The days turned into a week, and still he'd heard nothing.  It became more and more difficult not to pick up the phone and dial, but if he did, what would he say?  'Hey babe, how have you been?  By the way, have you decided whether you're going to take me back or not?'

He'd promised Sam he wasn't going to push him, that he was going to give Sam all the time that he needed, but he was beginning to believe that Sam didn't need time, in fact that Sam didn't need him.  Maybe that was paranoia, he couldn't say.  All he could say was that he missed his partner and friend desperately, a deep ache in his chest that nothing seemed to assuage.

Backup was trying her best but she was no substitute - not that she'd offered to try and replace Sam in the bedroom of course.  Nothing helped.  The only thing that could take his mind off the problems in his personal life was the fact that with Sam on sick leave they were even more overworked than normal.  At least that gave him an excuse for acting like a bear with a sore head, as Backup had pointed out acidly on more than one occasion.

"Call him," she'd finally instructed when her patience had run out.  But he couldn't.  Although he hadn't specifically said that he wasn't going to call Sam, he had promised Sam time and maybe if he did call Sam would consider that hassling him and then Sam would decide that he didn't need any hassles, but if he didn't call maybe Sam would think he didn't care and then...

He was going slowly crazy from the doubts that plagued him, torn in two between the need to see or speak to Sam and the belief that no news was good news.

Which was probably why he was sitting here in the dark, the only light coming from the muted television set in the corner of the room, and staring at the phone instead of getting some badly needed sleep.  He was, without a shadow of a doubt, truly pathetic.

For the seventh or eighth time that night his hand reached out for the phone only to draw back as his self-confidence waned.  It was becoming a ritual, one he'd spent the last several nights perfecting.

Maybe it was too late to call.  No, it was only ten thirty p.m., early by the clock that he and Sam lived on, so he wouldn't wake Sam if he ever got his nerve up.  Unless, of course, it took him several hours to gather his courage together, which seemed likely.

He sighed again, cursing his own cowardice.  It was gnawing at him, churning up his insides, not knowing whether or not Sam had come to a decision.  Surely if he had, he would call, wouldn't he?  Or would he?  Hadn't at least part of the problem been that Sam hadn't felt able to tell him how he felt?  Maybe that was still a consideration.  Maybe he was sitting in his flat, staring at the phone and wondering why Chris hadn't been in touch.  Although that was too uncertain an image of Sam for him to feel that it was entirely realistic, it at least finally gave him the courage to pick up the phone and hit the speed dial for Sam's home number.

He still almost hung up before Sam answered, his heart pounding and his palms sweaty.  This was the kind of flashback to high school he didn't need.

"Hello?"

He'd almost forgotten how good Sam sounded, the Englishman's voice setting off a little pitter-patter beating in his heart.  "Hey," he finally managed to squeeze out past his constricted throat.

"Chris?"

"Yeah.  I just thought I'd phone... see how you were doing."  Not nag, he added silently, both admonishing himself and somehow hoping that Sam would pick up his good intentions and realise that he Was Not Going To Nag.  Or beg.

"Fine."  Sam's voice gave nothing away, cordial and a little cautious but nothing more.

"How's the arm?"

"Fine."

"Not doing anything stupid with it are you?"

"No."

Well, this was like extracting teeth and he wasn't sure if this was a good sign or a bad sign.  He was struggling to find something to say to fill the silence, to stop himself from humiliating both of them and begging, despite his good intentions, when Sam added cautiously, "How's work?"

"Oh, you know.  Busy, borderline suicidal, the usual."  He hesitated before adding, "We miss you." 

The words 'I miss you' hung unsaid between them.

"The docs said that I'll be fit for light duties in a week," replied Sam, still sounding cautious.  It suddenly occurred to Chris that maybe Sam was finding this conversation as difficult as he was, and that maybe he'd been plagued by the same doubts.

"That's good news."

"Yeah."

"So..."

"So..."

Another long silence and then Chris nervously stuttered out, "Are you bored yet?"  He cringed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, knowing that Sam probably didn't need any reminder of his enforced inactivity.  However, he was happily surprised when instead of an offended silence he got a weak chuckle.

"Deathly bored."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, Curtis.  You'll be back before you know it and wishing you'd caught up on your sleep when you had the chance."

"Probably."

Another silence, and this time Sam ended it, saying, "Listen, if you're tired..."

It could have been his imagination but he thought he heard an undercurrent in his partner's voice that suggested that rather than wanting rid of him Sam wanted him to stay on the line.  It wasn't clear, and he didn't want to push it so answered, "A little bit but that's nothing new.  Don't worry about it."  Sam could take that either way, using it either as an excuse to end the conversation if that was what he wanted or not.

