Chapter Text
I. Mindy
Sam is making dinner when she hears a sneeze.
"Bless you!" she calls, getting a muffled "Thank you!" from the living room in response. She goes back to massaging the kale with lemon juice and olive oil and wonders idly when this became her life.
(Because look, she's never been the type of girl to care about fancy food—is honestly more acquainted with the snack display at the bodega than the organic produce aisle at the grocery store—but Danny apparently has standards when it comes to food and loves to cook, and it's maybe rubbed off on her just a little bit, and she knows that eating healthy is honestly in all of their best interests so...yeah, she's massaging freaking kale.)
Not even sixty seconds later she hears another sneeze, followed closely by a third.
Sam frowns and rinses her hands off before going to poke her head into the living room. Mindy is sitting on the couch looking miserable, eyes watery and cheeks flushed red.
"You okay?"
Mindy nods. "Yeah, I'm fine, it's just—"
She's interrupted by another sneeze, and Sam raises an eyebrow at her.
"It's probably… I don't know, allergies or something," Mindy says defensively.
Sam stares at her and tries not to laugh. "Allergies."
Mindy nods.
"In February."
Another nod, this one a little more petulant.
"In New York, where I don't think a single plant outside has been alive for at least three months."
Mindy groans and flops backwards onto the couch. "Fine. So maybe I'm coming down with a cold or something, it's not a big deal."
Sam hums under her breath and then turns to go to the bathroom. She digs around in the first aid kit she's put together, smiling victoriously when she pulls out the thermometer. She goes back to Mindy and shoves it at her. "Here."
Mindy rolls her eyes and mumbles, "You're totally overreacting," but accepts the thermometer, sighing dramatically as she pops the cap off and sticks it under her tongue. A few seconds later, the thermometer beeps. Mindy removes it and glares down at the device like it's done something to personally offend her when the screen turns red.
"Let me see." Sam holds her hand out until Mindy reluctantly hands it over, and she winces when she sees the flashing 101.2 F on the screen. "Coming down with a cold, my ass." She pulls Mindy up off the couch and ushers her down the hall towards her room. "Go lay down. I'll run out and grab some cold meds and Gatorade." She waits until Mindy nods and shuffles into her room, shutting the door behind her.
Sam passes the kitchen and groans under her breath as she sees the neglected remnants of the kale.
Apparently, dinner is going to have to wait.
II. Chad
Mindy doesn't come out of her bedroom for a solid three days, but on the morning of the fourth Sam grins when she sees Mindy sitting blearily at the kitchen table holding a mug of coffee. "Well, look who decided to rejoin the land of the living."
"Ha ha," Mindy grumbles. "I'd like to see you be a chipper, fully-functioning human being while your immune system is—" She winces when Sam adjusts the window blinds and sunlight streams into the kitchen. "Okay, yeah, I'm still too tired for this."
Sam laughs quietly and squeezes Mindy's shoulder. "I'm glad you're feeling better." She pours some coffee into a to-go mug and says a silent thank you that at least they've managed to make it through without anyone else catching whatever the hell Mindy had.
Her relief lasts right up until she comes back from work later that night and walks into the apartment to find Chad sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by a pile of crumpled tissues. Even at a distance she can see that his eyes are glassy from fever, and she sighs and pauses halfway through taking her coat off.
"Don't tell me."
He looks over at her with a hangdog expression. "It's not my fault! Blame my sister!"
He's congested enough that the words come out slightly lisped, and Sam sighs and digs around in one of the cabinets. She pulls out a disposable mask and shoves it at him. "Here."
He grimaces but reluctantly puts it on, dropping his head down to the table and sniffling pathetically.
(Sam barely holds back an eye roll at how dramatic both Chad and Mindy have been about having to wear masks when they're sick. She knows it's not great, but also they should have known what they were signing up for when they decided to move in with her and Tara. It's one thing for them to get sick, but even a simple cold can spiral rapidly if it gets into Tara's lungs and Sam refuses to take any chances.)
