Danny finds Sam sat at the bar, head hidden in her arms, her hair all over the counter. A quick glance at Ericka the barmaid and she mouths the word 'sick' with her finger pointing her at Sam.

He bends over Sam's motionless frame.

"Hey…" he says softly as he pushes her hair out of her face to touch her brown. "You're burning hot, sweetheart," he tells her than turns to Ericka. "Thanks for calling me, Ericka. I'll take her to her suite."

He gently takes Sam off her chair and slowly walks towards the nearest elevator.

"I'm always hot for you," her hot breath tickles his ear and her attempt at flirting would be splendid if it wasn't for her hoarse voice and her shaking all over.

By the time they reach the elevator, Sam's entire body is trembling so hard and even Danny's warmth isn't enough to heat her up.


"This is God punishing me for being a horrible person," Sam spits, her head above the toilet. She's been throwing up for the past fifteen minutes, and she feels gross and dirty and tiny. Just like the way she used to feel when she was a kid. The past memories hurt her stomach, burn her skull and she wants to cry at the stupidity, at her stupidity.

"You're not a horrible person," Danny's holding her hair and his large, soft hand is tracing circles over her back. He smells good, and his heart is good, and he is good all over, from the tips of his toes to the end of his eyelashes. Danny is so good and Sam is so, so certain that the more he spends time with her, the more she's gonna stain him, she's gonna ruin him and he'll hate her for it. Danny. Sweet Danny. She likes him too much to ruin him like that.

"I'm not good," she whispers as she leans against the wall. The need to throw up is gone but she doesn't feel like standing up yet. The coldness of the wall feels good on her burning skin, it matches the coldness in her heart, the hardness of her soul. "Not good enough. Never good enough."

Danny could see tiny tears at the corners of her eyes. He wipes them away and murmurs sweet words against her cheek, in her ear. "You're plenty good. You're perfect to me."

The sincerity she sees in his eyes warm her up a little bit but it's her dry laugh that tears him apart. She doesn't believe him.


He is playing Tetris on his phone while Sam is sleeping next to him; brown hair spread out over the pillow, her entire body tucked in under the mass of blankets, the crease in the middle of her forehead showing she's not serene in her sleep.

She always sleeps like; on her side, curled up like the smallest cat, taking as little space as possible, wrapped in her own world, as if she wanted to be safe from anything that could hurt her, from anything that could love her.


Hours later, it's a knock on the door that breaks the peaceful atmosphere in the room and shakes Sam awake. She groans and the frown on her face deepens. "Shh, go back to sleep," Danny caresses her hair to soothe her back to sleep and then heads to the door.

When he opens it, he finds Delinda, smiling and holding a bag in her hand. "Chicken soup for Sam."

"She's sleeping but thanks," Delinda hands him the bag and walks into the suite. "Don't wake her up," he warns, closing the door.

He puts the bag on the small table and joins Delinda on the couch by the window.

"She looks dead," Delinda says, frowning at Sam's appearance and Danny rolls his eyes at Delinda's choice of words.

"Thanks, Delinda," he replies sarcastically.

To her defence, Sam is rather pale with her cracked lips, her huge shadows under her eyes and her cold skin. She looks nothing like the ecstatic, euphoric Sam they've grown to see and love. "It's almost scary. It never occurred to me that Sam could fall sick. I mean, she's just so mean...her whole aura would scare any sickness away," that makes Danny giggle because it's just so true. "Here she looks just tiny and..."

"...fragile?" Danny finishes, uncertain. But she does look tiny and fragile under the duvet of the bed, under the ugly sickness and the harshness of the world.

"Yeah," Delinda agrees. "I can't wait for her to feel better. It's not funny when Sam is not around to terrorise people," she adds then she abruptly turns to Danny, her hair hitting him square in the face. He blinks. She doesn't apologise. "Are you and Sam sleeping together now?"

The sudden change of topic takes Danny off guard. He glances at Sam, then at Delinda. He clears his throat. "We're not," he answers frankly, looking Delinda right in the eyes because he's not lying. It is not a lie. They are not just sleeping together. It's so much more than that now. It means so much more to him now.

"Danny."

"Delinda."

His tone is in no way harsh but her name comes out sharp in his mouth and she knows she's walking on a thin ice here, with Sam sleeping on the bed and Danny tensed besides her. His eyes are on Sam's sleeping frame again, Delinda notices. Delinda has never seen Danny looks at anyone like that, not even Mary. He looks awfully, terribly in love and Delinda wonders if he knows it or if Sam knows.

Danny lets his hand run over his face, then his focus is back on Delinda. "She's always so tough, so fierce, so harsh but she looks after her people, right?" It's a rethorical question but Delinda nods all the same. "She needs someone to look after her."

Delinda can read love in his eyes, can feel fondness and protectiveness directed towards Sam.

"And you're that someone," Delinda concludes.

"As long as she lets me," he says, his gaze once again lingering over Sam's body. "As long as she wants me."


Danny wakes up from his faint sleep when he feels Sam schift. She slowly moves across the bed and curls up against him. Her icy hands grab at his shirt, and her head takes place in the crook of his neck. She sighs exhaustively and happily."You're warm. Always," she whispers, as if it is a secret. "It's nice."

Sam is cold against him, but he doesn't mind. He likes having her close, he likes feeling her body fits against his in such an imperfect way that it only makes it even more perfect. He kisses the top of her head as he wraps the cover more securely around them both. "Feeling better?"

She shakes her head and the tiny movement has all her thoughts spin and she closes her eyes again. "No. But you're here, all soft and warm. Don't move."

"Okay," he promises, holding her tightly against him. He understood what she said, what she meant by don't go. She meant don't leave and he won't. "I'm not going anywhere."