John Seed lay awake, staring into the darkness towards the ceiling above with one hand on his chest and the other out to his side, completely numb. It had fallen asleep and as much as he wanted to move it, it was being used as a pillow by his wife, and he didn't want to wake her up. They had retreated to the bunkers that made up Eden's Gate nearly seven years ago with Joseph and his flock, which meant the day for them to resurface was fast approaching, and he was dreading it. It felt like so much had happened in that time, yet no one moved, all trapped in time and place by the concrete walls and tunnels that made up Eden's Gate. The more time wore on, the more worried he became, feeling that as a nearly forty-year-old man, he was a poor candidate for guiding hundreds of people back into the world to rebuild and recolonize.

Everyone had become used to life underground and after the initial confusion when they first arrived - during which it was up to himself, his brother, his sister and his wife to maintain order and give people new purpose - it had become easy and almost pleasant. Some still lamented the lack of sunlight and fresh air, but no one could deny the relief they felt at having been saved from the attack that surely wiped out almost everything in Hope County. Not everyone was as lucky - there were many members of their flock, particularly in Faith's region, that were unable to make it to the Gates in time and surely perished when the bombs fell. A mass funeral was held to honor and remember those that they lost, and as John lay there digging up memories of the past, his mind wandered to his fallen brother Jacob. He missed Jacob sometimes and often thought back to times Jacob had protected and comforted young John after he had been beaten by their father before they were separated.

The old leather belt connected with John's back again and he cried out hoarsely. Tears and mucus dribbled down his chin and his throat was raw from screaming. Finally he heard the sound of the heavy buckle as it clattered to the floor and his father stumbled back against the wall.

"Get outta my sight." Old Man Seed said, his voice low and rough.

John fled from the filthy kitchen to the small bedroom he shared with his brothers. They were both in the room already, and Joseph had picked him up a soon as he opened the door, cradling John to his chest as he hiccupped through his tears. Jacob took one look at John's back and stormed out of the room, his eyes ablaze.

"He's five you fucking monster!" Jacob was shouting from down the hall.

John pressed his face into the crook of Joseph's neck as he heard something smash in the other room. "Don't you speak to me like that, boy!" their father yelled back.

The argument continued for a few minutes before Jacob came back with a bloodied lip. He pushed their dresser in front of the door and sat down heavily on his bed. John disentangled himself from Joseph's grip and climbed up into Jacob's lap, throwing his arms around his older brother's neck. Jacob held him, careful not to touch the welts on his back, and whispered soft words of comfort in the dark room.

John remembered waking up the next morning sandwiched between his siblings. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling deeply through his nose, pushing the memories away. Jacob was dead, and the young man that had been John's childhood protector had died long before his heart stopped and he bled out onto the ground.

Mercy turned over to face him, her head moving to his shoulder. He carefully moved his arm, changing its position so feeling slowly come back to his limb, sharp pinpricks of pain making his skin tingle. The woman had gone from a source of curiosity, to a pain in his ass, to a hostage he could play with, to making him genuinely happy and now somehow he was married to her. It was difficult to believe that he could be deserving of any sort of happiness after the life he'd had until she came along, especially if he considered the way he had once treated her. But she took his pain, his passion and his suffering, absorbed it, somehow turning his chaos into calm. He thought about all of the times he'd marked her, scarred her, used her body to release his rage, to make him feel something other than the bottomless pit of darkness in his soul; but she stayed and helped, she changed him, made him better, healed some of the sickness that he had carried with him since he was a child.

The corner of John's mouth curled up as he thought about the day he'd married her after Joseph made the suggestion, dressing it up in concern about them living in sin. John saw through his brother, he'd noticed the way Joseph had stared longingly at the tattoo of his wife on his forearm. He was clearly missing her, and was pushing that onto John and Mercy. But John had complied all the same, inking a simple black line onto his ring finger and hers in place of jewellery after a simple ceremony in the chapel in John's Gate. They'd only been underground for about eight months by that point, and when he'd told her what Joseph had asked of them the day before the ceremony, he thought she was going to refuse.

