Home again. If it could be home again with the barracks empty and her bunk cold.

Hannah watched the buildings go from gray on black on green to miniature dwellings, pieces on a war board, to real buildings with live people on them viewed from high above. Till she was of a level with the entry gate and they were calling for disembark. Everyone stood, grabbed their gear and filed into orderly lines, gray and blue and silver of Fleet mingling with green and black and brown of the Marines, mingling with yellow and tan of administration and science. Everybody's uniforms, all for the same cause.

They couldn't know what had happened to her. She was just another soldier coming back from leave to the base, medical leave or personal and recreational, it didn't matter. But it felt like everyone was staring. The last living member of the Thunder Dogs, the only one with that patch on her arm with the lightning-breathing hounds, singled out for failure. Because she had survived where everyone else had died. You weren't supposed to do that.

The medics had placed her on indefinite leave pending her psych evals. Standard protocol for survivors of a hard battle, and she knew there was an average time to return to the field but she didn't know how long. You didn't send a soldier, any kind of soldier, out into the field after that. Their reliability was suspect; it was impossible to say whether they'd be able to hold it together and be an asset or if they'd get another bunch of good men and women killed, so back to base it was. Collecting disability pay and dust. Too much time to think about what had happened.

"Back from the front lines?" The man who checked her in asked it with the same bored tone as everyone else, just trying to make conversation.

"No," she murmured, and he took that to mean she'd been stationed somewhere else, not that she wasn't back. She didn't feel like she was back. Her ears still rang with the shouts and explosions. "Just resting. Visiting," she corrected herself. "Just visiting."

The base was its own kind of city, with one of the best systems of public transportation to be found on this or any other moon or planet. All the bases were like that; efficiency was a top priority of the administration, nothing wasted. Hannah disembarked at the barracks and waved her ID in front of the door scanner, nodding to the door guard. Whether or not he recognized her from the last time, it was polite.

This housing block and several others like it in this sector of the city were designed in quadrants. Each quadrant housed two squadrons on each level, all built around a central canteen, administration office, other communal areas. She waved her ID at the elevator to take her to her squadron's floor, again at the door to allow her access to their bunking area. Any ID worked, it just kept people from bothering other squadrons when they came back wounded, fatigued. It also, she realized, kept a log of her comings and goings. Just in case they wanted something else to hang her on, to prove she'd suffered a complete and total breakdown. Not that she was planning on keeping odd hours, but still.

Hannah looked down the long corridor of bunk beds, down to the showers and bathrooms along either side of the hall, the smaller personal kitchen at the end. Everything empty, trunks tucked under beds with their remaining personal items, blankets folded with the corners squared away. Pillows wrapped.

Someone had waxed the floors recently. The walls gleamed with a fresh coat of paint; the windows were tinged with orange and gray dust. She didn't know where to start. It looked like it had the first day she'd gotten in. With no one around she could close her eyes, pretend she was just early, the first one in the barracks before meeting her new squadron, fresh out of training. When she opened her eyes again she saw the absence of Garlan's boots under the bed, one falling over the other. Khalil's holy symbols along the side of his bunk, plasheets of comics spread out over his blanket. A box of food from Naomi's husband back home, a civilian chef who sent her all the indulgent bad for you goodness he could fit in a regulation box. She wondered who had taken the news to him, if anyone. Where he'd been when he heard it.

"Oh, baby..." She fell onto the nearest bunk, head dropping into her hands. Tears splashing against her palms and down her cheeks and now she couldn't stop sobbing. Images coursed through her mind, Naomi's husband dropping plates, bowls of food, it changed every time but the screaming stayed the same. Khalil's family, his wife, his two children, she'd met them at the last holiday party. Cynthia would take it strong, sitting with the chaplain who delivered the news and talking with him, maybe feeding him tea and cakes before escorting him from the room. She'd break in private. She was strong like that, her and the commander both.

