After several silent, tense seconds where Rebecca could hear little but her own breath and Sam's shoes shifting on the pavement next to her, Ronnie gestured two small teams forward under the watchful guns of everyone else. They worked cautiously up both sides of the thoroughly trashed street — smashed concrete, demolished cars (one on its side), and one toppled tree strewn well past the initial wrecks.

Once they'd set up local security, Rebecca rolled and sat up to lean her back against the bottom of the doorframe. As she caught her breath, she listened as individual team leaders reported their status over the radio, mostly using a series of color-based statuses. She sighed in relief when she pieced together there weren't any casualties and only a couple of "yellows" regarding ammunition. It sounded like Epstein was going to have some body work to do, maybe replace a few armored windshields, but everything was drivable and mission-capable.

She made sure Felicia's safety was on and cradled the rifle across her lap, then fumbled for Sam's hand beside her. "You okay, Rosie?"

"Yeah, sugar. Jesus. You?" Sam was settling into a similar pose next to her, leaning her helmet back against the wheel, opening her eyes when Rebecca spoke.

Rebecca nodded, with a nervous chuckle. "Better than some of our past escapades, for sure." She glanced across the street to check on Christine and Patrick with a little wave, and contemplated the two soldiers they were riding with. "You know... I think this has to be the first time some of these kids have been shot at."

Sam opened her eyes and followed Rebecca's gaze. "Shit, you're right. A few of them are definitely younger than us."

Rebecca picked up some of the brass shell casings from her own shooting with her free hand and tossed them onto the floorboards of the Humvee behind her for reuse — either reloads, or tripwire chimes, who knows. "I wonder how badly Ronnie's going to chew out the guy in the front truck."

Sam shrugged, and watched as the rear guard Humvees and cargo truck creaked to a stop behind them. Epstein lifted a few fingers from the grip of his weapon in a small wave as he passed them on foot, maybe going to inspect the lead vehicles for damage.

"Dunno. At least he's alive to be yelled at."

"Amen to that." Rebecca rose and dragged her small assault backpack from the footwell of her seat, taking a few gulps from the hydration pouch's tube before passing it to Sam, who nodded her thanks. She tilted Felicia sideways to glance at the transparent window on the side of the magazine (polymer of course, not steel, per Ronnie's requirements), and swapped it for a full one before laying it across her seat, and resting her chin on her folded arms atop the Humvee roof.

Ronnie had moved forward to... go do leader-y things, and Rebecca could see her nod to Epstein as he passed her, glancing at the front Humvees and then moving forward to the two wrecks they'd spotted from the air. Curious, she slung Felicia, and she and Sam stepped around the nose of the Humvee and made their way up the sidewalk.

Rhonda had just started to move forward from Golf One as they neared her, and she turned to Rebecca and stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Girls... you two aren't going to want to see any of this."

Rebecca subconsciously glanced past Ronnie, then back to her. "Huh? What'd they find?"

"It can't be anything pleasant, and what's left of whoever was attacking us won't be either. Trust me, kiddo."

Rebecca looked back at the street past Ronnie, images of the grisly effects of Chris' C4 charge in the drainage tunnels flitting by in her memory. "Yeah... okay. What do you want us to do?"

"We just made a hell of a lot of noise. Keep an ear and eye out behind us just in case? I promise I'm not just giving you the shit job, I can trust you two to handle it."

The unsaid other half of that wasn't lost on Rebecca. She nodded. "Okay."

She could feel Sam giving her a sideways look as they walked back and glanced at her with a shrug. "I mean, she's not JUST trying to get rid of us."

"But she still is. Though with the shape your stomach was in... okay. Maybe she's right."

"Fuck knows I've got enough post traumatic stress, I can deal with skipping adding to it if it means getting treated like a kid for a bit."

"Right?" Then, after a brief pause, Sam continued. "How're your stomach now though? I'd think the drama might make it worse."

"I was pretty distracted at the time... starting to notice again now." Rebecca "shrugged" with one lifted eyebrow and a brief head tilt. "I don't want to go for a run or eat a gross MRE, but... I'm alright enough, just a little off. Hopefully it was just anxiety and not a bug."

Sam seemed satisfied enough to let the topic change and blew out a long decompressing sigh of her own as they reached their ride. "Sheesh. That was over fast."

"Yeah." Rebecca unslung Felicia, folded down the bipod, and set the rifle down across the hood — this time facing the other direction, with the truck between them and the way they'd arrived from. "I'm just glad nobody got hurt. I mean... nobody we knew." She kinda felt like an ass after saying that.

