Star-cross'd

Disclaimer: Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern own it! - the geniuses who came up with such brilliant finale!

:: Omigod. The episode was so intense and I loved every second of it. What happened with Ed was very unfortunate, but we know he's going to be okay. I mean, it's Ed Lane we're talking about! I think this is probably the fastest story I've ever whipped out, but what can I say? The episode is highly inspiring.

:: Thanks to my beta, psycochick32. You're awesome.

Ramsey Ridge Apt.
1558 Jane St Toronto
Room 1008

Sam couldn't bring his eyes away from Jules, sitting at the far end of the couch and looking like she was sixteen once again and waiting for detention to be over in the principal's office. Fingers threaded together on her lap, she had managed to flash the tiniest smile his way, he'd suspected, to reassure him and herself that everything was fine. The tense set of her shoulders, however, was a dead give-away.

If he didn't know any better, he would think that Jules was afraid of him.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell him that the forecast for his team didn't look all that bright and beautiful.

Guess Toth earned his reputation, alright.

The silence couldn't be ignored any longer.

"How about a drink?" Sam offered, finally making the first move to slice through the thick, lingering silence. He half-wished that the stereo was on, then maybe things wouldn't be so… quiet. "I think I have orange juice in the fridge. Tea, maybe? Coffee? Beer?" The sun's still up and above, but today called for some unconventional afternoon beverages.

Jules blinked, startled, and his eyes might have deceived him, but he swore he saw a brief bit of relief flash across her face. Her lips pursed into a tight smile. "Water will be fine. Thanks."

Sam heaved himself up from the recliner and padded barefooted to the small kitchen, secretly feeling grateful himself for the reprieve. He opened the top cabinet, and if his mind hadn't been so preoccupied, he would have realized that he was automatically reaching for a blue ceramic mug.

What is she doing here? Is she really here? But why would she come here, of all places?

Why me? Why now?

He glanced back to the living room and saw that she had taken the liberty to snag his abandoned magazine. She was turning the pages too fast to be really reading, but then again, in spite of having grown up with four brothers, hockey was one of his things that didn't pique her interest. She was absently fiddling with her hair and the vulnerable sight put a smile on his face.

As badass as she was in uniform, once the shift was over she wouldn't think twice before dressing up. Feminine clothing, kitten heels, chandelier earrings, curls… Now all decked up in dark blue sundress and white cardigan, she definitely wasn't the poster child for the stereotypical lady sniper.

"Here." Sam handed her the mug and the corner of her lips curled into a lop-sided smile. The barely-there grin was all it took to trigger his memory. "I didn't realize I grabbed it. Reflex, I guess." He quickly covered before retreating back to his seat. The temptation to make himself comfortable next to her was strong, but he decided to give her some space. God knows she looked like she needed it. And you too, Sam. Coward.

"I didn't think you'd keep it," Jules remarked meekly, eying the mug closely. It had been hers when they had been dating; a simple blue -or Santorini, as he'd enjoyed teasing her once upon a time- mug with a huge cursive J initial.

Somewhere in the same cabinet, an identical mug with a different initial resided... had been since the break-up two years prior. Dating his fellow teammate and sneaking behind everybody's back could be considered as a form of therapy, in a way. Going out in a traditional date without having to worry about meeting someone they knew had almost never happened and Jules being Jules, she'd have rather spent the evening at home than being out there; exposed like two sitting ducks.

All things considered, he'd reckoned that getting a couple mugs set was one of the few little things he'd hoped could give the relationship a sense of normalcy. That, and it had certainly come handy on several occasions Jules'd spent the night there. "I don't throw away stuff; you know that."

The following pregnant pause wasn't as lengthy as the first, but it still made both of them uncomfortable. Jules cupped the mug tighter, looking down at the water as she collected her thoughts.

What was she doing here? She had been at home, convinced she'd be happy watching Grey's episodes like her life hadn't been drama-packed enough. An hour later, she would have eaten left-over Chinese... okay, getting a good night's sleep was a wistful thought, but she could have turned in early anyway. The schedule wasn't the most enchanting ever, but it was a plan nevertheless. She definitely hadn't planned to grab her keys and drive to Sam's apartment.

Much to her surprise, she still remembered the route to his place like the back of her hand.

