TW: Domestic violence -- minor, if there is such a thing.

Rebecca settled at the edge of the porch, sitting sideways with one foot resting on the step below. She definitely appreciated the bottle of water Christine brought her, and the supportive hand that lingered on hers for a few seconds.

"You okay, hon?"

Rebecca shrugged and answered quietly. "Bittersweet. Hurting for her, y'know?"

Chrissie nodded. "Let her know we all are, when the time is right, okay?"

"I will. Thanks." She wondered if Landry had relayed anything, or if they'd just been able to infer.

Rebecca sat by herself for an extended while, cradling the Tavor in her lap and watching the neighborhood while keeping a discreet ear on the murmurs of conversations inside. She couldn't make out words, only tone, which was just how she wanted it. She figured twenty minutes or so had gone by when Sam stepped out onto the porch.

"Hey, Remy. C'mon, I wanna show you my room." Sam's eyes and cheeks were dry, but both still severely reddened despite the trace of perkiness returning to her words. She reached out a hand to help Rebecca stand.

Rebecca took it and rose, pulling Sam into a tight hug once she was up. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

Sam sighed in her arms. "Thanks. I knew anything was a possibility..."

"But that doesn't help much."

"Yeah. You do though. Come on."

Rebecca shifted her gun to hang behind her back as Sam led her inside. Mr. Conroy nodded at her in vague acknowledgement from where he sat at the dining table opening a bottle of liquor, and she tried to smile back. Things between them still felt tense to her.

Up the stairs and down a hall, Sam led her to the bedroom at the end. It was small, but comfortable enough once they were both sitting on the edge of the bed. Sam held Rebecca's hand and leaned on her with a sigh, but stood after a minute or two and opened the shade, starting to tell her stories about the knickknacks scattered around the desk and wall shelves.

Detached, it was an interesting reversal... Rebecca had recovered vestiges of her young adult life, including only a handful of souvenirs of her childhood that she'd brought to college with her. But the home of her youth was unattainably distant, like everything Sam left behind at her school, five states away. Instead, here sat relics of Sam's early years, coated in dust.

She'd blow it off as she held an item up, periodically putting one on the bed to take with them. Others, she set back where they'd come from, some with a sigh. Eventually the array on the bed included a couple of stuffed animals, a little plastic pegasus and dragon, a handful of science fair prize ribbons, and an ornately carved stiff leather mask that looked like a wolf or fox. Rebecca did get a small laugh when Sam held up the last item and blinked at her through it. In contrast with the dark brown leather, her eyes looked like they'd almost reverted to their usual blue-grey.

Then Sam sat back down with yet another a sigh. "He doesn't want to come with us, Remy. And... the weird thing is I'm a little okay with it. He's different somehow. I don't know how much of it is shock from seeing me, still grieving my mom, or just being on his own for so long."

"It's probably all of those. I saw him drinking as we came in too, but that could be part of it or just coping."

"Yeah. There's a bunch of bottles in the kitchen too, but I can't exactly blame him." Sam shook a pillow free of its case and started to replace it with the items on the bed. "If I was in a better mood, I'd make a joke about sneaking up to my room with you, but..." She let out a little plaintive noise that was almost a weak laugh, but it fell flat. "I think I'm done here."

"Okay." Rebecca stood and held out a hand to Sam, either to hold hers or to carry the pillowcase if she didn't want to.

Sam squeezed the proffered hand, but let go again and walked down the hallway with the pillowcase slung over her shoulder. She stopped at the door nearest the stairs and pushed it open with one finger, trepidation visible in her posture.

Rebecca glanced past her and realized it must have been Sam's parents' bedroom. She didn't follow as Sam entered, but watched from the door. Sam was lightly touching the furniture as she moved through the room, showing particular interest in a wide, low dresser with a vanity mirror. At one point she lifted a shawl or sweater from the closet to her nose, but set it back with evident disappointment.

