"Well, ain't this something."

The patch in Brahm's Port has finally reached a natural slowing point, but it's still a sight to behold. My truck's bed is packed with four of us. Sonja's slowly observing the plants as she works her way into the new forest, and I can vaguely see Lash's black hair sticking out in the distance. Drake made sure to buy a pack of beer, which he's split with Grit and I. As Grit pops the tab on his, he says "I'm pretty sure we're on longer on official military business."

Drake finishes his first bottle. "I'll drink to that."

"More like you drank to that," Grit catches, laughing sharply. Drake takes his bottle and prepares to toss it out of the truck, but I kick him in the shin before he finishes winding up. He gives a sheepish laugh, shrugging and tossing it towards the back of the trunk. It breaks in two, landing just in front of Jake, who clearly only seems to be in the trunk to accommodate our company.

"Not much better," I conclude.

"S'all good," Jake mumbles, climbing out of the bed and hopping onto the grass. "Think I'll go take a walk." He takes his bottle of water from the side of the truck and is out of sight.

Grit watches him as he trails away into the new world. "Reckon I might join him soon," he says. "See this for myself."

"Need a hand?" I ask, leaving my half-finished beer in the bed.

He reaches for his cane. "Need, not really. But I'd enjoy one." He uses his cane to settle onto the ground, and I join him. He winces again, but he settles onto his feet.

"Please don't drink my beer," I ask Drake. Knowingly, he laughs, before sitting up to watch us go, or looking into the distance. I can't tell.

I keep time next to him as we slowly trudge through the grass. It's up above my knee now. I have my arm around his back to stabilize him. I think I have a feeling of why he's returned the favor but I don't comment on it. "How's your leg doing?"

"Eh…" He thinks about his words. "I think it's trying to escape my stupid-ass body."

I shake my head, quietly laughing. "If your leg wanted to split town it'd have done so long before you shot it."

"You'd think it'd have skedaddled out of there the second I held a vodka bottle and a gun at the same time," he adds. "I'm just hopin' I've peaked on the stupidest shit I've ever done meter now, otherwise we've got a few decades I ain't lookin' forward to."

"Entirely from dark amusement, I am," I respond.

"Amusement," he repeats. Not a question. He's smiling, because dry, sarcastic humor about how much life sucks is our way of showing affection. We make our way through the thin brush and into the trees, and Grit reacts as if he just now remembered where he was.

"Well I'll be damned," he says, staring up. Already the canopy has stretched higher than my eye can reach. He taps the side of it with his cane, lighting up as it connects. "It's real," he confirms, awestruck.

I nod, grinning. Grit continues acting like he's seen God, and I find it charming, because I bet that's how I looked to anyone who'd have seen me earlier today. He doesn't speak much, which is disconcerting for Grit, but he keeps walking through the bush, and I follow, his response as fascinating to me as the brave new world around us. Trees, flowers, plants, all once so mundane, now so miraculous, dwarfing both of us. I don't know for sure if he's crying until he finally tears his eyes from the scenery and back towards me. He's not crying, but if he stays any longer I think even he knows he's gonna break.

"Mighty fine," he confirms, smiling. "Never thought I'd see the day."

I nod, taking his hand again, and we slowly return to the truck. We don't say anything. Nothing needs to be said. Time disappears around us for awhile, and it's just the two of us hand in hand like innocent schoolchildren, trying to appear cooler than we are, both of our palms sweaty as the world fills us with awe, and whether or not we want to admit it, anxiety.

When we get back to the truck, Sonja and Lash have both returned to the nearby vicinity, both observing near microscopic ants already having burrowed into the ground. Drake's kicked back in the bed of the truck, inching closer to sleep. Jake's got his water in his hand, looking out over the stars, and I make a mental note to buy the poor kid a soda later. Grit claps me on the shoulder, saying "thank you for the lovely walk, ma'am." I smirk, but am not above blushing.

Jake notices my return first, with a quick glance and smile before returning back to the stars. I'm curious as to what's on his mind. It's always nice to talk to the others, but Jake was always a kid that had a special place in my heart. Growing up the second child with three brothers was a very unique experience for me, although each of the three of them would say I'm the most debonair, masculine sibling- a blessing and a curse. Getting to know Jake, it didn't take long for him to become brother number four. Christ, I haven't talked to any of my brothers in ages, so I figure I should talk to him. I awkwardly maneuver around Drake's meditative-slash-drunk form and hop on the edge of the truck bed with him. I notice first off that he's no longer looking towards the trees surrounding us, but the stars above us.

"Whatcha looking at?" I've never been one to mince words.

He doesn't turn towards me, but seems startled out of his thoughts. "Oh…" He thinks for a moment, before admitting "actually, nothing. Weird."

I shrug. "Well, if you're looking at nothing, you're thinking a hell of a lot of something."

He nods. "Yeah, probably am. Although it's just my mind babbling at this rate. Lots of static, a few words every now and again."

I don't prod him. It's Jake. The words will come out before he can stop them anyhow. I kick my legs slightly back and forth, feeling a little fuzzy; buzzed, thankfully not drunk.

"Sorry about the drinks," I say. "Drake just had a six-pack on him. After that, I didn't really think."

Jake smiles. "Just let me drive home and we're good."

I nod, it's for the best regardless. Jake's always been good behind the wheel regardless, although he's prone to radio stations I could do without.

Without warning, his thoughts finally escape, breaking a silence I was barely aware lasted nearly a minute. "I'm just thinkin', ya know," he says. "With the idea of Hawke bein' behind this. It seems too good to be true, but it's also something I could see happening. But if it is Hawke, I don't know what he expects to happen when he's done."

