Sammy was humming along to the faint raspy music coming from the backroom of Tool's shop. Her hair, still chopped shorter than she was used to, had grown in slightly. Her fuzzy undercut was becoming more fluff than anything, and she found herself running her fingers over it as she looked down at her work, tracing the scar left from the incident in the river. The memories of it came in flashes, or maybe waves. One second she would be framing a tattoo design and the next she'd be under the water again, watching the light ripple and fade from her grasp. She tried not to let it bother her, but every once in a while she would need to go off and be alone and organize her thoughts. She found that stating facts worked well.

My name is Sammy Williams.

That one was obvious, but it was grounding. "Gogh" had become an alter ego, like she assumed some of the guys had adopted over the years. Surely Toll's real name wasn't Toll Road, unless his parents had some sick sense of humor.

I live in New Orleans.

Another obvious one, but it forced her to flash back to the last nearly six years of her life. Sometimes she found herself comparing the bottom of that river to the graveyard shift at Rico's. She'd been drowning in both.

I am an artist. I am a soldier.

She wasn't really a soldier. She'd done the training, worn the uniform and the tags, but that was all for show. She didn't really feel like an artist anymore, either. Not even while she looked down at her last finished design, which was a single-line drawing of a face that was half skull, half girl. She was bordered by two ravens, one near the top left of her head, perched on the skull, and one near the bottom right, framing her shoulder. She didn't think she'd ever sell the design and print it on somebody else's body. It was too personal, too much a part of her. Maybe it even looked like her, though it was difficult to tell.

I am a sister.

Riley being dead didn't make her less of who she was. Her identity was still the same. Just like she would always be someones daughter, she would always be someones sister. She ran her fingers up her arm as she stared down at the finished design and traced her fingers over the soft pink scar that served as a reminder of her first encounter with her new life. The second she'd heard that bullet and slid along that concrete, her fate was sealed. She was fine with that.

I am alive.

Her fingers wandered down to the pulse point on her wrist and she felt it for a second. It was a subtle reminder, something that often went overlooked, but her biggest reminder of who she was and where she was ended up being the beating of her own heart. Despite everything, every drop of pain, every drug she'd ever taken, every wound she'd ever wrapped and healed, she was alive. That meant something; it had to. Maybe it was fate, or the universe, or something else entirely. She didn't know, and she didn't care to know, because just the fact that she was still waking up every morning was enough.

She decided not to frame the design. She tucked it into one of her new portfolios and closed it. She'd save it for a rainy day. It'd look good on her shoulder blade, maybe. Or a thigh.

She kept humming and started to clean up her workspace. It was littered with pencils and pens and loose paper and throwing knives and a cigar she had plucked off of Barney just to grind his gears. Her fingers were long and slender, wiping away the dust and pencil shavings like it was muscle memory, routine. She just as easily picked up one of the knives and tossed it around once. When she caught it, she slipped her finger into the ring and spun it, continuing to clean with her free hand as she hummed and twirled the blade.

Lee was working on his bike in the far corner of the shop. His shirt was coated in grease and his skin was almost as dirty. He kept stealing glances over at her, watching as she shifted and rocked her hips to the sound of the music. He could barely hear it from where he was, but he didn't need it. He could make out the thick scar on the back of her scalp and traced his eyes over the way it settled near her neck. Sometimes he would thank his lucky stars that she hadn't hit whatever caused the wound at a slightly different angle. A little bit lower might've injured her spine, and she might've drowned out there in the rapids. He tried not to let himself think too much about that jungle and those moments on the bank of that river when he watched her doing chest compressions on Angel, her hair a choppy mess and dripping with foaming water. If anything, he tried to think about when he held her afterwards. Touching her was one of the few pleasures in his life. Toll had his books and his therapy. Tool has his tattoos. Caesar had his weapons. Barney had his damn cigars. Lee had Sammy.

It was a slow moving journey for them. Lee didn't mind. He took every second in her presence as something extra, something beautiful. A privilege. He was done testing the waters of their relationship, done letting anger guide him in the heat of the moment. He hadn't been given any opportunities to test his restraint, and he hoped he would never have to, but he was confident he'd be more in control.