Looking around while Sam circulated, the room was in disarray, but looked... old. They'd certainly been into enough abandoned residences to start developing a sense for recent occupation, and Rebecca suspected Mr. Conroy had been sleeping downstairs.

A quiet clink recalled her focus, and she saw Sam at the dresser again, picking up a bottle of perfume. She already had a string of pearls wrapped around her hand. Sam turned around and studied the room one more time, then drifted back to the door.

Rebecca smiled sympathetically as she stepped aside, then preceded Sam down the stairs by a few steps. She made momentary awkward eye contact with Mr. Conroy, then moved farther towards the door so Sam would have room at the base of the stairs.

She was shifting her Tavor back around to a front carry when she heard Sam speak again.

"Dad, would it be alright if I took Mom's pearls, and perfume? I don't have anything else of hers."

Rebecca noticed his expression was distant, but turning stormy when he eventually replied. "Why wouldn't you take them, skulking out of here with treasures in a pillowcase like a common burglar..."

"What?!" Sam actually took a step back in surprise, and her voice was full of hurt.

"Just take what you want, take everything and just leave again, like you did before."

"Dad! That's not fair. Mom ordered me, begged me to go. She was scared when you came home sick..."

Mr. Conroy stood, sweeping the bottle to the carpeted floor with a heavy thunk. "I didn't have the damned 'Dollar Flu', Samantha! I tried telling her that, but as usual, she wouldn't listen, wouldn't be rational about things!"

Rebecca heard Sam's tone chill. "You know what? I'm not asking anymore." Sam stalked to the couch and set the pillowcase down, necklace and perfume inside, and picked up her helmet.

"You know, maybe you should have answered your phone when she called and texted you over and over. She went to go look for you when Mike said you never made it to Seattle. Who knows where you were, but you damned well weren't at your friends' houses like she hoped you'd be."

Sam dangled the helmet in her left hand and dug her phone from her thigh pocket. The room was tensely quiet as she waited for the phone to start up, and then she stepped closer to her father. "Look. I never got any messages." She looked at the phone herself again, tapping it a few times, then held it out once more. "I even tried to call, to send my own. Nothing went through, Dad. I never made it to Seattle because I never fucking made it to Richmond. Megan's family wouldn't let me stay, nobody answered at Tyrone's. I tried to drive down Sunday night, and walked back after getting run off the road. I was unconscious a whole fucking day, by the way. By that point nobody would even pick up a girl hitchhiking by herself, and I walked thirty miles just to get to downtown, where some strangers took me in and fucking fed me. Mom told me to stay safe, so that's what I tried to do."

"She only got sick because she went out looking for you."

"That's bullshit, Dad." Sam turned off the phone and shoved it back into her pocket. "You want to talk about not looking at messages, maybe you should have read some of the news on your train ride home instead of zoning out to whatever political podcast you were into that week!"

Rebecca felt like speaking up would only make things worse, but she knew Sam was right. Not everyone who caught the modified virus died, and infections could take anywhere from a few hours to ten or twelve days to show up. It was perfectly plausible he'd caught it in D.C. and brought it home, recovered, and then Sam's poor mom went symptomatic a week later.

"I told her not to go, but like usual, she didn't care. I told her it was stupid, that it was too dangerous."

Rebecca could see Sam's jaw clenching, the tendons on the side of her neck taut as she replied. "Oh sure. Then you were trying to be safe? You should have known that was the last thing you should've tell her when her kids were concerned. And, I heard you argue with her before. I'm pretty sure you told her she was stupid, not that going out was." Sam lifted her arm to jab a finger at her father, and then towards the street... and back at him again. "You always were consistent about that... and you know what? Don't you speak ill of her. You may be my father, but I will not let anyone badmouth Mom!"

"Don't you talk to me that way!"

"Oh fuck you, Joel."

Rebecca's eyes widened as she saw Joel Conroy raise his hand to slap Sam, and started to lift her Tavor and take a step forward. Maybe she could just put a round into the wall to spook him...

