"Excuse me?" Jenny said in confusion as she stared at the Firefly standing before her.

"She's not really your daughter is she?" Mark asked Nate, ignoring Jenny.

"Not biologically, no," Nate responded reluctantly. "...But I've looked after her for a very long time."

"Didn't think so," Mark said, turning his gaze back to Jenny. "She's the spittin' image of Jim."

Jenny's eyes widened at the sound of her father's name. Could he still be alive? She'd given up hope of ever being reunited with him a long time ago.

"What was his last name?" Jenny asked. She had to be sure that it was really him.

"Heh, it's a hard one to forget," Mark said, a smile forming on his gruff face. "Twinkley. His name is James Twinkley."

Isaac tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a chuckle. He'd always found Jenny's last name amusing. Jenny did, too, but amusement was the furthest thing from her mind right now. Her eyes were wide in surprise, her jaw hanging slightly agape. It was him. This man definitely knew her father.

"Where is he? Is he alive?" Jenny asked.

Mark turned and walked to a corner of the armory Jenny hadn't noticed. Jenny quickly followed, anxious to hear Mark's response. The others followed, though a bit slower.

The lockers and gun racks in this area had been cleared out and rearranged to form a sort of small living quarters. An old wooden table with five matching chairs sat in the center of the space. A ratty-looking, formerly blue couch sat along one wall. A row of metal shelves, stocked with food and water, sat along the adjacent wall. A single gun rack sat next to these shelves and, unlike the other racks, had several rifles propped up on it. The armory was clearly being used as a hideout and probably had been for some time.

"Last I knew, yeah, he's still alive. He's a surgeon back at the lab in Colorado," Mark replied, grabbing a faded box from one of the shelves.

"But that's not really important, right now. We have bigger things to worry about," he said, a sullen and stone-cold expression suddenly replacing the slight glint of humor on his face as he pulled a small rectangular object, wrapped in green plastic, from the box.

"You got that right," Nate sighed, coming to stand next to Mark and crossing his arms. "With Lana being captured, the military is going to go nuts."

By this point, Jenny had stopped paying attention to them. She was focused on the news of her father. He was alive. He was actually alive.

Jenny turned and walked towards the decrepit couch, vaguely aware that the others had left her and sat down at the table. She heard Nate mutter something about granola bars being barely edible before the outbreak. Jenny sat down on the edge of the couch, hands laying flat in her lap. She stared blankly in front of her, not really looking at anything. After all these years, she finally had a chance to reunite with her real father. But...how would Nate take it? He'd been looking after her for so long that even she considered him her father now. How could she just turn her back on him? He'd been the one who'd kept her safe, comforted her when she had nightmares, fed her, clothed her, treated her like family. Nate and Marian had waited nearly a month outside the Providence QZ, holed up in an abandoned apartment. They'd scouted the area, asked any survivors they met if they knew Jenny. They had done everything in their power to attempt to locate her family. Had her father even tried to find her after they'd been separated? Did he even care?

Of course he did, she thought to herself harshly. This is a shitty, dangerous world. Who knows where he ended up after the Infected attacked us.

What mattered was that he was alive and he was in Colorado so that was where she needed to go. She suddenly realized, however, that she did not know where in Colorado he was. Only that he was at some lab. That could have been anywhere and Colorado was an awfully big area to search.

"Ok, wait," Isaac spoke up suddenly, jarring Jenny from her thoughts. "Hold on. What exactly is going on here?"

Everyone, including Jenny, was now staring at Isaac. Isaac was seated at one of the side chairs by the table, a look of genuine confusion painted on his face. Marian and Mark sat at opposite ends of the table while Nate leaned against the wall near Marian, his arms crossed.

"Who exactly is this guy?" Isaac continued, pointing at Mark. "...And how do you know each other? And what the hell do you mean that Hartford is a staging zone? Somebody please explain to me what is going on."

Staging zone? Jenny thought. She pushed the thoughts of her father to the back of her mind and got up from the couch. Her curiosity had been piqued at the mention of Hartford being some kind of staging zone.

"I'm Mark and yes, I'm a Firefly," Mark said, casting a scathing glance at Jenny as she approached.

"Yeah, I gathered that, but what are you doing here? I wasn't aware the Fireflies were even active around here." Isaac shot back.

"We're not, really. We were keeping an eye on the place, but we were staying well out of sight. There hadn't been much reason for us to focus our efforts here. It was, after all, one of the better zones to be living in."

Jenny cast an I-told-you-so glance at Isaac as she sat down in the chair next to him, hands folded and elbows resting on the table. He snickered back with a toying glance that said, You're actually siding with a Firefly? but she ignored him.

