Rebecca and Sam emerged from the back room at least a few minutes later than the boys did, enough that they could hear their voices from the front yard again. Laura glanced over, scanning the shorts and rash guard Rebecca had pulled on over her two-piece and shook her head.

"Cute. Looks like you're all set to go surfing."

Rebecca waited for a remark like 'I wish you'd had that in Thailand', but it never came, which made her smile widen. "Maybe someday. Are you still thinking of coming along?"

"At least for the walk, though don't expect to get me into any aquatic sport wear, even if you have some hidden away in my size." She nodded towards the front door as Dylan re-entered. "I'm trying to convince Dylan to take the opportunity to relax, maybe spend a little time with Nick. Tania and I thought we'd walk her down to the riverside where he's helping out the guy who tries to bring in the daily catch."

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "They literally have a guy whose job it is to just fish all day? We can't let Patrick learn about that. Chrissie will kill us, right after she gets rid of his body."

Dylan chuckled as she moved closer. "Yes, Nick definitely didn't mind that part of preparing for your visit. He was almost as excited Jack."

"Who I bet might only be outranked by Nate," Sam said. "But Dylan, I don't know how or when you get to put your feet up with a kid with that much energy. You should totally take a break, we'll keep an eye on the boys."

"I guess if anyone can keep him safe, it's definitely you two, after... well, you know." Dylan seemed to brush the darker thoughts away and brightened her face again. "Plus, you can't really go all in on the 'cool aunties' thing with the moms around, huh?"

"Shhh, that's what the boys are supposed to believe, while we're really being responsible and keeping them pent up in one spot!" Rebecca grinned as she said this, but contemplated what she knew about the area. "This fishing spot, it's inside the fenceline?"

"Literally just outside it," Dylan replied. "The subdivision goes all the way to the river, there's a watch post there and a small pier right in front."

"The guardpost is right there? And it's always manned?"

"This time of day is. At night they pull back so they can watch the perimeter without being exposed to anyone hiding in the dark across the river."

The corner of Rebecca's mouth twitched and she turned to Laura. "Okay. At least take a radio with you? Even if the area's secured, that's a bit far, and kinda on the edge of things."

"I suppose that's only sensible, and I'd probably tell you the same thing."

"You okay, Mrs. C?" Sam asked. "Is this an 'my baby is all grown up' moment?"

"I'm fine. I think I ran out of those when she showed up through fifty miles of apocalypse to come find me."

"I helped," Sam said lightly with a gleeful smile, almost like a kid proudly seeking approval.

"You sure did dear, for which I am eternally grateful."

Dylan held out a stack of towels to Sam. "Ahem, they helped some other folks along the way too."

Chuckling, Laura nodded a concession Dylan's way. "True. But now that's another 'all grown up' moment for the list!"

Tania opened the front screen door and stuck her head in. "Everybody coming? The boys are getting impatient enough they're probably thinking of heading off on their own with Rufus."

"I guess that's our cue to get a move on," Laura said.

Rebecca nodded, muttering as she draped one of Dylan's towels around her neck. "They're cute little buggers, but I don't need even more people trying to steal my dog."

Sam swatted at her gently with a half-folded towel. "Yeah, at least I won't take him any farther than the living room."

**

Rebecca heard the pool before they saw it, along a side street they hadn't been down. The splashing and excited voices sounded out of place in the apocalypse — and she decided that was a good thing. At least a kid or two and a mix of adults were clearly having a good time on the far side of the clubhouse they were approaching. She was surprised to see a garden in front of it, where a swath of dried up lawn had been cleared into furrowed rows. Stalks of corn were almost as tall as she was, surrounded by both crawling and climbing vines and a few tomato bushes.

She was puzzled why there was effort and resources going here, instead of focused on the large-scale farming operation across the main road, and asked Dylan about it.

"Well... we already discussed how important it is to keep the kids occupied," Dylan told her. "Gives the families something to do together, teaches them some skills, and lets us try some small-scale experiments. Plus with all the old landscaping, why let good enriched soil go to waste, right?"

