[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

[st_oriedqueen]

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

Comments

[st_andingtall]

"I'm sure it was a good reason in her mind," Sam replied and took the bottle back again. "And maybe you did do something. But I know her, and I know she overreacts." He met Caroline's gaze steadily. "She's a vampire. She can't help it."

He lifted the bottle and took a small sip. There wasn't much left, and she needed it more than he did right now.

"I know what that's like. I'm...I've got demon blood in me. It's like this-- this disease. This curse. I'm a freak. Even my dad and my brother think I'm a monster."

[st_raighttovampire]

Rebekah had told him about how she'd become a vampire and how her parents had turned on her and her siblings. Caroline...she couldn't do that. Her father had hated what she was, hated it so much he refused to live if it meant being like her. But he was still her father. And she loved and missed him. She lifted the bottle and finished the rest, then dropped the empty into the trash can next to her desk.

"Monsters aren't what's in you. They're what you do," she said. "Monsters - real monsters - can't be saved."

[st_andingtall]

"Semantics." He offered the word with a hint of humor. "I also belong to the school of 'it's what you do, not what you are' that matters. But then again, I kind of have to."

He frowned down at his hands, wishing that he'd thought to grab another bottle on their way out. "I'm a hunter. So if demon blood makes me a monster, I'm the thing I'm supposed to kill."

[st_raighttovampire]

She would have stepped back if she wasn't already pressed against her desk. She slid to the side, instead, putting distance between them. She'd feared that since they'd met, from that first day. She remembered too well how Jeremy hadn't been able to help himself. It didn't matter what he'd wanted. Being a hunter meant he had to hunt.

"It's not semantics." She remembered being delirious, dying. She remembered looking up at Klaus and seeing the pain behind the arrogance. 'Anybody capable of love is capable of being saved.' she'd told him. He hadn't let her die.

"I didn't ask for this. Did you?"

[st_andingtall]

Sam read the fear in her movement and her expressions and said first a simple, "No," and then, "My mother made a deal with a crossroads demon to spare my father's life. I was the price of that deal."

There was no self-pity in it, not this time. This time, he just wanted her to understand where he was coming from.

"My father raised Dean and I to be hunters, but I've never wanted to be one. Dean says I'm shit as a hunter because I always try to save the monsters. I don't. I try to save the people like you and me, who never wanted to be monsters and try not to hurt anyone."

[st_raighttovampire]

"What do you mean by save?" It sucked that Klaus had been right about that, but he had been. She liked being stronger, powerful; she liked knowing that she had unlimited time to do anything she wanted. There was nothing to save Caroline from, except people like Sam and Dean.

"I'm not a monster, Sam. I thought I was for awhile but I'm not. I'm a vampire."

[st_andingtall]

"Protect. From hunters, mostly." That was all the answer he had, at least that didn't get into how much he'd wanted to save Madison, and couldn't, or how personal it sometimes got for him.

"I know you're not." He ran his hand through his bangs again and just looked at her, with his hand still gripped behind his neck. When he let his arm fall again, he said, "And I'm not a hunter. I never wanted to be. I'm not going to try to hurt you, Caroline. I don't want to."

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline sighed. "I don't think I need to be protected either, but--" she smiled, a little bit because it was polite but also because she really did appreciate having a hot guy say he wanted to protect her. She was, in spite of being a vampire, only human. "It's nice of you to offer. And the blood too."

To show she meant it, she moved back around the desk, reversing her previous flight.

[st_andingtall]

Aware he'd passed some Caroline test, Sam relaxed a bit and settled back into his lean against the desk. "You probably don't, but everyone needs someone to watch their back."

That said, there wasn't much left to talk about. At least not that needed to be discussed in private. So he offered her a small, pained quirk of a smile. "If now is still for drinking, I know a great little bar. It's not far from here..."