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Entry tags:
fic: BSG, AU, If somebody's got soul...
disclaimer: not mine.
genre: AU
characters: Kara Thrace, Sam Anders, Margaret Edmonson, Hamish McCall, Sharon Valerii, Saul Tigh
pairing: Kara Thrace/Sam Anders (OT5 with the first five listed, a bit?)
rating: erm, PG13, soft R? sex, language, violence. Most of it not graphic.
length: 7000+
tense: present.
notes: I don't know jazz. or the 40's. or anything about anything, really. But I was struck by this about the time Ron said Sam wrote that song in BSG. It got stalled when canon, ah, did certain things with two of them (which made it hard to balance), and then I reopened it the other day and got an end. Yay. This is sort of set on Earth? I'm lazy and refuse to go back and make up names for Caprican cities. (thank you, Metric, for a title)
summary: what if Anders, Maggie, Hamish and Sharon were a jazz band looking for a new singer? Saul Tigh might even let them take the new girl they find before all hell breaks loose and the law chases them south of the border.
If somebody's got soul...
by ALC Punk!
They pick up the blonde bombshell for vocals outside of Springfield (the name is one Saul sticks her with after she knocks a customer's teeth in for getting a little too familiar). She's crooning rusty ballads in a dive bar Maggie dragged Sam into and they both watch her, evaluating her as musicians and performers, automatically.
"Got potential," Maggie suggests at the end of the set. She knows Sharon's never been comfortable on lead (heck, they all know that), and Sam figures this is Maggie's way of helping her out.
Hamish calls Kara Thrace trouble and Saul Tigh agrees to give her an audition. But only after she decks the customer.
Neither Maggie nor Sam tell him they sort of promised her a place in the band to get her there, and she's looking like she might pop Sam before he backs away, grabbing for his sax.
The music distracts her, and she takes up the microphone, all professional again.
When her husky vocals practically slide into bed with the low notes from Sam's sax, she's hired. Sharon's decent, but ain't no way in hell she manages that level of style.
-
The first time they kiss, she tastes like coffee and stale cigarettes.
She kisses him on a dare, all of them tired and past to a sort of euphoria that makes them giggle too much. Sam's a little surprised at how much he enjoys it (Hamish makes noises about a girl in every town and Sharon's giggling, somewhere in the background).
-
They're in Bixby when the cops catch up, and Kara swears she didn't do whatever they're claiming.
Saul puts in a protest, but it's Maggie and Sharon who break her out, with Hamish keeping a look-out. The five of them make it ten miles past the city limits before reality begins to set in, and Kara laughs at them for their confusion, then grins cheerfully and suggests Mexico is nice, this time of year.
-
"I killed a man," Kara says, late one night when they're the only two awake. It's a tiny town, middle of nowhere, but the locals like the music and their feet like the rest, not to mention the local brew.
Sam puffs on his cigarette, thinks about what that means, then passes it over to her. "What'd he do?"
Head down, she pulls her knees up, letting her arms dangle forwards, towards the ground, cigarette slowly burning out between her fingers. "That's the problem..."
A crash from behind them startles her into dropping the cigarette, and Sam wonders if she welcomes the interruption as Sharon staggers out to join them, falling onto the wind-chapped boards behind Kara and leaning into her back.
"Clumsy," Kara murmurs, and Sharon just laughs, eyes drifting closed.
Really good alcohol.
-
The second time they kiss, it's an alley in Mexico City and Kara's all desperate hands and lips, pulling at his hair as he presses her up into the wall. Dimly, he remembers there were men stalking them, but all he can taste is her mouth and all he can hear is the way her breath catches when his hands brush up the outside of her blouse.
She shoves him away before they get any further, and he closes his eyes, waiting for her fist.
When it doesn't come, he blinks a little.
He's alone.
-
Maggie finds them a gig in a part of town none of them like, but the crowd doesn't care who they are, as long as they play. Sam watches Kara flirt with the crowd until the end of the show and wonders why the others think this is worth it. They could have dumped Kara at the border, gone back and taken up careers where there were regular showers, good money, and something other than a hand-to-mouth existence.
He asks Sharon about it, three days later, and she just laughs before she goes to wash everyone's spare clothing in the tiny machine in the basement of the rat-trap they've got a room in.
-
There's something about walking dirt roads (gravel and blacktop, too, though never in good repair) between tiny villages that makes him take deeper breaths. Sam watches the sky more, head tilted back, saxophone in its canvas bag on his back, bouncing a little with every step he takes.
"Gonna catch flies that way," Kara teases, more than once.
Not as much as she catches men, he thinks. But she never seems to notice or care, so he doesn't say it. He laughs a little, though, turns his head and wonders if he's one of the one's she's caught, too.
-
Another town, and this one has a built-in piano that Sharon tries out before making rude comments about how in tune it is until the owner snaps that she can shut the hell up or fix the damned thing herself. When she laughs and pulls up the top to do just that, Sam wonders if the man regrets his word.
Not that Sharon's an expert at tuning pianos, but she used to joke that she was an instrument repairman in another life.
Half-buried inside the thing, tinkering, with clanking sounds coming from it, Sam wonders if that's true before he goes to check accomadations for the night.
-
Sam doesn't know how Maggie has contacts in the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, but she's got enough to get them a solid week at something almost approaching heaven. There's hot baths and enough clean clothing for everyone. It's the first meal they've had in months that isn't just re-heated or barely-heated gruel and beans.
The first night they play, they're horrible. Kara and Maggie barely save them until the encore, when he and Hamish finally kick it into gear and Sharon gives up on the ancient piano they'd cursed her with and used her hands on a table, snapping out a beat they can all feel under their skins.
The second they're done, Sharon's after the piano, cursing not having checked it out beforehand and Kara disappears with Maggie to gods' know where, leaving Sam and Hamish to placate the few irritated customers left.
When they promise they'll be better the next night, most of them scoff.
Yet they all come back. Sam figures, as they launch into the first song (sounding far better), that the locals must not have much to do.
By the fourth night, half the town is there for their performance, and Sam has to rescue Kara from more than one over-zealous fan after the show. He wonders, as she runs ahead of him up the back stairs before disappearing into her room, if she let him do it.
-
A month later, they all miss the town, though only Maggie remembers what it was called.
"Delphi, or something," Hamish suggests, on his back in the shade under the scrubby trees at the side of the road.
They'd stopped for a rest. Sam snorts, "Can't go back, remember?"
"Was this girl there," continues the bassist reduced to a half-size instrument that hasn't ever matched the deep tones he prefers. "Carla? Jean? Most gorgeous golden-brown eyes, perfect body..."
Sam laughs and sips from his canteen, used to the stale taste but still hating it. "And Sharon used to say I had a girl in every town."
"You did," calls Sharon, though she's not moving anymore than Hamish is, she's in the sunlight, head back and skirts up to let her legs catch some light.
"That true, Sammy?" asks Kara, her tone sleepy from where she's got her back against a different tree. Maggie's sprawled at her side, head pillowed on Kara's hip, Kara's fingers sometimes stroking through the escaping wisps of Maggie's ponytail. "Got lots of women missin' you?"
"Tory!" The triumphant crow bursts from Hamish like the crack of a broken string. "That was her name."
-
Two-week engagement in a different town, and they're one week in when the trouble begins. There's another influx of people, outsiders like them, though not foreigners. Sam only gets the vaguest idea that something might be up when they're tuning up for the show.
Halfway into the set, a bottle flies through the air, shattering against the back wall behind Sharon. She flinches, her fingers missing two keys and hitting a third. Kara moves from her normal post, anger in her frame before she stops in front of Sharon, voice raised, belting out the words of a rather soft ballad as though daring anyone to call her bluff.
With the hairs on his neck coming up, Sam keeps an eye on the audience and this time sees the man at the back of the crowd raise his hand to throw.
Maggie does, too.
The man goes down under 110-pounds of angry woman, her nails raking his face and her fists bloodying his nose.
It's amicable, mostly, but the gig ends then and there.
-
Something about the way the desert smells makes Sam want to just wander through it until he can't anymore. It's not a death-wish, but there's something about it that digs into his skin and pulls. Usually, the sensation isn't so strong. But after a week with no prospects and another tiny town with no rooms, he's tired of being under the stars.
"You feel it, too?" Sharon asks, following him past the edge of town (not that there's a demarcation, the huts simply cease to continue on, though the sand stretches into infinity).
He grunts, steps taking him towards a tall boulder he can barely see in the moon-silvered distance. She's silent as she follows him, and he boosts her up onto the rock. They climb in silence, fingers finding holds they can't really see.
Once at the top, they're still quiet, the world looking strangely flat and the ground too-close for comfort with only shadows to delineate sand from rock and cactus from hut.
"I should've brought my sax," he murmurs, making her jump.
She laughs, though the sound is barely a murmur over the rustle of the wind. "Wouldn't want to start rumors of a dead saxophone player in the desert, Anders."
Maybe.
