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The settlement doesn't sleep easily after the attack.
Neither does Cooper.
The night grows taut among the ruins, fragile and anxious. There's no real darkness, too many fires banked but never out, too many soldiers walking their post with a weapon ready, too many sets of eyes that don't shut. Even the wind is unsure, as if it still hears the screams that recently whipped through it.
Cooper hangs out on the roof of the old administration building with his legs dangling over, boots scuffing against concrete that hasn’t meant authority in decades. The rifle sits across his lap, a weight he's used to, an idea that stabilizes. He could disassemble it blindfolded. He could clean it with his eyes closed.
Tonight, he doesn’t touch it.
He lights a cigarette he doesn’t want. Doesn’t inhale. Just holds it between his fingers, not doing much more than allowing it to burn away, ember aglow and ash curling downward and vanishing into the darkness.
The air smells wrong.
Scorched metal. Burned wood. A whiff of the antiseptic from Mara’s clinic wafting on the breeze. Blood washed from stone yet lingering in memory.
Cooper’s senses file it away on their own, the way they always do after violence, a risk assessment long after the risk has ended.
Beneath him, guards shift in overlapping rotations.
Fear does that, he cant help but think.
It’ll pass, or it won’t.
Bootsteps scrape against the ladder behind him. He doesn’t turn. He already knows who it is.
Lucy climbs up without announcing herself, movements sure but careful. She’s learned the building’s quirks, the loose rung halfway up, the section of the roof that dips slightly near the edge. She sits beside him, close enough that their shoulders brush. He flicks the last of the cigarette into the void below.
“Your patrol schedule’s predictable,” she says lightly.
He glances sideways, mouth twitching. “You stalkin' me now?”
“Leadership perk.”
He snorts. “Figures.”
They're poised in companionable silence, the city spread out below them like an injured animal.
Breathing but volatile.
Fires flicker in distant barrels. Somebody laughs a little too hard and is promptly shushed. A generator rattles unevenly, on the verge of clattering to a halt.
Lucy leans back on her hands. Cooper feels that tension she hasn’t released, the way her shoulders remain tensed for holding. She hasn’t slept much either.
“So,” Cooper says eventually, voice rough but casual. “West’s officially being a pain in the ass.”
Lucy smiles faintly. “You noticed.”
“That wasn’t a raid,” he continues. “That was a résumé.”
She exhales slowly. “I know.”
“They wanted to see what you’d do under pressure.”
“And?”
“They learned you don’t fold.”
Lucy studies him, really looks. The ruined skin, the eyes that miss nothing, the posture of a man who’s spent centuries waiting for the next hit.
“They learned you don’t either.”
He smirks. “I’ve been called stubborn.”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
“Persistent?” he offers.
“Infuriating.”
He grins, sharp and familiar. “That’s the one.”
The smile fades as quickly as it came. “You’ve been quieter than usual,” Lucy says gently.
He arches a brow. “That so?”
“Yes. And don’t pretend otherwise.”
He sighs, long and slow. “Alright,” he mutters. “You want the noise? I got noise.”
She turns toward him fully. “I want honesty.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Careful. That’s how people get hurt.”
“Try me.”
He doesn’t dramatize it. Doesn’t pace or posture. Just speaks.
“I don’t like that they looked at you like inventory,” he says flatly. “I don’t like that my biology’s suddenly a bargaining chip. And I really don’t like that half this place is pretending they wouldn’t sell us both for a fence and a proper generator if they thought it’d keep ‘em breathin' longer.”
Lucy listens without interruption. No flinch. No denial.
“And before you say it, yeah, I know you can handle yourself,” he continues. “You don’t need me breathin' down your neck like some irradiated scarecrow. But here’s the thing... I’m not being quiet because I’m unsure, I just happen to be quick to the point. But see here, I’m quiet because if I say certain things that’s when someone starts bleedin'."
Lucy’s lips press together. “You think I haven’t seen that?"
He smirks. “You notice everythin' sweetheart, that’s part of the problem.”
She laughs softly, then sobers. “You’re carrying a lot.”
With one finger, he taps the rifle. “I survived for a very long time being underestimated. This,” He waves a hand at them, "Makes me visible in ways I’m not entirely on board with.”
“And yet you stayed.”
