I wanted to elaborate a little more on the storyline regarding Sam's essay in 6x16. Also, all though Brulian is a thing in this story, they're not the main focus. I don't want to spend a lot of time discussing their issues, but just assume up until this point everything is cannon. Pretty soon I am going to deviate from the original plot a little bit though because I refuse to accept the fact that Sam leaves the show... so don't worry haha. Enjoy!
Julian and Brooke were going steady. It had been a couple of weeks since they'd first kissed, and after some brief drama over Julian's intentions and Brooke's unwillingness to have just a fling, the two had patched things up and officially become a couple. Brooke was thrilled where things seemed to be heading, and Sam loved seeing Brooke happy.
"Hello boyfriend," Brooke chirped as she opened the door for Julian. She had invited him over for a casual dinner with her and Sam, and he had arrived at 6pm on the dot.
"Hi beautiful," he grinned and entered the house. "Smells delicious, what are we having?"
"Spaghetti," Brooke said. "Quickest and easiest thing I could think of."
"Yeah sorry Julian, Brooke's not a very good cook," Sam deadpanned, entering the scene.
"Hey!" Brooke exclaimed, looking offended. Julian just laughed.
"I am an excellent cook, thank you very much," Brooke moved the pot of spaghetti into a large bowl and carried it over to the set table. "I'd like to see you cook dinner for once and see what you come up with," she raised an eyebrow at her teen.
"Dude, I grew up in foster care. I used to have to make meals every night for seven other kids. I know how to cook," Sam smirked when she saw Brooke's face flush a little.
"Alright, I'm sorry," the mother said a bit sheepishly. "Doesn't mean you need to go around insulting my cooking abilities," she teased. "Now come on you guys, sit down and let's eat!"
Julian smiled widely and joined the two girls he was already growing to love at the table. One of the things he respected the most about Brooke was her relationship with Sam and how much of an impact she'd had on the child's life in such a short amount of time.
"Speaking of foster care…" Sam started as the three got situated and began scooping food onto their plates. "I'm writing a paper on my experience in the system and all that fun stuff for this essay contest at school. The winner gets their essay published in the school paper and a hundred dollar gift card." She looked up warily at the adults across from her.
"Sam, that's awesome," Brooke gushed, though she had a hint of sadness behind her eyes. It was difficult for her to think about what life was like for Sam before she took her under her wing; there was still so much past abuse and trauma that was unknown to her.
"Yeah, you're an excellent writer, nobody else stands a chance at winning," Julian assured her.
Sam smiled with pride. She had gone so long without a supportive family unit, and having Brooke and Julian both have faith in her and show genuine excitement for her gave her relief like nothing else.
The rest of dinner was perfect. The three talked more about Sam's schooling, the production of the movie, and Brooke's plans for her new line. For the night, they felt like a real family. Sam found herself spacing out for a brief moment and pretending that Brooke and Julian were really her parents.
"I like him," Sam stated simply while she helped Brooke with the dishes after Julian had left.
"I'm glad. I like him too," Brooke quipped.
"He's better than Owen," Sam brought the empty glasses over to the sink.
The designer stifled out a laugh over Sam's snarky remark. "Couldn't agree with you more," she sighed. "Owen and I weren't a very good match." She thought back to Owen's complete apathy over Sam's disappearance the night she'd been kidnapped and the hurtful words he'd said to her.
"Brooke, come on, she's a teenager. She's not even your teenager."
"Yeah, you and Julian seem way more natural together. Owen seems like a whiny bitch who needs to get his life in order."
"Samantha," Brooke scolded lightly, though she couldn't help but let her laugh slip. The teenager's need to prevaricate in her personal relationships was slightly annoying at times, yet Brooke also found it amusing.
"Am I wrong?" Sam said defensively. "Julian's way better." She made her way back to the table and began wiping it off with a damp rag.
"Well I'm really happy that you and Julian are getting along," Brooke smiled slightly. Truthfully, Brooke was ambivalent about her "daughter" and Julian's close relationship. On one hand, she loved that the two got along, but at the same time, things with Julian were still so new. She didn't want Sam to be upset if things didn't work out, and she couldn't help but worry that Sam was already becoming too attached.
Sam smiled. "So," she said when she finished cleaning the table. "Kitchen's clean, are you gonna force me to help you with anything else or can I go to my room now?"
"You're free to go," Brooke smirked. "Thank you for helping clean up."
