watfic: laws of motion
Jul. 10th, 2007 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizzy_copycatI'm waiting for part two of the feedback from my beta, but then I thought it would be weird to post a story here that had actually been beta'ed. It's, like, tradition that I post unbeta'ed fics here.
Now, I wrote this one AGES ago, back before Paris withdrew the appeal and went to jail and found God or whatever. Which is actually relevant, sort of.
TITLE: Laws of Motion
AUTHOR: Copycat (Lizzy)
E-MAIL: copycatfiction@gmail.com
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: Angst Closure
SPOILERS: Through theseries season finale.
SUMMARY: In which basic laws of science are abused and misinterpreted.
DISCLAIMER: I wouldn't even want them if you offered. I think.
I just really wanted to write another 2nd person story. Feel free to think I do it because I'm cooler than you. I'm also a masochist, which is why this one is SamPOV.
In my not at all humble opinion At Rest sucked some major ass. I think Jack alone sucked almost as much ass as the episode did. But I also think there's no getting around this pile of crap. It's there and we just have do deal with it the best way we can think of.
I'm not saying this is the best I can think of (although maybe it is), but I saw this really cool thing on National Geographic Channel this morning (Not this morning, obviously, because writing takes several days when you're as slow at it as I am), which in a pretty roundabout way landed me here. (Skipping stones and walking on water was involved. I suck at both.)
Oh, and science is cool. Don't let the other kids tell you it isn't.
There's an original version of this in which Sam is a lot less rational, but my brain just couldn't accept it, so I had to rewrite the whole thing. Now she's actually approaching something that doesn't give me a headache, so expect some OOC-ness.
+++
Lex 1: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.
Life is all about routines for you these days.
You wake up in the morning, shower, eat your breakfast while you dress, give your apartment a quick once-over to make sure everything is in order, and then you leave for work.
Routine.
You get there earlier than any of the others, make sure your paperwork is all in order and your desk is neat. You say good morning to other agents who show up early as well, all of them either smiling conspiratorially as if you're both in on the secret code of over achievers, or nodding in understanding because you are both suffering through these early mornings of too much work.
None of them grasp the fact that you aren't here because you want to or have to, you are here because you have no where else to be.
The silence at home is stifling, and it always makes you think too much, because you don't know what else to do.
At work there is always something to do, even if it is just looking up random people's DMV records.
You need to have something to do, and you need for life not to surprise you.
You wonder if maybe you should have joined the marines. “Always be prepared.” But then again, you don't know what it is they expect you to be prepared for, if it's just going off to war, or they teach you something you can actually apply to your personal life as well.
If it's just about always keeping a packed duffel bag in the trunk it isn't really any more useful than what you're doing now.
No amount of duffel bags could have prepared you for having to deal with Emily's disappearance and all its fallout.
And you can't put your memories in duffel bags and leave them in the trunk, either, so you decide that you really have no need for the marine corps and their duffel bags.
The downside to life being made up entirely of routines is that caring about anything becomes difficult.
Even things that aren't routine, like work, because no two cases are the same and you never do know what will happen next, you treat as if they are.
You tell yourself you know what will happen next and that you are ready for it.
It surprises you how often you are right.
Human nature really is a lot less fascinating than they made you think at Quantico.
Suspects are so predictable it's silly most of the time.
Their lies, their excuses, the way they try to escape.
When you know what they are going to say, listening to them actually saying it becomes very dull, and you know there are times that you are unable to hide that.
You try to get out of talking to the missing people's families as much as you can, because you realize your complete lack of interest in their misery makes you come off as unsympathetic, but you can't ask the others to take over for you when Jack asks you to talk to them in front of everybody, because then you would have to explain yourself, so you simply try to stay out of the way when it comes up.
It isn't just that you don't care, though. Feigning an interest isn't much harder than faking an orgasm, and you've had enough practice at both with men who talked about nothing but baseball and had sex as if it was the bottom of the ninth.
It's also them. Whether they care too much or not enough you resent them for it, because they remind you of your own family, either because they are better people than your mother or because they are just like her.
You prefer paperwork, and you volunteer for it as much as you are able to get away with without looking conspicuous.
The tediousness of it appeals to you, because as shocking as some people's cell phone habits might be, the task of looking through the records is as routine as anything gets.
A few times, you have even lied to get out of going to interview someone, walking up to one of the others and saying Jack had asked them to go, offering to go on with whatever they are working on at the moment.
So far you haven't been caught, probably because people are too relieved to ask any questions in case you change your mind.
Further proof of how easy it is to lie to people when they don't want to know the truth.
Sometimes you resent your teammates, too, for allowing themselves to be deceived just because it's convenient for them, but then you remember that you really don't want them to ask any questions and that you should be more grateful than disappointed that they don't.
You need them to not ask question in order to preserve your routine day.
