When Madelyn opened her eyes she was lying on a bed in Sanctuary with light streaming in brightly from the outside. The room was the same one that Hancock had been placed in when he was brought to Sanctuary, but she wasn't hooked up to the same things as he had been.

Madelyn sat up and glanced around. "Hello?" she called and noticed her voice was hoarse. She couldn't remember anything after seeing Reagan and Dangerfield.

Robert came around the corner quickly and met her gaze. His eyes were heavy and red rimmed with pain. Something bad had happened, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was.

"Nate…?"

His jaw clenched and he came to her side, that was all the answer she needed. Tears spilled from her eyes and she grabbed hold of him tightly when he sat next to her. "Your friend, Reagan, found him, his arms and legs had been completely removed and by the time she got there he'd been…. She couldn't save him," he squeezed her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder.

She couldn't say anything for a long time, and Robert held her. Thoughts raced through her, how things could have happened differently. What could she have done to change the outcome, to save Nate?

It took a long time for her to be able to speak. "What… about John?" she whispered between breaths.

"He's… fine, considering," he answered and cupped her face in his hands. "Do you want to go see him?"

"What happened to me?"

"You were hit by one of their… mind control guns, and Preston knocked you out to keep you from hurting someone you'd regret," he frowned. "You were going to shoot Hancock."

She flinched at his words and vaguely remembered the event. "I want to see John," she said and he nodded, helping her out of bed. "How long was I out?"

"Just a day," he guided her out of the clinic and she caught a glimpse of the over flowing amount of Minutemen soldiers in the recovery bay in different states of health. More were put up in the front room that was normally a waiting area, and as they stepped outside, she saw tents set up and more men.

"Oh my God," she breathed and touched her mouth.

"They didn't even do most of this damage," Robert breathed and she looked at him with wide eyes. "They did it to each other…" he frowned and she wondered if he'd hurt anyone he didn't mean to. Based on how he stared at the ground, that was a yes.

She held his hand tightly and they walked up the street to Nate's metal home. Faintly she wondered if John would stay there, or if he would move. Her heart felt heavy, and she decided she would keep her thoughts on John and Shaun.

A few people stopped them to check on her, she had all but forgotten she was the General, and now that seemed to be a permanent thing. She didn't want it to upset her, but with that thought came thinking of Nate, and she couldn't bring herself to think of that at the moment. She just wanted to walk into that metal house at the end of the circle and open the door to see John handing Nate a beer while he sat on his couch, relaxing with an arm around Shaun reading a comic.

When Robert knocked on the door there was a long pause, and she glanced up at him, but he just stared, waiting. A lump rose in her throat, and she tried to swallow against it, but the door opened and her heart fell to the ground.

John stood in a loose blood stained button up and baggy pants without his hat on his bald head. His black eyes were narrowed and puffy, and she knew if they wouldn't have been solid they would have been red from crying. He looked horrible with a look of pain plastered to his pale face. When he looked at her he dropped his arms to his side and stepped forward, grabbing her in a tight hug.

Robert took a step back and she grabbed hold of the ghoul, tightly, her face burying into his chest and they both shook with sobs. She knew his loss was greater than hers, she had only known the Sentinel for months while John had known him, loved him, for years. Between them Madelyn had only lost a friend, a fatherly figure who she had only just started to grow attached to. John had lost his lover. The person he planned on spending the rest of his life with, but that had been cut short.

"Where is he?"

"On the bed."

Both of their voices were barely anything more than a breath, and were hushed by the pain they shared. Madelyn walked with John into the bedroom, past Shaun lying on the couch with his face buried in a pillow. Robert knelt beside him and rubbed his back while Madelyn turned the corner.

The smell of blood and death hit her first, and then she saw him, sitting on the bed as if he were sleeping. He was resting on top of the covers, dressed in ragged clothes that looked like they'd been put on him only to be removed. He was missing both arms and legs all the way to the shoulder and hip joints, which were bandaged up with bloody rags. His face was calm, his lips slightly parted and his eyes closed, but his tanned skin was sickly pale, and his hair was disheveled. She pulled away from John to sit on the bed beside him and touch his cheek. When she did this she shuddered, feeling how cold it was. The right side of his head had been vaporized by a laser rifle set to a low setting and shot in close proximity, she could tell because she'd seen it in books about executions in Quinlan's office. Her heart hammered away in her chest as she looked down at the wound in his right side. It hadn't been bandaged up, but it had been midway through healing when he'd died so the bleeding had been stopped. It looked like a knife wound.

