My muse decided among other things Sam is a little younger at series start, and I'm just sorta letting things flow as they go, not trying to follow dialogue, but keeping significant bits of info, LSAT scores, for example. I also wanted to expand a bit on things with him and Jessie given there's so little on their relationship shown. Anyway, hope you enjoy.
(And apologies to anyone who is following THG: MJ: Retrieval because muse decided to push this out instead of updating that, blame a conversation K and I were having about SPN)


"Sam. Sam!" Jessie's face appears as I open my eyes. It's full of concern, "You were having a nightmare," she says.

Wouldn't be the first time. I sit up, "I'm sorry I woke you."

"Don't," she says, pushing my shoulder and than wrapping her arms around me from the side, "You need comfort. I'm glad I woke up. Better than that night of you pacing the apartment a couple of weeks ago not wanting to wake me, right?"

"Right," I say quietly, full of rue.

She ruffles my hair, "Don't blame yourself. Blame your fucked up upbringing." She moves around to kiss my nose, "What was it about?"

"Something bad happened to you," Is all I can bring myself to tell her. I don't want to lay back down because she was above me on the ceiling: burning.

"I'm not going anywhere," she says.

"I know. It wasn't like that...it wasn't on purpose," I sigh, "There was a fire."

She hugs me tighter, kisses my ear and my cheek, "Oh, Sam..."

She knows what happened to my Mom, of course, but I was a baby. I don't actually remember it. I was just told. House fire. After Dad sent my brother out with me he tried to get her out. He couldn't and it was more than too late by the time the fire department got there.

"It's probably just the LSATs winding me up," I reason, "pulling shit from my past, right?"

"I'm not the psych major. That's Aliya," she points out, "but it sounds reasonable. Logical, even."

"That's me." I put my head down on my knees.

I feel her kissing the knuckles of the hand that's closest to her. One kiss on each knuckle, "I'm not going anywhere, okay?" she says, "And these are new apartment buildings, sprinkler systems, and we're always super careful about leaving things on, neither of us smoke. No fire hazards, right?" she rubs my back.

"Right," I tell my knees.

"So, come on, crazy head," she pushes me back and forth until I look up at her again, "Let's get this out of your brain so we can go back to sleep," she has a mischievous look on her face.

"How are you suggesting that we do that?" I ask her, "Do you have some sort of brain sucking device?"

"Sort of," she grins, "You boys are easy when it comes to things like this," she plants her hands on either side of me and brings her face up close to mine, "because as soon as certain things happen it takes complete control," she rubs her nose against mine closing in further so that I wind up backing against the wall a bit and she straddles me, "over every impulse you have and you can only think about one thing."

She kisses me deeply, hands on either side of my face, tongue chasing mine, and she's right.

I'm gone—lost in her and nothing else matters.


"Come on, Sam," she pulls at me, "I don't care if you're not going to dress up you're coming out."

"You know how I feel about Halloween," I point out, closing the fridge.

She wraps her arms around my neck from behind. The hard cardboard of the fake nurse cap sticks into my cheek, "Well, it's not Halloween yet."

"I know, but it's a Halloween party."

"But it's not Halloween so just think of it as a fancy dress party where we're celebrating your LSAT results," she lets go of me to readjust the cap.

"I don't know, Jess—"

"You do know, Jess," she taps my ankle with her heavy white platform boot. I fake being grievously injured. She just rolls her eyes at me.

"Wow, thank you, Miss Nurse. Great bedside manner."

"My bedside manner is fine," she says, "It's your-"

"How am I going to work on my bedside manner if we're out at a bar?" I ask her, wrapping my arms around her waist.

"How about you won't get any bedside anything if you don't come to the bar with me?" she replies, "and don't," she pushes my face away from her neck and rearranges her blonde and brown curls, "you'll knock the cap off again and it takes forever to get the damn thing straight."

"Fine. Fine. You drive a hard bargain. I will come to this bar."

"Damn right you will," she smiles.

"I'm still not dressing up."

"Fine," she says, "We'll work on that for next year."

Jessie's looking for Aliya but can't find her. We run into Corey soon enough, shambling around as a zombie. He clumsily wraps his arms around the two of us, I'm not sure if it's zombie acting or drunkenness, and guides us towards a table before it's no longer vacant. The place is full of hot bees, cat girls, witches, vampires of various origins. I can see a Frankenstein's monster, a Beetlejuice, Jason, a zombie nurse, a couple who didn't survive their wedding or who perhaps killed each other dancing in a vague circle on the left side of the room.

I keep my focus on Jessie. I hate this night; but it is refreshing, I suppose, to be out at a bar with friends and not traipsing through some wood, haunted house or graveyard digging things up, salting and shooting beasts and setting things on fire which I'm sure is what I'd be doing...is what Dad and Dean might be doing.

"You alright?" Corey asks.

"Yeah," I tell him, "Just trying to work out if I know Beetlejuice."

He peers around me, "No clue. Could be anyone."

"Yeah."

Jessie sets some shots down on the table in front of us, proclaiming proudly the advantages of boobs with regards drinks and ID, "Come on," she says, "I want to celebrate. Where's Aliya?"

"Haven't seen her," Corey says, "Brady was about before, but the asshole ran off with some chick dressed like the slutty witch of the west," there's a beat, "Wait—what are we celebrating?"

"Sam's LSAT results!" she says.

"Who what now?" he asks, trying to stick some zombie flesh back onto his cheek with spit on his finger, "You got those? What did you get, you bastard, like a 150?"

