Title: Ruminations on Accidents

Fandom: Popular

Pairing: Sam/Brooke

Rating: MA: L, S

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Disclaimer: I don’t own them. I mean no harm.

Archiving: At www.realmoftheshadow.com/harper.htm with the rest of my stuff. Thanks Kim.

A/N: It’s a little long. Hope you enjoy anyway. You can find me at xfjnky2@yahoo.com.

Brooke was exhausted. No, nix that… she was literally dead on her feet.

Well, almost literally.

“Them’s the breaks.” Nikki Roberts, a resident and self-appointed smartass, snarked, giving Brooke a soft whack with the back of her clipboard as she rolled her eyes at the blonde. “Death warmed over isn’t a good look on you, I promise.” She paused, chuckling demonically, “I told you not to schedule a moonlighting gig after coming off two long calls. You’ve got to be crazy. Like, certifiably insane kind of crazy. You want me to call a psych consult on you?”

“I’d rather you booked me a bunk in the morgue,” Brooke tried to joke, but the words felt a little more true than she would have liked. She’d just finished up a forearm cast, her fourth of the night, and had barely been able to keep her eyes open. She could only be glad that her moonlighting stint that evening hadn’t yielded anything more complicated. “Three more hours then I’m off for two whole days in a row.”

“Whatever will you do with yourself?”

“Sleep,” Brooke deadpanned, unable to work up enough energy to keep up the joking. “Hey, I’m going to head down to the cafeteria, see if I can snag a yogurt. You want anything?”

Glancing down at the stack of paperwork waiting on her attention, Nikki sighed. “I’ve got to finish this up or I’m going to be here until lunch tomorrow. Why don’t you grab me a…”

“We’ve got a code!”

At the shout, the doors to the emergency room burst open, nearly rocking off their hinges, as a team of people spilled into the entrance of the ER. It was a scene of controlled pandemonium; one medic pushed a gurney as another ran beside it, holding up an IV bag, a third struggling to keep up as he rhythmically pumped a manual respirator.

“Shit.” Cursing, Nikki glanced around, scanning the ward quickly and efficiently. “Looks like everyone else is tied up. Can you help me out on this one?” There was a hint of urgency in her voice and she was already moving toward the patient. “I know it’s not your thing.”

Yogurt forgotten, Brooke nodded and followed after her, a surge of adrenalin rushing through her, sweeping away the tiredness. Whipping her stethoscope from around her neck, she jogged down the hallway after the other physician, meeting the gurney halfway.

“What’ve we got,” Nikki asked tersely, observing the general lack of blood on the twitching figure nearly dwarfed by the gurney, shirt cut into two ragged halves to expose a thin, pale chest.

As a nurse took over respiration, one medic took a step back. “Probable drug overdose. We’re not sure what it was. A friend called it in then split. When we arrived, she was having trouble breathing. It was too risky to lavage. We intubated… a few minutes later, she flatlined. We gave her a shot of epi and defibbed. Pulse is thready, pupils nonresponsive.”

“You’ve got nothing on the drugs?” Nikki probed curtly, stethoscope to the girl’s chest.

“Multi-drug, probably, with who knows how much alcohol. From the scene, I’d guess cat, coke or any number of club drugs…”

The medic’s litany was cut short as the body on the bed began to shake violently. “We’ve got convulsions,” Brooke said, alarmed, as Nikki pushed the mass of dark hair covering the girl’s face back as she began to check vitals. “Somebody get me those antidotes.”

“Pupils are still dilated and nonresponsive, lips are bluish. We’re going to need…” Nikki called out, drawing Brooke’s attention.

“Oh shit,” Brooke spat, unconsciously jumping back from the figure on the bed.

“What? What is it?” Nikki asked, feeling adrenalin and a hint of panic hit her at Brooke’s tone. “We’re going to need…”

“That’s… I know her,” Brooke whispered, eyes going wide as she watched the familiar figure continue to convulse.

“Brooke!” Nikki shouted just as a nurse slid the heart rate monitor clip onto the patient’s finger as the team rushed into an exam room. High pitched beeping soon filled the space, fast and erratic. “She’s going into cardiac arrest. We’ve got to defib!”

A quick shake of the head, and she was back in the moment. “I want blood and fluids up to tox stat,” Brooke snapped out, grabbing the defibrillator pads from the crash cart. With quick efficiency, she placed the clear ovals on the girl’s chest then stepped back to the machine, hand hovering over the button that would send electricity coursing through the patient. “Clear!”

A press of her finger and the body on the gurney arched up. “Clear!” she screamed again, hearing an ominous flatline drone behind her. Another shock, and the body on the bed jerked upwards again.

“She’s not responding,” Nikki said urgently.

“Clear!”

As the body arched for the third time, the beeping returned, rhythmic and slow, and Brooke nearly collapsed with relief.

“Okay everybody, let’s get her stabilized,” Nikki said shortly, then grabbed Brooke’s elbow. Pulling her into the hall, she stepped in close, voice tense as she asked, “Want to tell me what’s going on here?”

Brooke looked back into the room, observing the way the nurses were competently moving around the now unmoving figure, the reassuring steady beep of the heart rate monitor barely audible in the background.

“That’s my stepsister.”

******

Sam groaned. Every single muscle in her body felt as if it had been pulled tight and snapped, like a too weak rubber band. She felt the cool dribble of water on her lips, the feel of it dripping down onto her tongue perhaps one of the most delicious she’d ever experienced, and wrapped her lips around the proffered straw.

“Easy,” a distant voice said as she started to choke, and Sam fluttered her eyes open, squinting against even the dim light filtering in through the blinds.

She tried to speak and coughed again. “Brooke?” she finally managed, the word strangled and barely comprehensible.

“Sam.” The other girl’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

Struggling to sit up, Sam rasped, “Where am I? What are you doing here?”

“You’re in the hospital.” Brooke held the straw up to Sam’s lips again. “You overdosed.”

Grimacing, head falling back to the pillow as the effort of holding it up became too much, Sam took a deep swallow before trying to speak again. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t find you,” Brooke said wryly. “You found me. You died on my table, Sam.”

Brooke watched as dark brows crooked inward. “I’m dead? Then why the fuck does it hurt so much?”

The resulting chuckle was humorless. “You’re not dead. And, I can’t take all the credit for saving your life, but given that I kind of actually did, I think you owe me an explanation.”

Brooke rolled her eyes at the scowl her words evoked.

When Nicole decided to use her Jaguar to run Brooke down the night of the junior prom, the world had changed. For Brooke, the changes had been obvious. For the rest of her life, she was going to have to explain, repeatedly, to airport security staff that she had four pins in her leg and three more in her wrist. To potential love interests, she was going to have to explain the ladder of a scar running from her left knee to her hip, the one perpendicular to it stretching across her belly giving the impression of a disconnected T.

It might have been more logical to think that the six weeks that she’d spent in the hospital would have put her off of the place for life. But, when she returned to school, it had been with a new purpose. Gone was her participation on the Glamazons, not that she was capable of acrobatics anymore anyway. Instead, she withdrew into her own secluded world of study, hiding away from the people she used to call friends. Free time was spent in the library or, more amazingly, during the study period she willingly chose to spend with BioGlass. All of the things she’d done before seemed so frivolous in retrospect, like a life spent in the fast lane headed toward nowhere. Cultivating popularity, spending her time fighting over boys… the very thought of it seemed ridiculous.

The contrast was stark, almost as if a different person had resumed her life after the accident. She graduated Kennedy High fourth in her class and attended Stanford on scholarship, finishing in five years with degrees in biology and physics. Four years of med school at the Stanford University School of Medicine followed that and now, at 32, she was just beginning her fifth and final year of orthopaedic surgery residency at the UCLA Medical Center; the dubious honor of being co-chief resident wasn’t doing anything to lessen her work load as she neared the end of her term, unfortunately, despite the fact that things were supposedly supposed to get easier. As it was, she had about nine more months of her residency to complete, after which she’d be heading off to start her orthopaedic trauma fellowship at Cedars Sinai Orthopaedic Center. Moonlighting in the ER at the St. Vincent Medical Center was simply an outlet for extra cash.

Sam, on the other hand, had entered their senior year of high school with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a dime bag in the other. Brooke noticed the change after she transitioned back into life at the Palace. Sam was irritable and even more obstinate than before (though she honestly hadn’t believed it possible). She started her small rebellion by repeatedly breaking curfew, but it wasn’t until she’d been returned home, still bitter and combative, by a far too tolerant policeman who had opted to let Mike and Jane deal with Sam as opposed to taking her downtown for a drug possession charge, that Brooke understood how completely her stepsister had changed. In contrast to her own sterling turnaround, Sam finished off the year with a juvenile record and a C average and barely made it into Northwestern.

Jane had thought that the change of scenery would help. And it had, to an extent, until Sam got sucked into the Chicago music scene. Brooke hadn’t known that Chicago had a music scene, much less any bands worth writing about, but Sam started off by getting interviews and reviews published in industry magazines. By her senior year, she was simultaneously on the verge of nabbing a job with Spin magazine and entering rehab.

She chose the job with Spin.

At first, Sam still made the effort to make it back to Orange County for holidays and birthdays, but after a little while, the appearances stopped. Brooke was actually kind of relieved. Every time she saw her, Sam seemed even more distant and after she left, Jane always cried for the rest of the day.

It was unsurprising, then, that Brooke hadn’t even known she was in LA. They hadn’t talked in over a year.

“Whatever. Don’t tell me, then,” Brooke said with a sigh, rolling her neck. The resulting crack echoed through the room, and she looked down at her wrinkled and dirty scrubs with a grimace. Instead of going home, like she probably should have done, she’d finished off her shift and spent the first day of her precious two day vacation sitting by Sam’s bedside. “I didn’t call Jane. I didn’t want her to see you like this.”

“Don’t call her,” Sam croaked, eyes fluttering open again. Then, after a moment, “You look like shit.”

“Yeah?” Brooke scoffed. “So do you.”

“I died. What’s your excuse?”

Brooke fought down the wave of angry frustration she felt roll through her as she looked down at Sam, skin clammy and pasty under the low glint of the florescent lights, dark circles around her eyes making her look as if she’d been the loser in a particularly vicious bar fight. “You were only dead for a minute. I worked for 36 hours straight and then spent the next 8 waiting for you to wake up and talk to me. Which, I can see now, was a colossal waste of time.”

“So you work here?” Sam asked, voice still a harsh croak, then coughed again.

Brooke put the straw to her lips again, letting Sam take a sip of water before answering. “No, I don’t work here. I work at the UCLA Medical Center. I told you the last time we talked, but since you had probably already taken a half a bottle of vicodan that day, I can understand why you wouldn’t remember. I was just pulling some overtime here.”

“I remember,” Sam protested, shifting under the bedding listlessly. “That’s where I thought I was. God, Brooke… I was just trying to make conversation.”

“Yeah, what better time to catch up, right?”

“Look, if you’re going to be a bitch about it, then just go. I’m not in the mood right now,” Sam shot back irritably then grimaced, the effort of her ire sending a stab of pain through her already pounding head.

Shaking her head in frustration, Brooke reached back to grab her coat, shrugging into it. “Fine. I’ll ask the desk nurse to call me if your condition changes. You can call Jane if you want. I don’t want to have to be the one to tell her about this, okay.”

She was at the door before Sam spoke again, “Brooke, wait… I’m sorry.”

Hand on the handle, Brooke looked back over her shoulder. Sam’s thin form was dwarfed by the bed, her hair spreading out about her head wildly in messy, dark contrast. For a moment, she looked vulnerable. “Yeah, so am I.”

******

Brooke tugged irritably at her business suit. She hated that part of her clinic days, having gotten so accustomed to wearing scrubs that anything else felt nearly painfully restrictive. She could actually get away with wearing scrubs during clinic, normally, but her current attending had a strict rule. They were doctors, he said, and they were going to dress like doctors. That meant jackets and ties for the men and business suits for the women.

“Finish up your last patient, Dr. McQueen?”

Maggie, the receptionist at the clinic, was always perky, no matter what time it was, but Brooke had come off of a long call the night before and rotated straight into clinic. Currently, she was going on 32 hours without sleep and perky made her feel almost homicidal.

“Yeah. Heading home,” she said with a small smile, hoping that it seemed friendly enough. After leaving Sam’s hospital room, she’d returned to her own small apartment and crashed. But, after a few hours she was awake again, wondering if she should go back. Some part of her wanted to reach out to the other girl, to try and get her to see reason before her next OD had a more permanent ending, but she couldn’t do it. She’d been burned before, they all had, and the last thing her life needed was more complications. If Sam wanted to get better, then she’d get better.

That hadn’t made sleep any easier in coming, and when her schedule had resumed its normally hectic pace two days later, she didn’t feel any of the benefits a two day vacation would normally offer.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Maggie said, catching her just as she was about to make her escape. Brooke frowned, jaw clenching as she worked to keep from snapping at the girl. After all, clinic hours were over, and she’d finished up her patient list.

Seeing the growing thunderclouds, Maggie added quickly, “She’s not a patient. She says she’s your stepsister. I put her in exam 2.”

Brooke felt a scowl pull at her lips. “Sam?” she asked suspiciously.

