Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sam Flynn's mind was racing as he drove through the streets, going at least a good 30miles an hour above the speed limit. In truth, Sam wasn't entirely sure what the speed limit was. He never bothered to look before.
The sun was beginning to set as he came out of a tunnel. The sight made him smile. It had been over a year since he had brought Quorra with him into the "real world", or the "User World" as she called it, and yet sunsets still fascinated her. She made a point of being up early enough every morning to see the sunrise and would not go to bed until she had seen the sunset.
By the time he got home, she would already have seen it and gone back inside. He tried to make a point of being home in time to have dinner with her on the days she didn't come to Encom with him, however some nights he just didn't make it. Getting a little more speed out of his Ducati, the words of the board member Nick Talver, replayed through Sam's head on a permanent loop. "Your father was a visionary, your just a kid who knows a few keystrokes.", had been a recurring put-down from the board member.
"We'd be done with this mysterious project if Kevin were still here.", had been the new one, flung in Sam's direction when the board members were pretending they didn't know Sam was just outside the door, taking a quick call from Alan.
The employees outside of the board, were almost the opposite of the board members. They were all looking at him, expecting him to be the great Kevin Flynn. Sometimes he even thought Quorra did it. Then he'd see the look on her face when he was playing Scrabble with her or when he offered to take her up on the rooftop of a local hotel in order to see the comet that came through last week. Things his dad hadn't been into but were interests of his. Then he knew that it was irrational for him to think Quorra compared him to Kevin. Alan, Lora, and Quorra were about the only people who didn't either expect him to be Kevin or hold Kevin Flynn up as a high bar they never let him forget was out of his reach.
Pulling up to the shipping container-turned-apartment that Sam now shared with Quorra and Max, he could tell that Quorra had not only watched her sunset alone, she had expected Sam to be home sooner and went to the trouble of cooking. As soon as Lora introduced her to a recipe book, Sam had become her primary taste-tester and guinea pig for everything that caught her attention, which was every dish that didn't involve fish. For some reason, she had taken an instant disliking to fish and would not eat them. Shrimp and crab were out too. When she heard how lobster was prepared, Sam thought he was going to have to program the computers to stop showing her cooking shows.
Putting his motorcycle into place, by the door instead of right in front of the couch, as he once had before the sofa became his bed, he saw Quorra out of the corner of his eye. She was coming in from the bedroom, Marv racing past her to greet Sam. Judging from the little man's breath, he had gotten Sam's portion of dinner. Sam rubbed the pup's head affectionately before looking up at Quorra. Like Lora and his own mom, she never looked angry when he came home late. His mom never looked at Kevin in anger, Lora never looked at Alan or Sam in anger. There was that silent hurt in the eye that a person only got when they had been made to feel less important than something they knew should have been less important than them. And the worry that he was being absorbed the way Kevin had been. He had seen the look plenty of times of Lora and Alan's faces over the last year.
"I'm sorry, Quorra. That board just would not stop and we need this new project to go through quickly, so I can take that trip with you to Alaska."
He had promised her, for the date that they decided would be her birthday- as records in the User World demanded birth dates, he would take her to see the Northern Lights and a few other things one could only properly enjoy in Alaska. Her 'birthday' was in six weeks. The date was actually the day his dad had recorded meeting his first ISO, in a journal Sam found while unpacking some of his dad's things from a storage unit Alan kept the payments up on for the past 20 years. It seemed as good a date as any, and Quorra had agreed when he asked her.
The hurt look diminished, but he could tell she was still a bit upset with him. Normally, when he came home late, she jumped out of the bedroom with a bright smile and something she had been eager to talk about for hours. It might be a new book she found, another book by an author she had taken a liking to, some new trick she taught Marv, or even a new comet she had read about that was going to be passing by somewhere close. On one occasion, it had been that she wanted to throw a birthday party for Lora and had already called Alan to make plans, but she needed Sam to keep Lora occupied for a bit outside of the Bradley household while Quorra and Alan decorated.
"I really am sorry, Q."
She nodded.
"I made quesadillas."
He nodded.
"Did Marv enjoy his plate?"
That earned a small smile.
"He ate two pockets. I left a whole one's worth of meat for you in the fridge. I can heat it up for you?"
He waved her off, finally getting off his bike and stretching his legs.
"Nah, I'll do it. Tell me about your day?"
She nodded, following him into the kitchen. While he pulled the ingredients out of the fridge, she hopped onto the counter and began twiddling one of the wooden spoons in her fingers. The User World was full of so many tactile sensations for her, that she was often grabbing things and playing with them a bit because she was experiencing the feel of them. It might be the weight or the texture, and sometimes she picked things up because she was trying to decide if she preferred to use them left or right handed. So far, she was mostly ambidextrous.
"Lora wants to take me to a place called Le Trilogy this week."
Sam nodded.
"She think you need a hair cut?"
He glanced over, noting that Quorra's hair had grown. Within a couple months of her arrival in his world, her hair was hiding her eyes. Sam had been about to suggest she get a trim when Lora had stepped in, offering to cut it for her, since Quorra still wasn't used to people in the User World and had still yet to get the hang of currency. Lora had been able to return Quorra's hair to exactly what it looked like the day they came out of the Grid. Now, it was touching her shoulders and her bangs were tucked behind her ears, and all of it was still slightly asymmetric.
"She thinks I could use a 'trim' or a hair cut, depending what I like in the pictures she sent me. How often must one get a hair cut?"
Sam shrugged, the quesadilla maker finally having heated enough to start dropping ingredients in. It was one of the few single-purpose appliances he had ever owned. But he loved quesadillas since Lora taught him to make them back in high school.
