- Chapter One Hundred, pt. II -

The New Reality Sets In

Instinct bringing his baby girl closer, Sam smiled back at the woman before the pieces even had a chance to fall back into place.

Dreaming of topaz moons glimmering in parallel, the ex-con found himself in the wrought-iron shadows of a haunted cemetery that was all twisted gates and gnarled roots that looked too much like decomposed hands. Autumn leaves dancing to a chorus of inhumane howls, the whistling wind was broken up by the most ungodly of wails (in fact, it was eerily similar to Amelia's cries when she had been born).

Hounded by a hulking silhouette with fur, the master thief and conman had only narrowly escaped harm by hiding behind one of the many tombs that had been robbed decades before. Despite not reading the worn epitaph, he knew exactly whose grave it was. Darkened headstone looming taller by the minute, rather than tearing his hands up digging to reach the coffin below, the oversized cradle levitated ominously to the surface. Slowly at first, it wanted him to come closer, to reach out, but he wouldn't do it.

Fractured rays of the twin stars pouring over the uneven ground like a search light, just as the ransacked crypts began crumbling around him, the explorer reached up for the source behind the argent glow that had never been far. When he opened his eyes in the real world, the cemetery had melted away to the usual crime scene, the cries had ceased all at once, and the beacon that had saved him was back to its broken comfort. Holding the woman tight without a second thought, he matched her grin in earnest. Sleeping Beauty: 1, Bad Dreams: 0.

Wait a minute...

Hit by the events of the past couple of weeks, the impact wasn't too far off from being t-boned by a second fully-supped up jeep and rammed over the edge of a steep cliff. Not a fun time, though it didn't come quite as close to requiring new pants as relying on a single winch to drive up a sheer drop. Victor really hadn't been a fan of that particular chapter. Victor...

Envisioning the mustache in all its glory, the man donning the spectacular bristles was just as vibrant in Sam's mind, but for how much longer? It was still surreal to think that the world had shifted in such an insidious yet subtle fashion, that there was no coming back from the uncontrollable and inevitable change. Trying to make it feel real that the old man was truly gone now, the professional with the silver tongue couldn't entirely convince himself that it was true.

According to Elena, Nathan had been struggling with it too; impossible as it was to accept, everyday the bitter medicine was getting a tiny bit easier to swallow than it had been the day before. Yesterday had been the exception to that.

Which in turn made him all the more grateful that he hadn't woken up alone.

Morning light barely fazing the thick damask curtains, the adventurer never thought he might find himself comparing himself with drapery, and yet... Silver hair darkened to the grays of a common wolf under the lack of light, the touch of blue water surrounding the island was brilliant enough to shine even through the gloom. Sandy shores once more braced for the coming storm, it didn't take long for the ice to crack, the colder blues melting into the tropical tide. Spending the night together had been a good call, something they both needed, but he doubted that somber solidarity could ever be enough for either of them.

Brain scratching that old quote about staring into the abyss when he looked into her eyes, he was pretty sure that Sullivan would understand that he wasn't the only thing weighing on his mind. When Sam heard that it wasn't looking so grand for Dells...

About to run himself in circles, Sam remembered that he wasn't alone when he felt the light tap of acrylic on his chest. Familiar only in the sense that they were recent attachments and had been audible first thing in the morning and right before bed, the switch in the formula was that he had front row seats for this concert. Well, that, and the fact that she wouldn't have the time to be thinking she was being discreet. Ha, that was a good one! Dells had quite the mouth on her when she got carried away.

She wouldn't need to call anyone else, would she? Statistically speaking it followed that there could be a whole list of people she needed to get in contact with now that things were set to revert to 'normal'. Housekeeping, to get the next place ready - wherever that might be. Doctors were obviously going to be dictating the new couple of weeks, optimistically, though it remained to be seen if they would be that lucky this time. Quite possibly even the lawyers to square away her assets and whatever else.

