“Sorry about the mess,” Percy said as he led them into his living room. “It’s my maid’s day off.”
“It’s okay,” Sam replied, unnecessarily.
It was clear from Percy’s tone that he really didn’t care that the room looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in years. Food cartons and beer bottles covered the floor and lounge. The coffee table was littered with empty cigarette packets, more beer bottles, and several pornographic magazines.
Sam exchanged a look with Teal’c.
“So…” he began, making a beeline for the makeshift bar in the corner of the room. “You guys are friends with Rosenberg?”
“Yes.” Sam watched with interest as Percy poured bourbon into a beer glass, adding only a small amount coca-cola.
With the drink in one hand, Percy maneuvered himself so he could face them fully. “How is Rosenberg these days?” he wanted to know. “Last I heard she went nuts and joined the Air Force.”
Sam wasn’t sure if the remark was meant as an insult or not. She couldn’t help but take it as one. “She’s fine,” she replied, slightly taken aback. While it wasn’t overtly obvious, there was something about Percy’s demeanor that put her on edge.
“She still with the Air Force?”
“She is indeed.” It was Teal’c who answered. “She is a lieutenant.”
A peculiar expression crossed his face. “Lucky her.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “At least someone from the class of ‘99 managed to do something with their life.”
Sam was getting the distinct impression that Percy wasn’t particularly fond of Lieutenant Rosenberg.
Which made her wonder why he agreed to speak with them. She had introduced herself to him as a friend of the Lieutenant’s over the phone and he hadn’t indicated that he felt any animosity towards her. If he had, she would have broadened her search.
Since they had so little time, Sam’s search for survivors to interview was limited. Essentially, she focused on those who had been willing to talk to the press in the past. Only a handful of students were quoted in interviews and Percy had been the only one who didn’t hang up on her.
He hadn’t seemed thrilled about answering a few of their questions, but he hadn’t seemed openly hostile about it either.
“So...” he began, setting his drink on his knee. “You said you had some questions about Graduation? I have to admit I’m curious. If you had questions... Why didn’t you ask Rosenberg?”
Sam hesitated momentarily before answering. “Willow doesn’t talk about Graduation.”
“Rosenberg doesn’t talk about Graduation?” His free hand slapped the side of his face in mock surprise. “Gee, what a shock!”
Okay, that time his animosity was a little more obvious. Though Sam couldn’t discern if it was towards Rosenberg or her and Teal’c... Or if it was something that had nothing to do with any of them. She noticed pictures of Percy on the wall, pictures taken while he was playing what she assumed was high school basketball...
“So when you couldn’t get any answers out of Rosenberg, you came to me.” He nodded slowly. “I get that.”
She could see that he did.
“Does she know you’re here?” The silence that followed his question didn’t seem to surprise him.
This wasn’t going how Sam anticipated. She wanted to tell Percy he was wrong, she had a feeling he would be more free with his answers if he thought the Lieutenant knew they were here, but she couldn’t. If he discovered she lied to him they would get nothing from him. “No,” Sam confirmed. “She has no idea we’re here.”
Percy put his glass down on a nearby table. “Didn’t think so.” He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He seemed lost in thought. “Can I ask you a question? You know, before I start answering yours.”
The tone, the expression on his face, made Sam want to say no. Yet, she had a feeling if she did say no that this meeting would be over. “Of course.” She braced herself for the question.
“What’s the name of Rosenberg’s boyfriend?”
That wasn’t the question she thought he’d ask. “Daniel Jackson.”
His mouth twitched at her reply. “I don’t mean her boyfriend now. I meant back in high school. What’s his name? What’s the name of her best friend from high school?”
“Ahh...” She searched her mind for the name of Rosenberg’s friends and the only one that came to mind was... “Cordelia Chase.”
The burst of laughter that came from Percy caused her to jump. “Chase and Rosenberg? Best friends? In high school?” He laughed again.
She was so very happy that she was amusing him. “Like I told you before, Rosenberg doesn’t talk about Graduation.”
The laughter died at her words. “Maybe not, but being her GOOD friends, she would have told you their names at least.” A dark look crossed Percy’s face. “If Will trusted you, she would have told you something.”
Will? Sam frowned at the use of that particular name. Up until this moment, Percy had always referred to the Lieutenant as ‘Rosenberg’. Now he was referring to her as Will. Not Willow, but Will... and the tone of his voice had changed when he said it. It didn’t hold the animosity that she had heard before, it held something completely different.
Protectiveness.
Sam knew why Percy was asking these questions.
He was testing them.
And they had failed.
“She didn’t tell you squat,” he said at last. “You know, I got to hand it to you guys. You’re getting better. I mean that. Pretending to be friends with Rosenberg was a stroke of genius and it probably would have worked if you didn’t show up just HOURS after Rosenberg was on the TV.”
W-what? “I think there’s some misunderstanding.”
“Damn right there is,” Percy said, the anger in his voice impossible to miss. “I’m only going to tell you this one more time... Leave us alone. All of us. None of us want to talk to you and you sure as hell don’t want to know the truth. Now get the hell out of here and go back to your editors and tell them do go to Hell.”
Sam shook her head. “We’re not reporters. We really are friends of Willow.”
He laughed. “Ah-huh. Sure you are. Then why don’t you tell me the name of her boyfriend? Or how she and I met?”
“We do not know the answers to those questions,” Teal’c answered. “But we are not the people you accuse us of being.”
“You’re not reporters?” He didn’t believe them.
Sam shook her head. “No. But you’re also right, we’re not friends with Willow either. At least not the type of friends we led you to believe.”
He raised an eyebrow in silent question.
