Sam watched them finish hauling up a large T-shaped flexible wire antenna suspended from two trees, and sighed. "Pardon me, Mrs. C, but it looks like it's my turn to get wet too."

Laura smiled sympathetically. "I'll try to gather up some towels."

Sam flashed her an appreciative smirk and dashed off the porch through the increasing shower. She really wished she had some decent wet weather gear, as thorough as what Walt was wearing when he left a few minutes ago. He was heading down to the pond with a couple of fishing rods, taking Patrick up on the offer driving him down and helping with his attempts to catch dinner. She'd probably appreciate it retroactively, but still planned to hassle Patrick about leaving them to work while he went fishing.

The others were already uncoiling the long cable to connect the large dipole antenna to a vehicle mounted radio. The twist-lock connectors were fairly straightforward, but she still felt responsible for making sure they were hooked up properly. That, and if she had to troubleshoot something that she didn't connect herself, that mean even more potential time in the rain.

She realized after a second of kneeling over wires that a familiar presence was standing close by on her windward side, giving her a modicum of shelter. Sam glanced up as she finished and smiled gratefully at Rebecca, who was hunching her shoulders up and looked like she was trying to withdraw back into her hoodie like a turtle.

After another short sprint to the car, Sam regretted she couldn't take shelter inside of it and still reach the rear of the radio in the passenger footwell. The connection from the vehicle-mounted whip antenna was tighter than she'd expected, and she swore extensively to herself as its resistance to her efforts left her exposed, soaking up raindrops through her windbreaker. Bless her water-resistant Carhartts, at least she wasn't going to have to deal with wet jeans.

Eventually she got a grip on the on the twist connector with her multitool and was able to replace it with the long cable. She hastened back to the base of the antenna again, digging her multimeter out of her pocket and hunching to shelter it from the rain. The power levels reaching the antenna when Rebecca briefly keyed the radio checked out, as did the ground path from the antenna to the stake Chrissie had pounded into the dirt nearby.

"Okay, we're good!" Sam went to Rebecca's side by the SUV. "Are you going to stay here and make the call, or have someone else do it?"

Rebecca leaned close to Sam's ear. "I will, since I didn't do the last few. But you can go inside, I'll get you if there's a problem, which I doubt!"

Sam pulled the edge of Rebecca's hoodie back far enough to kiss her cheek and then scampered back to the steps and to the porch, hearing doors thud behind her. Guess Chrissie's keeping her company. Happy to share that duty at the moment!

She tried to swipe and shake off as much water as she could before going in, and kicked her shoes off at the door. Alas, a small trail still dripped behind her as Laura picked a folded towel up from the top of a stone pillar-like stove and shook it open.

"Here you go, dear." Laura wrapped it around Sam's shoulders as Epstein emerged from the right side of the house carrying more towels single-handedly. "I'll try to have these warmed up by the time your friends come in."

"Thank you, Mrs. C, you're amazing."

Laura's smile gave Sam a pang of bittersweet heartbreak, but she concealed it as best she could and shivered her way towards the bedroom. The small iron stove in there had been lit, and she made a mental note to thank Laura again. It kept her, well... less miserable, if not comfortable, as she yanked open their clothing duffels and started tossing dry garments onto the bed for both of them.

She heard the front door close as she finished, and was just peeling her soggy undershirt from her back when Rebecca slipped in and closed the door behind her. Sam grinned over her shoulder in response to a quiet wolf-whistle, and reached for the dry shirt hanging from the bedpost. "Sorry sugar, this is all the show you're getting for now, I'm too fucking cold."

Rebecca grinned as she started wrestling out of her wet hoodie. "I don't blame you, but I'll take what I can get."

Sam smirked as she pulled her bra out through her sleeve and yanked a comfortable henley over her head followed by a quarter-zip fleece. "Terrible."

A few minutes later, she'd just put another piece of wood in the fire when she heard Rebecca finish rustling around with a relieved sigh. Sam closed the stove door and looked up as she walked closer while toweling her hair wearily. "Hey you."

