Lee nodded as Sam explained his method of getting kids to sit still in order to get them to learn. It did make sense, but at the same time, like everything else with kids, it was probably easier said than done.

”Ah, I guess that’s true,” Lee said with a slight chuckle. ”You never have been very good at following rules, have you?”

As she finished speaking, Lee saw Sam making his way down the bar to make more drinks, and she just watched him, sipping her beer, as Sam made little ice people to put into the drinks. That...was definitely interesting. And if she could do something like that at the Trasheteria, it would likely be a very good seller.

Then Sam asked if she was staying around for another round, and she took a look down at her beer. Which was almost empty. She shrugged, looking up at Sam again. ”Yeah, I can stick around,” she said, then laughed again when he mentioned drinking on the clock. ”I thought we both knew you sucked at following rules? So why is this one you follow, especially if your relief will be here soon anyway?”

”I’m the owner.” Sam said shrugging as he walked back to behind the bar and grabbed another beer and set it next to the one that was already on deck for Lee. He intended to drink one of them. ”Kind of hard to run a bar if I drink on the clock right? I’ll end up drinking my entire stock out.” Sam said not really divulging the main reason. In truth he had been suffer from alcohol dependency in fact it was one of the few things that could help him get a good night sleep and it had been going unnoticed for a while. Since his most recent breakup people were voicing their concern.

”Besides,” Sam said as he leaned onto the bar, ”My manager whose coming in… she scares me.” Sam said with a faint smirk. She didn’t actually scare him but she was good at making Sam feel guilty for drinking as much as he did. The way Jules did and Ghost still does.

”Now I mentioned I’m not so good at following the rules but that doesn’t mean I’m trying.” Sam smirked, ”Besides, your a mother now. You are supposed to encourage the rules.” Sam said attempting to wink with his single eye. he smirked. ”Sides, only get three drinks on the house per shift as owner, your already drinking two of them.

Lee shook her head as Sam said he couldn’t drink on the clock because he was the owner. ”That’s why you don’t drink to get drunk, just have a couple,” Lee explained with another slight shake of her head.

But then Sam said that his manager who was coming in scared him, and Lee raised an eyebrow at him. ”I don’t scare you, but she does?” Lee asked. Maybe she had been gone too long. Or maybe because they were friends, he didn’t think there was a reason to be scared of her. Whatever.

And she was supposed to be encouraging him to follow the rules because she was a mother now? ”Sam, if I worried about you following the rules, I’d probably be grey by now,” she teased. ”Even for me, that’s a bit too much to worry about.”

But the teasing turned into a bit of a hard look when Sam said that as owner he got three free drinks, and she was drinking two of them. ”Sam, you don’t have to do that,” Lee said, shaking her head. ”I can buy my own beer.”

”I don’t drink to get drunk. I drink to sleep, better to drink at home, I got enough people who fall asleep here.” Sam said a being more honest than he wanted to be. The bar owner pushed himself off the bar as he spotted a mug being emptied. It was a regular and the guy worked the night shift so Sam knew he had a few more beers in him before he was done. He swapped the empty for the full one and then threw it in the dishwasher before grabbing another clean mug and grabbed a rag and started to dry one of the glasses even though it was already plenty dry.

”Easy, never said you couldn’t. It’s a perk. Or it could be one of the many drinks I never got to buy you. I’m sure there are plenty of those.” he said smirking putting the dried glass down and grabbing another glass and drying that one next.

”It’s a bit different.” Sam said with a raised eyebrow, ”this place wouldn’t survive without her, I mean… she hasn’t turned me down yet. Think I have a shot still.” Sam said loudly when he saw the light from the front door. He doubted it was his manager but he like to make the joke when her dad was around.

It wasn’t his manager but that didn’t stop Sam from literally climbing over the bar instead of walking around. ”Shifts over.” Sam said as he grabbed a stool next to Lee. ”sooo… what’s new?”

Lee frowned slightly when Sam said that he drank to sleep, not to get drunk. ”Have things really been that bad?” Lee asked softly across the bar. ”It seems so weird to say this, but,” Lee paused, her eyes dropping down to her beer. ”Maybe I would be able to help with that sometimes.”

Then Lee’s eyebrows raised as Sam said that he was scared of his manager because he thought he still had a chance with her. ”Oh, so you’re not scared of her, you’re scared of her finding out what you’re actually like,” Lee said with a shake of her head and a slight laugh.

Then Lee laughed even more, shaking her head again, as she saw Sam literally climbing over the bar to sit on the stool beside her. ”Really, Sam?” Lee asked, still shaking her head as she looked over at him. ”I know it’s your bar, but couldn’t you have walked around?”

What was new? Lee shrugged. ”My sister dragged me back to the city,” she said. ”Again. She seems to remember it’s my home even when I don’t. And a friend begged me to start managing their bar for them, so I mean I’ve found a job. I’m just having trouble balancing the energy with actually getting sleep.”

Sam shrugged, she was right. It was his bar and he wanted to jump the bar so he did. ”and have someone ask for another drink when they see me walking out from behind the bar?” Sam shook his head. ”I can always jump back over if I need to.” he’s done it before.

Sam grabbed a beer and took a swig. The door opened to the entrance of the bar and he could feel his manager enter the room. Sam waited to respond to Lee for a second to address his manager. ”How is it you’re always ten minutes late?” Sam said joking, ”I just ended my shift.” Sam said jokingly.

“Oh, does that mean you’ll finally pay for a drink?” Elle, Sam’s bartender walked past them and then gave Lee a nod hello before waving to everyone else on the way to behind the bar. Sam shrugged and then looked back to Lee. ”Great isn’t she?”

