A/N: I'd never posted it, but it has been a while since I've written in Kate's perspective, so that was a fun thing to do.
Also, I was really wondering how it'd gone when MacCready left Duncan in the Capital Wasteland
how the boy responded to it all, how it was arranged that he'd stay with the Lone Wonderer, etc.
I let my mind wander, and this is what it came up with :)


Recollection

MacCready POV

I'm standing in front of the house where she lives. At least that's what I've been told. I raise my fist and knock on the door.

A man answers, with a straight razor in his hand, a bit of makeshift shaving cream on his chin. At first, I don't recognize him. Then I realize this must be Butch. I never talked to him, so it doesn't surprise me that he looks at me like I'm a stranger. I mean, it has been a good seven years since I saw him last.

"Is Kate here?" I ask him. He calls her name up the stairs to the right. As I hear someone moving around up there, I see recognition hit him. He must know who I am now.

Kate comes down the stairs and sees me at the door. "Mayer MacCready?!" She calls, running up to me and throwing her arms around my back, too short to reach anything else. "What're you doing here?"

"You can just call me Robert. And I came to find you." I think of my actual reason and internally cringe.

"Well, come on in… Robert." She gestures to one of the chairs opposite a couch as she sits on the latter. Butch moves back to the kitchen to finish his shaving. "What brings you by? You said you came to find me?"

"Yeah."

"Is something wrong in Lamplight?" She face shows concern.

"No. Not that I know of anyway. I came for another reason." How am I going to get this out?

As she's about to open her mouth, I hear a lighter set of footsteps from upstairs. Making their way toward the staircase, I hear, "Who's here, Momma?"

A boy comes down and stands at the foot of the steps, looking at me with a curious gaze. Kate motions for him to sit next to her on the couch. "This is a friend of your dad and I. Say hi to Robert." He sits next to her and waves at me. "He's a bit shy sometimes," she tells me.

At this time, Butch has finished up and sits down next to her, casually throwing his arm on the back of the couch. "This is our son, Ellis," he informs me. "He turns six next week."

"Happy birthday, Ellis." I grin at him.

"Thanks." His reply is so quiet. "Can I go back upstairs and play?"

"Sure. Go on," Butch responds. After he's gone, he looks back to me. "So this is what the mayor of Little Lamplight looks like nowadays, huh?"

"I haven't been back there since I was fifteen. Left shortly after the last time I saw you two."

"You still had another year. Why so soon?" Kate asks.

"We had to get away. Biwwy was a good mayor, but he relied on me too much," I respond.

"So, Biwwy became mayor after you, huh?" She laughs only to stop and look at me with a quizzical look. "Wait. We? Who'd you leave with?" Well, I guess it's inevitable.

"…Lucy." I struggle to get her name out—it's only been a couple years since—

"Ooh. Sounds like something came of you two! I wonder how that came to be. You know, I've always liked her. How's she doing?" She smiles with such innocence.

I look down, trying my best to keep it together. "She… didn't make it…"

"Not Lucy…" Kate breathes out. "I'm so sorry. If you don't mind me asking: when?"

"A couple years ago," I say, feeling the tears trying their best to escape. Sucking them back in, I continue, "Ghoul attack."

"I'm sorry," Butch chimes in as Kate continues to look appalled.

"Me, too." I can hear the edge in my voice creeping its way in. Determined to ignore it, I move on to the topic I came here for. "Anyway… Wasn't before we had a son, named Duncan." I see Kate's face of understanding. "That's why I was shocked but happy to see your son. I know the feeling of being a parent. Nothing like it, nothing can replace it."

"Nothing," she agrees. "How old is he?"

"He just turned five." They both smile, I assume remembering the time their son was that age. "And… he's the reason I'm here.

"You might have noticed he's not with me, now that you know about him." She nods. "Well… he's sick. He was just running around outside by the house we moved into after we left Big Town, when he falls down suddenly. The next morning, he has these… boils, these blue boils… all over him. He was too weak to even walk. I didn't dare bring him with me. He's really sick, and… I don't know how much longer it'll be until…

"Anyway, I spent the next few days, trying to think of what to do. Last I heard of, Red had left the Capital Wasteland. And since my wife was no longer with us, I didn't know who to get help from.

"I'm not sure why, but you were the first person I thought of. I remembered how you helped Lucy out in the clinic a few times, how good with kids you were. I had to find you. So I found someone that said you lived here in Megaton. And here I am. …I don't know who else to get advice from."

Both Kate and Butch look horrified, but she has most of my attention. She's staring at me, her face scrunched up in utter disbelief and sorrow. "I can't even imagine that… There has to be some kind of medicine that can help him."

"Maybe," I agree. "I heard that there's a cure up in the Commonwealth. But I don't know if it's true or not. How could I take Duncan with me, just to chase a rumour? If it's not there, and he gets hurt on the trip, I couldn't forgive myself…"

"Leave him here," Butch says.

