She leaned closer, looking at the irises of her eyes... those hadn't changed... and reaching up to toy with a strand of hair that had escaped the confines of her helmet. Jaime had always called it "honey walnut", making a joke out of their affinity for Mr. Tse's restaurant. The ends were definitely lighter than the original color farther up above her ears, fading in a gradient from where the bleaching summer sun had touched up into what had grown in as the days shortened. She smiled at the memory, noticing how that brought out a few more creases at the sides of her eyes than it used to... and heard the harsh sounds of a scuffle from the living room, and the sound of Sam's voice angrily swearing.

Rebecca's smile vanished as she spun, hands returning the P90 and raising it to sweep across "Monica", if that really was her name, at the other side of the bed, before ramming the bedroom door back against its stop and storming into the living room. Rebecca registered Sam upright and the direction she was aiming her raised Vector, and snapped her aim to match Sam's at Alan on the couch. Her eyes glanced up to Sam then back down her sights, then she took another two steps into the room and turned to place her aim halfway between him and Monica where she stood in the doorway looking perplexed and scared. At least that looked genuine. She could heard a confused "... the fuck?" from Patrick in the hallway followed by him urging Christine to keep an eye on the hallway, so she knew she could focus on the room.

Okay. So then, yes, the fuck? Monica seemed to understand she really shouldn't move, and had her hands open half raised again, so Rebecca spared a glance to Sam again. Her eyebrows were lowered, her jaw was clenched tight and forward, and Rebecca spotted a bright red drop of blood at the near end of her lower lip. "Sam?!?"

The tension in Sam's voice lowered from hot to simmering as she spoke. "I went over to look at some of the books and he tried to grab my gun."

Monica's voice briefly drew Rebecca's aim half in her direction again, before she locked back on to Alan. "Al? What the hell?"

Alan was half-slumped in the couch, clutching his side with one hand and face with the other. Rebecca knew Sam's small size belied the fact that she could be a real hellcat in a fight, which she was very grateful for in the moment. "I just thought... if we had one, things would be easier for us..."

Monica's outrage seemed genuine as she railed at him. "You fucking dumbass. Neither of them was doing anything aggressive. Look at how well equipped they are. And look, they have friends in the hallway! Did you stop to consider maybe they didn't come alone? What're they going to do now? Rebecca, please, I didn't... "

She didn't parse the rest of Monica's plea, it seemed distant compared to the surge of emotion welling up inside her. The memory of a hotel kitchen rushed back to her, holding Jaime in her lap and bawling her soul out over him, his blood all over her. So much blood. And now this asshole could have taken Sam from her too. Not her, and not again goddammit. She was so stupid, outside of the room again, just like last time. This shit ends... nobody's taking...

"Remy... REBECCA! STOP! I'm fine! Don't! He's not a threat anymore." Sam's increasingly strident voice, and atypically using her full name, finally tore Rebecca's attention back, and she realized she had moved two steps towards Alan's increasingly terrified form on the couch, that her finger had shifted to the trigger of the P90, and was dangerously close to putting enough pressure on it to pull it past its "break" point. Sam had moved laterally to get closer to her, and was fumbling to reach under her gun with her left hand to grab Rebecca while keeping her own gun aimed at Alan, but was hampered by the corner of coffee table keeping them apart.

(Later, Rebecca would also realize she'd heard a muffled "Oh shit..." from Patrick in the hallway.)

"Rebecca. Please. Listen to me, don't. Not here, not now, not for me." Sam's words were practically falling over each other out of her mouth now. "I know he's stupid but I'm okay. If you just kill him, we... we might be done. Please don't."

Rebecca blinked twice quickly, then once more and let out several ragged but slowing breaths she didn't know she'd been holding. Oh god. She'd almost just executed this dumbass, and that scared the shit out of her. She eased her finger out of the trigger guard and stepped back. This put Monica back in her peripheral vision again — dammit, that was careless in her rage — and Rebecca could see her hands over her mouth as she choked back a sob. Dear god. She was as bad as the guy who shot Jaime.

Sam got close enough to get her hand on Rebecca's left forearm and pull her aim downwards. "Honey. Easy. It's okay." Then, her chin shifted against the Vector to direct her voice over her shoulder. "Pat. Come cover this dumbass. Monica, I'm sorry, but get over there with him." She bobbed the muzzle of the Vector an inch to urge her towards the couch.

Rebecca was still shocked over what just almost happened, but responded to Sam's physical contact. She took a few more breaths and lowered her gun further, whispering a shaky "Okay."

Sam patted her arm, then moved her hand back under the clumsy one-handed hold she had on her Vector over it to reach her radio. "Echo Two. 306 secured, two civilians. We'll be leaving shortly."

"Copy, Echo Two." Davis's voice answered back in Rebecca's ears, further reminder of the world outside the room her awareness had abruptly contracted to. As Patrick stepped forward alongside them, she let Sam pull her back and guide her into the bedroom as Monica complacently sat on the couch, where she punched Alan's arm pretty hard.

"See? They're talking on a radio. I TOLD you they had friends with them, and they sound like professionals."

Sam maneuvered Rebecca past the doorway and out of view, then placed her hands on both sides of Rebecca's face, caressing her with the exposed fingertips beyond her gloved palms. "I'm okay. You shoulda seen the other guy." That brought the hint of a smile to Rebecca's face, which Sam returned. "Hey, there's my girl. You had me scared you were going to go full Hulk in there." Rebecca apologetically raised her hand to touch one of Sam's and tilted her head into it, looking closer at Sam's lip when she opened her eyes again.