Lovers. Refusing to think how many numbers were within reach at any given moment, the most he would cop to was the wish that there was only one person she would want to spend what could have been the last of her days with. Which was enough, thank you.

Caught up on their exchange maybe more than he should have been, being away from the hustle and bustle yesterday had been like stealing those precious treasures that entire cultures had perished trying to protect. It felt like the old days. The good times. Unfortunately with that came the thought that maybe...

What madness was he thinking? That the princesa would suddenly be on the same page as him? Yeah, right. After spending years playing a childish game of back and forth because they were both afraid of anything that smelled remotely close to commitment, why should anything be different now? Because she might not be around for much longer? Okay.

Resolute to make the most of what he had without drawing too much attention to what he was doing, Sam eased back enough to let the azure waters slip through his grasp like it had so many times before.

Just as determined to break with convention it seemed, rather than shrink away and slink off to parts unknown, Daniella sidled up into the vacant space. Flashing those perfect porcelain-capped teeth, she looked happier than he had seen her in a while. Contentment a double-edged sword, the last time the adventurer had noticed that particular shade of blue in her eyes, Dells had been nursing a bottle of expensive vodka and singing karaoke into a toilet brush.

Did it really count though, forcing her problems into the bottom of the bottle so that she could play at being just fine? Somehow he didn't think it did.

Fair enough that there really hadn't been much to smile about these days.

Probably not much of a gamble to bet that Victor would want his boys to keep moving on with their lives without the weight of loss smothering them, Sam didn't want to picture what the immediate future was going to look like. Given all the go ahead required, the thief wanted to stay there in that bed for as long as they possibly could, because he wanted to pretend that he still had her for that much longer.

Then came that nagging question that always seemed to hound harder than any other: did he have her? Really have her?

For as much time as they had been spending together of late, the truth was that neither had said or even done anything to make it clear on where they stood. From what he knew, she had gone up to the villa to let off some steam; it wasn't quite set in stone the same way a modern holiday was, however the times seemed as established as the solstice. Daniella was mourning. Mourning what, he couldn't be entirely sure, but the signs were all there. As for his own motives for coming around, he was open about the fact that he was just passing through while mulling over his next move.

Days turning into weeks a little too quickly, the old classics they played were coming back into vogue even more rapidly. Pitstop extending itself rather 'unexpectedly', she wasn't the only one that had been following a rather blatant and telling pattern. While he wouldn't exactly blame the surfer, it seemed as if the last couple of times he had visited Logan and Amelia (and Chelsea too, he supposed), he came back thinking about Dells. About the way they had a certain rhythm, that they made a lot of sense - almost more than it didn't make any sense of how much he missed her when they were apart for too long.

Her smile, particularly the way cupid would wind his bow when she laughed at some amazingly witty joke he had made. He missed her eyes, glittering with mischief and tantalizing promises that almost always ended with a deeply personal gift being unwrapped. He couldn't replicate her voice without playing old messages, but he could at least mimic some semblance of her scent with a spritz of her perfume. Running empty by the time he crashed on the surfer's sofa, it served him well enough.

So then why weren't they doing anything about it?

Asking himself that same question in just about every possible skin it would wear - and with increasing frequency it might be said - the most basic form of the answer was almost painful from an objective point of view: fear. Even in that very moment, as he teetered on the cusp of saying something incredibly stupid, the trepidation was all that kept Sam from crossing the line.

Between their respective childhoods (hell, adulthoods too for that matter), it almost went without saying that the past hadn't exactly left the best impression. For every success story in their lives, there were twice as many instances of some jackhole getting rowdy at the local watering hole, conveniently 'forgetting' that someone was waiting up worried.

Lost in the largest of the seven seas and facing an eternity of what-ifs and broken promises, was it really so wrong feel absolutely certain that it would only end in glorious self-destruction? Or worse, in growing to resent the other? Capable of forgiving the other the odd Saturday night bar fly or even the generic flavor of spite, it had always been easy to force an escape when things looked like they were taking that turn again. But what could they do if it came to resent? The thought of hating his baby girl... Sam disliked that more the idea of having to bury her right after Victor.

