Chapter Text
The pattern only gets worse from there on.
Day by day, Tara refuses to process what happened. She refuses to go to the counselor, she refuses to talk about it with the rest of them, and she makes increasingly risky decisions.
Every day, Sam feels as if she's slipping right through her fingers, and, in her attempts to hold on, she’s taking all the wrong steps to prevent it from happening.
She doesn't mean to be overbearing. Truly, she doesn't.
It's just that having Tara back in her life has meant having her heart outside of her body, at the mercy of Tara's hands and Tara's whims, all contingent upon whether Tara is safe and healthy and as happy as possible. She never feels like she can really breathe or settle in place until Tara's in range, and her heart is close enough to pump blood to her lungs and limbs again.
So, she doesn't mean to be overbearing, but she gets frustrated. Because Tara is pretending she's fine when she's not, and she's treating her safety like something frivolous to be thrown around, and Sam knows she's smarter than that.
So, sometimes her words get sharper, and her desperation sounds like anger, which only ever serves to make Tara angrier, and it just becomes a cycle.
Tara yelling, and Sam defending herself. Sam trying to get Tara to understand that they'll never move past this if Tara doesn't at least acknowledge it, and Tara throwing back darts and darts and darts that only ever hit the bullseye and deflate all the fight from Sam's system.
In the end, it's always the same. Sam retreating and giving Tara space. As much space as she can bear, at least.
This is how she finally talks to Danny.
One night, after a particularly loud bout that ends with Tara slamming her bedroom door hard enough to rattle the frame, Sam can't sleep. Can only stare at the ceiling. Can only hear you're not listening to me, and god, I love you, but I can't stand to be around you, sometimes, and just leave me alone, please.
In the dark, she's acutely aware of the presence of the black duffel bag in the back of her closet.
And, as she does on most of these same nights, after a few hours of fruitlessly trying for sleep, she throws her covers off of her in a huff and goes into the closet to get it. She grabs her keys and her phone and locks the door as quietly as she can behind her.
On the ground floor of the apartment building is the laundry center. At 3:15 in the morning, it is, understandably, abandoned.
The lights are always fluorescent and jarring, after the darkness of her room, but they also help jolt her out of the monotonous, miserable drone of her thoughts.
Walking through a well-worn routine, she tosses the bag onto one of the machines, unzips it, and sets about separating the clothes within by color. Two loads, always. Darks and semi-darks. She's not one for colorful outfits.
It's good to keep clothes fresh, if they've been sitting stale in a bag in the closet, is her thinking.
It's her best way of cutting her instinct to run at the knees. Because running to keep her family safe would be one thing, but running after an argument with her sister, where she doesn't want to stomach the pain of rejection, would be the coward's way. And she won't do it.
So, she opts to wash the clothes instead.
And it's a nice routine. Put them in the washers, pour in the detergent and fabric softener, wait for the loads to be finished, then transfer them to the dryer.
Sitting on the bench along the only wall free of washers or dryers, with the sounds of the machines a comforting drone in the background, she brings her knees to her chest and rests her arms and forehead atop them, and she gets as close to sleep as she can.
It's enough to make her tired, at least — so that when she trudges back upstairs, clothes folded and neatly compartmentalized in the bag once more, she can collapse into her bed.
It's a nice routine. One she appreciates the mundanity of. The repetition of.
Except — on this night, when the dryer is only halfway done, a sound at the doorway startles her out of her stasis.
Immediately, her feet drop to the floor. Her hands go tight-fisted at her sides, and her eyes snap to the right. And there, standing with a basket in his arms and an apologetic look on his face, is Danny.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't think anyone would be here. I didn't mean to scare you."
Sam breathes through the abrupt rise of adrenaline. She blinks to clear her vision of its tricks.
"No, it's—it's okay."
He still stands, unsure, on the threshold of the room. He half-turns away.
"Do you want me to come back when you're done?" he asks.
And Sam, charmed by the fact that he'd offer, and the realization that it's the longest conversation they've ever had—seeing as they've only exchanged brief pleasantries like no you go first on the stairs and Sam only knows his name because she'd helped him pick up his mail after dropping it once—shakes her head. A smile curls at one edge of her mouth.
"No, that's okay," she says. "Please, don't let me keep you."
He gives her a nod, kind of jerky, like he might be nervous, and then he steps into the room and goes about washing his own clothes.
No longer lulled into half-consciousness, too alert for her own good—or maybe not alert enough for her own good, she can never tell—Sam remains sitting on the bench and refrains from tapping her foot on the floor. She crosses her arms over her chest and grips them tighter than necessary.
