A/N: This chapter contains Grace Mason, an original character created by the lovely Jemmz, whom you can find here on . Her OC, Grace, is Tom's oldest daughter. Jem is working on the fic surrounding her that will hopefully be up soon :)

Chapter 5: Lost & Insecure

Casey fell asleep in a ball right next to Etta's basket, but she was woken up way too soon by Matt shaking her. Casey peeked at him through one eye, he was crouched at her side hovering over her. "What is it?" Casey's voice was hoarse and agitated from too little sleep. As she leant up on one arm, a blanket slid off of her shoulders and she realized Matt must have put it over her. She felt guilty for growling at him, but Matt was so animated he didn't seem to notice.

"Grace is back!" Matt was saying. "She came back!"

Casey shook her head a little to wake herself up, sure she had heard the wrong name. Grace? No one had seen the oldest and only Mason daughter since the Mechs and skitters flooded the 2nd Mass in Fitchburg. "What?" Casey sat up and rubbed her eyes until they opened fully.

"She's still with Anne," Matt looked worried. "What if she's hurt really bad? Anne wouldn't let me see her."

"Okay, don't freak out," Casey yawned, reached out and mussed up his hair. "Let's go see what's going on."

Etta was still sleeping, so Casey left her in the office while she followed after Matt towards the infirmary where Grace was. The Mason brothers had rarely talked about Grace since she was believed to have been lost, similar to how they never spoke of their father since he boarded the alien ship. As if not mentioning their names, and rejecting offers of condolence, kept them alive.

Never wanting people to bug her about her own family, Casey had kept quiet about questioning the Masons about Grace. Plus, now that Matt was being so helpful she didn't want to say something to him to upset him and then scare off Etta's apparent new best friend.

Hal, Ben and Maggie were waiting outside the infirmary all wearing similar looks of shock and concern when Casey and Matt arrived. "Is Grace okay?" Matt immediately asked his brothers.

"She's alive," Ben knelt down in front of his brother and rested a hand on his shoulder. "And she was talking when I found her."

"Where did you find her?" Casey asked. She had lost sight of Grace before she had run for the cover of the Post Office in Fitchburg.

"A few miles away," Ben said. "She looked like she'd been walking for days."

"Probably had," Maggie said. "Maybe after she got out of Fitchburg she tried to follow our path?"

Hal banged his head back against the gym wall. "I knew she was alive," he scolded himself. "I should have looked for her better. She was out there, all this time."

"She's back now," Maggie told him. "Focus on that."

Anne came out of the infirmary, still just as frazzled and exhausted as when Casey had last seen her. "She's okay," Anne said gently. "She's very dehydrated so I'll have to monitor her carefully for a few days, make sure we get her fluids back up without shocking her system. She has a bad burn on her leg. It looks infected, but I think I got to it in time."

"Do you need anything?" Hal asked. "Meds? Equipment?"

Anne shook her head. "No, the antibiotics you brought back from the pharmacy will keep the infection from spreading, and hopefully if we keep it clean it'll heal on its own. We just have to wait."

"Can we see her?" Matt asked hopefully.

"Sure, but just for a minute." Anne stood aside and ushered the Mason boys inside. "She needs to rest."

Casey hung back with Maggie while the Mason brothers filed into the infirmary and Anne excused herself before heading into the hallway. Through the curtain around her bed, Casey got a quick look at Grace. The teen was quite pale and her normally round face was very drawn. Her chocolate coloured hair was wiry and stringy and her cheeks were smudged. She looked a decade older than her eighteen years. Grace smiled wearily at her brothers, reaching out and for Matt's hand as he came towards her.

"Did you leave the baby alone?" Maggie interrupted Casey's staring.

"She was sleeping," Casey replied, noticing Maggie's slightly surprised expression. "What?"

"You're not supposed to do that," Maggie said kindly.

Casey frowned. "So, I should wake her up and bring her to a room of sick people instead?"

Maggie gave her a considerate smile. "Touché."

Sensing she would be intruding if she stuck around and with Maggie's advice repeating in her ear, Casey left Maggie to hover over the Masons. But before she went back to the office, she followed the path Anne had taken out into the hall. Casey found the doctor taking a small break crouched on the floor hugging her knees with her head slumped against her shoulder. Casey's approaching footsteps woke her up. "Everything okay?" Anne asked, forcing her lips into a smile.

"Yeah, fine, keep resting," Casey held out her hands to gesture to Anne that she not get up. Anne needed more than a few minutes alone on a cold floor to recuperate, but Casey knew she would never take a proper break with all the people relying on her.

Anne relaxed back against the wall. "Is Charlotte okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She's sleeping." Casey wasn't sure how to ask what she wanted to ask, so she just bit the bullet and asked it. "I was wondering who you think I should give her to?"

Anne stared at her blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Who should I give Charlotte to?" Casey repeated. "Whose gonna take care of her?"

"Ah," Anne rubbed the back of her neck. "I figured you had volunteered."

Casey's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"You've been doing a good job so far."

"Yeah, I managed a couple of days, but full-time?" Casey couldn't stifle a nervous giggle. "No, no, no, no, no." A panic rose in her throat. "Anne, no! There has to be someone else."