He takes a leap, landing and tumbling over in the sand until he comes to a rest, staring up at the stars. He can see her, from the corner of his eyes as she follows, her descent slower as she climbs back down.
There'll be bruises in the morning, but it was worth it for that brief moment where he was nowhere.
-
In a tavern on the outskirts of Mexico City (they need supplies, and even Kara agrees it's the best place to stock up), Sam pens more than a few songs, Maggie giving him grief over the phrasing and Kara telling him love songs don't do well in the middle of nowhere.
He laughs at them both, fingers careful not to blur the pencil as he rolls the papers and slides them into his case.
Only one is a love song. The rest just need to be played a few times before they'll be out of his system.
-
They're starting to get a reputation, with the way they travel; the fact that they're good is simply icing on the cake. They're mysterious, never staying in one place for too long. Sometimes, the locals ask why, sometimes they don't.
In one day, gone the next. Spending a week in a tiny room, playing every night until the sun is up and the workers in the field are leaden and tired as they stagger out to their own work.
A freak monsoon sees them helping bring in the last of the harvest, the barn the sturdiest structure the place has. Once it's saved, they run back out.
It's the first shower they've had in months, and the cleanest they've been in a week.
-
"I had a life," Hamish says.
Sam looks up from cleaning his sax, hands stilling. "Hamish?"
"I had a life, man."
No one says anything, but the stillness in the tiny room is more than enough. They all know what he's talking about, in a way.
Hamish curses at them and stalks out, the door too badly-fitted to slam when he pulls it to.
"Damn. I should--" Kara's out of her seat when Maggie's gaze crosses Sam's.
"Stay," he says, standing and dropping the sax and the cleaning cloth in her hands when she sits back down, still uncertain. "I'll talk to him."
-
Talking isn't what works.
Limping back, both with fresh bruises and skinned knuckles isn't much better, but it's at least something honest. Something real. Kara's not in the room when they return; neither is Sharon, Sam doesn't ask Maggie about it and Hamish ignores both of them to curl up on the single bed.
Maggie gives Sam a look, then disappears to the room she's sharing with the other two.
Picking up his battered, but shiny sax, Sam fingers the mouthpiece, thinking about playing. He resigns himself to just finger exercises when Hamish shifts and glares at him.
-
Luxury is a town large enough for a bath house and an inn. Luxury is separate rooms for all of them (Maggie says stuff the expense, and the novelty of not sleeping with someone at their back makes them all accept). Luxury means finding Kara Thrace asleep on his pillow, her hands tucked under her chin.
Her hair is still damp, like his, and he reaches out to brush a hand through it, waking her.
"Wrong room?" he asks, confused.
"No."
The third time they kiss, she's pulled him down to the bed, hands on his shoulders and mouth hot. She smells like cheap soap and clean skin, and he makes her breath hiss out when his hands drift under her shirt.
"Sam..." Her mouth drifts to his throat, then back to his lips.
He's a little scared she'll be a dream when he slides her shirt up and over her head. She's tanned and freckled, and his mouth follows the curve of her throat, right at one of the lines. Her hands pull his back to her breasts.
The sensation is almost too much for his brain to handle. Months of sun and sand, wind and silence have taken their toll and he shivers when she bites down on shoulder.
"You wrote a song for me," she murmurs.
"What gave you that idea?"
It's the right answer, but the wrong question, and she laughs a little, breath huffing out against his shoulder. "Oh, Sammy. You really have no idea, do you."
He shifts, hands cupping her face, searching her eyes in the dim light from the tiny lantern. "Kara..." He stops, afraid. If he says what he's thinking, she'll run. He's watched her for months, the way she's watched him, snatches of glances when they were trying to pretend something else.
"Don't," her fingers cover his lips, and she slides from his grasp before he can think of the right thing to say. "You should remember I killed a man." Her shirt in hand, she steps back.
"I don't care."
"I shoved a knife into his chest, over and over--gods. There was so much blood," her voice stops and she ducks, shirt on her arms and then over her head, drifting down and covering her again. "This was a bad idea."
He doesn't follow her from the room.
-
For the next week, they're careful around each other, so careful Maggie finally takes him aside and tells him to either get his act together, or she's kicking him in the balls.
Since Maggie takes her threats seriously, Sam tracks Kara down past the last line of huts, washing their few cook pots in a stream there. She's cursing a little, since Hamish was an idiot and burned dinner in one of them, and it's taking a while to loosen the caked-on congealed mass.
He's silent as he takes one of the others, kneeling across from her and cleaning it.
When he works up the courage to break the silence, she jumps as though she's forgotten he's there, "Can you pass the soap?"
"Yeah." She tosses it.
It lands short, but he fishes it out of the water before they lose it to current and erosion. "Thanks." He rolls the small ball between his hands, sets it on the dry cloth and then sets to work. "Kara, Maggie says we should make up."
"Were we fighting?" Her voice is sarcastic.
"No, I--"
"'Cause I'm not fighting." A splash from the pot being shoved a little too viciously into the water belies her words.
"Kara, I just think--"
"Careful, Sammy, I've got a knife over here. Might go crazy and kill you, too."
The words hurt her more than him, and he blinks at her, watching the way her jaw clenches as she finishes the pot and drops it to the side. "I'm not going to tell anyone, Kara."
Her head comes up, eyes meeting his for a moment before they drop. She nods. "All right."
Finished with his pot, he bundles the soap and tosses it back to her, "So can we stop acting like we're fighting?"
"Sure. Not a problem." Her voice is oddly dull, but agreeable. She flashes him that empty smile so many crowds adore. "You're a nice guy, Sam Anders."
"I shouldn't have let you leave," he says, standing and walking away before she can answer. Because he's a little afraid she's wrong.
-
Two days later, Maggie gives him an unfathomable look and suggests they all try some of the new music he's been writing. Sam goes for the silly piece about a girl in the desert and her bright red dress. The tone sets them to laughing and makes it a little easier to try another. After that, they're jamming, shifting and fighting each other to see who can make something new out of something old.
Sam finds himself dueting with Sharon on a rather too-fast Camptown Races while Kara and Hamish try to overwhelm them with opera. Kara's voice isn't really made for arias, but when Maggie's trumpet takes up the counterpoint, he and Sharon are toast, left in the dust as the three gleefully drown them out.
It sounds awful, but the melody isn't really the point.
-
"Do you think we'll ever go back?" Sharon asks, her knees pulled up to her chest, arms draped around them loosely.
Sam concentrates on trying to play his grass kazoo, the fine grain of the grass making his big hands look more awkward than normal. "Around nightfall?" he asks, before closing his lips on the piece of vegetation and giving it a hum.
The sound is pitiful.
Sharon snickers, "I meant to civilization, Anders."
He hums again, then sighs and drops that one, leaning over to find another. "Depends. Do you miss it?"
When she's silent for a while, he sits back up, the hunt for the perfect blade forgotten. "Sharon?" He reaches out and pokes her shoulder.
Her head tilts to the side, eyes distant and cheek resting on her knee, "Yeah. Yeah, I do miss it. I miss cherry pie and ice cream, regular meals and two-hour baths." A sigh escapes her and her eyes close, as though she's imagining all of that and more.
"Can get most of that, here."
"At these prices? No."
She's right, of course. The small amount of money they'd had at the beginning has been gone since just past the border. And the money they take is usually a tiny stipend on top of room and board. "Could steal it."
Her fist punches his shin.
"Ow."
"No stealing." Her eyes open, and she blinks at him, "Do you miss it?"
He doesn't even have to think to have an answer. "No."
"Because of her?"
Sam thinks of wandering Mexico without Kara, turns the idea upside-down and inside-out, then slowly nods. "Mostly." He shrugs and stands, hands itching to wrap around his sax, to use the stub of his last pencil, the music in his head scrawled out in loopy, barely-readable notations. "Let's go back."
-
Just because you miss something doesn't mean you were ever planning to go back, Sam thinks as he shifts on the uncomfortable wooden bench of the train. His movement makes the chains on his wrist clatter.
One of his jailers gives him a look and he settles, trying not to move again although his muscles are already aching from the lack of movement and inability to stretch.
They'd come upon them in one of the larger towns (not long after they'd taken the stage, Kara belting out a particularly smoky ballad), creeping through the crowd, getting closer until Sam recognized one of the men he and Kara had hidden from so long ago. He remembers shouting for them to run and grabbing up a pitcher on his way off the stage and towards them. The band had stopped, things clattering as they made their escape. He'd spared a thought for his sax and case, then stopped caring, the pitcher smashing into the face of one, the home brew in it splashing all of them.
It had taken four to pin him to the ground, and he'd made it as hard as possible, not caring about his own safety as long as the others got away.
The arrest had been swift and brutal, the chains clapped on him before he was hauled back to his feet.
A train came through once a day, and it wasn't long before they put him on it, two of the men with him. One has a black eye, the other a split lip.
