Chapter Text
Sam Larusso never did things by halves, so of course the love she has nearly ruins her as much as the anger that burns right alongside it.
The beginning of the almost end starts with the aftermath of Silver taking over Cobra Kai, or more accurately it starts with Anthony and a black eye that definitely didn’t come from running into a door.
After everything that’s happened, the fight at the school, the break-in, everything Sam really should be done with fighting. She should hate it with every bone in her body, revolt at the sight of red and broken skin, at boys with pretty eyes and bruised skin.
But she isn’t done with it, she can’t be.
Sometimes Sam thinks it’s in her blood, not in the way that her father's smile is but in the way a parasite is, an infecting sort of way. She thinks, maybe, that she wasn’t born to fight but she’ll die fighting. Live fighting.
So her response to seeing her younger brother (she could still remember holding him as a baby, so small, so fragile) limping in through the back door with a black eye isn’t going to tell their parents. It’s not to reassure him, to ice his eye, or tell him to keep his head elevated to help with the blood flow.
Her first response is to grab his chin, strong enough that he can’t shake her off. Sam tilts his head to the light and calculates how much force it would have taken.
Then she takes a step back, her hands curling into fists, her voice a knife, and asks. “Who did that?” Because it stopped being a matter of accidents for them a long time ago.
Anthony doesn’t flinch away, he hasn’t learned that yet, instead, he looks embarrassed. Later Sam will be grateful that he was ashamed of being beaten, later she’ll be grateful he never learned how to be terrified. “It’s nothing. Just let me go to my room.”
She doesn’t budge and Anthony can’t get around her without physically moving her, and she’s stronger, more stubborn. “Anthony.” He doesn’t meet her eyes. Fine then. “Either you tell me or I go tell Dad.”
That gets him. “Sam!” Their father is many things, but he stopped being a person they absolutely trusted somewhere along the line. She thinks it should hurt more than it does.
She raises an eyebrow and he groans. “Okay, okay. It was some Cobra Kai kids and the weird owner, Silver something? They cornered me on my way home from the arcade and he basically just watched them beat me up.”
Sam barely reacts, but a familiar anger, an old old anger sparks in her eyes. Anthony looks down, the bruise turning purple in some places, “It was nothing Sam. Just a few hits, don’t tell Dad.”
There’s a tinge of fear in his voice and she has a feeling it’s not because of Cobra Kai. Their father had - changed over the last year with everything revolving around Karate wars and rivals. And, loathe as she was to admit it, he wasn’t the best to Anthony. Not like he was to her.
Sam had failed too, had left him alone when she was dealing with everything. So now Anthony was sneaking into the house to ice his bruised face all so they wouldn’t know, so they couldn’t be bothered with him.
She had messed up then, she wouldn’t now. Sam stepped back and took out an ice pack from the freezer, she wrapped it in a towel and handed it to her brother. “Keep that on your face for the first day, put a warm towel on it the next day, and keep it elevated. Don’t lay down, sit up if you can or stack pillows to help with the blood flow. It’ll help it fade faster.”
Anthony took the ice pack and froze, almost as if he couldn’t believe that she wasn’t immediately telling on him, as if she wouldn’t help him. Sam had grown used to hard touches, to punches, and kicks over the span of the last few months, but she hadn’t forgotten how to be soft.
She hugged Anthony, careful of his right side which he kept tenderly pressing a hand to, and his left knee that he didn’t put his weight on. “Love you.” Sam whispered before pulling back and turning away.
“Turn off the lights when you go up.” Then she was gone and behind the safety of her door.
She hadn’t thought for a moment that they would have a break from Cobra Kai, from the damn Karate war but she had hoped. Sam never hoped for long, instead, she planned.
In her notebook in neat letters, she wrote a single sentence. How to stop Cobra Kai and Terry Silver from going after Anthony?
As she pulls into the parking lot in front of Cobra Kai it occurs to her, for the fifth time, how stupid this plan is. Then Anthony’s black eye flickers across her eyes, then her Dad’s anger and the way she can’t seem to stop disappointing him flashes across her mind.
She’s a big girl, she can handle this, she can figure this out. After all, despite being in a decades-long Karate war, Terry Silver isn’t an idiot. He’s the opposite, and Sam has learned how to play her hand in negotiating.
