Their progress is slow but steady, and by the time Max and Furiosa return to stock up on supplies three weeks later, the inside of the Citadel looks completely different. Furiosa expresses her pleasure and asks for Capable to show her around the new layout. Max tags along, which Capable suspects is because his old hiding places have changed and he doesn't know where else to go. Capable takes them through the Citadel, points out the new housing units and the plumbing system some of the more tech-savvy War Boys are developing.

"You girls have done good work here," Furiosa admires. "I told you you could."

"You were right," Capable says with a shy smile. "But it's not just us—the War Boys are surprisingly resourceful. Some of them are working on a pulley system to transport food from the kitchens to the medical bay so we don't have to have volunteers walking up and down the stairs delivering food."

"Smart," Max grunts, his one contribution to the conversation.

"But how's the patrol?" Capable asks.

The pair look at each other and shrug.

"Hostile territory is still hostile," Furiosa says. "Everyone we encountered was acting defensively rather than offensively, so I'd say we're safe for now."

"What about Gas Town and the Bullet Farm?"

"I was going to bring that up when I had all of you together. They're willing to open up trade again. They need the water and the crops, and we need the guzzoline and the ammo."

Capable considers this. "We may need you to act as envoys," she says. "Toast should go, too."

"And you said you weren't a leader," Furiosa teases, slinging her arm over Capable's shoulders. "But we can talk about that later. I'm starving."

They have dinner on the roof top again, which seems to be their new tradition. Capable likes it—it's pleasant up here, and it has the added bonus of being isolated from the rest of the Citadel so there's no fear of eavesdroppers.

The others agree that an envoy should be sent to Gas Town and the Bullet Farm, and Toast volunteers to lead the mission. In addition to Max and Furiosa, they decide to round up a gang of War Boys to accompany her—it will add an official note to the whole thing, as well as ensure that Toast will be at least somewhat protected should negotiations go awry. Toast brings up possible negotiations with the canyon dwellers when Bettany interrupts. "All right, we've had enough business talk—let's try to enjoy each other's company."

"Fat chance," says Dag, putting her feet in Toast's lap. She knows that Toast hates feet, and sure enough, the shorter girl smacks Dag's legs and insists she take her feet off of her. "Do you see this?" Dag squeals as Toast continues her barrage. "She's attacking a pregnant woman!"

"That sprog inside you doesn't give you an excuse to be disgusting," Toast retorts, squeaking as Dag tickles her furiously.

Out of the corner of her eye, Capable can see Max tense up when Toast says that. Furiosa lays a gentle hand over his clenched fists and Capable watches in fascination as he slowly unwinds. She wonders what set him off—knowing him, it could be anything.

They chat and trade stories and laugh for a while, and it feels nice. This is one of those moments that's been happening more and more lately where Capable actually feels excited to share this with her baby. She's been trying to look for the positives in having a baby, and this is one of them. She rests a hand on her stomach, which is not quite as flat as it once was but isn't round enough yet to be noticeable.

When Furiosa announces that she's tired and wants to sleep in a real bed, they clean up and start to head back down. Capable can still get up just fine by herself, but Max insistently helps her to her feet. "How are you?" he asks her as they gather up blankets.

She shrugs. "Still pregnant."

A flicker of a smile passes his face. "And...your arm?" he asks, unwilling to elaborate.

Capable pulls up her sleeve and shows him by what lantern light remains. "I've kept my word."

His face is relieved. "That's good," he grunts. "I was worried..." He doesn't finish the thought.

.

Capable and Cheedo select a group of ten War Boys to accompany Toast to Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. They are the strongest of the bunch, which isn't saying a lot, but it's the best that they've got. Toast reminds the others that the strongest War Boys from Gas Town and the Bullet Farm perished in the Wasteland, so they should be evenly matched should it come down to it. This is only slightly comforting.