She inhales slowly and reminds herself that she actually likes Chad a lot, when he's not being a mopey idiot. "Did you take any cold meds yet?"
He shakes his head. "Mindy used the rest of the Nyquil last night."
Sam glances at her watch. Tara has an evening class and won't be back for another hour, and they are running a little low on groceries...she sighs again and zips her coat back up. "I'll go get some more."
She's almost to the door when Chad calls after her. "Maybe some chicken soup too?"
He's staring at her hopefully when she turns back to look at him, and she shakes her head. God, she's such a pushover.
"And some chicken soup."
***
Tara is home by the time Sam gets back from the store, and she glares at Chad when she sees him laying on the couch with Tara.
"I've got my mask on!" he says, pointing to his face. Tara is wearing one too (and Sam knows it's probably just to humor her, knows that Tara thinks she worries too much), but irritation still bubbles up in her chest.
She unpacks the groceries and throws the box of cold medicine at him, satisfied when it smacks him in the side of the head and earns her a disgruntled, "Hey!"
It makes her feel a little better, but she still catches herself staring thoughtfully down at a spare can of chicken noodle soup.
It's not quite as efficient as a knife, but she's pretty sure it will work just fine as a murder weapon if he gets Tara sick. She almost feels bad for thinking about it even jokingly, but also...she glances up at the couch and frowns when she sees Tara pressed up against Chad's side.
She's totally, definitely, 100% not going to murder Chad with a can of chicken noodle soup even if Tara does end up getting sick.
(But if she tucks the extra can away in the cabinet just in case, then that's her business and no one else's.)
III. Danny
Two days later, she's on her way home from work and fires off a quick text to Danny while she's on the subway.
Sam: We still on for dinner?
It takes a few minutes before she gets a response.
Danny: Rain check? Pretty sure I caught whatever Mindy and Chad had.
She sighs. He's at their apartment enough that it's not entirely unexpected, but it still sucks.
Sam: No worries. I can swing by with some nyquil. Any soup requests?
Danny: Don't worry about it
Danny: You just got off work. Don't make an extra stop on my account
She rolls her eyes. She likes Danny a lot—more than she honestly would have thought possible after everything with Richie—but sometimes he can be such an idiot.
Sam: I literally have to walk past the bodega to get to our building you dork. What kind of soup?
Danny: ...vegetable.
Danny: Have I told you today that youre the best?
Sam: No, but I'll give you a pass since youre sick.
Sam: Be there in twenty
She slips her phone back into her pocket, lets her head tip against the window of the subway car with a thunk, and wonders whether it's too late to buy stock in NyQuil.
IV. Tara
She wakes up to the sound of Tara coughing the next morning. Even through the wall separating their bedrooms, she can hear the wheeze in Tara's breathing, and she immediately rolls out of bed and pads down the hall to Tara's room.
"Tara?"
She gets a muffled grunt in response and frowns. She makes her way over to the bed and sits down on the edge, pulling the blankets back enough to uncover Tara's head.
"Fucking Chad," Tara mumbles, and Sam barely manages to catch the I told you so waiting on the tip of her tongue.
Tara shoves at her leg. "Shut up."
"I didn't say anything!" Sam protests, and Tara pokes at her leg again.
"I can literally hear you thinking it."
Sam opts to let it drop because really, she would have been just as happy to be proven wrong in this case, and instead just says, "I'll be right back."
She retreats to her room and grabs a small box from underneath the bed. It's filled with the items that she always makes sure to keep on hand for Tara and no one else—a spirometer, a pulse ox, a nebulizer, spare inhalers, and some menthol shower tablets. Tara groans when Sam comes back and sets the box on the edge of the bed, but she lets Sam pull her upright and grudgingly picks up the spirometer while Sam clips the pulse ox onto her finger.
Five minutes later, she flops back against the pillows. "Happy I'm not about to keel over now?"
