They finished just after sunset, with Rebecca shining a flashlight with her off hand. Both women slumped with relief when Sam connected the rebuilt board's power supply to a battery with a pair of alligator clips and the LCD screen on the front lit up.

"Okay, that's good enough," Sam proclaimed. "Epstein and his guys can put the enclosures back together tomorrow."

"Oh good. We're going to have to hurry, Chris and Patrick are probably waiting for us." They'd all planned to make dinner together tonight, feeding Allison and Leonard too, as joint thanks for the welcome-back presents the other day.

Sam waggled a finger at her imperiously. "We're not going anywhere until we get our hands thoroughly cleaned. A lot of solder has lead in it, and I'm damned well not gonna eat something we cooked with that on our hands."

Rebecca made a sour face. "Or feed it to an expectant mother, either... yuck. Okay. Well, I wouldn't mind changing into something a little nicer before we go over anyway, y'know? Make a happy occasion out of it."

"I would hope you weren't going over in your battle gear, sugar. Allie's not that scary." Sam's frustration was draining away, and it felt good to tease Rebecca affectionately.

Rebecca's expression morphed into a smirk. "I dunno about that... if you don't want to see what a pregnant woman is like when she's hangry we'd better get a move on, shouldn't we?"

"Touché." Sam finished stacking the semi-complete radios in a plastic tote bin and closed the lid, leaving them sheltered from the elements until Epstein or one of his compatriots retrieved them. Rebecca helped her collect the soldering equipment, multimeter, and screwdrivers into a small tool bag, then loosely flopped her armor her her head and slid into the sleeves of her jacket. Rufus hardly needed a leash anymore when they were within the compound, which left their hands conveniently free for carrying her rifle and Sam's tools, and for opening the heavy exterior door to their building.

Cleaning up was a particularly thorough affair, with Rebecca literally up to her elbows in suds and lather since she'd been handling her tactical gear, which probably had all kinds of heavy metal and chemical residues lingering on them. The time made for a pleasant physical and mental transition, setting the hard edges of the world aside as she brushed her hair by lantern-light and swapped her outdoorsy hiking shirt for a comfortable 3/4 sleeve tunic top — hastily, before too many goosebumps could form in the chill.

When she picked up her old lavender cardigan — hand-washed and well-aired — she relished the distantly familiar softness of the angora yarn in her hands. As she wrapped herself in it, she ran her hands over the material again with a sigh as she studied her reflection in their bedroom mirror. In the dim light, she could almost pass for a nicely-dressed student, excited to know where she'd been admitted for grad school, wondering how she was going to pack a TA job in amongst her own course schedule.

That was never going to happen now... but at least they could have some nice moments now and then. Even with all the horrible things Ronnie'd told her were happening out in the darkness, maybe even right now. Damn. She was going to have a hard time pushing those thoughts down during dinner. She supposed the unpleasant news made it even more important to try to cling to the nice things... her friends, Sam, Rufus, their comfortable — and at least for now, safe — home.

She managed well enough at dinner. The company was exquisitely pleasant, and the meal simple but hearty. Christine had managed a very competent marinade on a cut of venison, Patrick did her effort justice cooking it, and the rice Sam and Rebecca had dressed up with some of Allie's "canned" peas from the growing season soaked up the surplus juices . The surprisingly excellent bottles of "old world" wine Allison insisted the rest of them share — even if she couldn't partake — carried a surprising punch. It left Rebecca cuddling woozily with Sam on the couch during the post-meal game of charades, and giggling near the point of tears when they followed up with several rounds of Cards Against Humanity.

They'd discussed Ronnie's encouragement to go looking for family members, though Rebecca heavily filtered some of the details Ronnie had relayed to her, not wanting to ruin the mood for everyone else — or even think about them much herself. Unsurprisingly, Christine had ardently volunteered herself and Patrick to accompany them, launching into a brief lecture about letting them help her before Sam assured her Rebecca was finally starting to come around about that kind of thing.

**

The next day, Sam was stricken with a migraine that left her miserable and barely functional. Fortunately, providing a dark, cool room for her to convalesce in was really easy those days.

Rebecca returned from the bathroom with a wet washcloth and lay it across Sam's forehead and eyes, tenderly brushing her bangs out of the way. "Do you want to break into the Excedrin? We still have a bottle and a half."

"Nngh. No, let's save it for when we really, really need it." Sam paused for a breath or two. "I've had worse, at least I don't think I'm going to throw up this month. Fucking hormones."

Rebecca patted Sam's hand. "I sympathize. The withdrawal migraines when we started to run out of my Effexor were brutal."

Sam grunted and was quiet for a while, before following Rebecca's forearm up by feel, under the shawl Rebecca was wrapped in, to where that same old racerback top left her shoulder bare. Sam pensively traced her fingers over the ragged scar left behind from a tumbling ricochet during Patrick and Christine's rescue. "I hope we're doing the right thing, going out there."