“I think that’s what she said her name was,” Maggie replied nervously, remembering thinking that the wan girl still sporting a plastic hospital bracelet had been more than sketchy, in her opinion. She hadn’t wanted to bother Dr. McQueen with it, much less admit the girl into an exam room, but she hadn’t wanted to call security either. If the girl was related to Dr. McQueen, she had no doubt that the resident would rather avoid the hospital scuttlebutt that would arise from the attention drawn by security guards and confrontations. Hospitals were microcosms of gossip and intrigue as it was, the horrific hours required by the profession creating a pseudo-community just itching for something to liven up the tedium, but Maggie didn’t want to feed that. At least, not this time.

Rolling her shoulders to release the hint of tension building in them, Brooke took a deep breath and stalked off down the hallway. “Thanks, Maggie,” she threw back over her shoulder, her tone indicating that she meant anything but that. Steeling herself for the upcoming scene, she threw open the door to exam room 2 to see Sam sitting on the examination table, legs swinging off the side, seemingly carefree.

“Brooke,” Sam said calmly, and Brooke stopped short of jumping into a tirade. Sam looked like she was barely able to hold herself up as it was.

“What are you doing here?” she instead asked warily. Sam was wearing a plain white tee shirt and jeans, plastic hospital bracelet still around her too thin wrist, but Brooke was fairly certain she saw a suitcase lurking in the corner.

Sliding down off the table slowly, Sam said quietly, “I need a place to stay.”

Walking around the table so that the suitcase was clearly visible, Brooke said incredulously, “And you want that place to be mine?”

Sam’s jaw clenched shut as she fought the urge to grab her stuff and go, the need to flee instinctive, and forced herself to back down. “Yeah, I want that place to be yours.”

“Where were you living before?”

“With the girl who left me to die on the floor of a hotel room,” Sam said with a disgusted snort, “but who was kind enough to bring me my things in the hospital before she told me she was on her way out of town.”

Brooke took in a deep breath, tried to think of what to say. “Sam, I don’t know…”

“Look,” Sam said softly, breaking into what she knew was going to be Brooke’s refusal, “I can’t go home. I can’t face Mom like this. I can’t go back to my old life. You were right. You didn’t say it, but you were right. If I don’t change…”

“You’re going to die,” Brooke finished coldly. “Again.”

Lips curling up in a wry smile, Sam laughed. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Feeling the beginning of a massive migraine coming on, Brooke sighed, looking down at the suitcase and then back up at Sam. “You’ve got to go to rehab first.”

“Brooke, come on. I’ve been to rehab before. Twice,” Sam said, laughing bitterly. “I know the drill. I can do this without it.”

“No, Sam,” Brooke said sternly, holding out her hand. “My work schedule is crazy and you’re an addict. I can’t be there all the time, and that’s what you’re going to need. Either you go to rehab first, or you find somewhere else to stay.”

Sam felt an itching begin beneath her skin, small tremors telling her to run inching closer in force to seismic waves.

“I can pull some strings and get you in, today probably. You do this, and when you get out, you can stay with me.”

“I don’t need to be watched. I just need a place to stay.”

Brooke simply shook her head, the resolute refusal flat in her eyes.

Sam wanted to beg, wanted to scream and cajole and manipulate, but that look let her know there would be no arguing. So, jaw clenched with anger even as she said the words, Sam muttered, “Fine, but you better come see me. I’m not doing this all by myself.”

“I’ll come see you.”

Brooke used the phone in the room to call the front desk. Maggie transferred her, and a moment later she was connected. “Ty, it’s Brooke McQueen. I need you to do me a favor…. No, it’s not for me. It’s for a friend. I need to get her in this afternoon. Can you do it for me? Yeah… No, I’ll take care of it. Okay… thanks. I owe you one.”

Turning to Sam, she managed a tight smile. “Come on.”

******

“Where are we going?” Sam asked, wiggling uncomfortably in the passenger’s seat of Brooke’s well used Volvo.

Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, trying not to think of how surreal it felt to be sitting beside Sam again, Brooke laughed shortly. “Rehab.”

Sam frowned. “Yeah, I got that part. Where? And how do you know this Ty person who can pull all these strings, anyway?”

“Orthopaedic surgeons have access to a lot of pain meds,” she answered wryly.

Sam shot her a sideways, disbelieving glance. “What, you?”

“No, not me, but you’re not the first person I’ve delivered into their care.”

“Oh.”

They lapsed into silence again, and Sam’s fidgeting continued. By the time they pulled into the parking lot of an otherwise nondescript looking building, she was about to come out of her skin.

“Grab your stuff,” was all Brooke said as she exited the car.

A staff person was waiting on them as they entered the lobby. “Dr. McQueen, Dr. Tybee is expecting you.”

“Andre, this is Sam. She’s going to be staying here for a little while.” Then, to Sam, she added, “I’m going to go talk with Ty. You’ll be fine here.”

Sam watched warily as Brooke smiled warmly at the tall, imposing man, obviously at ease. It felt intensely strange to her to hear people refer to Brooke as doctor, and to see her stepsister play the part with confident ease. Brooke was Brooke, not Dr. McQueen.

“Uh, sure,” Sam stammered, answering a question Brooke hadn’t asked and looking up at Andre in alarm as he gently lifted the handle of her suitcase from her palm. Brooke was already making her way down the hallway, easing out of her line of sight.

“I’m going to have to go through this,” Andre said and though his voice wasn’t unkind, it was firm. “You’ll get your things back later, I promise. To start, we’ll supply everything you need. If things go well, you’ll be able to earn them back.”

“Earn them back?” Sam nearly screeched, the itching urge to run tugging at her again. “They’re my things.”

“If you’re going to do this, you need to do it all the way,” Andre said quietly, motioning to another staff member. “Amanda will get you started on your intake forms.”

“Wait,” Sam said, looking down the hallway into which Brooke had disappeared, “I want to see Brooke before she leaves.”

“I’ll catch her for you,” Andre promised.

Brooke tapped lightly on the door to Ty’s office, pushing it open with a smile at his enjoinder to come in.

“Hey,” she said with a soft smile, accepting his hug. “How are you?”

He smiled wryly in reply. “Good. Same old, same old around here.”

Taking a step back, looking around the familiar office, Brooke sighed. “Thanks for doing this for me, Ty.”

“I’d say any time, but it might be better for you if you run out of friends you need to put in rehab,” he replied with a chuckle. “Not that I’m not glad to see you.”

“This one is different,” she said, suddenly serious. “I should have told you on the phone, Ty. It might be awkward for you.”

“Awkward? How?”

“She’s my stepsister. I don’t know what kind of things you cover in your sessions, but she might talk about me,” Brooke admitted, ducking her head, a little embarrassed by the stories of their adolescent antagonism that Sam might unpack.

Ty nodded in understanding. “Okay. As strange as this might normally sound, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve discussed you in one of my sessions.”

“Maybe,” Brooke allowed, “but with John it was different. We were friends, but we were really more like colleagues. Sam is different. We’ve known each other for a long time, though to be honest, I haven’t really known her for years. I know we’ve talked about this before… she dropped off the family’s radar for a long time. I’m not sure if it’s fate or sheer luck that I ran into her again. I’m sure she’ll tell you this, but she was admitted to the ER at St. Vincent’s while I was moonlighting. She flatlined on my table, Ty.”

“Well, that’s a little dramatic for a reconciliation,” Ty joked lightly, earning a half-strength scowl in return.

“Ty…”

“Okay, okay… no more inappropriate joking,” he said with a laugh.

“Honestly, though, she needs this, Ty,” Brooke stressed, serious again. “I can’t believe she agreed to it. Her mother has been trying to get her to do something like this for years, but she always disappears. I want to make it stick this time.”

Pulling Brooke into another hug, placing a soft kiss on her forehead, Ty murmured, “I’ll do my best, Brooke. You know that. But, I can’t make Sam do anything. She’s going to have to do this for herself.”

******

“So, this is it,” Sam said nervously, looking down at the tan scrubs she’d been given in exchange for her clothes. “This is kind of extreme, don’t you think?”

“It works,” Brooke reassured, unconsciously reaching out to place her hand on Sam’s forearm. “I’m not allowed back for the first three weeks, but as soon as you can have visitors, I’ll come. If you want me to…”

“No, by then I’m sure I’ll be completely sick of all these people,” Sam said with a jittery smile, bouncing awkwardly on the balls of her feet. “This was… this was maybe a bad idea.”

“No,” Brooke said sternly, quickly. “This was definitely the right idea.”

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Sam murmured plaintively, shaking her head in punctuation. “I don’t know if I want to do it.”

Brooke shrugged. “I don’t either, but you’re trying. I could feed you all of the clichés right now, tell you to take it one day at a time, but I’ve never been in your situation and I don’t know what it’s like. But, I have faith in you.”

“Why?” Sam snorted, rolling her eyes in self-disgust.

“I don’t know,” Brooke replied honestly. “I don’t know you anymore, but I remember the Sam that used to make my life living hell and she could have done it.”

“Yeah, well, that Sam hasn’t been seen since Senior year. Last I heard, she was passed out drunk in a back room.”

“Walk you out, Brooke?”

Brooke looked over her shoulder to see Ty lounging in the doorway, messenger bag slung over his shoulder and jacket draped over his arm.

“You’ll make it, Sam,” she said, voice strong with conviction.

“Yeah… I’m glad one of us believes that.”

******

“I’m fucking dying in here.”

Sam’s voice was thin and reedy, almost vibrating with need. Brooke glanced over at her attending, a small jerk of her head indicating that she was going to take the call in the hallway.

“What’s that?” she asked, pressing a finger to her ear to block out the hospital noise that was a constant presence in her life.

“I’m fucking dying in here. I can’t do this, Brooke.”

“It’s only been three days,” Brooke said patiently, stepping to the side to avoid a passing cart full of specimens. “You know it’s going to pass.”

“Not before I fucking die,” Sam muttered, and Brooke heard the slight thump and hiss of the other girl sliding down the wall.

Glancing distractedly at her attending, whose head was poking out of the room in interested confusion, Brooke turned further into the wall. “Are you calling to whine or am I supposed to be talking you down off some kind of ledge here.”

“I was hoping for sympathy.”

“Well then, I’m sorry,” Brooke said shortly. “I really am. I’m sorry you’re a drug addict and that you’re having to deal with what it feels like to detox. That’s the same kind of pain your mom has been feeling for years, Sam. Yours will be over in a few days, or maybe a week.”

Sam was silent for a long moment, and Brooke contemplated apologizing. “That’s great. Fucking great,” Sam finally said, voice low and gruff. “I’ve gotta go. We only get five minutes on the phone.”

Brooke sighed. “Look, Sam… You can do this.”

“Yeah. You have faith in me. I remember.”

“Dr. McQueen?”

Flicking her phone closed, Brooke turned around to face her attending, face stretched tightly in a strained smile. “Coming. Just had to take care of some family business.”

******

Sam’s skin still felt like it was going to crawl off of her body, but at least she wasn’t shaking uncontrollably any longer. She was clammy, always cold even as she was sweating, but she’d been reassured that it would pass. She hadn’t had anything in a couple of weeks, but her stay in the hospital had at least been helped along with pain meds and sedatives. They hadn’t been much, but they’d managed to fight off the worst of it.

“Rough first week?”

Sam had laughed when she’d seen the placard reading Dr. Tyler Tybee, quite sure that no one with a name that ridiculous could ever help her.

“Yeah, you could say that,” she said, shifting uneasily in her chair as she chewed on the near bloody nub of her thumbnail.

Tyler Tybee looked young. He looked her age, or maybe younger, with his California tan and wavy brown hair, and she wasn’t sure she could take him seriously.

“You know Brooke?”

Dr. Tybee smiled, and his teeth were as straight and white as a movie star’s. Sam wondered if he got them professionally whitened, figuring it would fit with his stylish, slim-cut suit and his impeccably shined, modern shoes. “We went to medical school together. I was a few years ahead of her.”

Older than she was, Sam decided. Still, it didn’t make him any more credible.

“You date her?”

“I’m not sure Brooke would appreciate us discussing her personal life,” Dr. Tybee said blandly, flashing his bright white smile again.

“That’s a yes, then,” Sam observed shortly. “You’re not together now. Who broke it off, you or her?”

“It was mutual.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to discuss Brooke’s private life,” Sam snorted snottily.

Dr. Tybee smiled again, and Sam wondered how she could get him to stop. “You’re not a fool, Sam. You picked up on the fact that Brooke and I had something between us in the past. Would you prefer I pretend that we hadn’t? Would you like for me to lie?”

“Yeah, sure. Lie to me, baby.”

Dr. Tybee leaned forward, arms resting lazily on his upper thighs. “What you say in here stays between us. You’re familiar with therapist/client confidentiality. You’re familiar with HIPPA. Do you think I’d risk my license to gossip about what you say in session with my ex-girlfriend?”

“You’re still kind of friendly with your ex-girlfriend,” Sam observed shrewdly.

“Maybe,” Dr. Tybee allowed, “but we’re not that kind of friends. Not anymore. If you don’t trust me, then you can’t talk to me. I need to know if you think you can trust me.”

“Trust you?” Sam paused, laughed. “Look at your shoes. Can I trust a man wearing those shoes? I don’t know.”

Dr. Tybee frowned, looking down. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“They’re pretty boy shoes. I need to know that my psychological well-being means more to you than your perfectly tailored suits. Are you all show, or is there any substance, Dr. Tybee?” Sam challenged, switching to her other thumbnail.

