearing his wedding ring and her heart skips a beat. “It was me who needed the help. I...I was trying to help myself move on, I guess.”

“Move on?” She’s almost squeaking now, so confused and almost excited at what he’s telling her. “Really?”

“Really?” He looks up again, leans the tiniest bit closer to brush a wavy tendril from her face. “Sam...you have no idea how hard it’s been.”

Her voice is quiet when she speaks again. “I think I have some idea.”

The tension between them is rising again as his fingers linger on her cheek, an all too familiar sensation that she doesn’t ever want to forget. Slowly, deliberately, a finger traces the edge of her jaw, his gaze following its path, studying every inch of skin intently as if he’d never seen her before. She never felt more beautiful, she remembered now, than when she was looking at her like that. It made her feel glorious, worshipped, adored in ways she had never felt before. There is a look of pure concentration on his face, a look that tells her he is not to be interrupted from this task; his fingers pauses at her lips, and finally, finally, he looks up to meet her eyes.

Her breath stills in her throat.

“Samantha.” He speaks slowly, his words coming out softer than ever, something like lust lacing every syllable. “Do you...want to be with him?”

She doesn’t need to ask who he is talking about – she is shaking her head before she has even processed the question, unable to leave it unanswered. His lips twist back in to a tiny smile, his fingers slipping from her face to her delicate neck, tracing the contours of her skin before coming to a rest on her shoulder. There is a pause, a moment he gives her to say more; she doesn’t say a word.

“Samantha.” His eyes are closed now, and he leans forward to rest his forehead against hers, the weight of his words becoming too much for him. “I think...no. I don’t think. I know...that I’m in love with you.”

Her eyes close too, more to prevent the tears from falling than for any other reason, and she bites her lip. She doesn’t know how long she’s waited to hear those words, from anyone, from him, to her, but the very impact of them makes her heart ache.

“And...and I didn’t want – I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t want to admit that I had fallen for you.” His every breath hits her lips in an exquisite kiss as he speaks, and she thinks it’s almost as good as the real thing. “Loving you...I didn’t recognise the feelings in me. But you...you’re the one. You’re the one who brought them out in me, Sam.”

A tear escapes, painting a silent path down her cheek, and she can’t quite bring herself to open her eyes and look at him. She can tell he’s watching her again, his gaze closer to her than it has been for a while now. It’s a moment of intimacy that she had forgotten could even exist in her life.

“Say something.”

She forces her eyes open, and he lifts up his hand to gently wipe away the rogue tear from her skin – that act alone makes another droplet fall, identical to the last, weaving it’s way down her face with no regard for her desperate need to hide her tears. She hardly hears his murmur of “please, don’t cry” – it’s as if his words have stopped all life around her. The world has stopped spinning, and she is deaf to everything but the heavy thudding of her heart.

Then, listening to what her heart is telling her, she closes the gap between them and kisses him on the lips.

And neither of them has ever felt so complete.

“You know what?” she mumbles in to his kiss, her hands creeping up to his shoulders. “Things Difficult. And that’s something we need to work on.”

They are both quiet for a moment, and he nods painfully.

“But...I know that I’m in love with you too.”

He smiles, a soft smile, and holds her closer.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”