IN WHICH Renee tells Pre-War stories.

Piper and Renee didn't have time to really discuss the implications of the kiss before Nat thundered up the steps. She practically pounced on her older sister in joy and began to blubber about worrying Piper was going to die. "It's gonna take more than that to kill me!" The reporter joked, wincing from her injuries.

With the elder Wright awake, Dr. Sun concluded her recovery would at least be slightly more enjoyable in the company of her sister and apparently now-girlfriend. Still, it would quite a long time before Piper was ready for any field work. She didn't take too lightly to the forced vacation.

Only a few days after Piper woke up, the small family sat in the upstairs loft to eat lunch together. Nat sat pressed against the wall on the corner of her sister's bed, eating some Fancy Lads ("You can't just eat sweets, Nat!" Piper'd chided, to which Nat smirked and said, "I'd like to see you try to stop me." This earned the teenager a stern look from Renee.) while Renee sat in Piper's desk chair beside the bed, feet propped up on the mattress. Piper managed to prop herself up enough to eat but not so much to pull at her wounds.

"Blue, where's your wedding ring?" Piper asked between bites of noodles.

Renee glanced down at her naked left hand. "I took it off."

"Clearly." The reporter gave an annoyed smile. "But why?"

"Hey, leave her alone, her husband's dead." Nat shoved a whole snack cake in her mouth at once.

Piper gasped. "Nat!"

"It's fine, she's right after all." Renee sighed. "No, I took it off because, well, you know."

"O-oh."

Nat was too busy eating to catch on to the implication. She licked her fingertips of powdered sugar. "Vaultie, you don't talk about your husband that much."

"You've never asked." Renee put her own noodle bowl to the side. "What do you want to know?"

"How'd you two meet?"

Renee smiled, her gaze drifting off to empty space. "Now that…is a bit of a funny story."

Boston University, 2073

"Hey, no fair! She's a softball player already!" One of the young men on their opposing team crossed his arms. "This is supposed to be for fun!"

"I'm in a skirt, what more of a handicap do you want for me?" Renee gestured uselessly to her outfit. It wasn't her fault her roommate grabbed her for a spur-of-the-moment baseball game when she was on her way to study. "Besides, I only played for two years in high school, you're fine."

"Yeah, lighten up." Another man clapped the first on the back and plucked the ball from his mitt. "Let's play ball!"

The pick-up game soon attracted a crowd and the students were all having fun, both those playing and those watching. Renee could almost forget she had a test the next day in the heat of the moment. She grabbed the bat from a teammate and went up to the makeshift Homeplate. "Let's see what you've got." She took a few practice swings before getting into position.

The man pitching sized her up before throwing a fast one.

Renee hit it with a hollow thwack! and tossed the bat back as she took off in a run. Unfortunately, it became clear the ball was headed outside the dirt diamond and she slowed. Even more unfortunately, it was headed straight for a young man walking by. "Watch out!" She shouted, sprinting toward him.

Her warning came too late and he fell to the ground after catching the ball with his head. She scrambled to kneel next to him. "Oh my god!"

"Someone call an ambulance!" Someone else cried.

"Can you hear me?" Renee gently smacked at his face. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, you were just—Oh god I killed him. I killed a man with a baseball!"

"I'm alive." He groaned softly and looked up at her. "Or maybe I'm dead."

She blushed at his insinuation. "N-no, you're alive."

"God, my head…" He sat up with her help and held his head.

"I'm sorry. Wait, wait, don't get up, just sit down, they're calling an ambulance." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Quick, what's two plus two?"

He chuckled. "If you're trying to check for a concussion you're doing it wrong."

Her blush intensified. "W-well I don't know!"

He smiled, flashing a brilliant set of teeth. "I'm Nate Jones."

"Renee. Renee Wilburs. Listen, let me make this up to you. I'll pay for the medical expenses." Her hands fidgeted and she bounced back on her heels.

Nate smiled again. "Why don't you let me take you out to dinner instead? Least you could do, right? For nearly knocking me out."

"O-oh." She swallowed hard. "Sure, if… If you'd like."

"You nearly killed him and he asked you on a date?" Piper chuckled. "Sounds like a keeper."

"Well, it was pretty much love at first sight for both of us. Turned out he had been in the military for a while and was taking advantage of some law that allowed him to go to college for free. So he was a bit older than I was. When we got married he was nearly thirty." Her expression sobered. "He… He was deployed again the day we were supposed to go on our honeymoon. The day after our wedding. They came to our house and just told him when he was supposed to be on a flight to Alaska. No answers for me, no questions asked for him. They didn't care he was newly married."

Piper and Nat were silent for a time. The reporter cleared her throat. "Well, he must have come home eventually, right? If you two had Shaun…"

"Oh, he was discharged. He stepped in a mine, blew his knee out. Actually had to have it rebuilt with partial robotics and one of his leg bones was a titanium rod." Renee hung her head. "Our marriage almost failed after that. If I hadn't gotten pregnant the first time I think it would have."

Nat tilted her head. "The first time?"

"Shaun is—was—my second child. I…lost the first."

It was clear Renee was growing uncomfortable by the conversation. Piper looked to her sister. "Why don't you go work on some homework, kiddo?"

"But I—" Nat snapped her jaw shut. She nodded. "Yeah, okay." She climbed over Piper's legs and hopped to the floor, going down to the main level.

Piper reached to place a hand on Renee's leg. "I didn't know about all that… I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. It's actually not uncommon for a woman's first pregnancy to fail. I just… Nate and I went through so much together in such a short time. We had finally gotten our marriage back on track when Shaun was born and now…" Renee closed her eyes and sighed. "Now he's dead."

"Is that the real reason you took off your wedding ring? You've been wearing it ever since we met."

The redhead once again looked at her naked ring finger on her left hand. She idly reached over and felt over the spot where her gold band would usually be. "No. I took it off for you. Because I do love you. And it wouldn't be fair to you or to Nate's memory if I continued to wear it."

Piper furrowed her brow. "You know I don't mind."

"I do." Renee stood up with a groan and bent to press a kiss to Piper's forehead. "You should rest. I'll be around if you need me."

"Blue?"

Renee turned where she was walking toward the staircase. "Hm?"

"I love you too, you know."

She smiled. "I know."

Nate gazed down at his son, pulling his wife closer. "I love you, you know."

Renee looked up at him. She got up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

"I know."