- II -

(2256)

The arrangement continued for one year, one month, and fifteen days.

Catherine and James remained strong in their relationship, a power couple of intellect and grace that inspired those who worked around them. They led Project Purity through another two phases, making considerable strides in the progress toward their shared dream of clean water. To everyone else, they exemplified the perfect partnership, both in romance and vocation. Their genuine happiness reflected in their actions, and soon people began to idolize them as a rare Wasteland fairytale.

Madison allowed the onlookers their wistful musings, for the story ran deeper than what they saw on the surface. During the nights Catherine lay in her bed, wrapped in her arms and pressed against her body, she wondered how disillusioned the others would become if they knew the truth. A heart belonging to more than one other wasn't unheard of by any means, but polyamory had little to do with the tangled web of Catherine's intricate emotions.

By day, James and Madison maintained fluid professionalism toward each other. Nothing seemed amiss, and no one outside the lattice had an inkling of the inner workings. The only acknowledgment they exchanged of their shared lover came in the form of meaningful nods and knowing glances. It had become a silent communication system between them, developed out of necessity and respect for all involved. Sometimes, Catherine took to James's bed. Other times, she spent the night in Madison's. Ever the wanderer, from one to the other. But never all together; never all at once.

Madison, for her part, accepted the stipulations. To her, only Catherine existed, and even only half was better than nothing. Some would say she had discarded her standards and dignity to settle for this torrid affair, in which the object of her affections took her piece by piece and gave little in return. Madison couldn't bring herself to care. Once, a long time ago, she had been ready to give all of herself to Catherine.

But vagabond as she was, Catherine had turned down the marriage proposal, and soon after, James had entered the picture.

Forgiveness proved the dominant trait in Madison's character, at least when it concerned the love of her life. She found herself tested on this one day in the rotunda, where she had taken on the solo task of documenting readings on the purifier prototype. Catherine strode in, looking immaculate in her lab coat and low-heeled pumps.

Madison glimpsed her over the purifier console and smiled. "Hey there."

However, Catherine did not reciprocate the smile. Her dark brown eyes seemed tight and troubled as she climbed the metal stairs to Madison's position. "I need to talk to you, Maddie."

The atmosphere grew tense. Anxiety spiked. A clipboard holding several papers clattered onto the console.

Madison took Catherine's hands in hers as soon as she reached her, trying to gauge the source of her distress. "What's wrong?"

"It's actually… not something that's wrong, per se, depending on how you look at it," Catherine replied, avoiding her gaze. "But things have to change a little again."

Impatience surged across her pounding heart, and Madison grabbed Catherine's jaw to force her eye contact. "Tell me."

"James proposed."

Madison faltered, forgot how to breathe. In a flash, an unbidden memory came, where she herself had fallen to one knee before Catherine, only to be rejected for reasons never put into words. And now, witnessing the difference in Catherine's face, she dreaded the question she already knew the answer to.

"Cat…" she croaked out, her throat closing. "So… then…"

"I said yes."

x-x-x-x-x

The months dragged by in a torturous haze, filled with strained civility and quiet resentment. Apologies had been accepted, but the offense still lingered. And in spite of all that, the call of the siren retained its potent effect. Madison blamed herself whenever she ended up back in the embrace of an engaged woman, having succumbed to Catherine's allure every single time. While the trysts had become limited and even more clandestine in nature, Madison admitted to a certain degree of smugness that she still laid claim to a part of James's betrothed.

James himself either remained unaware of their ongoing relations or feigned obliviousness to it. He treated Madison with the same amity he always had and even thanked her once in a while for her understanding of his relationship with Catherine. She felt a smidgen of guilt during those instances, although she always justified herself with the notion that he had proposed to Catherine in a purposeful attempt to monopolize her. Whether that proved true or false had yet to be seen, but she did still harbor a certain respect for James. If she hadn't been in love with Catherine herself, she would have given her up to him at the very start.

