Chapter 8 (Revised Version)

Jess had only gotten halfway through Jason's revised layout plan for the stables and the three barns when she glanced up at her alarm clock and saw the time. She looked out the window to confirm it had gotten dark and swore under her breath. She'd been a lot longer than a couple hours and she was pretty sure the only reason Jason hadn't come to find her was because he was otherwise occupied with their guest.

Jess closed up the folder and set it on her nightstand so she could look at it some more later. It was just about time to see to the animals for their evening meal, so she pulled on a long sleeve plaid button-up over her thermal undershirt. The temperature had probably dropped significantly with the sun going down, not to mention the wind she could see blowing the drifts up the side of the barn. At least the snow had died down for the time being.

Jess pulled on a pair of thick socks and then headed downstairs to see what Jason and Kaylee were up to.

She found them throwing electronic balls of light to a cartoon fairy. Judging by their scores, it was Kaylee's first game.

Jess paused at the foot of the stairs, feeling warmth suffuse her cheeks as she caught sight of Kaylee and suddenly remembered what she'd been doing with the sexy blonde in her mind less than an hour ago. She pushed the images away and took a few cleansing breaths. She continued to watch the woman until she saw the grimace on Kaylee's face. At first, she thought the woman was in pain again. Then she realized it was just her reaction to her latest throw, which had completely bypassed the fairy to land far outside the target zone in the enchanted woods.

"How's it going?" Jess asked as she finally moved into the room.

Jason glanced back at her, then made his throw.

"Okay," he said.

Jess smirked at the glare Kaylee shot him.

"Not so much?" Jess directed at her.

Kaylee widened her eyes and then ducked her head at being caught.

"I don't know these... these... plays."

"Yeah, it can take some time to learn some of these games."

Kaylee smiled and nodded her thanks at the correction of her word choice.

"Yes. I don't know these games, but I'll learn them."

"Well, that's fine if you want to keep playing, but I was gonna go check on the animals. Anyone want to join me?"

"Yes!" Kaylee said, a little more forcefully than she'd intended.

Kaylee wasn't sure what the animals were, but she thought they had to be better than the past few hours.

"All right," Jason agreed, clearly disappointed that he hadn't been able to impress Kaylee with his gaming skills.

"Kaylee's going to need some better clothes if she's going to go outside. Do we still have any of your old stuff?" Jess asked her son. "I'm not sure any of mine would fit her, except maybe as a nightgown."

"Yeah. We never did get around to taking any of those boxes to the donation center. I think they're still up in the attic."

Jason tossed his controller on the couch behind him, not bothering to shut down the machine, and took off upstairs. Jess and Kaylee followed at a more sedate pace.

While Jason wrestled several large boxes over to the opening from the attic, which had a folding wooden pull down ladder located in Jason's room, Jess stood halfway up the steps to receive each box, and then walked them down the rest of the way.

Kaylee waited in the doorway, looking around the room until Jess was occupied with a box, and then she surreptitiously glanced at the other end of the hallway to where she realized Jess's room was. She wondered what was behind the door and if she'd ever be invited in. Another loud thump brought her attention back to Jess.

"That was the last one," Jason called down.

"All right, let's see what we've got," Jess muttered as she pulled the flaps of the boxes open and started pulling out the large vacuum sealed bags inside them.

Jason joined them a few moments later and mother and son took turns holding various items up to match them to Kaylee's small stature. One of the boxes contained some of Jess's old clothes from before she'd hit her first growth spurt, so they were able to add a few essentials Jason's boxes didn't have. It was all stuff Jess's mother had set aside at some point and Jess tried not to think about it.

Between the two of them, they managed to find quite a few old T-shirts, several pairs of jeans, a pair of boots, a set of thermal underwear, and some long sleeve shirts and flannels, along with socks, underwear, and a couple bras.

Kaylee frowned at the underwear and was about to set them back in the box when she noticed Jess minutely shaking her head and giving her a pleading look before glancing at her son. Kaylee nodded and left the small stack alone.

Jess gathered up the refolded clothes and stuffed the unusable items in the bags again, not bothering to reseal them before she tossed them back in the boxes.

"I know this stuff doesn't exactly smell great, but I swear to you everything is clean. It's just the plastic smell from being stored in those bags for so long. But we can take care of that later. For now, you just have to wear them while we're outside, so you don't freeze to death. Then you can change back into what you have on now. We'll do laundry tomorrow, I promise."

Kaylee nodded and accepted the stack of clothes. The smell didn't really bother her. It wasn't familiar, so she didn't have any associations with it, which meant no pain, and that was a good thing. Kaylee went back downstairs to try on the clothes in the bathroom while the other two worked to get the boxes back up the stairs. She tried to remember what the clothes had looked like on Jess and Jason, particularly what order they'd gone in.

First was the underwear, but Kaylee simply set those items aside. She understood Jess hadn't wanted her to make a big deal out of it in front of the boy, but that didn't mean she was actually going to put on the uncomfortable garments. The shirts seemed simple enough. The plain long sleeve shirt went under the one with all the buttons and the plain pants that hugged her legs went under the thicker jeans. And of course the socks went under the shoes.

"You doing okay in there?" Jess's voice came through the closed door.

Kaylee stood up from where she'd been sitting on the toilet seat lid to zip up the boots and opened the door.

"Hey, I found a jacket for you to use. It's one of my old ones, but it, um... it should... uh..." Jess trailed off, completely losing her train of thought as she looked the blonde up and down, her hand still absently suspended in midair holding out the coat.

Jess swallowed. They might have miscalculated Kaylee's size. The thermal shirt she was wearing was at least one size too small and was riding up, exposing Kaylee's toned abs, while the jeans seemed a little too large and were slung low on the woman's hips, allowing Jess to see the skintight thermal underwear Kaylee wore beneath them.

As Kaylee took the jacket, Jess forced herself to look away, but her eyes immediately found Kaylee's body in the mirror. The woman raised her arms to slip the insulated jacket on over her shoulders and the movement caused her shirt to ride up even more while her jeans looked about ready to fall off her hips.

"Let me see if I can find you a belt," Jess mumbled and then turned away, practically jogging upstairs in her haste to occupy herself with something other than the sight of the beautiful woman.

By the time Jess returned, Kaylee was with Jason in the kitchen, watching him pull on his jacket, hat, and gloves, while Sienna paced excitedly around them.

Kaylee turned at Jess's entrance and smiled. Then the woman handed her a long strip of some kind of thick woven material with two metal loops at one end. She looked at it, trying to imagine how she was supposed to use it, but she couldn't figure it out, so she handed it back to Jess.

"I don't understand."

Jess sighed and began threading the old black military style D-ring belt through the loops on Kaylee's jeans. As she leaned forward to reach around behind Kaylee, she inhaled the woman's unique scent and felt her breathing escalate in response. Finally, she finished and brought the two ends together to show Kaylee how to thread the plain end through the two rings to pull the belt tight and secure it in place.

Kaylee felt desire curl in her stomach at Jess's close proximity and was sure at least some of it was coming from Jess, mostly because it was tinged with a sense of underlying annoyance, which Kaylee didn't feel in the slightest. Once Jess had finished pulling the belt tight and had backed up a step, Kaylee saw the frown on her face and thought she understood. Jess was probably worried that her feelings were unreciprocated or unwanted.

Kaylee realized she hadn't exactly been clear about her own desire, so she offered the woman what she hoped was a welcoming smile and put her right receiving hand out, palm up, to show she was open to Jess's advances. Jess's expression cleared and Kaylee thought for a moment that Jess was going to place her left giving hand on top in acceptance, but instead the woman turned and picked up a pair of gloves from the table.

"Sorry. I almost forgot. Here ya go," Jess said as she placed the gloves in Kaylee's waiting hand. Then she turned to look at the coat hooks and grabbed a spare beanie. "You should probably put this on, too. But still put your hood up. The last thing we need is for you to get hypothermic again."

Kaylee accepted the small hat and then turned away to hide her disappointment as she pulled it on along with the gloves. She mentally shook her head at herself. She should've realized at least some of their customs would be different and Jess wouldn't understand what she was offering. She made a note to herself to look up the local mating customs when she got the chance.

Kaylee glanced at the other two and mimicked them by zipping her jacket all the way up to her chin and snapping the collar closed so that it covered her mouth and nose. Then she pulled her hood up over the snug hat and tightened the drawstrings until she had only a narrow opening through which to see where she was going. Then she followed Jason through the door with Jess and Sienna behind her.

As soon as she stepped outside, Kaylee shivered at the biting cold. It didn't stop her from looking around, though.

The landscape was covered in a sparkling white blanket and it wasn't until they'd all made their way down the steps to the ground that Kaylee understood how deep it was. A narrow trail led away from the stairs and branched off in several directions, but the snow bordering the sides of the main path came up to her knees, and as she walked next to Jess following Jason and the dog, she saw drifts that would easily reach her waist and some that looked like they might be above her head. Small flakes of snow raced to the ground and Kaylee could hear them tap against her hood as her borrowed boots crunched through several inches of snow, which had apparently fallen in the time since Jess and Jason had last traversed the pathway.