"Well, there's not," Anne said through a yawn.

A swift rush of anxiety swept over Casey like a wave. "I stopped Mech's from killing her and found her food, that doesn't mean I can take care of her. She's a baby, what do I do with a baby?"

"You do what you're doing now," Anne said calmly. "Hold her, feed her, talk to her. She's just a really small person."

"What if I drop her? I left her alone to sleep, apparently that's a bad thing?" Casey knew she sounded stupid, but the words kept tumbling out of her mouth. "What if she gets sick? What if she stops breathing? Oh crap, is that why I shouldn't leave her alone?"

"Casey-"

"Anne, I am not good with babies."

"Well, you're good with Charlotte." Anne had a conclusive tone in her voice. "We all have to adjust, we're all doing things we never expected ourselves to be doing. And if you ask me, the person who saved Charlotte's life, and kept her fed and warm is the person Sarah would be glad was taking care of her daughter."

Casey could tell Anne was trying to assure her, give her confidence, but all Casey could think of was how wrong she was for this job. There were women who radiated a warm, maternal glow, Casey's mother had been like that. But not Casey. "Anne-"

"Anne?" Lourdes came jogging into the hall. "Grace is running a fever, but I'm not sure if it's her infection or the meds."

"I'll be right there," Anne heaved herself to her feet.

Casey forced her rambling mouth shut. Anne had much bigger issues to worry about then who was watching a baby sleep. In fact, everyone did. In the scheme of things, Casey was lucky. She hadn't lost any family in Fitchburg, she wasn't gravely injured, she didn't have patients lives to save, she didn't have a brother who had been harnessed, or a father aboard an alien spaceship. She had a baby.

Maybe when they found a new place to settle down, somewhere they could regroup like they had at the school, maybe then someone else would be able to take over from her. Until then, Casey knew Anne was right. There was no one else.

Back in the office, Etta was awake and squirming in her basket. As Casey sat cross-legged beside her, the baby starting fussing. Casey saw she had lost her pacifier and as soon as she replaced it, Etta calmed down. "I like you when you're quiet," Casey told her. "Promise to stay like this all the time?" Casey reached for her satchel bag that Lourdes had helped her turn into a diaper bag and began fixing up a bottle of formula.

With her broken wrist still giving her grief, Casey had to do everything one-handed including lifting Etta out of her basket. It was less painful to hold Etta with her damaged arm then try and hold the bottle with her mitten-like bandage. "So, here's the deal." Casey said as she traded the pacifier for the bottle. "I know you're not that into me but Anne says we have to suck it up. Apparently, that means we'll be spending a lot of time together." Etta whined. "I know, I'm not thrilled about it either. But it's just for a little while."

That night, after Casey had changed, fed and burped Etta, she tucked a pillow made from a sweater under her head and laid down next to the basket. The Masons were all spending the night with Grace in the infirmary, so Casey had the office to herself. She curled up, closed her eyes and actually thought she might get a good sleep until a raucous bought of laughter came boomed in through the window vent. And it didn't quiet down. The pop and fizz of beer cans could be heard under the rabble of noise.

Swearing to herself, Casey sprang right to her feet. After Etta's long sleep she had not gone down easily that night. Casey had had to sit with her for two hours in the dark office begging her to just attempt to sleep before she'd finally nodded off. And then just as Casey had settled herself, the laughter had dared to begin.

Casey stormed outside into the cold without grabbing her jacket. But when she saw the reason for the noise, she discovered she didn't need her jacket. Her anger boiling inside her kept her warm.

Pope and the Berserkers were laying around in a group, drinking and laughing, with absolutely no care of who they may be irritating. Casey stalked right over to Pope, who was at the helm of the little gathering, chuckling along with his comrades. "What in the hell do you think you're doing making all that goddamn noise?" Casey barked at him.

"We're celebrating!" Pope tossed a can of beer at her. "Pull up a chair!"

Casey let the can soar right past her head and crack on the ground behind her. "Well, could you shut the hell up? I just got Etta to sleep."

Pope raised an eyebrow at her. "Etta?"

"Yeah," Casey cleared her throat. "Charl-ette. Etta. It's what I decided to call her," Casey folded her arms. "Is there a problem?"

A tense silence followed as Pope stared her down. All of the Berserkers quietly sipped their beers, watching, waiting to see what would happen next. It was Tector who eventually stood up. "No, no problem," Tector said with an apologetic grin. "We'll keep it down. Won't we, Boss?"

Pope let out a long, irritated sigh, then got to his feet and made a point of bowing down to Casey as if he was making her a grand gesture. "As you wish."

Casey kept her glare on Pope before turning on her heel and heading back inside. She waited for the laughter to start up again and was already mentally preparing her arguments for when she had to go back out there and yell some more. But she didn't end up having to go back out at all.

Etta was still sleeping when Casey made it back to the office, and though she could hear the clanging of beer cans and the occasional titter from outside, Casey could hear more noise from the inside of the gym than from the Berserkers. She doubted it was out of compassion that they had gave in, and figured that the Berserkers, like herself, decided it would be much easier to stay quiet now than have to deal with a screaming infant tomorrow.