The Permanent Efficacy of Grace

19.

The party breaks up pretty quickly after that. Joseph had waited nearly till the end of dinner to bring up the loaded subject, and so everyone finishes up, and it appears John and Joseph had cleaned up in the kitchen as they went along, so there's only a little bit of tidying to do. (Rook notes again, with considerable amusement and approval, that Faith is nowhere to be found when there's kitchen work to be done.)

Once that's over, John and a reappearing Faith say their goodbyes—John stiffly, with another one of those plastic, practiced smiles that give Rook the chills, and as he heads out the door Faith goes after Rook, pressing her into a hug. She's soft and warm and smells faintly like Bliss—it's not a terribly overpowering smell, coming off of her, though the associations are still fucky for Rook—and Rook is startled when she kisses her cheek, though of course, it's a terribly Faith thing to do.

She pulls back and says, "I'll see you soon. At your wedding."

Rook, peering closely into her eyes, has no idea if that's meant to be a genuine statement of excitement, or if she's trying to rub salt in the wound, to remind them that Joseph has them under his thumb. Her pretty green eyes betray nothing, and her shiny white smile could mean anything. "I one hundred percent can't figure you out," she tells her, frowning a little.

Faith giggles. To Rook's ear, the laugh sounds pleased. "You'll get used to it. Jacob has."

Rook nods thoughtfully. "That's true." She's always gotten the impression that Jacob likes Faith, though she can't imagine he can read her too much better than Rook can. She thinks they're similar in some ways—similarly disciplined, similarly loyal—but Faith, she thinks, is more ambitious, and much, much more opaque.

Faith squeezes her hands again and then goes to Jacob, standing on tiptoe to hug him, though she pulls back almost immediately and points a finger up at his chest. "Remember your promise," she says sternly.

"Wasn't a promise," he grumbles. "I told you, I'll see if I can make time."

"I hope you manage it," she says, raising her eyebrows pointedly. Then she takes her leave, so quickly and suddenly that she almost leaves the impression that she was never there to begin with.

Joseph is still in the kitchen, washing the last of the dishes. Rook and Jacob stand silently facing one another for a few seconds, then she breaks the peaceful silence by digging her index and middle fingers in between two of his ribs. He swats her hand away, reflexively scowling, and she whispers, "Thanks for having my back about the whole marriage thing, by the way."

The lines on his face are still furrowed into a scowl, but his eyes glint with clear amusement. "Seemed like you had it in hand."

"Clearly not."

The amusement bleeds away. He reaches out, taking her by the shoulders, and quietly, he says, "We can always stall. Put it off till it's too late, if that's what you want."

She looks intently at him for a moment, soaking up the fact that he really means it, then shakes her head briskly. "What the hell. We might as well, right? If it keeps the peace."

"Oh, great reason to get married.""

She snorts, and catches the very beginnings of a smile at the edge of his mouth before Joseph is calling from the kitchen. "Jacob? A word, please?"

Rook supposes she could go along, just in case this "word" involves her somehow, but she's had about enough of Joseph tonight. She tells Jacob, "I'll be waiting outside."

"I won't be long," he promises, and they part ways.

The night has cooled down even more, but the sky is clear and it's not windy, so the forty-something degree weather is bearable, even pleasant, after stepping out of Joseph's very-warm house. I guess you have to keep the heat on if you're going around shirtless all the time, she thinks as she steps down off the porch to get a better view of the sky.

The smell of cigarette smoke alerts her to the fact that she isn't alone, and she comes to full attention, her old reflexes kicking in—danger—until she realizes that it's John, half a dozen feet away, clear of shedding any ash in Joseph's gardens. She hadn't noticed him standing just outside of the ring of porch light, but now that she's looking at him, she can see him just fine.

The sense that she's in danger doesn't disappear, but it does die down considerably. She doesn't think he'll try to do anything with Jacob and Joseph just a couple of walls away. In fact, he seems perfectly content to pretend like he hasn't noticed she's there, smoking his cigarette and ignoring her.

Her atonement wound is a still-painful reminder that he's an unhinged son of a bitch who likes to dominate and hurt people rather than deal with his own issues and form normal relationships. On the other hand, he's about to be her brother-in-law, for real (at least, as real as it gets in Eden's Gate).

