A/N: So I gave Norman a flashback, and then Madison wanted one as well. The good news is it lets me write more of Sam, whom I adore, but unfortunately you'll have to wait for things to return to the present. Hang in there, folks!

)O(

Tuesday
March 23rd, 2010
5:17p.m.

The Philadelphia airport was the kind of place that almost made you proud to live there. Its incredibly high windows and warm atmosphere almost made up for the fact that it was, in essence, just an airport. All that grand architecture contrasted sharply with the world Madison had come to know in the past two years. The last time she had walked through this terminal, she had been afraid. At best she was going to be a stranger in a foreign land, at worst she was the enemy.

But now she could put all that behind her. It was over. She no longer had to worry about the very real possibility of getting murdered in the street. Well, not nearly as much anyway. Madison's life could finally return to normal. Even though she'd probably never forget the war-torn country. Madison simply could not erase the things she had witnessed from her mind.

...Camps of refugees desperate for some sense of safety, the spark in the eyes of someone who knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were about to die, the compassion of strangers, the cries of the wounded, the sound of their voices while they told her the stories as only they could, sometimes with their last breath...

"Hey, you all right, girl?"

Madison snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the familiar voice of her most trusted informant and friend.

"Sorry," she said, feeling stupid. "I guess I'm a little out of sorts. I didn't sleep well; I think it's the time difference and everything..." In truth, she hadn't slept at all on the plane, meaning she had been awake for twelve hours already, plus the day before departing from Baghdad...

Sam nodded. "No problem. We'll get you some coffee and you'll be right as rain."

"God, I would kill for a decent cup of coffee right now." Madison replied, but he didn't move. Instead, Sam held out his arms to her expectantly.

"Come here," he requested. She blinked, confused by this.

"What?"

"Come here," he repeated, his smile never fading. "I don't see you for two years, offer to pick you up from the airport as well as buy you coffee, and you won't even give me a hug?"

Understanding hit her like a ton a bricks. Madison gladly accepted the embrace, realizing how long it had been since she experienced this kind of physical contact with another person. Then she realized just how much she needed a friend, because suddenly she was crying onto the collar of his shirt and she didn't know why.

Sam noticed this and proceeded to freak out, the way men do when women start to cry for no reason.

"Oh shit, Mad, you know I didn't mean any of that, right?"

"Yeah, I-I know." she said, feeling a billion times more stupid than before. "My emotions are all mixed up. I can't think straight. I'm so tired, Sam...I'm so fucking tired." Then Madison began to cry harder, upset by the thought of looking like an idiot by sobbing in the middle of the airport like this.

Kathy was like that too sometimes, so he had at least had some experience in dealing with irrational women who cried for no reason. Only Kathy does have a reason, and it's called menopause.

They waited twenty minutes for the turnstile to bring around all her luggage. Then, with the suitcases securely stored in the trunk of Sam's car, they drove toward the nearest source of caffeine which turned out to be a Starbucks just ten blocks away from the airport.

Madison was staring out the window at the city that looked the same as when she'd left, but felt very different. And then it occurred to her that it was not the city that had changed, but the journalist herself. War changes people, even those objective seekers of truth, whose task it is to be observers.

They talked a little. Well, Sam talked, she listened. He talked about Kathy and work and other insignificant things. He tried to make her smile; she tried to let him.

"So what exactly have I missed?" Madison asked, lifting her gaze from the creamy depths of her latte to meet Sam's bright blue eyes.

"Well, I was going to wait to tell you this, but..." he lowered his voice, "There's a new lunatic on the streets who's been named the Origami Killer, because he leaves an origami figure in the right hand of his victims, and an orchid on the chest. But that's not even the most twisted part. He only murders kids, Mad, and he does it by drowning them in rainwater."

The thought sent a chill through her very core.

"Oh my god..." she breathed, wishing there was less death in the world. She didn't want to believe this could be true, but that's thing: she did believe it. That was just the kind of fucked up world they lived in. "Don't the police have any leads at all?"

Sam shook his head sadly. "Not a damn thing. This guy's methodical. He plans out every last detail and doesn't leave a trace. Plus, he only kills in the fall when it rains the most, so I guess the cops have more important matters to attend to until another little boy turns up dead. Honestly, sometimes I think they wouldn't get anything done if it weren't for the media hounding them all the time."

"That just isn't right. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised." Madison was very familiar with the incompetence of the Philadelphia police force. In fact, they both were. "You seem to know a lot about it though."

"Maybe a bit more than the average citizen," Sam shrugged. "I've been following the case pretty closely. What can I say?" He suddenly looked sheepish. "The bastard's drowning kids, you know?"

He drove Madison to her apartment and dropped her off. She stood on the sidewalk with her luggage, waving until Sam's silver Toyota disappeared around the corner. Madison's first thought was to go inside, but she just couldn't face the emptiness of it quite yet.

So she kept walking as the sun kept sinking and the world she once knew grew dark, cold and unbearably lonely.

Eventually, she reached a motel. This sight was very familiar to her by now. She already had her suitcases, so Madison checked in, feeling like a stranger in her own life.

And while she lay there, surrounded in spirit by the other guests staying at the motel - all of them just as lost or drifting or uncertain as she was - Madision started to feel less alone, less afraid of what the future held.

Finally, she could sleep, but what Sam had said about the Origami Killer still haunted her. And indeed, her dreams were filled with paper that folded itself into elaborate origami, and orchid petals falling through empty space.

Madison awoke to the perpetual pitter-patter of gentle spring rain.