Rebecca shivered, sitting next to a wood stove in the barn with her sleeping bag wrapped round her shoulders. Apparently the plumbing in the house was dependent on an electric-powered well, which meant she was limited to cleaning up with what she was able to carry to the bathrooms in the house.

She was grateful there were enough pots and kettles around that she was able to heat a large coffee pot's worth of water to mix in with the fricking cold buckets from the hand pump that Chrissie helped her lug up the hill. It wasn't enough to stay comfortably warm during the process, but finally feeling clean and a fresh change of clothes was well worth some time as a human icicle before crawling into her bedding.

The day hadn't been warm enough for there to be a lot of crickets, but there were a few in the background as she half-listened to Dylan read Jack a bedtime story. Rebecca glanced worriedly at Sam a few times, concerned that would stir up grief over her mother (or even her dad), but if it bothered her, it didn't show.

After Dylan tucked Jack in, Rebecca played a few quiet rounds of checkers with Sam by the light of one of their dimmed LED lanterns, slowly nursing mugs of the precious cider Leonard had slipped her. It seemed like a good use of it, they could both use a treat. She'd been able to lay an affectionate hand on Sam's shoulder as she passed behind her a few times, which always earned her an appreciative smile. But, she also found herself being excruciatingly careful to not let their fingertips touch when she passed Sam her share of the cider, afraid she'd startle again and spill it.

Despite her mixed success with challenging herself, the calm time in each other's presence before bed felt good, soothing. She was even fine once they'd moved to their cots, Sam lying quietly with the occasional whisper of conversation, Rebecca knitting a few more rows on the blanket.

The problem was once the fire began to dim and she turned off her light out of politeness, settling down into her bag to wait for sleep to come. Her brain ran out of things to stay occupied with and drifted back exactly where she didn't want it to go. Of course, trying to will herself to not think about the split second she saw a shadowy piece of furniture swinging towards her just meant she was thinking about it in the first place.

She tossed and turned repeatedly. By her reckoning she spent at least an hour, maybe two in that vague fugue state of being unsure whether she'd intermittently fallen asleep and woken again, or just been staring hopelessly into the darkness the whole time. She tried to distract herself with pleasant thoughts of home: warm baths, imagining Rufus' enthusiasm for his first belly rub when they returned, even risking a fantasy about introducing her mom to Allie. But, inevitably, her mind would drift back to darker things.

Watching Joel Conroy take a swing at Sam and not being ready for it. What would have happened if she'd fallen for the ruse at the checkpoint and gotten out of the car. If immolating the guy with the lantern meant she was becoming too callous. Trying to get her hands up in time to block Sam's punch — was that the first or second? She was unsure at what point she lost consciousness. What would have happened if Travis had been killed in the rocket strike. Sam's angry shout after Rebecca bumped into her and knocked her into the table. If, given the opportunity, she would have struck back at Sam to halt her attack. What would have happened to Sam, or Patrick, or Chrissie, if Epstein hadn't dealt with Mags.

Eventually she must have finally fallen asleep, but in the morning, she remembered thinking about how Sam had told her months ago she occasionally whimpered or stirred in during bad dreams, and hoping it didn't happen again that night.

**

Sam heard Rebecca trying to settle that night, and desperately wanted to reach over and comfort her, but the possibility that would just make things worse kept dragging creeping doubts over her like stifling clouds. She had to face away from Rebecca, repeatedly pressing her lips tightly together and knitting her brow in a desperate frown to fight back her frustration, and at one point, keep from crying. Maybe she'd been too quick to ask Rebecca to sleep beside her again. But she missed her, and feared they might drift apart.

Also, why hadn't Rebecca mentioned her arm? She wrote in that report that she might have a hairline fracture, but she'd never let on that it hurt. And a couple of those quick wary glances in the evening, were they just brief flashes of concern over their relationship? Or was there fear in them?

When she woke before Rebecca in the morning, Sam rolled over and watched her for a while — ready to pretend to be asleep the moment she stirred, so she didn't set off some kind of fear instinct descended from neanderthals worried about saber tooth tigers watching them while they slept.

She wondered if she should just let Rebecca be the one who initiated any touch — but then would that seem like she was withdrawing, and upset her? Maybe she should just bring it up as an open question when they were both in a good mood, hope that their historically open and compassionate communication was still working.

