It's nights like these where I desperately wish Derek were here with me.

Though I know they probably should be asleep by now, our oldest two daughters are in their room, playing with a Ouija Board, trying to startle each other. I'm not going to make them go to school tomorrow, even if I should. Their little brother is in his and their little sister's room, reading, and their little sister, my youngest, is asleep on my bed, curled up next to our little old lady cat, Corinne. It would be perfect if only their father were here with me, but he's gone, again, and supposedly 'indefinitely put into combat' if Lyons can be believed. I had him back for a little over a month, and he's been taken from me again. It hurts more and more every time.

Then again, maybe I wouldn't mind so much if not for the damn test in my hands with its happy little blue plus sign.

Six, nearly seven years come February since we had our last baby. Two years since August we lost our…eighth, and after only two months. I…if we lose our ninth before he…I –

"Mommy? I need help."

Emmett. Tossing the test in the trash, I push open the doors of the master bathroom only to sigh when I see my eight year old son rubbing his head and sitting on the edge of my bed looking embarrassed. A simple press of my hand to his forehead and it's clear why. I guess he won't be going to school tomorrow either.

"Did you throw up?" I gently ask him, taking one of his hands when he nods and hops back down to the floor. "Where?"

"In the kitchen," He mumbles. "I was going to get orange juice, but I threw up on the floor."

"It's alright," I say, lightly messing with his long curly hair. "Everyone gets sick sometimes."

I almost start crying when he tightly hugs me but I can't, for his sake. Tiredly rubbing at my eyes – distracting him from any hint of it – I finally gently pry him off of me and instead just hold one of his hands and follow him down the hall and down the stairs. Shuffling his feet, I turn around when we reach the stairs and slowly walk down backwards, helping him down little by little. Soon as we reach the bottom and to the first floor, I scoop him up as best I can, harder and harder by the day with him being eight and far from a baby like the…

"Hey," I tell him, setting him down on the kitchen table and setting my hands to his shoulders. "You've just got a bit of a bad cold. Give it at most a week, and you'll feel all better."

He weakly nods. "Can I still have orange juice?"

"Of course, Em," I say, affectionately ruffling his hair. "Just give me a few minutes."

He smiles a little and I smile back at him before quickly dodging into the laundry room to grab a towel, careful to step around the bile which, for how embarrassed he seems, is only a little. Filling a pot on the sink and drenching the towel in it with a more than necessary spill of soap, the moment I'm sure it'll sweep it up quickly, I cut the water and toss it down on the floor over it. Emmett giggling a little when I mop the floor with the towel under my feet makes me feel a little better. Something about the way he smiles and giggles is always so sweet and…he really is so much like my grandmother. Their nonna.

May and Lissy are the only ones of them who really got to know her, didn't they?

No, I…I can't dwell on that. Or any of this. I –

"Cleaning the floor on a towel is like skating," Emmett hums, shaking out his long and messy curls. "I want to go skating again soon. Do you think I'll be able to teach Ada to skate?"

"Depends," I reply, giving him a small smile and sweeping up the rest of the bile with the towel. "Give me a minute to start running this in the washer."

"Okie dokie," He says. "You do a good job getting everything fixed. You and daddy really do fix everything!"

"We do our best," I take another look at the floor as soon as the towel is thrown in the washer. Seeing nothing left, quickly cleaned, I slam the washer door shut and start the cycle. "Try and rest, Em," I tell him, stepping back into the kitchen and getting his orange juice out of the refrigerator. "I know you don't like it, but, if you still feel sick tomorrow, take a nap if you need to."

He sighs. "Napping is weird. Why does Ada still take naps? I thought we don't need them anymore when we're older than four or five and she's six."

"Ada does gymnastics four times a week," I remind him, pouring his orange juice. "Do you want a straw?"

Emmett shakes his head. "It won't help me not feel sick. Plus straws are kind of useless if you're not a little, little kid. They're just weak plastic pipes."

I can't help but laugh a little. "Always thinking about something even adjacently related to science, aren't you?"

"Dr. Kaplinsky was showing me how the pipe systems in the hydroponics lab work earlier this week," He says, taking the glass of orange juice from me, slowly taking a few sips of it. "I…I hope I don't stay like this long," He says, looking embarrassed again when he sets his orange juice down next to him on the table. "I like being at school."

