After changing, Beatrice stood on the landing outside the room, debating on whether Nancy would knock on a door that led to where her husband was. Being awkward with Deacon felt strange. In the early days of their partnership, they'd often ducked into closet-sized spaces to change disguises on Railroad missions without really paying much attention. Now however, she felt almost shy. How was she going to keep hiding her feelings for him? She had to, though. They were here to rescue someone who even now might be in life-threatening danger.

While she stood out on the landing debating with herself, the other bedroom door opposite opened revealing a woman a few years younger in a worn dress and hair pulled messily back by a red ribbon. She saw Beatrice and froze, but then smiled and held a finger to her lips.

"I just put the twins down for a nap, if you don't mind," she said in a hushed voice. "I'm Darlene. My boyfriend Matt is inside—also napping." Good humor danced in her tired brown eyes. "I heard, uh, some activity earlier, so I knew that the other room was occupied. I'm happy I got to meet our guest house neighbors before we leave. I feel like I've been feeding the babies nonstop and haven't had any chance to socialize while we're here."

Beatrice blushed as she imagined what "activity" Darlene must have heard. "Nice to meet you. I'm Nancy. My husband and I are here on business."

"We just stopped here for the night on the way to my sister's place near Lexington," Darlene said. "It's been real nice. I never saw electricity outside Diamond City before. Isn't it something?"

"Yes, it's very nice," Beatrice agreed, then hesitated. "Did you say twins earlier?" she asked in a wistful voice. "How old are they?" Don't do this to yourself, Beatrice, she warned herself. You always regret it...

"Two months," Darlene said fondly, but the dark circles under her eyes spoke of many midnight feedings.

"So little." Beatrice's throat tightened. She'd thought she'd cried out all her tears about Shaun. But perhaps she hadn't processed all the emotions, maybe she'd been trying to keep herself busy and on the road so she wouldn't have to. Maybe this place with its scent of pre-war life hanging in the air was affecting her more than it should.

A shivering, tingling feeling in her chest startled her.

"Uh oh," said Darlene, "looks like you're in the same boat I am."

Beatrice felt the let down and looked at the front of her dress in resignation. Sure enough, she'd begun to leak through. "Damnit." For the first few months after getting out of the Vault, she'd done her best to keep her milk coming, determined that when she found Shaun, she would still be able feed him. It wasn't especially difficult, but the soreness, the prickles of pain like hugging a cactus had been harder to deal with. With no baby to feed to relieve the pain, she'd had to manually express the milk. It was the only way to ensure that she kept producing.

Despite her best efforts though, her production was overall down. If—not if, she told herself, when—she found Shaun, she would probably have to find a wet nurse until her own milk got up to speed again.

"I have a few extra cloths if you need them," Darlene said, sympathy in her voice.

"No, no. I don't want to disturb your little ones," Beatrice said. "I have some. I just forgot to put them in." That whole exchange with Deacon had put it clean out of her mind. "Excuse me." She took a bracing breath and walked into the room she shared with Deacon. For a moment they just stared at each other.

"I need a sweater," she said in as steady a voice she could manage, trying to use her arms to shield the blot. Deacon glanced down, saw that she trying to hide something and frowned.

"Are you hurt?" He rose his feet, hurrying to her. "Is that blood?"

"No, I'm fine," she said, shrinking away, but he gently pulled her arm away and for a moment, just stared at the growing wet spot.

"Oh," he said. "Oh," he repeated, as if just realizing that breast milk was a thing. He looked at her like she had sprouted wings, or become someone he didn't recognize. If she hadn't been on the verge of tears, she would have laughed at his expression.

"It's fine," she said weakly, pulling her arm back. "I was stupid and forgot to put my pads in. I should have brought an extra dress, but my sweater should hide it." She clamped her lips shut, aware that she was babbling; worse, her voice was shaking.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking awkward, while Beatrice dug through her pack, then, biting her lip, turned her back on him.

"Could you…" She cleared her throat, "unbutton me?"

"Oh. Right." He came up behind her, his fingers fumbling a little with the buttons, then she could feel the cool air of the room on her back, and a hint of Deacon's warm breath. Then his hands were gone. She inserted the cloth pads into her brassiere with a wince, already starting to feel tender. Hopefully she could make it through dinner and take care of it after. Then she reached awkwardly behind herself. When she'd changed in the bathroom, she'd managed on her own because she'd buttoned a couple of the hardest ones before slipping the dress on, but Deacon had undone them all to the small of her back.

"Here, I'll do them again," he said and his warm fingers gave her goosebumps as they nimbly climbed up her back redoing the buttons. "I, uh, didn't realize you were still, um… doing... that," he said, stepping back.