If any of them knew how you really felt they would insist on doing something, and that something would most likely involve you taking time off from work, and that is the worst thing you can imagine happening.
All that time to yourself and nothing to do with it.
They would probably also insist that you talk to someone. Someone who listens professionally.
You don't want attention from people who are paid to give it. Preferably, you don't want any attention at all. You just want to go about your business and let the day pass until people go home for the night.
Unless there is a case dragging on into the night, you are almost always the last to leave the office.
Even Martin, who was once so meticulous about his paperwork, is usually out of there by six.
Only Jack sometimes stays later than you, but you have a feeling he doesn't even know you are still there. If he did, surely he would ask you why you hadn't gone home.
But that's just it: you don't go home.
Once it is finally late enough, you go out to eat, and then you always find an excuse to go to a bar.
You don't go there to get drunk, but sometimes you do anyway, and you don't go there to be picked up by guys, but sometimes that happens as well.
Although you don't know how the evening will play out when you sit down on the barstool, there is still a familiarity to the situation that allows you to feel as if it is routine, no matter what happens.
If men hit on you, you are more likely to give in to their attention than to refuse. Even if they bore you out of your skull, you appreciate the distraction and try to pay attention as they tell you more than you would ever want to know about their boring jobs.
Your only criteria is that they can't be married and you have to be able to look at them without cringing. If they are able to make you laugh it is only an added bonus.
But you never bring men home with you. You learned that lesson the hard way on the morning that Emily disappeared.
You won't give up control by letting them into your home without knowing when they will leave, so when they ask to see your apartment you tell them it's far away and you would much rather go to theirs.
That way you are free to leave afterwards, hail a cab and go home where you go straight to bed so you can get up the next morning and do it all over again.
+++
Lex II: Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressae, et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.
You wake up one morning with a strange and unnerving feeling that something is different. Not necessarily wrong or bad, but different.
It takes several days of walking around on edge to realize that the thing that has changed is you.
It hits you one morning when Jack is handing you someone's credit card information and asking you to check up on it. He makes a crack about reckless spending habits and you realize that he is no longer flirting with you.
You wonder briefly when he stopped but then decide that it doesn't really matter. You didn't notice when it began and you didn't notice when it ended, and there's a nice symmetry to that, as well as a satisfying feeling that you truly are over him.
You don't spend your days waiting for a compliment from him, your heart doesn't skip a beat if he smiles. In fact, it doesn't even register anymore when he does either.
But then you wonder why he stopped, and if it means he knows what is going on with you, even if he does a stellar job of pretending you've never been better (thanks to him).
And then, because the wall that used to separate your random thoughts from your sane ones seems to be breaking down, you ask him.
The look on his face almost makes it worth the embarrassment you inevitably feel about confronting him with this.
“What?” He stutters at last.
“Why have you stopped flirting with me?” You ask him again. It isn't an accusation and you can tell he doesn't take it as one, he is merely thrown off by your sudden candor.
He smiles, testing the waters, and sits down on the edge of your desk. “Do you want me to flirt with you?”
“No.” You shake your head. “I just wondered. Are you and Anne back together?”
The smile vanishes. “No. She transferred.” He pauses to emphasize the irony. “To Chicago.”
You grin in spite of yourself. “Chicago, home of the Bulls and Jack's disgruntled exes.”
He laughs briefly. “Don't go to Chicago, okay?” You aren't quite sure he's joking.
“I won't. I'm not disgruntled. Also, too windy.”
He reaches out to take your hand. “Thank you.”
You look down at how his thumb is caressing the back of your hand, mesmerized by the way there is no tingling sensation at all from the touch. “For what?”
“Not being 'disgruntled.' If anyone has a reason to be, it's you.”
You grimace. “Oh, I think Maria is pretty well covered there as well.”
“That's because you haven't seen the check she receives every month.” There is still some bitterness in his voice, but you know it has more to do with Hanna and Kate than it does with the money.
You don't see the need to tell him there's a reason she gets those checks, mostly because part of that reason is you, and so you opt for saying nothing.
“I think I was only doing it out of habit, and because you reciprocated,” he says suddenly and it takes you a while to connect the dots.
“Oh.”
He looks down at your hands, still entwined. “I'd like to say I realized it wasn't fair to you, and I didn't want to be leading you on, but I think it's closer to the truth to say I realized you were leading me on.”
You are as thrown off by his honesty as he was by your question and you wonder if turnabout is really fair play in Jack's book, with anyone. You wonder if there is an ulterior motive, because with him there almost always is. “I wasn't leading you on. I was just...” You hesitate, realizing you have no idea what you were doing, or even really that you were doing it at all.
He smiles as if he won the argument.
“You're the one who said I was stupid.” You feel all your pent up anger and frustration with him from how he acted with Emily's disappearance suddenly resurfacing and finally you pull your hand away from him. “You said we were a mistake.”
