"I'm going to need a burrito as big as my head, some aspirin, and maybe a couple of those weird chocolate, peanut butter wafer things with the hilariously inappropriate name. What, like, nuttybars? Who names a dessert nuttybar."

He takes her keys and looks at them, the suggestion that they are nothing if not a car ride away from being free of this place. A tiny part of him is tempted, really, to take the car and drive the whole route back to California, watching the apocalypse from the horizon.

He knows he can't, knows he won't. He loves his family, even for how fucked up they all are. But he pushes himself to his feet with a huff, not bothering with shoes as he steps over the puddle of alcohol, the shattered glass, and offers her a hand up.

"Or a puppy. Claire wants a puppy and I'll be just the best uncle in the world if I bring her back a puppy instead of handing her an apocalypse in a hand basket with a ribbon on top."

And once she's to her feet, he starts for the door of the sitting room, body sagging in a way that it usually doesn't, but he's trying. He slowly begins rebuilding the walls that crashed down in Vietnam, but for now, this will have to be enough.