Rebecca shook her head disapprovingly at Epstein as she approached. "You know, Lance Corporal, I have a good mind to tell Gunny Ellis you were out here letting my girl hurt herself."

Epstein looked up from twisting two pieces of wire together with a sheepish expression. "How is she?"

"Patched up and living the easy life on the couch. So now you get to deal with me, being slightly judgmental as I bring the tools the two of you should have been using in the first place." She grinned as she held up the coiled camera so he knew she was mostly giving him a hard time.

He laughed, still with a tinge of nervousness. "Yeahhhh... I guess that's a good lesson in what happens when you cut corners."

"They cut you back?" God, if I'm able to get one over on him that easily, Sam must have a field day.

"Touché. It was just one little run alongside the firewall, didn't seem like it would be a problem, but of course that's what gets you."

Rebecca shook her head again, but with an amicable smile as she handed him the end of the camera to feed into the front left fender. "Ronnie would have such a lecture about complacency for us."

She poked at the tablet and gave him directions to successfully navigate to the hole he'd left a flashlight shining through. He showed her the dual conductor wire they needed to snake back through the same path, and after a few seconds of thought, Rebecca walked over to the trees bordering the parking area, returning with a Y-shaped twig. It was a little spongy from exposure to the weather, but she was able to use the car door to break two lengths where she wanted to, resulting in a stick with a small pronged hook at one end.

She looked back at Epstein with a triumphant grin. "You two gotta spend more time knitting. Tie a little loop in the end?" She watched thoughtfully for a moment as he complied. "Thanks again for coming along. You been okay, not feeling like too much of a fifth wheel?"

He chuckled. "I mean, a little jealous of Landry finding a new 'friend' amongst the locals, but nah. It's been a nice break. Waking up whenever, getting into the real outdoors. Less depressing views, you know?"

"Yeah, quite true." She had him use the stick to push the wire down into the fender from the engine bay and worked to snag the loop with the camera head. "When you put it like that, is it weird that I think of an abandoned building in the middle of a ghost town as 'home'? Like, cozy, safe, where the heart is, hang your hat. How fricking incongruous is that?"

Once she successfully caught the wire on the camera and began to carefully withdraw it, he straightened from leaning over the engine bay. "I mean, I think any prior calibrations of 'normal' are long gone, right? And I'd say that the building isn't abandoned anymore. It's repurposed." He stepped around her and contorted himself to look upwards under the dashboard by the driver's seat, checking something at the other end of the wire run. "It makes me think of bases overseas. Like, you're in the middle of some foreign land, of varying amounts of friendliness, and after a while, that ends up feeling a bit like 'home' for the duration."

The end of the camera cleared the wheel well, and she unhooked the wire loop and tugged the slack through, careful not to shred the insulation along any edges — like the one that bit Sam. "But 'home' was still, you know. Back here, waiting, when your tours were over."

His voice was muffled, and she heard rustling on the other side of the door. "I mean, typically. But there were folks who stayed in Germany or Korea for years, even decades. Some brought family, or hooked up with someone they met there. I'd bet at least a few retired in host countries, so it's not entirely outlandish for somewhere to be... home for now, with potential?"

"Hey, look at me, bringing family and hooking up with a local. Best of both worlds."

"Yeah well." She heard a plastic click of something snapping back into place, and he stood up on the other side of the door. "After the shit it sounds like you've been through, you probably deserve it. Try tapping the ends of that wire together?"

Rebecca squatted by the front wheel again and gathered the wire in her hand. "Oh, Lance. Stop trying to flatter your way out of reckless negligence. Speaking of which," She glanced up with a questioning eyebrow lift. "You know the story about me and wires, right? What's the other end of this connected to, and should I be worrying about polarity or any shit like that? I'm not going to detonate the airbags or anything?"

"Nope, I swear. It's an isolated bypass that just replaces the the lock button."

She remained unconvinced and stood, handing him the length of the wire. "Nah. You do it. I get teased enough about a single propane tank in a wrecked car. I don't need something else to live down."

Epstein laughed, took the cord from her, and tapped the two leads together. The doors all responded in unison with satisfying thunks, and then again when he repeated the action. "See? No explosion."

She rolled her eyes with shake of her head as she followed him to the other SUV. "Think we can do this one on our own?"

"Pretty confident. I needed Miss Conroy's help to identify the right connections, but now that she did that once, I should be able to find their twins."

"You know, you don't have to keep calling us Miss this and Miss that, or ma'am and so forth."

