It was cold, but thankfully, the snow had not yet begun to fall. She would have to come back when it started snowing to keep the area neat and clean. No foot treads, no loose leaves that finally fell from tree branches. It would have to be kept clean, and she was going to have to be better about the whole thing.
Sam pulled her coat tightly around her body against the bitter cold. The bite of the air came earlier this year. Sam didn't have her gloves. She shoved her hands into her pockets and forced her teeth not to chatter.
"I've been a shitty mom," she said as she leaned forward to brush leaves from Lila's headstone. She gave a bitter laugh and said, "I've pretty much been a shitty mom since before you were born. In all this time, I really haven't learned much, huh?"
It wasn't Jason's baby with Elizabeth that had brought Sam, finally, back to her daughter's final resting place. It was seeing Nikolas with Spencer that brought her there. Watching her cousin hold his son, care for his son. It reminded Sam of all the things she'd wanted to do with her own baby, the promises she'd never gotten to keep. It reminded her that she didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.
"I've been completely preoccupied and it's not right, it's just the only excuse I have." The wind blew a chunk of hair in Sam's face and she shoved it back behind her ear. "I'm gonna try to visit more," she said. "I should at least come by once a month, ya know? I mean, it's not like you know I'm here or anything, but I think I need to come by more. I'm just-- I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing about anything anymore, ya know?" Sam sighed. "Too much time spent living my life for someone else, I guess."
Sam closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she was just Sam McCall. Sometime over the past couple of years, she'd lost her identity and become Jason's girlfriend, or Jason's fiance, or the one that Jason hates. Sadly enough, she couldn't remember the last time that she was just Sam to anyone.
Okay, to anyone that wasn't her family.
She should have listened to her mother. Alexis told her that Jason would be bad for her, but she was blinded by the same shining bright blue eyes and soft voice as everyone else. She truly believed that Jason was good for her, but really... He was nothing but bad.
Sam heard feet behind her, crunching against the leaves, and when she turned, she actually smiled. For a second, she thought it was Lucky. Maybe he'd followed her, and after giving her enough time to do what she had to do, he was there to take her home. Because despite everything else, Lucky was turning out to be "that guy." He was turning out to be the good guy. At least he didn't steal her identity.
But, it wasn't Lucky and Sam's smile suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a scowl. She pushed herself upright and her knees creaked. She ignored the momentary flash of pain. Her eyes burned and her voice was low and hostile as she said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
He opened his mouth, then shook his head. Whatever he was going to say must not have been appropriate, based on the wondrous ideals of Jason Morgan. "I didn't know you were here when I came. I'll go."
"Yeah," she said, "you will go, and you won't come back. You don't need to come back. You've got your kid, remember? Leave mine alone."
Standing in the cemetary, facing Jason, Sam was filled with more anger than she'd previously felt. Why did he get the chance to hold her baby when she hadn't? Why did he get to say goodbye, while Sam was left to get the bad news in a hallway outside of the nursery? Why did he get to go on and have his life, have his family, when she was left with nothing because of him.
"Is this really the place?" Jason shook his head and sighed. "I know we have our differences, our disagreements, but we both loved her Sam."
"Your love is fickle, Jason, so I really don't care." Sam felt angry tears falling from her eyes and she wished they weren't there. Surely, he would mistake them for something else. He wouldn't realize that she was just so angry there was no other way left to her to let the anger escape.
"Sam..."
"No." She put a hand up, then scrubbed both hands over her face until she knew her cheeks were as red as her eyes. "I don't want you here. You don't deserve to be here. When I said I would never take you back, I meant it. Why? Not because you lied to me. Not because you tossed me away for your precious Elizabeth, even after I nursed you back to health over and over again, and I stayed by you when you were at your worst and your most dangerous. I meant it because, even after all of that, you threatened to kill me. I made a mistake, a horrible one, and because of that, you wanted to kill me. That's not the Jason I was going to share my daughter with, and I don't plan to do it now."
She said it, really, just to get it all off her chest. To be able to say out loud what really bothered her. Jason was supposed to be sweet and kind and good. He was all of these wonderful things, yet after all they'd been through, he'd given her the truth that she never expected from him. He had wanted to kill her. And more than that, he would be forgiven. He spoke of betrayal, how he could never forgive her, but he would expect forgiveness if he'd killed her. Hell, he expected that forgiveness now, and all he'd done was make a threat in anger. Fine, whatever, Sam understood those. What she couldn't understand, however, was how he felt that he deserved forgiveness for acting in his own haste and rage, but Sam didn't deserve the same.
"I know I can't stop you," she said, "unless I plan to camp out here for the rest of my life." That idea had come to mind, though. For a brief moment as she yelled at him, told him to stay away, Sam saw herself in a sleeping back and a tent, braving the elements to keep the sanctity of her child's grave. But, it was foolish, and Sam wasn't foolish. Not anymore.
"But, don't think I'm going to give you my blessing and reminisce, or that I won't be pissed off when I come by and I can tell that you've been here. And I swear to God, Jason, if you share this with her--" Sam took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Just the idea of Elizabeth at Lila's grave made her body warm and her eyes burn. "You share enough with her. You share the one thing that your life made sure I could never share with anyone. She doesn't get to share this, too. She has no reason to share in that grief. You have to suffer it alone, just like me."
Sam turned her back on him. What was he going to say? Unlike Sam, he was too high above arguing at Lila's grave site. Sam didn't mind sinking to that level. It may have been the only place she could say what she felt, and she wasn't going to let that pass.
