So this ran long, and I'm not really sure where to split it. Maybe move the first section into the prior chapter? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Rebecca couldn't help blushing — she had zero idea that Sam had found her attractive for that long. The timing for how their relationship came together really was better how it happened, she wouldn't have traded what they had now for any number of quick flings. Still, the ego boost sure was nice, especially since she didn't think she was that kind of "hot" mess back then at all.

She couldn't help wondering as she drove though... "Rosie, were there ever times I was accidentally unfair to you when we were just acquaintances? Like, did I ever lead you on or something?"

"Heh. No, sugar. Your obliviousness was a little cute on its own, but you did okay, and you had so much on your mind. Stop looking for things to apologize for."

"Can I apologize for doing that though? Or is it too meta?"

"Way too. But nah, you were fine. I hate to burst your bubble, but it's not like I was lovelorn and pining after you like a Jane Austen novel. You were just being you, a generally decent and pleasant person, and easy on the eyes to boot. What's there to complain about?"

"Okay." Rebecca smiled at Sam one more time before the switchback turns she could see coming up. They were quiet for the next quarter mile or so, then Rebecca slowed for the turnout and parked.

She leaned over the center console to kiss Sam, enjoying the feeling of touching the sides of their faces together afterwards with her eyes closed. "Thanks for always being so patient with me."

"You make it worthwhile, hon. But if you feel the need for a little extra something, I wouldn't complain about one of your back rubs whenever we reach a real bed. Cots and car seats, I tell you."

Rebecca sat back and reached for her door handle with a grin. "Noted, I'll see what I can do."

She waved at their friends as the second SUV pulled in behind them, then dragged Felicia out from the back seat. Circling around, she walked over to the slope's edge to kneel where Sam was already peering through binoculars, the maps held down against any rogue breezes by one knee. "What're we looking at, Rosie?"

Sam gestured towards the distance with a little bob of the binoculars. "Once we're down from this, we gotta go west like eight miles to get to a river crossing, then northeast again around five miles. Sure do wish we could just go straight across."

Rebecca propped up her rifle and looked through the scope at its maximum magnification, spotting a river in the general direction Sam was looking. "The bridge, with the two... I dunno, prefab or mobile homes just to the left of it?"

"Yeah. Follow the road just the other side of it towards the right until you've passed three different farms with ponds, then the next road north. That'll take us around town on the fringes, but the only thing I'm worried about is when we cross a highway just east of that quarry way out in the distance, I can't see how much traffic might be on it from here. I'm just glad the quarry's there as a land mark so I even know which skinny paved line it is."

"We'll check it out as we get closer. You're doing good, really."

"Thanks, Remy."

Rebecca could tell Sam had lowered the binoculars from the sound of her voice and heard a rustle as she stood. Paying attention to it activated the damned "hyper-aware of Sam's position" thing again, so Rebecca hastily sat up from her scope and rose to her feet. To her relief, it all diminished after she'd taken a few deep breaths and Sam was in view.

Sam peered at her with gentle suspicion. "You okay?"

Rebecca chuckled weakly. "Of course you noticed."

"Of course I did. Stretch our legs for a minute? Check on our lazy VIP in the back seat?"

Rebecca slung Felicia loosely. "Yeah, sounds good."

Sam handed her binoculars to Christine so she and Patrick could both look simultaneously, then preceded Rebecca over to the second SUV.

Because of course she did. Rebecca sighed. She appreciated the way Sam was doing her utmost to tread lightly, but hated that Sam felt the need to, that she needed her to. Her conscious and subconscious minds really needed to sit down together and figure all her shit out.

Epstein was sitting on the end of the seat with the door open, looking out at the view. "Hey ladies. How's it look out there?"

Sam shrugged. "Clear as far as we can see, so I'll take it. One thing at a time I guess."

Rebecca lifted her chin towards Epstein. "So, Lance. You enjoying getting shuttled around? Just putting your feet up?"

"Hey, I'm still providing an essential function. I monitor the drivetrain acoustics and the suspension performance for any early failure signs."

Rebecca chuckled at the thought that he sounded like good old Trent back at the "Broadway Bar & Grill". "So what I'm hearing is, being lulled to sleep by the hum of the engine and rocked like a baby?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Sam smirked at both of them, then focused on Epstein. "You sure? Their singing and belting out the road tunes doesn't keep you awake?"

"C'mon, you know how it is. Life in the military teaches you to be able to sleep anytime anywhere, through anything."

Rebecca made eye contact with Sam. "I bet that's just his cover story and he's singing along."

Epstein held up his one good hand and pointed at Rebecca. "Hey, you can't prove anything either way."

