Author's Note: Hey guys (and possibly females)! I'm back with another chapter! The almost consistency with my pumping these out is quite impressive for my standards. It's almost scary. So, I have decided to respond to whatever reviews I've gotten at the start of the new chapter.

Doom Marine 54: Don't worry, I have no intentions of doing either of those things. OC fics that tie themselves in unnecessarily annoy me, and I have a plan for the ex-military thing that doesn't have them being overpowered. If anything, it might end up becoming a weakness. Or not. Whatever you want to believe. But no overpowered OCs, I promise.

Review if you feel like it. Or not. Just remember, for every time you don't review, one Sam cries in the corner. Now then, ON WITH THE CHAPTER!

August 1, 2013 10:45 PM

Bus Heading Toward Athens

Sam's POV

I awoke suddenly, gasping for air. Looking over, I saw Seth doing the exact same thing.

"You all right, man? Don't die on me now!"

"I'm fine. I just had the weirdest dream, though."

"Really now?" I smiled. Listening to him go on and on about some stupid dream he had just a second ago was sure to take my mind off of the one that I just had. "Well then, let me hear it."

"Well, I was just standing there, in a black room, with no light at all. I waited and waited, wondering what was supposed to be happening."

I was struck silent by what he was saying. This was already sounding eerily similar to my own dream.

"So I stand there for ages, when all of a sudden, some kind of glowing blue butterfly comes out of nowhere. And the weirdest thing was, it spoke to me! Told me something about 'summoning the power of your inner self', whatever that means. Crazy, right!"

I chuckled nervously. "Haha, yeah. Crazy." This was too weird to be a coincidence. I had the exact same dream just a few moments ago. What should I do about this? I decided that the best course of action would be to just tell him about it.

"Yeah, and you know the weirdest part? I had the exact same dream just a second ago."

He shot me a strange look. "Really now? You're not shitting me?"

"No."

"Fine then, I'll test you. What did butterfly-man say his name was?"

I remembered that part easily. "Said his name was Philemon, for what it's worth."

Seth's eyes widened. "So we really did have the same dream." He looked troubled. "I wonder what this means."

"You know what, the only thing it probably means is that somebody behind us brought in the wacky tobaccy, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

Just then, like an omen from the Elder Gods to save me from the awkwardness that was filling our conversation, I saw that we were rolling into a pretty busy looking bus station.

"Huh, look at that. End of the line. Let's go, Seth."

He and I grabbed our bags and prepared ourselves to step off of the bus. As we got out, the people around the bus cheered and whistled at the newest batch of veterans returning home from the front lines. I could feel myself getting embarrassed. I never really was one for large amounts of attention. I looked ahead at Seth, and he seemed to be enjoying it. I wished that I could have been so happy. Instead, I was almost shrinking back into the collar of my uniform, and there wasn't even a collar to begin with.

"Oh, crap. Please, just stop." I muttered to myself.

Just then, Seth happened to turn around and see what a sorry state I was in.

"Hey, guys! Clear a path, why don't ya?! My buddy here's not looking to hot!"

Almost immediately, the applause died down and a pathway was made for Seth and I. I looked at him with pure gratitude and followed him into the bathroom.

I took some time to wash my face and say my thanks to Seth.

"No problem man. I know that it probably must have sucked if you aren't a fan of attention."

"Listen. I'm alright now. If you want to go on and go back to your hometown now, that's fine. Thank you for everything."

"Wait. Do you have anywhere to go?"

Seth's POV

I immediately saw the reaction that I predicted. He shuffled around uncomfortably.

"In all honesty, no. I have nowhere to go."

I should have known that. After all, he couldn't remember where he was from earlier. I highly doubted that he had anywhere picked out to go to now. I felt kind of sorry for him, in a way.

"It's alright, Sam. You can come with me for a while. The people in Lakeview are really nice, I'm sure you'll like it there. Plus, it might be nice to have another person around to help with the rent."

He looked up at me with excitement, almost like a little kid.

"Really?"

"Sure, let's go."

"Thank you so much, man. You don't know how happy I am to hear you say that. I'm sure I'll enjoy it there."

