AN - And so we head into season 2 episodes, good stuff shall happen. Enjoy! :) This chapter mentions the lovely Grace Mason, OC of the lovely Jemmz.

Chapter 11: All Together Now

- two months later -

The morning after Tom Mason returned, the 2nd Mass was still buzzing with excitement.

Upon watching Tom be carried into the medic bus the night before, Casey had been ushered away with everyone else by Weaver and had spent a restless night wondering how the hell Tom made it off an alien spaceship. From what had Grace told her, Tom had apparently just appeared right at the end of a skitter and Mech battle. The girl was so obviously frazzled at her father's sudden return, Casey didn't bug her about it further.

Casey awoke early to Etta's usual grizzling, but she managed to quiet her down with a bottle before she woke up Lee. Lee began rooming - or tenting - with Casey soon after they returned from the forest with Etta two months before. After helping bury Abigail by the river, Lee had suggested that Casey shift her tent over to the Berserkers side of the camp. That night, Casey moved her tent and Lee had moved right on in, quite happy to be rid of her former roommate, Lyle. The Berserkers weren't too thrilled about having a baby wake them up at all hours, but Casey felt a lot better with all those eyes on Etta.

Now three months old, Etta had transformed into a brand new little creature. She'd almost doubled in size, and her wrinkly pink skin had become soft and milky-white. Her hair had thickened and darkened to a golden brown colour. She looked more like a baby now, and less like the cooked chicken Casey had pictured when she'd laid her in the bathroom basin the first night out of Fitchburg.

Etta was learning, too. Currently, she was trying to get the hang of holding up her head, but she could only do it for a twenty seconds or so at a time. Casey tried to encourage her by putting her on her tummy and dangling a toy above her, but Etta just rolled onto her back and grabbed for the toy like a kitten would. Casey had also begun to notice that Etta seemed to recognize her. When Casey went to the basket in the mornings, Etta would look right at her, smile and kick out her legs. It never failed to make Casey smile right back.

After feeding, burping, and changing Etta, Casey bundled the baby in two blankets to combat the morning chill and went off to find a baby-sitter. Even with Tom Mason's return, Pope was still insisting on continuing their training.

Since they had run out of things to bet on in their poker matches, Casey and Pope had started offering favours as currency instead. Strictly non-sexual, non-dangerous favours. From last week's win, Casey had earned Pope teaching her to handle a gun. And though Pope maintained that this fell under the banner of dangerous, he agreed to give her lessons.

Learning to shoot was something Casey had always intended on doing with the 2nd Mass. But now that she had Etta, people seemed to assume that was her "job". However, after everything that happened with Abigail, and now that her broken wrist had healed, Casey knew she had to be prepared if something happened again. And the fact that everyone kind of expected her not to learn was a surprisingly effective motivational tool.

But Pope had his rules that Casey begrudgingly agreed to follow, and rule number one? No kids allowed.

Down by the river's edge washing their clothes, Casey found Maggie and Hal. Normally, when she "trained" with Pope, Casey left Etta with Grace. But with Tom's sudden return, Casey didn't want to bother her. So, she went to her second choice. "Morning!" She greeted the pair brightly. Best to start off in a good mood considering she was looking to employ Maggie as a babysitter for a few hours.

"Morning," Maggie replied over her shoulder, smiling when she saw Etta.

"How's your dad?" Casey asked Hal as Etta gummed down on her thumb.

Hal gave her a who-knows shrug. "He flickers in and out of it," Hal said. "Grace and Matt are with him now in case he wakes up again."

"Has he said anything?" Casey inquired. "About where he was? How he got away?"

"No," Hal replied sharply, squeezing water out of his t-shirt. "Probably best to wait 'til he's out of the woods before we interrogate him."

Whether or not the harshness in his voice was meant for her, Casey didn't question him further. Instead, she focused on Maggie. "Hey, can you look after this?" Casey held out Etta, who was sucking her whole fist. "Just for an hour or so?"

"Why?" Maggie gave her an odd look and smiled. "You got a date or something?"

"Weapons 101 with Professor Pope."

Maggie's smile faltered. She slapped her hands dry on her jeans as she stood up. "That's still going on?"

"Yeah, it goes on until I carry a gun. But I can't take this," Casey wiggled Etta a little in front of Maggie. "Will you please watch her? She loves you so much, she tells me all the time how you're her fav-"

"Oh, shut up," Maggie plucked Etta out of Casey's hands. "Fine, I'll watch her."

"Thank you," Casey said, and then headed for her training session. It was no secret to Casey that Maggie wasn't a fan of Pope, or a fan of Casey taking lessons from him, but Casey trusted her own judgement and didn't have any reservations.

It had been when Maggie had witnessed one of Casey's epic defeats of Pope at poker that she had pulled her aside, and suggested that she be careful around Pope. This wasn't news to Casey, it was something Maggie had mentioned to her before. Despite being the younger of the two of them, Maggie apparently saw it as her duty to warn Casey about him.

Maggie's history with Pope was as clear as mud. Maggie was the only remaining member of Pope's original, pre-Berserker gang. And whatever had happened back then remained a mystery to Casey, all she had to go off was the tension between Pope and Maggie.

