The rest of the house woke gradually to the wafting smells of Laura's baking or the careful sounds of breakfast preparation. Rebecca still loitered close to her mother in the kitchen, Patrick and Epstein sat on the couch, and Christine perched on the back with her hand on Pat's shoulder. Rebecca had removed the flashlight / laser module from the front of her Tavor, and now Sam sat at the dining table, driving Sudoku positively batshit crazy with it.

She ran him in a particularly raucous spiraling loop, complete with scrabbling sounds, wide turns, and at least one drifting slide — stealthy fur-tufted paws were the equivalent of bald tires on wooden floors, and Sue had clearly never slowed for a turn in his life.

Laura laughed at them both. "Apparently it's been far too long since he faced his arch-nemesis, the elusive Red Dot. Just... let him catch his breath once in a while, okay?"

Sam smiled guiltily at her and slowed the pace, eventually letting him "get" the dot — though of course, that left him checking under his paws and looking around several seconds before he flopped down, panting. "Sorry, Mrs. C. And, you're right... even though we have hundreds of batteries for these, that's still finite."

"Don't worry, he needs the fun... and what's the point of hoarding things if you don't use them, right?"

Sam's smile widened a little, but less at Laura's comment than memories of Mike and his video game tactics that it had summoned. He'd always save that big rocket launcher or whatever for hours until finally encountering a boss that was supposed to be hard, and then very smugly deliver his nonchalant explosive reply. Of course, just about as often, he'd reach the end of a chapter that reset his equipment loadout and there'd be extensive swearing instead.

When she played with him, she just focused on getting armored vehicles to squeeze into the areas that were supposed to be played on foot and took care of matters that way. Maybe it was an early indication of her inclination towards mechanized combat?

Her eyes must have gone distant or something, as Rebecca paused and looked at her when she approached with a stack of plates and hot pads for the table. "You okay, Rosie?"

Sam blinked and refocused on her, lifting her chin from her hand. "Yeah, sugar. Just reminiscing. Mike would have liked your solution to the molotov situation at the farm."

One of Rebecca's cheeks lifted with amusement, but she didn't say anything, just lingered supportively for a moment before returning to the kitchen. Sam appreciated that she didn't indulge in a "you never know, maybe you can tell him someday" style platitude, even while she contemplated that Rebecca would probably do anything she could to make that happen.

Her brief moroseness was chased away by Laura calling everyone to the table, asking Rebecca to fetch Walt from his wood chopping exertions out back. Sam held out an extra plate on her behalf as Laura was loading them, and smiled back the approving look Laura gave. Hmm... keep taking good care of her daughter, get fed by two generations of bakers? That seemed like quite the viable plan.

When Walt returned, he headed to the sink to wash his hands and Rebecca held the side door open to see if Sue wanted to go out. While she was waiting for him to finish sniffing the air and make up his mind, everyone flinched at the cracking report of a moderately distant gunshot. Not right outside, but still in the general "neighborhood".

Sam immediately looked to Rebecca in concern, noticing her shoulders took an extra second to come down, and that her lips were tight as her frown receded. Great...

Walt cocked his head to listen as he dried his hands, then seemed to nod to himself. "Don't worry folks, that sounded like Monroe's Remington. He probably just bagged dinner."

Epstein actually replied first, from where he was already halfway to where his and Patrick's M4s were propped against the wall near the door to the far bedrooms. Military training at work, even with just one free hand. "Happens pretty often? You're sure it was just hunting?"

Sam followed Epstein's eyes back to Walt for his reply. "Yes, particularly in the morning hours. Sometimes twilight too, but usually people try to catch something early so they have the light to deal with getting it home."

The door creaked as Rebecca slowly pushed it closed, the diameter of Sue's tail clearly indicating he was uninterested in venturing outside now. "Do you have any way to verify? Radios?"

"Most folk can't spare the batteries. One of the households closer to the front gate will have turn on after hearing that, listening for a call. But usually if there's only one shot, we tend not to worry. I did try to convince him it was wasteful to use ammunition like that, but he just couldn't get the hang of the compound bow I tried to teach him on."

Everyone returned to what they'd been doing after his reassurances, some more convinced than others. When Rebecca came back to the table Sam slid out the adjacent chair for her, and after she was seated, extended her hand below the table where others wouldn't likely see. She turned and leaned closer, brushing her thumb lightly over Rebecca's hand when their fingers interlaced. "My turn to ask. You okay?"

She took comfort that Rebecca now looked more disgruntled than spooked. "Yeah, I think so, thanks. Tasty breakfast food now please."

Sam squeezed her hand with a smirk. "Sounds like a plan."

Butter would have been miraculous, but in its mournable absence, the honey Laura had softened in a pot of water sitting on the stove while she baked still made a delicious combination on her cornbread. She apologized — of course — for the slightly overdone edges on one tray, lamenting that she'd only made it a couple of times in the wood oven and was still getting the hang of it.

Sam was hardly one to judge given their efforts back home and was wasting no time mentally designing a solar reflection oven for Laura, as an alternative to an electrical one. She'd already estimated the power needs for that while the wafting smells were tormenting her several minutes earlier.

Now that the initial scare from the echoing gunshot was over, Sam had the time to marvel over how odd it felt to see Epstein to be in civilian clothes. As he'd made his way back to the table she got a good look at the jeans, charcoal grey t-shirt, and forest green zip-up fleece he was wearing. The fleece was pulled over his sling, left sleeve hanging limp, which made his injury temporarily look vastly worse than it actually was. Despite working one-handed, he was doing a pretty good job laying into breakfast — clearly motivated by hunger almost as much as the threat of imminent combat.