They were headed towards a large red building that lit up with a bright spotlight when they came close. Jason pushed one of the large sliding doors open for the rest of them to pass through and then slid it closed behind them. It was a little warmer inside, but not by much.

"I'll get the feed going," Jason said.

"I'll check on the troughs," Jess replied, then turned to Kaylee. The woman was just staring and Jess followed her gaze to the horse stalls. She grinned as she pulled her gloves off and stuffed them in one of her jacket pockets. "I take it you'd rather meet the horses first?"

Kaylee couldn't pry her eyes from the sight of a creature much larger than the one she'd thought of as huge before. She almost called out a warning as she saw Jess walk right up to the gigantic beast and begin rubbing its long flat forehead. The animal snorted and nodded its head, then rubbed the side of its face against Jess's other hand. Jess smiled and seemed to be murmuring to it as one of its ears swiveled towards her to listen.

Kaylee cautiously followed Jess over to where the animal's massive head was hanging over the side of the half door of its cell. Then she froze as two more heads popped out over the next two half doors behind Jess, though the rest of the stalls seemed to be empty. Kaylee stayed where she was, standing back several paces as she tried to let her heart settle. She couldn't sense any of them and even though she was pretty sure it didn't mean she was still damaged, it was still unnerving.

Jess smiled warmly at her.

"Come on. Let me introduce you. This is Maizy. She's named after this corn-shaped place on her head. We've had her since I was about fourteen. She's getting up there, but she's the sweetest horse you'll ever meet." Jess turned behind her and gestured. "And that's her daughter, Spacey, mostly because she kind of is. And that one over there is our gelding, Lazy, which he definitely is."

Jess dug in her pockets and pulled out a baggie containing four quarters of an apple with the seeds cut out and a pocket knife.

"Here, you can give this to Maizy while I check her water," Jess said as she efficiently cut the quarters into smaller slices, then cut the slices in half. She saw Kaylee watching her intently and winked as she lowered her voice. "This is so she'll think she's getting more than she really is. She can be a bit of a hog sometimes." Jess finished with the fruit and nodded at Kaylee's hands. "Go ahead and take off your gloves. If she feels your skin, she'll know to be gentle. Otherwise, she'll start nipping at the gloves, thinking it's part of the food."

Kaylee was a little reluctant to bare her skin, both to the cold and to the animal, but did as requested. She shoved the gloves into the front chest pocket on her coat and then Jess reached for her hand. Kaylee thrilled at the touch, though she was careful not to reach into the woman's mind. Then she grimaced when she felt Jess place a cold sticky piece of fruit in her palm.

"Now, like I said, she gets a little greedy sometimes, so just feed her one piece at a time, like this," Jess said as she plucked another piece of apple from the bag and shaped her hand into a cup. She kept her fingers together and pushed her hand up against the horse's mouth. "And don't pull away from her when she's eating. Let her pull away from you."

The horse raised its head and chewed a couple times before swallowing, then immediately went in search of more, though Jess had already dropped her hand and wiped it on her jeans. She looked at Kaylee encouragingly. At Kaylee's dubious look, Jess smiled.

"Don't worry. She doesn't bite. Go on."

Kaylee took a breath and tentatively brought her hand up closer to the horse's mouth. It immediately lowered its head and snuffled into her hand. The warm wet tickling sensation made Kaylee laugh despite her trepidation and then she felt a rush of calm interest flood her mind.

Instead of pulling her hand away, she brought her other hand up to rub the horse's forehead, knowing immediately that it was Maizy's very favorite thing, even more than the apples. The sensation of loving tranquility was a balm to the constant anxiety she'd been feeling since she'd woken up the night before. She hadn't even realized how scared she'd been until she felt the absence of it. She moved forward under Maizy's head and hugged her around her long neck as the horse pressed her chin against Kaylee's back to hug her in return.

»Thank you,« Kaylee sent and felt Maizy vaguely acknowledge the sentiment.

Kaylee reluctantly released the hug and stepped back. She looked to Jess and found the woman watching her.

"May I give her a few more of those? She really likes them," Kaylee said as she held out her hand.

"Yeah, sure," Jess said as she passed over the bag. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen anyone take to a horse that quickly after being that nervous."

Kaylee heard the question in Jess's voice and smiled.

"She is the sweetest, like you said. I was just nervous about her size."

Jess nodded in understanding.

"Ah. Yeah, I guess they do seem kind of tall if you aren't used to them," Jess agreed.

Kaylee couldn't help smiling as she noticed the top of Jess's head was nearly even with the top of Maizy's.

"I'm fine with tall."

Jess glanced over at the blonde's teasing smile, then back at the horse as she suddenly realized they were about the same height. She looked at Kaylee again, searching for confirmation that the woman really was flirting with her, but then Jason came back.

"Hey, Kaylee, you wanna meet our goats?" Jason asked.

Kaylee held Jess's gaze for another moment before finally looking over at Jason and nodding. She followed Jason to a more open part of the structure, though it was still sectioned off with a large gate and wire mesh that appeared to have been repaired many times.

Kaylee listened to Jason's instructions regarding how to interact with the goats while they stood outside the corral, doing her best to block out the bleating sounds coming from the goats jostling against the fence. The goats seemed to hold to a standard matriarchy and Kaylee had to pay her respects to the lead female first. Jason was also adamant that she not chase any of them and instead let them come to her. Kaylee almost laughed at that. Like she would attempt to chase after anything that had horns as large as those she saw on the half-dozen animals inside the fenced-in pen.

Kaylee tried to see where Jess had disappeared to inside one of the horse's stalls as Jason carefully opened the gate, blocking the space with his body, but she couldn't find the woman, so she reluctantly followed behind the boy into the goat corral.

She was immediately surrounded by the goats, but Jason seemed to sense her unease and physically blocked some of the more determined animals from getting too close to her. Then he introduced her to the queen of the herd. Kaylee let the female sniff her as she rubbed the spots between its horns and along its cheek where Jason had indicated. The goat's mind was a bit more chaotic than Maizy's had been, but it mostly seemed to be excited to meet a new person and was actively looking for treats.

Kaylee got the sense that the goat wanted to be pet towards the front, so she moved her hand down to rub against the queen's furry chest, then dropped a little lower to scratch at the juncture where her legs met the barrel of her body. The queen immediately pushed forward, rubbing against Kaylee's hips and circling her like Max had several times. A few moments later, the rest of the goats seemed to decide that was their cue and they all moved forward, trying to get Kaylee's attention.

Kaylee smiled as she was swarmed by the fuzzy goats. They might not have been as calming as the horse had been, but their pure jubilation at getting to meet their family's newest member was invigorating. Kaylee made sure she rubbed every single goat, sensing through their physical link where they liked to be scratched the best before finally following Jason back out of the pen.

Then Jason took her to see the chickens and Kaylee felt her joyfulness dissipate as her head started to pound. The flightless birds that laid eggs for Jess and Jason in their heated coop seemed more familiar to her than any other animal she'd met so far. She knew them from somewhere, or something very like them, and it was taking all her concentration to stop attempting to search for the knowledge in her memories.

Kaylee focused on her breathing and purposely looked away from the birds in their nests as Jason continued to talk about how they managed their flock. They maintained a group of younger chickens that continued to lay during the winter while slowly culling the older chickens' numbers to use them for food, which also reduced their costs for feed. Then when the climate turned warmer, they would bring in a new group of chickens. From what Kaylee could gather, they employed a combination of purchasing new baby chicks and fertilizing several batches of eggs using a neighbor's rooster who received a few free chickens and eggs in return.

"...We're usually able to offer at least a dozen eggs to each of our members every other week during the winter and some of the chickens every month at almost as cheap as store-bought, but ours our way fresher and they're free-range, so people know where their food comes from," Jason explained as Kaylee nodded. "But then we have a bunch of vegetarian and vegan members, which really works out because it lets us offer more of the eggs to fewer members, so we're not just running a chicken farm. Most people don't even have to supplement from the grocery store when they sign up with us."

Kaylee looked up at the doorway, sensing Jess's arrival just as the woman stepped into view.

"You know she's not researching to become a member, right? You can stop with the sale's pitch," Jess teased as she offered a wink to Kaylee.

"Hey, I'm just educating her on what we do around here. She should know we run an ethical farm."

"I'm sure she's aware." Jess jerked her head for them to exit the attached coop. "Come on. I'm done with the logs and everyone's freshly watered, so I'm ready to get back inside where it's nice and warm."

Kaylee preceded Jason out of the coop at his gesture and then followed Jess outside. They waited for Jason to close up the barn and then he moved ahead of them as he started calling for Sienna. The snow seemed to be coming down even harder than before, but Kaylee still looked around as she walked slowly beside Jess.

"What are those... buildings?" Kaylee asked as she pointed at several of the domes partially lit by the artificial light.

"Those are our greenhouses. I can show them to you tomorrow," Jess said absently as she scanned the area past the edge of the barn's spotlight. "Sienna! You better get your ass back here right now or we're leaving without you!"