When Danny's finished putting his load in the washer, he simply leaves his basket on top of the machine and walks out, and Sam sits through the warring sensations of relief and disappointment.
She leans her head back against the concrete wall and stares at the water-damaged brown spot on the ceiling. Every time she comes back, it's spread a little bit more, and she knows, one day, if not fixed, it'll cause too much structural damage and cause a collapse.
The maintenance guy doesn't seem all that concerned. For what he's paid, Sam doesn't particularly blame him.
So, she just keeps an eye on it and wonders when the day will come. Certainly not too soon, given that it's only the size of one square tile. But one day. Eventually.
She tries not to link it back to anything too close to home: the idea of rot spreading and ruining the structure that keeps things together. She tries not to think about being the cause of collapse.
She blinks at a stubborn sting in her eyes.
"Lemonade?"
She jumps again, but is quicker to relax this time, as Danny stands a respectable distance away.
"I'm sorry?" she says.
"Lemonade?" he repeats, drawing her eyes down to his extended hand and the bottle he's holding out to her.
"Oh," she breathes. She swallows. "I—sure." A beat. "Thank you."
He steps forward, now, just enough to allow her to take the bottle in her hand.
"You're welcome," he says.
He retreats again, just enough to lean back against one of the inert dryers. He opens his own bottle and takes a sip before setting it down beside him.
Sam opens hers, too. She takes a sip and hopes the tang and the tart will corrode the thickness in her throat.
When she looks back over at him, she finds him with his arms crossed and his eyes on her.
Before she can say anything, or hate the attention, he says, "Thought it would be cliche to offer a penny." A beat. "You know, for your thoughts."
He smiles a little, lips pressed together, gentle, and Sam finds herself mirroring it without meaning to. She tips the top of the bottle toward him.
"So, lemonade was your natural go-to?" she asks. He shrugs, good-natured. "Good call."
She's still smiling, and so is he, and it's nice. More than nice. Refreshing, to be met with kindness and patience from a stranger.
"I hoped so," he says.
Sam is still feeling so raw from the argument that just the gesture is enough to have her fighting back tears once more.
"I'm not gonna pry," he tells her. "But, if you want, I've been told I'm an okay listener."
"Just okay?" she asks.
"Always room for improvement," he says.
She chuckles a little, and it makes him smile wider.
Just then, the buzzer for her dryer goes off. He sidesteps to allow her to walk past him.
While she unloads her clothes and goes about folding them and putting them back in the bag, he keeps his promise not to pry and allows them both to exist in a comfortable silence.
When she glances over, with only a few shirts left, she sees him leant against the machine again, arms crossed, head tilted down, eyes closed.
She hesitates, momentarily, before reaching into the side pocket of the bag and pulling out the pack of gum she keeps forgetting to remove. She unfolds the flap and extends her arm.
"Long night?" she asks.
He opens his eyes and glances over to her out of the corner of them. When he looks down and sees the gum, he smiles again.
He reaches over and takes a piece.
"You could say that," he says. He holds the stick of gum up to her in salute. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"I'm working on my master's degree," he says. "Night classes combined with the day job make for a long one."
"I bet it does," Sam says. She places the last shirt in the bag, zips it, and turns to look at him again. "What are you studying?"
"Engineering," he says.
Sam gives a sympathetic noise, a quiet oof that makes him laugh a little.
"S'not all bad," he says. "I enjoy it. Just have to get through the grind first."
"How long do you have left?" she asks.
"This is my last year. I'll graduate in the spring."
"Oh, well, congratulations in advance." Sam slings the strap of the bag over her shoulder, fiddles with it for a few seconds. "Thank you again, for the lemonade. And for your offer. Might take you up on it one day."
"I hope you will," he says.
Sam makes her way to the door and says, "Goodnight."
His answering, "Goodnight," follows her out.
The softness of it stays with her as she resettles the bag in its spot in her closet. As she resettles in her bed. As she closes her eyes.
Just before she drifts to sleep, she has the vague awareness that she's still smiling, just faintly.
As the weeks pass, Sam and Tara fight more and more. So, Sam and Danny meet in the laundry room more and more.
She starts to confide in him, starts to trust him, and the first time they kiss is under that same, fluorescent-lit water stain in the ceiling.
He kisses as she suspected he would — gentle and patient and giving — and he holds her by the waist tentatively. His fingers only apply the barest hint of pressure, like he's content to take only what she offers.
It sends her into a panic attack.
She can barely breathe enough to pull back and tell him, "I'm sorry."