Sam tries not to smile at that, knowing they'll take any excuse to add to his bruises.
-
Unsurprisingly, the train gets robbed between stations. Face-down over a horse, the chains still around his wrists, Sam tries hard to be thankful about being free. But the bouncing and the general discomfort don't really help.
Maggie snickers when he yelps, though, and he tries to keep his grumbles to a minimum.
-
Hamish moans and complains about having to use a saw to get Sam's hands free, but Maggie points out that she and Sharon can't afford to lose a finger, and Kara's still tending the horses.
The metal is surprisingly soft, and Sam's free after about twenty minutes of teeth-clenching work. He and Hamish might have to have another boxing match to get back on the same footing, but Sam's not up to it for now.
"Sam?" Kara's almost hesitant as she looks at him.
"Hey. Thanks."
"Maggie's plan," she says, coming closer.
The tiny rooms of the backwater village they fetched up in aren't really large enough for all of them, but Sam doesn't really notice. He doesn't notice the others leaving, either.
"You're ok?" Her hands clench a little, then relax.
"I'm good," he's trying for nonchalance, but he really can't get over how beautiful she is. He wonders if he ever had a chance.
"All right."
The punch catches him by surprise, his head snapping around. "Shit. Ow."
"Delayed reaction," she says breathlessly, hands reaching out to cup his face.
"Oh." He doesn't give her time to hit him again, hands on her waist, pulling her roughly against his body. She makes a sound as his mouth claims hers, but her fingers are sliding into his hair, tugging him even closer, so he doubts it was an objection.
-
He counts every kiss as he makes his way from her neck to her breasts. After that, he loses track, because there's other things to think about.
-
"They'll never stop," Kara says, her head pillowed on his chest.
Sam strokes his fingers up and down her spine, lazy and sore. "Maybe. Maybe they're just bored."
A soundless laugh escapes her, but her voice is bitter when she replies, "It's always easy for you, isn't it. You can't imagine..."
Sam lets the silence last, thinking about the last months. About the things they've all seen and done. The way Maggie moves them so efficiently and Sharon misses pie, but makes no effort to leave. About Hamish and boxing matches and all of them letting him write music that wasn't even that good. "How long have the others known the truth?"
"You never were good at reading the papers, were you."
It's a joke he and Maggie used to share. Maggie would find out about the world and Sam would write music. Everyone else did their own things. "Kara."
She laughs again, though it sounds a little closer to a sob, "Since the beginning. Maggie had a newspaper clipping, one of the ones she'd been hanging onto for the novelty. 'Wealthy heiress kills fiancee, escapes custody'."
The headline makes his stomach clench. "Tell me."
"Oh, they had most of it right. Except for the fiance part. That wasn't true--I never wanted him, but he thought if he... if he kept me..." She pushes up, as though she wants to get away, but Sam's hands drift up her back, and she pauses, looking down at him. "I'm not an innocent, Sam. This isn't something I can walk away from anymore."
"Kara..." he touches her cheek and tries to smile, "We can keep moving. It took them this long to find us, once. It'll take 'em just as long again."
"Yeah? And if we're just delaying the inevitable?"
He slid his hands to her hips, pulling her body against his more firmly, "Then we'll enjoy the time we have and plot your defense."
-
Back on the road, and Sam actually thinks he's enjoying the way the dust kicks up and cakes the back of his throat. There's always been something freeing about walking in the sunlight across the desert. Now there's an extra boost to it.
Kara sticks close to all of them, trying not to be seen as much. Maggie gets her a scarf at their next stop and Kara keeps it draped over her head, obscuring her face.
A week is spent watching carefully, checking on the rumors hitting the ground and playing quiet gigs in small hole-in-the-wall taverns.
They don't break even, they barely manage to get enough water.
When nothing new surfaces, they relax a little. Maggie finds them a spot in a slightly larger town and Kara performs behind a drapery, lamp-light behind her to add illusion and flare.
The audience doesn't seem to like it as much, but it's what they've got, hastily cobbled-together though it is.
-
A week later, Maggie gets sick enough that she stays in her tiny room, Sharon and Kara taking turns keeping her company. Sam figures Maggie knows he and Hamish are useless in this sort of situation, and sets Hamish to keeping an eye on their small stores.
Maggie calls him in eventually and she looks awful.
"I'll live--" she coughs, the sound rattling a little in her throat. "Need you to get the next gig set up. Meet my contact, get our news--"
Sam frowns when she grabs his wrist, her fingers tightening painfully, "Maggie--"
"This's important, Sam. She won't trust you, so you gotta listen, ok?"
Maggie talks. He listens.
-
The woman's almost as tall as he is, skin bronzed and hair bleached almost white by the sunlight. She takes one look at Sam and almost keeps walking--
"Maggie says I'm the stupid frakker who caused this whole thing," he blurts, knowing better than to try grabbing her arm to stop her.
"Don't know a Maggie."
"Your name is Natalie, and Maggie has a tiny kitten on her hip--you were there when she got it." Now, he's on firmer ground. Sam's never seen Maggie's hip, but he can imagine her having one. He continues, "She says we need a new gig, something a little bit more stable, and also--"
He doesn't want to continue, because it makes it a little too real (and maybe he's been lying to himself the way Kara might accuse him of doing so, if she'd done more than just eye him once or twice), but he does, anyway, licking suddenly dry lips, "--is there any more news about the search for that murderess?"
Silence for a moment, then Natalie nods and says, "Tell Maggie she picks shit couriers. I've got two leads for you. And there's no different news on the other front. Not since they lowered the boom on the informants back in Delphi."
"Is that good news or bad?" he blurts, unable to make heads or tails of it.
"Bad, if you're trying to find her. Ain't no one seen her, and ain't no one wantin' to see her, you get my meaning?"
He has to. Natalie isn't going to wait around to explain, and Sam figures stopping her might earn him a knife in the gut. "Thanks. I think. The two gigs?"
"Ten miles to the west, two towns. Could last about a week, each."
No haggling, Maggie had said. Sam nods, "We'll take 'em."
A slight smile crosses Natalie's face, and she looks less severe for a moment. "I'll see particulars are sent to you."
-
Sam tries to get over the way Kara avoids being alone with him--he'd thought they'd reached some sort of understanding, but having sex just makes her even more distant than she was before. But it's hard. He likes her (maybe loves her, though he's not sure how that works), and when she smiles, he feels like he could live forever.
Pushing him away seems to work just fine, for her, and none of the others seem to have a problem with her. So maybe it's just him. He starts to bottle his emotions back up, sometimes writing completely maudlin lines on scraps of parchment, stowing them in his case where no one will find them. He knows they'd mock the shit out of him, maybe even guess who he's talking about.
He continues writing other songs, collaborating with Sharon and sometimes Hamish, working out keys and different arrangements that work for them better than traditional stanzas.
It keeps food on the table, and gigs trickling in, so it's worth it.
-
They spend a week in a tiny community where they all share one room and rotate who gets the bed. At least they do until Kara picks a fight with him (or maybe he started it; in the wash of shouting, he couldn't remember anymore). Maggie exiles them both out into the desert, where there's a nice little spot in amongst the rocks they can sleep for the night.
Sam tries to keep his mouth shut, angry at her and angry at Maggie. If she can ignore him, he can dish it right back out.
Which works until he wakes up next to her, both with hands in places they shouldn't be.
It's different, in the early morning light--or maybe that's just the novelty of sand in places it shouldn't be. He wonders if it'll change anything and tries to resign himself to the thought that it won't as she pulls away when they're done.
He gives her a decent lead before gathering his half of the blankets and padding back to town after her.
If Maggie guesses what they did, she doesn't say anything.
-
Two weeks later, Kara's avoiding him again, and Sam finally has enough. He pulls her out into the desert with him, ignoring her annoyed words and telling her they need to talk.
With the sand beneath their feet and the sun beating down and making them both irritable, he confronts her with his confusion, "Kara, I don't know what you want. One minute, we're ok, the next..."
Her head comes up and she stares at him, a mixture of annoyance and something else, "I was thanking you."
"For what?"
She shrugs, her head back as she looks at the sky, as though tracking the vultures flying over is more interesting than having a conversation with him, "Saving me. You know, when you got captured. Frak, Sammy, didn't think you'd take it as anything more."
And she smiles, and it's innocent and cruel together, and pretty much destroys any hopes he'd had. He slumps a little. "Oh. I'll, uh... I'll leave you alone, then. You should have just punched me or something," he offers, trying to put a positive spin on it even as he thinks of scraps of paper he should go burn. Now.
"Yeah. Yeah, sure," she ducks and steps past him, almost skipping once she's on the path back into the village.
It scares him a little that there was no shouting, this time.
-
For three months, things settle back into their normal routine. Maggie pulls down gigs, Sharon plays piano, Hamish flirts with the local girls, Kara flirts with everyone and Sam writes them all music that they practice when they feel like it.