Sam didn't seem perturbed by the comment and pensively gazed into the distance as the adrenaline coursing through her fizzled. "Hopefully we can go soon. I just want to get back to poking through your closets and getting our hands on some solar panels. Simpler days..."

Several minutes later, Rhonda was apparently satisfied with poking around the scene and ordered the convoy back into traveling form. As Rebecca watched the dismounted troops make their way back to the vehicles, she noticed many of them carrying an assortment of firearms, ammunition, and a few bags. To the victors go the spoils, she supposed. Rebecca noticed Ronnie was carrying a bag, so she stepped around to open the rear of the Humvee for her while Sam moved to her own door. That got her an appreciative nod as Ronnie slung a black rucksack into the cargo bed and extracted an unloaded pistol with the slide locked back from it. She held the handgun out grip-first to Rebecca as she spoke.

"Isn't this the full-size version of your trusty backup?"

Rebecca quirked an eyebrow and took the pistol, studying it briefly. Sure enough, it looked like the "full size" tactical version of the compact self-defense handgun she'd bought what felt like an age ago. Similar grip and contours, with a longer snout and larger magazine well. She thought she'd remembered someone at the gun shop telling her local law enforcement carried something along those lines. "Yeah, looks like it is. Did you find it on a cop or something?"

"Nobody in that mess had uniforms, but I'm sure plenty of cop cars have been looted over the last year. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the long guns we found were from those or a local SWAT armory too."

Rebecca set her feelings about the local law enforcement agencies based Jaime's experiences aside for the moment. "Could you tell what happened before we showed up? I'm assuming there weren't any survivors or anything..."

Rhonda shook her head, a hint of grimness passing momentarily. "I doubt we'll ever know. Honestly, it looked like it was just humanity breaking down, one group preying on another. I can't really even tell if the first group were victims or aggressor, and whoever the 'winner' was didn't take kindly to our arrival. Not the first time I've seen that kind of thing."

Rebecca glanced at her in brief concern, then sighed and shook her head as she looked at the pistol again and put it back.

Rhonda clapped her briefly on the shoulder before heading back to her door. "Chin up, kiddo. I know what you're thinking. Remember how far we've come, what we've built. Hop in, hold Red's hand for a bit. You'll both feel better." Rebecca mentally harrumphed to herself as she secured and stowed Felicia again, but it wasn't bad advice.

The convoy partially retraced its path in reverse order, originally trailing elements temporarily in the lead as they wound back to their original route. Rebecca was quiet as Ronnie checked in with the airfield, but reached her hand across the unoccupied gunner platform between her and Sam and intertwined their fingers. She really hoped this wasn't an omen of how the rest of the day was going to turn out.

**

The streets continued growing more familiar, and thankfully less war-torn, as they drove for another twenty minutes. It might have taken her ten on a quiet morning a year or two before, but every little traffic obstruction wore on everyone's mind as a potential ambush. Rebecca took a little comfort when Ronnie pointed out of the window, up towards the sky, drawing her attention to one of the friendly recon drones flying overhead, pointing out it was a better model with longer loiter times than the electric-powered ones they'd started with. It looked like a miniature airplane — not the quadcopters she'd seen students playing with in a field near campus — with a funny inverted V between twin tails, and dangling wheels that made her think of an oversized crane fly.

Goofy appearance or not, she was glad to know there were friendly eyes on the streets ahead of and around them. She'd feel a little better if it was toting a few antitank missiles too, but... she'd take what they could get. Would it be able to see down onto the fire road / bike path they would soon transition to though? She wondered how overgrown the pleasant greenery she remembered lining the sun-and-shade dappled path would be.

She soon found out as they lurched off of the small parking lot's pavement, across a short stretch of grass, and then back onto the paved path to get around a removable, but padlocked bollard meant to keep yahoos in cars and trucks out. They had a few pairs of bolt cutters on them, but going around was perfectly expedient.

The trees overhead had interknit some of their branches, making the little road surprisingly picturesque, like those pictures of British roads running rail straight through verdant tunnels. Bushes on the sides occasionally whipped across the hood and windshield, but the vehicles in front of them took the brunt of that assault and cleared much of the way for them. She found herself smiling a little at the memory going for solo runs along the path — busy enough on the weekends she didn't worry about being by herself, and later outpacing Jaime on jogs, teasing him and making him race home after arguments about how much of a head start was actually fair. She even thought she recognized the rock outcropping they'd made out in the bushes behind one time... and felt her cheeks flush when Sam's fingers tapped hers.

