"Blue Pill"

The air in my room was chilly. I had no idea where the thermostat was, not that it mattered. I guess Melanie liked it cold, and I hadn't bothered to try and change it. It didn't bother me for the most part, but it could be warmer. The air was chilly and the room was dark. But under the blankets it was perfect.

The blanket was thin, but the warmth of two bodies was more than enough to stay warm. It wasn't cozy or comfortable, it was perfect. Another moment that should last forever.

It was dark enough that I couldn't see her. But I didn't need to. She was pressed against me, her naked body curled up with mine. Her soft skin a perfect thing all its own. She was on her side, one arm draped over me and her head on my chest, her warm breath tickling me as she took slow, rhythmic breaths. My arm was wrapped around her and I was drawing small shapes on her hip, idle movement as I tried to drown out the encroaching tide of reality.

She shifted and pulled herself tighter against me. A large breath and a contented sigh as she settles back in, holding me tighter. The smell of her hair in my nose and the warmth of her body an intoxicating combo. It smoothed away all the hard edges like the ocean washing over broken glass and leaving only marbles. She was calming, she was warm, and she was perfect.

I pull my hand up from her hip and feel the curve as I rest it on her side, my fingers dancing on her belly. She lets out a small sound that makes me smile.

This was what I wanted. Not just one night, or a day, but a life of this. A life with Carly, together. A life where I didn't have to fear sleep. A life where I wasn't painfully awake well after midnight even in her arms. A life where my greatest fear wasn't myself, and what I knew I was capable of. Where I didn't have to think about all the things I had done. I wanted a life where I was just Sam Puckett: hotheaded girlfriend and other half to Carly Shay. Not a life where I was some monster made flesh. And perfect or not, today just proved that some part of Carly wanted it too. She had to. Because if not, then there is nothing left for me here. Nothing left to keep the devil locked away.

I plant a kiss on the top of her head, taking a deep breath of her hair as I closed my eyes. The seconds ticked by, forming into minutes as our breathing reached a rhythm. A gentle unison tugging me, lulling me to sleep.

"What if the devil you want to hide away is who you are?"

My eyes shoot open and a chill slithers down my spine. I heard it. Not in my head, but next to me.

"Can't live in your fantasy land forever."

Deep breathes. Wide awake, heart thumping in my ears. No, this isn't happening now. Leave.

"She really is beautiful."

I'm not doing this. Not now.

"Why not? Is it because she's right here next to you? Is it because you can feel her? That doesn't make this real."

I steady myself, slowly peeling Carly off, moving her head and her arm to a pillow as she curls up at the loss of warmth.

"Even I feel a little bad about pulling you away for something that gorgeous. She's still lingering on your lips. I would congratulate you, but I think that would be encouraging bad behavior. What is the term? Ah, yes, homewrecker."

I slide away and off the bed and over to the bottle of pills.

"So hasty. So scared. Is it because you know I'm right? Is Carly not engaged? Is she not a grown woman with a life and career and a fiance?"

No, it isn't like that. Not anymore. That isn't how things are. She wants this too.

"Are you sure? Or are you basing that solely on a look she gave you? Even if she did enjoy today, how do you know she won't wake up and be filled with regret? The greatest shame comes after release, after all."

I quickly swallow the pills. Not just one, but several. It's like they work less each time.

"Those are for PTSD. I'm just a part of you. Those pills are like trying to warm your house by lighting it on fire. Warm for a bit, but after a while, you lose everything and it's still cold."

I quietly step out of the room, taking deep breaths and trying to force it down.

"I guess I'm on a crunch here then, huh. Fine, have it your way."

My way?

"Yes, your way. The hard way. You can't avoid this. Not if you want to stay here, that is."

What?

"If you want to stay here you have to sort out this thing you have with her. You can't keep living a fantasy, you have to face reality."

This isn't some dream. This is reality. Me and Carly.

