Homecoming

The next several days flew by. Arthur had to make up for lost time on the island and was kept very busy. Quinlan's frustration had been assuaged by receiving the tech of the anti-mirelurk frequency emitter. His scribes were already well on their way to building working mirelurk repellers, which Arthur told me his men would deliver and install in all coastline settlements. This should help, he believed, in the recruitment efforts. That and the lure of power armor and the escape from dirt and endless farm labor should bear results that would make even Quinlan smile.

The carefully gridded out searching brought no results whatsoever. Nothing. Valentine had sent us the sites of a few old sitings, spread far apart and nowhere near the first ones. Whoever these people were, they were hidden very, very well. Arthur was frustrated and cross. He widened the search another 200 miles, to no avail. It was if they knew we were looking, and had made themselves disappear from the face of the earth.

Arthur was sure they were underground.

He pushed Quinlan for some kind, any kind of technology that could take images from underneath the earth - through sonic waves or radar or through being able to read heat signatures. Anything that could reveal their hideaway. The scribes were working around the clock, taking short breaks for sleep and nourishment. Quinlan had dark circles under his eyes.

Arthur seemed angry and desperate in his lovemaking the last few nights. He had prepared his heart for battle, once again, and once again there was no battle to be fought.

I would see Danse and Shaun in just a few hours. I knew Arthur felt this distancing of my attention and my emotions.

Then suddenly, it was April 14th. And midnight was approaching.

Right before he walked me to the vertibird awaiting me, he took my shoulders and gazed into my face, seeking perhaps my change of heart, "If you ever...change your mind...if something, anything happens, I will be here, waiting."

He had given me the sword and now custom fitted gleaming black armor I loved, and they were packed in my duffle bag. "Even if I have married another," he said roughly, "you still have me. You will always have me."

I kissed him goodbye. His firm mouth softening under mine, and he crushed me to his chest, before he finally released me. I climbed up into the vertibird and looked back at him.

"Goodbye for now, light of my life," he whispered gruffly, before turning and striding away, but not before I had seen the tears welling in his eyes.

"Fare well, King Arthur," I said softly back, feeling his grief.

Then I was on my way. My heart was in my throat. I was going home.

He was there. In Minuteman regalia, his arm protectively around Shaun's shoulders. He was so very beautiful. His noble brow, thick dark eyebrows over deep brown eyes. His face unshaved for a week or so. He does not like shaving. but he can't stand a full beard either. And Shaun, who looked so much like Nate and I - the best of both of us. My heart was so full at that moment, all my fears melted away that these three months had somehow lessened what we had, had taken from my love of Danse.

Then my thoughts started their incessant chirping at me again, bringing the doubts that had been haunting me since I said yes to Arthur's arrangement.

I handed my duffle bag to Danse, and then leaped down from the vertibird and I was suddenly there with the two people who meant the most to me in all this world.

Shaun broke my fearful and negative train of thought like shattering a flawed mirror when he launched himself at me and flung himself into my arms. "Mom! You're back! You're finally back!"

Laughter bubbled up out of me and I swung him around before squeezing him tightly. The joy! My own, my child. And my love.

"Yes, son, I am back." I smiled at his unabashed happiness at seeing me.

I put him down, and suddenly Danse was right there in front of me.

He smiled at me and held out his arms.

I went to Danse and hugged him back fiercely. I was never letting him go again. He lifted my chin with two fingers and gazed into my eyes, seeking my heart. I brought my lips to his. His beard was a little scratchy, his lips full and parted. He tasted so right. I breathed in his breath and kissed him. Shaun and everyone else was watching us, so I kept it tame. Very civilized. He released me, but kept his hands on my shoulders, and examined me from head to toe.

"You look … healthy. Your color is good. Gained some weight. Looks nice, soldier."

"Yes, cushy living on the Prydwen. Not a lot of walking. You look exactly the same as when I saw you last." I breathed. The last time, before all this, we had made desperate love, standing up, me against an elm tree, its bark digging mercilessly into my back. I felt a shiver of desire, remembering his passion.

I heard the vertibird lift off and soar away back to the Prydwen - which was so close, and now, thankfully, so far.

"Let's go home." I said. And with that, my time with Elder Arthur Maxson was at an end. Or so I thought at the time. "I want to see one of the chess sets you made, Shaun. And play a game with you tomorrow."

Shaun beamed at me. "I've sold six now," he told me.

"Hmmm," I smiled back, "and what are you going to do with all those caps?"

"Buy more tools and materials, of course," he said, as if to say "well, duh, mom." I chuckled and shook my head. "Of course you will."

"Think we can find Dogmeat a wife? I sure would love to have a puppy or two." He was still talking puppies, hmm?My eyebrow went up and I shot Danse a look, and he lifted a shoulder in response. (saying in my unspoken language he knows about the birds and the bees then, eh? and Danse's reply, 'I guess so.")

"I think we can manage that," I said, thinking of how to catch or buy a female German Shepherd. I hadn't seen any in my travels. Maybe we'd just make mutts.

In no time, even as excited as he had been, Shaun was tucked in and sprawled bonelessly in his bed, already asleep. He looked so sweet, so angelic. So innocent.

Now, finally, it was just Danse and I.

He was setting up the chess pieces on the board. He and Shaun had their own routines now, I guessed, and felt a touch of jealousy at their closeness. I brushed that foolishness away and watched him. His long dexterous fingers on his elegant hands, his long, muscled torso and powerful shoulders.

"Oh, Danse, I missed you so much. You know, I read your letters so often, they fell apart."

