Chapter 12


"You wanna go look? I'm told that they have carpet on the ceilings." Larrin said to Miller as they two were sitting at the table with everyone else.

Miller and Wolf had drop by the house after they had been relieved from their post by the next shift. After a quick tour of the house they'd all sat down at the dining table to share a couple beers and an afternoon snack while Kathleen and Tex cooked dinner. It was more like Kathleen teaching Tex on how to cook as the man was hopeless and already burnt water.

Kara, Larrin, Danny, Miller and Wolf sat at the table watching in amusement before breaking into their own conversations. Danny was telling Wolf all about his and Kara's place as he'd done a walk through with Tex. It was much worse than he had expected and would require a lot of work.

"Now?" Miller asked Larrin as she had turned to him and asked if he wanted to go check it out. He couldn't help but smile as Larrin made Kara and Danny's horror show of house sound like an adventure to see by how excited she looked when she suggested they go.

"Yeah, unless you don't want to see the shag pile room or the dead fish aquarium shower screen." Larrin said to him.

"The plushy dog pouf sounds like a sight to behold." Wolf said, he hadn't seen the interior of Danny and Kara's home but he had a feeling he could live without knowing until it was daylight.

"You can have it if you want." Kara said, she hadn't ventured into the house but from what she heard, she had automatically decided to let Danny deal with it. They'd already discussed it when they took over the Granny flat in the backyard; which was small but perfectly fine with her as their place needed to be gutted and all of the carpet in it's various forms removed as Kara wanted hardwood floors. She just hoped under the all the crap the house had good bones as she and Danny weren't made of money or a lot of time.

"You don't want to save it for the kid's room?" Wolf asked her in a mocking manner.

"I would not deny you this one thing." Kara deadpanned, they all chuckled as they could tell Kara was happy to divest as much of the interior as possible.

"So?" Larrin asked Miller, she was pretty eager to check out Kara and Danny's shop of horrors' house but didn't want to go alone. It was also a perfect excuse to get Miller alone as she knew her brother wasn't moving now he had a beer in his hand and was relaxed back in his chair at the dining table.

"Ok. As long as the Lieutenants' don't mind." Miller said looking to Kara and Danny. He half expected Wolf to say he was tagging along but he just remained quiet.

"Knock yourself out." Danny said throwing the house keys at Miller. Larrin smiled and jumped out of her chair and moved to the door as Miller followed like a faithful puppy.

"Be back before dinner." Tex hollered at them as they left the house. Danny and Wolf wore bemused smiles as Tex sounded every bit the father. "What?" he asked them.

"Nothing." Wolf said.

"So you're ok with that?" Danny asked as he gestured the neck of his beer bottle in the direction of Miller and Larrin who were walking across the lawn.

"Yeah, Miller's a good egg." Wolf said.


"You want me to go first?" Miller asked as the hallway lights flickered on to reveal the creepiest hallway he'd ever seen. He wasn't sure if it was the poor fluorescent lighting or the decor as the lizard statues that were stuck on the walls seemed to stare at them with red little eyes.

"Yes," Larrin told him with an emphatic nod as she moved behind him. "That way I can use you as a human shield." she added.

"Ok." Miller said with a chuckle though part of wished he had brought a weapon with him. Something about the house gave off the vibe that maybe zombies or a serial killer was going to jump out and attack them. He took a tentative step inside and couldn't help but understand why Kara wanted to burn it down. The feel of shag pile under his boots and being watched by statues was just wrong. He looked over his shoulder at Larrin and found she was still at the door.

"You coming?" he asked. Larrin gave a small smile and a nod before she closed the gap between them until she was right behind him. Miller felt his heart beat a little quicker as he felt her hands grip the back of his BDU shirt at the back. "You want to hold my hand?" he asked in a bemused manner as he looked over his shoulder at her.

"No, how am I supposed to throw you to bad guys if you're holding onto me?" she asked in a teasing manner.

"Suit yourself." he said as he didn't mind either way.


"I can do this." Tex assured Kathleen with a smile.

"I don't know, I didn't think it was possible to burn water but you proved me wrong." Kathleen said to her father as they were chopping vegetables on the cutting board together. "Smaller pieces otherwise we'll be waiting hours to eat." She advised him.

Tex gave her a salute before he continued chopping. Yeah, he was hopeless in the kitchen but when he was put in front of a BBQ or open fire he could cook like a pro. But he wasn't willing to give up the kitchen to his daughter as he liked her pestering him, it just showed him how much of Claire still lived on Kathleen.

"Yeah, I can tell you now if you don't feed Larrin on time she'll probably eat one of us." Wolf joked as Miller and Larrin had been gone for nearly 15 minutes.

"I guess we'll know what happened to Miller if he doesn't show up for dinner." Tex joked to Wolf.

"And if they both don't show up then it means the house ate them because it's possessed by evil lizard statues." Kara said as she was in the midst of making a salad to go with the dinner as she had gotten bored at the table.

"You're being a little over dramatic." Danny told her with a chuckle.

"Yeah, they are probably having S-E-X." Tex stated.

"I can spell Dad." Kathleen told him dryly.

"Oops, pretend you didn't hear that until you're 40." Tex told her with a smile. Kathleen just rolled her eyes at him but inwardly enjoyed the humour of it.


Rachel stirred awake as her bed hit a bump. She immediately frowned as she was pretty sure her bed was supposed to be stationary. She opened her eyes and found she was no longer in her room but in the back of an ambulance.