Standing in front of his door, the mounting anxiety finally reached its peak and she rapped the door before she changed her mind

She hoped he was home. She hoped he wasn't.

Her heart was screaming at her and commanding every cell of her body to turn around and leave because she would regret this later when the dust had finally settled, but her feet had felt like lead. Then she heard him ask whomever at the door to wait and seconds later, there he was. In the flesh.

His face turned sheet white, like he had seen a ghost.

"I honestly don't know why I came," she said, taking her turn to break the silence. Well, she knew why she came, but she didn't think she was ready to admit it, even to herself. "God, talking about awkward."

"I'm kind of glad that you stopped by. We have had a pretty long day. I could use a friend." Sam answered. The surprise and shock were still mapped all over his face, sure, but he was being honest.

"Today was just so messed up, you know? I don't really know what to think." She rubbed her eyes tiredly. Messed up? She's being polite. Fucked up was more like it.

Moments later she felt the spot next to her sink down and a warm hand begin to rub her back up and down. When she brought her hands down, she found that Sam had moved to sit on the couch with her. The unexpected touch sent shivers and wonderful tingles down her spine and as always, the combination thrilled and scared her.

"I know how much the team means to you, Jules." He was talking in that same gentle tone she was so familiar with. There was a very small amount of hurt, but its presence was clear. "And now some guy waltzed in and threatened to ruin that. Toth surely had got to us, didn't he?"

Jules chuckled bitterly. That's probably the understatement of the year. "Spike and Wordy were obviously in the middle of a cold war of some kind, and Ed looked very close to head-butting Sarge." In a different situation, she might have found the imagery comical - hilarious even, the two famous hairless men from her team head-butting each other, but this was no joke or locker room prank.

"And he had-" She bit her lip, glancing away from his imploring eyes. Those damn blue eyes. And he had brought forth some buried feelings that certainly had no business to reappear, ever again.

"It's gonna be okay," Sam assured and wrapped a rigid arm around her shoulder. He didn't sound very convincing to her, and he knew it. "I don't know how, but it will be fine... one way or another."

Sam had left lots of distance between them, but the friendly, innocent gesture was her undoing. It was just so very easy to let her guard down and rest her head against his chest as she finally eliminated the space between them.

She couldn't even describe the whirlwind of emotions coursing through her body at the moment, but one word stood out from the rest, glaring and seeking for her attention.

Home.

His heart was beating in steady, strong rhythms under her ear and it was a lullaby to her weary soul. She was just so tired. Tired of running. Tired of lying to herself. Tired of hurting. Tired of being tired.

For all she cared, Dr. Larry Toth and his PhD in Shitology could go straight to hell . Who the hell did he think she was? A mentally unstable young rookie who took immense pleasure fucking around the rules because having a forbidden relationship was fucking romantic?

"You can't imagine just how often I wish you never joined the team." There was no mistaking the accusation in her voice. His body stiffened underneath her cheek and the calloused hand caressing her back in soothing circles momentarily stopped before going on with the same gentle stroke. "Everything was alright... but no, you just had to come and burst that wonderful bubble. Before, all I had to think about was how to answer the typical questions. 'How does it feel to be the only female officer in your team?', 'do they treat you any different? Do you feel inadequate compared to the other gentlemen?', but no, not this time. You happened."

"Jules, I never meant to jeopardize your career. But fact is fact. We're colleagues now. Doesn't matter what they think, it's the truth. They'd better suck it up and accept it sooner rather than later." His chest rumbled as he spoke, vibrating against her ear.

Did he realize that she was talking beyond the importance of being in Team One? That it was her sanity that she was gambling here?

Jules took some time to look around his newly rearranged apartment. She noticed that he had replaced the box he'd lovingly called a TV with a 32-inch plasma Samsung. The unattractive painting of the mountain lake from his sister was still hanging by the door and aside from the additional bookshelf, the place hadn't changed all that much. It even still smelled the same; a whiff of sandalwood and Sam's Polo cologne.

Never one to take herself as a fool, she was aware that Sam still carried some feelings for her. She wouldn't start flattering herself by saying that it was romantic sentiments, but he still cared for her. Of that she had no doubt. Sometimes he'd appear like he wanted to say something, lots of things... yet he never did.

She hoped he would; she wanted him to say something.

"How about," Jules heard herself talking - no more than a whisper, but to her credit, her voice wasn't wavering, "we play a word-association game?"

