Nate could hear the fighting echoing down the hallway. He could only imagine how long it'd been going on before it got to him, he didn't know how deep he was in this 'headquarters'. Screams and weapon discharge echoed down the hallway piercing his ears and making his teeth grit together.

The door opened and snapped shut and Nate bit his lip, hoping it was a friendly face. To his surprise, it was Jacob, dressed in his blue coat and armed with a small weapon that Nate had never seen before. "Well, looks like your people are more persistent than we originally thought," he frowned and Nate's brows pulled together.

"Hiding are we?"

"More like guarding you," he shrugged. "Mother won't like if they just come in and take you," he rounded the table and pushed it against a far wall, turning Nate slightly. He was now able to look at the room a little more clearly without the light's glare.

"What's that gun you have?"

"Don't really have time for our games, Natie," Jacob sighed and sat the thing down next to his head while he went to a cabinet Nate had never been able to see.

The door fell open suddenly, getting kicked in by the boot of a power armor suit. Nate winced and tried to see who it was, but there was no way of knowing. Jacob turned around and threw his arms up.

"Help me! Those ca–cannibals!" he stammered and feigned fear well enough the suit hesitated, and then he grabbed the thing he'd pulled from the cabinet. When he fired it shot a thick projectile right into the eye or the suit, shattering the heavy glass there. Nate's brows jumped and the suit went limp but remained standing. "Christ, that was close," Jacob came back over to Nate and unlatched the belt across his neck, then the one across his stomach.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to get you out of here," he gestured to the room. "Mother needs you in the Feasting Room."

"What did you shoot that soldier with?"

"Don't worry about it," he side and stepped over to the suit. He turned the wheel that opened the armor and Jacob pulled out the Brotherhood soldier wearing it. Nate could see the nail sticking out of his eye. He swallowed and watched Jacob climb into the suit and shift around once it closed. "Always hated the idea of being in one of these," he sighed and strode over to pick up Nate and left the room.

As they went down the hallway Nate noticed they headed away from the fighting, but it seemed to follow them. A few bullets bounced off the suit, Jacob didn't seem to notice, but Nate caught one in the side, and he bent, his eyes squeezed shut. He didn't want to see his body. He knew he was missing too much of himself, and the moment he saw it it would become too real, and he'd lose it. So he kept his eyes closed and gritted his teeth against the deafening sound of battle.

"Here we are," Jacob pushed through a set of double doors in a large hallway where the smaller ones converged and came to a massive cave like area with tables lined up in an almost cafeteria fashion, a long table perpendicular to them on a raised platform. Nate was carried up to the center of the table and put down in front of the woman that called herself Mother.

"Ah, I was worried you wouldn't make it," she smiled and brushed Nate's hair from his face. He glared at her and clenched his jaw.

"From what I hear you're all about to die, why not try to escape?"

"There are only two ways in and out of our base, and both are that way," she gestured to where Nate had come from and he turned his head to look at the door that Jacob closed and locked. Then he parked the armor in front of it, causing the heavy suit to act as a barricade.

When Jacob came back he ran his fingers through his black curls and stood beside the woman. "They'll be here any moment, Mother."

"Go ahead and get me one last piece of him," she gestured to Nate and Jacob nodded, turning around to tend to something out of Nate's sight. The Sentinel met the woman's bloodshot brown eyes and glared at her heavily.

"You sure you'd rather spend your last moments eating me? I think Jacob would like some quality time with you. Boys get horny when they know they're about to die," he said and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Do you wish for us to just kill you, Nathaniel?"

"I don't think you understand that you've already done that," he answered and nodded toward his body, his eyes locked on her face. "I will never be able to live like this."

"Don't be so dramatic," she sighed and sat down in the chair beside him. She was messing with a device that looked like a recorder, though why she would have one of those he couldn't be sure.

Nate felt his breathing coming in harsh pants. Other people were joining in the room, sitting in chairs on either side of the woman. The Sentinel could hear something beating against the door now, and wondered if it was cannibals looking for sanctuary or if it was Brotherhood and Minutemen forces.