It's a few days later when Toast, Max, Furiosa, and the War Boys pile into a collection of cars and motorbikes and head for Gas Town. Some War Boys have been assigned the task of sending the old signal to Gas Town to let them know an allied party is on the way. Logically, Capable knows that Gas Town and the Bullet Farm need the Citadel's water and vegetation too badly to risk offending them, even if Toast was one of the people technically responsible for the deaths of their leaders and their strongest men. But there's always a chance something could go wrong. Gas Town or the Bullet Farm could have found alternate sources of water and vegetation and have no use for the Citadel.

Capable tries not to stress too much about it and instead focuses on overseeing the pulley system the War Boys are working on. They've enlisted the help of some War Pups who are small enough to fit into harnesses and then climb up and down the shaft. It makes Capable nervous to see them, but the War Boys assure her the harnesses are sturdy, and the Pups seem so eager to help. She's helping one particularly adventurous pup out of his harness when the cry goes up—the envoys are returning.

Capable rushes to greet them and is relieved to see the party looking exactly as they did when they left rumbling steadily along the road. She orders the pups and the treaders to lower the platform and waits impatiently for the group to ascend. When they do, she throws her arms around Toast.

"It was only a few hours," Toast says, returning the embrace nevertheless. "Come on, let's find the others and talk."

Gas Town and the Bullet Farm are eager to maintain the old alliance, she tells them in the privacy of the council chamber. Once a month they will load water and green into vehicles and exchange them for a sufficient amount of guzzoline and ammunition. The Gas Towners and Bullet Farmers have assured them safe passage, and Toast promised them the same.

"And they're not upset about...before?" Cheedo asks delicately.

Toast shakes her head. "They're being run by old people and kids. They aren't in a position to demand reparations, which is lucky, because neither are we."

Capable wonders if there are breeders in Gas Town and the Bullet Farm. Somehow, she doubts it—from what she's pieced together, the People Eater and Major Kalashnikov didn't share Immortan Joe's concern for producing a healthy male heir. She wonders if the People Eater or Major Kalashnikov ever even married and had children of their own. If they hadn't, then there's no one to really grudge the women who helped kill their fathers. And if they had, well, that was a problem for another day.

They fill a trailer with water and green and hitch it to a rig. Three smaller cars and two motorbikes are selected to accompany the rig, and more than enough War Boys to man the vehicles. Toast, Max, and Furiosa don't seem concerned that Gas Town or the Bullet Farm would renege on their deal, but after Furiosa's own betrayal, they know just how easy it can be and they aren't taking any chances. Max and Furiosa take the rig while the same War Boys who accompanied Toast earlier take their places in the cars and motorbikes. Capable, Toast, Cheedo, Dag, Harper, and Bettany all take the platform down to the ground and see off the trade party.

"Hey Furiosa," Dag says with a wicked grin. "Don't go offroad like you did last time."

Furiosa smiles in return and climbs up into the rig. Almost everyone in the Citadel is outside, waving and cheering as the vehicles rumble out into the road. Two War Boys and two eager War Pups stand at the top of the Citadel and signal Gas Town that the supplies are on the way.

There's nothing to be afraid of, but Capable stands at a window for the rest of the day and watches the party's progress with binoculars. It takes them less than three hours to exchange goods and return to the Citadel—when they do, Capable leads a flock of cheering War Pups down to the ground to welcome them back.

"FURIOSA!" the crowd cheers. "MAX! FURIOSA!"

Furiosa throws her right arm around Capable to hug her and murmurs in her ear, "You worry too much."

Capable flushes. "Can you blame me?"

Furiosa looks at her and then gives a small smile, shaking her head. "No."

Capable leads them back up to the living quarters, and she doesn't miss the way Max's hand slips into Furiosa's.

.

The women implore Max and Furiosa to stay longer, but they shake their heads and insist they have to be off. By the time they return three weeks later, the Citadel has changed even more, and when they return another two weeks after that, it's almost unrecognizable.