Rebecca nodded politely, but her smile felt tight on her face and her chest suddenly ached as her thoughts spiraled. Soil. Maybe at least this wasn't watered with blood. Jeez. That kinda applies to the farm we found her at, too. Maybe I should stay away from agricul—

Her mother's hand gently landed on her shoulder, whisking Rebecca out of her problematically wandering thoughts. Beyond Laura, Sam swerved back to a centered stride as if recovering from the reach for a nudge or tap. Rebecca had been on the receiving end of those enough to recognize the movement, and she gave them both affectionate looks.

A deep breath helped her repeat a familiar exercise, visualizing closing a wooden box around those painful memories and returning it to a shelf. Not burying them, just putting them away in the right spot.

That left her mind free to meander back to the corn she'd just seen — and resulting culinary fantasies. She wasn't sure how cornmeal was actually made, but someone hopefully would, or maybe there'd be a relevant book in the stockpiles collected from the local libraries. She didn't even need things to get that fancy though. Broadway had managed some corn crops, though they were still trying to scale it up to subsistence levels when she and Sam left. But, it had been years since she'd sunk her teeth into a cob with butter on it, and the thought left her with a sudden pang of hunger. She hoped whatever Landry's plans for dinner were paid off, because she was definitely going to have an appetite after an hour or two at the pool.

As they passed the building, a hint of chlorine reached her nose, and she thought about the effort that must have gone into rehabilitating a swimming pool after nearly two years of neglect. "Mom, would you mind taking Rufus with you for the walk? I don't think folks would appreciate me bringing a dog and letting him take a soaring leap into their pool."

"What? You haven't given him a bath lately?"

"Oh, come on with the parental judging already. It's only been a couple weeks but they wouldn't know that, and we'll have our hands full with the boys as it is."

Laura looked at the rowdy pack of two being loosely herded by the other mothers and chuckled. "This may be your biggest test yet, dears." Mocking aside, she still held out her hand for the leash and clicked her tongue at Rufus as he looked up at the movement. "He'll probably enjoy finding all new stuff to sniff and pee on, won't you boy?"

Relieved of his leash, Rebecca caught up to where the others had stopped. At the near corner of the fenced pool area, a section of the obscuring hedge had thinned, maybe from neglect. Tania had been studying the area beyond for a few moments and turned to her.

"Are you sure you're okay watching the boys for a while? Even with all this energy?"

Rebecca chuckled. "I mean, that's the best thing to do with kids, right? Have fun with them, and then hand them back to the parents when they're tired and hungry?" Tania had assured them earlier that Nate could float and even slowly stroke across still water on his own, and Jack was a good kid. She trusted him to allow her and Sam to focus on Nate as much as they needed to keep him safe.

"I see we both think the other one is getting the short end of the stick." Tania ruffled Nate's hair playfully at his blatantly obvious 'you know we can hear you' pout. "I'm just teasing you, silly. Have fun with the cool aunties and no parents around for a bit."

Dylan seemed to be finishing a similar conversation with Jack, then all the mothers hugged their respective kids — Sam was clearly pleased when Laura included her. Rufus and the three older women were well down a side street by the time Rebecca wheeled Nate the remaining length of the fence to the matching black steel gate, which Sam held it open for them. Jack lingered out of the way, then she shooed him in with a wave of her towel.

The pool was on the larger side for what Rebecca expected at a housing complex, but this was a much ritzier development than the high density apartments she'd scoped out at the end of freshman year. A mesh canopy stretched taut over the middle three-quarters of the water, providing enough partial shade she discarded any worries about Sam getting a sunburn. The gate had led them to one corner of the deep end, making Rebecca suspect the original designers intended for most of the visitors with kids to enter through the clubhouse onto the large patio area at the opposing corner.

A gaggle of teenagers were enthusiastically cannonballing from the low diving board deterred passage in that direction, so Rebecca turned to the right, aiming for the quieter corner of the shallow end farthest from both entrances. Patio tables and chairs against the fence left an aisle along the water's edge, sufficient for walking — perhaps even lifeguard-irritating scampering in the facility's heyday. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite wheelchair-friendly, and Rebecca had to navigate carefully.

