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Nora was awakened from a dream by a strange feeling between her legs. The bed felt warm and wet. She laid there for a moment, dazed, before she snapped awake with a sudden realization and a jolt of pain.
"Nate? Nate. Nate!" She smacked the bed next to her, frantically trying to wake her sleeping husband.
"Nora? What's the matter?" he replied, half asleep.
"I think my water just broke."
"It's okay, it's going to be okay. We're gonna get through this."
"It's okay, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna get through this," MacCready said, holding Nora's hand as the doctor worked on her.
She had gotten slashed on her stomach and thigh pretty bad by the raider's sword before MacCready had had the chance to off him. She had lost a lot of blood and it was illuminated by the setting sun as it pooled between her thighs and along her sides on the hard concrete floor of the Red Rocket station they called home. She had limped as far as she could and then collapsed several miles from the station. MacCready had carried her the rest of the way back and then sent Dogmeat to get the doc in Sanctuary. Her battered army fatigues were red and soaked from just below her armpits all the way to her knees. The doc had doped her up on some liquified Buffout and was patching her up, but she was still semiconscious and mumbled and flailed while he worked. He said she might be dreaming.
Nora held Shaun in her arms as the doctor sewed up the incision. All she felt was a slight pressure every time the needle pierced her skin. It had been a difficult decision to get a C-Section, but after 6 hours of labor and no birth, her OBGYN had deemed it necessary to avoid any more trauma to her body or the baby. She didn't necessarily agree and would've kept pushing until that baby popped out of her, even if it had taken 6 more hours, but that's just because she was stubborn. Nate sat by the bedside, watching his wife and their child. As Nora started to drift off to sleep as her body decided it needed to sleep off the anesthetics, he stroked her hair and gently removed Shaun from her chest, placing him on his back in the hospital crib.
It was nighttime by the time Nora was all stitched up and stimpaked. As soon as the doc was done patching her up and was paid for his trouble (he said it wasn't necessary as he was the town doctor for Sanctuary and it was only fair that he helped the General for free, but MacCready insisted and paid him anyways), MacCready took a pair of bandage scissors and cut off the rest of Nora's blood soaked army fatigues that the doctor hadn't needed to remove. He then picked her up and laid her in their bed and wrapped her in a warm blanket. He took off his boots, hat, scarf, and coat and laid down beside her.
Nora awoke and found that she was alone in bed. She heard the shower running down the hall and heard Codsworth tutting around in the baby’s room as Shaun cooed quietly in his crib. She turned to look at the clock next to the bed. It read 8:30 AM. She stretched and groaned before getting up and going over to the wardrobe. She looked through her clothes and picked out a powder blue polo shirt and khaki pants.
MacCready couldn’t sleep. It had been hours since the sun had set. He had gotten up and played with Dogmeat for a while and, when he felt himself getting tired, he laid back down. The second his head hit the pillow, he wasn’t tired anymore. His mind was running a mile a minute. He was thinking about Nora and Shaun and Lucy and Duncan. He was thinking about how he, a no-good mercenary with his own heavy baggage, couldn’t possibly replace Nate in Nora’s mind. Still, they were two sides of the same coin and he knew they both could see that. That’s why they meshed so well, why they worked so well together. That didn’t stop him from feeling bad about it, about himself, about their relationship. He knew that he’d never be able to have the same relationship with Nora as he had with Lucy simply due to the fact that they were different people, but he still beat himself up about it. He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
“Sir? Mum? You should come and see this!” Codsworth called from the living room. He sounded concerned. Nate picked up Shaun and brought him into the living room with them. Nora thought, as she was heading into the living room, that it was strange that a robot could sound concerned.
The news anchor sounded concerned as well.
“Followed by… yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes, sounds of explosions… We’re… we’re trying to get confirmation, but we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations. We do have… coming in… confirmed reports, I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My god.”
Nora groaned and shifted as she woke up, feeling the dull aches in her abdomen and leg. She was surprised to find a warm body lying next to her. Had this whole mess been a dream? Had she just dreamt up the nuclear detonation?
“Hey, hon,” she said sleepily, snuggling closer to the body in bed with her.
“Hey boss, how’re you feelin’?” MacCready replied.
Nora blinked. That wasn’t Nate’s voice. That wasn’t right.
Reality came crashing down on her as she looked around and realized that she wasn’t in her home in Sanctuary, but was in fact in the garage of the Red Rocket truck stop she now called home. She felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath her. She felt like she was going to vomit. She felt like screaming and crying and running away from her problems. But she just laid there, painfully still, as silent tears streamed down her face. She felt MacCready sit up beside her.
“Oh, geez, boss. Hey, it’s alright,” he stroked her hair gently, unsure if she wanted him to or not.
She choked out a sob. “It’s just fucked up. Everything is fucked up, RJ. The war, the wasteland, the shit that happened in the vault, everything. I-I thought it was all a dream. I just... I thought you were… I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s alright Nora. It was probably just a side effect of the meds that the doctor gave you when he patched you up.”
“Doctor? Patched me up? What? What are you talking about?” she sniffled.
“That raider in the woods with the sword. Near Concord?” Nora nodded, wiping her eyes. “He slashed you up real bad. We were walking back here and you collapsed. I carried you back here and got the doctor from Sanctuary to stitch you up. He gave you some liquid Buffout and said it might cause some vivid or strange dreams.”
“It felt so real…” Nora sighed. She took a deep, shaky breath. That crying had made her stomach hurt. She reached down to run her fingers over the bandages covering her stitches and was made acutely aware of her lack of clothing. “I feel underdressed,” she remarked. She felt silly saying it, especially around MacCready, but it was true considering he was still fully clothed.
MacCready laughed. “I couldn’t find another set of army fatigues in your stuff, but there’s a set of road leathers and an armored vault suit on the workshop if you want to wear those.”
Nora smacked him gently on the arm. “You just picked those out for me so you could check out my ass as we walk.”
“What, would you rather wear the Grognak costume?”
“Maybe I would! Maybe-”
MacCready rolled over and kissed her, cutting her off. “We still have 4 or so hours to figure that out. Right now, you need to rest so that you can heal.”
“Fine,” Nora grumbled, settling into his arms. Not long after saying that, she fell asleep. MacCready found it much easier to relax knowing that Nora was safe and healing and everything was alright and soon he was asleep as well.