Supper was a simple affair. To give Eric a night off, we had a buffet of sandwich fixings and salad. I sat next to Jess, Alana, Hadley, Rayne, and Brandon.

Rayne was pulling apart her sandwich piece by piece, snobbishly declaring that she didn't like the bread or the meat or the cheese or the lettuce. Hadley sat next to her, quietly devouring her sandwich before asking her mother in a timid tone, "Is there more food?"

Alana looked at me questioningly. I suddenly and sadly realized that these humans had been going without for a long time. I stood up immediately and made an announcement.

"Everyone can have seconds or thirds. We have plenty."

The rush to the table was heart-breaking. Every member of Gail's crew had stood up immediately. I noticed other members of my family observing the rush with wide eyes. They had noticed how gaunt the members of Gail's crew were, but they hadn't realized that Gail's crew hadn't felt free to eat their fill while they were our guests. It was sobering.

Jess touched my knee and leaned in to give me a kiss. "I think we all have a lot to be thankful for tonight, and the fact that we have you is at the top of my list."

Behind me I heard gruff coughing as someone else patted my back. "I agree." Sarge said, "Things would be a lot harder without you."

I could feel my face flushing in embarrassment. All I'd done was try to save a few people. It wasn't much. I didn't say anything out loud, though. Instead I focused on my daughter. "Rayne, you have to eat the whole sandwich. No complaining."

She stuck her nose up at me but, after her mother said "Rayne…" in a warning tone, she finally picked up her sandwich, made a face, and took a bite. I was going to have to watch her or she was going to be feeding Cole sandwich meat under the table.

After supper I stood up and made my way to my office. I was meeting with Nate, Dawn, and Sarge again tonight. We had a thief to find.

When I got there I stood up short, seeing Gail sitting in one of the chairs. "Hi Gail, um, we're going to be having a meeting here in a few minutes." I began, unsure of what to say to her to get her to go away.

"Oh I know, Dawn invited me." She said.

"Oh, in that case, it'll just be a few moments before we get started, I think." I said, wondering if Nate's theory about not telling people applied to Gail too.

Sarge and Nate arrived together. Both of them looked surprised to see Gail, but they hid it from her well. Dawn arrived last. She immediately saw our unease with having Gail there and got straight to the point. "Hello everyone, sorry I'm late. I took the liberty of inviting Gail to our meeting today not only because you men have me outnumbered but because I think it's a good idea for her to know about our dilemma so that she can assist us. She has my total trust."

I exchanged a silent look with Nate who shrugged, as if he was saying "why not" but Sarge's face was completely blank. Not hearing an objection I nodded and said, "that's fine, but she has to promise not to say anything to her people."

"Well why don't you tell me what secret I'd be keeping from them before I promise something like that." Gail countered.

This time it was Nate who looked at me and me who shrugged. We were in this far already, it seemed sort of silly to kick her out now. Nate sighed and stood up to pace.

"Shortly after we returned to the silo, a few doses of No Pain were stolen from our infirmary. Because it was after we returned it could have been anyone. In either group."

"Are you sure that it wasn't stolen before we got back? Do we have any suspects? Does anyone else know?"

Dawn answered for all of us. "Yes I'm sure it was stolen after you got back. No we don't have any suspects that I know of, and only the people in this room know."

Gail nodded, appearing pensive. "I don't think any of my people would do this, but I can't be sure.

"Well," I said, "Let's start going through names and see what we can come up with."

"What good is that going to do?" Dawn asked kindly, "Unless we have some evidence all that that is going to do is give us a list of bad qualities about every person. We need to get out there and watch them. See if anyone is acting strange. And we need to have 24-hour surveillance on the infirmary.

"If we need 24-hour surveillance then we're going to need to bring Eric in on this. Can he be trusted?" I asked.

"Even though he's grouchy, my instinct is probably yes." Nate said.

"I disagree." Sarge said. "I think we should question him first and then ask for surveillance after we know he's clear."

"I don't want to admit it, but Sarge is right. We needed to question him first." I said, troubled. What was our little family coming to, if I had to question them to see if they were being honest?

"Let's do it as quickly as possible. Don't worry Burns, Sarge and I can handle this one." Nate said. The look on my face must have given him a clue about how upset I was that we were forced to do this.

Inwardly I was relieved. I didn't want to be part of the group that questioned him.

"I'll go get him." I said.

I stood up and trudged out the door. I walked down the large hallway toward Eric's lair. When I got there I found Eric hunched over a huge sub sandwich, chewing loudly.

"Hey Eric, can you come with me for a minute?" I asked him as nicely as I could. "We have some business that we need you to see to."

"Wha…" He said around a giant bite, "I'llcome inasec."