"It depends. Some people have hair that grows real fast, so they've gotta get them more often to keep the same style of hair. Other people have slow-growing hair or they don't mind their hair growing out and not being the original style anymore, so they get them less often. I knew a girl who her hair grew pretty slow, so she got a couple inches trimmed off, twice a year. I keep mine pretty short these days, so I cut mine pretty often, as you've seen."
She nodded.
"She also wants to take me to a few stores. She says if I'm going to Alaska, I'll need thicker socks, sturdy boots, and something she called a 'puffy jacket'."
Sam nodded.
"Its just a down-filled jacket, so it looks like it has little pillows about the size of Alan's pager."
She nodded.
"They stick bird feathers in the jacket?"
Sam nodded, watching the timer for his meal.
"Yup. Still not to the point where anything humans invented works as well, in Artic temperatures, as what Mother Nature equipped cold-weather animals with. That's why people in the Artic or Polar weather areas still wear leather, fur, and feathers."
Quorra absorbed the information.
"What about the animals?"
Yet another conversation Sam had to be careful how he worded things. He didn't want to lie to her, but he also did not want to spend the next three hours trying to explain about animal welfare and economics again.
"The animals are already dead, so they don't need the fur anymore."
"They take it from the animals they already trapped for food?"
"Yes. So Lora thinks you'll freeze?"
He heard Quorra chuckle, a small snort coming just as Sam was putting his food onto a plate. He was just glad she didn't keep asking questions about animals and fur coats. Marv magically appeared at his side, looking as sad as a big eyed little dog could look.
"I think she forgets I am not as fragile as you are."
Sam turned back to look at her, putting a hand over his heart, feigning great pain.
"Oh, ouch."
Her eyes went wide for a moment before she saw his smile and recognized he was teasing her. Her smiles was bright as neon lights in a blackout. Sam hopped onto the counter with her, sitting shoulder to shoulder. The only two rooms he had really worked on, besides cleaning them and throwing some furniture in, were his kitchen and bedroom. He even used the former work-pit below the sofa, to store his bike equipment, a small safe bolted to the wall, and his sparring gear. Sometimes it was handy to have put your home on what used to be a small working garage.
"Alan called."
Sam nodded around a mouthful of the delicious chicken dish. Quorra was a very good cook. So was Sam, but Quorra was bolder than he was with seasoning.
"He wants to see you, first thing in the morning. And he also said to tell you to be home on time tomorrow or he was kidnapping me and Marv."
Sam smiled a little, well aware that Alan sometimes worried Encom would swallow up Sam the way it once had done to Kevin Flynn. Before the Grid actually swallowed his father.
"I thought you were going to go to the park tomorrow?", he asked. Once in a while, Quorra would put Marv on a leash and go to the park for the day. Sometimes she took a book and would speed through it while Marv napped in the middle of their day. Other times, she just took snacks for she and Marv to enjoy as they literally explored the park.
"I was, but Alan suggested I come with you tomorrow and after your meeting was over, he was going to drop me off with Lora, and then go to his next meeting."
Sam nodded.
"You want me to come pick you up at their house?"
Quorra shook her head.
"No. I will take a cab. I like them. The drivers always have such interesting things to talk about."
Another thing she enjoyed, talking to strangers. Sam had been worried, at first. But then he realized that Quorra was still pretty good at spotting when someone was up to no good, even in the User World. Although after any bad encounter, she usually would be upset to see how Kevin Flynn's old world was not what she imagined it to be before she became a part of it. Sam imagined it was like when he got old enough to learn what working at Encom had really been like and what the men there were like, compared to what he had always thought when he was too young to understand half the intricacies.
"Alright. I'll try to be home in time to cook you dinner and watch the sunset with you, and you can tell me all about the stuff Lora has in store for you this week."
She smiled brightly, leaning her head against Sam's shoulder as he finished his dinner, and Marv snored on the floor.
~*~*~*~
Sam and Quorra had driven in, not on his motorcycle for a change, but the stang. The road had been a little slick and he was aware the bike was running on tires that would be replaced next week. Opting for his mom's old mustang, he and Quorra rode in. Somehow, the old white mustang reminded him more of his father's enclosed lightcycle that Sam used to get back to the Grid and up to the End of Line club, than any bike ever had. Occasionally, he wondered if his dad had been thinking of his mom's old sports car rather than his own Ducati, while designing that lightcycle. Sometimes Sam thought he could still smell her perfume when he first opened the door of the old mustang.
Alan had been just as careful and attentive of keeping Jordan's things ready for Sam, as he had been in the care-taking of everything Sam inherited from Kevin. He even kept a box that Kevin had put in Alan's hands for safekeeping, with a locket that once belonged to Sam's mom's mother, and that he wanted to give to Sam when he figured Sam was old enough to take care of it. Alan gave it to him on his 21st birthday, quietly, as they sat on the rooftop of the Bradley house, drinking beer.
In his peripheral, he caught Quorra running her fingers over the handle for rolling the window down. The thing was barely new enough to have a tape player instead of an A-track player, and Sam could remember when he had it rigged with a tape-adapter so he could listen to CDs when he drove it.
Once upon a time, it had been too painful to drive it. To think of changing the settings on the driver's seat from his mom's 5'5 frame to fit his own 6'3 frame, and to adjust her mirrors. It was as if he was admitting she was never coming back, just like his dad was never coming back. Then one day, he had taken his tape adapter and CD player, put on his dad's old leather jacket that didn't quite fit since he was taller than his dad, and he adjusted everything, then drove to his grandparents' house to sit with his grandpa for a while. His grandpa, Alan, and Lora had been the only family he had left, and grandpa had just smiled sadly at the car then offered Sam a cold beer in the kitchen.
