TW -- Car crash flashback.

Just like Sam had told her father — tried to, anyway — she was turned away apologetically from the home of one old classmate, and nobody seemed to be home at another. She waited an hour in hopes they might return, but eventually gave up. She called home, but the landline rang and rang, which wasn't right... the answering machine should have picked up. She couldn't get a call to Mike or either of her parents to go through. Her phone still showed a signal so she tried to send texts and chat app messages to both, letting them know she'd decided to just drive down to Richmond and see if she could find a hotel, or even worst case crash in the car or airport.

She probably shouldn't have used quite that choice of words. Most of the way to Richmond at nearly 10 PM, some asshole cut her off several miles short of the beltway. She was tired, emotionally spent, and not used to her mom's car — it constantly pulled to the left and the brakes were mushy. When she tried to dodge the first impact, something else clipped her, sending the rear end swinging and she overcorrected.

The last thing she remembered was a faceful of airbag, then woke up in a local clinic with a square of gauze taped to her forehead. Her shoulder and arm hurt, but everything still moved well enough while she fumbled for the call button. The medtech who came in a few minutes later filled in a few gaps, including the fact that she wasn't looking at a sunrise outside — she'd missed her flight. One of the deputies working the crash scene dropped off her bags while the staff were putting her through a CT scan, but the car had been towed.

Even after being unconscious for nearly a full day, she was still exhausted. She was also starving, so once someone actually told her what city she was in so she could pass the concussion check quizzes, even the small-time hospital food was appreciated. When she held that down for two hours, the doctor cleared her for stuff from the vending machines, but still wanted her to stay another 24 hours for observation. Come dawn, though... the same nursing assistant was still on duty, and he told her someone had just been admitted with symptoms of whatever the hell was on the news. He strongly implied she was within her rights to refuse further treatment and get out of there. Strongly. Implied.

She was together enough to catch the hint, so she wolfed down one more tray of hospital food, let him change out the gauze on her forehead for a big bandaid, and checked herself out. Phones had completely gone to crap, she was able to get through to one local hotel using the hospital's land line but was pretty rudely rebuffed. She despondently told the helpful tech she'd had nowhere to go, and was going to try to make it back home for lack of any better idea. He tried four times to call her a cab since the rideshare apps were totally borked by that point, but emphasis on "tried". She thanked him anyway, and told him to be safe. He told her he'd try... and slipped her a mylar emergency blanket and a single surgery mask.

Sam really hoped he was okay.

She started walking north, getting about six or eight miles before she abandoned her textbooks. She probably should have done it sooner.

**

Rebecca was startled when Sam punched the dashboard repeatedly with an angry strangled squeal, enough that her grip on the steering wheel twitched and the SUV wibbled briefly. She glanced over — Sam wasn't sobbing, but tears were flowing freely again and her jaw was firmly set. Looked more like rage crying.

Rebecca used the turn signal to let the guys behind know she was slowing intentionally and pulled over to the side of the road. "Hey Chrissie, can you drive for a bit?"

"Of course, babe."

Patrick caught Rebecca's attention while she was turning back to Sam. "Hey. Do you want me to ride with the other guys? Give you some privacy?"

Rebecca glanced at Sam, who replied with a minute headshake, so she relayed that sentiment to Patrick with a dismissive face. Everyone shuffled around, and soon Rebecca had her arms around Sam in the back seat. She'd started cautiously, but Sam leaned into her first touch abruptly.

Chrissie started driving again, and Rebecca murmured quietly in Sam's ear to be just barely audible over the road noise. "Hey, honey. I didn't want to smother you before you were ready."

Sam let out a ragged exhale but Rebecca felt none of the almost vibrating tension drain from her body yet. "Thanks. I'm ready. I need you like a reactor needs control rods right now. Is it sane to hate and love someone at the same time?"

Rebecca smoothed Sam's hair with gentle caresses. Scientific references were a good sign at least. "Who knows what normal is, but I do think it's natural. Maybe it takes more to make you hate someone you care about, but makes it worse when you pass the tipping point?"

"I guess. I'll let you be reasonable for me right now. I still want to go back and hit him again."

"Okay. I can do that. The being reasonable part. I wouldn't want to steal the other satisfaction from you."

Sam was quiet for a few minutes in Rebecca's arms. "The worst part is that him blaming me makes me blame him. It just drags me into his bullshit."

"Mmm. Don't be too hard on yourself for that."

"Oh, I'm not."

Rebecca chuckled softly. "Right, right. That's my schtick. Should I apologize too?" Sam poked her in the ribs, but she felt Sam's shoulders slump a little.

"Thank you for having my back."

Everything Rebecca could think of to say was too sappy, so she just kissed Sam's head and kept holding her.

A half hour of meandering progress later, Patrick looked up from one of the maps in the front seat. "I think we're coming up on one of those waypoints we marked. Anybody hungry?"

It was still a little before noon, but sure, physically refueling might help emotionally too. They'd picked out several locations along possible routes that looked like they'd be sheltered from view, easy to secure. One of them just after they turned onto side roads again was a dry creek bed under a wide bridge. They pulled into slowly to avoid giving their position away with a dust cloud.