Can barely breathe enough to get up the stairs. To unlock all the deadbolts in their door.
It's a Friday night, nowhere near as late as her usual trips to the laundry center. She and Tara had argued about Tara wanting to go to a concert, and Tara had gone anyway, despite Sam's protests. Because, despite Sam's protests, she is still her own person, and Sam can't control her. Won’t control her, despite how much she just wants to wrap solid arms around her and keep her in place, where she's safe.
Chad, Mindy, and Quinn all went with, which should make Sam feel better but doesn't. Hasn't, for all the hours they've been gone.
Because despite the idea of safety in numbers, Sam worries for Mindy and Chad, too. She always feels a fierce, protective burn in her chest any time she thinks about them going back to their dorms, and their classes, and the fact that they don't come home to the same place as Sam at the end of the night often makes it worse. Because Sam can't check on them physically to make sure they're really okay.
So, even though it’s better that the three of them went together, with Quinn, it’s also worse. Because all that Sam has to lose is right there in that venue, out of her reach and control. If a stray comet or sudden earthquake or masked serial killer were to strike, Sam would be rendered only one fourth of herself, left alone.
It's something she always thinks of, when she comes home to an empty apartment. It's something she thinks of now, as she stumbles inside.
Save for the singular lamp in the living room they always leave lit, it's dark. And Sam can't even make herself fear the fact that if Ghostface were to appear out of the shadows, she would be relatively easy prey.
She simply can't breathe. Her heart is beating a harsh, irregular pattern against her chest, and each impact hurts. It's too sharp under the sternum.
The air is too stale, too. It's too thick.
She makes her way to the window leading to their fire escape on unsteady legs. She climbs out on the same.
She manages to half-shuffle, half-crawl her way to the railing, where she presses her back and shoulders into the metal. Where she uses it to ground herself.
She tries to count her breaths — the proper rate of ins and outs — like she sometimes helps Tara to do when she has a particularly bad asthma attack. She spends an indeterminable amount of time doing so.
Eventually, with her knees drawn to her chest, and her arms hugging them close, she manages to regulate her lungs and her heart rate once more. But, then, with the suffocating squeeze gone, comes the flood.
She trembles against the exit of the first sob. Tears dampen the fabric of her sleeves.
On her lips is the taste of salt, and the lingering pressure of Danny's kiss.
Danny, who has been nothing but patient and kind and understanding toward her moods. Her moments of closeness followed by cautious aloofness. Her struggle with trusting that someone would be interested in her simply for her, and not her twisted history or familial ties.
Danny, who she likes, but who isn't prepared for or deserving of the life that he will inevitably have if he associates himself with her.
Danny, who she just kissed.
She shouldn't have kissed him. Shouldn't have let him kiss her. The last person she let kiss her was Richie. The last person she thought she might just love was Richie.
The last person to look at her like she meant a lot to them was Richie, and now Danny has that same sort of shine to his eyes, but it's been proven, now, that Sam can't tell the difference if it's fake. It's been proven, now, that Sam has so little experience being looked at like that, that she might not have ever seen it in its true form. Maybe it's why she'd been fooled so easily. She can't be sure.
All she does know is that she can't let Danny get close. She can't.
He doesn't deserve a life of danger and strain, and on the off chance that he isn't the kind of person who offers lemonade without ulterior motives, it would be safe to cut their growing connection off immediately. Before it's too untenable.
The idea does nothing to ease the ache in her chest.
Danny's soft eyes and soft smiles and willingness to listen to her and talk to her like it's his favorite part of the day have quickly become something Sam can feel softening some of her edges. She looks forward to running into him, to meeting with him, and it's nice to have someone closer to her age to confide in. It's nice to have someone outside of the situation offer her comfort or advice on what to do about Tara and the twins and life in general.
It's nice, to just joke with him and have him around. She likes listening to him, likes hearing his plans for after his graduate program is finished, and likes hearing about the projects he's working on. She likes the quirks she gets a glimpse of, too. Like how he apparently always has tools lying around his apartment, for diy renovations and experiments, and how he disdains berry flavored gums, can only have mint, and how he seems to prefer her full name for moments of quiet.
More than she could've anticipated, she likes him. She really, truly does.
But she just can't see any other way around it.
So, she sits on the fire escape, and she cries, and she feels terribly melodramatic, like some scene in an indie film, but she can't make herself move. Can't do anything but submit to it, for now.
She always feels like she's fighting, struggling to wade through tar just to get through the day, and she's tired. She wants to rest. But since that alludes her most times, crying is the next best option.