She takes a moseying couple of steps closer to him. He still doesn't bother to look at her, but his voice carries through the dark towards her just fine, more than a little sarcastic: "Can I help you somehow, Deputy?"

She folds her arms over her chest against the chill. "Does Joseph know you do that?"

He takes a pull from the cigarette, and turns his hand around so he can examine it, held loosely between two tattooed fingers, as if he's never really thought about it. He exhales the smoke, the cloud swollen in size by the cold air, and says, "He knows about everything I do to disappoint him."

It's on the tip of her tongue to say that Jacob gets away with it fine, so John shouldn't feel too bad, but before she can, he drops the mostly-smoked cigarette and grinds it out beneath the toe of his boot. Then he looks at her and says, "So. You got what you wanted, didn't you?"

She looks at him like he's grown an extra head. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you got Jacob," he says, smizing at her in a way that strikes her as deeply insincere (and she knows John well enough to know that he wants her to see it). "You escaped punishment for all your various… misdeeds and destructive tendencies."

"I mean, Joseph's making us get married," she says, in a quiet voice that's almost a footnote to John's declarations, and he treats it as such, continuing as if she hadn't spoken.

"You join the most advantageous faction right at the most advantageous time to do so, and… you're sliding neatly in place into our little family now, aren't you?"

Rook is frowning. "Faith said something very similar."

John shrugs, sniffing in the cold air. "No one can accuse that girl of being stupid."

"It's just funny, is all."

"Is it?"

"Mmm," she says affirmatively. "Y'all are ascribing a level of plotting and planning in advance to me that just… doesn't exist. I mean, Faith is one thing, but now you're doing it too—I have to ask, have you considered that the two of you might be projecting? Assuming that I'm doing what you would do if you were in my situation?"

"I suppose it's a possibility," drones John, in a bored tone that tells her he doesn't think it's a possibility at all.

She stares at him for a moment, long enough for him to start looking like he wished he hadn't tossed away his cigarette. Then she says, "We should have been friends, John."

That gets his attention—his eyes flash up to hers, and just for a second, before the polish covers it, she sees genuine anger there. He takes one step towards her (she manages not to flinch back, though the memories of Joseph's church are nestled uncomfortably close to the forefront of her mind and it's hard not to see him as a threat now), stops short, and then says, "I offered you friendship, Deputy. I reached out to you over and over again, and over and over again, you slapped my hand away. You spat in my face." He shakes his head, looking disapproving, disappointed, and still just a little bit angry, unable to fully shake it. "Don't act shocked now that I'm no longer interested in being your friend."

He watches her as that soaks in, then turns abruptly away again, looking out past the trees towards the glimmers of the lake beyond, dismissive. "Run along now, Deputy. Go back to the mountains and play house with Jacob. I'm sure that if you do a very good job, Joseph will have a nice little title, shined up and ready for you in no time."

It's the bitterness that creeps into this last part that betrays him, and Rook blinks as the realization dawns on her. He's jealous, she suddenly understands. Jealous and wounded.

She's found that just being up front with the Seeds (about themselves and her relationships with them, anyway) has yielded better results than not talking about things, so she continues that streak of honesty now and confronts him: "What is it that's really got your goat, John?"

His eyebrows quirk up a little, and he scoffs out a little tssh at the implication that he's angry, but she's undeterred. "Is it because I was so mean to you at the beginning of all of this? Made your job so hard? Or is it because Jacob was the one to bring me into the fold in the end, made your whole deal as the Baptist kind of redundant?"

"You have a highly elevated idea of your own importance," he says, unable to quite hide the peevishness in his voice as he turns abruptly towards her again.

"Or," she persists, warming to the topic as she makes connections, realizes a few new things about John the more she thinks about him and how he's been feeling the last month or so, "is it because I just got it way too easy? I mean, I've talked to Joseph a total of, what, six times? Most of those drugged to the gills, too, so I don't know if they really count."