Sam shook her head. "Well, he sounds fine. Shall we?"

Rebecca smirked and silently waved to Epstein and turned back towards the lead vehicle. Sam collected her binoculars from Patrick on the way back, and they all settled back into their rides. As Rebecca pulled her door closed, she looked across at Sam pensively.

Sam tightened the cap back onto the water bottle she'd opened while Rebecca put her rifle in back. "What's up?"

"I want to tell you that I'm sorry, but then that means opening the door to you saying you're sorry, and we're both just going around in circles how the other one did nothing wrong."

"Well, I'm glad you were able to skip ahead efficiently." Sam's expression turned sympathetic. "I get why you want to. But I don't blame you, and yes, I know you'll tell me the same thing."

"But I'm the one whose regrettable moments keep reoccurring. I know you'll say they're because of yours, but still..."

"'Then we are at an impasse.'"

It took Rebecca a split second to catch the reference, but it sufficiently derailed her and she laughed. "Oh god. Mags couldn't even use the quote right, could she?"

"Nope. And now she's worm food and we're driving the fuck on with our lives."

Rebecca shifted the SUV into gear. "I do not think it meant what she thought it meant."

Sam shook her head. "Drive already, you cheeseball."

"Hey, you started it."

Sam rolled her eyes at her and looked out the window, but Rebecca could see the smile she was hiding behind her hand reflected in the armored glass.

**

Sam's first stop with her new helper was a two hundred foot segment of dark utility tunnel lit only by a spotlight at the near end. Bex surveyed the scene and then turned to her.

"Well, this isn't creepy at all."

Sam grinned. "Yeah, but that's what we're here to fix. Plus, I'll protect you. Like I said, I need you around to extort snacks from Ronnie."

In Bex's defense, it did look like the kind of tunnel walking down without a lantern would get you eaten. The solitary illumination source cast long shadows from every pipe, bracket, and junction box until the end of its undiffused beam. Beyond that fringe, everything was just the same formless wan gray, fading to near darkness until the dimly lit intersection at the far end. Not creepy in the least.

Bex snickered and opened the first bin on the gray steel hand truck. "So I'm assuming that's what... hmm. Probably a quarter of this wire is for?"

Sam looked down at the bin and back up to Bex. "I'm genuinely impressed, you're either really good at estimating distances and how long spools of cable are, or lucky and just pulled that out of your ass."

"Heh. Well, Ronnie is drilling me pretty hard on distance estimations and I know that's a little over a hundred yards. But I'm sorry to disappoint you — one of the bundles that's the same size as several others is labeled 'fifty feet'."

Sam leaned over the bin for a peek and saw blue masking tape with familiar handwriting on it. "Huh. I guess I did do that, didn't I. Go past-me."

"Past you to where?"

"Pfft. Smartass. Anyway." Sam picked up the top bin and set it aside and flipped the folding tops of the second one open with her toe. "Lemme show you how to use these twist-on wire caps, then you get to help me string 'em and hook on the lights."

"So I start by carrying boxes for you, and now I'm helping you put up your Christmas or patio lights."

"What would Ronnie be making you do right now?"

Bex was silent for a moment before she answered. "Decorative illumination it is."

Sam dug a baggie of twist connectors out and showed her how the orange ones were vaseline-filled for waterproofing — to save them for outdoor use. Bex was a quick study with the smaller yellow and white caps, only taking a couple of tries to get the technique down right.

While Sam was watching her early attempts, she noticed Bex's nails were chewn down to the quick, including one fingertip with angry hints of pink hinting it had bled within the last several days. She had a phase of doing that herself in high school — may it burn unattended — and had to suppress a sympathetic sigh with Bex so close by. Maybe someone had a bottle of nail polish Sam could barter for...

Once Bex had the hang of it, they worked together to connect three mismatched sections of wire, then Sam slid each coil onto a short broom handle from the bin so they formed a continuous improvised spool. Sam was pleased that Bex seemed so impressed by the little bracket she'd improvised on the end of the stick that let her back out one screw holding a conduit to on the wall and hang the whole contraption from it.

Sam grinned at her. "Not bad, huh? Efficiency is just smart laziness."

Bex chuckled. "Okay, I can get behind that. Now what?"

Sam held up a flashlight. "Now we do this the easy way!"

Several minutes later, while Bex was reaching up to thread the wire through yet another of the pipe braces or conduit junctions they were using to hold it up, she glanced over at Sam. "Tell me again how this is the easy way for me? All you're doing is holding the light."