"Not really," Sam says with a frown. "I would be happier if you weren't sick to begin with." She scoots closer on the bed so that she can press her fingers into the space between Tara's shoulder blades, kneading the muscles there until they loosen somewhat. Tara moves closer until her head is resting on Sam's thigh, and Sam brushes a strand of sweaty hair back from Tara's face. "I'm going to run out and pick up some nebulizer treatments. Will you be okay for a few minutes?"
Tara nods, but her fingers still curl into the fabric of Sam's shirt in an attempt to prevent her from leaving. "Hurry back."
Sam reluctantly pries herself free from Tara's grasp and pauses just long enough to throw her shoes on and grab her phone and wallet before jogging out the door. She makes quick work of both the pharmacy and the market the next street over, speeding down the aisles so that she won't be away from Tara for any longer than necessary.
She drops the groceries on the counter and immediately goes to Tara's room. The part of her that panics every time Tara is out of her sight—
Anythingcouldhappenandyouwouldn'tbetheretoprotectherwhywouldyouleaveheralonewhywouldyoudothat
—quiets slightly when Tara gives her a weak wave from the bed before burrowing back under the covers. Sam can't resist moving closer until she's able to reach out and touch Tara's shoulder, to reassure herself that everything is okay and Tara is still breathing and she hasn't failed her sister (again).
Satisfied for the moment, Sam returns to the kitchen and pulls out the biggest pot they own. She dices an onion and dumps it into the pot along with the estrella pasta she picked up at the market, stirring until everything is browned and the onion is just beginning to turn translucent. The chicken quarters go in next, followed by an assortment of spices and herbs. She pours water into the pot until everything is covered and then turns the stovetop on, glancing at the clock to check the time.
The soup is an odd mix of two of Tara's favorites—estrellita sopita and caldo de pollo. She started making it when they were still kids, back before everything fell apart, and even though Tara would never ask for it, Sam knows that it's still one of the few guaranteed ways to get her to eat when she's sick.
She spends the rest of the day alternating between dozing in bed with Tara and checking on the soup, shooing Chad and Mindy out of the apartment once they wake up so that they won't disturb Tara. Danny drops by at some point to bring her a sandwich and water bottle while she's resting with Tara, and she shoots him a grateful smile as he drops a quick kiss to the side of her head before heading for the door again. She's consistently grateful for how he seems to just get that Tara will always be her priority, and she catches him by the wrist and pulls him back for a proper kiss and a murmured, "Thank you," before letting him leave.
Aside from waking up every few hours to do a nebulizer treatment or take more cold meds, Tara remains asleep for most of the day. She finally stirs and blinks sleepily up at Sam when Chad and Mindy come back in the evening.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Sam asks. Her worry that this will turn into something more severe has lessened as the day has gone on and Tara's symptoms have improved, but she's still anxious that there's something she might have missed.
"Did you make soup?" Tara looks at her hopefully, hair messy from sleep and shirt askew across her shoulders.
"Of course. Do you think you could eat?"
When Tara nods, Sam smiles and climbs out of the bed, making her way to the kitchen.
Chad and Mindy are already there, and Sam eyes them suspiciously when she takes in how close they're standing to the pot. "Hands off the soup," she says as she reaches for a bowl and spoon.
"Come on, Sam, you made enough to feed, like, twenty people. It's not like Tara is going to eat all of that!" Chad looks at her pleadingly, and Sam jabs the spoon in his direction.
"Don't even think about it."
Mindy rolls her eyes but moves to the fridge, clearly uninterested in fighting Sam for some of the soup. Chad, on the other hand, looks between the pot and Sam before trying again. "You didn't make me and Mindy soup! I call favoritism!"
She just shoots him a look that clearly says Duh before nudging him out of the way so that she can ladle some of the soup into the bowl.
"Fine," he sighs, "Keep all the soup for Tara. But I'm just saying, if there are leftovers, you know where to find me."
"Hmm." Sam sets the lid back on the pot and retreats to Tara's room, handing the bowl of soup to Tara. She sets up the nebulizer while Tara eats, takes the empty bowl and takes it back to the kitchen while Tara does a treatment, and comes back just in time to see Tara slipping the mask off and sliding back down under the covers.