They arrived at Encom headquarters, pulling into the area for all the big cheese guys to park in, and Quorra headed up with him on the elevator to the top floor. Alan, as expected, was waiting for them in the hall, just outside the elevators. He and Sam nodded to one another, but Quorra moved forward to hug him, and he hugged her back, leaving his arm over her shoulders as they walked to his office. Sam stayed a couple steps behind, smiling as he saw that Quorra's arm had stayed around Alan's back while the two walked. It seemed to Sam that just as Alan had stepped up to take care of him and mentor him in the wake of losing Kevin to the Grid, he was doing the same for Quorra, who was now in much the same situation Sam had been when he was 6 years old.
Pretty soon, the conversation in Alan's office turned to the finances and red tape that Quorra did not understand. She had asked Sam and Alan if they minded her taking a walk around the building. They both smiled and told her to have fun. Everyone at Encom was accustomed to Mr.Flynn's friend, Ms.Iso, walking around the building. Quorra liked going into the back hallways, up on the roof, and into the room with all the 'computer guts' as Lora called them. The hum of that room was soothing to her, much the way lullabies were to children or rain was to Sam. Rain had been different in the User world and Quorra loved it. The smell of it, the feel of it, the sound of it, and how the world changed when it was raining. Streets got quieter, greens and blues got sharper, and the air seemed cleaner.
She was about to go up to the roof and enjoy the light rain that had been drizzling down all morning, when she heard someone say her name.
"Ms.Iso?"
Turning, she found it to be the young board member and programmer named Edward Dillinger Jr. Quorra did not like him. Sam did not like him. Mr.Dillinger did not appear to like anyone. Quorra wondered why he worked at Encom. Smiling to be polite, she returned the greeting.
"Hello, Mr.Dillinger."
He gave her a smile that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise up and tingle. Lora had told her to always listen to that instinct. Sam and Alan had just been surprised to learn she possessed 'animal instincts' since she was not of the User World the way they were.
"Did Sam turn you loose again?"
There was a tone to his voice that Quorra detected and did not care for.
"I am free to move about. Are you not supposed to be in your office, Mr.Dillinger?"
He shrugged, leaning against the wall.
"I'm on my break. I was about to get coffee. Care to join me, or does your master not allow you to spend time with the help?"
Quorra let out a slow breath. Kevin Flynn had taught her, a long time ago, to be able to act unaffected by the cutting words of others. A useful skill when avoiding detection as the last ISO in the Grid. And as the agent of the Creator.
"I may spend my time as I please, I have no master to hold my leash, Mr.Dillinger. You misunderstand mine and Sam's relationship."
Dillinger nodded, but there was still a slight smirk on his lips. It was not Sam's defiant smirk or Alan's soft one. This one was more like Clu's. Cruel.
"Ah, so you are his loyal bodyguard. Poor thing. You must be exhausted with all the stunts he pulls and all the people trying to take him down."
Quorra did not know how to respond to that. She could not tell if it was sarcasm, a threat, or the idle talk of a jerk.
"Maybe on a night when you aren't defending his honor, you should come out and enjoy spending some time with real people. Not spoiled brats with silver spoons in their mouths."
Quorra could feel her temper rising and had to keep her hands from tightening into fists at her sides.
"Mr.Dillinger, I nolonger wish to speak to you. You clearly have no regard for your employer and you are being quite rude to me. I will leave you and hopefully when I next see you, there will have been a change in your attitude and you will be more pleasant company."
Before she could turn around, he had a hand on her wrist.
"Just what is your relationship with Sam? Girlfriend? Assistant? Friends with benefits?"
Quorra and Sam had never really said what they were. He did not introduce her as his friend or girlfriend, but as Quorra or Ms.Iso. She had very few occasions to introduce him, and she always fell back on her Grid-speak and called him Sam Flynn. She had only a vague idea what this 'friends with benefits' was, and she knew that they were not that. But having heard Lora talk about how she felt about Alan and what Lora had said to her last week about what it felt like when she was dating Alan, Quorra had a pretty good idea what she felt for Sam would be labeled as 'love'. It also matched what she had read, in many ways, if not necessarily all of them.
"I love him.", she said simply.
Dillinger raised his eyebrows at her.
"Really? How interesting."
Sometimes Quorra wondered if he knew more about her true nature than Sam or Alan gave him credit for. She felt an irrational urge to check and make sure her mark was covered. It still glowed in the User World. Before she came to Encom, she always put a bandage over the mark before she put on clothes. She did not want Sam or Alan to have to reveal her true nature before they were ready, and she did not want to deal with the stares she was sure would come. Users were a curious sort and tended to stare at anything they considered different or odd.
"Let go of my wrist, Mr.Dillinger."
"We're just talking, Ms.Iso."
She did not care for his talking, or his touch. When Alan had hugged her this morning, it had been a welcome gesture and it was from a man she trusted. Sam trusted Alan with everything, and Kevin Flynn had trusted Alan with Sam and Encom. That had been enough for her to be willing to trust him as far as they did. Lora also greeted her with hugs, but had not done so right away, instead taking the time to get to know Quorra before she did anything besides shake Quorra's hand or pat her shoulder. And Sam hugged her regularly, he also let her hold him when she rode his motorcycle with him, she fell asleep against his shoulder, and sometimes she slept in his lap on the sofa during bad storms. She did not care for the storms Users experienced in their world.
"You will let go of my wrist, Mr.Dillinger, or I will make you let me go."
His eyes flashed in anger, however he wisely let go of her wrist. Quorra had not been looking forward to explaining to Alan or Sam why she had broken one of Sam's staff members and fellow board member. Staring him down as Kevin Flynn once taught her to do, she waited till Mr.Dillinger took a step back, a smirk coming to his face.
"How do you know you love Sam? Did he tell you that you did, or did you spontaneously decide it?"
Again, she wondered if he was more in-the-know than anyone but the Bradleys and Sam should have been.
"That is none of your business, Mr.Dillinger."