"But you can't know that. Not till you talk to her, shatter the illusion. You can't really think this is going to last without the truth. Or are you scared she will see who you really are? Sam, The Butcher. Sam, The Monster."

That isn't who I am. Those aren't me.

"Do you really believe that? Are you not the sum of your actions. Haven't you been telling yourself the same thing for days now?"

That's not... I can't...

"Just something else you can't face, huh? If you really are so normal, if this really is so real and perfect, why do you still want to leave?"

I have no words for it. It had struck a cord, hit a nerve. It was playing on the things I tried to bury.

"That's right. If this is so perfect, why are you scared? If this is so real, then you can go wake her up and she will tell you everything is okay. But you don't want to. Do you know why?"

I don't know what Carly would say. It is a talk we have to have. I have to figure out what this all is, we both do. But I don't know what will happen.

"Exactly. What if this was just a fling to her? What if you were a one-night thing?"

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit. Why do things have to be like this? Why did I sit back and lets things happen this way?

"You could always leave. You keep thinking about it. I would know. You could always just walk away, go back to being a good little killer."

I lean against the island and rest my head in my hands. It's praying on my fears. It's doing what it does best, and I can't stop it. The tags dangle around my neck. But whatever strength was found in them before has wavered.

"Besides, odds are that one of you will be gone soon enough. Why take the rejection? You've done it before."

"What did you say?" It struck another nerve, but the reaction was different. The feeling was different. It wasn't fear or doubt, it was anger.

"You could leave like you did before. You've done it once and everyone expects you to do it again."

The pills were taking hold, the voice was quieter. It was fading, leaving me with this burning pit in my stomach.

"There it is, that's what I was looking for. That anger, that fear. That desperate mix that made you leave before. Door is right there, and Carly is the other way. I'll let you have a moment."

"No, I won't do that again."

No reply. It had left. Just like every time it had come and tore things to pieces in my head and left me to deal with the damage. But this time was different. It was like it was trying to push me a certain way. And it failed. The doubt was there, but I was more angry than anything.

But it had one point. One thing that made sense. I have to talk to Carly. I have to try and sort this out. The day was over. My promise kept, and I need to get...

"Sam?" Her voice startled me. It was quiet and tired. She had just woken up.

I spun around, the lights making me squint as they came on. She was standing there, hair a mess and the blanket wrapped around her. She was looking at me with lidded eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked and I froze.

I was standing here talking to myself, but was that something I could tell her? No, it wasn't. I realized I was clasping the tags around my neck and let them fall.

"I couldn't sleep," I answer meekly. I need answers, and the time had come sooner than I thought it would. I thought I had till morning to try and sort things out.

She just yawns and nods, a blanket covered hand reaching up to rub one eye.

"Did I wake you?"

"No." She shakes her head. "I had a bad dream and I woke up when I realized you weren't there."

"Sorry, I should have stayed in bed."

She gave a soft smile and took a few steps toward me. "Make it up to me. Come back to bed."

"I uh..." My voice died in my throat. The words hard to form.

She gave a tired smile, looking up and down. "As much as I now realize I enjoy seeing you without clothes, it's cold. Come on."

I looked down and realized I had simply fled the covers without anything to make me decent. I feel the heat in my cheeks and spin around. It was odd to be embarrassed. It was something new for me. But I don't really think that I'm embarrassed so much as ashamed.

Yes, it's shame. But not of my body. I'm in prime condition, and locker rooms and cramped quarters tore away any hesitation of stripping in front of others quickly. It wasn't that I was shy or suddenly embarrassed. It isn't shame for my body, but what has been done to it.

Even in the dark the scars and ruined flesh creep across me like a disease. Like the charred trees and scorched earth after a forest fire, the wounds coat me. Muscle and skin, nerves and markings. All ruined in its path. And like a forest fire, anything that takes its place will never be the same. Never heal properly.

My arms wrapped around myself in the cold. My back to her. I didn't even realize what I was doing to till her arms, and the blanket, were wrapped over my shoulders. Her breath in my ear and her body pressing against mine.