"Every couple months, a two-person team was sent in to scope it out, see if things had changed," Mark continued. "After we got involved in Boston, the scout teams starting reporting subtle changes, but nothing major enough to warrant our attention, particularly since we were focused on Boston and that required everything we had."

"So you admit that you're at fault for the military becoming so abusive," Jenny accused, surprising even herself at how quickly her contempt for the Fireflies returned after the reverie she experienced at the news of her father.

"Jenny!" Marian hissed under her breath, casting a disapproving glance in her direction.

"No," Mark shot back forcefully, the anger burning in his eyes. "The military's nothing but a bunch of self-righteous assholes looking out for themselves. See, Boston's always been a tightly controlled, oppressive zone. Even before the Fireflies were very well known. So, no, it isn't our fault."

"Tsch," Jenny snickered, leaning back and crossing her arms. She couldn't help it. She really didn't trust the Fireflies.

"The military here is just starting to show their true colors," Mark continued.

Mark narrowed his eyes and his glare turned deadly. "Why? You a sympathizer?" he hissed.

"No!" she barked incredulously. "I just happen to trust the Fireflies about as much as I do the military."

Mark glared at her for a few more seconds, no one else daring to speak.

"Anyway," he started once again, "long story short, we hit Boston and we had some success at first, but the military started pushing back. They got extremely aggressive in trying to dig us out. Dozens of Fireflies and supporters have been publicly executed. It's a pretty even game at this point, but with us not having a base of operations in the area, we're losing out. Supplies are running low and most of the citizens are too terrified to fight back."

"Ok, but I still don't see what that has to do with Hartford," Isaac said cautiously, the tension from moments ago just beginning to fade.

"Three weeks ago, we intercepted a message indicating that Hartford was to be used as a staging zone for military supplies."

"Why here?" Isaac asked.

"We're set up for it," Nate cut in. "The center they use for a warehouse is like a fortress. The zone itself is relatively well guarded, although our wall isn't nearly as good as Boston's."

"And it's away from the fighting, but close enough to get emergency supplies in a relatively short time," Marian stated.

"Right," Mark agreed. "And we couldn't let that happen. There's no way we could keep up the fight if they had a ready supply of weapons just waiting to be shipped out at a moment's notice. Initially, we planned to take over the zone and establish a base here, but that would have spread us out and left us fighting on two fronts. So we opted for a more low-profile approach."

"That's where we came in," Nate said proudly, unfolding his arms and stepping forward. He leaned onto the table with both hands.

"Right," Mark said, casting a very brief, appreciative glance at Nate. "Lana and I were stationed out here to monitor the incoming supplies. The four of us worked out an agreement to smuggle out anything of value."

Jenny had noticed that Nate and Marian had been making a lot more drops without her and Isaac in the last few weeks. Though she hadn't thought much of it before now. They weren't trying to keep their activity with Mark secret from her, she knew that. After all, she knew of at least a few other times they'd made drops for the Fireflies. They just never mentioned it because they knew what she thought of the Fireflies and wouldn't want to help anyway. In fact, there had been at least one occasion where Isaac had gone with them and she'd stayed home.

That's why he was awake, she thought. She'd thought it a little odd that he'd been up to catch her and Isaac sneaking back in after their game of HORSE. He was normally such a sound sleeper and probably wouldn't wake up even if an earthquake shook him out of his bed. He must have been meeting with Mark and Lana to discuss their plans. And that would explain the shadow she'd seen out her window, too. Probably Mark or Lana leaving the hideout.

"At first, we thought maybe the message was outdated. That they'd abandoned the idea," Mark continued. "Shipments were normal. Just enough munitions to restock this zone. Sure they'd significantly tightened up security, but that was nothing unusual really. But then..."

"Then," Nate cut in, "we got yesterday's shipment."

The next two days, they spent laying low. Waiting. Watching from a distance. Not daring to set foot inside the walls. The third day, Nate took a chance and tried to sneak back into the zone to see how things were. He'd insisted that Marian stay behind to maintain as low a profile as possible and this time, she didn't argue. He had returned safely and undetected, but not without bringing back terrible news. Nate discovered that, as had been expected, Lana was publicly executed for affiliation with Fireflies. Somewhat unexpectedly, however, the military had forced as many citizens as possible to witness the execution. It had been a statement: get involved with the Fireflies and this is your fate.