Things skidded to yet another halt, however, when Catherine rolled on top of her one night and asked her to be her maid of honor, a position she had always reserved for a close sister figure. The request and wording hit Madison like a slap in the face, and she pushed herself into a sitting position, glaring as Catherine sat back on her haunches on the bed. A throbbing ache began in Madison's chest, but it yielded when a palpable limit clicked into place. Had their circumstances not already eroded her tolerance over the past year and a half, she might have agreed at the cost of her remaining self-respect.

But at this point, enough was enough.

"You're going to have to make a choice, Catherine. I can't be your sister and your lover at the same time."

Catherine lowered her eyes and ran trembling fingers through her long mane of curly hair. "I know. I'm sorry. I've put you through a lot because I can't help how I feel about you." A pause, a jaded sigh. "It's like I'm tearing myself in two here. Maddie, in another life, it would have been you. I feel it inside; our souls were always meant to be together." She reached out and stroked Madison's cheek, the genuine love radiating in her gaze. Then, all too swiftly, a tormented quality chased it away. "But my heart chose him."

And with that, the vagabond gave up the wandering life to settle on a home.

Madison nodded, disguising her misery beneath a neutral countenance. No further words needed to be said, as they both sensed a door closing on one future that could have been. Silently, as if already a mere memory, Catherine slipped from the mattress and donned her clothes. Madison grappled with herself, wanting to protest, to break her habit of accepting every curveball of misfortune thrown at her. But she suppressed it, buried it, far too tired of dealing with her own possessiveness and envy to restart the cycle. When it came down to it, her love for Catherine was unconditional at the core.

So she let her go.

Without a word, Catherine wiped the tears from her face and left Madison's bedroom for the last time.

In the unbearable emptiness that followed, the latticework of their entwined hearts unraveled and faded away.

x-x-x-x-x

(2257)

The timeworn lace felt delicate under her fingers as she finished buttoning the elegant neckline of the gown. Her knuckles loitered there at the nape of the other's neck, brushing against the off-white material before gliding down the bride's back. Catherine shivered and started to lean into her touch, but seemed to catch herself at the last second. She broke their contact by stepping forward, lifting up the gown's lacy train as she turned to face her. Madison stayed quiet as Catherine fixed her with a bittersweet look of gratitude and residual yearning, a plethora of unspoken things locked in the depths of her eyes.

They regarded each other as such in the stillness, the jovial clamor outside seeping into the Jefferson Memorial's gift shop. Madison couldn't take her gaze off Catherine even if she wanted to, struck as she was by the sight of the other woman in her wedding dress. A family heirloom, Catherine had called it, exquisite in its pre-War design and well-preserved. She adjusted the lacy sleeves and smoothed down the fabric from the pearl-lined bodice to the mermaid style skirt. Her curly black hair had been tamed into side-swept waves that flowed over her left shoulder, and her dark skin took on a flattering contrast against the light shade of the lace. She held a bouquet of chandelier crystals in her hand, given to her by Owyn Lyons himself as a wedding gift.

Madison swallowed the lump in her throat. Although she had played the part of the dutiful maid of honor ever since stepping down to best friend status, she failed to contain the enduring heartbreak that wedged itself into her conscious thoughts. While she knew Catherine never intended to be cruel, no other word described the situation as it stood. The rest of their colleagues rejoiced the impending union, and Madison once again found herself to be an outsider peering into the tempered glass of Catherine and James's relationship.

However, despite that, she cared too much about Catherine's happiness to simply walk away.

Forcing a small smile, she took the veil from its stand and draped it over the bride's head, pinning the ivory comb into place. Layers of tulle settled over them, and Madison pushed them back and arranged each section to fall over the train. She leaned close to Catherine as she did so, slowing her motions once the last of the tulle drifted down. Her hands inched back and stopped around Catherine's jawline when their eyes met, an electric spark flashing between them to signal its last.