My Days Not Thinking About Hawke counter remains at zero, and I realize that I haven't really taken his involvement in this into account as any more than just being a theory of Lash's. I can't not think negatively about Hawke, even when I try, but Jake has always been more accepting than I, and much more naive.

Still, whatever my opinions are on it, I may as well form them concretely.

"I'm not really worried about him," I admit, kicking what's left of Drake's wreckage with the bottle. "I mean-"

I'm interrupted by my peripheral view where Drake stirs awake for a few moments with an awkward grin, snug in his ill-fitting suit and tie. He uses his foot to scrape it out of the way, and I keep thinking as the bottles scrape against the bed. As they hit the grass, they take my political answers with them, and I pinch the bridge of my nose, besieged by thoughts.

I really don't know what to think, but now Jake's waiting on an answer.

"Anyway," I continue. "Yeah, Hawke… I can't say I care. Sorry kid."

He shrugs. "Hawke's the weird variable here. I guess I just came into the game too late to have really been burnt by him. But I think someone's gotta keep him in mind, and I think if I'm the only one who cares to…"

"It's something," I finish.

"And it's something I know I can do."

I smile, because I don't doubt it. Beneath his house music and his hoodie, I can't count on another CO in the allied nations to care about the human factor to the extent that Jake does. He's probably the right age for it- not too young to think the world revolves around you, not too old to think that you're the only one looking out for you. I don't remember what it's like to have a mind like that, so I decide to pick his. "How do you think Hawke being involved changes things?"

He thinks for a moment. "I get the feeling that most everyone would be happy to get him out of their hair. Up until now we thought he was a pancake with Von Bolt. And I think there's only a few people who I know who'd act differently around him. Besides me, I think there are two."

I scan through the names in my mental rolodex. "One's Lash, right? She cares too much?"

Jake nods. "Yeah, they both defected together. That was a big deal for both of them. Lash, she clearly cares a lot about him. I'm cool with Hawke, but it's more ambivalent. Lash had a friend in the dude and she lost someone close to her, and I don't think anyone else can say that."

"So if Lash is the only one who cares about him, but we aren't fond of him either…"

"I think someone doesn't really care one way or the other."

That has me mystified- I can't think of anyone I know that doesn't care. I think if you don't care about what you're doing, that's when as a CO you should be worried. I'm still peeling through my mental rolodex- Olaf cares immensely as a Prime Minister (and given that Lash is involved, this concerns me), and as an imperial emperor Kanbei cares intensely.

"I have no clue who wouldn't ca-"

Oh, but I do.

She's sitting with Lash next to an anthill. I'd swear on my life and my career that ants hadn't seen this place in a good few years before tonight, but there they are, pouring out like nothing's changed. They're all running past the two observing them- one's jumping up and down in excitement, finally living the gleeful, innocent life of a kid. The other is too busy observing them to have any tangible reaction, even as the ants use her as a monument (which for me would be the end of these ants at Brahm's Port).

Jake looks at me and looks over at Sonja. It's the look of someone who can't quite understand the mind of another human being.

So quietly even I can barely hear, as if he's too embarrassed to admit this, he whispers "I'm worried about her. What she can do."

I nod, knees at my chest. "Point taken." For some odd reason, I'm just as cautious.

Jake relaxes, and leans against the truck. "But hey," he says absentmindedly. "Maybe I'm just way off and Hawke's not at all involved in this." As he reclines, Grit walks back to the truck, cane and all. I see the glimmer of a tear on his eye but do us both the kindness of not acknowledging it. Jake finishes with "Could be nice."

It'd be nice, but now that the variable's been introduced, you'd have better odds cutting down every tree in the forest with Drake's broken beer bottle than to never cross paths with Hawke again.

Next thing I know, Grit's climbed up to the bed of the truck and I feel his presence next to me. It's nice, and I let it be. It's the closest thing to actual rest I've experienced in a fair amount of time. He at one point whispers "It's lovely out there", but my eyes are too closed to see it one last time.

Time passes by in a blur. I'm never quite asleep- while Grit's snoring lightly next to me. I eventually feel the truck decompress as Jake maneuvers his way out of bed and into the cab. There's some talking going on between him and the others, but eventually I feel Lash and Sonja sit next to me- Lash is talking a mile a minute and it's a miracle Grit doesn't wake up, but as she plops down right across from me I feel Sonja quietly take a steadier seat. Next thing I know, the truck's on, and we're heading out. All five of us save Jake are in the bed, either chatting up a storm, napping, or in my case- me, not doing anything except enjoying every moment I'm not entirely conscious.

My attention isn't sparked again until suddenly Lash starts whispering. I figure at first that she's just being courteous to those napping, but then I remember- Lash doesn't whisper. Ever. I tried teaching her manners during the last war, of anyone I should know this. I don't open my eyes, playing dead, but I hear her continue to whisper and try and focus on it. Not easy to do with this big lug snoring in one ear, but the other one's fine.

I hear Lash whispering more- if you can call it that- and Sonja trying to hush her in a way much too frantic for Sonja. I can't make too many words out in the hubbub- I think I hear some words like plant and Chersneg and fix, but I could just be making them up in my little game of detective. I start to fade out again before I look too awake and aware, when I hear three words that nearly have me leaping out of the truck bed. My arm's on Grit's bad leg and it's a wonder I don't wake him up and re-break his leg.

"He'll be there."

I keep my eyes closed, trying to rationalize ways that this isn't what I think it means, and I come up empty. If I wasn't exhausted before, I sure am now. Even with everything Jake said, this still comes out of left field for me.

Things just got a whole lot harder.