"No," I shake my head, "I got-"

"A one-seventy-four!" Jessie comes around my shoulder and kisses me on the cheek.

"Isn't that thing out of one-eighty or something? Didn't you say?" Corey asks.

"Yes!" Jessie says, "Now come on! If they're not going to—Aliya!" she yells, "There you are you evil woman! Come on! We're celebrating!"

Aliya carefully threads her way through the crowd. She's dressed all in white and cream, long sleeves, long pants, strange boots. She has thick silver bangles around each upper forearm, and a holster at her hip and a plastic gun.

"Hail, Padme!" Corey says, "Do not shoot me, Princess. I am a friendly zombie and do not work for the Dark Side."

"That's good to know," she says, "What are we celebrating?"

Jessie pushes her a shot, "Sam's LSAT grades. Everyone got one?" She looks around the small table we're clustered at.

"They're what now?" Aliya asks.

"He's only six points away from perfect!" Corey slaps me on the back.

"Oh?"Aliya pokes me, "Is that all? Did you run out of ink?"

"Shut up!"

"Shots!" Jessie commands, drumming her hand on the table.

We dutifully knock them back.

"Your family must be super proud of you," Aliya remarks, more seriously.

"Yeah," Corey says, "What did they say when you called?"

Jessie passes out the second, and last, full set of shots. There are two more left given she was also looking for Brady to be here. She's giving me a concerned look.

"They didn't. We don't exactly...we're not the Brady Bunch."

"Well mine's not the Cosbys but they'd be super happy-" Corey points out.

"You guys are happy for me and that's what's important to me," I tell him, "Come on shot!"

"Stop it," Corey says, "I'm getting all choked up over here."

"Good thing we have a nurse," Aliya jokes.

"I'm not doing surgery on him-" Jessie says, "Besides he's undead. Zombies don't choke."

I will not start over thinking this I command my brain which is trying to remember if Dad ever said anything about zombies and if they're actually a thing: ghosts, kitsune I know, stop it, "Shots!" I remind them.

We knock those back too, and then Jessie whisks me over with the remaining two shots to what passes for the dance floor and we whirl around for a while.

"Are you sure you want to focus on law?" she asks me after a while, "You've been doing well with computers."

"We'll see what happens after the interviews, I guess."

"You know you'll ace those interviews."

"Let's not talk about this now," I beg her.

"Alright," she says, "Later; but we will talk about it later."

"I promise," I say, kissing her.

As we're walk-stumbling back to the small house we're renting, several hours later, there's a moment where I could swear I see the Impala but it's probably just guilt feelings.

"You're okay?" Jessie asks.

"Yeah," I hug my arm around her waist more tightly and nuzzle into her neck, "Just looking for ghosts."

"Oooh," she waves the arm not around my waist in a boogedy fashion towards my face, "It's not the witching day yet, right?"

"Not technically."

"What is your thing with that, anyway?" she asks, "I remember when Aliya was talking about getting a ouija board and I thought you were going to have a heart attack."

"I just don't think you should screw around with that shit." It comes out harsh, I know. I can't help it. Hopefully she's too drunk to notice. She hasn't found the lock box in the back of my closet, and she was in class when I was moving my share of things in and put the runes on the doors and windows in wax and the salt in the curtain rails and the back of the window frames. Thankfully she's not really a neat freak and doesn't dust. I hate being so fucking paranoid at times and then I'm glad when nothing shows up in the middle of the night to eat either of us and then I wonder if I should try and explain it all instead of just painting Dad as a PTSD suffering Marine who really went downhill after his wife died in a house fire.

"Alright!" she snaps back. Clearly not, "You know it's just a board game, right?"

"Sure," and I know that's sarcastic, "Let's just change the subject, okay?"

"So, your interview."

Walked into that one, "What about it?"

"Sometimes you don't seem like you're so sure about law school is all. I know you got the 174 but if you don't want to go...you don't need to be doing something you hate just because you'd be good at it. I mean, I know you'll ace the interviews, but..."

"Do you not want me to go to law school?"

She gives a vague laugh, "This isn't about me, Sam."

I stop walking and take my arm from around my waist, "I get weirded out about things some times, I do. I never thought I'd be here with...options. I want to do the interviews and then see. It's not like the transfer is immediate."

"True," she wraps her arms around my waist, and spins a little from side to side, "I just want to be sure you're going to be happy with what you're doing."

"That's very kind of you, and that's one of the reasons I love you." I kiss her nose, "Now, are you happy?"

"Yes. I am. I'm very happy."

We start walking again. To get the house we have to go around the corner and down the street, so it doesn't take much longer. I can't help but look around as we go inside. Jessie always tells me she finds my cautiousness cute, if unnecessary. She pokes me in the side after she takes off the boots and throws them disgustedly into the corner. I look around again as I lock up.

"Come on to bed!" She shouts, "I have a theory that if I tire you out you won't have a nightmare."

"Oh?"

"And I have a theory on a really good way to tire you out?"

"Oh?"

She tosses her nurses outfit in my direction.

I run towards the bedroom, dropping my jacket on a nearby chair. My shirt falls on the floor in the corner of the bedroom as I go and she giggles from the bed as I jump on to it.

"What are you thinking I meant?" she laughs, "I'm going to take a shower. You're going to rearrange the furniture."

"Right-" I say, "A shower. That's why you're lying naked on the bed."

"Well," she says, "I don't know what you think you're going to do if you still have your pants on," and she leans up to kiss me while tugging at my belt.