...but before Rebecca got her gun up, Sam had already swatted Joel's hand away with her right fist, rammed her helmet into his face with her left, and pulled her knife from its sheath. The chisel-pointed tanto blade glinted like a poised viper as she stepped back from the helmet blow, balanced on the balls of her feet in stance Rebecca knew very well.

"If you raise your hand to me again, you'll be bleeding even more."

Joel held his nose silently. He could glare daggers all he wanted, Rebecca's money was on Sam's real knife.

Sam stood just as wordlessly, unwavering, waiting for his next move. Eventually Joel glanced at Rebecca and her gun that was only barely not aimed at him, then back at Sam, and slumped sullenly into one of the dining chairs.

"That's what I thought." Sam sheathed her knife, pointedly crossed behind Rebecca and her line of fire, and scooped up the pillowcase from the couch. At the door, she looked over her shoulder. "I regret that things went like this," she said flatly, then crossed the porch and plodded down the steps.

Rebecca made eye contact with Joel and sighed. She regretted it too, briefly contemplating if this was worst-case scenario. As she started to back out the door, photos next to it caught her attention. She scanned them quickly and lit on one in particular where everyone was smiling — a high school graduation picture for Sam's brother.

A younger, happier Joel smiled out of the picture, one hand on the shoulder of a proud-looking boy with strawberry blonde hair barely peeking out from under his mortarboard cap. A slightly shorter woman with reddish-brown hair past her shoulders flanked the boy's other side, and a much younger Sam stood in front of her, braces visible in her broad grin.

After a moment's indecision, she reached out with her left hand and took the frame from the wall.

Joel started to rise to his feet. "Hey!"

Rebecca met his eyes again. She'd been pressing her thumb against the Tavor's safety when she lifted it before, now she pushed it from Safe to Fire to Auto with two audible clicks. "I've shot family of people I love before. Please make a good choice."

Joel sat again, fuming.

"Thank you." Rebecca backed out of the doorway, pulling it closed with the outer fingers of her off hand.

Sam was already in the front seat with her arms folded and the door closed. Chrissie looked up at Rebecca with a shocked and puzzled expression. Patrick glanced over, then returned to keeping a cautious eye on the houses on his side of the SUV, and Epstein and Landry waited expectantly.

Rebecca nodded towards the car while Chrissie was looking at her, then raised her hand and made a circular gesture she'd seen Ronnie use to get people moving again. She stopped at the rear of the SUV where the hatch was still open and dug in their supplies for an MRE — one of the less appetizing ones, whatever. Then, with a Sharpie from her pack, she scribbled grouchily on the meal pouch.

If you're ever ready to talk to your daughter in a civil manner, go to the county airport.

While Chrissie finished putting something away and closed the tailgate, Rebecca lobbed the MRE onto the porch with an underhanded toss. She kinda hoped the Pop Tart inside broke. Stupid airdrop-friendly packaging.

Back on the driver's side, she double-checked that she'd safetied the Tavor before passing it to Patrick and climbing in. Tugging the door closed, she glanced over at Sam, heart full of worry. "I'm sorry, Rosie."

"Stop fucking apologizing for things and just drive, Rebecca." Sam almost never snapped at her, but Rebecca let it slide. Then, Sam's tone was tinged with a hint of apology. "Please."

"Okay." She'd let Sam cool off, let her choose when to talk about things. Rebecca held the improvised ignition switch to the Start position, backed into the street, and drove past the weird tree again.

At the causeway intersection, she stopped and waited.

After a few seconds Sam lifted her head from where she had it propped up on her fist against the window and looked at her. Rebecca silently lifted the pointer finger on each hand at opposite sides of the steering wheel, with a questioning eyebrow raise. If Sam wanted to, she was willing to call the whole thing off and try again later. They could just head home and get some puppy snorgles and hugs from Allie — but Sam twitched her lips with a slight frown and waved her hand towards the left.

Rebecca wasn't about to press her for confirmation, so she swung the SUV in that direction and continued their journey away from town.