Besides, he can’t really murder her when there are cameras everywhere, or beat the shit out of her unprovoked. Hopefully.
Sam took a breath, and felt a twinge of pain on her arm, on a set of scars carefully covered. She took another breath and unclenched her fingers from the death grip they had on the wheel of her car. It was time to go, before any Cobra Kai member showed up.
She’d rather not meet Robby, or God forbid Tory here. She’s had enough problems this week.
Sam gets out of her car and walks towards the dojo, she doesn’t let herself falter or hesitate. She has a feeling that Silver is the sort of man who senses fear like a shark with blood in the water. That if she isn’t careful he’d close his jaws and snap her in half, if she flinched first.
It’s a good thing she doesn’t intend to be the one who backs away. Not this time.
Cobra Kai looks pristine, it looks cutting edge but she can’t help but look for blood stains, for a darkness curling at the edges. Sam doesn’t find anything, it looks like a nice dojo. Not the sort of place that teaches kids no mercy or in other words, do as much damage as you want.
It’s empty, thankfully, except for a man moving some weights, who straightens the second he hears her footsteps and looks her dead in the eyes. Terry Silver looks for a moment like he was expecting someone else, there’s a flicker of surprise, but then it’s gone and there’s something almost pleased.
He laughs as she walks toward him. It doesn’t sound like a maniac's laughter, like the person who haunts her father a little, who attacked her brother. It sounds almost kind.
She didn’t bring her bag but now she’s wishing she had. Anything to wrap her hands around, a calming weight to ground her. Sam stops in front of Silver, and he smiles. “Ms. LaRusso I believe. What can I do for you?”
He sounds normal, but then again so had Miguel and Tory, so had everyone that Cobra Kai had changed. Sam tilts up her head, and her voice does not shake. “You sent some of your students after my brother.”
It’s not a question. Silver knows that, his eyes darken for a second and there is the monster behind the kind laughter. “I would never! I teach fairness and respect here. If some of my students went behind my back and attacked your brother then I’m sorry, but I cannot control what they do in their free time.”
It nearly sounds believable, then his eyes flick down to her arm. “Teenagers are rather violent, I believe you understand that well.”
Sam takes a sharp breath, and Tory’s anger-filled eyes flash before her. She nearly takes a step back but stops herself. She finds, with great surprise, that she prefers Tory’s blatant hatred rather than Silver’s dark eyes, then his careful words.
She finds then that she’s tired of all these games, tired of a complicated world that wasn’t made for her, tired of hurting. Sam snaps, not so gently this time, “What do you want to leave Anthony alone?”
His eyes sharpen and Sam realizes, a bit too late, that she may have played into his hand. She expects something to do with her father, some sabotage and scheme, or maybe a denial. A sugar sweet I would stop it if I could, it’s always a pity when parents can’t help their children.
She gets neither.
“Your father had potential when I met him, however, he lacked a certain level of commitment. You, on the other hand, are not afraid to ask for more, to demand it.” Softly and sickly, “Earn it.” Sam doesn’t quite flush but it’s something close. She loves her father, but sometimes, most times, God does she long to be more than just his daughter.
But Terry Silver has a manic look in his eye, and she’d really rather it be her mom saying it, Miguel saying it. Hell, even Johnny Lawerence would be better than him.
She shifts on her feet wearily, this entire situation is wrongwrongwrong but Anthony still has bruises and she can’t look her father in the eyes. She has utterly no proof and everything in her house is so taut - it would only take something like this for something to be snapped. There’s still work to be done, and she can’t tell her father.
Sam doesn’t walk away. (She should have.)
“What do you want?” It shouldn’t sound like anything, like say it and I’ll give you it. It shouldn’t sound like, I’m seventeen and I’m desperately trying to protect me and mine. It does.
Silver smiles, nice and gentle and easy. “I have been looking for a new student to train, one who knows more than just old Cobra Kai techniques, someone who, with time, could become unique.”
Unique sounds a lot like deadly. Sam pauses, “You want to train me?”
Silver nearly jumps on her lack of immediate denial. “Privately of course, until the time is ready. It will be nothing terrible or dangerous, well any more dangerous than is to be expected with karate. The way I see it, if you help me out I’m sure I could find a way to help you, and your brother out.”
