Rebecca had not been so surprised and relieved by her mother's entrance since she'd been sweating bullets in the high school principal's office some years prior. With her eyes still closed and one hand continuing to scrunch and release Rufus' fur, she put her other hand on her chest and tried to calm her thudding heartbeat.

Sam's hand was cool against her cheek again. "I should check on our original wannabe savior. Will you be okay here for a few? I'll try to hurry back."

Rebecca hummed quietly and leaned into Sam's touch, nodding slightly. "Go do what you have to. I'll be here." She felt rejuvenated enough to lift her head and squint around her. Sam hustled around the far end of the pool, patting Nate's shoulder as he worked with Carmen to get his wheelchair rolling. Jack had loosened his grip on Epstein, but looked immensely relieved by Sam's approach.

The next time she opened her eyes a few moments later was at the prompting of that damnable gate hinge squealing again. She was getting awfully tired of it and was quite ready to be in softer, warmer chair. Maybe that was souring her mood, because when she saw Charles — the elderly Black man who'd stuffed them full of simple but hearty fare back at the farm — enter and tentatively start to raise an old wood-handled shotgun, she hadn't meant to snap at him.

"Don't point that thing at my mother." Even weak as it was, her voice had a sharpness to it and she felt the rumble of Rufus' growl against her knee. Charles glanced over in surprise, and she mouthed a silent apology before (gingerly) inclining her head towards the true offenders.

Charles caught on quickly, turning to face them squarely with the gun's stock snugged up to his shoulder. She heard him unclip a radio and speak in the background as she checked on everyone again.

Sam kept looking back in Rebecca's direction while she guided Epstein to a ladder, but between worried glances, Rebecca saw her check his eye dilation and help him climb out. She reached for their bags and moved the medkit to the table, but stopped opening it when two uniformed soldiers — one from the neighborhood gate when they'd arrived — entered from the clubhouse. Sam's voice was muddled by the distance, but her tone clearly indicated she expected her words to be heeded. The familiar soldier reached to transition Epstein's weight from her shoulder; once Sam had a free hand, Rebecca saw her gesture the way they'd came then sweep her arm back to point at their assailants, emphasizing with a small retraction and pointing jab.

Rebecca wondered if the men responded so readily to her instructions because some icy edge of murderous intent still hung from her voice, or if their apparent reputation was having an effect again.

She was definitely needed to investigate that later. Maybe after she was in sweatpants.

While Sam made her way back, Rebecca handed out towels to the kids, making sure they were more or less holding up okay and expressing her gratitude for their help. Nate was energetically triumphant, Carmen's lip curled in disdain as she looked at the troublemakers, and Jack's hands were balled into fists as he glared stonily at them. She was worried about him the most given his traumatic history at the terrible farm — not that she was one to judge traumatic pasts. Though, counterpoint, we did plenty of judging, jurying, and executing that night.

She smiled at Sam while handing her the last towel. "Hi, Rosie."

"Hey you." Sam had hardly flipped the towel around her shoulders before she was inspecting Rebecca in more detail, eyes searching her face for injuries, fingertips apprehensively resting on Rebecca's cheek and forearm. Eventually, she settled for rinsing off her scuffed knuckles and knees.

"Doug look like he's gonna be okay?"

Sam finally patted Rebecca's hand dry then stepped back to towel herself off properly. "Yeah, he seems more worried about how long stories of a Marine rescued from a swimming pool are going to linger."

Rebecca chuckled, which morphed into a cough and immediately triggered a wince. "Why do I keep getting into situations that make laughing hurt?"

Sam shook her head as she repacked their belongings. "Maybe it's just that your girlfriend has a completely inappropriate sense of timing."

Rebecca returned Sam's smirk. "Hey, in the absence of prescriptions, humor's a key coping mechanism." Despite the levity, she removed the hand she'd clutched her protesting abdominal muscles with and dragged it wearily through her hair, shaking out some tangles. Then, she wiped her face before reaching to rub the back of her neck — and that was when her blood seemed to turn colder than the pool.

"No no no no no... where the hell..." Rebecca felt around on her shoulder and even patted her chest, noting that her breath was speeding up, and knew full well she was on course for a panic attack. She shook out her towel, glanced at the pool and their stuff, then spotted some blood on Rufus' collar that she missed trying to clean him up.

Her jaw clenched like a vise, tight enough her teeth to creak, and shoved herself out of the chair, eyes on the gun in Laura's hand and then the three troublemakers. Barely mindful of the kids and repressing profanity at the last minute, her words came out as something between a snarl and a yell. "Hey! Where the hell is my necklace?!?"

She was two strides towards her gun when Sam got in front of her, fast enough they genuinely collided. Sam remained at a proximity normally reserved for more intimate moments, one hand on Rebecca's forearm, another on her shoulder.

"Rebecca! Hey. Stop, it's okay." Her tone and expression softened. "You took it off, remember? It's hidden back at the house."

Freezing for a moment, Rebecca realized Sam was right and dropped her head into her palm. "Oh god."

