TITLE: Papaver somniferum
AUTHOR: Blaze
RATING/SPOILERS: PG, and Fallout
SUMMARY: The pain never goes away. J/S
DISCLAIMER: Are they mine or have they ever been? Nope.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Whew, got a long A/N this time… This fic began exactly a year ago, and was revived after FO2. If it resembles any upcoming eps, that is purely coincidental—I wrote a lot of this last summer and have been working on this since May. The title of the fic is the scientific name of the poppy (heh) that morphine was originally derived from. Thanks to D for the enthusiasm and the support and encouragement—this one's for you; to Lifehouse's Breathing (and Evidence's video of the song) for keeping the fic alive; and to Maple Street for being talented and just awesome!
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Pop-pop-pop.
Three liquid thuds.
It never sounded like this at the range. Oh, God. It never sounded like this before.
Wet, surprised exhalation. Quick contraction of eyebrows and forehead, head dropping and hands rushing to cover…red, so much drowning red.
It never looked like this before.
Thick powerful metal too heavy, it's falling, she's falling. The curb is rough through the fabric of her pants, elbows digging into her knees, cold shaking hand pressed up against an impossibly warm forehead as it tracks down over her face.
It never felt like this before.
Rich iron permeates like perfume, gorge rises in the back of her throat at the smell of burnt gunpowder and all that blood.
It never smelled like this before.
Scalding acid rises with her lunch, she bites her tongue in her attempt to keep from vomiting. Salt and the cold chill of evaporating sweat, regret.
It never tasted like this before.
It never happened like this before.
"SAM!" The shout is dull in her ears, like she's underwater wearing earplugs. "Sam!"
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.
"Sam?" His voice wobbles, she has to read what he's saying; she can't hear him this close, this quiet.
He smells like gunpowder and blood and "I'm a federal agent and I'm armed." And it scares her.
"I'm okay," she says—she thinks she says it, she can't really hear herself—and his doubtful face disappears under the encroaching black border of her vision, under the inner rush of cold.
"Samantha," Jack repeats, and she forces her lids up, glances at the body, glances at him, then directs her eyes to the asphalt. "Hey, look at me." Why is his voice so far away? "What's wrong?"
She swallows hard. "He pulled a gun."
"I saw that." His eyes wander to her shaking hands, her pale face, her syncopated breathing, her anesthetized expression. "Are you okay?"
She slowly shakes her head once.
Her state lasts the long, silent ride home, all the way up to her apartment, where he takes her keys from her when she can't make them work. It lasts through the awkward minutes before she takes her zombie-like self into the shower.
She stands under the blistering spray for forty minutes, her toes and fingers doing a cold burn under the water. Doesn't move, just lets the water course down her face and body as she stares blankly at the opposite wall. Doesn't notice when the water gets icy.
She is so tired she has to hold on to the counter as she brushes her teeth, remembering with a wince that Jack's sitting in her living room with nothing to do. Spits out white foam into the sink, is startled when it turns pink and airy.
Like the bubbles of blood that foamed out of his mouth. Must have caught him in the lung, she thinks.
A little water takes care of the hallucination.
He stands when she emerges from the bathroom, says, "I ordered Chinese."
I saw someone bleed out. She nods.
"I know you probably don't want me to be here," he begins, "but I don't think you should be alone tonight." Blank brown eyes meet this remark. "You want to talk about what happened?" he offers.
"Not really."
"You're going to have to at some point, Sam." She can hear him with perfect clarity, his voice no longer outside of her ears.
"I've never..." She pauses. "I've never had to be put in a situation that similar to what happened to me. Can I deal with that alone before I deal with it with you?"
He's startled, slightly hurt. "Of course," he says quietly. "But if you need me…"
Sam's head bobs in acknowledgement, and her eyes drift shut as she says, "I'm going to bed."
Three short raps on the door sound like gunshots.
She overhears a muffled conversation between two men, Jack and someone else. The scent of pot stickers, fried rice, and something fishy wafts towards her, covers the sudden permeating stench of blood.
She wants nothing more than to burrow under the blankets and disappear.
He eats her share of sweet and sour prawns and listens to the silence of her sleep, wondering if he should've noticed sooner she was having problems. Feeling strangely responsible, thinking if he'd done his job he could have prevented this—God only knows how he was supposed to prognosticate this, but he should've been able to. As her boss, as her friend, as her lover, everything that said he was supposed to be the closest thing she had, he should have known this might happen and he should have helped her sooner.
This is all his fault.
He doesn't know what he feels—if he's even feeling—about that.
The rustle of sheets and blankets as Sam turns jars him out of his reverie. She makes a slight noise he can't quite make out—an exhale, a quiet sob?—and Jack closes his eyes to block the sound. He knows, regardless of whether she is breathing or bawling, regardless of how much he wants to go in that room, into her bed, into her soul and fix this, he can't.
It hurts him more to be useless than to be at fault.
He gets off the couch and walks the three feet to her normally open door. Raises his hand to the knob, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and turns the knob.
Her back is to the door, the barely shuddering linens his only visible cue to her tears, and his heart drops as his courage slips away.
He loves her too much to come in.
Washing dishes the next morning, hands deep in hot, sudsy water, Samantha grazes her finger on the edge of a sharp knife. Crimson beads form along the cut; she is so engrossed in the fluid she hardly registers the sting.
There had been so much blood, on the ground, on the victim. A few inches closer and it would've—had—been all over her, too.
