Chapter Nine
John found himself lying awake in bed, long after Sam had finally emerged from her bathroom hiding place and crept off to sleep. He kept thinking about a cabin in the woods, about stolen moments of intimacy performed in hopes of provoking a madman. He'd loved her then, although he hadn't realized it yet. No, that had come later, though the exact date of the revelation remained a mystery even to him.
He was over it, though. He'd gotten over Samantha Waters the minute she'd walked out of his life without so much as a glance back over her shoulder. That's what he'd believed, anyway, until tonight.
Until tonight, when the moonlight bleached her hair white, and the artificial lamps outside the small motel accentuated the shadows beneath her eyes, making her look both pale and fierce, fragile and defiant. Her head had turned up to his and the next thing he knew he was kissing her the way he'd kissed her so long ago and had always longed to kiss her again.
What the hell had he been thinking?
There were so many more important things to be thinking about besides jumping back on the emotional roller coaster that was loving Sam. He shouldn't be wasting what could very well be his last days as a free man worrying about the details of their time apart, why she hadn't cared enough to keep in touch, why she'd welcomed and than ran from him less than an hour ago. He shouldn't be thinking about how much he wanted her, how he'd never *really* stopped loving her. He couldn't help it, though.
His fate had been sealed the moment Sam had opened her front door and let him in from the rain.
* * * * *
Sam woke up to the smell of bagels and coffee with the sunlight peeking through the blinds, making her squint and blink several times as she sat up in bed and tried to adjust to the morning.
John, once again sitting at what she'd come to think of as his table, turned around at the sound of her movement and immediately threw a brown paper bag at her. It landed harmlessly on the bed, only two inches away from her hand. "Morning," he said, throwing her a quick, painfully casual smile before turning back to the maps before him. "There's coffee over here, but you have to get up for it."
Blinking again, Sam yawned and forced herself out of the comforting warmth of the blankets, grabbing the cup of coffee John had pointed out and then immediately sitting back down on the bed, tiredly rubbing her eyes with one hand as she placed the coffee cup down on the nightstand with the other. "Where'd this come from?" she asked on another yawn, opening up the bag and pulling out a pre-buttered poppy seed bagel.
"It was like a miracle, Sam," John said, awe clear in his voice. "I went down the street, and there was this place, right? They had at least a *hundred* of them for sale. Did we luck out or what?"
Sam sighed irritably and took a very long sip of the coffee. "It's too early for sarcasm," she complained.
John made a huffing noise. "It's *never* too early for sarcasm," he proclaimed seriously.
"And you shouldn't be walking around, anyway," she added. "Or did you forget the 'on the run' part of all this?" she asked, with her own early-morning blend of sarcasm.
He shrugged. "We won't get anything done by hiding out."
Sam frowned, feeling suddenly uncomfortable for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on at this early hour. "How long have you been up, anyway?" she asked to chase away the feeling, swallowing another sip of the now rather cold coffee.
John shrugged again, looking down guiltily, and she knew immediately that he couldn't answer her question, because he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. "A while," he lied vaguely, and shifted in his chair so he was facing her more directly. "Let me know when you're verbal. There's some things we need to go over."
Sam nodded but didn't answer, all her attention focused on the bagel and coffee he'd provided as she tried to reach a more 'verbal' stage. Her eyes still felt heavy and lidded, and she found herself deeply regretting the shower she'd taken last night. It made showering now unnecessary, though she knew it would do more than any cup of coffee in terms of waking her up.
Finally, twenty minutes and a change of clothes later, she felt up to conversation. She walked over to the corner table and took the seat opposite John's, looking at him expectantly. "What is it?"
He looked at her a long moment, then looked down and she followed his gaze, seeing the maps still spread out across the table. "We need to ditch the car," John said finally. "The cops know you're here, now. If they haven't traced you back to your friend who's car we're using, they will soon. And we're not in the papers today," he gestured to the third chair, where the day's newspaper was sitting, abandoned, "but that's bound to change. We've been lucky so far, but…" he trailed off and shook his head, then cleared his throat and went on. "Plus the whole Grayson thing yesterday was a little too weird for my tastes. I mean, it *could* just be a coincidence, sure, but why take a chance?"