Hannah bunched her hands into fists and clutched them against her chest, pulling her feet up under her and rocking on the bed. The emptiness where the commander had been chewed her up inside, no more embraces, no more barked orders, no more calm voice in the middle of the chaos or warm, strong hand on the shoulder of anyone having a problem in the squadron. There was no commander or squadron anymore. She was a soldier without a unit or a place, no form or structure to keep her upright. Not even the structure of a family unit to go back to, the Commander had been her only lover in years, and her parents were dead. The Fleet had been her family. And now her brothers and sisters were gone and they wouldn't want her anymore.

She cried alone in an empty barracks and it didn't help. Instead of being cathartic it weakened her, reminded her of all the things she wasn't and all the people she hadn't helped, whose empty bunks stood around her like gravestones rebuking her with their silence for her survival.

Days skipped by. Morning brought reveille through the muffled speakers and a balanced breakfast on a tray and then the visits with the therapist, a couple of doctor's visits in the late morning to make sure she hadn't suffered any permanent nerve damage from the feedback. Then lunch, then the afternoon dragged until it got dark and night came up on her. She sat at the table and played solitary card games or stacked the damn things into pyramids and castles until it was time for lights out. After a few days she'd managed to build a whole little fort of cards, for lack of anything better to do. The therapist said he'd suggest to the unit commander that he find something for her to do, but no one wanted a cursed surviving soldier working on their shift or their team.

A memorial dinner was scheduled for the end of her second week back. Not a formal memorial for her squadron but a victory celebration over the final push of Operation Sandblast with the squadron being thrown in as an afterthought. Hannah swore, stabbing the buttons on the console when she called Cynthia.

"The bastards aren't even calling it what it is, a blood victory. If it's a victory at all."

Cynthia shook her head. "They need their celebration to feel that it was all worth it. Can you imagine what you would feel like if you th--" she pressed her lips together as Hannah's expression blanked out. "I'm sorry, that was tactless."

She kept her face still and didn't speak until she was sure she could control her voice. "I don't know if it was worth it or not. I don't know what we accomplished. We carried out our orders to the best of our ability." Ultimately she fell back on that every time she questioned what had happened. They followed orders because they trusted that the people giving those orders knew what they were doing; they were soldiers in an army. Pieces of a machine. They were pilots following the directive of their commander.

The older woman nodded. She didn't understand, not in the visceral way of having been there, but she understood enough to allow it to be truth between them. And between her and her husband. Whatever other complications passed between them, Hannah knew the commander loved her, and having gotten to know the woman she could see a little bit of why.

"Are you going?"

Hannah didn't know how to answer that. "I'm expected to be there. It'll be mandatory attendance. I don't know how long..."

"We can leave when you need to."

Throwing her lot in with Hannah's. The simple act dragged a fragile smile out of her, if for nothing else than for the solidarity. The others in the barracks walked so delicately around her that she felt like a pariah. "Thanks. You shouldn't have to..."

But Cynthia waved it off, shook her head. "It's not as though I'm going to enjoy it any more than you will. We might as well ..."

Neither of them had the words for this experience. Comprehension, empathy, clinging to a person who knew the person they'd both lost, who could share some of the grief. She couldn't share the experience of keeping a house with him or a courtship or any such thing, but she could share the memories of his voice. His quiet responses to just about anything, whether it was in anger or in helpless doubt or in happiness. He'd never exuded much passion. Not in the time she'd known him, anyway.

Maybe Cynthia knew a different commander. She hadn't thought of that until now.

"Hannah?" the older woman's voice came to her from a distance, for the third or fourth time, she realized. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Last night. I've been sleeping." A bit defensive. Her hands splayed open but still rested on the keyboard. She didn't add that it was a drugged sleep three days out of four.

"Not very well, by the look of you. Are they treating you well, at least?" The older woman's lips curved upwards in a self-deprecating smile, ironic and aware of how inane it was to ask how she was eating and sleeping in light of the pallor of her own skin and the bags under her eyes. Somewhat inane and a bit hypocritical, but also important. Hannah appreciated the sentiment behind the mothering.

