SAMIRA FOUND HERSELF FALLING INTO AN ALL TOO FAMILIAR PATTERN OF RESTLESSNESS ONCE AGAIN. She was exhausted. Yet, try as she might to sleep, to get some rest for the next fight, for whatever responsibility would inevitably fall on her shoulders; the mixture of insomnia and night terrors made sure that her mind remained wide awake. She'd taken to milling about the room, pacing in front of the couch she'd made into her bed, in the hopes that doing something else other than laying there staring at the ceiling could shake the edginess she felt. She'd been trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to awake her roommate, but after a few laps around the small space she turned to find Quinn already standing in the middle of the room with Atlas at his legs.
Her restlessness had become a nightly occurrence and a rather troublesome thorn in her side, in both their sides really. Moving to Quinn's place was supposed to have quelled some of the lingering anxiety and, at the very least, afforded her some comfort in knowing she was much safer there, rather than all alone in the middle of the woods where just about anybody could waltz right up to her home. Instead it had turned into neither of them getting a decent night's sleep, and them quietly conversing until either she finally drifted off or the morning sun light filtered through the windows. Now they both sat on the couch, the sides of their legs pressed against one another, her weight leaning into his side just a bit too heavily as they talked, while she absentmindedly pet Atlas's head resting in her lap.
@sgtdarling sent: ❝ when we’re done, we’ll go wherever you want. ❞
"Wherever I want? And you're paying for all of it, right? Then I guess I better pick somewhere really nice." It felt good to talk about the future. To talk as if either of them could have a life after all of this was over. That it would be as simple as packing up everything that had happened over the last year into a tidy little square, and leaving it all behind in a suitcase. Never to be opened again. She was smart enough to know that was not how it worked. Trauma was a pervasive, invisible wound that didn't just disappear due to a change of scenery. She knew that and so did he, there was no running away from the demons of the past.
In the back of her mind, she acknowledged that neither of them would likely ever be able to completely return to normal, despite whatever plans they hatched together. But that didn't stop her from entertaining the idea of taking a long vacation away from Hope County. Of clinging to that small shred of hope that maybe there was a chance at life after all this. "I miss the ocean." She admits, fingers rhythmically drifting through Atlas's fur. "So wherever we go there'll have to be a beach, preferably somewhere sunny. Maybe Hawaii? Or even Bali? What about Greece?"
