A shadow hovering overhead woke Sam. Her eyelids fluttered, then popped open. Carly stood with her arms folded, looking down at her. Sam sighed and pulled herself up straight. As she moved, the blanket covering her slipped to her waist and she looked down at it in confusion. When she fell asleep, there had been nothing there. Just the chair and Jason lying across the room, still asleep.
"Michael brought it in," Carly answered her unspoken question.
Sam nodded and pulled the blanket up. "Thank him for me," she said, twisting in the chair. She stretched her body and the chair groaned beneath her. She didn't know how long she'd been asleep, but her legs ached enough that she thought it had to have been at least an hour. "Did he wake up yet? Did I miss it?"
Carly turned towards the bed and sighed, then turned back. "No, he's still asleep. Monica said he might not wake up tonight, since he wasn't awake when they took him into surgery."
"But… that's normal, right?" Sam straightened her body, then leaned forward. For a second, her elbows dug into her knees, then her arms relaxed and her forearms fell forward, hanging over her knees. "That doesn't mean that he's any worse than they said, does it?"
Carly shook her head. "Monica said he's fine, so I guess that means it's normal."
"Because, I'd hate for people to be lying to me about it, ya know? I mean… I know a lot of people don't like me. Michael tries, and Lorenzo is polite enough because of Jason, and so is Emily, but the Quartermaines absolutely hate me, so I wouldn't put it past any of them to lie to me just to make me look stupid or something."
"Nobody's lying to you, Sam." The sigh that Carly gave was full of exasperation, and Sam wanted to tell her to get out. If she were going to patronize her, then she didn't need to be in there. Didn't she see that she was having enough trouble already? Did she have to add more? "These things, horrible as the situation may be, happen. You've just got to accept it if you're going to be in Jason's life."
"You're telling me to accept something?" Sam snorted a laugh. "You're actually telling me to just let it go. No, you're not setting me up for anything at all."
To say that the women didn't like each other was an understatement. To say that neither knew why that was the case would have been a total fabrication. No matter who else came into their lives, Carly was used to being the most important woman in Jason's life. She was accustomed to his door always being open for her, and while it wasn't completely closed, neither was it wide open. Someone else had become the center of Jason's world, and that made Carly bitter. Jason was her best friend, but he was someone else's, too.
On the other side, Sam would never audibly admit that she felt threatened by Carly. While she had no thoughts of Carly and Jason betraying Lorenzo with any sort of infidelity, Sam knew that the bond the two had was deeper than anything she could hope to have with him. Carly knew this, too, and she made sure to stake her claim as often as possible. Carly didn't want to share, which meant that she would make sure that she didn't have to do it very often.
It all boiled down to the fact that they both wanted him, and neither could completely have him. They tried to get along when Jason was around. Neither wanted to be the reason that he chose the other. Both of them were fully aware that Jason was loyal to a fault, and if either Sam or Carly gave him any reason to believe that one of them was trying to force him in either direction, he would resist. So, they pretended to be amiable when most of the time they just wanted to rip out each other's hair.
Carly sighed. "I've been through it, alright? And yeah, normally, I'm all for getting up in arms and screaming like a maniac. Hell, I walked in here and did exactly that, but at some point, you've just gotta calm down."
"You calmed down because of Lorenzo."
"Yeah, so?" She sighed again. "There's a reason Lorenzo and I are together. There's a reason we work. I'm the crazy one, he's the sane one. Together, we're a normal, average person." Carly shook her head. "But, that's beside the point. The point of this entire thing is that I did eventually calm down."
"Thing is… would you have been able to calm down if it were Lorenzo with his life on the line instead of Jason? No, wait, don't answer that. Because you'd have still had Jason."
"I had Jason the last time I was sitting right where you are. I sat in a chair, blood all over my clothes, just waiting for Lorenzo to wake up. And you know what happened when he woke up? He couldn't see. So I ranted and I raved and I lost my mind, but in the end, it didn't do anyone any good. The girls were just over a year old, plus Michael was almost four… I really had to think about everything. Was this what I wanted for my children? Not to mention the fact I was in the middle of a custody battle with AJ. If things were at their worst, I could have lost Michael and maybe even Lorenzo. But, in the end, I made up my mind. I was scared, but I couldn't live without him. I made my choice, and I don't regret it."
Sam looked at her with unabashed shock. The last time Carly had said that much to her in one sitting, the conversation had been anything but nice. Back then, it had actually been a lecture, one in which Carly made it very clear what she thought of Sam, how little she thought of her feelings for Jason, and what she would do to her if she hurt him. This time, though… this was very nearly a heart-to-heart.
"Why are you telling me this, Carly?"
"Because I know that there's a part of you that's wondering the same thing. You don't have kids to worry about, but there's still yourself. And while you're sitting there, even though you've changed your clothes and washed your hands, you still feel his blood on you. You still feel his heart beating slower while you lean on him, and you're wondering if you can do this again."
Sam sighed and collapsed back in the chair. "Yeah."
"So, I'm telling you this so you can make a decision. You need to decide if you can handle this. If you can, then great. Wonderful. But if you can't, go now. Don't be here when he wakes up, because it'll be a lot harder on him to see you and then actually watch you leave."
"I love him, Carly." Sam stood slowly, gripping the top edge of the blanket. She tossed it into the chair and walked towards the bed. Jason's eyes were still closed, his face slack. She'd have given anything for him to smile at her, to open his blue eyes and let her know that everything was okay and she was doing the right thing. "I know that you and damn near everybody else think I'm wrong for him, but I really love him, and he loves me. I know he makes me happy, I think I make him happy. I mean… he smiles when he looks at me, and that means he's happy, right?"
Sam rested her hands gently on his arm. His skin was warm, but he still wasn't awake. She tossed her head back and looked over her shoulder. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and as much as she wanted to wipe them away, she didn't want to let him go. "I just want him to wake up and look at me, and smile a little, because then I'll know that I make him happy, ya know?"
Carly was quiet for a moment. Her eyes drifted from Sam to Jason, then she stopped. She watched him for a moment, gave a small smile, then turned back to Sam. "Looks like you've made your decision… and have your wish."
Sam blinked at her in confusion. A twitch under her hands made her look to Jason. His head rolled slowly towards her. The tip of his tongue pushed out and he licked his lips. She bent so quickly to kiss him that her hair fell down like a curtain around them. She stood up slowly and almost laughed as she said, "Hi."
Jason's eyelids drooped, then pushed forcefully back open. He swallowed, then murmurred, "Hi." His lips curled up ever so slightly in the corners, and Sam was okay.
