For those of you that have reviewed, thank you so much. It means a lot to know there are people reading this who like it. I can't promise to be consistent with updates or revisions, but I will try to make this a good story for you. -And a finished one. …Eventually.

The sun was starting to burn on her face, so she kept her eyes down. The man was more interested in talking to Pen, anyway, speaking brightly though from where she sat Lauren could see a hole or two in his toothy smile.

She'd forgotten how horrible it was to talk to people. Other people. Strangers. Lauren had thought that maybe because Pen had been a stranger and they ended up having some weird kind of rapport after a few days then that meant her social skills were slowly recovering from her time in the cities. But the familiar anxiety and loathing had started to choke her chest and she felt like spitting.

The smarm-master's companion sat in the truck, looking over the two of them warily. He was younger, maybe just a little older than Pen, but there was an undeniable weariness to his eyes that implied more misery than most lifetimes should carry. Maybe she should wave. See if they could be grouches together.

…But hang on, that would ruin the point, wouldn't it?

"My name is Ken." The other one, the cheerful one, was making an effort to address both of them at once, but his glance seemed to deflect off of Lauren's eyes and bounce back to Pen. "I'm guessing you ladies both have names, right?"

"No."

Pen and Ken (hha hha, Pen and Ken) turned to stare in her direction.

"My exceedingly cheerful friend here is Lauren. I'm Pen." Pen appeared for that sentence almost like a typical teenager, embarrassed by her mom. …But that wasn't really a heartening thought because Lauren probably was at that age where she would have a teenage daughter to embarrass but didn't. "We—"

Ken laughed, as if his own name wasn't ridiculously similar. "Pen? As in, like, an enclosure for farm animals?"

"Writing utensil." Lauren snapped, annoyed.

"ANYWAY," she coughed nervously and played with her pink curls, "We were on a train to City 23 when it was derailed and we made a break for it. Actually we were kind of hoping we'd-"

"I wasn't." The words came out faster than Lauren could think twice about saying them. I don't want to help people, nope. She winced, slightly, glancing a little over at Pen. But the girl's disapproving glare had been short lived enough that she only caught the tail end of it.

"We were kind of hoping, actually, that we might run into some members of the Resistance. …That's what you are, right?"

"You're trying to be funny, right?" Ken laughed and grinned, turning to display a dark armor plate strapped to his arm with a dripping orange lowercase lambda. "Humanity's best hope, y'know?"

Lauren bit her tongue and said nothing. She looked around the vehicle, running her hands around the crevices that damage had opened up, and found Ribby, crouched under one of the seats and shivering. She pulled him out with a pop, holding him in her arms and it helped her nerves.

"Chumtoad. Cute." She glared at Ken, and he took a breath, returning to Pen. "So, this is sort of against protocol to just randomly pick up pedestrians, but seeing as how you were being shot at just now me and Don could probably make an exception."

Lauren raised her voice a bit and called out to the other guy in the truck. "Hi Don!"

He perked up, looking at Lauren as if he hadn't noticed that the car had even stopped. After a moment he gave a small, hesitant wave.

"We've got a bunker nearby." Ken frowned over at their battered car. "You're welcome to join us if you like, there's enough room in the truck. Pretty sure I'm gonna end up insisting anyway."

"Oh, great, we get to hang out in their bunker," Lauren muttered. Pen slapped her arm and she rolled her eyes.

"Gladly."

"Great!" Ken began to walk back while Don set his gun down and slid into the driver's seat. "I bet it'll be nice to have a proper roof over your heads. It's not a main base or anything but it's a good place to keep an eye on the area and take in new recruits. –Not that you have to, or anything, I mean it's good for protecting people too…"

People had become so irritating to her.

Lauren clutched Ribby closer and he wriggled again, settling into a better position with his eye slightly distorting from the pressure. She ended up a half step behind Pen, who was carrying the box of supplies from their trunk over, and asked impulsively. "Who says we need protecting by you guys and your little group?"

Ken's smile dropped for a moment, although she was pretty sure that didn't mean anything. "Did you not see that synth falling to the ground in a cloud of fire and broken armor? Trust me, we know what we're doing."

"We loosened it up for you," she growled under her breath. Pen snickered.