"I know you do, Em," I say, kneeling down a little to be eye to eye with him. "And I'm sure you'll get better quickly."

"I don't know why May doesn't like school," He mumbles. "It's fun. I always hate missing school."

"It's just one of those things. She'll get past it eventually," I reassure him. "She just has a lot of stuff to do, and it gives her anxiety."

Emmett nods, taking a few sips of his orange juice again. "Thanks, mommy."

"Of course, Em," I say, standing up and nearly spilling his orange juice on him when he sets it back down at the startling sound of the door going… "I'll be right back. Finish your orange juice, and get back to sleep. You'll feel better after."

"Okie," He says, looking a little nervous.

I'm nervous too, Em, I really am. Around the corner, down the hall, the entry way…

Damn it. Madi and Janice are…and I can't even –

"Just so you know, Emmett is a little sick," I say as I open the door to let them in. "But I'll have him back to sleep soon."

"Oh no," Janice's face falls. "Where is he?"

"Kitchen. He –"

"I'll help get him back to sleep. I'm sure getting him back to his room won't take long."

"I…thanks, Janice," Seeing Emmett smile upon seeing and hearing Madi and Janice is comforting enough. Helping him down, having finished his orange juice, I walk him over to Janice, who gently takes his hands. "I'll see you in the morning, Em. If you have to wake me up later, you can."

"I will," He mumbles, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.

And too soon he and Janice are gone down the hall and up the stairs to his room.

"I brought the pinot grigio you like best," Madison says, taking the bottle out of her bag. "And another for Danvers. She had enough to worry about before Lyons made the decision to impose taxes by the end of the year, but some, to put it incredibly lightly, are annoyed about it."

"Much as I would…I can't have any tonight," Madison, please don't ask, please don't – "That will be all you and Janice. I hope you don't mind."

She raises an eyebrow. "Since when do you turn down wine? With how things have been going with the Brotherhood, I thought it might help you relax."

"It won't," I tell her, fidgeting with my thin rimmed glasses. "If anything, it'll make things worse."

"Don't tell me you've been drinking enough to make yourself sick," Madison says, setting the bottle down on one of the kitchen counters. "I know things have been stressful with Derek being deployed on and off for long –"

"It was better when he was here, like it always is, but I can't just…" I shake my head when she stares at me questioningly. "I'm sorry, Madi."

"I'm only surprised, Hadley, not upset. You don't have anything to apologise for, I just thought we were going to have wine together after your kids went to sleep," Madison tiredly sighs. "Hadley, I wish I could say otherwise, but you look terrible. What's wrong?"

"Wait, something's wrong?" Janice says, coming back alone. Emmett, more than likely, must be back to sleep. "Did Lyons come up with a worse idea than levying taxes?"

"Nothing is wrong now," I say, nervously leaning back against the kitchen counter. "But it easily could be at…I don't know."

Janice takes a small step back. She knows.

"Did you get a chance to tell Derek?"

"I only found out today, so, no. I didn't. He left three days ago on another deployment."

Silence except for the humming of electricity. Silence, one of the few things I despise.

"I'm not only worried about…" I can't make myself say it. I never can. "Lyons has told me fuck all unless I push him, and all I know now is my husband is no longer stationed at the Citadel, going out every few weeks for a standard operation, and is now indefinitely put in combat. I…I can't help but feel as though someone is trying to deceive me."

"You'd be right. The Brotherhood probably are," Madison frowns. "I'm not going to insult your intelligence, Hadley. You know as well as I do, even if Lyons would personally object to it, the others in Brotherhood leadership would overrun him and they would, I'm sure, have no problems with manipulating you and your family if they deemed it necessary for any reason."

"Quinlan especially, with how strict he is in his narrow interpretation of their rules," Janice remarks, though soon falling silent. "How many…" She hesitates. "How many now?"

"Four lost," I quietly reply, rapidly blinking back tears. "It becoming five…I'm damn near sure it would break me, even more so if it's before I…before Derek comes home."

"I'm sorry, Hadley," Janice says, walking over to the couch and sitting down me down. "Whatever you need, we're here for you."

"Yes," Madison says. "Well. Seeing as Janice and I have no reason not to have any, we'll still be having the wine."

"Go ahead," I tell her, looking down at my hands when Janice pulls a blanket out and hands it to me. "It's not your fault you didn't know."