“Yeah,” he says immediately. “Because runnin' would’ve been easier. And I’m tired of easy.”
The words settle, heavy and unpolished. “I’m not here out of obligation,” he adds. “I’m here because I wanna be. I'm here because I wanna be here with you. With... them," he says with a quick nod towards Lucy slightly extended stomach.
Lucy nods, throat tight. “The council wants to talk about succession planning,” she says after a moment.
He scoffs. “Of course they do. Nothin' like a uterus to make people think you’re temporary.”
“They’re not wrong to plan.”
“They’re wrong to plan around you,” he says. “Big difference.”
She smiles faintly. “I told them that.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Because if someone tries to sideline you, I will absolutely make it weird.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Oh, it should be. I specialize in weird.”
The weeks that follow are brittle with tension.
The west doesn’t attack again, not openly at least.
Instead, trade routes falter. Supplies vanish. Messages arrive half burned and unsigned. Traders speak in riddles. Rumors creep in like rot.
Cooper becomes a fixture at council meetings and immediately, a problem.
“That’s a terrible idea,” he says bluntly during the first one. “You’re negotiatin' from a position of perceived weakness.”
A council member bristles. “And you suggest what, exactly?”
“I suggest not lettin' people think they can buy access to her body,” Cooper replies coolly. “Or... the kid.”
Silence falls.
Lucy doesn’t stop him and that fact alone shifts the room.
Afterward, she corners him in the hallway. “You don’t have to be so… blunt.”
He grins. “You hired me for blunt.”
“I hired you for perspective.”
“Sweetheart, that's the same shit.”
They argue more now.
Not explosive. Precise. Intentional.
Lucy calls him out when he oversteps. Cooper pushes back when she compromises too much. They clash like collaborators, not enemies, testing ideas and sharpening edges.
And when they reconcile, it’s quieter than before. Less dramatic. More deliberate.
One evening, after a brutal council session, Cooper finds Lucy alone in their shared quarters, staring at a map scarred with notes and lines.
“You’re overthinkin',” he says.
She doesn’t look up. “I’m planning.”
“Same disease.”
She huffs. “You’re insufferable.”
“Yet here I am.”
She turns finally. “Do you ever think about what kind of world," her hands instinctively craddles her stomach, "they'll be born into?”
“All the time,” he says, without hesitation. “Usually when I’m tryin' not to.”
“And?”
He doesn’t sugarcoat it. “It’ll be ugly. But not hopeless. And it’ll have a mother who doesn’t lie about either.”
Her eyes sting. “And a father?” she asks quietly.
He hesitates only a second. “A teacher who shows them how to live without becoming an asshole.”
She smiles and laughs, leaning closer to him, her forehead resting against his chest. He tenses for half a beat, then relaxes, and rests his chin on top of her head.
They don’t say love. They don’t say forever.
Instead, Cooper says, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Lucy answers, “Good.”
That’s the promise.
Not loud. Not romanticized.
Just two people choosing, again and again, to stand in the same place when it would be easier not to.
The world doesn’t soften for them.
But neither do they.
And somehow, that’s more than enough.
It doesn’t arrive with pomp and circumstance, or symbolism, or any neat moment of recognition. It arrives instead as these things always seem to do, in the wasteland.
Sudden, awkward and completely uninterested in Lucy’s itinerary.
The first contraction comes after midnight. Lucy is ripped out of sleep by a sudden, strange pain near the base of her belly, and all she can do at first is half breathe as she's poked into semi awareness.
For one disorienting second, she thinks she’s been stabbed. Her hand goes instinctively to her side.
Then the pain fades, not gone, but receding.
Different. Internal. Purposeful.
She lies still, counting.
Thirty seconds. Forty. A minute.
Her heartbeat slows.
“Okay,” she murmurs into the dark. “Okay.”
The second contraction comes fifteen minutes later.
By the third, there’s no doubt.
Lucy raises herself up slowly using the beds edge as a brace. Her breathing is steady, calibrated, as she’s trained it to be both in firefights and at the negotiating table.
Pain is information. Panic wastes oxygen. She sits up in bed and swings her legs over the side.
Cooper stirs immediately. “Lucy?”
“I think it’s time,” she says calmly.
That calm lasts exactly three seconds.
Then another contraction rolls through her, stronger this time, dragging a sharp line through her spine. She grips the bedframe until her knuckles whiten.
