Sam

Sam raised her hand to knock on Will's door, but he called for her to get in before her knuckles met wood. With a small shiver, she opened the door and entered.

Will was still sitting in his chair, both eyes closed, hands upturned on his legs, the right one twitching. There was a note of strain over his gaunt, pale countenance. Half his shaggy hair had been shaved off to permit access to his skull, and a circular red scar stood out stark against his scalp. Sam had a similar one. Or at least, she had had one. She was pretty sure it had healed over by now.

"Serene wouldn't tell me what you guys talked about," she observed.

"I asked her not to," Will replied neutrally.

"Why?"

"Because you don't need to know everything that goes on in the world. It won't do you any good."

"Is it about…" She chewed her lip. "...about killing?"

"Probably not."

"Because if it is… Brimstone's dead now, and for all of Buck's faults, he does seem like he'll be a decent ruler. So you won't need to do that kind of thing anymore."

Will slowly turned his face toward her; good eye gently shut, sad eye knotted closed. There was iron in his face. Then his features slowly gentled, and he gave a tiny smile. "I'll try, Sam," he said. "I'll only kill if I have to. But I am what I am. You need to understand that as well."

She went over and embraced him softly from behind, even though she wanted to squeeze him so tight he'd pop. "I understand."

Once Will made it clear that he was all hugged out, she asked him where he wanted to go, and Will wondered if the keep gardens had survived the fires. They had—Sam had gone there a few times over the last week for a breath of fresh air when seeing Will all despondent and empty had gotten too much—and it seemed to her like a good first destination to train Will's strength back up. It wasn't too far to travel, and they'd stay within close distance of medical help if they needed it.

"I don't think there are any wheelchairs in this place," Sam said regretfully, "but I could carry you if you'd like!"

Will chuckled. "My hero. No, I think I'd prefer to use my own two legs. Wouldn't mind a bit of support, though."

Said and done. She took Will by his good left arm and helped him ease out of the chair, then into the hall. He moved laboriously and with obvious strain, heavily favoring his stiff right leg. They stopped several times so he could catch his breath as they made their way through the residential wing, and once he tripped so that he would have fallen if she hadn't caught him.

She could tell that he was angry. Angry with his own weakness, maybe. Barely keeping it contained behind tightly pressed lips, quivering at the corners. She held his arm the whole way and murmured encouraging words. Eventually they made it out of the winding hallways of hewn rock and onto a sunny terrace with a shallow staircase leading down into the walled-off garden. Completely untouched by the devastation, it was a little slice of green and variegated floral colors that would almost let you forget that the rest of the city was a blasted hellscape.

She led him carefully down the steps and onto a gravel path among the greenery. By the time she had set him down on a white wood bench he was wheezing. His temples sparkled with sweat. Taking a seat next to him, she wiped his face dry with her sleeve. It wouldn't do to have him catch a cold on top of everything else.

"Quit fussing," Will muttered, and swatted weakly at her.

Sam guided his hand firmly back down. Tugging on his ear, she said: "I get to fuss as much as I want after what you put me through, nerd."

"That's…"

"I don't mind you hamming up your whole brooding loner act, but that doesn't mean I have to go along with it."

Will hesitated, sad eye twitching. Then he sighed and said: "Fine. For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

He let her guide his head down onto her shoulder, and his stiffness slowly melted away as they sat there under the sun, just the two of them. His labored breathing grew more regular, and his eyelids stopped twitching.

"You really scared the shit out of me," Sam murmured, stroking the remainder of his hair.

"I know. I'll try not to do it again."

"You better not! Also, if you think I'm ever leaving you again, you are delusional. From now on, I stick to you like…"

"A tumor?"

"A really fucking big one!"

Will chuckled softly, then breathed out, growing serious. "You're right. From now on, we stay together."

"Good! I'm glad you understand!" Sam huffed.

"I love you, stupid."

"I love you too! And you're stupider! The stupidest!"

"Guilty."

They stayed like that for a long time, just silently enjoying each other's company. Sam dozed off at some point—she had barely slept when Will was doing badly, and even before that when she had been traveling south from Freetown.

She was woken up by Will repeatedly flicking her nose.

"Wuh…?" she mumbled, cracking an eye.

"You're squishing me."

"Oh!" Sam quickly perked up and lifted her arm, letting Will sit up straight and work the stiffness from his neck. "Sorry! I didn't mean to."

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Will smiled, and she felt that he was taking her in even though his eyes were closed and his face pointed off somewhere into the distance. "Don't worry about it. I've missed your bear hugs."

"That's good, because you'll be getting lots. Lots and lots and lots. And lots."

"I guess I should hurry up and get better then, so you don't break me by accident." He brought his right hand up and tried to make a fist, only managing to curl three fingers. He folded the last two with his other hand, grimacing.

"Does it hurt?" Sam asked.

"Mmhmm."

"Where is it the worst?"

"Stomach, probably. It feels like… there's something trying to claw its way out of me. Like that."

"Ouch. I'm sorry."

"I'm sure it'll get better."

"It will."

She got the feeling that he was looking her up and down again, and asked: "So you're blind?"

"Looks that way." Will was still facing away, but she could feel his stare on her as strong as ever.

"But you can still see?"

"Yep."

"How? One of those skills of yours?"

He tapped the side of his head, grinning. "Correct. Right now, I'm using Detect [Air]. It lets me read nearby air currents, which in turn allows me to make out the rough outline of anything they come up against."