A moment later, Sienna came romping through the drifts, obviously happy as she returned successful from some private mission. As soon as she was in the more cleared pathway, she shook her whole body, tossing clumps of snow from her thick fur. Several bits hit Kaylee in the face and judging by the sounds of outrage, Jess and Jason hadn't escaped unscathed either. As Kaylee wiped the melting ice from her cheeks, the dog bowed for a moment as if stretching, then darted off towards the house.

"Yeah, you better run!" Jason called after her, but then Sienna just as quickly ran back to them, prancing in front of them before jumping up to put her paws on Jason's shoulders as she licked at his face, stopping their forward progress. "All right, all right. I know, girl. I promise, we'll play tomorrow, okay? It's just not safe in this blizzard, right now, all right?"

Jess turned her head, hiding her smirk as she heard her son mimic her words from that morning without even seeming to realize it.

"Yeah, let's get inside before we freeze in place out here," Jess said as she gently pressed her hand to Kaylee's back to get them moving again.

Kaylee stood still an extra moment, just enjoying the feeling of Jess's hand resting against her lower back through the thick jacket, but after Jason got several steps ahead of them, she realized she had to follow or be caught out, so she finally gave in and started moving again. As they left the illuminated area behind them, Kaylee looked up and saw the building they'd originally come from. She liked the angles of the roof and the warm yellow light that glowed from the windows through the falling snow. The structure didn't feel familiar to her, but there was something inviting about it.

Then she looked past the building and saw another one that seemed to be in the same style, but it was easily three times the size.

"What is that place?" Kaylee asked as she pointed to the massive structure in the distance.

"That's where I grew up," Jess said quietly, not even looking up at the house as she kept her eyes on the snow-covered steps leading up to the porch.

Kaylee felt twinges of anger and possibly grief coming from the woman, but before she could even consider asking if Jess was okay, the feelings disappeared as if they'd never existed. Jason had already opened the door to let Sienna in ahead of him, the dog disappearing further into the house, but then Jason turned around and paused in the doorway.

"We could show it to you," Jason offered, having obviously overheard them. "It's kind of a wreck right now, since we're in the middle of fixing it up, but if you can look past all that, it's really nice."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Let's leave that until tomorrow, Jase, when it's light out," Jess said.

Jason looked at his mother's expressionless face and knew better than to push it.

"All right, yeah, that would probably be better," Jason conceded as he turned around and entered the house, his mother right behind him. He waited for Kaylee to pass, then closed the door against the cold before starting to remove his jacket and continuing. "We don't have a lot of lights working over there, so it'll be a lot easier to see in the daytime," Jason explained.

Kaylee just nodded. She was more focused on how quiet Jess had gotten, though she refrained from searching for the answers in Jess's mind as she followed their examples and went about removing her jacket, boots, and other outerwear, placing the items next to theirs on the hooks and tray by the door.

Jason finished removing his boots and stood up again.

"So, what are we gonna—" Jason started, but then abruptly stopped when he heard faint yelling.

"What the hell..." Jess questioned as she stood still and listened. After a moment, she heard Jason's name coming from the basement and smiled as she shook her head. "I think you left the system on, Jase."

"Whoops?" Jason said as he gave his mother the most innocent look he could muster.

Jess laughed, feeling the tension from a few minutes ago instantly fade at the prospect of letting off some steam with her son's friends.

"Maybe we should go see what they want." Jess turned to Kaylee and grinned as she gestured for the blonde to precede her. "Come on. This should be fun."

Kaylee's curiosity was piqued and she dutifully followed behind Jason as he led the way down to the basement. As they entered the main area in front of the large screen, she looked around Jason's tall frame to see a line of squares at the top of the screen with the faces of several boys that appeared to be Jason's age. They were all calling out for him, but then they seemed to see him and one of the boys in the middle spoke above the others.

"JT! Fucking finally. Where the hell have you been? We've been yelling for you forever."

"Shut up, Carson. Can't you see he's got a girl with him?"

"Damn, you holding out on us, man? She's hot."

Kaylee felt Jason's embarrassment radiating off of him and wasn't surprised when she glanced over to see him blushing.

"You gonna introduce us or what?" Carson asked.

"Um, she's not—" Jason started, but was immediately interrupted as the speakers erupted with yells.

"Mama T!"

Jess laughed as she was finally spotted walking up behind her son and into the camera's view.

"Yo, Mama T!

"Cool. You gonna play with us, too? They just dropped some massive new level for COH and we were all gonna go check it out."

"Yeah, come on. You have to. You haven't played with us in months."

"I was thinking about it," Jess hedged, though she'd already decided to give in to Jason's earlier request.

"So who's the blonde?"

"Oh, is she your girlfriend?"

"Nice goin', Mama T."

"Sweet."

"Okay, that's enough, guys. Be nice," Jess reprimanded, shifting from compatriot to mother in half a heartbeat. The boys' expressions all became immediately repentant and mumbled apologies came through the speakers. Jess nodded in acceptance, then gestured to Kaylee. "This is Kaylee and she's staying with us for the time being. She kind of got stuck with us when the storm hit," Jess explained vaguely, completely sidestepping the whole 'girlfriend' comment.

Greetings overlapped each other as each boy tried to say hi and introduce himself at the same time. Kaylee missed most of the names, but then she saw the names listed above the boys' faces. There were four in all, Bobby, Carson, Aaron, and Nate going from left to right, and Kaylee just nodded at them in return.

"So, we gonna play or what?" Jason asked as he pulled out a couple baskets from the bottom shelf of the entertainment center and started bringing out the motion capture vests.

Jess frowned at her son's abrupt tone, but did her best to ignore it as she looked at the screen.

"Kaylee's never played before, guys, so we're gonna need to hang out in the sandbox for a little bit."

"Sure."

"No problem."

Jason silently handed Kaylee and Jess their vests, which had a headset and a pair of gloves dangling from each of them. He put his own gear on and then grabbed the toy space guns that acted as both character controllers and in-game weapons for all his first person shooters. He also pulled out the basket containing the joysticks and regular controllers for the space fighter sequences that took place between nearly every level of the interstellar military action game.

Kaylee put on the gloves, flexing her hands in the sheer material before shrugging the vest over her shoulders. She looked up to see Jess and Jason already dressed similarly. Jess was smiling, but then her brow furrowed as she looked at Kaylee.

"Here, let me help. If you don't snug this tight, the motion detector is going to think you're having a fit," Jess said as she moved to stand in front of Kaylee and reached for the temporary tape fasteners at the front and sides of the vest. "Lift your arms," Jess requested quietly and then pulled the edges together before locking them down again. "When you want to take it off, you can just undo the front set," Jess explained.

Jess plucked the headset from the front pocket of Kaylee's vest and slid it over the blonde's head before flipping a small screen down to rest in front of Kaylee's right eye.

"You can slide the viewfinder over to the other side if you need to and you can use this to change the distance," Jess said as she turned the dial near Kaylee's ear, zooming all the way out to give her the widest angle. Jess's other fingers accidentally rested against Kaylee's head, cupping her ear, and Jess felt her breath catch at the intimate touch as she suddenly realized how easy it would be to simply lean down and claim the woman's plump lips. She cleared her throat as she quickly dropped her hand and took a short step back. "H-How's that? Does it look okay?" Jess asked, refusing to meet Kaylee's eyes as she fiddled with her own gear.

Kaylee looked up at Jess. She'd found it hard to concentrate on the instructions with Jess standing so close, but she finally swallowed and nodded.

"Yes. Thanks," Kaylee mumbled as Jess continued to occupy herself with adjusting her own vest and headset.

Kaylee focused on the tiny screen, which showed a first person viewpoint of a rocky wilderness environment. Several soldiers in heavy armor stood around her, including Jess and Jason, with screen names hovering over the soldiers' heads matching the names she'd seen on the main screen earlier, though they also had what she guessed were rank designations before their names and two meters underneath monitoring their health and ammunition status.

Kaylee glanced at the large screen to try to see what her own title was and saw the same view of the landscape, except it was from overhead. Her and Jess's avatars were barely recognizable as female among the other male troopers.

Along the side of the screen, the names of the players were shown with a series of stats. Kaylee found her own name listed at the bottom as Private Kaylee and all of her stats were set at zero. It took a moment for Kaylee to figure out Jess was listed just above her as Sergeant Mama T. Her stats all had different numbers in them and there was a padlock symbol at the end of her name that Kaylee had seen online, meaning something was off-limits.

Kaylee found Jason listed second from the top as Major JT 'BugReaper' under Colonel Carson 'DeathMaster.' Jason's stats were much higher than Jess's, but were about on par with the other boys' stats, who were listed under Jason as Major Aaron 'Exterminator,' Captain Nate 'SlugSlayer,' and Lieutenant Bobby 'NecroBugger.' Kaylee also recognized what had to be symbols of their ranks and other achievements next to their names and as patches on their avatars, though again, hers were blank.

The top of the screen still displayed the series of small inset windows that showed the other boys' faces along with their health and ammo meters, and Kaylee saw her own face in between Jess and Jason's along the bottom with the same information displayed. She took a step to the side and the camera tracked her face at the same time her avatar shifted to the side on the screen and the view in front of her eye moved to show her new position. It was strange having the two overlapping views, but as long as she focused on only one at a time, she seemed to do okay.

