2395/Solving for X

Solving for X
Date of Scene:	03 September 2017
Location:	The Winchester Apartment
Synopsis:	After the events of the Hydra base in their rescue of Claire, Fred remains unconvinced that this is the real world. Sam does his best to convince her.
Cast of Characters:	Winifred Burkle, Sam Winchester

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Winifred Burkle has posed:
September 3rd, 2025

4AM

The rescue of Claire Temple was successful. That is, Claire Temple was rescued, but there is certainly quite a lot of recovery that she will need. Similar things might be said of those who rescued her, due to the magic trap that placed each of them in some form of dream state. Fred's own has reopened old wounds. Though she did manage to contribute the dropping of bombs on the Hydra base, the lingering feeling of questioning her world remains. After taking Claire to rest at Mercy's Garage, they were left more or less to their own devices.

Between the choice of the Hyperion and the Winchester's apartment, Fred insisted they go to the Winchesters'. The last thing she wants is for Angel and Wesley to see her like this. The desire to hide under the bed is strong for her, but instead, she does the more normal thing and curls up on it.

During the course of the night, Sam will wake up without Fred there. There's a soft muttering and the sound of sharpie against the wall, however. It seems that somehow Fred managed to climb the smaller dresser and perch there. A bloom of black against the paint now stains the walls. Math equations, drawings...they're mostly nonsense. In one corner, I divided by a drawing of a heart equals real. Below that rough sketch of the Hyperion, and next to it a long string of numbers and equations. All the while Fred mutters to herself as she does this.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam is far more concerned about Fred than the contents of his nightmares. There are reasons for this.

He saw Jessica die, and felt at fault. But he'd watched Jessica die before, and felt at fault.

He saw the consequences of abandoning Dean to his own selfishness. But he has seen the consequences of abandoning Dean to his own selfishness.

He got the memo that he was a hunter, but he'd had that memo. The new bit was feeling like there was any conscious choice behind all of this, as if there were transactions he made unconsciously that he should have been consciously aware of. The new bit was feeling like, too, that to choose Dean and Fred and his existing life he had to accept, just a little more, his own evil, his own imperfections, his own kinship with the demons who have intervened in his life, made him a part of them.

And truthfully...

None of that is anything he can't absorb within his own paradigm of 'It is a very crapsack world, and what you get out of this world is what you manage to carve out and protect, and sometimes you can't actually protect yourself, let alone anyone else, so you do the best you can and enjoy what you have while you have it.'

No, it's Fred he's worried about. When she'd curled onto the bed he'd curled gently around her, hardly bothering to shower or change, only stopping to disarm and pull off his jacket and outer shirt so he wouldn't poke her with various and sundry guns.

What he sees when he wakes is not even a surprise to him. And his first concern is honestly keeping her from falling off the dresser. He accepts her with all her hurts, all her flaws, and that includes being well aware that this is how she handles things when she's hurting the most. He steps up behind her, says her name very gently so as not to startle her, and then puts a broad hand at her back both to steady her physically-- to keep her from tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty-- and emotionally. Just to let her know that he is there.

This. This, before anything else.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred can hear Sam get out of bed, move up to stand behind her. The writing does not stop. However, when he puts a hand on her back and says her name very softly, it does pause. The hand she had pressed against the wall for balance and to steady her writing curls just slightly and she glances a bit guiltily over her shoulder and then back at the wall.

She knows how crazy this looks, how she's ruined the paint in here now. She's told him about Pylea, told him how she was for months after she got back, but there is a difference between hearing it and seeing it. "S-sorry," she says softly, looking back the wall and then downward at her hands. "I...I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to wake you."

The hand with the sharpie lowers, leaving the long string of numbers behind for the time being. The other drops to her lap. "I just..." she doesn't have an answer to that just yet. She's not sure what she is 'just'. "I couldn't..."

Sam Winchester has posed:
"That damned spell just took you to Pylea again," Sam says grimly, keeping his hand right on her back. "Honey, you don't have to apologize. If you need to cover the walls in sharpie, you go right ahead. I'll have the coolest decor in all Hell's Kitchen."