John's lips are pressed tightly together, his eyes are like chips of ice in his face, cold and angry, but he's definitely listening to her, and he's not trying to interrupt. Rook shrugs. "But here I am, about to join the family—the real family, not this kum-ba-yah we-are-family Eden's Gate family bullshit. All while barely lifting a finger to prove I'm committed. Meanwhile, you…"

She sees his shoulders lifting and lowering as he breathes deeply in and out, keeping his cool, but the fist down by his side is clenched. Her voice is a little gentler, a little less taunting when she says, "You do a lot. You work your ass off for the Project. I heard what Joseph said to you at my baptism, you know—it doesn't really seem fair that he's always breathing down your neck about everything you do. Then he just turns around and welcomes me in, no devotion to the cult necessary."

She sees the clarity in John's eyes a second before he straightens his shoulders. His fist relaxes. Sounding newly confident, he says, "If you're trying to get your little screwdriver in—sow discord between me and my brother—you might as well save your breath."

Rook shakes her head slowly. This had started as a means to poke and prod at him a little, but it feels like she's accidentally strayed close to the truth. "He isn't going to stop doing that, you know." John glares at her, and she gestures towards him, palm-out, as if defending herself from him. "I'm not scheming or anything. I just mean… he's always on your ass for the same exact reason he seems to let Jacob get away with things you couldn't. You're his little brother. He thinks he needs to guide you everywhere. He thinks it's the natural order of things."

John's frown now looks less antagonistic and more displeased. She shrugs. "Anyone on the outside of your family looking in can see that you can handle yourself. I mean, problems, no problems, you're the one with the cash, you're the only one who pulled together a successful career, you're the one who's disguised the…" She twirls a finger slowly, idly, in the rough direction of his head—"psychopathy, enough that people bought your whole deal until this all started."

He's looking a little antagonistic again. She hurries to get back to the original thought. "But he just sees the little kid who needed him and Jacob for everything. He's frozen at the point where you were separated. You all are, in one way or another."

"Thank you, Dr. Freud," says John loudly, apparently having had enough of her musings. "Do you have any other valuable insight to share, or shall we call it a night? Hm?"

"You lost your family," she says thoughtfully, ignoring his indication that she should shut up now. "And now that I'm here, you're worried you're going to lose them again. Especially since it seems like you have to earn your place, and mine is just given to me. Am I hot or cold, do you think?"

John, for once in his life, seems at a loss for words. He settles for glowering at her across the orange pool of porch light. His fist is clenched again, but she gets the impression somehow that he doesn't want to hit her. She stares back at him for a long moment, and before she can think better of it, she voices the thought out loud: "Jesus. The Duncans really did a number on you, huh?"

If John was a worse lawyer, she thinks he might have flinched. As it is, the only evidence she can see that the words might have hit him deeper than she intended for them to is the barest little flutter of his eyelashes, though his face stays stony and stalwart.

She's taking a breath to follow her instincts, which are telling her to reassure him, whether or not he deserves it—she doesn't figure she deserves anyone's kindness these days, either, and yet she keeps receiving it from unexpected places, so who is she to hold that away from John? She wants to tell him that she's positive Joseph won't kick him to the curb, and, more importantly, that Jacob would never allow him to even if she believed Joseph would turn his back on their little brother, but the porch door swings open and she cuts herself off before she can even start, sensing that John would never forgive her if either of his brothers overheard any of this conversation.

Why do I care if he forgives me? she thinks idly, but even to John, she finds it hard to be casually cruel, so she just keeps her mouth shut and turns to see Jacob leaving the house, drawing his jacket over his shoulders. He pauses at the top of the steps, eyes sliding over to John cautiously, then back to Rook. "Okay?" he asks her.

"Just waiting on you," she says, perhaps sounding a bit too bright. Jacob looks suspicious, but she's suddenly raring to get out of here, and she turns, shooting a quick wave in John's direction. "Night, John."

John grunts—her step hitches when he hears it, because it sounds uncannily like Jacob, and for some reason it consistently throws her off when any of the brothers reminds her of the others—but says nothing more, and Rook beelines for the truck.

Jacob catches up before she quite reaches it to unlock and open the door. She notices him looking mistrustfully over at John as she climbs in, but he doesn't say anything until they're both in the car, doors shut, engine on and idling. Then he says, "What was that all about?"

"The fact that our relationship is like ten times weirder than it needs to be because of Joseph," she says honestly. Going by the look on Jacob's face, he has no idea what she means by that and doesn't know where to start figuring it out, so she presses her advantage and goes on offense. "What was that about? What did Joseph want to say to you?"