What was far more troubling was what he discovered when he attempted to retrieve a few supplies from their hideout. The military had found their hideout, but that wasn't what bothered him. Supplies (particularly weapons and ammunition) were highly valuable, but not irreplaceable. Human life, however, was most definitely irreplaceable. The military had taken every single person in their former apartment complex into custody. Young children were taken from their parents, most likely to be put in military schools. Dozens of families torn apart. Anyone 18 or over was thrown into containment cells. They were brutally interrogated. Beaten, tortured, anything the military could think of to get information. Nearly two dozen had already been executed, though most of them Nate could say with 100% certainty were not involved in any way with the Fireflies.

Jenny was shocked. She hadn't thought the military capable of such brutality. Such complete and utter disregard for life. The news had shocked them all, including Mark. The one who took it hardest, though, was Nate. He felt guilty for it all. They all did, really, but for Nate, it was overwhelming. He kept saying that if they hadn't been spotted entering the building or if they'd just gone somewhere else...

For two days, Nate moped around the station, never once leaving. Sometimes he roamed the empty halls, but most of the time he sat on the cold steel bench near the holding cells staring blankly from cell to cell. Marian, Jenny, Isaac, and even Mark had tried on several occasions to break him out of his guilt-ridden depression but to no avail.

On the third day, however, Jenny found Nate up on the roof of the station. He was standing near the edge, arms crossed, staring off towards the zone. Concern immediately crept across her face. Both from what she thought he was about to do, and from the fact that he could very easily be spotted by soldiers patrolling the walls. He wasn't one to be so careless, but he hasn't been himself lately.

"Hey, Nate," she said softly, scanning the walls as she came to stand beside him.

"Hey," he said, not even turning to look at her.

She could not see a single soldier anywhere on the walls visible from where they were standing. The only checkpoint on this side of the wall was near the river some distance away, hidden behind a large decrepit hotel building. Perhaps Nate hadn't been as careless as she initially thought.

"Nice day, huh?" she said after a moment.

The sun was shining brightly in the mid afternoon sky. A cool breeze was blowing, gently tugging at Jenny's hair. It was a nice offset to the blistering heat waves rising from the pavement below and the roof around them.

"Yep," he said, again barely acknowledging her presence.

Another long moment of silence passed between them.

"Ok, look. I've been thinking," Jenny started. "What if you and Mark and all of you, what if you're right about the Fireflies and the military?"

This time Nate did turn to look at her. He wore an expression that almost resembled surprise, peeking out from beneath the guilt.

"It kind of started when Isaac not-so-gently pointed out that my father is a Firefly," she said, a faint smile playing across her face. "But then you brought us the news of what happened after we left the zone."

Nate turned away from her again, guilt and depression returning to his face in full force once more.

"How can anybody do something like that? I don't think the Fireflies have even done anything that horrible."

She shuddered as she once more remembered Nate's account of the atrocities the military had committed.

"No, I don't think so," Nate agreed, "but if we hadn't-"

"It doesn't matter what any of us have done!" Jenny cut in quickly.

Nate looked at her again, this time with anger piercing through the guilt.

"It does matter! We knew what the military was like," he started, waving his hand toward the zone, "and we still made the active decision to endanger everyone's lives by returning to the apartment. We should have just left the zone, waited it out. Or better yet, waited a day or two for them to loosen the security on the warehouse."

His eyes were shining with unshed tears and his breathing was hard and fast. He dropped his hands to his side.

"Nate," Jenny said quietly, grabbing one of his hands. "You can't blame yourself for this. There's no excuse, what-so-ever for what they've done."

"It was my idea," he said, ignoring her. "I was the one who wanted to go in right away. The others, Lana especially, wanted to wait a day. 'We've gotten through tighter security,' I said. And now Lana and everyone else in the zone is paying for my arrogance."

"You can't change anything by ending it all," she said, waving her arm out over the edge of the roof.

"What? No, I...I wasn't-"

She pulled him into a hug before he could finish. He didn't move to return it at first, but after several seconds he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

I can't lose another father, she thought. It was what she wanted to say.

"I can't lose you," is what she'd actually said.

They held onto each other for nearly a minute, before Nate pulled back, smiling at her. A single tear had slid down his cheek, leaving a wet trail behind it.

"Thank you," he said, wiping away the remnants of the rogue tear. "I love you, you know that right?"

"I know," she said smiling playfully back at him.

He ruffled her hair and she pulled back, swatting at his hand. She made a show of being angry as she smoothed out her hair, but Nate had seemingly snapped out of his mood, and for that, she was very happy. Suddenly, his gaze darted to something behind Jenny. His eyes widened and a look of concern spread across his face.

"Oh no," he said as he turned and ran for the door that led into the station.

Jenny turned around to see what had ruined her moment with Nate. There, beyond the railroad tracks that ran behind the station, was a familiar looking man in a green t-shirt and blue jeans. He was running full speed down the shattered street, a pack of three clickers hot on his heels.