"I'm not being dramatic. You took from me the only things that keep people alive in this world. I might have been able to make a life for myself before the war, but not in this place, not in this hell," his lips pulled back over his teeth and he glared the heaviest, most hateful look he'd ever given anyone. The woman leaned back some, seeming to be affected by the stare, if just slightly.

"The fire is ready, what part of him did you want, Mother?" Jacob came back into view and looked him over.

She thought for a moment and sat the recorder down in front of her. "Get me a couple ribs," she decided. Jacob nodded and stepped up to Nate.

"Sorry, don't have time for you to go to sleep for this one," he frowned and Nate sucked in a breath, feeling the clothing he wore be pulled away from him. Then a knife was produced and Nate closed his eyes. "I'd hold still if you want this to hurt as little as possible," Jacob advised and then plunged the dagger into Nate's side, into his ribs to break the bone.

The sound that left Nate was muted by the shattering sound of the door being shoved open and the abandoned power armor falling to the floor. The General tried to look at the forces that came through, but the pain in his side blurred his vision and it took all his efforts not to black out. Jacob was still cutting him, but the sizzle of laser rifles on flesh filled the air, mixing with the cry of the wounded.

It came to a sudden stop when Mother fell over and Jacob bent down behind Nate. Looking up at the ceiling, Nate took a deep breath and regretted it, feeling the severe pain in his side.

"Sentinel?!"

The power armor distorted voice was vaguely familiar, but Nate couldn't place it. Especially not now with his head swimming. Jacob perked up, though.

"Knight? Reagan… Knight?" the cannibal with the icy blue eyes grinned, standing up with his hands in the air. "I never would have thought you were the one to find me."

Nate tried to look, the doorway was open with a suit of power armor in front of another soldier he couldn't make out well. The suit was Knight Knight? The woman who came to speak with him about Paladin Danse? He wouldn't have guessed she would be the one to find him, but, at least it was someone familiar to him, if not just in passing.

"J–Jacob…?" her voice wavered, and even Nate could tell that they had a history that did not end well for her.

"You didn't seriously think I could die in a vertibird crash, did you?" he grinned at her and put his hands down, one of them finding the knife in Nate's side. In response, the Sentinel groaned in agony and arched his back slightly, only to cause himself more pain.

"Leave the Sentinel and you will be taken in for trial and judgment under Elder Maxson," Knight demanded and lifted her rifle.

"Oh no, Maxy won't let me off, we both know that. I'll be sentenced to death, so why bother?" he twisted the knife. "If you want the Sentinel alive, you should put that down, Reagan…"

Nate tried to look over at the knight, but it hurt to move.

"Why didn't you come back to us? Why would you join these…?"

"I was finally free of my father, Reagan, I was offered a new life," he smiled and gestured around. "One you've destroyed, but these last two years have been great. I got to do whatever the hell I wanted! I didn't have to please my father, I didn't have to worry about tainting the family name!" He threw his arms up and then gestured beside him where the woman called Mother had fallen out of Nate's view. "And you've gone and killed the only family that loved me."

"What of Michael? And Robert? Your brothers love you," the knight stepped forward and Jacob twisted the knife in Nate's side causing him to cry out.

"Don't move, Reagan, and keep that hound of yours on a tight leash," he pointed, and Nate wondered if the person with her was one of these 'Midwest hounds' he'd heard so much about.

"Don't kill him, Jacob, if you do you lose your leverage and you die," she took a step forward and the knife twisted again.

"Reagan, dear, I'm already dead. I was dead the moment my vertibird crashed. When Mother found me and offered to heal my broken legs in exchange for my help," he grinned, but it wasn't the attractive smirk he'd used before, this one was that of a man who had lost his will to live. "She only ever asked one thing of me, and that was to kill and eat my co-pilot to show her I was devoted. Weird how easy it was for me to do it," he tilted his head at her and Knight said nothing.