Sam made a nonverbally sympathetic noise. "Let's go back, huh?"

Rebecca was humiliatingly embarrassed by her outburst and the memory lapse that had ignited it. Then she was afraid, worried by potential neurological implications. "I— yeah. Let's get outta here." She sighed and started helping Sam bundle up the rest of the items still on the table. As the largest thing on the table, she reached for the medkit last.

She hesitated, turning to look at the well-tenderized, unconscious, and still bleeding jackass Rufus had helped her take down. Ronnie's lesson about being mindful of how she treated their enemies echoed in her head, but she was also feeling pretty far from charitable just then. She paused with her hand on the zipper and glanced at her mother and Sam.

Laura was still glaring protectively away from them, her jaw set and posture taught. Sam had apparently been watching silently, and responded to the eye contact with a slight smile that seemed like a sign of approval.

Rebecca closed the medkit and shoved it decisively into her bag.

**

Things were a bit a blur after that — Carmen agreeing to wait at Jack's house until her parents came to get her, Laura trying to foist the gun off on Rebecca even while insisting she would remain to 'lay into whoever the equivalent of a high school principal was around there', Rebecca insisting they'd just take Rufus with them and be fine.

"People are more scared of knives than guns, and dogs than knives," Rebecca remembered assuring her mother, quoting Ronnie.

She tried to hold her shit together on the walk back, but still ended up dry-heaving into the bushes two thirds of the way there. Sam held her hair aside and rubbed Rebecca's back soothingly — just because Rebecca wasn't surprised by the tenderness did not mean she was the least bit unappreciative.

The contractions had done nothing to soothe her maligned abdominal muscles, nor the worry in Sam's eyes, and Rebecca cursed her body's stupid stress reactions. "I'm okay, really. I promise I'm running Ronnie's triage checklists." She glanced meaningfully at the kids, trusting Sam to let her get away without saying she was reasonably sure she wasn't bleeding internally. "Probably not winning any sexy girlfriend of the year awards though, huh?"

Sam's lips had pressed thin and flat, but drew into a smirk while she helped Rebecca to her feet. "In sickness and in health, my dear."

Rebecca distracted herself as they walked by trying to figure out how to explain the whole debacle to Dylan, concerned about scaring her and making their new home feel unsafe, but Jack ran ahead for the final half-block. At least that would take care of the inevitable first question of if her kid was okay, something answered for Tania not long after, when she popped her head out of the front door with her hand covering her mouth and eyes wide and rushed to help them get Jack's chair up the porch step.

Sam and Rebecca tried to fill in any gaps in Jack's rapid-fire description of events, or Dylan's quick recap to Landry as he entered through the backyard's sliding door. He quickly tugged his black apron off — an entertaining enough sight under better circumstances — and reached for either the pistol or baseball bat both stored atop of the fridge, muttering about how he was going to go lay a world of hurt on the perpetrators.

Dylan stopped him with a finger in the middle of his stocky chest. "No, Nicholas. It sounds like things are in hand, and I'm sure Laura will make damned sure results are swiftly forthcoming. Those girls and the kids are unquestionably traumatized, so what you are 'going to do' is finish up dinner and provide them a little bit of normalcy so they can relax."

That sounded very appealing, and Rebecca made a fuzzy mental note to ask him exactly what kind of tales were circulating about her later. Tania rolled Nate away, and Dylan ordered Jack down the hall to change while pushing another small stack of towels into Rebecca's arms. She accepted them with a weary smile and half staggered down the other hallway with Sam, closing the sun room's windowed door and the sheet-on-a-clothesline curtain beyond it for privacy behind her.

Rebecca started unpacking the bags they'd taken to the pool while Sam changed into a dry pair of shorts. She was just starting to ponder what clothes to dig out for herself when she heard a frustrated noise from Sam, something between a squeal and a snarl. Rebecca turned back towards her and saw she was struggling to undress — stuck with one elbow caught in the straps that criss-crossed the open back of her suit, with it halfway over her head.

"Hey, hey." Rebecca hurried over and put her hands on Sam's shoulders, shushing her gently, then untangled her arm. She helped her finish escaping from the offending garment, then swept up a clean, dry flannel and guided it on to Sam's arms and shoulders. After closing a few of the buttons in the front, she shook out the largest of the towels Dylan had provided and wrapped it around the both of them, embracing Sam inside of it. "We're okay, Samantha. We're okay."

Sam sniffled and let out a ragged sigh as Rebecca guided her to the edge of the now-inflated air mattress and sat. It took a few minutes of further comforting for her to speak.

"You just did exactly the best thing you could've. I was just... worried that you'd backslide, that I wouldn't be able to touch you again for a while, or that it'd stick this time. Maybe I'm still worried."

"Ah." Rebecca tightened her arms for a moment in attempted reassurance.

"And now I feel like an ass for checking you out earlier too. What makes me any different from those sleazebags if I'm ogling you like a piece of meat?"

"Oh, Rosie. A lot, you little idiot." Rebecca kissed the top of her head.