"No, I can't just leave him. I mean the people in Arefu—around where we live—are nice, but—"

"No," Kate cuts in, while looking at her husband. "Leave him here with us." She looks back to me. "We can take care of him while you find that cure."

"No, I couldn't ask you guys to do that for me."

"You're not asking," Butch replies. "We're offering. And it seems like the best plan so far."

Kate picks up his statement where he left off. "You can't leave him alone, and it'd be best to not take him with you. We have a son, so we know how to take care of children already. Besides, it may do both of our kids good to be together. What do you say?"

I'm so overcome with emotion that I don't respond at first, gaining a worried look from both of them. Finally, I say, "You don't know how much that would mean to me." The tears I tried so hard to keep down earlier decide to make an appearance anyway. Kate stands and comes over to me, giving me a hug. "Thank you," I say earnestly.

"It's no problem," Butch says. "You can bring him any time you want. Even tomorrow. The earlier, the better, from the sound of things."

"You can stay here tonight and get him tomorrow, or you could travel tonight and have him here as early as tomorrow morning. Whatever you want." Kate stands up straight from her leaning down to give me her hug.

"I think I should go as soon as possible," I reply. "I'll have him here before the sun is."

"Alright," she says with a small grin.


Kate POV

"Now, when Duncan gets here, we don't know how long he's gonna be staying," Butch says to our son as he takes their breakfast bowls to the kitchen for me to wash later.

"I don't like babies," Ellis says with his lower lip jutting out. "I only like Jake and Betty."

"Ellis, what have I told you about pouting?" I call from the couch.

"To not to," he says, knowing he's been defeated. "But I don't want anyone else living with us!"

"Ellis James DeLoria. Do not make me come over there and whoop you. You know not to talk back to me." He just bows his head, not saying another word in fear I'll follow through.

Butch continues, "Well, we don't know how long his dad will be gone, so you need to be a good boy. Right?"

"'Kay…" Ellis still hasn't raised his head.

"Ellis, c'mere," I call. He comes over and falls down onto my lap. "You know your dad and I love you, right?" He nods. "And nobody is going to replace you?" He shrugs. "Well, it's true," I tell him. "Just because we're going to have Duncan for a little while, that doesn't mean that we're gonna stop loving you. You're still our son, no matter what. He's just going to need a place to stay and people to take care of him. Maybe you two will become friends. And he's not a baby—he's five." He gives me a look, telling me he still thinks five years old is baby age. "You'll get along. You'll see."

"Can I go upstairs and play now?"

"Yes, but you need to be back down here when they get here!" I call after him, as he had already taken off like a bat out of hell.

"Well, he seems excited," Butch says sarcastically as he brings me a mug of coffee and sits down next to me.

"You know it. How long do you think it'll be until they're here?"

"Robert sounded eager to get on the road, so it wouldn't surprise me any if it was soon." And as if he can see into the future, there's a knock on the door.

He goes to stand up, but I wave him back down. "I got it this time." As I open the door, I'm faced with quite the scene.

Robert is struggling to not drop the three bags on one shoulder, as he clings to a boy with his other arm. He sees me and embarrassedly smiles as he lets the bags go ahead and fall to the ground shifting his son in his arms.

"He hates being awake this early, so he slept on the way here." He nudges him softly. "We're here, buddy," he tells him. I offer to grab his bags on the ground, dragging them into the house as he walks ahead, still trying to wake Duncan. As the boy starts to come around, I finally get a good look at him.

He has brown hair and hazel eyes, both the colour of his mother's. Other than a few details, he mainly takes after his dad. However, I have a hard time looking at these details due to the two large boils on his face—one on his right cheek, the other on the left side of his forehead. As Robert had said last night, they're blue. I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it myself.

Duncan looks at me, Butch, then his dad. His expression is full of confusion and fear. "These are the nice people I told you about," Robert begins. "They're gonna be taking care of you while I'm gone."

Duncan grabs Robert as if he's falling—as vice tight as the five-year-old can manage. "Don't go!" His voice is so small, yet it's full of so much emotion, so much dread, that it's far more effective than yelling would have been.

"You know I have to, Duncan." Robert's voice sounds as if they've had this conversation more than once. "If I could take you, you know I would." Duncan's eyes start to well up with tears as his lower lip sticks out. It's just about the most heart wrenching face I've ever seen. "Don't look at me like that," Robert's voice breaks. "You know I don't wanna go." I see tears line the bottom of his eyelids, too. He hugs his son to his chest, the tears spilling over.

After a minute—Butch and I trying to give them as much privacy as we can in the small living room—Duncan pulls away from his dad and looks him in the eyes. His stare is so focused, so mature for five. He turns away from Robert and looks at me. Robert connects the dots and decides to introduce us to his son.

"Guys—this is Duncan." He looks at the boy. "Say hi."

Duncan looks from me to my husband, smiling ever so slightly, and quietly says, "Hi," before shyly looking away, around the house.

Robert continues, "Duncan, these are my two good friends, Kate and Butch. They've known me for a long time—your mom, too." Duncan perks up at the mention of his mother. "Yeah," Robert confirms. "They've known us both for a good eight or so years now. That's a little more than two times older than you are. Cause you're how old?"