The morning turned out to be too busy for that, but it was still a really good start to the day. The elderly man — Charles, maybe? — freed when Travis convinced the goons on the ground floor to GTFO surprised everyone with plates of genuine, bona fide, 100% non-imaginary bacon and eggs. It took Sam a good five seconds to close her mouth again after she saw and smelled it, and if she hadn't, she probably would've had drool on her chin.

They even discovered something new about each other — Sam loved her bacon crispy, and Rebecca was a fan of the softer-cooked stuff. Swapping with each other would make an adorable brunch ritual if they ever had the experience again. Bacon might not fix everything, but it was a damned good start to the day.

The weather was looking to be warmer that day, making for extremely pleasant basking in the sunshine. That led to several tables being dragged out into the open for the gear cleanup that most of them were finally feeling up to taking on.

Patrick took care of the multiple M4s and Felicia since their internals were all the same architecture, while Rebecca serviced her Tavor, Sam her Vector, and Chrissie her semi-auto shotgun. Landry made an appearance carefully settled in a lawn chair, helping Epstein supervise as the latter paced the length of the tables, coaching residents on how to disassemble and clean their newly acquired arsenal. Apparently, the thugs that previously owned the weapons had not been very responsible about it, so by the time all was said and done Sam and her friends were almost out of the cleaning and lubricating solution in their maintenance kits.

All the activity didn't make for much private time for Sam to talk to Rebecca, but she wondered if being together in the very public group setting might be a good thing. Maybe whatever deep instinct in Rebecca that was so on edge wouldn't be as dialed up in the company of unaffiliated parties? She'd have to keep that in mind, maybe they could get a few double-date hangout times in with Chrissie and Pat.

Speaking of, those two headed up the hill in one of the SUV's around noon along with an armed volunteer from the farm — just as backup — for a scheduled radio check-in with Davis' team at the armory. While they were away, Sam asked Rebecca if they could talk for a bit out by the other vehicles; she figured maybe that was private enough they could speak freely, but also sufficiently in the open it wouldn't set off any feelings of being cornered.

Rebecca agreed readily, even grabbing the knitting project from her pack and bringing it along, seemingly indicating at least an openness to — or even an expectation of — spending some time there. When they got to the little parking paddock, she opened the back of the remaining SUV, turned off the dome light, and perched on the end of the cargo space.

"So... penny today? Or are we up to a buck-fifty?"

Sam laughed. "Oh, I hope we're back down to a dime by now. I'd like to think the shitstorm forecast is heading in the right direction, wouldn't you? Like, away from us?"

"Hah." Rebecca was vastly comforted by the humor of Sam's words, the warmer tone of the past months returning to her voice. "Fair, fair. And yeah, fingers crossed. What's on your mind?"

"I was thinking... would it be easier if I just let you always be the one who made physical contact? At least for now? I wanted to talk about it first so you didn't wonder what was wrong if I stopped trying, etcetera."

Rebecca smiled at her for a moment, and gazed pensively off into the distance for another, before she looked back and answered. "I think it's worth a try. I don't know how much I can promise, I'm still having trouble predicting whatever's going on in my head. But I really appreciate you making a point of giving me the room to figure it out."

"It's the least I can do, babe."

"Heh." Rebecca smirked, not wanting Sam to dwell on her feelings of guilt and shame. "To borrow a direct quote from you, 'it's far from the least'." She looked around for a moment, then rose, beckoning to Sam. "C'mere for a second."

Sam pushed off the bumper and followed her, a curious eyebrow raised. Once they were between the vehicles, Rebecca spoke again.

"I don't know if these folks have figured out we're together yet, and sure, we saved their asses, but who knows if there's some raging homophobes in the bunch."

Sam blinked and tilted her head as she tried to figure out what Rebecca was on about.

Rebecca answered Sam's unspoken question by leaning in and lightly kissing her for the first time since they'd left that dry creek almost exactly three days before.

When Rebecca stepped back, Sam raised her fingertips to her lips and started to tear up — especially when Rebecca spoke.

"Take that as a promise, okay?"

Sam didn't trust herself to speak, so she just nodded, hand still covering her mouth. "Mm-hmm."

Rebecca lingered for a second, then stepped around Sam with a brief touch on her shoulder.

Sam took a few moments to savor what had just happened and compose herself, then followed to lounge quietly in the back of the SUV, next to Rebecca while she knit until their friends returned.