A new one-shot from me, heard Broken Strings for the first time last night and immediately I was motivated to write this. It was the first time in such a long time that the muse had come back and worked so well. It was two and a half hours of wonderful writing!
For the purposes of this Sam and Phil began a relationship after he had left for Specialist Projects and they have been together for a little over two years.
For all the people who have ever reviewed any of my work, I promise that 2010 will bring me back to fanfiction land!
Also thanks so much for beta-ing this Gemma, and for giving me so many things of yours to read this year!
Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

Broken Strings
SaMaNdPhiL4eVeR

Let me hold you
For the last time
It's the last chance to feel again
But you broke me
Now I can't feel anything

As her head sunk into his familiar chest, she could almost forget that her suitcase was packed in the hallway and that she was leaving the home that they had shared for the last two years. She felt his familiar lips kiss the top of her head and she wanted to stay, she wanted to feel something. But all she could feel at this moment was nothing, just a blank emptiness. Same as it had been since she heard "her" voice on the answering machine last night, the other woman. He had promised he had changed for her, promised that his charming women days were long over, but one stag night had ended it all. Sam had no more tears left, she had already cried them all, she had broken him once a long time ago, but this time he had broken her.

When I love you
It's so untrue
I can't even convince myself
When I'm speaking
It's the voice of someone else

She went to move away from him, before she couldn't, before she couldn't leave him, but he still held her tightly.
"Sam, please you can't leave it like this. I am so sorry. She meant nothing, it was a mistake, one drunken mistake."
"I don't care if you were drunk Phil. You cheated, end of. This is over." She managed to reply, slipping her hands under his, pushing him away. Her voice sounds strange, even to her own ears, she sounds odd and distant, as if it isn't her saying those words. But inside she knows that they are her words, her words she never wanted to say to him. After all that they had been through, Sam thought that love was enough to keep her and Phil together, what a lie that had been.

Oh it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay

"I love you Sam, you know that." Phil calls after her as she heads down the hallway towards her suitcase.
"I thought you did too." Sam whispers quietly, as her keys slip through her fingers, falling to the floor, and as she bends over to pick them up, he is there and he hands them to her. Sam takes the keys, removing the one key that she needs for her car, this is the only key she needs now. "I don't need these Phil." She manages to say, the keys falling through her fingers again, and landing once more on the carpet at her feet. This time he doesn't pick them up, he leaves them there and watches as she pulls open the front door, stepping out into the cold Winter air, slamming the door behind her.

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

She doesn't even make it to her car, before the tears that she thought were gone, come back with a vengeance. The one relationship that she thought she could be successful in had broken, same as her heart. Phil Hunter had broken her heart, something she had once told him that she would never survive and now her heart only wanted to feel pain, and pain was all she felt. Her small frame struggled under the weight of her heaving suitcase, the slippery concrete which had gathered the first flakes of snow didn't help, with one last thrust of energy, she pushed the suitcase into the backseat of the car, before climbing into the driver's seat. She glared out into the road, there was nowhere else to go, she wanted yesterday back, when her relationship and her heart wasn't broken.

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before

Sam had known that something had happened a month ago at that stag party, Phil had been distant from her since. He claimed it was because of work, because of his new DCI who had apparently been continually giving him the toughest assignments, as a test of his character. The truth of the matter was he couldn't look at her because he knew he had let her down, the truth being that he had slept with some woman from behind the bar, in the toilets of the club which he and his friends were drinking in. That truth hurt Sam, it felt as if she had been stabbed through her stomach and her insides were on display for everyone to see, but it just wasn't the truth that made her stomach gnaw away at her, it was the lies, each one of them carefully constructed to try and hide the truth. It wasn't just one lie, there had been several over the past four weeks, some of them more innocent than the other. Until the lies couldn't save her from knowing the truth and instead of the feeling of love that she usually reserved for Phil, some of it had been replaced with the long forgotten feeling of hate.

Oh what are we doing
We are turning into dust
Playing house in the ruins of us

Sam wiped a tear that had began to run down her cheek, and turned to look back at the house she and Phil had called home, together. Two years they had lived there with one another, a beacon of safety it had been, for Sam, for her daughter and grandson and even his son and daughter who had spent time with their father and the woman that both of them had come to call Step Sam. Sam couldn't believe that that was all gone now, banished to the past, disappeared like the dusty snowflakes melting on the bonnet of her car. What had she been doing with Phil? They had all warned her, warned her that a leopard never changed its spots and she had been so eager to cast their doubts aside. Now she just felt lost and stupid, stupid and lost.

Running back through the fire
When there's nothing left to say
It's like chasing the very last train
When it's too late

As she began to turn back away from the house, she caught sight of him. He was standing in the alcove of the window, watching her. It was too far to see the features of his face, features she had once thought as endearing and that she was pleased about. For if he was upset she would never be able to drive away, she had always been there to pick up the pieces of the mess he had made with other women, but she couldn't pick up the pieces of their relationship, it seemed it was too late.

