Sam pulled a stool to the side of the bed, along with a lantern she could share with Rebecca. While Rebecca ate — slowly, at Sandra's relayed insistence — Sam tried to talk Laura into spending the night at her daughter's side, since there was only enough floorspace for one. She even offered to bring the nice cot with the integrated air mattress from her workshop over, but was repeatedly rebuffed. Laura was adamant she wanted to give them some time together. Sam finally caved to the point that she knew the settlement and residents, and she'd be the smarter choice to react if Rebecca took a turn for the worse. Still, she made Laura agree to take Rebecca's radio with her.

When Patrick and Christine happily agreed to accompany Laura to dinner, Rebecca pleaded to get cleaned up from the fight while they were away. The gang waited while Sam retrieved enough hot water from Trent to fill a hanging camp shower bag, then departed as she turned off the effectively empty IV. After carefully threading the needle back out of Rebecca's hand, she covered the pinprick wound with a small waterproof bandage.

Rebecca looked up from her hand at Sam and smiled appreciatively. "Coulda been a surgeon. That didn't even sting."

The end of Sam's mouth twitched in amusement as she helped Rebecca stand. "Yeah, but I don't like how 'Doctor Conroy' sounds. Right now, I'm kinda serving as an orderly, anyway."

She helped Rebecca around a portable privacy screen to the fiberglass shower stall someone had positioned over a drain and admonished her to keep one hand near the handicap grab bars. Despite the resulting grumble, Sam shed her shoes and loitered vigilantly at the edge of the curtain — if there were any signs of unsteadiness, she wanted to be right there to intervene. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant view either, troubling new scrapes and bumps aside. If she had to watch something intensely for several minutes, why shouldn't it be rivulets of water running down her girlfriend's shoulders and back, crisscrossing tan lines as they went?

Rebecca caught her staring as she wiped the last drops out of her eyes and reached for the shutoff valve above her head. "Excuse me! Can I help you, miss?"

Sam smirked. "Nice try, but I can see the grin you're trying to hold back. Along with—" She didn't mean for one of her eyebrows to rise as she pointedly ran her eyes down and back up again, but it did. "— a whole lot else. Can't blame you for trying though, any more than you can me for enjoying my responsibilities." She passed Rebecca the first towel she had slung over her shoulder. "Especially coming from the one who enjoys playing 'Trace the Tattoo' so much."

"Dang." Rebecca mopped her face dry before wrapping herself in the towel and accepting the second for her hair. She looked back over her shoulder as she dressed again. "Quite the circle we've come in, huh? First stolen kiss in the showers washing Rufus, and now here I am, needing your help just by myself. Who thought old age would strike us so fast?"

Sam shadowed Rebecca back to the bed. "I think your mother would have an opinion about you saying that before you're even 30." She resettled on the stool with the container holding her own dinner, poking at the contents with a spork. Admittedly, it was easy to miss Trent's flair — somehow he managed to make absurdly healthy things taste like they were terrible for you. She'd take Allie the Baking Goddess of the Apocalypse if forced to choose, but the variety was nice. Plus, the man just knew what to do with potatoes.

Once wet hair and food had been separately dealt with, Sam handed over Rebecca's knitting and positioned the stool so she could lean against the wall with her her sock-covered feet propped on the edge of the bed. She nearly fell off when Rebecca started kneading her arches, and was particularly embarrassed that her eyelids literally fluttered as she closed them with a groan.

Rebecca chuckled warmly, a pleasant counter for the background worries edging Sam's thoughts. "At least I still remember how to do this."

"Mmm. It's damned shame we have to keep your heart rate down for a while. On a related note, Sandy wanted me to check your grip and arm strength too. I'm gonna call this a success."

"You could show me your appreciation by passing me a phone, so I can tally my rows? I want to watch for moments of 'that's a lot more than I remember'."