He smiled again, and Sam barely refrained from hitting him. “Why don’t you call me Ty.”

“Are you flirting with me?” Sam asked suspiciously.

“No.”

“Trying to con me into thinking you’re my friend?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the game?”

“I prefer Ty to Dr. Tybee,” he offered with a shrug. “If we’re going to be talking every day for the foreseeable future, I’d rather you call me Ty.”

“Fine, Ty,” Sam snarked. “Tell me the truth. Who broke it off, you or Brooke?”

“It was mutual,” he reasserted, leaning back and crossing his arms over his head. “We were better off as friends. Why are you so worried about my relationship with Brooke?”

“Do you still want to fuck her?”

This drew a frown, and Sam smiled.

“That’s not appropriate,” Ty chided. “Tell me why you’re here, Sam.”

“I thought that’d be fairly obvious,” Sam scoffed, pulling her feet up onto the base of the chair and wrapping her arms around her knees. She was starting to feel sleepy.

Ty tilted his head to the side, studying her closely. “The purpose of this place is to help you beat addiction and then recover from it. We all know that. It’s the reason you’re here, not the why.”

“There’s a difference between a reason and a why?”

“A big difference,” Ty asserted. “What made you come here?”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “I heard I died.”

“And then it became real to you?”

“No,” Sam admitted, biting her bottom lip nervously. “I woke up in the hospital and Brooke was there. She told me what happened, but it didn’t mean anything to me, you know. I’d survived. So what if she said I’d died. I didn’t remember it.”

“Doesn’t sound like a compelling reason, then,” Ty observed.

Sam shrugged carelessly. “She said she’d been working 36 hours straight, and after that she’d spent the rest of the day waiting for me to wake up. I OD, and she’s the only one there and that’s just by chance. And because I’m me, I find a reason to get pissed off at her and tell her to go, to leave me alone.”

“But she didn’t,” Ty said soothingly, anticipating the story.

Sam laughed harshly. “No, she left. She didn’t come back either. She left me there alone, and you know what? No one else came except for this girl I’d been sleeping with, and she only did that so she could drop off my things before she skipped town. I had no one. I was completely, truly alone. And that’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That wasn’t the way I wanted to die. Or to live.”

“Have you tried rehab before?”

Despite the slowly creeping nausea sliming through her insides, Sam smirked. “Yeah. Twice.”

Ty nodded gravely, eyes narrowing slightly. “Obviously it didn’t work.”

Sam raised a brow, sarcasm screaming from the move. “I didn’t really stick around. I did three days in the first time, five days the second.”

“Too tough for you?” Ty challenged easily.

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t a fit at the time.” She paused, then added, “Things here are a little more strict.”

Ty smiled wanly. “You’re free to leave any time you like though I’d prefer you not.” He paused himself, then continued in a measured, though honest, tone. “Rehabs are a dime a dozen out here. Most of the high profile ones exist to keep actors in roles – get arrested for possession or DWI and head to rehab for a little bit of image rehabilitation. There’s no discipline, no concerted desire to treat. We operate under a different assumption. You came here for our help and we’re going to give it. Your satisfaction with our services during your stay here isn’t at the top of our list of concerns. We do hope you leave here with a product you can be satisfied with.”

“Did you write the promo materials?” Sam asked, tone a sharp cut. “You must be turning away flocks of addicts who want desperately to get into such a sterling set-up.”

Ty leaned back, fingers lacing together over his belly. “We do alright.” Then, breaking the seriousness of the moment with a bright smile, he added, “We’ll get you fixed up – then you can write the promo materials.”

******

The shrill ringing of her cell pulled Brooke out of a deep sleep. It was the most annoying ring she could find, the only one that would wake her up, and every time she heard it, it made her want to kill something.

“What?” she snapped, barely conscious, sleep hanging on to her fiercely.

“You used to date my doc?”

“Sam?” she asked irritably, confused. “What time is it?”

“Five in the afternoon. What are you doing?”

“Sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

“I got out of clinic at 3:00, and I go in to moonlight tonight at 10:00. I was trying to catch a nap,” Brooke explained groggily, rolling over onto her side and snuggling back down into her pillow.

“You work all the time,” Sam observed. “Is that why you broke it off with Ty?”

“Ty?”

“That’s what he said to call him,” Sam offered diffidently.

Brooke sighed, feeling herself slip farther and farther away from sleep the longer she talked. “It was mutual. He told you about that?”

“Not really,” Sam said with a grimace, beyond irritated with mutual. “I guessed.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a nice guy. Don’t be an ass, and maybe he’ll be able to help you.”

“He’s a pretty boy,” Sam grumbled.

Brooke’s eyes rolled behind her closed lids. Deciding to change tactics, she asked, “Still feel like you’re going to die?”

“Not in the immediate future, but it’s still a possibility,” Sam said languidly. “So, you’re in bed?”

“Yes.”

Sam smirked mischievously. “Yeah… what’re you wearing?’

“What?”

“What are you wearing?” Sam enunciated slowly, smirk broadening.

Brooke snorted. “Are you serious?”

“What?” Sam protested. “It gets lonely on the inside. You’ve got to give a girl something.”

“You’re not in jail.”

“Might as well be,” Sam muttered, looking around her. The furnishings were decidedly nicer, but it was most certainly her prison.

Brooke shifted again, feeling sleep creep almost out of her reach. “Look, I’ve got to go. If I don’t get back to sleep now, it’ll be this time tomorrow before I get the chance again.”

“Sure. I understand,” Sam said shortly, voice annoyed.

“Good-bye, Sam. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, later.”

******

“I want you to know I’m not an addict,” Sam said resolutely, almost glaring at Ty. “That’s what everyone keeps saying, and I rolled with it for a few days, but I’m tired of it. I am not an addict.”

“Interesting,” Ty observed, head tilting to the side as he continued to watch Sam. “Care to explain?”

“Addicts are hard core. They can’t live without it, you know, without the high. I might have gotten high, but I never got hooked. I could have stopped. I just never wanted to,” Sam said defensively, drawing her legs up into her chair, arms wrapped tightly around her shins. “I was a user. It’s different.”

“A user.”

“A functional user,” Sam stressed, eyes narrowed. “I was successful, well-adjusted.”

“But yet you’re here for your third stint in rehab,” Ty pointed out rationally, eyes flicking down to Sam’s nails. They were ragged, almost bloody. “And only coping moderately well.”

“I’ll admit I got into some shit I never should have touched,” Sam admitted, balling her hands into fists. “But, that was only recently. Before that, it was totally manageable.”

“What was totally manageable?”

“Nothing too harsh. Adderol to get me going in the morning, Xanax to calm me down at night. A little liquor, some various other pills, a little smoke now and then. That’s mostly all,” Sam said defensively.

“Some people ascribe to the philosophy that drug use is purposeful and productive,” Ty offered, watching Sam closely.

Sam took in the words, giving them some thought. “What about you? Do you believe that?”

“Actually, to an extent, I do,” Ty said slowly, lips pursed. “In the 40s, methamphetamine was the most commonly prescribed anti-depressant in psychopharmacology. Drugs make you feel good. Is that a purpose? I think so. Is it productive? Certainly, if it’s the only thing that can help you function. But, I don’t believe it’s the only thing. The notion that drug use is a panacea isn’t exactly revolutionary, but I admit it’s functional. Despite that, it is my view that drug use is a maladaptive coping mechanism. It isn’t nearly as helpful as it is destructive.”

Ty was silent for a moment, and Sam could almost see the gears in his mind working. “For example, you pulled away from your family a long time ago. You cut yourself off from anyone who might try to help you.”

“I got busy.”

“I get to cheat here,” Ty said with a slight smile. “I’ve met your family. I’ve heard the backstory. You virtually disappeared. This I know for a fact.”

“I traveled a lot with my work,” Sam said blithely, though she frowned deeply at his words. “I put a lot of energy into my career. Am I going to be crucified for that in here too?”

“Is that how you felt? Crucified? Persecuted, maybe? Were the people who loved you placing an unreasonable burden on you by asking that you keep in contact?” Ty asked, and Sam searched his tone for the hidden taunt. She didn’t have to look far.

“Yeah, you’re funny,” she deadpanned, scowling. “I hurt my family. I know that. I’m going to fix that.”

“Do you know that?” Ty asked, and Sam had a feeling the question wasn’t entirely rhetorical. “I don’t think you do.”

“What kind of therapy is this? I’ll be honest… it doesn’t feel very helpful.”

Ty chuckled. “You’re going to have to face some harsh truths about yourself while you’re here. It’s all a part of the healing process. I just want to help you get a head start.”

“Yeah. Brilliant. Thanks,” Sam muttered. “And fuck you.”

******

“When did it start, Sam?”

She wondered why he hadn’t asked before. She was already into her third week at the facility, and all of her fingernails were practically gone.

“Did Brooke ever tell you about her accident?”

“In high school?”

“The night of Junior prom,” Sam scoffed. “Junior prom… think about it. How ridiculous did you look?”

Ty smiled, and Sam noticed with some amount of surprise that she no longer wanted to hit him when he did it. “I looked pretty awesome, actually.”

“Yeah, so did I. So did Brooke,” Sam said wistfully. “We had this stupid, adolescent argument over a boy. It was completely idiotic.”

“Is that what caused the accident?” Ty prodded, watching Sam carefully. She’d drawn into herself, body tight with tension.

Sam shook her head. “No, not really. I think it would have happened even if we hadn’t fought. She had this friend, Nicole. Complete and total bitch. Psychotic crazy, you know. She ran Brooke over with her car.”

“And you?”

“I saw it. I saw it all. I heard the snap of her bones, saw the way she flew up on top of the hood and smashed into the windshield. I don’t see how she wasn’t killed,” Sam said shortly, dispassionately, as if recounting a particularly annoying piece of history.

“What does this have to do with you, Sam?”

Sam shrugged helplessly. “She went to the hospital, and I just lost it. I’d like to say it was because I’d seen her almost die, or because I had some epiphany and decided I was going to live every day of my life like it was the last one or some other kind of shit like that,” Sam said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know why, really. Something changed.”

“It was a very stressful event,” Ty said calmly.

“You think, Doc?” Sam bit out sharply.

Ty nodded. “Yes, I do. I might have mentioned it before,” he said, pausing to give a rueful smile, “but substance use is a maladaptive coping mechanism. You couldn’t cope with what you’d witnessed, and you turned to substances to help you do that. They gave you an avenue for escape.”

“I’ll be you aced psych 101.”

“I did.” Ty leaned forward, face hard. “You think it has to be complicated, right? You think the reasons behind it all have to be complex, beyond the realm of human understanding?”

He looked at her for a moment, then scoffed. “Maybe it was. Maybe it was more than the stress of seeing your stepsister almost die. Maybe it was more than the aloneness you must have felt, with your mother and step-father paying Brooke all of their attention while she was in the hospital. Maybe it was more than you not being able to deal with what you saw and seeking some kind of escape. Or maybe it wasn’t.”

Sam frowned, drawing her arms even more tightly around her shins.

“I could be wrong, Sam, but I bet I’m not that far off the mark. Sure, it’s complicated. Addiction is complicated. The psychosocial correlates of addiction are complicated. The biochemistry of addiction is complicated. But sometimes all these things line up. For you, they did, and now you’re here.”

“Brilliant. Does that mean we’re finished here? You’ve figured it all out and told me all about it, so now I’ll be fine?”

“Oh yeah, of course,” Ty said with a laugh, leaning back in his chair once again. “We shoot for quick turn-around here. Two and a half weeks, and you’re cured.”

“This is great. A shrink who thinks he’s funny.”

Ty smirked. “I am funny.” Then, business-like once again, “I think you’re ready to integrate into group therapy. We’ll alternate group sessions with our individual sessions.”

“I don’t think I’m going to like group sessions.”

******

Sam was pouting when Brooke found her.

“You almost missed visiting hours,” she pointed out, frowning.

Brooke pushed back a wave of irritation, though her voice was strained as she said, “I’ve got a job, you know. It’s a pretty stressful one, and I don’t always get to work the hours I’d like. I got out of the hospital as quickly as I could.”

Sam was still painfully thin, almost swallowed whole by her tan scrubs. Her skin was beginning to regain a little bit of color, though, which made her look less like a corpse, Brooke thought.

Sam wanted to push the argument, wanted to lash out. Today she felt as if there were an army of ants swarming beneath her skin, itching to take her away, and it made her irritable. She knew how she could make them go away – she just couldn’t get to what she needed to do that. “I’m glad you came anyway,” she huffed, then nearly laughed at how pathetic she sounded.

“You look like you’re doing better,” Brooke said carefully, easing out of her heels. Given the lateness of the hour, they were almost alone in the visiting room, and she took the opportunity to relax back into the chair she’d claimed.

“Yeah, well, clean living and all that,” Sam said with a humorless laugh. “No drugs, no alcohol, just shitty cafeteria food, therapy and chores. It’s almost like a spa, if you think about it.”

“They make you do chores?” Brooke asked with a slight smirk.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, chores. It’s all a part of my rehabilitation. They say I’m going to be a model citizen when I get out of here.”

“Perfect. My apartment needs cleaning. Are they going to teach you how to cook, too?”

“Oh, you’re funny,” Sam deadpanned. Then, “It’s kind of nice, talking to you again.”