“You're not stupid, Sam, but we were a mistake.”
“Well, it was your mistake, too.” You no longer think back wistfully on your time together, but it makes you sad to think that all he sees your relationship as is a mistake.
“I know. And I'm sorry about that.”
You shake your head. “I'm not.”
“Is this where you tell me it was what we both needed at the time and it's all in the past?” He asks sarcastically.
“I don't have to. You just said it yourself.” You half-smile and he nods in defeat.
“Right.” He opens his mouth as if to say something else, but then closes it again, settling for just looking at you in a way that used to send shivers down your spine and make you think he could see all the way in to your soul.
Now you know he isn't seeing anything at all, and you can tell that he knows, too.
“Why did you stop flirting with me, then?” It is clearly a challenge.
“Because you stopped flirting with me.” It seems like an obvious answer.
He shakes his head. “No. That never stopped you in the past.”
You cross your arms in front of you, offended by what he said but well aware that it is true. Nothing ever kept you from flirting with him in the past. Not even his wife and two kids. “I don't know. I'm just sick and tired of playing games, I guess.”
He looks at you expectantly, clearly waiting for some epiphany you didn't have.
You suspect it is a residual need to always live up to his expectations that makes you say what you do. He wants a big declaration, so you give him one. “Sometimes I hate you. I don't want to, but I can't help myself.”
He is less shocked by your words than you are yourself. “But not disgruntled, huh?”
You want desperately to take it back. Not because it isn't true, but because you can't stand the thought of him knowing. But the way he is looking at you now, daring you to elaborate, makes you not want to apologize. “No. It's not like that. Maybe it's myself I hate and I'm just projecting.”
'Projecting' seems a very convenient explanation, but you're pretty sure the loathing you feel for Jack is only marginally related to your self-loathing. That came much earlier.
“You're allowed to hate me, Samantha. And I don't blame you for it. I treated you badly, but I can't change it.”
You sigh, frustrated that he doesn't understand. That he never understands. “No. I don't mean because of us. So we had an affair. Whatever. Because you always think you know what's best for me, and you really don't, but you just go ahead and make things that way anyway, because of some fucking misguided guilt.”
You're on a roll now, and when he opens his mouth to object, or explain, or make you see that he really is God and you should just be grateful he is there to save you, you go on quickly. “Like, with Emily and Joe Henry. You decided what would be best for me, and then you just put yourself in the middle of it all, and then it was impossible for me to make it right. I can't ever make things right now, Jack. And it's your fault. Because of you, I can't ever move on.”
You realize as you're saying it that until recently that was true with regards to your personal relationship as well, but you don't let him see the realization of it dawn on you, because then he will just think that he was right, and it's all about how you aren't over him.
“So basically you hate me for saving your ass?” You can tell that now he is offended.
“I hate you for not letting me save myself.”
He looks at you, startled, as if realizing for the first time that you might actually be able to. He reaches out to touch your cheek, brushing away tears that don't come and you lean into the touch, eyes closed, looking for a comfort you used to find there.
You feel the pressure of his hand change as he leans closer, and then the softness of his lips on your forehead.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers and walks away before you open your eyes.
For once you get the feeling that he actually means it.
+++
Lex III: Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
You are so engrossed in the article on Paris Hilton's jail sentence that you don't notice Martin's presence in the kitchen until you reach for the coffee pot and it isn't there.
You look up confused and see him holding up the empty pot and grinning. “Hi.”
Eying the empty pot with eyes narrowed in suspicion you don't smile back. “You took the last cup of coffee?”
Quickly but carefully he pushes his own full mug of steaming coffee out of your reach. “Sorry. I was just about to make a fresh pot.”
“Right.” Seeing him crane his neck to get a better look at the magazine in your hand you try to hide it behind your back, but it is too late.
“What are you reading?”
“An article on Californian State Law,” you tell him defiantly.
He snorts with suppressed laughter. “In Star Magazine?”
Defeated, you drop the magazine on the table and sit down. “Paris Hilton.”
“Ahh,” he says, almost managing to keep a straight face. “So what's the verdict? Is poor Paris going to the slammer?” The coffee machine splutters as he turns it on and then he sits down across from you, still holding his mug protectively.
“Not if her lawyer is worth the thousands of dollars she is probably throwing at him.”
He takes a sip of his coffee and smiles in satisfaction, but then looks instantly guilt-ridden. “Sorry. If I'd known you were coming, I would have saved some for you.”
You look at him through narrowed eyes. “You really would, wouldn't you?”
He frowns. “Of course I would,” he says, as if it should have been obvious, and you think maybe it should and you just don't get it.
It takes you by surprise when people are nice to you, which is why Martin never stopped surprising you and you could never be truly comfortable around him.