"So you can see everything around us?"

He gave a small half-shrug. "Well, more or less. It's not very good with detail, and it seems to be less useful out here—too much wind muddling the reading, creating excessive input. Maybe it would work better if I decreased the sensitivity. I'll need to fiddle with it, or maybe come up with some alternative methods."

"What about color?"

"No color, I'm afraid. It's kind of like…" He thought about it for a second, turning his head this way and that. "...like someone sketched on a sheet of black paper with a white pen. Silhouettes, outlines, moving like running ink… It beats being blind, but the inputs can be confusing, and seeing this way does make my head hurt after a while. It'll take some getting used to."

"Clever boy, aren't you?"

"Anything to impress a pretty girl."

"Like Serene?"

He snorted. "You're not going to let that go, are you? You're a more jealous person than I thought."

Sam crossed her arms indignantly. "Well, you never had any other girls following you around, so it was never a problem. I always got to have you all to myself."

"Lucky you."

"Yeah! So you'd better find lots of time for me, or I'll…"

"Beat me up?"

"You wish I'd let you off that easy! I'll tie you in a knot around a tree—see how the girls like you then."

Will laughed. Sam cracked a grin, happy at seeing him happy. It had been too long since they'd gotten to spend time together like this, with nothing to worry about except each other. Ever since she had arrived on the Frontier, it seemed like there had always been one thing or another taking up their attention.

"You look… Sammier than usual," he observed out of nowhere.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked, suspicious.

"It means you've put on some extra mass. Gotten taller, too. I'm guessing you allocated a couple points into Strength or Toughness?"

"Um… Strength, yeah."

"All eight? I noticed that you've reached Level 9."

"Oh, no—just four, actually. I got to Level 9 on my little Greensby marathon, but I haven't spent the points yet. I guess I was kind of hoping you'd wake up and tell me what to do with them. It sounds stupid, I know, but…"

Will smiled and patted her leg. "I get it. Either way, it might be best to save them for now. You'll get your derived attribute at Level 10, so having some extra points to put into that straight away would be nice. Speaking of which, we'll need to have a chat about what to do with your specialization at some point."

"That's true."

"Still, for only four points to produce such a dramatic physiological effect…" He plucked absently at the digits of his right hand, trying to limber them up. "Maybe the points you got from the tournament hadn't been fully embodied when I saw you last. And your high effort modifiers in Strength and Toughness might make up the rest of the discrepancy."

Sam pressed her legs tight and folded her arms, embarrassed. "You don't need to write a whole thesis about my body, geez… I'll work up a complex about it."

"Why?"

"Because!"

"I never said it was a bad thing."

"I know I'm not the… the girliest, okay? You don't need to talk about me like I'm some kind of sasquatch."

"You worry about the weirdest things."

"Wanting to look at least decent is not weird! You only think that way because you don't know anything about girls!"

"True enough, I suppose." Will groaned as he lifted his stiff right leg up onto the bench, then swung the other one up beside it so he could lean back against her. "You're lucky you're pretty, because you really haven't got much between the ears."

"Pretty?"

"Mmhmm."

"Yeah, but… I'm not beautiful the way Serene is. She's like a flower, and I'm like… a fucking school bus or something."

"Sam, please. If I didn't like my girls on the beefier side, why would I ever have been into you in the first place? It's not like it came out of nowhere."

"Maybe it was my sparkling personality that drew you in, and now you're too nice to say I look bad," Sam pouted.

Will snorted, and lifted his right arm with his left to let it rest in his lap. "When have I ever been too nice to say anything? And as for personality, you've always been a massive pain in my ass."

"Maybe you're a masochist."

"I'd say that's a sure thing, considering how long I've put up with you." He tipped his head back on her shoulder, and opened his good eye to look up at her even though he couldn't see anything with it. "You're just fishing for compliments, aren't you?"

"No! How dare you!"

"You look like a princess, Sam. Maybe a princess who fell out of her castle and was raised by grizzly bears, but still." He winked, but his other eye was shut so it was more just an awkwardly long blink. "You're beautiful. I'll always think that."

Sam covered a blush by pretending to massage her cheeks. "Even if I'm twelve feet tall and you have to carry a ladder around to kiss me?"

"That's ridiculous. You'll never be twelve feet tall, regardless of how many attribute points you have. Besides, you'd be the one carrying the ladder."

"Unfair!"

"Completely fair."

"You're the guy! You're supposed to be a gentleman!"

Will shut his eye again with a disdainful scoff. "Then you got with the wrong man, sweetheart." He shifted his shoulders as he got comfortable, and elbowed her a few times in the ribs to get her to shuffle along so he'd have more room to stretch out. "You'll always be perfect to me," he murmured. "Twelve feet tall, or four, or whatever. That being said… This look—it suits you. It feels like every time I see you, you look more like yourself."

"Yeah, but…"

"Being tall or having a bit of muscle doesn't make you any less of a girl. I just haven't given you much chance to feel like one, and that's my fault. I'll have to stuff you in a dress sometime, take you out somewhere."

"You won't be 'stuffing' me into anything!" Sam protested, though she was blushing harder than ever. "But, well… I suppose I'm not completely opposed to the idea. And t-thanks. For… not thinking I look weird."

"Oh, you're definitely weird. Lucky for you, that's how I like 'em."

"Idiot."

"Love you too."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.