Notes: it's the return of my season one episode ficlets apparently *g* This is the fourth one I've written since syndication started.

Slight AU warning: I'm ignoring the Angel-John dating thing.... sorry *l* I couldn't even watch her hanging on John on the show *g*

Disclaimer: Not my players. Not even my playground this time. :-)

I hate seeing her cry, I always have. I've seen her cry before. However, never before was it because of me. Until tonight. Tonight when she looked at me, her eyes were full of tears and it tore at my heart.

Everything lately has been like living in some sort of twisted movie. I felt out of control from the beginning, and if there's anything I hate, it's not being in control of my own life.

The roads are empty, and slow, drizzling rain is falling onto the city as I drive. It couldn't fit my mood more perfectly if it tried. I drive aimlessly, trying to think. Trying to make sense of what's happening lately. My life is suddenly going every way but the one that I expected weeks, even days ago. I may have missed the Atlanta PD, but I had never truly thought about going back.

Things happened so quickly. It was a mad rush, one that didn't end when I left the VCTF. No, the out of control spiral of my life slammed to a halt the moment Samantha Waters tracked me down in a run-down bar.

I could barely meet her eyes. The confusion at seeing her there ate at me like the exhaustion that has been eating at all of us. Especially Sam. I never imagined when I told Bailey that I quit that my leaving might add to her troubles. Just one more time I was wrong, I suppose.

A part of me still can't believe she was actually there. It was like when I woke up in the hospital after being shot. For a moment I could only wonder why she was there, waiting for me to wake up. At that moment she was an angel, at least to me.

Tonight was so similar, I couldn't believe that she really went to the trouble to find me. When I looked up and saw her enter the bar . . . I swear my heart skipped a beat before I managed to bury the emotion. I needed it under control and out of my eyes.

The way she's able to read me scares the hell out of me sometimes. I asked her once, when we were working on a case late one night, how she was always so sure what I was thinking. Even worse, I couldn't figure out how she so often seemed to have a tap into what I was feeling.

"It's your eyes," she had said. The smallest smile had turned the corner of her lips then. At that moment my attention had been divided. Lost somewhere between feeling suddenly happy that I'd made her smile, and trying desperately to bury that same feeling. Looking back, I have no doubt she knew anyway.

The rules for me have been the same for most of my life. Let others know how you feel and you give them power over you. Trust them with your emotions and they have the ability to crush your heart. I know these well, I learned both of those lessons the hard way thanks to my father.

But over time I've become able to read Sam, too. And her eyes rarely lie. She might try to hide, just like I do, but I still know. It's almost funny, my reading her just like she does with me. That's why a part of me knows she would never hurt me, at least not intentionally. It was an alien feeling at first, someone caring about me. I fought it, but it was realizing all of this that allowed me to be able to trust someone for the first time in many years.

I would rather die than hurt her, than to abuse the trust we've managed to foster. I've known that for some time, almost as long as I've known her at all. Yet tonight there were tears in her eyes, and I have to face the fact that I put them there. Not Jack or some nameless stranger. Me. Whether or not I meant to hurt her, I did.

I haven't been gone for ten minutes and already I'd give anything to take it back. Take back my words or my walking out, I'm not sure. Maybe both. Yet I can't bring myself to go back to see her again. It's probably for the best if I just leave her alone.

I don't think about the fact that I'm running away. Cowardice or courage, either way it's for the best. Given enough distance I can't hurt her anymore. Maybe given enough time, the memory of tears in her eyes won't hurt me anymore, either.

End