Sam wanted to argue with him, but his logic was sound and all she could do was nod. "So what should we do?" she asked, allowing him to take the lead. As he'd been so quick to point out before, he had more experience in these matters than she did.
"Well, that's the thing," John answered, meeting her gaze and leaning back in his chair. "Our options are limited here. No matter what route we take, we have at least another two days before we hit Atlanta. We *might* be able to get away with a rental, but all I've got on me is my real I.D., and there's no one I know around here who can help us out with fake ones. Buses are way too enclosed, and trains aren't much better."
Sam frowned, and looked for holes to punch in his growing paranoia. It didn't take her long to realize there weren't any. "So, what? We're stranded?" John looked at her solemnly, and she immediately realized what he was saying and shook her head. "Didn't we already go over this back in New York?" she protested.
"There were more options then," John said simply. "Now? The feds and cops both know you're with me, so renting a car under your name isn't any better. And we can't do a damn thing from here to clear any of this up."
"What if we get pulled over?" Sam replied, playing devil's advocate even though she had the horrible suspicion John's mind was already made up on this. "A patrolmen might not recognize either one of us, but if he runs the plates, or wants registration…"
John shrugged. "We drive carefully."
Sam sighed, bit her lip, and looked away. She knew, legally speaking, she was already in a great deal of trouble. Once the cops showed up on her door and told her he was wanted for murder, she'd lost any claim to ignorance. By being here, in this hotel room, she was an accessory. She was breaking the law, and once they'd crossed state lines, she was committing a felony in doing so. What John was suggesting was nothing, criminally speaking, in comparison. It seemed worse to her, though.
"I don't know," she said finally, meeting his gaze again. "If we find out who's setting you up, who's committing these crimes, all of this will go away." She waved her hand around the hotel room, indicating their situation. "Bailey will have enough leverage to protect us. But stealing a car…" she trailed off and made a face, finding the whole conversation rather sordid.
John smiled a little, and she had to fight the urge to throw something when she saw the slight mischievous glint in his eyes. "So we don't get caught," he said simply, then added, with a bit more seriousness, "And we'll have to avoid hotels. Too risky to have it sitting out in a parking lot all night."
Sam found herself suddenly wishing she had more coffee. "You mean we'll have to *sleep* in it?" she asked.
John's small smile grew to a genuine laugh. "Yeah, we'll have to sleep in it," he said.
"John…" Sam started, then trailed off, finding she had no idea what to say to him and his total shift in mood. Yesterday he'd been edgy, irritated with her and the situation, and had snapped at her with very little provocation right before the… incident… in the parking lot. Today he seemed to be taking an odd pleasure in the lengths they were being forced to go to. She couldn't figure it out.
Seeming to read her thoughts, John said, "Sam, I'm pretty much screwed right now. I *ran*. I might as well have signed a damned confession, instead. And you were right. Going to Atlanta and trying to solve this thing ourselves is the only way to fix it. We need a car to get there. And I know the one sitting outside right now isn't going to make it any further and not get us both busted. You want to go down as an accessory to murder? Or do you want to commit a misdemeanor in hopes of avoiding the felony?"
Startled, Sam stared at him and wondered just how *long* he'd been reading her thoughts. Then she shrugged, and gave in to the inevitable. "What do we have to do?"
~End Chapter Nine~
End Note: See, I knew the DVDs would be inspirational. :) -- Since I'm suddenly feeling re-inspired about this story, and since my updates have a history of being sporadic at best, I've decided to do one of those update list things. So if you want to know via e-mail when this story's updated, please leave me a review with your e-mail address and I'll add you to it. Or you can just e-mail me privately at [email protected]. Also, I owe a serious, serious debt of thanks to every single person who's left a review on this story. Thanks SO much. And now that writing in it doesn't feel like pulling teeth any more, I swear to do my best to finish it before the year, like I said before. At the very least I swear to no longer wait five to six months before putting up a chapter. Hope you liked this part, and I hope you keep liking the parts to come. :)
John found himself lying awake in bed, long after Sam had finally emerged from her bathroom hiding place and crept off to sleep. He kept thinking about a cabin in the woods, about stolen moments of intimacy performed in hopes of provoking a madman. He'd loved her then, although he hadn't realized it yet. No, that had come later, though the exact date of the revelation remained a mystery even to him.