Duncan shyly smiles again, looking down at the floor. "Four… No, five! I'm a big boy now." He grins proudly.

"That's right, you are," his dad agrees. "You are a big boy. Out of the baby years, huh, buddy?" His son nods. Looking back at us, "How about you talk to them? They don't bite." He steps closer to us, showing Duncan how harmless we are. "See?"

Duncan finally faces us head on, and asks right away, "You knew Mommy?"

"We did," Butch says as he comes up behind me to get a better look at the boy for the first time. "Kate knew her better, though." His eyes widen a little when he sees the boils up close.

Duncan turns to me, a sort of fire in his eyes, a fire I never knew a preschool-aged child could have. He asks, "What colour were her eyes? I can't remember." Robert takes a shaky breath, the tears again threatening to fall from his lower lids.

Trying my best to make sure he doesn't notice his dad's reaction to the touchy subject, I answer quickly. "They were the colour your eyes are—a beautiful hazel-brown. You have her eyes. So everytime you see a reflection of yourself, you can see her eyes, too."

He grins, happy a piece of her is still here. "I miss her. We used to play all the time, but… I don't remember what games we played."

"They'll come to you," I lie. Shame this child won't remember much of his own mother after a few years…

Butch looks at Robert. Changing the subject, "Do you think I should go get…?"

Robert's confused for a moment, but then understands he meant our son. He nods as Butch disappears upstairs.

When they come back down, Butch stands behind Ellis with his hands on his shoulders—a reminder to behave. Going closer to Duncan, I motion to the other boy in the room. "Duncan, this is our son. His name is Ellis."

"Hey," Ellis says a bit spitefully after Butch squeezes his shoulder. Duncan can already feel apprehension in the air and just waves, looking a bit scared.

"He promised he'd be good," I tell both Duncan and Robert, since the latter's face shows some concern.

However, Ellis shrugs out from his father's grasp, blowing up, and instantly breaking that promise. "I already said it: I don't want a baby living with us! It's not fair!"

"Ellis!" I chide.

Duncan almost cuts me off, not look scared anymore, but actually angry. "I'm not a baby! I'm a big boy now, you meanie!"

"Oh, yeah?" Ellis challenges. "What makes you think that?"

"Cause I have gooder toys than you!"

With his fit being thrown to the side a little bit, Ellis asks, "Well, what kind do you got to be better than mine?"

He says, "I got some cool cars," his small face still showing anger.

"I have some cool cars, too…" After a moment, his annoyance having faded already, "Want to play with them?"

Duncan looks taken aback yet happily so. "Yeah." He tugs on Robert's duster to be let down to get his toys. Confusedly, Robert bends down instead—still holding his son—and grabs a couple toy cars from Duncan's bag.

"C'mon, they're up here," Ellis says as he runs up the steps. Still confused, Robert follows him with Duncan and his cars. After a minute, he comes back, looking even more baffled than when he went up.

"What just happened?" He mumbles.

"Hey, sorry about Ellis," I apologize. "He never acts like this. I don't understand why he's acting out—he gets along great with other kids."

"He's jealous—well was. Maybe not now. We'll see," Butch says. Looking at Robert, "Duncan is one tough kid. He wasn't afraid to stand up for himself—at five and while sick. He's tough," he repeats. "He's gonna be just fine."

"I hope so…" Robert looks down to the floor.

"He will," I agree. "He couldn't have a better dad. And we're not letting anything happen to him while he's here. He'll be fine."

Robert looks up at me, then at Butch. His expression shifts from uncertainty to determination. "Yes, he will." He nods. "Now, I need to go get that cure. Be right back." He heads up the stairs again.

Not trying to eavesdrop, but still able to hear their conversation, it goes like this:

"Duncan, I'm gonna go now.
"But we just got here."
"No, you can stay here. That was our plan, remember?"
"Oh, yeah."
"So… you be good, okay?"
"Okay, Dad."
"Still have that note I gave you earlier?"
"Yeah. Right here."
"I'll be back soon. Son, I love you."
"I love you, too, Dad! Be careful out there."
"Always am."

As Robert comes back down the stairs, he looks more sure about this decision than ever before. "I'm gonna come back in a few months if I haven't found it yet. I can't be gone that long without him—with him like this especially."

"Completely understandable," Butch coincides.

I say, "We'll see you then. Maybe we can find a way to write to each other once you get there."

"Sounds good," he nods. Coming closer he gives us both a hug. "Thank you so much for doing this. You have no idea how much it means to me—how much it'd mean to her…"

"You don't need to thank us. Hey, if the shoe was on the other foot…" I don't bother to finish my statement.

He smiles, grabs one of the three bags on the floor, and moves to the door. "I'll see you guys later." He slips out, closing it behind him.

From upstairs, I can hear the boys playing with their cars, arguing lightly over who's would be fastest if they were real.

They're gonna be inseparable soon…