So that’s Silver’s deal, train with me and Anthony’s off limits. Not a single way this could go wrong with all the details he's giving her. Her father would tell her to say no, he would scream himself mad if he saw her here.
But he isn’t here, and Anthony is the one with the black eye and she’s not the only one dealing with the repercussions of a decades-long Karate war. Sam should say no. “Fine.” She doesn’t.
Silver offers his hand and she only hesitates for a second before taking it. Sam wonders if this is what it’s like to make a deal with the devil.
Here’s the truth: Sam wasn’t born to be the hero of this story. Her father was, he was kind and young and he always got back up. He was gentle, sloping lines and kindness, even when he wasn’t.
She used to be like him, soft and sweet and good. Then she wasn’t, then everything happened and Sam couldn’t stop from hurting the people around her. Then she started liking the fight, the anger, the way her heart screamed within her chest.
Same used to be a good girl and then she liked her anger a little too much.
Then she ruined everything she touched, one mistake after the next tumbling down, and suddenly the golden years seemed so far away. Suddenly the girl her father raised, who adored her grandfather’s teachings, who smiled so easily, suddenly she was gone.
She was gone and Sam couldn’t stop flinching at shadows, couldn’t wear short sleeves or look at herself in the mirror after she showered. She couldn't sleep, too busy tracing the falling dominos, and how she always seemed to be the one to push the first block down. Robby and Miguel and the balcony, Tory and the hand tangled in her hair, the burning feeling of her arm being torn apart.
It’s not that everything was her fault, they were all their own people and God she couldn’t carry the weight of their mistakes too. But Sam had this terrible habit of holding on to her pain, to her guilt. Maybe once she had known how to let go but the years have stripped her of that.
Sam holds onto her pain and guilt, to every terrible memory, and like any dead thing - they rot. They fester and twist within her, they die and something grows in the hollow shell of their corpse. Sam never used to be so angry until she started hurting. Until the choice was either to wallow with the pain of it all, or to snarl instead - to snap at everything that got close enough to her.
But here’s her saving grace, she always knew how to hide it, how to smile and laugh it off. Sam knew how to fake good, how to be the daughter her father wanted. And it worked.
Here’s another truth: Terry Silver roots out anger, roots out the iron-tasting hurt like he’s a bloodhound. He learned from mud-soaked battlefields, from a place where cruelty thrived, how to find those susceptible to manipulation. He learned too, how exactly to break them.
So in the end her father is what drew Silver’s eyes to her, but her rage, the fire in her eyes that she kept forgetting to put out - that’s what damned her.
The first lesson comes on a clear evening that her parents think she’s spending on the beach, certainly not at Cobra Kai. It’s not terrible, he makes her change into a black gi but Sam couldn’t say that it wasn’t just like Miyagi-Do’s training. For the first thirty minutes, he has run training exercises and just watches.
During it all, Sam can’t shake his eyes, not even while her body sinks into familiar motions, ones she’s known since she was a child. There’s nothing overtly wrong with his stare, she could compare it to her father's or Johnny Lawerence’s, watching for mistakes or wrongly learned movements. But there is something different about it, it’s like he’s seeing her down to her bones.
When she finishes he chuckles and says, “You certainly learned from your father and his teacher. I can see their influence in every step.” It sounds like an insult but before she can bristle he steps forward, “I am going to teach you far more than they did, and how to fight like you are you, not clay molded by their hands.”
And Silver doesn’t lie - everything he teaches her is something her father never broached or thought of. The first lesson is already coming to a close but the things he shows her aren’t quite Cobra Kai, but rather the building blocks of it. Basic offensive stances and movements.
He leaves her to change back into her clothes with a nod, and Sam takes the new quiet to wonder what the hell she had gotten herself into. Because what truly could Silver gain from teaching her? If her father fought in the All-Valley tournament then she would too, so why would he be teaching her to be better?
It doesn’t make sense and Sam has a feeling that not understanding a man like Terry Silver could have disastrous consequences.
She slips out of Cobra Kai, out of the same place that turned Miguel and Robby and even Tory harsh, angry. But Sam doesn’t miss a step, doesn’t acknowledge the unease in her stomach. She had been angry long before she had met Silver, he couldn’t make her into something she already was.
