Who: Shannon Rutherford and Sam Winchester
What: He's got a couple of things he should say.
When: Day 30, late morning.
Where: The museum.
Rating: PG-13.
Status: Active.

Sam felt little of the relief that he usually felt on returning to the Museum after an experiment. Other than a handful, he'd spent most of his nights in Vas at the museum sharing a room and body heat with Shannon. He'd come to think of it as home. Even after the earthquake, when the old building had magically been rebuilt overnight he and Shannon had returned to the room he now thought of as theirs.

Except now she wanted to leave and if Sam was honest with himself, he wouldn't mind a change in scenery. As many good things that had happened in that room - late night talks with Shannon, their first kiss and the events of a couple of nights ago when they'd admitted their feelings for each other were much more serious than a distracting flirtation - there had also been a number of bad things that had taken place within those walls, the most recent of which had involved their first and only real fight over the body of his brother. So even though he felt like he should feel a bit of guilt at leaving a place that had come to mean so much to him, he felt none. If Shannon wanted to leave then he would leave and a small part of him thought that going back to just being the two of them might not be a bad thing.

Of course all of that was dependant on if she still wanted to be around him after she found out what he'd done. What he'd been made to do. The fact that he hadn't been in control of himself, but instead led around by the Management still made him shudder involuntarily. Normally he'd be furious, and he was, but the feeling that cancelled that out at the moment was fear.

No matter what they'd thrown at him so far he'd always been in control of himself. He'd always had choices to make, but to know that they could take him over at any time and use him against people he cared about made Sam reevaluate everything. Rose could be a werewolf now because of him. What was to say they couldn't take him over at any time and use him against Shannon, or Andy or Lexie or any other innocent bystander? Who was to say they couldn't tap into the abilities that he'd refused to develop for himself and make him into the kind of monster that he'd always secretly been afraid was right there under the surface. The one that his dad had told Dean to kill him over instead of letting him become it.

He'd always told Dean that he wouldn't become that, had tried to prove that he wasn't any different than the little brother he'd always known, but the truth was Sam had always banked on having a choice. Of being able to choose whether or not to play into the yellow eyed demon's plans and now he didn't know if that option was still on the table or not. Maybe, in the end, he'd been lying to himself all along. He really was just a chess piece for someone else to move around at will.

He pushed open the front doors and made his way back to their room, knocking lightly before pushing the door open and sticking his head in. "Hey," he said, when he saw her, giving her a small smile before opening the door and slipping in. "It's good to see you."