"Okay."

"No thinking, and we must not lie."

"I thought that was the fundamental rule?"

She chose not to answer. "Can I start first?"

"Of course."

"Sand."

"Nature."

"Laughter."

"Children."

"Gun."

"Scorpio."

"Sports."

"Canucks." He didn't need to see her face to sense the eye-rolling.

"Ed Lane."

"Chillax."

Her shoulders were shaking as she tried to smother her laughter. "Rookie Rules number one: The boss is always right. Number two, if you disagree, please look back at rule number 1. You should see him when he's three sheets to the wind. Priceless."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but my rookie days are behind me." God, but how he missed it sometimes. Everything had seemed to be so simple. Lew was still alive; there was no landmine severing his envy-worthy friendship with Spike. The team was still intact and Sam's concern of the day was to convince Jules to grab some burritos with him.

Good times.

"Killjoy. Fruit?"

"Mango."

Jules let out a cute little snort that invited a matching one to his face. What could he say? She was pressed up against him, smelling of jasmine and lavender the way he fondly remembered. There's no way he'd forget all those mornings she'd sweet-talked him to drink her special recipe.

"Let it go, Sam," she scolded half-teasingly. "They're just mangoes."

"Not everyone is a fan of protein smoothies, Jules. You let it go." Huddling up with her and bantering back and forth the way they were now, it was difficult not to let the old bittersweet memories run high. It was too easy to fall back to the old routines and the idea was disconcerting, to say the least.

Especially now that Jules was with someone else.

Someone from her past. Someone who most likely had stick long enough before to know her better than he ever had the chance to... probably friends of her brothers, too. For obvious reasons, he'd never directly asked her about Steve, but from the bits he'd heard from the team he gathered that they went way back. Jewels of the prairie.

To make Jules Callaghan get all smitten like that… and remember what you had to do to crack a single smile out of her? All Steve did was being there and she turned to a pile of jewels. Pun intended.

He would be lying through his teeth if he said it didn't hurt.

"Do you hate me?"

Do you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sam?

How did it feel, seeing her shot?

Would you have continued the relationship secretly if you could?

The question threw him.

"Did you hate me, Sam, for ending our relationship?" Jules repeated, although he'd heard it crystal clear the first time. Her beautiful face contorted in anguish and she fisted the fabric of her dress in each hand. He wouldn't say she's avoiding his eyes, but it sadly looked that way. "Did you, do you blame me for that?"

"Jules, I understood where you were coming from. You worked your way up too hard for anybody to ruin that."

"That's deflection, Sam. You're dodging the question."

Stubborn Jules. Couldn't say that he missed that part. "Even when we were seeing each other, I guess I sort of knew that the relationship wouldn't last. I hoped it would, but there's a part of me that was waiting for that day to come. I won't say it didn't hurt, Jules, but I have moved passed it." Had he, really? Sam laughed wistfully. "And God helped me, I wanted to hate you. I figured that blaming you would ease the hurt, somehow. I tried and I failed. At the end it only served to make me feel like a jackass."

"I sense a heavy stress reaction here," Jules pointed out, listening to the rapid rhythm of his heart. She had had her fair share of restless nights, and the long list of what-could've-beens was the icing on the cake. "Your heart is beating a mile a minute."

"Is yours?"

She shifted until they were on the same eye level; faces only inches apart so that his warm breath fanned her face, still tinged with the familiar scent of mint. "Sometimes I told myself that I couldn't do this anymore. I needed to do something, anything, to set me free. Steve was good to me, for me. Too good, actually."

"Jules..."

"He loved me enough for me to pretend that he's the one I wanted to be with," she insisted. She had tried picturing herself 10 years from now, happily married with two kids and a cat simply because Steve adored cats.

She couldn't. And she was always a dog kind of person.

Sam's frown said it all. "But I thought-"

"Steve and I are no longer together," Jules explained slowly, giving him time to digest the new information. Sam looked so stunned that a chuckle escaped her lips. "It was a mutual decision, but we're still friends," she added as though it automatically justified everything.

Chewing her lips, Jules let her memories take her back to the interview earlier that day. Toth had really torn her a new one with the 20 Sam Braddock-related questions. She hadn't the slightest idea how everything would fold out; whether she still held a spot in the team or if Toth had concluded that she was emotionally unbalanced.