"Here."

Kaylee looked up as Jason handed her a brightly colored gun. It was lighter than she'd been expecting. She immediately held it up and looked it over, trying to find the safety and the readout that would let her know what its ammo level was at, but all she found was a series of buttons near the trigger and along the top and both sides of the barrel above where her other hand would go to hold the weapon up. One side had a raised grip that prevented her from accidentally hitting the buttons.

"I set it for right-handed, but you can switch it to lefty if you need to," Jason explained as he pushed on the barrel's grip, shifting it from one side to the other and back again.

Kaylee nodded in understanding as Jason moved on to his mother.

Jess smiled at Jason as he handed over the plastic space rifle she'd painted completely black in stark contrast to her son's, which was a dark blue with neon green circuit board lines covering it. The boy had spent an afternoon meticulously drawing the graphics with some paint markers she'd gotten for him a while back. She noticed he'd given Kaylee the one he'd painted with flames. It was one of several he'd bought with his own money for when his friends came over to play.

"You ready to kick some alien butt?" Jess asked with a grin.

"Yeah," Jason said without looking up.

Jess tried not to frown at her son's clipped tone. The mention of Kaylee possibly being her girlfriend had obviously upset him. She just hoped he would forget the comment and snap out of his funk once they started playing. She turned to Kaylee and gestured at the screen.

"I don't suppose any of this looks familiar?"

Kaylee frowned. The screen and the tech didn't feel right, but the gun in her hand...

"I... I'm not sure."

Jess nodded.

"It's okay. Call of Honor is a pretty straightforward first-person shooter. Once you get the hang of it, you'll do fine." Jess moved to stand next to Kaylee and demonstrated as she spoke. "So, you've got a couple different ways to move. The system will follow your movements by tracking the vest and the gloves as well as your headset and gun. That allows you to make quick movements to get out of the way of enemy fire or to aim and take out enemy targets. But when you have to move over longer distances, you use these buttons like this," Jess said as she held up her gun to show Kaylee which buttons she was pressing on the barrel to move in different directions.

Kaylee mimicked the sequences and watched her avatar move across the screen. The buttons were set just above where her fingers and thumb naturally came to rest on the barrel making it easy to simply move a finger to hit one of them.

There was a button for each of the four cardinal directions and two buttons above her thumb, one red and the other blue. By pressing one of the directional buttons and then either the red or blue button, she could make her avatar shift from a steady walk to a run, slide left or right, or make her avatar crouch or jump up.

"You can also duck or jump by actually doing those things, which can give you a real work out," Jess said. "I've set up a few obstacle course levels just for that. It makes working out a lot more fun." Jess turned to the screen. "Hey, guys? Get into a line so Kaylee can move around you."

The soldiers lined up, leaving enough space for Kaylee to weave in and out of their ranks. Then the boys started calling out directions and maneuvers, and Kaylee practiced for several minutes until she was able to move the avatar in whatever way she was told.

"Great. Let's try some combos. Hold down the forward button, then hit red blue to jump and roll forward," Jess instructed as she used her own avatar to demonstrate. "Then keep holding down the blue button and press and hold the back button to stay in a crouch." Jess followed her own directions and came up from her roll in a crouch, her weapon at the ready. "You can also do that sideways to get out of range of grenades really fast. It also lets you move from cover to cover while making it difficult for the enemy to hit you."

Kaylee looked at her gun to get the buttons right the first few times, but then she was doing it blind and watching her avatar soldier jump around like it was having a fit. The others joined in, bouncing their soldiers off the ground and doing somersaults through the air. Jess started laughing at the onscreen antics and Kaylee felt warmth fill her chest at the simple joy she could feel coming from the woman. Then she hit the wrong button and her soldier slammed into Jess's, sending them both down in an awkward tumble before the avatars automatically righted themselves again. Jess glanced at Kaylee, giving her a soft bump with her shoulder as she grinned.

"Okay, I think you've got it. Now for some target practice," Jess said. She checked the screen and saw a star next to Carson's name, denoting him as the host moderator for the multiplayer game. "Carson, you wanna load some targets and maybe some goodies?"

"Sure. Coming right up."

Kaylee saw a group of alien soldiers appear in the distance along with a bunch of blue glowing things that hovered just above the ground at various points on the landscape.

"The aliens are the enemy and the glowing stuff is stuff you want, like ammo, armor upgrades, or health boosters. You pick that stuff up by either shooting at it or walking into it," Jess explained.

Kaylee quirked an eyebrow at that and Jess laughed.

"I know, it's weird, but that's how the game is played. All right, so the way you aim and fire is through the viewfinder," Jess said as she gestured at Kaylee's gun.

As Kaylee brought her weapon up, she accidentally pulled the soft trigger and a laser bolt shot out on the screen, grazing the nearest soldier.

"Hey! Whose side are you on?" Bobby complained.

Jess chuckled under her breath as she tapped at the buttons on the top of her weapon and Kaylee saw a few points of Jess's health meter go down as Lieutenant Bobby's went up. Kaylee's ammo meter had also gone down by one.

"Your booboo all better?" Carson said in baby tones and the other boys laughed.

"See how you like it if she shoots you in the ass," Bobby replied as his avatar brought up his gun and fired at Colonel Carson's backside.

"Oh yeah? You want some of this?" Carson asked and then returned fire, some of his shots going wide and hitting the other soldiers, including Jess.

"Guys, I think the colonel's been compromised. We gotta take him out! Who's with me?" Jess yelled and then laughed as she targeted Carson's avatar and began firing as the soldier backed up.

"Wait a second... Hey!" Carson yelped as his health meter quickly dropped to zero and his avatar toppled over, its armor smoking from all the incoming fire. "That was mutiny," Carson pouted.

"Yes! Every man for himself! I need a promotion," Aaron said as he went after Jason.

"What the hell, man?" Jason asked incredulously as he fired back.

"You should watch your back, dude. You're not the only one who wants a better nick," Nate said as he shot at Aaron.

"Oops," Jess laughed as the screen erupted into a free-for-all with all the boys shooting at each other, their laughter and yells drowning out her own as her health meter steadily headed for zero, though she was giving as good as she got. She turned to grin at Kaylee, whose eyes had gone wide. "Come on, help me. We can't let these little boys win."

"I... How?" Kaylee looked at Jess in confusion.

Jess smiled and shook her head as she stood up straight and lowered her gun.

"Sorry. I forgot. We kinda got sidetracked." She turned to the screen. "Hey guys, chill for a second. Carson, can you reset?"

"Yeah, sure. Was gonna have to do that anyway," Carson said, his tone sounding annoyed even though he was smirking.

All the health and ammo meters went back up to full. A couple of the boys took pot shots at each other, but they didn't go all-out again.

"Never mind them," Jess said. "Here, let me show you how to aim and choose your ammo."

Jess set her gun on the couch and moved around behind Kaylee to help her bring up her own rifle.

"Look through the viewfinder and bring up your gun until you can sight down the barrel. The computer will automatically highlight both friendly and enemy targets."

Kaylee focused on the tiny screen in front of her eye as she looked down the sights. The digital version of the gun was perfectly aligned with the plastic gun she held in her hands, giving her the feeling that she was really in the digital landscape even though she could still see the room around her with her other eye. Blue boxes appeared around the boys' avatars as soon as she brought the gun up and she could see red boxes around the alien soldiers further off in the distance.

"The targeting system is based on real-world physics, so it's a lot like shooting a real gun. The thing with this, though, is that you can switch between different kinds of ammo by pressing that button on the grip above your thumb and you don't have to have perfect aim to hit your target. You just need to get close enough so the targeting sensor goes from red to flashing red and then you can take your shot. Though if you want to rack up some extra points, you can aim for a kill dot and wait for it to go solid green and it'll give you an ace that takes most enemies down with a single shot. It's really hard to do, though, because they're usually not standing still like these ones are."

Kaylee moved her rifle to bring one of the enemy soldiers into her sights and saw the box change from red to flashing red as the metrics around the box told her how far away the target was and the likely amount of damage she would inflict. At this range, using the current standard ammo and with the sights focused on the soldier's chest armor, the computer estimated only twelve percent damage.

Kaylee pressed the button near her thumb to cycle through the different types of ammo and watched the metrics change. She had two hundred rounds of standard, a hundred of the armor-piercing, which upped the estimated damage to thirty-six percent, and five incendiary, which lowered the estimate to only seven percent, meaning the soldiers weren't that flammable. Then Kaylee saw the dot Jess had mentioned located at the throat where there was a slight gap in the armor and she shifted slightly up. The flashing red box turned green and estimated one hundred percent damage with a standard round. Kaylee fired.

The soldier went down and Kaylee took in the change in her stats on the main screen as it registered the ace and dropped her ammo by one.

"Nice shot," Aaron complimented and a couple of the other boys joined in to congratulate her.

Then the rest of the alien soldiers scattered for cover and began firing back.

