Fandom: Popular

Series: Three Times Table

Title: Floating on the Ceiling - Brooke

Author: Carla

Email: cmfloresfd@yahoo.com

Rating: R (language and thematic content)

Pairing: B/A

Disclaimer: Some one, some company must own ‘em still but I haven’t that honor.

Archiving: The Realm and it’s wonderful Webmistress play host to my delusions at http://www.realmoftheshadow.com/carla.htm

A/N: (1) Thanks Alan for inadvertently planting the seed.

(2) It might help some readers to know that I have not seen this show at all, ever, and as such I do not feel bound by canon all that much. So in my world Sam has a history never alluded to in the show. And since according to my sources (Paulie) there is virtually no back story on April I’m making it all up as I go along.

(3) Enjoy

(4) Let me know what you think either onlist of off at cmfloresfd@yahoo.com

I want to understand you. I want to understand why you freeze one minute and are wild the next. I want to understand why you cried the other night. I want to understand why I can touch you one way but not another. I want to understand why if we are in my car you seem comfortable but if we’re in my bed you don’t. I want to know if my fears are true. I want to have the courage to ask you directly. I want to be strong enough, brave enough to protect you. Protect you and make you feel safe. I want you to know through and through that I won’t hurt you. I want you to believe that I love you, I want to show you how much I love you. I want to make love to you.

And that’s why I am here knocking on Sam’s door when I should be studying for finals but if anyone I know is going to have a clue, maybe even an answer it’s going to be her.

Sam invites me into the sanctum sanctorum. Her room looks like a nuclear bomb hit or a toddler went on a rampage, either description isn’t really adequate. Let’s just say that the reason we usually hang and talk in my room is that you can find a place to sit without becoming part of a newly forming ecology.

"God how can you live like this?"

"Fuck off Princess I’m trying to study here."

"Studying what, the mechanics of your GameBoy Advance? It has a pause button use it."

"Shit!" Sam throws the game down on her bed in frustration. "I almost had it, great timing Brooke what do you want?"

"I need to talk to you, ask you some questions."

"Have a seat."

"Where?" The room’s such a rat’s nest there isn’t even really room to sit anywhere.

Sam snorts and sweeps a pile of clothes off her bed and onto the floor, I’m afraid to see what they might have landed in. "Your throne Madam."

"That’s Mademoiselle and thank you."

"Sure what’s up?"

"Uh…er…well you know April and I we’ve been…that is I wanted to, I want to…"maybe talking to Sam isn’t such a great idea, I can always go to the library God knows there are probably more books about it than you could shake a pom-pom at. "Nevermind." I start to get up but Sam’s hand on my shoulder stops me.

"Ask her. Week after next is perfect, school is out for the holiday break and Mom and Mike are taking Mac with them to Boston. I can make myself scarce."

"I didn’t know that. When did this happen?"

"Mom told me today when I got home. She didn’t tell you?"

"I didn’t see her when I got in and Daddy’s at some late meeting."

"Oh well yeah…ask her like I said I’ll make myself scarce."

"Thanks." I wrap my arms around myself and look around the room, taking in some of the changes made to it since Sam moved in. The bathroom door is painted totally black but the real change is the top right hand corner which Sam insisted Daddy cut away so that she could see the light coming in from the bathroom nightlight without having to have the door open all the way. Sam has to have a nightlight on in the bathroom she can’t sleep in complete darkness. She needs to sleep with the door to her room locked at night so Mom and Dad let her put a latch on the door. There are other things too, Sam’s not to keen on being touched by people she doesn’t know, so even though I have to be Miss Nice and Polite and shake guests hands Sam doesn’t if she doesn’t feel like it. For a long time after she came to live here Sam wouldn’t be alone in a room with my father. Sam’s voice cuts into my daze.

"Huh…I’m sorry what were you saying."

"Are you okay? Was there something else?"

"I was just thinking."

"About?"

"The bathroom door."

"Oh" Sam picks up her GameBoy and starts fiddling with the buttons.

"Sometimes April…sometimes I think maybe…"

"Ask her."

"And then what?"

"Pray it isn’t true."

"I really think it is."

"Why?"

"Mostly how she is when I touch her. If we’re somewhere kinda public she’s okay but in private…I could probably get her to have sex in the back of my car, in a crowded parking lot, sooner than in my bed." Sam flinches. I’m not sure if it’s the mere idea of sex or the idea of me having sex with you that’s causing her reaction but I continue anyway. "I don’t want to have sex in the back of my car Sam. I don’t even want to have sex with her in my bed right now. I just want her to be comfortable there with me." Sam nods solemnly. "How do I do that? How did you…with George?"

"I don’t know what to tell you other than sometimes I couldn’t bear to have George touch me. And I loved him, I trusted him but sometimes still you know," Sam hangs her head and mumbles something unintelligible.

"I didn’t catch that last thing you said."

"It was hard to forget," Sam sighs heavily, "but harder still to remember who I was with."

I'd never thought of it that way.

Carla

it's a one time thing...it just happens a lot (Suzannae Vega, Cracking)