She didn't let it go on too long, regardless. "I sleep. I get food, they have me in to a shrink every day talking about... My feelings. Things. Are you going to be on base housing?" The base maintained hotels for the visiting civilians, suites for the larger families and single rooms with double-sized beds for the marrieds without children. There were, of course, other hotels for the spouses and relatives who wanted to find other accommodations, but those were all off base or further from the borders.

"Most likely. I'll meet you outside your barracks, if you want, we can go together. I assume you know the time."

"I know it."

And there the conversation skipped to a halt again. No need to talk about dresses when they both knew what they would be wearing, formal dress for her and black for Cynthia, and Hannah had never been much of a clothes person anyway. No need to talk about travel arrangements, and neither of them volunteered to share any memories or ask any questions about feelings and grief.

Cynthia looked offscreen for a second; someone else with an incoming call. "You call me if you need anything, all right?" Hannah nodded. "Be well, dear." And she hesitated a moment, but whatever it was she had thought of she signed off without saying it.

Hannah looked down. The guilt at taking pieces of her husband's heart, if that was what had happened in the first place, was less than she expected it would be. So was the grief at losing a lover, it wasn't the loving she missed, it was the friendship. The solid ground she had to stand on, moral questions and doubts about their orders all eased with talking things out with him. Not entirely dismissed, but often eased. For both of them, which helped her trust in her own judgment. She still didn't know why, out of all the women in the barracks and in the unit that he had ever come into contact with, he had taken up with her. It hadn't been passionate devotion or falling head over heels in love or even special, but somewhere after they had crossed several lines of military regulation and social protocol it became inevitable.

And then it became routine. Part of the landscape. The others knew but didn't comment, and if there was an issue no one brought it to her. Cynthia called for her one afternoon when they were on base leave and talked it over with her, assured herself that Hannah knew her place or whatever it was she needed to know, Hannah didn't understand that part. But each of them needed something different from the commander and those needs didn't conflict. And however the commander's wife had arrived at the decision to welcome the woman her husband was also involved with, Hannah found she was glad not to have hurt or destroyed either of them. Any of them. They became friends, all of them drawing from each other.

Her thoughts circled back again to the absence of him, of all of them, her own failings and faults and how it contributed to the deaths of all the rest of her team. And how this solitude was possibly what she deserved. Numb, limbs weighted with the emptiness of feeling, she hauled herself up out of the chair and dragged herself to bed, only kicking her shoes off before she crawled under the covers. The rest didn't seem worth it.

From the outside, every building on the base looked the same. Same gray stone and plascrete, the same paint job on the same steel. On the inside, the buildings were still built and painted from the same template, except for the faith center and rec hall. On the inside the faith center had one core area with vaulted ceilings and gold leaf decorations, tasteful but still a stark contrast to the plain brown, gray, and white everywhere else. Most of the major faiths had their own adjoining rooms off the center, for people to gather, to worship. The center room, if a space so expansive with such tall ceilings could be called a room, was for major holidays, recreational events, parties.

They'd swapped out the normal halo lights for a gold chandelier, that evening. Uniforms made up the bulk of the crowd, dotted here and there with shining dark-colored dresses, black tuxedos. The tuxedo had been the dress of choice for gentlemen for nearly a thousand years, their connection to history. Fancy dresses changed with the season.

Hannah preferred the uniform. Familiar and requiring no complex thought, she didn't have to decide what she wanted to wear, how best to honor everyone. Her dress uniform, dark clothes on her paler than usual skin and a white shirt peeking from underneath at points. Barely regulation. She stretched her arms out of her sleeves and saw where the veins showed on the backs of her hands. When she got more sun and her skin was its proper burnt gold color you couldn't see the veins, but she hadn't been out in the daylight if she didn't have to be, not lately.

"How are you holding up?" Cynthia's arm caught her elbow, and as her heart jumped down from a frantic, rapid beat the older woman slipped her arm through Hannah's. "Here, let's get a couple of drinks, hmm?"

"I don't..." But Cynthia steered them to the non-alcoholic side of the beverage table, fruit drinks, a water jug with a tap at the bottom. "Oh."