"Now you've done it," Nate muttered in disgust as his soldier crouched down behind a nearby boulder to return fire.

"I said targets, Carson, not combatants," Jess said as she looked for her own cover in the rocky terrain.

"What," Carson deadpanned. "It's no fun if they just stand there."

Jess cut her eyes at him, but then she was firing, concentrating on the nearest targets that the others were already firing at so her team could take them down as fast as possible. She glanced at Kaylee to see how she was doing and found the blonde down on one knee next to her. Kaylee was completely still and then she pulled the trigger and Jess saw through her viewfinder as one of the alien soldiers that was furthest away dropped from an ace shot. Before Jess could look up at the main screen, another one went down.

Jess took a hit to her shoulder, dropping her health down to sixty-two percent in an instant. She slipped right to get herself a little more cover behind the rocky outcropping she was hiding behind, but then as she looked for her assailant to return fire, the alien fell out from behind its own cover, killed by another ace shot from Kaylee. Jess shook her head as she laughed in amazement, then went back to firing at the enemy.

Since Carson had only loaded a couple dozen of the alien's lowest level drone soldiers, it didn't take long for the veteran team to wipe them out. Jess looked over at Kaylee again and saw her still scanning the horizon for more possible targets. Jess heard the boys cheering and looked at the stats. Kaylee had taken out eight of the twenty-four enemy soldiers, seven of them aces.

"Well, damn," Bobby muttered.

"Hey, I'm pretty sure I saw those Pinehurst assholes in an open level," Aaron said and grinned toothily. "I say we go introduce them to the newest member of the team."

"Hang on, let's see what she can do in a fighter first," Nate cautioned.

"No problem," Carson said as he typed at his keyboard off-screen.

An arrow symbol spun in the center of the display, something Kaylee had seen a few times while using the laptop and waiting for content to load, and then the scene changed. Instead of standing outside in a wasteland, they seemed to be inside a huge hangar with rows of one-person spaceships lining each side of the cavernous area. The avatars' outfits had changed as well, showing them all in armored blue flight suits with white helmets. At the opposite end of the hangar, the entire metal plated wall began lifting to reveal an open view of space and Kaylee quirked an eyebrow in disbelief when the avatars weren't immediately sucked out into the void. Then she noticed a blue energy field shimmering across the opening and realized it was intended to indicate the air pressure was being maintained.

As most of the others climbed up into their ships, Jess leaned over and lowered her voice as she spoke to Kaylee.

"This is actually my favorite part. When I was researching whether to get the extended edition with all the extras, I played the demo and they really went all out. They used real star field images for the backgrounds and there's even a sandbox feature where you can just fly around in space or you can do flybys over places like Mars and Enceladus. For those, they used the actual satellite photographs of the terrain to map the surfaces. It's amazing."

Kaylee smiled at Jess's obvious excitement, though she didn't understand half the words the woman had used. She only managed to fill in the blanks because Jess was broadcasting her thoughts quite loudly in her enthusiasm and sent several mental images of zooming over the surface of a rust-orange planet and an ice-covered moon.

Then Jess moved away and set her gun on the floor as she went over to help Jason. Jason handed her a joystick as he took a standard two-handed controller for himself.

"Thanks. Hand me a controller, too?" Jess requested.

Jason frowned.

"But you hate those for flying."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure which one Kaylee wants."

Jason's expression cleared and he nodded as he gave her one of the black gaming controllers.

Jess went back to Kaylee and held up the two options.

"Which do you want for flying your spaceship?"

Kaylee looked at her choices. The joystick seemed almost familiar and she instinctually reached out for it, wrapping her hand around the stick and moving it in several different directions as her index finger naturally settled on the trigger and her thumb rested over the buttons on the top.

Jess grinned.

"A woman after my own heart." She turned back to Jason. "See? Even she knows the joystick is better."

Jason snorted and shook his head, but he was grinning.

"Just because she likes antiques doesn't make it better." Jason held up his controller. "This is called progress. As in, better than what came before."

Jess laughed, but didn't continue the faux argument as she set the unwanted controller aside and helped Kaylee connect her wireless joystick to the console, along with her own. Then she showed Kaylee how to use it to get her avatar into the ship. The game offered an autopilot option to leave the hangar and then they were in space.

They all sat down on the couch side by side and Kaylee listened carefully as Jess showed her how to use the joystick. The buttons on top of the stick allowed her to select various weapons, including missiles, and the targeting worked much the same as it had in the previous scenario, with the addition of needing to stay on target for several seconds in order to gain missile lock. According to Jess, the missiles were in short supply, but they tended to obliterate whatever they hit, though their own ships could usually take three missile hits before being considered destroyed.

The buttons on the base controlled options like toggling between banking and turning when she pushed the stick to the left or right as well as setting her speed and switching between various displays that showed her engines, armor, shields, weapons, and any damage sustained to those areas. There was an onboard repair system where she could set priorities and she automatically set engines as number one and then weapons.

She had to look through her eyepiece to see her own display, which included blue and red targeting dots scattered across her ship's forward screen, but she also appreciated the wider view on the large screen that showed an overlay of where everyone was in relation to each other.

"Think you got all that?" Jess questioned uncertainly, only realizing as she was explaining everything how complicated it seemed.

"Yeah," Kaylee said as she maneuvered her ship through several twists and turns, trying to get a feel for its capabilities as a sense of anticipation built up inside her. "Let's go."

Jess grinned and turned to the large screen.

"All right, I think we're ready, Carson."

"Finally," Bobby mumbled.

"Right, like it didn't take you an hour to figure out how to stop flying in reverse," Jason instantly defended and the other boys laughed.

"Shit, yeah, I remember that," Nate piped up.

"Hey, that wasn't my fault. The stupid keymapper fucked up."

Jess didn't bat an eye at the continued profanity, knowing the boys got a kick out of cursing in front of her even if her own son chose not to, though she'd heard him swear quite proficiently when he didn't think she could hear him.

"So, we gonna do this or what?" Aaron questioned. "I checked on my dad's laptop and those guys are halfway through the level already."

"Yeah, come on," Bobby seconded.

"All right. Here we go..." Carson trailed off.

He'd put the game in standby mode to avoid another free-for-all while Kaylee test-fired her weapons, but with the tap of a button, the level went live.

In an instant, the large screen was filled with red and green laser bolts criss-crossing between the small ships as loud explosions and high-pitched sounds boomed out of the speakers.

Kaylee's eyes widened at all the noise, which seemed vaguely out of place to her in the middle of space combat, but she tuned it out as she looked through her viewfinder, no longer needing to close her other eye to focus on it. She located the nearest target and swung her ship around until she was on its tail. The joystick wasn't that sensitive and she had to push hard to keep the enemy ship in her crosshairs. A tone signaled out of the speaker near her ear, beeping ever faster until it steadied into a long note. She pressed the button under her thumb on the joystick, releasing a friend-or-foe missile. She didn't bother to watch it impact as she banked and twirled to get behind the next nearest enemy ship, though she did nod to herself when she saw the red dot of her previous target disappear from the display as an explosion bloomed on the large screen.

"Nice shot," Jess complimented.

Kaylee smiled, glancing at the other woman in thanks, but then she felt a wave of annoyance come from her other side. She looked over and found Jason watching her.

"I thought you said you never played this before," he said, his tone verging on accusing.

"I... I don't think I have. It just feels..." ...familiar, her mind finished as she momentarily forgot not to try to remember.

She saw other ships in other battles, each flash like a spike in her temple, and she swallowed down her nausea at the sudden pain as she faced forward again. She tried not to wince, not wanting Jess to worry about her again and did her best to ignore the throbbing in her head as she went back to tracking her current target. The pain eased as she focused on listening for the tone and released another missile, but she couldn't quite shake the sense of foreboding she now had as part of her considered how much better she seemed to be at this game than she had been at the previous ones.

In just a few minutes, she'd gone through all eight of her missiles, so she switched to the laser guns. Jason bumped into her as he aggressively went after his own targets, so she scooted over a little, causing her thigh to push against Jess's. She stilled for a moment, feeling Jess do the same, but then she heard a different tone, which signaled an enemy was trying to get a missile lock on her. She jerked her ship to the side and spun it on its axis, then suddenly reversed her thrust, bringing her ship to an immediate stop, then hit her afterburners to regain her speed, now on the tail of her pursuer. She held down the trigger, sending a steady stream of laser fire at the ship as it tried to outmaneuver her, but she stayed with it until it finally exploded. She pulled up to begin looking for her next target.

"Holy shit, did you see that?" Carson exclaimed.

"Jesus Christ, that was fucking awesome," Aaron seconded. "Come on, we need to go join that level and kick those guys' asses. Who's with me?"

A chorus of agreement sounded through the speakers.

"All right, give me a sec to pull it up," Carson said.

Before Kaylee could finish destroying her current target, the screen froze, then went black, then changed to a loading screen. Kaylee frowned in annoyance at the interruption, but then caught Jess grinning at her and blushed.

"That really was a great maneuver," Jess complimented quietly while they waited. "I've tried that one a few times, but I can never quite get the timing right and usually end up with a missile up my ass," Jess said with a laugh.