Sam slips into the bed next to her, resting on her back and allowing Tara to move closer until she's laying draped across Sam's body. She strokes gentle fingers through Tara's hair and smiles when Tara lets out a soft hum and snuggles into her neck.
"Thanks," Tara mumbles, and Sam squeezes her harder for a moment, overwhelming love and fondness making her throat go tight.
"Of course. Now go to sleep, I'll wake you up when it's time for another treatment."
V. Sam
It takes three days—just long enough for Tara to be almost completely recovered, just long enough for Sam to start to think that maybe she'll escape this without getting sick—before she wakes up feeling like she's swallowed sandpaper. Even her teeth hurt, but she drags herself out of bed anyways and puts a mask on before leaving her room. It takes her three times as long to get ready as it usually does, and she's exhausted before she even makes it out to the door.
When she arrives at her first job, she promptly decides that the universe has a cruel sense of humor.
Normally she likes working at the UPS warehouse; loading packages onto the trucks is a solid workout and it's the sort of thing she can do without much thought once she finds a good rhythm. It's technically a union job, which makes it harder for them to fire her if she gets bad press from a Ghostface attack in the future, and the fact that it's third shift means it's easy to fit around her other job. Usually it's pretty great.
What is significantly less great, however, is trying to load trucks while sick. Add in three of her coworkers calling out and her supervisor dumping an extra two trucks on top of her usual load to make up the difference, and it's a recipe for absolute misery.
She finds herself falling behind as the shift drags on. Her muscles ache with the effort of heaving boxes from the conveyor belt to the trucks, and she's breathing hard by the time her ten-minute break rolls around.
The last hour is the worst. She stumbles in and out of the trucks on autopilot, and at one point she pauses after loading a package and just leans against the shelves in the truck. The metal edge is blissfully cool against her forehead. She contemplates whether she could get away with just curling up on the floor of the truck behind an especially large box (and god, she wants to kill whoever decided to order an 80-inch TV), but her supervisor's voice drags her out of the fantasy.
"Sam! What the hell? You're missing boxes out here!"
"Coming!" she shouts back—or tries to, because it comes out as more of a hoarse squeak when her throat protests the volume. She forces herself to jog back to the belt and prays that she can make it through the rest of the shift without passing out.
By the time she eventually makes it back to the apartment, she's officially done. All she can think about is needing to be horizontal, preferably unconscious, and she barely pauses for long enough to toe off her shoes on the way to her room.
"Hey, are you okay?" A sideways glance shows Mindy sitting at the kitchen table.
"I'm fine," Sam mumbles. "Just tired."
She's grateful that Mindy is by herself. If Tara was there she would see past the paper-thin excuse in a heartbeat, would push until she got the truth out of Sam. But instead, Mindy just watches her skeptically as Sam brushes past and heads down the hall, not slowing until she's safely in her room.
The dark quiet of her room is even better than she'd imagined (and god bless whoever invented blackout curtains), and she promptly collapses face-down on her bed. She doesn't bother trying to take her work clothes off, just closes her eyes and falls asleep in seconds.
***
She jolts awake an unknown amount of time later. She'd been hoping that she would feel better after resting, but the opposite seems to be the case. Her whole body feels like she's been run over by a truck, and every breath is like sliding a serrated knife between her ribs.
She fumbles for her phone and squints into the agonizing brightness of the screen. It's a little after 2:00am, which means it's technically time for her to start getting ready for work again, and she flops back against the bed and debates whether she can get away with calling out. She already missed a shift while Tara was sick, and her mind flashes to the too-small number in her bank account and the pile of bills that still need to be paid. It's enough to make the decision for her, and she slides out of bed, shivering as the blanket falls from around her.
She leans heavily against the wall as she stumbles to the bathroom. It's hard to stay focused long enough to even remember what she's trying to do, and it takes three attempts before she's able to successfully brush her teeth. She's just barely managed to set the toothbrush back down again, mouth minty and sharp in a way that occupies most of her awareness, when she realizes with some consternation that she's slowly leaning to one side.
