In a blinding, violent storm of white hot lightning, she was back in Sanctuary, standing on the pavement next to the big tree at the end of the cul-de-sac, not a soul in sight. She'd been gone… less than eight hours, it was now late afternoon. She could feel every cell in her body buzzing, like they'd been vibrating for eternity and now they'd finally stopped, but the phantom feeling remained. Nothing happened for a few long moments, so she sat herself down on the pavement and waited quietly.

She didn't know how long she'd been there before MacCready found her. He sat down on the ground in front of her and took her hands in his. She kicked into auto-pilot as she calmly divulged to him the cold facts of what she'd discovered while inside the Institute. Any outward calm he'd manifested upon her departure slowly faded away, and she was finding it a little difficult to handle his sympathetic grimace, so she stopped talking and tucked her knees up to her chest and laid her head down on them. He told her to stay put, he was going to bring her something to eat.

She couldn't stop coming up with things that were horrifying about the situation.

She'd missed her child's whole life.
Someone else had raised him, and not a woman or a man, or even Kellogg… but an institution… scientists?
Her son was almost three times her own age.
He'd created a synth of himself as a child… to see how she'd react? To study her?
She couldn't even recognize him. And not because of his age… because damn, he looked just like her father-in-law… but because some strange set of circumstances, some altered reality, had warped him into a man she never would have raised.
Her own son scared her.

And why now? Did her pod simply malfunction or did he play some role in her release? If he knew his mother was alive, why wait until now to free her? Why stand aside and watch her throw herself into danger after danger trying to find him? Why all the cloak and daggers?

She just couldn't shake the feeling of guilt - like this was all her fault somehow. What if she'd just said no to that Vault-Tec rep that wouldn't stop badgering them? What if she'd agreed, months before that, when her husband suggested they move to the Midwest? What if… she was the one holding Shaun that day instead of him?

She couldn't even pretend like she had a clue as to how her husband would have handled all this if he had been the 'backup' instead of her. She felt certain that, in the beginning, he'd have reacted much the same… willing to do anything to find and protect Shaun. But after the revelations of the last eight hours… she honestly couldn't say what he would do.

Maybe hers was a different purpose than she'd originally thought. Instead of crossing centuries so she could save her son… maybe she was actually here to save everyone else from her son. Was it that cut and dry? Her genes, her problem? Should she have just teleported in and grabbed him by the ear to sit him down and calmly suggest that maybe it's a bad idea to replace real people with synthetic versions just to sit back and see what happens?

The worst part was that she didn't even know the whole story. She could tell just by looking in his eyes how much he was holding back… she was just beginning to scratch the surface of whatever they were up to. She couldn't exactly blame him for withholding, they were kin but they didn't know each other. And from an outside perspective, some of her actions over the last nine months could be seen as… unstable, she supposed.

She couldn't wait for Mac to return, so instead she did what she was good at, which which was getting drunk and planning something stupid. This time it was half a bottle of whisky on an empty stomach and packing a bunch of explosives into a bag so she could head to the Corvega Assembly Plant to put down those damn raiders once and for all… and she had enough firepower to decimate everything else between here and there and back again, if necessary.

But instead of Nick finding her just before it was too late, this time it was MacCready scooping her up and telling her there was an alcohol threshold after which one should not use a bottle cap mine, so she obstinately told him she'd use the pulse mines instead. And though she felt adamant about not giving up on her plan, his suggestion of lying down, just for a while, did sound like a good idea. Her head was swimming after all and a short nap might help…

But when she woke in the morning with her forehead pressed to his and she saw the innocence of his undisturbed sleep, razing the countryside was the very last thing she wanted to do. Instead she wanted to board up the doors and windows and hide in her room with him forever and not worry about a single thing outside those walls because… could anything possibly matter more than this man? She was going to start needing some damn good reasons to bother with anything else.

"What are you thinking?" he asked quietly. He had opened his eyes and was looking at her now with that familiar unending patience, but he also looked pained because her hurt was his hurt. She could feel the bonds connecting them that forced the rationed emotion … and sharing it made it easier but she had to hate herself just a little bit for bringing him any degree of pain.

"Oh you know, heading west into the sunset… you, me and Dogmeat? Nick can come too if he wants. We can swing south and grab Duncan on the way," she said.

"You want to run away from it? That's not you," he said.

"And what am I exactly? Displaced in time, dead family, a son who… I don't even know."

"You're resourceful," he said, as if he already had a list prepared. "You're driven. You're a da- …darn… good leader. All these people, do you have any idea how much they look up to you? You appear from a vault, take this world in stride and in your wake you resurrect the Minutemen, join the Brotherhood of Steel… in a very convenient, one-sided way… and within months manage to track down an adversary the entire Commonwealth has been trying to find for years. You're like their messiah."

"Are you really comparing me to Jesus?" she said dryly.

"Rising from the dead and performing miracles?" he smiled, then added seriously, "You know you still have reasons to stay here."

"I don't need to save him anymore though… I don't even think I can. All I've been the last nine months is Shaun's vengeful mother. I don't know what that makes me now."

"You're still a parent. Shaun's just… not who you thought he'd be."

She scoffed, "You mean over sixty years old and… possibly insane? He's the boogeyman of the Commonwealth… he's what everyone around us is afraid of, and rightfully so."

"You can't blame yourself for what they turned him into," he said.

"So what, you think I should give him a chance?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, and he looked truly torn. "I can't say what's right, but I know that running away isn't the answer."

"I just… don't even know where to start."

"Just do what you do best," he replied.

"Kick down the door, guns blazing?"

He laughed, "No, although you do excel at that… I mean, just be who you are and the answer will present itself. Finding out all this… it's a lot to process. Take your time, let your brain… and your heart, work through it and you'll know what to do."

"You're right," she sighed, "It's just… overwhelming. For every question I got answered, a hundred more sprung up in it's place."

"Question hydra," he said offhandedly and she couldn't stop herself from laughing.

"There it is," he said, welcoming the return of her smile and smoothing her hair out of her face. "Those raiders should send me a gift basket. You were totally going to kill the sh- … crap… out of them last night."

"I really was… but I was probably also going to take myself out in the process. Thanks for diffusing me, Mac," she said. "I owe you one."

"I'm sure it won't be long before I find an edge I'm dying to leap off," he said, "We can keep each other in check."