He was over it, though. He'd gotten over Samantha Waters the minute she'd walked out of his life without so much as a glance back over her shoulder. That's what he'd believed, anyway, until tonight.
Until tonight, when the moonlight bleached her hair white, and the artificial lamps outside the small motel accentuated the shadows beneath her eyes, making her look both pale and fierce, fragile and defiant. Her head had turned up to his and the next thing he knew he was kissing her the way he'd kissed her so long ago and had always longed to kiss her again.
What the hell had he been thinking?
There were so many more important things to be thinking about besides jumping back on the emotional roller coaster that was loving Sam. He shouldn't be wasting what could very well be his last days as a free man worrying about the details of their time apart, why she hadn't cared enough to keep in touch, why she'd welcomed and than ran from him less than an hour ago. He shouldn't be thinking about how much he wanted her, how he'd never *really* stopped loving her. He couldn't help it, though.
His fate had been sealed the moment Sam had opened her front door and let him in from the rain.
* * * * *
Sam woke up to the smell of bagels and coffee with the sunlight peeking through the blinds, making her squint and blink several times as she sat up in bed and tried to adjust to the morning.
John, once again sitting at what she'd come to think of as his table, turned around at the sound of her movement and immediately threw a brown paper bag at her. It landed harmlessly on the bed, only two inches away from her hand. "Morning," he said, throwing her a quick, painfully casual smile before turning back to the maps before him. "There's coffee over here, but you have to get up for it."
Blinking again, Sam yawned and forced herself out of the comforting warmth of the blankets, grabbing the cup of coffee John had pointed out and then immediately sitting back down on the bed, tiredly rubbing her eyes with one hand as she placed the coffee cup down on the nightstand with the other. "Where'd this come from?" she asked on another yawn, opening up the bag and pulling out a pre-buttered poppy seed bagel.
"It was like a miracle, Sam," John said, awe clear in his voice. "I went down the street, and there was this place, right? They had at least a *hundred* of them for sale. Did we luck out or what?"
Sam sighed irritably and took a very long sip of the coffee. "It's too early for sarcasm," she complained.
John made a huffing noise. "It's *never* too early for sarcasm," he proclaimed seriously.
"And you shouldn't be walking around, anyway," she added. "Or did you forget the 'on the run' part of all this?" she asked, with her own early-morning blend of sarcasm.
He shrugged. "We won't get anything done by hiding out."
Sam frowned, feeling suddenly uncomfortable for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on at this early hour. "How long have you been up, anyway?" she asked to chase away the feeling, swallowing another sip of the now rather cold coffee.
John shrugged again, looking down guiltily, and she knew immediately that he couldn't answer her question, because he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. "A while," he lied vaguely, and shifted in his chair so he was facing her more directly. "Let me know when you're verbal. There's some things we need to go over."
Sam nodded but didn't answer, all her attention focused on the bagel and coffee he'd provided as she tried to reach a more 'verbal' stage. Her eyes still felt heavy and lidded, and she found herself deeply regretting the shower she'd taken last night. It made showering now unnecessary, though she knew it would do more than any cup of coffee in terms of waking her up.
Finally, twenty minutes and a change of clothes later, she felt up to conversation. She walked over to the corner table and took the seat opposite John's, looking at him expectantly. "What is it?"
He looked at her a long moment, then looked down and she followed his gaze, seeing the maps still spread out across the table. "We need to ditch the car," John said finally. "The cops know you're here, now. If they haven't traced you back to your friend who's car we're using, they will soon. And we're not in the papers today," he gestured to the third chair, where the day's newspaper was sitting, abandoned, "but that's bound to change. We've been lucky so far, but…" he trailed off and shook his head, then cleared his throat and went on. "Plus the whole Grayson thing yesterday was a little too weird for my tastes. I mean, it *could* just be a coincidence, sure, but why take a chance?"