The ride back was short and relatively uneventful. Dust billowed out behind the tires like a smoke signal but no synths came to shut up Ken's chatter. Eventually it became a tuneless hum as Lauren stared sleepily into the thickening trees, dying, dead, scared and petrified with sacks of tongue and teeth clinging to the stronger branches.

At least Pen seemed to be getting along well. Lauren figured there weren't many people she could talk to about refugee life—the incredibly mundane aspects of it that no one who didn't already go through them cared about. Rounding up bullsquid, headcrab hunting, attempting to breed domestic livestock so that Earth staples didn't go completely extinct.

It was much more boring than it should have been, so Lauren did her best to not pay attention. Don was just as quiet, and she figured that even though he might be a total jackass he wasn't talking right then and that scored points in her book. He didn't even seem to be there, mentally. His body was swaying slightly from side to side, like he had a song in mind or was eager to start walking. She couldn't remember the last time she had heard a song. Or wanted to walk.

By the time they finally reached their destination, a rusting bunker half underground built into a large hill, her hair was a messy tangle on her head from the wind. That wouldn't have been a problem except as it stood she was the only one affected by it. Don and Ken had short hair and when Pen's hair got tangled it looked nice.

Scowling, she occupied her time straightening out the strands while Ken talked them through the gate and into the compound. It wasn't particularly impressive—she figured it acted more as a highlight for the area than a way of warding off Union forces, but then, she wasn't an expert in guerilla tactics. None of the people milling about, setting up equipment and using shoddily put together firing ranges, seemed surprised to see them. Maybe they got tons of beat up lifeless people in every day? There were a few friendly waves. She liked to think that her dead stares drove them off, but it was mostly them returning back to their business.

They quickly came up to what looked like a make-shift parking lot. There were other cars lined up in what appeared to be rows made of methodically strewn garbage. Lauren's expression took a quick twist in disgust at the dead grass and wildflowers underneath, before she rubbed her eyes and decided not to care right then. A sandy haired (girl? It was so hard to tell from a distance) was waiting for them, and while Lauren squinted she waved over at Ken.

"HR wants to have a word with you two," she called out as they pulled in, sidestepping a bit to keep from being run over. "…For the last four hours, might I add."

Ken paused as he got out of the car, glancing briefly over at Don as she strode off to do whatever job she had on the compound. "Oh, right—well, uh, you two just keep on towards the green door over there, knock a few times and we'll get you all set up, alright?"

"Bye Ken." Pen waved, smiling (a faltering, unsteady smile of being in an unfamiliar place without their promised official guide). She turned and offered that smile to Lauren, who suddenly felt offended that she was a secondary go-to for support and not the primary one. She kept her face neutral and turned in the direction that he had pointed, Ribby making his best effort to make it to the top of her head. She pulled him down.

The green door was on a separate building, still large but not quite so much as the bunker. It was dented and smeared with dry yellow fluid around the base, as if a couple of paintballs had exploded at someone's feet. There was a thin strip at eye level—presumably like the ones in secret mafia style meeting buildings that you read about in cheap fiction.

She blinked. She couldn't remember reading any of that, but the image was there in her consciousness.

Lauren raised her fist and, thinking of the last two days, pounded on the metal a bit harder than she should have considering the fact that she was made of flesh and blood. The bang bang bang was not nearly as satisfying as it should have been as she tried to covertly clutch her battered hand and wince in pain. After what felt like an eternity of waiting (as in, about two minutes), the thin strip slid open and they found themselves looking into two deep brown irises.

"What's the password?" The narrow pair of eyes demanded.

Pen balked. "Passwor—We're refugees, how are we supposed to know the password?"

"Alright, alright." The slot slid shut, and a man with shaved black hair and two fingers missing pulled the door open. "I've just always wanted to say that."

"You and everybody else stationed at a door with a sliding panel." Lauren muttered under her breath, keeping her eyes down as they walked past him. Immediately she was overcome with feelings of being crowded and contained. The building might have been large on the outside, but the hallways were not, and it didn't feel to her like there was enough space to walk in even in this bright lobby. Like she would smash into something if she wasn't careful. Or it would smash into her. She could hear the roof creak.

There was a bald woman sitting on a couch, honest to god knitting, who looked up, brow creasing slightly. "…Are you alright? You seem a little jumpy."