She didn't say anything. Didn't ruin the silence. She just let he head dip as she planted small kisses against my neck, holding me close.

"Come back to bed," she whispered.

"It's after midnight."

She hummed into my shoulder. I felt her make the sound.

"Carly..."

She wrapped her arms tighter, resting against me.

"Do we have to?"

I understand her reluctance. I understand her not wanting to dig into whatever this is. After all, who am I to take those smiles away from her? But for all the happiness, there was still a darkness hiding under the surface and it had to be explored.

"What are we doing, Carly?"

"Going back to bed." She tries to hide the disappointment in her voice.

I grab her wrists, pulling them tighter around me and closing my eyes to the warmth of her. If I look at her, I might lose my nerve.

"Not till we talk about this."

"I don't want to. Can't we just enjoy it?" She was pleading.

"Not till I know what it is, Carly. What is this? What are we doing?"

"I wish I knew."

"Just..." I stared at the floor, trying to find the words. "What am I to you?"

"I don't know." She was barely audible.

"Am I your girlfriend, your lover? Is this a full-blown affair? Or am I just a one time mistake?"

She shrinks with every word, slowly pulling away. She doesn't want to have this talk. That was part of the plan. She might have hoped that after our day I would just drop it and let it go. But I can't.

I know what darkness looks like. I know what a mistake and a lie really look like. I can see the darkness in our lives. I can see the wrongness of it all and I can't just ignore it. I can't because I know that it will come back to haunt me. The rest of my sins have already manifested, I can't let this be another one.

"Dammit, Carly, you are engaged. We can't just drop the subject. I need to know, what is this? What am-"

"I don't know!" she shouts as she yanks herself away.

I finally turn and see her trembling, the faint tears just barely seen in the dark.

"I don't fucking know, Sam. Okay? I don't know. I wish I did, I wish I knew, but this isn't just about you." She wrapped herself tightly, the thin blanket hugging her frame. "I understand. I do. I want to know too. I really do. But you are not the only one struggling with this. This isn't just a problem for you. You think I'm happy when I think about what I'm doing? I'm supposed to be getting married and here I am with you and I don't know why. You aren't the only one trying to figure this out. You aren't the only one trying to understand how things have changed, how we have changed."

"How we have changed?"

"Yes, how we changed. I'm not the same frail little Carly I used to be. Just like how you aren't the same Sam that I cared about so much."

Time wears away all things. It eats away at the mountaintop. It cuts down forests and cities alike. It dulls minds and destroys bodies. It is the inevitable tide that kills the world. And it had done its work on us. Both of us lost to the current. Both of us forever changed like all the others. And like all the others, we are trying to fight back.

"I mean, just look at you. The Sam I knew was happy and outgoing. She had such an innocent smile that always made me happy even when she was acting like such a hardass. She was steady and strong. She didn't have a body of scars. She didn't have a look in her eyes like she was about to walk off a cliff." She has to look away.

She didn't want to accept it. She didn't want to see me. She just wanted the feeling of happiness I could give her. Real or fake.

"She didn't carry a world of guilt on her shoulders from all he the things she did. She didn't stare off at nothing and look like she was about to disappear. And she definitely didn't climb out of bed in the middle of the night having a panic attack and whisper to herself in the dark.

"So I don't know what this is. I don't know why I want to be close to you. I thought I was happy when you were gone. That I had moved on. I thought I had my life together. But if I did, then why did I drop everything to be at your side the second you came back? Why was my first instinct to ignore my feelings and try and help you? I don't fucking know, Sam, I don't. So don't ask me what this is. Don't you dare sit there and think I'm not wracking my brain to figure out what I'm feeling and why I want to be here instead of my own bed with the man I love."

There were no answers to her questions. Just a resignation to the pain I was bringing. Just the acceptance that her life was just one more for me to leave ruined on my path of destruction.

But against my own mind, against my own body and all I was feeling, I started speaking.