We left the bathroom and headed out the front of the building. All the time we were walking, I was mentally bickering back and forth to myself. I kept telling myself that it was the right thing to do, and that I was doing him a huge favor. Still, another part of me kept telling me that I didn't have a place for ME to stay yet, and that it would be doubly hard to find a place for him too in a town as small as Lakeview. Still, I did it, so I was stuck with him.

"Can I tell you something?"

He turned to look at me. "Sure, what is it?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, the truth is, I kinda...don't have anywhere to stay."

"What? You're kidding me, right?!"

"Sorry, man. It's true."

I briefly saw his eyes light up with annoyance. Then, as quick as it had come, it disappeared.

"You have a little bit of your military pay on you, right?"

"Yeah, but not really enough for any big purchases."

"Alright, then here's what we are going to do. Looks like you'll have a chance to room with me early. We'll pool our money and rent a two-bed hotel room. That should be easy enough, around here. Then we'll figure out what to do in the morning. Sound good?"

I looked up at the huge digital clock that was outside the bus station. It read: 11:45.

"It's getting late." I remarked. "Looks like I have no choice, do I?"

"Not if you want to sleep tonight."

It took us a little while to find a hotel, even with the abundance of hotels the city of Athens had. It seemed that we had picked a popular day for tourists to visit for our return. So, after walking around for what felt like forever, we finally found a hotel with an open two-bed room, The Knight Inn.

The building was older, but not necessarily run down. The outside was a strange shade of beige, and looking at the rooms, seemed kind of small. I guessed that this was more of an obscure hotel. We walked into the front office and I took a glance around. To our left was a service counter with a bored looking receptionist behind it. The walls were the same color as the main building outside, and to our right was an old-fashioned fireplace surrounded by comfortable-looking chairs.

Sam walked over to the receptionist and muttered a greeting. She glanced up at him inquisitively.

"One two-bedroom suite, please."

"We could save you a bit of money if you weren't so cold, lover boy." She quietly laughed at her own joke. Sam, on the other hand, had a look of pure animosity plastered across his face. Admittedly, it was pretty intimidating. She must have thought so too, because she quickly picked out keys and hurriedly gave them to him.

"You only want one night, right? That'll be $84."

Sam said nothing as he took out his wallet, paid, and snatched the keys out of her hand.

We promptly turned around and left, and I pulled out $48 and handed it to him.

"Thanks." He muttered.

"So, lover boy. I hear that-"

"I will straight up punch you in the face."

"Alright. But I do have something important to tell you. I'm not going to lie anymore. I don't actually have an apartment or anything of the sort set up."

After I said it, I felt a little better for some reason.

Sam glared over at me.

"Hey, I let you follow me back to my hometown! You didn't even have that earlier! I'm allowed to screw up a little!"

He snorted. "A little would be forgetting what time you are supposed to be picked up. This is a lot. Do any of your friends even know that you're back in the country?"

I was about to retort, but the more I thought about it, the more unsure I was. Did any of my friends even care enough to know? I'm sure I told them over the phone at some point that I was coming home. Did they just forget about me?

"Honestly, I dunno Sam."

An awkward silence permeated the air as we went into the room. Over to our left was a small kitchen area with granite counter-tops, a coffeemaker, a refrigerator/freezer and a toaster. The walls were painted a bright red, and the bedspreads were red as well. There was a corded, wall mounted telephone on one of the walls. We both took showers, and Seth kept refusing to look at me.

"I'm going to bed."

"Me too. Night."

"G'night Seth."

August 2, 2013 8:42 AM

The Knight Inn

Sam's POV

I awoke from my dreamless sleep. For a while, I just sat there in bed, savoring the feeling of having a soft bed for the first time in recent memory. After sitting there, dozing, for about ten minutes, I decided to get up and discuss with Seth what we were going to do about getting to Lakeview.

I rolled out of bed and onto the floor, causing a crashing sound that not only seemed to jolt Seth awake, but also cause a commotion in the room downstairs. I sprang up and saw Seth sitting there, with disheveled hair and all, staring a hole through me.

"Ya need something?"

"The hell was that! I was trying to sleep!"

"We'll probably have to check out soon anyway. Coffee?"

"Yeah, sure. Just give me a minute to recover from the HEART ATTACK!"

I chuckled at his reply while I walked into the kitchen area and started to fill up the coffee maker with water.

"So what are we going to do about getting to Lakeview?"