Cooper is upright instantly.
“Alright,” he says, already moving. “Alright. We got this. We absolutely got this.”
She snorts despite herself. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage, just as I’ve managed death, raiders and radiation storms and my own reflection in a mirror,” he says, slipping on his coat. "This is,” he stops, and his breath grabs. “This is new.”
She tries to grasp him as another wave crashes down. He’s there in a flash, her hand in his, and his grip is firm and solid. His touch grounds them both immediately..
“Get Mara,” says Lucy, clenching her teeth. “And the kit.”
“I’m one step ahead of you already,” he says, and then pauses, turning back. “Don’t move.”
“I’m literally in labor,” Lucy breathes.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow. Controlled.
By the time Cooper returns with Mara and two assistants, Lucy is fully in it. Contractions closer now, sharper, her body unmistakably taking over.
Mara assesses her quickly, efficient and unflinching. “You’re progressing,” she says. “Alright, this is it. You’re in full blown labor.”
Lucy manages a tight smile. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
They move her to the infirmary, a converted storage room, clean but sparse. Cooper stays at her side, refusing to be redirected despite Mara’s raised brow.
“He stays,” Lucy says flatly.
Mara nods. “Fine. But don’t faint, and respectfully, stay the hell outta the way.”
Cooper scoffs. “I survived the end of the world.”
“Men faint during childbirth all the time,” Mara replies dryly.
He mutters, “I’ll try not to.”
Hours blur.
Pain builds in layers, pressure, heat and the sensation of her body stretching beyond anything she’s ever known. Lucy curses exactly twice, both times under her breath.
Mostly, she breathes. Focuses. Endures.
Cooper talks.
Constantly.
Not nonsense. Not platitudes. Just noise.
“You’re doing great,” he says, then immediately adds, “I mean, obviously. Of course you are. Statistically speaking—”
“Cooper,” Lucy pants, “if you say ‘statistically’ one more time—”
“Right. Shutting the fuck up.”
He doesn't shut the fuck up.
He shares a story with her about some stupid pre war commercial he had to shoot where he had to pretend to ride a horse that was actually a poorly disguised motorcycle. He complains about how no one warned him childbirth would involve this much… geometry. He swears at the medical equipment when it malfunctions.
When the pain spikes, so severely that Lucy cries out despite herself, his humor drops away instantly.
“I’m here,” he says, his voice soft and savage. “You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”
At one moment, Lucy holds his arm so tightly that he hears something in his forearm rip.
He doesn’t mention it.
The most difficult time is shortly before dawn. Lucy is exhausted. Her skin is slick with sweat, her hair stuck to her temples. The pain is no longer ebbing and flowing, it’s constant now, unbearable.
“I can’t,” she gasps at one point, panic flashing through her control. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Cooper snaps, not cruelly, but unbending nevertheless. “Don’t even think of lyin’ to yourself now.”
She stares at him, face streaked with tears. “I’m so tired.”
“I know,” he says, his eyes glowing. “But this kid’s stubborn as all hell. Now does that sound like anyone you know?”
She laughs weakly despite herself, and then another contraction hits.
“Push,” Mara instructs.
Lucy bears down with everything she has left.
Time ceases to exist. There’s only pressure and heat and effort and Cooper’s voice counting under his breath like it’s a lifeline.
Then, suddenly, a sound.
Thin. Sharp. Alive.
The cry cleaves the room like lightning.
Lucy gasps, slumping back on the bed and catching her breath before continuing.
Mara’s voice is triumphant. “It’s a boy.”
Cooper freezes.
A boy.
At first, the words are nonsense. His mind feels too large, too loud, the sound vibrating back off of the cavern of his skull. Then Mara turns, carrying something impossibly small and squirming and red.
“Oh,” Cooper breathes. “Oh…oh, hell.”
Lucy reaches out weakly. “Give him to me.”
They place the baby against her chest, slick and warm and real. He quiets almost immediately, tiny fingers curling against her skin.
Lucy stares down at him, awe breaking across her face in a way Cooper has never seen before.
“Hi,” she whispers. “Hi, Thomas.”
Cooper blinks. “Thomas?”
She looks up at him, eyes shining through exhaustion. “Thomas West Howard.”