He opened his arms and I went to him. He gently kissed the top of my head, "No more missing ... For either of us. You're home. We are going to take time to settle in." He kissed the same spot again, "We are going to have to depend on the Brotherhood to scout for the Enclave location, as we don't have the manpower or transportation to search for them. That's out of our hands for now. As to the settlements, we have nearly two dozen new recruits from Preston's drive and a dozen ex-brotherhood have joined us, too, so the settlements and the Provisioners have protection and aid. So you and I can take time to regroup."

I sighed with the feeling that a burden had been lifted from my weary shoulders.

"I know it's after midnight, but can we go to the mess and get some of Annie's leftovers?"

"Well, actually," Danse began, smiling ruefully, "It's not just Annie's leftovers anymore…"

Over a cold meal of some amazing bread with a tasty spread like herbed butter with something else very satisfying and kind of sweet and tart at the same time...and cold herbed slices of slow roasted brahmin, which were sliced almost paper thin and were utterly delectable, Danse went on to explain an interesting new development at The Castle.

Annie Drake, one of the smartest women I have ever met, had made the cooking into a competition.

It all started with these tarberry flapjacks that were amazing.

Danse told me she had recruited her own cooking team, Harold Thurman and Terri Ranier, and the trio kept coming up with these great recipes -which they wouldn't share.

Smiling, Danse informed me that this keeping her recipes secret had made Fannie Popczeck furious, so in retaliation she started her own team, and thus the cooking competition began. He explained how this all worked. There were rules, you see. Castle residents were asked to drop a number of straws (real straw from the razorgrain stalks) into a large pot after their meals. One straw for barely edible, 10 straws for "it's-to-die-for-delicious". The results were posted publicly on a piece of slate propped up in the communal dining hall.

Danse was shaking his head but smiling when he told me, "Ernst Soweto keeps the official annals of the Castle Cook Off Competition in a ledger which keeps a running total for the teams, of which there are - believe it or not - five now. Knowing Annie, I am pretty sure she did it on purpose - to stir up morale and keep our people using their creativity and imaginations."

I shook my head, but was definitely enjoying the fruits of their competition.

We had both finished our midnight meal. The stars were so bright tonight. The air of freedom was so refreshing. I was home.

The time had come. I took hold of Danse's hands across the table. There was no use putting it off anyway. I had to tell him and sooner was better than later. I was so very tired of secrets.

"It's good that we have some downtime, now, because I have to be careful for awhile. I'm carrying a child."

"You...what? You're... you are saying that you're pregnant? A baby? A baby is coming?"

He seemed to be getting the idea. I smiled at his sweet reaction.

I looked deeply into him, trying desperately to read what was in those eyes.

He looked back at me with wonder and a growing smile. I had been right. There was no bitterness or jealousy there.

Now I had to hit him hard with what I had been thinking so much these last few weeks. The possibility I was going to bring up was a tease and a bit of a torture too.

"Danse, do you think it's possible that you can make babies?" Boy, that came out subtle. Way to go, Z.

He went from pleased to bewildered, "How could I? You know as well as I that synths are sterile."

"It's just that, I seem to be farther along than I should be if it is Arthur's child. And we know that you and Shaun diverge from the gen 3s model. I guess you are Gen 4s. When I was inside the Institute, I overheard two conversations about the folly of Shaun's child synth project. How this poor synth would be trapped in a boy's body forever. But that boy who jumped into my arms today was bigger than the one I left. And you, Shaun said he dropped you into the Capital Wasteland to see how you fared. You both start out as children ... but you grew up, Danse. You're maturing normally. The scientists I met didn't even know about you. X6-88 told me he had no idea you were a synth. He was surprised. Coursers aren't surprised, Danse.

So you see, making assumptions about being sterile like all the other synths may well be counterintuitive." I had been bottling these thoughts up since I began to suspect I was pregnant.

"I would ... I would absolutely love for that to be true. If it were only... If it could be ... Z." He paused, squeezed my hands. Then he sighed, deeply, "It doesn't really matter in the end, does it? We will raise our children together. We are their parents in all the ways that it counts."

I stood and so did he. I went to him and he held me. We stayed like that for several long moments.

He wasn't really thinking about the ramifications.

I had thought about this a lot.

Because if it were true, if Danse, and more than likely, Shaun too, weren't sterile, Shaun, my son, had accomplished his redefinition of mankind. The part that was even harder to swallow, was that my son had put himself in the role of Adam - the first man; Danse and Shaun were made up from his DNA, and me, his mother in the role of Eve. The mother of this new type of human, who would, in time, grow in number from these modest beginnings.

Got ego, anyone?

There were too many in the Commonwealth, especially the Brotherhood, and probably this Enclave too, who would see synths who could procreate as the ultimate evil, an insidious attack on humanity itself, and the three people I loved most in the world in dire need of extermination.

My son was still manipulating me from the grave, after all.

He had hoped I would meet and fall in love with Paladin Danse. I was awakened from cryo after Danse had entered the Commonwealth and we were of a similar age. And I did. I fell in love with him right from the start.

He had made a child version of himself and set him out as bait for me. Making sure I would pursue and eventually find him. And getting rid of his embarrassment of an assassin, Kellogg. Two birds with one stone.

He knew that once I loved them, I would protect them. Thus ensuring their survival, which was his long term goal realized.

I was as predictable as the sun rise.

And I couldn't change. I would protect them with everything I had within the realm of the possible.

So, I had decided when I had thought this through on my weeks of being held as unwilling consort to the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, no one can know. It must be a closely guarded secret.

If it were true, which I was beginning to feel fairly sure of.

And to keep it secret, everyone would have to believe that this child had become the one with a soul forged from eternal steel, the last of the line, the heir of the Maxson's, the founders of the Order of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Shaun couldn't have predicted that. Or could he?