“How did you get to be such a nice guy?”
He laughs, thinking you're joking. “I was just raised that way, I guess.”
He says it like it's so simple, and it is now that you think about it. He was raised to be a nice guy, and you were raised to believe there was no such thing.
“I never really got it,” you say, only realizing when he asks you what you never got that you were thinking out loud.
“How a nice guy could want to be with me,” you explain and then add sardonically. “But then I guess you really didn't.”
He looks at you for a long time and you look back, trying to figure out what he is thinking. “Are you okay, Sam?”
“Yes,” you lie, convincingly you think. “Why wouldn't I be?”
He shrugs, still looking straight at you. “We never had this conversation. I was waiting for it for a while, but then I figured we just never would.” He smiles sadly. “I mean, why would we? We never talked about anything while we were together, so why start after we broke up, right?”
You turn away, wanting him to stop looking at you and he leans forward, resting his hand on yours, clutching the magazine. You look at your hands.
It's the same hand Jack held just a few days ago, and back then all you felt was the clammy coldness of his fingers, but now it's like your whole arm is on fire.
“What's going on, Sam?” He says it so softly and you want to cry and tell him everything, about Emily and Joe Henry and Jack and how everything is just all messed up and you hate yourself even more than you hate Jack or him or anyone. Even Joe Henry.
Instead, all you say is “Nothing,” because it's the only word you're able to push through your lips.
You know he doesn't believe you anymore and you're scared he will push you to say something, but instead he lets go of your hand and leans back in his seat, looking through the open door to the bullpen.
The silence stretches on and you wonder what he's thinking, but you can't bring yourself to look at him for a clue.
“It wasn't about me not wanting to be with you. I just needed more than what you were willing to give me.” He pauses, frowning, as if he's looking for the right words to explain. “We're just very different people, and we see relationships differently and I couldn't... I couldn't accept that, I guess.”
“You couldn't accept me,” you tell him, still looking away.
“No.” His admission startles you and you look up. “I loved you, and I wanted to be with you, and it just hurt too much to know you didn't feel like that about me.”
“You think I was just using you.” It isn't a question, because you already know the answer. You always knew the answer, you just never knew if he was right back then.
He nods. The coffee machine splutters as it spits out the last few drops of coffee and he gets up to pour a cup, which he hands to you before sitting back down. “It hurt to let you go, but I didn't really have a choice, because being with you like that hurt even more.”
You wonder how it is so easy for him to say these things, but then you realize that the NA meetings have probably given him a lot of practice. Or maybe it was always easy for him, and you just didn't know.
“It's not that I blame you or anything,” he assures you, a little late you think. “It's just that we're different.”
“I don't know how to be any other way,” you tell him, part of you wishing he will pull out some guide book that will teach you.
“And if you had been different, I probably wouldn't have been interested.” He smiles and waves an arm at you. “But then again, maybe I would.”
You smile back and take a large gulp of coffee.
“So what's really going on with you, Sam?”
You shrug. “Why would there be anything going on?”
“Because you would never start a conversation about our relationship if you weren't doing it to cover for something else that you don't want to talk about.”
“Last week I told Jack I hate him.”
He looks at you, dumbfounded. “Okay.”
“I'm not in love with him. And I wasn't in love with him when we were together.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “But you weren't in love with me either.” He says it matter-of-factly, with no resentment or disappointment.
You don't want to tell him the truth, because it wouldn't make a difference anyway, except it would be another chance for him to hurt you, but you can't lie to him, so you change the subject. “Did you ever regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Us. That it happened.”
He shifts in his seat, looking at the door and then at you and you want to tell him not to answer, you don't want to hear him say it. “I regret that I didn't try harder. I think I should have. I think you needed me to, and maybe it wasn't fair to just give up the way I did. I should have helped you, somehow.” He looks at you sadly. “Found a way to make you let me help you. Maybe then you wouldn't be walking around now as if your whole world is broken, telling Jack you hate him.”
You look at him in surprise and he smiles self-deprecatingly. “Twelve-Step Program. Some steps take a while to complete.”
But you know he isn't saying it because his sponsor told him to. You know he really does wish he had been able to help you, and that he still wants to do that now. And you think maybe now it's time you let him.
“I need to tell you something,” you say. “About when Emily disappeared...”
+++
I'm especially interested to know, does it seem weird for Martin to be so honest? My beta reader said it sort of does, but I'm having trouble coming up with something else.
Now, I wrote this one AGES ago, back before Paris withdrew the appeal and went to jail and found God or whatever. Which is actually relevant, sort of.
TITLE: Laws of Motion
AUTHOR: Copycat (Lizzy)
E-MAIL: copycatfiction@gmail.com
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: Angst Closure
SPOILERS: Through the
SUMMARY: In which basic laws of science are abused and misinterpreted.
