Chapter Text
There's a long time where Sam doesn't dream at all, after the party. After Abigail admitted she loves Sebastian. After he meets the woman who would have ruined everything, somehow, if he didn't stop her.
When he does dream, he's back in the bathroom at some stranger's house, but Abigail isn't there. He's alone, reapplying eyeliner without help.
At first, it seems like a nightmare. Nobody came to see why he was freaking out? At least he's doing a pretty good job and not stabbing himself in the eye. How can he see, with his eyes still blurry?
Except his eyes aren't blurry. he realizes. He hasn't been crying. He's just doing makeup in a stranger's bathroom because he wants to.
No, that's not right. He's not in a bathroom at all, and he's certainly not in a stranger's house. He's in Sebastian's room, using the blank black screen of his second monitor as a mirror, pulling down on his cheek with one hand and tracing his lower lash line with the other.
He leans back, blinks a couple times before turning his head to either side to check for symmetricality. Runs a hand through his hair to keep it standing just so.
Sam's dream girl stares back at him, eyes perfectly lined, hair perfectly gelled, turning right when Sam turns left, and left when Sam turns right. She smiles when Sam does. Winks, not even flirtatiously, just in acknowledgement.
She wakes up feeling every nerve ending in her body.
Sam holds both of Penny's hands in her own. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. Nothing needs to change. I'm still me."
Penny returns her gaze, sits stock-still frozen.
There's a long pause before she nods, slowly.
“Say something, please," Sam says. “Anything."
“Okay," Penny says. “You're a girl. Or, I guess, a woman. Not a man."
Sam smiles despite the stark neutrality in her girlfriend's voice. Ex-girlfriend's voice, maybe. She doesn't know. It's possible. Anything's possible. Anybody can be anything.
“Yeah," she says. “I'm a woman."
It makes her so happy to say. Out of habit, she leans in to give Penny a kiss. Like she always does when she's happy.
Penny turns her head away.
Sam slips away from her body, but does not fall, stays on the bench they're sitting on, stays in the world. Something crawls up her throat
“I'm sorry," Penny says. Sam can barely hear her. “I just need time. This is a lot to take in. I thought we were going to fool around, like usual. I thought you were finally taking initiative."
It's true, she grabbed Penny the moment her lessons were done, whisked her off to their secluded place in the bushes, grinning all the while.
The grin had been her attempt at fooling herself into not being so sad about the millions of ways it could go wrong.
This is one of them.
“Oh," Sam feels herself say.
“It's not your fault," Penny is quick to say. “I, um—" she trips on her words “—I love you, Sam. If that's the right name for you. I love you so much. I just need time."
This isn't the first time her girlfriend has told her that she loves her, but it flows through Sam's heart more warmly than ever before. It replaces the blood in her body, this feeling of white-hot happiness that flushes out the sadness.
“I just need time," Penny says again. “To get used to this. I don't want to kiss a man who doesn't exist."
She reaches out and strokes Sam's cheek with one hand. “Thank you. For trusting me with this."
They smile at each other, small smiles filled with possibility.
Sam's father comes back from the front.
Other people in town, Caroline, Marnie, Sam's mother, all say that Kent's a changed man. That he'll return to himself eventually.
Sam's not old enough to remember Kent before the first time he left. Her father is exactly the same as she remembers him. Quiet, mostly, until he explodes like one of those bombs they sell in the desert. Kind, mostly, until somebody says or does the wrong thing, with no way of knowing what the wrong thing could possibly be until you've already done it.
It's not fair for a child to walk on eggshells like that. Other people can forgive him, can talk about when he'll return to being the man they knew before he went away, can give Kent the respect a veteran deserves.
Sam has no obligation to do any of that. More importantly, neither does her little brother.
Vincent runs around the backyard, zooming in circles with his arms stretched out behind him. A pebble under his feet comes loose, and he goes tumbling, arms up in front of his face by instinct, landing on his elbows. He rolls over, sits up, face already screwed up to burst into tears.
Sam does not immediately rush to his side. She takes a moment to glance at their father.
Kent's chest is already puffed up with enough air to yell at a little kid who doesn't know better. His stance is squared in anticipation.
Sam's at her brother's side before she even notices, arms wrapped around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Hey, buddy, you'll be okay. You remembered to keep your head safe. Good job, huh?"
Vincent's still crying, but he leans into Sam's chest. The sobbing turns to snivelling.
“We'll get you to the clinic and Maru will fix you up, all right? Up we get. We don't want you to get any infections."
Vincent lets himself be picked up, holds Sam's hand while they walk across the town square.
Kent sits beside Sam in the waiting room while Vincent is getting patched up. He leans in, says, “He doesn't need special treatment. We could have cleaned him up at home."
Anger boils up in Sam's chest.
No, it's not as simple as that.
Bitterness boils up in Sam's chest. She shrugs. “I feel better knowing this is Maru's job. And we get the family/friends discount. Free for little things like this."
“He doesn't need coddling. He needs to learn not to do stupid stuff like that."
She shrugs again. “He's got a need for speed. At least I taught him to protect his head." Then, even though something inside her tells her it won't help, will only make things worse, “I'm getting him his own board as soon as Mom lets me."
“You're not his father," her father says. His mouth is open as if he's going to say something else.
“You're absolutely right, I sure am not his fucking father," she hisses back. “I've been here for his entire life."
“Samson!" he says in his army voice, and it's almost funny how little Sam is scared. It turns out that sinisterly uttering somebody's name is only intimidating when it's their name.
Kent goes on about fathers and sons and sacrifices and safety. None of it applies to her. She zones out from him, but not from the world. The fluorescent lights hum in A major.
She's lying on the floor of Sebastian's room, Penny's head on her chest, with one hand tangled in her girlfriend's hair.
