Second Honeymoon

"Wait, the computer hacker is…Freddie!" Carly yelled, trying to ration this entire thing out. Sam sat on her couch in a bent over position with a beer and some ibuprofen and rubbed her temples.

"It's true. God, how did I not see that coming when I walked in? I mean, of anyone else that I've ever met; Freddie would've been my first suspect in mind when it came to this type of crime. It still took me by surprise." Sam finally exhaled after he sentence, cupping two blue pills in her palm and downing them with a Sam Adams. The coldness of the beer, along with the recent shock Sam had encountered within the last twenty-four hours caused her to shiver. Carly came over from where she was standing and watching Macy play in the field by Sam's place to put her arm around Sam's shoulders.

"I know what you mean. Freddie's never even so much as killed a fly." Sam pushed herself up by pressing her palms to her knees and walked to a drawer in the kitchen that she had locked with a key.

"There's some psychological thing behind that. I don't know what the exact name for it is, because I slept through the class most of the time, but I know it has something to do with rebelling after a certain change?"

"Oedipus Rex!" Carly questioned, raising a brow.

"Carls, that's about the dude who slept with his mom and stabbed his eyeballs out. Even I knew that!"

"Oh, yeah" Carly tried to, literally, shake the thought and image out of her mind. "I know what you're talking about, though. It's almost parallel to…what's that thing forty year old guys go through?"

"Mid-life crisis?"

"That's it! Except for the age part of it, Freddie's going through some kind of crisis" Carly said. Sam clipped herpersonal keys off her belt hook and separated the smallest one from the rest to open the drawer back up. The first thing she pulled out was a couple of files from years ago and a calendar.

"Freddie and I hooked up, again, right after graduation, right?" Sam started.

"Right…"

"And he never had a chance to be anything besides what his mother wanted him to be: a gentleman, responsible, conservative, and bombproof, in a sense, right?"

"Where are you going with this?" Carly pushed herself off the couch, carrying Sam's beer over with her and giving it to Sam for a swing.

"That means" She said before she gulped down the rest of the half-empty bottle and threw it away in a trash can. "He never had a chance to pilot the plane solo! He went from being under Hitler oath at his mom's house, to being my husband. After we got divorced, he took that newfound freedom and stupidly, like a baby bird trying to fly before it's ready, hit rock bottom."

Carly's jaw dropped in amazement. Sam's not dumb, by any means. She's simply lazy. It must've taken a lot of brainstorming to come up with that sort of thought, which she had plenty of time to do since she got no sleep.

"You're absolutely right!"

"A few nights in prison and someone'll bail him out. Then he can go back to his bachelor lifestyle. It ought to rough him up a bit, get him a feel for the outside world where no one knows him or his stupid quirks." Sam rifled through the drawer and pulled out everything, presenting it to Carly.

"Marriage certificate, House loan papers, the papers you got from the hospital after your miscarriage, wow, you kept everything" Carly said aloud, pulling out what seemed to be Freddie's old wedding ring.

"I kept everything….except…one thing" Sam shuffled uncomfortably to her fridge, pulling out another bottle of beer. Carly normally would've made a remark about drinking that much this early in the morning, but that fight was neither here nor there; not worth fighting.

"Which is?"

"A promise. I swore for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, but….I broke that. Shit, I can't even blame him. Afterall, I divorced him. And I blame myself for what happened last night. If I hadn't….bailed, things would be the same" Sam chugged most of the beer after the midst of her rant. Carly put a loving hand on her shoulder just as Macy entered the back door.

"You can blame yourself, sweetie. You guys got married at eighteen because you were in love. Maybe somewhere in the future, you could fall back in." Sam, about to take another swing, put the beer down and tapped her clean ashtray with her nails.

"Lighting doesn't strike twice, so if you're holding your breath for Freddie and I to even consider talking about getting back together don't. With or without this jail incident happening, I'd still feel the same way that I do now, which is in favor of seeing the glass half-empty."

"Aunt Sam" Macy politely interrupted. "There's a cop car in your driveway. The bald man who drove the car asked me to get you, since you're home."

"Great" Sam spat. She took out a cigarette from a metal container from inside her uniform pocket and hung it from the corner of her mouth in a bad-ass way. She made it two steps outside before being greeted by Sheriff Daniels.

"Hello!" He waved. "Samantha, you're going to end up with emphysema."

"Beats what I had to go through last night" She mumbled, puffing the cigarette. "What's up?"

"Well, I have a proposition for you. Since you're the strongest, most courageous, and pardon my French, the most bitchin' bad-ass on our force, I'd like to offer you a special token of my goodbye: my job. It pays well, has great benefits, and put you a great deal above the others on the force, but it requires you to complete a task. You may roll your eyes, go running for the hills, and all that, but the job just might be worth it."

Sam took a long, hard drag and peered up at the sheriff. "I'd be called sheriff, right?"

"Yes ma'am."

"What's the proposition?"

"The inmate from last night; we've granted him a house arrest warrant with an ankle bracelet. The thing is he has to be locked up for a few months in an island almost all the way across the pacific. You get him there safely, and the job is yours. If he escapes or any inappropriate relationships fester, you'll be fired."

Sam had to think long and hard about this one. She was sneaky, but not as sneaky as Freddie's proven himself to be with his crimes. The blonde woman peered into the car where he ex-beau was sitting in the backseat with his head craned down and his eyes tensed up and closed.

"Challenge accepted" Sam said blankly, offering her hand to Daniels. He shook it with a grin and a giggle.

"Great! I'm very relieved that you chose to do so. You're definitely the best one for this case, given your history with him. He'll trust you the most. Until you get back, I'm still working my job. Once I see you're back where you need to be and he's where he needs to be, the job will be yours. Sam, I bid you adieu!" Daniels strutted to his car, letting Freddie out of the backseat and cuffing something to his ankles before walking forward.

"Hey Sam" he answered shakily, not giving her eye contact. She just gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

"He keeps this on 24/7, protect it before showering. We'll fax your travelling information tomorrow morning" Daniels finally left in the car, peeling out of the driveway. Freddie, cuff less and in his normal clothes, turned to Sam. He tried smiling, but it fell through.

"Listen, about last night…that wasn't really me in there. Being in a prison, I don't know, makes you feel like your bite is worse than your bark. I've changed, just not that much."

"Well, babysitting you for god knows how long will assure me of that. Now, I have to go hit the showers. Make youself at home, I guess."