Well that's not good.
She tries to force herself upright again, begging her body to cooperate with her, but it's no use. Her knees give way all at once, and she just barely manages to catch herself against the edge of the tub on the way down. Dark spots dance at the edge of her vision, and she slides the rest of the way down until her cheek is pressed against the scratchy orange rug.
Part of her knows that she should fight to stay awake, that it's going to cause so many issues if one of the others finds her like this, but she just doesn't have it in her. She's tired, so tired of fighting all of the time. It's too much, and she just thinks I hope Tara isn't the one who finds me before closing her eyes and letting herself sink fully into darkness.
***
"Sam? Sammy?"
Nothing feels real. She can hear the distant sound of worried voices, but opening her eyes feels like a herculean task. She's swimming through mud, her mind fuzzy and jumbled, and she almost gives up before she hears her name again.
"Sam, please, I need you to open your eyes if you can hear me."
Tara.
Guilt slices through her as she processes the open fear in Tara's voice, realizes that she's the cause of it. She tries desperately to say something in response, to reassure Tara and tell her it's okay, she doesn't need to worry, but her mouth and tongue are weighted lead.
She finally manages to open her eyes a crack, wincing as the glare of the light stabs at her.
"Hey, Sammy, there you are." It takes a second for Tara to come into focus. She's hovering in front of Sam's face—or maybe hovering over her? Everything is confusing and it's hard to track where she is and whether she's sitting or laying down—but her palms are cool and soft as she cups Sam's face. "What happened, Sammy?"
Sam licks her lips and starts to say something, only to have the words turn into an angry, barking cough. Her whole body shakes from the force of it, and it's only Tara's hands smoothing across her heated skin that keeps her from flying apart entirely.
"Danny, we need to—"
Sam blinks as the rest of Tara's sentence fades out. She hadn't even realized Danny was there, but when she blinks again and turns her head she sees him standing in the doorway. He and Tara are talking, and she's pretty sure that Chad and Mindy are saying things too, but she can't seem to focus long enough to follow the thread of the conversation.
She lets the world slip back into a hazy blur, snippets of everyone's voices drifting through the air in a comforting thrum right up until she hears the word hospital.
"No." She's not sure if anyone even hears her, and she struggles to try to push herself upright. "'m fine, I don't need to go to the hospital." A gentle pressure between her shoulder blades eases the strain of trying to sit up. It's Tara—always Tara, her sweet sister, trying to take care of her and help her and give her all of the things that Sam thinks she doesn't deserve—but just this once, Sam can't help but lean into her.
"You're not fine, Sam." Tara's voice is a whisper in her ear, but Sam still has to hold back a wince at how it grates across her nerve endings. "You're sick, and I—I'm scared. I can't lose you."
Sam turns her face into Tara's body so that her nose is pressed against the jut of her collarbone. She wants to give in to what Tara is asking. She really does—has always hated refusing Tara, would give her the world and a lifetime of "yes" if she could.
But ER visits are expensive, and she's got a stupidly high deductible on her shitty health insurance, and she doesn't know how they would dig themselves out from underneath a new five-figure medical debt. She's still paying off the medical bills after everything in Woodsboro, and their budget is stretched nearly to the breaking point as it is.
"NyQuil," she mumbles. She can feel Tara's confusion, and she tries to muster the energy to clarify. "Give me some NyQuil. If it doesn't help, then you can take me."
She wants to say more, to make a stronger case for why they absolutely shouldn't take her to the hospital, but even those few fragmented words have sapped her of all energy. She sags against Tara and waits to see if it is enough.
Things fade out again for a few seconds, and she startles a little when she feels someone press something into her hand.
"Sammy, you need to take these, okay?" She blinks dumbly down at two pills that have magically appeared in the palm of her hand. Someone holds a straw to her lips and she focuses on taking a tiny sip of water. Swallowing is agonizing, and she almost laughs at she's hit with the sudden image of a hundred miniature Ghostfaces lining her throat and stabbing at it with tiny knives.