"Hi there." Rebecca leaned in for a quick kiss and sighed again. "Getting into fresh clothes really punctuates the 'we've arrived' vibe, huh?"

"Absolutely." Sam was much more comfortable now, but still shivered once involuntarily.

"Aww, Rosie." Rebecca reached over and rubbed Sam's upper arms in an ineffectual warming-her-up gesture. "This little stove will eventually get it comfortable enough to sleep in here, but the big living room one will keep things much cozier for at least another hour. Not that I've learned that the cold way or anything."

Sam chuckled and flapped the towel she'd arranged between her hair and neck over the rocking chair in the corner. "My valiant tour guide."

"Only the best for you, milady."

Sam shook her head and repeated herself. "Terrible."

The big stove Sam had seen in passing was surprisingly gorgeous up close. Just like Rebecca had described months ago, it had a tiny little firebox in one side with another door -- maybe an oven -- above it, but was a stone hulk at least the size of a small apartment refrigerator. It stood near the middle of the living room, metal chimney pipe running to the ceiling. When she got close, Sam traced her fingertips over the veins of copper or gold — but she really thought the latter — striating the surface of the teal... soapstone, maybe?

Now she sat on the floor with her back up against the toasty rock, eyes closed and not caring that she probably looked like a stoned cat in a sunbeam. Rebecca was right nearby, Chrissie was puttering in her or Epstein's room unpacking, and Laura had been describing her own exodus a year and a half ago.

Sam must have at least partially dozed off, because the next thing she knew Rebecca was saying something about Rufus. When she opened her eyes, she saw her on the couch with Laura, swiping through photos on her phone. Epstein sat at the dining table with a glass of water in his hand, and Chrissie was peeking under one corner of his bandage — Sam reckoned she'd probably just made him take another painkiller.

Her back was actually getting a little too warm, if such a thing was conceivable, so she languidly gathered herself off the floor, fiddled with where the cuffs of her sweatpants and sock had gotten into an argument, and headed to the kitchen that took up one corner of the open "great room". She hadn't confirmed with Laura or Walter if the tap was safe to drink, but their bottles had enough to tide her over without needing to interrupt Rebecca and her mom.

What did stop her cold and give her reason to was a basket nested in the far corner of the countertop. "Uhm... Mrs. C... am I hallucinating or are those apples?"

Laura turned in her seat to look over the back of the couch. "Oh, yeah, there's a couple of trees up the hill out back. They're not the best yet, but help yourself."

Sam picked one up — it was small, but smelled fresh and looked like it had been washed already so she sank her teeth into it. Laura was right, it was just a touch on the tart side, but still another pleasant surprise that afternoon. She grabbed another for Rebecca and relocated to the free spot behind her.

They welcomed her to the sofa with smiles, and then looked back at the latest photos — one of Leonard's greenhouses, apparently. Sam settled sideways, propping her head up and resting her elbow on the back cushion, and enjoyed a few minutes of relaxed idleness watching over Rebecca's shoulder. She tried to not chew too loudly in her ear, and occasionally answered one of Laura's questions when they were about her electrical contrivances.

A dozen or so photos later, footsteps tromped on the side door's steps and Sam turned to see the door swing open as Walt and Patrick returned.

Apparently they'd been reasonably successful, as Walt was holding a couple of modestly sized fish high in the air and affectionately berating a kitty! below him. "No, you can have some later, you little rascal. Who knows what else you caught today, this is all I've got to feed seven people. Who do you think I am, Jesus? Find me some bread then!"

Yeah, that was funny, but KITTY. Sam pushed herself up in the couch to see better. Apparently "Sue" was a pretty hefty long haired cat — she definitely saw why Rebecca referred to him as their "furball" — of mottled black, brown, tan and even some white highlights.

She turned to Rebecca and Laura. "So... Sue? Like the Johnny Cash song, or what?"

Rebecca shuffled around to face Sam and look into the kitchen better. "Sorta, but that only ended up being a nickname, really."

