Carolina takes off her helmet for the first time when they're eleven hours into their journey.

Kimball is intent on the road and doesn't notice. But Dr. Grey, clinging to the big gun at the back of the Warthog with a determined sense of balance despite the rocky terrain, shoots her a grin so intense that Carolina can feel it burning into the back of her skull.

"Wow," Grey says. "Nice scars."

These days, Carolina's hair is short enough that the sunburst scarring at the implant ports on the base of her skull is visible. It's something she forgets, carefully and deliberately.

Her hand clenches, but she manages to relax it with an effort. Her expression, she's pretty sure, remains neutral. The thing is, Grey's being sincere. She's being fascinated, and Carolina's been around her long enough over the past few weeks to realize that she probably doesn't mean any harm by that fascination.

"Thanks," she grits out, dragging herself bodily from rage to glib humor. "You want some of your own, I know a guy."

That earns her a little sideways glance from Kimball, the most reaction she's shown since they left the Rebel base.

"Gah," Grey says, and swivels the gun impatiently. "I can't even imagine what kind of hardware you've got in those neural implants. You're sure you—"

"No dissections."

"Just a quick look!"

"No. Dissections."

With her helmet off, Carolina's acutely aware of the puff of her breath in the cold air, the rush of wind, the purr of the engine, the swiveling squeak as Grey plays around with the damn gun some more. Then, plaintively: "Wash let me see inside his head, you know."

"You operated on him after a traumatic head wound."

"Hah! So if you get a traumatic head wound—"

"Why do I get the feeling you'd create an opportunity?"

Kimball speaks up, in the specific brand of soft voice Carolina's always envied in leaders: the kind that cuts straight through the bullshit and forces everyone to shut up and listen. It's utterly attention-grabbing, like being hit in the face with a pillow when you're expecting a knife.

"If you two can't keep it down, so help me, I will turn this car around."

Carolina grins, startled, and hears Grey guffaw behind her. But Kimball's helmet is concealing her face and her gaze is directed steadily at the road in front of them.

Their route to the capital is long. This is mostly by design, buying the Reds and Blues time to teleport into place and—with their usual style—create enough of a distraction over the next three days to open a path to Doyle. Carolina and Grey have been tasked with keeping Kimball safe until they have their entry point, and right now staying on the move is the best way to stay safe.

So far, so good. Only there's a new void in Carolina's head where Epsilon used to be.

It made sense, leaving him with Caboose for this mission. If Carolina does her job, there won't be any combat on her end of things, and goodness knows those idiots can use all the help they can get. But she talks to herself, sometimes. Expects answers.

At least the nightmares have stopped.

Fourteen hours in, Kimball cracks a joke unprompted, a funny but forgettable story about a particularly dense young recruit who'd been convinced by his fellow soldiers that it was absolutely essential to inspect the compound flag each morning before putting on his pants.

"Hey, who'd have thought the rebel scum'd have a sense of humor," Grey says, and oh, that prompts Kimball's fingers to clench tightly on the steering wheel. Even Grey picks up on the rise in tension. "Uh. No offense. Sorry."

"None taken," Kimball says, mildly. "Supporters of a murderous government aren't exactly known for their tact."

Grey abandons the Warthog's gun to crouch closer to Kimball, keeping her balance with one hand clenched around a guardrail. "Hey, your guys blew up buildings. And there were lots of people in those buildings. I mean, carnage is carnage, severed limbs get boring after a while, but these were civilians. Kids, y'know?"

The Warthog takes a turn with unnecessary violence. Carolina quietly puts her helmet back on.

"You stole our home," Kimball says, low and dangerous. "You murdered my friends. And the only soldiers we have left to put on the front lines really are kids. So I'd be careful, Dr. Grey. I'd be very, very careful."

Carolina sighs, fastening the seals on her helmet, wincing at the blast of recycled air, then reaches over and slams her foot on the brakes.

Here is how she knows Kimball isn't a warrior, not really: she's unprepared. Even in a tense argument, even with a former enemy at her back, she's let her guard down enough that there is no reaction beyond throwing her hands up to keep her helmet from hitting the dashboard. That lack of reaction speaks to trust. She trusts that the emotionally unbalanced ex-Freelancer she's just met isn't going to do something rash. Even after everything that's happened, she trusts.

Grey manages to catch herself from tumbling over the front of the Warthog, but only just. "What was that?" she yelps, when they've finally rolled to a halt.

Carolina looks over at Kimball, feels the power of her glare even behind the helmet's visor. "We're stopping for the night," she says. "Let's set up camp here."

Carolina reluctantly lets Grey take watch. ("I'm a doctor, remember? That basically means I can sleep standing up.") Carolina helps establish a perimeter, then rolls onto her side, still in full armor, listening to her own breathing loud in her helmet.

She's nearly out when she hears Kimball scream.