"Take it easy," a old man in great physical shape with a Texan accent and impressive moustache drawled at the driver.

"Doing my best but these roads are in bad shape." The driver commented back at him, her accent sounded like she were from the east coast up north but Rachel couldn't much more as another jolt sent pain through her body. She gave a groan the man beside her noticed.

"Well, hello there." he said with a friendly enough smile for a perfect stranger. Panic gripped Rachel as she wondered if she had been kidnapped.

"Who are you?" Rachel demanded as he didn't look like a paramedic or Doctor. The man held out his hands in surrender as if to show she was safe.

"I'm Emmerson Whitley, US Marshal Ma'am." he told her.

"US Marshal?" She asked confused as to what was going on. Why would the US Marshals kidnap her.

"Threats have been made against your life so we're taking you somewhere you'll be safe." He told her as if reading her mind but not to the extent that he could defend himself.

"Safe?" She asked, tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back as she felt anything but safe.

"Yeah." he told her.

"Take me back." Rachel told him in her strictest tone. His lips quirked sympathetically like he'd had this kind of conversation before and shook his head.

"Look, I'm sorry but Chandler made the call. He wanted you kept safe from the Immunes so we're taking you somewhere safe until the country has stabilised and the Immune threat has been neutralised." Emmerson told her.

"Tom did this?" Rachel asked in disbelief, she didn't know why but she felt betrayed and angry that he would make such a huge decision about her life without even running it by her.

"Everything will be fine, but we're going to be on the road for a bit. So you best just take it easy." he told her.

"But I don't even know you." Rachel bit out.

"Here." he said, he handed her a letter. She reached for it with shaky hands as she immediately recognised Tom's handwriting.

Dear Rachel,

I hope you can forgive me...


"I don't know, I think I like the lounge room the best so far. Though the fairy floss pink shag pile on the ceiling with the chandelier is creepy. But a floor that's just cushioned amazing. All you have to do is put the TV on the ceiling. Instant cinema." Larrin said she waved her hands in front of her like she was painting a picture.

"Yeah, I'm not sold." Miller said to her as he felt increasingly more confident and comfortable in Larrin's presence. They had made their way slowly through the house pointing out the worst features and making jokes. Laughing, it felt great to feel so free after the last tense weeks.

"Well, you don't have to live here." Larrin said as she playfully bumped her shoulder into his. Miller smiled at her before he focused on where he was walking instead of staring at Larrin. "You know you never told me where you lived in Iowa." Larrin said as she moved up the stairs before him. She turned and faced him with a coy smile.

"My Mom's family owns a book store." he told her.

"Like Barnes and Noble bookstore or one of those secondhand bookshops where it looks like an old library and has old fashioned wing chairs and ladders with piles of books everywhere?" Larrin asked with keen interest as she wanted to know what made Miller tick.

She knew he liked her but he didn't overly flirt with her. It was kind of like he didn't know how or maybe she was just not used to being treated like a woman with a mind that his flirting was too subtle for her to detect but she loved that she could talk to him like their friends. She liked that she didn't have the uncomfortable tight knot in her stomach that came when she knew she was going to be kissed too soon in the relationship.

She didn't know why but she had a feeling that if Miller was going to kiss her he'd actually ask her first. Something that for some reason she found incredibly hot and then made her wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him. She mentally pushed the thought away as she felt she was getting ahead of herself given they hadn't even had a date and he had yet to go and find his mother which she understood was more important at the moment. Frankly she wanted him to go and find his mother, as she wanted him to know for sure either way if the woman was alive or dead as it was better than living in the limbo she was in.

"More like a secondhand bookshop though it has new books as well. It was a great place to grow up. My Mom would read to me every night when I was a kid and she'd do this thing every Wednesday night." Miller said with a smile that lit up his smile even if his eyes were a little wistful.

"What?" Larrin asked him curiously as she liked him talking about his life.

"We had this globe of the world, huge thing that sat in the corner. Every Thursday she spin it real fast and say 'Where we having dinner tomorrow?'. I'd stop the globe with my finger and she'd look down with this big ol' smile. 'Looks like we're having Dinner with Mongolian traders in the Gobi desert' or 'Tonight we walk the streets of Paris'. She'd find a book with pictures of wherever my finger ended up on that globe and the next night we'd sit down with the book open to a picture of that location and eat the French style food if we were in France. Mongolian Lamb-"

"In the Gobi desert." Larrin finished with a smile as she could just picture Miller as a kid sitting at dinner table dressed up as if he were going on adventure through a book.

"Yeah," Miller said, feeling a little sad as he missed those days and because he'd been using his Navy pay to buy his mother a round the world ticket. So she could see some of the places they had pretended to be. "We didn't have a lot money to travel anywhere so we travelled with books." he told her.

"I think that is awesome." Larrin told him sincerely.

"I never told anyone that before." he confessed but then he knew how the guys would react. They'd come up with some stupid nickname and just bag him out for being a Momma's boy. So he'd kept it to himself as he didn't want his memories to be tarnished like that. But he liked that he could share it with Larrin and that she genuinely thought it was cool.

"Thank you for telling me." Larrin said holding out her hand to him. He smiled as he took her hand in his. He liked the innocence and trust in the gesture. "Now let's see if we can find this dog pouf, cause I feel we need to give it to my brother for his birthday which is in a couple of weeks." Larrin told him with a smile.