And when does he ever sleep soundly anyway? He couldn't care less about his sleep, by the look on his face. He looks up at the equations, then back at her, and decides you know what? If this is where she's at, this is where he's going to be at too.

"Can you walk me through these?" he suggests, gesturing up at the wall. Maybe if she talks through the thing she's trying to solve, he'll understand better, and can help more. It's a good sign, though, that she's responding at all. She's not catatonic. She's coping. It gives him hope that she'll find her way through this darkness. He just needs to help her find the path.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
There's a wince when Sam guesses what happened to Fred in the spell and all she can do is nod. "Whenever I close my eyes..." she can see the cave again, feel the rags she wore, feel the loneliness and desperation and fear. A hand reaches up to where she can still feel the weight of cold metal where the collar about her neck sat for years.

The question about the equations and gibberish is met with a pause. Fred looks over what is essentially stream of consciousness drawings and writings. "They're...it's a story..."

It's hard to explain, really. There are words, but she doesn't know how they actually convey what they mean. "I had a cave I lived in and I was trying to get back. I didn't have any paper or anything, so I wrote on the walls. At first they were actual calculations, trying to figure out how to open up a portal back." She was desperate and she worked on them for at least a year. Closing her eyes, she can still see it. It's so real and that makes her shiver a bit.

"But, it never worked. Eventually, I convinced myself Earth wasn't real. That I was born on Pylea, had always been there. But, I always knew that wasn't true, too. I started to write out Earth to try and stop thinking about it."

Her eyes remain closed. "And then I was back there. It told me this was all just that dream again. I'd made it up and I believed that. Angel, the Hyperion...you...it was just another nightmare, another way cope." Her voice becomes higher, more panicked. "What if this isn't real, Sam? What if I'm still there. I'm always just /there/."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam offers her a hand down. "It's real, and I'm going to show you why. I'm going to provide incontravertable proof. I just need you to come down from there. Will you trust me?"

He really can't do it from where she's at. His eyes are earnest. The same earnest, empathy-filled hazel eyes that have convinced people to tell their tales across a dozen towns, effective because they're genuine.

His mien, his face, is serious. He's not bringing her down for a kiss, or something equally trite. He has proof, he knows he has proof, he is rock steady in that proof, and he's going to share it. Black t-shirt and jeans though he may be wearing, he conveys himself at this moment like a professional, a loving professional, but a professional all the same. A sturdy oak tree in the face of the gale winds of her panic, not an old one, but a strong one all the same.

Agent Sam, perhaps, if one were to put any name to it at all.

He stands there patiently, hand out, giving her as much time as she nees to take it. Thirty seconds or thirty minutes, it's all one to all of him. He has all the time in the world. He will wait for her.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Fred opens her eyes, first seeing the drawings that she has done on Sam's wall. Gingerly - as to not fall off the dresser - she turns just slightly to look at Sam at his offer, his attempt to prove to her that where they are right now is real.

There is still a slight shake in her hands as she watches him. The panic still has a very real hold on her, the fear that this is all some delusion she has done to make herself feel better about being trapped in a world in which there is no escape.

However, much as he has done to countless people across the country, when Fred studies him she can see his earnestness and concern. He asks if she trusts him and she already knows the answer. She trusted in the idea of Sam even when in the Pylean nightmare, trusted and hoped that running toward him was the right way. Even through the panic she feels right now, she knows that she does trust him.

Turning even more fully around on the dresser, she holds out the hand not holding the sharpie and puts it in his, allowing him to help her down from the dresser and back onto steady ground.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Once she's there, he takes the hand that she's given him. He takes it, and he turns his left forearm up. Without fully looking at her, he gently puts the palm of her hand down on that spot. On the spot where he has collected the most track marks. He shoots up there, more than anywhere else, because he's got a good collection of veins there, because it's quick and easy. There are a few others, but this is it: the roughest, scabbiest, nastiest place on his body.

Until now, when they've held one another, he has gone out of his way to keep this spot from her, minimizing its opportunities to contact her skin. But now he brushes her fingers deliberately over this, holds his hand over hers to keep her soft skin against this mangled skin, this evidence of self-mutilation. The tangible proof of his deepest flaws, his greatest shames, the spots of darkness that swarm through his light.