Sam made a beeline for her room, ready to continue working on her essay for the contest.
Part of me is glad that Jack's gone.
Sam sighed as she set her pencil down and leaned back in her chair. The last time she'd seen Jack, he'd told her that he probably wouldn't see her for a while because CPS was trying to track him down. Sam understood that Jack desperately needed to seek sanctuary, but it didn't make losing her best friend any easier. It was difficult to write about Jack. It was difficult to write about all of it for that matter.
Gone is a place I dreamed of when I was hiding in a closet from whatever drunk parent I had that month.
The teen was used to expressing her feelings through writing, but this time she was recounting painful details of her past from years ago when she was only a small child. The resurgence of these horrid memories was making her more emotional than she'd anticipated. Her eyes prickled with tears as an experience at one particular home came flooding back to her in an instant.
"I know you can hear me, Samantha!" Boomed the angry, slurred voice of a surly woman in her mid 40's. "I'm going to find you eventually!"
10 year old Samantha Walker cowered in the dark closet with her knees pulled up to her chest and silent tears falling that stained the already dirty carpet beneath her. The poor child was shaking profusely, absolutely petrified for what would happen when Michelle found her.
She had been bouncing a soccer ball in the living room and accidentally shattered a glass vase. When she heard a bellowing, "SAMANTHA!" come from her enraged foster mother and heavy footsteps storming down the stairs, she panicked and quickly scampered off to the first hiding spot she could think of. Michelle was erratic, and more often than not, violent when one of the kids pissed her off.
"If you don't present yourself to me right now little lady, it's gonna be a lot worse for you than it already is!"
Sam clamped a hand over her mouth to contain her whimpers. She knew that she should come out of the closet and comply with her guardian's request, but she couldn't bring herself to stand up.
Only a minute later, Michelle burst open the closet door and glared down at the terrified child on the floor. She slowly bent down to Sam's level and scoffed at the pure terror plastered across her face. Sam could smell the scent of alcohol on her breath and radiating from her pores.
"Up you get," She sneered and harshly yanked a whimpering Sam up by her arm and dragged her into a different bedroom. She snatched a wooden hairbrush from the nightstand, causing Sam to panic and cry more than she already was.
"When are you going to stop being so fucking reckless and irresponsible! I liked that vase!" She yelled, only inches away from Sam's face. "And when I'm calling for you, you do NOT run off and hide from me, you little brat!"
"I'm s-sorry," the 10 year old squeaked out, flinching at how intimidating and scary her foster mother was being. Tears were already streaming down her cheeks and the punishment hadn't even begun yet.
"You will be," Michelle growled, easily maneuvering the small body over her lap.
"Please don't!" Sam cried in distress. "Please! I won't do it again! I'm sorry!"
But Michelle ignored her helpless pleas and wasted no time in removing her protective layer of clothing and bringing the hairbrush down in rapid succession.
Sam had slept on her stomach for the next three nights. She stayed in that home for three more months before she was finally moved.
The fifteen year old took a shuddery breath and tried to shake the memory from her head. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Brooke. Brooke was the complete opposite of Michelle. Brooke was safe.
"Hey Sam-" Brooke entered her bedroom but stopped when she saw the apprehensive expression on her foster daughter's face. "Are you okay? What's wrong?" She asked, her voice filled with concern.
"Yeah… uhh.. sorry I'm fine," Sam muttered. "I'm just trying to write my essay and I'm having trouble thinking straight," she said with as much false confidence as she could muster.
"Okay," Brooke sympathized. "Maybe take a break from that for a while to clear your head a little," she said tenderly.
Sam bit her lip. "Therapy got moved to Thursday this week, right?" She looked up at Brooke. Although Sam had liked the idea of therapy initially, it had proven to be difficult. She'd been to three sessions so far, and she was trying to open up and let her therapist in, but it was so draining. Sam thought about whether or not she should tell her therapist about her essay and her dark memories that were resurfacing due to it. She couldn't stomach admitting such a thing to Brooke quite yet, so maybe talking to a stranger would be easier.
"Yep. Thursday right after school," Brooke smiled weekly. She could tell that something was weighing on Sam, but she wasn't going to push.
"Kay," Sam said quietly, trying to keep her composure.
"Sam, seriously. Enough writing for tonight. Go watch TV or relax some other way."
"Fine," the young girl sighed and closed her notebook. Brooke was right, she definitely needed a brain break.
