"What piercing?" she murmured.
"What do you mean, what piercing? Little gold stud." He traced his hand back upwards slightly. "Right there."
She wriggled. "Tickling! I never got it pierced. . . "
He chuckled. "You b.l.o.o.d.y well must have, I nearly caught my tongue "
"The Wild Hunt must have come through," she said.
"Oh," said Fitz.
""Sall right. I didn"t even notice. Doesn"t matter." Her back was suddenly tense, her voice lost, drifting.
A million words piled up in his mouth. Which ones should he let through?
"Must"ve been a couple of hours ago now," he managed. "We"d have to have been pretty distracted to miss it. They must be coming more frequently now. . . "
He trailed off. The little voice had finally found something to attach itself to.
He pulled his hand sharply away from her, sitting up, trying to disentangle himself from the sheets. Talking fast, not looking at her. "I"m sorry if you"re not the same one I started out with, I shouldn"t be "
She leaned up and caught his shoulder, holding him there. Her blue eyes were staring into his, without hesitation. "If I hadn"t wanted to, I wouldn"t have pushed you on to the bed."
He blinked. "You didn"t."
156.
"Gordon Christ." She drew in a slow, shaky breath. He could see the thought of it running through her as she sagged back on to the bed.
"Sorry," he said, and he didn"t know why.
After a while he tried, "Hmm?"
"Just thinking about tomatoes," she mumbled. She rolled over on to her side, facing away, curling inward. "Mum always said I used to like them in salads, till I was about six years old. Then suddenly I hated them. Like I"d never liked them. Never even remembered liking them, until she mentioned it one day."
"When you"re a kid, you just change your mind in a moment."
"I"m sick of sodding moments," she said thickly. "I"m sick of them not adding up. I want to remind you about this this some day, and have it be true. . . " some day, and have it be true. . . "
He started to say something, but his throat blocked it and told him to shut up and hug her. He rolled on to his side and wrapped himself around her from behind feeling the smooth curve of her back pressing against his chest, the line of knots along her spine. She smelled like sweat and flowers.
He was so much taller they must really look mismatched. But she was relaxing as he held her, one arm across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s holding her to him, the other stroking her hair. He felt a hand reach back to wrap around him, her fingers resting against the small of his back.
"It"s all right," he murmured, letting the words fall out. "It"s all right, I"m still here."
He felt the arm across him tighten, holding him to her. "I just never thought I"d have to wonder if I"d I"d still be here in the morning," she said. still be here in the morning," she said.
Fitz splashed water from the sink on to his face, then just watched the bewildered expression staring back at him from the mirror. Wondering what on Earth he"d done to earn this.
"Cause you"re human, she"d said. Well, it would have been more flattering if he"d had some kind of edge over the other five billion people on the planet.
Not that he was complaining, mind you. But he felt like the coyote who"d finally caught the roadrunner, who could only turn to the camera with a what-do-I-do-now? look on his face.
He turned off the tap and headed back into the room. She was sitting up in the bed, flipping enthusiastically through the room-service menu, casually showing more of Sam Jones"s skin than he should ever have been allowed to see.
"Ooh, Lo Han Chai," she said. "I want. Might as well, if you-know-who is paying." She must have caught his expression as he settled on to a corner of the 157.
bed. "Something wrong?"
"Oh, nothing," he said. Oh, that was weak, anyone could see through that.
He took a deep breath and forced his eyes to meet hers. "Just wondering if it was you you who was the consolation prize." who was the consolation prize."
"You mean instead of her?" He nodded.
She reached out an arm to him, resting her hand on the outside edge of his thigh. She didn"t seem to be afraid in the slightest. "Well, was I?"
He looked away, glanced down at her arm. He could just see the couple of blotchy black scars nestled in the crook of her elbow.
Now that he thought about it, she"d felt different from what he"d imagined Sam would feel like (and he"d imagined it a few times). She didn"t have the muscles that came from running three miles through the TARDIS corridors every morning before he"d even started to fumble with the coffee maker. She didn"t have the high-tension cables that were always there in Sam"s shoulders, that aura of keyed-up-ness that always hung around her.
Instead she was soft, smooth, with a hint of flab around her belly. The gentle looseness of the arm she"d draped across him. If blonde Sam"s body had been a temple, dark-haired Sam"s was a bit of a run-down church hall. Maybe the kind that had local bands playing in it at weekends. He"d always felt comfortable, performing in places like that.
"Nah," he said. "You weren"t." Even he could hear the hint of surprise in his voice.
"Right answer," she said, reaching for him.
Somehow, he thought distantly, he"d accepted her as a person in her own right.
Not just Sam with the settings changed, someone more like. . . him.
It was funny, but it sort of made him want to be more like she had been.
Maybe it was just a sudden attack of chivalry, but he couldn"t help feeling that she needed someone like that. Who really cared and believed in things, who would take care of them. That wasn"t him. Maybe it could be him. If he he changed a little. changed a little.
This time, he heard the hooves coming.
"Oh, Christ," she said, and her hand tightened on him. "Not again "
And he reached for her as the noise and shouting swelled, and she was falling away from him as the room rushed up and Oh, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, he"d just fallen off the edge of the bed.
He gathered himself up as the noise receded. "Well, that was stylish. . . " His laugh trickled away.
158.