Sam chose not.  "So is there anything I should know about?  At work I mean?" he added quickly.

"No," replied Chris, wondering why Sam had added that rider.  Was he worried about what was going on in Chris' personal life?  He was beginning to wish that he'd gone around to see Sam face to face rather than have to rely upon picking up the nuances in his partner's voice.  "Not much.  No big cases really, and probably nothing that will still be going on when you get back, just lots of annoying stuff."

"Babysitting jobs?" asked Sam, a trace of amusement in his voice.  He knew how much Chris hated those types of assignments.

Chris snorted, pleased that his predicament at least seemed to be amusing his partner.  "Oh yeah," he replied morosely, playing it up for Sam's benefit.

"No rich widows?"  It was an old joke between them, but there seemed, once again, to be an undercurrent there that he wasn't quite identifying.

"No," he replied gently.  "No rich widows.  No foxy blondes.  Nada.  Just lots of officious, middle-aged men who think I'm a glorified thug."

"Bastion."

"What?"

"Bastion of truth and justice, remember, Chris?"

He did, and let a warm glow settle over him at the memory of happier times.  "So..." he said, settling back into his seat, a smile forming on his face.  "Tell me how you've been spending all of this free time you've had..."

*****

It was a considerably happier Keel who bounced into work the next day.  He and Sam had avoided discussing them, or anything serious, and the conversation hadn't lasted long, both of them too wary still that they would put a foot wrong, but at least they were talking.  And that in itself was encouraging.  The first steps, as it were, even if they were baby ones.  And this time he was determined to take it slow, not get ahead of himself and to get it right this time.

Assuming, of course, that Sam was thinking along the same lines as he was.

The thought dimmed his mood slightly, but it was only a temporary glitch.  Sam loved him, he knew that, and sooner or later the Englishman would forgive him.  As Backup said, Sam pretty much always forgave him.

And speaking of Backup, she watched him come in with a knowing glint in her eye, and even that couldn't drag him down from his current ebullient mood.  The news she had could though.

"He wants me to do what?"

Backup sighed heavily.  "He wants you to partner up with Wiersbowski... on a temporary basis, so wipe that look off your face... and the pair of you are to leave on an assignment this afternoon."  Keel didn't look any more convinced.

"What happened to Michaels?" he asked through gritted teeth.

She was rapidly loosing patience with him, her own lack of sleep telling on her nerves.  "I told you what happened to Michaels and Wiersbowski.  Malone decided that after their bust up they were probably better off separated for a while, maybe even permanently.  And in the meantime, there are plenty of agents without partners so he's playing mix and match as best he can."  Not waiting to see if this had sunk in, she continued, "You aren't the only team being sent in.  Carlson and I are accompanying you.  We're taking a two pronged approach."

That didn't seem to help either.  She stared into Keel's seething face with an inward resigned shrug, and forced iron into her voice.  "We're undermanned and you know it, Chris.  You aren't the only one in this situation.  May I suggest that you deal with it instead of sulking?"

That got through to him, his scowl deepening as the jibe hit home.  "I am not sulking," he shot back.  "I'm just..."  He trailed off, looking at her helplessly.  For once she wasn't in the mood to help him out.

"Sam will be fine," she said briskly.  "His injuries weren't severe and he should be fit for light duties soon.  If I were you, I'd worry more about the situation we're about to get ourselves into."  She pointedly turned her back on him and returned her attention to her workstation.

"I am," she heard him mutter darkly behind her, but he seemed content to leave his griping at that and wandered off to his own, much more untidy desk.

When he was no longer watching her, she finally let out the sigh she'd been holding in and rubbed her temples wearily.  She was getting a bad headache both from lack of sleep and staring at her screen for hours and she really didn't need any headstrong Americans adding to it.

*****

Sam deposited the last carrier bag onto the table with a sigh.  One of the things he didn't miss when he worked away as much as he did was the weekly fight around Tesco's.  It never ceased to amaze him how the large supermarkets managed to turn what should be a simple task into a struggle against a seething mass of humanity requiring navigational skills even beyond those required by CI5 simply to locate half a dozen eggs.  Still, it was over now, at least until the next time he needed food. Shrugging his jacket off over his sore and stiff arm, he hung it up neatly in the closet.  He was on his way back into the kitchen when he noticed the light on his answering machine flashing.

For a long moment he left his finger hovering over the play button, some sixth sense telling him it wasn't likely to be good news, before he mentally chided himself and set the message playing.