Kaylee smiled, not at Jess's words, though she'd been able to pick up on most of the meaning, but at the happiness she felt radiating off of the woman. The games she'd played with Jason earlier had felt like a waste of time, but seeing Jess enjoying herself and relaxing after some of the tension she'd felt coming from her throughout the day made Kaylee realize the games had a purpose after all.

A moment later, the screen reset to the hangar again, though the ships seemed to be in several different styles and their characters' jumpsuits were black with silver helmets this time.

"I set up Aaron and Mama T with the bombers," Carson announced as the avatars climbed into their ships and waited in line to exit the carrier. "The rest of us'll cover 'em while they take out the AI's frigates. Then we'll all head for the LZ and see if we can catch up to those assholes."

Kaylee nodded, recognizing the orders, though she couldn't place them and didn't try. She just focused on Jess's ship, keeping it in her scope as she flew out of the hangar and then brought her fighter around to fly escort. They were met by a wave of fighters long before they'd gotten within missile lock distance of the bombers. Kaylee ran through her own lighter missiles in just a couple minutes as she took out as many enemy fighters as quickly as she could.

A second wave of fighters came at them and Kaylee veered off to take one of them out with her main guns, only to sense Jess's distress a few moments later as she heard the enemy get a missile lock through Jess's earpiece. Kaylee broke off her attack and hit her afterburners, strafing the area just behind the slow-moving bomber with constant fire to explode the missile before it could hit Jess's ship.

"Thanks. I can take a few more of those than you can, but once my shielding's down, that's it," Jess said.

Kaylee didn't reply as she matched Jess's slower speed and then flipped her ship so she was facing backwards. She pivoted the nose of her ship in a wide circle until she saw an enemy fighter. She started firing as soon as it attempted to slide in behind Jess's bomber to get a lock, but then she heard the lock sounding in her ear for her own ship. Kaylee banked to the side, then hit her afterburners as she went into an erratic spiral to break the lock. It worked and she quickly looked for Jess's ship again, forming up on her wing once more.

They went through the sequence several more times until Jess was finally able to release all of her heavy torpedoes at one of the frigates while Aaron sent his towards the other frigate. As they flew by, the frigates blew up with multiple explosions almost at the same time.

"Yes! We got 'em!" Jess exclaimed amidst the cheers from the other boys on the screen and held her hand up palm out towards Kaylee.

Kaylee caught a flash from Jess's mind showing her what to do and grinned as she slapped her own palm against Jess's in celebration. Jess did the same with Jason as the screen changed to show their ships coming to rest next to each other in an empty field.

As their avatars exited the ships, Jess tapped Kaylee's knee and stood up, setting her joystick aside and picking up their weapons. Kaylee set her own joystick on the couch seat behind her and accepted her weapon. She automatically looked for the ammo count display again before remembering it was just a toy. She glanced to her side and found Jason already standing with his gun at the ready. Kaylee looked up at the main screen and saw the view had swung around to include some ruins in the distance.

"Come on, they're already in there," Carson said, taking point and leading the group towards the partly demolished building.

As they got closer, a new series of inset windows appeared on the other side of the screen showing eight more boys' faces, the top one listed as Xurg Commander Brad. Kaylee also saw a new set of red dots appear on her private display, indicating they were enemy combatants.

"So, you idiots finally made it," Brad said.

Kaylee felt Jason's nervous excitement suddenly dip into anger even as she sensed Jess's amusement increase.

"Hey, who's the new private?"

"They're still short by one."

"Yeah, where's the rest of your team? They bail on ya?"

"Their connections are down. We're in the middle of a blizzard up here," Aaron said.

"Are we gonna do this or just chat?" Carson asked derisively.

His answer came in the form of a hail of laser bolts from eight different spots scattered among the gray buildings off to their left.

In an instant, Kaylee went down on one knee and sighted along the barrel of her rifle. As she focused on the mini screen in front of her eye, she saw red crosshairs appear over her intended target. Within three shots, she had the weapon's aim zeroed in again and took out the nearest threat. She shifted ever so slightly to the right, nailing the next target in a single shot.

"Holy crap!"

"I knew it! They brought in a ringer."

"No fair, that's cheating."

"Go Kaylee! Yeah!"

Kaylee smiled at the comments.

"Cut the chatter, guys. We're in the middle of a battle here," Carson said. "Bobby, take left flank, since it's clear now. Aaron, Jason, go right and cover us. Kaylee and Mama T, you're with me."

Kaylee stood up again, trying to ignore the fact that she'd been the only one to physically crouch in response to the sudden attack rather than using the controls on her gun. She pressed the buttons this time to move her avatar to follow Carson's and after a few false starts, she remembered the correct combination to make her avatar hunker down to match Carson and Jess's bent over jogging stances.

A new flurry of laser bolts rained down on her team and Kaylee tried to return fire, but her character's crouched position threw off her aim. She unlocked the crouch, causing her avatar to stand up, which left her open to several shots. She saw her health meter drop by 25%.

"Slide left!" Carson yelled as his own avatar began running towards some wreckage in a diagonal to the left while firing to the right, Jess right behind him.

"What does that mean?" Kaylee asked.

"Hold down blue and press left!" Came the chorus of answers.

Kaylee looked at the panel of buttons on her gun and slid her fingers into position. She pressed the sequence while aiming and firing and took out another enemy soldier before ducking behind a fallen stone wall. The windows on the left side of the screen had three of the eight grayed out and she saw Nate and Aaron's names were also dimmed, though she could see their health meters seemed to be slowly recharging. A note at the top of the screen indicated they had to take out all enemies or after a period of five minutes vanquished players could re-enter the game.

"We must kill them all or they can return?" Kaylee asked in confusion.

"Yeah," Jason said absently as he fired at one of the enemy soldiers directly across from him.

"That is not... real."

Jess laughed on her other side.

"You mean reality? Nah, this is just a game. Regeneration just keeps it going longer, that's all."

Kaylee frowned. Her head was beginning to hurt and she really didn't want to play anymore. There was something a little too familiar about all this, yet she was sure she'd never played this game before. But if she let her avatar be killed, it sounded like she would still have to play after her character healed. That left only one alternative.

Kaylee broke cover, moving her avatar from left to right. The other team fired, but she was zigzagging too abruptly and randomly for any of them to take proper aim. She picked out their positions based on where their shots originated from and sent a steady stream of fire from her own weapon, which was joined by the rest of her team, until each of the inset windows on the left finally grayed out.

"Holy shit, she's fuckin' evil!"

"You mean awesome. That was so fuckin' cool!"

"Kay-LEE! Kay-LEE!"

Her own team began chanting her name, except for Jason who remained quiet, and Jess who put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

"That's gotta be a record. Look at your kill score!" Jess exclaimed.

Kaylee glanced up at the screen. She wasn't sure what the numbers meant, but her ratio of kills and time on target were flashing red as a badge proclaiming her the 'Most Valuable Player' slid across the screen, followed by several more badges that popped up after her name.

Kaylee tried to smile as she did her best to ignore the feelings Jason was inadvertently broadcasting, but the sense of betrayal and jealousy were hard to block out.

"Hey, you boys wanna go again? See if you guys can redeem your sorry asses?" Jess taunted.

"Oh, you're on, Mama."

"Yeah, there's no way you'll catch us like that again."

"You think she was good here? You should see what she can do in a fighter," Carson defended.

Kaylee looked around at the others and shook her head.

"I don't want—" Kaylee started, but then the entire screen grayed out as everything froze and an alert message popped up at the top of the window stating, 'No internet connection found.'

"Seriously?" Jess muttered as she set her plastic gun aside and knelt down to check on the console. "Damn, it's probably down for good, but let me try rebooting anyway, just in case."

Jess turned everything off, then back on again, but after several minutes, there was still no connection.

"Well, that sucks," Jess said as she stood back up and faced Kaylee and Jason. "Sorry, guys. That's it, probably until the storm is over."

"At least we still have power," Jason offered.

Jess smiled and cupped the side of his head affectionately.

"Very true. That's definitely one in the plus column, though I'm not holding my breath for that to last much longer, especially if cable's gone down."

"You think it's all the ice?" Jason asked.

"Probably."

"So, no more games?" Kaylee asked, sounding more than a little hopeful.

"Oh, well, we could still play with just the three of us," Jason said.

Jess looked at Kaylee's instant grimace and barely suppressed a laugh as she shook her head.

"Let's give it a rest tonight, Jase. It's been a long day and Kaylee's still recovering. I'm guessing she'd like to get some sleep."

Kaylee didn't answer, since she wasn't feeling tired at all and didn't want to lie, but if Jess happened to make that assumption and it got her out of playing the games, then she'd take it.

"Oh," Jason said, immediately downcast. "All right, yeah, I guess I'm kind of tired, too, now that you mention it."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Yeah, I'm pretty beat, too," Jess agreed. "Why don't you go on up to bed and I'll be right behind you as soon as I get Kaylee settled."

Jason nodded.

"All right." Jason turned to Kaylee, though he didn't really look her in the eye. "Night," he offered vaguely to both of them and then headed up to his room.

