Title: Face-Off

Author: Alan Hitchen

Email: darkmere2000@yahoo.co.uk

Archive: http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/alan.htm

Disclaimer: Popular is the property of Touchstone Television.

Pairing: Nicole, Sam (with an S/B backdrop)

Rating: R (Character Death)

Information: Incorporates elements taken from J.G. Ballard's short story 'Track 12'. The story is set at the end of season two, and in response to public demand, and to quote Elton John: "The bitch is back!"

Summary: Sam and Brooke became lovers during spring break but have kept it a closely guarded secret. Now completely estranged from Brooke, Nicole confronts Sam, whom she blames for the split.

Sam answered the door of the Palace with a smile, thinking Brooke had returned early to surprise her, but it was a different, shorter, blonde and the welcoming smile instantly fell into a deep frown. "She's not in and even if she were she wouldn't talk to you."

"I know," Nicole cut in smartly, pushing past in a cloud of Chanel No 5, "but it's you I've come to talk to. Don't worry, Spam," she went on, "I said talk, not fight. A civilised discussion is all I want, then I'll go, that's all."

"Right, come in then, why don't you?" Sam replied sarcastically, closing the door and turning to face her nemesis. "What's on your mind?"

"Aren't you going to offer me a drink first?" Nicole pouted.

Sam sighed. "What would you like?"

"Tab."

"I hate Tab."

"I know," Nicole smirked, "and that's exactly why I like it so much."

Moving to the kitchen, Sam retrieved a can from the back of the fridge and a fruit juice for herself. Nicole watched as Sam opened up her juice box, leaving her own drink untouched on the counter. "Do you have glasses here, or do you always chug everything straight from the container?" she sneered.

Sam gritted her teeth, grabbed a pair of glasses from the cupboard and set them down. "There. Now what is it you want?"

Nicole opened the can and poured out her drink with maddening slowness before answering, quite simply, "Brooke."

"She's not yours to own or mine to give," Sam replied firmly.

"But she is, Spam, she is."

"Is what?"

"Yours to give. You see, I know what you did last spring break." Startled, Sam took a gulp of her juice to buy herself time while she decided how to reply. "Don't look so shocked," Nicole continued, "I've always know what you were. Apparently even before you did."

"And what am I, Nicole?" Sam stonewalled.

"A lesbian. But perhaps you prefer the term, woman in sensible shoes? Diner at the downstairs restaurant? sister of Sappho? Or does semi-incestuous diesel-dyke describe you best?" Sam started to answer but Nicole held up a forbidding hand. "Don't even try to deny it. Just the thought of your cold, clammy, unmoisturised fingers touching her makes me feel sick. And I've got it all on videotape anyway."

Sam visibly relaxed, Nicole had to be bluffing, and after the failure of the Krupps blackmail tape affair who would believe her anyway? "Blackmail, is that it? I give up Brooke and you give me the tape? Not going to happen. We'll tough it out - together."

Nicole ignored the defiant response and continued with her own train of thought. "If only you'd stuck to your own kind Lily might be a very happy woman now. Instead of being stuck in a dead-end marriage to a dead-head jock. But, no, you had to go for gold, first with George, which was bound to fail, then Brooke. You had to have my Brooke, didn't you?"

Sam's eyes widened in realisation of what was going on here. "You love her?"

"Yes, I love her!" Nicole snapped back in anger. "But not like you. Nothing like you! She's my soulmate. My other-half. My conscience. Without her... without her I do things like this. So you see," she smiled, suddenly calm again, "you only have yourself to blame."

Sam let out a soft groan, she suddenly felt very uncomfortable, like she had a stomach full of ice-cold water sloshing about inside her. She tried to stand but found she couldn't as her extremities felt like lead. Nicole's smile grew wider still.

"Feeling queasy? That'll be the chromium cyanate I slipped into your juice. It inhibits the coenzyme system, causing hydroxyl ions to flood the bloodstream. In short, you're drowning from the inside out. Bio and Chem class turned out to be useful after all, who'd have thought?"

Nicole rose, poured away her drink and carefully washed the glass and the can, then crushed the can and placed it in the recycle bin and put the glass back in the cupboard before returning her attention to her victim.

"I know what you're thinking, but this won't be traced to me. They'll only find your fingerprints on the bottle. Oh, that reminds me." She reached inside her Prada purse. "Here's your suicide note. I've kept it vague to spare Brooke's blushes. Just something about your unnatural lusts for other women, unable to bear the shame, regrets for hurting your loved ones, you get the picture."

Sam fell to the floor, stranded as a beached whale and equally unable to move. Every breath now laboured and slow she watched as Nicole pulled a mini-recorder from her purse and pressed play. "They say hearing is the last sense to go so I thought you'd enjoy this. I dubbed it from the video," she explained. A muffled sucking, spongey sound on continuous repeat hissed from the tiny speaker. "Do you recognise it? It sounds a bit like the surf on a beach doesn't it?"

Sam tried desperately to respond, cry out, do anything, but it was far too late, her eyes closed and her breathing stopped. "Spam, one last chance! Do you know what it is?! Do you know where you're drowning?!" Nicole screamed. "In her kiss!" She laughed hysterically. "In her kiss!" Then the black wave of death engulfed her and Sam heard no more.