The lessons continue, her father is barely home, and she hasn’t spoken to Miguel in weeks but Anthony doesn’t come home with bruises. He smiles more when she talks to him about some game he likes, laughing at her terrible and awkward attempt at relating to him. He still hides in himself when her father is home, the house goes quiet and she’s never hated a thing more.
Weeks pass by and Sam still wakes up sweat-soaked and tense, she still can’t go in the dojo, can’t look at her arm, and can still feel Tory’s blazing anger every moment. But, and later she’ll hate herself a little for it, training with Silver helps.
They moved past the defensive styles and into offensive attacks and stances. Sam learns how to fight like she’s fighting to win, not just to walk away. And despite everything she’s learned from her father and Mr. Miyagi, it feels good.
She tears the head off a dummy with a well-placed kick and Sam cannot help herself from swinging around to meet Sensei (he insisted that as he was teaching her it was the proper term) Silver’s eyes. His smile, a small barely there thing, makes pride rise in her.
Sam burns with all her anger, the urge to scream and break apart her room like Tory had done to the dojo, to her life. Sam burns and oh, God it’s terrible but for once it seems like Silver sees her. He sees her and her ugly rage, and her broken jagged edges, the imperfect mess she is. He sees her and he doesn’t flinch away, he isn’t disgusted. He sees her and he teaches her how to use it - how to not be utterly ashamed of herself.
And sure the training is tough, she walks away with bruises more often than not, and Sensei Silver is very hands-on. Constantly correcting her and shifting her limbs, widening her stance, bringing her arms more in, but it’s the years of learning a defensive style that led to her wrong stances.
Although it works in his favor - she knows how to use both styles, to blend them - she isn’t learning half of these tactics for the first time. Sam isn’t a blank slate, so of course Sensei Silver has to wipe her clean first, or at least smudge some of the lines.
The training continues, the lessons grow more frequent, and Sam starts to forget what it’s like to not be constantly sore. She learns more and more and the fear her father held at Silver’s name grows more and more distant. She supposes in the end that was the first breaking point that led to it all, Sam was too eager to forget.
The second point, the actual breaking part is simple. Cobra Kai doesn’t have any more long-sleeved Gi’s, all are in the wash, but there is a short-sleeved Cobra Kai t-shirt. She had chosen the wrong day to come in with her sweater and white blouse, both of which she couldn’t train in.
So Sam’s only option is to wear the shirt and not look down at the white scars lining her upper arm. The lesson goes fine until Silver teaches her a new move, a combination of a kick and a punch, and Sam can’t look down to see how her feet are positioned or where her arms are. She can’t and so she fails one too many times until Silver grabs her left arm, below the scar, forcing her to a stop.
“Ms. LaRusso, is there an issue that I need to be made aware of? Because I have never seen you fail so badly in so little time.” Her cheeks are red and it isn’t from exertion. Sam is well aware of how stupid it is - to be paralyzed by a scar that no longer hurts.
She knows that it’s been months, that she needs to get over it, that what’s done is done and she can’t cry about it anymore. Sam knows too that she caused the fight, that she was stupid and drunk and these were the consequences of her actions but that doesn’t stop her from flinching every time she sees the scars. It doesn’t stop the fear because Tory never did anything by halves.
She swallows and does her best to keep her breathing even, “It’s nothing -” Silver’s eyes harden and he had told her once not to lie to him. “I’ll do better.”
There’s a beat, a pause in which it seems like the entire world wavers and holds its breath. Then, quick as a snake, Silver flips her arm over and pushes up her sleeve, leaving nothing to hide the scars. Sam can’t help the way she tries to pull back, Silver doesn’t let her.
He looks over the scar, his thumb trails over the pink edges, and Sam shivers. “Let go.” Her voice is weak, pathetic a voice hisses.
For a moment Sam doesn’t think he will, for a moment she feels bitter fear, colder than even Tory’s. But Silver lets go, he takes a step back and Sam shakes, she tries to remember how to breathe. “Ms. Nichols work, with that bracelet of hers, I believe?”
She nods, her hands shaking as she curls them into fists. “Yeah, it cut deep enough to leave scars.”