Jess and Kaylee followed him up the stairs to the main floor, but then stopped in the living area as he continued on up. Jess looked at the mess of Kaylee's makeshift bed on the couch and sighed as she walked over to fix it up properly, peeling back the multitude of blankets, but still leaving several for Kaylee to use.

Kaylee watched Jess, but it only took her a few moments to understand what Jess was doing. She picked up one of the blankets and followed Jess's movements, carefully mimicking Jess's pattern of folding the cloth in half each time until it was in a rectangle small enough to be easily stacked and carried.

When they were done, Jess took the extra blankets back upstairs and put them away. She came back down with a pillow and efficiently shoved it into a fresh pillow case.

"This should be a lot more comfortable for you than that armrest must've been last night," Jess said as she laid it at the end of the couch.

When Kaylee didn't respond, Jess looked over at her and finally noticed the blonde was sitting quietly in the middle of the couch, her arms resting on her thighs as she stared off into space, seemingly lost in thought.

"You okay?"

Kaylee looked up and slowly shook her head.

"I shouldn't have been able to play that game so well."

Jess shrugged.

"You've probably played it before, like Jason said."

Kaylee stared down at her hands where she'd clasped them in front of her.

"It didn't feel like a game," Kaylee said quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"What I was doing. It felt... real."

Jess sat on the coffee table across from Kaylee and gentled her voice.

"Yeah, I kind of wondered about that earlier, too." Kaylee looked up at her, obviously waiting for Jess to elaborate. "I was actually wondering if maybe you were a vet." Kaylee frowned in confusion. "A war veteran... A soldier," Jess simplified her explanation. "I think maybe you've seen real combat. Which probably just means your memories are coming back."

Kaylee frowned again and rubbed her temple. She looked up at Jess and forced herself to speak past the tightness in her throat.

"So why am I not happy about that?"

The tortured expression on Kaylee's face was too much for Jess to ignore and she moved to sit beside the blonde as she wrapped an arm around the smaller woman's shoulders.

"I don't know, but it's going to be okay. I know this is scary. But you're clearly a very strong person. You survived out there long enough for us to find you and help you. You'll get through this, too."

"Yeah?" Kaylee asked as her body drank in the contact with Jess's.

Jess smiled and squeezed Kaylee's shoulder, glad to hear the note of hope in the young woman's voice.

"Yeah." Jess gave Kaylee's shoulder another gentle squeeze as she looked down into the blonde's green eyes.

Jess's heart skipped a beat and then suddenly sped up at the shy smile on Kaylee's lips. Lips that were far too close to her own at the moment. She looked away and quickly stood up.

"I, um..." Jess racked her brain for something to say as she just stood there. "I... I need to get to bed. Do you want me to get the lights for you?" Jess asked, already walking towards the hallway in her haste to get away.

Kaylee's brow furrowed as she tried to figure out what Jess meant by lights and what she was supposed to do with them once she had them, but then she caught a few flashes from Jess's thoughts regarding the light switches and turning them off so she could go to sleep, and finally understood. She shook her head.

"No. I... I'm not really tired. I think I'll... stay up for a while."

"Oh. Okay," Jess said, suddenly reluctant to leave, though she wasn't sure why.

She just didn't like the idea of Kaylee being downstairs all alone.

Then Sienna came over from where she'd been dozing in her dog bed and jumped up on the couch, resting her chin on Kaylee's thigh. Kaylee smiled and immediately started petting the dog's head. A moment later, Max appeared on the other side of the couch and rammed his head right into Kaylee's arm. Kaylee laughed and rubbed both their heads as she lowered her own to speak softly to them.

"Keemah soo sheh voo, huh? What you are doing? You must... wait your turns. I only have two hands."

Jess smiled, but as the animals cuddled in closer to Kaylee, making the most of their contact with the two hands in question, Jess couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy. She pushed the feeling away, reminding herself that at least Kaylee wouldn't be alone, which made Jess feel a little better about going upstairs.

"Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight," Kaylee replied, her smile much wider this time as she continued to pet the furry beasts.

Jess headed upstairs.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Jess lay on her side with her head propped up in her hand as she looked over the notes from Jason again. She made a few notes of her own on the printouts and then sat up to write a brief summary of the things she needed to research further in her to-do notebook. Of course, she'd have to wait until they got their internet connection back up, but she didn't want to forget any of the ideas Jason's plans had sparked.

As she tried to think of anything she'd missed, her eyes drifted from the page to her bedroom door. It wasn't completely closed, leaving a small gap so Max could push his way in. Jess frowned as she remembered Max had found a new friend and brought her gaze back down to the papers. She flipped several pages to get to the next idea she thought was worth looking into and focused on writing down all the questions she could think of for it.

It was a few minutes later when she realized she'd stopped writing and was staring at her door again, but it wasn't the cat she was imagining coming in to curl up with her. Jess rolled her eyes at herself and closed her notebook. Her mind clearly wasn't on fixing up the Winston farm and it was way past her bedtime anyway, so she straightened the papers she'd scattered across her bed and set them on her nightstand to finish going over later.

Jess changed into her night clothes and turned off the lights before climbing back into bed. She pulled the covers up around her and closed her eyes. As she rolled over onto her side, she opened her eyes again and stared at her bedroom door.

She wondered if Kaylee was asleep yet or if she was still awake, just sitting on the couch with Max and Sienna. The woman had seemed okay when Jess had left her, but that had been over an hour ago. Jess suddenly had an overwhelming urge to get up and go downstairs to check on Kaylee. She just wanted to see her, make sure she wasn't still upset.

Jess remembered the way Kaylee had leaned into her, the young woman's body practically melting into her side when she'd put her arm around Kaylee's shoulders. It would've been so easy to lower her lips to Kaylee's and taste...

No, damn it. She's a guest in your home and she's recently been through some major trauma and she doesn't need you acting like some horny teenager trying to get into her pants. She deserves better than that. And you really don't need that kind of complication in your life, so just... stop thinking about her and go to sleep.

Jess rolled over to face away from the door, but her eyes refused to close and she ended up staring at her bathroom door instead, reminding her of the thoughts she'd entertained earlier. She considered indulging again, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. While it might relax her body, she couldn't help feeling self-conscious in the quiet of the night and she really didn't want to make a habit out of fantasizing about the woman. She just needed to take her mind off the subject.

Jess wished once again that Max had followed her upstairs. Traitorous cat. At least if he'd been next to her, she could've pet him and listened to his rhythmic purring until she fell asleep the way she usually did. The only reason she hadn't missed him last night was because she'd already been exhausted when she'd bedded down on the recliner. Listening to Kaylee's soft breathing wasn't bad either.

Jess groaned in annoyance at herself and rolled onto her back. The room was too quiet and her queen-sized bed was too big and she just couldn't help noticing that she was alone, a fact she'd been blissfully unaware of until Kaylee.

Jess frowned at that thought and resolutely put it out of her mind as she rolled onto her side again and forced herself to close her eyes. A minute later, she gave in and grabbed the other pillow, wrapping her arm around it. If it happened to be an image of Kaylee held tightly in her arms that finally let her fall asleep, she would never admit it.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Kaylee listened to Jess's soft footsteps retreat upstairs as she sat on the couch with the dog and cat. She absently continued petting them as she looked around the room.

From what she understood, when the game had cut out, the link to the communications network had been interrupted as well, and because of the storm, it would be awhile before the link was reestablished. That meant no more searching the internet for information. However, she'd noticed the dwelling was lined with shelves of what appeared to be books, the smaller ones sometimes stacked three deep.

Books were normally for the elite and were a status symbol among the masters, a way to show wealth by devoting vast amounts of physical space to house knowledge that could've been more easily kept in digital storage. But that didn't seem to be the case here given Jess's extensive library compared to her obvious lack of resources and Kaylee was curious what might be in them.

Kaylee stilled as she saw flashes of her father using his position as maintenance staff to smuggle books out of his master's unused and unread private library so they could learn more than what the masters chose to teach them. She'd read book after book on every subject imaginable and in many different languages, including ones she wasn't supposed to know, usually finishing several in a single night so her father could return them as soon as possible...

Before the memories could coalesce any further, she slammed them back behind the mental wall they'd been leaking through and did her best to shore up the cracks. She sighed in relief when she felt only a mild ache at her temples rather than the previously sharper pains. The sooner she caught those memory trails and stopped them, the better off she would be.

Kaylee took a few moments to just breathe and then refocused on her earlier goal as she consciously ignored any thoughts regarding her previous experiences with books. All that mattered was that there were a lot of books on those shelves and she wanted to know what kind of information they held.

Kaylee carefully maneuvered out from under the animals and then pet them for several more moments to get them to settle down again. She also sent out some calming mental images to let them know she'd be returning soon.

Kaylee went to the nearest shelf and began scanning the titles on the spines of the books. She picked up one of the smaller ones and read the title. The Adventures of Captain Rebel and the Space Pirates.

The cover showed some sort of space ship and a space station, neither of which appeared functional. She read the back. 'The galaxy hopping science fiction adventures that have become legends in their own time.'

