Fraternization

by Doctor Harley Quinn

Fraternize (frat·er·nize \ˈfra-tər-ˌnīz): to associate on close terms with members of a hostile group, especially when contrary to military orders. Or: Jacob Seed and the Junior Deputy are finding it increasingly difficult to want to avoid one another.

27. Epilogue - New Dawn

Epilogue
New Dawn

I.

Cap has seen her share of trouble, and she's encountered her share of awful people. It really is just part of the job, no getting around it: only a very small percentage of the population was prepared for nuclear fallout, and of that percentage… well, preppers didn't become preppers because they were good at playing with others, and they didn't magically become better at cooperation once they started to emerge from the underground. They'd encountered a lot of people—mostly men—who'd decided it was the perfect opportunity to create their own little dictatorships, the Clipperton Island incident recreated countless times up and down the west coast of what used to be America. It's almost refreshing, after seeing that over and over again, to hear that the pair terrorizing Hope County are women. Almost.

"A change is as good as a rest," Rush tells her when they decide to go up there and investigate the Rye girl's claims. Cap had been skeptical at the time, but if she'd known that within the week she'd be tumbling around in a derailed train, grabbing desperately at anything solid within reach so she doesn't get impaled by debris, she'd have told him, respectfully, to shove his change up his ass.

Too late now, she thinks as Rush kicks the door to her train car open, as hearty and hale as always (it's unfair, frankly) and cheerfully declares that it's time to get moving before the Highwaymen (stupid name) catch up with them.

Things get worse, of course. And worse. By the time she's being dragged half-conscious from the river, she's in a foul mood, not helped along by the fact that her rescuer (captor?) is a stranger. Most people nowadays look pretty scary—it's an important part of survival, make people think twice about fucking with you and trying to take your resources—but this guy is something else. He's huge, looks six and a half feet tall (a lot of people are huge to Cap, who barely clears five feet—it's part of why she likes Rush so much, he physically can't look down on her), big hands easily circling Cap's lean-muscled biceps and hauling her out of the river. He's strong, too, to her great discomfort: he doesn't bother letting her get her feet under her, instead bodily lifting her to his eye level and asking "Where the fuck is Carmina?"

Despite the physically aggressive approach, his voice is soft, nearly drowned out by the distant gunfire and pumping music. Cap blinks water out of her eyes and tries to place him, but no, she well and truly has no clue who this man is. He's older, maybe in his fifties, with a full head of long hair—gray streaked with red—and a beard the same colors, long enough that it makes it hard to get a great look at his face or a bead on his age.

So fuck him. Finally coming out of the shock and stupor that the last half hour has driven her into, Cap starts to see red. She wouldn't rat Carmina out to some strange guy in general, but she's especially not going to say anything to this man, who apparently thinks it's fine to manhandle and intimidate her. She cocks her booted foot back and swings it forward as hard as she possibly can.

She's aiming for his groin, but he probably sees the rage in her eyes (she's never been great at concealing her feelings), because although he can't dodge entirely, he shifts abruptly, taking the kick to his upper leg instead, then, right as she starts to try to wrestle herself out of his grip, he fucking dunks her.

She reflexively tries for his face, trying to scratch his eyes out, but his reach is considerably longer than hers and he's got her down at arm's length. He holds her under the water for a few seconds that doubtless feel longer than they are before he drags her back up again, and as she coughs river water furiously into his face, he growls, "You're going under longer next time."

"Fuck you," she gasps. Belatedly, she reaches for her gun, only to find that it had escaped her holster at some point, probably during the fall from the cliff. The man doesn't miss it. His eyes narrow, and his hands tighten on her arms, and she has just enough time to think that she might be in over her head before he freezes.

Her instinct is to take advantage of his distraction and fight her way free, but this territory is just strange and unknown enough to her to make her take her cue from him, an obvious local, so she goes still for long enough to hear what he hears: a girl's voice in the distance, panicked to Cap's ear, shouting, "Jacob!" It takes only a second for her to spot the source, Carmina Rye, fighting her way past the distant treeline and heading their way.

The man makes a low noise like a growl, and finally, he lowers Cap to her feet, but he doesn't give her time to adjust, grabbing her by the collar of her jacket and yanking her along as he begins to stride in Carmina's direction. If Cap could get her balance, she'd regroup, figure out a way to attack and get free—she thinks she sees the hilt of a knife at his belt; if she had even a second she could pull it free and bury it between his shoulder blades—but he's hustling her along so fast that it's all she can do to keep up without falling over and risking being dragged.

Carmina's voice grows clearer, closer, now a little hushed, whisper-shouting like she's trying not to be overheard: "Jacob, oh my god, let her go!"

To Cap's shock, he actually does, although he does it rudely, using his grip on her collar to basically fling her forward and away from him. She doesn't fall, though if not for Carmina there to catch and steady her, she probably would have. "Oh!" Carmina exclaims as she grasps Cap's forearms, making sure she keeps her footing. "Sorry! He shouldn't have—"

She doesn't bother to finish the sentence, whipping her head around to seek out the man again. He seems to have dismissed them both as a concern, turning his back on them to look eastward, where the sky is beginning to lighten and where Cap can still hear the thump and boom of the Highwaymen's music. Cap, with difficulty, resists the urge to go over and punch him in the kidneys. It's obvious that he's with Carmina, or at least is not her enemy, and as tempting as it may be sometimes, she and Rush haven't come as far as they have by rejecting assets. This man, though potentially not very smart, is certainly strong, and with Rush in the hands of the Highwaymen and her only companion a green teenage girl, Cap needs assets.

"What are you doing here?" demands Carmina, still in that whisper-yell. She doesn't sound angry, though—surprised, maybe a tiny bit indignant, but it's clear that she's not unhappy to see this man she'd called Jacob. "Is Rook with you?"

Standing perfectly still, watching the hills, probably for any sign of pursuit, the man replies quietly enough that it's a strain to hear, even though he's only a couple of feet away. "She's with John up north or she'd have come too."

Carmina's next question is sharp with suspicion. "Did my mom send you?"

"No," he says flatly, and turns then to shoot her a sharp look. "She shouldn't have sent you."

A couple of complicated expressions flash over Carmina's face at that (Cap primarily sees aggravation and maybe a little bit of embarrassment, but it's all so quick it's hard to get a good read) before her expression turns a little stubborn. She pointedly turns away from him, facing Cap instead, and puts on a smile that looks just a touch forced. "You're the Security Captain, right?"

They've been on the train together for the past day and a half, but Cap hasn't rubbed elbows much with the girl, choosing instead to focus on plans with Rush, for all the good it did them. She just nods, still trying to adjust to the abrupt change in their situation, and Carmina's smile turns a bit sheepish. "Sorry about him," she says, nodding towards the man. "He's the only person in the world whose manners got worse after he came back aboveground."

"Who is that?" Cap says finally, not bothering to mask her distaste. His back is turned to them again, shoulders a straight, unflinching line—he can definitely hear them, he just doesn't care, or is pretending not to.

"That's Jacob," Carmina says. "Jacob, this is Rush's Captain of Security." He grunts, which Cap is perfectly happy to accept as a nice to meet you if it means they don't have to talk to each other. "He's…" Carmina pauses, then frowns. It takes her a few seconds before she settles on the description again. "…married to my aunt?"

Cap looks at her and raises an eyebrow.

"Except she's not really my aunt, and… I don't think they're really married. Jacob, are you guys actually married?"

"Marriage is functionally meaningless in a lawless society," he says in a deadpan that Cap can't interpret at all, but that makes Carmina roll her eyes.

"Okay, so that's a no," she says. "Doesn't stop you from calling her your wife though," she adds as an apparent jab towards Jacob, who responds with a barely-perceptible one-shouldered shrug. Seeing that that's the best she's going to get, Carmina turns back to Cap and says, "Are you okay? If I'd known they knew we were coming, I'd have… I don't know, told you to stop the train a few miles back? Ugh," she says, balling her fists. "I shouldn't have let them sneak up on us like that."

"They didn't do a whole lot of sneaking," Cap says, allowing herself to feel one quick stab of pain over Rush—Rush, who'd saved her life and who she owed rescue, at the very least—then straightening her shoulders and saying, "And now we've learned a valuable lesson about underestimating them."

"On that note," says Jacob, turning back to them. "We need to get out of the open. Sun's coming up, and they're still up there. We'll be easy targets in a little more light."

Carmina is nodding. "I want to get back to Prosperity as soon as possible, and we still have to get past the barricade."

Jacob, on his way past them, scoffs. "Don't you worry about the barricade," Cap thinks she hears him say, but his voice is so quiet and his head is already turned away, so she can't be sure. Carmina rolls her eyes, but there's an unmistakable look of relief on her face.

"We better go," she says, gesturing with her head to Jacob's back as he retreats into the trees.

"Lead the way," Cap says.

---

Prosperity at first glance is pretty, and roomy, but Cap can see vulnerabilities immediately, as well as fire damage that looks fairly recent. A short woman bursts from the doors as their little party approaches, and Carmina runs to her right away, crying, "Mom!"

This leaves Cap more or less alone with Jacob—Carmina had been useful buffer for the whole half-day's trip to Prosperity, and Jacob had refrained from speaking any more than he had to, so her sudden absence makes the hairs on Cap's arms stand up like she's in danger, but Jacob doesn't even look at her, much less seem to notice that she's practically lifting her fists in preparation for attack. He is wearing a mighty scowl, though, she can see it even past the beard, and he stalks towards the two little women, looking entirely unmoved by the reunion.

"Highwaymen put explosives on the track," he says as he approaches, drawing the older woman's attention. "Blew a whole car into shrapnel and sent the rest of the train rolling down the hill. She could've been in that car. You shouldn't have sent her."

Carmina's mother doesn't seem cowed at all. She lets go of Carmina, and, despite being of a height with Cap, she puts her hands on her hips and somehow manages to look down her nose at Jacob as he passes by her. "You really want to have this argument again?"

His step hitches on his way past—he pauses just long enough to shoot her a narrow-eyed look that Cap can't read, though it doesn't scan as contempt, or anger—and then he disappears into the building. Carmina's mother doesn't appear to give him a second thought, advancing on Cap, introducing herself, and pulling her inside for food and rest.

After making sure Cap has eaten and sat for a while, Kim debriefs her, shows her around, introduces her to people. Cap is a big believer in chipping away at big problems, so as soon as Kim tells her about some of the locals in need of help, she heads out to go investigate. She meets with some success, and heads back after nightfall. She gets back to Prosperity at the same time that a heavily armored jeep rolls through the gates. Still tense from her encounter with the Highwaymen, Cap levels the shotgun she'd picked up on her afternoon excursion towards the vehicle, but the woman that emerges from the passenger side almost before the car has stopped isn't dressed in the brightly colored bike pads that seem to make up the Highwaymen's uniform. She's in the patchwork neutrals that seem closer to standard for Hope County survivors, and she barely glances at Cap despite the weapon pointed her way. "I'm going to kill him," she announces loudly, hitting the ground at a rapid pace.

Cap keeps the gun up, unsure if this is normal or not. The woman is quite tall (what are they feeding these people?), maybe in her late thirties, or early forties, and the cropped sweatshirt she's wearing reveals shining old scars on either side of her stomach. She looks furious, and while Cap can relate to a woman like that, she's wary that this could signal danger for the base's residents.