Jacob puts the truck in reverse, getting it pointed towards the path out before answering. "He wanted to give me marriage advice."

"Fuck you, no he didn't," she says immediately.

Jacob snorts quietly through his nose, amused. "Believe me. He did."

"What did he tell you?" she said, torn pretty equally between horror and hilarity, and immediately says, "No, don't tell me. I'm pretty sure the answer will make me want him dead. Just… do the opposite of whatever he told you, okay?"

Jacob makes a pensive sound. "I don't know. He had a few pointers that seemed pretty solid."

She studies him in silence for a few seconds before concluding that he's teasing her, although he's unforgivably good at keeping a straight face while doing it. "I thought I was supposed to be the one with the shitty sense of humor."

"You are the one with the shitty sense of humor."

"Maybe, but yours is mean."

"And you think that's funny."

"Yeah, I have a shitty sense of humor, remember?"

She sees that twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth before he shoots her a disapproving sideways look, like that'll make her forget it. She grins, then groans, collapsing back into her seat and saying emphatically, "Fuck, that was a nightmare."

"I didn't see the marriage thing coming," he agrees. "Probably should have."

"Marriage? Who cares about the marriage? I'll marry you, I don't give a shit. I'll divorce you, too, if I want. I'm talking about the food. Who taught that man how to cook?"

Jacob's face is conspicuously straight, and he conspicuously stares through the windshield instead of looking at her. At length, he says, "Joseph is very proud of his cooking skills."

"Yeah, I got that," she says. "Did you see John going behind him with the salt?"

"John does that every family meal; it's his job."

"What do you mean, it's his job?"

"I mean that when you have three people who haven't coordinated beforehand trying to secretly compensate for one person's lack of seasoning, you end up overdoing it and it's even worse than it started. John's the only one allowed to do it now. For control purposes."

Rook sighs. "I miss Casey so bad."

"Get used to it," Jacob says. "You're marrying into it."

Joseph doesn't get the wedding he's pushing for, in the end.

Rook gets one full day of messaging the rest of Hope County. Joseph had given her the all clear—unexpectedly, it's Jacob that she has to fight before she can get a move on. He doesn't want her to go, as he puts it, "gallivanting all over the county alone, just askin' to get shot."

"That's insulting," she tells him as she laces up her boots and he stands over her with his arms crossed, clearly trying to intimidate her. "I managed for two months without incident. The serial killer does not count," she adds quickly when she sees him open his mouth to respond. "That was a freak occurrence. Besides, I'm going to keep a low profile."

"I don't know if that's possible for you," Jacob growls.

She looks up at him in exasperation. "What do you want me to do? Take along some Chosen who might be holding one hell of a grudge against me? Any one of them could tap me in the back of the head and tell you it was Resistance. You'd never know."

"Any Chosen that let you get killed by Resistance would wish he was dead, and they all know that."

She notices that he doesn't push that idea, though, and she adds, "You could always come with me personally, but I know you've got work here, and it's going to be boring anyway. Lots of sitting around in cars trying to get someone to talk to me."

He hmphs in response to that, but he doesn't make the offer. Instead, he switches tacks: "And what if the Collapse happens while you're halfway across the county, huh? You really want to risk getting locked down in John's Gate if disaster hits unexpectedly?"

She pauses, rapidly thinks it through, winces, shrugs, and nods determinedly. Jacob pulls out the ace: "Or Faith's? You know, that's where Joseph plans to stay when it all goes down."

That one's more of a hard sell. Rook frowns, but try as she might, she can't convince herself that she'd manage any sort of lockdown with Faith and Joseph gracefully. Jacob starts to look self-satisfied, like he thinks he's won, so Rook reminds herself: I have friends. I owe it to them to do what I can, and tells him, "I won't go far from the mountains. I just have to get in range."

Jacob looks unconvinced. Rook sighs, then she meets his eyes, and steadily, she says, "I'm not asking you, Jacob. This is something I have to do. I'll be as quick and as careful as I can, but it's happening."

He narrows his eyes. Something dangerous flashes in them, and for a split second, Rook does wonder if he's thinking about strapping her to a chair or locking her in a cage and just leaving her there until her window closes.