Brooke arched her spine, feeling it crack with a release of tension. “Yeah, it is.”

******

The next time Brooke saw Sam, she was wearing her own clothes.

“Moving up in the world?”

“I’ve been a good girl,” Sam said with a smirk. “I might actually get to have my own shampoo back soon.”

“Good. Your hair looks like shit.”

Sam barked a surprised laugh. “You haven’t changed.”

Brooke smiled slightly, then continued thoughtfully. “I have, actually. A lot. I feel like I don’t know you any more, Sam, and I don’t think you know me.”

Sam stiffened slightly, the ease she had been feeling disappearing in an instant.

Noticing, Brooke reached out, resting her hand on the other girl’s forearm. “For the first time in a long time, I want to get to know you again.”

“Was I really that bad?” Sam asked with a weak laugh, drawing back and crossing her arms over her chest.

Brooke sat back herself, giving the question serious thought. “You were gone for so long. Even when you were still there physically, you’d checked out mentally. My life was chaos from the moment you entered it, and just when I thought I might be getting a handle on who you were, you changed.”

Brooke shook her head in bemusement, the memories more trying than she was willing to let on.  “I tried, at first. We all tried, but you were gone. After a little while, it wasn’t worth trying any more. Every time we did, we’d just get hurt. You’d moved on… it was like you didn’t care any more. So, I decided I didn’t care any more. If you were going to ruin your life, then who was I to stop you? I had my own life to live, my own challenges to deal with. It was easier to forget about you when you weren’t here. I was busy anyway.”

“Obviously,” Sam broke in, voice full of forced calm.

Brooke shot Sam a significant look. “I’m just telling you the truth, Sam. You were off being a big shot strung out music magazine writer. Life around here had to return to something like normal. I didn’t even know you were back in town until you turned up in St. Vincent’s.”

“Yeah, hell of a reconciliation, huh?” Sam joked weakly.

“You could say that,” Brooke said with measured amusement. “And after I left the hospital that day, I certainly didn’t expect to see you in my office once you got out, but I’m glad you came.” Brooke paused, then smiled softly, “I’m actually looking forward to getting to know you again. I know it’s kind of crazy to say that. You’re only a month in and I know the statistics, but… I think you can do it.”

“Such faith.”

“Don’t make me into a sucker, Sam.”

“I’m not going to lie, either, Brooke,” Sam said with a wry smile. “This is hard. I’m not sure I want to do it. I spent the first week and a half I was here thinking I was going to die. I have to put up with the psychobabble your ex-boyfriend seems to be unnaturally fond of and endure group therapy sessions. I just ‘earned’ back the right to wear my own clothes, like I’m some kind of misbehaving child. If I got out of here today, I’d be high within an hour.”

“Okay,” Brooke said cautiously.

Hands held up in supplication, Sam shrugged. “I suppose that’s why they don’t let you out after a month. And, as much as I hate it, I didn’t go through the hell of my first couple of weeks here to quit now.”

Brooke was quiet for a moment. “I was thinking,” she began, then paused to clear her throat, “I was thinking that you might want to call Jane. I know she’s worried about you. I don’t know how long it’s been since you talked to her, but I can tell. I can hear it in her voice.”

Sam slumped back against her seat, dark hair falling forward to shroud her face. “I’m not going to get her hopes up until I know for sure this is going to work. I’ll write her a letter, let her know I’m okay.”

“I think she’d love to hear from you.”

Sam bit her upper lip nervously, then sighed. “I was thinking… it’s stupid, maybe…”

“What?” Brooke prompted, reminded of a much younger Sam in that moment. The image brought with it a sense of wistful nostalgia, and she took a moment to let her mind wander. She had to wonder how things would have turned out if Nicole hadn’t gotten behind the wheel of her car all those years before, if Sam would have been successful and clean. She knew she wouldn’t be where she was, though when she thought about the way she felt on the mornings following her long calls, she decided that might not always be all bad.

“I thought maybe I’d surprise her. Her birthday, maybe,” Sam said softly, pulling Brooke from her mental meanderings. “But before I do anything like that, I need to know that it’s going to last.”

Brooke blinked back a tear, seeing in front of her the girl that might have been instead of the one that was. “I understand.”

******

“You don’t speak up in group.”

Sam decided that Ty looked like he’d stepped out of an Armani Exchange catalogue, with his button down shirt under his button neck sweater, with his rumpled and stylishly faded jeans. Given his usual style of dress, she surmised that it must be casual Friday.

“Do you dress yourself every morning?”

Ty looked down at his outfit, then back up with a small grin. “I do. Do you like it?”

“Very preppy urban hipster,” Sam allowed. “How long did it take you to cultivate that stubble?”

“Do you honestly think I’m going to be deflected that easily?” Ty said with a chuckle.

Sam grinned in reply, shrugging her shoulders coquettishly. “It’s a tried and true tactic. You do love your clothes.”

“You’ve got me there,” Ty allowed. “Now, back to you. You don’t speak up in group.”

“I don’t like group. I think I told you that was going to happen,” Sam pointed out. “I don’t want to get up in front of the rest of those losers and talk about how low I’ve been.”

“The rest of those losers?”

“We’re all here, aren’t we?” Sam challenged. “We’re all addicts, users, whatever. We all let it get so bad that someone decided we needed help.”

“I thought you decided you needed help,” Ty clarified.

Sam collapsed back against her chair, arms crossed over her chest peevishly. “You’re having a fit over semantics now?”

“Words are your game,” Ty said easily. “I read some of your articles. You have an entertaining, engaging writing style. You’re quite good.”

Sam arched a brow arrogantly. “Yeah, you want an autograph now?”

“Tell me about the first time you used heroin.”

Thrown by the sudden shift, Sam was momentarily speechless.

“How did you know about that?”

“It was on your intake form,” Ty  said with a wry smile. “How did you do it? Snort it? Inject it? Inhale it?”

“Snorted it,” Sam choked out, thrown. “I was new at the magazine and they’d sent me out to cover Bonnaroo. I was in the middle of some fucking field in nowhere Tennessee, and it was pouring rain, and the guitarist for the Slapping Daisies invited me onto their bus. I did a line, smoked a little, chilled with the band. I didn’t even know that was what it was until later.”

“And how did it feel?”

Sam took in a deep breath, eyes glazing over slightly. “Nothing at first. Then, maybe 15 minutes later… indescribable. I was the world.”

“And then what happened?”

Sam snorted, eyes refocusing and narrowing. “I fucked the guitarist. What did you think was going to happen?”

“When did you do it again?”

Pursing her lips, trying to push away the memory of the sensation, Sam murmured, “Not for a long time. I didn’t want to chase that particular dragon, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen what it can do, and I didn’t want to be there.”

“But you did do it again,” Ty pushed.

Sam glared, feeling suddenly cornered. “I did a lot of things. Did a lot of drugs, drank a lot of alcohol, fucked a lot of people, did a lot of stupid shit. You’ve heard it before.”

“But not from you,” Ty pointed out. “You like to talk about a lot of things, Sam, but not about that.”

“Yeah,” Sam snorted angrily, “well, I thought you were trying to help me quit. Thinking about it doesn’t make me want to quit.”

“Thinking about all the ‘stupid shit’ you did doesn’t make you want to quit?”

Sam attacked a newly regrown thumbnail with a vengeance. “You can move past stupid shit. I did some things I’d rather not remember. We’ve all done things we’d rather not remember. I’ll never get that half of my liver back,” she tried to joke, but the words fell flat. “I sure didn’t do it because it wasn’t enjoyable.”

“But was it really? Was it enjoyable, Sam? It made you feel good, I’m sure, but was it really, truly enjoyable? Was your life enjoyable?”

“You’re expecting some trite answer here, right Ty?” Sam scoffed. “You’re expecting me to sit back, take a look at it all and realize I was miserable and compensating. I won’t lie… there were some bad times. But overall, yeah… it was enjoyable. It had gotten less so, recently. I missed my family. I wanted more.”

“You’re halfway through the program, Sam,” Ty said contemplatively. “Given what you just said, do you honestly think you’ll be able to leave here and stay clean?”

“I’m going to try,” Sam said angrily, surging forward out of her chair. “And if I don’t, I can always blame it on your shit therapy.”

******

Sam sat sullenly in her chair, glaring at Ty.

“I’d like to go back to what we were talking about last session,” he said nonchalantly, ignoring Sam’s visible anger. “Tell me what made it enjoyable.”

Sam laughed shortly, then pursed her lips in a frown. “Lots of things, Ty,” she said sarcastically, putting extra emphasis on his name. “Let me tell you about my life. My job… excellent. I get to write, which I love. I get to meet all kinds of people, interesting people, exciting people, powerful people, creative people. I get to feel good.”

“The drugs and alcohol made you feel good,” Ty observed blandly.

Sam shrugged. “They were part of it. Just a part of it, not all of it. My whole life wasn’t about being high.”

“It was about the people, too,” he returned drolly.

Smirking, Sam laughed shortly. “Yeah, the people.”

“Friends?”

“Some of them.”

“Sexual partners?”

“Some of them.”

“Romantic partners?”

“Some of them.”

Ty sat back in his seat, letting silence descend between them. After a moment, he smiled slightly. “I’m not going to try and demonize your life up to this point. I’m not going to try and demonize your friends. There were obviously things about that lifestyle that you enjoyed, else you wouldn’t have lived it for so long. But I think you realized that you couldn’t keep on living that way indefinitely. I think you wanted to change.”

Sam couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Are you having a break through in therapy, Dr. Tybee.”

“Stay with me for a minute,” he cautioned, holding out his hand. “You’ve got to say good-bye to your old life before you can start a new one, Sam. You have unfinished business… physically, emotionally, maybe spiritually.”

“You think?” Sam snorted sarcastically.

“I gather from our last conversation that you enjoyed an active sex life,” Ty commented easily.

Sam’s brows tightened at the unexpected change. “Yeah, so?”

“So, have you been tested? We can do that for you here.”

“I’ve been tested,” Sam said defensively.

Ty nodded, then added, “In the last six months?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Sam nodded her head no. But then, almost aggressively, she snarled, “Most of my partners were women.”

“Reduced risk for some things, maybe, but not no-risk,” Ty allowed. “And, you did say most. Did you ever inject drugs, Sam?”

She felt a flash of anger rush through her. She wanted to yell at him, to tell him it wasn’t any of his business and storm from the room, but she held herself back. “No,” she asserted defiantly. “I know the risks. I stayed away from that. I’m not completely stupid.”

“Don’t you owe it to yourself to know, then?” Ty asked, head tilted to the side contemplatively. “When you get out of here, you’ll probably meet someone. Don’t you owe it to that person?”

“What, so I’ll get tested. Big deal.”

“Speaking of relationships,” Ty segued abruptly, “what about your relationship with your mother?”

Sam felt herself turn cold. “What about it?”

“You’ve done some damage there.”

“You’re just a fucking genius, aren’t you?”  Sam snapped. “You went to school for this? I mean, come on.”

Ty laughed softly, then pinned Sam with a stare. “Do you want me to find you a couch, Sam? Do you want to lay on it and pour your heart out to me while I take notes? Would that make you feel better? Would you rather I treat you like you were fragile? You don’t like to be confronted. You don’t like to deal with, much less talk about, your emotions. You get defensive. You use sarcasm as a weapon to deflect me. I could definitely make this easier, for both of us. I could let you sit in your chair and sulk. I could let you hide. But, that doesn’t seem helpful to me. Does it to you?”

Sam laughed bitterly. “God, you’re annoying.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I can see why Brooke broke up with you,” she muttered.

Ty smiled. “It was mutual.”

“No, you’re annoying. And gay.”

Sam waited for the explosion, for the denial, for the anger. Instead, what she got was a rather blasé, “Why do you say that?’

“Just look at you,” she scoffed.

Ty took a second to do just that. “What? It’s the way I dress? My impeccable haircut? Are you stereotyping me?”

“You just said impeccable haircut,” Sam pointed out drolly.

“And you just judged me,” Ty shot back, tone still even. “I don’t do that to you.”

“Oh, so now being gay is a judgment?” Sam challenged.

“No. But you used the implication as a weapon. You wanted to hurt me or draw some sort of angry reaction from me, but guess what… I’m just a well-dressed, well-groomed heterosexual man. Live with it. Let it dazzle you. Let it defy your expectations.”

“Whatever.”

“But, I do appreciate the compliment.”

******

Sam hated mopping. Actually, she hated all forms of chores. She hadn’t like doing them when she lived at home and her mom mandated them, and she certainly didn’t like doing them in rehab.

Besides, chores gave her entirely too much time to think.

Damn Ty and his therapy sessions and his smile, which she was beginning to find annoying yet again. She saw it in her dreams now, bright and white and seemingly guileless, and he was behind it, always looking charmingly rumpled. She could see what Brooke had seen in the guy… he was even better dressed than the princess herself.

Then again, the last time Brooke had been by to visit had been the first time she hadn’t been coming straight from work. On her downtime, Brooke had shown up in a pair of hopelessly wrinkled jeans and a long-sleeved tee advertising the Stanford Medical Student Association.

“You look like you belong in here,” Sam had laughed at the time, but part of her had liked the look. It made Brooke seem human.