Raised by some real pieces of work, serious commitment was perhaps the most frightening of anything they could have been faced with. And that was coming from someone that had watched the heiress play that hand before. Catching that whiff of something that could never be captured in a bottle, Sam did the only thing he could with barrowed time and savored the moment, the feeling of holding her close.

"Sam..." Voice dangerously small, how could he not see an image of her on her deathbed, fear darkening her eyes and mechanical beeps feeding the IV drip that was only just managing to sustain her. How long could it prolong the suffering?

Where the hell do we go from here?

Awkwardly reaching up for some part of her face, a single moment of indecision caused his thumb to jab into the corner of her mouth. Playing it off by tracing the shape of her lips, the thief did what he did best and turned up the charisma, grinning to distract her from the sloppy gesture. Falling for it a little too easily, Dells nestled deeply amongst her four feathered brethren; tilting her head in the process, she knocked him entirely off his groove, sending his hand skittering across her jaw. Biting her lower lips as if admitting to making a mistake, he wondered to himself if she wasn't also completely out of her depth.

Comforted somewhat that neither had the faintest idea of what to say or even how to react, he pondered if he should ask her how she was holding up. Aside from sounding like the kind of thing that one ought to ask during the grieving period, it was the kind of question to ask a sick person. For all he knew, the heiress could have been a ball of pain, suffering in unimaginable ways.

Or should I kiss her? Sweetly, just to say that she wasn't alone. Passionately, to show her that nothing needed to change, that they were still locked in that same old pattern.

Questioning how many times in their lives they would be in a hotel room having these kinds of life-altering conversations - or wussing out of them at the last possible moment - he thought of at least a dozen other things he could have said or done to get out of this. Baby girl had jumped out of a second-story window before, so he wouldn't dream rob her of reliving that experience, but there were plenty of other distractions to be found if he were to go looking for them.

Getting up and leaving was certainly one if he wanted to avoid this mess; kissing her until all she saw was stars was another; yet another option was coming up with some quip that could lead to her forgetting all about this unspoken thing that lingered between them. Not that he would dream of trying to get out of having to actually put the words out there in the universe for her to hear.

If not now, when?

Options running low, there was still one road they had yet to take. Unable to get away from the things yearning to be said despite years of trying, instead of turn tail the thief matched her reluctant honesty from yesterday. "I know. I don't wanna hear you say it either." But someone had to give.

Brow furrowing as if she were trying to work out an impossible riddle, Dells stumbled and lost whatever confidence was keeping her afloat. "Say what?"

"Say that you gotta go again."

Gilded curtain certainly a pretty place to hide all the baggage and lies, the worldly explorer hadn't intended to let her catch a glimpse behind the mystique. He had fully intended to play it cool as he chewed over the possible ways he could say this, had meant to undo some of that forced reformation and go with what what was most likely to work. Instead, it was his turn to blurt out something earth-shatteringly stupid. "I want ya to stay this time."

[Everything IS Different This Morning]

Dangerously close to sappy and wholly uncharacteristic, half of her was legitimately anticipating some kind of line about how hard it had been for him to watch her leave. Except that wasn't the Sam Drake she knew. Shaking her head in disbelief (honestly, how had he managed to let her get so swept up in the romantic notions she had spent so long smothering?!), this time there really might not have been any other way. This, whatever it was that had its claws in her, was most likely a forever kind of thing.

"I don't think this is something I can control." Hands flat against his chest for support, on the plus side it didn't feel like she was stuck in the wash cycle.

Unsure if the other side of this diagnosis was any better, Dells found that she would rather focus on the morbid aspect of her own fragile mortality than the alternative. Either way, he probably should know that it didn't necessarily have to be all bad news.