"Sam?" Tara's worried face swims back into view, and Sam shakes herself. She manages to lift her hand to her mouth and is irrationally pleased when she actually manages to get the pills inside. She takes another sip of water and swallows them down, shuddering as the pain multiplies tenfold before gradually banking back down to a low simmer.
"That's it, good job." Tara is whispering to her again, stroking her hair and holding her close, and it makes Sam want to cry. She's taken aback when strong arms suddenly scoop her up, and she catches a faint whiff of Danny's cologne as she's carried weightlessly through the air. Part of her wants to protest being separated from Tara, but before she can muster the energy to try to speak again she feels herself being gently set down on a far more comfortable surface—probably her bed, but she can't be bothered to pry her eyes open to confirm.
The mattress dips at her side, and then the familiar weight of Tara's head comes to rest against her shoulder, one arm wrapping around Sam's waist and holding her securely. It's exactly what she needs to ease the last bit of worry from her body, and she lets the warm weight of Tara's body against hers lull her back to sleep.
***
She feels considerably more human the next time she wakes up.
She's able to open her eyes for longer than two seconds, for one thing, and she can breathe without feeling like her lungs are on fire anymore. Tara sits up as Sam stretches a little, looking down at her worriedly.
"How are you feeling?"
Truth be told, she still feels like crap. But it's easier to think, now, and so she gives Tara what she hopes is a reassuring smile and says, "Better." A rumbling cough escapes her chest, and she frowns as a new thought occurs to her. "You shouldn't be here," she mumbles. "I don't want you to get sick from me."
Tara snorts, but the sound is tinged with something like hysteria. "You realize there's like a 99% chance that you caught this from me, right?"
Sam shrugs. It's possible, but she doesn't want to risk it—
"God, you're so stupid sometimes," Tara says. She's looking at Sam like she can't decide whether to hug her or strangle her, and Sam gets the distinct impression that they're not just talking about Tara getting sick anymore. She tries valiantly to come up with something helpful to say, but her brain is entirely blank.
In the end it doesn't matter anyways, because she finds herself abruptly wrapped up in an embrace so tight it's painful.
(But it's the good kind of pain, the kind of hurt that reminds her that she's alive and that Tara cares about her enough to want to hold onto her like this, and some small dark part of her hopes that maybe she'll have bruises in the shape of Tara's fingerprints so that she can have some sort of lingering proof that she's wanted and loved.)
"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" Tara says, voice thick with tears. "I could have helped, I—"
Sam manages to get one arm up so that she can pull Tara closer as her neck grows damp with tears. She wishes she could make it better, wishes she could do something to chase away the fear she can hear in Tara's voice, but all she has to offer in this moment is a quiet, "I'm sorry."
Tara shakes her head vehemently, hard enough that it jostles Sam's hold on her. "No, that's not—" She pauses and sits up so she can see Sam better. She studies Sam for a moment and then relaxes. "Never mind. It doesn't matter right now."
Sam struggles into a sitting position, lips pulled down into a faint frown. "Of course it matters." Her frown deepens when Tara laughs, but she's slightly mollified when Tara strokes a hand down her forearm and tangles their fingers together.
"I just mean it's not important right now while you're still sick," she says with a small smile. "We can talk more later, but right now I just want to make sure you're okay." When Sam eventually gives her a reluctant nod, she squeezes her hand. "When's the last time you ate?"
Sam pauses at the question. The past twenty-four hours (maybe forty-eight at this point?) are all a muddled blur, and it takes her a second to be able to pinpoint the last thing she ate. "I had a granola bar before I started my shift, I think?"
Tara's brow furrows, lines etching themselves into her face at the response. Sam braces herself for the reprimand she knows is coming. It's deserved, she can admit that much, she knows that she needs to be better, that it's stupid and irresponsible not to take better care of herself, but it doesn't make it any easier to know that Tara is upset with her.