Turning, she changed her mind about going to the roof. The turned to the stairs and began descending. Halfway down, she was struck with a sudden thought. She had never tested herself to see if she did, in fact, love Sam. She began going over the ways people proved it in the books, programs, plays, and music she had been exposed to since coming to the User World. One song, in particular, came to mind. It was one that had been on a tape that Sam had and still played sometimes when he had been having a rough day. It spoke of walking 500 miles and then 500 more to be the man who fell down at his intended's door. Another song she had heard, in a shop with Lora while waiting for fancy coffee she did not actually care for, had also suggesting going a total of 1,000 miles to prove her devotion to her beloved.
Quorra decided that was what she would do. Pulling up her phone as she continued down the stairs, she searched for a city or town that was exactly 500 miles away. If she walked there and back again, she would have proven to herself that she loved Sam and that it was a real thing, not just an assumption she had made based on second-hand information and the testimony of Lora. Once outside, she began walking in the direction her phone's map had told her. Just as she could deal with temperatures that Sam and other Users could not, she could handle a great deal more wear and tear, physical exertion, and other things that would tear a User apart.
Meanwhile, Alan spotted Dillinger Junior coming out of the hall where the stairs were, a smug look on his face, and no coffee mug in his hands. The programmer had no reason, aside from coffee, to have been in that area. And even then, there were break rooms closer to his station than the one by the stairs. Dillinger Junior had been pretty rude to Quorra on several occasions and he was nasty, but slick when dealing with Sam. It seemed her had nurtured Dillinger Senior's ill-will towards anyone by the name Flynn. He also seemed to blame his father's financial and professional downfall as somehow being Kevin Flynn's fault, and his inheritance robbed from in him favor of allowing Sam to be a debutante of some kind. A useless trust-fund baby, is all he thought Sam was. Alan had wanted to fire him, yet Sam believed they should give him a chance to see what he could do at Encom and have a chance to step out from under his father's shadow.
There were pieces of Sam that were clearly not traits he inherited from his father, but rather his mother, who had always had a keen understanding of what it meant for people to live with the specters of their parents, grandparents, or predecessors, weighted down by the expectations of people who they could not bear to disappoint, and constantly fighting a losing-battle to do better than an impossible goal. Seeing how badly Sam held back his own retorts at Dillinger Junior's insubordinate behavior, Alan could tell that Sam was reminding himself that Dillinger Junior probably hated being compared to his old man as much as Sam hated being compared to Kevin.
"Mr.Dillinger, a word?"
Dillinger Junior turned to Alan, making a face as if he would rather drink pond scum than come talk to Alan, but Alan was still technically his boss and owned more shares than anyone expect Sam. Dillinger Junior walked over, putting a fake smile on his face.
"What can I do for you, Mr.Bradley? Perhaps you would like to finally upgrade from that pager?"
The pager seemed to be a favorite target of comments from Dillinger Junior, making Alan question just what the younger man knew of it's history and purpose. Quorra had confided that she sometimes thought Dillinger Junior knew more than he should have, about the Grid, Flynn, and even Quorra. Alan had been keeping an eye on the man, as Sam had enough on his plate, he did not need Alan's paranoia or Quorra's eye for traitors, giving him additional headaches.
"No, I'm still attached to the thing. I was wondering if you had seen Ms.Iso?"
The flash in Dillinger's eyes was all the confirmation Alan needed. He might have made his living with computers, however he had never lost his talent for reading people. In fact, he had honed it in the years he spent protecting Sam's interests.
"I believe she was heading to the stairs, when I went to get coffee. Why? Has someone lost her?"
Alan resisted the urge to fire Dillinger outright, there in the hall. It was an urge he regularly had.
"Thank you."
Stepping away, Alan waited till Dillinger Junior had also taken a couple steps before he stopped and spoke again.
"Mr.Dillinger?"
Once the younger man turned, Alan made a show of looking at the man's hands.
"Where is your coffee?"
Dillinger looked caught for a fraction of a second before he smiled, waving his hands as if something had slipped through them.
"They were out of decaf."
Alan nodded, then returned back to his office. He let out a breath before checking the security feed of the stairs. Mostly because of Sam's yearly prank, he had installed a few cameras that went straight to his office, allowing him to see into the stairs and into places most employees had no access to. It also allowed him to know about a couple attempts at sabotage over the past decade. He could not find Quorra on any of them. They covered the stairs, roof, 'guts', and a couple other places she liked to hang out when she was at loose ends. Alan double-checked the feeds. That's when Alan got worried. Moving quickly, he shut the lid of his desk and went out, going directly to Sam's office. He knocked a couple times, but Sam didn't answer. Walking right in, he found Sam sound asleep on the sofa in his office, papers laid out over his chest, and one foot still over the arm of the sofa with the other had fallen between the seat and the coffee table. It had been Kevin's old office, but Sam had yet to change much about it. A new sofa that was actually the beat up leather one that had been in his apartment/garage before he put the futon in, and a new computer installed in the desk but with the same set-up Kevin's had once had. And with the hours they had been keeping the last few weeks, it was amazing he hadn't already crashed during the daytime.
"Sam?"
He called the young man's name a couple times before Sam roused, eyes bleary and a small growl emanating from his throat.
"Oh man, what time is it?"
"Almost noon. Sam, did you give Quorra the car keys?"
Sam shook his head, setting the papers aside.
"No. She still doesn't feel comfortable taking the stang. Only my bike or the rental I get sometimes. Why? She wanna go home?"
Alan shook his head, feeling his nerves getting worse.
"No. I think she had a run-in with Dillinger Junior and that she took off someplace. I can't find her on the security system and she's not in here or my office, so that leaves someplace outside of the building or the parking garage."