The moment passes almost as soon as it begins. He's clearly still pissed; he's short and sneery with her when he says, "I guess you better get to it, then." Still, he lets her get up and get her stuff together. When she reaches the door, he says, "Wait."

She turns, wary, the possibility of forceful imprisonment still fresh in her mind, but he just stalks over to her and jams a knit hat on her head, stuffing her hair loosely into it. "Don't let anyone see you," he orders gruffly.

She knows that's a big ask, but nods anyway. He nods back, and lets her go. She counts it as notable progress.

Before she even leaves the Veteran's Center, she gets in touch with Dutch. If they were on closer (or more trusting) terms at the moment, she'd probably just ask to post up on his island and contact everyone from there—Dutch is ideally poised to get in touch with and hear from everyone, smack in the center of Hope County, with no need to travel from region to region to get in range, but she knows that even if he doesn't personally want her dead, he'll shoot her without a second thought rather than compromise his bunker.

She gets a hold of him more quickly than she expects, and upon his wary greeting, she doesn't waste time with pleasantries. She explains the situation—Sheriffs freed from the county, no backup despite that, she thinks something bad is on the horizon and needs him to get in touch with as many people as he can to warn them that Joseph's doomsday bullshit might have something to it.

After she finishes, there's a long silence. She waits, impatient but knowing she can't force it, and finally, he says, "Sounds to me like they just picked your sheriff off outside of county lines."

"That's a possibility," she allows. "But nobody thinks it's a serious one, including me. I mean, tell me you haven't been patched into the broadcasts we've been getting since we started clearing the tower jammers. Tell me you think everything's going just fine and dandy out there."

Another long silence, then his sigh crackles over the radio. "Shit, kid. I sure as hell hope you're wrong about that."

"You know, Dutch, I'd be thrilled to be wrong about this. I really would," she tells him. After another brief silence, she adds, "Try to get in touch with Jess, will you? Get her to come bunk with you for a while, or to go to the Wolf's Den, if nothing else. I'm worried about her."

His skeptical little snort says it all, but he says, "I'll do what I can, Rook."

"Thanks, Dutch. I mean it. Over and out."

She goes from there to the Henbane, because it's always seemed much closer to the mountains than the valley by way of the shared river. True to her promise, she hides herself, pulling onto a little trail in the woods, going deep enough that she can't be seen from the main road. Then she picks up her radio and starts trying to get in touch with her friends.

It takes a while before anyone picks up, long enough that she's starting to wonder if there's any point, but finally, after maybe forty-five minutes, she hears an answering crackle, and a familiar voice, mid-sentence: "—tell me what to do or I'll twist your nuts up so tight you'd swear they were origami! I'll talk to her if I want to!" Then, to Rook: "So, sugar, how does it feel to be living the dream?"

Rook feels a burst of warmth in her chest. "Hey, Addie. Is that Hurk Senior I hear yelling in the background?"

"Yep, the old bastard's fussing about the divorce again. Trying to tell me not to talk to you."

Distantly, from Hurk Senior: "She's a goddamn traitor!"

"Better women have done worse for good dick!" Adelaide shouts back. "Speaking of which," she says to Rook. "How big is it?"

"This really isn't what I was calling to talk about."

"Tough titties, honey! It's the reason I picked up."

Rook sighs, into the radio, so Adelaide can hear it. Then she says, "Big," and, keeping her finger on the button so Adelaide can't dive into a full interrogation, she starts her spiel about the impending collapse.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all figured as much," Adelaide says dismissively when Rook finally wraps up and lets her respond. "But I am not staying with that conniving little schemer Faith Seed."

"That's probably a good call," Rook says, relieved that she's not just flat-out calling Rook a liar. "Jacob says that's where Joseph's staying, so it'd be double trouble."

"Ugh. No, we've got access to another bunker. Been stocking it and everything. Ready for whatever's coming."

"Who's we?"

"Me and Xander, of course. I suppose there's room for my son and that nephew of mine, as well." Rook feels another flare of relief at the mention of Hurk and Sharky, though Hurk Senior grumbles something in the background that prompts Adelaide to say, "You're not coming. Find your own damn bunker."

"Do Hurk and Sharky know?"

"Do those boys know anything?" Adelaide answers dryly. "But we're lookin' out for them. You don't have to worry."