A man swings out of the car a few seconds later, talking before his feet even touch the ground. "You make the same threats every month," he says in a tone of drawling unconcern, coming around the front of the vehicle, following her towards the building. "And every month you fail to follow through." He's around the woman's height and older than she is by ten years or so. His hair is dark and swept back, with spiderwebs of gray shooting out from the temples and above his ears, and he has a neatly-tended beard that has more gray in it than is on his head. His clothes—a long jacket, vest, shirt, pants, and boots—all seem to be faded, probably pretty old, but they look well-cared for, and are less of a mishmash than what Cap has seen from the survivors so far.

What she notices immediately, though, are his eyes—they fall on her and narrow into something shrewd and assessing, almost glowing blue even in the torchlight of the courtyard, and, noting their color, shape, and expression, she makes a connection instantly to the man who'd pulled her out of the river earlier that day. If this isn't a relative of Jacob's—most likely a brother—then she'll eat her own hair.

"You want to see me follow through?" the tall woman asks, not bothering to turn and look at him while she talks to him.

"It'd be a nice change of pace," he says idly.

She appears to ignore him as she gets close enough to Cap to reasonably have a conversation with her, and then fixes her with a forceful, suspicious look. "Who are you?"

"That's Thomas Rush's Captain of Security." The answer comes from the door before Cap can answer. They all turn to find Jacob standing just past the doorway, arms crossed. He's glowering at the new arrivals. "Make less noise. There's kids sleeping upstairs." To Cap, he says, "At ease. They're fine."

Before she can even think about it, she finds herself lowering her weapon in response to the militaristic briskness of his tone. It makes her scowl resentfully, but it also puts another piece in the puzzle she's assembling, because the way he'd so comfortably issued the order—not to mention the way she'd so reflexively obeyed it—practically screams real experience. It's annoying, actually, the first real clue (not counting the way he'd so handily helped take out the Highwaymen at the barricade) that Jacob is going to be a valuable ally, and someone she won't actively dislike by the end of all this.

The woman doesn't check her stride, going right up to him, placing a hand on his chest, and standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth. Cap mentally updates her roster of who's who at Prosperity. This must be Rook, the not-aunt that Carmina had mentioned, who, according to Kim, did much of the heavy lifting around the place.

Jacob doesn't smile, doesn't touch Rook, doesn't really kiss her back, but she seems totally unfazed by his stoicism, turning to Cap next. The anger has melted away from her face to give way to a smile that looks both wry and conspiratorial, revealing crow's feet at the edges of her eyes and fine smile lines everywhere else—this is a woman that laughs often, Cap notes, and fights the urge to take an instinctive step back.

"Welcome to Prosperity. We've been hoping you all would show up soon. Where's Rush?"

Cap frowns. "Highwaymen got him."

The smile slips off Rook's face. She whistles low and then says, "Shit."

"Yeah. Shit."

"Dead, or—?"

"Captured for now," says Cap, feeling a touch more comfortable now that they're talking work. "I'd like to move on getting him back as quickly as possible, of course, but it looks like there's a lot of work to do around here before I can realistically get together a team to do that."

Rook looks apologetic. "We've been trying to maintain as much as possible, but there are so many of them it seems like we're spread thin everywhere, and they keep poking more holes in our defenses. Part of why Carmina went to find you."

Jacob makes a low, rumbling noise of disapproval behind her. Rook half-turns and says, "Yes, I know, but there was nobody else we could possibly spare for that long. Unless you wanted to send Harry?"

Something in her tone tells Cap that this is an argument they've had frequently in the past few weeks or months, and if she hadn't heard it from Rook, she'd definitely have picked it up from Jacob, who's quiet as ever but sounds genuinely angry in his response: "I don't want any of the kids away from where we can keep an eye on em. Carmina included."

"She's seventeen."

"A fucking child, sent out god-knows-how-far to hunt down a group of people we weren't even sure really existed, or would be alive if they did."

Rook just extends a silent arm out towards Cap, jutting her chin out in a so there motion. Jacob sneers back. "Yeah, I see her," he says. "You see anybody with her? What, you think Rush is hiding behind a tree somewhere?"

Cap feels like sinking into the ground—anything to escape this argument, which she's pretty sure she doesn't need to be here to witness—so when the air shifts beside her, she turns her attention gratefully away from the pair. Rook's companion stands there, having stolen up to her side surprisingly quietly, and when she looks at him, he blinks and raises his eyebrows as if he's just noticed her. "Captain," he greets her, that drawl in his tone turned smooth and polished. "Good of you to join us."

She squints at him. She's having a hard time telling whether he means it or not.

He appears to remember his manners further and removes a hand from his coat pocket. "I'm John Seed."

She takes his hand and grips it tight and angles her head towards Jacob. "His brother?"

His eyes narrow in what might be a smile. "You've wasted no time in getting the lay of the land, have you?"

It sounds like an accusation without being one. Cap shrugs, uncomfortable now in a different way, and tugs on her hand, which he releases after another second or two. "You two look alike."

He nods, mouth opening slightly as if to say oh, although he doesn't voice it. Past him, Rook is raising her voice again in response to something Jacob has just said. "No, we can't handle it on our own, that's what we've been trying for ages now, and look where we are! Half our people are dead or taken. Prosperity's the only half-safe place we've got, except it isn't, because they tried burning it down last month—" He interrupts, an annoyed murmur that Cap can't make out, but Rook just glares at him and says, "I know you were there for that. We had this same argument that night, too."

"And that night I said bringing in outsiders isn't gonna do anything but destabilize the region," he says a little louder, "and look there, I was right. Those girls got Rush, a trainload of supplies and recruits, and now they're all worked up because they know we ran for help. You wanna talk about worse off?"

"Maybe if you weren't so paranoid about new people coming in, you'd see the parallels."

Jacob looks at his wife like she's crazy. "What the shit are you talking about?"

She grins at him. She points at her temples, her eyes shining. She looks crazy, but Cap is starting to suspect she's doing it on purpose. "The arrivals. Me, her. The county filled with enemies, the overwhelming odds." She spins her fingers in opposite circles alongside her head. "I see it. This is a turning point, and all because of her."

Jacob's eyes narrow, angry, incredulous, a second before he looks over to his brother and barks, "How long was she with Joseph today?"

"You're not putting this on me," John says, sounding remarkably unperturbed. "You know she does what she wants."

Rook laughs and shakes her head. "Joseph's not rubbing off on me. I'm just remembering how things went when I first came to Hope County. Speaking of Joseph, the reason I am not listening to Joseph is because I'm going to kill Joseph."

"Who's Joseph?" Cap murmurs to John.

He's watching the other two intently. "Brother."

"Another one?"

"Oh, yes, Captain," he says, a smile starting at the corner of his mouth. "There's a history to this place. Stay long enough and I'm sure you'll hear all about it."

She's not sure what Hope County's so-called history has to do with him and his two brothers, but she figures there'll be time enough to find out. Jacob is asking Rook, "Even after all that, he still said no?"

She throws up her hands, exasperated. "He said that anyone is welcome to join them up north—claims that the Highwaymen respect New Eden, which, no the fuck they don't, they just haven't pressed that far up yet, but try telling him that—but he says he won't betray the integrity of the movement by having anyone take up arms."

Jacob absorbs this in disbelief, then scoffs. "Jesus Christ."

"Yeah, believe me, I had some choice words for him too," she says, slouching her shoulders and putting her hands on her hips. The common enemy seems to have made them forget their argument, at least temporarily—they stand on either side of the doorway, both with hands on their hips but relaxed shoulders, both tilted slightly towards one another. They seem to have silently agreed to forget about the argument, or at least put it aside. Rook says, "He's still extremely averse to us setting up a post just south of them, too. I told him it was just in case the Highwaymen change their mind about him, so they'd have some sort of warning before their borders were breached, but it was a no-go."

Jacob, after a few seconds' silence, asks, "And Faith?"

Rook shakes her head. "He's still holding a grudge, even if he denies it. Just the usual bullshit about garden snakes. At this point, though, I doubt she'd come back even if he'd let her."

Jacob shrugs. "You're probably right about that. She seems to be doing well enough."

"We'll see," says Rook, something strange in her tone that Cap can't really identify, especially as she doesn't know her very well—she's always had trouble with the more complicated notches on the scale of human emotion. "I'm planning to go east in a day or two, as time allows. I'm sure I'll find time to check in on her then."

At that point, their not-quite huddle is disrupted by Kim's appearance in the doorway, but she doesn't seem to take note of them as they break apart, heading directly for John. He steps away from Cap and towards her, too, as she approaches, reaching out and taking her by the shoulders once she's close enough.

She's staring at his face, and the emotions on hers are clear enough to Cap—hope, fear. She asks, "Did you…?"

"Not yet, Kim," he says, rubbing reassuringly at her arms despite his answer. "But we're getting very close. I spoke to Merritt on our way back from the compound. We should hear something back by tomorrow, and then we can put together a plan."

Intently, Kim says, "We have to get him back."

"I know," he says, still in that gentle, soothing tone.

Kim glares at him. "Don't talk to me like I'm an asshole or your decrepit grandma."

John laughs like it's been startled out of him and lets her go. "My mistake, trying to ease your fears," he says, sidestepping her and heading to the house.

"It is your mistake," she grumbles, moving to follow him. "And don't you forget it." She pauses, seeming to notice Cap for the first time, briefly reaching out to catch her wrist and releasing it a mere second later, a maternal touch that Cap appreciates all the more for its brevity. "You've had a long day," she says, her voice just as soothing as John's had been the moment before (she doesn't seem to notice the irony). "Come inside. Get some rest." She doesn't wait to see if she'll be obeyed, going in after John.

Cap sees that Jacob is watching Kim, has been watching her with John, and has his eyes narrowed, looking like he smells something unpleasant. When he glances at Rook, though, as if he's about to ask something, Rook heaves a jaw-cracking yawn and says "I'm beat. I need to get some sleep if I'm going to kill Joseph tomorrow."

She pushes off the door jamb and heads inside. Jacob follows—Cap can just make out his words, though they trail off as he goes: "If talking to Joseph wears you out so much, you don't have to be the one to…"

And at that, she's finally alone (or might as well be—the walls are guarded, but the courtyard is empty). Kim is right, it's been a long day, and she could do with some rest, but she lingers outside for a while anyway, savoring the space and fresh air and the quiet of the evening. As bad as she is at this sort of thing, she gets the sense that she's stumbled into a sort of wasp's nest of social bonds with these people, and trying to figure it all out frustrates and tires her. Rush was better at this. Is better at this. When he's around, she doesn't have to talk—he talks for the both of them, and is like a lightning rod for people's attention, meaning they don't talk to her, either, making things much easier.

She misses him, and she sits with the discomfort and helplessness of that feeling for as long as she can stand it before abruptly moving to go inside and go to bed.

II.

The next afternoon, Cap is looking over the shabby little space that serves for a garage at Prosperity—Kim has heavily hinted that it'll need improvements soon, and Cap is trying to get an idea of what exactly they'll need to upgrade it—when from behind her, someone says, "Hey, are you free?"