Madelyn looked up at John who came around to sit on the other side of the bed. "The knight found a recorder that was on during…" he swallowed and picked up a holotape and Nate's PipBoy. "It has his last words…" he whispered and pressed the yellow object into the player.

"Don't be so dramatic," a woman's voice came through and the sound of the recorder being moved scratched through. The background was filled with movement creating a muted din.

Hancock frowned and skipped forward in the recording, and Madelyn resisted telling him not to. She could only imagine how many times he'd listened to it already.

"I'm… I've reached my end… Knight," Nate's voice came through.

"We have another stimpak, your bleeding has stopped, sir," Reagan said desperately.

"It was too late," Nate's voice was soft and weak. "I think he… got my…."

"Dire, get the other stimpak."

"Reagan," the Inquisitor's voice was soft. "The only comfort we can offer him is a quick death."

"Madelyn… she'll–" her voice was thick with sorrow and disappointment. "She'll be devastated… and the ghoul…"

"Tell them both how much I love them. Maddy… You need to tell Maxson I think she is ready to be promoted. I can only assume she'll be eased into battle, but she needs it, and despite everything, she deserves it. And… John…. I know it's a lot to ask of you, but please tell him he means the world to me, that I'm so sorry I couldn't see him again, and that I love him more than I can express. I… I wish I could see him one more time…."

Madelyn swallowed against the lump in her throat. Had he died without knowing all that happened while he was away? She couldn't believe she hadn't been there with Reagan….

"They're both outside, in the back outside the fighting, safe," Reagan's voice was strained.

"The distance is too great," Dangerfield said softly. "He will not make it, and if we move him he will only suffer more."

There was a pause. "Is there anything else? Anyone else you want us to relay a message to?"

"My boy, Shaun, tell him I love him, and that I wish I could be there to watch him grow up, and…. Tell him no matter what, I always loved him, and that I hope he can forgive me. And… MacCready," Nate breathed. "Tell him to take care of Madelyn, that she deserves the best, and I know he can give it to her."

"They're with child, Sentinel. Madelyn and the mercenary," Reagan told him.

Madelyn felt a small wave of relief wash over her and she pressed her face into her hands.

"Good, they will make great parents."

"Maxson gave her an honorable discharge, and she leads the Minutemen."

"She will do great things, I know it," he said. "And she will be a better General to them than I could be."

"Don't say that, Sentinel."

"It's all right…. Knight Reagan Knight, would you do me the greatest favor I could ever ask?"

"Yes, Sentinel."

"Please kill me," he whispered. "Sort of fitting that you be the one to do it, seeing that you had the intent originally…." He seemed to try to laugh, but there was no humor in it.

"Yes… Sentinel."

There was a click of a laser rifle's settings being adjusted and then the hum of its idle. "John, I love you," Nate whispered.

Then the discharge sent static through the speakers and Madelyn flinched.

"I… I can't believe I did that," Reagan whispered.

"You gave him a quick death, you saw how much pain he was in, Reagan." There was a moment of silence and then the recorder was moved. "This has been on since we got here," the Inquisitor said and the recording turned off.

Madelyn felt a weight on her heart as she looked at John who was staring at Nate's face. She got up and walked around the bed to his side. "We'll bury him, up on the hill beside Danse and his wife…"

John nodded and looked up at her with wet eyes. "Can… I have a moment? I know you haven't… but I…"

"Of course," she kissed his head and gave him one more tight squeeze, prompting them both back into tears. Then she left the room and found Robert standing by the back door looking into the yard. She walked over and peered into it to see Dogmeat lying on the ground beside Duncan. The boy wasn't alone, there was Nick the synth and Piper the reporter both looking grieved as they watched the boy. "He's really gone…."

"Yeah," Robert frowned and looked back at her. "But now the Commonwealth is safe from another threat."

She nodded and pressed her forehead against his chest, letting him engulf her as she tried to think about everything but Nate's cold body in the next room.