Once the heavenly footrub was over, Sam hopped off the stool long enough to dig out her own notebook and pen instead. "Nope. You should know better, your brain encodes memories better if you handwrite them. All my teammates typing away on laptops didn't believe me until midterms. Then suddenly it's all 'Oh Sam, where'd you get that cool dotted grid paper', 'Sam, are the Japanese pens really worth the extra money'... you get the idea."

Rebecca held up the pen and looked at it. "Wow. You do love me."

Sam nodded towards the pen. "Find me a big pack of refills for that and you might as well bring some rings and a nice dress too."

"Hey now." Rebecca grinned. "Remember how I did with the coffee..."

"Oh. I do."

Rebecca sputtered and shook her head at her, pointedly picking up her knitting. "Terrible."

**

Sandra returned repeatedly, once before Laura got back, and twice after. On the first visit, she glanced at Rebecca's knitting and then glowered at the displays on the IV tower next to her. "According to these oximeter readings, you're an inanimate object."

She tsk'ed disapprovingly as she removed the sensors from Rebecca's hand and rifled through a drawer of a large steel tool chest — the kind more often found in car shops and certain robotics labs. When she returned, she swapped the finger clip at the end of the monitoring wires for something smaller, and surprised Rebecca when she deftly attached it to her earlobe.

Sam couldn't help giggling at her yelp of surprise, nor the sour face as she complained about being tagged like a piece of livestock. Unfortunately, that attracted a share of Sandra's dour attention when she scolded them both for Rebecca moving her hands too much, and implied they were lucky she didn't put another IV in just to get her to hold still.

That led to further grumbling from Rebecca after they were alone again. "Bad enough you had to watch over me like a senior care attendant while I showered, but if she didn't want me using my hands, were you supposed to spoon feed me too? Will you be using pudding when you give me my pills?"

Sam pondered the implications for a moment, before picking up her book again. "You know, maybe you're looking at this in the wrong direction. What if now that your mom is around, you're regressing into being a big baby?"

Rebecca gave her a dirty look. "You're just trying to get me to stick my tongue out at you to prove your point."

Sam held her hands up near her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "Mmmm. If the shoe fits? You are kinda grumpy right now."

"I'm not—" Rebecca cut herself off. "You can't go accusing someone of being grumpy just because you know they'll defend themselves and then you can be all 'see I'm right' afterwards."

"Oh, pffft. Sure I can. You're just wising up to it."

Rebecca looked around like she was searching for something she could throw at Sam, but was clearly disappointed. Instead she picked up the notepad and pen she'd been using, looked Sam dead in the eye, and started scribbling in pointless circles, clearly just for the purpose of using ink.

Sam gasped, letting her eyes widen in feigned horror. "You— you bitch! I only have—" She switched back to a normal tone, with just touch of perky glee sprinkled on top. "...six more of those!"

Rebecca set the pen down with an aggrieved look, and Sam moved to her side and caressed her cheek. "I'm sorry," she said as she leaned to kiss the disgruntled frown in front of her. "I know you're not feeling good, I'll let you win a round later."

Laura stopped by again, and Sam felt a pang of sympathy for how adrift she probably was. Not unlike when 'Bex' first wandered in, perhaps. Everyone still breathing probably had been through at least one big phase like that.

Sam had done her best to show Laura around while they were waiting for news about Rebecca, but neither of their hearts had really been in it — they were mostly both trying to keep themselves from asking Sandra if she was awake every five minutes. On top of that, Sam had been trying not to think about her own time sitting in a hospital bed being monitored for symptoms of head trauma, while the whole world was falling apart around her.

The attempt hadn't worked, because even the smallest thought of what transpired outside while she was laid up led straight to her mother. There'd been no missed calls on her phone when the hospital staff gave it back. She honestly couldn't remember if she'd tried calling to update her parents on what had happened after she woke up. She was... almost certain she would have. Still. Doubts and a whisper of potential guilt, fed by her father's words, nagged.

Rebecca's rubbing off on me.

Sam instantly regretted the unkindness of that thought. She looked at Rebecca apologetically, even though both the silent slight and apology went unnoticed as she talked with Laura. Rebecca just worked differently, and had been through piles of hell. She didn't have as hard of an outer shell, but she was resilient, kept getting back up again. As far as Sam herself... well, she had that strong layer of determination and willpower on the exterior, but was coming to wonder if that was a flawed model once things got through.