DISCLAIMER: I wouldn't even want them if you offered. I think.
I just really wanted to write another 2nd person story. Feel free to think I do it because I'm cooler than you. I'm also a masochist, which is why this one is SamPOV.
In my not at all humble opinion At Rest sucked some major ass. I think Jack alone sucked almost as much ass as the episode did. But I also think there's no getting around this pile of crap. It's there and we just have do deal with it the best way we can think of.
I'm not saying this is the best I can think of (although maybe it is), but I saw this really cool thing on National Geographic Channel this morning (Not this morning, obviously, because writing takes several days when you're as slow at it as I am), which in a pretty roundabout way landed me here. (Skipping stones and walking on water was involved. I suck at both.)
Oh, and science is cool. Don't let the other kids tell you it isn't.
There's an original version of this in which Sam is a lot less rational, but my brain just couldn't accept it, so I had to rewrite the whole thing. Now she's actually approaching something that doesn't give me a headache, so expect some OOC-ness.
+++
Lex 1: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.
Life is all about routines for you these days.
You wake up in the morning, shower, eat your breakfast while you dress, give your apartment a quick once-over to make sure everything is in order, and then you leave for work.
Routine.
You get there earlier than any of the others, make sure your paperwork is all in order and your desk is neat. You say good morning to other agents who show up early as well, all of them either smiling conspiratorially as if you're both in on the secret code of over achievers, or nodding in understanding because you are both suffering through these early mornings of too much work.
None of them grasp the fact that you aren't here because you want to or have to, you are here because you have no where else to be.
The silence at home is stifling, and it always makes you think too much, because you don't know what else to do.
At work there is always something to do, even if it is just looking up random people's DMV records.
You need to have something to do, and you need for life not to surprise you.
You wonder if maybe you should have joined the marines. “Always be prepared.” But then again, you don't know what it is they expect you to be prepared for, if it's just going off to war, or they teach you something you can actually apply to your personal life as well.
If it's just about always keeping a packed duffel bag in the trunk it isn't really any more useful than what you're doing now.
No amount of duffel bags could have prepared you for having to deal with Emily's disappearance and all its fallout.
And you can't put your memories in duffel bags and leave them in the trunk, either, so you decide that you really have no need for the marine corps and their duffel bags.
The downside to life being made up entirely of routines is that caring about anything becomes difficult.
Even things that aren't routine, like work, because no two cases are the same and you never do know what will happen next, you treat as if they are.
You tell yourself you know what will happen next and that you are ready for it.
It surprises you how often you are right.
Human nature really is a lot less fascinating than they made you think at Quantico.
Suspects are so predictable it's silly most of the time.
Their lies, their excuses, the way they try to escape.
When you know what they are going to say, listening to them actually saying it becomes very dull, and you know there are times that you are unable to hide that.
You try to get out of talking to the missing people's families as much as you can, because you realize your complete lack of interest in their misery makes you come off as unsympathetic, but you can't ask the others to take over for you when Jack asks you to talk to them in front of everybody, because then you would have to explain yourself, so you simply try to stay out of the way when it comes up.
It isn't just that you don't care, though. Feigning an interest isn't much harder than faking an orgasm, and you've had enough practice at both with men who talked about nothing but baseball and had sex as if it was the bottom of the ninth.
It's also them. Whether they care too much or not enough you resent them for it, because they remind you of your own family, either because they are better people than your mother or because they are just like her.
You prefer paperwork, and you volunteer for it as much as you are able to get away with without looking conspicuous.
The tediousness of it appeals to you, because as shocking as some people's cell phone habits might be, the task of looking through the records is as routine as anything gets.
A few times, you have even lied to get out of going to interview someone, walking up to one of the others and saying Jack had asked them to go, offering to go on with whatever they are working on at the moment.
So far you haven't been caught, probably because people are too relieved to ask any questions in case you change your mind.
Further proof of how easy it is to lie to people when they don't want to know the truth.
Sometimes you resent your teammates, too, for allowing themselves to be deceived just because it's convenient for them, but then you remember that you really don't want them to ask any questions and that you should be more grateful than disappointed that they don't.
You need them to not ask question in order to preserve your routine day.
If any of them knew how you really felt they would insist on doing something, and that something would most likely involve you taking time off from work, and that is the worst thing you can imagine happening.
All that time to yourself and nothing to do with it.
They would probably also insist that you talk to someone. Someone who listens professionally.
You don't want attention from people who are paid to give it. Preferably, you don't want any attention at all. You just want to go about your business and let the day pass until people go home for the night.
Unless there is a case dragging on into the night, you are almost always the last to leave the office.
Even Martin, who was once so meticulous about his paperwork, is usually out of there by six.
Only Jack sometimes stays later than you, but you have a feeling he doesn't even know you are still there. If he did, surely he would ask you why you hadn't gone home.
