I'm not sure if people are going to hate me for this or not, but I had to come up with an explanation for the angst/sexual tension/easy camaraderie I saw first season. How do you end an affair and still maintain what we saw then?

Thanks for the reviews and comments for the earlier pieces in this series! They gladden the heart!
And is it okay to use this space to ask where the next part of Solitary Wanderer's story is? I'm dyin' here, waiting for the next chapter...and working real hard not to use the title of her story to describe my pain... :

Diane, thanks for the edits!

Again, thanks to the people still reading. It's been fun.

Fallen 3
by Mariel

How long had it been? It seemed like forever, but not long enough. Months. He knew it had been only months ago they had started their affair. It had been wintertime. Since then, they'd seen spring come and go, loved through the heat of summer and now, the leaves turned crimson in the parks and the cold winds of winter just around the corner, it had to end.

He closed his eyes at the thought. There had been other hurts too difficult to speak of in his life and he recognised this as yet another wound he would carry wordlessly.

He had to walk away. He had to leave a woman who completed him in ways he couldn't explain, end a relationship he didn't want to let go of. It was time to face reality, let go of his selfishness, time to do the right thing and make up for the wrongs he had done. Finally shaken into a true perspective, he knew he had to stay with his family, make amends to his wife for broken vows and protect his children from the hurt of a parent leaving.

Protect them from the damage of having a parent too weak to stay with them.

He'd been selfish, too blindly involved in the moment of his affair to realise what he was truly doing. Now, harsh reality forced him to see a truth that speared his soul. What he had done to his wife and children was, in truth, no better than what his mother had done to him. He'd set them aside. Said goodbye without saying it, left without telling them. He'd given them neither warning nor explanation, offered them no chance to change his course. Blindly, he'd gone ahead with what he wanted, chasing what he felt he needed without giving thought to the ones he was leaving behind.

He, at least, could offer what his mother could not. He could make amends, go back, start over and do it right.

He could keep trying.

He would stay and do whatever it took, make himself happy with what he had. His girls were worth it and he didn't want them to ever think otherwise. And Maria...he winced. They'd lost what they'd started out with a long time ago. He didn't know what they would be able to rebuild, but he would try. The sorrow in his decision he shoved aside.

He felt breathless. Bloodless. Hopeless. Helpless. And determined to do what had to be done.

- - -

The two days since Maria had interrupted their sleep had been long ones, and Jack and Samantha had found no opportunity to speak privately. Now, the office area darkened for the night and the others gone home, they waited - tentative, afraid, reluctant to face what both knew was coming.

She sensed his quiet approach before he spoke. Steeling herself, she waited for him to let her know he was there. When he spoke her name, she turned and looked up at him..

"Jack."

"You're still here."

She nodded. "Yeah. I thought-"

"Yeah. We need to."

The look in his eyes made her want to weep. "Here?" she asked.

He shook his head. Not here. Not her apartment, either. Her apartment would be too dangerous, contain too many memories. He would want to hold her. Make love to her. Pretend this wasn't happening.

"Let's go to the restaurant," he suggested, seeking the familiar refuge of the place he considered their first date destination..

"No," Samantha responded quickly. "Not there." The small Thai restaurant held memories she did not want tainted. "What about Tyrone's?" she asked, naming a place close, but not too close, to the Bureau. "We can get a booth and talk - and walk across to the park if we need to."

Understanding her reasons for not wanting to visit a place they considered 'theirs', he nodded, kicking himself for being so stupid as to suggest it.

Still holding carefully to the routine of one of them leaving first, forty-five minutes passed before they were finally ensconced together in a small booth in the almost empty restaurant they had agreed upon. Knowing they would have no appetite to eat, they ordered coffee and then sat looking at each other across the expanse of table between them.

Samantha broke the heavy silence.

"What happened?" she asked.

Jack looked down at his hands. "It was bad. She confronted me about having an affair. Wanted to know who it was. I couldn't deny the affair, but I wouldn't say who. She was crying. And angry. Threatened to take the girls and leave. We argued until we were both hoarse. Then we talked. We're going to try to work it out, somehow."

"I can't believe she didn't kick you out, Jack."

He nodded. "I'd have deserved it. And we may separate at some point, if that helps." He fingered his napkin, refusing to meet her eyes. "It'll take time for us to get past this. I never, the whole time you and I were together, thought about how this would affect Maria. She and I haven't been happy, but she never expected me to-" He stopped, then resumed quietly, "I wasn't fair to her. Nor to the girls. If Maria leaves and takes them, I don't know what I'd do."

"I hope you told her it was over."

Jack looked up in surprise. Slowly, he nodded. "I told her keeping the family together was the most important thing right now. I told her that I love her - and I do, just not-" He stopped, unable to finish. Just not the way I do you...

She took strength, in some strange masochistic way, from his unspoken words. "It's okay, Jack," she said, screaming silently inside that it was not.