Beatrice blotted at the wetness at the front of her dress with a handkerchief. "I guess I was hiding it from you. Well, not just you. Everyone. I've been trying to keep it going because Shaun's going to need me… I… I don't think he'd be on solid food yet…" She trailed off at the thought of just how long she'd been in the wasteland, suddenly realizing that Shaun would be crawling by now. She took a deep breath and let it out, wishing the breath hadn't been as shaky as it was. It's just hormones, she told herself, but it didn't help the knifing in her throat.

"Look," Deacon said, sounding concerned, "if you're not up to tonight, if you want to stay in…"

"What? No! It's fine. I'm fine. Let's go to dinner and make sure we give Rob time to contact Honest Dan. Every hour we spend not finding Amelia is one in which she could be dying."

He nodded, though he didn't look entirely convinced, and after she grabbed her sweater, they hurried out the door.

"I didn't replace the listening devices," he said in a low voice as they crossed the lawn toward the mayor's house, "and I left the hat on the camera. I'll let them decide if they want to confront us openly about that."

"Would they?"

"I'm not sure. We still don't know if they took Amelia and why. So far, all we have is a town full of paranoia—maybe about synths?—and a heavy-handed effort to look as friendly as possible. Even the camera and listening bugs can be a callback to a general fear…. I mean, from a security standpoint, it even makes a certain horrible sense to have them in a room that strangers will be staying in. This is a nice place; you don't see settlements this clean hardly anywhere."

"That SAFE test must not be very reliable then, if visitors go through it and Covenant still has to keep an eye on people that passed it." Beatrice frowned as a thought struck her. "Or… it's not designed to keep 'undesirable people' out as Swanson said. What if it's designed only to identify them?"

"He never actually said we passed anything, did he?" Deacon said thoughtfully. "He just… let us in." Deacon's frown deepened but they couldn't say anything more because they'd arrived at the mayor's house.

"Welcome!" said Jacob as they walked up the porch steps. "A little fashionably late, I see, but with a wife like that, I can see how you might have gotten distracted." He chuckled, giving Deacon a nudge. Deacon smiled a serene smile that Beatrice knew hid a desire to throttle someone. It was usually the one he reserved for Carrington. "Speaking of our better halves, this is my wife, Maria." He gestured at a woman standing further inside the house with gray hair and a smile that looked like it had been painted on. She nodded curtly then turned to her husband.

"Jacob," she said in a strained voice. "The food is growing colder than it already is, let's get our guests in and sit down."

Irritated about our lateness and trying to be polite? Beatrice wondered. Or was she ordered to be polite so as not scare potential business partners off? Trying to parse the possible motivations of people she'd only just met was getting exhausting. If she wasn't careful, she'd be as paranoid as the rest of the town seemed to be. She reminded herself that their job tonight was to make nice; play up the traders interested in making a good business deal while Rob and Dan met up and exchanged information. If the mayor happened to give anything more away, that would have to be bonus.

Dinner was radstag steaks with a drizzle of tart tarberry sauce, roasted, caramelized carrots, and a loaf of dark nutty razorgrain bread—all a little lukewarm but tasty. Maria also offered wine but Beatrice declined. She wasn't great at holding her liquor as it tended to make her head fuzzy, which was the last thing she needed during a mission.

"Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Orden," Beatrice said. "Everything is delicious."

Maria's expression softened. "Thank you, dear. It's nice to have guests to cook for."

"Have you had a chance to go over the contracts yet?" Jacob asked, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.

"Jacob, must we really talk business at the table?" Maria said, frowning.

He cast her a narrow-eyed glance. "We've almost finished eating, and if our guests don't mind, I don't."

Maria pursed her lips, but didn't protest any further.

"Going to go over them tonight," Deacon said. "We, ah, ran out of time before dinner."

Jacob laughed. "I bet you did."

Beatrice hid her grimace behind her napkin. This place reminded her of the pre-war days in bad ways too, and the little nudges and winks at her expense were getting on her frayed nerves. She was supposed to be the senior partner of the business, not Deacon, who always preferred the more silent, observant roles. But she had to play along if this was what Jacob expected. The eating portion of dinner had only lasted a half hour. Rob surely needed more time than that and if she made a fuss, things might end too quickly.

"Mrs. Orden," she said, making an effort to smile. They wanted what they thought were pre-war manners, so that's what she'd give them. "You have a lovely house. Tell me, how do you manage to keep so clean? Why, it costs Joey and me a fortune to get just our clothes as clean and crisp as I've seen here."
Maria straightened with pride. "Oh, it takes hard work for sure. But I find that if I take a little time away from my other duties to set aside for housekeeping, I can keep the dirt out of most everything."

What 'other duties'? Beatrice wondered, though Maria didn't elaborate.

"As for clothes, a few other women have taken up making new clothes or sort of upgrading old ones, so it isn't always us getting lucky with pre-war finds. Then of course, with all the traders that have started coming along, we get some nicer things too. Here's a secret: after you've purified the water for washing, add just a little squeeze of mutfruit juice along with your Abraxo and then wash the clothes."

"Doesn't that stain them?"