But that's just it: you don't go home.
Once it is finally late enough, you go out to eat, and then you always find an excuse to go to a bar.
You don't go there to get drunk, but sometimes you do anyway, and you don't go there to be picked up by guys, but sometimes that happens as well.
Although you don't know how the evening will play out when you sit down on the barstool, there is still a familiarity to the situation that allows you to feel as if it is routine, no matter what happens.
If men hit on you, you are more likely to give in to their attention than to refuse. Even if they bore you out of your skull, you appreciate the distraction and try to pay attention as they tell you more than you would ever want to know about their boring jobs.
Your only criteria is that they can't be married and you have to be able to look at them without cringing. If they are able to make you laugh it is only an added bonus.
But you never bring men home with you. You learned that lesson the hard way on the morning that Emily disappeared.
You won't give up control by letting them into your home without knowing when they will leave, so when they ask to see your apartment you tell them it's far away and you would much rather go to theirs.
That way you are free to leave afterwards, hail a cab and go home where you go straight to bed so you can get up the next morning and do it all over again.
+++
Lex II: Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impressae, et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.
You wake up one morning with a strange and unnerving feeling that something is different. Not necessarily wrong or bad, but different.
It takes several days of walking around on edge to realize that the thing that has changed is you.
It hits you one morning when Jack is handing you someone's credit card information and asking you to check up on it. He makes a crack about reckless spending habits and you realize that he is no longer flirting with you.
You wonder briefly when he stopped but then decide that it doesn't really matter. You didn't notice when it began and you didn't notice when it ended, and there's a nice symmetry to that, as well as a satisfying feeling that you truly are over him.
You don't spend your days waiting for a compliment from him, your heart doesn't skip a beat if he smiles. In fact, it doesn't even register anymore when he does either.
But then you wonder why he stopped, and if it means he knows what is going on with you, even if he does a stellar job of pretending you've never been better (thanks to him).
And then, because the wall that used to separate your random thoughts from your sane ones seems to be breaking down, you ask him.
The look on his face almost makes it worth the embarrassment you inevitably feel about confronting him with this.
“What?” He stutters at last.
“Why have you stopped flirting with me?” You ask him again. It isn't an accusation and you can tell he doesn't take it as one, he is merely thrown off by your sudden candor.
He smiles, testing the waters, and sits down on the edge of your desk. “Do you want me to flirt with you?”
“No.” You shake your head. “I just wondered. Are you and Anne back together?”
The smile vanishes. “No. She transferred.” He pauses to emphasize the irony. “To Chicago.”
You grin in spite of yourself. “Chicago, home of the Bulls and Jack's disgruntled exes.”
He laughs briefly. “Don't go to Chicago, okay?” You aren't quite sure he's joking.
“I won't. I'm not disgruntled. Also, too windy.”
He reaches out to take your hand. “Thank you.”
You look down at how his thumb is caressing the back of your hand, mesmerized by the way there is no tingling sensation at all from the touch. “For what?”
“Not being 'disgruntled.' If anyone has a reason to be, it's you.”
You grimace. “Oh, I think Maria is pretty well covered there as well.”
“That's because you haven't seen the check she receives every month.” There is still some bitterness in his voice, but you know it has more to do with Hanna and Kate than it does with the money.
You don't see the need to tell him there's a reason she gets those checks, mostly because part of that reason is you, and so you opt for saying nothing.
“I think I was only doing it out of habit, and because you reciprocated,” he says suddenly and it takes you a while to connect the dots.
“Oh.”
He looks down at your hands, still entwined. “I'd like to say I realized it wasn't fair to you, and I didn't want to be leading you on, but I think it's closer to the truth to say I realized you were leading me on.”
You are as thrown off by his honesty as he was by your question and you wonder if turnabout is really fair play in Jack's book, with anyone. You wonder if there is an ulterior motive, because with him there almost always is. “I wasn't leading you on. I was just...” You hesitate, realizing you have no idea what you were doing, or even really that you were doing it at all.
He smiles as if he won the argument.
“You're the one who said I was stupid.” You feel all your pent up anger and frustration with him from how he acted with Emily's disappearance suddenly resurfacing and finally you pull your hand away from him. “You said we were a mistake.”
“You're not stupid, Sam, but we were a mistake.”
“Well, it was your mistake, too.” You no longer think back wistfully on your time together, but it makes you sad to think that all he sees your relationship as is a mistake.
“I know. And I'm sorry about that.”
You shake your head. “I'm not.”
“Is this where you tell me it was what we both needed at the time and it's all in the past?” He asks sarcastically.
“I don't have to. You just said it yourself.” You half-smile and he nods in defeat.
“Right.” He opens his mouth as if to say something else, but then closes it again, settling for just looking at you in a way that used to send shivers down your spine and make you think he could see all the way in to your soul.