Oh it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay

All night and all day today all Sam had thought of was what she was doing to do next. Early in the morning she had slipped from the spare room in which she had stormed to late last night and telephoned the station, pretending to be sick. Her voice was barely above a whisper, a consequence of far too much emotion during the night, therefore her DCI had believed that she was genuinely ill and told her not to leave her bed. She had heard Phil shower and eat his breakfast before he left their house at the usual time and it was then that she managed to make her way downstairs. He hadn't left her a note as he usually did and it was then that she knew that he knew for sure that this fight was different to any of the others they had had before. The others had been petty, stupid disagreements, usually about the toothpaste, or lack of, or sometimes about him leaving his wet towel on the bed. They were nothing compared to this, this was completely different. When she had made it downstairs everything looked as it should, as if nothing had changed, but Sam knew that it had. As her eyes took in the myriad of photos of the two of them and their families that adorned the small walls of the house, she knew that she had two choices. She could pretend as if nothing had happened and hold tightly on to what she and Phil shared, and try and forgive him or she could leave. Pretending would hurt her, she knew that, she knew that each time he said something odd, or gave someone an odd look, she would be thinking that he was once again screwing another woman and as for forgiveness Sam had never been able to manage it, it wasn't enough just to forgive, she would have to forget and that meant she had to leave.

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

He was still there when Sam's attention was snapped from her past day to the present, to the coldness of her car, to the reality of her situation. He had still cheated and her decision had been made to leave, her suitcase had been packed by the time he returned home. He hadn't mentioned it as he made his way into the kitchen, he had known that the relationship had been damaged, damaged by his actions.

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before

She hadn't lied to him, she hadn't spared him from any of the anger she had been feeling. Even if he hadn't told her the truth, she had told him. By the end of her speech, she could see that he knew how much he had hurt her.

But we're running through the fire
When there's nothing left to say
It's like chasing the very last train
When we both know it's too late

He had tried to talk to her, tried to convince her that their relationship was worth saving, was worth fighting for. But eventually he had given up and the two of them had ended up on opposite sides of the kitchen, distance in between them physically and distance in between them emotionally, there had been nothing left to say, it was too late to save their relationship.

You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that aint real

Sam knew that she would feel this aching pain for a long time to come, she had given her heart to Phil and in one drunken blunder he had broken it. The relationship which she had thought was real and true, was now just another ex on Sam's disastrous dating radar.

Oh the truth hurts
And lies worse
I can't like it anymore
And I love you a little less than before
Oh and I love you a little less than before

Sam took a deep breath as she finally managed to turn the ignition on in the car, the engine spluttered before groaning as it choked its way into the on position fighting against the cold air. She flicked at the heater, shaking her hands in front of the vent, squeezing her fingers together, her hands were so cold she could barely manage to grip the wheel. Eventually movement returned and she was able to move each of her fingers, it was then that she placed one hand on the wheel and the other pushed the car into gear, before releasing the handbrake. It was then as she went to pull away from the curb that she took one last look towards the house, and towards the window where Phil had been standing only a moment before. She blinked slowly as her eyes focused and she realised that he was gone, the curtain which the two of them had hung together was still, not moving at all. She sniffled, that seemed a fitting ending, she was leaving and he couldn't watch her go, she didn't know what that meant, whether that meant he was glad that she had left and was plotting to go back to his old ways or that he just couldn't watch her leave and that maybe he still loved her as he had told her. She hoped it was the latter, even though her heart had been broken, love like what she and Phil had shared didn't disappear with a click of her fingers, it had just been dulled, replaced by anger. It was then that there was a thump on the windscreen and it startled Sam from her thoughts once more, it was him, Phil standing by the car, in only his light shirt, shivering with cold.

Let me hold you for the last time
It's the last chance to feel again

His hand waved at her, pleading with her to turn the car off and join him in the middle of the road. Her head didn't want to, she didn't want to be drawn to him once again, she wanted to keep driving, but she just couldn't do it. Her shaking hand replaced the car's gears into park, pulled the handbrake on, and switched the ignition off. Slowly she climbed from the car, before she closed the door and then leant against it, watching him through slightly blurred eyes.
"You can't leave like this Sam. I know I broke my promise, I know I was stupid and weak and never should have lied to save myself, but I did it because I knew that you would leave." Phil tells her, his voice agonisingly calm, as if he has practiced this speech for the last ten minutes as he was watching her.
"I don't think I can trust you Phil. How can I know that you won't do something like this again?" Sam asks him, her voice by contrast is wavering between the emotions of anger and sadness.
"Sam, we know nothing for certain. We never even knew for certain that we would ever have any sort of relationship. But for over two years we did, and I am not lying until last month I was completely and totally faithful to you. I did change." Phil replies, his body moving closer to hers, one of his hands snaking up her arm.
Sam does not move away, she knows that he is telling her the truth now, she knows that in her heart, but her head is screaming at her not to believe him, not to let herself fall once more. "Phil, I don't," she begins, before she doesn't know what to say, Phil takes advantage of her silence and once more pulls her back into his arms. She sinks back into his chest, her arms wrapping around him as they have done a thousand times before, it is a force of habit, an impulse she does without thinking. There in his arms, another tear makes its escape from the corner of her eye, there is still something there between the two of them, she feels something holding her here. But she pulls away defiantly, there is something there, but he hurt her, and perhaps the feeling she is feeling is sadness, sadness that he broke what was between them. She pushes him away, finally finding her voice, small, but still full of resolution, "We are over Phil." It is with that sentence that he steps back further from her and she takes the extra second he is using to process his reaction to climb back into the car, this time she does not look anywhere other than the road ahead. He hurt her, he broke her, and right now she cannot even imagine how they begin to fix it.

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Merry Christmas everyone :)