It's a living, but even as they drift from place to place, Sam feels like it isn't enough. Like he's missing something, or maybe the others are. Or maybe he's still not over Kara Thrace and the way she smiled at him, once upon a time. He hates himself a little for being unable to let her go (there are still scraps of paper buried in his sax case), but he tries.
She's just a singer, a girl with a great voice and other lovely qualities. He even goes out once or twice with Hamish (until Maggie punches Hamish for getting them run out of town), flirting with local girls, making them blush and smile at him.
They're softer than Kara, hands worn with the work they do, but eyes clear of pasts that mark them out as something different.
He finds himself preferring Kara's anger and curves, though her hands are just as worn.
-
Tigh finds them in the middle of nowhere, leaving a town after a good couple nights' run. He looks as worn as they do, though more so, as though he's a little old for all that he's been doing.
"Sir," Maggie says, stepping between him and the rest of the band.
"Ain't here to bring you in--" he waves the cigar he was sucking on, under his tree as he waited for them to arrive, "Just wanted to let you know: it's safe to go back," his eyes brush over Kara, who straightens and glares a little, "all of you."
-
Just like that, they can go back. Return to civilization, baths and real beds round the clock. Hamish looks like he's being sent to heaven, and Maggie looks pleased while Sharon talks about the ice cream flavors she wants, and the dresses and shoes she'll buy--
It takes Sam a few days, but he finally notices that Kara isn't really joining in their happiness. She's going along with them, heading north for the border, but there's something dragging at her feet.
Sam, too, doesn't know what he feels. Being here, in the sand and the sunlight, has changed him. He's not sure he'll fit back in the gritty and musty taverns of the cities they were used to. In truth, he's not sure any of them will fit; not anymore. And late one night, he realizes Maggie thinks the same.
"This won't work," she mumbles, sitting with her back to the baseboard in the room they're all sharing.
"Why not?" Tigh's asleep on a pallet across from them, Hamish passed out nearby, too drunk to notice the hard wood underneath him. Kara and Sharon are half-curled around each other, sharing their blanket. Sam wonders if the chill in the air is just in his head, or if the further north they go, the less the world seems to welcome them.
Maybe he's just spoiled by the heat he's gotten used to.
"It isn't us anymore--" Maggie pauses, then adds, her tone rueful, "It's not me and you, at least. Hamish and Sharon, now, they want to go back."
"Hamish definitely wants to go," agrees Sam. He glances sideways at Maggie, watching the slight flinch that goes through her. For some reason, he bumps her shoulder with his, "He'd stay, you know."
"Why? There's nothing here for him."
Sam shrugs and leans his head back against the wall, "Maybe we just all need a week in civilization to think about it."
-
It takes three days, and Tigh isn't in on the meeting.
Their first gig back was a tiny hole in the wall tavern, barely fit to be called that. The audience hadn't exactly been appreciative, especially since their sound had changed. It had melded with some of the sounds they'd heard south of the border, becoming something that wasn't pure jazz. Maybe it wasn't pure anything, but that didn't matter. The audience hated it, and they finished their set too short.
Like the good manager he was, Tigh had reassured them they were just in a transitional phase. That it would work itself out, and before they'd know it, they'd be back in top form, producing the right kind of music.
Problem was, they liked their new sound.
"It isn't that different," Hamish admits, looking surprised that he's come to the conclusion, "Baths, sure. But the rest? We still get shit rooms and crap food."
"Worse food," objects Sharon, flopping backwards on the bed they're all sharing in turns, "Anyone remember those burritos, two towns ago? Gods. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven."
"That was the tequila," teases Kara.
"I don't..." Sam pauses, trying to come up with the words, then shrugs, "I don't really like it here anymore. It sounds frakkin' stupid, but there it is. I miss the sand."
"Even when it got in your ass?"
He rolls his eyes at Kara, "Even then."
The others chuckle, then the silence falls again. Maggie finally breaks it, "So, what are we saying. We go back? We take up where we left off, with barely the clothes on our back and no money?"
"Ain't like it's different here, Maggie," Hamish tosses back at her, "'Less you got access to somethin' we don't."
"Tigh? Connections?"
"You had connections down there," Sam replies, suddenly cheerful. "And we aren't cutting ourselves off, this time, remember? We can always come back, if we want."
-
It gets settled, just like that. This time, they have more resources--small bits of money Tigh's been holding on for them, and actual provisions. Things they have time to do before they go. Sam writes a few letters and sends them off, letting his sister Barolay know he's alive. He doesn't tell her where he's been, just promises he'll be up to visit her eventually.
Tigh thinks they're nuts, but helps get them provisioned. By the time they head out, Sam jokes he misses his lighter-than-air pack, and Sharon complains that she's not doing anyone else's laundry after this.
Kara's silent, Maggie grinning, and Hamish looking uncertain.
-
They settle back into the road, though it's different. They're not on the run, this time. Being in the open without having to worry about bounties on their heads is refreshing. They'd gotten used to being careful and not out-staying their welcome. Now they don't have to, moving as they're needed, as the road calls to them--as the gigs tempt them.
Maggie finds them a good spot for the winter, each with their own room in a mid-size city (a place they'd avoided the last time through, and it feels more like civilization than north of the border). Sam finds a teaching gig, making a little extra money on the side and stretching himself to show children how to take up the sax--Sharon thinks he's ridiculous, but sometimes she joins him, sitting at the back of the class, eyes bright and listening.
The others do what they can, picking up odd jobs here and there. Enough that they're all eking out a better living than they had been.
When it snows one day, Sam chases the children out into the fields, showing them how to make snowballs even as it melts between his fingers. Kara's there, laughing at his antics, laughing at them. He retaliates against her mocking by shoving snow down the back of her blouse.
She threatens to get him back later.
-
Nearly a week later, he's forgotten her threat, though the children haven't forgotten the snow, begging him to make it happen again. They never listen when he says he can't, always claiming that he's magical and can accomplish it.
He hates to disappoint them, but the weather isn't cooperating.
Neither is Kara, and Sam finds his white shirts dyed pink that night. Since it had been her turn for laundry duty, it wasn't hard to work out the culprit.
He finally finds her in her room, practicing her fingering on the guitar Maggie had gotten as payment for their latest gig. Kara isn't exactly good on it, but the simple chords she can manage still add something a little different to their sound.
"You want something?" she asks, not looking up at him.
"Pink shirts?"
Her lips twitch and her eyes are bright when she looks up at him, "You look good in pink."
Laughing, he pulls her to her feet, stripping the guitar from her hands. "Put up your fists and fight, woman."
"You're gonna punch me over a few shirts?" She's laughing at him as she slowly backs away.
"Hell, yeah." Running a hand through his air, he waves the other hand, "My only shirts, Kara!"
She bursts into giggles.
Unable to help himself, he starts chuckling a little before he grabs her, tumbling her back onto the bed and following her down. The whole lot of them play around, punching and tickling, hugging when they're down. He thinks about how close they are a little too late to avoid crashing down on her, but he rolls an instant later.
Kara's not laughing when she pushes up and leans over him, her mouth hot on his.
Which is fine. Sam's not laughing, either, as his hands pull her closer, sliding up and under her blouse.
-
He's staring at the ceiling when they're done, registering her draped over him, but trying not to think beyond that. If he doesn't, it's going to hurt. He pulls in a breath and swears softly, pushing her away and climbing free of the bed.
"Sam?"
"I didn't mean, I'm--" he shakes his head and grabs for his pants, finding them in a heap under her clothing and the sheets.
"Maggie always said you were sort of stupid," Kara whispers from behind him.
"She'd be right."
"Where do you think you're going?"
He stops in his struggle and looks back at her, trying not to let it hurt, "I--"
Sprawled in the late afternoon light, she's a goddess or a devil, or both at once, and he tries not to think about how he'll have this memory etched on his soul for eternity (or until he can get really drunk). She moves, glaring at him, "Get back here."
"I thought..." he stops, because he doesn't know what he thought anymore.
Her hands pull him back down, and he tries not to flinch as she leans over him, eyes dark and serious, "You think too much." Her mouth brushes his, "Don't want you going, Sam."
"What if I want to?" It would be a lie.
"Then I guess I'm a fool."
Oh. He reaches up and cups her cheek, pulling her mouth to his again, kissing her with a hundred different thoughts tumbling over themselves. When she breaks away for air, he says, "You're only a fool if I am, too."
"Guess that works." She kisses him again, then settles at his side, fingers stroking over his chest.
-
The next time they surface, Maggie looks smug, Sharon looks amused, and Hamish just rolls his eyes. Sam finds himself blushing and hiding behind Kara (who's a little smug herself).
It doesn't change much, in the end.
When the mild winter ends, Maggie puts them all on the road again, this time careful to make sure there's joint accomodation for Sam and Kara (though she's pleased that she can book one less room, even if it means all of them suffer when Sam and Kara have a fight). No one says 'married', but they might as well be.
The music changes a little, too. Kara's guitar work slowly meshing with the rest of their instruments, until it feels like it was always there.