Refusing to leave his warmth for fear she might never get to experience it again, the one-time adventurer pulled herself closer to the familiar beating noise she had fallen asleep to so many times before. It made her feel braver, and it hid the small pearls that might threaten to well up. "You wouldn't be saying that if you knew..." Trailing off and trying again, it was with a light armor of skepticism, "...If there was a shot that I was going to be alright."

Wouldn't he? Watching Logan with Chelsea and Nathan with Elena, something finally clicked in his head as he watched the surfer and his wife.

Lovey-dovey-gooey after more than a decade of going strong, the blonde held the mother of his child in his arms while they were relaxing at the table with a few beers. Sam made his conditions for visiting well known to the couple, so there were no dinners or photos in sight, and yet there was still something in the air. Some kind of vibe, for lack of a better word. It wrapped around the affectionate twosome, permeating the walls and painting them in invisible ink. It was almost golden if he had to name the color, and it wanted to envelop him.

Shit, it definitely had at moments: what could he say, Amelia was maybe the best kid he'd ever met. Point was, even though they tried not to overwhelm him with familial labels, he could still feel it, could still hear them asking where Dells was even without saying the words.

Chelsea actually had asked this time, wondering aloud why the woman hadn't come with him to visit Amelia, who missed her Andi. Like he told his granddaughter - granddaughter, Jesus - the woman wanted him to spend quality time with his family. Plus the heiress had her own life, so why would she be there every time? Assuring Logan that the woman had been fine seeing him off at the airport, the kid was also troubled that she had skipped this visit too. Once was fine, but twice in a row?

Practically demanding to know if they had had a fight, the surfer hadn't backed off until Sam let it slip that they parted on good terms. Really good terms. Although he didn't care for the phrase 'parted on good terms', Logan was pleased to hear that they were working something out. Sam couldn't recall the exact words now, but he was pretty sure it was something along the lines of 'to the beat of your own drums'.

While it shouldn't matter to anyone else what they did, somehow the ex-con was grateful for the sentiment? He was less amused by Amelia's mother saying that compromise was what made a marriage work. Remembering how badly he wanted to storm out of the cozy slice of paradise the family had carved themselves, Sam refrained only so he could spend more time with his blood. And Logan too. When it mattered he could acknowledge that the blonde was his son, but until those moments he left it to his partner to say the words.

Partner. Annoyed enough at having to endure the entire day it took to fly to New Zealand, by the time night had rolled around, the ex-con distinctly recalled that he had spent it fuming. Sleeping on Chelsea's implication like a bed of rusted nails, it hit him when he had been sifting through the archive footage in lieu of recovering from his jetlag. Of course it had been that damn smile.

It probably had been there since the beginning, but somehow it had taken years for him to realize that it wasn't all bad, having someone there. Beaten to within inches of their lives or seated shotgun for the quieter moments, Dells really did get him, really understood the little things that made him tick. While it didn't hurt any that she was a pretty decent screw, the important thing was that she was good company, no booze required.

He wanted that to continue. "Humor me."

Scoff earned after everything they had been through together, he couldn't entirely begrudge her this new shade of reluctance. Bothered by the fact that he seemed unfazed by her doubts - fuck, he even seemed to grasp the reasons behind it, and accept them - Daniella peeled away from his arms just so she could gawk. "Humor you?"

On the most precarious of precipices despite being snug in a fairly nice hotel room, the thief and his heiress might as well have been standing a hundred feet above the ground without a safety net. Without any kind of safety anything to catch them when they finally, inevitably, fell. Hyper aware of her gaze as they slowly put one foot in front of the other, the Sam in bed looked down at the woman that had more or less been at his side these last few years. More than a few, it was nearer to a decade at that point, or at least half of one.

Tired of that helpless feeling of knowing that she could slip through his grasp at any moment, the thought of her vanishing from his life forever was enough to give him that final push. Commanding her to wait for him, he rolled out of bed (only taking a moment to find his footing on the plush carpet). "Yeah, yeah, I'm a scoundrel that you would be smart to avoid. Whatever, you know better than your mother."