"Lancer-Sergeant Glass, you are sentenced to death under the authority given to me by Elder Dangerfield of the Midwest Brotherhood of Steel," a man's voice came and a sharp crack of a sniper rifle echoed through the room, and Jacob fell away from Nate.

Who was Elder Dangerfield? There was a Midwest Brotherhood?

Nate's head swam, and he knew he was losing too much blood. Between blinks there was nothing above him, and then the knight's face with wide honey eyes and yelling lips. He distantly heard her, and he blinked again, this time when he looked he met the gaze of a man with steel eyes and a freckled face.

He could hear a little better now, and he realized he'd been given a stimpak. "Who…?" Nate breathed, and the knight stepped back forward.

"This is Inquisitor Dangerfield," she said and offered him a comforting smile. "Do you remember me, Sentinel?"

"Knight Knight," he breathed and she nodded.

"We'll get you out of this, sir," she said and he started to slowly shake his head.

"I'm… I've reached my end… Knight," he sighed and she blinked at him.

"We have another stimpak, your bleeding has stopped, sir."

"It was too late," his voice was soft and weak. "I think he… got my…." His chest hurt and he knew that he was still dying. It was either poison or he'd been struck in the heart and the stimpak wasn't enough.

"Dire, get the other stimpak," she turned to the man and he didn't move.

"Reagan," he said softly and Nate closed his eyes, knowing that the man knew just as he did that he wouldn't last much longer. "The only comfort we can offer him is a quick death."

"Madelyn… she'll–" Knight looked back at him and frowned, sadness and disapproval coating her face. "She'll be devastated… and the ghoul…"

"Tell them both how much I love them. Maddy… You need to tell Maxson I think she is ready to be promoted. I can only assume she'll be eased into battle, but she needs it, and despite everything, she deserves it. And… John," he felt a lump rise in his throat and he bit his lip. "I know it's a lot to ask of you, but please tell him he means the world to me, that I'm so sorry I couldn't see him again, and that I love him more than I can express. I… I wish I could see him one more time…."

"They're both outside, in the back outside the fighting, safe," Knight's jaw was tight, but Nate was slipping, and the three of them knew it. He was in too much pain, and his face twisted to show it.

"The distance is too great," the man frowned at the knight. "He will not make it, and if we move him he will only suffer more."

Knight closed her eyes in frustration, but finally nodded. "Is there anything else? Anyone else you want us to relay a message to?"

"My boy, Shaun, tell him I love him, and that I wish I could be there to watch him grow up, and…" he cleared his throat, but it took a lot of effort. "Tell him no matter what, I always loved him, and that I hope he can forgive me."

Knight nodded and looked at the man who nodded that he remembered his words.

"And… MacCready," Nate breathed. "Tell him to take care of Madelyn, that she deserves the best, and I know he can give it to her."

Knight had tears in her eyes, and smile faintly. "They're with child, Sentinel. Madelyn and the mercenary."

Nate felt his heart lighten and he smiled, but pain twisted it. "Good, they will make great parents."

"Maxson gave her an honorable discharge, and she leads the Minutemen," the woman explained and Nate felt his pain lessen.

"She will do great things, I know it," he said and nodded. "And she will be a better General to them than I could be."

"Don't say that, Sentinel," the knight frowned and he shook his head just slightly.

"It's all right." Nate closed his eyes and relaxed, feeling the end nearing, but it was slow, and agonizing. "Knight Reagan Knight, would you do me the greatest favor I could ever ask?"

"Yes, Sentinel."

"Please kill me," he whispered. "Sort of fitting that you be the one to do it, seeing that you had the intent originally…." He tried to laugh, but there was no humor in it.

"Yes… Sentinel."

Nate heard the laser rifle's hum, and felt the cold barrel press to his temple. He took in a slow breath and kept his eyes tightly closed. "John, I love you," he whispered and for a moment, he felt the comforting heat of the laser penetrating his skull.