If Brooke had been imposing before, back in high school when she’d been a popularity queen who could apparently do no wrong, these days she was a saint. Fucking overachiever, Sam snorted mentally, mindlessly keeping up a haphazard push and pull of the mop. She could have seen Brooke as an interior designer or weather girl or something like that, but a doctor? Part of her still couldn’t reconcile it.

At least one of them had turned out half-way decent, Sam thought bitterly. She wouldn’t have put money on herself as the screw up back then. Not that it had been all bad for her. Her career had gone through its ups and downs, but on the whole, she was happy with her body of work. She was respected within certain circles. Her work had been read by millions.

Not that she could go back to it.

That had been one of her first realizations, once she’d been able to get her brain to function again after those first few weeks of detox. Staying clean and staying in the music scene were never going to go hand in hand. She had too much history there, just like Ty had been saying in her session earlier. What that meant for her life, she didn’t know. It was almost enough for her to say screw it, to check herself out AMA and forget the whole endeavor. But then she thought about her mother’s sad eyes and how alone she’d felt in that hospital bed, and she wrung her mop out and pushed the bucket further down the hallway.

******

“You’re going to kill yourself.”

Brooke glared at Nikki unappreciatively.

“No, seriously,” Nikki asserted, glancing down at her insistently beeping pager. “This is the fourth time you’ve moonlighted here in two and a half weeks. Don’t they keep you busy at your day job?”

Brooke was back at St. Vincent’s, having picked up the extra shift after finishing up her day in clinic at the UCLA Medical Center. “Maybe I just missed you,” she said dryly, earning an eye roll.

“Stupid nurses,” Nikki muttered, walking over to the wall phone in the doctor’s lounge. “I think they’ve got it in for me. I was sleep deprived and pissy last night, and I yelled at one of them. Now they call me for every fucking thing.”

“You’ve got to treat them right,” Brooke said sagely, sinking back against the vinyl couch cushion. She was exhausted, and Nikki wasn’t that far off the mark. She hadn’t gotten more than 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep in longer than she could remember.

Nikki rolled her eyes again, then pulled the phone closer to her ear. “Yes, I got a page. This is Dr. Roberts.”

Brooke tuned the other woman’s conversation out, focusing blearily on the muted tv in the corner. “Scrubs. Fucking hell,” she muttered, looking around listlessly for the remote.

“No, I don’t want to do anything now. Call me back if his fever goes up.”

Moments later the vinyl creaked again as Nikki settled back down next to her. “Where were we… oh yeah, you dying.”

“Where’s the remote?” Brooke asked lazily, ignoring Nikki’s comment.

“Fuck the remote. I’m trying to be serious here,” Nikki said with an aggravated sigh. “Why are you doing this?”

Brooke let her head loll to the side so that she was looking at Nikki. “Gotta pay the bills.”

“Yeah, I know they don’t pay us shit, but don’t you think this is a little extreme?”

Brooke flexed her jaw then rolled her head to the side, the resulting crack sending a bolt of relief down her spine. “I appreciate the concern. Really, I do.”

Nikki snorted, snagging the remote from a side table, “I just don’t want the nurses paging me when you code out.”

******

“Why don’t you talk to your ex-boyfriend and get him to get me a new roommate,” Sam said grumpily. Then, “You look like shit.”

“Thanks. That’s what every girl wants to hear.”

Sam narrowed her eyes, lips pursed. “The scrubs, the red, watery eyes? Come here looking like that, and they’ll admit you.”

Brooke sighed and rubbed wearily at her eyes. “What’s wrong with your roommate? I thought you two were getting along.”

“I got along with Carla. Carla got out last week. Now they’ve got me in with Kyla, who is 18 years old and won’t shut up about her fucking boyfriend.”

“So start telling her stories she doesn’t want to hear. Maybe it’ll act as an object lesson for her,” Brooke said laconically.

“You haven’t met Kyla. You give her far too much credit,” Sam said with a soft laugh. Then, gently, “You really do look tired, Brooke. Are you taking care of yourself?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Brooke asked, unable to work up the energy to inject any affront into her tone.

Sam smirked. “I have a whole institution full of people making sure I do that. What about you?”

“Eh,” Brooke muttered noncommittally.

Prodding hesitantly, Sam asked, “No boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend,” Brooke confirmed laconically.

“Probably for the best,” Sam said lightly. “I think you like them gay.”

Brooke’s arched brow was enough invitation for her to continue. “Oh, come on. Ty?”

“Not gay,” Brooke said succinctly. “Just well dressed.”

Sam rolled her eyes dramatically. “Please.”

“Strange but true.” Brooke shook her head in bemusement. “Be nice to him. He’s a good guy.”

“Then why is he an ex-boyfriend?” Sam asked curiously.

Brooke shrugged. “I’m a sucky girlfriend. I didn’t put our relationship high enough on my list of priorities. I didn’t work on it. He got tired of always being in fifth place, and I was in agreement that he deserved better than that.”

“Right now, I’m looking forward to the day when I never have to talk to him again.”

“Conservative estimates say you have a little over three weeks left of the program,” Brooke observed, resting her chin in her hand.

Sam bit her bottom lip nervously, eyes downcast and shy. “You still going to let me move in?”

“I already bought you an air mattress.”

“Air mattress?” Sam asked with faux affront.

“My place isn’t big enough for another bed,” Brooke said drolly, thinking of her relatively tiny apartment.

“Aw, not going to share yours?” Sam teased, earning a frown in reply.

“I don’t get a lot of time to sleep,” Brooke said crankily, “and when I do, I need to take full advantage of it.”

“Hey, chill,” Sam said soothingly, holding her hands out in supplication. “Let’s not argue before I even move in.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just tired,” Brooke apologized, massaging the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah, reoccurring theme here.”

“Sorry,” Brooke apologized again, robotically. “And I can’t come next weekend. I’m on call, so sorry again.”

Sam tried not to be hurt by the words. “Not your fault,” she offered placatingly. “It’s your job.”

“I’m still sorry. I like these visits.”

“It must be my sparkling wit,” Sam joked weakly, then sighed. “Yeah, I like them too. But, you’re going to get tired of seeing me soon enough.”

“I doubt it.”

******

“Only one more week in my excellent care,” Ty said cheerfully, and Sam smiled despite herself. “Are you starting to miss me already?”

“I wish,” she grumbled. “But how can I? I see you all the time.”

“Dreaming about me again?” he teased.

“Flirting is considered inappropriate behavior, I believe.”

Ty shook his head in bemusement. “I think that’s just a subconscious desire of yours manifesting itself in a delusional belief.”

“Too late to break out the fancy talk, Doc. I’m on to your game.”

“Perfect. That means you’ll be willing to play along. Did you make the list?”

Sam sighed, thinking back to their last few therapy sessions. “I don’t need to write it down.”

“I didn’t say you had to write it down,” Ty clarified. “I said make a list. You’re usually not that literal.”

Sam glared at him for a moment, then gave it up. It never had really worked for her. “Either way, I made the list.”

“And how are you going to deal with this list?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “The whole thing feels a little too 12 steps for me.”

“They don’t have it all wrong,” Ty said seriously, “and actually I think you should look into it. AA or NA, I mean. When you get out of here, you’re going to need more support than you know. It’s going to be tough. Very tough. Find yourself a group.”

“You know how I hate groups,” Sam joked half-heartedly. Lately, just the thought of leaving rehab had made her feel slightly nauseous. She’d managed to clean herself up inside the bubble of its comfortable shelter. The thought of leaving that shelter was becoming increasingly anxiety provoking.

“Do it anyway. And make amends. Do it for the people you’ve hurt, and do it for yourself.”

“Just not all at once, okay.”

******

Freedom felt odd.

“Don’t expect much,” Brooke said nervously, key scraping rawly against metal as she fumbled with the door.

Sam looking down at her lone suitcase and then back up at her step-sister’s back. “I don’t need much.”

“Then you’re in luck,” Brooke muttered, finally shouldering open the door. “I was going to put up a banner or something, but then I thought that would be kind of cheesy.”

“I agree,” Sam drawled drolly. “I’m kind of anti-banner.”

Sam was quiet for a moment, taking in her surroundings carefully. “It’s cozy,” she said finally.

Brooke rolled her eyes in reply. “I told you not to expect much.”

Another visual sweep of the room, and then Sam let out a bark of laughter. “Jesus, Brooke. I thought you were a doctor.”

“Yeah, well, you take what they pay me and divide it by the number of hours I work, and I make less than minimum wage,” the blonde grumbled. “I figured you could sleep in the living room.”

The living room opened up into the kitchen, the expanse separated by a bar countertop. The combined area was separated from Brooke’s bedroom by a small hallway, only large enough for the doorway leading to the bathroom. It was rather sparsely furnished, as if Brooke hadn’t had the time or inclination to make it feel more like a home.

“Where’s this airbed I heard so much about?” Sam asked lightly, still smiling in bemusement. Cozy didn’t begin to cover her new accommodations.

Brooke pointed to a box in the corner, still unopened. “I didn’t get a chance to set it up.”

“Good thing I packed light.”

They lapsed into silence again, until finally Brooke threw herself on the well-worn couch with a sigh. “I didn’t get a banner, but I brought home some cupcakes from the hospital bakery. They’re pretty good, actually.”

“You get cupcakes at your hospital?”

“One of the many perks,” Brooke said, tone self-deprecating. “Look, it’s your first day out, and my only day for a week and a half. What do you want to do?”

Sam looked around the small apartment and then back at Brooke. “Let’s take a walk. Show me the neighborhood.”

Summer was still a few months away for California, but soon Brooke was sweating in the sun. She wasn’t used to the heat; the temperature inside the hospital was well regulated and enough time spent under the florescent lights there tended to rob her of the sense of the seasons. Days off were usually spent taking care of chores she didn’t have time for otherwise, like paying bills and doing laundry. Almost everything else had long ago taken a backseat, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a walk.

“This is nice,” she noted with surprise.

Sam, caught up in her observations of Brooke’s neighborhood, looked at the blonde with confusion. “What is?”

“Walking… being outside,” Brooke said with a smile, turning her face up to the sun.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Sam murmured, “You don’t get out much anymore, do you?”

“You wouldn’t believe,” Brooke said wistfully. “My world is full of routine. Go to work. Eat. Sleep. Go to work. Repeat endlessly.”

“Sounds… kind of sucky, actually,” Sam said with a laugh.

“Yeah, well, now my misery has company,” Brooke teased.

******

“Going to go crazy.”

The words echoed around the empty apartment, bouncing off the silent television and swirling down the empty sink. She’d quickly found out that Brooke was a non-entity for long stretches of time. She’d promised that it would be better after the end of the month, when she rotated out of her teaching month and into a clinic month.

“I’ll be back by six every day,” the blonde had promised. “Only two long calls the whole month. And maybe some moonlighting… I don’t know.”

Sam had made it through the first few days by reorienting herself to the world. She pulled her beloved laptop from its padded case, was delighted to learn that Brooke lived close enough to something with an unsecured network for her to not have to go in search of a hotspot, and began to write. It was all crap, random observations and half formulated articles, but the process of writing felt so good that she didn’t care about the results.

It had felt good to be able to lay on the couch all day long, too, flicking aimlessly through cable channels Brooke wasn’t home enough to justify paying for. She had no chores, no therapy or group sessions, and no annoying roommate babbling on endlessly about her loser boyfriend.

She was bored within a week.

“Come on, Brooke,” she’d pleaded one night when the blonde returned home from work to crash on the couch in a pair of badly wrinkled scrubs. “A game of Scrabble, something.”

“I have Scrabble?” Brooke had asked wearily, looking at Sam in confusion.

Eyebrows scrunched in disbelief, Sam had sputtered, “Yes, you have Scrabble. I found it in the closet. How do I know that and you don’t?”

The look Brooke had shot her could have melted plastic had she had enough energy to properly infuse it with her unamused ire. “I don’t really have enough time to play games,” she had said caustically, unable to help the sudden flash of anger. Sleep deprivation often left her cranky.

“Chill,” Sam had snapped back. “And play a stupid game for once, will you?”

“One game,” Brooke had stipulated, then promptly fell asleep mere minutes after the tiles were divided. Sam hadn’t known whether to leave her on the couch or wake her, but when Brooke had jolted awake on her own minutes later, apologies tumbling forth, she’d simply bundled her off to bed and resigned herself to yet another night full of channel surfing.

Not that getting reacquainted hadn’t been amusing. Sam still chuckled when she thought of the expression on Brooke’s face the first day she had come home to find Sam lounging on the couch in a white tank and boxers.

“When did you get that?” Brooke had asked, clearly shocked, as she stared at the elaborate dragon tattoo swirling around Sam’s shoulder and upper arm.

“This?” she’d questioned innocently, looking down at her shoulder. “Few years ago in Japan. Dragons are supposed to bring good luck. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time.”

Brooke had leaned closer, taking in the black and gray ink with interest. “That’s impressive.”

“I’ve got a few more,” Sam had said with a smirk. “A Pali incantation written in Khmer for protection,” at that, she’d pulled up the tank, revealing the black lettering running down her side and slanting onto her back, “and a nautical star, rumored to be a guiding light that will lead me through this life with good luck. And, you know, for a bit of retro camp value.” This one appeared after a tug on the waistband of her boxers, and Sam had smiled at the hint of blush she’d seen on Brooke’s cheeks. “What about you?”

“No,” Brooke had stammered. “None for me.”

