Rebecca yawned and rubbed her eyes as she floated up to consciousness. When her eyes could focus, she blinked and glanced around quickly, trying to remember where she was — the unfamiliar boards above and beside her were disorienting, even a little unnerving.

But then she remembered, and looked to her right where she knew Sam would be.

"Good morning, sugar." Sam had both her hands tucked up under her pillow and somehow managed to look even cuter than usual.

Or maybe Rebecca was still feeling some afterglow from the little bit of bedtime snuggling they managed to get in for the first time in a few days. She smiled fuzzily as Sam continued.

"Sleep okay?"

Something about Sam's voice sounded like that was more than a casual question, and Rebecca frowned a little as she rolled onto her right side to face Sam better. "Did I make noise?"

"Not sure, maybe that's what made me look over, but you were in a funny position once or twice."

"Huh. I don't remember anything. Then again, I was ex-fucking-xhausted."

The end of Sam's mouth twitched in amusement. "You and me both."

Rebecca extended a searching hand, which Sam seemed to (correctly) interpret as an invitation because she shifted, leaning forward for a quick kiss. After, Sam propped herself up on her left elbow, holding Rebecca's hand with her right and looking into her eyes imploringly.

"Tell me we're getting out of here today? Please?"

"Oh yeah. One way or another, that's gonna be a thing." Rebecca sat up, folding back her sleeping bag, and rubbed her face with her free hand — remembering at the last moment to be careful of her healing scrapes and bumps. "I figure we pack up in the morning, send our checkin and make sure Ronnie doesn't want us to change plans, and then blow this taco stand."

"Oh god. Tacos. Please don't do that to me." Sam let go and sat up too, blew a strand of hair out of her face with a little puff, and reached over to run her fingers through Rebecca's, straightening some of her frizzy bedhead.

"Sorry. I guess that is a little cruel. Better than popsi—"

"Stop!"

Rebecca chuckled apologetically, biting back the rest of her sentence, and then there was a polite knock on the partition behind her. Sam smiled at someone in that direction and Rebecca shuffled to turn and see who it was.

"Good morning, girls." Dylan smiled at them. "Christine asked me to send you her way when you were up and around. She didn't actually say where she'd be, but if you can find Jack in the dark woods, I'm thinking you can probably figure it out."

"Thanks, Dylan." Rebecca reached up and finished the job Sam had started, getting her hair generally sorted out. Damn, she wanted a real bath. "How's Jack? He seem okay?"

"Yeah, considering. He seems to be bouncing between me, your friend Nicholas, and Charles."

"Wait, who?" Rebecca glanced at Sam briefly, relieved to see she looked as puzzled as she was.

"You know, Landry. With the muscles and broken ribs."

Rebecca and Sam shared another moment of eye contact. "Huh," Sam said. "Well, now we know him by that name."

Dylan chuckled. "Oops. Well, it doesn't seem one you could make fun of easily, so hopefully I didn't just give away a secret or something."

"I mean, I guess we just never asked, or it never came up?" Rebecca shrugged — Dylan simply returned the gesture without saying anything more, so Rebecca continued. "Okay. Well, we'll get upright and then go find Chrissie, thanks for letting us know."

"Sure thing. I think there should be some breakfast up in the house if you're hungry, though I'm afraid it's not as fancy as what ol' Charlie has been whipping up for you."

Rebecca looked back up at Dylan. "Hey, how's he?"

"Pretty good for a sixty-something year old who got bounced off of a doorframe — but I guess he got knocked around enough he's actually listening to us when we tell him to take it easy."

"Is that concerning, coming from him? I know some folks who I'd be really worried about if that happened."

Sam coughed behind Rebecca and faux-muttered under her breath. "Takes one to know one."

Rebecca stuck her tongue out at Sam, and Dylan laughed at them — joyfully, like she wasn't used to doing it. "I think he'll be fine. I'll send Jack to tell your friend you're coming. See you in a bit."

"Okay, thanks." Rebecca smiled at Dylan one last time and then untwisted herself, trying to figure out how to get to her shoes now that the cots were right next to each other.

Sam grinned and held out a hand to her again, then used that for support as she leaned over the far edge and strained to reach them, dragging them back victoriously by their laces. "Don't forget to thump them for spiders."