-f-
genre: AU
characters: Kara Thrace, Sam Anders, Margaret Edmonson, Hamish McCall, Sharon Valerii, Saul Tigh
pairing: Kara Thrace/Sam Anders (OT5 with the first five listed, a bit?)
rating: erm, PG13, soft R? sex, language, violence. Most of it not graphic.
length: 7000+
tense: present.
notes: I don't know jazz. or the 40's. or anything about anything, really. But I was struck by this about the time Ron said Sam wrote that song in BSG. It got stalled when canon, ah, did certain things with two of them (which made it hard to balance), and then I reopened it the other day and got an end. Yay. This is sort of set on Earth? I'm lazy and refuse to go back and make up names for Caprican cities. (thank you, Metric, for a title)
summary: what if Anders, Maggie, Hamish and Sharon were a jazz band looking for a new singer? Saul Tigh might even let them take the new girl they find before all hell breaks loose and the law chases them south of the border.
If somebody's got soul...
by ALC Punk!
They pick up the blonde bombshell for vocals outside of Springfield (the name is one Saul sticks her with after she knocks a customer's teeth in for getting a little too familiar). She's crooning rusty ballads in a dive bar Maggie dragged Sam into and they both watch her, evaluating her as musicians and performers, automatically.
"Got potential," Maggie suggests at the end of the set. She knows Sharon's never been comfortable on lead (heck, they all know that), and Sam figures this is Maggie's way of helping her out.
Hamish calls Kara Thrace trouble and Saul Tigh agrees to give her an audition. But only after she decks the customer.
Neither Maggie nor Sam tell him they sort of promised her a place in the band to get her there, and she's looking like she might pop Sam before he backs away, grabbing for his sax.
The music distracts her, and she takes up the microphone, all professional again.
When her husky vocals practically slide into bed with the low notes from Sam's sax, she's hired. Sharon's decent, but ain't no way in hell she manages that level of style.
-
The first time they kiss, she tastes like coffee and stale cigarettes.
She kisses him on a dare, all of them tired and past to a sort of euphoria that makes them giggle too much. Sam's a little surprised at how much he enjoys it (Hamish makes noises about a girl in every town and Sharon's giggling, somewhere in the background).
-
They're in Bixby when the cops catch up, and Kara swears she didn't do whatever they're claiming.
Saul puts in a protest, but it's Maggie and Sharon who break her out, with Hamish keeping a look-out. The five of them make it ten miles past the city limits before reality begins to set in, and Kara laughs at them for their confusion, then grins cheerfully and suggests Mexico is nice, this time of year.
-
"I killed a man," Kara says, late one night when they're the only two awake. It's a tiny town, middle of nowhere, but the locals like the music and their feet like the rest, not to mention the local brew.
Sam puffs on his cigarette, thinks about what that means, then passes it over to her. "What'd he do?"
Head down, she pulls her knees up, letting her arms dangle forwards, towards the ground, cigarette slowly burning out between her fingers. "That's the problem..."
A crash from behind them startles her into dropping the cigarette, and Sam wonders if she welcomes the interruption as Sharon staggers out to join them, falling onto the wind-chapped boards behind Kara and leaning into her back.
"Clumsy," Kara murmurs, and Sharon just laughs, eyes drifting closed.
Really good alcohol.
-
The second time they kiss, it's an alley in Mexico City and Kara's all desperate hands and lips, pulling at his hair as he presses her up into the wall. Dimly, he remembers there were men stalking them, but all he can taste is her mouth and all he can hear is the way her breath catches when his hands brush up the outside of her blouse.
She shoves him away before they get any further, and he closes his eyes, waiting for her fist.
When it doesn't come, he blinks a little.
He's alone.
-
Maggie finds them a gig in a part of town none of them like, but the crowd doesn't care who they are, as long as they play. Sam watches Kara flirt with the crowd until the end of the show and wonders why the others think this is worth it. They could have dumped Kara at the border, gone back and taken up careers where there were regular showers, good money, and something other than a hand-to-mouth existence.
He asks Sharon about it, three days later, and she just laughs before she goes to wash everyone's spare clothing in the tiny machine in the basement of the rat-trap they've got a room in.
-
There's something about walking dirt roads (gravel and blacktop, too, though never in good repair) between tiny villages that makes him take deeper breaths. Sam watches the sky more, head tilted back, saxophone in its canvas bag on his back, bouncing a little with every step he takes.
"Gonna catch flies that way," Kara teases, more than once.
Not as much as she catches men, he thinks. But she never seems to notice or care, so he doesn't say it. He laughs a little, though, turns his head and wonders if he's one of the one's she's caught, too.
-
Another town, and this one has a built-in piano that Sharon tries out before making rude comments about how in tune it is until the owner snaps that she can shut the hell up or fix the damned thing herself. When she laughs and pulls up the top to do just that, Sam wonders if the man regrets his word.
Not that Sharon's an expert at tuning pianos, but she used to joke that she was an instrument repairman in another life.
Half-buried inside the thing, tinkering, with clanking sounds coming from it, Sam wonders if that's true before he goes to check accomadations for the night.
-
Sam doesn't know how Maggie has contacts in the middle of Nowhere, Mexico, but she's got enough to get them a solid week at something almost approaching heaven. There's hot baths and enough clean clothing for everyone. It's the first meal they've had in months that isn't just re-heated or barely-heated gruel and beans.
The first night they play, they're horrible. Kara and Maggie barely save them until the encore, when he and Hamish finally kick it into gear and Sharon gives up on the ancient piano they'd cursed her with and used her hands on a table, snapping out a beat they can all feel under their skins.
The second they're done, Sharon's after the piano, cursing not having checked it out beforehand and Kara disappears with Maggie to gods' know where, leaving Sam and Hamish to placate the few irritated customers left.
When they promise they'll be better the next night, most of them scoff.
Yet they all come back. Sam figures, as they launch into the first song (sounding far better), that the locals must not have much to do.
By the fourth night, half the town is there for their performance, and Sam has to rescue Kara from more than one over-zealous fan after the show. He wonders, as she runs ahead of him up the back stairs before disappearing into her room, if she let him do it.
-
A month later, they all miss the town, though only Maggie remembers what it was called.
"Delphi, or something," Hamish suggests, on his back in the shade under the scrubby trees at the side of the road.
They'd stopped for a rest. Sam snorts, "Can't go back, remember?"
"Was this girl there," continues the bassist reduced to a half-size instrument that hasn't ever matched the deep tones he prefers. "Carla? Jean? Most gorgeous golden-brown eyes, perfect body..."
Sam laughs and sips from his canteen, used to the stale taste but still hating it. "And Sharon used to say I had a girl in every town."
"You did," calls Sharon, though she's not moving anymore than Hamish is, she's in the sunlight, head back and skirts up to let her legs catch some light.
"That true, Sammy?" asks Kara, her tone sleepy from where she's got her back against a different tree. Maggie's sprawled at her side, head pillowed on Kara's hip, Kara's fingers sometimes stroking through the escaping wisps of Maggie's ponytail. "Got lots of women missin' you?"
"Tory!" The triumphant crow bursts from Hamish like the crack of a broken string. "That was her name."
-
Two-week engagement in a different town, and they're one week in when the trouble begins. There's another influx of people, outsiders like them, though not foreigners. Sam only gets the vaguest idea that something might be up when they're tuning up for the show.
Halfway into the set, a bottle flies through the air, shattering against the back wall behind Sharon. She flinches, her fingers missing two keys and hitting a third. Kara moves from her normal post, anger in her frame before she stops in front of Sharon, voice raised, belting out the words of a rather soft ballad as though daring anyone to call her bluff.
With the hairs on his neck coming up, Sam keeps an eye on the audience and this time sees the man at the back of the crowd raise his hand to throw.
Maggie does, too.
The man goes down under 110-pounds of angry woman, her nails raking his face and her fists bloodying his nose.
It's amicable, mostly, but the gig ends then and there.
-
Something about the way the desert smells makes Sam want to just wander through it until he can't anymore. It's not a death-wish, but there's something about it that digs into his skin and pulls. Usually, the sensation isn't so strong. But after a week with no prospects and another tiny town with no rooms, he's tired of being under the stars.
"You feel it, too?" Sharon asks, following him past the edge of town (not that there's a demarcation, the huts simply cease to continue on, though the sand stretches into infinity).
He grunts, steps taking him towards a tall boulder he can barely see in the moon-silvered distance. She's silent as she follows him, and he boosts her up onto the rock. They climb in silence, fingers finding holds they can't really see.
Once at the top, they're still quiet, the world looking strangely flat and the ground too-close for comfort with only shadows to delineate sand from rock and cactus from hut.
"I should've brought my sax," he murmurs, making her jump.
She laughs, though the sound is barely a murmur over the rustle of the wind. "Wouldn't want to start rumors of a dead saxophone player in the desert, Anders."
Maybe.