"If you were going to dream up a lover," he says quietly, "you would not dream up someone so imperfect, so flawed. You wouldn't dream up someone who kept things from you sometimes. You wouldn't dream up someone who needs you quite as ferociously as I do. You wouldn't dream up an addict. When we make stuff up, we make up ideals. You could dream up someone that looked like me, talked like me, fought like me, that you trusted to protect you like me, but he'd be missing all but the most trivial of flaws. And that's how you know. Because I'm here. With you. Snarled up, fucked up, carrying enough baggage to fill a cargo hold. But real."

Winifred Burkle has posed:
Once on the ground, Fred settles herself, still tense, still feeling the jittery panic from before. She's not sure how it is that Sam plans on proving their reality, but when he puts her hand on his scarred arm, she starts and blinks. The eyes that have been mostly downcast flick upward to his face in surprise. Then, down again at where her fingers touch his left arm, his hand over hers.

She's known about his problem and they have discussed it, she has worried about it, they have argued and she's even witnessed and /done/ an injection of demon blood. Despite all that, this spot on his arm has been shielded from her and generally hidden through all their time together until now.

The touch remains, not only because of Sam's hand keeping her there. There's a wince as she feels the scabs and the scars from all the injections in sympathy at the pain and the fact that he is still injecting himself.

His words ring true. If she were to dream up The Perfect Sam to keep her company in Pylea, he would not be addicted to demon blood.

Leaning forward, a few tears start to fall as she reaches out to hold him, the wash of panic subsiding to allow some other emotions to start flooding back. "I was so lost again. I thought...I thought I lost you, that I maybe never even had you."

Sam Winchester has posed:
He wraps his arms around her in turn, cradling her, holding her close, sheltering her. He strokes her hair, quietly grim. If Volkov didn't die in those explosions, Sam Winchester will hunt him down and kill him. He's even the type of thing Sam normally goes after.

But now is not the time for that. Now is the time to let Fred process all that has happened to her. He kisses the top of her head. "There's no dimension, no dream, no reality where I won't find you," he promises again, quietly. He can't do much about never having existed or never having been with her, other than to continue refuting that with his very presence. "If I ever leave you, it won't be willingly, and you can damn sure bet I'll be trying to get back. Or. You know. Waiting for you to come get me, which you're very good at."

He kisses the top of her head again, letting her cry freely if she needs to. His shirt is 100% cotton. Very absorbant.

When he speaks it's in those same tones of quiet, steady authority and assurance.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
When Sam folds her into his arms, Fred starts to cry in earnest. The tenseness, the panic starts to wash away, leaving behind the fear and the shame of knowing that she could have ever thought that Sam could not be real. She wraps her arms around Sam and holds him tight as she cries into his shirt.

It takes a little while before she is able to respond at all verbally to him. For that time, all she can do is hold him and cry as he strokes her hair.

There's nowhere she can go he wouldn't find her - that echo from Mercy's garage, that shone though to her while in the nightmare Pylea make her hold him even tighter, though she is unable to tell him exactly how much those words meant and continue to mean to her.

After awhile, the sobs start to slow and while she's still crying, she takes a few deep breaths to try and steady herself. "I--I know," she says softly, still against his chest. "I...I remembered you saying that before. There." There's another pause as she takes a few more breaths. "You helped me leave the cave."

Sam Winchester has posed:
A stab of guilt hits Sam hard in the gut. Some remnant of him was there in her vision. He was off living some other life, with a dead woman. And though that life consisted of immediately basically blowing her off to go run after Dean and briefly being confused about the color of her hair, it still bothers him. He wonders what it says, about him, about them. Or maybe he's reading too much into it. Maybe it's just a matter of being presented, almost 100%, with an accurate timeline or close-to-accurate, possible timeline. Maybe all their shadows take different shapes.

He still doesn't understand what it was all //for//, and while that irritates him thinking about that is easier than poking at questions he can't possibly get answers to. The latter? Different. He has all of WAND's libraries in addition to his own resources now. He makes a mental note to reach out to Bobby, too.

For now, he continues to hold her and stroke her hair. If he were aware of her shame he'd try to talk her down from that, but he murmurs, "You just hold on to that whenever you're not sure, sweetheart."

