Chapter Text
Her therapist would certainly have a few things to say about this…
If she had a therapist… and if she was stupid enough to tell them about this…
Point was, any therapist would have a field day with this.
It started with her dad. Of course it did. She must have some kind of messed-up Electra complex about him. She never could bear to see him upset and he knew that - that was why he always hid it from her.
But he didn’t know she was listening this time.
“You should’ve seen the way he looked at me, Amanda.” Daniel was saying. “It was like… I meant nothing to him...”
He sounded so broken… and anger flared inside Sam. How could Robby treat her dad like that? After everything he’d done for him, for him to side with the enemy was just…
“Daniel, I told you before.” Amanda tried to comfort him. “You can leave the door open, but he has to walk through it.”
“That’s the thing, he did walk through it.” Daniel’s voice was breaking. “But… I wasn’t there to welcome him. And he thought no one wanted him there...”
And just like that, all that anger turned to guilt. Because she had been there and she had turned him away. She’d chosen Miguel and she’d rejected him. And when he’d walked away, she hadn’t stopped him, despite knowing that he had nowhere else to go…
Her dad was blaming himself, but this was her fault. And she had to figure out a way to fix this.
In hindsight, this was probably not the best idea.
She tried to be careful. She stayed hidden from sight outside the lion’s den (or the snake-pit, more like it) and she figured she’d catch Robby once he left after the class. But all the other Cobras were coming out in groups and if Robby left with them, there would be no way for her to catch him alone.
But Robby didn’t leave with them. She waited and watched as the last straggler left and her target was nowhere to be seen.
Did he quit Cobra-Kai already? Did he leave? And if so, where did he go?
No… he was there. Coming out right now with the King Cobra himself.
Sam watched them talk for a while - well, Kreese talked. Robby mostly just listened and nodded. The old sensei headed off to parts unknown in his car and Robby started breaking off the remaining pieces of glass from the broken front window and putting them in a bucket he’d carried out.
She approached him cautiously, as one would a snake. He was still wearing his white gi - with the Cobra-Kai logo on the back - and he looked like he belonged to it as he broke off the pieces of glass barehanded. And she almost got a chill when he seemed to sense her coming.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Robby asked, looking over his shoulder.
“I don’t want to fight.” She had to make that clear right away. “I just came here to talk.”
“Talk?” Robby turned around. “About what?”
She hadn’t noticed it from afar, but she could see it so clearly now - the big bruise on his forehead. It was a black and blue swollen patch, centered around a nasty looking cut. It looked as if someone had hit him on the head with a rock… and Sam found her breath catching at the sight of it.
“Did Kreese do that?” She asked, unable to look away.
Robby smiled at her sadly. “No, my dad did.”
Sensei Lawrence? No… that’s not possible…
“What do you want, Sam?” He asked. As if that wasn’t obvious already.
“What do I want?” Sam said softly. “I want you to come back to us. I want you to come home.”
“That place was never my home.” Robby told her. “Your dad showed me that when he kicked me out.”
Sam closed us eyes as she felt yet another pang of guilt. One more thing that had been her fault…
“He’s sorry about that.” She said. “But… things were good for you there. You said so yourself. They could be good again.”
He stared at her like he was actually thinking about it. Like he was considering it. Then he shook his head.
“Good things don’t last. Not if they’re not real.”
Not real? Living together, learning together, fighting together… did he really think that none of that was real? That she was simply pretending to care about him the whole time?
“I care about you… that’s real.” She told him. “And that hasn’t changed.”
He stepped closer to her, his eyes boring into her very soul.
“I wish I could believe that.” He replied.
“And this is what you believe instead?” She asked desperately, gesturing towards the dojo. “This den full of psychos? That’s who you want to be like?”
At least he had the decency to look ashamed.
“I didn’t know they were going to do that.” Robby looked away from her. “I didn’t find out until this morning.”
“Well, you do now.” Sam argued. “So you don’t have an excuse.”
“I don’t need an excuse.” Robby replied. “I joined Cobra-Kai to learn from Sensei Kreese. What the others get up to is none of my business.”
Was that naivete or plain old denial?
“Are you serious?” Sam shook her head. “You know what my dad says - no bad students, only bad senseis. Kreese is responsible for what his students do.”