But even with the small breaks provided by her largely absent roommate, Sam was bored. Deeply, infinitely bored.

All that free time left her with entirely too much empty brain space, and she began to think. Thinking led to remembering, remembering led to wanting, and after another day and a half of stubborn refusal, she gave in and did the one thing she’d vowed she wouldn’t do. She went online and found a NA group.

Fuck, but she hated group.

******

“Oh, come on Brooke. We never do anything together.”

The askance look Sam received made her rethink her choice of words.

“I mean, not that we have to do things together all the time just because we’re roomies now, but… don’t make me beg. You’re my main source of social support these days. Come out with me.”

“Okay, first of all, what is capoeira, why does LA have a chapter, and why do they need to have a benefit?” Brooke asked in exasperation, looking down at the small, bright orange flier Sam had presented to her as soon as she’d entered the apartment.

“I don’t know why they need to have a benefit, I can only assume that there are chapters all over the United States and perhaps the world, and capoeira is a Brazilian martial art also known as the dance of war,” Sam explained patiently. “Now, can we go? Please?”

Brooke thought first about her alarm clock, already set for 5:00 the following morning and then thought about her upcoming presentation sitting half finished on her computer. Then she looked at Sam, and was immediately caught by what she had secretly, at that very moment, started calling the puppy dog eyes of doom. Her doom, apparently, because she handed the flier back with a sigh. “Sure. A benefit for the Los Angeles branch of the international capoeria society… I’ve always wanted to go. Really.”

“It’ll be fun, Brooke,” Sam said, the pleading in her tone tugging at Brooke’s gut. She’d never thought of herself as a sucker for big brown eyes and wheedling before that moment, but given the evidence, couldn’t deny it. “We’ll go out for Indian first, make it a whole night out. Go change, I know just the place.”

An hour later, Brooke surveyed her surroundings with suspicion.

“How did you find this?” she asked guardedly, watching Sam use her fingers to tear free a piece of mysore masala dosa.

Popping the crispy, spicy Indian crepe in her mouth with a smile, Sam said cockily, “I know your neighborhood better than you do. This place has good South Indian, which can be hard to find.” She paused, looking down at the largely uneaten dosa. “Are you going to eat some of this or not?”

Brooke wanted to choose the or not option, but aside from the vibrant crimson streaking the dough, couldn’t see a reason not to eat it.

Moments later she smiled widely, then sniffled. “This is amazing, Sam.”

“Save some for the main course,” Sam teased, reaching out to snag a napkin. Passing it to Brooke, she teased, “It’s not too spicy for you, is it?”

“Of course not,” Brooke said defensively, then dabbed at her nose. “It just makes my nose run, that’s all.”

“Then you’d better watch yourself with the pav bhaji,” Sam cautioned as their waiter returned, sweeping away the crumbled remains of the dosa and sliding new plates into place.

“Are those dinner rolls?” she asked, pointing to the bread that had come with the steaming curry. “Maybe I should have ordered for myself.”

“Have I steered you wrong yet? Besides, the lemon rice should be coming out in a second. I got it because I figured you wouldn’t be able to handle the pav bhaji. Plus, it’s really good,” Sam promised, smiling at Brooke’s frown. “Let me show you how these work.”

Moments later she presented Brooke with the bottom half of one of the rolls topped with a heap of the curry. “You can squeeze a little lime on it if you’d like. I think it adds a nice flavor.”

Brooke did as instructed, then looked anxiously at Sam.

“So, eat it now,” Sam prompted, picking up a corresponding half. “Next time we come, we’ll get the thali. You can try a little bit of everything.”

Brooke obediently took a small nibble. “So this is South Indian?”

“Not all of it, but for a South Indian place, their non-Southern dishes are pretty good.”

Eyeing Sam with interest, Brooke prodded, “So you’ve been here before, then?”

Shrugging guilelessly, Sam nodded. “Sure. What do you think I do all day? I can’t eat lunch at the apartment all the time. I go crazy in there.”

Taking another bite, eyes widening at the hint of spice that exploded on her tongue, Brooke nodded, “No, I guess not.”

Smirking, noticing the way the other girl’s nose had immediately started to run again, Sam gestured to the rice dish that had appeared moments before. “Why don’t you try some of the lemon rice.”

Spooning some onto her plate, Brooke strove for nonchalant as she asked, “Are you doing a lot of writing?”

Sam froze for a moment, then shook her head with a sigh. “Not really. I was thinking I should get a part-time job, start paying my half of the rent. You’ve been good about it so far, but I need to start pulling my weight.”

“Sam, you don’t have to worry about…”

“Of course I do,” Sam broke in impatiently. “I can’t live off of you forever. You agreed to help me get back on track, not support me for life. I need to start helping out. I can pay half the rent. I can pay for the cable you never watch.”

Brooke chose not to argue the point, and instead took a bite of her rice.

“What’s the matter?” Sam asked at the look of scrunched confusion on her tablemate’s face.

Brooke chewed experimentally for a moment, then said cautiously, “This doesn’t taste like lemon at all. It’s more… I don’t know, more like lime.”

“That’s because it is lime,” Sam said with a smirk. “It’s called lemon rice because of its color, not because it actually has any lemon in it. Don’t you like it?”

“No, it’s good,” Brooke reassured. “Just unexpected.”

“Unexpected can be good,” Sam remarked easily. “Like tonight. It wasn’t in your plans, but it’s good, isn’t it?”

It hit Brooke suddenly. It was good. It was good in a way that wasn’t entirely the way it should be. It was easy and fun and just a hint flirtatious, and she froze, stunned.

Maybe it was Sam, her brain rushed to explain. Sam had started bringing home ‘girlfriends’, none of them ever reappearing after their initial introduction, toward the end of her senior year. Given that, it only made sense that going out to dinner with Sam would feel like, and here she paused mentally, a date. Sam didn’t mean to make it feel like a date. She didn’t mean to be charming and flirty, didn’t mean to make it feel like there was a bubble of intimacy cushioning them from the intrusive impact of the other people milling around them. It was completely accidental on her part, probably an ingrained way of interacting with other girls, and the onus of the misplaced vibe was completely on herself, Brooke decided. She was the one who was taking something innocent and making more out of it than it was.

A little shell-shocked from the rapid mental deconstruction of the situation, Brooke could only murmur, “Yeah, it is.”

******

“See, I told you this would be great,” Sam said with a wide smile.

Brooke wasn’t yet convinced of the greatness of the event in question. They had arrived at the venue listed on the flier Sam still had in her possession only to be brought up short in confusion. The building was, oddly enough, an Ethiopian restaurant, and as Sam surveyed the small space, she began to shake her head.

“This can’t be the place,” she mumbled, brows drawn together in frustration.

“Can I get you a table?”

Brooke looked around the largely unoccupied space. “Uh, no. We were here for a capoeira demonstration.”

“Downstairs,” the waitress said, pointing out a barely visible hallway running along the side of the restaurant.

Sam was already on her way before Brooke could protest, once more, that this might not be the best of ideas and so all she could do was follow.

“IDs and $15 each.”

The girl sitting at the table guarding a set of stairs looked impossibly young to Brooke, as if she needed to check her own ID.

“You brought yours, right?” Sam asked, and Brooke noted with some surprise that she was holding out a ten and a twenty along with her driver’s license. She got a thin paper bracelet in return, the material dotted with small Brazilian flags.

As she dug through her small purse, Brooke eyed the bracelet warily. She could hear the thump of bass coming from below, could spy the flashing of lights through the door leading to the stairs, and, interspersed through it all, the quiet clink of glass on glass. Sam had been out of rehab for a month, and now they were at a bar.

“Sam, are you sure about this?” she asked, handing over her identification nonetheless.

As if picking up on her concern, Sam smiled ruefully. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you want to keep an eye on me.”

The music surrounded Brooke like a blanket as they descended the stairs to pause on a landing, and she looked out over the crowd with trepidation. She could only assume by the Brazilin theme to the evening that she was hearing Brazilian music, and the people dancing to it looked uninhibited and free. Each had a smile on their face, a look of pure joy.

“Samba,” Sam said, lips surprisingly close to Brooke’s ear as she spoke, causing the blonde to jump. “You want to dance?”

Brooke looked back at the gyrating crowd, eyes lingering on the incredibly fast and intricate footwork. For the most part, she’d given up dancing after the accident. She wasn’t as graceful as she had once been, and as a result was much more self-conscious. She hated the way that made her feel, that awareness of her body. Before the accident, she’d been able to give herself over to the joy of moving to the music, much like the people swarming on the dance floor below them. Inhibitions and dance didn’t go together in her mind, and the fact that she couldn’t separate what she was doing from fears of how she must look doing it made the enterprise less than pleasurable.

“I thought we were here to see Brazilian martial arts,” Brooke said peevishly, pulling closer to the stair’s railing as people moved past them.

Sam shrugged carelessly. “Apparently there’s dancing before the show. Come on, Brooke. Let’s dance.”

Under the force of the newly named puppy dog eyes of doom, Brooke felt herself grow shy. “I don’t know, Sam. I haven’t danced in a long time.”

She jumped slightly at the feel of Sam’s fingers twining through her own. “Then it’s time you start again,” Sam said with a beguiling smile. “Don’t worry about things so much. You don’t know any of these people.”

“I know you,” Brooke pointed out as Sam began to tug her down the remaining few stairs.

“I don’t count.”

The words were almost lost amongst the music, the volume of it nearly overwhelming as Sam pulled Brooke out onto the dance floor. Letting go of Brooke’s hand, Sam soon fell into the rhythm, and Brooke watched the easy, sensual sway of the other girl’s hips with envy. Sam looked like she was at home, blending into the crowd as if she were a natural part of it. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Sam dance before, but she’d never imagined the other girl as having rhythm.

“Come on,” Sam coaxed, reaching forward to take Brooke’s hand again. Drawing the blonde’s arm upward, she spun around slowly, glancing back over her shoulder to give Brooke an encouraging smile. “Your turn.”

Brooke turned self-consciously, trying not to look as awkward as she felt.

When she completed her turn, she was surprised to see Sam standing only inches from her. Leaning forward so that she could be heard, Sam shouted, “I know you can do it, Brooke. I saw you at the pep rallies.”

“That was a long time ago,” Brooke replied, glad that the music covered the bitterness in her tone.

She jumped at the feel of warm hands on her hips. “Start here,” Sam instructed, guiding her hips in a slow back and forth rhythm, mirroring the one she was making with her own.

Brooke tried to consciously ignore the stiffness of her body and give herself over to the sway of the movement. She was, despite herself, starting to enjoy the way it felt to move with the music.

“That’s it,” Sam said with a wide grin. “You’ve still got it.”

As Sam’s hands left their perch on her hips, sliding over her sides to gently prod her arms up, Brooke hoped that all of the commotion hid the shiver than ran through her. “It’s not all in your hips,” Sam continued, backing away slightly, demonstrating. Brooke was caught by the easy sensuality of her movements once again and immediately flushed, eyes dropping guiltily.

“See, you’re not half bad, McQueen,” Sam teased, moving closer once again. “Now just put it all together.”

The music died off as she said the last word, and it was loud in the resulting lack of noise. Sam looked around with a chagrined grin, then turned to face the front of the dance floor at the sound of a loud whistle.

“Show time.”

******

“That was fun, admit it,” Sam coaxed, hands deep in her pocket to guard against the slight chill in the night air.

Brooke shook her head in bemusement. “It was fun,” she allowed. The capoeira had been fascinating to watch. The combatants, dressed completely in white, danced and feinted around one another, never actually making contact, their movements serpentine and graceful. It looked more like an elaborately choreographed dance-off than any martial art Brooke had ever seen, but she’d been more than impressed by the grace and athleticism of it. The accompanying ritualism of the music and singing had been almost hypnotic in counterpoint to the surrealism of the compact movements of the competitors, and Brooke begrudgingly allowed to herself that she was glad Sam had dragged her along.

“We should do this more often,” Sam remarked off-handedly, taking in a deep breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an evening out without at least having a few drinks to go along with it, and something about experiencing the end of the night sober was refreshingly new.

Hearing Brooke’s resulting sigh, she rushed to add, “I know you’re busy. I know you work all of the time. But you’ve got to have a life outside of the hospital, Brooke. Otherwise, you’re going to go insane.”

If this had been a date, and Brooke couldn’t help continuing to think of it that way even though she knew that it wasn’t, she realized that Sam was asking her on another one.

If it had been a date, she would have said yes.

Unable to stop herself, she did so anyway. “I know. I had fun tonight.”

“So does that mean we can institute a little social time?”

Brooke gave Sam a small, crooked smile. “I’d like that.”

******

“What is this? It’s almost like a glow,” Nikki teased, shooting Brooke a smirk. “Something you need to share with me, Dr. McQueen?”

Brooke blushed. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the night before, about feeling Sam’s hands on her hips and watching the other girl unselfconsciously lick a hint of spice from the tips of her fingers at dinner.

“No, nothing.”

“I remain unconvinced. You’re seeing someone,” Nikki accused.

Brooke sighed, then rolled her eyes. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Obviously, because there’s no way you should be here working unsolicited overtime if you’re seeing someone. You should be out having smoking hot monkey sex.”

Brooke frowned, then laughed. “Coming from you, that’s somehow disturbing.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” Nikki mused. “And, you should know by now that it’s useless to try and evade me. I will eviscerate all of your secrets, one bloody cut at a time.”