Sam looked up at her with bleary eyes, but managed a disgruntled squint. "Really? Resorting to short jokes?"

"Low blow, huh?" Rebecca smirked when Sam elbowed her, then fished around inside of the towel covering them to find Sam's hand with hers. She held it for a moment, then pressed them both over her heart, wondering if Sam would be able to perceive its rhythm. "You of all people are allowed to."

"Hmph." Sam was quiet for a moment. "I suppose that does make up for making fun of my height. Getting a free feel isn't entirely ineffective either."

"Hmph yourself, you lech." Rebecca kissed her on the forehead, then closed her eyes and rested her chin on top of Sam's still-damp hair. They sat like that for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and she was just contemplating that it was the first time they'd embraced without Jaime's amulet between them when there was a knock on the door.

She easily recognized the familiar one, two-three pattern she'd heard on her doorframe so many times in years past. "Come on in, Mom."

Laura slipped in, closing things behind her as Rebecca had done. "Hey, girls. Just wanted to check in on you."

Rebecca smiled over her shoulder. "We're okay, just taking a bit to catch our breath."

"That's good. I'll give you some privacy to fin— oh Jesus, Rebecca."

"What?" She had just relaxed the towel around her shoulders, preparing to wrap it around Sam and find dry clothes. Following her mother's eyes, she turned and caught a glimpse of herself in a decorative wall mirror. Her rash guard definitely hadn't come with red splotches on the back when she first found it.

Sam leaned over for a look and clicked her tongue in dismay, then started helping her out of it. The peeling fabric stung as it separated from her skin and she gained all kinds of new awareness of the scrapes on her back. She accepted the t-shirt Sam guided over her head, getting her arms through it but leaving the back tucked up into the collar, then pulled her swim top out through one sleeve.

Laura sighed as she hunched to examine her. "There's a bunch of splinters we should get out."

It was Rebecca's turn to sigh as childhood memories of sterilized sewing needles nipping at her fingers and knees surfaced. Sam smiled sympathetically and stood, passing Laura the medical kit and digging the necklace out from where they'd stashed it in the folds of an innocuous blanket stacked on a chair. The chain was long enough she could slip it over Rebecca's head without opening the clasp, and she tucked the medallion inside Rebecca's shirt collar.

It slid home, stopping when the chain drew taught, resting in the familiar spot low on Rebecca's sternum. She closed her eyes and soaked in the sensation, but flinched when Laura put a hand on her hip and dabbed at one of the gouges on her back.

Sam cupped both sides of Rebecca's face and hunkered down in front of her. "Hey. Focus on me. Look at me, right here. Look. At me."

Rebecca smiled and leaned into the one of Sam's hands that was caressing her cheek with a thumb. She kept her eyes on Sam's, studying the contrast between her light blue grey eyes and the reddish lashes fringing them. She still winced again when Laura first plucked a tiny shard of wood out with chisel-tipped tweezers, but least that one spot felt much better after Laura covered it with a bandage.

Sam glanced briefly over Rebecca's shoulder, then matched gazes with her again. "Y'know," she said in a possibly forced light tone, "I'm used to being the one patching her up all the time. I guess you're the original though."

Laura chuckled. "It does bring back some memories. I guess we're making up for a little bit of lost time."

Rebecca studied Sam's face for any signs of suddenly resurfaced distress about her own mother, but if she was feeling any, it was well-hidden. Still, she squeezed her hands, which could either come off as intuitively supportive or just general affection in the moment. "Rosie, you used that joke already, a while back." Another twinge in her back made her hiss.

Laura apologized, but spoke again after a moment. "Maybe that was for reminding me of my age and ailing memory, because I didn't remember hearing it before. Wait, what were we talking about again? Who are you and why am I digging foreign material out of your back with your shirt half off?"

"Very funny, Mom."

It didn't take too excruciatingly long to finish, and eventually Rebecca was stretched out on her side while Sam sat next to her.

Laura moved the medkit to the table and left it sitting open. "I'll go wash the tweezers off and get them sterilized over the coals or something. Why don't you two rest and I'll come get you when food's ready?"

"Okay." Rebecca lifted her arm as an invite for Sam to lay down, but kept talking to her mother. "Can you let Rufus out back to pee? I can clean up after him later if he leaves a land mine someone might step in."

"Oh, don't worry." Laura lifted the sheet curtain and began to step through. "He's already gazing longingly at whatever's on the grill, I saw him following Dylan around on the way in."

Sam moved to settle next to Rebecca, the airbed squeaking against the floor as weight shifted. "He's just shameless. Thanks, Mrs. C."

"No problem, Sam. I'd say to take care of our girl for me, but it seems that's usually the plan."

Rebecca tugged her pillow into a better position, then pulled Sam's hand close to kiss her knuckles. She could still feel where some of the hedge's branches had dug in, and a bruise was probably forming where her back slammed into the fence bars, but she was grateful to be off her feet as whatever measly resurgence of depleted adrenaline had been summoned by the splinter extraction's pain faded.