It was Chris and he sounded pissed.  And apologetic, although for what Sam couldn't figure out.  To his mind, it was inevitable that sooner or later Chris would be sent out of the country on an assignment, Malone not having the resources at the moment to leave one half of a partnership dangling in the office and on simple milk-runs and bodyguard assignments, which is what would have normally happened.  They'd lost too many good people over the last few months, and Malone refused to speed up the graduation of the newest recruits, due to finish their six month induction in six weeks time.  He'd figured that they'd all just have to make do until then.

Flexing his arm carefully to try and get some of the stiffness out of it put there by the simple tasks of shopping and driving, he fought back the pang of guilt at the thought of his overworked colleagues.  He'd tried to insist that he was fit for duty, but the duty doctor who'd examined him after their botched attempt to nail Belmont would have none of it.  His injury, while not serious enough to require hospitalisation, had required several stitches, a course of painkillers and antibiotics and complete rest if it was to heal cleanly.  She'd also made some rather pointed remarks about the fact that Sam seemed to be suffering from borderline exhaustion.  In vain, Sam had pointed out that if she dragged any of the active field agents in at the moment she could probably come up with the same concerns.  It appeared that after falling into her clutches he wasn't going to get out again.  Complete rest, she'd ordered, and complete rest was what he was expected to do.

Malone had been even less happy about that than Sam had been, and after Chris' little scene and rapid departure he'd had to endure some borderline ranting about his carelessness in getting himself injured and putting his colleagues under even more pressure, before the fact that he was almost swaying on his feet from tiredness finally got through to the old bastard and Malone had rather sheepishly apologised for his bad mood, rubbing at his eyes tiredly and saying that the stress was getting to all of them.  None of which made Sam feel any better.  Mind you, he wasn't sure what would have done at the time.

He dragged his thoughts back to the message on the machine.  It wasn't even as though he'd seen Chris over the last week, and hadn't even spoken to him until the previous evening, so why was Chris even bothering to phone and apologise for not being around when he hadn't been anyway.

All right, that might be slightly uncharitable, but until last night's phone call, any optimism that Chris had left him with that night after Sam had been injured had faded when Chris failed to get in touch.  At first, Sam had been grateful for the respite.  It gave him time to clear his head, think about whether Chris and he had a future together, about whether he wanted to risk trusting the man again after being hurt so badly.  But as the days passed and Chris still made no effort to get in touch his doubts began to grow.  If Chris hadn't lied to him the second time, when he'd told Sam that he loved him, and had lied when he'd told him that he didn't, why hadn't he called?  And now Sam wasn't quite sure whether he was willing to risk getting closer to Chris again when the man appeared to be able to dismiss him so cavalierly from his mind whereas Sam found himself thinking about Chris constantly.

It hadn't occurred to him that Chris might be feeling exactly the same way until he'd heard Chris' hesitant voice on the phone the previous night.  His partner had sounded as nervous as Sam felt and that went some way to silencing the doubts.  But only some way.

It had probably turned out best that he'd been sent home on enforced sick leave.  He was completely distracted, focusing on his personal life to the extent of ignoring everything else, and if nothing else it gave him time to regain some sort of control over his rampaging emotions.  He missed Chris desperately, and not just for the physical aspect of their relationship.  He missed the glint in Chris' eyes, the dimples when Chris smiled, the way his hair was always flattened awkwardly first thing in the morning before he could shower and apply gel, the very scent of the man.  He'd even taken to wearing Chris' sweater, the one he'd left in Sam's flat, all the while hating himself for being so pathetic.  It brought him some comfort though, wearing something that had once been close to Chris' skin.  He was wearing it now. 

His hand drifted out and pressed the play button again.

"Sam... listen, I'm sorry about this but Malone's sending me abroad for a while.  Can't tell you anything else over a unsecured line, but I don't know how long I'll be...  I'll call you when I get back, okay?"  A hesitation, and then Chris' voice again.  "Sam..." then Chris yelling something to someone about being there in a minute.  Another hesitation and then a hurried and low,  "I love you..."  Click, as the answering machine switched off.

Rewind.

"I love you..."  Click.

Rewind.

"I love you..."  Click.  Pathetic of him, and yet he still hit the rewind button again, just to hear Chris say it once more.

He was beginning to believe it, believe that just maybe Chris meant what he said both on this tape and previously, and what he'd said that night, about being afraid and lashing out.  That he did love Sam, always had.

The problem was that Sam was still afraid, so desperately afraid that he'd take Chris' words at face value and end up being hurt again.

Rewind...