Interested in where this was going even if she didn't appreciate the mention of that particular person, Daniella watched as he clambered out of bed and headed towards the dresser. Half forgetting that they had spent the night in his room, she let out a gasp of surprise when he dropped a small black box into her lap. Return heralded by a triumphant smirk plastered across his mug, he remained by the edge of the bed, just close enough to hit or pull back in.

Fancy, but not too fancy. Elegant, simple, sleek... There was nothing remarkable about the package, not even a bow to dress it up for the occasion (whatever that might have been). Examining the craftsmanship of the box the way only a rich snob could, her fingertips grazed the rectangular length in search of the best place to pry it open. Eyes in danger of falling back into his skull from sheer impatience, Sam knew that she would take her sweet time.

"Just open it already. Thing's been burning a hole in my pocket for a while now." Seriously, it was going to be a small relief to not have to make sure it hadn't been lost or stolen.

Heart racing fast enough to make her stomach flutter, she plucked nervously at the edges where they should have been prized, upturning the box until a heavy metal object slid onto her lap.

Designed special and yet fitted for nothing, Sam didn't have a permanent residence to speak of, savoring the rush of bouncing between the couple of properties the group had collectively held and whatever he found on the road. Usually that meant another hotel, but not always.

Stunned silence creeping on and on, there came a moment when his smug smirk faltered. The present meant more to her than she could express in three lifetimes, but it took a moment for her to process what he was saying with the gift. By the time it started to skink in, her mouth could only shape two words. "What's 'awhile'?"

For a guy that retained dates like a sponge held water, the historian couldn't really give her an answer to that. There were a couple of times he had thought about this, really thought about it, but the exact moment he had that little beauty made? It was as hazy as the last time he mulled over the invitation. Turns out that handing over something like this was rather monumental.

Not entirely over the one-sided snub all the way, he could offer her a window after it had been forged. "Remember that time with creepy nun dolls?"

Client apparently more interested in a living, breathing woman than the pair of pricey porcelain dolls they had been tasked with retrieving, it had been one of the last jobs they did together (in any official capacity). Vindicated by the overly dramatic sicking of goons that followed her rejection, Sam had pointed out that that was what she got for being so friendly to the creep for maybe longer than he should have.

Vaguely remembering the job when there was so much going on in her personal life at the time, Daniella tried to think about the events surrounding the dolls. Coming up short, rather than admit defeat she focused her attention back on the thing in her lap. Staring at the small metal object like it was a bomb that could blow at any minute, she was finding it hard to articulate her thoughts. "The thing you had to go back for... was this?"

"Fell outta my back pocket when we were getting shot at." No big deal, everyone had their moment, their thing that they couldn't let go of.

"But... that was four years ago. Five, even. Sam, you..." Realization kicking in like a loan shark with a score to settle, the color promptly drained out of her face. Living dead more capable of retaining their coherence after getting their jaws kicked off by a temperamental mule, she sputtered half-thoughts to herself more than her partner. "I... That was just after I found out..." Blue in serious danger of spilling over, she very clearly wanted to cry after hearing this. "That was right after the divorce."

A tiny bit stung that this wasn't going the way he imagined it would, Sam hadn't realized that she was so sentimental about that piece of human garbage. Elena's voice the loudest, their inner circle had all warned him that a girl's first was important, that a marriage wasn't some small thing she would just get over. Even if it had been a sham.

Or... grasping at straws to cushion the blow to his already exposed pride, he allowed himself to think that maybe she was distraught because this meant that he had never given up on her? Well, if she was only just figuring that one out, maybe the bleach had seeped deeper to the root than intended and had done some serious damage after all.

"We don't need to make a big deal outta this, alright? Technically speaking-"

Silenced by a full-bodied rush of belated gratitude, Sleeping Beauty took herself off of life-support in order to lunge across the bed. Squeezing him around the middle with enough gusto to give fresh calamari a complex, the silvered fox genuinely couldn't claim to hate it. Well sure, he could claim to, but it wouldn't be true. Cutting her some slack under the circumstance, he entertained the mental image of using his height to his advantage, leaning across the space and pecking the top of her head.