John watched Mercy walk through the door to their quarters, wordlessly strip down to nothing but her underwear and a t-shirt, and flop down onto the bed, covering her face with her hands. He'd heard she'd had a confrontation with a young soldier earlier in the day that ended with her knocking the kid out. The young man believed women had no place in their ranks and refused to accept training from her. What surprised him most of all though, was that she'd dragged him down to the cells below and locked him up. For all John knew, he was still there, but the young soldier was the last of his concerns.

He approached the bed and sat beside her, putting his hands on his knees. "Joseph wants us to get married," he said bluntly.

Her fingers parted and she looked at him from between them. "You're fucking with me. Tell me you're joking." she replied, her voice muffled by her palms.

"I'm not joking. He says we're "living in sin", and must pledge ourselves to one another before God."

She pulled herself up to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with him, her feet not quite touching the floor. "Is that what you want?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

He paused. Their entire relationship to that point had been a series of struggles, which had certainly made things interesting. They were constantly fighting, whether it be with one another, with the Resistance, with his family. The last few months had been the longest period of calm they'd had together in nearly two years, and it gave him a taste of what a proper domestic relationship could be like (having never had one before). She had become his anchor, and he couldn't imagine being without her.

Turning to face her, he met her gaze steadily. "Yes. Do you?"

She grimaced and pressed her fist into his shoulder playfully. "Come on, you can do better than that. Ask me properly."

Rolling his eyes, he slid off the bed to kneel before her and grasped her hands in his. "Deputy," he drawled, pressing his chest to her knees. "Will you marry me?"

Mercy bit her lip, trying to stop the smirk that was creeping across her face before sighing dramatically. "I guess so."

"That's it?"

"Alright, fine… yes. Yes." She leaned towards him and pressed her lips to his.

It was true she had changed him, but even after the bombs fell, there was still sometimes a need to be John the Baptist, to listen to confessions, to etch the sins of the Project's followers into their flesh and help them atone. Joseph had also put him in charge of more or less everything that needed to be managed, including maintenance of the bunkers and inventory of their supplies. In the sanctuary of his quarters, however, there was no need to be that chameleon, changing his face depending on who he spoke to. He could truly be himself, he could relax - except for tonight, when the worries about how the hell they were supposed to rebuild were plaguing his mind.

Luckily, he had a fair idea of what to expect once they opened the bunker doors. Mercy had thought to contact her friend Jess Black not long after the bombs fell, and was relieved to find she had survived in the Wolf's Den with a handful of others. Jess and the surviving members of the Whitetail Militia had decided to leave their bunker after five years, and still reported back to them once a week with updates on what they'd found outside the Den - which was a whole lot of destruction and not much else. The terrain around their bunker had been so badly damaged during the attack, there was no stable land on which to build anything new, so they were still confined to living in the bunker, using the days to scavenge what they could from the wilderness around them. The Whitetail Militia was also in contact with a handful of people that had survived in other bunkers, but those people refused contact from Eden's Gate, usually ignoring their efforts or simply responding with "fuck off". To John, they were just something else to worry about, another potential threat to the Project's cause.

"Why are you awake?" Mercy asked tiredly, placing one hand on his chest and pressing down to push herself up. Leaning over him, she turned on the lamp beside the bed, blinding them both.

Mercy could always tell when John wasn't asleep by the way he breathed. When he was awake, everything about him was carefully controlled and constructed, right down to his breathing. She knew this was related to the abuse he'd experienced at the hands of his adoptive parents, he'd told her as much, but when he was asleep that all melted away, leaving him relaxed and free. It was his arm moving behind her that woke her, and she realised she must have been sleeping on it. His chest beneath her cheek shook as he laughed quietly to himself, and she used the moment to let him know she was awake too.

"Why are you awake?" she asked, struggling to sit up and turn on the lamp. The light assaulted her eyes and she dropped her face to his chest to hide from the sudden brightness. "I regret that."

He reached over and turned it off, his other hand covering his eyes. "That was cruel."

"Sorry."