Brooke shot the other doctor a concerned look.

“Sorry,” Nikki apologized. “I got called up to psych earlier for a patient consult. Something must have rubbed off.”

“Obviously,” Brooke snorted. “And I hate to disappoint you, but nothing’s going on. I just got out of the house for something other than work for the first time in months last night.”

“So you did have a date,” Nikki crowed triumphantly.

Brooke rolled her eyes, trying not to blush. “No. I went dancing with Sam.”

“Sam,” Nikki murmured, searching her brain for the reference. “This is the drug addict stepsister that’s living with you now?”

“Ex-drug addict,” Brooke clarified.

“In that case, the glow concerns me.”

Brooke could only secretly agree, though not, perhaps, for the same reasons.

******

“I’d like an application.”

The boy behind the counter did a double take as he looked up.

Sam allowed the open mouthed stare for a moment, then repeated, “I’d like an application.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Of course. I’ll get that,” the boy stumbled, eyes never leaving Sam’s face as he fumbled below the counter. She heard the rattle and crash of containers and the scrape of an unidentifiable object before his hand managed to reemerge. “You need a pen?”

“Got it covered,” Sam said with a wry smile, taking the proffered sheet of paper over to one of the empty tables. Dropping in on the coffee shop had been a spur of the moment kind of thing. She always took the same route home from her NA meeting and had seen the help wanted sign posted in the window for over a week. Answering the ad had never entered her mind as an option, but she’d spent the walk thinking back over the conversation she’d had with Brooke at dinner the night before last. It was time for her to start contributing to the household income. Truth be told, it might be time for her to vacate the overly cramped apartment and try to make it on her own, but she needed the stability. When she’d found her way to Brooke’s hospital after being let out of St. Vincent’s, Brooke had taken her at face value. She hadn’t coddled her, hadn’t reprimanded her, hadn’t yelled at her. She hadn’t necessarily accepted her, at least not outright, but she hadn’t turned her away either. It would have been easy to do, to wash her hands of the entire mess and feel justified in doing so, but Brooke hadn’t done that.

Instead, she’d agreed to let Sam live with her after she went through rehab. And, selfishly, Sam was going to take her up on the offer as long as she could get away with it. Her life at Brooke’s was in complete counterpoint to her life before it, and not just because she was sober. Brooke’s ridiculous work schedule meant she had the place mostly to herself, and after years of constant companionship of one kind or another, she found she kind of liked the silence. It wasn’t that she wanted to retreat from society and she’d realized quite early on that silence had its limits, but it was nice living with no expectations. Brooke didn’t seem to want anything out of her other than not screwing up, and Sam was doing a better job at that than she’d anticipated.

Now she figured it was time to take the next step.

“James seems to think I should hire you immediately.”

The gravelly, rough voice pulled Sam from her contemplation, and she looked down at the still blank application before looking up at the person speaking to her.

“I’m not sure what kind of qualifications he’s looking for then,” she said with a wry smile, taking in the grizzled older man looking down at her. He was thin, wrapped tightly in a jacket and scarf, with a knit cap covering his closely shaved hair, and Sam was immediately struck by the kindness in his eyes. “I’m Sam McPherson.”

“Deak Williams,” the man replied, sliding into a seat opposite Sam.

“Deak?”

“Short for Deacon,” the man explained with a smile. “I was born in the South, had the standard issue religious baptist family. A deacon is an elder in the church. I guess they had high hopes.”

“Sam, short for Samantha, which I’m told means listener,” Sam said with a smirk. “But I think my parents just liked the way it sounded.”

“Have you ever been a barista before, Sam?”

“No.”

“What was your last job?”

“Freelance magazine writer.”

Deak nodded contemplatively. Sam merely watched him, drawn by the character outlined in his face. It was one of the most expressive she had ever seen, despite its lack of an expression other than bland curiosity. It spoke of adversity and serenity and a hard won wisdom and she found she very much so wanted this stranger to approve of her.

“Why should I hire you?”

Sam ran down her list of qualifications and came up with none. “Because I need a job.”

“This is a business, not a charity. Give me a better reason than that,” Deak rebuked mildly, and Sam frowned.

“Okay, here’s the deal. I’m a month out of rehab and I can’t go back to my old job because it means going back to my old life. I’m trying to start over and to stay clean and it’s just as hard as I thought it was going to be. I don’t know the first thing about being a barista, but I’m betting that if James can do it, I can do it. There’s no real reason for you to give me a chance, but you seem like the kind of guy who knows the value of chances, so I’m going to ask for one anyway.”

Deak sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other with tired ease. He was quiet, but Sam met his eyes, never letting her own waver.

“I need someone on the early shift. You’d need to be in by 5:45.”

Sam almost chuckled with relief. “No problem.”

******

Brooke almost fell through the door as she opened it. Her moonlighting shift the night before had been particularly brutal, and she’d had to leave St. Vincent’s with no time for breakfast in order to fight off the morning traffic and make it to the UCLA Medical Center by 6:00 rounds. Her attending had been in a particularly bad mood, and she’d spent the rest of the day scurrying after him and trying not to react to any of his more scathing comments.

“Is that food?” she asked with an almost orgasmic moan. The brunette was known to cook on occasion, though often Brooke would dine on something she’d managed to grab from the hospital cafeteria before leaving. She thought about the egg salad sandwich stuffed in the pocket of her white coat and grinned. She’d take home cooking over squished sandwich any day.

She heard the door to the refrigerator close, and moments later Sam’s head popped around the corner of the cabinet, visible above the bar. “It’s a special occasion,” she said with a grin, gesturing to the couch with a nod of her head. “You sit and I’ll bring it to you.”

It turned out to be noodles and vegetables in a spicy Thai peanut sauce, with cubes of tofu scattered throughout.

“What’s the occasion?” Brooke asked, accepting her plate hungrily as Sam settled down onto the couch beside her.

“I got a job.”

“Really?” Brooke asked around a mouthful. “Tell me about it.”

“Early morning shift at the coffee shop three blocks over,” came the excited reply, and Brooke couldn’t help but laugh.

“Early morning shift?” she asked teasingly

“Yeah. You wake me up every morning at 4:30 anyway.”

“You’re a light sleeper,” Brooke said defensively. “I try to be quiet.”

“I’m not a light sleeper,” Sam pointed out. “You’re just unnaturally loud.”

“Whatever,” Brooke scoffed. “I’m really happy for you.”

“It’s nothing special,” Sam said with a light blush, suddenly embarrassed by all of the attention.

“It is. And,” Brooke said, drawing out the pause dramatically, “this food is absolutely delicious.”

“Nothing special,” Sam again protested, then stopped short at the feel of Brooke’s hand on her forearm.

Putting her plate down on the floor with deliberate care, Brooke turned slowly so that she was fully facing Sam. “You have every right to be proud of yourself,” Brooke began, cutting Sam off when it looked as if the other girl were about to interrupt. “You’ve made some major life changes, and look at you. You’re a success. You’re rebuilding your life. You’re still sober. This is a big deal, Sam.”

“It’s nothing,” Sam protested again, blushing even more deeply. “Six months ago I was in New York writing a series of pieces for Rolling Stone. Now I’m sleeping on a borrowed air mattress and celebrating my new job as a coffee shop girl.”

“I know,” Brooke said with a warm smile, “and I’m proud of you.”

******

Sam glared at the espresso machine with hatred in her eyes. She’d known, in a vague sort of way, that people didn’t just order coffee any more. Now they ordered various types of lattes and could rattle off a list of do’s and don’ts regarding their coffee choice that was almost novel-length, but she hadn’t actually given the reality of what that meant for her much thought.

Fucking coffee.

******

“Brooke, we’re going to be late. Come on,” Sam prodded, shrugging into her hoodie. “I don’t want to miss the previews.”

“I’m coming,” Brooke grumbled, stepping out of her bedroom, hands lifting her hair out of the collar of her newly donned shirt.

“I preordered the tickets,” Sam said impatiently, anxious to get on the way.

“Fabulous,” Brooke deadpanned. Sam had been looking forward to the release of the movie for over a week, ever since she had found out that it was going to be showing at a nearby theatre. It was some Middle Eastern import Brooke had never heard of, and she wasn’t particularly thrilled to be going. To her tired mind, foreign equaled subtitled and subtitled equaled work. Boring work.

The theatre was only half full, and they managed to slide into their seats with relative ease just as the previews began. Sam placed the soda they’d gotten between them, pointing at the straw pulled up highest and then at herself, before offering Brooke a handful of popcorn, which she eagerly took.

All of the previews were for yet more movies of which she’d never heard, and by the time the start of their movie rolled around, Brooke had worked her way through almost half of the popcorn. Thirty minutes later, when Sam reached in for another handful and scraped her fingers along the bottom, she turned to Brooke with a smirk. Instead of rueful chagrin, she instead caught the other girl’s chin drooping slowly downward, eyes closed, and watched with amusement as Brooke jerked her head upright again, eyes popping open widely as if to deny they’d ever been shut.

Sam turned back to the movie with a wry smile, and was soon sucked back into the action. Out of the corner of her eye, she continued to monitor the up/down rhythm of Brooke’s nods as she tried to fight off sleep, but was still somehow taken off guard when she felt the other girl’s head land softly on her shoulder. Looking down in surprise, she noted that Brooke had finally lost the battle completely.

Moving slowly, afraid of waking the other girl, Sam maneuvered her arm up and back so that it was wrapped around Brooke’s shoulders, pulling her into a more comfortable position for Sam. Instead of waking, Brooke merely snuggled in more closely, so Sam left her arm, returning her attention to the movie.

An hour and a half later, Sam watched the credits roll, Brooke’s soft breath still tickling the side of her neck. She waited, sure that the movement of the people around them would rouse Brooke, but could only laugh as the blonde slumbered on unaware.

“Come on, Brooke,” she murmured, giving the other girl’s shoulder a squeeze.

Brooke took in a deep breath, pressing her face closer into Sam’s neck. “Just a few more minutes, baby,” she mumbled, and Sam nearly jumped out of her seat at the soft kiss Brooke pressed into her skin.

“Brooke,” she tried again, this time a little louder. “Movie’s over.”

This time the words penetrated Brooke’s sleep-laden brain, and she jumped back with a sharp inhale. “I feel asleep on you,” she said breathlessly, mind scrambling to regain composure.

“You missed the movie,” Sam pointed out, gently drawing her arm free.

Brooke shook her head to clear it further, then looked around the now empty theatre. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Sam said, standing. She’d kept her movements as small as possible with Brooke literally sleeping on her shoulder, and now took the opportunity to stretch her tightened joints. Arms above her head, she arched up, sighing at the satisfying, resounding crack that accompanied the move.

Brooke watched the move with open admiration, then looked away with a blush. “I hope I didn’t drool or snore or anything.”

Sam thought about recounting the snuggle and the kiss, but decided against it. “Nothing too embarrassing,” she chuckled, nodding her head toward the entryway. “You ready to get out of here, sleeping beauty?”

Brooke scrambled to her feet, hoping desperately that her blush would disappear before they made it out into the bright lights of the lobby. “Was it good?”

“I enjoyed it. You obviously did not,” Sam noted humorously. “I should have expected it. You do the same thing at home.”

“What?” Brooke protested.

“Fall asleep. I’m not sure you’ve made it through a whole movie with me yet,” Sam teased.

“I have,” Brooke said with a poke to Sam’s shoulder. “I distinctly remember at least two movies I watched in their entirety.”

“Impressive,” Sam drawled. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Let’s get take-out, take it home,” Sam suggested as they left the theatre. She zipped her jacket up against the cold, flipping the hoodie up to cover her head. Brooke couldn’t help but think it looked adorable, and was a little envious. She was convinced she looked like the Unabomber when she tried the same look. “That way,” Sam continued, “when you fall asleep at dinner, I won’t have quite so far to carry you.”

That brought to mind an image of Sam carrying her to bed, which Brooke immediately tried to clear out of her head with a firm shake. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that her outings with Sam felt more like dates, as well as the accompanying guilty knowledge that part of her rather wished they were dates. She knew Sam was oblivious to it all, to the absolutely ridiculous fake dating relationship she’d begun to build up in her head. She was shocked by the notion herself, and with the fact that she couldn’t shake it. Even more shocked, perhaps, at how appealing it was to her. But, it felt dishonest, the keeping of this secret she was pretty sure only she shared, and so she was waiting for the feeling to fade away, for her brain to return to normal and to see the relationship as it truly was. She and Sam were friends, maybe even good friends, and nothing more.

“What do you think about Chinese?”

“Sounds perfect,” Brooke murmured, lost in her own thoughts.

******

Brooke toed out of her shoes with relief, tossing her heavy white coat over the back of a nearby chair. She’d come off of a long call straight into an early morning surgery and had been kept late at clinic the day before only to sleep fitfully that night. Another long day of clinic later, and she was looking forward to having the next two days off. She hadn’t scheduled any moonlighting shifts, despite the little voice in her head whispering that she should take advantage of the free time, and instead planned to spend a good portion of the time sleeping.

“Just in time for dinner,” Sam’s voice called out, and she jumped slightly, caught off-guard. She was so tired she hadn’t even realized the other girl was home.

“What are we having tonight?” Brooke asked eagerly, stomach rumbling as if on cue. “I’m starving.”

