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the hay adams ; sunday morning

Sam hadn't been lying when he told Natalie that he hadn't planned on really leaving the hotel room at all during his weekend with her. Sure, they'd gone to dinner in the restaurant but otherwise, they'd stayed stuffed in the room, just the two of them. And why not when it was such a nice room with a view of a church. Sometimes, the money that he'd inherited came in handy.

Sam had woken up fairly early after getting a few hours of sleep. He'd slid on a tattered flannel (he owned many) and left it unbuttoned and paired that with a pair of soft pants before getting to work on ordering some room service. His stomach was growling and the food here was good.

While he waited for that, he did pour himself some coffee and wandered over to enjoy the view. It was pretty sweet.

[NFB and for the girl there with him]

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There was a dehydration/stress headache in Natalie's immediate future, she knew it already, because the crying just wouldn't stop. In fact, the sobs grew harsher again.

"I just wanted to talk to you! I was just trying to talk because I –– I couldn't handle it on my own anymore. And I told you because I thought you deserved to know."

Clearly that had been a mistake.

"I deserved to know weeks ago," Sam told her, shaking his head. "Weeks. Before it got this bad. Before you started using words like doubt and distance and all that. But you didn't tell me until now. And even then, I made suggestions. I wanted to help. I wanted to bend over backwards and do even more to see you. But it wasn't enough for you, Natalie. You do remember telling me that, right? That anything I basically said doesn't matter because I wouldn't be her permanently."

He rubbed his eyes when they started to feel gritty and sore. "So, you tell me. You tell me what you want to happen, Natalie. Tell me."

Edited 2012-10-21 17:53 (UTC)

It was hard to come up with words when she could barely breathe. She didn't remember ever crying this hysterically and compulsively... Except the day the Ingrams moved away.

"I just don't want you to go."

But maybe that wasn't enough.

"Why not?" Sam asked, staying where he was for the moment. "Why don't you want me to go? I can't help you, Natalie. You told me that. So, tell me why you want me to stay."

"Because I love you?"

That was the only thing she could think to offer up, the only thing she had going for her after apparently saying all the wrong things.

She had access to very little of her usual stoicism or logical thought right now.

"You should make that a statement and not a question," Sam pointed out, shaking his head. He looked down at his bag, zipped and ready to go but he didn't make an immediate move to leave.

Instead, he raked his fingers through his hair and stalked over to the window again. He wasn't seeing the nice view when he stopped. He was more trying to stop his eyes from hurting and his chest from feeling like it was going to cave in.

Natalie's chest felt like it already had. Also a familiar feeling from, oh, six or so years ago. "I'm sorry," she muttered, still wiping at her eyes, pointlessly. Still trying to breathe and grasp on to something. "I'm just... I'm sorry."

"Yeah." He didn't say anything else for a second. He rubbed his face and turned around again. One hand came up to rub his chest and his eyes fell back on his bag again. He took a breath.

"Yeah." He couldn't find anything else to say that wasn't going to be fueled by anger and hurt. He was clamping down on that fiercely right now.

"You don't believe me."

She managed a few breaths that were a little more steady. It didn't feel like much of a victory. Nothing did, when everything you'd managed today were a couple of sips of coffee and wrecking your relationship, and you were still wearing nothing but a blanket.

"I just wanted to have a conversation. I didn't know you'd –– that we'd be jumping straight to final solutions."

She didn't know what she'd been expecting anymore, though. That he'd somehow miraculously promise to leave Seattle behind for her? She knew better than that. She respected his obligations more than that.

"What did you expect would happen, Natalie?" Sam had to ask because seriously. "You telling me that everything's gotten too hard for you and that the pressure's too much and that I can't help you at all despite my best efforts? What did you want me to do after finding out that you'd been feeling this way for awhile and you just didn't want to tell me so I went on and on promising things and showing up and you just let me?"

He was a little exasperated himself now. "Seattle's my home. I have things I have to do there but I told you I'd make more of an effort to see you. I'd do anything I could but it wasn't good enough for you. What do you want me to do, Natalie? And just imagine how you would feel, how you would react if I just wanted to have a conversation about this with you? Just think about it."

Natalie ignored that last question completely because she had no answer to that that wouldn't just be anger.

"I don't know what I expected," she said, wiping at her eyes again. "Guess I expected more than you can give. We both did."

Because she wasn't as strong as he would've needed her to be for this to work.