"I was thinking about the day I asked you to marry me," he replied thoughtfully, hand stroking down her back.

"'Asked' is an interesting choice of word," she said, grinning to herself.

"Technically, I asked."

She huffed out a short laugh. "Eventually. Why were you thinking about that?"

She felt his chest heave as he shrugged. "I was thinking about what to expect when we open the Gates in a month, and my mind wandered."

Shifting her upper body, Mercy pressed her chest to his, reaching out in the dark to cup his cheek with one hand. "I keep telling you not to worry about what will happen when we open the doors. Jess and Eli say things are fine, you've spoken to them - I'm sure it'll be hard to clear the debris, but Holland Valley was fairly obstruction-free anyway compared to the mountains. We're organised and we have a strong community of people ready to help."

John leaned his cheek into her palm. "We have to prepare for every possible scenario, you know that."

"I do. But the time to think about that isn't in the middle of the night. Let that be Tomorrow John's problem." They'd had this conversation so many times over the last year she had lost count. John was constantly planning and worrying about what was to come, while Joseph was a ball of quiet excitement, his eyes lit up and sparkling with anticipation of the next step of their journey.

"It already is," he muttered darkly. "We have a month, Mercy. One month. Do you feel prepared?"

She was prepared. Once the dust had settled after they entered Eden's Gate, she had insisted on assuming responsibility for Jacob's Armory. Her primary motive was the guilt she still felt over his death, but she needed to help - people in the Project looked to her for guidance now, as they did with Joseph and John, and so she stepped in to do what Jacob could not. Over the past year, Mercy had worked with mechanics and engineers to check the few vehicles Jacob had locked away in his Gate to ensure they were still operational, as well as checking the thousands of guns herself to ensure they were ready to be distributed to members when they resurfaced. Yes, she was ready.

"You know I'm ready. I handed you my report a month ago," she replied, turning to lay back beside him. "Do I need to distract you?" she asked cheekily, reaching out to rest one hand on his thigh. He didn't respond, so she slowly slid her hand up to his hip and then in towards the centre of his body. Her fingers slipped through the fine hair she found there and then travelled down until she found her target, gently working her fingers around him until he groaned in frustration and pinned her beneath him. Just because she was prepared didn't mean she didn't share his worries, and she found she could use sex to distract herself as well as him, using it as a small escape from the ever-growing demands Joseph and the Project asked of them every day. It did the trick though and he spilled himself into her before collapsing and falling asleep quickly, stretched out by her side.

Now restless herself, Mercy quietly dressed and slipped barefoot out into the hall. She wandered aimlessly, arms crossed over her stomach as she meandered down the corridor. There was no one around and the halls were eerily quiet, leaving her with nothing but her thoughts. The silence was interrupted by the sound of quick, heavy footsteps behind her.

"Mercy!" Brother James called out.

Turning around, she watched him running down the hall towards her, carrying his daughter, Eloise. Eloise was eleven and looked exactly like her father. The young girl was clearly in ill-health, pale and weak, taking shallow, shaky breaths.

"What's wrong?" Mercy asked as he came to stand in front of her.

"I don't know, she's been vomiting and feverish. Please, can you help me get her to the clinic?"

Mercy took the young girl's ankles and helped James get her upstairs to the doctor's clinic. The doctor took her through to the next room to be examined after questioning James, who looked worried and shaken. Mercy sat in the small waiting room, watching James pace nervously in front of the door.

"She's going to be okay, James," Mercy said kindly. "She probably ate something that didn't agree with her."

James sat down heavily next to her and put his head in his hands. "I know it's probably nothing, but what if it's not?" She didn't have anything to say to that, so remained silent. They didn't have a particularly sophisticated medical setup - John was able to organise a lot, but he couldn't prepare for everything. "I can't lose another child," James said quietly.

"Another?"

He launched into a story of how he and Anna had a child out of wedlock that was stillborn. As Mercy sat there listening to his story, she thought about a conversation she'd had with John years before, not long after they'd gone underground. She asked him for contraceptives as her implant would run out that year, and he surprised her when he said he'd had a vasectomy at the age of twenty-one. Despite never being able to picture herself with children, she couldn't imagine completely stopping herself from having them.