He takes a leap, landing and tumbling over in the sand until he comes to a rest, staring up at the stars. He can see her, from the corner of his eyes as she follows, her descent slower as she climbs back down.
There'll be bruises in the morning, but it was worth it for that brief moment where he was nowhere.
-
In a tavern on the outskirts of Mexico City (they need supplies, and even Kara agrees it's the best place to stock up), Sam pens more than a few songs, Maggie giving him grief over the phrasing and Kara telling him love songs don't do well in the middle of nowhere.
He laughs at them both, fingers careful not to blur the pencil as he rolls the papers and slides them into his case.
Only one is a love song. The rest just need to be played a few times before they'll be out of his system.
-
They're starting to get a reputation, with the way they travel; the fact that they're good is simply icing on the cake. They're mysterious, never staying in one place for too long. Sometimes, the locals ask why, sometimes they don't.
In one day, gone the next. Spending a week in a tiny room, playing every night until the sun is up and the workers in the field are leaden and tired as they stagger out to their own work.
A freak monsoon sees them helping bring in the last of the harvest, the barn the sturdiest structure the place has. Once it's saved, they run back out.
It's the first shower they've had in months, and the cleanest they've been in a week.
-
"I had a life," Hamish says.
Sam looks up from cleaning his sax, hands stilling. "Hamish?"
"I had a life, man."
No one says anything, but the stillness in the tiny room is more than enough. They all know what he's talking about, in a way.
Hamish curses at them and stalks out, the door too badly-fitted to slam when he pulls it to.
"Damn. I should--" Kara's out of her seat when Maggie's gaze crosses Sam's.
"Stay," he says, standing and dropping the sax and the cleaning cloth in her hands when she sits back down, still uncertain. "I'll talk to him."
-
Talking isn't what works.
Limping back, both with fresh bruises and skinned knuckles isn't much better, but it's at least something honest. Something real. Kara's not in the room when they return; neither is Sharon, Sam doesn't ask Maggie about it and Hamish ignores both of them to curl up on the single bed.
Maggie gives Sam a look, then disappears to the room she's sharing with the other two.
Picking up his battered, but shiny sax, Sam fingers the mouthpiece, thinking about playing. He resigns himself to just finger exercises when Hamish shifts and glares at him.
-
Luxury is a town large enough for a bath house and an inn. Luxury is separate rooms for all of them (Maggie says stuff the expense, and the novelty of not sleeping with someone at their back makes them all accept). Luxury means finding Kara Thrace asleep on his pillow, her hands tucked under her chin.
Her hair is still damp, like his, and he reaches out to brush a hand through it, waking her.
"Wrong room?" he asks, confused.
"No."
The third time they kiss, she's pulled him down to the bed, hands on his shoulders and mouth hot. She smells like cheap soap and clean skin, and he makes her breath hiss out when his hands drift under her shirt.
"Sam..." Her mouth drifts to his throat, then back to his lips.
He's a little scared she'll be a dream when he slides her shirt up and over her head. She's tanned and freckled, and his mouth follows the curve of her throat, right at one of the lines. Her hands pull his back to her breasts.
The sensation is almost too much for his brain to handle. Months of sun and sand, wind and silence have taken their toll and he shivers when she bites down on shoulder.
"You wrote a song for me," she murmurs.
"What gave you that idea?"
It's the right answer, but the wrong question, and she laughs a little, breath huffing out against his shoulder. "Oh, Sammy. You really have no idea, do you."
He shifts, hands cupping her face, searching her eyes in the dim light from the tiny lantern. "Kara..." He stops, afraid. If he says what he's thinking, she'll run. He's watched her for months, the way she's watched him, snatches of glances when they were trying to pretend something else.
"Don't," her fingers cover his lips, and she slides from his grasp before he can think of the right thing to say. "You should remember I killed a man." Her shirt in hand, she steps back.
"I don't care."
"I shoved a knife into his chest, over and over--gods. There was so much blood," her voice stops and she ducks, shirt on her arms and then over her head, drifting down and covering her again. "This was a bad idea."
He doesn't follow her from the room.
-
For the next week, they're careful around each other, so careful Maggie finally takes him aside and tells him to either get his act together, or she's kicking him in the balls.
Since Maggie takes her threats seriously, Sam tracks Kara down past the last line of huts, washing their few cook pots in a stream there. She's cursing a little, since Hamish was an idiot and burned dinner in one of them, and it's taking a while to loosen the caked-on congealed mass.
He's silent as he takes one of the others, kneeling across from her and cleaning it.
When he works up the courage to break the silence, she jumps as though she's forgotten he's there, "Can you pass the soap?"
"Yeah." She tosses it.
It lands short, but he fishes it out of the water before they lose it to current and erosion. "Thanks." He rolls the small ball between his hands, sets it on the dry cloth and then sets to work. "Kara, Maggie says we should make up."
"Were we fighting?" Her voice is sarcastic.
"No, I--"
"'Cause I'm not fighting." A splash from the pot being shoved a little too viciously into the water belies her words.
"Kara, I just think--"
"Careful, Sammy, I've got a knife over here. Might go crazy and kill you, too."
The words hurt her more than him, and he blinks at her, watching the way her jaw clenches as she finishes the pot and drops it to the side. "I'm not going to tell anyone, Kara."
Her head comes up, eyes meeting his for a moment before they drop. She nods. "All right."
Finished with his pot, he bundles the soap and tosses it back to her, "So can we stop acting like we're fighting?"
"Sure. Not a problem." Her voice is oddly dull, but agreeable. She flashes him that empty smile so many crowds adore. "You're a nice guy, Sam Anders."
"I shouldn't have let you leave," he says, standing and walking away before she can answer. Because he's a little afraid she's wrong.
-
Two days later, Maggie gives him an unfathomable look and suggests they all try some of the new music he's been writing. Sam goes for the silly piece about a girl in the desert and her bright red dress. The tone sets them to laughing and makes it a little easier to try another. After that, they're jamming, shifting and fighting each other to see who can make something new out of something old.
Sam finds himself dueting with Sharon on a rather too-fast Camptown Races while Kara and Hamish try to overwhelm them with opera. Kara's voice isn't really made for arias, but when Maggie's trumpet takes up the counterpoint, he and Sharon are toast, left in the dust as the three gleefully drown them out.
It sounds awful, but the melody isn't really the point.
-
"Do you think we'll ever go back?" Sharon asks, her knees pulled up to her chest, arms draped around them loosely.
Sam concentrates on trying to play his grass kazoo, the fine grain of the grass making his big hands look more awkward than normal. "Around nightfall?" he asks, before closing his lips on the piece of vegetation and giving it a hum.
The sound is pitiful.
Sharon snickers, "I meant to civilization, Anders."
He hums again, then sighs and drops that one, leaning over to find another. "Depends. Do you miss it?"
When she's silent for a while, he sits back up, the hunt for the perfect blade forgotten. "Sharon?" He reaches out and pokes her shoulder.
Her head tilts to the side, eyes distant and cheek resting on her knee, "Yeah. Yeah, I do miss it. I miss cherry pie and ice cream, regular meals and two-hour baths." A sigh escapes her and her eyes close, as though she's imagining all of that and more.
"Can get most of that, here."
"At these prices? No."
She's right, of course. The small amount of money they'd had at the beginning has been gone since just past the border. And the money they take is usually a tiny stipend on top of room and board. "Could steal it."
Her fist punches his shin.
"Ow."
"No stealing." Her eyes open, and she blinks at him, "Do you miss it?"
He doesn't even have to think to have an answer. "No."
"Because of her?"
Sam thinks of wandering Mexico without Kara, turns the idea upside-down and inside-out, then slowly nods. "Mostly." He shrugs and stands, hands itching to wrap around his sax, to use the stub of his last pencil, the music in his head scrawled out in loopy, barely-readable notations. "Let's go back."
-
Just because you miss something doesn't mean you were ever planning to go back, Sam thinks as he shifts on the uncomfortable wooden bench of the train. His movement makes the chains on his wrist clatter.
One of his jailers gives him a look and he settles, trying not to move again although his muscles are already aching from the lack of movement and inability to stretch.
They'd come upon them in one of the larger towns (not long after they'd taken the stage, Kara belting out a particularly smoky ballad), creeping through the crowd, getting closer until Sam recognized one of the men he and Kara had hidden from so long ago. He remembers shouting for them to run and grabbing up a pitcher on his way off the stage and towards them. The band had stopped, things clattering as they made their escape. He'd spared a thought for his sax and case, then stopped caring, the pitcher smashing into the face of one, the home brew in it splashing all of them.
It had taken four to pin him to the ground, and he'd made it as hard as possible, not caring about his own safety as long as the others got away.
The arrest had been swift and brutal, the chains clapped on him before he was hauled back to his feet.
A train came through once a day, and it wasn't long before they put him on it, two of the men with him. One has a black eye, the other a split lip.
Sam tries not to smile at that, knowing they'll take any excuse to add to his bruises.
