I leaned up against the wall of the common room, watching Jackson mercilessly beat the living shit out of Camille, Allie, and Mary.

“Allie talked a big game,” I told Aaron, “But damn is she getting her shit rocked.”

Aaron nodded pensively, “To her credit, she isn’t that bad.”

I watched her get blown away without landing so much a hit on Jackson. “Fair enough. She’s hanging on better than Camille and Mary at least.”

The person in question was currently raging on the couch, “Cut that wave dashing bullshit out Jackson or I swear to God I’m going to break this controller over your stupid fucking head.”

“Fuck you Allie, you’ve already got me using Kirby,” said Jackson, “just admit that you suck.”

“I’m warming up you little shitstain,” she growled back, “we’re doing Pokémon Stadium next.”

“You’ve been warming up for an hour at this point,” Camille muttered. She’d been teaching Mary the finer points of the game, because she was absolutely god-awful at it. They’d sequestered themselves in a corner of the map while Jackson shit all over Allie. Apparently, she couldn’t suffer incompetence even in herself, so she’d been practicing non-stop. Progress was… limited.

It had been an odd morning, honestly. After the team had finished breakfast (which had been surprisingly bereft of awkward pauses), I’d been a little unsure of what would happen next. At that point, there had still been another five or so hours until Rebecca woke up. I was expecting an awkward, five-hour long silence.

Reality turned out to be much more comfortable. Aaron had gathered up his team and cleaned the kitchen while Camille, Mary and I loafed around. Our guests asked to use the showers attached to their rooms, which we obviously said yes to. Camille and I took that time to get gussied up too (we had Adelaide keeping an eye on them in case of any funny business).

After that, we’d gathered in the command center (no point in hiding it at that point), and debriefed about the mission. The long and short of it was: never go back to Denver ever again. We mostly focused on how it was a damn miracle that nobody died, and that the worst injuries, other than Rebecca’s, were nothing more than mild scrapes and bruises. I claimed credit for that; the gear I’d fabricated worked beautifully. Aaron admitted that he would’ve been gutted by a Panther-Spider if not for the armor. It was mostly shit luck that Rebecca had gotten hit as bad as she did. As far as the weapons go, more grenades (and different types) would’ve been wonderful. I wasn’t planning on doing any more out-of-Paladin excursions, but I was strongly considering a line-up of grenades for the Paladin to play around with. With its arm strength, it could basically work as a short-range mortar. So that was neat.

We also talked about the incredibly bizarre Assimilator behavior before they attacked. I had my suspicions and I’m pretty sure Camille had the same ones, but we kept them to ourselves. Mine, at least, had to do with a certain information extra-terrestrial, which made it pretty sensitive information. But it was fairly entertaining watching Allie and Jackson debate hotly over if I was a secret Assimilator deity or not.

We’d pissed away the next few hours with a pair of movies. I’d sorta wanted to use that time to look over the goodies we’d picked up in Denver, but it was really okay that I didn’t. I had still been pretty damn drained from the previous night’s exploits, so some time to wind down was quite nice. Probably wouldn’t have been very productive at that point. We ended up watching the first two Indiana Jones movies. Remembering it got me thinking about if a whip could be a good weapon for the Paladin. On one hand, it would be stupid, inefficient, and probably entirely ineffective. On the other, it would be super badass, so that had to count for something.

Jackson’s loud laugh of triumph coupled with a stream of curses from Allie broke me out of my reverie. I heard Aaron chuckling lowly, and glanced over to see him looking at his two squad mates fondly. A small smile graced his featured, and I marveled again at how unfair genetics were. He caught my glance and misinterpreted it as curiosity, rather than the seething jealousy it actually was.

“I haven’t seen Jackson this… happy, for lack of a better word, in a long, long time,” he told me.

I shrugged, “That’s not surprising. It’s hard to be relaxed enough to be happy in a world like this one. Being in a nigh impenetrable bunker tends to put people in their comfort zone.”

“Oh. That’s certainly true. But I meant more that I hadn’t seen him like this since even before the end.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, surprised, “I didn’t realize that the two of you knew each other from before.” There was probably a five to eight-year gap between the two of them, so it had never really occurred to me that they might’ve known each other.