She turns around to see Rook, and immediately narrows her eyes, suspicious. "Why?" She doesn't want to be looped into things that won't ultimately help her cause of freeing Rush, and granted, she doesn't know Rook well, but in her experience, people who smile a lot have occasionally silly priorities.

Rook laughs (Cap doesn't see what's so funny) and says, "I'm about to go visit a friend out east. Sharky Boshaw. I have to deliver some components to him. He's got a workshop out there, and he's a wizard with pyrotechnics and demolitions—his cousin might be close by, too; he usually is. Point is, he'd be a good person for you to know. I thought if you wanted to tag along, it'd be good backup for me and a good connection for you."

Cap is still suspicious—Sharky seems like a made-up name, though she guesses "Cap" and "Rook" aren't in any place to throw stones—but she's getting a little stir crazy already at Prosperity, and exploring more of the area and meeting more of the locals seems like a good idea. After a moment, she nods.

"Great," Rook says—her eyes seem to sparkle as she straightens up, which Cap finds worrying. "Meet me at the jank in five minutes. We'll head out."

She moves to go. Cap, turning to watch her, says, "What the fuck is the jank?"

Rook spins, walks backwards out of the garage. "The jeep-tank. You know. Jank. Five minutes." She vanishes around the corner.

Cap stares after her for a few seconds, then, sourly, whispers, "Just say jeep-tank. God."

Five minutes later, Cap is at the jeep-tank and Rook is not. Rook doesn't show up till minute six, carrying a worn looking pack on her shoulder, which she slings into the backseat. "You're going to love it at Sharky's," she says pleasantly, appearing not to notice that Cap is a little miffed at her lateness. "If we make it in, that is; he's always building new booby traps but he's supposed to flag them with gray tags, you know, to set them apart from all the flowers—"

"Mom!" a piping little voice calls out. "Look what Dad found me!" Rook and Cap turn to see a girl racing across the courtyard to them. She has curly red hair and gangly limbs and Cap thinks she might be ten or eleven, though she's not great at judging children's ages (she avoids spending too much time with them, finding that she has no more talent for talking to them than she does for anyone else). Behind her, following at a much less hurried pace, is Jacob.

The child, reaching them, thrusts out her hands towards Rook, holding out a leather sack. Rook gamely takes it, tipping it into her palm. A bunch of glass gems spill out, nothing valuable, just shine, but smooth and transparent in their greens and blues. Rook, with appropriate reverence, says, "Wow."

"It's money," the girl says. "Well, at least, it's treasure that'll be money for the dolls. He says he'll find me a wood box to keep them in, or build one, and then we won't lose any of it."

"That's very sweet of him," Rook says, shooting a glance at Jacob as he ambles up—he maintains his usual expressionlessness. "Did you say thank you?"

The girl whips around to sing-song a quick "Thank youuu," then reclaims the pouch from Rook's hands, scooping the gems into it.

"Harry," Rook says. "Have you met the Captain yet?"

The girl pauses and looks at Cap, her brow crinkled into a thoughtful furrow. Cap studies her back. She'd seen the kid once or twice bopping around Prosperity, once with Carmina, otherwise on her own, though she hadn't made the connection that she was, apparently, Rook and Jacob's kid. Up close like this, she realizes the child is less than half a foot shorter than she is, and feels herself frowning. Unfair, though with her parents both roughly six feet tall or above, it does make sense.

"No," says the kid, suddenly looking shy.

"Cap, this is Harriet, she's eleven, she's our kid—" as she gestures to Jacob and back to herself—"and she's wicked good with a knife, actually, so if you need blade backup, she's your girl."

"Rook," says Jacob in a flat, unamused voice, although Harriet tilts her head back and cackles, clearly flattered and pleased. (Cap can see her resemblance to her mother there.)

"Harry, this is the Captain of Security. You want her to call you Captain or Cap?" Rook asks, turning to Cap and frowning as if the thought has just occurred to her that the rules might be different for a kid.

As far as Cap is concerned, they aren't. "Cap is fine," she says stiffly, and offers her hand.

Dubiously, the child shakes it—her hands are hot, sweaty, and a little grimy, and Cap regrets the move—and then looks up at her mother. "Are you going somewhere?" she asks, shoving the rattling pouch into her pocket.

"To Sharky's."

The kid's face lights up. "To see Blade?"

"We might see Blade," her mother allows, "if Hurk doesn't have him."

"He won't," says Harriet confidently. "Sharky won't let Hurk take him anymore after he put him in the Grizzler with no seatbelt."

"Je-sus," says Jacob, almost inaudibly.

"Can I come?" presses Harriet.

Rook starts to say something, then pauses, glancing at Jacob, then at Cap. She speaks to Cap first. "Would that bother you?"

Cap does some quick thinking. On the one hand, the kid might want to talk to her, increasing the discomfort of the trip. On the other hand, the kid seems more interested in talking to and about her parents, and about this "Blade," whoever or whatever that was, and if she doesn't come along, it leaves Cap alone with Rook, who seems guaranteed to try to talk to her.

"She can come," Cap says.

Rook looks at Jacob, just for a second or two, but they appear to be having some sort of conversation just with a couple of exchanged expressions, then Rook says, "I was thinking about dropping in on Faith, too, since she'll be close by."

Jacob says "Fine. I'm coming, too." Cap notes that they don't ask her how she feels about that, although she's not about to object—more people means less focus on her, and more backup. She's seen Jacob's ability at combat firsthand, and actually feels better about traveling across the county knowing that he'll be along, her disgruntled personal feelings about him aside.

Of course, now that it's established that they'll have company, it takes longer for them to leave—they have to wait another ten minutes for Jacob and Harriet to gather what they want and rejoin them, and by then, Cap has been sitting shotgun in the jeep-tank for a while, arms crossed, ready to go. She doesn't complain out loud (though, going by Rook's quick grin when she finally climbs into the driver's seat, she's noticed) and finally, they leave Prosperity.

Cap, who has been bracing herself for the worst, is pleasantly surprised to find that her travel companions aren't a complete nightmare. Rook, driving, appears to be more focused on looking out for enemies than on making conversation, and Jacob and Harriet, in the back seat, talk together in a low murmur that blends into the noise of the vehicle's motor. It's actually quite peaceful for a while, and Cap relaxes, taking advantage of not being in charge for once, resting up for whatever fresh nightmare this place might next visit upon her.

After maybe thirty minutes, Harriet pops up between Cap and Rook's headrests and asks, "Is the Mothman real?"

"No," says Cap as Rook peers into the rearview mirror and asks, "Why?" The question, Cap gathers is not directed to her daughter, but to her partner.

He doesn't bother to answer, but Harry ducks back into the backseat and says, "I knew you were lying."

"What, you're gonna listen to her?" he asks mildly. "She's not from West Virginia."

"Neither are you, darling," Rook chimes in.

"Close enough," he says, unbothered. "Closer'n you."

Rook snorts. "Well. If the Mothman did exist, he doesn't anymore."

"Oh, yeah? And you know that how?"

"Oh, you think he had a bunker?"

"He's been around for sixty years. I don't think a little nuclear blast is gonna slow him down much."

Rook is shaking her head. Harry, tattling, says, "He says there are things called Bigfoots too."

"Yeah," Rook says slowly, "well… he's right about that one." Cap, feeling like the rug has been pulled out from beneath her, shoots Rook a wounded look.

Dubiously, Harriet says, "Nuh-uh."

"He lived up in the mountains for like ten years, baby. He's seen things."

"They're pulling your leg," Cap can't help but interject. "The Mothman doesn't exist. Neither does Bigfoot."

"Knew it," says Harry, but she doesn't sound sure of it at all. Rook looks sideways at Cap and gives her a sneaky grin.

"What?" Cap demands, annoyed that she's been goaded into participating.

"Oh, nothing," Rook says, shrugging. "Just… wait till you take a swim in the Henbane River. You might revise your stance on cryptids at that point." In the backseat, Jacob scoffs.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

After a pause, Rook says, "Just stay out of the river," and after that, she won't say any more.

Cap has just managed to convince herself that Rook is pulling her leg too when they roll up to a big, hangar-like building, bracketed on either side by viney, overgrown trees. Rook and Harry bound out of the vehicle, Cap and Jacob following them more slowly. Cap is busy scoping out the area—it seems quiet, but it's heavily-wooded and overgrown, which would provide good cover for anyone waiting in ambush—so it comes as a bit of a shock when Jacob roughly grabs her by the arm.

She whirls on him, lifting her shotgun. He lets her go instantly, raising his hands, and when it becomes obvious that she's not going to shoot, he points. She follows the gesture down, not seeing at first, then realizing that he's pointing at a fishing line trip wire, nearly invisible in the light of day. She follows it from one side to the other, seeing where it terminates in a beige, claylike mess of plastic explosive plastered against a tree. Nearby, in a thick patch of purple flowers, there's a gray rag mounted on a stake, marking the trap for those who know to look for it.

"Oh," she says quietly, awkwardly. "Thanks."

He sucks his teeth in response, a dismissive sound, and steps carefully over the wire. She trails behind and decides it'll be smartest to follow in his footsteps.

It's a good decision. From what she can tell, he avoids one more tripwire and possibly a landmine in the short walk to the hangar. And you let your kid come out here? she thinks but doesn't bother to ask as they meet up with the other two at the entrance.

"Sharky has a new trap," Harry tells her father as he approaches. "A buzzsaw for cutting off feet. I spotted it."

"Good job," he says, but he's looking at Rook.

Without needing to be asked, she says, "He's beefed up security since last time. Wonder why."

"One way to find out," he says.

Rook nods, taking the lead. She must be wary or suspicious of something, because although she and this Sharky guy are obviously friendly, she doesn't call out a greeting as she enters the building, and she goes stealthily, followed in kind by Jacob and Harriet (Harriet is surprisingly quiet for a kid, when she wants to be; Cap feels almost clumsy in comparison).

She hears the voice before she sees the man: loud, gravelly, and unconcerned, which seems to relax Rook as they draw close enough to make out the words. "…set fire to the place and Whitehorse said it was on purpose, but that's bullshit. Hurk scared the piss outta me, that's all. Whitehorse said he'd have brought charges if the cult hadn't had the run of the place by then so I guess that's one I owe to you and yours," the man is saying.

Then their little party rounds the corner of a large, well-stocked shelf and Cap sees the owner of the voice. He's tall (of course he is), wearing three layers of clothing that make him look particularly hobo-esque, perhaps in his fifties, with long, graying brown hair and a beard. She notes the glimmer of a septum piercing almost instantly, if only because it seems an odd choice for a fifty-something white man, and second she notes that he's got a swaddled, sleeping baby tucked away in the crook of one arm. He's talking to a woman who's sitting on a crate slightly too tall for her, her feet swinging as he leans slightly over her.

"Faith?" Rook sounds aghast. Cap's hand drifts to the hilt of her gun as the pair look in their direction.

But neither of the two look particularly surprised to see them, or put off by their sudden arrival. The man grins, straightening up and turning towards them. "Harry!" he bellows, loudly enough that Cap flinches and looks worriedly at the baby, but the baby keeps sleeping like the shout is just so much white noise.

"Sharkyyyy," Harriet crows back, forgetting stealth and bounding across the room.