-
Unsurprisingly, the train gets robbed between stations. Face-down over a horse, the chains still around his wrists, Sam tries hard to be thankful about being free. But the bouncing and the general discomfort don't really help.
Maggie snickers when he yelps, though, and he tries to keep his grumbles to a minimum.
-
Hamish moans and complains about having to use a saw to get Sam's hands free, but Maggie points out that she and Sharon can't afford to lose a finger, and Kara's still tending the horses.
The metal is surprisingly soft, and Sam's free after about twenty minutes of teeth-clenching work. He and Hamish might have to have another boxing match to get back on the same footing, but Sam's not up to it for now.
"Sam?" Kara's almost hesitant as she looks at him.
"Hey. Thanks."
"Maggie's plan," she says, coming closer.
The tiny rooms of the backwater village they fetched up in aren't really large enough for all of them, but Sam doesn't really notice. He doesn't notice the others leaving, either.
"You're ok?" Her hands clench a little, then relax.
"I'm good," he's trying for nonchalance, but he really can't get over how beautiful she is. He wonders if he ever had a chance.
"All right."
The punch catches him by surprise, his head snapping around. "Shit. Ow."
"Delayed reaction," she says breathlessly, hands reaching out to cup his face.
"Oh." He doesn't give her time to hit him again, hands on her waist, pulling her roughly against his body. She makes a sound as his mouth claims hers, but her fingers are sliding into his hair, tugging him even closer, so he doubts it was an objection.
-
He counts every kiss as he makes his way from her neck to her breasts. After that, he loses track, because there's other things to think about.
-
"They'll never stop," Kara says, her head pillowed on his chest.
Sam strokes his fingers up and down her spine, lazy and sore. "Maybe. Maybe they're just bored."
A soundless laugh escapes her, but her voice is bitter when she replies, "It's always easy for you, isn't it. You can't imagine..."
Sam lets the silence last, thinking about the last months. About the things they've all seen and done. The way Maggie moves them so efficiently and Sharon misses pie, but makes no effort to leave. About Hamish and boxing matches and all of them letting him write music that wasn't even that good. "How long have the others known the truth?"
"You never were good at reading the papers, were you."
It's a joke he and Maggie used to share. Maggie would find out about the world and Sam would write music. Everyone else did their own things. "Kara."
She laughs again, though it sounds a little closer to a sob, "Since the beginning. Maggie had a newspaper clipping, one of the ones she'd been hanging onto for the novelty. 'Wealthy heiress kills fiancee, escapes custody'."
The headline makes his stomach clench. "Tell me."
"Oh, they had most of it right. Except for the fiance part. That wasn't true--I never wanted him, but he thought if he... if he kept me..." She pushes up, as though she wants to get away, but Sam's hands drift up her back, and she pauses, looking down at him. "I'm not an innocent, Sam. This isn't something I can walk away from anymore."
"Kara..." he touches her cheek and tries to smile, "We can keep moving. It took them this long to find us, once. It'll take 'em just as long again."
"Yeah? And if we're just delaying the inevitable?"
He slid his hands to her hips, pulling her body against his more firmly, "Then we'll enjoy the time we have and plot your defense."
-
Back on the road, and Sam actually thinks he's enjoying the way the dust kicks up and cakes the back of his throat. There's always been something freeing about walking in the sunlight across the desert. Now there's an extra boost to it.
Kara sticks close to all of them, trying not to be seen as much. Maggie gets her a scarf at their next stop and Kara keeps it draped over her head, obscuring her face.
A week is spent watching carefully, checking on the rumors hitting the ground and playing quiet gigs in small hole-in-the-wall taverns.
They don't break even, they barely manage to get enough water.
When nothing new surfaces, they relax a little. Maggie finds them a spot in a slightly larger town and Kara performs behind a drapery, lamp-light behind her to add illusion and flare.
The audience doesn't seem to like it as much, but it's what they've got, hastily cobbled-together though it is.
-
A week later, Maggie gets sick enough that she stays in her tiny room, Sharon and Kara taking turns keeping her company. Sam figures Maggie knows he and Hamish are useless in this sort of situation, and sets Hamish to keeping an eye on their small stores.
Maggie calls him in eventually and she looks awful.
"I'll live--" she coughs, the sound rattling a little in her throat. "Need you to get the next gig set up. Meet my contact, get our news--"
Sam frowns when she grabs his wrist, her fingers tightening painfully, "Maggie--"
"This's important, Sam. She won't trust you, so you gotta listen, ok?"
Maggie talks. He listens.
-
The woman's almost as tall as he is, skin bronzed and hair bleached almost white by the sunlight. She takes one look at Sam and almost keeps walking--
"Maggie says I'm the stupid frakker who caused this whole thing," he blurts, knowing better than to try grabbing her arm to stop her.
"Don't know a Maggie."
"Your name is Natalie, and Maggie has a tiny kitten on her hip--you were there when she got it." Now, he's on firmer ground. Sam's never seen Maggie's hip, but he can imagine her having one. He continues, "She says we need a new gig, something a little bit more stable, and also--"
He doesn't want to continue, because it makes it a little too real (and maybe he's been lying to himself the way Kara might accuse him of doing so, if she'd done more than just eye him once or twice), but he does, anyway, licking suddenly dry lips, "--is there any more news about the search for that murderess?"
Silence for a moment, then Natalie nods and says, "Tell Maggie she picks shit couriers. I've got two leads for you. And there's no different news on the other front. Not since they lowered the boom on the informants back in Delphi."
"Is that good news or bad?" he blurts, unable to make heads or tails of it.
"Bad, if you're trying to find her. Ain't no one seen her, and ain't no one wantin' to see her, you get my meaning?"
He has to. Natalie isn't going to wait around to explain, and Sam figures stopping her might earn him a knife in the gut. "Thanks. I think. The two gigs?"
"Ten miles to the west, two towns. Could last about a week, each."
No haggling, Maggie had said. Sam nods, "We'll take 'em."
A slight smile crosses Natalie's face, and she looks less severe for a moment. "I'll see particulars are sent to you."
-
Sam tries to get over the way Kara avoids being alone with him--he'd thought they'd reached some sort of understanding, but having sex just makes her even more distant than she was before. But it's hard. He likes her (maybe loves her, though he's not sure how that works), and when she smiles, he feels like he could live forever.
Pushing him away seems to work just fine, for her, and none of the others seem to have a problem with her. So maybe it's just him. He starts to bottle his emotions back up, sometimes writing completely maudlin lines on scraps of parchment, stowing them in his case where no one will find them. He knows they'd mock the shit out of him, maybe even guess who he's talking about.
He continues writing other songs, collaborating with Sharon and sometimes Hamish, working out keys and different arrangements that work for them better than traditional stanzas.
It keeps food on the table, and gigs trickling in, so it's worth it.
-
They spend a week in a tiny community where they all share one room and rotate who gets the bed. At least they do until Kara picks a fight with him (or maybe he started it; in the wash of shouting, he couldn't remember anymore). Maggie exiles them both out into the desert, where there's a nice little spot in amongst the rocks they can sleep for the night.
Sam tries to keep his mouth shut, angry at her and angry at Maggie. If she can ignore him, he can dish it right back out.
Which works until he wakes up next to her, both with hands in places they shouldn't be.
It's different, in the early morning light--or maybe that's just the novelty of sand in places it shouldn't be. He wonders if it'll change anything and tries to resign himself to the thought that it won't as she pulls away when they're done.
He gives her a decent lead before gathering his half of the blankets and padding back to town after her.
If Maggie guesses what they did, she doesn't say anything.
-
Two weeks later, Kara's avoiding him again, and Sam finally has enough. He pulls her out into the desert with him, ignoring her annoyed words and telling her they need to talk.
With the sand beneath their feet and the sun beating down and making them both irritable, he confronts her with his confusion, "Kara, I don't know what you want. One minute, we're ok, the next..."
Her head comes up and she stares at him, a mixture of annoyance and something else, "I was thanking you."
"For what?"
She shrugs, her head back as she looks at the sky, as though tracking the vultures flying over is more interesting than having a conversation with him, "Saving me. You know, when you got captured. Frak, Sammy, didn't think you'd take it as anything more."
And she smiles, and it's innocent and cruel together, and pretty much destroys any hopes he'd had. He slumps a little. "Oh. I'll, uh... I'll leave you alone, then. You should have just punched me or something," he offers, trying to put a positive spin on it even as he thinks of scraps of paper he should go burn. Now.
"Yeah. Yeah, sure," she ducks and steps past him, almost skipping once she's on the path back into the village.
It scares him a little that there was no shouting, this time.
-
For three months, things settle back into their normal routine. Maggie pulls down gigs, Sharon plays piano, Hamish flirts with the local girls, Kara flirts with everyone and Sam writes them all music that they practice when they feel like it.
