An attempt to answer the question - in a fictional way - of 'How did Kyle Mackenzie know that June and Nick once had a child together?' The last fictional chapter of my Season 5 Episode 10 stories claims that if Kyle had visited Nick in his end-of-season prison, that Kyle would have known about the connection that Nick really had with June Osborne.

I hope this is not too ponderous, in answering just one question.

THINGS THAT MADE KYLE MACKENZIE GO, 'HMMMMMMMMMMMMM'

Nick Blaine, he just walked in to the wedding reception - where we were wishing Lawrence well - he just waltzed in and socked Lawrence. A good one. Then Blaine proceeded to give away his own game.

But I did not go, 'hmmmmmmmmmmmmm'' until observing Lawrence's reaction.

PUTTING TOGETHER TWO PLUS TWO

Just after Waterford's ridiculous funeral, Mackenzie thought, right there in the Lawrence home's drawing room, Serena had asked Rose Blaine how the two of them, she and Nick, had met. Serena had asked, "tell me, how did you two find each other?"

Rose had answered, "well, a few months ago, Nick was in D.C. on business, it was love at third mutually attended gala." A few months? Yet Rose was pregnant? Was Nick a climber, or had High Commander Wharton insisted?

Tabitha Mackenzie, she had complimented Nick on saying nice things about his new wife.

Kyle Mackenzie, sitting right beside his Wife, instead was busy calculating. "A few months ago," was when they had met. Kyle wondered, "how far along had Rose said she was?"

Of course, that evening the gathered had brought gifts for Serena and her baby. Trying to put the evening's conversation together from memory, had Rose Blaine even talked about her own pregnancy? Kyle thought he should have remembered, because Commander virility, it was what Gilead was all about!

What Kyle remembered was this, that at dinner he had engaged Serena Waterford in conversation about their, 'mutual adversary'. June Osborne. Ever since Osborne's invasion of the Mackenzie's home on the night of Baby Nichole's disappearance, Kyle had berated Tabitha for showing mercy to the handmaid. Both had known the then-Offred to be Agnes's Bilhah mother. Tabitha had been so troubled by what her husband had said about Osborne, that they both insisted that Kyle's Commandership be transferred to the Western Colonies District, in Colorado Springs, where Rubies Preparatory School for Wives was.

Osborne was dangerous, thought Kyle. But she was getting a lot of 'shadowy' help from unknown sources - preventing directly dealing with her. The move to Colorado Springs, then, was preemptive, rather than trying to suss out Osborne's network. Handmaids weren't supposed to have them! Which meant that someone 'of influence' had to have strong, emotional reason for giving her one.

Kyle Mackenzie had subsequent to that, been transferred to D.C., but Tabitha maintained their home in Colorado Springs.

Commander Mackenzie continued about June Osborne at the Lawrence dinner, telling Serena Joy, that, "Osborne was never going to stop," to which Serena agreed.

He continued, "and she was able to get to Fred, with the help of the Americans." For a handmaid, she had quite the network! With Nick Blaine sitting right there at the table, with Rose Blaine knowing all about Nick's sojourn to the north coinciding with the murder, Commander Mackenzie was transparent about his real fear: "she might be able to extend her reach to our family."

Was there anyone at that table that night who did not agree with what he'd said? He concluded, "I've come to regret my former interventions on her behalf."

AGNES IN THE MIX

Tabitha risked a slightly different take on how awkward the conversation was, "we would never want Agnes to find out that something horrible had happened to her birth mother." Tabitha reflected on the mysteries of God, of how such a sweet child could come from such a, "devil of a woman".

Kyle Mackenzie, perhaps to countermand his Wife said, "but Agnes is strong, and she will be able to understand, when she has to. June Osborne is a cancer." (That's the way Commanders and their Wives fought a proper dinner tables.)

After dinner, at Lawrence's outdoor gazebo, Nick excused himself from his walk with Rose, to attend to Mark Tuello. No sooner had Nick and Tuello exchanged a word, than Commander Mackenzie, he arrived chiding Blaine for leaving his own Wife out in the cold.

Mackenzie then lied to Nick, about Rose's father being an 'old friend'. He then overtly accused Blaine of purposely marrying Rose, to ingratiate himself to D.C.'s High Commander, Wharton.

Then Mackenzie threatened Nick, a threat that became more acute during Nick's eventual imprisonment, at which Rose herself was to leave him. Back at Lawrence's, Mackenzie had said, "I'm keeping my eye on you. Make sure you treat her right."

Leaving the gazebo, Mackenzie pondered the tactics he might devise while still in New Gilead, a plan to get inside Ardua Hall to get a peek at The Founder Aunts' Bloodline Genealogical Archives. Aunt Lydia had parlayed that information for unparalleled influence, as well immunity for women who worked as Aunts. Reading exemptions. Writing exemptions. Aunt Lydia had also once made suggestions to Tabitha, which caused Tabitha to agree to the sudden move to the Western Colonies.