He tilts his head and for the first time in a few months, Sam feels like she’s standing on unsteady ground, like the world is being torn from beneath her feet. Tory is his student, one of the best if every scrap of gossip and what she’s seen with her own eyes is to be believed. Sam is an experiment or a spit in her father’s face. What will he say?
Silver doesn’t insult her, doesn’t tell her that she should have been better then and that she should be better now. He looks her in the eyes and Sam can’t break his gaze, “Fear is a tricky thing to shake. Humans often cling to it because we believe that we need it to survive, and in some cases we do. In some cases, fear is why we get up and fight, why we continue to breathe. But to hold onto it for too long is to allow weakness into our hearts.”
He turns around and walks over to a wrack propped up against the wall holding various bo staffs. As Silver trails his hands over the staffs, wooden, metal, and padded, he speaks. “I’ve both learned and taught that the only way to rid ourselves of fear, of weakness, is to face it and fight it. Sometimes one can do it themselves, but often we must be forced into it. Because in the end - humans will always choose survival, and that means that even fear will be felled.”
He picks up two wooden staffs, one longer and one shorter, both looking like they’ll bruise if not break. He smiles and it isn’t kind, it reminds her of a smile she saw in the footage of her father’s fight. Then he tosses her the shorter staff, “Fight or Fall, Ms. Larusso. Your choice.”
The staff comes swinging at her head, Sam barely manages to jump back and out of the way. “What?!”
But Silver’s already moving, shifting the staff in his head, circling her. “You can never overcome what Ms. Nichols did to you if you do not face it. I’ll ensure that you do.” Then he’s moving, swinging, and Sam’s pulled too easily into the fight.
She hasn’t practiced with a staff often enough, not nearly enough to be good. But she’s a quick learner and she mimics Silver, he steps and swings and she ducks, she parries him. Sam meets him for every other hit and it’s almost enough to forget why they’re doing this. Until he speaks -
“You’ve been hurt before, perhaps not enough to scar, but you’ve been hunted. So why is it that you cannot bear to look at the scars?” Tory’s eyes, flints of anger flash before her mind, and Sam doesn’t turn quickly enough.
The staff comes crashing down onto her side, cracking against her ribs. Sam reels back with a slight cry but she regains her balance quickly, darting past another hit. Her breathing becomes more and more rapid, more panicked.
Silver blocks her hits easily, she slips more and more. Wood cracks against her skin, and one hit splits her lip. Sam tries her best but then he catches one of her swings. He holds onto the staff with a grip she couldn’t break even if she tried, he yanks the staff and her closer.
Sam meets his eyes, feeling like an injured, cornered animal. He lets go of the staff but before she can move his hand darts out, grabbing her arm, grabbing the scars with a grip so tight she knows it’ll leave bruises.
“It has been months and you cannot look at the scar. Face it, Sam. Face it or it’ll drag you down and kill you.” She tries to pull back and fails. Silver’s anger grows, it doesn’t spark it bursts into flames. He drops his staff and with his newly freed hand, he grabs her chin, forcing her to look down. “Face it!”
Sam is nearly hyperventilating, but she can’t close her eyes, not at the cost of Silver’s anger. The scars aren’t terrible, three pink lines carving their way across her upper arm, but it’s not just about the scars. It’s about the fear, it’s about Tory and everything she’s done. How she made her terrified in her own home, frozen and unable to help Demitri. It’s about everything that no matter how hard she tries, Sam can’t move past it.
Silver doesn’t yell but somehow his even tone is worse. “You have fought worse, survived worse, and yet you cannot forget. Why? Why do you run from this? Why are you allowing this to destroy you? I did not pick you for the coward type. So why can you not face this and move on?” Each word cuts through her like a knife and Sam -
“I can’t, I can’t.” The hands are suddenly gone and Sam doesn’t have the strength or will to hold herself up. She comes crashing down to the ground, braced on her knees and looking at her arm like it’s somehow killed her. Hair falls across her vision and she feels it - tears slipping down her cheeks as months and months of fear come colliding in on her.
Sam feels a pang of embarrassment so sharp it hurts, she had never wanted to break in front of anyone let alone Silver. The only sound in the dojo is her choked breathing, her cut-off sobs. He doesn’t speak and she can only picture his look of utter disgust.