It's a living, but even as they drift from place to place, Sam feels like it isn't enough. Like he's missing something, or maybe the others are. Or maybe he's still not over Kara Thrace and the way she smiled at him, once upon a time. He hates himself a little for being unable to let her go (there are still scraps of paper buried in his sax case), but he tries.
She's just a singer, a girl with a great voice and other lovely qualities. He even goes out once or twice with Hamish (until Maggie punches Hamish for getting them run out of town), flirting with local girls, making them blush and smile at him.
They're softer than Kara, hands worn with the work they do, but eyes clear of pasts that mark them out as something different.
He finds himself preferring Kara's anger and curves, though her hands are just as worn.
-
Tigh finds them in the middle of nowhere, leaving a town after a good couple nights' run. He looks as worn as they do, though more so, as though he's a little old for all that he's been doing.
"Sir," Maggie says, stepping between him and the rest of the band.
"Ain't here to bring you in--" he waves the cigar he was sucking on, under his tree as he waited for them to arrive, "Just wanted to let you know: it's safe to go back," his eyes brush over Kara, who straightens and glares a little, "all of you."
-
Just like that, they can go back. Return to civilization, baths and real beds round the clock. Hamish looks like he's being sent to heaven, and Maggie looks pleased while Sharon talks about the ice cream flavors she wants, and the dresses and shoes she'll buy--
It takes Sam a few days, but he finally notices that Kara isn't really joining in their happiness. She's going along with them, heading north for the border, but there's something dragging at her feet.
Sam, too, doesn't know what he feels. Being here, in the sand and the sunlight, has changed him. He's not sure he'll fit back in the gritty and musty taverns of the cities they were used to. In truth, he's not sure any of them will fit; not anymore. And late one night, he realizes Maggie thinks the same.
"This won't work," she mumbles, sitting with her back to the baseboard in the room they're all sharing.
"Why not?" Tigh's asleep on a pallet across from them, Hamish passed out nearby, too drunk to notice the hard wood underneath him. Kara and Sharon are half-curled around each other, sharing their blanket. Sam wonders if the chill in the air is just in his head, or if the further north they go, the less the world seems to welcome them.
Maybe he's just spoiled by the heat he's gotten used to.
"It isn't us anymore--" Maggie pauses, then adds, her tone rueful, "It's not me and you, at least. Hamish and Sharon, now, they want to go back."
"Hamish definitely wants to go," agrees Sam. He glances sideways at Maggie, watching the slight flinch that goes through her. For some reason, he bumps her shoulder with his, "He'd stay, you know."
"Why? There's nothing here for him."
Sam shrugs and leans his head back against the wall, "Maybe we just all need a week in civilization to think about it."
-
It takes three days, and Tigh isn't in on the meeting.
Their first gig back was a tiny hole in the wall tavern, barely fit to be called that. The audience hadn't exactly been appreciative, especially since their sound had changed. It had melded with some of the sounds they'd heard south of the border, becoming something that wasn't pure jazz. Maybe it wasn't pure anything, but that didn't matter. The audience hated it, and they finished their set too short.
Like the good manager he was, Tigh had reassured them they were just in a transitional phase. That it would work itself out, and before they'd know it, they'd be back in top form, producing the right kind of music.
Problem was, they liked their new sound.
"It isn't that different," Hamish admits, looking surprised that he's come to the conclusion, "Baths, sure. But the rest? We still get shit rooms and crap food."
"Worse food," objects Sharon, flopping backwards on the bed they're all sharing in turns, "Anyone remember those burritos, two towns ago? Gods. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven."
"That was the tequila," teases Kara.
"I don't..." Sam pauses, trying to come up with the words, then shrugs, "I don't really like it here anymore. It sounds frakkin' stupid, but there it is. I miss the sand."
"Even when it got in your ass?"
He rolls his eyes at Kara, "Even then."
The others chuckle, then the silence falls again. Maggie finally breaks it, "So, what are we saying. We go back? We take up where we left off, with barely the clothes on our back and no money?"
"Ain't like it's different here, Maggie," Hamish tosses back at her, "'Less you got access to somethin' we don't."
"Tigh? Connections?"
"You had connections down there," Sam replies, suddenly cheerful. "And we aren't cutting ourselves off, this time, remember? We can always come back, if we want."
-
It gets settled, just like that. This time, they have more resources--small bits of money Tigh's been holding on for them, and actual provisions. Things they have time to do before they go. Sam writes a few letters and sends them off, letting his sister Barolay know he's alive. He doesn't tell her where he's been, just promises he'll be up to visit her eventually.
Tigh thinks they're nuts, but helps get them provisioned. By the time they head out, Sam jokes he misses his lighter-than-air pack, and Sharon complains that she's not doing anyone else's laundry after this.
Kara's silent, Maggie grinning, and Hamish looking uncertain.
-
They settle back into the road, though it's different. They're not on the run, this time. Being in the open without having to worry about bounties on their heads is refreshing. They'd gotten used to being careful and not out-staying their welcome. Now they don't have to, moving as they're needed, as the road calls to them--as the gigs tempt them.
Maggie finds them a good spot for the winter, each with their own room in a mid-size city (a place they'd avoided the last time through, and it feels more like civilization than north of the border). Sam finds a teaching gig, making a little extra money on the side and stretching himself to show children how to take up the sax--Sharon thinks he's ridiculous, but sometimes she joins him, sitting at the back of the class, eyes bright and listening.
The others do what they can, picking up odd jobs here and there. Enough that they're all eking out a better living than they had been.
When it snows one day, Sam chases the children out into the fields, showing them how to make snowballs even as it melts between his fingers. Kara's there, laughing at his antics, laughing at them. He retaliates against her mocking by shoving snow down the back of her blouse.
She threatens to get him back later.
-
Nearly a week later, he's forgotten her threat, though the children haven't forgotten the snow, begging him to make it happen again. They never listen when he says he can't, always claiming that he's magical and can accomplish it.
He hates to disappoint them, but the weather isn't cooperating.
Neither is Kara, and Sam finds his white shirts dyed pink that night. Since it had been her turn for laundry duty, it wasn't hard to work out the culprit.
He finally finds her in her room, practicing her fingering on the guitar Maggie had gotten as payment for their latest gig. Kara isn't exactly good on it, but the simple chords she can manage still add something a little different to their sound.
"You want something?" she asks, not looking up at him.
"Pink shirts?"
Her lips twitch and her eyes are bright when she looks up at him, "You look good in pink."
Laughing, he pulls her to her feet, stripping the guitar from her hands. "Put up your fists and fight, woman."
"You're gonna punch me over a few shirts?" She's laughing at him as she slowly backs away.
"Hell, yeah." Running a hand through his air, he waves the other hand, "My only shirts, Kara!"
She bursts into giggles.
Unable to help himself, he starts chuckling a little before he grabs her, tumbling her back onto the bed and following her down. The whole lot of them play around, punching and tickling, hugging when they're down. He thinks about how close they are a little too late to avoid crashing down on her, but he rolls an instant later.
Kara's not laughing when she pushes up and leans over him, her mouth hot on his.
Which is fine. Sam's not laughing, either, as his hands pull her closer, sliding up and under her blouse.
-
He's staring at the ceiling when they're done, registering her draped over him, but trying not to think beyond that. If he doesn't, it's going to hurt. He pulls in a breath and swears softly, pushing her away and climbing free of the bed.
"Sam?"
"I didn't mean, I'm--" he shakes his head and grabs for his pants, finding them in a heap under her clothing and the sheets.
"Maggie always said you were sort of stupid," Kara whispers from behind him.
"She'd be right."
"Where do you think you're going?"
He stops in his struggle and looks back at her, trying not to let it hurt, "I--"
Sprawled in the late afternoon light, she's a goddess or a devil, or both at once, and he tries not to think about how he'll have this memory etched on his soul for eternity (or until he can get really drunk). She moves, glaring at him, "Get back here."
"I thought..." he stops, because he doesn't know what he thought anymore.
Her hands pull him back down, and he tries not to flinch as she leans over him, eyes dark and serious, "You think too much." Her mouth brushes his, "Don't want you going, Sam."
"What if I want to?" It would be a lie.
"Then I guess I'm a fool."
Oh. He reaches up and cups her cheek, pulling her mouth to his again, kissing her with a hundred different thoughts tumbling over themselves. When she breaks away for air, he says, "You're only a fool if I am, too."
"Guess that works." She kisses him again, then settles at his side, fingers stroking over his chest.
-
The next time they surface, Maggie looks smug, Sharon looks amused, and Hamish just rolls his eyes. Sam finds himself blushing and hiding behind Kara (who's a little smug herself).
It doesn't change much, in the end.
When the mild winter ends, Maggie puts them all on the road again, this time careful to make sure there's joint accomodation for Sam and Kara (though she's pleased that she can book one less room, even if it means all of them suffer when Sam and Kara have a fight). No one says 'married', but they might as well be.
The music changes a little, too. Kara's guitar work slowly meshing with the rest of their instruments, until it feels like it was always there.
-f-