"You need to take care of yourself," Cynthia told her, steering her like a child and pouring them each a cup of water. The sides frosted over as soon as the water settled, chilling her fingertips when she took it. "Remember to eat, and eat healthy, remember to drink."

"I remember," she whispered, hearing the echoes of Tomas's voice. With Cynthia it was a nudge, with him it was a command, but along the lines of fall in or at ease, as habitual as breathing. Too soon to share those memories with Cynthia, both too soon and too early in the evening. She lifted her chin and pushed back against the emotional surge and drank her water fast enough to shock her body in the throat and chest. For a minute or two she couldn't do more than breathe. She preferred that to saying things out loud that she didn't even want to think about inside her head.

They mingled through the crowd together, arm in arm. Cynthia murmured polite words in exchange for condolences, most of which were heartfelt and those that weren't were expressed for form's sake. Hannah was glad she didn't have to pretend to be feeling anything. Her feelings had been scooped out and replaced by ice water and a glass wall between herself and the rest of the world. A machine with no pilot, just stood at attention when she was told, went where she was told.

"Amanda, I'm so sorry." Cynthia embraced the other woman like a sister, and given all that had happened and all that would happen just tonight, Hannah thought she could use a sister or two. Amanda Pierson and James had been newlyweds. She remembered attending their wedding with the rest of the squadron.

Amanda hugged back, looking as dazed as Hannah herself felt. "I can't believe this is happening..."

"None of us can," Hannah offered. Not much in the way of condolences but at least she wasn't alone in that sentiment. The moment where reality set in never seemed to occur, it always seemed to be in a further off place, something that would kick in tomorrow or the day after. There was the reality of dealing with the body's needs and the reality of dealing with the paperwork, both of which happened on the other side of the dusty glass from the really real world.

"I keep thinking," the young woman shook her head, sniffling a bit. "I keep thinking he'll walk right through the door, or I'll see something or, or do something and think, I'll have to remember to tell him when he gets back. I have to make sure he fixes the recyclers when he gets back."

Cynthia's blink was tiny, but there. Hannah pulled a couple of napkins she'd stolen from the buffet table out of her pocket, one advantage to dress uniforms over formal dresses. One for each of the three of them. "It'll pass. In time." Or so she'd been told. But not immediately, and not soon. If Amanda was fishing for the reassuring solidity of a timeline, she wouldn't get one.

Clinical terms. Necessary steps. It kept Hannah from bursting into tears or screaming at their commanding officer or something else that didn't belong in a public ballroom with several hundred officers, civilian guests, and cabinet members present. She tucked her napkin away, noting as she did that her hands felt cold and rubbing them a little to warm them.

"Hannah?"

Her head jerked up; Amanda had tried to talk to her and she hadn't noticed. "Yes?"

"What were you doing out there? Was it some sort of... of secret mission, did you achieve the mission? Because I keep going over the logs, over and over, and it doesn't make sense..."

She didn't mean to, but Amanda still retreated when she took a step forward, just a step. Her cheeks felt hot even though her hands were ice cold when she clasped them in front of her, and the noise of the room died into a dull roar. Everything blurred for a second into glitter and deep colors, and when she could see more clearly again everything came back in sharp relief and with too much noise attached. Hannah opened her mouth to explain, but couldn't come up with anything satisfactory.

"Ladies. Are you all right?"

Hannah whirled. Everyone looked over at the interloper, startled that a gentleman unknown to them would approach a close-huddled group of women, especially now. For all the pomp and dazzle of the event there was no escaping that it was a memorial dinner, and everyone stayed close to where they would be assured either of their friends or their protocol. The gentleman in question was even more of an enigma, not a man in uniform and not tall enough to be a statesman, or at least, most of them. He had dark hair and pointed features and eyes that were at the same time sad in their darkness and too obscure for her to trust. He smiled, and it looked like it held sympathy, but it also held a few too many teeth. Sad clown in a circus of the damned.