"Okay. Can you do me a favor and spread the word along the river? I've been trying to get a hold of Tracey and Miss Mabel and them, but nobody but you was keen to talk to me. Not that I blame them."

"Honestly, some kind of apocalypse might improve Mabel's disposition," muses Addie.

"Adelaide."

"Oh, fine. I reckon it's a better use of my time than baitin' the ex. Don't think I didn't notice you changing the subject on me, though. How's Jacob in bed? I can't imagine he's been getting laid regularly, that has a withering effect on a man's endurance."

"I'll tell you if we all survive."

"Party pooper."

"I got other people to try and get in touch with. Good luck out there."

"Same to you, honey."

Now that both Dutch and Adelaide are covering ground with the others (she can hear Dutch and Virgil talking when she flips through the channels) and she knows that Sharky and Hurk are handled, she reverses her path and heads over to the north part of the valley. Once again hiding herself, she tries the radio, trying to get in touch with Grace, with Kim, Mary May or Jerome.

It's not much of a surprise when Jerome picks up, relatively quickly. "Deputy." He sounds wary.

"Hi, Jerome. Thanks for talking to me."

After a pause, he says, "Most everyone thinks I shouldn't be."

"I understand that, but it's important." She gives him the summary as well, and is met with a long silence.

Eventually, he says, "Why should we believe you?"

Rook hesitates before saying, "I still care about all of you."

"Why should we believe that?"

She feels a slight flare of temper, irrational but unavoidable. "Because you know me, Jerome. We worked together for months."

"The Deputy I know wouldn't have joined up with the Seeds on pain of death."

"I already told you why I did that."

"You told me," he allows. "It didn't have the ring of truth."

She doesn't really have an answer to that. She changes the subject back to the pertinent one instead: "What harm would it do to make a plan?"

"I can think of plenty. It's a distraction that might leave Fall's End vulnerable."

She sighs. "Look, I can't make you listen to me or believe me. Just… listen to the radio, okay? Use your logic. Something is wrong. Something is coming."

There's another long pause, then Jerome says, "I hope you don't end up regretting the decision you made, Deputy. I really do."

That appears to be it. She spends more time trying to get someone else on the line, anyone, but the radio stays stoically silent for the rest of the day, and she figures she needs to head back before nightfall.

Jacob can tell she's frustrated when she gets back, she can see it in the way he glances at her, but he doesn't really say anything, just brings her food and finishes the day's work. It's not till they're in bed later that night that he says, "Didn't go as planned?"

"I don't know," she admits. "Some people talked to me. Some people didn't. Most of the ones who did agreed to spread the word, but, you know, the information's from me, so there's no reason for them to trust it."

Jacob shakes his head in the dark. "Can't stop people from being fools."

"I guess not."

There's a long pause, then he says, "Sounds like it went as well as can be expected. What's eating at you?"

At length, she admits, "My brother."

"Ah."

"We've been so busy just with the county, but what about everyone outside of it?"

"We've always known we can't save everybody," he says gently.

"I know that, but my family? It feels… wrong to not even try."

There's another long pause as Jacob runs a hand meditatively up and down her back. Finally, he says, "Maybe we could try." When she looks quizzically at him in the dark, he adds, "Couldn't take too long to step outside of the county, find a phone. Try and make a few calls. Maybe even see how things are progressing out there."

"Can we do that?"

"I'd like to see anyone try and stop me."

Relief floods her, and she kisses him hard. "Don't get your hopes up," he warns her when she breaks away. "It might be harder sell than you think, you popping up out of the blue after three months of no contact, talking about doomsday."

"I know," she says. "But it's something."

But the bombs fall that night.

Rook jerks out of sleep without realizing why, registering that Jacob is sitting bolt upright beside her. "What—" she begins, before hearing a distant boom, likely an echo of the one that woke them up.

"It's time," Jacob says, launching out of bed. "We gotta go."

The scramble to gather some vital things and get to a truck is blurred by panic and adrenaline. By the time they get outside, the sky has turned a horrifying orange, and people are clustered fearfully in the courtyard. Jacob doesn't check his stride, but shouts orders to evacuate, to get the Gate over the fearful chatter and the roar growing in the background—God, what is that noise? Rook thinks as they climb in a truck, a few people piling in with them, and haul ass.