"If I could tell myself this long distance thing is only for now, a phase, I could get through it." She shuddered with a random sob, her voice breaking even though she tried her hardest to keep it from doing that. Guess she wasn't anywhere near done with crying yet after all. "But I can't, because it's not. This is all it's ever gonna be, a series of special occasions. I'm not going to drop everything else and move to Seattle, and you're not gonna drop everything else and move for me. And I know that, but it keeps getting harder to let you go."

"You've reduced our relationship down to a series of special occasions," Sam said tightly though he couldn't stop some disbelief from slipping out. "I don't believe that. I never, ever have. Because I would drop everything if you needed me and I guess that's just not enough for you. I haven't reduced our relationship down to a series of moments, though."

He shook his head and pushed away from the window. "And you've made all my decisions in the future for me, apparently. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow let alone in a few months. But, you've made up your mind. You've decided what our relationship is going to be and I don't agree but it's your right. And it's my right to disagree. Because I do. All this time, everything we've been through and it's now a series of special occasions because I went home. Maybe it'll be easier for you now because I don't foresee a lot of special occasions in my future. You've made my decisions for me. I'll just go along with them."

Safe to say he was harboring some anger now. His voice didn't show it but it was there in his words.

"I haven't made any of your decisions, I haven't made any of my own," Natalie said. The emotion hiding in her words was just desperation. "And you say I have a right to think the way I do but you're still judging me for it and that hurts, Sam. Because I just wanted to be honest."

But it was pointless and futile and she'd lost, hadn't she?

"And would you have thought any differently if I'd told you this two weeks ago? Would it have made any difference, except for how we wouldn't have gotten to have the two good weekends that we had."

She looked down because she couldn't say the next thing and look at his face. She'd never been afraid of him but she was afraid of what she might see there now. "Because they were good, Samhain. And if this where it ends then I'm glad we had them."

"It does matter," he said quietly yet sharply. "Because I wouldn't feel like you'd just been stringing me along to stall. I wouldn't feel like I'd been lied to and that you'd been pretending that everything was fine. Yeah, they were good but I feel lied to and patronized. And don't even tell me you wouldn't feel the same way if I said I'd been feeling this for weeks and never whispered a word of it to you. If you'd had to find out later."

He couldn't help feeling like that. Sam stepped forward again and stopped in front of his bag. "You were honest with me. And I'm allowed to be hurt by your honesty. Because I am. I'm freaking devastated right now. Because yes, you have made my decisions. You just said I'd never move from Seattle to be with you. But you don't know that. I can't do it now but the future is something we both don't know about. But you think you do. So, is this where it ends, Natalie?"

"I wouldn't feel the same way because I would trust that you had your reasons and that you wanted to try figuring it out on your own." And that was the truth. "And I don't want it to end here. But the fact that you're accepting these decisions you've decided I've made says it's going to."

And she sounded almost calm until that last bit, but... It hurt. It really, really did and it was all on her face and there were no emotional walls up. It wasn't vindictive, the broadcasting of emotions. She really had no energy to keep her shields up.

"Well, we're different people, then. Because I feel like you strung me along."

And he couldn't not feel that. "And I don't wanna accept anything but I don't know what else to do! You don't want things to end but where are we supposed to go from here? You just flat out told me all this is for you is a series of special occasions for you. That kills me, Natalie, that you think of us like that now. So, where do we do in your mind?"

"I don't know."

She didn't. And she was fast running out of energy for even talking about it. She honestly wondered how she was even going to make it back to the island after this.

"I don't have any more words for it, Sam. I don't have the answers. I'm sorry. If you're looking for an answer right now then I'm sorry but I don't have it because this is all happening too fast."

"I can't stay here," Sam told her, grabbing his bag again and shaking his head. "I can't. I can't drag this special occasion out anymore because I honestly can't take it. Everything hurts right now."

For the first time, there was actually the sound of tears in his own voice. He hastily wiped a hand across his eyes. "You were honest with me and I appreciate that. But, here's me being honest with you: you should have told me. You shouldn't have lied. And you know that when I'd say I'd make more of an effort, be here more, you know I mean that so having all of that completely shot down as not enough? It hurts."

Edited 2012-10-21 20:10 (UTC)

Natalie didn't even let him finish. Or, well, she let him keep talking but she didn't listen and she replied while he was still talking.

"I didn't lie. You need to go now."

They were just repeating the same stuff over and over again and it was not going to help anyone.

Sam wanted to argue with that but he didn't. Instead, he turned and left without another word. He didn't slam the door or do anything dramatic.

He just...left.

And Natalie... Well, Natalie crumpled on the bed, curling up into a ball, sobbing. She was going to getting up anytime soon.

Or at least not until room service came calling.

With breakfast for two.

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the hay adams ; sunday morning

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