There’s the sound of moving and she can make out hands. Silver crouches in front of her, and his voice softens, “You have survived the storm, Ms. Larusso, do not break in its aftermath.” It is so widely different than before that it hits harder, and pain darts through her body. “Ms. Nichols has hurt you, do not allow her to drown you.”
She takes a breath, swallows hard, and pulls herself together. Sam looks up and meets Silver’s contemplative eyes, “How? I don’t know how to do that.”
He smiles and she should want to run, but she doesn’t. “You take your pain, and you make it into something bearable. Something useful.” Silver offers out his hand and Sam knows instinctively that it’s so much more than that. “You can take your pain and you turn it into anger.”
She shouldn’t even think about it, it goes against everything that her father has taught her, it goes against everything she used to believe in. But Sam has been so hurt, so angry for so long, so utterly terrified that she’d do anything for a break. Even if it meant spitting in the face of everything she knew.
Sam had tried so hard to be good, to be kind. She had tried her best and look where that had got her - trembling on Cobra Kai’s floor because her own father couldn’t notice her pain, because everything in her home reminded her of ice-cold fear, because she never learned what to do with her hurt. Sam had tried, she had really tried.
She takes his hand and Silver looks at her like he’s won. He helps her back to her feet before leaning down and picking up both staffs. This time when he tosses it she isn’t surprised, this time when she catches it, it feels a little more right in her hands.
His smile changes, shark-like and cutting, “Now Ms. Larusso, fight or fall.” Sam catches his swing and her entire body shakes with the effort.
She falls asleep that night covered in bruises, purple smears across her arms and legs, dotting her torso. She falls asleep and for once she does not dream of Tory, of herself terrified and shaking. She doesn’t wake up screaming, instead, she goes to school in a short-sleeved shirt, and when she meets Tory’s eyes in the cafeteria all she can think about is driving her face into a wall.
The bo staff lesson was the breaking point, or a breaking point, because every lesson after that is widely different than before. It’s far more aggressive, far more centered on taking her anger and shaping it, on more offensive strategies that rely less and less on defensive structure. Sam keeps walking away with bruises, with blood in her mouth and on her knuckles. Silver keeps getting touchy, not bad, nothing bad but his hands dig into her skin and sometimes there are finger-shaped bruises.
But it’s manageable, it’s okay and for the first time in months, Sam is learning how to breathe without being paralyzed by fear. But then there’s the blackouts - the missing time.
It had started when she was younger, the forgetting.
She had been eight the first time it happened. A group of boys decided that girls shouldn’t be doing karate and Sam was left mud-stained, bloody, and crying on the ground, her clothes and book destroyed, and her hair a matted mess. She didn’t know who was madder, her father or her mother.
Either way, the boys were quickly punished but they kept looking at her like they were expecting her to shatter. Her parents looked at her as if they were holding their breaths. But nothing happened for two weeks, no breakdowns or crying. Nothing.
Nothing happened until they had sat her down and said that it was okay to feel upset over what had happened, that those boys were in the wrong, that she didn’t have to do karate if she didn’t want to. And eight-year-old Sam had tilted her head in confusion and said, “What boys?”
It took fifteen minutes of questioning for her parents to realize that no, Sam didn’t remember anything. She remembered packing her bag for school the night before, but that entire day was just gone. The memories turned to nothing, as if they had never happened.
She was young enough then to not be utterly terrified of this. Sam was playing with her toys while her parents talked with the best child psychologists about her. She can’t recall the specifics of their talks but she’s looked it up enough times since then to get the gist.
Our minds have a way of protecting us, and that includes blocking out traumatic or “bad” memories. In Samantha’s case, she went through a traumatic event for an eight-year-old, and her mind when faced with it, was unable to process it as an adult might do. So instead, it blocked them.
It’s not something that could be fixed, at least not easily. She went to therapy after and talked more about her life than she ever had, but in the end, her mind couldn’t or wouldn’t get back those memories. So her parents decided that the best thing to do was to move on, because what else could they do?
And then her grandfather died and Sam couldn’t remember anything from the moment she learned to the day after his funeral. Another psychologist, another therapist, and the only difference was that Sam was old enough to be afraid.
It was only after she had come across her parents late at night, her father crying, her mother barely holding it together, that Sam decided to not tell them if she forgot again. It rarely happened, and never as bad as her grandfather's death. There were a few hours occasionally - when Anthony got hit by a car but was fine in the end, the first time a boy tried to corner her in a room and wouldn’t let her leave.