He could see the fire shoot into Sam's eyes. Sam stood, growling about pummeling Dillinger later, as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his sofa, and reached for his phone. Alan recognized the icon the moment Sam flipped to it. A program Sam developed specifically for himself, Alan, and Lora to be able to find Quorra if Quorra got lost somewhere or they had lost her somewhere. He wrote it after losing her at a fireworks show over the summer, shortly after she first came out of the Grid. They had gotten separated in the crowd and Sam nearly lost his mind when he couldn't find her. She couldn't hear him over the fireworks, music, and the crowd, nor could Sam spot her shorter frame in the sea of people. It was only when Quorra climbed up on the side of some bleachers and several people saw her and began hollering at her to get down before she fell and broke her neck, that Sam was able to find her.
The next afternoon, Alan found Sam with his own phone and Quorra's, sitting at Alan's kitchen table. He had asked what Sam was doing, and Sam said that if he ever got separated from Quorra again, she had strict instructions not to let her phone out of her hand for anything and he was making sure he could track her phone. He also installed the reverse, allowing Quorra to find any one of the three of them.
At the time, Alan had thought it a rather extreme measure. Then Sam informed him that once he had the bugs worked out, he was going to install it onto his and Lora's phones, so they could always find her. He also reminded Alan that Quorra still was so new to their world that she didn't understand how cash money worked without prompting. Two weeks later, Lora had gotten a call from Quorra. She had gone to a different park with Marv and they were lost inside the park. It had gotten dark, nothing looked the same, and Marv had slipped the leash so by the time she caught him, she had no idea where she was.
Lora had texted Sam, since he was still working out the bugs, and asked him to Lo-jack Quorra for her. Sam and Alan had been at the office, so Lora was closer to the park than they were and had already been walking to the car as she typed to Alan and spoke to Quorra. Sam found her in under a minute, giving the GPS location to Lora and sending a copy of the program to her phone so it would let her know when she was getting closer to Quorra or if she moving farther away. It worked like a charm, and she was able to find Quorra in a few minutes, then the two women and Marv came back to the Bradley home, where Alan and Sam were anxiously waiting for them. Lora had insisted Quorra have some soup and hot tea, she gave Marv a bacon-biscuit, and she hugged Sam extra long and hard once they were out of Quorra's sight. Probably the biggest scare they had since the last time Sam had last slipped the adults, while at the mall.
"I've got her location. She's heading west, and by her speed, I'm going to say she's on foot rather than in a cab."
Alan nodded, walking with Sam towards the stairs. Despite their being on the top floor, Sam could still scale the stairs in either direction, faster than the elevators could carry him that same distance. Alan wished he was still that young and athletic, sometimes. He saw the look of worry in Sam's eyes and almost smiled, despite the situation. He knew that look. That was the look of a man in a panic over the hardheadedness of the woman he loved. Alan and Kevin used to joke about how often each of them wore that look, due to their respective wives.
"Don't worry, Sam. She can take care of herself. She probably got mad, stormed off, and is just blowing off some steam."
Sam nodded, making the last turn to reach the stairwell.
"I know, I know. It just... she's like a child sometimes, with the mind of a genius, but none of the street-smarts of the average 12 year old."
Alan could understand. Sam might have been a kid when he started taking off on his first adventures, but he was always wicked smart and he read situations well, so he adapted well. He knew when to fight and when to run, so Alan hadn't actually had the heart attack Lora kept saying she was going to have over Sam's antics.
"When you find her, just head home. I've got things covered here. I'll talk to Mr.Alverez if he calls about the artificial kidneys and Ms.Olyago if she calls about the artificial skin. Just take care of our girl."
Sam nodded, then took off down the stairs. Watching him, a conversation between himself and Quorra flashed through his mind. For years, he had wondered if Sam had any idea how much he and Lora cared about him. That he was like a son to them, who they would have given anything they had to protect him. Then, Quorra had been talking to him a little one evening in the kitchen as he cooked and Lora was in the living room with Sam, playing a spirited game of Scrabble. During the conversation, she had mentioned one of the first conversations she and Sam had. How Sam had been determined that if he could get back out or if he could get a message to Alan, whose name she recognized from years of listening to Kevin talking to her or muttering to himself at times, that Alan could fix everything. Hearing her recount that, using what had clearly been Sam's exact words, Alan had needed a moment to collect himself before he could look up at her. Quorra was still talking, having not yet noticed anything wrong. Hearing that Sam, who had so little faith in anyone or anything, had believed Alan could fix it all and save Kevin "with a few keystrokes", had been a punch to the gut. He had been bowled over, winded, by this information. Ever since, he had noticed the differences in how Sam acted around him. Almost as if Sam may not have realized he had that kind of faith in anything, until he was faced with suffering the same fate Kevin had.
Alan didn't like to think about Sam being stuck in there. It was bad enough losing Kevin, so shortly after they had lost his Jordan, but to have lost Sam would have killed he and Lora. He went back to his office, checking the feed to see Sam climbing into his mom's old mustang. She had loved that little car, caring for it just like Kevin did his old Ducati and Sam cared for both. Though, truth be told, sometimes Alan suspected Sam was a great deal more careful with his mom's little sports-car than he ever was with his dad's old bike. Granted, that car seemed to be a better time-machine than the bike was. Evan Lora had commented, once, how it still smelled faintly of that perfume Jordan always wore. One time, shortly after Kevin disappeared, Alan had found Lora crying in her home office. When he asked what the cause was, she held up a small box. It had been a dust-covered Christmas present she got and was never able to give to Sam's mother. It had been a bottle of her favorite perfume that Lora had picked up while traveling on company business. It was only sold in Europe, and it was the only 'expensive taste' the wealthy Mrs.Kevin Flynn had ever had. Alan had always blamed it on how Kevin bought it for her, so naturally she loved it.