He didn't reply at first, instead he struck a pretty humorous looking thinking pose and sat there in his bed.

I shrugged and left him to that while I poured ground coffee into a filter and turned the machine on. I was in the middle of adding more water to it when, all of a sudden, Seth clapped loudly and shouted something about him having "GOT IT!"

I jumped from the sudden noise, which caused hot water to spill all over me.

"THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

"PLENTY OF THINGS, BUT THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM! I FIGURED OUT HOW TO GET TO LAKEVIEW!"

"REALLY?! THEN LET'S CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION AT A REASONABLE VOLUME LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE!"

"SOUNDS GOOD!"

"So what is your idea that is so revolutionary that you need me to spill hot coffee water on myself in order to express how great it is?"

"You know how I said that my cousin was the sheriff of Lakeview?"

"Yeah?" I didn't know exactly where he was going with this. The sheriff seemed much to busy to come and get us.

"Well, when I called him a while back, he gave me a special number that he wanted me to call when I got back in the country."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS EARLIER!"

"I forgot, okay!? At least I remembered now!"

"Whatever. There's a wall mounted phone over there." I gestured over in that general direction. The coffee was finished, so I grabbed two mugs out of the cupboard and filled them up with coffee.

"You take anything in your coffee?

"Nah."

"Good, it's not like we have anything to add to it anyway." I chuckled.

I poured the coffee and handed him his mug. Then, I just sat down and listened to their conversation.

"Hey, Drake! Been a while. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I know. I know. Oh, about 9 hours. Yeah. Knights Inn. Yeah. It was alright. Really? Thanks so much! I have something else to tell you. Oh, really? I know you're busy. Okay, you'll find out when you get here. See ya."

"So when will he be here?"

"Bout an hour."

"Got anything to do until then?"

"Yeah, I'm starving! Time to get some real food!"

Admittedly, that sounded really, really good right about now. So I grabbed my stuff and we headed over to the nearest restaurant. It was a typical American diner, complete with stained glass walls and silver-lined tables and stools.

"So, what is Drake like?"

"Well, I haven't been back since he was promoted, but from what I've heard from my friends, he's the typical 'good ol' boy' sheriff. You know, knows everyone, helps out even when he isn't on duty, well respected, that type of thing."

"Ah, sweet. Do you think he'll like me?"

"I dunno. You and I seem to be pretty similar, and he liked me a lot growing up. So you should be fine. Just mind what you say. He is legally allowed to pull his gun on you, ya know."

I laughed loudly at that. "Haha, alright, I'll keep that in mind. Oh, here's our food!"

We sat in silence for the rest of our meal, eating pancakes and sausage. After we paid our bill and left the restaurant, a black and white police car with "Lakeview Sheriff" printed all over it pulled up. The door opened and a man stepped out wearing mirrored shades. He was about 5' 11", with a slightly pointed nose and cleft chin. He wasn't overly muscular, but was still large enough to be able to pull people to the ground. He had a red face, like he had been sunburned one too many times and a big smile on his face.

"It's been way too long, cuz!" He hugged Seth pretty tightly, and Seth returned the hug. I stood behind Seth and shuffled awkwardly. I guess he must have opened his eyes underneath those sunglasses, because he quit hugging Seth and looked me up and down.

"Who's this?"

For some reason or another, I jumped to attention like I would if a commanding officer entered the room.

"I am Sergeant Sam Reed, SAH! I am a friend of Seth's, SAH!" My hand snapped to my head in a formal salute.

Drake must have thought that I was some kind of professional comedian, because he started laughing so hard I was afraid he'd blow out one of his lungs.

"There's no reason to be so formal, man. I'm Drake, proud Sheriff of Lakeview. As long as you don't get into trouble, we'll get along just fine."

I couldn't help but throw out one more formal salute.

"Thank you, SAH!"

"Well now, you'd better get in the car. We got a bit of a drive ahead of us back to Lakeview."

I climbed into the backseat of the car, which was screened off from the driver and passenger seat. Just then, I was overcome by the strangest feeling, like I was going where I needed to be. And the only thing I could think of for a brief moment was that blue butterfly.

MOAR Author's Note: So, another chapter finished. I must say, four AM upload parties are so magical, that we must rejoice whenever they occur. But it's over now, and I'm sad. Good night, all. :(