He finds himself uneasy again. He hasn't heard from Dean in awhile. Is he in Kansas? Is that where he went? Does a white-eyed demon have him?

Winifred Burkle has posed:
After a moment, Fred continues, somehow needing to tell him the rest of the story. Her words are a bit faster now, if still soft. "I'd written about you and Angel and the Hyperion on the walls. Your story had a footnote saying that you loved me. It kept trying to tell me it wasn't real, that you weren't real and I believed them for awhile. I remembered you and Angel telling me how you'd always be there, would always save me if you could. I knew I loved you and I had to trust that. That's what got me to run."

Fred doesn't know what Sam's own vision might have been. She's been so locked into her own fears and hurts that she hasn't asked him about his. In part because she is scared as to what she might find out while she is still attempting to deal with her own. Nor, does she think of Dean at the moment or even Sam's demon blood problems. All the real world and other fears will come back soon enough.

For now, she holds onto him, the tears finally stopping for the moment. "I love you, okay? And knowing that helped me get through that place. I just...I needed to say that." I over heart equals real.

Sam Winchester has posed:
I over heart equals real. That feels like something Sam will hold onto himself. "I love you too," he murmurs, reaching up with broad thumbs to wipe away her tears. He leans down to kiss her, feeling like being present, being //there//, being solid and real...all of these are things he just feels like she needs. He looks down into her eyes, then gently tries to pull the sharpie free from her other hand at last, feeling like maybe, just maybe, she might be in a position where she doesn't need it quite as much. But if she lets him take it, it won't go far. He simply caps it and puts it on the dresser.

If she needs it again, it's there. No judgments. He's serious, he couldn't care less about the walls. It's enough to simply have some that are his. That are //theirs//, even though they bounce between their mutual homes right now.

"Ready to come back to bed?" he murmurs. And then: "Or do you wanna hit that all-night taco place we found?" Cause if you can't find a 24/7 taco place in NYC, where can you find one? Well. Probably Houston. But also NYC.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam wipes the tears away from Fred's cheek, her face leans into his palm and she kisses him back. Him being there for her has certainly steadied her, chased away some of that panic and she starts to feel the steadiness of not only this world, but of him. This is real, this is the real world.

When he attempts to pull the sharpie out of her hands, there's a moment when she grips it harder, unable to let it go. It lasts for a moment and then, she allows it to slip free of her fingers. She watches it with a strange sort of interest, but she doesn't follow it with anything other then her eyes.

The question as to whether she's ready to go back to bed is met with a nod. The question about going out, though, is met a quick shake of her head. While she may be feeling a little better and tacos are a nice thought, there is still a part of her that needs to remain inside in a place that feels safe and quiet. "Let's just stay here." Holding onto Sam, she rests against him. "Thank you."

Sam Winchester has posed:
He leads her back to the bed and pulls the covers aside so he can cover them both up. He pulls them right up and over their heads, expertly leaving space. Young Sam Winchester made burrows in beds to make things seem less scary, but this is certainly a warmer and softer 'cave'. He wraps his arms tightly around her and whispers, "Always." He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. He ought to have known she might not want to go out, but he supposes that's the function of asking in the first place.

He's prepared to repeat any version of this ritual she needs to repeat. Briefly, in the darkness, his jaw firms.

//You'd best be dead, Volkov. Dead and burned beyond returning. Or I'm coming for you. For this alone, I'm coming for you.//

It doesn't even matter that it was never aimed, exclusively, at Fred.

Winifred Burkle has posed:
As Sam leads Fred back to the bed, she follows. Lying back down, Sam pulls the blanket over them and she relaxes. It's a small, dark place and Sam is there. It feels safe and she relaxes into his arms.

It is entirely possible that over the next few nights there will be a few times that he finds her out of bed and adding to the sharpie mural that she has started tonight and he will have to reassure her again that everything is alright. It might not take quite as much effort to talk her down as tonight, especially as she now does believe that this is real, that Sam is real. The next few nights it will be soothing her into believing it won't happen again. Or, if it does, she will survive it.

Later there will be time to worry about everything else. They will find out if Volkov is alive, how to help Sam with his addiction, where Dean is. Tonight, though, she is wrapped and safe and she wants to stay there.