"No, it isn't." He waited a moment and when she didn't respond, added, "I've made a mess of it. You have every right to be angry. This isn't fair to you, isn't what I-."

Samantha broke into his words. "Stop.We made a mess of it. We - It hasn't been just all about you, Jack." She looked down at her clasped hands and forced them to relax. Slowly raising her eyes to meet his, she schooled her features.

"We did something we shouldn't have," she said. Pausing a moment, she then reached across the table to lightly touch the back of his hands. She loved the feel of his skin beneath her finger tips. "Not something we totally regret," she admitted honestly, "but definitely something we shouldn't have.God, Jack - when you sit back and think about it, we were crazy. Imagine how it would look to anyone else."

She gave his hands a brief squeeze, then released them and sat back. "And now we have to end it." She looked away from him, then forced her eyes to meet his. "Do I want to? No," she admitted, still insisting on the truth. "But should we? Yes, absolutely. We have to."

"I dragged you into something I never should have."

Samantha shook her head. "You didn't drag me into anything. I'm an adult. You chose to ignore your vows and I was happy to go right along and ignore the rest of your life, too, remember? You- We-" She suddenly seemed at a loss for words. Thinking hard, she leaned on the table and clasped her hands tightly in front of her. "I've never felt what I feel for you before. I guess it kinda threw me off balance. I told myself I could just keep part of you to myself, that we could have what we have and not affect anything outside our relationship - and that nothing outside our relationship would affect us." She shrugged. "I was stupid and I was wrong. All the things I thought were outside our relationship were right there in bed with us. I just didn't want to see them."

The honesty of the emotion between them could not counterbalance the dishonesty of the relationship they had built from it. She closed her eyes, and for a fleeting moment wished she could get up and walk away. Leaving, though, would mean leaving Jack. She couldn't do that. Not yet.

They paused when the waiter brought them their coffees. Thanking him and waiting for him to turn and walk away, they busied themselves with taking a first sip of dark brew. Completely in step with one another, they set their mugs down on the table.

"Can we do this?" he asked abruptly. With all his heart, he wanted to keep his family. And with all his heart, he didn't want to say goodbye to her. Just as he would rather have had his mother remain in his life on any terms, he wanted Samantha to remain in his life now. On any terms.

Having already debated the issue, Samantha knew the answer to that came down to the fact that she felt better being around him than anywhere else. She liked working with him. Liked having his friendship. Liked their easy camaraderie. And she liked her job, her co-workers, and everything about her present existence. Could she go back to having just that and not the affair that had sprung from it? Could she content herself with that? Pretend loving him had not happened? Pretend they had never shared a bed or simply longed for each other's company? Could she pretend she didn't remember the feel of his hands on her body, the slow heat rising as he touched her just so...

She moved restlessly, trying to dislodge her thoughts. One thing was plain: she didn't want to live without him.

Jack sat and watched her. Fearful of what her answer might be, he reached across the table and grasped her hand tightly. "I don't want you out of my life completely."

She looked up into his eyes and saw that he was as desperate to keep her near as she was to keep him close by. Knowing it would not always be easy, knowing that there was every chance it was a mistake, she still said, "We can do it. We'll just go back to the way we were before. We've been lovers and now we're not. We'll move on."

She felt the loss in the pit of her stomach. It was over. Her happiness, her security, her revelling in at last having someone who completed her...it was gone. Riding quickly on the tail of that sense of loss, however, was the knowledge that she'd be okay. And beneath that was an assurance that it was over for a good reason, that she could go on, that she would one day meet someone else who made her feel the way he did - someone who smiled and made her heart melt, someone who, just by walking into the room quickened her pulse...

...And still further down, beneath even that, something else lay in a dark corner of her heart. Lying quietly and curled up small, there was hope. An etheral, unacknowledged hope that this was merely a stumbling block. A hope that one day what they had shared would conquer all, and that by some miracle they would be together again. She knew she had his love. That it had to be put away in a hidden spot, that she had to pretend it didn't exist hurt, but it was a hurt she could bury. Right next to the hope.

She nodded. "We can do it," she said, again, her voice matter-of-fact. She looked into his eyes and held his gaze steadily. "I like you, Jack Malone. I like you a lot. And not just because of the way you make love to me." A flash of humour quirked her lips. "I just hope you don't mind if I continue to find you sexy as hell."

Jack's eyes widened, then a tension drained from him. She had just offered the footing they would stand on. Given them the way to handle this. Looking deep into her eyes, he answered in kind. In a husky voice, his eyes still tinged with painful longing, he murmered, "In that case, I hope you don't mind if I continue to find you a terrible temptation."

They shared a long look of understanding.

Finally, they both inhaled deeply and broke the spell.

Their relationship declared over, they smiled at each other. What they would build from its ruins, they' weren't sure, but they would build it together.

End
Fallen 3

Well....does it work, or not?