It's a release she rarely lets herself have.
So, she cries, and she doesn't know how much time passes, but she's grateful their fire escape is out of view of Danny's apartment, because she couldn't stand to face even a glimpse of him. (Not for a few days, at least. A week, more likely. To work up the courage of cutting it off at the root.)
It's probably well past midnight by the time the locks on the door begin to turn again. The muffled sounds of laughter and voices gives way to clearer and unhindered noise, and Sam shies away from it. She curls further into her spot, hoping to go unnoticed and unseen.
She should've kept better track of time. She should've retreated to her room and closed the door well before Tara and Quinn, and apparently the twins as well, came back.
She's always fumbling when it comes to what she should do, both big and small, and she's getting really tired of that too.
She hears Quinn tell everyone goodnight and the chorus of goodnights that follows.
From previous nights of a-bit-too-drunken shenanigans, she knows Mindy and Chad decided to stay over rather than find their way back to their dorms in any type of inebriation. (Safety in numbers, especially when vulnerable.)
This means that Chad will take the couch, and Mindy will share Tara's bed.
Sam allows her surroundings to go out of focus for once and lets their voices wash over her like white noise. She breathes deep and through the lingering tears to make room for what matters. Proof that they're home. Proof that they're safe. Proof that they're happy.
It helps like nothing else ever does. Like nothing else ever comes close to.
And the minutes pass easily because of it.
Soon, their voices grow quieter. The adrenaline and excitement of the night starts to give way to tiredness.
Sam keeps her head tucked into her arms, with only the occasional tear slipping past her defenses. Inside, all seems to be still and calm—instead of silent and foreboding—and Sam would look away from any number of affectionate eyes if it meant allowing the three people in the living room to only know such peace.
Because that's what it comes down to, isn't it? It's what it will always come down to. Trying to ensure and maintain a life of peace for those who most deserve it. The three kids who have been through more than their fair share of trauma and pain.
The ones she used to babysit, before all that pain. The ones always fighting to maintain happiness and warmth in the face of all the odds.
It’s all that really matters, at the end of the day.
Sam has known that since the first attacks. She’s known that whatever her previous purpose in life—elusive to her, as it was—is no longer relevant. She is and will always be meant to fight for them.
And it’s never clearer than when she’s suddenly drawn out of her folded-arm asylum by the faint noise of a shoe making contact with the grated metal of the fire escape just a foot away.
She looks up through a head rush, blinking blearily as she’s drawn out of her stupor, and she finds Mindy coming slowly through the window to join her.
Sam swallows. She meets Mindy’s eyes, which are dark under furrowed eyebrows. Concerned.
“Spotted you out here,” Mindy says, after a moment. “Thought you could use some company.”
Something barbed-wire sharp presses against the inside of Sam’s throat. She presses her lips together to keep them from trembling. Her eyes sting; another tear escapes.
Mindy’s face goes gentler, somehow, seeing it. She closes the small gap between them and turns, so that she can press her back to the railing too. Then, she slides down right beside Sam and sits in a similar position.
The warmth of the contact between their shoulders works better at making Sam feel present, and human.
She sniffs and wipes at her cheeks.
“Did you guys have fun?” she asks.
Mindy smiles at her, but it’s faint — only a tilt of one side of her mouth.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” she says, gently.
“Do what?” Sam asks.
“Try to act normal just because one of us is seeing you cry.”
It hadn’t been a conscious decision, really. Just the instinctive recoil of being witnessed at her weakest.
“Do I do that often?”
“Every time.” Mindy lifts her arm and shifts so that she can wrap it around the back of Sam’s shoulders and hug her. Sam has to lean into her a bit to make it work. “We can handle it. I promise.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Sam says, but it’s far less convincing than it should be, considering she’s practically huddled into Mindy’s body.
“Neither should you,” Mindy says easily.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“But we will,” Mindy says, fingers tightening on Sam’s bicep. “You can’t make us not care about you, Sam. That’s just not how mutual relationships work.” She pulls back just enough to look Sam dead in the eye. “We love you. Deal with it.”
Sam huffs a little breath out of her nose, but it’s lighter. Her eyes still sting when she lifts them in a half-hearted roll, but she’s able to ignore it.
Mindy turns back to face the window once more, and Sam leans her head on top of hers.
“Thank you,” she says.
Mindy settles her head on Sam’s shoulder as her answer, and, yes, Sam thinks, any sacrifice would be worth it, to preserve this.
She talks to Danny only a few days later; her guilt is too strong to let it go on longer.