Trouble was, what he pictured was way more affection than either was used to exhibiting outside of carnal intimacy. It actually took him back to when they had first met. Now that was a clusterfuck.

"Hey," unwilling to admit more than he was capable, unable to leave the moment go and be serious, and uncertain about the proper etiquette for this sort of thing, the historian latched on to the one thing he could to ease into this uncharted territory, "before you drag us off shopping for little cake forks or whatever you rich folk do, we need to get something straight. When you pull through this, I'mma need that key back."

On board with where he was going, she still could have boxed him for the joke. Instead, Dells did what she knew and played along like she had so many times in the past. "Fine, fine. You have my word that I'll pack up first thing after the verdict, and you'll never have us darken your door again." Quick to cotton on to how many ways that could be misconstrued, she amended, "An Adler, I mean. We seem quite fond of finding you and just ruining everything."

Gingerly cupping her jaw as if it were made of glass, he thought that maybe he just might kiss her after all. "I mean, you don't have to leave first thing... I was thinking maybe a week of victory rounds would be in order. Could be a little longer, so you have someplace to rest your head."

Licking her lips in anticipation, the bawdy lady's smirk seemed all the more wicked when observed from above, "A week, huh? You think learning that I'm not going to kick the bucket is only worth a fortnight? Guess I better convince you that I'm worth keeping on then. Just until I can land on my... feet." Trailing off with a very suggestive arch of charcoal, Dells took that as her invitation to get started on those pesky clothes.

Welcome as that train of thought was - and he very much wanted to be aboard it when it pulled out from the station - he wasn't quite ready to get himself a ticket. Shaking his head enough to go from snow-capped copper to pure silver in the late morning glow, Sam caught her just as her fingertips snared the waistband of his sweatpants. Eyeing the neat 'v' shape that his shirt cut over her cleavage with similar thirst and appreciation, he wanted to convey to her that this was sincere. Well, as sincere as either of them was capable of being. "Baby girl," islands summoning that winter storm in spite of the fact it was out of season, the thief pulled his princess deeper into her throne, "you're worth a bit more than that."

Ice cracking up a vertical cliff face, she faltered for fear of falling to her death. "I am?"

Freedom, adventure, money, then her was how she thought the order went. Daniella needed the order to stack that way, to justify the ghost that haunted her every waking moment. Freedom, adventure, money, then the person. That's the way it had to be, to make up for the secret that she had tried to lock away in the confines of her soul. To even suggest that a single individual could rock that fundamental hierarchy... it disrupted the bedrock of everything she had built her life on (post Libertalia).

Excuses writing themselves, the heiress had heard the wrong thing and needed to remove herself from the equation. Pushing the man away when she had been so close to bringing him crashing down over her, Dells retreated, crawling out of the other side of the mattress to put as much space between them as she possibly could. "I'm not worth it. I'm not! I'm the scum of the earth!" Holding herself, there were definitely tears in her eyes to match the quaver in her voice, "I don't deserve your key, and I definitely don't deserve you!"

"You're not the scum of the earth. We've already met those assholes." Lack of reception making him glad he didn't directly call out her parents, Sam tried a different approach to handle her outburst. Off to a great start already. "'I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune'. We're adventurers, Baby Girl." Hands thrust in the air to show he meant no harm, he edged closer around the bed. "Takers."

Taker?

Take her.

I took her away without ever telling you...

Gaze falling forlornly to the key that had gotten tangled in the sheets during the course of her mad scramble for escape, Daniella knew that this was the point of no return, come for them at long last.

Author's Note:

As the 'one hundredth' chapter, I wanted to celebrate the occasion. The first part laid a lot of important groundwork for the relationship, but it didn't really change anything for Sam and Daniella, so that's where this beaut comes in!

OK. So maybe that wasn't what I originally had in mind for this chapter... But damn!