Lauren tried to bite in her reply but she stammered and fidgeted and eventually the only thing that came out was a quiet, "It's just…kind of small in here."

Pen made an awkward comforting gesture to her shoulder and that just made everything about a million times worse.

"You're…here for registry, right?" The lady smiled and it was oddly not reassuring.

"We're here to register, yes. Where would that be?" Pen spoke quickly, as if to cut off Lauren, who hadn't even been thinking of piping up.

There was that smile again, the odd pull of facial muscles to bare her teeth and nothing going on with her eyes. Like looking at a suspected spy stumbling out of an interview room with several bruises and a medically induced rictus. "Go down the hallway here, first room on the right. There's no door."

"Great," Pen nodded, averting her eyes—good, so it creeped her out too—and taking Lauren by the hand (before Lauren snatched her hand back). "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Lauren hummed in the back of her throat and they set off. As it happened the first room on the right was after several, several rooms on the left, and they arrived just in time to nearly slam themselves into a tall woman in a very dirty lab coat who was leaving in a hurry. She frowned and gawped at them like they were aliens—Lauren in fact had forgotten all about the chumtoad that had climbed his way up to her head—until Pen said "Registry. We're here for the, um—"

"Would it kill them to send some kind of notice when they pick up recruits?" The woman pinched the bridge of her nose, and Lauren took note of the greyed hair in a bun, the sharp features, and frown lines allll over her face.

Not to judge by appearances or anything.

"Come inside then, I have time for a couple of questions." She gestured for them to enter the room, pressing a green button on the wall as she slipped inside, herself. As they followed she pulled out a drawer and got a clipboard, looking around in bemusement for the pencil or pen and setting her mouth into a thin line when Pen (ho ho ho) produced one.

"I don't have all day. Let's get started." She ripped off the top sheet on her clipboard. After a slight pause while she frowned down at the tiny black letters she made a small nod to Pen. "Name."

"Pen." Almost immediately. Lauren felt like she was shrinking.

"Full name."

Pen sighed and clutched at her upper arms. "Penvellyn Davis."

Lauren gave a start. "What? I thought your name was Penelope."

Penvellyn glanced over at her, something like annoyance or embarrassment in the way her eyes moved. "Yes, well, my name is Penvellyn. Is that going to make it hard for you to sleep at night? Was your entire perception of me built around that guess? No? No?"

Lauren raised her hands in surrender, trying to keep from smiling and doing only an okay job. "I'm just wondering why you would want to hide it under a cheap nickname, that's all."

"Can we just keep calling me 'Pen', please?"

"May we continue?" The woman turned her steel gaze and clutched clipboard to Lauren. "Name."

She found herself almost stating her full name, number, and transfer code. Context. But she caught herself in time, and instead briefly bit her tongue and decided this was not an institutional situation but a social one, and she could play by whatever rules she wanted to, dammit. "Lauren."

The iron lady glared up at her for repeating Pen's mistake. "Full name."

She sighed, not because she particularly hated her name but because she didn't like this woman and wanted to aggravate her in as passive a fashion as she could. "Lauren Mallory."

"—And your last name is Mallory?"

Lauren shot her a wild glare and Pen immediately backed off from whatever imitation she was doing of Lauren's earlier outburst. "I just—I think that's a nice last name."

"It means, 'ill-fated'."

"Oh."

"I was getting it changed." She frowned and drew her fingers through her hair. "I think I was getting it changed. I remember papers and a replacement surname and—"

"Please tell me which city you were assigned to last."

Pen and Lauren looked at each other for a moment, almost a contest over who should speak first since no names were called. Pen turned back. "I, uh, actually wasn't officially relocated, I was captured and on my way to be processed—"

"Very good." And there was the irritating scratch of ink going on the paper. "And you?"

Lauren rolled her eyes up for a moment. "Well, I was between City 9 and 23 so technically—"

"That will be it for now," the woman interrupted once more, clicking her pen. "We're occupied with other matters at the moment, so until we have someone available your evaluations will have to wait."

"What, mental evaluations?" Lauren scoffed. "Look, if you're expecting everyone that comes through here to be mentally stable I have news for you—"

"The evaluations are for determining your usefulness to this base, your mental readiness, and your potential for being a weed planted by the Combine to undermine our efforts." She offered them a grim, cold smile, head tilting slightly. As she spoke, Lauren heard footsteps from behind them, and she spun her head to see Don standing there. He seemed a bit startled by the abruptness of her reaction.