Kaylee skimmed several others and found similar text.

She moved on to another section of shelves. These books were larger. She read through some of the titles. Home Improvement for the DIYer. The Complete Guide to Gardening. Building Your First Chicken Coop. Your Trail Guide to Hiking the Adirondack Mountains. Constellations of the Northern Hemisphere. The New Complete American Idioms Handbook.

With her limited understanding of the language, the titles weren't always clear to her, but a quick look inside was usually enough to get the general meaning.

The corners of most of the books were blunted and nearly all of them seemed to have damage from water spills or other substances that had hardened and adhered to the paper. Many of them also had extra labels on them with a series of parallel lines and the words 'Property of Taylor Mountain Library' crossed out above them or partially covered with stickers that said 'SOLD' on them.

As Kaylee moved along the wall of shelves, she noticed a pattern. The smaller books appeared to be fictional accounts of spacefaring societies while the larger books seemed to all be educational, some of them even including diagrams or maps.

She grabbed a stack of the educational books that seemed interesting and set them on the coffee table. Then she went back downstairs to get the dictionary she'd left sitting next to the laptop and brought it upstairs.

With her reading materials selected and the dictionary close by, Kaylee managed to squeeze between the resting animals and reclaimed her space alongside them.

It was several hours later when she realized she was hungry. And thirsty. She was sure now that there was no rationing, so she went to the kitchen and scrounged for something to eat and drink. Water from the tap was the easiest and she filled a glass with the crystal clear liquid. She sipped on it while she looked for more solid sustenance.

Kaylee couldn't find any of the food items they'd given to her earlier, but then she remembered the ration bars she'd eaten when she'd first woken up. They were still sitting out on the counter in a small open box, so she grabbed several of the silver packages and took her bounty back to the living room.

She ate from the wrapper, careful not to drop any crumbs as she went back over to the bookshelf to look for something else to read. She'd learned a lot in the past few hours, especially from the idioms book. Several of the phrases she'd heard Jess and Jason and the others say made a lot more sense now.

She also felt much more sure she'd never been to this world before even though some things seemed familiar. Like the shape of the continents. She was positive she'd seen them somewhere, but she'd abandoned the train of thought when it had started to make her temple throb.

At least now she had a better idea of where she was. Though it had taken her a little bit to figure it out, she now knew she was somewhere on Taylor Mountain in the Adirondack Mountains in New York in the United States of America on the North American continent on the planet Earth, which was the third planet from the Sun, the solitary star at the center of this particular planetary system, locally called the Solar System. She'd laughed when she'd read that. Like it was the only one.

Unfortunately, none of the astronomy books had been able to help her locate the system within a larger star map. What few images she'd found seemed to be focused on either graphical representations of constellations as seen from specific locations on the planet or fuzzy two-dimensional photos of particular stars singled out because of how they differed from the local star. The only other images she'd found had been of various galaxies and while accurate, they hadn't been very useful.

Kaylee continued to nibble at her ration bar as she moved to another bookshelf. After all the researching and studying, her brain was kind of tired and she just wanted something simple to relax with, but nothing was standing out.

She walked down the hall to the last door, which she'd heard them refer to as Jess's office. She remembered seeing books in there when she'd been looking for food earlier that morning.

Kaylee entered the office and flipped on the light. Bookshelves lined the walls in there, too, including one behind the desk. She skimmed the titles. Most appeared to be about business and finances, with a few clearly referencing how to use specific software programs. She figured that out because the boxes the software came in were right next to those books. There were others that seemed to be program languages, some of which she recognized from her time on the internet. She'd happened upon a site that offered instructions on how to create a website and many of the same words and acronyms had appeared there, like HTML, CSS, and anti-virus.

She continued around the room and stopped at the desk. There were several framed pictures showing Jess and Jason and another woman and the boy, Carson, from the game, and a few other people she hadn't seen yet. They all seemed very happy. There were also several squishy representations of creatures she'd never seen that were soft to the touch.

As Kaylee walked around the desk, her hip brushed against one of the stuffed creatures and it fell to the floor with a soft thump. She bent over to pick it up and accidentally bumped into several binders on the shelf behind her, knocking them over. She put the squishy animal back on the desk and then turned to set the thick binders upright again. As she moved them aside, she noticed another item lying on the shelf behind them. She pulled the item forward into the light and realized it was another kind of book. It was connected by a cord to what she'd learned from one of the DIY books was a power source outlet. She opened the protective front cover and the screen came to life.

Kaylee touched the screen, since there didn't seem to be an input device, and smiled when it opened to a main menu. It appeared to be a list of books, but the titles were a little different from what she'd seen before and some of the covers were rather explicit with half-naked women embracing on them. Some didn't appear to be entirely human, with fangs or slitted yellow eyes.

She tapped one of the covers and began to read. Within a few pages, she felt herself blushing at the erotic description and figured out how to use the back button. She swiped down the list of covers and saw one that showed a grid of numbers with the 14 circled in red. She realized she'd just seen something like that a few minutes ago and looked up to find the same number grid hanging on the wall.

Her curiosity piqued, Kaylee tapped the cover and began reading the new book. The story ended after only a couple dozen screens and immediately went into another. She went back and found the table of contents and realized it was a compendium of short stories. It didn't seem to be as explicit as the other book she'd started, so she continued reading where she'd left off.

As she read several more stories in the collection, she realized some were explicit, while others were more romantic, but they all centered around a romantic holiday called Valentine's Day. The rituals didn't seem all that different from her own people's customs. The giving of gifts, having intimate meals alone together, and offering other tokens of love and commitment were mentioned over and over again. The characters also seemed to enjoy a very similar sexual contact to her own, though there was no mention of telepathic or empathic connections while making love.

Kaylee looked up at the number grid again, now recognizing it to be a calendar. The first day had a black X drawn through its box. That was easy enough to understand. That day had passed, which meant there were thirteen days left until Valentine's. Judging by some of the intricate plans she'd read some couples went through for each other, that wasn't a lot of time. But maybe she could do something a little more simple. There had been a lot of talk about boxes of chocolates, which seemed to be a type of sweet food, roses, which seemed to be a type of flowering plant, and dinner by candlelight. Oh, and a card, which seemed to be a special type of folded paper with an emotional sentiment written for one's intended.

She would need to do more research, but this had been a good start.

Kaylee put the tablet back where she'd found it and left the office to return to the living room. She'd had enough of a break. It was time to get back to work. She curled up with the animals again and grabbed the dictionary. She opened up the book to where she'd left off on the words beginning with the letter G and continued her studies.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Agent Cross kept his head down as he trudged through the snow, cursing every step. As the sun had dipped below the horizon, the temperature had dropped. Then the wind had picked up, creating snow drifts that were nearly as tall as he was in some places, and the light snowfall that had floated down off and on all day had changed to a heavy flurry that seemed determined to push wet flakes into every crevice between his light jacket and skin. He shivered against his will and cringed, knowing it wouldn't go unnoticed.

"Put your coat on," Scott said behind him.

"I'm f-fine."

"All right, that's it." Scott raised his voice to be heard by the rest of the people ahead of and behind him. "Time to call it a night. Everyone find a spot, pitch your tents, and get some rest. We'll wait for this to blow over and start back up in the morning."

Cross rounded on him.

"Hold on a minute. I'm in charge here and I'll say when we—"

"You're in charge of your people. I'm in charge of getting you all to your destination safely." Scott moved closer and spoke lower. "Your heavy jacket doesn't fit, does it? I swear, there's always one in the bunch." Scott went to his sled and pulled a coat from one of the bags lashed to it. "Here, before you freeze to death."

Cross reluctantly pulled the thick jacket over his lighter one and instantly felt his cold muscles relax with the sudden warmth of the added insulation.

"I told you and your people to try your gear on for a reason. Each layer has a purpose and it has to be large enough to fit over the previous one."

"Fine," Cross said, mostly to shut the man up. "But I still don't see why we have to stop. There's plenty of light, even with the flurries."

"It's not the visibility, it's the temp. That wind chill is going to suck the warmth right out of us. Besides, we've been at this going on nine hours and none of you are used to it. You need a rest."

"We've been keeping up just fine. If you're the one who needs a rest, just say so and you can catch up with us later."

Scott barked out a laugh and shook his head.

"You wanna try to navigate this shit in the dark without me, be my guest. I'll head back to my nice warm cabin and come back for your corpsicles in the spring. But right now, I'm going to go pitch my tent and get some sleep. If you're still here in the morning, I'll be happy to take you where you want to go. Otherwise, good luck."

Cross watched the man pull several items off one of the sleds and take his dogs a dozen feet off the trail to set up his single-person tent.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath as he walked over to find his own gear and started untying the ropes holding his equipment in place.

The man was right as much as Cross hated to admit it. He was exhausted, and judging by the slow movements of his team, they probably were, too.

Cross finished tying down his tent and crawled inside to unroll his ground pad and sleeping bag. He set his watch for 5am and closed his eyes. They'd traversed more than half the distance to the crash site, so he was sure they'd arrive there sometime tomorrow.

Then the real fun would begin.