I stared at Sam's bandaged side. She was lying down, facing away from me, so I had an unobstructed view of her new white bandage. It was killing me to look at it, but I couldn't fucking make myself look away. It was like the bandage was hypnotizing me, forcing me to think again and again that this was all my fault. If it weren't for me, Sam would be safe; everyone else in the whole damn world would be safe. I watched the bandage crinkle with the uneven rise and fall of her breath, and I focused on the fact that Sam was still alive. At the very least, I still had a chance of saving her.

A blue wisp escaped from my mouth and I forced myself not to react as Maheen appeared inside of the cell. She was standing right in front of Sam, who reacted to her immediately, lifting herself off the floor a little.

"I'm expected elsewhere," Maheen said, though I didn't give a fuck. In her hands was a paper plate piled with food. "I brought all I could."

Good for her. Could I eat it now?

"Sam?" Maheen said, and she held out a pill bottle that I eyed suspiciously. "They're expired, so he won't miss them. You just have to make sure you hide them."

Convenient, I thought.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Maheen smiled at Sam's words, and while she sat the plate down between Sam and me, I found myself watching Sam. Her large purple eyes were focused on the plate of food, but when I followed her line of vision, I saw what she was looking at specifically: the apple. She could have it. Once upon a time, I had the ability to give Sam the world. Now, the only thing I could do was not fight her for a scrap of food. I was feeling completely miserable as Maheen disappeared, staring down at the stingy amount of food. I wasn't paying attention to anything until I heard a high pitched screech tear from Sam's lips. In a moment, I had jumped to her side. She'd rolled over from her original position and her body was locked in pain. I wrapped both of my arms around her and lifted her into a more comfortable sitting position. The entire time, I felt sick at how thin she felt in my arms. Sam had always been skinny, but now she felt sickeningly so. Once Sam seemed steady, I let go of her, going back to my original spot.

"Touching without permission is not okay," Sam growled at me.

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to make things easier on you," I explained. I didn't want to see her in pain. If I had thought about it, I would have known not to do it; that she wouldn't like it. I had just wanted to help.

"Well, it didn't."

"I'm really sorry, Sam." What else could I say? I knew it was a mistake to touch her. To distract her, I said, "Let's eat!"

Sam nodded immediately. I looked down at what Maheen had been able to bring us: one apple, two carrots, one slice of bread, and two slices of ham. I doubted that Sam would touch the meat. Her vegetarian convictions were strong and I didn't think that she was desperate enough to break them just yet. I picked up the apple and gently lobbed it into her lap. Sam touched the red skin of the fruit and then she looked at me, curious.

"I saw you eyeing it."

She bit into the apple and the satisfied look on her face was enough. I looked down at the plate and picked up the ham. I rolled the two slices together. A smarter person would probably eat them slowly and separately in order to make them seem like more of a meal, but fuck it, I was not a 'smarter' person. I chomped my way through the ham in three short bites. Sam was still savouring her apple as I tore the bread in two, leaving the bigger half for her. I made my way through the bread with the same speed I had the ham. I reached for one of the carrots and chewed on it slowly. I may be an adult, but I still hadn't reached the whole appreciating-vegetables stage of life yet.

Sam finished her apple and by finished, I mean she ate everything. Including the core. If we had been anywhere else, I would have thought it was weird. Here, I understood the importance of eating everything we could. She glanced at me and I nudged the plate toward her.

"The rest is yours."

She picked it up and placed it in her lap. She didn't say a word, but I wasn't really expecting her to. She finished off her meal and put the plate back down between us. I took it and tossed it in the hole in the corner of our cell – the one that was our toilet. Our waste always seemed to disappear, although I didn't pity the poor asshole that had to do it. If you worked for Vlad, you deserved it. I wondered if it was Maheen that had to do it. After all, she was the only ghost that was regularly around our cell. The thought made me grin.

I turned back to Sam. She was lying down, her eyes closed. She didn't look like she was asleep, but I didn't prod. I sank down against the wall and curled my knees up to my chest. I closed my eyes and tried not to think.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, there was a screaming ache in my neck forcing me back to the semi-darkness of the cell. It wasn't pain like Vlad was torturing me, but pain like I had slept in the wrong position. I sat up, my spine protesting. I felt gross and stiff. Sleeping on the cold stone floor of the cell had never been comfortable, but sleeping sitting up on the wall like that had really fucked me up. I stood up and stretched, glancing down at Sam. She was asleep now, but was trembling. I took a few steps toward her. Was it a nightmare? If it was, should I wake her? But her face was smooth and untroubled. My sharp eyes picked out the goosebumps on her arms. Of course. She was freezing. Looking at her shiver, I was surprised that she hadn't before … or that I hadn't noticed it before if she had.

