Solace & Taproots

3.9

The girls resurfaced at lunch for appearance's sake, and tried not to let their speculation and anticipation show. Trent only gave them the gentlest of teasing smiles when they returned the empty food container. He'd occasionally encouraged Rebecca to consider finding someone in the prior months — had he known something before she did? She originally thought his "you never know, someone might be closer than you think" speech was either just cliché or his own initial forays, but then she found out he and one of the guys from Comms were A Thing. She supposed he was the closest thing to a bartender they had...

When she was summoned to a gathering with most of the tactical elements from the night before — excluding Sam, interestingly, though Rebecca later spotted her watching from the overpass — she detoured to collect her gear, feeling a little sheepish for not having seen to it yet, and regretful about throwing that much lead through Felicia so quickly. But self-care was important, right? Her speech to Lassart about the metaphorical saw had been inspired by Ronnie's prior comments about needing to maintain her own well-being just like all her hardware. And, Ronnie had assured her back when she was using the M4, Felicia's more "basic" cousin, that it was a tool and a workhorse, so maybe some of that robustness followed family lines?

She'd made sure to be insouciantly focusing on running a brush, and later patches, through Felicia's longer, beefier-looking barrel when Lassart as much as singled her out. When the spotter wounded during the firefight spoke up to reject the implication his injury was her fault, and declared she had in fact probably saved his life, she had just dropped the firing pin back into the bolt carrier and paused to look up at him. She gave him a warm smile, complete with fractional head tilt and slow blink, as she mouthed '"Thank you" to him.

She'd have to check in on how he was doing later, she knew some medical facilities used to have morale animals on staff, so maybe she'd bring some treats for him to feed Rufus. And damned well remember his name, even if she had to take notes.

Her smile vanished, replaced by her intentional "R.B.F." when Lassart somehow dismissed her defender's support, and she went back to installing the firing pin's retaining clip. When she clinked the bolt back and forth within the carrier, she noticed a slight hump on the cam path that rotated the bolt to unlock it from the firing chamber that wasn't present in her M4. Maybe it was some sort of mechanical timing tweak? She'd have to ask Ronnie about it later.

Speaking of Ronnie. Oh man. As Rebecca nestled the top of the carrier into the long neck of the charging handle and let the whole assembly clack home into the upper receiver, Lassart fucked up. All the way up, when he tried to remind "Miss Ellis" what he'd said about controlling her partner. Ronnie's voice was ice when she informed him her "first name" was "Sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant, or Gunny", not "Miss".

Rebecca picked out the familiar sound of Sam stifling a giggle with a cough from above, and caught her own stoneface cracking with a slight rise in her eyebrows. It was the biggest 'Oh, snap!' moment she'd witnessed in several weeks, maybe more. Yeah, no, this definitely outdid when Chris shut Pat down hard when he loosely implied their little excursion had originally been her idea.

She let the rest of Lassart's windstorm blow over while she reconnected the upper and lower receivers, making Felicia whole again. She'd originally been sitting cross-legged on a large crate, and she shifted. Leaning back, lifting her left knee upright, placing her left elbow atop it with her hand down across her body, she nestled Felicia into the braced crook of her arm for a few quick function tests, pointed off in a safe direction. The bolt racked smoothly each time, the safety/fire selector locked (and unlocked) the trigger properly, the bolt catch release operated as advertised, and now that it wasn't accompanied by the sound and recoil impulse of firing a live round, she was again impressed by how crisp lil' Felicia's trigger pull felt. A clean 'clack' when she applied enough pressure and the hammer sprung forward, the same feel every time, and a strong 'click' when she could sense with her fingertip as it moved back forward and reset.