His breath catches hard in his ruined throat. “You… you’re sure?”
She nods. “West for the direction that tried to break us. Thomas because…” She smiles faintly. “It feels steady.”
He laughs shakily. “I cant argue with that. I like it." Cooper steps closer, hesitating for the first time all night. “Can I…?”
Lucy adjusts slightly, making room. “Come here.”
He crouches beside her, staring down at the child like he’s afraid it might vanish if he blinks.
Thomas West Howard.
He reaches out with one careful finger. The baby takes to it immediately, much stronger than he could ever imagine.
Cooper’s mouth opens and closes again. “Oh okay,” he whispers hoarsely. “Hi.”
Lucy looks at him, tenderness soft and insistent. “He’s real.”
“I’m aware,” Cooper says, voice heavy. “I just.... I didn’t think it was possible for me to make something like this.”
She meets his gaze.
Mara places a hand on Lucy’s shoulder. Congratulations Lucy.” She turns to Cooper. “Congratulations, dad.”
He nods, swallowing hard.
The sun is up, the pale light coming through cracked windows and finally there’s Cooper again, with a sandpapery voice thick with emotion.
“Well,” he says quietly, “kid. Welcome to the world. Your mom’s amazin’. I’m out here tryna do my best. And the world’s a mess.”
Thomas squirms, unimpressed.
Cooper snorts.
Lucy laughs softly, exhaustion finally settling in.
They don't make promises.
They don't talk about the future beyond the next hour.
They just sit there, three survivors, breathing in the quiet after the storm.
Thomas sleeps against Lucy’s chest.
And for the first time in a very long time, the wasteland feels held.
Night in the settlement sounds different after a birth.
The air doesn’t hum with tension, the way it does on the heels of violence, or crackle with anticipation as they wait for it. Instead it settles, ponderous and tentative, like the world itself isn’t quite sure what to do with something recently made.
Lucy is lying still on the infirmary cot, Thomas warm and solid against her chest. Her body aches in places she never knew it could, but it’s the deep, bone level exhaustion that renders even breathing an act of will. She doesn’t open her eyes but she’s not asleep.
Cooper is sitting in the seat beside her, elbows against his knees and palms pressed together as if he were afraid they would grab at someone or something on their own power.
He hasn’t stopped looking at the baby.
Every few seconds, his gaze flicks from Thomas to Lucy and back again, like he’s checking that they’re both still real.
“You can sleep,” Mara had told Lucy earlier, “We’ve got him.”
Lucy had nodded. “Thank you.”
Cooper hadn’t even said anything, but he’d looked at Lucy like she’d handed him something breakable and priceless all in one.
This time the room grows still, save for the faint, unsteady breath of a newborn and changes of watch by guards somewhere in the distance.
Lucy shifts slightly, being careful not to disturb Thomas.
Cooper is up instantly.
“You okay?” he asks, too fast.
She opens one eye, just enough to reassure him. “I’m fine.”
“That didn’t sound like fine.”
“That was, ‘my body just did something insane and would like to file a complaint'" she murmurs.
He lets out a low laugh, tension releasing just the tiniest bit.
“That's fair.”
She lies back down, one arm protectively wrapped around Thomas. His small face is scrunched in concentration, lips pursed, forehead furrowed as if he already has opinions about the world. Cooper looks at him as if he’s watching a miracle and a bomb all at once.
After a long moment, Lucy lets her breathing slow deliberately, eyelids lowering fully. She doesn’t announce it. She doesn’t need to.
Cooper notices anyway.
He waits.
Five minutes. Ten.
Her breathing stays slow. Even. Convincing.
He moves in his chair, carefully to not make noise.
“Hey,” he says, the word so soft sounding, “Kid.”
Thomas stirs, emitting a questioning soft sound. Cooper freezes, then untenses as the baby doesn’t cry.
“That’s… yeah. That’s my bad,” he whispers. “I just wanted to talk to you for a little.”
Lucy keeps her eyes shut, her heart in her chest tightening.
Cooper gets up slowly and approaches the bed. He hesitates, hands hovering uncertainly. “I — “ He coughs discretely. “Lucy?”
No response.
He exhales, shoulders dropping. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Alright.”