Landry and Epstein pulled up alongside them, about a car length away, and unloaded two camouflage nets similar to those sheltering the roof back home. Since they were concealed from above by the bridge, they strung them across the ends of the SUVs and the space between them, creating a little pocket of concealment.

Sam started in on her food slowly, but eventually her appetite warmed up and she laid in to the remainder with gusto. The six of them sat in their own little pairs, but at one point, Epstein walked over and held out a pack of M&M's to Sam.

"I come bearing chocolate. They're only a month or two out of date."

Sam stared at the pouch of candy for a second then looked up at him as she took it. "You're a smart guy."

He nodded with a smile and retreated to where he'd been sitting with Landry.

Rebecca poked Sam and looked at the pouch with interest. "Do I get any?"

Sam sighed — one of letting tension go, this time. "You've earned 'em."

Rebecca peeled one of her gloves off to expose a clean palm. "Hey, like always, we take care of each other. It might be my turn next."

"Ugh. I suppose we can only go up from how mine went."

"Please don't jinx us, huh?" Rebecca pondered whether to retrieve the picture frame yet, but decided to give things more time before stirring up Sam's emotions again.

Instead, she just sat with her, sharing the enjoyment of a little old world treat.

**

Everyone seemed to be in unspoken agreement that they could use a little break, so it was another idle half hour and a few trips to the bushes on the other side of the riverbed before they were prepping to leave again.

Chrissie was stretching her back as she looked over at Rebecca and Sam. "Hey, you know, I was thinking. Things would be a little more roomy if we mixed things up a bit. Not that we mind your company and all, but we could do three and three in each vehicle if Landry and Epstein wanna split up."

Rebecca glanced at Sam. "You good with different company, or do you wanna stick to family for now?"

Chrissie lowered her arms after a couple of satisfying pops. "Oh shit, yeah. You know what, if you even want the car to yourselves for a bit, that's cool."

Sam brushed them off. "Eh, it's alright. I'm not gonna be in much of a talking mood for a while anyway. Looking at the maps will give me something to do."

Landry glanced at Epstein where they sat across the little campsite, then chimed in. "Hey, we're good either way. These puppies are way better than we're used to."

Chrissie looked to Rebecca and got a nod. "Okay, cool. Our knees thank you, friends!"

Christine and Patrick grabbed their essentials and day packs from the back. Meanwhile, Rebecca could clearly hear Landry laughing at Epstein.

"Brother you just don't wanna carry your shit twenty feet, do you?"

"Hey, my tools are fucking heavy, man!"

Soon after, Landry extended his hand and bumped his fist against Patrick's as they passed each other and tossed his pack with an attached bedroll in the back. Rebecca noticed he brought his M4 with him to the back seat and laid it across the floorboards after taking down one of the camouflage nets.

She hauled herself into the driver's seat just as Sam pulled her door closed, and Landry climbed in. He was jovial as he settled into the back seat, extending an arm along the seatbacks and putting one leg up to his calf across it.

"Wow, I like how that gal thinks. This is great!"

Rebecca was impressed with his good manners keeping his foot off the leather, but also pondered that with his height not very different than Sam's, he didn't really need much in the way of legroom.

Even Sam chuckled a little at his playful attitude, and Rebecca pondered that maybe his humor was why she was content working with him that day at the armory. Hopefully the little shuffle would help out her mood over the miles to come.

**

The first leg of their drive had taken them off at an oblique angle from the main route Rebecca might have originally used to get to her uncle's. That made for a long segment of the trip on small side roads weaving through hills, more or less in the general direction they wanted to go.

One thing Ronnie insisted on is that whoever was navigating constantly track where their position on the dashboard GPS corresponded to on the overhead photography she'd procured for them. Once they were past where she'd been able to send drone flights, they switched from recent aerial images to a series of poster-sized satellite images that were between three and six months old. The hope was they'd be able to see major obstructions and find a path around them — and Ronnie encouraged them to always have more than one possible route in mind.

That activity really did keep Sam busy, which helped her keep her mind off the mild heart attack she nearly had when Rebecca spooked and twitched the wheel before the rest break. Seems like the memory of that car crash still lurked in the back of her mind, and could be summoned forth by similar physical sensations. She hadn't told Rebecca that sudden jolt of passing terror was part of what made her more receptive to the affection afterwards, briefly bumping her off the track of rage she was looping through that had finally reached the point of physical outburst.

She'd been processing on the whole unpleasant odyssey long enough she thought she had a pretty good handle on it, especially with the comfortable home she had nowadays. But good fucking lord, her own father trying to blame her for Mom getting sick, that was a new one she'd never expected. And trying to take a swing at her... well. She definitely wasn't the girl who'd fallen off the porch that night anymore. Maybe someday he'd pull his head out of the ass and realize it didn't have to be anyone's fault, but until he did, she sure as hell wasn't going to let him point the finger at her.

Or insult her mother.

She'd put some music on from her phone and was just starting finally starting to zone out to the alternating swaths of trees and fields going by, when Rebecca slowed for a turn, then decelerated more as they came around it.