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Alicia goes to visit Sammy early on Saturday, which for Alicia is after 10AM

Alicia walks up to the door at the Jameson house. She tilts her head; she can hear the sounds of movement and voices inside. Good, someone's up, she thinks.

With a deep breath, she reaches up and presses the doorbell. I really should've called first. If Sammy's not up or not in the mood, I'l just apologize and go.

OOC:  Friday night has to finish unfolding itself before I want to try to answer this.  Patience, pet.  Just because you left early  ;) doesn't mean the party is over.   :angel: 

Sammy's sister opens the door.  "Hi, hey, come in Alicia.  I guess you're here for Samantha?"  She looks up the stairs.  "I'm pretty sure I heard some sounds of life coming out of her room a little while ago."  She turns and bellows  "SAMMY!  ALICIA'S HERE."  Steph smiles conspiratorially.  "I don't think she got much sleep last night."

Alicia smiles pleasantly as her mind adds mischievously, Neither did I, but I doubt it was for the same reason.

She waits patiently for her friend to make an appearance. She nervously adjusts her shades. Last night, she'd planned to stop wearing them, but chickened out in the cold light of the morning.

A few minutes later, Sammy staggers out of her room and down the stairs.  She's wearing mismatched, holey sweats that look as if she probably slept in them, fake fur-topped leopard pattern socks, and her hair is pulled back in a loose, sloppy ponytail.  She yawns hugely.  "Hey Alley. What's up?"

She smells faintly of wood smoke, dragon, and Elrod.

Alicia grins at Sammy's appearance. Alicia herself shows signs of surviving through the morning after.

Her hair looks like it had just a nodding acquaintance with a brush that morning. She's wearing a well-loved T-shirt and torn jeans, covered by her favorite surplus jacket. An unconcealably suspicious bruise decorates the side of her neck, the kind you don't get from a fight.

With a teasingly bright voice, Alicia replies, "I told you I had something to give you and that you owed me a talk, and I didn't want to wait 'til Monday." Under the humor, there is a tentative, inquiring tone, as if unsure whether she's respecting proper boundaries.

"Oh.  OK.  Sure.  Let me get dressed -- have you had breakfast?  We could go get something to eat."  Sammy starts back up the stairs and gestures for the other girl to follow her.

Sammy's room looks different.  Less full, more empty spaces on the walls?  And there's a sleeping bag and some old navy wool blankets on the bed, where there used to be a pretty comforter.  The comforter appears to be mostly jammed into a giant trash bag sitting in the corner.  A shoebox shaped and sized box wrapped in a map of the United States sits on her desk.

Sammy grabs some clothes and ducks behind a partially open closet door to get dressed.

Alicia indulges in curiosity as Sammy changes. She ambles over to the trash bag and the box, tilting her head to examine them. She recognizes the box wrapping and glances thoughtfully at the blank space on the wall.

As she does her walkthrough, she calls out to Sammy in more serious tone, "If you're not up to it, I don't want to push you. I just thought that after Thursday, you might like a friendly ear if you needed to vent."

Sammy says, in the same sort of serious tone, "I'm not sure what there is to say."  Her head pokes around the door, and she says apologetically, "What I mean is, I don't remember exactly how much I already told you.  I was kind of confused when I called, and tired.  Thanks for helping me though.  I do remember that much."

She steps into a pair of jeans.  "I might have said it started when John kissed me on Thursday night.  But it really started way before that.  I must have done a good job of covering up why I was disappearing from lunch last week; nobody guessed.  I was trying to force myself to get over my crush on John, 'cause it was looking like he and Laney had a thing for each other.  I put some distance there so I wouldn't have to see them, so I wouldn't say or do anything really stupid.  By stupid I mean hostile, not my normal flavor of stupid."  She looks around.  "I even cleaned out my room.  Want to go to GoodWill with me?  I need to drop off that bag."

Alicia shrugs, answering the last question first. "Sure. I was hopin' you wouldn't mind going shopping with me anyway."

She gestures at the box and the blank wall. "I get that but," she points a thumb at the bagged comforter, "What's with the bedclothes? Did he give 'em to you for Christmas or somethin'?"

Alicia straddles the desk chair backwards and rests her arms and head on the back. "Did you pack this stuff up before, or after he kissed you?"

Alicia studies Sammy with a level expression. She asks, "Are you jealous of Laney? Why?"