Sam gave her a smug, cheeky look. "And isn't it nice seeing what you're doing? The last one of these I did was on a ladder by myself holding a penlight in my teeth. I know it seems like I'm a slavedriver, but I promise you, this is the easy way."

Bex flattened her mouth skeptically at her, but went back to what she was doing. "Or you could use, like, Christmas ornament hooks or something."

"Sorry, tried that already. Some of them fell out, some of them scraped up the wire."

"Hmmph."

Sam pushed away the thought that Bex was kinda cute when she was disgruntled and focused on finding more spots the wire and connector caps would thread freely through. They only had to stop three times to undo a snag, redoing just one connection. When they were done a half hour later, it was much faster to go back through with small LED lights and pinch their sharp clips together around the wire.

Back at the entrance to that tunnel section, Sam held up two ends of a snap-together connector, one attached to the line the spotlight was already powered from, the other to the one they were working with. "Would you care to do the honors?"

That made Bex smile a little. "Heh, sure. Just click them together?"

"Yup."

With a quiet snap, a dozen garden lights sprung to life in the grim hallway. Sam looked at Bex expectantly. "Well? What do you think of the fruits of your labor?"

"Better. Now it's only gloomy, not terrifying." Bex managed a pretty good sarcastically perky tone there. Sam was impressed, that was usually her specialty.

"Right? Things are looking up. Okay, on to the next job."

Sam closed the bottom bin, Bex re-stacked the other on top, and they set off the way they'd come. Sam turned a different direction at a big junction, and eventually they reached the bottom of a concrete stairwell. She looked at Bex with a grin. "So. Bet you can guess who would have to carry stuff up the stairs by herself most days, huh?"

Bex looked up speculatively. "I can hazard a few. But, question, there's lamps here. I'm sure you had a hand in that, so thanks, but will you be doing more than holding a flashlight this time?"

Sam shook her head. "Sarge didn't tell me you were such a whiner, but fiiiine. But now you'll only think I'm helping because you complained and that'll reinforce bad habits."

"You don't have confidence Ronnie can break me of any bad habits? Isn't that, like, a sergeant's whole thing?"

"See if I share with you next time... " Sam's muttering was carefully pitched so Bex would still hear it, then she continued at normal volume. "Can you at least take the bottom end since you're taller? Or will you complain about it being heavier?"

"Since it means not having to go upstairs backwards, uh, yeah." Bex shooed her forward, and they tilted the hand truck back and stretcher-carried it up two flights of steps to a steel fire door leading outside.

That's when Sam pulled her cap on and rolled the handtruck for a few minutes while Bex was left squinting and shielding her eyes. "Sorry, I should have warned ya. I thought about it when I grabbed my hat, but... I got distracted by something on my desk."

Bex shrugged. "I'll be alright in a few, but I appreciate the sentiment."

There was that dang half-smile that Sam wished she could just poke a button and fix. Focus, silly. You can't rush healing. "So Ronnie said something about you helping with security?"

"Yeah. Something about overwatch? She says I'm an unusually good shot, but..."

"But?"

Sam looked over when Bex hesitated, and saw discomfort on her face. "Sorry. You don't have to finish that sentence. Everybody's got baggage and it's not like I'm the inspector or anything."

The signs of pain receded back below the surface again and a hint of gratitude touched that faint smile when it came back. "Thanks. You really know when it's easier to let something stay unsaid."

"We all have stuff. If and when you ever want someone to talk to, keep me in mind, okay?" Sam smiled at Bex's reserved nod and kept talking while she looked back at where she was going. "I can't promise I won't push and prod once I get to know you better. I just... y'know. Someone I don't know well is like an unlabeled circuit board. I don't want to go jabbing at high voltage lines by accident and fucking us both up."

"Three years of psych and I've never heard someone compare people to machines in such an.. organic way."

Sam shrugged. "I'm quirky. Watch your step, speaking of power conduits." She gestured down at a small two-sided ramp covering lines from an array of solar panels they were passing through and pulled the dolly over it with a small thump.

Bex successfully avoided faceplanting over it, unlike someone else Sam had seen last week. "I'm starting to pick up on that. Where're we headed?"

"Right, right, sorry. I got sidetracked being all introspective about not being too introspective." Sam continued as the threaded through an area of half-built planter boxes. "Security team. Overwatch. So Sarge and a couple of other folks have put together some pretty good layered defenses, but to cut down on the area they have to cover, there's all those barricades and blocked entrances and stuff, right? But we don't want anyone sitting on the other side of them leisurely cutting or smashing their way through, or throwing shit at us, do we?"

"I guess that would generally be bad. Boiling oil? Rolling boulders?"