"I'll be back," she whispered, pressing her hand against the cold marble of the headstone. "I love you and, I promise, I'll be better." Sam closed her eyes and tears squeezed out beneath her eyelids, soaking her eyelashes, and drying in the cold wind against her cheeks. She stood up straight and looked at Jason. He was sad. So what. It was about time that Sam stopped caring about his feelings, because for too long, that's all that she cared about.
Sam left the cemetary, even though Jason was still there.
Lucky was sitting outside the penthouse door when Sam came home. Why was he in the hallway? He had a key. Hell, he had clothes inside and a toothbrush and underwear, for crying out loud. Why was he out there? Why did he have all of his things there?
Sam only gave him a small glance, then opened the door and walked inside. She was freezing, and even with the heat blasting inside, she was still chilled to the bone. She had walked the docks before coming home, finding some kind of peaceful solace in the town's church for the weary and broken hearted. Thankfully, no one had come along while she was there. The silence was nice and necessary.
For at least half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, Sam had stared across the harbor, watching the twinkling lights of Wyndemere. How strange that, within its walls, she felt a strange sense of familiarity and comfort. Also strange, even Wyndemere couldn't remain free of memories of Jason. Not when she was there, but always when she was away did she think about Nikolas hiding them while she and Jason tried to keep Michael safe. That was such a long time ago, a time that she'd never be able to get back.
When her fingers were frozen, she started back home, but couldn't go there just yet. She stopped at Kelly's for coffee and said a few words here and there to Maxie. Something was troubling the young blonde, something about her mother coming back to town, but Sam was unable to focus on it or give any good advice. Or any bad advice for that matter. The anger she felt at seeing Jason had subsided, but it left her empty and searching.
Now, back in the penthouse so graciously offered by Jax (because of her mother, of course), Sam still felt empty, still felt that there was something out there that she couldn't put her fingers on. Maybe she needed to get out of penthouses altogether. Was it just another bad judgment made out of desperation and familiarity? Not that she had anywhere to go if she left. And she was going to have to get a job, too.
Random. That's all that filled her head as her mind searched for something to hold on to. She had a family now, that was something, and it was a positive something. Really, it was the only something that she had, yet her mind wouldn't stay on that fact. It wouldn't stay on Alexis and Molly and Kristina and Nikolas. It drifted to how black the water had looked in the harbor. It drifted to the bitterness of her coffee because she'd not put in enough sugar. It drifted to Lucky standing behind her, not two feet away, close enough to touch, but not touching her.
Sam turned around and sighed. "Why--"
"It was stuffy in here," he said with a shrug. He looked like he'd been sleeping, but he couldn't have been. He'd not even been there when Sam left, and couldn't have arrived that long ago. Or maybe she'd been gone longer than she thought. "What's wrong?"
She could have spilled. Something inside of Sam wanted to spill. But instead of laying everything out for him, the cemetery, the encounter with Jason, her empty head, Sam said, "I can't give you what you want, Lucky, so you should probably go now before it gets too hard."
The skin above his eyes wrinkled and his nose crinkled. "What?" Ah, confusion. Sam knew it well.
"A family, a happy home... I know you want that. I see it when you see the boys, and I can see the longing when you look at..." She couldn't even say her name right then. Sam shook her head and let out a breath filled with exasperation. "If you can get her out from under Jason's spell, you can probably have her back."
"I don't want her back." Sam didn't believe him, and Lucky knew that. He had to know that. "She's not the Elizabeth that I knew, the one I fell in love with. She's-- I don't know. It's like she's let the world go to her head. She's perfect and everybody has to be perfect around her and..." He shook his head. "She's not the same person."
"Some people like the person she's become."
"I don't," Lucky said firmly. "I don't like the lying bitch that covers it with a fake mask of martyrdom. It's for my own good, ya know, the lies and the bullshit." Lucky snorted so hard that it sounded like it hurt. "She's nowhere near the person my mother is."
It was Sam's turn to be confused. "Your mother?"
"My mother... God, if you ask anyone in this town, my mother was a saint. But, she never believed in that. She never lived that. My mom did a lot of things wrong, but she also did a lot of things right, and she let them balance each other out. It took her a long time to learn that from what I hear. Hell, even my dad has her ready for sainthood, and most of the time, so do I. But, she never thought of herself that way, and that's a place that Elizabeth hasn't reached, and doesn't even seem to try to reach."
Yeah, but his mother loved Elizabeth. She didn't even know Sam. For all Sam knew, Laura could show up completely lucid, see the woman that her son had chosen to spend time with, and go straight back into her catatonic state. That would be just Sam's luck. One more thing for the good people of Port Charles to blame on her.
"I'm here because I wanna be," Lucky said. He did reach out and touch her now. He loosely grabbed the shoulders of Sam's leather jacket and pulled until it slid down her arms and fell to the floor. "I'm here because I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not. When I'm with you, I remember the guy I was before the fire," he told her. "When I'm with you, I even remember the guy I was after the fire, when I was still a person and not just what Elizabeth wanted me to be. I'm Lucky with you."
A lump formed in Sam's throat and she coughed hard twice to clear it. "I..." The lump started to come back and she had to force it down. "I'm Sam when I'm with you."
Lucky smiled at her, winked, and said, "Hey, Sam, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too, Lucky," she said in a soft voice. And then she hugged him, because she really didn't know what else to do.