"It's almost funny."

"What?"

"What you said, about me being a different Sam, it's almost funny. I've been saying the same thing for years. I never actually formed the idea till I got back though. And I think it's more than just being a changed person. I already told you the old Sam died. But I didn't tell you what that really means." I hold up my arm, the broken and destroyed limb that will forever show me who I am. "I mean I died, Carly. After this happened... I died on the operating table. Three minutes and twelve seconds. My heart stopped for three minutes and twelve seconds. After that, I woke up as they were cutting away at me. Middle of a surgery I flatlined and snapped back wide awake. And I don't know if I'm the girl who died." I was flexing the arm, clenching my fist.

"Even without that, you're right. The old Sam had long hair and stupid jokes. She could smile and mean it. She didn't speak seven languages or look like she could have gone pro in the octagon. She didn't know the caliber and bullet weights to every service rifle fielded since the sixties. She didn't know how to adjust for wind and distance and temperature. She didn't know the inner working of every gun she could see. She didn't know that the best headshot was actually around the tip of the nose to sever the spinal cord or that you that didn't even want a head shot. She didn't know what it was like to drop a man at a distance with nothing show for it save a blood splatter. She had never slid a knife between a man's ribs and watched him die. The old Sam hadn't tortured and maimed out of rage. Had never felt the cold wave wash over her after she had taken another life."

"Enough."

I was snapped away from my rambling by her voice. Not a meek request or some pleading whimper. But a command. A forceful order.

"You are not going to stand there and spout that shit at me. Not again."

"It's who I am."

She shakes her head and gets close, the blanket falling as her hands reach my cheeks.

"No, it isn't. You are not what you do. You are who you choose to be. You are only some crazed killer if you decide that that's what you are."

"I don't know how to be anything else, Carly. Not after all this time. I can't fix myself."

She wraps herself around me. "Do you remember that fight we had before your mother's funeral?"

I did. I remember acting horrible and thrashing around. I remember hurting Carly, scaring her, doing things I had never done to her before. I treated her like everyone else.

"I do, Sam. I always will. I will because for the first time in all the years we had known each other I saw you the way others did. I saw all the bad and all the anger. I reached out to you, tried to do what I always did, and you threw things and screamed at me. You were breaking things and having a meltdown and I couldn't help. And for the first time in all the time I had ever known you, I was scared of you. I didn't know what to do so I ran. I let you go and felt so horrible. I thought I had lost you and that it was my fault.

"But a few weeks later you showed up at the loft, covered in cuts and bruises and reeking of beer and garbage, and you were just standing there and picking glass out of your chest. I was still sacred. Still afraid that I had lost you. But then you were suddenly Sam again. You were so sorry for what you had done. It scared you so much. I remember you crying, Sam. I remember the tears and I remember you trying to tell me that you were sorry over and over again and I realized that I would only lose you if I let you go. And I never wanted to let go."

"You lost me anyway," I whispered.

"I thought that too, but here you are. So much time has passed, and so many things have changed, but here we are. Clinging to the other even when we don't understand why."

I wrapped my arms around her, the tears were sudden. Warm streaks on my cheeks as she held me.

"And as much as I want to know what this is, I don't want to lose you. What if the answer we get trying to figure this out ends it? What if by trying to fix this we break it worse?" Now she was pleading. She was trying to keep me here, in her arms. She knows that I won't be around if this ends.

And I don't want to leave. Not again. I don't want to lose her again. We both know how fragile this is. How easy it'll be to ruin if we let the rest of the world affect us. She needs me, and I need her. And if I dreamt of this for so long, why can't I be happy with that? Why can't I just live with knowing she wants to be close. That she cares?

"Let's go back to bed, I don't want to be out here anymore."

She leads us away, leads us back to the bed where the rest of the world can't touch us. Where this is what it is and needs no words. Back to the place where I am just Sam and she is just Carly. Back to our fantasy. Back to our lie. And I think I can live with that.