In an abrupt movement, Madison crushed her mouth to Catherine's in a final, desperate kiss. It spoke of everything she'd left unstated, every desire, every ounce of pain their ill-fated romance had put her through. It burned around them, leaving a searing trail of history that would persist through time. But above all, it asked for nothing back other than recognition, the wish for Catherine to understand she'd given everything she had, even if she fell short at the end.

Just as quickly, Madison broke the kiss and released her. "Sorry to cut in on the groom. I figured that was my last chance to do that."

Catherine stared back at her, half-dazed, a whirlwind of indecipherable elements flitting across her expression. "Maddie…"

"I won't do it again. Promise. I just wanted a taste of what it would've been like," Madison told her, reaching out to trace the shape of her high cheekbones. "Now come on. Let's get you married."

Catherine turned toward the door as Madison gathered her train. "What it would've been like?"

"You said it yourself," Madison remarked in a quiet tone. "Our souls were supposed to be together. In another life, you would have been my bride."

x-x-x-x-x

Half a year passed into late December.

Madison, along with the rest of the Project Purity scientists, felt the heat of pressure when the Brotherhood pulled another dozen knights from the memorial. The paladins cited the need for more troops at the Citadel to replace the ones that had defected to the Outcasts, but the team suspected their lack of project results as the true cause of the reassignments. Progress had reached a virtual standstill several months back, when research and construction hit a brick wall. Issues with calculations, tests, and resources all played a part, and the process of resolving each matter took longer than any of them had anticipated.

As chief scientist, James did what he could to keep morale up. He worked longer hours, shouldered bigger workloads, drafted more frequent reports, and assured the others he was fine when they voiced concerns about his health. Madison tried to help where she could, especially since she had noticed Catherine feeling under the weather for some time now. The two women hadn't had much contact with each other in recent weeks, and while they had managed to settle into an intimate but platonic friendship since the wedding, Madison worried that something may have gone wrong.

She ruminated over Catherine's whereabouts on the third day of her absence from work. Madison refrained from questioning James, who looked worse for wear across the lab as he squinted at his terminal after pulling an all-nighter. She glanced at the stacks of papers requiring data entry on her own desk. Although she had been the one to volunteer to process them, the inclination to check up on Catherine overrode her sense of duty.

Ensuring no one noticed, she discreetly moved away from her station and sneaked out.

Minutes later, she knocked on the door to James and Catherine's makeshift apartment near the end of the living quarters. At first, only silence greeted her. Then, as she prepared to knock again, the muffled sound of retching from inside reached her ears. Alarmed, she tried the button for the door, and when it slid open, she hurried into the premises. A toilet flushed inside the bathroom, and Catherine emerged after several seconds, unkempt and ashen-faced.

"Oh my God. Cat," Madison gasped, rushing over to take the other woman by the arm. "Are you sick? Here, sit down."

Despite her frail appearance, Catherine managed a throaty laugh as Madison helped her lower herself into the nearest chair. "I'll be okay, Maddie, thanks. What are you doing here, though?"

"I snuck away from work to see how you were feeling. Good thing I did because you look halfway dead," Madison said, kneeling down in front of her to check her pupils. "Should I go grab James? What are you ill with?"

Again, Catherine only chuckled at her distress. "No, it's all right. This will pass, don't worry. I'll be out of commission for a while, but I should be back on my feet in no time." At Madison's skeptical expression, she continued, "Say, Maddie, can I ask you something?"

"Of course. Anything."

"What is your favorite name?"

Madison paused at the off-topic question. "What?"

"Just humor me here. What is your favorite name, any name, in the whole world?"

Is this a way to distract her from her sickness? If it helps, I'll play along. "Well, my mother's name was Alexandra," Madison replied after a minute of thought. "I always found it very beautiful."

"Alexandra," Catherine repeated, her eyes brightening. "I love it. Would you happen to like the male variation, Alexander, too?"

"Um, sure. I like all names containing 'Alex.' What's this about, Cat?"