I took off my suit jacket. She needed it far more than I did. I barely noticed the temperature difference without it. I felt a little bad that the jacket would probably be freezing from being on me, but it was the best I could do. I draped it over her upper body, wishing that I could tuck it around her. But I'd fucked up earlier with the touching thing and I didn't want to push my luck. I figured just draping the jacket over her couldn't really be counted as touching.

I backed away from her, as far as my boundary line would let me, and dropped back against the wall. I hadn't thought I'd bothered Sam, but moments after I covered her, she moved. Her arms flailed and pushed against my suit jacket. I watched her, concerned that she'd reinjure herself. She opened her eyes and looked down at herself. She looked at my suit jacket and I expected an angry comment, but she didn't make one. She propped herself up against the wall and I had to battle my instincts to keep myself from going over to her again. She picked up my jacket and held it out to me.

"You keep it," I told her. She needed it.

"Won't you get cold?" The concern in her voice made me feel like lighting up. She cared if I got cold.

"Ice powers. This cell doesn't even feel cold."

Sam nodded, her hand tightening around the fabric of my jacket. Her eyes narrowed as she realized, "You're probably the reason it is cold."

I shrugged. It was true and I couldn't change it, even if I wanted to. The unfortunate thing about ice powers is that I couldn't turn off how cold they made me; my ice powers were always present, unlike my other powers which I could turn on and off. "Sorry about that."

Just another thing to add to the list of what I'm sorry about.

Sam didn't reply right away. Instead, she slowly pulled my jacket on over her shoulders. She looked so small in it. I watched her thin fingers shake as she did up the buttons along the front of the jacket. Something inside of me felt warm at the sight of her wearing my clothes. Paullina had liked to parade around in my football jersey when we were together, but that was just because it was a status symbol. She wanted other people to see that she was in my jersey. And while the better part of me knew that Sam would never be wearing my jacket if we weren't in such hellish circumstances, I still liked to see her in it.

"It's all right," Sam finally answered me. "Just … if you discover fire powers, please put them to use immediately."

"All right, that's a fair deal." Although they'd only be of help if they raised my body temperature considerably. But I couldn't use my powers. Not without killing her.

Sam toyed with the edge of my jacket sleeve and I had to glance away. Being in here together would only get harder if I kept thinking about how much I wanted her. She was only dependent on me for survival, at the most.

"How long do you think we've been in here?" Sam whispered, so quiet that I almost didn't catch what she'd said.

"Too long," I said immediately. Any time in here was too fucking long. As for the exact time … "I don't know. I always view time as being much shorter than it actually is. So, if we've been in here for a week, in my head it will only feel like two days or something."

But we'd definitely been in here longer than a week. We'd deteriorated too much.

Sam sighed, admitting, "I'm the exact opposite. I live life with school-clock syndrome."

"And what is 'school-clock' syndrome exactly?" To hell with anything that even had 'school' in the title.

"You know," Sam pushed, "when you feel like an hour has passed and the class is almost over and then you look at the time and, in reality, you have fifty minutes to go until the end of the class."

Oh.

"I think every student has suffered from that."

"And teachers," Sam added diplomatically. "They probably dislike dealing with students as much as students dislike dealing with them."

"Probably." Lancer, for one. "Either way, it was very witty of you."

Sam smiled and, while it may have been the tiniest smile I'd ever seen, it was also one of the most beautiful. Even such a miniscule expression of happiness felt so foreign in this dank cell.

"Well, you must have forgotten how hilarious I am," Sam said, although she wasn't looking at me when she did.

"There's nothing about you I've forgotten."

She glanced up at my words and I could see it in her face that she wanted to fight me on that. Sam didn't want me to remember her. Sam didn't even want to admit that it happened. But in the months after she left, I had dedicated myself to remembering everything. I had lost myself in her memory and to my fantasies where she came back to me. I had lost myself to the point where Jazz and Tucker had to work to pull me back. I met her gaze, willing her to say something, anything, but she just looked away again.

I hung my head, wishing for a time of nothing but simple romantic heartbreak. I never thought that I'd want to go back to when I was without Sam, but compared to this, it would be worth it. I would give everything I had for Sam to be safe; for Jazz to be alive and for Tucker to be healthy. But I had nothing left to give. Vlad had taken it all.

And there wasn't anything I could do.

Sorry about last week. I got too sick to function.

Thanks to my fantastic betas: Forever Sky.

~TLL~