The . Dawn . Will . Come .

AUTHOR's NOTES

Read author's note at the bottom. Thanks for reading! :)

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Spoilers will occur for those who forgo research or those who have not finished the game.

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Chapter 9

The pull of the light stirred Sam from her deep sleep. She felt a vibration at her throat as she moaned in drowsy abandon. She tensely squinted at her eyes and hoped for a few more minutes of sleep, but a soft caress over her cheek pulled her further from her slumber. When her eyes opened, she saw a fully awake Mike.

"I miss being a morning person..." she whined. The bed moved slightly as Mike laughed, which caused her to move her head up so that when she opened only her left eye, she saw him smiling broadly.

He was still lying down facing her on his side. He continued to move his thumb over her cheek as he searched her face, "God, you're beautiful."

She groaned and closed her eyes again, "Don't be so sentimental."

He considered her words by tilting his head and twitching his left eye, "It's called being romantic."

"Ah," she playfully quipped, "so you're just saying that for no purpose than to be romantic."

His nose wrinkled as he squished his features aggravatingly, "You're being a pain in the ass, Scott."

She smiled. "Why, thank you, good gentlemen," she replied sweetly with a dramatic flare on her southern accent.

"Is that you flirting?" he curiously asked with a lift of his right brow.

Sam bit her lower lip and shrugged indifferently, "Endearing isn't it?" She grinned wildly.

Mike's smile faded somewhat, but his eyes locked onto hers. His hand reached for hers, and she responded by lifting her hand underneath the blankets to join his. He swallowed, but he still looked at her, "Sam..."

Her hand tightened in his, "I'm fine with leaving things like they are. We don't have to force the subject. We don't even have to talk about it, Mike. I can't stand you not talking or responding to me."

Mike closed his eyes and opened them slowly. He looked lost. "Sam, I want to be able to talk to you about anything. I feel like in some way we always have."

Sam rolled her eyes, but she drew closer to him. "Fine. You first."

Mike nodded, but said nothing at first. He appeared anxious and when he opened his mouth, Sam thought he looked like he was placing too much care on what he said, "I'm going to knock out the obvious here. I will never deserve you, Sam."

Sam shot up and disgustedly glanced down at him, "Will you stop making yourself the villain? I'm not some prize-"

Mike sat up hastily, but covered her mouth with his right hand, "Please let me finish."

Sam irritatingly huffed, but nodded. He retracted his hands from her mouth and squeezed the hand he held. "I will never deserve you, Sam. Not because I think you're the 'good girl' type to my 'rogueish' type. I don't feel like I should have to be redeemed to be with any girl. It's because that I only wish I could change things about my past to make me the best man in the world you could be with."

She rose her hand, "Can I talk?"

He pointedly nodded her way, "Yes, ma'am."

"I'm going to level with you. I'm the poster child for what other consider to be the 'good girl' type. I get that...but I've lived under that for so long that people think that defines who I am. Why can't I be complex - a mixture of many parts to complete the whole?" she fought. Her eyes met his. He looked so invested by what she was saying. Her head involuntarily shook, "I don't want you to change because you want to be the stereotype best fit for my stereotype."

Mike looked away and tightened his hand in hers. "Can we talk about Josh?" he hesitantly queried.

Sam moved so that she sat on her ankles and was level if not a bit taller than him. She moved her hands at his jawline and lowered her forehead to his, "Josh is never going to be something I shun from conversation."

He nodded and guided her back down on her bum next to him. He crossed his legs and took both of her hands in his. When he looked up, his dark hues caught her hazel gaze, "I'm a complete ass for assuming you..."

"Ashley can be convincing. In this case, I think she meant the best," Sam replied.

He shook his head furiously, "That doesn't give her the right to mess with people's heads like that. That shit is exactly what Josh did."

"That's true," Sam agreed patiently. "But we need each other right now." She brushed his hair back to see him better, "We all saw our darkest selves that night. None of us are entirely innocent anymore."

"Sam," he started as his eyes moved side to side to search for a way to express how he felt. When he closed his eyes, she squeezed his hands to help calm him down, "I still can't separate who I am from who I became...who I was that night." He swallowed and glanced away. "I almost shot Emily," he remembered.

"Mike, you didn't shoot her, though," she pointed out harshly. When he flinched at her intense tone, she softened her features, "If you had, I wouldn't be here with you, okay? If you were the monster you think you are, I wouldn't feel how I feel about you." She paused and desperately asked, "Can that be enough?"

He nodded and breathed deeply, opening his mouth somewhat, "What happened on April 5th?"

"The short answer: nothing. The long answer...is long," she warned. "Somewhat," she added with a head tilt to the side.

"Go on," he said.

"He called me late that night. I remember how he sounded. It was awful...the loneliness and the pain...all there for anyone to see. I wasn't used to hearing him like that. Around me, he was always so guarded about what went on inside his head. Anyway, we met at his house around 10:30 that night. When I got there, his parents weren't around, so I went searching through his mansion for him."

Sam swallowed and shuddered at the memory, "I found him in his movie room. On the screen was a montage of family footage with Hannah and Beth and scattered on every inch of carpet were all the family photos of them, too. Some were even hanging on wire from the ceiling. I...I didn't understand what was going on, so I made my way to him and sat next to him. When I sat down, I didn't know what to think. He hadn't been drinking, either. For a lack of words, I just reached for his hand and stared at the movie montage of the twins for almost five hours. I didn't leave or get up or move. The montage was on repeat. I still have it memorized."