Sam was lying propped up on her elbows, squinting at him as if the light was hurting her, a gla.s.sy hostility in her eyes.
"What"s wrong?"
"You"re kidding." Her voice had a weary rasp to it. "I haven"t had a fix in three days. What do you friggin" think is wrong?"
By the time he had taken in what was going on, she was half dressed, stumbling across the room to find her shirt. She was bent at the waist, one hand to her stomach, pushing him away with the other.
"Let me out of the sodding room, will you?"
She staggered towards the door, tangled up in her shirt. He stopped her, automatically. She was in no shape to go out.
"When I said I"d come here, he said he"d let me see the city, but you kept me locked up. Get away."
She shoved an elbow at him, pulling the shirt on. He caught just a glimpse of the arm the new scars that had spread like spots of mould along her veins, the dark swollen lump in the elbow. His stomach tightened.
He got between her and the door. If she got away, they"d never find her.
"Can"t keep me here," she croaked. "This is kidnapping."
"You said you agreed to come here "
"Nuh. It"s kidnapping. He dragged me out of my flat, took me out of the country, cold turkey the whole way he broke into the loo when I"d just had a hit and took my works away, gotta be a law against that "
She tried to shove him aside. He caught her arms and pushed back. Her nails tore into the back of his hand, and her face that face, but contorted with fury now kept shouting at him a foot from his own.
"You said you"d been clean for three days!"
"That hit was sc.r.a.pings! Empty packets, barely took the edge off. He told me he"d stop it for me. That"s why I said I"d come here "
"So he didn"t kidnap "
"I believed him," she whimpered, "He said he had a way out for me, but he"s left and he"s not coming back "
"You"re not making any sense!" He resisted the urge to grab her, shake her.
"What are you talking about "
She shrieked, "You keep lying to me!"
She pushed around him, but she"d been leaning on him, and she pitched face first into the door. Something cracked cracked as it hit the doork.n.o.b. as it hit the doork.n.o.b.159.
She crumpled, tried to push herself back upright, but could only curl up around the pain in her guts. And all he could do was look at her at Sam Sam bent double in a heap against the wall.
"You hit me," she said weakly. "Right "cross the face."
"I didn"t "
"You smacked my head into the door." She started to sob, dry and pinched.
Fitz"s shoulders slumped. In her head, what had just happened was whatever she felt like saying.
"You want to go," he said. "You can go later. But right now you"re in no shape.
Let"s just get you feeling better, OK?"
She nodded, the fight gone out of her. He reached down and lifted her to her feet, and half carried her back to the bed. "At the very least," he said, "you can try to get your story straight."
She said she"d had a fever, and chills, so he had no idea whether that meant he should keep her warm or cool. He tucked her back into the bed, wetted a face cloth and pressed it across her forehead. She didn"t complain, and she relaxed a bit, but he knew there was a lot more he should be doing if he only knew what.
Eventually he ordered room service, soup for her and a whacking great BLT for himself. He remembered to get dressed before the food got there.
This Sam hadn"t reacted at all to his being naked. What did that say about what she remembered doing with him?
In the end, he just sat there and listened to her.
"We"re not supposed to give a s.h.i.t about life," she said, in that too-familiar voice. "People like us. Like me. Well, that"s c.r.a.p, innit? This is is a life. And you gotta really work at it." a life. And you gotta really work at it."
"Right," said Fitz vaguely. He was mesmerised by the tip of her cigarette. It was quivering slightly as her hand rested on the pillow, threatening to dump its ash at any moment. He wanted it, he was disgusted by it, he had to keep fighting to keep his hands off her now that he"d just got used to being allowed to touch her.
She laughed curtly. "Yeah. Right. It"s hard work keeping yourself this screwed up. But I take care of it. Every morning I get up, there"s something I want, and I get it. Every day." Another drag. "Bet your your Sam can"t say that. Bet she gets up and does stuff she doesn"t give a s.h.i.t about. Ev-e-ry sin-gle day. Can"t remember Sam can"t say that. Bet she gets up and does stuff she doesn"t give a s.h.i.t about. Ev-e-ry sin-gle day. Can"t remember wanting wanting anything. . . " anything. . . "
160.
"Bet you can"t remember wanting anything else," he muttered.
Her face twisted with scorn no, wait, she was about to cry. Or maybe it was the nausea.
She shook her head, and her voice was thick but still somehow defiant. "Look, I know who I am. This is me."
His throat had gone dry. "You don"t have to be."
"Nuh. You don"t get out of this."
"My Sam did." She squinted at him, confused. "I mean, my dark-haired Sam,"
he said.
"She got out early. Once it"s your life, you don"t get out, even if you clean up for a while. That"s just a holiday. You"ll be back in the life before you know it."
"Shh," said Fitz. He picked up the bowl and gently fed her a little more soup.
"Just remember," he told her, holding her hand. "It"s not always going to be like this. The change will come through soon, and then. . . then it"ll all be over with."
For a moment he thought she"d nodded off again. Her face was turned away from him on the pillow. "So what?" she slurred.
"But you"ll be back to "
"Yeah, you keep on saying." She shifted a bit under the covers, her body a contorted heap. "What makes you think the next one"ll be any better"n me?"
He couldn"t answer, he just held her hand harder.
"I keep hearing this every time," she said listlessly. "And why should I care if some other Sam feels better? I"m never gonna remember her."