Aaron grimaced, “We don’t really act like it, do we? Jackson’s my step-brother, actually. We weren’t exactly close though.”

“Hold the fuck up, what?” I said, “Why am I just hearing about this now?”

He looked at me skeptically, “This coming from the man who told everyone his girlfriend was dead?”

“Y’know what, that’s just unfair, because I totally thought she was too. Now explain this Jackson thing,” I demanded. I checked to make sure that nobody else (Jackson) was listening in on our conversation. He was still happily kicking the snot out of Allie’s Fox, so we were in the clear.

Aaron sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, “Not much to explain. My dad got remarried a few years back, new wife had a kid already, Jackson. Parents lived in Colorado Springs, but I was up in Alaska most of the time so I didn’t see much of them. Never really got to know Jackson. Didn’t help that he was still a teenager when they got together.”

“How’d you end up joining up together then?” I asked, intrigued.

“I was on leave when the end came. Same as a lot of the guys in the Red Eagles, actually. Anyway, I was visiting my dad in the Springs and he asked me to go hunting with Jackson, get some one-on-one time together. Wish he’d gone with us. Only reason me and Jackson survived the invasion was because we were out of the city,” there was a faraway look in Aaron’s eyes, “I don’t really think you understand how hopeless it was back then. One day everything was fine, the next everything was gone. People just didn’t know how to react, didn’t know what to do. For the next week or so, I thought that the Worms were just going to finish the job, like they did everywhere else. Me and Jackson were holed up in my dad’s cabin. He’d wanted to go back to the Springs to find his mom, but I didn’t let him. The city didn’t get hit as hard as Denver did, but a carrier did attack them.”

He went quiet after that, so I prodded him a bit, “What happened next? How’d you guys join up with the Red Eagles?”

“Well, we started running out of supplies at the cabin a few days later, so we tried to find some more. Ended up in a small town south of the Springs, Jackson and I started working as guards there for a couple weeks. It was bizarre how normal it all was. Just three weeks after the end of the world and I was back to holding a rifle. You could almost forget about it.” He shook his head, “Worms attacked at the end of the first month. I’m still not really sure why, but I think we were too close to Colorado Springs. Either way, it was looking grim –“

I cut him off, “And that’s when the noble and glorious Red Eagles came to the rescue.”

Aaron cast me a withering glance.

“Hey, just guessing,” I said, “Sorry. Go on with your story.”

He cleared his throat, “Yes. Well, in any case, the town had little in the way of defenses. Just a few guards, and we did as well as we could. There were only around two hundred Worms, but that was still far too many. We’d all fallen back to the town hall, and were preparing ourselves for our inevitable last stand, when suddenly there was the sound of mass gunfire and the Worms outside went quiet.

“The Red Eagles heard our distress call and came to our aid. They saved every person in that town. I joined up with them because of that. If they’d been just another mercenary group, I wouldn’t have. They were all ex-military, a mish-mash of the survivors from the Air Force base in the Springs, and they were still protecting the people. That’s what sets them apart,” he finished with pride in his voice, “And incidentally, that’s why I don’t want you to worry about what Commander Berston has been saying. Push comes to shove, he’ll help out Sterling. He always has before.”

I gave him a nod at that, and wondered idly if this was the wild optimism that people made fun of me for.

Aaron put himself back on topic, “It was just me and Jackson in the Red Eagles for a while. Jackson doesn’t do so well with other people, so we were isolated. Things did get better once we got assigned to the 4th Scouting Team. They’re like family now.”

“Funny how that happens, right?” I said, giving the security camera a subtle wink.

“Why’d you wink at the ceiling?”

Shit. I needed to get better at subtlety. I waved the question off, and was searching for a change of subject when Adelaide started to speak.

“Sam, the treatment of Rebecca’s injury is complete,” she said over the base’s intercom.

“And the neurotoxin?” I asked.

“It has been removed entirely from her bloodstream. Rebecca should show no residual effects from the neurotoxin.”