A radiant smile spread over Catherine's mouth as she took Madison's hand and pressed it to her stomach. "I want you to be a part of this, Maddie."

Madison sensed, rather than physically felt, a third heartbeat that thrummed between them. Her lips parted as it dawned on her. "You're pregnant."

x-x-x-x-x

(2258)

A shrill cry filled the clinic as Madison cleared the mucus from the breathing passages and wrapped the newborn baby in a blanket. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as she moved the healthy infant onto the small padded examination table next to Catherine's birthing bed. James came up beside her, his breath hitching from behind his surgical mask. She gave the new parents a few minutes with their child, stepping over to the nearby counter to switch out her soiled medical gloves for clean ones.

Once the cries quieted down, and James brought over the gene projector screen to get an approximate picture of what the baby would look like in adulthood, Madison went to Catherine's other side. The exhausted mother turned to her and beamed, reaching out for her hand to lace their fingers together. Madison pulled down her surgical mask and placed a kiss on Catherine's palm before brushing the sweat-dampened curly locks from her forehead. The harrowing labor had passed, and she couldn't begin to describe her relief that both mother and child had come out of it all right.

The father, on the other hand, looked about ready to collapse with joy. Both Madison and Catherine laughed at the way James's chest had inflated as he fawned over the baby. No prouder father existed on Earth at this moment.

Although she had no actual connection to this new family unit, Madison appreciated how Catherine had gone to great lengths to include her in the pregnancy, as well as her intention to include her in the child's life. It helped to ease the dull ache that still echoed deep inside, the perpetual reminder that Madison would never be anything more than a peripheral link in Catherine's world. Some days proved more difficult than others, but if given the choice to bear or erase it, she would have picked this tumultuous road each time.

The hearts walked apart, but the souls remained tethered in an underlying lattice.

They watched James as he bonded with the new life in his hands, a sight that comprised a blessing in this ravaged, war-torn land. Such moments numbered few across the Wastes, and so those fortunate enough to experience them treasured each instance. Madison wondered if maybe someday she could do the same, but for now, she was willing to be a bystander outside the dividing glass.

All of a sudden, Catherine's grip on her hand tightened. "James? James… something's… something's…"

The monitor displaying Catherine's heartrate abruptly went haywire, indicating oncoming cardiac arrest. James flew into action, and Madison tried to do the same, but Catherine continued to hold onto her. Fighting down her panic, she attempted to free herself.

"Catherine, you have to let me go. I need to grab the equipment."

However, the other woman only shook her head, something switching in her face. "No… this… I don't know if I…"

A wave of dread crashed over Madison, coupled with desperation and ire. "You have to let me go. Let me save you."

While James yanked the automated external defibrillator into position, Catherine gazed up at her, things already shutting down in her eyes.

Madison's blood ran cold. "Stay with me, Cat."

"Sorry, I… can't—"

"Catherine!"

This couldn't be happening. Just when everything had started looking up for all of them. Just when they had started to move forward together. But now, the light that had always surrounded Catherine began to dwindle and wane.

"No, no, no… don't give up, Catherine, please—"

"I love you, Madison," she whispered, finally releasing her hand.

Madison refused to accept it even as she felt the sting of tears. Good bye was not an option. But as Catherine's vitals dropped at a frightening rate, reality struck. Fate revealed itself to have horrible timing; a distorted, winding clock. It was harsh, callous, vindictive…

Fate was merciless.

Choking back a sob, Madison bent down and pressed her lips to Catherine's forehead. "I love you. Always."

"Madison, I'll take care of her. Get the baby out of here!" James ordered, applying the AED electrode pads over Catherine's chest. "Move! Now!"

It took all her willpower to tear herself away. Madison rushed to the infant, terror and adrenaline fueling her movements. She grasped the mobile table and wheeled it out of the clinic, stopping in the middle of the corridor when breathing became too hard. Her fingers came up to curl into her hair as she listened to James's resuscitation attempts inside. Shock turned her stomach into lead. What had gone wrong in the past five minutes? The birth had gone fine. What brought on the complications? This couldn't… Catherine couldn't…

She froze when a terrible noise drowned out everything else.