"Not if you have the ratio right. Then let them dry out in the sun; the juice brightens colors somehow."

There was a creak in the back of the house, which made both of the Ordens look up.

"We've been hearing the rumors about Covenant as a great place to get deals," Deacon said suddenly, surprising her. He hadn't initiated a conversation all through dinner. "That's why Nancy and I decided to see for ourselves. Why, wasn't it a few days ago that we stopped at Vault 81 to see Fred and they said he was headed here?"

"Fred?" Jacob's brow furrowed. "A, uh, friend of yours?"

"Fred O'Connell? Oh you know us caravan types," Beatrice said with a careless laugh. Why was Deacon poking the yao guai? "It's a rough and tumble family, but we sort of all know each other. It's the business, you know? I thought for sure we'd meet him coming back, but we didn't see him."
Jacob cleared his throat. "Well, the roads are dangerous, as I'm sure you're aware. I don't think your Mr. O'Connell made it here. Certainly, I've never heard the name before."

"Oh?" She kept her voice light and unconcerned as if unaware of the growing tension in the room. "That's a shame. Good man; runs a fair business. But, as you say, the roads are dangerous. Hopefully he's safe in a home beside a warm fire, enjoying such wonderful food as we are. Maybe I misheard at Vault 81. Mrs. Orden, I was just going to ask about your dress. Is that one you made or did you buy it?"

It took all of Beatrice's concentration and pre-war charm to keep the conversation going along less dangerous lines. Both men went out for a smoke break at one point, while Beatrice helped clear the table and set out mugs for after-dinner coffee. The conversation waned then. Her breasts were sore and full, and she was having trouble paying attention to a discussion about farming and how unseasonably warm it had been when they still didn't know where Amelia was.
She wondered if Old Man Stockton had trouble sleeping thinking about his missing daughter the way Beatrice sometimes stayed up, wondering if Shaun was safe and happy.

"Thanks for the hospitality, Mayor Orden," said Deacon. "But I think we'd better turn in if we're going to give those papers a look over tonight."

"Of course, of course," said Jacob, rising from his chair and shaking Deacon's hand. "A pleasure having you over."

"Good night, Mrs. Orden. Mr. Mayor," Beatrice said, then was briefly surprised when Deacon took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, pulling her to his side.

"Ah, young love!" Jacob said with another chuckle as they walked down the porch and back toward the guest house.

"Think we'll blow our cover if I deck him?" asked Deacon conversationally.

"It might be worth it," Beatrice agreed, squeezing his bicep gently. "What was this for?"

"You looked tired," he said, then fell silent, a bit of pink staining his cheeks.

"I'm a little sore," she admitted, then it was her turn to blush. The honest admission had come without any thought—though it wasn't really the type of thing you say to a best male friend, perhaps even especially to a male friend that you had feelings for. Even among women the conversation was sometimes vague and circumspect: annoyingly so, she had found before the war. Everyone was so afraid of being indelicate, but Beatrice found the attitude maddening. How would any new mother ever know what was normal and what wasn't if no one talked about it?

Then she decided she didn't care if Deacon knew her breasts were sore. He'd already seen her leaking through clothes. Perhaps it was time he saw her as more than just a partner who was good at doing Railroad ops, but a living, breathing woman. She made a face and looked down to hide it. Living and breathing, yes, but breastmilk wasn't exactly sexy.

"Oh," he said, sounding at a loss. "Do you… uh… have a way to take care of it? So you're not… um, in pain?"

"Yes, but it might take awhile."

"Why don't I meet with Rob and find out what he was able to glean tonight, and I'll fill you in when I get back?"

"Would you?" she asked, surprised at herself. She normally wanted to be on the front lines with this stuff. But… she was tired, and the soreness in her breasts had only reminded her anew that she had no baby to carry. Perhaps the stress of the day had been too much for her. Then again… she'd gotten like this the last time she'd been near a baby. Right after she'd met Deacon, before she really knew anything about him except that he was a Railroad intel specialist, she'd gone back to Sanctuary to check in on things. A new family with a baby had arrived in Sanctuary while she'd been away and the little girl's cries had woken her up in the middle of the night, aching and trying not to sob for the absolute misery of missing Shaun.

She shouldn't have chatted with Darlene.

"Yeah," he said, stopping at the door to the guest house. "Go on in, Nancy," he said in normal voice for anyone else that might be listening. "I'm going to take a smoke."

"Alright, Joey."

She watched him go around the side of the house, closer to the wall, cigarette already in hand and went up the stairs. Then she stopped on the landing, hand tightening on the rail as her stomach knotted.

The twins in the other room were crying.


Note: I'd been thinking about what a breastfeeding Sole Survivor would have to deal with for awhile. I don't think I've ever seen it addressed in fanfiction, so I was happy to have an excuse to bring it in here. Thanks to my writing buddy Melody for helping with the details on the not-so-fun parts of lactating. The line about hugging a cactus is straight from her.