Wasteland

Pain woke her the next morning followed by a gush of water that wasn't her bladder. Jack was quick take her soiled clothes and to fetch the cleanest towels and blankets he could find. He boiled water for sterilizing and soaked her clothes with soap in the tub. How he knew these things she did not know, nor did she care. At the moment her only concern was the sharp, stabbing that tightened her gut with an incomparable anguish. The tormenting ache came in waves that lasted longer and were more powerful each minutes between them became less and less as she lay on the bed, gripping the rails of the head board. Jack lay the towels under her and gave her a stick to bite down on. He'd sawed off the end of a broom handle. Even through her own suffering she could see his worry and fear. He had obviously come to the end of his knowledge at this point. He knelt beside her and took on of her hands in his.

"It'll be okay. I promise ye." He said.

The backs of his fingers from his free hand caressed her cheek to try and comfort her. His face was kind and his eyes sincere, but she could see his own fear in them. So she nodded to assure him as well as herself of his words. The overwhelming need to push and she obeyed her body's command. Jack hurriedly moved to the end of the bed when he realized what she was doing. The pain was excruciating. She could feel her body pushing and the baby working it's way down. She could feel the pressure of it's head stretching her further to enter the world. Gathering the last of her strength, she pushed for the final time with a loud, strained scream. She felt the body leave her, an emptiness in it's wake as well as relief. The babe's cry filled the room. She'd never heard a more beautiful sound. There was motion and the sound of water. Jack pulled something else out of her and tossed it into a deep pot he'd brought for the bloody towels and the cord, which he cut with a small hunting knife. Securing a new, clean towel around the new born, he left her parted legs to deliver her child to her waiting arms. He did not linger by, but returned to her nethers to clean her and apply medicine from an old, rusted tin box with a red intersecting lines on the top. She hardly felt his fingers at work on her as she held their baby. The most precious gift hushed the crying as she began so see softly to the little one whose face was bright red and healthy. She could already see the resemblances; Jack's nose and chin, her brow and cheek bones and wild dark hair. It was nearly an hour before the babe was calm enough to nurse from her swollen breasts. When Jack returned from cleaning up the mess with a blanket for them and a rag diaper, he knelt beside the bed to admire his son and the woman who birthed him.

"What shall we name him?" Leona asked plainly, grinning at the father of her child.

"I was thinkin' Pete, or Peter. Did ya have 'ne in min'?"

"Maybe James?" She said, thinking of the pilot whose shelter she borrowed.

She could not remember her father's name. Perhaps it was James as well. Perhaps it was Matthew. Or it may have been John or Marcus. It did not matter if the intent was present.

"James Peter?" Jack offered.

"Yes. 'Tis a good name."

She grinned at Jack as his face lit up. The light from the dawn was turning brighter with the coming of noon. The yellow glow sifted through the frayed curtains to warm his features and ignite his eyes with a cool fire. He kissed her on her dry lips and then the child as he suckled at his mothers breast.

"I'll fetch ya some water." He said, and hesitated to leave. "I love ye." He added.

She'd never seen him so genuine in his words and it moved her. Jack was a dangerous man, and he may have been touched by madness, but he was kind and gentle and good to her. As she looked into the serenity of his eyes, she knew he would never employ his insanity against her or their child. But as a deathclaw roams the wasteland, he would protect his brood with the ferociousness of his ink-sake.

"I love ye, also." She smiled.

As Jack returned moments latter with the glass of water, she realized she'd never been happier. Maybe it was the pain, or the joy of new life, or the hormones that ran through her like wild beasts, but she was content in that moment. The water was cool and clean on her lips. Her new born son slept at her chest. His father kneeled by her side offering her everything she sought. The world beyond the old, wooden walls and locked door did not matter in this moment. Nor did the suffering of a tongueless, limbless ghoul that was chained to the railing around the water pump.

Later she would find him and be appalled. But by then the town would slowly be rebuilding and her son was her most precious treasure. Jack kept them safe. Jack loved them. So she would read to him from the book of Poe, which she found after some hunting beneath a floor board in the kitchen. She would care for him until he died, which would not take long. Jack would burn the body. He would tell her ghouls were not good to eat. Then she would kiss him with their child in her arms and his hand would rest on her three month swollen belly to feel his spawn kick at his touch. And she would love him as he loved her, saving their insanity for those who dared threaten their pocket of happiness.