She looks up from the cut at her ficus tree, a gift her mother gave her the last time she was home, which sits in a coveted location on the shelf above the sink. One leaf drifts slowly from the plant, riding the air currents down to a soft landing on a bed of white suds.
It's dying, she thinks. I'm killing it.
A drop of blood swells and falls, landing squarely in the exact center of the leaf.
She feels as if she's been submerged in ice water, like time has slowed to a near stop, frowns as she sees the imperfection on the petal, the imperfection she caused.
Time rushes past her, like a train blowing past its scheduled stop.
"Oh, God! Damn!" she cries as the pain in her finger finally makes itself known. "Shit!"
A fine spray of sanguine round droplets casts itself over the suds as she shakes her hand once, her mouth uttering a stream of curses so profound a sailor would weep.
Band-aid, band-aid, gotta find a band-aid. With her thumb pressed hard against the wound, she rifles through the drawers. Nothing. Damn, come on, hurry up! You're going to bleed out in the kitchen like he bled out in the alley, you don't want to be found like this.
Bathroom. Medicine cabinet. Bandaids. The tip of her finger turns purple under the tight adhesive of the bandage, so she loosens it.
It's absurd, the panic that set in. Am I going to be like this forever? Unable to see blood or a gun without my heart racing and wanting to throw up? No, I can't do that, I can't.
She sees the end of her career underneath a 'flesh-tone' bandage.
Jack finds her sitting on the floor, back against her couch, staring at her folded hands. Sam looks up when she hears him come in, and says so quietly he can hardly hear her, "I need to talk to someone."
What to say? Offers, suggestions, support… Every phrase coming to mind sounds too automatic a response for her deceptively simple statement. "If that's what you want…" he starts.
"It is." Hearing the uncertainty in her voice, Jack ignores his creaky knee and slides down to the floor next to her. "It is," Samantha repeats, sounding even less sure of herself. The far too familiar prick of tears hits the back of her eyes and she forces herself to swallow past the lump in her throat. "God, Jack…"
He sees her face crumple and pulls her into him. "Sam… this isn't going to be easy."
"I know," she says. "I didn't think this was going to happen."
"Everyone has weak moments. Everyone crumbles."
She doesn't speak for a moment, then replies dubiously, "Everyone reacts like this to seeing a man shot?"
"Everyone doesn't know what it's like to be shot."
A pinprick burn, a post-entry bang, searing pain. Feeling like the pain will never go away.
Oh, yes. She knows what it's like to be shot.
The pain never goes away.
Okay. Feet planted. Body turned. Presenting a nice, small target. One hand under the gun, one hand around the grip and a finger on the trigger. The metal's cold, but it's warming up, those little atoms moving a tiny bit faster every second. Heart is pounding, muscles tense, a split second away from a pounce. I have to clear my vision, I'm focusing too hard. Ah, perfect.
Light pressure, just a few more pounds per square inch and I'll be done with this. But don't forget—recoil's a bitch, don't jam your wrist.
Don't choke, don't choke, don't— Oh, God.
She takes an aching breath and steps out of the booth, turns to him with slightly moist eyes and hands him the gun without a word.
He is standing too close to her, so close that over the stench of expelled bullets she can smell the shampoo he'd used that morning, the soap, the faint hint of coffee and mint—he'd had another cup after his toothbrush left his mouth. It's a good smell, a Jack smell. A you're-standing-too-close-but-maybe-I-don't-mind smell. She takes a slow breath, imagining particles of the smell entering into her lungs, diffusing into her blood, slipping into her cells.
"I can't do this."
He grabs her arm as she turns to leave, looks deep into watery brown eyes and says, "You haven't even tried."
"Let go, Jack." She glances at the loose hold his fingers have around her wrist, then returns her eyes to his. "Please."
They stare at each other for nearly a minute before he nods and brings his hand back to his side.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I just…"
Jack bows his head and mumbles, "I don't know why you won't even try to help yourself."
"I've tried," she offers weakly. "I am trying. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't trying."
"And if I pulled a gun right now and shot someone, what would you do?" She flushes, doesn't answer. "If you had to shoot someone right now, would you do it or would you hesitate?" Silence. "I'm not trying to negate what happened to you or your reaction to the events, but you are not okay, Sam."
"I know that!" she snaps. "Jesus, Jack. I know that." Samantha inhales deeply. "You have nothing to lose here."
"I have more to lose than you think." His eyes meet her startled ones, the implication clear.
"You're not going to lose me," she responds automatically, glancing at the scuffed linoleum under her feet to get away from his gaze.
"I could. Something goes wrong with a case, you get censured or fired or you quit. You're not going to stay in New York. No one's ever been able to hold you back, Sam. What makes you think I could?"
"I know me," she says; the words so simple, too simple.
"So do I." Their eyes have locked, their argument forgotten. "I know you better than you think I do."
He leaves a few moments later.
Her bedroom door is closed again.
He walks from the threshold of the apartment to the door, raises his hand to the knob, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Turns the knob.
Not even the orange glow of a streetlight interrupts the darkness. A shift in her breathing tells him she's awake; a shift of the sheets tells him she's facing him.
"I'm sorry," Jack begins, taking a step forward. "I forget what I'm supposed to do sometimes."
Shoes and jacket off.
"I forget that my solution doesn't necessarily work for you."
Belt's next.
"And I never meant to upset you."
Blanket pulled back.
He slips into the bed, slips his arms around her, slips his head as close to hers as he can.
"I just want you to be okay."
"Me too."