She tries to explain to him, with as much truth as is safe, why she can’t get close, why she’s not ready to get close. And he takes it with an understanding and grace that she probably doesn’t deserve.
When she’s done explaining, rambling, apologizing, he takes her hand carefully, and she lets him.
“I’ll give you as much space as you need, Samantha,” he says. “Whatever terms you want.” His thumb brushes over her knuckles. “I don’t know everything you’ve been through, but I do know that you deserve every piece of happiness you can get. If that’s not me, that’s okay. Just don’t run from it, when it comes, okay?”
As he goes to let go of her hand, Sam has the distinct feeling that he’s slipping through her fingers. And it terrifies her, grips her with a sudden, icy urgency. She tightens her hold without thinking about it. Without doubting it.
He looks at her, and his eyes are wide open and honest, so terribly earnest, and it doesn’t feel like Richie ever did. He doesn’t look like Richie ever did. They don’t even compare.
Whereas Richie worked and worked his way in, weaseling himself into her life after multiple attempts to take her on a date and get her to trust him, Danny has been nothing but patient and willing to take a step forward only when she permits him to.
He’s respected her boundaries and cared about her words, and he’s everything she never let herself dream of falling in love with.
And Sam tries and tries and tries to be selfless these days, after so many years of selfishness. But she still has some of that instinct in her, that desire to take what she wants and hold it tight, no matter the cost.
And, sometimes, it’s just too hard to shake.
So, she takes his face in her hands and kisses him again – this time, firmer and with more feeling.
When he pulls back and asks her, “Are you sure?” she nods and says, “Yes.”
And she finds that she means it.
She finds that the panic doesn’t come.
They grow closer after that, until it feels like a relationship in everything but name.
“We can’t tell anyone about us,” she says, lying in his bed, watching him iron his work clothes.
“But there is an us?” he quirks a smile at her from over his shoulder.
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling too.
“It’s just too new,” she says. “I’m not ready.”
He sets the iron down on the board and leaves the button-down shirt lying there. He crawls across the covers and wraps his arms around her, until they’re both laying down.
“Okay,” he says. “I told you. Your pace.”
She trails her fingers along his jaw, over his stubble. She feels that dangerous feeling, that terrible tenderness, creep up the back of her throat.
Instead of spilling it, and saying the words that might doom him, she just kisses him and hopes it’ll be enough.
. . . .
Of course, it all has to come to a head eventually. That's just how their lives go.
Six months into their new routine, Sam's therapist brands her a threat despite her request for help, and she leaves his office, eyes stinging and skin tingling all over.
Her throat fights every swallow and hurts like she swallowed sawdust, but the day really isn't much worse than what she's become accustomed to in the months since they've moved to New York.
She's learned how to brave the confrontations and bite her tongue and dodge her way out of seedy situations. She's learned how to take most of the words and assumptions people throw at her and make sure the majority of them don't stick.
And the medicine she's on works best out of all the ones she's tried before. She hasn't seen anyone she shouldn't since they moved.
(Though she still dreams him. She still fears him lurking in puddles and car doors and bathroom mirrors. She spends a good amount of her time consciously not thinking about him.)
So, her therapist turning out to be just like everyone else who doubts her sanity and wants to cast her aside isn't the worst part of the day.
Surprisingly, neither is when she goes to the frat party she'd begged Tara to abstain from and ends up tasing the asshole who had put his hands on her sister with the intent to take advantage of her. Surprisingly, it's not when Tara storms out mad at her — her, instead of him.
And not even when they’re in the street, briskly being followed by their friends, and Tara turns around and asks her what she’s doing in New York, what her purpose is besides protecting her, always protecting her, how is she supposed to do anything else? How can she even ask that?
Sam says, “Just trying to look out for you,” through an esophagus swollen from the bitterness and the barbs.
And Tara starts to say something but takes a moment, collects herself, makes her voice calmer and just a touch gentler. Sam wishes she wouldn’t. Whenever Tara tries to soften the blows, it only hurts more.
“I know,” Tara says. “I know you are.” A split-second, a breath, and then, “You can’t do it for the rest of my life, though." The blow. "You have to let me go.”
Let me go. Let me go. You have to let me go.
It reverberates all around, echoing in Sam’s head and punching a hollow right in the Tara-shaped piece of her heart. The majority of her heart. The only part of her heart that really matters, at the end of the day. The only part that she knows is good.
It aches like a burn from the cold. And before Sam can ask how, before she can open her mouth and spill blood, she’s ripped into reality by the explosion of soda across her front.