"I'm afraid we need you right now." I said firmly. He rolled his eyes and stood up, still chewing. Bringing his sandwich along he followed me out the door and down the hall. I arrived in my office with him trailing slowly behind me.

"Be as nice as you can." I told Sarge and Nate, "we don't want our own people to turn against us."

"Huh?" Eric said, overhearing what I said, "what is this about?"

"We just need you to do some surveillance for us here in the compound but first we need to question you about something." Nate said.

I left the room to Eric's confused face and Nate's grimace.

While I waited for them to finish I made my way back toward Rayne's playroom. She and Hadley had been inseparable for the last two days. I peeked my head inside and found Jess and Alana sitting in chairs on the side of the room while Rayne and Hadley played house. I stole Devante from Jess's arms and sat down next to them to watch.

"Honey, I'm home!" Rayne hollered, knocking on an invisible door. "What's for dinner?"

"Tonight we have canned peaches and green beans." Hadley said proudly, showing off the food that they had gotten from the kitchen. "Let's set the table."

Together they set a table with forks, spoons, and glasses of water. When it was completed they sat down and ate with gusto.

"I wish Rayne was always that excited to eat her fruits and vegetables!" Jess whispered to me, rolling her eyes.

"She is spoiled." I replied, rolling my eyes back at her.

She smiled at me, rubbing my arm. "What are you up to?" She asked, her eyes bright, "Didn't you have a meeting tonight?"

"I did, yes, but I left for a few minutes while Nate and Sarge took care of something. I'll go back soon."

We sat in silence for a little longer while I waited for the guys to be ready for me to come back. When Nate appeared at the door, he had a grim look on his face. I got up quickly and joined him in the hall.

"What happened?" I asked urgently.

"He claims he's not the one and he's pretty pissed that we questioned him but he's just pissed enough that he's going to help us find the person who did this to clear his own name." Nate explained.

My grimace matched his own now as we both walked quickly down the hall. I was afraid of this. Maybe it would have been better if I had done the questioning, uncomfortable though it may have been.

We arrived in the room to find Eric scowling into a computer. He was typing quickly, seemingly engrossed so I didn't say anything to him. After a moment he looked up.

"Well, we have two options. I can take a camera off of our perimeter, which means we'll be down a camera, or I can order a new one and Burns can have it mailed to the farmhouse."

"I think that for the sake of time, we should use one of the cameras we already have." I said. Nate and Sarge nodded. They agreed. "Which one do you suggest, Eric? I can go get it."

"The second one on the main door is probably the best one. We have two angles on that area and probably can get away with one." Eric said stiffly.

"I'll be right back." I said. Nate tagged along and the two of us made our way out toward the main door. It took us about 15 minutes to unhook it and bring it back. When we got there Eric did a few tech things to it and then pronounced it ready to go up in the infirmary.

"We want it pointing toward the med cabinet, right?" I said.

"Yeah, that makes the most sense." Sarge replied.

"Okay, well let's go get it installed." I prodded.

"We can't just install it now. We need to do it at night when no one is awake." Gail put in. I'd almost forgotten her but she was squeezed into a corner of my office behind Sarge.

"Oh, right, I guess that's true." I said. I wasn't good at this spying stuff.

Taking Gail's advice, we waited until everyone was in bed to install the camera. We finished getting it attached to the ceiling in the room but hadn't hooked it up yet when Jess arrived at the door to the infirmary.

"I've been looking for you." She said, "Are you coming to bed?"

"I'll come now." I said, following her out of the room. They didn't need me for the rest of it anyway.

The two of us walked back to our apartment together, hand in hand.

"What was that all about?" She asked.

"You can't tell anyone." I said.

"Okay. I won't. Now what was it about?"

"Someone has been stealing No Pain from the infirmary." I said after a pause.

There was silence for a long moment before she asked, "Do you have any suspects?"

"Not really. We know it wasn't any of us but it could be anyone else." I said, my voice sad.

"Oh Burns. Please don't hate me. I took the No Pain."

I stopped right in the middle of the hall and whispered fiercely at her, "It was you? Why?"

"I've just been so tired and in pain since I had Devante and I wasn't able to keep up with Rayne and I wanted to be a good wife to you. I thought if I had some No Pain to take on the bad days I'd be able to be the wife you deserve. I just hurt all the time." She sniffed.

"Oh my dear." I said, taking her into my arms. "Why didn't you ask for it?"

"I did, right after Devante was born. Dawn told me I had had enough."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked sadly.

"Oh Burns, I should have. I should have. I'm so sorry. Please don't tell the others. I just have been in so much pain since I got sick and with Devante it's just been too much. I'm failing as mother."