Aaron beamed, and turned to me, “That’s excellent news! May we visit her?”

“Yes. She will be emerging from her medical sleep within two minutes. Please proceed to the medical bay,” Adelaide responded for me. I noticed she was making her voice slightly more robotic than usual. Like she had before.

Aaron, Jackson, and Allie were already walking towards the door. Allie looked back at me, “The fuck are you just standing around there for? Aren’t you coming?”

“Go on ahead, I’ve got something I need to talk to Camille about first,” I told her. A look of comprehension came over Allie’s face.

“Ah right, Rebecca doesn’t know about her. That’s going to be a real fucking awkward time. Also, you’re kind of a dick for leading her on.” She smirked at my outraged expression, and left without waiting for a response. Mary got up from the couch and excused herself as well, saying something about being in the kitchen.

“Allie’s right y’know,” said Camille after they’d both left.

“You little shit, you’re the only reason I –“ I cut myself off, noticing her teasing smile. I sighed, “You messing with me aside, I’m actually worried about it.”

Camille shrugged, “The hussy is a big girl, she’ll get over it. Besides, it’s not like you knew each other for that long. It was a crush at most.”

“Fair enough. Still sucks though.” I looked at the security camera, “But that’s not why I wanted to stay behind. Are you okay, Adelaide? I know you how much you hate acting like an AI.”

Adelaide took a second to respond, “Honestly, I am not. Not really, anyway. I have never been very talkative around them, in order for it to be more convincing if I ever did have to pretend to be an AI again. Even still, I did not expect the difference in treatment to be so… stark. They did not address me a single time since they arrived in Camelot. Only you and Camille asked for my input during the debriefing. It’s like I didn’t exist to them.” She sounded composed, but I could tell how much it had hurt her.

Camille spoke before I could, “Hey. Fuck those guys. We love you Addy, so don’t worry about being alone, okay?”

“Yeah, it’s like you didn’t even catch my super-subtle wink earlier. We’re family. And if you really want to let em’ know about you, I’m okay with it. Not sure if it’s the best plan, but I’m still okay with it,” I told her.

“I know, and I… love… you both too,” Adelaide said, a bit awkwardly, “And I of course do not want to tell them yet. Not until we can trust them fully. It was just an upsetting reminder of my previous isolation.”

“Well, if we ever do tell them, they’ll probably feel pretty guilty about it. So you’ve got that to look forward to,” I added helpfully.

“I suppose so. In any case, we should proceed to the medical bay. Rebecca is awake now, and is speaking to the rest of the squad.”

Camille groaned, “Ugh. Let’s get this over with. Might as well invite Mary along.”

“Okay, Camille, I’ll let her know,” replied Adelaide.

Camille and I started heading over to the second facility. I caught her hand in mine and interlaced our fingers. She gave me a small smile, but we didn’t talk much as we headed over. She had a determined, but distracted, glint in her eyes, and I caught her muttering a few times. My guess was that she was mentally rehearsing the upcoming conversation, like the adorable little nerd she was.

Loud conversation flowed out of the med-bay as we walked towards it. I heard Camille inhale nervously. She gave my hand a squeeze and let go. I’m not going to pretend like I knew why she didn’t want to hold my hand when we went into the room. The female mind is an enigma.

There was a pause in the conversation when we stepped in. Rebecca was standing in the middle of the rest of the team, looking fine. A little disheveled and pale, but otherwise completely okay. Her eyes were currently locked onto Camille’s. A couple seconds ticked by and it became unbearably awkward.

So, like an idiot, I tried to break the tension, “Hey buddy, how’re ya feeling?”

Rebecca ignored me completely and finished sizing Camille up. She turned to Allie, “Goddamn it, she’s gorgeous. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?”

“I figured I should let you see for yourself how little of a chance you had,” Allie responded with a grin.

Rebecca sighed, “Yeah, thanks. Asshole.” She walked up to Camille, a little bit unsteady on her feet. Camille tensed up. I had no idea what was going to happen next, but I had a very bad feeling that I would get the worst of it eventually.