"Ope, careful," he cautions her as she charges up, stooping slightly at the knees to wrap his free arm around her.

"I told Mom that Hurk wouldn't have Blade," she says triumphantly, poking the bundled baby, who continues to sleep, unbothered.

"Uh-huh," says Sharky, sounding disapproving. "Did you tell your mom what Hurk did?"

"Yep, but I think Dad was madder about it."

"Yeah, well, neither of them was as mad as me. Can't ride around in that thing with no seatbelt, especially if you can't even hold your own head up yet. He's off Blade duty for a month."

Cap takes a second to assess her travel companions. Rook's arms are folded and there's a weird look on her face—Cap can't tell if she's amused or concerned—and meanwhile, Jacob's expression is as stony as ever, but he's staring across the hangar, directly at the woman Sharky had been talking to. The woman, looking nonchalant, stares back.

She's Rook's age, maybe a little younger, and pretty. Her hair is an ashen blonde, her skin is clear, her eyes are a bright green that Cap can make out even from fifteen feet away, and she's wearing a white tank top under a camo jacket, black pants, and heavy, muddy brown boots. As Cap watches, she breaks her gaze, unbothered that Jacob is burning holes in her with his eyes—what's his deal?—and switching her attention to Harriet.

"Oh, come on," she says in a sweet, airy tone. "I know he's the fun one, but I don't even get a hello?"

"Hi, Aunt Faith, sorry," Harriet chatters, swooping in to give her a hug. Cap watches Rook and Jacob carefully at this, but although they seem surprised and not altogether happy about Faith's presence here, they don't seem at all alarmed at their daughter's proximity to her, so Cap relaxes a little. If she's not a threat to the kid, she's likely not someone Cap can't handle.

"What're you doing here?" Jacob asks, cutting the little reunion short. His tone is flat and unfriendly, but Faith seems unbothered, shrugging her shoulders lightly as she breaks the embrace.

"Joseph doesn't want me around, so I figured I'd find some people who did."

"Like Sharky?" Rook asks, a little too loudly. She and Sharky are staring intently at one another, doing something with their eyes and eyebrows that Cap doesn't recognize but sort of feels like she doesn't want to.

Jacob appears to feel the same way—he takes one look at them, then, in that same clipped tone, striding forward: "Can I have a word with you? In private?" It's phrased like a question, but it isn't one. Cap spies a sneaky little smile just barely crossing Faith's face before she hops to her feet and struts outside, Jacob following close.

Rook barely waits until they're gone before basically attacking Sharky. "Faith?" she hisses, crowding in close and jabbing at his belly with claw-like fingers.

"Ow, fuck, Dep!" he says, bending over forwards protectively over both his torso and the baby he's holding.

"You're not supposed to say that," Harriet says gravely, her attention back on him now that Faith is gone.

"Oh, come on, with your dad the way he is, I bet you hear it ten times a day—forget about your mom," he says defensively to her, straightening up.

"I've never heard Dad say the f-word," says Harriet, clearly appalled at the suggestion.

"What, really?"

"Sharky!" Rook says, jabbing him in the belly again.

"Ow, fuck!"

"Hey," Harriet says, sounding more indignant this time.

"I can't deal with two of you!" Sharky exclaims. "Here, Harry, take Blade. Get him out of the line of fire, at least." Harriet happily comes to claim the baby, and Cap's blood pressure rises a little, seeing the ten-year-old kid cradling a baby that can't be even a year old yet (but again, she's terrible at guessing kid ages), but she relaxes a little when she realizes that Harriet appears to be up to the task, suddenly serious and focused as she holds the baby in her arms and talks softly and happily to him, clearly thrilled with being handed the responsibility.

(And really, Cap thinks, from what she's heard of this Hurk character, who seems to sort of share custody of the baby with Sharky, Blade is probably used to rougher handling than he's getting.)

Rook has laid off attacking Sharky physically, but she's still whispering in tones that sound fairly aggressive. "How long has this been going on?"

"How long has what been going on?" he asks, and to his credit, he makes an effort to match her tone, but his voice is naturally louder and Cap has no problems making out every word.

"You. Faith. Last we heard she and her people were just south of New Eden; suddenly, what, she's shacked up here with you?"

"Who's shacking up?" Sharky mumbles. He's too tanned and beardy to make it out for sure, but Cap suspects that he's blushing, and Rook either sees it or suspects the same, because she grins suddenly at him.

"Wow," she says. "Good for you. It's only been like twenty-five years."

"Uh, shut the fuck up, no it hasn't," he growls, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Close enough—or did you forget just how much you told me in the old days? You've had it bad for her since before the Reaping. I'm just glad she's reciprocating. Worried, too, if I'm being honest. Just because Eden's Gate isn't a thing anymore doesn't mean she isn't dangerous."

Sharky, head ducked slightly, meets Rook's eyes and grins. "She is dangerous, isn't she? Got a whole little army of defectors with her, you know."

"Ew," Rook says sourly, and pitches her voice so that he can hear her but her daughter can't—Cap, by virtue of being closer than Harriet, unfortunately can make it out too: "Strap your boner down."

"No can do, Deputy," he says cheerily. "Nothin' hotter than a woman in command of a whole fighting force, am I right? Hell, you married an army boss too."

"Who said anything about marrying?" Rook demands. "Just how serious are you two?"

Sharky shrugs. "I don't gotta tell you anything."

"If Harry wasn't here…"

"I'm not listening," Harry calls out, and the three adults look at her and her wide eyes that betray her as, indeed, listening.

"Baby," Rook says, "you're only allowed to eavesdrop when you can get away with it. Loudly announcing that you're not listening is the same as loudly announcing that you are listening, right? Now you gotta take ten more steps that way." Harriet heaves a put-upon sigh, but moves to obey as Rook turns back, eyebrows up, shaking her head in bemusement. "I don't know whose child she is," she says in confidential tones. "I was a much better liar at her age. Pretty sure Jacob was, too."

Sharky shrugs. "Her heart's just not in lying to you, I bet. Anyway. Don't sweat the Faith stuff. You know, I'm ninety-nine percent sure she's just doing it to annoy Joseph. Date the goth kid in high school to piss daddy off, am I right?"

Rook frowns. "We're well past high school."

"Same difference, right? She could also be cozying up for access to the armory. Now, come on, tell me it'd surprise you if she wasn't working an angle with me." The troubled look on Rook's face tells both Cap and Sharky everything they need to know, and Sharky shrugs. "My eyes are open, Dep. You don't need to worry. Nothing's gonna happen here that isn't my own damn fault."

"Sharky—" Rook starts, sounding a little exasperated.

"Aw, how rude of me," he bellows, cutting her off as he turns very pointedly to Cap. "I don't believe we've met. Charlemagne Victor Boshaw the Third is the name, but you can call me Sharky, everyone does. Fire and explosions are my game. Since I don't recognize you, I'm guessing you were with the train the twins just derailed."

Rook introduces Cap, who's gratified when Sharky gets right to business, showing her an array of jury-rigged weaponry and demolitions that's downright impressive given the circumstances. She suspects he's at least partially doing it to get out of the conversation with Rook—she can't blame him—but it works, Rook yielding with one more frustrated look and joining her daughter in poking at and playing with the baby. Halfway through Sharky's spiel, Jacob returns, looking annoyed (more annoyed than his usual resting bitch face, that is), but Faith doesn't. Cap realizes, with some resignation, that she's going to have to get the story on this family sooner or later, despite her best efforts.

(She knows the basics. Doomsday prepper cult that happened to get their timing right, a larger group than she's used to seeing, led, she gathers, by Joseph, the other Seeds' brother and the only one she hasn't met at this point, but past that, and when it comes to the cult's timeline after everyone came above-ground again, she's in the dark. Something tells her that figuring out the dynamics will help her as she navigates the county.)

On the way back, she makes an attempt, trying to speak beneath the loud growl of the engine so that Rook's daughter won't overhear. "What's the deal with Faith?"

Rook looks over. Again, she's wearing a complicated expression—Cap thinks she sees amusement and worry, among other things—and she glances into the backseat before answering. "I'm a little in the dark, actually. I was hoping Jacob could fill me in eventually. What I know is that she and Joseph—that's Jacob's brother, the leader of the cult here back then," she clarifies as Cap nods, trying not to look too impatient. "Anyway, they were down in her bunker together for the seven years we spent underground, and when they came back up, something had cracked. They've been tense and increasingly distant for years, but recently, there was a bona fide schism. Faith got exiled from his compound up north and she took some of his people with her. How many, I'm not sure." She glances in the rearview mirror at Jacob. "Were you able to find out?"

"You know Faith," he says, his voice low and unimpressed. "No straight answers from her. She kept hinting that it was a pretty big chunk, but it'd be just like her to self-aggrandize, make it look like she's sitting in a more powerful position than she is."

"You get any information on what she's doing sniffing around Sharky?"

Cap glances behind her to see that Jacob's scowl is even more firmly entrenched in response to that question. "She said 'just hanging out.' Which is probably the most worrisome answer she could give me."

Harriet, almost timidly, suggests, "They could be getting married."

Rook smiles a forced smile that Cap recognizes—it's a smile she's seen in the mirror too many times to count, done strictly for Harriet's benefit. "I bet Sharky would love that."

"But not Faith?" Harry asks.

Rook sighs, long and quiet, clearly thinking of how to answer. While she's puzzling it over, Jacob steps in. "Your Aunt Faith is a complicated person," he tells his daughter. "It's hard to tell what she wants. It could be something dangerous—for her and for Bos—Sharky." He pronounces the name with some distaste.

Harry considers, then says, "Like trying to take over the Highwaymen?"

Rook laughs a little, more surprised than anything. "I wouldn't put it past her, but I don't think that's what she's got in mind."

"No," says Jacob. "Me neither. Speaking of." He's suddenly leaning forward between Rook and Cap's seats, pointing a finger ahead. "See that?"

Rook is already slowing down as Cap follows his gesture and sees the distant Highwaymen patrol cutting across a field of purple towards them. She reflexively reaches for her weapon as Rook unbuckles her seatbelt and looks over at her. "You ready for this?"

"Rook," Jacob says tersely.

"I called dibs, and you need to get Harriet home," Rook says, already opening the door. "Last time it was you facing them without me, and fair's fair. Get up here."

Cap knows from experience that Jacob is a single-minded man, so it surprises the hell out of her when he doesn't argue further. Instead he shifts, the bulk of his body suddenly crowding the cab, and as Rook slips out from beneath him, she fires off a quick order into the backseat: "Harry, listen to your father and do what he says, okay? I'll be home in a few hours."

"Okay." Harriet seems a little drawn, a little scared, but determined. Rook exits the vehicle as Jacob takes the seat she's just vacated, and Cap gets out just in time before he shifts gear, whips the tank around, and tears off south, clearly intending to skirt the patrol on the way back to Prosperity. It takes her a second to see Rook again: she's made it impossibly far already, to tree cover edging the field the patrol is crossing, the patrol that's about half the distance away now than they were when Jacob spotted them. Cap takes a deep breath and she follows.