It clearly wasn't jealousy, a stranger could look at Hal and Maggie and see how besotted they were with each other. Casey trusted Maggie, to the point that she was one of a very limited number of people Casey would recruit to watch Etta. But Maggie never elaborated on her warning of "be careful". Casey knew Pope had been in prison, he liked to drink, and he was an arrogant jerk, she figured that's what Maggie was referring to. If Maggie thought Casey was in serious danger, Casey was positive she would say so.

"This is your target," Pope lectured, knocking his fist against the trunk of a thick Oak tree about fifteen feet away from where Casey stood. On the trunk, Pope had drawn a skitter head in bright blue chalk. "Skitter brain. All it takes is one good shot."

After spending most of their early lessons learning how to load her revolver, Casey was now learning the ropes of firing. Pope was oddly strict about his study plan. "And what if my target has limbs, what do I do then?"

"Don't sass me, Taylor," Pope pointed his stick of blue chalk in her direction as he walked back and stood safely behind her. "How's your stance?"

"Feet shoulder-width apart," Casey recited. "Two hands on the gun: I'm not a gangster."

Pope gave her a nod of approval. "Now take a shot."

Casey exhaled to calm her nerves. The 2nd Mass was a resistance group of survivors, gunfire was part of the package. Casey was used to the crack of firing rifles or the blast of a shotgun, but pulling back on the trigger herself was a different story.

It wasn't the noise that made Casey jump as much as the shuddering recoil of the gun in her hands. For a split second, she was ten-years-old again catching one of her father's hefty tosses of a baseball. It was the similar feeling of sudden heat smacking her palm, and the subsequent prickling feeling like her hands were just recovering from being numb. Briefly, she imagined her father watching her learn to shoot, gruffly shouting his encouragement.

The sharp smell of gunfire brought Casey out of her memory. The gun was still pointed right at the tree, but her bullet had definitely missed the chalk skitter head. She glanced over at Pope, he didn't look impressed.

"You're still too tense," Pope stood beside Casey and pulled both her arms out straighter. "Keep these straight, but not taut. And don't grip the gun," He repositioned the pistol in her right hand. "It's a bad habit, you squeeze too tight at the wrong time, you nudge the trigger and blow your own head off." He took two steps back. "Try again."

Casey fired a second shot. She tried to keep her eyes on the bullet trajectory, but she lost it almost immediately. However, she was pretty sure she heard the bullet cutting through the forest. But then again, it was windy. Her third and fourth shots went the same way as the first two, but her fifth managed to hit the trunk - a good two feet above the skitter head.

"Huh," Casey turned to Pope with high eyebrows. "Better, right?" Pope remained unenthusiastic. "Think you could teach without the attitude?"

"Think you could learn without the attitude?"

Casey grinned to herself. "Hey, if I'm not learning right, you're not teaching right." She attempted to fire the revolver again, but it just clicked empty so she took a seat on the log behind her to reload. That was one thing she managed to get the hang of pretty quickly. "So, how was the hunt? Before Tom's miraculous return, I mean."

"Skitter guts flying every which way," Pope shrugged, a satisfied smile crossing his lips.

"Aw, then you had fun," Casey counted out enough bullets for her gun and loaded them into the chamber one by one. "What do you think about Tom coming back?" Casey looked up, noting the unsettled expression that took over his face. "You don't look so thrilled to see him again."

"Man steps onto an alien rocket then just happens to show up right three months later, right where we're fighting a bunch of Mechs and Skitters?" He gave a dismissive shake of his head. "Serendipitous, right?"

Casey chewed her bottom lip. She didn't much care for the timing of Tom's return either. But then again, Grace had shown up days after she was thought to have been lost. Mason blood was tough like that. Hopefully when Tom recovered, he could shed some light on it all and ease everyone's suspicions. It definitely wasn't just Casey and Pope who had questions.

The uncertainty of it all, however, did make Casey more eager to learn how to shoot. She slid the last bullet in, slapped the chamber back into place and got back up into position. "How the heck am I supposed to stay relaxed in the middle of a gunfight?"

"Practice," Pope took the revolver from Casey's hand. "Eventually, it becomes second nature." He casually pointed the gun one-handed at the skitter head and fired. It splintered the tree trunk right between the skitters chalk eyes.

"Improper stance," Casey commented, annoyed when he turned to her looking smug. She wondered if this was how he felt when she owned him at poker. Annoyed that she was being bested, and annoyed that she was still having fun.

"Call it an expert's luxury," Pope said nonchalantly, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "You have poker," He aimed the revolver at the tree again. "I have guns."

"Fine, make it again?" Casey waited until he put his finger on the trigger. "And I'll blow you."

Pope looked at her, startled, at the exact moment he pulled back on the trigger. The bullet disappeared into the forest the same as most of Casey's had, leaving the chalk skitter with just the one head wound.

"Shame," Casey patted his shoulder and took the gun out of his hands, trying her best not to laugh at the surprised look on his face. "I don't offer twice."

Feet shoulder width apart, two hands on the gun, Casey was preparing to shoot again when the sudden rise in voices from the 2nd Mass caught her attention. Turning, she saw everyone gathering around the medic bus. There was Tom Mason, smiling and up on his feet.

xxx