I sighed. We didn't have to tell everyone but Gail, Nate, Dawn, Sarge, and Eric would all have to be told. My heart went out to Jess, wishing I'd known about her pain. She sobbed quietly in my arms.

"You are not failing as a mother."I said, "but we will have to tell Dawn and Nate and them. We won't tell everyone, though." I soothed her, "But honey, you have to stop trying to be everything for everyone. You have to accept that you have limitations. There are tons of adults here to share the load. Try not to burden yourself with all of it. And stealing is never, ever an option." I said. "I'll meet you in the room. I need to go tell them that I know who did it." I paused for a second before adding, "I love you."

She sniffed and nodded, whispering back, "I love you too," before turning to walk slowly back toward our room. My heart sank, knowing I'd failed as a husband. My wife had been in unbearable pain and I hadn't even noticed. She'd never fully recovered from her bout with West Nile a few years ago and her pregnancy had been hard on her. The Souls had medication to make her better, but our access to the really effective stuff was limited so our supply was used only for emergencies. I didn't have a Healer certification to get more so we had to steal what we needed and that was hard for me to do. I would need to do better for my family. I would need to support Jess more and get over my hesitation to steal the supplies we needed. If I'd been paying attention this never would have happened. I felt rotten.

I got back to where Nate and Eric were finishing the camera install under Dawn and Sarge's watchful eyes.

"We don't need to finish that. I know who took it." I said, my voice shaking.

"Oh? Who was it?" Nate asked, not noticing my mood.

"Jess."

That one word made Eric look up from his desk in surprise and Nate turn around to look at me in shock.

"Jess?" Sarge and Nate said together.

"Yes, she never fully recovered from the West Nile and she got No Pain during Devante's birth and wanted more. She said she'd been feeling like a failure as a mother and was too tired and stressed, and she asked Dawn for more but Dawn said no, so she took some in desperation. It's my fault. I have been gone and not helping her with the baby and I didn't notice that she was so tired. I'm so sorry."

The room was silent for a few minutes while everyone digested this news. Finally Dawn said, "I'm sorry too. I didn't even think of her when I was trying to think who would take it. But she has been tired lately. Being a new mother really takes it out of you and she hasn't been 100% for a while."

"What do we do?" I asked, praying silently that they decided to just let her get away with an apology.

"Tonight, we don't do anything except get the meds back from her and turn on the camera. From now on, even though we know who took them this time, we're leaving that camera on. I've already asked Eric to order another one for the main entrance to replace it. We have too many people in this compound to go without a camera in the infirmary." Sarge said. "I understand why the poor girl took it but we can't let it happen again. It's best if no one else knows about this. We don't want to put any ideas into anyone else's heads."

Nate and Dawn nodded their agreement. Eric just looked mad, but that was normal for him so I wasn't sure if it was due to Jess or not.

"Thank you." I breathed, relieved. I turned to go and found Dawn at my side.

"I'll come to retrieve the meds." She said as she matched my pace. I nodded.

"We're lucky to have you." I said, my voice still subdued.

"No. We're lucky to have you." She responded. I sighed in exasperation.

"I've let her down." I bit out, frustrated, "She did this because I haven't been carrying my weight as a father. I've let her down."

"All mothers feel this way with their first child." Dawn reassured me, "Jess didn't do it because she wanted a high. She did it because she wanted to survive. Now that I know I'll help her more."

"Me too." I said sadly.

We arrived at the door to our apartment and I knocked. Normally I'd just go right in but I wanted to give her some warning that someone was with me. After a moment I opened the door and quietly called, "Jess!"

She arrived at the door, the tablets of No Pain in her hand. She'd been crying some more and Dawn hugged her before she took the meds back.

"We'll talk more in the morning." She said before she took her leave. I closed the door behind her and then turned to my wife.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been around." I said, "I'll do better."

"Oh Burns, you've been busy taking care of everyone. I understand. I'm sorry I took them. I was just so desperate for help and I didn't know who to ask."

"Ask me. From now on, you tell me any time you need extra help. I'm going to stay put for the next few weeks until you're feeling better." I said, my decision made. "From now on it'll be us together. I'm sorry I let you down."

I took her in my arms and just stood there rubbing her back as she cried. I had a knot in my stomach, knowing that I'd pushed her into this. From now on I would do better. There was no other choice.


A/N: Well, this was a tough chapter to write, not just because of the content. It was hard to write because I'm fighting writer's block and I'm dealing with some work stuff and it was just a rough week. I'll try to get the next chapter out more swiftly than I did with this one. It took me over a week to even decide who stole the No Pain and another few days to convince myself to write it. It may not have been a likable chapter, but please review anyway, I need some momentum here!