It's much easier not having to make eye contact with anyone.
“I'm a woman," she announces to the room. “Trans-style."
Abigail very carefully puts her boyfriend's bong on the floor so that she doesn't break it. “Sam?"
“Yeah?" she says.
There's no time for either of them to say anything else, because Sebastian says, “What the fuck, dude?"
“Oh, fuck off," Sam says, instinctively, perhaps not enough venom in her voice. “You heard me."
“Penny, did you know about this?" he asks. “That your boyfriend's a woman? And you're okay with this?"
“My girlfriend and I are going strong, thank you very much," Penny says. Bless her ability to go with the flow. Sam hadn't even realized she was going to say this today until it came out of her mouth, so Penny certainly had no time to prepare.
“So you're what, going to make my sister give you boobs? You'd better get massive honkers, dude," Sebastian has maybe never spoken so quickly in his life. Certainly not so quickly while this high.
“Fuck off," Abigail says, and this time it's her shoe that goes sailing across the room. “Show some fucking respect. Your best friend's just told us she's a woman and your response is to make a tits joke and call her dude?"
“She's still my best friend!" Sebastian protests. “She doesn't get special treatment for being trans."
“This is a big moment for her, dipshit. It warrants some decorum, you'd think," Abigail says. Sebastian sputters something back. Abigail scoffs.
Maru crawls across the floor, ducking beneath their argument. “I'm not allowed to write scripts, but I could adminsiter estradiol shots for you. Give you boobs. I can't speak to the size, though. That's all genetics."
Sam bursts into laughter, which makes Penny laugh at the way her head is bounced up and down. “Thanks."
“Proud of you, by the way," Maru adds. “Sebastian's going to be all weird about having zero guy friends, but you know better by now than to let him hold you back. This is your life."
It is her life, isn't it? And here she is, spending it getting high in her best friend's basement. She wouldn't have it any other way.
“And then going up another tone brings you back to the tonic," Sam says, plucking out a high C for an example.
Jas and Vincent clap, Jas politely and Vincent with enthusiasm.
“Say thank you for the guest lesson," Penny reminds them, so they do. “Okay. You can go play for a few minutes."
They scamper off into Cindersap Forest, leaving Sam and Penny on the riverbank.
“You know, Vincent hasn't been calling you his older brother lately," Penny says, taking her girlfriend's hand.
“What was that?" Sam asks.
“Yeah. Kids are perceptive, you know. He doesn't call you his sister, or his sibling, even. Just Sam. I wouldn't ask him to keep any sort of secret, but he's figured out that something's different about you."
All her friends know, but Sam's never mustered the courage to tell her family. It wouldn't go well, she knows. She doesn't know exactly what will happen, but she doesn't want to be caught without a safety net when she does tell them.
Because of this, she keeps her hair trimmed, washes off all but the eyeliner, returns clothing before the end of the night. Her family can't know. This is the biggest promise she's ever made her friends keep.
Vincent will be devastated, someday, when he learns. When she finally feels safe to tell him, after keeping him on the outskirts of her life for so many years. He'll be devastated to learn that she couldn't trust him with this. But he won't be surprised.
There is a framed photo on one of the bookshelves in Penny's new room. Haley took it at the Saloon several weeks ago. She must have noticed what she had as she was developing it, because she rushed out to catch Sam on the way to work and pressed it into her hand, not taking no for an answer, not letting anybody else see what was in the photo.
It lives in Penny's room because it's safe there. For all her flaws, Pam believes her daughter's bedroom is her own.
The photo is of Abigail's birthday party. Everyone's bickering with a Sebastian who's just out of frame. The argument is whether they should play Junimo Cart, because Abigail's the birthday girl, so she should get to decide the game for the night. Maru's pressing a gold coin into the arcade machine, Abigail's swatting a pool cue out of her way, Penny's pointing out that they should try something different for a change.
But the focus isn't on any of them.
It might be the lighting, or the way the colours developed, or any number of fancy photography attributes Sam doesn't know anything about, but Haley's camera captures a moment where Penny's got a possessive hand on the small of Sam's back as she sings along with the arcade machine. A moment where the way Sam's hair falls makes it look just a little bit longer than it actually is, where the angle makes it look like Penny's skirt could be wrapped around Sam's waist, where the faint darkness around her eyes makes them pop.
It looks like girls' night, and Sam is at the centre of it all.
Sam isn't brave enough to say anything at her next checkup, nor the next. Every year, she convinces herself that she's happy with her life the way it is. Her friends see her for who she is, she's got a wonderful girlfriend who loves her no matter what form she takes, and her parents don't need to know any of it.
She's stopped blaming that woman at the party, and started thanking her, even if she and Abigail fell out of touch long ago and she'll never know how important she was to Sam.
She could die like this, probably. Happier than she's ever been before, not exactly an inhabitant of her body but understanding why she feels like she's floating a half-second behind it. Some days, when Penny calls her beautiful, when she's dancing in a borrowed skirt and it fans out into a circle around her legs, she even feels like she's in the world, if not entirely of it.
But this year, there are new pamphlets in the waiting room. The one she's always too scared to grab beckons to her, emblazoned with a phrase from that movie she'd watched with her friends the moment it hit theatres.
Well, she'd been too scared to let them bring her to the movie theatre, so they'd piled into Sebastian's room, trusting his VPN, ad-blocker, and anti-virus to keep them safe. And that was good, because she would have been embarrassed beyond belief to let anybody else see her crying the way she did.
She stands up and walks over to the shelf of pamphlets before fear can take hold.
“Sam?" Harvey calls.
She walks into the exam room, holding that slip of shiny paper, her ticket to the life she should be living, able to feel every edge and surface of it in her hand.