He was also aware of when Sam had a breakdown at his grandparents' house, because he couldn't smell his mom in her old room anymore and he couldn't smell his dad's aftershave on his dad's old jacket anymore. That evening, Alan had gone home and tried to find a bottle of Kevin's aftershave in his stuff that Alan was shifting to a storage unit for when Sam was old enough to go through it for himself. He couldn't find any in that stuff or at the arcade. Lora had recalled the name of it, when she inquired as to why Alan was knee-deep in Kevin's stuff down at the arcade. So Alan bought a bottle of it and he got the bottle of perfume from Lora, and they gifted the bottles to Sam with a small note where they had been placed beside his bed during a visit to his grandparents' house. The note was to let him know that if he ever ran out of either, to let Alan or Lora know and they would get him replacement bottles, so that way he could always have a little piece of his parents with him. It might have seemed odd, but considering how young Sam had been, it wasn't all that surprising that one of his strongest memories of his parents was their smell. Particularly Jordan Flynn, as Sam had no real memory of her except the smell of her perfume. Alan's parents had been gone for years, but if he thought about it, he could still conjure up the smell of sweet baked goods that always seemed to follow his mom as she walked, and the scent of steel that his father carried home from the mill every day. If he ever smelled someone cutting steel or baking something sweet, he found himself suddenly transported back to the kitchen table as his mom made dinner and his dad came through the front door from a long day of work.
~*~*~*~
Sam rode faster than he needed to, down the road towards where Quorra had gone. Thankfully, she was walking. If she had taken a cab, this would have gotten a lot more complicated. He spotted her as he came up on the stretch of road indicated on his program, as to where she would be walking. The drizzling rain had been given enough time and access to have drenched her thin jacket and all her clothes, as well as plastering her ink-black hair to her head and neck. Her hands were still down at her sides, moving in time with her stride, as if she weren't walking on a chilly September evening. Sam pulled up till he was beside her, leaning over to roll the window open a bit, and working to keep his other hand on the wheel as he let the car nearly coast beside Quorra.
"Get in."
She gave him a look.
"No."
"Come on, Quorra. It's cold, it's raining, your soaked, and I've got the heater on in here."
She shook her head.
"I do not require the heat or dry, Sam Flynn."
Great. Grid-speak. She was either really upset or she had hurt herself somehow. She healed a whole lot faster than he or any human would, leaving no scar or trace of the injury behind, however she was still getting used to the sensation of pain and to blood. ISOs and programs didn't bleed. They could feel discomfort when something was wrong or if they were being hurt, such as if someone put them in a choke-hold or if someone twisted their arms behind their backs, but they did not feel pain quite the way she did in her User-world form.
"What's wrong, Quorra? Are you hurt?"
She shook her head.
"I am well."
He usually found her use of proper-English to be cute as all get out, but at the moment it was irritating him that she wouldn't just tell him what the problem was.
"Is this about last night? When I came home late?"
She shook her head.
"Was it Dillinger? Did he say something to you?"
She faltered in her step just enough for Sam to see it, and he knew he had struck paydirt.
"Why are you walking in the rain, Q?"
She stopped, looking over at him with an expression that made him feel like he was the one acting crazy. By User-standards, anyway.
"I am going to St.John's Catholic Church."
He arched an eyebrow. Sure, he had taken her to a few different churches. She loved architecture, and few places had cooler, more intricate stuff going on than churches and other houses of worship. But this seemed very much different.
"Why are you going to St.John's?"
"It is exactly 500 miles from the exit ramp to go to Encom."
"And that's important because?"
"Because I need to walk that distance and then back. To prove my hypothesis. Else it will stay a hypothesis. I must test it to make it a theory. Then further test it to see if it still rings true, and is fact, law, solid."
"What hypothesis are you testing?"
If Dillinger had talked her into some weird roadtrip or got her out here for someone to mess with, Sam was going to kill him. Slowly.
"That I love you."
Sam's jaw nearly fell right out of his head. Mandible and skull were barely going to stick together.
"Come again?"
"I need to test the hypothesis that I am in love with you, Sam Flynn. I heard Lora's discussion...rather her talking the other day about how she knew she was in love with Alan and what it felt like to be in love. I have also heard many songs, read many books, seen several plays, and watched many programs who have shown various depictions of love. I believe that is what I feel, but I am not yet convinced."
Sam was still digesting, but he managed one question.
"And what does walking from Encom to St.John's, and back, have to do with proving this hypothesis?"
"It is exactly 500 miles, one way. 1,000 miles, in total. There is a song you listen to, on bad days, where the singer describes walking 500 miles and then 500 more to be the one who fell at the door of his beloved. Another song, one I do not know the name of the singer, described traveling 1,000 miles to get to her beloved. There is also a saying, about going 1,000 miles for a smile, and I have read that wishing to see another person smile, and be happy, is a sign of loving them. And if a smile is a metaphor for the other person's happiness, than you must be willing to take a 1,000 mile journey in order to make them happy, and that proves you love them."
Sam's head was truly spinning. Sure, he was aware that he had some serious, strong, insane feelings for Quorra. He had simply been holding back on expressing them because he didn't want to trap her or to make her feel like she had to reciprocate them because of some messed up reciprocity thing. Then there was that whole weird deal about her relationship with 'The Creator', Kevin Flynn. Sure, it wasn't a romance, but his father had been like a god among mere mortals, to Quorra, and had been a father-figure to her. It was just an odd conundrum.
Sam stopped the car, switching off the engine, and getting out. Quorra had resumed walking towards St.John's, so Sam had to jog a bit to catch up to her. He said her name as he came to stand in front of her, blocking her path for a moment.
"Quorra, you don't need to walk 1,000 miles to prove anything, to anyone, about anything."
She gave him a questioning look.
"Then the 1,000 miles bears no significance?"
He shook his head.
"It is like the 'move mountains' you explained?"