“So is Mr. LaRusso responsible for what I did to Miguel?” Robby asked, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe he should’ve been locked up instead of me then.”
“It’s not the same.” Couldn’t he see that? “He never taught you to do anything like that.”
“And Sensei Kreese didn’t teach them to do that either.” Robby replied. “He teaches them to fight - but he doesn’t teach them to be stupid. And what they did last night was monumentally stupid. I’m surprised they’re not locked up already.”
Maybe they should be. Maybe that’s what her parents needed to do. But that wasn’t really relevant here.
“And what about what happened after?” Sam asked. “Are you saying Kreese knew nothing about that either?”
“You mean when my dad and yours barged into his dojo and attacked him?” Robby said, derisively. “Yeah… I figure he knows about that...”
“You make it sound like they are the bad guys in this!” Sam said, angrily.
“The two of them breaking into his dojo, trying to intimidate him, beat him up all so he’d shut it down… how is that supposed to sound?” Robby shook his head, disgusted. “This is what you guys don’t get… you are all so desperate to find a villain for your story, the bad guy in all of this that you don’t even see all the mistakes you’ve made.”
The mistakes I’ve made… Sam flinched at those words. That was why she was there, wasn’t it? To fix her mistakes?
“And Kreese is supposed to be the good guy?” Sam asked, suddenly a little afraid. That couldn’t be, could it? They were supposed to be the good guys - they’d tried so hard....
“There are no good guys in this.” Robby shook his head. “Everyone has made mistakes and all of us are responsible for our own actions. The only difference is, Sensei Kreese doesn’t pretend to be better than that.”
He had an answer for everything. She’d always known that Robby was smart, but she hadn’t expected him to be this prepared. The notion of winning him over back to their side was looking bleaker by the second…
“Is there nothing I can say to convince you to come back?” She asked, despairing.
He gave her a slow, thoughtful look.
“Maybe...” He said, finally. “If you can be honest with me and tell me what I meant to you.”
He meant so much to her… wasn’t her being there proof of that?
“Was I just a charity case you took in to feel better about yourself?” Robby asked. “A hot side-piece to distract yourself from all the pining for Miguel? Some guy you could count on for backup in a fight?”
“You know it was more than that.” Sam replied. “What I felt for you was real.”
He took a step closer to her, looking deep into her eyes.
“I wish I could believe that.”
“I want things to go back to how they were before.” Sam told him. “Before I messed everything up.”
“You mean back when we were sneaking around behind your parents’ back?” Robby asked. “Or when you were sneaking around behind mine? Either way - why would I want to go back to that?”
“No...” She shook her head. “Back to when we were just friends. When things were good with us...”
“I can’t go back to that.” Robby shook his head. “Not now. Not after knowing that it wasn’t real.”
“What can I do to convince you that it was?”
She really should’ve seen it coming. Robby was leaning close and his face was already only inches apart. It didn’t take much for him to close the distance and kiss her.
It still took her by surprise. And even when she got over it, she did not know how to react. Should she push him away and break his heart all over again? Or should she let it happen, giving him false hope for a future that was never going to be? So instead, she just stood there while his lips pressed against her.
“Robby, don’t.” She said, finally pushing him away. “Don’t do this, please.”
He stepped back, looking at her curiously as if trying to figure something out. And then he smiled.
“Thanks for answering my question Sam.” He said.
What answer?
He turned around and picked up his bucket of broken glass again, apparently done with her.
“You should go now.” He told her, breaking off another piece. “Don’t want Sensei Kreese finding you here, do you?”
Flustered and confused, Sam turned and left without another word.
This was the acclimatization period - a time for the students of the two dojos to get adjusted to the others’ styles. To that end, all the former Cobras - or Eagles - were training with her dad for today. And all the Miyagi-Dos were learning the a thing or two about aggression by sparring with Sensei Lawrence.
Which worked out just fine for her, since she had a lot of that to work out.
“Easy, princess...” Johnny said, grabbing her arm and using her momentum to throw her off balance. “There is a difference between aggression and blind rage.”
She couldn’t help it. She was so mad at herself. She’d gone over to Cobra Kai, certain that all it’d take was an apology from her to get Robby back. And it hadn’t worked at all. Because it wasn’t all her fault…
It was all his…
She swung her leg, going for a roundhouse and found her foot being caught one-handed.