---

She doesn't end up back at Prosperity for a couple of days. Rook, in addition to earning a portion of Cap's respect for the energized and brutal way she fights, sustains a shallow but bloody bullet graze and heads back alone after Cap confirms that she wants to keep exploring the east rather than return with her. She stays away for a while, secretly (and somewhat guiltily) relishing the rare opportunity to be alone and get work done.

She does meet people, of course, aside from the Highwaymen, and when she find someone on the older side, she probes for information about the Seeds and the cult. Mostly, she gets nothing—there's not a lot of overlap, it seems, between people who were here seventeen years ago and people who are here now, and the people who were now seem like they occupy either Prosperity or Joseph's mysterious settlement up north.

She does find a notable exception.

"Eden's Gate," Grace Armstrong says thoughtfully when Cap asks her about it the day they meet. They're sitting on the porch of Grace's little house, taking a break after a skirmish with a couple of Highwaymen. "Haven't heard that name in a long time."

Cap, eager but trying not to be insulting—people get touchy when they're reminded that time has passed—asks, "Were you there? Back then?"

"There? I was part of the group fighting them tooth and nail."

Cap blinks, this unexpected windfall taking her by surprise. She'd nearly decided that she was going to give up until she got back to Prosperity to ask these questions, given that she hadn't met with success. "You were… fighting them? What happened?"

"Not much else you can do when these crazy people roll into the town where you were born and raised, talking about 'confiscating resources' and 'preparing for the collapse,'" Grace says dryly, and at Cap's pressing, she relays the whole story, as it happened from her view. By the end, Cap's jaw is hanging open. Cults are boring enough at this point, what with the job she does and the petty would-be-tyrants that seem to populate the apocalypse, but the story of Eden's Gate at Hope County is a lot juicier than anything she'd expected. It also places Rook in a weird position.

"Wait," she says when Grace wraps up the story where it was always going to end, at the nuclear attack; "Rook was on your side?"

"One of our best assets, to begin with."

After seeing Rook fight, even at forty-something, Cap can believe it. "But she defected."

Grace is nodding when a very angry, very scary, very human snarl sounds from the inside of Grace's house. Cap swings her gun up, and Grace just has time to say, sounding a little annoyed, "Don't shoot," when something—someone—comes stalking out of the dark doorway.

"Got dickmatized is what she did," snaps this new arrival, a woman with a heavily-scarred face and brownish-blonde hair streaked with pearly gray. "No accounting for taste, either; every one of those Seeds is uglier than the last, and that fucker Jacob is the ugliest of them all." She snatches up a piece of the hard citrus that grows everywhere in this region, the size of a persimmon with the flavor of a not-quite-ripe orange, from the basket at the edge of the porch and examine it thoughtfully. "Faith wasn't too bad, I guess, on the ugly side of things. Made up for it by being a fuckin psycho who turned people into her living zombies."

Cap is finding out a lot all of a sudden—Grace's version of the story seems to have been heavily summarized and mentioned none of this. Grace, for her part, looks a little annoyed, a little amused. "Jess holds a grudge," she tells Cap in an aside.

Jess sounds younger than Grace but looks almost old enough to be in her cohort. The camo she wears, the crust of dirt on her clothes, the bow she'd apparently had on her back even inside—she's no stranger to hard living. She hears Grace's words and scowls. "Time doesn't erase everything, Armstrong. It sure as fuck doesn't give me back my parents."

"You do what you're gonna do," Grace says, shaking her head, her unseeing eyes fixed on Cap. "And I'll do the same. That's always worked for us, hasn't it?"

It appears to be an old mantra, because Jess immediately abandons the bone she's picking with Grace and turns her glare on Cap. (Cap, who is not a timid person, nonetheless fights the urge to recoil at the sheer aggression in her eyes.) "So, you crossed paths with Rook and that little parade of chickenshits down in Prosperity, huh?"

"…they saved me from the twins," Cap says eventually, attempting to be diplomatic.

Jess scoffs, digging a dirty thumbnail into the citrus peel to rip it away from the fruit. "Goddamn traitors, every one. We spend seven years in those bunkers. I'm ready to start picking off Peggies the second we get back out into the sun. But ohhh, no, everyone else made friends while they were down there. Everyone else figured it was better to cooperate, you know? Bury the hatchet." Jess abruptly chucks the citrus across the little yard, giving up on it. "I'll bury the hatchet. In Joseph Seed's fuckin' skull."

"Jess is one of the few people still here who feels that way," Grace clarifies as Jess stalks away, apparently too restless to sit still while talking about this subject. "Most of the others left already."

"Why did she stay?"

"Well. For a while, there was her uncle, then he passed—he was gettin' pretty old. The local militia, her friends, they trickled out of here one by one. They didn't like Eden's Gate rebranding itself, either, figured they'd see what the rest of the world had to offer." Grace isn't an extremely expressive woman, and Cap's not great with expressions anyway, but still, she thinks she sees a touch of a smirk starting at the corner of Grace's mouth. "She won't say it, but I think the reason she sticks around is to stay with me."

Cap glances across the yard. Jess is stiff-backed and has taken to chopping wood at the designated stump about thirty feet away. She gives no indication as to whether or not she's overheard.

She decides not to pry. The two women seem happy together—in their way—and infinitely capable of taking care of themselves. She circles back to a point of interest: "So everyone goes underground enemies and comes back up friends?"

"Not everyone," Grace says. "But like I said, the ones who didn't want anything to do with the cult in any of its forms took off eventually. Most of the people left are the cooperative type. I imagine Joseph being right about doomsday didn't hurt, even if I'm sure he just got lucky."

"How do you cooperate with a cult that abducted you?" Cap wonders. Grace shrugs.

"Guess you'd have to ask someone who was down there with 'em."

A day later, Cap gets the opportunity to do that—in a manner of speaking. Another fight leaves her with a pretty nasty cut to her hamstring, and while it doesn't seem to have severed anything, she still needs some treatment and a little bit of rest before going on, so she steals a motorbike and heads back to home base.

At Prosperity, she eats, gets patched up, and fields the dozen or so requests for her help that have accumulated in her absence. She sees Rook and Harriet briefly across the courtyard (Harriet is wielding a baseball bat much too big for her; Rook is standing about twenty-five feet away, gesturing with her pointer finger and talking loud, teaching her kid… something), but she doesn't have time to stop and talk. Things finally die down after supper as people start drifting off to their own quarters, and Cap takes advantage of the quiet to recharge after a day full of talk. It's late, maybe around midnight, and the lodge is pretty quiet, but she sits up in the main room, trying to ignore the aching sting coming from her leg as she keeps it elevated and examines the maps Kim keeps around. Now that she knows to look for it, she sees New Eden, marked up high, surrounded by mysterious green scribblings. It's not of immediate importance to her, but she finds her interest piqued anyway, and stares at it, wondering what goes on up there.

"Should you be awake? Word is out that you had a bit of a trying day." She's startled by the voice, and looks up to see Jacob's brother, John, entering the room. He doesn't appear to have noticed that his arrival has taken her off-guard—he moves towards her, crouching down by the fireplace in front of her and using a poker to stir up the coals. The newly revived flame licks at an untouched section of log, and he nods, looking satisfied.

Cap, realizing she has an opportunity, says, "Can I ask you a few questions?"

He looks up at her. His eyes seem to glitter. If Cap wasn't fairly used to dealing with intense people, she'd be cowed, but with a full belly, in the safety and warmth of Prosperity, and especially after encountering Jess earlier that day, she can't rustle up so much as a tremble. "By all means," John says. "I'm at your service."

Permission acquired, Cap doesn't waste his time or hers. "What are you and your brother doing here with a bunch of former Resistance?"

His eyes widen, like he can't imagine what she's asking him. "This is my house." He pauses. "Well. Was. More like Kim's house now."

Cap hadn't known that, but she refuses to get distracted. "That's not what I mean."

"I know that's not what you meant." She can't tell if he's amused or irritated. He studies her for a few seconds before his teeth flash in a smile. "Who have you been talking to that's got you all curious, hm?"

"Grace Armstrong. And her… Jess."

He laughs at that, softly, conscious of the sleeping bodies just a wall or two away. "Her Jess. That'd do it, I suppose." He shifts his weight a bit, staying down by the fire. "What exactly are you wanting to know?"

There's a lot, but Cap simplifies it as much as she can. "Why are the two of you here instead of up with—what's his name, Joseph? You guys were part of the cult, right?"

His eyes turn frosty. "Yes," he says deliberately, in a way that makes Cap feel like she's said something wrong, though she can't think of what might have been offensive. "We were part of the cult." She's not sure if he's using the past tense because she did, or because he means it. After studying her for a moment, he sighs, and some of that ice disappears from his expression. "That isn't a question with a simple answer, Captain."

By way of response, she gestures to the other end of the couch. He sighs again, but rises and takes the seat she's indicated, a polite few feet away from her, and gets comfortable before answering, stretching his arm along the back of the couch and propping one booted foot on his opposite knee. He says, "You do know we were all in separate bunkers. Well," he says with a furrow of his brow, reconsidering, "Faith and Joseph were together, which likely contributed to their eventual rift, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Jacob was in his bunker up north. I was in mine, just a couple of miles away from where we are now. No radio contact between the four of us for the duration—we'd tried setting up supplementary towers so we could stay in touch, but the blasts apparently knocked them out.

"As fate would have it, Nick, Kim, and Carmina Rye ended up in my bunker as well. We'd been friends—of a sort—before all of the unpleasantness leading to the collapse, and then, stuck together for seven years, we had little to do but mend the rift. It happened slowly, but it did happen."

"Who's Nick?"

"Kim's husband. My—" he pauses, thinks better of whatever he was about to say, and moves on. "You haven't run into him because he's been pressed into service by the Highwaymen. We're working to free him at the moment."

"Is that what the two of you were talking about the first night I got here?"

"Yes. We're trying to find out exactly where they're keeping him. We have it narrowed down to a region, but neither of us is eager to move and tip our hand before we're sure, in case we're wrong and they move him again. I have every confidence we'll manage it, and sooner rather than later."

Cap considers this, then says, "How is this Kim's house now if it used to be yours?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "You could say I donated it to the cause." It pings her bullshit meter, but before she can say anything, he says, "We're deviating from the subject. I told you, it's not simple."

"I think I can keep up."

He takes a moment to orient his thoughts, then continues. "When we came back above ground, each group had—predictably—changed. Joseph was always the strongest impetus for the goals of Eden's Gate; without so much as speaking to him for seven years, we tended to focus on more practical things, day-to-day needs and relationships over piety." He shrugs. "My group consisted of families, mostly, more children than the others had, and when we came up, rebuilding so that we could establish security and a sustainable way of life for them was our top priority. Joseph, on the other hand, hadn't changed. Or—now that the Collapse had come and gone, the goal for the Project changed, of course, but Joseph is the same person he's always been. He expected our time and devotion, like before, and to a degree, we owed it to him—he saved us all—but… there's only so much time in the day. Establishing Eden's Gate again in force seemed much less urgent than finding safe sources of food and water, settling on a plan for housing and defenses, re-establishing contact with other survivors… we stayed on decent terms, but some division was inevitable."

"And Jacob and Rook?"

John scoffs. "Rook was never too keen on Joseph and the Project to begin with."

"Grace said she defected."