"Sounds as though you didn't either," Madison remarks with the distinct popping of the cork. "Whatever happens, Derek will be there for you and your kids, the same as he always has."

"That's why I married him," And he's never strayed from that role, that man. "I'm sorry. Have things been alright with the lab?"

"Depends on what part of the lab you're talking about," Madison says, taking out and pouring two glasses of wine. "Janice, I'm sure, can tell you how much of a nuisance Zimmer is. You would think, after a few months of getting in the way of everyone and everything and being removed by Rivet City Security, he would have given up and gone back to the Commonwealth, but he's persistent."

"A persistent nuisance is an understatement," Janice says, laughing a little when Madison comes around and hands her one of the glasses of wine. "I think he was particularly annoyed when he realised I know more about biology than him. He stormed out of the labs this morning, which made getting work done a lot easier."

"Anna was a lot more agreeable, too," Madison notes as she joins us. "Either I've finally gotten through to her, or she's finally realised being constantly irritated and interfering with everyone else's work won't make me want to do her any favours."

I raise an eyebrow. "She still expects to be put on the portable fusion projects?"

"Yes, and it doesn't help that James – when he was here, that is – helped push some of it forward that I haven't had nearly enough time to," Madison sighs. "I still think he's lost his mind, going after some pre-War work that could very well be destroyed by now, if it had even been completed in the first place. Doesn't help I was right about his daughter being in danger where she was in their Vault. If he were still here, I probably wouldn't mind it but, without James…"

"I know you were hoping he would stay or, at least, return to his daughter and come back to work with us and her," Janice shakes her head. "I don't know what he was thinking. My hope is he knows what he's doing and will be back soon enough, but I know it hurts."

"The same as before," Madison says. "I don't know what's gotten into him, but, as annoying as it was, what with him showing up as though nothing has happened in nearly twenty years, having him back felt good."

"Of course it did, especially with how tense things have been with the Brotherhood alone," I take off my glasses and set them aside, tiredly rubbing at my eyes. "But, at the same time, I saw how disappointed you were by his departure, how disappointed you still are. Dwelling on it can't be helping, can it?"

"Whether it is or isn't, all I know is his daughter has, out of nowhere, become my responsibility," Madison says, pausing to take a long sip of her wine, still looking irritated when she sets it down. "In some ways, I think I'm being punished. Annie isn't a nuisance or stupid, but she's got her mother's ego – though Catherine denied having one to the bitter end – and is more than a little overconfident. Thanks to her sheltered and focused upbringing in a Vault, I'm sure."

"I made the mistake of saying that to her," Janice admits, laughing a bit. "She got annoyed with someone in the lab for 'getting in her way and nearly spilling several corrosives' and bristled when I asked her why she assumes she knew what was supposed to be going on. She wasn't wrong they should have been watching what they were doing, but the way she said it startled me. Asking her that did make her more annoyed and she walked off looking embarrassed, presumably to go through her father's old notes or, at least, the ones he had misplaced before leaving."

"James left a lot more than I thought he had," Madison says before pausing and taking another sip of her wine. "I hope he knows what he's doing. What I know he took from our files were maps and plans we've recovered or found over the years from Vault-Tec. We've been able to, on a smaller scale, recreate some of their work, but the maps were all but useless, and only saved for their historicity. He's apparently looking for a Vault 112, although it could have been 111 or 87…I never could quite get a clear answer from him about where he was going, other than that he was looking for a device he thinks can get Project Purity on track again. But none of that has to do with or is Annie's fault."

"It isn't, although I can't blame anyone for getting frustrated with her. She really doesn't have a filter and, while smart and competent, is really overconfident," Janice says before shrugging. "On the other hand, she's petite and has a cute accent, like an English princess from those old films, so I'll call it even. She's more competent with hair than I'll ever be, too, seeing as she somehow gets a braid that brushes her calves up into a coiled bun every day."

"Seems she's had a rough go of things," I say, pausing upon hearing movement upstairs. As soon as I'm sure it's only the cat, I feel better. "How long has she been here?"

"Not too long, which is why I'm hoping James might come back, whether he realises she's here or not," Madison hesitates before setting her wine aside. "She's as driven as her father, which is admirable, but it probably doesn't help with how people see her. To be completely honest, what I've come to realise is – largely, I suspect, from being raised in a Vault – she may be nineteen, and incredibly intelligent which, being James and Catherine's daughter, I expected, but she has the social skills of fifteen or sixteen year old at best. I don't think she's ready to be out here. She nearly died just a few days after leaving the Vault and only managed to get here because the woman from Megaton who rescued her brought her here. Regardless, the point is, this isn't a good environment for her."