“See? If you’re going for a kick like this - ”
She didn’t let him finish. She pulled her foot back, letting it slip out of her shoe and she used the opening to land another kick to his chest while he stood there in surprise.
She only managed to make him stumble back a few steps. He could’ve hit her back if he’d wanted to… she’d left herself wide open while she regained her balance.
“C’mon, asshole.” Sam snarled. “Fight back. Try and hit me.”
That wasn’t like her - neither the language, nor the attitude. Even Johnny, who barely even knew her, seemed surprised by the outburst.
But only for a moment. Then he remembered that he was the Sensei and he needed to assert himself. He feinted a kick and when she went to block, he grabbed her arm and pulled her off balance. She could not hold out against his superior strength and soon she found herself on her back on the soft grass with Johnny raising a fist aimed to her face.
A fist that never came down.
“I don’t need to hit you to prove I can.” He said, getting back up to his feet. “And FYI, I can take anything you nerds can dish out. So bring it on.”
He offered her a helping hand and she slapped it away.
“Couldn’t take it from him , could you?” She retorted, angrily. “You just had to hit him. ”
He knew who she was talking about. The way his eyes went wide and he suddenly went pale - yeah, he definitely knew.
“I didn’t… mean to...” Johnny’s voice shook as he turned away. “He kept coming and… I didn’t mean to knock him out.”
That was a new detail she hadn’t known about… and that made her fury reach new heights.
“You knocked him out!?” Sam screamed, pushing him. “You hurt him. You keep hurting him.”
He didn’t put up any defense this time and Sam’s push sent him back, falling to the ground.
“SAM!” Her father’s voice cracked like a whip and brought her out of her angry haze.
The rest of the class had noticed the altercation as well and they were all rushing over the bridge, concernedly staring at them.
And she’d just embarrassed herself, Sam realized, flushing red. Only the second day of class and she’d already created a scene.
“What’s going on?” Daniel asked, with a hand on her shoulder to keep her restrained and looking between the two of them.
Johnny couldn’t look at them either, Sam noted with satisfaction. He kept his eyes on the ground and avoided eye-contact with any of them.
“Why don’t you ask him?” She snapped.
Ignoring the concerned looks from her fellow students, she angrily stormed off.
Miguel found her outside the dojo, standing by her car with her hands folded across her chest. She was too proud and too angry to run back home… and too ashamed of her outburst to go back inside.
No doubt her dad would make her go back inside and apologize…
Miguel came to her side and stood there, silently waiting for her to speak. There was something comforting about the way he did that… the way he resisted the urge to interrogate her and instead let her take her time.
“I went to see Robby yesterday...” Sam confessed.
“Oh...”
“I wanted to convince him to come back.” She explained.
Miguel nodded. He probably didn’t want Robby to come back, Sam realized. Apart from being competition for both her and Johnny’s attention, he was also the guy who’d almost killed him. He’d likely prefer that Robby stay as far away from them as possible.
So it spoke to his good heart that he chose not to say any of that to her.
“Did something happen?” Miguel asked instead.
She’d lied about this before… she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
“He kissed me.”
Miguel bit his lip and nodded, carefully keeping his face free of any expression.
“ He kissed me.” Sam insisted. “I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t lead him on. And I pushed him away. I was only trying to convince him to come back...”
Miguel nodded again. It was like he could tell that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Or maybe that was just her guilt talking.
“But… I also didn’t push him away as fast as I should’ve.” Sam admitted ashamed.
Miguel nodded again.
He was starting to get on her nerves now. That passive-aggressive behavior was exactly where things had started going wrong between them the last time and if he couldn’t be honest with her now…
“Say something.” Sam told him. “If you’re mad at me, then yell at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.” Miguel shook his head. “I get it. You were trying to do something nice and he took advantage of that.”
Sam looked up at him, surprised. Was he really not mad at her?
“You didn’t push him away because you didn’t want to hurt him, right?” Miguel went on. “You were trying to be his friend and he took advantage of that. That’s… what he does...”
Her vision suddenly went blurry and she sniffed, wiping her nose.
“I don’t want to hurt you...”
“You didn’t.” Miguel reassured her. “He tried - but I won’t let him come between us again.”
She nodded and leaned against him… somehow not feeling better about any of it.