Carolina jerks to wakefulness instantly, slams one palm against the ground and leverages herself to her feet. Threat assessment is quick; her HUD detects no hostiles. Her HUD also detects Grey leaning over Kimball, who's thrashing in her bedroll, fingers like claws digging deep into the dirt.

"Oh, dear," Grey says. She sounds genuinely shaken, for the first time Carolina can recall. "Kimball. Kimball. Vanessa. Hey kid, you okay?"

Kimball's whole body spasms, and she drags her helmet off with shaking hands, scrabbling back in the dirt until she comes to rest with her back to a rock. Her hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat. She combs her fingers back through it in quick, obsessive motions. It's the first time Carolina's seen her outside her armor; as it turns out, Vanessa Kimball is dark-skinned, has unnaturally bright eyes, and looks obscenely young to be leading an army.

Carolina moves closer, cautiously; Kimball's eyes are tracking too fast, and they keep coming to rest on Grey. Or, more likely, on Grey's ominous white Federal Army armor.

"I got this," Carolina says, softly, and Grey jumps like she hadn't noticed Carolina was awake. "Go patrol the perimeter, okay?" No argument there; Carolina waits until Grey's out of earshot, then lifts the seals on her own helmet. Dredges up a reassuring smile from god-knows-where. "Hey. You with me?"

"Sorry," Kimball says. She forces the word out like it takes physical effort. "Nightmares."

"I know," Carolina says.

Kimball inhales, then starts talking on the exhale and doesn't stop. "It's nothing, I'm okay. I get them sometimes. I just—"

"I know," Carolina says again, and that stops Kimball in her tracks.

"Oh," she says. "Yeah. I guess you would, wouldn't you?" Kimball reaches up, rubs at the welt of still-inflamed scar tissue along the side of her neck. It was a very near thing, with Felix. At least his botched assassination attempt was a convincing piece of evidence when it came time to convince Kimball of the truth of the Reds' and Blues' story. Small mercies. Really fucking small.

Kimball is staring over Carolina's shoulder, now, and Carolina turns to follow her gaze. Grey is patrolling just at the edge of the light of their camp, her stride jerky, self-conscious. "She saved your life, you know," Carolina says. "After Felix. She patched you up. She's not the enemy, not anymore. You understand that, right?"

Kimball sighs, a little puff of breath that's almost a laugh. "And yet I've still got a head full of the names of the kids who died under my command. Funny how that works."

"If you're going to blame anyone, blame Felix." And Carolina isn't sure what makes her do it, except that when she reaches out and brushes a gloved hand against the scar on Kimball's throat, the scars at the back of her own head seem to snake out in sympathetic vibration. "You're gonna want to blame yourself for not seeing it in time. Take it from me. Don't."

Kimball is stiff, still, staring with wide eyes. She's holding her breath, and then she's saying, "Right," and pulling away, scrubbing the back of her hand against her face.

Carolina doesn't sleep that night, just lies on her side with one hand clenched into a fist, pressing into the dirt like she can break through to the crumbling planet's still-beating heart.

Grey keeps her helmet off, after that. Makes a point of moving carefully around Kimball, speaking in a soft voice, stowing some of the creepy-Dr.-Frankenstein vibes. Initially, Carolina thinks it's not having the intended effect, but as it turns out, keeping Kimball mildly annoyed is an effective way to stave off any residual angst. Carolina reminds herself, belatedly, that Grey's a doctor, and therefore has to have gone through at least a couple rotations in psychiatry.

They move into a warmer climate zone around midday, and celebrate by pulling over and eating MREs under the warmth of the sun. Grey, Carolina notices, has a shaved head with a streak of grey stubble near her temples, but otherwise sports the same coloring as Kimball, including a certain similarity about the sharp cheekbones and arched brows. The same smile. Colony kids, probably gene-modded to within an inch of their lives. Guinea pigs going back generations.

Grey leans forward with her fork and liberates a bite of Kimball's kimchi from her tray with surgical precision. Kimball stares, visibly startled, but doesn't comment.

They don't talk about the others, about the Reds, the Blues, Wash, Epsilon. Kimball's kids who'd latched onto the Reds and Blues so determinedly that they hadn't evacuated with the rest of the bruised and broken New Republic. They don't talk about them, in particular, and the shared silence is oddly reassuring.

"We're making good time," Kimball says. "A bit too good. Maybe we ought to start dragging our heels a bit more."

Grey has retreated to lie on the back of the Warthog, staring up at the sky with her hands folded over her gut. She's just spent five minutes detailing the digestive process currently occurring beneath her hands in excruciating detail. "I mean, if you're looking for suggestions, I can think of a few ways to, ah. Drag our heels."

"Um," says Kimball, and Carolina grins when she shakes her head, visibly regrouping. "You're a very strange person. You know that, right? I mean, you're really aware of it?"

"I've embraced my weirdness," Grey says, flinging one arm dramatically across her eyes. "And, I mean, it's a part of who I am. I like to see how people work. You know. On the inside. I don't think that's especially weird."