He shook all their hands. "Sorry. Dr. Ian Rushman, Director of InterCorporate Relations, Vice President of Information Services for Wheaton Technologies" He even shook hands with Hannah, and read her pips correctly. "Lieutenant Commander. I'm sorry for your loss. All of you," he added. "I am deeply sorry, this has been a frightful tragedy."

Cynthia frowned. "I'm... sorry, I don't believe my husband mentioned you." Hannah looked down to hide a small smile, the first of the day. By way of asking where he knew them all from and what business he had with them, since he wasn't moving on like the rest of the guests, and since he was being more sympathetic than their lack of connection suggested.

"I worked with the Special Operations bureau in an advisory capacity, my department provided and vetted information to your soldiers. Of course, in this case, our information was... lacking."

She reminded herself that this was a public gathering and she would not punch him in his delicately pointed nose.

"Indeed it was, Dr. Rushman." Cynthia's voice could have iced over the tops of their water glasses, pulling herself straighter as she spoke.

"Yes, well, please be sure, we are working to locate the source of the errors and correct it, as well as re-checking all information we currently have on our desk to verify it a final time before your commanding officers deploy any more soldiers." He lifted his chin, too, brushing back his longer than regulation hair. Not that he had to obey regulations, she reminded herself. He wasn't a soldier. It had been a long time since she'd been around non-military men for any length of time.

Cynthia didn't look fooled; Hannah didn't believe him either, though she wondered at the sharpness in his voice. Everything about him grated on the back of her mind. Amanda nodded, still wiping at her cheeks. Either she wasn't in any state to see the threat or she didn't recognize it for what it was.

"Thank you," the young woman told him, and he took her hand and clasped both of his around it, patting the back of her hand.

"It's the least we can do." He murmured something else appropriate and bowed away.

"You're damn right it is," Hannah muttered at his back as he made his polite exit from their cluster. Irritation, at least, broke through the glass wall and left her able to interact with the outside world, even if it also left her prickly. "Who is he, again?"

"Dr. Rushman," Cynthia frowned. "I'll look into it, see what kind of position he really holds."

"What kind of... Oh, for pity's sake, can't he just be a man trying to offer his condolences and take some responsibility for something he had no control over? What's wrong with you?" Amanda whirled on Hannah, furious but still keeping her voice low. "Is everything a war to you? Are you trying to pick a fight to make yourself feel better, or..."

Cynthia turned the younger woman away with an arm around her shoulders after Hannah's fists clenched. Better than punching the grieving widow in the ballroom, yes, but it left her alone in the middle of a crowd of people she didn't know. She turned around, trying to orient herself to the exit but it always seemed to be just off to her left, unreachable. Three more revolutions and she managed to find the right direction, fleeing for the outside and the cool air and the blessed silence. In a minute, she would go back inside. When she could handle it.

Amanda came by to apologize the next day. Hannah didn't know what to do with that.

"I'm sorry," Amanda said to the toes of her shoes. "I shouldn't have said that. It wasn't fair, it was cruel... I shouldn't have said that."

Neither of them, she guessed, knew what to say. Neither of them knew what the protocol for this situation was, when the loss was so complete. Maybe she was the only one of the two who thought in terms of protocol, although Amanda seemed like the sort of woman who had grown up in polite society, full of morals and rules and things that governed everyone's behavior for every situation.

That thought, at least, gave her a place to start. "Would you like to come in?"

"I... yes. Thank you."

It wasn't much. It wasn't even a house or an apartment or a home, in the manner of ordinary things and what Amanda must be used to. But it was what she had, what they had had, when there was a they to have anything at all. Hannah took the younger woman back to the dining table and chairs, past the kitchen. She turned more lights on to give it less of a solitary appearance, push the shadows back into their corners. For her it only accented how empty the room was, but Amanda might like more light. Most people did.

"So. This is where he lived, when he was on duty." She'd had her head on a swivel the whole walk in, still looking around as they sat. It struck Hannah as odd that she would be so fascinated with a plain table and chairs, a plain and empty kitchen, unornamented walls and bunks and things that you could and did find in any surplus or bulk goods supply store.

