AN: A oneshot written especially for Shuddereye. An AU continuation of 'A Great Big Joke – A Story for the Fallout' excluding the epilogue. See, I am not totally against writing a fanfic for a fanfic as an AU for my AU.

I hope you like it. It was written pretty quickly and I didn't really spell or grammer check it.

The Molerat Chunks had been a mistake. Max knew that right away.

Her stomach had been talking to her for quite a while now and while she was doing her best to ignore it, the chastisement for indulging in the local fauna, though it was well barbequed, was definitely the topic of conversation. Max knew from experience that she was going to have to find a convenient bush very, very shortly. The Molerat Chunks had been a big mistake.

Max quickened her pace to the side of the road and ducked her head into a hubflower bush and emptied the contents of her stomach with as much dignity as she could muster. RJ MacCready stood back from her and cocked his eyebrow at her plight. The General had a fragile metabolism that didn't agree with a lot of the wastelands delights. Booze hit her like a tonne of bricks, which was highly amusing to all except her. Chems could kill her, she only ever used stimpaks and radiation treatments and as much as she was intrigued by the Chems that were on offer and what they might do for her performance as a whole, she had been warned by Curie not to indulge on pain of death.

Food could still cause a problem for her every now and then. She only ever got her water from Codsworth. so that was always fine. There was one instance back when she had first left the vault when she got sick from what a normal wastelander would have called a cold. But her two hundred plus year old system didn't have the defences for the new mutated strains of diseases and viruses of the new world. That cold had almost killed her. She had since been vaccinated and immunised for everything under the hot Commonwealth sun.

MacCready leaned against the wreck of an old car and searched his pockets for a cigarette. The Boss had also had a very tough few months, maybe it was catching up with her and she needed to cut back on the groundwork.

The Institute incident and the death of Danse had caned her… it had driven her away for five long months and he had only ever heard snippets of what had happened while she had been gone. The newest guy, Longfellow, was not forthcoming on the events at Far Harbour. He was a surly old drunk who only ever really talked to the boss. She'd seemed OK though, she was acting like her old self.

And then the morning after she came back, there was that weird conversation that she'd had with Maxson. MacCready had come to the surface of the Vault and had seen her drag Maxson from the path leading down to Sanctuary and into the undergrowth. He hadn't followed them, that would have been rude, but he had thought on it. He had seen them again not long after that in Sanctuary at Maxsons Vertibird. Maxson had given her that toy pony and then left.

Maybe he was reading too much into it, MacCready thought, that had been a couple of months ago and she hadn't even seen that guy since. He took a long drag of his smoke and watched the General straighten up and wipe her mouth on her sleeve. She dug around in her pocketed belt and drew out a can of water to rinse out her mouth

"You'll good?" He asked, pushing himself off the car and coming to her side.

"Yep." She said shortly. "Breakfast didn't agree with me, that's all. Wish I had some sugar bombs right now."

"Yeah, because they're soooo much better for you." MacCready said with a straight face.

"Hey, Sugar bombs are awesome." She said feigning insult, "I used to have them every morning for breakfast with fresh milk and my mandatory coffee."

"Every morning…?" MacCready snorted as they started walking again. "How are you not three hundred pounds?"

She threw him a snide smirk and took up point in front of him, holding her rifle in her hands and scanning the treeline "I used to have a great metabolism and I was really active."

"I remember seeing Sugar bombs at the Super-duper Mart." She mused after a while, from her position out in front. "… lived on the things when I was pregna…."

She froze.

She heard MacCready take a knee and knew he had raised his rifle and was scanning for whatever had stopped her in her tracks.

She had CRAVED Sugar bombs when she was pregnant.

Max felt her heartrate jump and she lay her hand briefly on her abdomen. She was sick… she wanted candy coated cereal… she had spent the night with Arthur Maxson two months ago and she didn't recall when her last "lady time" had been.

"We have to go back to Sanctuary." She announced abruptly and turned on her heal. She strode passed MacCready as he stayed kneeling in the road looking confused. She stopped again. "Nah, Fuck that… We're going to CIT. Now."

She fiddled with her pipboy for a moment and MacCready blinked in astonishment at the suddenly empty space in front of him and the crackle of electrical current in the air. What the Fudgecake had just happened?

He raised his pipboy up and dialled into the CIT relay tether and followed the General.

Max was staring vacantly at the wall in front of her and Brian Virgil was not entirely sure what the expression on her face meant. It was a mixture of anger, fear, shock, awe… was it possible to feel everything at once? He wheeled his stool back from her a bit, she had a reputation for violence and he wasn't a supermutant anymore. She could probably kill him with one punch.

"Max?" Virgil tried to engage her again, the first time he had spoken she had not heard him either. She had completely zoned out when he had come into the room, sat down in front of her with a smile on his face and congratulated her.

He could understand trepidation at impending motherhood, especially in the wasteland where life could be so perilous, but she had made the wasteland safer, and it continued to get better every day. She should be happy…. Right?

"Motherfucker." She breathed finally.

OK, so she was not entirely happy then.

"I put the conception at…" He started but Max interrupted.

"Sixty one days." She said. "I conceived sixty one days ago."

Sixty one days ago she had crept on board the Prydwen, still dazed from her excursion to Far Harbour, still wondering at her odd encounter with the Mechanist and still reeling from the events at the Institute months before. She had used the young Elder for comfort and a connection back to her life. The whole thing had not ended well.

She had seduced a kid ten years her junior and a virgin to boot. Now he was in love with her and now she was pregnant with his heir apparent. What had she been thinking? she thought for not the first time.

"Max." Virgil spoke again, worried at her reaction. "We can take care of this, I mean, you don't have to…"

She seemed to snap out of her reverie and finally looked at him, her eyes troubled.