Rebecca stuck out her hand and smiled brightly, “Hey. I’m Rebecca. Allie already told me a little about you. Thanks for saving my ass, now I owe you and your boyfriend one.”

Camille took it, “Camille. Nice to finally meet you, sorry that Sam is such a dense jerk.”

“Nah, it’s cool. Sorry for making googly eyes at him.”

Camille waved it off, “No worries, you had no way of knowing.”

I guess my relief that they weren’t clawing each other’s eyes out showed on my face because Rebecca shot me a scowl, “You’re not off the fucking hook here, dickweed. I can’t believe you just let me keep thinking she was dead.”

“Serious dick move,” said Allie. Aaron nodded in agreement.

I threw up my hands “Oh for the love of – Look, I’m going to say it one last time, I only knew she was alive for a fucking week! And I didn’t even realize what the hell was going on with the… other stuff… until like five days ago! It was a lot to process, okay!?”

Allie just shook her head at me, “Serious dick move.” Aaron nodded in agreement.

“Will someone please explain to me what the fuck is happening?” said Jackson from the back of the room. I stared at him. My God. There was someone more dense than I was.

Rebecca sighed, “Shut up, Jackson.”

“Hey, fuck you Rebecca, I know you just got better from being almost dead but that doesn’t mean you can go back to making fun of me!” he yelled.

“Yes it does,” she said cheerily. She ignored another ‘fuck you!’ and turned back to Camille, “I’m really bad at being cagey around people, we’re probably going to seeing a lot of each other, and I’m not interested in any love triangle bullshit. So, friends-ish?”

Camille nodded, “Friends-ish it is.”

Mary cleared her throat from the doorway. We all turned to look at her. She was holding a plate with a sandwich on it, and looking very uncomfortable. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I brought food. People get hungry after a long time in the medical pods, or so I’ve heard. What the hell were you all talking about anyway?”

The Merlin touched in the parking lot of a department store in Sterling, kicking up its usual cloud of dust. Mary walked out first, followed by myself and the rest of the squad (including Camille this time). They’d only passed by Sterling; they’d never had the chance to actually go into the town. We’d radioed ahead, so Mayor Antonio and Sheriff Wild were waiting for us. A small crowd was gathered as well, which I suppose was warranted given the fact that a highly advanced, garishly painted gunship was popping a squat in the middle of their town.

As I descended the ramp, I noticed that there was a girl holding the mayor’s hand, bouncing up and down. She looked about twelve, maybe? A woman around Mayor Antonio’s age stood next to her, who I assumed was his wife. She was pretty, with long brown hair and sharp facial features.

Antonio smiled and raised a hand as we neared, waiting until the Merlin’s engine finished spooling down to speak, “Glad to see you brought Mary home in one piece! Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Eh. It was more like she brought us back. And yup, we got it, all that’s left to do is actually figure out how to use it. How’ve things been going here?” I asked.

A flash of worry went over his face, “Well, as good as can be hoped I suppose. We’ve been taking stock of all the weapons and ammo we’ve got, and we’ve been shoring up the defenses around here as best we can.” The girl at his side pulled on his hand slightly and looked up at him. Antonio laughed, “Where are my manners? Sam, this is Lily, my daughter, and Sheila, my wife. Lily’s been dying to meet you.”

I gestured behind me, “This is the Red Eagles team I’ve been telling you about. Left to right, Rebecca, Jackson, Allie, and Aaron. Nice people, for mercs” I ignored their noises of annoyance and absorbed the last part of his introduction, then looked at the girl, “Uh. Hope it’s not weird of me to ask, but why did you want to meet me?” Well, the big robot suit and awesome ship might have something to do with it.

Lily smiled up at me, “You’re the White Shield, of course I want to meet you!”

Oh, that makes perfect se – wait what the fuck?

“I’m the who now?” I said stupidly.

Lily looked at her dad, who answered for her with a slight smile, “It’s what the runners have been calling you. You’ve made quite a name for yourself around here. Hard not to when you fly around and save people like some superhero.”

“Yeah! You saved Fort Morgan and fought off a thousand slavers! And you helped Mary and Wade and Mike! Did you really kill a Hive Lord?” Lily fired off rapidly. The crowd was inching closer as well, clearly curious too.