Then again, this wasn't her world either. Novelty gave wonder to a lot of things, even gray plastic and metal. Especially when the novelty was easier to think about than your real world.

Hannah nodded. "This is where we all lived. When we were on duty but weren't assigned a position, we lived here. On call. In case they needed us," she added by way of explanation. "Most of the time, it wasn't bad. We could make our own food if we didn't like what was in the mess, we had our own coolers, our own cookers. We could have a few kinds of entertainment if they conformed to regulations. Vids, cards, books. We had a little library going, there, over in that corner." She pointed at an empty wall, painted over where the shelf had been pulled away. They'd stripped anything non-standard out of this place when her unit died, in case someone else needed it.

For some reason that struck her now, though it hadn't at the time, as unnecessarily cruel. Everything that had belonged to someone, even if it was just a scuff mark on the wall where someone had a habit of putting his boots up against it, had been erased. As though they were never there.

"The lending library," Amanda was saying. "He told me about that. I think he brought some of his titles here for people to read."

Hannah nodded, forcing her tone to be light and calm. "I figured, yeah, we all did. All of us who lived close when were weren't active, anyway. And recommended stuff back and forth, and ..." They'd tried to start a reading club, but that hadn't worked out so well. No one remembered to get the reading done in time and finally the Commander put his foot down when it turned into a hissy fight with hurt feelings and sulking that lasted for days. An hour-long flare of tempers was one thing, but sulking in a firefight was dangerous.

"He didn't talk much about his duty," Amanda mused. "But he did talk about this place. He said it was... quieter. Than a lot of the places he'd stayed. Group homes."

She sat up, eyes widening some. She hadn't known he was in a group home, although now that Amanda mentioned it, it explained a lot of his behavior. How he'd been the one directing everyone else in their chores and clean-up, several of the unit hadn't been away from their hometowns since they'd gone to school.

But group homes? "He didn't tell us that." Come to think of it, Jim hadn't talked about his childhood or where he grew up much at all. Group homes, plural, could explain that.

"No... he didn't talk about it much. I don't think he would have brought it up at all if it hadn't come up when we were discussing finances, what would ..." Amanda's swallowed, her hands ceasing their restless movements over the tabletop. Another thing Hannah hadn't noticed until it was gone, Amanda talked with her hands a lot. "What would happen with his death benefits."

It wasn't uncommon for people who came out of good group homes to donate a little money back, if they came into some. He might have put it into his will. She nodded. "I hope you got that all straightened out..."

"Oh, no, it's working itself out. I mean, the base lawyers are helping..."

She had her doubts as to which direction the base lawyers would help, but she kept them to herself. Hopefully Amanda was smart enough to know if she wasn't getting fair treatment or the full amount that was due to her.

Neither of them knew what to say once the obvious things were talked out. If there was anything to talk about they couldn't find it, and maybe they should have left it at a simple apology. Hannah kept herself from fidgeting, tension knotting her muscles while Amanda looked around at things she had looked at three times before. After another minute she stood, pushed herself out of her chair and paced around the room in slow, deliberate steps, her hands moving through the air over everything that would stand still. All Hannah could think of to do was to describe it to her.

"There used to be pictures on the walls. They took them down before I got back," and that part came out easily, more rapid than the rest of it, but easier maybe because it was quick and soon over. Amanda wouldn't notice that she used the singular pronoun, only her, and not the we of her-and-her-squadron. "But we used to have pictures, always a group picture, here, front and center in front of the table. And then, sometimes, we'd put up pictures of ourselves. Goofing off, being silly, or sometimes from our vacations if their families sent pictures."

"Not your family?" Or maybe she had noticed and she just hadn't said anything.

Hannah shrugged, avoiding Amanda's look until her circuit took her in a different direction. "My parents are dead, I never wanted to start a family. A couple friends of mine sent pictures, they were up there for a little while."

"Oh."