"Oh, like I ever do after that one time. Jesus." Rebecca shuddered at the memory of a wolf spider that crawled out of a shoe as she picked it up a few months back. Both the spider and the shoe had been sent flying. She was all for coexisting, but up that close, there may have been shrieking.

They bantered a little more as they got moving, then waved to Dylan and Jack (presumably back after success on his mission) on their way out. There was still a nip to the air, but Rebecca thought the clean crispness, laden with morning scents of the rural woods and grassy hills made up for it. Fortunately it was easy to spot Chrissie — her flaxen curls, wrestled into a messy bun, stood out even from down the hill where they'd parked.

She backed out from the SUV she was leaning into when they approached and greeted them. "Hey, friends. Rest well?"

"God, we needed it," Rebecca said.

"No kidding. Well, Pat's been moving Landry's stuff for him, but we wanted to talk to you about how to split up the remaining ammo, and then there's the matter of you approving Mister Epstein for duty per your ruling last night."

"Jeez. Was that only a night ago? It feels like more."

Sam scoffed next to her. "All the more reason to GTFO."

Chrissie grinned and continued when she was certain they were done. "Listen, I know you've both been through some shit recently, do you want me to just coincidentally happen to put all of his stuff in our car? Give you some time to yourselves?"

Rebecca glanced at Sam. "I mean, he's a pretty nice guy, I don't have any particular objection to him. But maybe..."

Sam finished for her. "Yeah, he's cool, but it might be nice."

"Sure, no problem, I got you, girls."

Rebecca smiled. "Thanks, babe. Do you mind if we go eat before counting beans and bullets? Maybe get some tea in to get my brain on all six cells."

"Nah, go ahead. I'll come find you once I'm done packing Pat's and my stuff."

Rebecca and Sam said they'd see Christine later, and started up the hill. When they reached the house, they saw Patrick standing on the porch, staring intently at the livestock pens through binoculars.

That wasn't worrisome to Rebecca at all after how their last few days had gone. "Hey, everything okay?"

Pat replied without setting the binoculars down just yet. "Yeah, one sec. Nine... ten... eleven. Okay, good." He lowered the binocs and turned to face them. "Sorry, just wanted to check on something."

Sam looked from the pens back to him with a quizzical side glance. "Like what? Were you counting how many steaks to hope for in your future or what?"

"Sort of the other way around. I was just checking that they were down a pig from when we arrived. Too many horror movies. Did you know they say humans taste like pork? I just wanted to be sure, you know?"

Rebecca groaned. "Oh Jesus, Patrick. What the hell, man."

Sam shook her head. "There's no bacon today, Pat, you can't gross us out of our shares."

He grinned and made air quotes. "Bacon. Riiiight."

"Ugh." Rebecca rolled her eyes and held the screen door open, but Sam hesitated and looked back over her shoulder.

"Y'know Pat, there's plenty of stories where they feed the bodies to the pigs. I'm okay with that, the neurodegenerative risks probably won't transfer back and forth through that particular species barrier. Recycling, yay!"

At that, she ducked through the door, changing her victorious grin to her trademark "you know you love me" smug smirk when she made eye contact with Rebecca inside. "Sometimes I'm amazed Chrissie doesn't smother him with a pillow."

Rebecca chuckled. "Well, at least we'll know what to do with the body."

Epstein and Landry looked up from the dining table as they heard that. Epstein pointed out the door, then to Rebecca, with a confused slack-jawed frown. "Wait... I thought we figured all that out already. Last I heard you two were still asleep, did you already make more?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry, Lance. None of that as long as there's food in our very near future." She was a little miffed that his genuine relief seemed so palpable as he sat back. It's not like she was trying to rack up a body count!

Before she could dwell on that more, Sam made for the kitchen and Rebecca followed along to make sure she'd still get some of whatever was around. They found a big pot of oatmeal on a wood-burning stove apparently muscled in to replace the useless modern equivalent. Sam foraged up honey and cinnamon from the cupboards to douse a bowl in, while Rebecca kept it simple and swirled a hearty amount of maple syrup on hers.

When they rejoined the guys in the dining room, Rebecca was pleased one of their medkits was already waiting on the table.  She nodded at Epstein's shoulder between spoonfuls. "Okay, let's see it." 