A small group of men she figured for off-duty soldiers lounged around one of the tables, none into their thirties yet. The t-shirt and tank top worn by two of them were the distinctively simple earth-tone style of military issue. The third guy was shirtless with a big towel draped over his neck, breaking up the stark contrast between his almost black hair and light skin, but the fledgling collection of tattoos on his upper arms were definitely a consistent vibe. Patriotism, mortality, etcetera.

Rebecca was just inhaling for an 'excuse me' to ask them for some room when the redheaded guy in the t-shirt — lighter than Sam's crimson, more of a cliché 'carrot top' — did a double take and pushed his chair back with a scrape. He urged his companions upright, and they hastened to pull the furniture a few more inches towards the fence.

She nodded cordially with a small lopsided smile as she pushed Nate past. "Thanks fellas."

"Of course, gorgeous."

She was mostly past when she processed his reply, intent on not running the wheelchair onto the sloped edge tiles and bouncing Nate around on their grouted seams. That, and the fact that it was the wrong redhead to be calling her such things, meant she didn't think to reply. The only real thought she gave was pondering his questionable judgment against how grungy and unkempt she felt.

But, she did glance back when another voice complimented Sam's 'ink' — or so she presumed, since she hadn't gotten around to a tattoo before the end of the world herself. Sam seemed accustomed to that kind of remark though, and simply shrugged it of with a halfhearted thanks.

Rebecca felt the chair start to brush the pavement seam and looked back at where she was going, setting her sights on a vacant table near the shallow corner of the pool. It was out from under the main shroud but had an umbrella, offering some shade and a place for their belongings. As the path widened and her destination became obvious, Jack bounded past and started piling towels and cinch bags atop the round glass.

Sam followed suit at a much more leisurely pace and they shared an amused look as Rebecca parallel-parked Nate's chair on the other side. The close proximity to the steps entering the pool gave her an idea on the one open question about the 'pool day' she hadn't figured out yet — how to best get an effectively paraplegic kid into the water.

She locked both brakes on his chair, kicked her shoes off and crouched down, then gestured for him to reach over her shoulders. That let her hoist him up for a piggyback ride, something they'd done intermittently when watching him for Tania, and made her way to the stairs. "Nate, you gonna be okay sitting at the edge for a couple minutes?"

"Hell yeah!"

Rebecca smirked at the thought of him upgrading from 'heck' to 'hell' with all the parents absent, and at the mental comparison to the kind of language he could have been picking up from the military personnel and other residents — other than ever-wholesome Allie — back home. 'Okay' was an understatement for how eager he was, not that she could blame him.

Her own excitement was muted as soon as she put her first foot down in the water, the surprising temperature difference elicting an involuntary gasp. "Oh god that's cold. Cold cold cold." She was grateful to only need to go in one more step, the water rising most of the way up her shin, before she could hunker down and set Nate down carefully on the edge without getting her shorts wet. She kept one hand on the tubular handrail down the middle of the steps for stability, and used it to haul herself back upright again. "You good, buddy?"

Nate nodded, rolling his thigh side to side to move his bobbing foot in the water, accidentally bumping it into the side of her calf. "Yup. The best thing about swimming is that my legs actually almost work when they're floating."

Rebecca winced at his words and unthinkingly put her hand on her chest. "Oh jeez, Nate. You're gonna break my heart saying things like that."

He looked up at her, with his nearly omnipresent happy smile not really helping the sympathetic pang she was struggling with. "Sorry, Miss Rebecca. But hey, I can't feel the cold nearly as much as you, so it's not all bad!"

"Hah. Keep it up with the silver linings, but ask your mother about the meaning of 'schadenfreude' later." She climbed out past him, giving one foot a little shake as she set it back on the pavement.

As she returned to the table, Sam's eyes twinkled at her from beside it. "You're adorable."

"What, with him?" Rebecca asked quietly once they were next to each other again.

"No," Sam said with a familiar hint of glee. "You practically looked like Rufus climbing out of the water there."

Rebecca harrumphed quietly, all too aware she was utterly failing at hiding how much she enjoyed Sam's teasing. That prompted a smirk, and she gobbled the stupid endorphins from that right up too.