She cleared her throat, "Anyway, we, uh...we just held hands and forgot about the world and sank into a new one where they were still alive. After the five hours, he came back to his senses and nearly freaked out about me seeing him like that, but I just helped him clean up and calmed him significantly. Once a month, I would come over, and I would watch that video with him...only once, though. I don't know what was going through his head that night. I don't know why he would consider that enough to figure out he had feelings for me, either."

Mike lifted his hand to her face, "I read the entry, Sam. It's very suggestive and vulnerable. I never knew he could feel anything remotely as dark and deep as he wrote in that journal that day."

Sam glanced over at the nightstand, seeing her phone and the leather-bound journal. She sighed and met Mike's gaze, "It may be better if I don't read it."

"Sam," he tentatively started, "I'm only going to ask you this once. I'll assume the answer will always be the same afterward, too...Do you love Josh? At all?"

Sam narrowed her eyes when tears threatened to spill again. She sighed heavily and exhaled loudly with a bounce to both shoulders, "I've always been thick-skinned, Mike. My parents used to tell me that my heart was so intangible to reach and incapable of feeling anything."

She paused, and Mike thought that was her answer...however vague. "So...that's a-"

Her eyes snapped back to meet his after they fell lower to the sheet briefly. Her hand moved up as her shoulder shrugged somewhat. She frustratingly laughed, "I don't know how to answer that, Mike. He was the closest human being I'd been to. Even over Hannah...she always focused her attention on you." Her eyes moved from side to side as she explored her thoughts, "I loved him as a person, a friend, but I never felt that I'd ever love him. I didn't. We just had...well, I thought, anyway...a strong connection. That's all it will ever be."

Sam thought she wasn't making sense, so she reached for his jawline and rose to her knees, straddling him. When he resisted as she neared him, she playfully bit his nose and pulled back a bit, "I'm not going to kiss you, Munroe. I just want to show you something."

He swallowed, "It's not that I don't want to, Sam..."

She briefly moved her left hand higher on his face to his cheek and moved her thumb over his skin there a few times, "Such a prude, you are, Mike."

Sam moved closer to him, and her body surged with a powerful, hot jolt of emotion that tightened her muscles down to her toes. She kissed his closed eyes, the edge of his nose, the abrupt round edge of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the top of his head.

Mike trembled, "How do you do this, Scott?" His chest quickly compressed and contracted as he battled with her affection.

When he opened his eyes, she shifted her features to fit the seriousness of her tone, "What you feel is unlike anything I've ever experienced before myself. This feeling is your signature...what you do to me every time we're this close. I can't say I love you, yet. I could be too afraid to, or I could just not be ready. But don't ever think I've ever felt the way you make me feel, okay?"

He hesitantly swallowed and nodded shortly after. "You're not like any other girl I've been with," he told her quietly.

She drew her head back, "We're not together, loser."

He lifted his brow, "Oh?"

She sat down between his legs facing him. Her arms slithered over his broad shoulders and she bit her lip, "You're going to take me on a date first. Then, we'll see if you're a keeper or not."

"So, we're taking this thing slow, then?" Mike asked looking spectacularly surprised.

Sam grinned, "I realized that we both need to go back to creature comforts first. We can't take this too fast; otherwise, we'll end up hating each other."

"How so?"

"I'm too stubborn, and you're too charming," she admitted.

He shook his head as he smiled, "Friends, then?"

She tried to shun the word away, but it was then she realized there was simply no better word to describe him at this moment. She smiled endearingly and nodded once, "Yeah."

"Friends get to know each other's crazy, Sam," he warned sarcastically. "I'd be careful."

"You should be. You're going to have way too much fun with my crazy," she countered. "You have no idea what shit I can get us into."

"That...sounds like a fucking challenge."

She tilted her head, "It could be for you."

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Butterfly Effects

Sam was given Josh's old journal.

Sam chose to not react angrily against Ashley.

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Status Updates

Sam:

Mike: Highest
Jessica: Medium
Matt: Medium
Chris: Neutral
Emily: Medium
Ashley: Neutral

Mike:

Sam: Highest
Jessica: Higher
Matt: High
Chris: Neutral
Emily: Neutral
Ashley: Low

Jessica:

Mike: Higher
Sam: Higher
Matt: Highest
Chris: Medium
Emily: Neutral
Ashley: Neutral

Matt:

Sam: High
Jessica: Highest
Mike: Neutral
Chris: Medium
Emily: Low
Ashley: Neutral

Chris:

Sam: Higher
Jessica: Neutral
Matt: Medium
Mike: Neutral
Emily: Neutral
Ashley: Low

Ashley:

Mike: Lowest
Jessica: Low
Matt: Neutral
Chris: Highest
Emily: Lower
Sam: Medium

Emily:

Sam: Highest
Jessica: Low
Matt: Medium
Chris: Neutral
Mike: Neutral
Ashley: Lowest

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AUTHOR's NOTES

Very sorry for the delay. March has been a horrible work load for me. I wasn't able to get in as much for this chapter as I'd like to, but I've been sitting on it for far too long to not give it to you. I'll be allowing the horror aspect of this story take backseat, but in a satisfying way, I hope. Thanks for reading! Prepare for some slight fluff in the next 2-3 chapters because my brain demands it!

As for the Status Updates, here are the scores I've gone with:

1 = Lowest
2 = Lower
3 = Low
4 = Neutral
5 = Medium
6 = High
7 = Higher
8 = Highest

These do not quantify love, hate, etc. They simply quantify the relationships as they change.

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BREVIARY-ROSE