“We’re friends of Daniel Jackson.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“He’s our best friend,” Sam confessed, desperate not to lose this opportunity. Percy’s words before bothered her. The words ‘you sure as hell don’t want to know the truth’ in particular. “And he’s here in LA with Willow.”
His fierce expression softened slightly. Slightly. “You’re Daniel Jackson’s friends... Okay, so why don’t you ask him what you want to know?”
“He refuses to tell us the truth,” Teal’c replied.
“That’s why we’re here,” Sam told him. “We know something’s going on and we know it is connected to Graduation. We want to help Daniel... both of them.”
Percy face paled at her words. “This is connected to Graduation?” He shook his head, looking panicked. “That’s impossible. He’s dead.”
He’s dead?
“No, you’re wrong. This isn’t connected to Graduation. It can’t be. You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me into thinking you’re not a reporter.”
Damn it! “No, I’m not. Look, our friend is here in LA and he’s in danger. He won’t tell us what’s going on and neither will Willow.” Sam thought momentarily about showing Percy the picture she had found on Freddy Iverson’s website, but dismissed it almost instantly. That wouldn’t prove she was telling the truth. If anything, it would probably cause Percy to kick her and Teal’c out of his home.
She would have to convince him some other way.
“I don’t know how I can convince you that I’m not a reporter, but I promise you that I’m not.” She looked into his eyes and allowed him to see the fear she was feeling. “I’m not here to hurt Willow in any way. We want to help her and we want to make sure nothing happens to Daniel. To either of them.”
Percy shook his head.
Sam sighed. “We already know some things about Graduation, about Sunnydale,” she admitted, not knowing what else to do. “We know Sunnydale isn’t like any other town.”
He eyed her suspiciously but, Sam noted, he didn’t look as closed off as he had been a few seconds ago. “What do you know about Sunnydale?”
“We know that what the reporters and the police said about the Sunnydale Massacre is lacking a few important details.” Sam hesitated. “We know about vampires and demons.”
It was on a whim that Sam found herself saying those words. A whim and the possibility that, like Freddy Iverson, Percy West believed vampires and demons had existed in Sunnydale.
In all honesty, Sam had expected Percy to laugh at her or at least tell her she was insane.
What she didn’t expect was for Percy’s face to go incredibly pale. So pale that she contemplated calling an ambulance.
“You know...” He didn’t finish the sentence but he looked terrified. “Is that why Rosenberg is here? That’s why she’s here, isn’t she?”
Sam blinked, not sure how to proceed. He hadn’t denied the existence of demons. The fact that he hadn’t completely threw her for a loop. She exchanged another look with Teal’c. “We’re not sure. All we know is that a few days ago Willow’s friend Cordelia Chase called. Another one of Willow’s friends, Rupert Giles, was injured. Willow left for LA the same day.” On another whim, she continued, “A day later, Daniel followed her and then we see her on the news.”
Percy closed his eyes, his face going even paler.
She fought the urge to ask him if he wanted her to call a doctor. “That’s why we’re here, to help them.”
He opened his eyes. There was a haunted look in them that Sam was all too familiar with. She’d seen it in the eyes of soldiers. Of people who had seen horror that were almost impossible to comprehend.
More than ever Sam wanted to know what happened at Graduation.
“You don’t want to help them.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You don’t want to help them,” Percy repeated. “You think you do, but you really don’t. Trust me, I know. It seems like the right thing to do, but it’s not.”
He wasn’t making any sense. “I don’t understand.”
“You say you know about vampires and demons... If you really KNEW about them, you wouldn’t be here,” Percy told them, reaching down to his glass and taking a long drink.
Sam couldn’t help but screw her face up at the sight.
“If you don’t want to leave without your friend, then go get him, and then go home. If you stay, you’ll die.” There was a far away look in his eye. “Or maybe you’ll be really unlucky and you’ll live.”
Sam’s blood ran cold. He meant every word.
“Or you’ll end up like me... Or screwed up like Rosenberg... Or in a nuthouse like half of the class of ’99.”
The meaning of his words slammed into her. “Is that how you were injured?” she asked as tactfully as she could. “You were injured helping Willow? She asked for your help at Graduation?”
Percy didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Oh God! That meant... That meant the photo wasn’t a fake. Sam had known there was a good chance it wasn’t, but she couldn’t help the shock she felt at hearing confirmation.
“Percy, we need to know what happened at Graduation,” Sam implored him.
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
Sam moved across the room and knelt down in front of his wheelchair. “Yes, I do. Daniel isn’t just my best friend. He’s like my brother.” And so much more. “Willow and I aren’t friends, but she’s important to Daniel and...” Desperation spurned her on. She was so close to having Percy open up. “And I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Willow.”
THAT caught his attention.
“A few months back, I went missing. I was taken hostage by...” She hesitated, searching for something plausible. She didn’t want to let Percy know she was military. She didn’t think –
“Demons?” Percy finished for her.
Not what she was going to say, but she nodded. “That’s, um, how we found out demons were real.” Trying to convince him he was mistaken would probably shut him down, so she let him believe what he wanted. Though, the look Teal’c was giving her told her that he didn’t really approve. “I was taken by demons and she saved me.”
“She saved me too,” Percy said, though Sam couldn’t tell whether he believed it was a good thing. “If she hadn’t asked me to help, I would have been sitting with the rest of the class and I would have...”
Would have what?
“Percy,” she reached out and took his hand. He was shaking. “We think what’s happening here is connected to Graduation. We need to know what happened so we can give Willow the help she needs. She saved me. Let me save her.”
“It’s not connected to Graduation. It can’t be,” Percy said, voice shaking almost as much as his hand. “We killed him.” He laughed. “We won.”
They had won? Won what? “Percy, what happened?”
“You want to know? You really want to know?”
Sam nodded.