Mackenzie wondered - what would those Archives say about the Bilhah birth in the Waterford household? The one that had actually taken place in Mackenzie's own summer home, where Nick himself, as the then-Waterford driver, had been involved. Hmmmmmmmm.

It was too much for Mackenzie not to try. Maybe communicating with High Commander Wharton about his son-in-law, and questions about the Waterford's Bilhah birth….. no, nix that.

Would that explain the strange looks during the the Osborne conversation at dinner, the strange looks from the other side of the table - Serena Joy, Rose as well as Nick?

Kyle Mackenzie had become a Commander, originally in New Gilead under Andrew Pryce, because he seldom let mysteries lie unsolved. Kyle was not smart, but he was dogged. One never knew what one would find turning over random rocks - and the rock he wanted to overturn was in The Red Centre, overseen by the most powerful Aunts in all of Gilead's districts.

CLUES

Then there was the report of the Eyes of God, one of an unauthorized call either to or from Commander Blaine's household, through a satellite network which had been hacked.

That in and of itself had not been suspicious. Commanders like Lawrence were pushing openness, other Commanders were secretly reopening old connections with people outside. People they'd known before Gilead.

Kyle Mackenzie became frustrated that he could not rule out that Blaine had been talking to someone like June Osborne. Given his own comments about how Osborne had been a cancer… what was the likelihood that Blaine was warning her?

Paranoid? Mackenzie valued a dollop of paranoia now and then, to keep himself off of the Wall. Indeed, High Commander Wharton and he were, in fact, not old friends. They were adversaries, with mutually complementary reasons not to go after one another.

Mackenzie redoubled his commitment to keep an eye on Nick, if not even sicking actual, actual Eyes on him. And not just out of care for Rose - that, too, had been a lie.

Besides, there had been those rumours about Waterford's murder, that both Commanders Lawrence AND Blaine had been up at the border that night. At least that is what Mackenzie's Eye contacts had claimed, making it even more strange that those Eyes close to Blaine were not talking about it.

Survival among Commanders depended on managing such clues.

Besides, if Rose Blaine ever soured towards her husband - if she could be pushed to face Blaine's bald-faced killer instincts…. there's no telling.

SEALING THE DEAL

Mackenzie's paranoia paid off, as it always did. So far.

And no less than Commander Nick Blaine, he'd been the one who'd sealed it.

Commander Lawrence, he'd been the one to order 'the hit' on June Osborne. For Lawrence's own, private, unexplained reasons, he had made that decision absent Nick Blaine. Even that made Mackenzie lift an eyebrow. What did Lawrence know that he, Mackenzie, did not?

In fact, that's the way Mackenzie had put it to Lawrence, "Joseph, what do you know that I don't know?"

Feeding a line like that to Joseph Lawrence was always dangerous.

Lawrence began with, "how much time do you have, Kyle?"

Which made Lawrence's post-smack remark about, 'cake', all the more strange. What!? No Lawrence snark?

MORE THINGS THAT MADE KYLE MACKENZIE GO, 'HMMMMMMMMMMMMM'

Nick Blaine, he had just walked in. The Commanders, they were wishing Commander Lawrence well on his wedding day, and Blaine had walked right up to him and socked him a good one.

Blaine hit him, then yelled out, "you could have killed her, you could have fucking killed her!"

It was not so much that Blaine had accused Lawrence, it was Lawrence's unsnarky reply. Lawrence had said, "Commander, it wasn't me, it wasn't my decision." Kyle Mackenzie, he split his look between the two, Blaine now escorted from the Lawrence's by Guardians. There was something going on between Lawrence and Blaine.

And it had something to do with June Osborne. As obvious as a punch to the face.

So before going over to the detention centre to gloat at Blaine, Mackenzie made a stop at Lawrence's, now that the nuptial festivities were over.

"What can I do for you, Kyle?" Lawrence said as Mackenzie walked in, unannounced into Lawrence's study. "Whatever it is, Kyle, make it short, will you? This is, technically, my wedding night."

"I just have a few things that are bugging me. Dots on a graph that are just begging to have lines connecting them," Mackenzie said.

In summary below, this is what Mackenzie had wondered. It had to do with the night that Offred, June Osborne, had shown up at the Mackenzie house, found in Agnes's bedroom - talked down by Tabitha who had showed tremendous mercy to his daughter's Bilhah mother.

THE NARRATIVE PROPOSED BY A SKEPTIC - STAY WITH ME, THIS HAS A FEW CURVES and DETOURS

Humour me for a minute, Joseph. I'd always wondered about that night, the night that Offred showed up at our place. I mean, how did she get there? Fred Waterford didn't drive her. Waterford had a driver. You know who that driver was, Joseph? Don't bother answering, I know that you do.

