Waking was slow and disorienting as it often had been of late. A few times Sam had wondered if he was actually even awake at all or trapped in some dream. It took longer than he liked to bring the darkened room into focus and figure out where he was. Zoe’s bedroom. I’m at Zoe’s. One mystery solved. He had no idea of the time or how long he’d been sleep this time. It was getting old, this feeling like he was suffering from a super flu all the damn time. He sat up slowly, finally realizing he was alone in the bed and he blinked in confusion and concern. Shoving hair away from his face, he slid out of bed, pausing to make sure he had his balance, and padded out of the room in search of her.
He found her at the kitchen table, sitting quietly with her back to him, seeming to be gazing off into space until she heard him. Her head turned towards him and for a brief moment he saw the depths of worry in her eyes before she tucked it away and gave him a small smile. “Hey,” he said as he made his way over to sit next to her. “Why are you still up? Isn’t it.. kinda late?”
The clock on the microwave glares it’s 3:15 AM reading into the darkness of the kitchen, and Zoe can’t put her finger on the exact reason that her brain won’t turn off tonight. She worked hard today, and her body is exhausted, but the moment she came home at lunch to find Sam napping in her bed and looking like he hadn’t actually slept in weeks, her mind has been running rampant trying to find new and more effective ways to take care of him. These Trials, she’s sure, are slowly killing him, and though he won’t let on often about how bad he feels, she’s known him long enough to read it in the new dullness of his eyes and the sluggish way he moves around her apartment, when he’s moving around at all.
She hears him before she sees him, and turns easily on her bar stool, tugs him by the front of his t-shirt to scoot closer when he sits and fit between her own spread knees. “Hey baby,” she tilts her head at the glass half-empty in front of her on the counter in offering if he wants a sip of her whiskey. “I tried layin’ down but I just couldn’t sleep. Didn’t wanna disturb you with my tossin’ and turnin’. How you feelin’?”