"No. I'm OK." She said with a wry smile. "I'm just psyching myself up to go and talk to the Brotherhood Elder."

"Maxson? Why would…. Oh!... ooooh," Virgils eyes opened wide as understanding flooded his system and he ran a hand through his hair. The two most powerful people in the Commonwealth were about to procreate. It was a surprise, they didn't really seem to get on very well.

"Keep it to yourself." She grimaced. "Doctor/patient confidentiality and all that."

"Yes, Ma'am." He said meekly.

She got up off the cot and took a deep cleansing breath. She nodded to the Doctor and left the room, leaving a gentle unease in her wake.

Elder Arthur Maxson was in his customary position on the Command Deck of the Prydwen his eyes boring into what was formerly downtown Boston.

He listed off the things he still needed to do today. The top of the list was not think about the General. She was a distraction and he needed to keep her out of his head. It had been two months since he had seen her or heard from her. She was never going to come to him and he had to be honest and admit that it broke his heart. He thought of her every day.

He shook his head in disgust. He was not going to be some sappy boy who fell in love with the first woman he had sex with. He refused to be that pathetic. He had already made a fool of himself by flying across the Commonwealth and professing his undying affection and proclaiming his intention to wait for her to love him back. What an Imbecile! He shuddered at the recollection of it now.

He was the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. He was Co-Ruler of the Commonwealth, aligned with the Minutemen. He was still young and strong and he could have any woman he wanted!... except the one he wanted, he sighed.

He needed to read those reports that were sitting on his desk he thought resignedly as he turned from the great windows and made his way up to his quarters. Maybe he should go back over to Sanctuary in the guise of Brotherhood business. It had been a while since they had a meeting of any kind.

He took the ladder up one rung at a time, with a kind of morose thud with each step. He stomped hangdog to the door to his berth and then leapt back in shock as the door opened from the inside.

"Hey, Arthur. I need to talk to you." Max took hold of the collar of his coat and pulled him roughly into his room, slamming the door aggressively behind her.

Maxson gathered himself and straightened his spine. Injecting it with steel as he looked at the woman he loved once again in his quarters without leave. For all his power and sway, he could not stop her from popping in and out of his private space at will.

"What have I told you about relaying onto the Prydwen." He snapped, he didn't like to be surprised, it made him irritable.

Regardless of the unrestrained joy he felt at seeing her again and the beat of his heart at the familiar fragrance of her overwhelming his senses, she flagrantly disregarded the rules and regulations set out by the codex and common good manners.

"Shut up, Arthur." She snapped back. She glared at him and began to pace back and forwards in front of him. "Sit." She ordered, pointing at the chair by his desk.

Oh, for the love of Steel, what had he done now? He rolled his eyes and took the few steps to the chair and sat down, the seemingly obedient gesture came off as belligerent rather than complacent. He braced himself for a triad about one of his knights getting into a fight with a settler or an accidental ghoul killing.

She kept on pacing and staring at him. It looked like she was working herself up to something. He wondered if he should maybe arm himself, the last time he had seen a look like that, she had threatened to go to war with the Brotherhood.

"Ok..." She muttered to herself. "Ok… shit"

She stopped pacing and stood in front of him making him look up at her.

'Right. So, I'm pregnant." She blurted.

Arthur cocked his head to the side, his eyes had the look in them that indicated that she had said something wholly benign like, 'so, I found these new pants'. He clearly didn't understand. So, she waited and watched his face.

Pleasant stupor … pleasant stupor… pleasant stupor… Ahhh... there it is.

Maxsons eyes opened wide with comprehension, the blood drained from his young face and it looked like his bottom lip quivered. Max was totally unprepared when he stood up abruptly, put his hand around the back of her head and crushed her lips to his. He pushed up hard against her and kissed her with everything he had in him, the force of his ardour pushing her up against the table behind her and scraping it across the floor by a couple of feet.

Max got the distinct feeling he was not unhappy about the news, so not unhappy that the whole personal boundaries thing was right out the porthole, so to speak.

Arthurs head was churning with thoughts, not all of them logical or even within the realms of reality. She was carrying his child, she was carrying the Maxson Legacy below her heart. She was carrying the symbol of their love. She was everything in the world that he ever wanted. There were fucking sunbrusts in his eyes… fucking rainbows and butterfly wings.

Max wedged her hands up between them and lay them on his broad chest and pushed him away. It took some doing, he was quite strong and she needed to utilise a knee on against his stomach to achieve the desired result. Distance and the ability to draw breath.

Maxson took a long ragged breath and scorched her with his hot gaze as it dragged from her flushed face down to her still flat belly and back up again.

"I'm going to be a father." He gasped, stepping towards her again but stopping as she held out her hand.

"Yeah." She said edging sideways and around the table, placing it between them.

There was suddenly a crisp knock at his door, the clanging making them both jump.

"Fuck off, Kells." Max shouted, through the door.

"Yeah, Fuck off," Maxson intoned a second later.

The two leaders stared at each other across the table. Maxsons eyes blazing with heat and hope and love. Maxs look was harder to discern.

"I love you." Maxson whispered fervently, pleading with her.

"I know… I know." She almost wailed uncertainly. She bunched her fists at her sides and let her eyes roam over him.

Arthur Maxson. Twenty one year old leader of the Brotherhood of Steel. Strong, charismatic, handsome, controlled. She remembered hearing him laugh once. It was a nice sound, warm and joyful. And his smile, almost as rare, made his face light up and those piercing intense blue eyes sparkle like light on the water.

"Arthur, smile." She ordered.

He looked confused and his brow furrowed into a frown.

"I can't be with a guy that doesn't smile… and laugh." She said it a little desperately.

His lips gave a twitch at the corners. She was going to be his.