Sam, Paige and the Unabomber

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After this thread, Paige goes to check up on her older brother. Seems like Sammy has developed a little bit of paranoia about his own self worth. Really cute, really sad, Sam breaks windows. What's there not to like?


Sam frowned, leafing through Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. "This man just doesn't know when to stop a sentence," he muttered. Nathan had insisted that he read the complete edition, and Sam was now wishing that he hadn't agreed. Complete wasn't always good, with something this dense. "Blowhard," he muttered at the long-dead historian, then turned his attention to his notebook. 'History as nothing but a register of the crimes of mankind?' he scrawled, and then looked up at a knock on the door.

"Samuel! Put on a shirt, I'm coming in!" Paige called from behind the door, pausing only a brief moment before letting herself in. She paused in the doorway, allowing herself to take in the sight that was Sam's room, before closing the door behind her. "Honey, I didn't know you were apprenticing to become the next Unabomber."

Sam snorted softly, closing Gibbon and putting him aside. "It's just books, Gee. Very interesting books." He gave her a quick up and down look. "You okay after yesterday?" he asked quietly.

"Very interesting books that exploded all over your room." Paige cleared away a section of Sam's desk to sit on, opening up one of his books onto her lap to flip through idly. She didn't recognise this one. It musn't be one of the library's. "I'm fine, Sammy. I didn't do any of the killing. I just did the clean-up afterwards," Paige replied, glancing up at him. "Besides, these sort of things don't bother me. Guthries are made of tougher stuff and all that. We worry about how it's affecting our psyche later."

"Sure thing," Sam murmured, watching her leaf through Hilton's 'Lost Horizon'. "You might like that one," he said. "It's sort of allegorical. It's about this group of people that get kidnapped to Shangri-La, and some of them think it's Utopia but others think it's a prison..."

Paige issued him a somewhat wry smile, raising her eyebrows. "Is your reading paralleling your life by any chance?"

Sam blinked and then glanced sideways at Gibbon. "Good Lord, I hope not."

"Fine, let me ask you the hard way then," Paige said, closing the book in her lap but not moving it very far away. "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Sam asked meekly, very aware of that penetrating gaze. "Nothing's wrong. Just broadening my horizons and stuff. Attempting to get a little smarter by osmosis if nothing else."

Paige crossed her arms, giving him an unimpressed look. Shifting to make herself more comfortable she remained silent. Obviously, Paige could hold out for an especially long time as she did not believe him in the least.

Sam sighed. "I'm tired of being dead weight, Paige. That what you wanted to hear?"

"Yes, actually. Look, we're bonding," Paige answered in a dry tone that she seemed to reserve only for family these days. "Or at least, we will be when I tell you that I do too. And you're on the bloody team. Ah'm merely some country gal studyin' up on one of those science things." She made a face at her dramatic overuse of an accent she'd long gotten rid of and rolled her eyes. "The thing is, I'm not hiding out in my room because of it."

"Yeah, I'm on the team," Sam said, just as dryly. "And we just do so much good." The thought of Colleen Drew came back, reminding him that yes, they did do good sometimes, but he shoved it away. "As for hiding out in my room, I haven't been. I've taught my classes, I've gone to training sessions - hell, I even made a new friend. That doesn't classify as being antisocial."

Paige tossed her hair angrily, rolling her eyes. "So you're just moping around and avoiding your sister. So much better." Jumping down from Sam's desk Paige made a move to storm up to her older brother before pausing and thinking better of it. "The team is what you make of it, Sam. Don't go blaming anyone but yourself on that one."

"Haven't I made enough of a mess sticking my nose into your business?" Sam asked restlessly. "As for the team, Paige, we just lost another couple of members, remember? Hard enough to do anything as is - if we don't even have the bodies, we're going to be even less effective."

"I know, I know," Paige shot back offhandedly with a wild gesture of her hand. But she didn't want to talk about them right now. "Trust me, we're all feeling those repercussions. I lost my mentor, much as he'd laugh at me if he knew I'd just said that. It sucks." This conversation wasn't going how she'd wanted it to and she made a slightly frustrated noise in the back of her throat, pacing his room. "The point is, and I swear there is one, you rebuild, you get on with life. That's what we've always done, you should be good at it by now."

"And maybe ah am improving!" Sam snapped, jumping to his feet. "Maybe ah don't want to be cheerful, happy-go-lucky, useless Sam, plowing furrows in the lawn anymore!" He gestured around at the book-strewn rooms. "This ain't avoidance, Paige, this is me trying to act like a damned adult with a brain in his head!" He stopped, swallowing. "I'm sorry I haven't been there for you lately," he said, dialing back the accent with some effort. "I just... figured I'd screwed stuff up so badly that you probably would rather I let you do your thing, and stop interfering as if I actually knew what was best for you..."