She rubbed one hand over the other, watched Amanda walk down the length of bunks and back again, pleading silently that she wouldn't ask which one had belonged to James. She didn't, though Hannah imagined she guessed. Probably incorrectly, the odds weren't in favor of guessing. But then she came back to the table and set her purse down, looking over at Hannah.

"You said you used to play cards, here?"

Hannah nodded, not sure what the other woman was getting at, even when she pulled out a deck.

"Would you like to play? Or, I see there's still a chess set, do you know how to play chess in the round?"

"... Sure."

She didn't find out how right she was about the widow, the lawyers, and the death benefits until Cynthia came by a week later asking if she'd seen Amanda lately.

"No... no, she came by once after the memorial dinner and then she... I guess she had her own life to deal with. Why?" Hannah had just put a mess of vegetables and sauces into the cooker and was in the middle of hoping it all turned out edible.

The older woman frowned, shaking her head and settling into a chair. The cooker hummed, starting in on the first traces of good smells. "No reason. I think. I'm not sure."

Hannah shrugged, and went to check on the food and the progress of the cooker. Her sense of smell had returned, and her sense of taste. Food was no longer something to be choked down, she even enjoyed it a little. Bit by bit. She still felt cold most of the time, and that wall between her and the rest of the world stood high as ever. "Some reason. Even if it's just instinct, you don't look like that without a reason."

Cynthia tapped her fork on the plate, then twirled it in her fingers in a manner more openly nervous than was expected of a Commander's wife. "That man, Dr. Rushman, saw her the other day. I stopped by to check on her and he came by with the lawyer about her death benefits. Or, well, the lawyer was there to speak about the paperwork for her death benefits, I don't know what Rushman was doing there."

"Visiting." Hannah turned and leaned back against the counter, palms against the edge. "Hovering. Like a vulture. Who knows. Does it matter?"

"It might. The bereavement council passed everyone's benefits through, but payroll is balking on her payment in particular. I stayed to chat some with the clerk when ..."

She didn't say anything, waited out Cynthia's stare into the table and through the floor. When she'd gone to pick up the commander's pension and, now, her inheritance. It took them both a moment to breathe through that. The cooker finished while they waited, and Hannah dished out two suppers before sitting down at the table.

"Someone's holding up her payout?" she frowned, blew on her first bite to cool it.

"Mm," Cynthia nodded, spreading her napkin over her lap. She ate straight-backed and with her elbows off the table in sharp contrast to Hannah, who leaned and had her elbows out at either side. "I think someone is, or something, but I don't know why. It might be something as simple as he forgot to sign something or file a form, or someone did, but it might..."

Only neither of them could find the thought they were both grasping at. The idea that some sinister person would mess with someone's salary, disability or death benefits, insurance payouts, that wasn't so strange. That happened all the time. But who might be doing it to this particular widow and why, neither of them knew. The pieces didn't quite fit together yet. But protecting the living made a safer puzzle to worry at than looking at the cause of the dead.

"We could..." Hannah frowned, scrubbed a hand over her face and tried to think who else lived on or near the base. It was a short list, and none of them so much alone as Amanda, which did make her easy prey. "We'd have to wait and ask her if someone's offered her help with the paperwork, if there's someone who's pressing her for something..."

"Wait for what?"

She shook her head, spreading her empty hands and leaning back in her chair. "The right moment? Some time when she doesn't seem like she's going to insist that it's not true or argue or ... Some kind of proof. We need to find something in the way of proof."

Cynthia's lips pressed together as she thought. "To do that, we'll have to thread the bureaucracy and see what's holding up her payout, and that might not be easy," she warned, "Or even possible."

Hannah laced her fingers together and pressed her forehead against her hands, feeling a headache coming on. "One of us asks, the other goes to the payroll office or the bereavement council, maybe both. See what we can see, if there's something someone remembers or if they can look it up..."

Cynthia shook her head. "That wouldn't tell us anything about who might be putting pressure on her, who might be trying to trap her in this state. They won't release her information to us."

"Then we'll have to be very, very sneaky."

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