"Remember when we rehearsed here, and she kept passing out and hurting herself?  They were sitting together here, on that blanket, bonding.  I tried washing it a bunch of times, but I couldn't make it clean in my head.  I want to get rid of it.  Mom wants me to just put it away for awhile, but... I don't know.  So yeah, when it clicked on me that he was totally digging her -- he kept asking her to go all these places with him, over and over again, and she got all gooey toward him -- I figured I had to force myself to get over it, you know?  So I cleaned my room, tried to clean my head by staying away, and it would have been good eventually except he got the idea that you're allowed to kiss your friends on Valentine's Day."  She sounds incredulous.    "He kissed me like it meant something, but I knew he didn't mean it.  He's not like me; he's a one at a time kind of guy, and he was into Laney.  That's when I lost my mind."  Sammy starts to pull a sweatshirt over her head and pauses.  "And before you ask, I did talk to him about it, later.  He really didn't mean anything by the kiss, but damn, I don't have to breathe, and it still felt like we went forever without air."

She sits and pulls on socks.  "He likes Laney because he can take care of her and she's willing and available to be taken care of by him.  But he thinks somebody else would be the perfect girlfriend --  Sylvia.  Apparently she'd be the perfect girlfriend because she'd be able to read his mind so he wouldn't have to remember to say things.  How lame is that?  He hasn't figured out how insecure she is, and that he'd have to say the words anyhow to make them count.  People might know some things, but its still nice to hear them or see them."

Alicia tilts her head on its resting place as she watches Sammy.

She says, thoughtfully, "Sounds to me like you're either on your way to getting over him, or trying very hard to convince me, and you, that you are."

Alicia sits up and leans back, holding on to the chair back to keep from falling off. "OK, he's a good kisser. What else is there? What do you see in him that makes you want him? What do you want to get from him that you feel you're not getting now?"

"Whether I'm on my way, or trying to convince myself I am, doesn't matter.  He isn't into me.  I'm his friend, and he enjoys hanging around with me.  But there's nothing else for him, so!" Sammy shrugs.  "I will just have to get over it, won't I?  It's not like there's any other real choice."

Sammy has moved over by the desk.  "It won't be easy, but I'll just have to look for someone else who can give me what I got from him."

Alicia shrugs noncommittally. It's not her place to make suggestions that Sammy is unable or unwilling to contemplate.

"Does this mean you're going to stop avoiding the lunch table?" She adds, somewhat self-consciously, "I missed you."

Sammy looks a little embarrassed by that.  "Sorry," she mumbles.  "Still, it won't hurt me to spend time with my other friends too.  I've been neglecting them.  And Nick too.  Now that I know El's ok... So not all the time, and maybe not for a little while yet.  It'll work out somehow."

Alicia dismisses her apology with a wave. "No prob. We're tight, chica. Just wanted to make sure you knew that."

She gets up from the chair and stretches, linking her hands and bringing her extended arms back over and behind her head. "For what it's worth, Laney looks like a total space case. I think John's just being all guardian angel over her, and she's crushing over it. If it wasn't for the fact she's looney-tunes, she'd probably have figured out by now he doesn't have a thing for her either."

Sammy shrugs.  "Like I said.  Doesn't matter.  She's good enough for now-- the spaciness is a plus, because it makes her needy-- and I'm not.  I have to settle for former best friend."

She moves to her door and opens it.  "Ready to go?  My shoes and coat are downstairs."

"Sure. But hold on," she replies.

Reaching back, she unslings her small backpack and rummages inside to remove a piece of paper. "Here. This is for you."

The paper is a list of materials: flashlight, radio, knife, cash, etc.

"We're going out and getting you a jump bag." She indicates her own bag. "You carry it with you at all times."

Her eyebrows knit and she says mock-sternly, "So next time you decide to fly off in a snit, you're not left stranded with no resources. Can't always count on your white knight to swoop in and rescue you."

Sammy gets an odd smile on her face.  "Not just a White Knight; there was a Blackbird and a Cat too."  She pockets the list.  "Should I bundle this up with the emergency credit card and the GPS unit?  Between El and my dad... now you...  thanks, Alicia."

Alicia's sassy facade slips a little, as she smiles awkwardly in response to Sammy's appreciation. She covers it up with a grin as she hefts the bagged comforter and mimes being bowled over by its heft.