Rebecca lifted her other hand to rest it over Sam's, though she lay it outside of the shawl. "That's not a problem for now, hon. You just try to sleep and fast-forward through it, okay? I'll bring you a snack and some water later. Food usually helps you on the rebound, once you're through the worst."

Sam sighed and relented, caressing Rebecca's shoulder lightly before dropping her hand back to the bed. "Okay. Thanks, sugar. I'll call weakly if I need you to drill a hole in my head and let the demons out."

Rebecca chuckled and gave Sam's hand a passing stroke as she pivoted off the bed to her feet. She shooed Rufus out in front of her — he was usually pretty good about being chill when he was laying at the foot of the bed, but she didn't want him disturbing Sam if he hopped down to get a drink or something. Closing the door most of the way behind them, she made her way to the kitchen and sent a grateful thought Christine's way for covering one of her work shifts so she could stay with Sam. Meanwhile, Rebecca figured she'd get a pot of rice cooking as quietly as she could — maybe mix it with some eggs and soy sauce when it was done — and poke through some of the books they'd brought back from her apartment.

That last bit didn't work out so well. Her copy of All the Light We Cannot See was too emotionally heavy... The Pioneer Woman Cookbook didn't engage her enough... maybe because so many of the recipes weren't practical given what they had available? And, Sam had loaned the chronicles of Mark Watney's adventures on Mars to Nate. She really hoped he didn't get dreams of being an astronaut from it... god knows if/when humans would make it into space again. What happened to the people up on the ISS? They had a permanently docked Soyuz as an escape pod they could have used once supplies ran out, right? But was there anyone to guide them down? Hopefully someone made the call to bring them home before the lights went out at mission control.

Meh. She tried to push that kind of mental wandering aside. Despite feeling a bit like an old maid for it, she resigned herself to knitting on the couch with her dog. Rufus rested his head on her knee while she listened to the pot simmer and the fire crackle few feet away. He was a good boy... but she was worried what they would do if he got hurt or sick. No vets around, that she knew of. Maybe one out in the countryside somewhere had a sufficient level of medical knowledge and paranoia to isolate early, but good luck finding them. He looked up without lifting his head when she sighed, and she smiled at his big brown eyes and gave him a quick stroke between rows of knitting. She wasn't good a the whole suppressing intrusive thoughts thing today. Or counting her stitches, dammit. She set the needles in her lap and fumbled for the crochet hook sitting on the table, disturbing Rufus's comfortable lazing as she leaned forward.

"Sorry, boy. Let's see if I can remember how to fix a dropped stitch like Jaime's mom showed me to, huh?" She held her hands still for a moment. "Ah, fuck. That's not gonna help with the glum thoughts, is it?"

She frowned intently at the offending loop of yarn in the mediocre window light, sitting back with a sigh when she finally had everything in order again — much to Rufus' relief.

What day was it today, anyway? Either three, maybe four days shy of a year now. She'd hooked up with Sam (and then settled into a Relationship) months ago, and that felt... a little early, but also very needed at the time, and like the "right" thing for her now.

She was clearly still healing, even if the bleeding had stopped and the wound had closed... much like the scar Sam had been gently poking at just a bit ago. A decent parallel, really. Both might healed over on the surface, but with lingering tissue damage underneath, or foreign matter that just couldn't be cleaned properly given the circumstances and tools available.

Bah. She rested her fingers on the small lump of Jaime's St. Christopher medallion where it hung against her sternum — on Sam's gold chain. In a few months, it'd be more time since he died than she'd been with him.

It was very kind of Sam to accept how much she shared Rebecca's headspace with his ghost, but Rebecca still sometimes felt like it was unfair to her. The one time Rebecca'd brought it up, Sam didn't even "shut up, dummy" her like usual. Instead, she just patiently explained that Rebecca's big heart (that Sam loved her for) meant grieving hurt longer, and that it was natural to miss him. But that just made Rebecca want to be better for her even more.

It was sometimes odd, Rebecca was the psych major, the one who grew up without a dad for the later part of her childhood, and here was Sam with the mature and well-balanced view on healing after loss. Go figure. Everybody who was left these days was probably getting to be a bit of a professional at it, she supposed.

Enough of that. She clung to the thread of positive emotion of gratitude surrounding Sam and tried to use it to guide her thoughts. Packing for their trip? Yeah, that was a good task to feed her brain. Even if they didn't know quite when they were going, she could start planning what to take with them. Originally a two hour drive... call it two days each way, given the amount of probable clusterfuckery on the highways, detours they'd need to take. Well within the range of a fully fueled Humvee or whatever Ronnie told them to take... she'd learned the hard way that her old hybrid was better suited to urban or hilly driving. A long cruise on flat ground would just turn the electric side of things into dead weight once the battery ran down. Plus, unarmored, and the engine trouble Allie reported.

Rebecca felt a little pang of sadness and hoped they'd be able to get it running smoothly again, it had been a trusty little companion even before the dire times.