"You did listen to the end of the song, right? Bill or George?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just wait a minute, will you?" Rebecca clicked her tongue and made kissing noises, and the cat perked up and looked their way, taking a moment to decide they were worth sauntering over to for investigatory purposes. "It's good you moved, you were probably in his spot if it was the warmest in the house."

The fairly large cat hopped up on the back of the couch and sniffed at Rebecca's outreached hand for a second before rubbing against it enthusiastically and rumbling.

"Oh, you do remember me, buddy. Hi there. But look, here, on his side." Rebecca scritched his head and chin with one hand while pointing at a patterned area on his right flank. "See how those spots kinda look like a small two-by-two checkerboard pattern?"

"Vaguely..."

"Well... somebody who shall remain nameless but is sitting right behind me had a bit of a sudoku problem when we adopted him, so that's his official name."

Laura shoved Rebecca's shoulder playfully. "I'm sitting right here, you know!"

Sam glanced at Rebecca's face looking for any reaction. Hmm. Maybe I should warn her mom about the physical contact thing... fortunately she seems okay right now. Probably because KITTY. Sam began stroking his fluffy sides and back, then slipping her pinky under his collar to replicate Rebecca's dog-befriending trick of shifting it around and letting the squished fur move.

Rebecca glanced up at her and smiled. They lavished him with attention while Patrick and Walter were telling Chrissie about "the one that got away", ever so stereotypically. It made Sam wonder if this was an opportunity to try grenade fishing, but she wrote off the idea as unsustainable since it would probably kill too many fish at once.

Rebecca leaned in close to let "Sudoku" sniff her nose. "The song reference was an added bonus, since I thought it was hysterical when I was a kid." She squealed a little and flinched away when he licked the tip of her nose — Sam wasn't sure what else Rebecca expected him to do and laughed at her. For all Sam knew it was intentional, and she shook her head with an amused expression.

The sun was on its way down, darkness hastened by the rainclouds, so they started setting up the group's LED lanterns around the house to spare Walt's candle and fuel supply. When Rebecca learned Laura and Walt had been cooking over a grill out back, in the stove's oven, or on the larger iron stove up in his bedroom, they also set up their propane camping stoves, assuring her mother they could get refills later.

Over dinner — cobbled together from the fish catch, their travel supplies, and some early veggies from the apparent garden out back — Rebecca asked about the large burn scar they'd driven through. Her mother and uncle glanced at each other contemplatively, with Laura speaking first.

"That was... what, last summer?"

Walt nodded. "Yeah. Pretty scary watching the smoke and glow over the horizon. Everyone on the hill had their stuff packed and were jump-starting each other's cars to make sure they could get out quickly if it got too close."

Sam watched Laura put a reassuring hand on Rebecca's shoulder. "It didn't, though. It just loomed there in the distance for a while, making sky and air quality quite hellish, until that hurricane came through. That blew it around a bit, but then all of the rain it dumped seemed to take care of matters. How'd you fare in the storm?"

It was Rebecca and Sam's turn to glance at each other for supporting facts. "I guess that was the big storm that blew through and wrecked a bunch of the stuff up on the bridge," Sam said.

"Yeah, probably. That cleanup was... fun. On the other hand it gave me and Ronnie a bunch of new lookout spots in the taller buildings." She looked back over to her mom. "We didn't know it was officially a hurricane, but I guess that wouldn't have changed much. A little more warning would have been nice, but since our living quarters were mostly underground at that point everyone was pretty safe. Just a little local flooding."

Sam scoffed. "Says the girl who didn't have anything to do with keeping that flooding out of anything electrical."

Rebecca held up an apologetic hand to Sam, where she sat across from her at the table, and touched their sock-covered feet together for a moment under it. "Okay, okay. Thank you for keeping us all un-electrocuted and able to see down below."

Sam pursed her lips in a mix of amusement and self-satisfaction. "Well. You, and Chrissie, and Pat, are all welcome."