But here's the deal. I don't think that proto-Commander Blaine, Eye of God Nick Blaine, I don't believe that he drove her over to our home. I've learned that he was attending to Fred Waterford's security that night, as well as Nick was seen attending to another Commander's house, across the street, which burned to the ground that night. There were a lot of Guardians who saw him at the Waterford's that night. He never left the compound.

So. How did Offred get to my place?

Stay with me on this, Joseph. It gets involved, I have trouble keeping everything together in my head about that night.

Do you know what else happened that night? You should remember, because this time it was at your home, when Eleanor was alive. I mean, who could forget. Your Ofjoseph, the gender traitor university professor, she stuck a knife into Aunt Lydia's back, then threw her down the stairs, your stairs. That's what happened.

You, you and your house were immediately cleared of any wrongdoing, after-all a slut gender traitor is always the more likely suspect. Also, when Lydia had recovered enough, she herself said it had been an unprovoked, lone attacker, the gender traitor.

But here's the deal - I can't decide which ball it is as I try to keep all this in the air, lest a ball fall to the ground.

I can understand how Ofjoseph can flee your house, get picked up by the 'resistance' and get smuggled out of Gilead. We lose a lot of productive women because of the resistance, but that's not what bugs me.

What bugs me? Your handmaid, Ofjoseph #3, she was smuggled out traveling with - get this - the Waterford baby, the Bilhah birth of no less than Offred #2, otherwise know as….. wait for it, June Osborne.

Are you following? I'm not sure I am, but I cannot get those dots out of my head, and I can't figure out how they are connected.

You know what I think, Joseph? I think that in some strange way, they are connected by you. Your handmaid gets out of Gilead smuggling the Waterford Bilhah baby with her…. how'd Ofjoseph #3 get to the Waterford place to grab the kid? Worse than that, WHY would Ofjoseph #3 even go to the Waterford place to kidnap an unrelated baby? Okay, I see that you're following.

It doesn't add up. But here's what may help. Offred #2, soon to be Ofjoseph #4, June Osborne, she was at large that night. Ended up by means unknown at my place.

I've been going hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for a long time, thinking about that night. A lot of handmaids were covering a lot of real estate, on a night of high alert. Do you see my problem?

You need a roadmap to follow all this.

IT'S YOUR PARTY AND YOU'LL CRY IF YOU WANT TO

So it is, Joseph, I'm on my way to see Nick, in detention, in detention for socking you in front of all of us, socking you on your wedding day. Accusing you of endangering June Osborne in Toronto, when it had been me - at your dinner with Serena - I'd been the one threatening June Osborne. You, you were strangely silent on the subject of Osborne. Why was that?

So here's what I think. I think Nick is sweet on June Osborne, and had been ever since she was Offred.

Here's the deal. I thought the thing that would peg Nick Blaine, the Waterford driver, as the Bilhah-baby's biological dad, was that Fred had probably been shooting blanks, as they say. Then Serena in Canada, she gets pregnant, and Fred is the father. So I nixed that idea. Briefly.

Was Fred his Bilhah-baby's father? It took me a little while to figure it out.

It doesn't matter if Fred was or wasn't. Here's the deal.

Nick Blaine was acting as if he thinks he, Nick, is. Me, I think Rose Blaine knows - as well as about a theorized relationship between Nick and Osborne. Does Rose approve of that? As a Wife of Gilead, she would have no say. Yet she sure is acting like she knows, she's on her way back home to D.C. as we speak, back to daddy at the Wharton estate.

How I am doing, Joseph? Because I think you've known about this…..

….. all along. At least Blaine thinks that you betrayed him, about something to do with Osborne. Whether you did or not is immaterial, he thinks you did. Enough to send him to the Wall. You've got a nice bruise on your chin to prove it.

A FINAL 'HMMMMMMMMMMM'?

Okay, I could not link Nick to Osborne's apostasy about trafficking 86 of our children (not Agnes, thank you Lord). He was in Chicago, quite rightly afforded hero status for some brilliant actions as a field commander.

Osborne by then Ofjoseph, and your marthas, Lawrence, the marthas had been salvaged for their apostasy. So far, so good - no Blaine. I put him aside.

Then - who should be leading the trafficked children from the cargo-plane in Toronto? The Waterford martha, her name was Rita. The Waterford's themselves, they'd already sold themselves out to the Americans by that time.

Martha Rita. Even with the child trafficking, there's a new link back to the Waterford home. Maybe Commander Ray Cushing blowhard that he was, maybe he'd been right about the Waterfords. Maybe Ray, maybe he suspected Blaine. How then, exactly, did Waterford order Cushing's arrest from a hospital bed. Blaine would have known the forms to fill out!

Is the baby that the 3rd Ofjoseph took to Canada, took from the Waterford home…. is the baby Nick's? He certainly thinks it is.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

What is plain, Joseph? Nick Blaine is part of Osborne's reach. I've told you that she is targeting my family. Ipso facto, Blaine is targeting my family.

Are you targeting my family, Joseph?