He nodded, a small smile coming to his lips. He remembered, very clearly, explaining how someone saying they would "move mountains" did not literally mean that they would pick the mountain up and move it to a new location. That it was an expression, meaning they would be willing to attempt the impossible or to do things that were great and awe-inspiring, for the person they cared about or the cause they were fighting for. She had likened it to Lora saying she loved Alan "buckets and buckets", and how she did not actually love him in a unit of measurement known as 'bucket' but that she loved him a great deal.
"1,000 miles sounds like a long trip, and it is a very long way to walk for a human, so that's just saying that you're willing to do something arduous for the person you love. Like if I said I would capture the moon for you or that I'd swim the widest ocean. Trying either of those would kill me, but they sound great and romantic."
Quorra nodded.
"Dillinger asked what our relationship was. I tried to assert that it was none of his business, but her persisted and I... I could deal with how he was speaking of you, and of our interactions, so I found myself suddenly setting him straight, as Lora says. Then he asked me if I knew I loved you or if you had told me that was the word for my feelings. I sometimes think he knows more about my nature, or my origins, than he lets on to you, Sam. Alan has been keeping an eye on him, for the same reason. He did not wish to worry you. Said you had enough on your plate, and I agree. Your plate is quite well laden."
Sam wanted to kill Dillinger, especially considering he had fought Alan a couple times to keep the programmer. He wanted to give Edward a chance to be his own man, to make his own name for himself, rather than being "Dillinger Junior" to the computer world and programming community. But if driving Quorra mad and picking on her was how he would repay that, Sam did not need to continue being so charitable.
"I think Mr.Dillinger and I are going to need to have a serious discussion when I see him next."
Quorra's eyes went wide, worried.
"You are not going to fire him because he was rude to me? That would be wrong. I have read the laws about employment, Sam, and you cannot fire an employee for being rude to your girlfriend. He is under no obligation to be nice to me."
Sam nodded.
"No, but I can fire him the next time he mouths off to Alan, or let Alan fire him whenever he gives Alan a half-decent excuse. Goodness knows he's wanted to fire him since the day Edward was hired."
Quorra nodded, seeming distracted.
"How does one prove their feelings, to make sure they are correctly labeled, if they are not to walk 1,000 miles?"
Sam smiled, moving his arms around Quorra. Her clothing and skin all had a slight chill, but nothing compared to what he would have if he had been walking then standing in this cold rain for the past half hour.
"There really isn't a test for it, Q. Not one where someone can ask you ten questions and if you say 'yes' to all of them, you're in love and if you don't answer 'yes' all ten times, then you aren't in love. Its a feeling in your heart of hearts, bone-deep, telling you that have to be with this other person. As if your heart won't beat right unless you are around them and able to regularly interact with them. And you want to be right there with them, and have them all to yourself, more than you've ever wanted with anyone else. You get pretty protective of them, you overreact when something happens to them- or when you think it has, and your nightmares are made of the idea of anything ever happening to them, or them just deciding to leave you because you're not enough. Or because they won't care about you."
He gave a small smile, nervous as hell.
"At least, for me, that's what it feels like."
She nodded, then reached to hug him, her head resting over his heart.
"Let's got home, Sam."
He nodded, walking with her back to his car, and getting the door for her. She had pointed out many times, that she could get her own door, but Sam reminded her that Alan had taught him to always get a lady's door. She permitted it after that. But only from Sam and Alan.
~*~*~*~*~
Lightening flashed, waking Quorra with a start. As she looked out the windows of her bedroom, she saw that a huge storm was now over the city and outlying area. There were storms in the Grid. There had been one the night she saved Sam. But they were nothing like this. They were somewhat controlled. Their lightening was just a flash, a random spark of energy, that never struck buildings or programs. The thunder was faint and did not make the windows rattle. There was also no wind. If she was not in or on a vehicle, she did not experience wind that could make her eyes water from the ferocity of it, and that roared nearly as loudly as the thunder.
She was about to try to go back to bed when the sky rumbled, making her very bones shake. The thunder was still rolling when lightening cracked across the sky again, sending Quorra flying to the living room. Sam was sound asleep on his futon, the blanket flung over the back as he had not bothered to open the thing fully, and his mouth hanging open a bit as he was sliding head-first over the edge a bit. Quorra had found him on the floor before, still sound asleep.
Tonight, she hoped he would sleep through her joining him. Although part of her would prefer he wake up and tell her, with all his years of experience in the User world, that this storm wasn't one she ought to worry about. It did not stop her worrying, but it did make it easier to sleep if he said it was alright. She had only experienced a handful of these storms, he had experienced 27 years of them.
Moving to try to figure out how to get into the futon without knocking him off or waking him, Quorra didn't half hear Marv's whine. Then Sam's eyes opened as his he raised his head, looking over at Max first. The storm could sound like it was ripping the roof off and Sam would sleep through it, but if Marv made any sound besides a light snore, Sam would wake right up to check on him. She supposed it must have been like what Kevin told her once about when she would find him asleep and he would sleep through the storms or her playing music while she read, but if there was a noise out of place or if she let out a yelp for some reason, he would wake up and come running into the living area.
Sam's slate-blue eyes found her face, and she could see the worry in his expression. She was about to tell him to go back to sleep when another wave of thunder rolled through, nearly making her jump out of her skin. Sam scooted over, patting the space between the back of the futon and his side.
"Come 'ere."
She did not need to be told twice. She carefully, but quickly, moved to get into the space Sam had made for her. It was warm and smelled like Sam. Cotton, leather, engine grease, and something warm that she did not know the name for. Sam wrapped an arm around her back, his other hand coming to rest on the hand she laid across his middle. Marv made another noise, gaining Sam's attention as he looked over at the dog. Quorra couldn't see the dog, however she could hear Sam talking to him.
"You feelin' left out, little man?"
The dog whined, on cue.