Rebecca shook her head as Laura laughed at both of them. The rest of the meal was very... comfortable. Topics strayed into unpleasant ones a few times, just as everyone shared stories of the last several months, but the worst was glossed over, or simply implied. Sam could tell Laura had a hard time wrapping her head around Patrick and Christine's story of their rescue, but it wasn't in a way that made her think Laura was doubting her daughter — she saw her look at Rebecca in amazement at least a few times.

Rebecca only noticed one of them, and bashfully tried to play it off. It occurred to Sam that getting her to accept any messages of parental pride might take some doing to get through her thick self-doubting skull, but it was nothing a little teamwork couldn't take care of.

As dinner was winding down, Sam happened to be carrying dishes towards the sink right behind Laura. As she set them on the counter, Laura turned to her. "Hey, do think you and your friends would want to use the washing machine?"

Sam's brain actually locked up for a second and she had to forcibly reboot a couple of processes in order to recover as she glanced around the room, noting the complete lack of power. "... excusemewhat?"

She figured Laura was going to suggest filling up a generator to power the house for a while. Instead, she led Sam into the mud room by the side door, and gestured to a white metal cabinet about three-fourths the size of the little apartment washing machine she'd shared back in Massachusetts. As Sam studied it, she concluded it looked like an overgrown salad spinner, operated by a foot pedal that she poked at experimentally.

"Huh." This needed to be replicated back home, or tied to the top of one of the SUVs when they left. On the long list of things she was tired of, washing things in buckets and bathtubs was probably in the top twenty.

Epstein was adamant that he serve as propulsion for the machine since everyone else was doing tasks better suited to those with multiple functioning arms, and his legs were working "just fine, thanks". Christine set Patrick to gathering his and Epstein's stuff while she briefly joined Sam to see what she and Rebecca wanted washed.

When she returned to the kitchen, Sam joined Rebecca in bodily herding Laura away from the sink and preparing to deal with the dishes. She had her back turned and was startled when Rebecca yelped behind her. Sam looked back, expecting to see she'd cut her finger or something, but Rebecca was staring at the water in shock and turned it off abruptly.

"Holy crap. It's... hot," Rebecca said in awe.

Laura shook her head and walked back over from where she was gathering up cloth napkins from the dining table. "Yes, sweetheart, that's what happens when the lever is by the red circle. You do remember learning that, right?"

Sam smirked at the gentle mocking. She was starting to appreciate Laura's sense of humor, but felt a little sympathetic if Rebecca was going to be getting it in both ears now.

Wait, does she like me because of some kind of mom issues? I never did picture myself as the maternal type yet, so that's sinking pretty low if so. Either that or oh-shit-I'm-getting-old.

Rebecca looked up at her mother with quite the same look she often gave Sam when teased. "Yes, Mom. Thank you. But I forgot about the solar here, or didn't realize it would still work without power."

Sam didn't quite parse that and tapped her on the shoulder. Solar without power? "Uhm... explain for the new girl?"

Laura chuckled and leaned her head to look past Rebecca at Sam. "The older kind of solar, where all it did was shine on water pipes and warm it up for you."

Sam's eyes widened. "Oh god. That's what you meant on the porch... how much hot water is there?"

Laura turned back around towards her brother, who was stacking firewood near the big stove. "What do you think, Walt? It was pretty sunny today, before the rain?"

He ran a hand through his greying light brown hair and thought. "By the time you're done with the dishes, if you use cold water for the laundry... I'd guess you could probably each get five, maybe ten minutes in."

Sam could feel the excitement radiating off of Rebecca, probably because she was generating a fair amount herself. When Rebecca turned to her with a questioning look and bright eyes, Sam chuckled. "Go ahead, sugar. I'd rather go right before bed, and I'll help your mom with the dishes. Just let us fill up a wash tub or two so we don't freeze you out and then scald you in there."

Rebecca practically bounced as she quickly hugged Laura and then Sam. "Don't tell each other too many stories about me, okay?"

Sam grinned. "Save me hot water and you have a deal."

Rebecca started walking away backwards as she answered. "Okay. I'll aim for the middle and set a timer for seven minutes." Then she disappeared down the hallway, and the two remaining women grinned at each other and shook their heads in her wake.