She'd gone upstairs to fetch her pencils, leaving the candles glittering like fireflies against the inky black panes of the window. And she was taking the stairs back down from her room two at a time, at a bit of a trot, until she spotted him.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Nope.

It wasn't that Sam liked Bucky less than she had before. He was still one of the precious few people she didn't fucking hate in this shit show. It was more that she hated herself. You know. More than usual. There was nothing quite like spewing the disgusting and tragic circumstances of your less-than-wholesome origins to someone to make you feel... Yeah. Just, really gross. Which was probably why she'd sort of gone out of her way to avoid him. Because there was no better way to deal with your problems than to not deal with them.

The plan wasn't her most...mature. But it had been working for her. And she figured it would work more. But when she turned to go right back up the stairs again, her heel caught on the lip of one of the steps and she went down like a ton of bricks, face-first, into the staircase. Her pencils went flying like pick-up sticks. And although she was pretty sure it was physiologically impossible, she saw an explosion of stars on the inside of her eyes.

"Ow..."