"I'm sure from Grace's perspective, she did."

"Jess says she was dickmatized."

John barks out a laugh, an almost-choked, abrupt noise that stops almost as soon as it starts. "Crude, but not inaccurate. She only made her vows to Eden's Gate for love of Jacob, in the end."

Cap frowns. "Grace made it sound like the animosity ran really deep on both sides."

"Oh, it certainly did."

"How did Rook and Jacob even…?"

John lifts one hand in the air to signal his own bafflement. "I've never understood how it started. Nor do I really care to. I guess a mutual attraction can be a powerful thing, despite how foolhardy, selfish, ill-advised—" He pauses, appearing to realize that he's getting a bit heated, and visibly, he calms himself. After a long pause, he says, "You understand she was our enemy, and had done quite a bit of damage to us and our people before the affair began. Clearly we're on much better terms these days, but it took some time to get there. Regardless of how we get along now, their connection was an unwise one. I still get irritated thinking about the start of it sometimes."

Cap thinks they've strayed too far from the question at hand and redirects him. "So when they came above ground again…"

John, recognizing the prompt for what it is, looks amused, but he obliges her nonetheless. "When they came above-ground, Harriet was a newborn, and Jacob had zero interest in resuming his former activity with the project. Difficult to blame him, really, with Rook in his ear for seven years uninterrupted and an infant to care for all of a sudden. He still spoke to Joseph, made it clear that he still cared for us, for his family, but that he was retiring as Herald, effective immediately."

Something occurs to Cap, who frowns. "Didn't you have a bunch of Joseph's followers down there in the bunker with you?"

"We did."

"Well, what did they think about that? About the two of you basically leaving?"

John shrugs. "They were entirely free to do what they pleased. There were plenty who went with Joseph as he set up the New Eden commune. A small amount left the county entirely. Most of them stayed with us." His mouth crooks up in a half-smirk. "I guess after seven years they'd grown attached."

Cap considers this. "Okay. You said Jacob and Rook were up north."

"Yes, but the air is toxic up there. They headed south immediately. We'd been out for a month longer, and so they found us here, and they stayed. We welcomed the added numbers. There was a lot of work to do, rebuilding civilization. I imagine you know a thing or two about that. How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

That gives John a second's pause, though she can't imagine why. Whatever it is, he shakes it off. "Fifteen's old enough to pitch in and rebuild the world, I'd wager."

Cap actually hadn't found Rush and joined up with him till she was sixteen, but she doesn't think that's worth saying. "What about people like Grace?" she asks.

"What about them?"

"I mean Resistance members who weren't in your bunkers with you. I can't imagine they were thrilled to see you again."

"You'd be right," he says dryly. "Especially once they saw Joseph's intent to re-establish—as New Eden, a strictly pacifist organization in contrast to Eden's Gate, but still. No one was feeling too trusting. It took probably a year of tense talks and the occasional skirmish before we settled into a sort of truce. In the nine years since, things have thawed considerably. Some have joined us; most everyone else can tolerate us. There's an outlier here or there."

"Jess?"

"Jess, I think, is more bark than bite. A common enemy helps. Hope County locals may have our petty squabbles, but no one is happy to see the Highwaymen. Every other conflict has been put on hold for now."

"Then what's going on between Joseph and Faith?"

John's eyes glimmer again, like he's pleased she's picked up on their discord, though she can't think why. "That's a bit of a funny story. She was his favorite, you know. Back then. It's why he chose to stay in her bunker over ours. I know what you're thinking," he says, catching her doubtful look, "but their relationship has never been untoward in that way. Still. I think it wore on her, seven years playing first lieutenant to him in the bunker, without me or Jacob to share the attention." He seems strangely smug about this. "And if she was looking for the old dynamic to resume when they came back up… well, I already told you how that went. Suddenly, she was the only Herald left.

"She held out for longer than I would have expected, to give credit where credit's due, but I gather that tension has been simmering for a while. It came to a head when the Highwaymen arrived. Joseph insists that New Eden refrain entirely from violence, even in self-defense. He believes that if they don't bother the Highwaymen, the Highwaymen won't bother them. It's… quite the reversal of the way Eden's Gate operated, and it turns out that it's a step too far for Faith. They've been arguing about it for some time, but about two weeks ago, he decided he'd had enough. He exiled her from the compound.

"The problem is, Faith has been a co-leader of sorts since before the collapse, and the only leader other than Joseph for a full decade. She's earned her share of followers, and many of them followed her out. It's weakened Joseph significantly, especially since the remaining followers are the real pacifists, not just the ones going along with it to humor him—those all left with Faith. When the Highwaymen finally venture far enough north to attack New Eden—and they will attack—a lot of people will die."

His tone has gotten tighter, tenser, as he talks. Cap can see that the idea bothers him, and she isn't surprised—it bothers her, too. Pacifism in this new world of theirs sounds nice, but it's a luxury nobody can actually afford, and it's a miracle New Eden hasn't been wiped off the map yet. Cap thinks if not for the Resistance, for Kim Rye and her organization, for Joseph's brothers, Rook, and all the auxiliary fighters standing up to the twins, Joseph's establishment would have burned to the ground long ago.

It's obvious that John is worried about that. "Is that why you and Rook went to visit him a few days ago?"

John blinks. It seems to take him a few seconds to rejoin her, to grasp what she's asking him. "Yes," he says at length. "We hoped to talk some sense into him. Distance makes one forgetful, it seems—he's always been stubborn as a mule." He shakes his head and laughs a rueful little laugh. "He maintains that God will protect them from the Highwaymen, and as far as Faith, I think he was wounded by the number of his followers who defected to follow her. There's no reconciliation there. Rook doesn't think Faith wants there to be, and frankly, I agree. I think Faith's finally had enough."

"What do you think Faith's planning?"

John brings both hands up to his face, scrubbing tiredly at his eyes and running them down over his beard before answering. "Gun to my head?" he asks wryly, but Cap nods back seriously. "Faith's impossible to really read, but I think she may be planning a hostile takeover of New Eden. Jacob tells me she's allied with Boshaw; that's munitions and demolitions handled, and the people who went with her are all willing to fight. Seventeen years is a long time for resentment against Joseph to build."

Cap finds herself nodding in understanding. She hasn't even met Joseph, but at this point, she's sure she doesn't want to. He sounds exhausting, and frustrating. "Would that be bad?"

"Given that we have much bigger problems to worry about than group infighting, and also considering that Joseph is my brother, whom I love, despite everything, and that Faith certainly doesn't have nice plans for him… yes, I'd say it would be bad."

Cap mulls it over. This conversation has proved to be an enlightening one, filling in many of the gaps in her knowledge. "Thank you," she tells John, sincere. "This has been helpful."

"Has it?" he asks, regarding her with a half-smile. "I'd have thought you'd be more confused than ever."

"It's a lot," she admits, "but it helps me decide who to rely on and why. And I think you're right, for what it's worth. Faith doesn't need to be wasting the manpower on a church feud, not when the twins are the biggest threat to the region."

"Hell," John says, "what do I know? She could just be planning to establish a rival church right across the river from Joseph's. Lure his followers away. If you knew her, you'd know that's an equally likely possibility."

"I think I'll try to talk to her. I didn't really get the chance before. I think it's worth seeing if she'll turn her energies towards fighting the Highwaymen instead."

"Try," John says, looking amused by something. "If Boshaw is there, you'll probably walk away in one piece; he isn't particularly malicious, and she'll be on her best behavior with him at this point." This is a worrisome thing for him to say, but before Cap can ask more, he gets to his feet, groaning wearily. "It's late. I'm not as young as I used to be. I'd best get to bed."

"Good night," Cap says, absent-minded, figuring she's got enough to stew on for now.

He glances down at her. "Good luck," he says cryptically. Then he's gone.

III.

Faith doesn't hurt Cap when Cap returns to talk to her, at least not physically. She has a way of staring, blinking her beautiful green eyes, and talking like she's never had a wicked thought in her life that makes Cap deeply uncomfortable, but she neither raises a finger against Cap nor signals for any of the dozens of meaty people milling about in her makeshift compound to toss her out on her ass, so as far as she's concerned, it's a win.

"But we're already fighting the twins," she says once Cap has fumbled through introducing herself and expressed, awkwardly, that she thinks Faith might be focused on the wrong enemy. "Just last night we ambushed a checkpoint. Got quite the stash of ethanol out of it, too," she adds, sounding particularly self-satisfied about it.

"I'm glad to hear it," says Cap truthfully. "The more force we can turn against them, the better."

Faith is peering at her, though, looking innocent, but there's an intensity in her eyes that puts Cap on her guard. "Who told you I want to attack Joseph? Was it John?"

"Why do you ask?"

Faith shrugs a dainty shoulder. "Because he's always thought the worst of me. And even if Jacob suspects the same, he wouldn't have told you so."

Cap can believe it. Feeling a reluctance to sell John out, though, since he'd been so generous with the information she'd wanted, she just shrugs and changes the subject. "We're hoping to mount a big attack on them soon," she begins.

But it appears Faith isn't done. "It makes me sad that Joseph is afraid of me," she says. Her bottom lip juts ever-so-slightly out in a pout, and as bad at Cap can be at this, at people, she knows damn well that Faith doesn't mean what she's saying.

"I wouldn't know what Joseph thinks," she says.

Faith blinks those big green eyes. "Haven't you met him yet?"

Cap shakes her head. "As of now, I've met all of his siblings, but not him. Unless there's another one of you I don't know about," she adds with a little frown. She supposes it's a possibility. For a moment there, the Seeds seemed like Matryoshka dolls.

"John, Jacob, and me, that's it," Faith says with a modest tilt of her honey-colored head. "You should meet Joseph. If just to form your own opinion. He's been a great help and spiritual leader to so many."

"Unfortunately," says Cap, "every time I get past a certain point in the north, I get gassed out. There's something poisonous in the air up there, I can't get anywhere near New Eden." It's the truth, but she's also relieved to have a good excuse not to go.

For a second, Faith looks confused, then understanding dawns on her face. "That's just Bliss, silly," she says gently. It's Cap's turn for confusion. Seeing it, Faith waves her hands in the air, like she's erasing the thought, starting from scratch. "Take the river. Look for torch structures and light them from a distance. You look like a strong little thing," she says, eyeing Cap approvingly. "You wouldn't have lasted this long away from the strongholds if you weren't. I'm sure you can manage to nock a flaming arrow."

As a matter of fact, Cap had crafted some incendiaries just that morning. She looks dubiously at Faith. "Light the torches?"

"Mm-hmm," Faith says brightly. "You won't have any more problems. And when you see Joseph, tell him he has nothing to fear from me, won't you?"

Cap still has no interest in meeting Joseph, but she is curious about Faith's advice for dealing with the poison gas, if only to have a place where the Highwaymen don't know how to follow. (She's thought privately for a while that the twins' lack of interest in Joseph and New Eden seems less to do with divine intervention and more to do with natural defenses… which, okay, given who you ask, could be the same thing.)

So she goes north, and she tests out Faith's suggestion. When it works, she's a little wary—five minutes with that woman and she knew she was working some agenda, and Cap had no idea what it might be, just that she wouldn't have been so helpful if it wasn't going to benefit her somehow—but mostly, she's excited. She heads north right away, lighting the torches as she goes, watching them burn off the gas. She notices that they extinguish themselves after about five minutes, closing the way behind her.

