History Repeated
by ALC Punk!

It never fails to disturb him that she can smile. At the oddest of moments, it can break out, like the sun from behind the clouds (and there's a cliche he never thought he'd use. Perhaps it's a southern one, and his mother would be proud of him right now). Spring rain, or apple blossoms don't do it. Dark of night, days when nothing changes the unending grey of their lives don't do it.

But something else does. A look, gesture, word, and she's suddenly smiling, the light dancing in her ice blue eyes, her teeth almost gleaming in the mercilessly harsh light of the cell block. The fluorescent bulbs wash her out--hell, they wash them all out. But she ends up looking worse, her delicate (and that makes him giggle. She's never *been* delicate a day in her life) porcelain skin turning to pallid grey, the blue veins running underneath to green. They shaved her head that first week. Ripped away the shoulder-length bob of golden blonde, leaving her with a shiny scalp and the occasional abrasion. They weren't careful about that.

They never were.

Every two weeks, she gets the same treatment. It's not a special privilege, or something to single her out. All of them get it. There's an almost patholigical fear of lice or worse. At least, that's what they claim. He figures they're trying to dehumanise them.

She smiled for the third time when he suggested that.

Laughter had glittered in her eyes, and he wondered how much of that was from the tears she has never shed.

"Sam," She'd said, her voice still amused as the smile slowly faded. "You're right."

And it was that simple.

Later, when they'd gone to bed, when the others' breathing slowed to the steadiness that indicated sleep, Emma crept closer to him. He let her, knowing he needed this. The careful touch of her cool fingers as she slid them into his hair. And then she settled with a soft sigh, her breath touching his cheek. His own arm slid over her waist, finger catching in the waistband of her issued grey pants.

It's not sexual, it never has been. There would be a time and place for that. But neither of them... Biologically, Sam knows he finds Emma attractive. He could catalogue her as aesthetically pleasing. But her mind isn't as nice.

And it's not just old dislike that keeps him from doing anything further.

He sometimes blushes at his own temerity at assuming she would simply go along with him if he even tried. Ten years ago, he knows she would've kicked his ass. Hell, the same could have been said for a year ago. But now, now there's something inside him that whispers strange ideas into his brain, makes inroads on his soul.

But his momma raised him right, and so he doesn't attempt it.

The Emma Frost of old would probably have laughed herself silly at his presumption. She might still do it, now. But laughter is a dangerous thing where they are.

Early on, he discovered that it could take very little to incur the wrath of their guards. A wrong word, even a look and you would be shoved over a table, the blows falling before you even had breath to scream. And then you couldn't breathe anyway, because it hurt. God, it hurt. And Sam sometimes wonders if they especially liked him because he just. didn't. die.

Broken ribs, broken neck, shattered left femur. The clinical list of injuries he's earned over the last year could have filled one of McCoy's books. Kitty would have made a database out of it. Cross-referenced bruises with underlined knife-cuts. Jagged nerve-endings, torn ganglionic fibres, even his spleen. If he still had one.

Removed organs. Luckily, they haven't quite gotten to that level of sadism.

Sam hopes they never will. He's not too sure he'd actually survive that, External constitution aside. The mental implications could have him gibbering in a corner for months.

Of course, it's while he's thinking these morbid thoughts that she glances up at him.

"What?"

A strange look touches her eyes, then she shakes her head. "Nothing."

"C'mon, darlin'," he's learned that from Logan. Perhaps he's not the only fun guinea pig they have to play with. "You were too thinkin'."

"Didn't say I wasn't, Guthrie." But her hands still as she looks away again. The fabric in her hands falls back into the precise folds it was intended to hold.

Glancing up to make certain no one is actually paying them any attention, he carefully reaches out and touches her shoulder. "Really. Well, I know what I was thinkin'. Today is Paige's birthday."

Is. Is. Yeah, he can say that. He can try to believe it.

Her lips twist, and she snorts, "Was."

"Is."

"Was." The look she suddenly shoots him is full of something that could be anger. If she'd just let herself *feel* it. But then it's gone and she's blank again.

"Emma."

"Leave it, Sam."

His hand encircles her wrist, and he's suddenly scared at the fragility there. She's not supposed to be fragile. This is Emma fucking Frost. A woman who toppled empires in a single bound. A simple word from her, and a man could find himself dangling over the Hudson river by his toes. "Paige used to write to me. About the school."

The stiffness in her shoulders betrays her. She is feeling. Even if she believes she can't.

"About you." He continues, mouth suddennly running on hinges while his mind wanders back two years. "She hated you for a while. Used ta complain that you set her impossible tasks, ridiculed her, pushed her..." He pauses, lips quirking into a smile. "It reminded me of Cable."

They both flinch at the name, and Sam suddenly wonders if this trip down memory lane is going to tear open his glossed over wounds as jaggedly as the whips last week did his flesh.

"Why?"

Blinking, he shrugs, "Cable was groomin' me for command of my team."

An answering blink from her, and then she smiles. Sudden, bright. It's uncanny, he decides. She's not supposed to smile in a place like this. Not supposed to be... happy? But she is. "Paige reminded me... of someone I once knew." Her look turns wistful.

For a moment, she looks twenty years younger, a teenage girl stuck somewhere in a dark place.

Then Emma Frost (tycoon, trademark to Frost Enterprises, don't wear it out, thankyouverymuch) is back. And the emotion is clamped down upon. She twists her wrist in his grasp, breaking it. "Almost dinner time."

"Yeah."

And he lets it go. Because he knows better than to push. And isn't certain, in the end, that he wants to.

Later that night, when the others are asleep, and they're settled like normal (although his left side is now bruised from an unfortunate encounter with a wall--and he's not lying to her about that, although she knows there was more to it. But she won't push, either), she sighs once. And then whispers, very softly, "She reminded me of me."

It's all he'll get, he knows. All she'll let through her emotional shield.

But for now, it's enough. And suddenly, there's hope in his head. It's completely stupid, completely over-blown and completely ridiculous. There should be NO hope in this place of dark and grey. But as Emma's breathing deepens, Sam suddenly understands something. This might be all they have of life, might be all that's left in this world for them to grasp on to.

And so he should cherish these moments. And anticipate her smiles.

-finis-

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© 2005 ALC Punk!