"Just for future reference: that is, in fact, especially weird," Kimball says, but there's a smile in her voice.

They take a detour, killing time so they don't hit the rendezvous too early. Their detour takes them straight into a Fed patrol: six soldiers who seem almost as startled as they are, but aren't so startled that they forget their standing orders. They open fire instantly.

"Nonlethal!" Carolina snaps, snatching at Grey's leg in passing when she realizes Grey is making for the Warthog's guns.

"Yeah, yeah," Grey mutters, jumping down and drawing her pistol.

Two soldiers are out already, courtesy of Kimball's excellent first instinct to floor the Warthog and drive directly through their ranks.

A third and fourth fall to a series of uppercuts as Carolina wades into the fray. She tells herself, again and again, that she's used to this. That she fought for years without an A.I., exactly like this, a long time ago. There's an empty room in her head, and she knows it well.

One of them catches her with a stunningly solid kick to the kidney, and she uses the momentum to swivel on her toes, snatching out at his leg and dragging him off-balance. Kimball steps in and downs him with the butt of her rifle, then sweeps back and takes out the last remaining soldier with a kick to the chest that has maybe a little more force to it than absolutely necessary.

The whole thing is over in a matter of seconds. Carolina is breathing heavily, ignoring the read-outs on her HUD informing her that her heartrate is high, that she's nearly hyperventilating. Simple fight. No harm done. No A.I. needed.

This is the thing about empty rooms: they echo.

When she turns, Grey is crouched over one of the Feds that Kimball caught with the Warthog, applying pressure to an open fracture. She glances up, meeting Carolina's gaze, and shrugs. "Nonlethal's an ongoing process. Figured you wouldn't want this guy to bleed out when we left. Do no harm and all that."

Kimball is standing behind her. "Also because you're interested in the blood and gore, right?"

"Well," Grey says, cheerfully. "There's always that. Who wants to grab my biofoam from the car?"

The second night's a hell of a lot more companionable. Kimball gets Grey started on a rant regarding the relative entertainment value of various approaches to battlefield amputation, then steals a handful of soggy fries from her tray when she's not paying attention. Carolina dozes while they eat, her helmet in her lap, her head tilted back against the side of the Warthog. When she wakes up, slow and drowsy, it's with the lingering suspicion that she's been snoring.

"So," Grey says. She and Kimball are sprawled out on the ground already, nearly shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the stars. "Tomorrow, huh? Big day."

"Something like that," Kimball says, then, hesitantly, "You think this General Doyle can be trusted?"

"Oh, Donald's a coward and an idiot," Grey says, fondly. "But he's not bad. You tell him something plausible in a persuasive enough tone of voice, he'll be with you."

"Which begs the question," Carolina says, "of whether Locus spoke to him in a persuasive tone of voice first."

"Oh. Yeah." Grey scratches her nose. "Yeah, that'd be bad."

Kimball sighs, heavily, then rolls onto her side, facing away from Grey. Carolina's attention is drawn to the way her fists clench and unclench.

"Hey," Grey says, nudging her with an elbow. "Don't go feeling sorry for yourself, kid. It's a war. Bad stuff happens to everyone, y'know?"

Kimball turns her head, craning her neck, but apparently has the good sense not to challenge the personal specifics of Grey's statement. There's a certain courtesy you afford your fellow soldiers, no matter which side they've fought for. "I know that," she says, instead. "I've been fighting since I can remember. It's just... it never fails to surprise me how stupid this war is. It's senseless."

"Oh, yeah," Grey says. "Always plenty of that to go around, in any war. Just means there's more good to be done, is all."

Carolina sighs heavily, drawing her knees up to her chest, letting her helmet hang loosely from the tips of her fingers, and stares up at the unfamiliar constellations. "We move forward," she says. "We don't turn back. We do better."

"Yeah," Grey says. "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Listen to the scary Freelancer lady. She knows her shit."

"I'm just so tired," Kimball says, in a soft voice. "I'm so goddamn tired."

"Then get some sleep, dummy," Grey says. "You'll feel better in the morning. Trust me. I'm a doctor."

Kimball curls in on herself, drawing her forearms up to cover her eyes, and it takes Carolina a second to realize she's laughing. "Jesus, do you even hear yourself?"

Grey is scowling, which just makes Kimball laugh harder. Carolina grins and rolls her eyes, pushing herself to her feet. She's acutely aware of the ache in her back, the ache in her leg. The older, deeper ache at the back of her skull.

"I'm gonna keep watch. You two get some rest. We've gotta be ready for tomorrow."

Grey yawns, exaggeratedly, and says, "You got it, Boss." Carolina freezes, has to rest a hand against the Warthog for a moment to steady herself, thinking of empty rooms. Listening to echoes.

She walks. The echoes fade, but Grey and Kimball's whispered voices, soft and warm, are still audible over the susurration of the wind in the tall grasses.

Tomorrow, Carolina thinks, and figures maybe she could get used to the idea.