Epstein compliantly pulled his jacket back from where he had it loosely draped over that side, and readjusted the sling so he could roll up the sleeve of his t-shirt. "I'm telling you, it's fine."

Rebecca finished another scoop of oatmeal — really trying to ignore the consistency she'd grown so tired of given its prevalence as a shelf-stable foodstuff — then set the bowl down and leaned on the table next to him. "Your assessment is noted for the record. Now, let's see it."

Sam shook her head at her. "Wow, you seem to be picking up your bedside manner from me. Seems like I should be the one inspecting left shoulder bullet wounds, given my experience." She gave a pointed nod to Rebecca's shoulder.

Rebecca tilted her head concedingly in Sam's direction. "Okay, fine. Lance, let's see it, please."

Sam apparently didn't see any reason to let her off that easily. "Careful, he'll 'ma'am' you next, and he's already been shot once!"

Landry was chuckling behind Rebecca, from the other side of the table. She shot Sam something of a "I'll deal with you later" look, then started delicately picking at the edges of Epstein's bandages. "Technically you were shot twice, so I'll let you slide if you really need to let your good manners out."

He winced as she peeled a layer of gauze back. "I'll take a rain check, save it for later."

"Funny, Lance. One week expiration the offer." She sighed. The wound was still raw, but cleaner than her own shoulder injury had been months back — both literally less dirty and a smoother-edged wound. A shallow through-and-through with entrance and exit wounds about the same size. Good thing the guy that shot him had the cheap stuff, no hollow points. "Okay. The bleeding's looking pretty good, and I'm not seeing — or smelling — any infection. I guess we won't need the maggots after all."

Epstein looked up, started again. "What? Eew! Maggots?"

Rebecca grinned at him. "You haven't heard about that? Old battlefield medicine, they'd supposedly only eat the dead flesh, help reduce gangrene."

He looked a little green. "I'll stick to topical antibiotics, thanks."

"You feeling alright there, man? You look like the oatmeal didn't agree with you. Not that I blame you but nausea could be a sign of, I dunno, blood poisoning or something."

Sam set her now-empty bowl down with a clank. "Alright, very funny, now let's get it covered up again before he starts leaking. Move your butt and start passing me clean stuff." She bumped Rebecca out of the way, but then paused, glancing at her hands. "Eh, hold that thought. BRB."

Rebecca shook her head and polished off her own breakfast while Sam jogged out the front door. The bang of it swinging closed made her jump and brought back that unpleasant adrenaline surge. She closed her eyes and sighed in frustration with herself.

Epstein didn't notice, but Landry must have. "You okay there, sister?"

She glanced up at him from the chair she'd settled in. "Eh, more or less. It's been a long few days. I guess you probably know that all too well — how's your side doing?"

"Like you say, mas o meno."

Rebecca smiled at his brief lapse into Spanish, recognizing the phrase from conversations with Jaime's mom. Damn, I wonder if she's doing okay? Or maybe at least passed gently. She didn't mean to, but sighed again.

Landry just seemed to think it was in reply to him. "I'll be alright."

Sam re-entered a moment later, shaking her hands dry, and he nodded her way, then at Epstein. "So will you, brother, with these two fearsome ladies fretting over you."

While Sam got settled next to Epstein and started gesturing at her for wipes, gauze, and tape, Rebecca scoffed at Landry. "Hey now. It seems to me you might be looked after just fine in our absence, since a certain kid and his mom appear to have taken a liking to you, 'Nicholas'."

Epstein started to laugh, until Sam swatted his chest with the back of her hand. "Stay still, dummy."

"Right, right. Sorry. Just... he thought I was the only one who noticed."

Rebecca grinned. "Well, Specialist Nicholas Landry, it seems to me you're lucky Gunny Ellis isn't here, or you'd really be getting the third degree. For now, I'll just tell you some good advice she gave me a while back, in case things go that direction."

She paused for a moment as she looked at Sam. "There's plenty of bad stuff in the world, so make choices that mean you'll both be happy in the short term, and be able to look back on everything positively if they don't last. It seems to be working pretty well for me so far."

Sam glanced up as she reached for more tape while holding a piece of gauze in place and smiled at her, then went back to focusing on patching Epstein up.