But she was fine, Sam was fine. She hadn’t forgotten at all recently, not even when everything with Tory happened, not even when for once she had wanted to forget. Sam hadn’t forgotten anything until she blinked back to herself and she wasn’t changing into her Gi, she was standing in front of her bathroom mirror soaking wet from a shower.
Bruises colored her skin and Sam had to grab onto the wet sink to steady herself as her head spun. A quick look at her phone said that it had been four hours. Sam had missed four hours.
She didn’t forget the next time she went into Cobra Kai, and Silver didn’t mention anything out of the ordinary. They trained like they always trained, Sam took the hits and bruises and didn’t flinch from the blood in her mouth. But none of it explained why she was losing time.
It happened randomly, random training sessions in which Sam would stumble back into herself hours later in her house. Her body would ache like it always did, bruises smeared across her skin, and the taste of iron in her mouth. But there was nothing new, Silver never said anything and Sam had no fucking clue why she was forgetting.
It terrified her more than anything, more than Tory. But she couldn’t do anything, because she couldn’t stop the sessions for Anthony’s sake, because even with the blackouts Sam didn’t want to. Because Silver was helping her, Sam was moving past the terrified girl pressed against the wall at the sound of Tory’s voice. Maybe, just maybe she could learn to deal with the blackouts, to not question them, if it meant she still got to learn.
Sam had already taken pain and sore muscles for this, what was a little more?
She’s on her way to buy new makeup (bruises take a lot of shit to cover up) when it happens. Because of course, her life can never be simple, God forbid. She notices them immediately, four men, bottles in hand and leering.
Sam can feel their eyes on the back of her neck, her hands drifting towards her key chain with a handy spike on it. She looks around and realizes all too late that a - it’s getting darker, and b - no one is around. The only free time she had was in the evening and the lack of Cobra Kai attacks had lulled her into a false sense of security.
She had forgotten there were other threats than a Karate gang war.
She walks quicker, her heart pounding as she counts the footsteps behind her. Four, moving in sync with the sound of slurred voices. Shit. Her head swivels around but most of the shops are closed or too far away to quickly get there. But then she sees the beautiful neon lights of a 7-Eleven right on the corner of the street.
Sam walks faster, trying desperately to hear how close they are to her over the sound of her heartbeat. She makes it about halfway down the block, so close to freedom when there’s a loud shuffling. A hand closes around her elbow and swings her around so harshly it stings.
On an open street she might have been able to take them, or at least hold them back long enough to barricade herself in the store. But, as she was sure it was his intention, Sam had been shoved back into an alley lined with dumpsters. And the only way out was the entrance they were blocking with matching smiles.
She tenses, dropping down slightly and raising her fists. Silver’s taught her a hell of a lot more than just defensive styles. If she fights hard and dirty, uses the broken glass lining the ground to her side, and the rusted edges of the dumpsters, then maybe she stands a chance.
One of the men smiles, revealing yellow teeth. “Looks like we got a fighter, aye? Cute.” Sam has a beat, a pause of utter disgust and fear, before he’s lunging at her.
Then the fight begins, the fight for her life. She crashes her fist across his face, and uses the momentum to shove him hard against the wall. Just like that another has snapped out of his surprise and is on her. Sam fights hard, she digs her fingernails into a throat before reeling back and throwing a punch, a hand wraps around her hair and she grabs his arm and nearly snaps his wrist.
Sam fights hard - it’s not enough.
An elbow crashes into her fist, blood dripping down her face, and her vision goes black for a moment. She wavers and pauses as her head turns. That’s all they need.
One of them yanks her arm back and twists as she still reeling from the hit. He shoves her face first against the brick wall. Sam can already feel the bruise forming, can feel her muscles scream as he twists her arm up. She lets out a scream as he pushes up, not enough to pop her shoulder out of its socket but it’s a close thing.
He moves closer, muttering and swearing, and Sam can smell the alcohol on his breath. There’s movement coming from around them, at the entrance to the alley. For a moment she thinks it’s the other men getting up, for a moment her stomach drops and she’s readying herself for another desperate play. But then there’s a voice.