Capable is almost four months along by this point and beginning to show. Though she's been trying to stay positive about the pregnancy, she still isn't fully comfortable with it, and her discomfort grows when her belly begins to noticeably curve. She wears loose-fitting clothes whenever she can, but sometimes she'll move in a way that stretches the fabric across her stomach and it becomes plain as day. Half the Citadel knows by now, and the other half will find out soon, so there's really no point in disguising it. But she doesn't want to disguise it so much as just...not have it. She misses her flat belly—what's more, she misses the significance behind a flat belly.

With the inevitability of a baby becoming more and more obvious, Capable finds herself spending more and more time with Dag. They've always been close—all the sisters have—but they're joined by a bond now that Toast and Cheedo do not and probably never will understand. They complain about their aches and pains and share loose-fitting clothes and start halfheartedly preparing for the babies. Dag thinks she'll have to move into another room soon—four women in one room is crowded enough, and adding two babies into the mix is just going to make it a pain. Capable has been considering moving to a different room as well since it'll be noisy with the baby. Toast is fine with this arrangement (she's always been better at being independent), but Cheedo is so upset at the prospect of them all splitting up that they know they can't do it now.

Cheedo talks to some of the War Boys and the Wretched developing housing units and finds a solution—a set of connecting apartments for the four women and two babies.

"There are three-bedroom units," she explains, showing them the sketches an obliging War Boy drew up for her. "Two of us in two rooms and the babies in another. There are two water closets and a common area, and they can set up a small kitchen for us if we want."

It sounds ideal. The War Boys in charge of the project offer them several locations...but the one they keep circling back to is the old vault.

"I'm not setting foot in there again," Toast tells them coldly.

"Just give us a chance," the War Boys plead. "It won't look anything like the old place. We promise."

Toast irritably tells them that she can't very well stop them from converting the vault if they really want to, but she's not going to move in just because they remodel it. Dag and Capable feel similarly—out of all the rooms they could've been asked to move into, those are the ones they want to seen gutted completely. Only Cheedo, Cheedo who's still a virgin and never knew the full extent of terror the others lived in, seems positive that this could be a good thing.

By the time the boys are finished gutting the old vault and reshaping it into a living space conveniently located near the administrative apartments, Capable is already looking into other accommodations. She knows the War Boys are trying, she knows she can't hide from the Immortan's shadow forever, but she does not want to go back to that cage.

So she's surprised when the War Boys unveil the new unit. It's completely unrecognizable from the old place—the only similarity is the blurred glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. The water pool is gone, filled in with stone and sanded to look just like the rest of the floor. The books have been moved to an administrative room and the piano has been taken to one of the public common areas for anyone to play. The walls have been torn down and new ones erected; on one side of the unit are a bedroom that connects to a water closet that also opens out to the common room, and a small two-wall kitchen unit against the window. The boys took the liberty of setting up a table and chairs in the common area just outside of the kitchen—when Capable sits down at the table and looks out the window, she can see miles and miles of sand and sky. She remembers the view from living here before, but this is different somehow. They'd never had a table to sit and eat at before—she wonders what meals will be like, watching the sunrise and sunsets from here. On the other side of the unit are two bedrooms connected by another water closet that opens to the common area; one bedroom is against the window so whoever is in there will get a lovely view as long as they don't mind rising with the sun. The nursery can go in there, Capable thinks absentmindedly before realizing what she's thinking.

The best part about this new unit, however, is not the completely different interior—it's the easily accessible exterior. The old lock has been taken away and replaced by a door that locks from the inside, so no matter what, the women can't be locked in, but they have the power to lock someone out. It's a small detail, and one Capable doubts the War Boys put a lot of thought into, but it's enough to convince her. She can feel safe in here.

Cheedo is already brimming over with excitement, and even Dag looks impressed at the transformation. They all look at Toast, who unofficially has the final say—they won't move in if she doesn't want to.

But Toast looks nonplussed. "It's...efficient," she finally says. "The added architecture will help maintain a steady temperature instead of the window causing the room to go from one extreme to the other." She wanders into one of the bedrooms and looks around. "Two beds could easily fit in here...no doubling up," she observes. She pokes her head into a water closet. "And two water closets would be twice as convenient as one." She chews her lip. "It's different," she allows. "I'm impressed. I just don't know..."