Sam grinned and gestured Bex up the ladder they'd reached, onto an improvised wall of scrap metal, plywood, and stacked vehicles. It spanned this side of the "plaza" area below the underpass, from one side wall to the other, mirrored by a similar construction hundreds of yards away behind them.

Sam put her foot on the lowest ladder rung and boosted the storage tubs up to Bex one at a time, then climbed to the top herself. "See the lower row of cars out there?" When Bex turned in the direction she'd indicated and nodded, she continued. "There's a few explodey surprises here and there. The ones on the other wall are all hooked up, but we're finishing these today."

"Explodey?"

"Yeah, you know. Kaboom? Mostly improvised stuff, but there's some real military surplus on a few of our most critical doors. As long as you're not snooping around out in front of the walls, or trying to get in through a door we have locked from the inside, you'll be okay."

Bex still had one eyebrow raised. "I think I'll stick to letting someone else go first until l get to know my way around."

"Heh, not the worst idea. Anyway. You saw how the wire connectors work downstairs, right? I'm using the same low voltage wiring to run some control circuits on this side. Can you work your way from one end of the wall back here, running one line from each that you find sticking up out of tubes or pipes along the way? I left little yellow flags on them so they should be easy to find."

Bex looked off in the direction Sam had pointed in. "Okay. How many rolls should I take with me?"

"Probably eight or so, and a pocketful of connectors. And, here." Sam pulled a pair of wire cutters out of her bag without looking. "This is my second favorite pair, please don't drop it over the side! But, if you have excess, leave just a little bit of slack for wiggle room and clip the leftovers so we can reuse it. I promise I'll be working too, finishing some from the other side and then hooking things up here."

Bex grinned — okay, so she can be readily amused, though happy is still a challenge. That's something — and filled her pocket with twist caps. "Good to know. See you in a bit."

"Seeya. And, hey. Thanks." Sam smiled at Bex's acknowledging nod, grabbed her own supplies, and headed off in the other direction.

About an hour went into finishing the runs Sam had started three days ago and tying them in to a rudimentary control panel in the "watchtower" — really nothing more than a bunch of sandbags and a lightweight roof over the stretch of the wall they'd climbed up to. Sam and Bex simultaneously looked up towards each other twice during that period and exchanged small waves — Sam laughed at herself when she realized she was doing the same three-fingered-while-holding-a-tool finger waggle as when she first saw Bex outside the other week.

At one point, Bex came back for a few more spools of wire and Sam smiled back over her shoulder at her. "Hey, doing okay?"

"Yup. Just needed eleven, not eight, and figured I'd bring you the ones I'd already lain."

"Cool. Keep it up!" Sam realized afterwards how corny she sounded, but she was trying to be encouraging, dangit.

She looked up again several minutes later and saw Bex had come to a bit of a standstill — fiddling with one of the twist caps in her hand and staring pensively off into the distance past the barricades. Sam peered out in the same direction just in case, and seeing nothing, looked back to her little assistant buddy. Bex was close enough Sam could just make out the frown and heavy storm cloud settling on her face. She knew that expression, and didn't like the look of it one bit. Somebody was spiraling.

Sam reached for one of the control leads Bex had brought her and twitched it several inches back and forth, sending a ripple down it. The wave petered out well before reaching Bex, but either the line still shifted enough by her knee to get her attention or the sound of the wire slapping against the wooden walkway did the trick. Sam saw her head shake as she snapped out of whatever little trance she was trapped in and sent her a gently quizzical head tilt, as if to say "Are you okay?" without shouting it across the courtyard.

Bex blinked like she'd forgotten where she was, but smiled briefly at Sam and returned to what she must have been doing before her attention drifted off. It still wasn't her business until Bex wanted to share, but, aww. Sam intentionally didn't look directly at her again for a bit in case she was embarrassed, but still kept a furtive eye on her.

It didn't take too long for Bex to finish the last few strands and bring them home to the lookout station, even measuring off several feet to connect to the panel and trimming them to a good length. Sam looked on approvingly as Bex reported to her which wire ran to each connection down the wall as she snipped them.

"Nice work, you're a quick study."

Bex glanced up at her, a hint of bashfulness on her face before she looked back down at the last few cuts. "It's good to have something to focus on, you know?"

Sam tried to put a little emphasis into her reply. "Trust me, I do. Almost constantly."

Bex glanced back up at her with that vague hint of a smile. "Like you say, I guess we all have stuff. Thanks for making a point to be kind, you barely know me."

"Heh. Maybe that's why I am? I'm not even going all in, believe me. But hey, it looks like we might get to finish early. I won't tell Ronnie if you don't."

The hint grew just a little bit. "Deal."