Sam wanted to argue with him, but his logic was sound and all she could do was nod. "So what should we do?" she asked, allowing him to take the lead. As he'd been so quick to point out before, he had more experience in these matters than she did.
"Well, that's the thing," John answered, meeting her gaze and leaning back in his chair. "Our options are limited here. No matter what route we take, we have at least another two days before we hit Atlanta. We *might* be able to get away with a rental, but all I've got on me is my real I.D., and there's no one I know around here who can help us out with fake ones. Buses are way too enclosed, and trains aren't much better."
Sam frowned, and looked for holes to punch in his growing paranoia. It didn't take her long to realize there weren't any. "So, what? We're stranded?" John looked at her solemnly, and she immediately realized what he was saying and shook her head. "Didn't we already go over this back in New York?" she protested.
"There were more options then," John said simply. "Now? The feds and cops both know you're with me, so renting a car under your name isn't any better. And we can't do a damn thing from here to clear any of this up."
"What if we get pulled over?" Sam replied, playing devil's advocate even though she had the horrible suspicion John's mind was already made up on this. "A patrolmen might not recognize either one of us, but if he runs the plates, or wants registration…"
John shrugged. "We drive carefully."
Sam sighed, bit her lip, and looked away. She knew, legally speaking, she was already in a great deal of trouble. Once the cops showed up on her door and told her he was wanted for murder, she'd lost any claim to ignorance. By being here, in this hotel room, she was an accessory. She was breaking the law, and once they'd crossed state lines, she was committing a felony in doing so. What John was suggesting was nothing, criminally speaking, in comparison. It seemed worse to her, though.
"I don't know," she said finally, meeting his gaze again. "If we find out who's setting you up, who's committing these crimes, all of this will go away." She waved her hand around the hotel room, indicating their situation. "Bailey will have enough leverage to protect us. But stealing a car…" she trailed off and made a face, finding the whole conversation rather sordid.
John smiled a little, and she had to fight the urge to throw something when she saw the slight mischievous glint in his eyes. "So we don't get caught," he said simply, then added, with a bit more seriousness, "And we'll have to avoid hotels. Too risky to have it sitting out in a parking lot all night."
Sam found herself suddenly wishing she had more coffee. "You mean we'll have to *sleep* in it?" she asked.
John's small smile grew to a genuine laugh. "Yeah, we'll have to sleep in it," he said.
"John…" Sam started, then trailed off, finding she had no idea what to say to him and his total shift in mood. Yesterday he'd been edgy, irritated with her and the situation, and had snapped at her with very little provocation right before the… incident… in the parking lot. Today he seemed to be taking an odd pleasure in the lengths they were being forced to go to. She couldn't figure it out.
Seeming to read her thoughts, John said, "Sam, I'm pretty much screwed right now. I *ran*. I might as well have signed a damned confession, instead. And you were right. Going to Atlanta and trying to solve this thing ourselves is the only way to fix it. We need a car to get there. And I know the one sitting outside right now isn't going to make it any further and not get us both busted. You want to go down as an accessory to murder? Or do you want to commit a misdemeanor in hopes of avoiding the felony?"
Startled, Sam stared at him and wondered just how *long* he'd been reading her thoughts. Then she shrugged, and gave in to the inevitable. "What do we have to do?"
~End Chapter Nine~
End Note: See, I knew the DVDs would be inspirational. :) -- Since I'm suddenly feeling re-inspired about this story, and since my updates have a history of being sporadic at best, I've decided to do one of those update list things. So if you want to know via e-mail when this story's updated, please leave me a review with your e-mail address and I'll add you to it. Or you can just e-mail me privately at [email protected]. Also, I owe a serious, serious debt of thanks to every single person who's left a review on this story. Thanks SO much. And now that writing in it doesn't feel like pulling teeth any more, I swear to do my best to finish it before the year, like I said before. At the very least I swear to no longer wait five to six months before putting up a chapter. Hope you liked this part, and I hope you keep liking the parts to come. :)