Sharron, Angeline and I followed Hoppy to the mue, where she dropped off Broodmother’s remains and we paid our final respects. This process took lohan I expected, because it seemed like every samurai iy showed up shortly after, in order to do the same.

  It was awkward for me, because even though more than a dozen faces popped in, I only reized two or three. I probably could have left fairly early in the process, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful, so I stayed in one er and only ied with the others when necessary.

  “I didn’t know Brood was so popur,” I whispered to Sharron as things started to slow down.

  “She pretty much brought up a whole geion of samurai, mentored half the current roster,” she whispered back.

  “She didn’t mentor me,” I grumbled quietly.

  “No, she pegged you as too indepe, and a natural samurai, the first time you met, so she didn’t bother even asking,” Sharron replied with a sad smile. “She really had an eye for people.”

  “Fuck… I wish I’d known her better now,” I muttered. Sharron just nodded.

  Sharron and I stayed for about two hours, before finally being escorted back out of the building; Both Angeline and Hoppy stayed behind to remih the others. As soon as I stepped into the RV I felt all the physical, aional, exhaustion hit me all at once, and I colpsed face-down onto one of the couches.

  “Now what do we do?” I heard Sharron ask, as she sunk into a chair across from me. “Back to the shelter?”

  “Where else would we go?” I replied, turning my head slightly so I could look at her. “I could really use some Issi cuddles right now.” Sharron nodded slightly, but didn’t say anything. “You okay?” I finally asked after a minute. “Not only did you have to walk into your own personal hell, but you had to watch people die.”

  “I’m tired, but… surprisingly I feel retively fine. When I found out there was an absolute monster down in the hive, it helped me stay focused and avoid thinking about where I was. Once I got down there, I was too occupied with the fighting to worry about it. Maybe once we get back to the shelter, and I fully rex it’ll hit me, but it hasn’t yet,” she said reing in the chair. “How about you? You okay?”

  I flipped myself over, and used a pillow to support my head. “I’m pletely fine,” I said, gng at Sharron. She frowned slightly, so I eborated. “I’ve never had the capacity to worry about my people dying arouil retly. It wasn’t unon for me to talk to someone one day, and find out they’d been shahe in the uy, and I was too busy trying to feed and protect my family to care. It’s only after I became a samurai, and found some power myself, that I allowed myself to worry about others,” I expined. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sad that Brood is dead, but I learned a long time ago not to let death get to me.”

  “That’s pretty dark,” Sharron mumbled.

  “That’s fug life in the uy,” I mumbled. “I’m doing my best to improve things, but it’s not going to happen ht.”

  Sharron nodded slightly. We stayed there, lounging in our chairs for several long minutes before Sharron finally pushed herself to her feet. “Although I want to do nothing more than stay firmly in this chair, if I do we’ll never get down to the shelter. Are you going to leave the truck here feline?” she asked as she made her way towards the driver's seat.

  “Naw… I’ll have Nyx send her a message, and drive it by her building sometime tomorrow,” I mumbled.

  “Fih me. stop… home,” Sharron decred.

  Her RV was a much smoother ride than my truck, or any of the IFVs. Guess it was the advantage of a leisure vehicle. I almost fell asleep during the dozen or so mi took us to get back down to the shelter, but just mao stay scious.

  As soon as we parked I pushed myself to my feet, and staggered towards the door, pausing when I saw Sharrourn from the cab. “You want to e in? Maybe have some good food?” I asked with a smile.

  She paused for just a moment, before shaking her head. “I don’t want to intrude, you probably want to spend some time aloh your family,” she said quietly.

  “Pfffttt… there’s no ‘aloime with those animals, you know that. There’s just slightly anized chaos, arguments, and occasionally good feelings,” I replied with a smile. “They’ll be happy to see you too, e on.” I propped myself up in the door frame, aured for her to follow, until she finally relented.

  “It’s a good thing you have that autocloset, I don’t know how the fuck you’d get out of that new armor of yours otherwise,” I admitted as we stumbled towards the door to the residence.

  “The back opens up, and the helmet’s separate. It’s not that plicated,” she replied with a smug smile, “did you think all those samurai with power armor welded themselves in? They had to make it easy to put on, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the points.”

  “Hmmm… good point,” I mumbled as I pushed open the door.

  The inside was a plete mess, Eddie and Issi were boung off the walls, there was fetti everywhere and Issi was dressed up in some strafit.

  I stared at the mess in fusion until Sharron slid up o me. “You were right; chaos,” she chuckled before pushing past me and sitting in a chair across from Jane.

  “What happened?” I grumbled at Jane, as I stumbled up to the table and colpsed into another chair.

  “Wele back,” Jane grunted, looking up from her tablet for the first time. “You look like shit,” she said.

  “I’ve been told!” I replied, head down oable. “Why does this pce look like a paper bomb went off?”

  “One of your samurai friends showed up, and had an adveh Issi. The only reason that I’m not fuming about it is apparently Nyx was keeping an eye oire thing,” Jane said, her stare slowly burning a hole into my head.

  “Nyx? Expin!” I demanded.

  “While you were gone, Cassy the showed up looking for you. Although her chaos rating is off the charts, her reliability with kids is also extremely high. I deemed it safe to leave Issi in her care, as long as they didn’t leave the area of bear ce,” my AI reported through Sir Froggington.

  Issi did a running jump over the back of the couch, stumbled, then came running up to me. “ dy started a ival outside, and created living balloon animals! Then she created a new gang, just for her and I!” the six year old rapidly reported. She hopped from one foot to the other for a moment, trying to decide what to do , then jumped forward and hugged me as hard as she could. “Wele back!”

  “Wele back,” Eddie echoed with much less enthusiasm.

  When Issi pulled away I noticed a nice big white smear on my hoodie where her face had been. I g the girl, who giggled, her face full of ake-up.

  “You’re ing up after her tonight,” I said, dropping one of my arms oable pointing at Jane.

  “When am I not?” she replied with a snort. She picked up her tablet again, and started reading. She was obviously c, because I could see the on her face, even though she was hiding it. “Are you sure you’re ok? I don’t think I’ve seen you this exhausted sihe sging days.”

  “Not really,” I replied, rolling my head so my cheek was oable instead of my forehead. “Both Sharron and I have been through hell the st few days, aime to recover, but we WILL be okay, eventually,” I decred with a small smile. “What we need now is a good meal with the family, a little sleep, and some time to recover.”

  “That, I think we do,” Jane said with a smile.

  She pushed back from the table, and as she did I received a message in the family el which simply said ‘Teddy’s back, Diime’ A moment ter both An and Jennifer’s doors shot open, and they came running down the hallrobably more excited for dihan the fact I was back.

  I didn’t care. It was good to be home.