He looked REALLY happy. Like, chemically-induced happy. Which made Jaye approach with even MORE caution than she would usually show towards Guy She Suspected Was Crazy Too. What was his name? Last name was easy-- SAM! There we go.
"Did you inhale something?" she asked, wandering closer, keeping her camera bag safe at her hip. "Or are you running from something?"
If it was a dinosaur, Jaye would take all the headstart she could get.
Sam processes where the voice is coming from and turns his attention towards her -- Jaye, isn't it? -- as he exhales shakily. "I'm running," he says, pointing out the obvious. "Endorphins make me happy."
"I'm alive, and that's all that matters," Sam informs Jaye, not that he really expects her to be able to translate from Sam-Tyler-ese to a normal English. "Some days, I didn't think I'd even be breathing by the time I was thirty-nine, so I'm glad to be wrong."
Jaye arched an eyebrow and stared at him, trying to figure him out through sheer force of will.
Then got tired.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "'Cause you're in a coma, and you can't hallucinate in a coma if you're dead, right? Wasn't that the 'logic'? And most people I know wouldn't be happy about being thirty-nine, so you again win for weird."
"I'm in a coma or not dead, but either of those is preferable to dead," Sam agrees, used to the scorn and the disbelief and really, he ought to start making buttons for people who don't believe him.
"You could be dead," she countered, just for the sheer pleasure of countering an argument. "We could all be dead. This could be purgatory, or whatever the hell comes after that no one really knows about."
"I told a little girl that once," Sam informs Jaye, still mopping up sweat here and there. "She yelled at me for informing her that her second chance was purgatory."
"She reminds me all too much of someone I used to know," Sam admits uneasily, because the Test Pattern Girl is someone he'd rather never know in his whole life. "She makes me uneasy, so I don't enjoy pissing her off."
"Trust me, meet this little girl and you'll understand," Sam says tersely. "It's not every day you expect a little girl holding a clown to jump from your television screen to your room and start tormenting you."
"I've never seen that movie," Sam says, very truthfully, in fact. "This is just my life. Little girls in televisions, radios talking to me, phone calls from disconnected lines..."
"Right, you win the Crazy Award," Jaye told him, truthfully. "I thought it was just the coma talk, but I don't hold a candle to that. That's crazy and freaky."
"It's just the coma," Sam says, very calmly and logically and he seems to have stopped dripping in sweat finally. "My brain interpreting signs and signals in strange ways."
"Did you inhale something?" she asked, wandering closer, keeping her camera bag safe at her hip. "Or are you running from something?"
If it was a dinosaur, Jaye would take all the headstart she could get.
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"Too much," she commented, still looking at him like he was a little crazy. Probably because he was, but not any more than her.
"I've never seen anyone actually LOOK that happy after exercise."
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Then got tired.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "'Cause you're in a coma, and you can't hallucinate in a coma if you're dead, right? Wasn't that the 'logic'? And most people I know wouldn't be happy about being thirty-nine, so you again win for weird."
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"A little girl freaks you out?" she clarified dryly. "No wonder you didn't think you'd make it past thirty-nine."
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".........."
She blinked. "Right. I think you need to stop watching The Ring every night, buddy."
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"Right, you win the Crazy Award," Jaye told him, truthfully. "I thought it was just the coma talk, but I don't hold a candle to that. That's crazy and freaky."
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