Commotion and chaos picks up, and Sam is shouting at the woman who is shouting at her, and even though she’s held back by Chad and Tara, buffered by Mindy and the rest stepping forward, she’s still left standing by herself as the others walk off.
She’s still the only one there to ring her shirt out.
She doesn't know she's wrong, when she thinks this is about as bad as the day will get.
She has time to think as she waits for Danny to come back, and she finds herself going back to the first day someone ever took matters into their own hands and confronted her, threw something at her, told her she was poison to all she touches. Water damage to the structure of the house.
She thinks about when she asked Tara to tell her if she ever wants her to go.
She hears Tara saying You have to let me go.
The go-bag is still in her closet. She could grab it. She could go.
But she doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know how, and she tells Danny as much, because maybe he’ll know, maybe he won’t, maybe he can at least hug her and make her feel a little better.
Or, maybe, as is the pattern, he isn't even able to get that far before it all goes to shit.
The thing is, Sam knows — knows — deep in her bones, as soon as the reporter says the names of Tara and Mindy's classmates, that they're in danger.
It's not paranoia, it's not superstition, it's not the stifling, all-consuming instinct to strap Tara and the twins down with bubble wrap and weapons any time they go out.
It's certainty. One she can't shake.
So, she tells Tara, "Pack a bag, we leave in ten," because she also knows, despite what she's said, that Tara hasn't prepared one out of the obstinate desire to pretend they live lives that don't require exit strategies.
And, of course, as is the way these days, Tara fights her. Always fights her.
Sam wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Wants to say Wake up! We cannot deny our way out of a death curse, can only fight our way out of a death curse.
But she's waylaid by Quinn's dad.
He confirms all her worst fears with just one sentence, "I'm afraid I need you to come down to the station."
Nausea tingles in the backs of her jaw.
"Okay," she says. "I'm on the way."
"Thank you, Sam."
She makes some sort of noise of affirmation before hanging up and handing the phone back to Quinn.
"What is it?" Chad asks. "Where are you going?"
"Police station," Sam says. "He asked me to come in."
Sam meets Tara's eyes, and all of the sudden fear and realization that flickers across Tara's face, as their connection to the killings is confirmed, makes Sam's nausea increase tenfold.
"We'll leave when I get back," she says. She reaches and brushes a barely-there touch across Tara's bangs. "Go pack your bag."
She turns before Tara can say anything, goes into her room and pulls her own bag out of the closet. She sets it on the bed and pulls out one of the shirts, tight-fitting and flexible, best for mobility in the likely case of fighting for her life.
When she walks back out into the living room, Tara isn't there, presumably in her room, but the twins are both on the couch, lacing up their shoes.
"What're you doing?" Sam asks.
"Isn't it obvious?" Mindy asks.
"Coming with you," Chad says.
"No," Sam says. "I need you here, with the group. Behind locked doors."
"Don't be stupid, Sam," Mindy says, standing up. "We're not letting you walk through the city alone with a new Ghostface running loose. That's amateur hour."
"Guys, please," she says. "It's only a couple of blocks. You're safer here, together. And someone needs to be with Tara."
Mindy and Chad share a look, torn. A few moments pass before Mindy lets out a sigh through her nose.
"Fine," she says. "But be careful."
"Keep your phone on you," Chad says. "If anything happens, we're there."
Sam nods.
She grabs her jacket and walks out the door, only moments away from the beginning of the worst.
. . . .
Sam's phone rings when they're on their way to the station in the back of a cop car.
The flash of blue, the crisscross of yellow tape, the emerging, black-bagged bodies at the bodega grow smaller in the rear-view mirror, but her ears still ring with the vestiges of the shotgun blasts.
The palms of her hands sting from the press of broken glass. The knees of her jeans are soaked through from the beer that had spilled across the linoleum. She's just finished picking remnants of cardboard packaging from the top of Tara's hair.
Her heart rate hasn't quite come down to a healthy pace, but her fingers aren't shaking, so she manages to get her phone out of her pocket with one arm, while the other remains firmly around Tara's shoulders.
"It's Chad," she says.
She presses the green button and brings the phone to her ear.
"We're okay," she says, in lieu of a greeting. A sharp exhale comes down the line and sends static into the receiver. "We're being taken to the station now. Police escort."
"Thank god," Chad says, faint, like he's still trying to catch his breath. There's a voice in the background, indiscernible. "Yeah, they're okay."
Mindy, most likely. Sam releases her own breath, slow and through her nose, thankful that they, too, are unharmed.