Now you know he isn't seeing anything at all, and you can tell that he knows, too.
“Why did you stop flirting with me, then?” It is clearly a challenge.
“Because you stopped flirting with me.” It seems like an obvious answer.
He shakes his head. “No. That never stopped you in the past.”
You cross your arms in front of you, offended by what he said but well aware that it is true. Nothing ever kept you from flirting with him in the past. Not even his wife and two kids. “I don't know. I'm just sick and tired of playing games, I guess.”
He looks at you expectantly, clearly waiting for some epiphany you didn't have.
You suspect it is a residual need to always live up to his expectations that makes you say what you do. He wants a big declaration, so you give him one. “Sometimes I hate you. I don't want to, but I can't help myself.”
He is less shocked by your words than you are yourself. “But not disgruntled, huh?”
You want desperately to take it back. Not because it isn't true, but because you can't stand the thought of him knowing. But the way he is looking at you now, daring you to elaborate, makes you not want to apologize. “No. It's not like that. Maybe it's myself I hate and I'm just projecting.”
'Projecting' seems a very convenient explanation, but you're pretty sure the loathing you feel for Jack is only marginally related to your self-loathing. That came much earlier.
“You're allowed to hate me, Samantha. And I don't blame you for it. I treated you badly, but I can't change it.”
You sigh, frustrated that he doesn't understand. That he never understands. “No. I don't mean because of us. So we had an affair. Whatever. Because you always think you know what's best for me, and you really don't, but you just go ahead and make things that way anyway, because of some fucking misguided guilt.”
You're on a roll now, and when he opens his mouth to object, or explain, or make you see that he really is God and you should just be grateful he is there to save you, you go on quickly. “Like, with Emily and Joe Henry. You decided what would be best for me, and then you just put yourself in the middle of it all, and then it was impossible for me to make it right. I can't ever make things right now, Jack. And it's your fault. Because of you, I can't ever move on.”
You realize as you're saying it that until recently that was true with regards to your personal relationship as well, but you don't let him see the realization of it dawn on you, because then he will just think that he was right, and it's all about how you aren't over him.
“So basically you hate me for saving your ass?” You can tell that now he is offended.
“I hate you for not letting me save myself.”
He looks at you, startled, as if realizing for the first time that you might actually be able to. He reaches out to touch your cheek, brushing away tears that don't come and you lean into the touch, eyes closed, looking for a comfort you used to find there.
You feel the pressure of his hand change as he leans closer, and then the softness of his lips on your forehead.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers and walks away before you open your eyes.
For once you get the feeling that he actually means it.
+++
Lex III: Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
You are so engrossed in the article on Paris Hilton's jail sentence that you don't notice Martin's presence in the kitchen until you reach for the coffee pot and it isn't there.
You look up confused and see him holding up the empty pot and grinning. “Hi.”
Eying the empty pot with eyes narrowed in suspicion you don't smile back. “You took the last cup of coffee?”
Quickly but carefully he pushes his own full mug of steaming coffee out of your reach. “Sorry. I was just about to make a fresh pot.”
“Right.” Seeing him crane his neck to get a better look at the magazine in your hand you try to hide it behind your back, but it is too late.
“What are you reading?”
“An article on Californian State Law,” you tell him defiantly.
He snorts with suppressed laughter. “In Star Magazine?”
Defeated, you drop the magazine on the table and sit down. “Paris Hilton.”
“Ahh,” he says, almost managing to keep a straight face. “So what's the verdict? Is poor Paris going to the slammer?” The coffee machine splutters as he turns it on and then he sits down across from you, still holding his mug protectively.
“Not if her lawyer is worth the thousands of dollars she is probably throwing at him.”
He takes a sip of his coffee and smiles in satisfaction, but then looks instantly guilt-ridden. “Sorry. If I'd known you were coming, I would have saved some for you.”
You look at him through narrowed eyes. “You really would, wouldn't you?”
He frowns. “Of course I would,” he says, as if it should have been obvious, and you think maybe it should and you just don't get it.
It takes you by surprise when people are nice to you, which is why Martin never stopped surprising you and you could never be truly comfortable around him.
“How did you get to be such a nice guy?”
He laughs, thinking you're joking. “I was just raised that way, I guess.”
He says it like it's so simple, and it is now that you think about it. He was raised to be a nice guy, and you were raised to believe there was no such thing.
“I never really got it,” you say, only realizing when he asks you what you never got that you were thinking out loud.
“How a nice guy could want to be with me,” you explain and then add sardonically. “But then I guess you really didn't.”
He looks at you for a long time and you look back, trying to figure out what he is thinking. “Are you okay, Sam?”
“Yes,” you lie, convincingly you think. “Why wouldn't I be?”