“These days, I’ve never known you to not be starving,” Sam joked. “Have a seat, I’ll bring it to you.”

Brooke wondered if she should protest the grand treatment, but she didn’t really want to and so she didn’t. It had become something of a routine for them. Since Sam had started her new job, she’d gotten more proactive about their eating habits. She usually managed to at least leave a few slices of toast out for Brooke in the mornings, though usually it was more likely to be a bowl of cut fruit and a yogurt, and the evenings she knew Brooke would be home, she would manage to pull together some type of meal. The routine had fallen into a pattern, with Brooke collapsing onto the couch at the end of a hard day of work and Sam bringing her a plate, and she felt a little guilty for enjoying the ritual quite so much.

“Hard day?” Sam asked, handing Brooke a large plate almost overflowing with a homemade Greek salad.

“I’m just tired,” Brooke complained, stabbing a juicy chunk of tomato. “I’ve been on my feet too much lately. My hip is killing me. When it gets like this, it feels like everything hurts. My shoulders are tight, my back is tight. God, I sound like an old lady with all the whining. How about you?”

“What, my exciting day as super-barista?” Sam teased. “Pretty good, actually. I managed to save the lives of at least four people today, or at least that’s what they said. ‘Sam, you’re a lifesaver’,” she mimicked, rolling her eyes. “People are alarmingly dependent on their coffee.”

“So things are going better, then?” Brooke questioned, leaning back into the couch with a sigh, glad that she could forego the niceties of food etiquette with Sam. She could still remember the first few weeks of Sam’s new job, when the other girl would come home cranky every day, cursing coffee and all of its associated products.

Sam shrugged her shoulders, taking a bite of her own salad. “I haven’t displayed any violent tendencies toward the espresso machine all week, if that’s what you’re asking. But, if that kid James doesn’t stop trying to flirt with me, I might display some violent tendencies toward him.”

“You call him a kid, like you’re ancient.”

“He’s not even 20 years old, Brooke,” Sam pointed out drolly. “And not even close to being my type anyway.”

It was an opening Brooke desperately wanted to explore, but she held back, far too afraid that she’d find out that she wasn’t really Sam’s type either.

Instead, she changed topics. “This is delicious. Is this fresh feta?”

“Picked it up at that little Mediterranean deli on my way home,” Sam noted.

Brooke kept up more inane chatter as they finished their dinner, trying desperately not to notice just how good Sam looked in her worn jeans and tight, faded tee-shirt. Instead, she focused on coming up with ways to keep the other girl talking.

“I’ll take that,” she offered, liberating Sam’s empty plate from her hands before the other girl could stand. “You can’t cook and do the dishes.”

It didn’t take very long for her to wash and rinse their two plates and accompanying forks, but Brooke used the time to get a hold of herself. Much to her horror, she’d found herself admiring Sam more openly as of late, and was terrified that the other girl might notice.

“Here, let me try.”

Brooke hadn’t realized that Sam had come up behind her, or that she was trying to work out the kink in her shoulder, until she felt the other girl’s hands replace her own. Brooke’s head fell forward almost immediately as Sam’s strong fingers began digging into her tense muscles, and she braced her hands against the countertop. The pressure was painful at first, almost too much, but within minutes the muscles started to give way a little. The relief spread from her shoulders down her back and almost unconsciously, Brooke pressed back against Sam as the massage turned into something more pleasurable than practical, at least for her. Caught up in the moment, she reached back, wrapping her hand around the other girl’s upper thigh, and let out a low moan.

And then instantly froze, stiffening immediately.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, spinning around to face a slightly stunned looking Sam.

“It’s totally cool, Brooke. I know it was an accident,” Sam said placatingly, holding out her hands in supplication.

“But it wasn’t,” Brooke blurted out, then blushed deeply, heart still racing as she tried to come to grips with what she’d done. “I mean, it was, but it wasn’t.” Suddenly unable to hide it anymore, she added miserably, “I feel like I’ve been lying to you.”

“Brooke…” Sam said warningly, a hint of panic in her voice, instinctively wary of what was happening.

“I didn’t mean to, really, but it happened. I’ve been trying to make it un-happen, but I’m not there yet.”

Sam smiled a tight half-smile, then bit her bottom lip nervously. “I don’t really understand.”

With a sigh, Brooke realized she was going to have to lay bare the whole sordid mess. “It’s just… we’ve been spending a lot of time together and I’ve been enjoying all of the time we’ve been spending together. Maybe enjoying it too much,” she admitted shyly, looking up at Sam from under lowered lashes. “I know you don’t feel it and you don’t do anything to make it feel this way, but sometimes, when we’re out together, it feels like we’re out, you know, together.”

It took a few seconds for the emphasis to hit her, but when it did, Sam tried to hide her surprise. She wasn’t completely successful. “Brooke, I didn’t mean to make you feel like… I mean, I didn’t mean to do anything inappropriate…”

“But that’s it, Sam,” Brooke said with a small shrug and a self-deprecating grin. “You didn’t really do anything. It was all in my head. The bad part is that I wished it wasn’t.”

At Sam’s confused look, Brooke sighed miserably. “I wanted it to be real, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m still not sure I completely understand,” Sam said slowly. “Are you saying that you’re attracted to me? Is that what you’re saying?’

Brooke nodded tightly, too embarrassed to look Sam in the eyes.

“Oh, okay. That’s… uh, that’s completely unexpected,” Sam stammered nervously. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just the closeness.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Brooke admitted wryly. “I’ve been trying to make it go away but it’s not really working.”

“Maybe you’re just confused,” Sam offered, mind racing. “I mean, we spend so much time together, it’s easy to see how you could start to feel things. But Brooke, you’re not even into girls, are you?”

“Well,” Brooke demurred, blushing deeply, “there was this one girl in college…”

Breaking in, Sam snorted in frustrated amusement. “There’s always the one girl in college.”

“And now there’s you,” Brooke finished. “I can’t help it, Sam. I’m totally into you.”

Silence fell between them, and Brooke couldn’t help looking at everything but Sam until finally she couldn’t take it any more. “This is awkward and weird,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so sorry.”

“No. It’s just unexpected.”

“And awkward and weird,” Brooke reiterated.

“Maybe a little awkward and weird, but just because it’s so unexpected.”

“I should never have said anything,” Brooke murmured despondently.

She looked so miserable that Sam took a step forward, quickly enveloping her in a hug. “No, it’s okay,” she reassured, feeling Brooke begin to shiver. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“No, I messed everything up,” Brooke said, pulling back slightly and sniffling.

Sam smiled weakly at the sight of the other girl’s red-rimmed eyes. “You didn’t mess anything up,” she promised, pushing Brooke’s hair back behind her ears. “It’s…”

Her words were cut off by the pressure of Brooke’s lips against hers. The kiss was brief, barely more than a passion-inflamed closed-mouth peck, but when Brooke pulled away, Sam could only stare at her in silence.

“I figured that since things were already going to be awkward and weird, that wouldn’t hurt,” Brooke offered with a shy, embarrassed smile before taking a step back and putting a little distance between herself and Sam. “Did it hurt?”

Sam blinked rapidly, then cleared her throat in an attempt to pull together everything she was feeling. “It didn’t hurt,” she began slowly, “but if you were going to take the chance, you should have done it right.”

There was a hint of gentle taunt in Sam’s tone, but Brooke noted that her eyes were shy and conflicted. She took a step forward anyway, bringing their bodies together, then glanced up at Sam with a hesitant smile.

“How many chances do you think a girl can have?”

“At least one more.”

Brooke took the words as an invitation and surged forward, capturing Sam’s lips again. Her hands tangled in the other girl’s long hair, the force of her move pushing Sam back into the counter behind her, rattling the cabinets. Tongue teasing along Sam’s bottom lip, she slid her hands down until they cupped the other girl’s buttocks and pulled inward hard, drawing a surprised gasp from Sam as their hips met and Sam reflexively dug her fingers into Brooke’s hips, arching forward.

Determined to take full advantage of her second chance, Brooke broke away from Sam’s lips, kissing her way across the other girl’s cheek to nip at her ear before sliding down to her neck.

“God, Brooke,” Sam gasped, surprised and aroused, the feel of the other girl’s teeth nicking lightly at her skin sending a shiver down her spine. “You don’t… uh, you don’t waste opportunities, do you?”

Pulling back with a low growl, Brooke looked first to Sam’s eyes and then to her lips, swollen and red from her attentions. “Well, I only had the promise of one more,” she said, voice rough as she leaned forward again, catching Sam’s full bottom lip between her teeth.

A strong hand on her chest pushed Brooke back, and she pulled up short, instantly embarrassed. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.”

“Brooke, no…” Sam sighed, extricating herself from the small space left between herself and Brooke. “You’ve got to understand. You’ve had more time to think about this than I have.”

“In the romantic version of this moment, you wouldn’t need any time to think about it,” Brooke muttered bitterly, arms wrapping around her midsection in a protective gesture.

Fighting back a sense of itching frustration, Sam said, “This is the real version, not the romantic one. Give me a little time to think, Brooke. I can’t rush into something right now. I just can’t.”

Sam could tell that Brooke didn’t want to leave it at that, that she wanted to say something more, but the other girl remained silent instead.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sam murmured, a hint of pleading in her tone. “Just give me a little time.”

“Fine,” Brooke said with a huff, drawing herself up to her fullest height. “You can have all the time you need.”

******

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

Deak slid a cup of coffee onto the table in front of Sam, and she paused in her work, rag left forgotten on the surface of the table she’d already cleaned three times.

Though Sam and Deak had developed something resembling simpatico within seconds of meeting, neither had really believed it necessary to make a production of the matter. Instead, they had an easy friendship born of cups of coffee shared in relative silence and the occasional brief conversational update. Despite that, she still felt a bit awkward as she muttered, “Girl problems.”

“Girl problems,” Deak echoed contemplatively, taking a sip of his coffee as he eased into a seat.

With a sigh, Sam sat as well. They were well into the mid-afternoon lull, and the place was relatively deserted. “Not a problem, necessarily,” she amended, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. “Brooke kissed me last night.”

“This is the step-sister slash roommate, right?” Deak clarified.

Sam nodded, head dropped in chagrin. “She says she’s into me. It was completely unexpected. I had no idea, really. I mean, I never got that vibe from her. Never even thought about it.”

“Interesting. So what did you do about it?”

“Kissed her back. Freaked out a little. Told her I would need to take things slow,” Sam admitted with a rueful grin. “I stress, it caught me completely off-guard.”

“You not interested?”

Used to the way Deak parceled his conversations out in tiny, succinct packages, Sam tilted her head to the side as she contemplated her feelings on the matter, comfortable enough with Deak to provide him with an honest assessment.

“It’s not that,” she murmured, pausing to take a sip of her cooling coffee. “I’m just now getting to think about it, you know. I mean, we have a good time together. I like spending time with her. I like hanging out and talking and all of those things you should like in someone. I think it could be good.”

“The kiss… was there chemistry?”

Sam thought back to way she’d felt when Brooke had pulled her in close. The memory made her shiver a little, the unexpected passion both exciting and gratifying. “There was chemistry.”

“And now you’re scared,” Deak observed.

“Basically,” Sam admitted without qualm. “I’ve been doing good, Deak. I’ve stuck with this new life thing, and I think it’s starting to work for me. Brooke has been there for all of it. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, literally. Do I take a chance on losing that? What if this doesn’t work out? I don’t know if I’m easy to be with, and I have a feeling she’s definitely not.”

Deak gave her a small, enigmatic smile. “Love is always a risk.”

“Thanks for the bon mot,” Sam muttered, “but I already knew that. I’m just afraid this one might be too big.”

“What about this,” Deak started, leaning forward slightly, hands cupped around his mug, “do you think you can’t make it on your own? Is Brooke really the only thing keeping you sober?”

“Of course not,” Sam said reflexively, though she wasn’t entirely sure she meant it.

“Then where’s this big risk?”

Deak’s casual shrug seemed to indicate that he could wipe away all of the potential complications with his nonchalance. For a moment, Sam wished that was true.

“You forget, she’s my step-sister. Whether this works out or not, I’m going to have to see her for the rest of my life,” she pointed out, trying not to concentrate too hard on the oddity of the situation when viewed through their familial ties. She’d long ago given up any hold convention might have had on her, but she was still cognizant enough of such things to recognize the rarity and potential awkwardness inherent in their fledgling relationship.

“What, at holidays?” Deak scoffed. “Everybody has relatives they’d rather not see at the holidays but they do it anyway. Your reason would just be a little more interesting, and that’s if you two don’t work out. You’ve got to decide this one for yourself, Sam. Don’t do it for the what-if’s.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sam sighed, shaking her head.

******

Brooke was in the kitchen when she returned home from work. Empty bags were scattered around the floor, and from what Sam could see of the refrigerator, it was full.

“Stocking up on provisions?” she asked softly, nervously. She’d spent about an hour and a half walking after her shift, working through things in her mind.

“I’ve been leaving it up to you for weeks,” Brooke said distractedly, sliding a carton of nonfat organic milk into place. “It’s time I took some responsibility. You’ve been doing all the cooking. The least I can do is provide the food.”

“You do most of the providing around here,” Sam said with a short laugh. Then, “Brooke, we need to talk.”

“Yeah,” the blonde sighed, pulling her head out of the refrigerator, “but I thought that if I looked preoccupi