"So, it's really happening, then," Chad says, after a few moments.
Sam wants to take his fear as her own and swallow it. Burn it. Bury it sixty feet under.
"Yes," she says, instead. "Just stay in the apartment. They got away, and they were so close to home. We can't risk it again."
"Yeah," Chad says. "Yeah, okay. We'll be here. Just—Just be safe. Please. We'll see you soon."
"Wait. Here," Sam says.
She holds out the phone to Tara, who takes it easily.
"Hey," Tara says, quietly, and a bit of the tension in her body dissipates under Sam's arm. "Yeah, I'm okay. Neither of us were hurt."
Sam leans her head back into the headrest. She closes her eyes and lets the quiet murmur of Tara's voice, and Chad's, distantly, be what she needs. That proof that, right now, they're still relatively okay. They're still here, and Sam can still keep it that way.
No matter what.
By the time they're let out of the station with the infuriating instruction to stay in town by Quinn's dad and apparent FBI agent Kirby Reed — who saw that one coming? — it's daylight.
The sunlight is as jarring as it is unexpected upon stepping outside. The mass of reporters, however, not so much. Sam knew they would be present, rain or shine, night or day, no matter what.
Just as she expected that as soon as they see the two of them, they surge forward and hurl questions and accusations without pause for breath.
"Samantha, do you have an alibi for last night's murders?"
"Tara, do you feel safe around your sister?"
Sam simply draws Tara closer, curls her arm around her, and shoulders her way through the horde.
"Tara, Tara!"
She tries to practice the technique. She tries to let it all roll off her shoulders, so they can simply get back home.
But then, from behind, comes, "Gale Weathers, Channel Four," and Sam's stomach drops out from within her.
She and Tara turn, and there Gale is, in a bright blue blazer and all her glory.
The burn of betrayal, always under the skin, always moving Sam’s thumb to press decline when Gale calls, flares.
"Do you ladies think you're the reason the Ghostface killer has come to the Big Apple?"
And it's always the same. Someone they trust twisting the knife.
Someone Sam trusts, turning on her.
And she is just so sick of taking blame and soda and backstabbing lying down. She swings on Gale without thinking.
But, unfortunately, Gale is not new to the repercussions of laying waste to a relationship, and she dodges Sam's punch.
Sam is almost disappointed. Until Tara comes from the right and lands a blow herself.
"Stay away from us."
Sam has never been prouder.
Of course, Gale has the nerve to follow them. Has the nerve to ask if they're really still mad at her. (As if the sucker punch wasn't a clue.)
She's sent a few texts along the same lines. Each went ignored.
Because Sam remembers opening Gale's book for the first time. She remembers thinking about how Gale had said she was going to write one for Dewey, one that he would be proud of, and whenever she and Gale and Tara would meet up, and she would ask Gale about her progress, Gale wouldn't even flinch. She wouldn't even look like she was guilty of anything. She didn't give Sam any reason to suspect what would come.
She sat down and wrote that Sam was unstable, a born killer, fighting a desperate, and potentially fruitless, battle against the call to follow in her birth father's footsteps, and then she met Sam for brunch and had the nerve to ask if she'd been eating enough.
She had the nerve to make Sam and Tara believe that she cared about them, and whether or not they were coping in the aftermath of their first ever attack, and it's why the blindside had hurt so bad.
It stung to realize she was just another person Sam was made the fool by.
Just another person Sam had to lose, in one way or another.
Back at the apartment, they're met by the sight of the twins. Mindy is on the couch and Chad is sprawled across a pallet of blankets on the floor.
At the sounds of the locks, and the door opening, they seem to have been stirred awake.
"Hey," Sam says.
"Hi," Chad says back, through a yawn.
"You guys could've taken our beds," Sam says.
Behind her, Tara locks all the locks again.
"We wanted to wake up when you got here," Mindy says.
“Well, that’s sweet of you,” Tara says. “We’re okay.”
“Are you?” Chad asks.
Sam and Tara share a look with each other, and then with Mindy and Chad, each. They both seem to let out the same sort of sigh, exhausted and resigned.
Mindy and Chad stand at the same time, and Sam and Tara move at the same pace to meet them. The embrace usually goes like this: each pair of siblings across from each other, Chad on Sam’s left and Mindy on Sam’s right, Tara in front of her.
It goes the same, here, too.
They all wrap arms around each other and huddle close, and for a while, they’re still.
For a while, they're okay.
(God, will they ever truly be okay?)
"We're gonna beat this motherfucker, right?" Mindy asks, eventually.