A week passed. Sam submitted her essay a couple of days ago, but the English department still hadn't announced the winner yet. Sam's latest therapy session had been a success; she'd opened up a bit about her past and her struggles while writing the essay. Her therapist encouraged her to talk to Brooke about how she was feeling, and Sam intended to do so soon.
Sam's stomach was swirling with nerves as she approached Haley's classroom. Her day had been going fine until she received a cryptic text message from her English teacher.
See me after class please.
Was it because she had ditched second period the other day? Damn, she thought she had gotten away with that. Was it because she had subtly peeked at the girl's paper next to her during her last economics test? Other than that, Sam couldn't remember anything bad she'd done recently. She sighed deeply before peeking her head around the door to Haley's classroom, expecting the worst.
The teacher was flipping through a book with her back turned when Sam walked in. "You wanted to see me?" The teen asked nervously, still standing in the doorway.
"Yes, take a seat please." Haley said sternly, turning around and standing in front of the desk Sam had sat down at.
"Do you know why I called you here?" Haley asked as she turned around, sounding a little too firm and unhappy for Sam's comfort.
"No…" Sam hesitated. "I guess I'm in trouble, but I don't know what for and I'm sure as hell not gonna start admitting stuff," she smirked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
"I think you know exactly what you did," Haley said seriously, completely straight faced.
Sam racked her brain desperately trying to think of what Haley could possibly be so upset over. She hated being in this position, about to be reprimanded for whatever stupid thing she did by her favorite teacher.
As amusing as it was to watch the teenager squirm in anticipation, Haley decided to put her out of her misery and come clean. She broke out into a massive smile and grabbed a piece of paper next to her on her desk.
"You won the essay contest, and as promised, you're gonna be published in the school paper tomorrow!" She exclaimed.
Sam relaxed instantly and smiled back at Haley. "You suck," she chuckled softly and looked down at the floor. She felt her heart rate return to its normal pace now that she knew she wasn't in trouble and Haley wasn't angry.
"Congratulations, Samantha," Haley beamed. She leaned in and embraced the girl tightly, a gesture which Sam happily returned. "You're gonna be a published writer!" she squealed before releasing her. "That is if that's okay with you."
"Hell yes," Sam smiled. She had put her blood sweat and tears into that essay, and all her hard work had paid off. She couldn't wait to tell Brooke.
Brooke sat on the couch and ran her finger over the front page of Sam's essay, "Homeless in High School." Even the title was depressing. It had been a difficult and draining day for the designer, but the second Sam eagerly showed her the winning essay, all of the stress she harbored instantly vanished and was replaced with an overwhelming amount of love and pride for the girl she'd grown to consider her daughter. The mother was in tears by the time she finished reading. It was the harshest, most poignant piece of writing she had ever read, and she was left feeling an intense amount of grief, sadness, sympathy, and anger. She wanted to strangle anyone who'd ever laid a finger on that child.
It was already 11:00 at night, but Brooke saw the light still on in Sam's room and took the opportunity to talk to her. Sam looked up from the book she was engrossed in when she heard a faint knock on her door.
"Hey, are you okay?" She frowned when Brooke entered the room with red, puffy eyes.
Shit. Brooke had tried her best to pull herself together before talking to Sam, but the teen picked up on the fact that she had been crying right away.
"Oh I'm fine," Brooke said unconvincingly, and took a step further into the room. "I just read your essay… Samantha, it's wonderful. I know I told you already earlier, but I am so incredibly proud of you," her voice cracked and she looked up at the ceiling trying to blink back her tears. "It was a really difficult read," she admitted quietly.
"Brooke, don't cry," Sam laughed slightly. "It's okay, it's in the past. I'm fine." She knew that her essay was brutally honest and deeply upsetting, so she wasn't surprised that her loving, sensitive parental figure was becoming overly emotional over it.
Brooke made her way to Sam's bed and slipped in next to her, engulfing her in the tightest hug she'd ever given the girl. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"What are you sorry for?"
"I'm just sorry. For the way you were treated. For the way the system failed you. I'm sorry that you were exposed to so many horrible things at such a young, vulnerable age," she refused to release her grip on Sam.
Sam shrugged. "It is what it is," she smiled sadly. "It's okay."
"It's not okay," Brooke said in gentle firmness. "I wish that I could erase it all for you. I wish I could have been there."
"You're here now," Sam told the women, melting further into her embrace. "And that's all that matters."