Flatline.

James's anguished wail followed, and she staggered in place as the baby's cries rang out through the corridor.

Why, God? How could this happen? So many things we still had to say… so many years stolen. You took something precious from us. And now, this child…

Succumbing to her own grief, Madison leaned over the table and wept into the baby's blankets. "I'm so sorry, Alexandra."

x-x-x-x-x

The funeral lasted two hours.

The bereavement lasted two weeks and counting.

Ultimately, it culminated in James and Madison holding a private meeting in the conference room.

"What… are you saying?"

James heaved a weary sigh. "It's over, Madison. Project Purity. I can't continue with it."

"Are you insane?" she exclaimed incredulously, not caring whether the other scientists could hear her outside. "All the work we've done—years of research. You're willing to throw it all away?"

He braced himself over a chair and lowered his head. "We've reached the end of the line here. Progress has all but ceased, the Brotherhood has retracted almost all of its support, and Cath—" He took a steadying breath and cleared his throat. "It isn't safe here any longer with the rise in super mutant attacks. I have to take Alexandra somewhere secure and raise her in a protected environment."

"So move her next door to Rivet City and stick her playpen in the security quarters," Madison snapped, coming forward to seize his forearm. "But do not abandon us now. We need you more than ever to see this project through."

James ran a hand over his face. "There is nothing more of this project to continue. It's a lost cause. Can't you understand that?"

"Catherine would have wanted you to keep trying."

She jolted when he slammed his fist into the table.

"Don't," James growled, haggard features twisting as he glowered at her, "use my wife as a persuasive device. She would have wanted our child to be the priority. If you truly knew her, you'd realize this."

Madison wrapped her arms around herself and glared back at him, furious tears trickling down her cheeks. "How dare you say that to me, you bastard. I knew her inside and out a long time before you even came into the picture. Just because she married you doesn't mean I became irrelevant."

James's expression immediately changed to one of remorse, and he placed his hands on her shoulders as they shook with her sobs. "I'm sorry, Madison. The loss and stress are hitting me hard. I'm not myself right now. I know you cared for her, but—"

"She was everything to me. Don't act like you aren't aware of that."

He exhaled and shut his eyes. "I know."

It was still so raw for them. They could stand there and debate which of them suffered more, but in truth, both of their spirits had crumbled. The passage of time did little to help, for the pieces had scattered, lost to the void. It took a few minutes for Madison to compose herself, and when she did, James stepped away and sent her a gaze full of sorrow.

"I'm afraid my decision still stands," he declared, looking for all the world like a man long dead. "I hope you can forgive me. But Alexandra comes first before everything else now."

And just like that, he headed to the exit.

Madison stared after him, seeing not just his back, but their lives falling apart. "You're not the only one mourning her, James. You're not the only one who's hurt that she's gone," she called out in a raspy voice. "But you're the only one who's giving up."

He hesitated at the doorway, but strode out without looking back.

She stood there for a few stunned beats, not quite believing he had really walked out on Project Purity, the cause Catherine had devoted her life to. Then, letting out an angry cry, Madison toppled several chairs and plopped herself on the floor, head in her hands. That was it. They were finished. Everything was over.

She had nothing left.

x-x-x-x-x

A/N: Fastest succession of events I've ever written in one chapter. I'm on the fence about how I portrayed Catherine, as well as Madison's blind devotion to her. On one hand, you can't argue that Catherine was selfish at times, but on the other, she was just too free-spirited to realize it. Poor Madison spent years as a love-sick puppy, but I wanted to depict the fragile balance between unconditional love versus sense of self-worth. Quite a bit to cram into a single chapter, and the next one is projected to be the last. I'll have this wrapped up soon!