Chương 152: Book 2 - Chapter 70 - Saying Farewell

Sharron, Angeline and I followed Hoppy to the morgue, where she dropped off Broodmother's remains and we paid our final respects. This process took longer than I expected, because it seemed like every samurai in the city 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 recognized 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 corner and only interacted with the others when necessary.

"I didn't know Brood was so popular," I whispered to Sharron as things started to slow down.

"She pretty much brought up a whole generation of samurai, mentored half the current roster," she whispered back.

"She didn't mentor me," I grumbled quietly.

"No, she pegged you as too independent, 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 reminisce with the others. As soon as I stepped into the RV I felt all the physical, and emotional, exhaustion hit me all at once, and I collapsed 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 relatively 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 relax it'll hit me, but it hasn't yet," she said reclining in the chair.

"How about you? You okay?" I flipped myself over, and used a pillow to support my head.

"I'm completely fine," I said, glancing at Sharron. She frowned slightly, so I elaborated.

"I've never had the capacity to worry about my people dying around me until recently. It wasn't uncommon for me to talk to someone one day, and find out they'd been shanked the next in the undercity, 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 explained.

"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 fucking life in the undercity," I mumbled.

"I'm doing my best to improve things, but it's not going to happen overnight." 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 for Angeline?" 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. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Fine with me. Next stop… home," Sharron declared. 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 minutes it took us to get back down to the shelter, but just managed to stay conscious. As soon as we parked I pushed myself to my feet, and staggered towards the door, pausing when I saw Sharron return from the cab.

"You want to come 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 alone with your family," she said quietly.

"Pfffttt… there's no 'alone' time with those animals, you know that. There's just slightly organized chaos, arguments, and occasionally good feelings," I replied with a smile.

"They'll be happy to see you too, come on." I propped myself up in the door frame, and gestured 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 complicated," 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 complete mess, Eddie and Issi were bouncing off the walls, there was confetti everywhere and Issi was dressed up in some strange outfit. I stared at the mess in confusion until Sharron slid up next to 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 collapsed into another chair.

"Welcome 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 on the table.

"Why does this place look like a paper bomb went off?"

"One of your samurai friends showed up, and had an adventure with Issi. The only reason that I'm not fuming about it is apparently Nyx was keeping an eye on the entire thing," Jane said, her stare slowly burning a hole into my head.

"Nyx? Explain!" I demanded.

"While you were gone, Cassy the Clown 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 coverage," my AI reported through Sir Froggington. Issi did a running jump over the back of the couch, stumbled, then came running up to me.

"Clown lady started a carnival 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 next, then jumped forward and hugged me as hard as she could.

"Welcome back!"

"Welcome 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 glanced at the girl, who giggled, her face full of clown make-up.

"You're cleaning up after her tonight," I said, dropping one of my arms on the table pointing at Jane.

"When am I not?" she replied with a snort. She picked up her tablet again, and started reading. She was obviously covering, because I could see the concern 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 since the scavenging days."

"Not really," I replied, rolling my head so my cheek was on the table instead of my forehead.

"Both Sharron and I have been through hell the last few days, and need time to recover, but we WILL be okay, eventually," I declared 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 can do," Jane said with a smile. She pushed back from the table, and as she did I received a message in the family channel which simply said 'Teddy's back, Dinner time' A moment later both Alan and Jennifer's doors shot open, and they came running down the hallway. Probably more excited for dinner than the fact I was back. I didn't care. It was good to be home.