"…I'm sure you understand that we require the utmost security. There have been plenty of human infiltrators in the past, and so until we're sure about you your lodgings will have to be a bit limited."

"Do we get to sleep?"

Pen nudged her side, pulling back when Lauren flinched. "It's the middle of the day."

"Doooo we get to sleep?"

Iron woman glared and gestured over at Don. "Mister Burns will show you to your room."

Lauren tried to keep her voice deadpan but it caught a little as she spoke. "We're getting all kinds of awesome names today."

Don blinked at her, but didn't say anything, tilting his head slightly and turning to lead them along.

"It's so much fun being processed here, let me tell you." Lauren coughed after several turns and far too much walking along crowded corridors with boxes of guns and green bottles, holding her arms. "So much better than staying on that train to get processed somewhere else."

"Will you shut up?" Pen elbowed her again, and Lauren flinched badly enough that her arm "accidentally" smacked Pen in the stomach. Don spun on them before anything else could happen, and right as she thought he was going to reprimand them for acting like children and trash talking his homebase he gestured at a set of doors in the hallway they'd reached.

"These are your rooms. You'll be staying here until we can figure out what to do with you—not as bad as it sounds—and you won't be able to leave without supervision so we can be sure no sabotage is going on. The doors don't lock but there's a grate we pull across this hallway to keep people from leaving, so if you want to move between rooms no one's stopping you."

"Burns" was an appropriate surname. His voice sounded like ashes. Completely distracted her from the weird implications of what he just said.

"Confinement aside, I'd enjoy it while you can. Once you're done being processed you don't get your own room."

"Joy of joys." Lauren glanced inside. It was small—uncomfortably so, but by this point she'd remembered the right way to breathe. …Hopefully. Besides, there wasn't anyone else inside, and no cluttered furniture to take up her precious space. Just a bed, a beside stand, and a chair. She glanced over at her companion. "What's your room look like?"

"Boring." Pen turned to Don. "Do you have something to do while I'm sitting in there? I mean, I don't think I can just sleep in the middle of the day, I really think I should be doing something."

"You have to stay in your room."

"But—"

"You won't get much sleep later, I'd suggest being fully rested now." He shrugged. "That's how the, uh, proverbial cookie falls apart."

"Crumbles."

He responded with a quick glance her way, and as Pen huffed like the teenager she was and stalked into her room to slam the door, he gave a start and began fishing around in his pocket.

"I, uh, had a friend who used to keep chumtoads around. You're might want one of these," he tossed Lauren a cheap glowstick. "Turn a trashcan or something."

"Oh—thanks." Did she smile? You were supposed to smile when thanking someone but she didn't think she'd made that expression. Too late now, he was already leaving. She bit down on her lip several times, shrugged and walked inside her room.

Wonderful. A proper bed and enough time to sleep in it.

No, she didn't want her chumtoad sleeping in the trash. Even if it was empty. Oh, alternatives, alternatives…

She thought of the nests underground and repressed a shudder, remembering the placement along the walls. The ventilation grate was rather large, placed high up on the left side of the room. Maybe tomorrow she would have to talk to someone about how inappropriate it was for such a secure base to have a man sized vent in the holding room. It might not be something anyone has ever thought about? Licking her lips, she looked for something to turn the screws with, pulling out drawers and checking a small storage compartment under the bed.

Finally she found a dime. The triumph and feelings of cleverness vanished quickly because it was very irritating to turn a screw with a dime.

Frowning, she opened the grate and set the snapped glow stick inside. Ribby sprung up—surprisingly far—and wriggled into the vent. A makeshift nest.

Lauren snorted. Finally the day was over. The incredibly long, hellish day that seemed to span two cycles of daylight. And with that information in mind, suddenly everything seemed so much harder to do. Her head was in a vice, brain burning. The building echoed and shifted, and she flipped off the light switch, holding herself in the darkness. She staggered and flopped down to the bed, crawling up enough to make sure her whole body was supported, and went still.

It took about an hour for her to finally fall asleep, struggling with whether to take the blanket as she knew she should or leave it as she had become accustomed to. She dreamed of waiting on tables of Civil Protection officers and rebels with beer glasses falling to the floor.