Paige paused in her paced to whirl around, barely holding herself back from throwing one of his overly large books at his stupid head. "For someone who's trying to act like an adult, you sure are coming off as childish, Samuel. Just because I want you to let me live my life does not mean I suddenly want you out of it." Raising her eyes to the ceiling in a plea for some sort of divine intervention she tried to slow her breath. "I don't know what to tell you, Sammy. Do whatever you want. You will anyway. Just don't go making everyone else worry, would you?" She sighed and made another useless gesture. "God. I love you, but I hate how you always manage to take away all the answers."

Sam gave a humorless laugh, sagging back down onto the bed and sinking his face into his hands for a moment. "Do I? Wish I could figure out why I don't seem to have any, then... I really do." He looked around the books, swallowing past a lump in his throat. "I do look like I'm studying to be the Unabomber or something, don't I? I don't know who I'm kidding..."

"Sammy..." Paige sighed, drawing out his name in an almost whine, but didn't hesitate to cross the room and settle on his lap. It was familiar, the kind of familiarity between siblings who had been inseparable once and sharing chairs was the norm. Grabbing his chin she tipped his head back until she could see his face. "You brat. It looks like my room is what it looks like. Now, unless I have a dark repressed secret, that's somewhat far from any sort of terrorism other than National Untidiness." Her eyes softened as she continued. "You are brilliant, brother darling. No matter what I tell you, we somehow managed to get equal shares on the genius gene, okay? Do whatever the heck feels right to you and don't let anyones expectations, even mine, hold you back from that."

He took her hand, squeezing it gently, and met her eyes, blinking maybe a little too rapidly. "I don't know what's up with me, Gee," he said with a strained little smile, his voice hoarse. "I've been out flying every night for... a while now, trying to get it sorted out, but it hasn't helped. And all of this - " he waved his free hand around at the book, " - doesn't really, either. The talks I was having with Nathan before all this shit happened to him did, at least a little, but I sure as heck ain't about to go pester the man in the medlab." He sighed heavily, gazing at her, troubled. "I don't feel right, Paige. Feel like I'm going through the motions, or going a thousand different directions at once, depending on the time of day." He managed a slightly more convincing smile. "And I'm too damned young to be having a midlife crisis."

Paige smiled weakly in return, threading her fingers with his. "What if I buy you a nice, shiny car? In blue? You like blue, right? And it could go really fast." Trying to laugh she found it only managed to get caught in her throat and instead put her free arm around his waist in something like a hug. "But really. Mister Dayspring will be glad for the company soon and then maybe he can help you sort this out. If he can't, you find someone who can, y'hear? Maybe this is just all part of growing up. Changing."

Sam leaned his head against hers for a moment, closing his eyes. Pull yourself together, you idiot, he chided himself, then managed a soft, unsteady laugh. "Probably," he said, his voice a little shaky. "Don't worry about me, Gee. Suppose I'm just having a good long wallow or something. I'll shake it off."

"That's what I do, brother darling. Fret. Mostly because I love you a heck of a lot. You deny me that and I'm pretty sure the world will implode." Paige turned her head to kiss his cheek. "And you really don't want to be responsible for world implosion, do you?"

Sam made himself smile at her. "Sure don't," he said lightly, wrestling with the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to fly away, up to where the air was thin enough that everything was clear and still and cold enough that his thoughts had to stop spinning. He could wait until she'd gone. "That'd be awful messy, and you know how much I hate cleaning."

Paige tsked at him and shook her head before poking him in the chest. "Out you go. Your eyes dart to the window one more time and I think they'll just spill right out of your head." She slid off his lap onto the floor, brushing herself off. "Have a good time, Sammy. Bring me back a star, kay?" It was an old saying, from old days when he was her hero and she believed he would save the world one day.

Sam stared down at her for a long moment, feeling as if someone had just reached into his chest and clenched a fist around his heart. His eyes blurred, and before she could say or do anything else that do in the last of his self-control, he slid off the bed, turning towards the window and taking only a couple of steps, just enough to be far enough away from Paige, before blasting away. Without sparing a thought for the fact that he hadn't opened the window first.

Watching him go, Paige sighed, wrapping her arms around herself against the chill, before heading out of his room and down to find Mister Marko. Maybe this time they should install a cheaper window. He would probably be going through a lot of them in the next little while.