And for once, she didn't really give a damn. If anything, today had made her see.

Jules run her fingers through his neat blond locks like she used to do. It amused her a great deal when his lids involuntarily fluttered closed and a cross between a growl and a purr rumbled through his chest. Some things didn't change. "You were like an itch that I couldn't reach, like a plague. I desperately wanted you to leave me alone, badly, but wherever I ran, I kept hitting the same brick walls. Do you have any idea how scary it was for me?"

It's either black or white. She hated to be standing in the shade of gray. She let him go once, and as far as she was concerned, he needed to stay away.

"I'm sorr-"

"Don't," Jules warned, poking his chest with a slender finger. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."

Goose bumps formed on her skin when Sam traced his hands over her arms, shoulders and stopped to gently cradle her face. The intensity and passion burning in his eyes was holding hers captive and she couldn't have looked away even if she'd tried. Somewhere from the hallway she heard a child crying for his mom.

"Do you still love me, Jules?"

Did you fight to keep him close for personal reasons?

Did you know the risks to the team?

Would you break the priority of life code to save the life of Sam Braddock?

"I-"

Rrrrrrrr!

The sudden ringing of the phone jolted her out of her trance. Sam exhaled profoundly, clearly unhappy with the interruption.

Meanwhile, the phone kept ringing, relentlessly begging for one of them to pick up.

Swallowing hard, Jules scrambled off his lap. It felt ridiculously lonely without him near. "I guess you should probably get that."

Wordlessly, Sam got to his feet and picked up the cordless phone laying on the kitchen counter. Jules clasped her hands over her mouth as new-found emotion overwhelmed her like a tidal wave. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She had wanted him to say something, but never that.

But wasn't that why you came, Jules? To finally give up the ghost and face the elephant in the room?

"Jules, we have to leave. Now!" Sam literally dashed back to the living room, the phone still clutched in his hand. She must have stared at him for a full ten seconds before registering the urgency and anxiety etched on his face. It was enough to distract her. For now.

"What happened? Who was it?"

"It's Wordy," Sam answered, looking grim. He grabbed his wallet off the table and shrugged on his jacket. "Ed's been shot. They're taking him to St. Simon."

Cold gripped her heart as a million and one thoughts shot through her mind. She got up so quickly she almost knocked down her glass. "Ed? How did that happen? Is he okay?"

"I don't know, Wordy didn't say much. Let's go."

Like this day hadn't been sucky enough… Following Sam to the front entrance, it was as though she was moving on autopilot. How could this happen? Ed? He was fine two hours ago. Sophie was going into labor and he was going to the hospital to meet up with Clark. They were going to have a baby!

Jesus.

"Jules, you okay?" Sam grabbed her arm before she jumped behind the wheels. He looked concerned. Concerned for Ed, and for her. He just dropped two bombs in less than a minute. Was it even politically correct for her to feel okay? She gave him a small nod and his eyes softened. "Give me your keys, I'll drive."

Coaching her mind to calm down turned out to be a useless effort as fresh, daunting, images quickly replacing the old ones. Ed would be fine. He had to be fine. She couldn't afford to lose another teammate, not after Lew. The idea was so appalling it wasn't even funny.

Damnit, but Ed was alright mere hours ago!

"Sam," Jules choked up, hand reaching out to grab his as the brutal realization hit her on the head like a ton of bricks. There's a bastard called Life out there who likes to throw darts in the dark. Might as well tie up some loose ends before he got to you. "Yes, Sam, I think I do."

Listening to her admission, Sam closed his eyes tightly and leaned his head against their clasped hands; she nearly winced at the tightness of his grip. When he pulled back, his eyes looked suspiciously moist, just like hers felt. "I'm glad. We'll talk about this later, okay?"

Jules nodded her head and gave his hand one last squeeze before letting go. All the way to the hospital she kept thinking of the same mantra over and over again:

It's going to be alright, it's going to be alright,

everything's going to be alright.

It has to.

So just like in the episode, no real answers. We don't really know what's going to happen after the finale (though I hope maybe something like this) or if they're going to get back together (which I highly doubt, all things considered), but at least it seems like they're going to clear the air.

Does that mean that there's hope for Sam and Jules to be together now? Yes? No? Maybe? Maybe is good enough for me. I hate cliffhangers.

:(