Cheedo sucks in a breath.

Toast rolls her eyes and can't help a small smile. "Oh, fine. We can move in." She holds up a hand before Cheedo can hug her. "But the minute any one of us gets uncomfortable we move, yeah?"

Capable and Dag release sighs of relief, but Cheedo full-on squeals and hugs Toast, raised hand and all. Then she hugs the War Boys who have been lingering at the entrance and waiting for the verdict with bated breath. The boys move the women's belongings from their old room to the new apartment and are even able to locate two extra beds. They strip the cushioned backseat of someone's car and put it in the common area as a makeshift sofa and find chairs that Cheedo artfully arranges around a rug. It looks cozy, like someplace Capable can see herself relaxing after a long day.

"Now all we're missing are cribs," Dag observes.

Capable doesn't give it much thought (she tries not to think too much about the baby), but a week later she hears a knock on the door and answers it—only to find a crew of War Boys carrying two cribs.

"Just something we threw together," one of them, Crash, says modestly, but Capable knows from the sturdiness and the detail that they put time and effort into these cribs. They're made of metal, sanded and smoothed and painted so as not to present a threat to the babies or an eyesore to the mothers. After collecting cushions and blankets, the cribs look soft and inviting.

"You didn't have to do that," Capable reminds them, feeling not a little guilty. These boys have done so much for the women in the past few months—Capable knows they'd cross the Wasteland if she asked them to.

"I know," says Crash. "But we wanted to."

When Max and Furiosa return from another patrol, the sisters invite them, Harper, and Bettany over for dinner in their new home. Harper and Bettany have already seen the new unit, and Max has no idea what the old one looked like, but Furiosa remembers enough of the old vault to be significantly impressed with the transformation. "You've got those War Boys eating out of the palms of your hands," she remarks as Cheedo gives her a mini-tour.

"They're good kids," Capable defends, even though there's truth to Furiosa's words. "They just want to help."

Dinner is all fruits and vegetables Dag picked from the roof; since the kitchen is so small, she and Bettany chop up the vegetables and cook them while Capable, Cheedo, and Toast entertain their guests. They group themselves around the window as the sun begins to set—the windows are blurry, but it adds a kind of beauty to the sky's changing colors. They blend and meld together through the blurry glass and slowly sink into the horizon. The sky is purple and pink by the time Dag and Bettany load up the table, and everyone digs in. It's nice and cozy—but Capable secretly prefers the dinners on the roof they've become accustomed to.

Bettany has expressly forbidden business talk at the table, but Furiosa can't help asking about the alliance with Gas Town and the Bullet Farm.

"It's going well," Toast assures her. "The boys tell me the Gas Towners and Bullet Farmers always treat them well. We haven't run into any problems yet."

"Yet," Dag says unhelpfully.

"How are the patrols?" Capable asks.

Max and Furiosa shrug in almost perfect synchronicity. They've usually slept in separate rooms, though Cheedo reported with some glee that she'd gotten a look at Furiosa's room the last time she was there and had seen Max's belongings in there.

"That doesn't mean anything," Capable tried to tell her, more to respect their privacy than because she actually believed it, but Cheedo informed her earlier that day that the pair told Bettany they were sharing a room. Capable privately thinks that they ought to have just kept the original arrangement and snuck around in secret, because if word gets out then the Citadel won't be able to stop talking about it. But she also knows that they wouldn't do it if they didn't think they could handle the flak. She's happy for them—she's only picked up pieces here and there about their pasts, but she knows enough to believe that they deserve to be happy with one another.

Sure enough, as soon as they disperse for bed, Cheedo turns to Capable with a wicked look in her eye. "They're so in love."

"Just don't ask them about it," Capable pleads. "I don't think they're ready to talk about it with other people yet."

"Why? Everyone else has been talking about it," Dag says. She's not wrong.