MacCready sat down on the picnic table next to the grill, watching as Duncan literally ran laps around the barn. Owen turned back to start lighting the fire, and she stepped forward to sit down across from Mac.

"So what happened, Owen?" Mac asked. "Mutants this far out?" he said with disbelief, "That's why we picked this place."

"I know, it was a fluke," Owen explained, "The Brotherhood was flushing them out of Silver Spring, I think some of the residuals were driven up north in all the chaos. We could have stayed and fought them off ourselves if Eclair and Joseph were here too - but I didn't want to risk it with just me and the kid."

"You did the right thing," MacCready agreed. "Where are Eclair and Joe anyway?"

"They went down south to trade, we're starting to look into finding some specialty seeds for splicing, and you know how Eclair is about his ingredients," Owen said. "Everything had been so quiet for months, it didn't really seem like a big deal to let them go for a few weeks. Shit timing, of course."

"How'd you drive the mutants out?" Mac asked.

"It took a few weeks of convincing, but eventually I got the Brotherhood to spare a few soldiers to come up and take care of them. Angela let us stay with them while we waited - she says hi, by the way."

MacCready rolled his eyes, "You mean she asked you to punch me in the nose again?"

"Yeah," he laughed. That story sounded familiar… this Angela must have been the 'Princess' he'd deposed in order to become mayor of Little Lamplight. She sounded like her kind of girl. The fire finally caught and roared to life and Owen stepped back toward the table to let it heat up. "I should have written from the Capital to let you know what was going on. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, I'm just glad you're safe. I'm surprised the Brotherhood was willing to come out this far," MacCready said.

"Me too," Owen agreed, then she swore he blushed as he looked over at her, "I may have thrown your friend's name around a bit."

"Good," she said, hoping to alleviate any guilt he felt about using her position as leverage. "The Brotherhood owed us one."

"You know, this one makes a mean sauce if Eclair's got some herbs squirreled away anywhere," MacCready said, shooting her a grin.

"Oh yeah?" Owen said, "Just so happens the guys picked some up on their last run."

"Just point me to the stove and some spoiled wine and I'll work my magic," she said dryly, cracking her knuckles enthusiastically. With these seemingly non-potato tatos… she wasn't quite ready to call them tomatoes… the barbecue sauce would be better than ever. She gathered up the tatos Duncan had picked and followed Owen inside to the kitchen, which was stocked surprisingly well. They had some things she'd never seen before - flour that they must have made from razorgrain, butter… they must have had a milk-producing brahmin in the barn, and to her surprise, a half dozen bottles of actual vinegar.

Owen offered one out to her then said, "I'm guessing this is what you're really after? Unless spoiled wine is truly part of the recipe?"

"Great," she said as she took the bottle, unable to hide her surprise. Where'd they get all this awesome loot? "I don't suppose you've managed to make vegetable oil?"

He shook his head, "Not yet I'm afraid, but I've heard they have sunflowers down south. Maybe the guys will return with some seeds." He showed her where the pots and utensils were, he even had an actual set of knives she could use to chop the tomatoes. This was going to be downright civilized.

She took her time making the sauce, with the new ingredients, getting the balance right was going to be a matter of trial and error. It took almost forty minutes to finish up, and the sun had mostly set by the time she brought the finished sauce out to Owen. He took a whiff, looking quite impressed before lathering it onto the meat to start grilling.

At Duncan's insistence, she joined him in the mutfruit fields to play Tag, while Owen and MacCready hung out by the fire and caught up. She was surprised as she saw more and more of the farm that just three men and one kid could tend to so much land themselves. She was also surprised that the super mutants hadn't caused more damage, they tended to leave destruction in their wake, or at least bloody bags of flesh and bone.

Tag eventually turned into Hide and Seek and then Marco Polo, which was a game she was surprised Duncan knew about. She was exhausted from chasing him around, so she tried to reign in the exertion a bit by drawing a grid in the dirt with a stick and showing him how to play Hopscotch, which he found very entertaining. He then wanted to know the details of absolutely every game she knew about.

She explained the rules of Simon Says, Capture the Flag and Shadow Tag. At first she thought the kid's attention span was just very short, but after a while it became clear that he simply wanted to know everything there was to know about everything. They were in the middle of coming up with a secret handshake when dinner was finally ready. She promised him they'd finish it later, and he high-fived her excitedly before dashing over toward the picnic table.

"Hands," MacCready reminded him before he even sat down. He did an about-face and dashed over to the water pump to wash up. MacCready dished up four plates of barbecued brahmin meat, grilled corn-on-the-cob and half an apple each. Apples. Her mouth was already watering as she sat down across the table from MacCready.

"Hands," he said with a grin, and she shot him a glare before dejectedly getting back up to wash her hands along with Duncan. Owen put the remaining meat on a plate in the middle of the table and sat down next to MacCready just as she and Duncan climbed back onto their side of the bench.

"Looks great, thanks guys," she said.

"I think we're all about to be thanking you," Owen said, "This sauce smells amazing."

MacCready passed her two small ceramic shakers. Salt and pepper. She salted her corn beyond reason and then about died when MacCready passed her the butter. Buttered and salted corn-on-the-cob? Had they actually died in that rad hurricane last night, and now she was in heaven?

Mac finished buttering Duncan's corn and passed it to him. The kid ate like he'd never had food in his life, and consumed almost twice as much as she did. The sauce was a resounding hit, MacCready admitted she'd outdone herself this round. She insisted it was due to the real vinegar and more tomato-than-potato tatos.

The night air was starting to feel more like autumn, so after dinner they sat on blankets close to the fire and told kid-friendly versions of some of the hijinks they'd gotten up to back in Boston. Before she knew it, Duncan, wrapped in MacCready's duster, had laid his head on her lap and fallen into the kind of deep, exhausted, worry-free sleep only a child could enjoy. She and Mac then proceeded to fill Owen in on what was really going on in the Commonwealth, Institute drama and all.

"Sounds familiar," Owen said, rubbing his short hair nervously with one large hand.

"Yeah?" she asked, "I could really use some advice if you have any wisdom on the matter."

"A little over ten years ago, we had some… unrest in these parts," he said, sitting back and taking a drink of his beer.

MacCready sighed, "Now that you mention it, this does seem to draw a lot of parallels to the Enclave."

"Enclave?" she asked. MacCready held his beer out to indicate she owed him a drink. She took the penalty willingly, she'd drink them both under the table if it meant finding out anything that might help her deal with the Institute.

"All we really know are rumors and the version the Brotherhood likes to teach recruits," Owen warned. "But, here's the long and short of it."

He proceeded to give a relatively detailed account of a series of events surrounding the Enclave and Project Purity - something Mac had mentioned to her in the past. Considering his insistence that it was all conjecture and hearsay, he seemed to know a great deal of specifics. She also realized about half way through the story that the 'vault dweller' he was talking about was in fact the same 'mungo' MacCready had talked about looking up to at Little Lamplight.

"Mac, are you kidding me?" she asked, turning to look at him.

He was blushing, but his face was blank, as if clueless to her meaning. "What?"

"The woman from Little Lamplight? That was the same person you said died completing Project Purity?"

"You heard Owen - it's all rumors. I cannot confirm that," he said simply, taking a long drink of beer. Here she thought she was the one fate kept throwing shit at. Maybe it was actually MacCready.