He shrugs, still looking straight at you. “We never had this conversation. I was waiting for it for a while, but then I figured we just never would.” He smiles sadly. “I mean, why would we? We never talked about anything while we were together, so why start after we broke up, right?”
You turn away, wanting him to stop looking at you and he leans forward, resting his hand on yours, clutching the magazine. You look at your hands.
It's the same hand Jack held just a few days ago, and back then all you felt was the clammy coldness of his fingers, but now it's like your whole arm is on fire.
“What's going on, Sam?” He says it so softly and you want to cry and tell him everything, about Emily and Joe Henry and Jack and how everything is just all messed up and you hate yourself even more than you hate Jack or him or anyone. Even Joe Henry.
Instead, all you say is “Nothing,” because it's the only word you're able to push through your lips.
You know he doesn't believe you anymore and you're scared he will push you to say something, but instead he lets go of your hand and leans back in his seat, looking through the open door to the bullpen.
The silence stretches on and you wonder what he's thinking, but you can't bring yourself to look at him for a clue.
“It wasn't about me not wanting to be with you. I just needed more than what you were willing to give me.” He pauses, frowning, as if he's looking for the right words to explain. “We're just very different people, and we see relationships differently and I couldn't... I couldn't accept that, I guess.”
“You couldn't accept me,” you tell him, still looking away.
“No.” His admission startles you and you look up. “I loved you, and I wanted to be with you, and it just hurt too much to know you didn't feel like that about me.”
“You think I was just using you.” It isn't a question, because you already know the answer. You always knew the answer, you just never knew if he was right back then.
He nods. The coffee machine splutters as it spits out the last few drops of coffee and he gets up to pour a cup, which he hands to you before sitting back down. “It hurt to let you go, but I didn't really have a choice, because being with you like that hurt even more.”
You wonder how it is so easy for him to say these things, but then you realize that the NA meetings have probably given him a lot of practice. Or maybe it was always easy for him, and you just didn't know.
“It's not that I blame you or anything,” he assures you, a little late you think. “It's just that we're different.”
“I don't know how to be any other way,” you tell him, part of you wishing he will pull out some guide book that will teach you.
“And if you had been different, I probably wouldn't have been interested.” He smiles and waves an arm at you. “But then again, maybe I would.”
You smile back and take a large gulp of coffee.
“So what's really going on with you, Sam?”
You shrug. “Why would there be anything going on?”
“Because you would never start a conversation about our relationship if you weren't doing it to cover for something else that you don't want to talk about.”
“Last week I told Jack I hate him.”
He looks at you, dumbfounded. “Okay.”
“I'm not in love with him. And I wasn't in love with him when we were together.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “But you weren't in love with me either.” He says it matter-of-factly, with no resentment or disappointment.
You don't want to tell him the truth, because it wouldn't make a difference anyway, except it would be another chance for him to hurt you, but you can't lie to him, so you change the subject. “Did you ever regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Us. That it happened.”
He shifts in his seat, looking at the door and then at you and you want to tell him not to answer, you don't want to hear him say it. “I regret that I didn't try harder. I think I should have. I think you needed me to, and maybe it wasn't fair to just give up the way I did. I should have helped you, somehow.” He looks at you sadly. “Found a way to make you let me help you. Maybe then you wouldn't be walking around now as if your whole world is broken, telling Jack you hate him.”
You look at him in surprise and he smiles self-deprecatingly. “Twelve-Step Program. Some steps take a while to complete.”
But you know he isn't saying it because his sponsor told him to. You know he really does wish he had been able to help you, and that he still wants to do that now. And you think maybe now it's time you let him.
“I need to tell you something,” you say. “About when Emily disappeared...”
+++
I'm especially interested to know, does it seem weird for Martin to be so honest? My beta reader said it sort of does, but I'm having trouble coming up with something else.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-19 05:42 am (UTC)anyway, you're still an awesome writer, and i hope you give us more of this soon - there is a shortage of great m/s fic out there. given the horrible prospects ahead, those of us who remain fans (of the older seasons - heh!) really need any form of lucid pick me up with real character growth and logical plot progressions.
if you need anything reviewed, etc., you know where to find me!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 12:13 pm (UTC)To be honest, I've pretty much lost interest in WaT, and while I do drop by Destined occasionally, I haven't read or written any fanfiction for a long time. Part of the reason I posted this fic here was so that it was done, and I could stop thinking about it anymore.
It may be that when the Pottermadness has cooled down some, and I find myself in need of something to entertain my mind with as I do the dishes or work out, I will come back to Sam and Martin, because I don't really have any other ships sailing at the moment, but I don't know. I have no intentions of watching S6, anyway, so there won't be anything new to inspire me. (Or depress me, which seems more likely...)
Anyway, I'm glad to see you on LJ. Beware of the addiction. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 12:43 pm (UTC)