"Alright, come here."
The next thing she knew, the black and white dog was being scooped up and deposited on Sam's hip, where he settled against the grey cotton of Sam's sleep-pants. Within seconds, he was snoring again. Quorra wished she could fall back to sleep so quickly. Sleep was hard for her, at the best of times, under ideal circumstances. In a storm and having been woken so abruptly, she would have a hard time fighting to return to unconsciousness.
She could hear and feel that Sam's breathing had evened back out, so she figured he had returned to sleep nearly as fast as Marv. It would not be the first time Sam fell asleep in the space of time it took for her to blink. She could also see, thanks to the glow of the parking lights outside, that gooseflesh was rising on Sam's tanned skin.
Gently, so as not to wake him by jostling him about, she got the blanket off the back of the futon. Then she spread it out over him, Marv, and her legs so that Marv would not be suffocated and that Sam's legs would not be subjects to the cool air of his apartment. With his feet bare and both his slacks and white T-shirt being quite thin, lightweight material, she could imagine he was not able to stay warm. Another shock of thunder rippled through the house, making Quorra go stiff, trying to remind herself that if it weren't safe, Sam would have taken she and Marv, and gone someplace that was safe.
She felt Sam's arm tighten around her slightly, then she heard him humming a tune. It was a tune she knew well, from how many times she heard it in the first few years that Kevin was in the Grid, hiding out with her. After a while, he had abandoned the music from the User World. She was never sure if it was due to it being painful for him to hear it, or if it was because he truly tired of having heard the same songs so many times. He had programmed about four User-hours of music into the computers he had access to from inside the Grid. He told her that he had enough music at his house to have never repeated a song or stopped playing music, to go on for weeks. It was a beautiful song, and she never tired of hearing it when she would play the music for herself after Kevin Flynn went to sleep. As she snuggled further into Sam's chest, she heard him begin to sing some of the lyrics in his deep, baritone.
"I believe when the Kingdom comes, then all the colors will bleed into one. Bleed into one. But yes, I'm still runnin'. You broke the bonds, you loosened the chains. You carried the cross of my shame, of my shame. You know I believe it. But I still haven't found what. I'm lookin' for. But I still haven't found what I'm lookin' for. But I still haven't found what I'm lookin' for."
Quorra smiled into Sam's chest. Despite the storm still roaring above them, she felt quite safe here, in Sam's old box-turned-home. She felt his warm hand rub up and down her back a couple times before he spoke again.
"It'll be over soon."
She nodded.
"Then I'll go back to bed."
Sam's arm tightened around her, keeping her in place.
"I didn't say you had to leave, I was trying to be reassuring. Guess I still need some more practice."
She smiled at him, hugging him a little tighter around the middle. He was always so warm and he wore such soft shifts, which is why she stole them to sleep in along with her rocket ship bottoms.
"Where did you learn that song, Sam?"
He smiled.
"The radio. It was popular when I was a kid, makes a comeback from time to time."
There were still so many things in the User-world that she didn't know or understand. Sometimes it seemed like she could live 500 years and still not know half of what there was to know. She felt Sam shift a bit in her grip and she retracted her arm, afraid he was trying to get up for some reason. He looked over at her, giving her a smile that showed off his dimples slightly. She remembered Kevin Flynn once saying that Sam had inherited them from Jordan.
"I'm not going anywhere, Q."
He moved Marv a bit so the dog was closer to Quorra and not as likely to fall off Sam's lap if he moved, then he settled back down and Quorra moved her arms back over him. After a long moment, and a couple instances of jumping when the thunder rattled the walls of the house, Sam spoke again.
"Q?"
She hummed a noise for him to know she was awake as she kept her eyes shut, not wanting to see the lightening or wind outside.
"You understood what I was trying to say to you, by the road, before we drove home, right?"
She smiled.
"That you love me too, Sam Flynn?"
He smiled, almost laughing. Of course she figured it out. She had probably known before he did.
"I just wanted to make sure you knew."
She leaned up, careful not to disturb Marv, and looked up at Sam. Her eyes glowed in the park lights, looking almost as bright as stars on a clear night in the desert. He could even see the faint glow of her ISO marking from beneath his T-shirt she had stolen. Until Quorra began stealing them, Sam had never quite understood why guys he had known all made such an issue of their girlfriends or wives wearing their stuff. Now he understood the appeal.
"Does this mean you are my boyfriend, Sam?"
He smiled.
"Only if you want me to be, Q."
She grinned like a kid at Christmas.
"Very much."
He nodded.
"Then I accept the title, gladly."
She smiled even wider and Sam leaned forward a bit to place a light kiss on her lips. Her lips were as soft as he had imagined, though not quite as warm, however the coolness of them was not at all unpleasant. He smiled, watching her process before she opened her eyes, smiled, and burrowed back down into his chest, her hand resting over his heart. It seemed she found his heartbeat reassuring. He just smiled, letting his head fall back, his eyes close, and not even trying to contain the smile on his face.
Quorra smiled to herself, resisting the urge to do some sort of joyous dance. She decided this was the measure of love. Not how far you would walk in the rain, but how you would wake up and agree to lay in a less comfortable space or position in order to let the person you loved be able to cuddle next to you when they were afraid of the storm overhead. Love was letting Marv sit on top of your leg, so he didn't feel left out. And love was feeling calm in the storm's wrath simply for being able to feel a familiar heartbeat under your palm. Love was wanting to see Sam the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, leaning on each other while they watched sunsets, continuing Kevin's dream together, holding hands while walking in crowds so they did not lose each other, learning Quorra's favorite foods to cook for her, teaching Sam how to handle a half-staff when fighting, and sitting on the roof at 3am to watch stars and comets. She smiled a little wider. Love was new and she could not wait to learn more about it. But for now, she was going to enjoy this moment.