"Coming from the one who keeps addressing me by an abbreviated form of my rank..."

Rebecca kicked some gravel in his direction indignantly. "Hey! I figured rank was like, protocol and stuff, and then I'd heard other soldiers use that as a friendlier version. So I have a nickname problem, so what? It's still less formal."

"Okay, okay. Fair. I'll work on it."

Rebecca gave him a mollified smirk as they opened the other SUV's door and hood. While she was watching him disconnect the negative battery terminal, she rested her elbows on the side. "So... what about your family? Anyone you're left wondering about?"

He shrugged after setting the battery lead aside, as he reached for the fusebox. "Eh, you know how it is. The Corps is my family." He looked up at her with a cheeky grin. "Or the cobbled together remnants of it and all the other service branches is, anyway."

Right, so dodging the question then. She made a note to keep an eye on him, like she'd been poking at Ronnie periodically, but then blinked at a passing realization. Oh jeez. One comment from Mom and already I'm out here playing mental health pro-amateur.

**

Laura returned an hour or so before sundown, looking pretty exhausted. Apparently she hadn't just spent the day with Walt, but dropping by some of the neighbors they'd gotten to know — and some of those neighbors were a good mile or more apart.

Rebecca smiled as she passed Laura a freshly filled water bottle. "Well Mom, at least you'll be off your feet tomorrow."

"Before I have to climb more stairs than I have in over a year. Carrying stuff."

"Aww, you know we'll help. This won't even be that bad compared to getting you furniture."

Laura's groan turned into a chuckle as they were briefly distracted by Sue twitching and chirping in his sleep. "Well, we always did enjoy shopping together."

Sam gave them an adoring look as she picked up another armload of Laura's belongings to take to their now-lockable vehicles, and Rebecca grinned back at her before replying. "Except when I drove."

"You know," Sam quipped from the door. "There was that time you backed into a newspaper box."

"Hey. That was my first time driving something that might as well have been a tank, while being shot at!" Rebecca managed to bite back the "with grenades" that almost slipped out as she turned to face the expression she completely expected from her mother. "We were fine, Mom. Tank! Sorta."

Laura sighed melodramatically. "Well, it wasn't on my insurance, so I guess I can't really say much."

More sounds from Sue drew Rebecca's attention again. "So... what are we gonna do about him? Did he eventually shut up in the cat carrier, or was he as bad as usual the entire way here?"

"Oh, he was his usual mournful self getting in, but I eventually just let him out and he had the back seat to himself. A few piled things aside."

"Well... have fun with that tomorrow, Sam needs to be shotgun for nav and radio stuff."

Walt had just re-entered via the side door. "Sticking your poor mother in the back seat for the whole ride. That's just cruel."

Rebecca stifled a remark about him just worrying Sam would hold her hand or something if they weren't separated, and tried to just focus on the nice things he'd done for her and her mother over the years. "Thanks for taking care of Mom, Uncle Walt. And for letting us stay for a bit."

He mumbled something politely deflecting, and surprised her before dinner with the bows she'd used with Sam, along with a quiver each of target and razor-tipped hunting arrows.

They made an anachronistic addition to their arsenal, but hey, there was something to be said for sustainability. They also led to Rebecca inevitably picturing how Sam might look with the side of her head shaved. When she pondered that combined with whatever mythical tattoo-emphasizing Ren Faire outfit she kept hearing about, she caught herself chewing the corner of her lip contemplatively, and hoped nobody had noticed.

Naturally, she and Sam had matching sleeping bags that could zip together and form one respectably sized "sandwich", which they laid across the bed in lieu of the cleaned sheets for the final night. She spent the tapering hours of the evening sitting there with her mother, while Sam curled up in the chair, turning one page after another with Sue in her lap and a tiny pocket-lantern balanced on her chest.

Of course he found the lap near a lit stove. That's double the warmth — it's no wonder they get along.

The three of them mostly discussed ideas for settling Laura in, disguising their anticipative anxiety with idle musing. At least once, Rebecca glanced over at Sam and felt a pang of... embarrassment? Shame? Wondering if she really deserved this relief and joy when Sam didn't get it, wanting her to have the same nice things that she did.

It only lasted a short while; it bordered too close to pitying Sam. She knew that Sam and Ronnie — and now her mother on top of all that! — would thoroughly lecture that idea into submission if she gave it voice. So, she did her best to just tell herself it was ridiculous and set it aside, even though she knew it would probably come visit again down the road.

That was fine though, as long as it was literal. She could mope and pine and kick herself once they got home safely.