North is quiet, and empty. The gas dies away after perhaps a mile, maybe two, meaning Cap can relax, and she relaxes. New Eden seems to keep to their compound, because she doesn't see anyone, anywhere. It's just her, the wildlife, and the wind rustling through the trees.

Funny, she thinks as she sets up camp for the night. You'd think the apocalypse would have taken care of the problem of feeling like there are too many people around all the time. She sleeps well, better than she has in months.

She spends that day exploring and gathering, knowing that she needs to get back, that they're right on the cusp of rescuing Rush, but guiltily enjoying the quiet and the freedom to move as she pleases. It's slow going—the north is mountainous, and she spends a lot of time hiking up and down rocky slopes. It's well after midday when she discovers the bunker.

Rook and Jacob's bunker, she thinks as she stares at the open door into the cool, dark hallway beyond. Has to be. The cult bunkers, she'd gathered, were built for huge groups of people, in contrast to the single person or single-family bunkers dotting the rest of the county, and this one's big enough to need its own gate.

After what she's heard, and specifically after what John had told her, she can't help but be curious. Making sure her flashlight batteries are working and that she's got full ammunition, she heads inside.

About half the lights still work. The place hasn't been abandoned so much as decommissioned, she can tell by the way most of the shelves and storage rooms are neatly stripped of nearly everything, the way the leftover supplies—like board games, threadbare blankets and sheets, the like—are neatly put away. Sharky had called Jacob an army boss, and Cap recalls the way he'd ordered her to stand at ease her first night at Prosperity. The regimented cleanliness of the defunct bunker confirms her suspicion that he was, in fact, in the service at some point in his life.

She pokes around for several hours. The bunker goes deep; there are dozens and dozens of rooms of various sizes and for various functions, most empty, a few revealing. In one storage room, she finds a pile of materials that she realizes are related to Eden's Gate—books with tattered red ribbon bookmarks, folding chairs and bunting, and several large framed portrait photographs of a man in yellow glasses, a man with long hair tied up and a beard like John's, staring serenely out into the distance. The eyes give him away. Sunglasses or not, they're identical to his brothers'. She puts the frame away face-down, suppressing a shudder. She's getting the feeling that a meeting with Joseph Seed is inevitable, and she doesn't like it.

Poking around in a little coffin-sized room that she thinks served as a single person's living and sleeping quarters, she discovers a note stuffed into the little nook behind the mirror there. She doesn't realize what she's reading until the very end.

J,

Don't be angry at Pratt for passing this on to you because it's not his fault. I cried and he caved instantly. I can turn on the waterworks at the drop of a hat now, so I guess the hormones are good for something.

I don't blame you for bolting. I would, too, if I could, but I drew the short straw and can't get away from this no matter how much I wish I could. I haven't seen you in three days and no one will tell me where you are, and I know why, but I'm still so angry.

I get it, you know? I really, really do. Your dad was walking garbage. You don't even want to take the chance that you'll become him. This was never part of your plan. I know it's not the same as what you went through, but my mother wasn't winning any parenting prizes, either. I don't want a kid, I don't want to run the risk of being a terrible parent and fucking it up and I know it's the same for you.

But birth control implants don't last forever, we weren't careful enough, and here we are. It's happening, unless we get lucky and I miscarry (which, let me tell you, is looking increasingly fucking likely given the stress). Of course, we could always try beating the shit out of each other like we did in the old days, but given that we haven't done that since before the bombs fell, I'm thinking that option's not really in the cards.

Time for you to decide what the move's gonna be. We're less than a year away from surfacing. I bet you can stay hidden for that long; you're doing a great job so far, then when we finally get up there you can just make a break for it. Go play Bigfoot for the rest of your life, you'll never even have to meet the kid. I can't make you stick around.

I hope you don't, though. I'm scared shitless and you're the only person I want to see, the only person I want to talk to, and you aren't here. I want you to be here.

Just do me a favor, though—when you figure out what you're going to do, will you please fucking let me know so I'm not sitting here wondering if I'm ever going to see you again? Seriously. My hair's gonna start falling out any day now.

Come back. Please.

-Rook

"Oh, shit," Cap says, dropping the note like it's burned her. After staring at it for a second, she picks it up gingerly and tucks it back into the spot where she's found it and turns to go. She makes it three steps before she thinks about the strong likelihood that Harriet, when she's older, will come up to see the bunker where she was born and come upon this note, and so she doubles back, snatches up the note again, and puts it in a side pocket in her pack, figuring she'll decide what to do with it later.

After that, some of the shine has come off of exploring the old bunker, and she removes herself quickly.

Later that afternoon, a mile or so down the road from the bunker, she finds the remains of a large old building, scorched and caved in on one side, the still-standing gate at the entry declaring it to be ST. FRANCIS VETERANS CENTER. She pokes around a little bit to see if there's anything interesting. Nature has mostly reclaimed the place after seventeen years, vines and moss creeping over everything, but she can tell this place housed a large group, equipped with bunks, a cafeteria, an infirmary, and an empty armory. She finds an office upstairs with a desk in near-perfect condition, and upon poking through it, she finds another old note, but she's learned her lesson. This time, when she sees that it's addressed to "J," she stuffs it in her pack next to the other one without reading it. She doesn't think she needs to know any more about Rook and Jacob's personal lives

Since the place has a mostly-functional roof, and it's quiet, she beds down in the center for the night. The next day, she heads back out, dodging a couple of patrols—given the lack of anyone up here, she has the uncomfortable feeling that the groups are from New Eden, and that they're looking for her. With that in mind, she hightails it down to the river, and lights the torches to make safe passage through the toxic fumes again. As nice as it had been to be alone for a while, she breathes a sigh of relief once she's clear of the gases and back in the southern part of Hope County.

She hikes down towards Prosperity, and is just about a mile away and is taking a breather, eating her lunchtime ration and cooling her face with stream water, when she hears a little whistle—human, not a bird—from the nearby trees. She snatches up her shotgun even as she looks to identify the source of the noise—and relaxes when she sees Jacob Seed, half hidden in the tree line, looking amused at her jumpiness.

"You scared me," she mutters as she lays the shotgun back down so she can start packing up to go.

"Not my intention," he says with characteristic softness as he comes out from the trees, putting his bow on his back. "Did you make it all the way up north?"

She pauses. She hadn't told anyone she was heading up there, and she shoots him a quizzical, suspicious look. Correctly interpreting it, he said, "I dropped in on Faith again. She mentioned pointing you towards Joseph; given that nobody's seen you down here in a couple of days, I figured curiosity probably got the better of you."

"Is she always like that?" Cap asks.

Again, he doesn't need to ask. "Yeah," he says. "Likes to keep people guessing."

"Well, she succeeded," Cap says, and pulls her pack onto her shoulders, picking up her shotgun again. "I'm headed to Prosperity for now."

"I'll come with you. Hunting's bad today anyway."

She doesn't really know what to say to that, so she just nods and turns to the south. Jacob moves beside her, and for a while, they just go along in silence. Cap wishes she didn't know what she'd read in that note, because it's all she can think about now that he's here with her, and she feels certain he can sense it radiating off her. She considers giving him the two notes now, but for some reason it just feels wrong—she doesn't know what the second one says, but given that he'd obviously chosen to come back to Rook, she doesn't think the first one will be anything but a painful reminder of a difficult moment in their lives.

No—she realizes that she's going to hold off and give them to Rook instead. Rook seems emotionally stable and also upbeat; the notes seem unlikely to send her into a funk and then she can decide what to do with them, taking the burden off of Cap to make a call.

She feels better for having a plan. Her steps gain a little spring as they get closer to Prosperity. Jacob chooses that moment to speak: "Did you reach New Eden?"

She hesitates. It seems like something she should have done, if she was going to make the complicated trek up north, and she's a little embarrassed to admit that she didn't. "No," she says finally.

She risks a glance in his direction to see that he's smiling. With teeth. It freaks her out a little bit. "Yeah," he says eventually, "I don't blame you. If he wasn't my brother I don't know that I'd want to meet him either. He can be difficult."

They walk in companionable silence for a while. Finally, Cap says, "I don't understand it. You and John seem normal." Faith is decidedly not normal, but she'd been Joseph's second-in-command for a reason, so she doesn't bother to ask about her.

"What are you asking, exactly?"

"I just don't see you two as the type to join a cult."

"It's a long story," he says after a considerable pause. "All that's relevant is that we had different reasons for it, but at the time, we were all-in. Then we got split up, and I had Rook to think about, and eventually Harry." They walk for a while, and he eventually adds, "Your priorities shift. John, too—he had people to take care of, it wasn't just about him and his family anymore."

Cap is nodding—she gets that, she thinks, working to protect Rush and his organization definitely makes her choose to be a better person than she might be otherwise—when a voice from behind them says "Hands in the fucking air, now."

Highwaymen.

Cap raises her hands slowly, risking a glance over at Jacob. He's looking at her, his expression grim, but not what she would call worried. He raises an eyebrow at her. She nods slightly.

Sticks break and leaves crackle as the Highwaymen—two of them, from the sound of it—come closer. "You do so much as move, I'm putting a bullet in your head," threatens the one closest to Cap. Upon reaching her, they grab the shotgun in its holster, pulling it out to toss it away, from the corner of her eye, she sees the other one doing the same for Jacob, reaching for the machete sheathed at his hip.

She moves first, whirling and knocking the gun to the side, away from her head, away from Jacob. The Highwayman shouts with alarm and pulls the trigger, the bullet goes wide, and as she starts hitting, she sees Jacob in her peripheral vision, using his shoulder to crash into his opponent and send them flying. After that, she's too busy with her own fight to keep track of his.

The Highwayman is younger than she is, and a lot taller, but he's stringy and he obviously hasn't been trained like she has. It's pretty short work to knock him out cold, and she moves fast to find rope in his pack—rope he was probably going to use on her—and hogtie him. In the process, she searches for Jacob.

He's left his opponent semi-conscious on the ground and is walking over to where his machete ended up. She watches, her movements paused, as he picks up the blade, returns to the Highwayman, and with three viciously efficient whacks, takes the guy's head off. He looks around for her then, blood dripping from his face and beard, and when he sees that she's just frozen there, says, "You all right?" He's not even breathing hard.

"Yeah," she says, realizing that she's being weird and hurrying to finish tying up her guy. "Just… one second." She'd known Jacob was strong—she'd been on the wrong end of it the first night she'd met him—but she didn't encounter that level of viciousness often.

Suddenly she wants to get away from the scene of the fight as soon as possible. Leaving her opponent hogtied and unconscious, she hops up, collects her shotgun, and hurries away. Jacob comes along, keeping pace easily.

They don't talk for a while, not till he says, "Hang on a minute," and diverts from their path to go down the bank of a creek, splashing into the water.

Cap follows, a bit nervously, and says, "There could be more in the area. I'd like to get back to Prosperity."

"Me too," he says as he crouches and fills his hands with water. "But my daughter likes to play outside and she'll probably be the first person we see. I'd rather her not see me like this."

