Who: Sam What: Narrative: Leaving the hospital Where: → a studio off the strip When: Today Warnings/Rating: Some teensy violence meta
Sam was fucking terrified.
She'd done a good job of hiding it throughout the process of talking to the doctors, the lawyers, the feds and the DA. But she was fucking terrified.
Ten days out, and all the swelling was gone. Her bruises were starting to yellow, and there would be nothing left of those in a few days either. The restraint burns had faded, and she thought it was fucking hysterical that she would look exactly the same after all this shit as she'd looked before it happened. And maybe she just wasn't perceptive enough to look in the mirror and notice the subtle changes. Or maybe she just sucked at subtle, because her inky blue eyes were circled and haunted, and she'd developed a habit of scratching at her arms that wouldn't fucking quit unless she had a smoke between her fingers. Cloves, and the nurses had smuggled them in for her, pity on their faces and smiles that said they couldn't look at her without thinking about themselves in her shoes.
The hospital felt safe by then, ten days out, but it wasn't a mental facility. It was a regular old hospital, and she couldn't hide there forever, not when there wasn't anything physically wrong with her. And the shrink on call wasn't worried about letting her go, not with the witness protection detail around to alert if something was fucked up. And Sam had gotten good at lying in those ten days. Sure, it had taken a few days to get there, but she wasn't jerking back from people anymore, and she wasn't screaming for people to leave her room. So, yeah, sure, she was better. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to a facility. She'd made the fucking mistake of thinking she was safe in one, and she wasn't going to repeat that fucking shit again.
And the cops and feds, they were shit at hiding things. Ten days out, and they thought that fucking baby was long dead. Kidnapped kids didn't ever last that long. Searches slowed, and resources were reallocated, and the world had to fucking go on. Everything couldn't stop for Ian Russell, not forever, and the walking wounded just had to pick up the fucking pieces and survive.
But she was still fucking terrified.
Aria, the feds had told her, wasn't an option. They still had some hope of catching Ian, and she was the best witness they had. She'd been rolled into that hospital covered with DNA, with (eventually) a clear memory, and with photographs to boot. She wasn't stupid enough to think they actually gave a shit, but she was useful. And Ian knew Aria, and he knew Joey, and he knew Louis, Lin and Daniel, and he knew every fucking place she'd been over the past six months. So, it had to be somewhere new.
And the anon from the party had been right about the fucking lawyers. They'd skimmed forty percent off the estimated remuneration she'd be due when the feds finished the paperwork on Ian's seized estate. It was their charge for advancing her the money that might not come in for a year. But even with the forty percent gone, it was more money than she'd ever fucking seen. She didn't even know what to do with all those fucking zeros.
So, she let someone else deal with them for her. Luckily, the women's aid non-profit that stepped in to find her studio space - the only thing she could fucking think of to ask for - found her an old, squat brick building in an industrial area off strip that was quiet and big enough for her to hide in. Because that's what she wanted to do - hide. The previous occupant had left a couch, and a desk, and a small fridge, and then it was just a matter of a crazy fucking amount of metal and art supplies, which the non-profit had delivered without batting a fucking eyelash. No, she didn't want furniture or clothes or anything else (she'd stock some booze later, thanks). And the feds, they just made sure the paperwork wasn't traceable. New name, new identity, but she still felt like the same old Sam.
And, then, eventually she was alone. And she was fucking terrified.