Her eyes roved along the table and lit on Laura again, and Sam watched her look around much like she was doing. She seemed to be taking in the group around the table, and had a slight smile on her face as she did. When their eyes eventually met, Laura's flickered briefly — maybe even subconsciously — to Rebecca and then back to Sam, and Sam thought her smile grew before she looked back down to her plate.

Walt speaking pulled Sam's attention away before she could ponder the moment more. "So, Rebecca, what're your plans? Didn't seem like you brought enough to move in, plus I hear you left a dog behind with some neighbors."

Sam was worried about if Rebecca could field questions, but she met her concerned glance with a subtle reassuring expression as she answered. "To be honest, the next step in my plan was to talk to Mom about what the next step in my plan might be. Getting here was the first big hurdle. So far we've just been... catching up, catching our breath."

"Walt, come on." Laura's voice was somewhat chiding. "They just barely got here."

"I know, I know! I'm not trying to kick them out or anything. Just make conversation, maybe suggest they could check out the pond, or the ridge trail, since the weather seems it'll be nicer today."

Laura lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "Maybe chop some wood, weed the garden, fix the roof, drill for oil..."

"Hey, you're saying that, not me, though I wouldn't complain. Everyone knows we're on the wrong kind of rock up here for oil anyway."

"No, you know that from the research report you wrote in tenth grade, Walter."

Sam very carefully took another bite of cornbread so she couldn't laugh, and to conceal her grin. She hoped the gamble would pay off and the exchange wouldn't make her choke on it instead. Fortunately, Pat saved her from left field. Sorta.

"Jokes aside, Mister Sutton, if you need help with stuff around here, I'm sure we could take turns helping out. Rebecca should definitely spend some time catching up, and Doug needs to take it easy, but there's no reason we can't chip in and enjoy the scenery up here too."

Oh thanks, Patrick, Sam groused mentally to herself. With the radio up, there's nothing else electrical to be done out here unless they're going to start feeding generators precious gas, so that leaves me reduced to household chores and menial labor. Probably digging ditches. In the cold. At night.

Sam must have shown at least a brief flash of irritation, because she realized Laura was looking at her with the tiniest of smirks when she spoke. "I could definitely use some help getting some tangles and burrs out of Sue's fur. And, he's never really sat still for Rebecca in all his years — maybe he knows he can get away with too much with her. He seems to like Sam, though. I wonder if he'd be on company manners with her holding him?"

Sam managed to wash down the final contents of her mouth with a swig of the herbal tea Laura had made to accompany breakfast. "Uh, sure, whatever you need, Mrs. C. Please don't make me hold the big cute kitty, anything but that."

Rebecca scoffed beside her and held out her left hand on top of the table. "You may come to regret that." She pointed to scar nicked into the inside of her forearm that Sam had noticed ages ago but never really inquired about because it was so small. "That's from when we had to give him pills twice a day for two weeks. And, don't forget the pair on my right shoulder that I told you was from when he learned how gravity and water work and I went in after him fully clothed. I love him, but feel the need to point out Rufus hasn't given me any scars yet."

"Oh, that's hardly fair." Laura chastised Rebecca gently. "You lived with poor Sue for six years, and you've had Rufus for maybe six months."

"Oh, poor Sue, Mom. I'm the one who ended up bleeding! You remember which of us is your actual child, right? The one with common traits, like opposable thumbs? The worst Rufus has ever done is stink and slobber." Rebecca's tone was indignant, but Sam could see on her face that she was enjoying the banter.

Sam didn't usually like picking up a TV series mid-season, but she admitted she was enjoying her early glimpses of the Rebecca and Laura show. That thought made her wonder what their chances were of figuring out where a Netflix or Amazon data center was and successfully scouring a few of their storage arrays. Some of them were even all "green" powered... so many solar panels.

No, never mind. Having more TV repeats to browse through is NOT worth having to hook up another few hundred panels, either myself or directly supervising, like people would expect. I'd never get any peace. Maybe those secret agent types can safely warm up the reactors down at North Anna and that won't keep falling to me...

She blinked back from her thoughts and smiled when Rebecca bumped a knee into hers. Laura had moved on to further bantering with Walt, and continued as such for the duration of the meal with the occasional polite question to Patrick, Christine, or Epstein. She was quite concerned when she learned of Landry and his injuries, but chuckled like either a gossiping schoolgirl or housewife — Sam couldn't quite decide which — when Rebecca explained about all the attention he was getting from a certain local unwitting farmgirl.

After breakfast, Laura was opening the windows behind the kitchen sink and counter when Sam brought a load of dishes over, and stepped back out of the way as she approached. "Walt was right, it really does look like today's going to be a nicer day. Maybe you and Rebecca should go for a stroll."

Sam tilted her head quizzically. "Mrs. C, I've been with her for months now, and you haven't seen her for nearly double that amount of time. Maybe you and Rebecca should go for a walk."

Their mutual topic of conversation looked up from sweeping up crumbs around the table — which she only started after pointing out that Rufus would have taken care of them all already. "I'm right here, you know."

Sam looked over her shoulder with a grin. "Sorry, sugar. Just having a polite feud with your mother about which one of us deserves time with you more." She turned back to Laura while handing the plates over. "Maybe I have a lower standard of grooming for cats, but... Sue looked to be in pretty good shape when I was petting him yesterday."

Laura shrugged. "I don't know what you mean. He gets out all the time, we should check to be sure." She leaned closer and faux-whispered conspiratorially. "We all know I need to catch up on the last year-plus of my daughter's life, and you seem to be a big part of it. Think of letting me get to know you as sparing her from all my inevitable questions about you."

"No pressure or anything."

Rebecca sidled up next to her as she came back with the broom and long handled dustpan. "Sorry, Rosie. We knew getting grilled was on the spectrum of realistic possibilities."

Sam sighed. "Weirdest 'meet the parents' trip ever."