"Yes," Sam says.
It's immediate. It's firm.
She's never meant anything more.
Because she might not know how, or when, but she does know that she will do whatever it takes to put anyone associated with inflicting this pain on them in the ground.
No matter what.
. . . .
Except — there’s a moment, when Sam is three stories off of the ground, suspended by only a straight ladder that barely reaches across the alley between windows, that she thinks it might just be better to fall.
She’s scared out of her mind, propelled by the innate instinct for survival that humans seem to be endowed with, for better and worse, and all around her is terror. It’s in the sounds and the sights and the smells, and she can taste it too, clogging the back of her throat.
Danny is at his window, beckoning her forward, begging her to make it to him, and Sam is listening; she’s following his call. But she hears Mindy and Anika behind her, sobbing, fighting against the persistent crash and collision of the killer that wants their blood.
And all Sam wants is for it to stop. All she wants is for the pain to ease. For Mindy and Anika to be calm and safe, for Tara and Chad to be able to stop running down staircases to save their lives, for roommates to not get caught up in twisted vendettas to make her pay.
And she doesn’t know what to do. It’s the second attack of an unforeseen number, and Sam is already sick of running. She’s sick of fighting. She just wants to make it stop.
She just wants to keep the people she cares about safe, and the cost of no matter what is already looking too high.
So, she’s halfway across when the thought occurs to her. It’s a split-second flicker, a wisp on the tendrils of fear, but it’s there. It worms its way past her survival instinct and all she has to live for, and it tells her that it would be easier for her, but most importantly for everyone, if she just let herself slip.
Ghostface would win, and that would sting worse than alcohol in the cut, worse than stitches and marrow-deep stab wounds, but Sam doesn’t think it’s realistic to expect to come out of every life-or-death situation with one’s pride intact.
So, maybe, if Ghostface won, and Sam lost, it would be over. The root of the resurgence in Ghostface fanatics would be eradicated, and, so, possibly, would the reasoning to keep going.
It’s a desperate hope, a reckless one, and it doesn’t have enough time to see its own fruition. It only has enough time to settle as a seed on the topsoil.
So, Sam puts one hand forward on the next rung, and she follows the call of survival.
But, after, when they’ve lost Anika on top of Quinn, when Sam's fingers sting from the feeling of Anika's hand slipping away, when her ears ring with I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die and Mindy's wails of grief, she only tastes regret. The bitter of guilt.
She supports Mindy all the way down to the ground floor, and all she can think, as Mindy leans into her, cries into her, is I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I should've gone last, I should've held on, I should've, I should've, I should've been the one.
She guides Mindy past the newly arrived line of police officers and investigators to the awaiting ambulance by the sidewalk. At her back, Danny is a steady presence, and she draws strength from him as she fights the inclination to tremble in place.
When Chad and Tara spot the three of them being met by the paramedics, they run from where they'd been pulled to the side, kept out of the way by officers asking questions. Kept from running back upstairs and trying to find them.
“Sam!”
“Mindy!”
Chad takes up Sam’s spot beside Mindy as she’s helped into the back of the ambulance.
Tara crashes into Sam like a half-sized wrecking ball, nearly bowling her over.
“I’m sorry,” she’s saying. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have run if I didn’t think you were behind me. We came back, but the door was locked.” She pulls back to look Sam over, fingers tight on her arms. “Are you hurt?”
Sam lifts her hands and takes Tara’s face in them, swallowing the only relief she’s been able to feel so far.
Don’t be sorry, she wants to say. I’m glad you got out. I hope you always get out.
“No,” she says, instead. “I’m not hurt.”
“Whose blood—?”
“Mindy’s,” Sam says.
Tara looks at the doors that lead into the lobby, her face tedious.
“Anika?” she asks.
Sam swallows. Tries to swallow. Chokes on it.
She manages to shake her head.
Tara’s chin trembles, but she fights the crumble and collapse that tries to creep in. She steps forward again and wraps her arms so tight around Sam’s torso, Sam feels some strain in the ribs.
It roots her in place.
She takes in a deep breath and lays an arm across the back of Tara’s shoulders. She uses the other one to cradle Tara’s head. She drops her cheek to her hair and closes her eyes.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Tara says into her shirt.
It should've been me. I could've stayed behind. I was the only one uninjured. How will I ever get over the feeling of Anika's hand slipping away?
"Never apologize for getting away," she says.
Even without me. Especially without me. Whatever the case may be, just please get away.
She lifts her face just enough to press a kiss to the top of Tara's head.
In her, the seed burrows. Takes root.