"I'm not sure it's a good environment for anyone," Janice says. "We're lucky to have the Brotherhood keeping us all safe, but, at the same time, I think people are getting more than frustrated with them."

"Taxes," I mutter. "Lyons couldn't have come up with a worse idea if he tried. Those of us whose families have been in the Brotherhood already know damn well that a portion of what would ordinarily be your yearly income is shaved off for everything from maintenance to weaponry and munitions production, but most people? I'm sure Pinkerton will throw a fit."

"Harkness and Danvers are one step ahead of him," Janice stifles back a laugh. "Apparently, he did his best to get his hands on explosives again after they got confiscated but was so angry about the taxes that he was passed out drunk when they came looking for anything he could use as a weapon. Danvers took a picture of him and the…many bottles of vodka and showed them to Quinlan. Suffice is to say he is exempt from paying taxes."

"The Brotherhood might ease up on the idea if they have to," If support comes in from out on the West Coast, and some of what they're missing is made up for that way, it could… "But I suspect Lyons will hold onto it for as long as he can. I can't say I blame him, if only because of how it would look if he went back on this."

"After what he apparently spoke about at the Memorial, I doubt anyone would think he's weak," Madison counters. "He or – to be fair – the Brotherhood's other leaders might worry he'd be seen as weak, but the fact of the matter is he's not. Lyons and I may not be particularly fond of each other, but I'm not going to deny his strength as a leader out of spite. Some of what he did say, from what I was told, did concern me, though."

"'Our survival rests on harmony and steel?'" I quote. "Or something to that effect. He's said similar before."

"No, I expected that," She says, annoyance brushing over her face again. "What Harkness said he heard – having gone as a 'representative of fair city' though I'll be damned if it isn't his sheer curiosity – towards the end was what startled me. I didn't bring the tape with me, but he recorded the whole speech, if you're curious. As for what concerns me, it was that he emphasised the importance of the West Coast Brotherhood, and, to a lesser extent, the Southwest."

"He did?" That's a shock. "I know, from one of my brothers, the West Coast is relatively stable, though their relationship with the NCR is a bit unsteady. As for the Southwest…I'm shocked my other brother hasn't left their ranks with how chaotic things are, seeing as he and his wife have two young kids."

"Seeing as he didn't mention their Elder by name, it's probably safe to say the Southwest is less focused," Madison frowns. "In short, Lyons said 'it is with ourselves bound by steel under my command as the East Coast Brotherhood's Supreme Commander and our Brothers and Sisters bound by steel under command of Elder Cleric Quintus as the West Coast Brotherhood's Supreme Commander that we will ensure not only the end of the Enclave but the end of a world ungoverned by law and order.' In principle, I don't disagree with that, however…"

"I think it was more to rally the troops than anything else," Janice assures her. "But I know the mention of Quintus bothers you."

"It bothers me because Lyons and Quintus assumed power around the same time, albeit Lyons about five or six years earlier, seeing as he arrived here over twenty years ago, now," Madison irritably replies. "I have had the displeasure of meeting both of them, and they are both cynical, preoccupied by the concept of loyalty and the strength of one's character, and care about 'cutting the future by the sword' ahead of all else, considering they both view not being a model member of the Brotherhood to be weakness. I'll give the both of them I understand being ambitious and, even, agree with them that we could all use as much honesty as possible but their demands of loyalty and devotion to the Brotherhood frighten me, particularly because Lyons has spent the better part of the last few years trying to take over my research."

"He's still trying to do that?" I could have sworn he – "I thought he finally gave it a rest after you had Danvers haul a few of his men out of your office. He didn't?"

"Worse, he's compelling Anna to speak to him and the Brotherhood. About our research, and, I'm sure, about me," Madison says, glancing between myself and Janice. "I don't doubt he intends to try and find a reason to take over my research, but I would prefer to deal with him myself. I'm in no mood to deal with more of his people. If it's that important, then he can damn well prove it to me, because work in our labs may be coming along nicely but they are not going quite according to schedule, and I am not putting up with any more distractions. I…well, truthfully, I can't."