Sam moved her fingertips gently again. "It's okay. It's just a little bump. He didn't even do it, the stock of my gun whacked me in the mouth as we tussled over it. I promise, he's going to have a real good black eye later."

Rebecca finally spoke. "Ronnie's gonna be proud."

"Yeah. We have a good teacher. Are you okay?" Sam still had her hands on Rebecca's cheeks and was looking into her eyes searchingly.

"I mean, no, but... I'm functional."

"Okay. Good. I can work with that. What're we taking with us? The box there?"

"Yeah. And the books we were talking about before, and any of the pictures we want."

"Oooh, goodie. Before dumbass in there tried his shit, I found one this one picture of you in a volleyball uniform... so damned cute. Was that high school or college?"

Rebecca laughed quietly, and probably blushed a little. "College, I wasn't on a team or anything before."

Sam seemingly confirmed Rebecca's suspicion she was blushing with a giggle and a wink at Rebecca, accompanied by a click of her tongue. "Let's get out of here and go shopping for some shiny solar panels, okay? Maybe some fun surplus military hardware. Who wants a new bipod, huh? Whooo wants one?"

Rebecca laughed again, which turned into a sigh, and she leaned forward to clunk her helmet against Sam's. "Okay. I'm sorry I lost it in there."

Sam leaned in and gave her a carefully lopsided light kiss. "That was scary a couple of different ways, but you didn't lose it, or me. I'm here."

"Okay." Rebecca took another deep breath, then looked down at the box on the bed. She shoved the cardigan and laptop carelessly through the top flaps, and shifted her P90 to get her pack on and pick it up with both hands. The solar charger on the bed caught her eye for a minute, but... Monica seemed okay after all. Her boyfriend was a dipshit, but... that wasn't entirely her fault. Sam was a good reminder that anybody who had someone these days was pretty lucky. So, she'd leave it behind despite everything.

Monica was just finishing telling Alan to keep his mouth shut as they returned to the front room, and looked up to Rebecca and Sam sheepishly. "Rebecca, and.. sorry.. you didn't mention your name. I'm really sorry. Please, take whatever you want, and thank you for not hurting him. I mean, more than he deserved." Monica glanced back at where Alan was clinging to apparent injuries, a glance that turned into a well-shot glare. "It's been hard for us, but that doesn't excuse his bad decision." Rebecca just silently nodded when Monica looked back to her.

Sam gingerly sucked a seeping dot of blood from her lip before it got big enough to drip as she was stuffing books from the shelf into a reusable grocery bag from the kitchen. "Boys can be dumb." She glanced back at Rebecca, intending to continue nudging her with humor. "That's why she's with me."

That gave Monica something to blink quietly at for a few seconds as Sam finished picking through the last row, and the room settled into awkward silence as she moved to the other shelf, circling behind Patrick and his gun. Rebecca finished mulling over a few thoughts and spoke up when Sam was halfway done.

"I know it's rough out here. If you need help... or to find people to connect with... look for the big overpass on Broadway. There are okay folks there. The boss might actually get along with Alan there. He just better not do any more stupid shit, and damned well better not try to steal anything." She gave him a brief disdainful squint. "I don't live there these days, but... if I saw him again, I might have to feed him to my dog."

Monica nodded. "I understand. Thank you. Again, I'm sorry. You were being very cool about things before he did that. I'm sorry we didn't deserve it."

Rebecca made a bit of a sour face. "Well, you were doing okay."

"Yeah. Really, I'm sorry. He... he's been good to me, I swear. He just wasn't thinking clearly."

Rebecca nodded. He was a dumbshit, but she admitted she didn't know what he'd been like or done for Monica before today. It was up to her if she wanted to keep dealing with him, especially now that Rebecca had given her an out. Hopefully he didn't do something else stupid and get Monica killed.

Davis' voice came on in her ear. "Three Six, Echo, this is Three Two. We've finished sweeping the rest of this building and are setting up overwatch hides to cover Third Squad's advance."

Rhonda's reply was a little crackly. "Copy, Three Two. Echo, sitrep please."

Ah crap. "Sitrep please" was Ronnie-speak for "WTF is going on, reply with specific code words that will indicate if you're really okay or not." She must have thought it odd Sam made the last checkin, or heard something in her voice. Maybe both. Either way... Rebecca reached for her transmit button.

"Three Six, Echo. We're good. Just about to exfil." If Rebecca had said they were "fine", Ronnie would have literally "called in the Marines", probably sending Davis' entire squad to her floor and coming up the stairs herself with more. "Okay" would have led to her laying in wait for someone unfriendly to come out with Rebecca's group, and ambushing the ever-living shit out of them.

There was a second or two's pause. "Acknowledged, see you soon. Three Six out."

Rebecca could tell "see you soon" was more a statement of expectation, or nearly an instruction. She looked at Monica one last time, trying to figure out how trustworthy she was.

"Monica, have you noticed anyone else around here? Living in the other building, or skulking through the woods?"

The seated woman shook her head. "No... only the occasional passerby looking around. That's part of why we've stayed."

Well, Third Squad would find out soon enough if that was true. Rebecca wasn't about to tell them the other building was empty and have them lower their guard... but at least Monica hadn't said there was something over there she had to warn them about. That counted for something.

As they left, Rebecca braced the box against the wall with her waist and pulled the key from the door, holding it open with her foot so Patrick could back out last. She looked down at the key for a moment as he moved past. She didn't need it anymore, so she made eye contact with Monica, held it up, and tossed it in before letting the door close.