"Brigitte Snaps Back"

Chapter Three
"You're My Alibi"

Sam finds it a strangely specific blessing that his left arm is somewhat stronger than his right, on account that being right-handed means he abuses that one more. Of course, he also has the problem of having a mangled shoulder from being bitten (don't think about that, don't even think about it) but, that's okay. He can still use a spade like a motherfucker, and right now, he needs to. Six foot is a long way to go with only one half of one arm functional.

While digging, he keeps an eye on the beast. The first sign, from what Brigitte told him, is healing, and he's living, breathing, barely-talking proof of that – he doesn't want it springing to life and pouncing on him.

(just as long as you're prepared for that, and I mean, sure)

Sam shuts up, not that he has much of a choice in the matter, and digs down.

Brigitte is spreading the drain cleaner on the final stretch of blood, the one leading from the kitchen closet to the basement door when she hears the front door open. She quickly checks the room, and finds it a total fucking mess – the fridge door's been torn off, there are utensils everywhere, not to mention the obvious blood she's trying to clean. She's fucked, and she knows it.

"Pam?" Henry's voice. Brigitte doesn't know if she should relax or if she should panic more. She can hear him constantly going "What the-" and getting closer.

"I'm in the kitchen, dad." Brigitte says, and continues with her cleaning. Best to just go at it like nothing's nothing – anything else won't help, and she still has some work left.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Henry take a step into the kitchen and freeze. She stands there, watching as he examines each piece of damage and then looks at her for an explanation.

"It's kinda hard to explain." Brigitte says, not knowing how else to put it, "A lot's happened."

"You know what?" he says, "I don't want to know. That's it, this is... I'm done. I don't know where I went wrong, or what I did, but this is it for me. I don't want to know."

Brigitte watches as her father for all intents and purposes struts past her and heads upstairs, to his room. She knows that this means one thing, that he's going there to collect some clothes.

(Fine, leave. Like everybody else, leave me to clean up the mess, leave me to pick up the pieces)

After she's done, Brigitte gives the surfaces a once-over, places the cleaning supplies where they are supposed to be, and heads out. Shutting the door behind her, she doesn't feel like she's leaving home – just a house. The house that the Curse tore down.

Henry's left already. Brigitte wonders that with Pam God-knows-where and Henry gone, if she's an orphan of sorts now.

(god, I hate our gene pool)

The headlights of Sam's van alert Brigitte, who is sitting on the front step, to his arrival. She stands up and the first thing she feels is that her knees are on the brink of giving in. She feels exhausted – every muscle is aching, her thoughts are barely coherent and she's hardly keeping her head straight.

She gets in the van and sets the monkshood branches that she spent the last half hour frantically looking for on the dash.

The feeling of Sam steering the van away from her home and towards the greenhouse allows sleep, wretched and inappropriate, to claw up to her. Her head hangs slightly out of the open window and the wind caresses her scalp. Outside, Bailey Downs floats on by, the streetlamps going a few shade orange to hide the dark circles underneath.

"You okay?" Sam asks, his voice barely a croak.

"Be quiet and drive." She says.

Sam drives and Brigitte feels far away, somewhere in the distance, where the night is warmer and she doesn't have miles and miles to go before she can sleep.

"You okay..?" Sam asks again.

"I'm fucked. We both are."

"Anything else happen while I was gone..?"

"Henry came home."

"Henry?"

"My dad."

"You call your dad by his name?"

"He calls me by mine."

"How'd he take it?"

"He didn't. He decided this was it, that he couldn't take it anymore. I think he'll be well out of Bailey Downs by the time I go back there."

Sam doesn't know what to say. He was always shit when it came to things like this.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? The... you're sorry? You're sorry?"

"I just..."

"Spare me your guilt, Sam, you're the last person who should be sorry right now."

"It's not guilt, it's just... you know what, I don't know. I don't even know."

"...it wasn't your fault."

(something happened on the way to heaven)

"So, we get to the greenhouse and get cleaned up, and then..."

"No. You work the party." Brigitte says.

"I look like a fucking crime scene, how am I supposed to-"

"Tell them it's your costume, that I was helping you set it up. You need an alibi, and I need one worse than you do – people actually saw me come in, noticed me, and saw me leaving the party. If you were with me, and you were mostly at the party, and I was with you, then I was mostly at the party too."

"Fine. Then what?"

"I need to find my mom. Last thing was I saw her before I dragged Ginger out for you to shovel her in the face. I hope she's still there."

"She was at the party?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll bring us around back. Hope nobody's sober enough to notice we weren't there."

"Once we get through all this, that's it. We wait the party out, we use the last of the monkshood to cook up the cure. When the smoke clears, we'll see how everything plays out."

"You know, you're too smart for your own good."

(just not smart enough)

Sam takes the long road around the greenhouse and brings them out back. The noise of the bash, the sheer, garbled mess of it is dissipating into the air, and Brigitte cringes at the thought of going in there.

Sam takes the branches of monkshood and they get off. The back door of the greenhouse opens to Sam's living room, through which, Brigitte knows, is a way to reach his bedroom. Sam hurries along, Brigitte in tow. He unlocks the door, they both rush in, he closes it behind them. Sam reaches for the lamp on his desk and lights it up. Right underneath it, Brigitte sees bags and bags of weed, small ones, large ones.

Sam turns his pockets inside-out. No blood, thank fuck. He starts stuffing the piff bags in them.

"What're you doing?" Brigitte asks. Sam glares at her.

"This is how I am at the party. I need to deal. All I need is ten, maybe fifteen minutes and I am at the party all through the night. That's all I need, ten minutes to save face. I'll be in and out. In the meantime, you can find your mother. We'll meet back here."

Sam decides that his pockets will rip if he tries to put in more, so this'll have to do. He has about twenty, twenty-five bags, which should be plenty.

"Let's go." He says. He comes up and offers his hand.

"What?"

"We're supposed to be together, yeah? So, this is how everybody knows."

Brigitte can almost laugh.

"By holding hands? What are we, five?"

"Brigitte Fitzgerald with the drug dealer cherry hound. That'll leave an impression. Sure, not the best one, but..."

"Fine, let's just get this over with."

Brigitte's hand slips into his, and their fingers interlock. They walk closer to the screaming music, and each step of the way, their grip on each other's hands grows tighter. After what seems like a death march, they emerge into the mess of bodies. The music is pounding, screeching. To Brigitte, nobody in the crowd look coherently human anymore – their costumes distort their appearance, and with it, their reflections appear as ideas to her. Her head is swimming.

She doesn't even know if Pam is in this mess.

The first to notice them are two girls, a vampire and a cat, which stops them dead in the midst of all that gyrating. Next, the solo guy in a cow costume next to them, and the trio next to him, and it follows a similar order until most of the people within visual range are observing them.

Sam bends down to Brigitte's ear and whispers.

"See? You're my alibi."

Brigitte can't even reply. She feels naked.

Sam's hand squeezes hers, as if to reassure.

Brigitte can see them from an outsider's perspective. 1526. Her 15, his 26. The cherry and the hound. Sam's latest conquest, the little Fitz-sister to follow in the footsteps of a recently-blossoming Ginger.

(so, sluts run in the family – quel shocker)

Sam whispers again, bringing her back to earth.

"Let's split."

"And if I find my mom?"

"My room. The plan still goes in both cases."

Brigitte freezes when she feels Sam's fingertips on her chin. He gently turns her head, and she follows his lead, and suddenly finds his lips pressed onto hers.

It's a gentle, soft kiss, his lips barely there. It registers as a strange, though not entirely unpleasant feeling... hell, who the fuck is she kidding, it feels good, full stop.