"What if you change your mind?" she asked him incredulously.

He laughed at her coldly. "I started this life with an abusive alcoholic for a father and a mother who was there only in body. Then from there, we were adopted out to a couple who used us as free labour, until Jacob burnt their farm to the ground. You know what I experienced after that, I told you about the Duncan's. As soon as I got away from them and had enough money for the surgery, I got it. I don't want to burden another person with the pain I endured growing up, especially a child. No child deserves the experiences my brothers and I went through. Besides," he shrugged. "I was addicted to sex and cocaine by that point anyway, didn't want any nasty surprises. It was just easier."

His logic was sound, and Mercy couldn't blame him for his decision. Her own parents had tried to push her into marrying at eighteen, setting her up with a boy from their church she barely knew. She had refused, wanting more from life than raising children and so they kicked her out, cutting all ties with her. Sometimes she wondered where they were, if they'd survived the Collapse, how they were coping if they did. When she told John about them before the Collapse, he'd asked if she wanted to contact her parents again, but she'd said no. What could she possibly say to them now? "Hi mom and dad, I know you haven't heard from me in over ten years, sorry. What have I been up to? Well let's see… I became a cop, took down a mobster and then moved to the other side of the country to take down a cult but joined them instead. What about you guys?" No, she simply couldn't face them, and didn't want to. She had a new family now, including the worried man sitting beside her, his wife, their children. She was closer to these people than she'd ever been with her parents.

Mercy stayed with James until Anna and their son Daniel arrived. Eloise had been put on an IV to rehydrate her body, but still couldn't keep food down. Without the proper means to treat her, all the doctor could do was to keep an eye on her, predicting it to be an allergic reaction, but couldn't say to what.

"Thank you for staying," James said quietly, wrapping her in a tight hug.

"You call if you need anything, you know where I am," Mercy replied, returning his embrace.

She left the room and wandered back downstairs. People were starting to wake up and get ready for their day, all smiling pleasantly at her as they said good morning. Everyone seemed to be filled with excited anticipation as their days of being locked underground drew to an end. The bunker would still be used heavily to house them until they had started to build new dwellings and create new farms, but at least they would have the freedom to go outside, which is what a lot of people truly craved.

Mercy's primary goal was to reunite with the people of the Wolf's Den. She knew Jess and Eli had been trying to find a way to build some sort of footbridge over the river as the existing bridge had collapsed. They had so far been unsuccessful, so Mercy hoped Eden's Gate would have the means to rebuild it. She'd also approached Joseph with a suggestion of opening Jacob's Armory to the Whitetails to allow them to share their resources and information. Joseph wasn't as receptive to the idea as she would have liked, claiming as non-believers they had lost their right to enter the sanctuary of Eden's Gate. The Project had made the offer the night Jacob and Pratt died, and the Whitetails had refused, so they were on their own. She vowed to find a way to form that alliance though, once the Gates were open again, knowing the Whitetails were receptive to the idea.

Sighing, she pushed the door to her quarters open and slipped into the room. She pulled off her dress and crawled back into bed beside John, placed her hand on his chest and closed her eyes, relaxing into the cocoon of warmth under the blanket. One more month. Just one more month and she would be able to feel the sunlight on her skin again, the wind through her hair and the cool earth beneath her feet. John spoke to her of his desire to rebuild on the site the Ranch had sat. He'd mentioned building a new place for them, and a home for James and his family on the same grounds, and Joseph too. Faith, of course, didn't have to go anywhere - she would stay in her Gate, venturing out into Henbane River as she was needed.

There were thousands of unanswered questions about what to expect from the new world above them. Had anyone else in Holland Valley survived? Would they be friendly or hostile? What wildlife would they encounter, and would those animals be safe to eat? What if they were unable to grow crops? Yes, Mercy worried about what awaited them outside the bunker doors. But she knew that whatever happened, she had the protection and support of her family - the family of Eden's Gate.