Sipping his beer he finally responded to Lee, ”Well I’m glad someone could talk you into coming back. The city needs more friendly faces.” he leaned forward resting his arms on the bar. ”Well congrats on the job.” Sam said raising the glass and then adding, ”and welcome home.”

Sam shifted his attention back to his manager, ”Think your dad is out back smoking again.” Elle walked over to Sam and Lee and put another two beers on the counter in front of them. “He only smokes here because Mom would kick his butt.” Elle shifted her attention to Lee. “If he’s bothering you, let me know. His charm fades fast.” She smirked and then gave a little head nod and walked away from the bar her blue highlights trailing her.

”Yet she’s always happy to see me.” he said more to his drink than to Lee. ”Things have been better. Been worse too.” Sam said trying to be vague as he stared at the bottle. ”Talking doesn’t help though Lee. Tried it. So drinking and avoiding the mansion is what’s in the cards for now.” Sam said joking trying to change the subject.

Lee laughed slightly when Sam asked if his manager was great. ”She seems to be,” Lee said with a grin. ”It doesn’t sound like she takes any crap from you.” But really, that’s what Sam needed, wasn’t it?

”It is home, isn’t it?” Lee asked with a slight smile as she looked down at her beer. A fact that Lee seemed to forget when she wasn’t actually in New York City. ”Rachel seems to be the only one who can get me to come back here, even when I’m dead set against it, somehow she manages.”

Talking didn’t help. Lee nodded as she took a sip of her beer. Generally she agreed with that, she preferred to push things to the back burner and not deal with them. The problem was, at least in part, that had caused her to have a complete mental breakdown. And so she had been forced to talk. And while yes, she didn’t think that most of the talking had actually done anything to help, there had been a few things it made better.

One more sip of beer before she looked back at Sam. ”Or maybe the person you talked to hadn’t lived a ****ed up enough life for talking to help,” Lee said softly, turning her eyes back to her bottle as she spoke. ”I’m here now, and if talking doesn’t do any good, we’ve still got the beer.”

The ice-mancer nodded his head, ”It’s what I need in life it seems.” Sam said, he often found himself to strong willed women who indeed didn’t take any ‘crap’ from him. He didn’t need a babysitter he just needed someone to keep him out of trouble, or in some cases help him get out of it. ”She’s one of the reasons this place is still in business. That and the owner seems to have pretty deep pockets.” he sipped his beer and then set it down. Both arms on the bar now.

”Not down playing anything you or anyone else went through, but I…” Sam shut his mouth and snatched the beer quickly and chugged it. He really didn’t want to get drunk but the more time he was spending with Lee and ‘talking’ the more risk he ran to getting drunk again. ”Worse than Romania.” Sam said as he tapped next to his eye patch.

Raising his bottle to Lee he added, half jokingly ”and when the beer is gone we can always switch to whiskey.” hefting the bottle to his lips he then asked, ”Dead set against New York? Too many ghosts? Or just the guy that talks to them?” Sam asked raising his eyebrow. He didn’t want to ask about Tarin but he was finding it more and more difficult to stifle his curiosity

”Damn…” Lee breathed. She wasn’t sure how anything could have been worse than Romania. She had thought that the breakout from the camps here in America had been hell, and Romania had gone beyond that. Taking a large sip of her own beer, Lee shook her head. How could anything be worse than Romania had been?

”Well, I’m here for you,” Lee said, reaching her hand out to briefly squeeze one of Sam’s. But then he said that they could bring out the whiskey when the beer was gone, and Lee wrinkled her nose. She’d never really liked whiskey, and with very few exceptions didn’t even take a sip when Tarin had been drinking whiskey.

But this was a bar, even if they did end up drinking that much (not that Lee planned to drink even close to that much) and Sam started in on the whiskey, Lee was sure that she could find something else.

And then Sam continued, asking about her not wanting to come back to New York. Asking the reason. Another sip of her beer, Lee’s eyes stayed on the bottle as it returned to the bartop. ”No,” Lee said slowly, a frown on her face. ”When Kevin was a baby, I started feeling less and less safe here. So I needed to leave, and though he had always said he’d wait forever for me, but he refused to leave with me. So just Kevin and I went, and I don’t think I ever intended on coming back…

He had heard that a lot. ‘I’m, here for you.’ Sure some meant it but when he was jumping awake in the middle of the night because his ‘not real’ kids were brutally murdered or set on fire in front of him no one was there for him then. Just the bottle. Sam welcomed the touch from Lee with a stare at her hand and he smirked slightly. ”I appreciate it, Lee.” he gave her a little squeeze back then took a sip of his beer when the contact ended.

”That’s fair.” Sam mentioned nodding his head. ”Robotic officers, riots, the mansion catching fire almost every day.” he waved his hand in the ‘on-and-on’ motion. ”I get it.” safety was a luxury that many didn’t understand. He did. ”So…” Sam egged her on with another sip of his beer.

”Safe now? Or you less worried about stuff?” he asked looking at his drink ignoring Elle as she walked back behind the bar.

Sam said that he appreciated her saying that she was there for him, and he returned the slight squeeze of the hand, but the small delay between her words and his answer made Lee frown slightly. ”I’m serious, Sam,” she told him, her voice soft. ”I’m still trying to figure out when I’m supposed to be able to sleep with working at the bar. So there’s really no time off limits.”

Seeing Sam taking a sip of his beer, Lee followed suit. But Sam, at least, seemed to understand where she had been coming from in thinking that it wasn’t safe in the city. She nodded, followed by another sip of beer. Sam understood, even if Tarin hadn’t fully understood years earlier.

But Sam’s next question left Lee thinking for a few moments. ”I doubt this city is ever actually safe,” Lee finally said, looking at the bartop in front of her rather than looking at Sam. ”But at least he’s older now. He can at least run from danger on his own, so I’m still scared, but slightly less so.”