Ah. When he puts it like that…

She watches in silence as he sluices water over his head and face, rinsing the blood off his hair and skin, and splashes his front to get rid of the spatter there, or at least making it blend in. After a moment, she blurts, "You seem like a good dad."

Holy fuck. Where the hell did that come from? Cap is mortified, and she's sure she looks it.

Jacob barks out a sharp, humorless little laugh, apparently as taken off-guard by that as she is. "Uh," he says, pausing for a moment. "I'm pretty dogshit at the whole deal, actually. But it's nice of you to say so." He splashes two more big handfuls of water over his face and then rises, leaving the stream. When he reaches her, he pauses, looking thoughtful. He says, "Harry's a smart kid, and thank god for it. I don't know what she'd do if she actually needed us to be good at whatever the hell it is we're doing. Well, me, anyway. Rook's a good parent."

He continues past her after that, and Cap, not knowing what to say to that, follows along in silence. After another half a mile or so, they come upon Prosperity, and as Jacob had predicted, Harriet is the first to run up to greet them.

"Dad! Uncle John says he's gonna teach me something called Texas Hold Em." She pauses and wrinkles her nose. "Why are you wet?"

"Fell in a stream," he says, narrowing his eyes at the kid. "Did you do your reading?"

"Yeah," she says, but her eyes skitter to the side.

Jacob crouches down to get on eye level with her. Very seriously, he asks, "Did you really?"

She squirms. "I skimmed the last couple of pages," she admits. "But, Dad, taxidermy is so boring."

Jacob keeps a straight face, but to Cap, it seems like he really wants to laugh. "Yeah, well," he says. "It's what we got. You have to be able to read."

"I know how to read."

"All different kinds of reading. You have to practice."

She sighs. "I'll do better tomorrow. Can I go play cards with Uncle John?"

Jacob looks at her for a moment longer. Then he sighs, rising creakily up from his crouch again. "Don't bet anything you're not willing to lose," he says. "He probably won't cheat with you, at least not till you start winning, but you better keep an eye on him."

"I won't! I will!" she says, hugging him briefly around the waist then springing back with a disgusted "Ew I forgot you were wet" and dashing off again. Jacob actually chuckles—Cap's seen more range of emotion from him today than she has for the whole time she's known him—then he glances over at her.

"Pleasure fightin' with you," he says, and walks off.

"Yeah—yeah, same," she says to his retreating back. He lifts up a hand—in acknowledgement? farewell?—but doesn't look back before entering the building.

Cap is deluged with conversations and requests, as always when she gets back to Prosperity, and spends the rest of the day fielding them. She doesn't get a chance to talk to Rook, though she does see her a couple of times, notably in the late afternoon, on one of the couches in the den, with Jacob—she's leaning against him with his arm around her, her back to his side and animatedly talking with Kim about how the nuclear blast appears to have made the local raccoon population extremely aggressive, while Jacob's head is tilted back and his mouth is open and he is unmistakably asleep.

Cap sits next to her at dinner, but again, she's with Jacob and this time also Harriet, and the timing is terrible. When she hears Rook volunteer to take the first watch, Cap volunteers to be her relief, recognizing an opportunity to finally be alone with her for long enough to give her the notes, which at this point feel like they're burning a hole in Cap's pack.

At two AM, then, a little groggy from the couple hours of shut-eye she'd managed to get in, Cap climbs the eastern wall of Prosperity. Rook is waiting there, and flashes a warm smile at Cap when she sees her. "Good thing you're here," she says, stretching her shoulders back with a huge yawn. "I thought I was about to start seeing the hat man."

"The hat…?" Cap starts, before seeing that Rook is packing her stuff up and getting ready to go and realizing that her time is too limited to spend running down rabbit trails. "Um," she says. "Before you go, real quick…"

Rook looks up attentively. Something in her expression reminds Cap of Jacob. Cap, stumbling her way through it, says, "I was up north yesterday and… found some of your old haunts? I think? I just—I found these. I thought…" Finally, words fail her, and she takes the notes from where she stashed them in her pocket and just silently hands them over.

Rook, looking curious, accepts them. That curious look turns to shock, then something a lot like disgust, when she looks at the first note, the one Cap had found in the bunker. She barely glances at it, clearly recognizing it without needing to read it, before muttering "Christ," and going over to one of the torches burning along the wall and holding the paper into the flame. It's old and dry, and it goes up almost instantly, so fast that it gets to Rook's fingers in seconds and she's startled into dropping it. "Shit," she mumbles, using her booted foot to stamp out the flames before they can even think about spreading, then smearing the crumbled ash that used to be the note along the walkway.

She looks up at Cap's face then freezes, like she's been caught doing something bad, although Cap gets it—she'd have burned it herself if it didn't feel weird to make that decision for Rook. "It's—I just don't want to take any chance that Harry might see it," she explains, clearly uncomfortable.

"I get it," Cap assures her. "That's why I took it in the first place. I thought she'd probably end up at that bunker one day and might find it herself. I thought it should just go back to you."

"It was the right decision. Thank you," Rook says. She clearly means it, but she also appears to be troubled still, turning away slowly, walking a couple of paces away, then turning back. "It's just—neither of us wanted kids. Still don't want kids, plural."

"You don't have to explain it to me," Cap hurries to say, getting a slow, sinking feeling that she's about to, once again, find out more about Rook than she really needs to know.

"Him especially, like, his dad was bad—his dad was bad—and he practically raised his brothers himself, so he wasn't up for doing it again. And I was on board, because pregnancy freaks me out, and my mom was shitty so I thought I probably would be too, and I figured he and I had a good thing going with just the two of us…" Rook is lacing her fingers together, squeezing them tight. She looks agonized. Cap can relate.

"Really," Cap tries again, "this is none of my…"

"I didn't even tell him, you know? Once I found out. Scared shitless. I did the old tried and true if-I-ignore-it-maybe-it'll-go-away and he figured it out on his own when I started to show, like, three months in. We didn't even fight, that was the scary thing. He just… vanished. In an underground bunker where everyone was on top of each other all the time, I couldn't find him. I was so mad, partly because it would have been so funny in any other circumstance. Looney Tunes bullshit. I thought he might have even gone above-ground ahead of time, just to get away, until a friend of ours confirmed that he was still around, just… not with me.

"So I wrote that note, and he came back a day later, and we… haven't talked about it since. Partially because I'd have done the same thing if it wasn't, you know, literally happening inside my body, you know? I got it."

Cap, resigned to the fact that Rook's going to have to get this out and that Cap can't just leave because she's committed to taking watch, squats down to wait it out. Rook is pacing now, slowly turning circles, and it's almost as if she's talking to herself.

"And, you know, obviously it worked out, I mean, I guess it did. Harriet's the best kid and I do not regret having her now. I mean, suddenly I've got the coolest little person for a family member, and it's still scary, even scarier now, really, because if anything happened to her I think I'd die and we've got fucking Highwaymen roaming the county all the time, but now I don't want to live without her. I guess that's all chemical coding, part of our biology, but fuck it, I'm glad we had her.

"I think Jacob is, too. I mean, I still think he's repelled by the idea of being a dad, with all the baggage that holds for him, but he also loves her, and when Jacob loves somebody he gives them all he's got. He's so good with her."

Cap, cradling her own jaw in her palms, says, "Today he stopped before we got back here to wash all the blood off himself so she wouldn't see it."

"He did?" Rook asks, her voice going up about two octaves. Cap, tired enough to start to see the funny in the situation, snorts out a little laugh, and Rook catches herself, shooting Cap an abashed little grin. "I know. It's ridiculous. But fucked up times call for fucked up victories."

She's quiet for a moment, lost in thought. Cap thinks she might be finished, but out of nowhere, she says, "You know he won't even ground the kid? Like, you'd think he'd be the disciplinarian here, but he just won't do it. He'll be stern because he's just like that, and most of the time she listens to him, but the second she pushes back he puts his hands up and lets her do whatever she wants. We're lucky she's a pretty good kid. I think we have Carmina to thank for that; that girl is an angel and Harry worships her."

She shakes her head, like she's coming out of a trance. "Anyway. The point of all this is… I don't want you thinking he's a piece of shit because of that." She points at the ashes that are all that's left of the note. "There's a lot that went into that reaction. It sucked, but I understood it, and the point is he came back. He's been a good dad, no matter what he thinks. He's been a great partner to me for more than seventeen years now. It's… upsetting to me to think that someone might judge him for one of the weaker moments in his life. I mean, there's plenty of other stuff to judge him for, sure. Just not that."

"I'm not judging him," Cap says quietly. "I never was, because I've only ever known him like he is here. Somebody you want having your back. He obviously loves you. Harriet, too."

"Yeah," Rook says, brightening up a fraction. "Yeah." She blinks, then says, "Oh, god, I just dumped all that on you and didn't even buy you dinner first." She clasps her forehead in the palm of one hand and shakes her head. "Sorry. It's been a long time since I've thought about any of this. Dredged some shit up."

Now that it's over, Cap is feeling a little more magnanimous about it, and she rises from her crouch. "Don't worry about it," she says. "I didn't read the other one, by the way. Learned my lesson."

Rook glances at the other note, still clutched in her palm, and blinks. "Oh, shit. Forgot about this one." When she looks at it, she laughs. "Oh, wow. I wrote him this when we first started…" She trails off, flips the page, and laughs again. "Where even was this?"

"I found a building called St. Francis' Veteran's Center?" Cap asks, a question in her voice, which Rook answers by nodding knowingly. "It was in a desk on the second floor. Desk was totally untouched, though the rest of the building is in ruins. Funny."

"Oh, wow. He'll get a kick out of this." Rook folds it up carefully and tucks it in her back pocket. She pauses for one thoughtful moment, then says, "Thank you for this."

Cap shrugs. "Help me kill the twins and we'll call it even."

It's only partially a joke, but Rook chuckles all the same and heads for the ladder. "Oh!" she says, whirling around just before she gets there. "Speaking of the twins, did you hear? We pinpointed where they've been keeping Rush. Nick Rye, too, but John's already all over that."

"I did hear," says Cap, nodding gravely. Aside from this business with Rook, it's all she's been thinking about since she got back to Prosperity and heard the news. "I'm moving in on them tomorrow."

"Great," says Rook, putting one foot on the ladder and stopping there. "Come get me when you're ready to go. I'd be happy to back you up. I bet Jacob will be, too, if he doesn't have anything else tying him up. Good man to have at your back, like you said."

"Yeah," agrees Cap. "I saw him fight today. He's no slouch." Rook clicks her tongue and winks, says good night, and then disappears below the wall. Cap settles in for watch.

When the time comes to spring Rush, though, Cap spots the whole family in the den—John had left earlier that morning with Carmina to go after Carmina's dad, she'd gathered, so Jacob has taken his place playing poker with Harriet, sitting across the coffee table from her and patiently explaining that dad rule means that dads get to draw an extra card. Harriet stridently accuses him of cheating, to which he reacts with ruffled indignation, and Rook watches them both with a smirk and clearly without intention of intervening for one or the other. Cap, watching from the door, just can't do it. She's not so in need of extra hands that she's willing to risk the two of them. If she fucks this up, she wants to be the only one who suffers for it—she can't stomach the idea of costing them their peace.

In the end, she heads out alone.

END