Another thought occurs to her and she blanches. "Oh fuck, I didn't call out of work—"
"Shh, it's fine. Danny called them after we found you." Tara tugs lightly at a loose piece of Sam's hair, adjusts the blanket over their laps. "All you need to worry about is resting." When Sam relaxes and nods, Tara leans over her to grab her phone from the nightstand. "Okay. I'll text Chad to pick up something for you to eat."
Sam feels a tug of unease low in her gut. "I can just eat whatever we have here—"
"Sam." Tara's voice is impossibly gentle, and Sam is vaguely horrified to feel tears burning at the backs of her eyes at the tone. "You always do such a good job of taking care of the rest of us. Let us take care of you now, okay?"
Sam nods wordlessly, scared that if she tries to say anything she won't be able to keep the sobs from breaking loose. Tara sends a quick text before settling back down on the bed, tugging Sam with her and shifting until she's curved around the lines of Sam's body like a comma.
She traces shapes and patterns across the length of Sam's arm, down over the back of her hand and then up again. It's soothing and safe and so loving that Sam finds herself drifting in a half-asleep state, not quite sure whether she's dreaming or awake.
The sound of the bedroom door opening brings her back to full consciousness. Danny, Chad, and Mindy are all gathered in the doorway, grocery bags at their feet. Danny comes into the room first, kneeling at the edge of the bed and taking one of her hands in his, brushing a kiss across the back of her knuckles.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better," she says quietly. "Thanks to all of you."
He squeezes her hand and a smile flickers across his face. "Glad to hear it." He stands up and motions Chad and Mindy closer. "We come bearing gifts. Lentil soup instead of chicken noodle, since you think it tastes like old socks."
"And one of every flavor of gatorade," Chad chimes in. "I wasn't sure what your favorite was so I figured this way you can pick whatever you want."
Mindy steps forward and holds one of the bags open so that Sam can see the contents. It looks like they bought out the entire medicine aisle, various boxes of colorful pills jumbled together in a kaleidoscope of cold meds, and Mindy gives Sam a quick grin. "Didn't want you to have to worry about running out."
It's all a little too much, to suddenly be confronted with bags full of tangible evidence of how much they care. Her smile is grateful and more than a little watery, but they all kindly ignore that and deposit the bags just to the side of the bed before backing out of the room.
Tara's hold on her tightens, just a bit, and Sam bites her lip to try to keep the tears from falling.
It's painful, to be the focus of so much attention without even a hint of malice.
Once, when she was little, there had been a freak snowstorm—not a proper blizzard, by any stretch, but more snow than she'd ever seen in her life. She remembers laying down in it, making snow angels and feeling the way that the flakes melted on her skin, and she'd stayed outside long after she began to go numb from the cold.
It was only when she finally went back inside, peeling off soggy denim and a half-frozen sweater, that the pain had hit.
Being outside in the cold, that wasn't the part that hurt—it was only once she started to thaw that the agony set in, tiny pinpricks at her fingertips that grew into flames that licked up and down her body. It was the sort of pain that couldn't be dulled or ignored. It demanded to be felt, and she had thought she was going to die.
Lying in bed with Tara pressed warm and solid against her, an assortment of gatorade flavors and soup and cold meds on the floor and the muffled sound of Danny and Chad and Mindy in the kitchen, she thinks back to that snowstorm. She remembers how much it hurt to be warm again after being frozen for so long, and she thinks that this? Tara and Danny and Chad and Mindy all trying to show her how much they care, to love her in whatever ways she'll allow them to?
Maybe it's the same.
Maybe it's really going to suck for a while to remember what it's like to be cared for, but also maybe that means it will be worth it in the end. That she can find her way back from the frozen tundra that she's had to survive in for so long, can find her way back to gentle rays of sunshine and springtime melt.
She shifts closer to Tara, smiling when Tara sleepily nuzzles at the back of her neck, and this time when she sleeps–
She dreams of being warm.