He leans down with a surprising tenderness and places his hands under Thomas with comically exaggerated care. These movements are cautious, deliberate, no hint of the deadly precision with which he operates a rifle. He emits a small involuntary gasp when he lifts the baby from Lucy’s chest.
“Oh,” he whispers again. “Right. You’re… heavier than you look.”
Thomas squirms, protesting softly.
“Hey, hey,” Cooper murmurs, panic flickering briefly before he reins it in. “I got you. I got you. Don’t—don’t cry for me that way. I’m new at this...”
He sinks back into the chair, with Thomas folded oddly but snugly against his chest. The baby’s head disappears under the bend of Cooper’s chin, impossibly small. Cooper doesn’t budge for a while. Then he exhales.
“Alright,” he says quietly. “Let’s get one thing straight.” Thomas looks up at with him, his blurry eyes a shade darker than Lucy's own and more curious.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Cooper says. “Hell kid, it's been a while. But all I know is that I’m gonna mess up. Probably a lot. I mean... I have existed for a very long time, yet somehow it didn't make me any wiser.”
Thomas lets out a small sound, somewhere between a sigh and hiccups.
Cooper snorts, and smiles briefly.
He adjusts his hold slightly, remembering something old and buried, how to support the head, how to rock without jostling. Muscle memory resurfaces slowly, like something dredged up from deep water.
“It’s been over two hundred years,” he says quietly. “Since the last time I held a baby like you.”
His voice roughens, just a little.
“I was a different man then. Thought the world made sense. Thought if you did things right, you got to keep what you loved.”
Thomas’s fingers curl reflexively, catching the edge of Cooper’s coat.
Cooper goes very still.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “That’s new.”
Lucy’s throat tightens.
“I don’t know if I deserve another chance at this,” Cooper admits softly. “And I don’t know if the world’s gonna treat you kind. It hasn’t been fair to anyone I love.” He swallows hard. “But the thing is, I already love you,” he goes on. "And that part? That part doesn’t scare me because it's already done.”
Thomas shifts, tiny fist pressing against Cooper’s chest.
Cooper lets out a shaky breath that’s halfway to a laugh. “You hear that? That’s you ruining my tough guy reputation.”
He rocks gently, slow and rhythmic. The baby’s breathing evens out, eyelids fluttering.
“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Cooper murmurs. “The world’s broken. People will try to use you. Hurt you. Decide who you are before you get a say.”
He glances toward Lucy briefly then back to Thomas.
“But your mom?” he says quietly. “She’s something else. Stronger than any man I’ve ever known. Smarter too. If you follow what she’d do, you’ll be okay.”
He stops here, then murmurs quieter, “If you’re anything like me… we’ll work on that.”
There’s a little sound from Thomas, like an expression of complaint. Cooper smiles, really smiles, his face exhausted and open in a way Lucy’s never seen.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “I figured you’d say that.”
He shifts his grip again, feeling more confident now, one hand on Thomas’s back, the other cupping him protectively at his side.
“I can’t promise I’ll always know what to do,” Cooper says. “But I’ll tell you I’ll be there. Even when I’m scared, hell, especially then.”
Lucy can feel tears threatening to sting her eyes, but she doesn’t let herself open them. This moment is not for her.
“I’ve had plenty of years believing that I was finished,” Cooper says. “That all the good things left to defend were behind me. Turns out, I was wrong.”
Thomas sighs in his sleep, parting his mouth.
Cooper chuckles softly. “You don’t even know what you did, yet.” He sways softly and hums to himself, under his breath, something tuneless, half forgotten, the echo of an old lullaby he knows by heart but can’t quite recall.
“Thomas West Howard,” he murmurs. “Hell of a name. You see? And even then... your mom didnt hesitate in giving it to you. She had put in silent thought to it. But it fits.”
The baby doesn’t respond, already drifting deeper into sleep.
Cooper leans back carefully, eyes never leaving the small, perfect weight in his arms.
“I’m gonna try,” he says quietly. “That’s all I got. But it’s yours.”
He sits there for a long time.
When Lucy finally opens her eyes, it’s to see Cooper slumped slightly in the chair, chin resting on Thomas’s soft hair, eyes closed.
Asleep.
Still holding him.
Lucy watches them, chest full to the point of ache.
She doesn’t wake him.
She just lets the night hold all three of them, fragile, exhausted, and alive.
For now, that’s enough.