Sam held her hand out for the last few lines, then knelt under the small plywood sheet the switches were all drilled through and mounted on. Bex squatted beside her, idly peeking underneath to see what she was doing, and Sam spared a smile for her before inserting the first wire into the screw terminals and tightening them down. She got into a good rhythm for the next two, especially when Bex started holding the wire pairs in position until Sam got at least one lead attached.

As she was working on the second wire of the fourth pair, a spark popped loudly just as she touched the strand to the terminal.

"Shit!" Sam's eyes widened as she reached for Bex's sleeve to yank her the rest of the way down onto the floor. Just as she got hold of her, there was a loud bang beyond the wall that echoed off of the surrounding buildings. As they lay on the wooden decking with her ears ringing, Sam watched a smoking fireball roil up into the sky.

Sam turned Bex's face towards her gently with a hand on her chin. "Are you okay?" She made a point of enunciating each word so her lips were more readable after the explosion.

Bex looked shocked, but nodded at Sam as she visibly panted for breath.

Sam rolled to look at the underside of the control panel again, then pulled the dangling wire towards her for a closer examination, running her thumb over the insulation on both sides. "Oh, hell."

"What?" Bex's voice sounded genuinely panicked, so Sam put a hand on her arm to try to reassure her.

"I think that was my fault. I didn't show you— hang on." Sam pulled the crackling radio from her tool bag and held it up to her mouth. "Conroy here. Sorry, that was just an accidental detonation on the second set of wall mines. I think one of the salvaged relays was bad, or maybe there was some wire rot and it shorted. False alarm."

Just as she was putting the radio down and turning her head towards Bex again, Lassart's voice came over the radio. "Miss Conroy, I would think you would be testing components before deploying them."

She sighed and gave Bex a look carefully crafted to convey that she was annoyed with the butthead on the radio, not her. "I do test with what I have, Peter. Get me that damned oscilloscope from the community college lab and then you can harp on me. Or more waterproof flex conduit, we've got stuff exposed to the weather out here, you know."

Sam turned the radio volume down as Lassart was starting to bitch about "limited resources" or some bullshit and looked at Bex. The poor girl was in tears, holding one of her knuckles to her mouth. Goddamned Lassart for interrupting her before she could finish telling Bex she wasn't to blame. "Hey, listen to me, it wasn't your fault."

"What do you mean?" Bex sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the backs of her dirty hands. "I screwed something up. Someone might've been hurt and now you're in trouble."

Sam sighed patiently. "Oh Bex, honey. Why do you think we keep those areas clear, especially when I'm working on them? We're the only ones on this wall, all day today. You don't think I checked when we got up here? And, Lassart is a windbag, I can handle him. There's nobody else around with my skill set so he can just suck my dick."

The non sequitur worked just like Sam planned, Bex's distraught expression turned to blinks of confusion. "But... what?"

"Exactly. He'll be wandering around clueless, that'll keep him busy and he'll be out of everyone's hair. He can go look next to the bucket of prop wash Ronnie would have sent you to find if she didn't like you, or the bottle of blinker fluid. Now that I know you're listening to me... I didn't bother showing you downstairs how one side of each pair has a ridge along the insulation, because it doesn't matter with those little landscape lights. You can attach them willy-nilly and they'll all be fine. You did such a good job early on I forgot that I shouldn't assume you'd know things, and I didn't tell you to make sure the polarity marking matched each time you spliced the ends. It was an accident, and it's not your fault."

Bex's eyes were red, but as she wiped the tears away, they weren't being replaced as quickly. "Okay."

Sam put a hand on her shoulder. "Do you want a hug?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"Aww. C'mere." Sam put her arms around Bex and patted her on the back. "Look, I know I come off as all bubbly, but as you get to know me, you'll learn I will always tell things to you straight, okay? Ronnie too."

Bex let out a slow sigh. "Okay."

"Can we make a deal on something? Can you do me a favor and not tell Sarge I made you cry? She'll give me hell for it. In exchange, I will be the only person who ever makes fun of you for this, because after we climb down that ladder, this is all going to have been caused by shitty hardware. If anyone ever finds out and does tease you, they may find their light bulb has been filled with gasoline the next time they turn it on."

Bex leaned back without pulling out of Sam's arms and looked her in the eye. "Remind me to never piss you off."

"So then agree with me that this wasn't your fault." Sam let just a hint of playful menace drip into her tone.

"Only if you don't blame yourself too much."

Aww, that was kinda sweet. "I don't have that problem. Deal? Pinky swear?"

Bex closed her eyes briefly and chuckled, looking a little better when she opened them again and held up her hand. "Deal."