A voice she would know anywhere because it’s starred in her nightmares one too many times, “Hey!”
The man is ripped off her and Sam slumps against the wall as pain trickles through her arm and then she hears a voice that sounds like Silver hiss get up and fight. So she does.
Sam turns to see a whirl of bleach-blonde hair in front of the man who had pinned her. There’s another scream and she looks over to see Robby, because, of course, he’s always where Tory is. Sam has a moment to groan in annoyance, mentally, when she sees one of the men raise a broken bottle and charge towards Tory’s back.
It’s more instinct than anything but Sam doesn’t hesitate. She’s on him, grabbing his wrist while she kicks out his knee. He goes tumbling to the ground, the bottle falling away from him. Sam doesn’t let go, she uses her grip to keep him in place while she punches him in the throat before driving his face down on her knee.
He drops so hard that she doesn’t bother checking on him. Sam turns, hating the fact that of all days to be attacked, she hadn’t been wearing her hair up, and sees a man clock Robby in the face. Before he can get another hit in she’s there, propelling herself off the wall and kicking him hard in the back. He falls and it’s all Robby needs to return the favor, breaking a nose with a crack.
She meets Robby’s eyes, both of them panting, bruised and bloody. For a moment the world fades until it’s just the two of them, then there’s another groan and the sound of a body hitting the floor. They turn instantly but Tory is still standing, a manic smile on her lips.
The four men who had cornered her are all on the ground, in various states of consciousness but none in the state to get up. There’s the sound of sirens and Sam - doesn’t want to deal with all of this.
Tory seems to share her thinking because she’s turning and yanking back the metal divider that closed off the alley, “Come on!”
She doesn’t turn to see if Robby follows, he will. Sam ducks under the metal and watches as he emerges before Tory lets go, the metal slamming with a slight bang. The three of them run, the siren lights reflecting above their heads. It’s nearly dark as they stumble out of the other end of the alley.
The street is even darker but they come to a stop under a streetlight that actually works. Sam sits down, exhaustion and fear taking its toll. Her hands shake as she brushes a hand over her face, it comes back red. “Shit.”
Sam leans down, resting her head in her hands, and tries, desperately to slow her heartbeat. “You good, Larusso?”
For once it’s a genuine question, not a taunt or a threat. Tory is many things, aggressive and angry and passionate. She’s many things that Sam personally knows, but a monster isn’t one of them. At least not about this.
Because in the end, neither of them would have walked away. Because Tory and her are girls and this is one of the few things you don’t fuck around with. Because if things had been reversed, if anything like this was happening to Tory - Sam wouldn’t have thought twice about stepping in. And Robby, in spite of Johnny Lawerence, was raised right and, despite what he thought, was good.
She raises her head, black spots darting across her vision, to see Tory and Robby standing side by side in front of her. Both look a little defensive, a little like they’d rather be anywhere else, but there is a flash of something like concern in their eyes.
Sam takes a breath and remembers all the lessons she’s learned, all the times Silver has beat her down until she learned to get up. Sam remembers her scars. She stands up, “I’m fine, they didn’t do anything, just shoved me in that alley.” She rolls her shoulder with a wince, punching anytime soon is going to hurt like a bitch. “Thanks - for you know, not walking away.”
Tory stands up taller, and the immediate retaliation, who do you take me for on her lips, but Robby places a hand on her arm. It’s somewhat fascinating how easily Tory - not deflates, but relaxes. She trusts him, and he trusts her.
Sam feels a pang of regret, because she could have had that. And then she kissed Miguel and screwed them all over.
She takes a breath and shoves her regret down with everything else, to where it’ll rot and turn to anger, to something she can use. Remember, and do better. “I need to head to the store before it’s too late.” She turns to walk away but pauses, iron bitter on her tongue, “Really, thank you.”
Sam starts walking and despite everything in her screaming not to, she speaks again, loud enough for them to hear. “I owe you one.”
Tory laughs, and she can feel Robby’s eyes, burning in the back of her head and for a moment she wishes they were different people. For a moment she wished they could hold each other, that there was nothing stopping them. Then Tory’s voice rings out in the air, her usual taunt back. “You’re gonna regret that!”
They shouldn’t be able to hear her mutter, “I know,” and they don’t see her roll her eyes. But Sam has a feeling they know.