'Be strong for me, Samantha.' Fuck. What do you think I'm trying to do, Mom? Why... hell, I don't know what to finish that with.

She clawed back out of her brief funk by clinging to the relieving news that Pat and Chrissie helped Laura get more oriented while she was with them. Sam was glad to hear they planned to forego their usual lodging and 'camp out' in the workshop so she wasn't alone for the night, especially since Laura was clearly at a loss about what to do with herself. At one point as she looked around the infirmary during conversation, she even picked up, folded, and stacked Rebecca's discarded sweatpants and shirt right back where they'd been sitting in a reasonably tidy pile before.

Total visiting mom move. I wonder which one of us feels like more of a third wheel? Not that either of us will ever fess up to it...

Rebecca did a decent job of trying to involve them both in conversation, though Sam did catch her repeating herself once. She didn't call it out, just made a mental note and shared a quick confirming glance with Laura.

Laura... well, she managed to throw them both for a loop. After Sandra left again, telling Sam she'd be in her small private room around the corner, Laura goes and locks eyes with each of them in turn and says she wants to learn how to use a gun.

Sam saw the reasoning behind it, but was just surprised by how it seemed so out of character — and maybe by the timing. Rebecca seemed to be having trouble wrapping her head around it entirely. But in her defense, she was dealing with a (hopefully) minor TBI...

Laura held her hands up in a wide-armed shrug as she addressed her daughter. "I know I wasn't the biggest fan when you bought yours, but if anything, your reasoning then applies even more now. God forbid we run into more unpleasantness, but I'd like to be able to do more than swing one around by the wrong end again. I feel like a liability." She looked from Rebecca to Sam. "Hell, I was one out on the road."

Yeah, there go those family habits again. "Mrs. C..." Sam was getting tired, and rubbed her temple as she replied. "How things went wasn't your fault. If they hadn't grabbed you, they just as well could have flanked me instead. Some basics might be a good idea, but once we get home, not everyone has to be a heavily armed leadslinger, I promise."

"Sam, sweetheart...I'm supposed to be the one protecting my daughter. Not the other way around."

She wasn't sure why Laura addressing her that way rankled her this time around. Maybe she was just cranky because it was getting late?

"Mom." Something in Rebecca's tone carried a request, a warning, and she was already looking when Sam glanced up at her.

Thank you, sugar. Not all of us have that luxury.

Rebecca maintained eye contact long enough it might have been an acknowledgement she'd picked up the message. "Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow, huh? I'll definitely need the air and would love to get topside, and we have to clean and reload after the fight anyway."

Sam could see what Rebecca meant all the times she'd said 'she always means the best' when Laura, to her credit, let the topic drop.

"Of course. I'm sorry, I know we're all tired, and it's not like Nurse Sandy is going to let us get dirt and gun oil or whatever all over the infirmary, right? It's just weighing on my mind, I guess I'm still in a bit of shock."

Sam peered at Laura again, appraisingly, and remembered this had been the first time she'd been in a pitched fight. That led to contemplating herself from several months ago, before Black Tusk ever showed up. The way she'd reacted when Rebecca came home banged up or after the battle at the gates... all that was miles from the version of her that had been rampant at the farm.

Well no fucking wonder she's being a little weird. Of course she's struggling, dummy. Rebecca'd probably say something about 'classic trauma reactions' or whatever.

Rebecca patted her mother's hand. "Mom, we're all safe now. It'll take some time to get sorted out, but we'll be okay."

Sam's eyes flicked between Rebecca and Laura, and thought about how pointedly welcoming Laura had been. She mentally kicked herself, hopped off the stool to circle the bed, and put her arms around her. So they're both surprised. Whatever. It's not like I was ever subtle about shoving kindness in "Bex"'s face when she needed it. And, if I'm being honest, this does feel nice, just like it did back then.