"Good memories?"

Busted. She must have shown it on her face somehow. "Ah... yeah." She sighed. "A few. I guess I should cherish those."

Sam thumped their still-conjoined hands against the deck reassuringly. "Yup. I expect stories later, after we get home." She winked, and then looked back out her own window, mercifully sparing Rebecca further embarrassment.

Heh. Yeah. That was a good reminder that this wasn't home anymore. Used to be, but now home was with Sam and Rufus and Allie and all their friends. Rebecca chuckled to herself. Sam had a surprising impish interest in bawdy stories about Rebecca's time with Jaime when she was in a place to tell them. It had taken a little to get used to, but Rebecca supposed it wasn't too many steps past two friends gossiping about one of their partners over a bottle of booze.

Hmm. She wondered if her kitchen had been raided by someone? There had been a good bottle of cab on the counter. She spent the rest of the time on the back road flipping through the mental list of things she hoped might still be there. Of all things to be top on the list, an anatomy coloring book. She wanted it to build up their medical resources — sure, they could raid a bookstore or something, but she knew where everything was in that particular book, and it had all kinds of notes scribbled in the margins. A few other books, her laptop, photos from the walls. Mementos of her mom. Local scavenging had already replaced pretty much all of the housewares they might need, but maybe some of her old jewelry or more of her original clothes would be nice — whatever would still fit, the way the more physical lifestyle had shifted her figure around. She knew for sure that some of her tighter short-sleeved shirts weren't going to fit over her deltoids anymore. Not the end of the w... ugh. Phrasing. She wasn't too worried about the clothes, since she and Sam had managed to stock up on enough from local stores that she wasn't always having to suppress thoughts about wearing some other poor woman's garments. Still, a few more familiar comforts would be nice.

Just a few minutes later, the convoy was nearing their destination. The lead elements had pulled ahead, and were already radioing back that the parking lot looked secure and their dismounted riders were checking the old restroom building. Their section of the convoy followed not long after, and Rebecca drew in a grateful breath of crisp air that smelled of earth, trees, and foliage.

Sam joined her at the edge of the parking lot, taking in the view of the languid creek through the scattered deciduous trees framing the site. "Cute place for a picnic, I suppose."

Rebecca replied while she finished strapping on the old Black Tusk arm-mounted tablet they'd obtained. "For sure. When the weather was really nice, I'd bring a textbook or two and lounge in the partial sun filtering through the leaves — it really was just the perfect balance of shade and warmth. Sometimes few residents would carry a barbecue across the creek for a get-together."

"That sounds lovely. But, why'd they build a paved river crossing that goes UNDER the surface of the water? Why not just put a little bridge in? It's not like this would get flash floods or anything crazy like that. Didn't you get tired of getting your feet wet?"

Rebecca shrugged. (Calling the creek a "river" was being generous, but she wasn't going to nitpick. It usually wasn't any deeper than her thigh out in the middle.) "Well, I mean, there's a newer footbridge a little up stream, for when getting my feet wet wasn't part of the appeal. But I dunno. It's odd, but kinda adds to the place's character, don't you think? It eel more rural, even though it's tucked in between big neighborhoods." She shook her head. Urban planning priorities had certainly shifted between then and now. "Who knows, maybe it was historical restrictions." She paused to incline her head towards a path at the edge of the clearing. "There's literally a hole in the ground down that trail with a sign about how there used to be an icehouse there a couple hundred years ago."

"You mentioning the historical sign makes me wonder what the tour signs will say in another hundred."

"Right?" Rebecca sighed, trying to shove away the thought of how many would be mass grave memorials. Things had been going pretty well recently, but thinking back to the sheer calamitous scale was still a huge abyss to stare into.

Sam realized she'd turned the conversation sour, and was clearly contrite. "Sorry. I didn't mean to dampen the mood."

"It's okay, Rosie." Rebecca glanced over at her affectionately, a little entertained at how out of place the tactical helmet and body armor looked on her girlfriend after several weeks of the quiet life. She probably looked about just as much the part herself, come to think of it.

Sam gave her a little lopsided grin that spoke wordless volumes, then looked back over her shoulder. "Come on, sugar. It looks like everyone else is here. Let's go do what we're here to."