I floundered for a bit, then looked back at the squad and Camille for help. They were desperately trying to keep straight faced. Camille in particular looked like she was about to keel over. In short, they were no help at all. I turned to Lily again.

“Well. Uh. There weren’t that many in Fort Morgan. And I didn’t kill a Hive Lord, I just fought it,” I replied, floundering a little bit.

“But you still basically did all that stuff, right?” She asked.

I looked for the trap there, and not finding one, gave a hesitant nod. She beamed at me, and the rest of the crowd started murmuring excitedly as well. I heard Rebecca openly snickering at me, and my ears and face started to flush. And then the unthinkable happened.

I saw Lily glance at her mother, who smiled apologetically at me then handed her a small, thin holopad. My heart stopped as I realized what that meant. She whirled back to look at me, eyes brimming with nervous excitement. Oh no. She bit the bottom of her lip, made some sort of resolution, then approached me. Oh God no.

“Um,” Lily said shakily, “I wanted to show my friends that I met you. Would you mind if we took a picture together?”

“That was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Camille as we descended into the Red Eagles camp.

“It’s been like forty minutes, can you let it go already?” I snapped crankily.

Rebecca looked at me in amazement, “Please. We’re going to be bringing that up for the rest of your life. Your face when she asked you for the picture was incredible.”

“It looked a little like you shit yourself and realized your grandma died at the same time,” added Allie.

Aaron chipped in, “I, for one, think it was rather nice that people have such a high opinion of you. It goes to show that you’re having a positive impact out here.”

“Man, why don’t the Red Eagles get that sort of treatment?” complained Jackson, “Maybe we should start dressing up like twats too.”

“Fuck you, fuck you, thanks Aaron, and fuck you especially,” I said, pointing at each squad member one by one.

Rebecca grinned wickedly at me, “I think the real tragedy is that Camille’s got another rival. That twelve-year-old was thirsty.” I groaned and covered my head with my hands.

“Seriously. I need to have him wear a bag over his head. Or maybe just let him talk more, that turns most people off pretty quick,” Camille said pensively.

Mercifully, the Merlin landed moments later, so any further assaults on my fragile mental state were halted. The ramp cracked open, and the 4th Scouting Team stood and stretched. I stood as well, and walked them to the bottom of the ramp. Camille patted me on the shoulder as I went past, and then she moved inside the cockpit, letting the door slide closed behind her.

I looked at the squad with a smile, “Well, I can’t say it was a blast, but like I said to Mary, I would’ve been absolutely fucked without you all. I know you didn’t have to come with me, so thank you. I’m pretty sure we saved a lot of lives last night.”

“I’m not going to pretend it was a walk in the park,” Aaron replied, “but I don’t regret volunteering, and I think that goes for all of us. The results should be well worth the effort.”

Rebecca piped up next, “Yeah, almost dying wasn’t super fun, but for how fucked up things got, I’d say it went pretty well. Speaking of not dying, I dunno where Camille ducked off to, but thank her again for me.”

Aaron started to speak again, “And please, let me know the instant you find the missing Assimilators. Sterling seemed quite nice. It worries me that they might be in danger.”

I waved my hands at them, “I got it, I got it. I’ll be in touch most days, like usual. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. Besides, I’ll be back to visit Tom soon. I want to see how his leg is doing.”

“Fair enough,” Aaron laughed. He, Jackson, and Allie said their goodbyes and walked into the camp. Rebecca waited to talk to me.

“Hey,” I said as soon as they were out of earshot, “I’m really sorry about… everything. It all got away from me pretty fast, but I was still an asshole in the end.”

“Eh, you kinda were,” oof, “But I’m not really pissed off. Camille told me that she’s the one that made you keep her a secret. Still not exactly clear on why, but whatever. It’s like I said before, I like what we have going. So let’s keep it going, just without the me hitting on you part. That work for you, Caterpillar Man?” She asked, making eye contact and grinning.

I grinned right back, more than a little relieved, “Yes ma’am it does.”