"Hey, just looking out for my favorite 'mana. We sistah's gotta stick together."

Still clowning around, she flips the box on the desk with her foot, causing it to land on top of the bag in her hands unharmed. Balancing the whole thing with ease, she nods to Sammy, "Lead on!"

On the way down the stairs, Alicia asks, "Your dad got you a GPS unit? That is sooo cool!"

"Wait!"  Sammy grabs the box.  "That's not for Good Will.  Just some junk like pictures in there.  It goes in the attic.  Or gets burned.  Something.  I'm not sure what yet."  She sets it back on her desk.


"Yep.  No getting lost again.  At least no staying lost, unless its on purpose."

Alicia smiles with just a touch of smirk but makes no comment.


Alicia nods, the gesture lost behind the bulk of her burden, "I put that in the list as an optional item. And the emergency card can cover the money angle, although I'd still carry a roll of quarters and a couple of bills for small purchases. Oh, and you might want to get a pre-paid cell phone, in case you don't want people to trace your call and find out where you are."

After a pause, she adds, "If you're serious about the staying lost on purpose part, that is."

Sammy replies, "I don't think I'd have any luck with that.  There's talk -- my dad, mostly, but I think El would back him up -- of implanting a transceiver chip in my arm.  I think they're joking.  Maybe."  She smiles to indicate its a joke.

Alicia replies brightly, "No prob. If you need to, I'm sure we can find someone to cut it out."

It's not quite clear if Alicia is also joking.

OOC: I'll throw this in now, unless you want there to be more dialog before this point.

Once outside, as they walk along the street, Alicia asks in a forced-casual tone, "Sam? Does it bother you that I wear shades all the time?"

"No.  It's just a thing you do.  Why?"  Sammy glances sideways at the other girl.

Alicia tries to shrug off-handedly, but fails to mask her nervousness. "I'm thinking of not wearing them any more, but I'm not sure about it."

Sammy stops walking.  "It's not like you have to rush the decision," she says.  "Are you sure you want to, you know, come out?  The minute people see your eyes, they're going to know you're paranormal.  Are you ready for that?"

Alicia stops too, moving the bag to be able to see Sammy.

"It's not as big a deal in that regard. I mean, anyone who's looked at my medical record knows already, so it's not like it's a big secret. Why do you think I'm not on any sports team? And it's not like I've been playing it that low-key in school anyway."

Alicia sighs. "But still, yeah, my eyes mark me, make it obvious I'm not... 'normal.' Is that a bad thing?"

The question is honestly asked, without pre-judgment. She is sincerely curious as to the answer.

"No..." Sammy says slowly.  "I kind of get the feeling that a lot of people know what we are, and that they look the other way and pretend they don't know.  If you take off the glasses, you'll tip the balance.  They'll have to acknowledge who and what you are, and it might draw unwanted attention to you.  Are you ready for that?"  She chews on her bottom lip.  "Some of us, I think, are going to go professional someday.  If you want that, do you want your ID known?  Or would you rather try to have a segmented life?  People don't think about it much, but decisions you make now, good or bad, are going to affect the rest of your life."

Alicia looks away as she thinks about what Sammy has said.

"It's different for me, Sam. You, John, Sylvia, Donnie, heck pretty much all of you can walk around and fit in without any trouble. All you have to do is not use your powers. I don't have that option. Yeah, I can cover up this," she holds up a gloved hand, "and this," she gestures at her face with it, "but I can't blend in even if I do."

Alicia looks back to gaze at Sammy, her face solemn. "I'm starting to think that I wear these not to protect who I am, but because I'm ashamed of how I look."

"Oh."  Sammy chews that idea over.  "Well, then, I guess you have to do what you need to do, when you're ready to do it."  She starts walking again.  "It'll be interesting to watch."

Alicia smiles a crooked grin. "I'll make sure to give you a heads-up when it goes down; wouldn't want you to miss the show."

As soon as Sammy is far enough ahead. "Hey, Sammy! Heads up!" Alicia tosses the bagged comforter at her with a giggle.

OOC: I'm done, if you are.

[OOC:  Almost]

Sammy jumps up a little to catch the bag, and Alicia can see the flight-exhilaration fill Sammy's face, only to be quickly replaced with resignation as she keeps herself tied down to the earth.  With a heavy sigh, she falls in step next to Alicia and heads for the local thrift store.

OOC: And... cut! It's a print! ;D