He could see the remains of the things that had molded Sammy into the creature standing across the room from him all over her body. The newest and most obvious to him was the scar at the base of her skull. Then there was the scar down her arm from the incident with Biffo. Just barely visible on that same arm were the thin scars she bore from when she was younger, timelines of her struggle and her pain. There was another, newer scar, too. He'd known what it was when he had first seen it, but it was easy enough to dismiss it as a gash from the fight in the jungle. Then there was the tattoo she had across her ribs for Riley, which was poking out from just over the armpit of her tank top. Just a bit higher than that, bouncing against her chest as she moved, were her dog tags. One was from basic, which said her name and blood type and all the usual things, and the other was from her time with Captain's team of mercenaries. He felt his own tags under his shirt then, and he sat back with a sigh and tugged them off. He looked at them.

He wore the word "expendable" all over his body, but he wasn't sure he really felt that way anymore, about himself or anybody on the team. Definitely not about Sammy. She was not expendable. She was the furthest from it. She was irreplaceable.

Sammy knew he was watching her. She kept going about her business like she didn't because she still felt strange about being too froward with him. It was a side effect of the arguments, she figured. She knew she would heal, it would just take time, and then she'd be okay. That was the theory, anyway.

"Mail call," Tool said, spinning a toothpick between his teeth. Lee frowned and watched as he slapped an envelope down on Sammy's work desk. She was equally as confused.

"For me?" She asked. She flicked some loose, short hairs from her face and inspected the letter.

"That's what it says," Tool said, voice muffled. He was distracted by his own mail while he headed to the back room.

Sammy looked down at the envelope and shrugged. She could open it later.

Lee stood from his spot near his bike and wiped his hands off on the bottom of his shirt. There was a sheen of sweat over his head and forehead and he twitched up his shoulder to wipe it away as best as he could. He made to move towards her just as she bumped into him, twisting her body to try and avoid the collision. He reached out and grabbed her, steadying her before she could lose her balance and fall over. She put her hands on his forearms and her breath caught in her throat, but then she sunk into herself and smiled.

"Sorry," she said. "Just running upstairs."

"It's alright," Lee said, and he held onto her for a few more seconds before he figured it was time to let her go. He reached up a hand and ran a few strands of her between his fingers.

She waited until he was done and then moved by him, up the stairs towards Tool's apartment. Her memories of the apartment were definitely centered around that night she'd overdosed, but she shook the thoughts as she headed for the bathroom.

Lee felt that flash of anxiety rush over him but he breathed through it. Sammy was fine. He could trust her. She'd come a very, very long way since then. He was proud of her.

Barney leaned in the doorway to the backroom and glanced over at Sammy's table. The envelope was resting there among the remaining clutter. Barney lifted a steaming cup of coffee to his lips and sipped it slowly. He met Lee's eyes and shook his head.

"What are you looking at?" Lee asked. Barney lowered the cup and licked his lips, biting back a chuckle.

"A lost puppy, it seems like."

Lee rolled his eyes and looked over to the wall of Sammy's art. Most of it was framed like Tool's art now, no longer catching in the breeze created by the fan, more solid and stable and permanent.

—-

Sammy wet her hands and ran her fingers through her hair while she looked in the mirror. She saw herself, but it was a different version of herself than what she had been looking at her entire life. Her cheeks were a bit more sunken in, her jaw a bit more solid and defined. Her shoulders were narrow and muscular, fading down into her thin, capable arms. She felt safe with the person looking back at her, as though her reflection could protect her.

She wasn't a difficult person to be around. She wasn't easy-going or laid back, and most would say she was a bit high-strung. But that didn't make her detestable, and in her new line of work, it meant she got to live. It made her damn good at her job.

Her phone rang. She wiped off the screen and looked at the caller-id, and then she looked back up into the mirror. A few drops of water decorated her hairline. Her life wasn't over; it was just beginning.

She slid her finger across the screen and hit "answer" as she lifted the phone to her ear. She blinked at herself in the mirror, and then she let out a breath.

"This is Gogh."

the end.