By the time they get to the bunker, the trees are on fire. Jacob waits by the door for an hour for stragglers, Rook beside him, watching the world burn through the reinforced window in horrified silence, before officially declaring lockdown.

Then, at last, they go underground.

It doesn't take long for life in the bunker to attain a sense of normalcy.

Pratt is with them, so Jacob's not her only friend underground, but Rook nonetheless sets about trying to get to know the others, given that they're apparently stuck together for several years. There are always going to be Peggies that won't ever take a shine to her, given how long she was their enemy and how much destruction she wrought, but plenty are warmer and genuinely forgiving by nature, and she makes friends with many, more than she would have imagined.

Radio contact is touch and go—the bomb took out a lot of towers, but there must be a few left, because they can talk to people close by. There's no sign of either Hurk Senior or Junior (Rook hopes that the latter is safely down in Adelaide's bunker), but they can talk to Dutch (Jess is with him, he says, but she refuses to speak to anyone from the cult), and after about a month of trying to reach anyone, Eli gets in touch.

"Goddamn, Deputy," he says. "Who woulda thought?"

"Joseph Seed, I guess."

"I guess." He sounds somehow both sheepish and defiant, so Rook lets him off the hook, asking after the Whitetails, who he says are all present and accounted for in the Wolf's Den. That initial conversation ends quickly—things are still pretty awkward, for good reason—but before long, he's calling in more often, Wheaty too, talking to pass the time. Tammy doesn't want anything to do with these calls, and Jacob doesn't seem particularly keen on them, either (Rook figures she'd also feel weird about it if she'd intentionally come up with an elaborate plot to murder one of the parties involved), but Rook figures it's better than sitting around bored, and is surprised by how happy it makes her to be back on speaking terms with the Whitetails.

They work—everyone has jobs to do to keep the bunker clean and functional—but everyone has a lot of free time on their hands. Someone had the bright idea to stock the bunker with board games, so there's a lot of that. Rook, who was in chess club for a stint in high school, plans to wipe the floor with Jacob initially, only to find that he's no slouch himself, and the fact that they're pretty equally matched has them playing almost every day, keeping score, both dying to pull ahead of the other for more than just a day or two.

Staci flips the Risk board once. Jacob's not allowed to play Risk at all, because Rook threatens to break up with him if he tries.

Time passes. About six months in, Rook and Jacob are idling in bed, putting off getting up (it's always cold in the bunker; leaving the warmth of their bed is usually the worst part of the day), when Rook says, "You know what I regret?"

"A lot of things, probably."

"True, but I'm talking about the last few days before the bombs fell."

"What do you regret?"

"Not spending enough time appreciating being outside. We were so busy for that last stretch, running around nonstop. I wish we'd taken a little more time to just… breathe the air. And who knows what it'll be like when we finally go above ground again? I doubt it'll be the same."

Jacob grunts his agreement. After a few moments, he says, "I regret that we didn't think to bring a single goddamn straight razor down here."

Rook laughs, reaching up and running her fingers through the shaggy fuzz that's starting to accumulate around the formerly-shaved edges of his head. There's still an obscene amount of red for a man his age, but there's also more gray there than she'd realized when he'd just had hair on the very top of his head. "I like it," she says. "You know you lucked out with a full head of hair. Most men are mostly bald by forty."

He's silent for a minute, then says, "Joseph has a bald spot."

"He does not."

"He does. Why do you think he's always wearing it in that damn bun? Covering it up."

Rook is cackling, but still manages to backhand him on the shoulder reprovingly. "Mean."

"You think it's funny."

"It is funny. It's still mean."

"He deserves it, some," he says, and Rook shrugs, fair enough.

They lie in companionable silence for a little while. She can feel his dogtags under her shoulder, pressing his name into her skin, but she's too languid and comfortable to move or care. Eventually, she asks, "Do you worry about them?"

"Joseph and them?" She hums a yes, and he says, "No. Not really. They had a plan, and I'm sure they stuck to it."

"Do you miss them?"

After a pause, he said, "We've been separated before. This is just a blink compared to that. At least this time I know I'll see them again.

"And anyway," he adds, "I'd rather have you here."

"Yeah," Rook says softly, after a while. "I wouldn't want to be with anyone other than you, either."

A/N - Epilogue incoming! Stay tuned.