He left.

Ann watched him go, sending him off with a grin and a kiss then a wave when he turned to look at her. She didn't ask him to stay because she knew he wouldn't. Maybe she would see him again but 'maybe' was a lying sort of word she didn't like.

After making sure she had all her clothes on right way 'round, Ann went back to the house and helped with the washing up. Pen was breathing hard, bright points of red on her cheeks that had nothing to do with rouge. Consanguine made her some herb tea to take the edge off the pain.

"You will feast me?" Pen wheezed, looking towards the door Ulysses had walked out to watch for the traders' approach. And possibly to check that Caius was truly heading east, as he was a suspicious bastard.

"We will." Consanguine promised. "If he puts you to rest near the flagpole, we can check that easy enough any time we pass. Your man doesn't even need to be here."

"He won't be." She didn't say anything else and neither woman asked. Curiosity was a poison. Too much all at once could kill you. Whatever Ulysses did, it was far, far better they did not know.

"There's a whole lot of leaving going on." Ann grumbled, scraping dishes into a slop bucket. The older women looked at her and she nodded. "I know, I know. Look to the road ahead."

"Maybe he left you a souvenir." Consanguine tried not to smile at her daughter's sulk. Temperance would jolly herself out of her mood easily enough, she had never been a difficult child, but seeing her pout made the trader wistful. She had been so cute in pigtails, back when they had been safe.

"Could be. It's the right time for it and he was good." She went a little pink, sharing a feminine mystery with her mother and Pen. They did not tease her. More than anything to have babies in the Wasteland, you had to be lucky. Not many people were.

"Your father?" Pen asked, softly. She would have been beaten if she had done what the girl had done at her age. Her father would have had the legionary whipped for his hubris and likely exposed the baby to prove his auctoritas.

"Oh, dad'll be fine. With For gone, it's down to me to try for kids." Ann reassured. There might be some paternal grumbling when she got too big to keep up 'cause it'd cost for her to stay somewhere, but otherwise Durable would be happy. "It'd be better if Will had stuck around so we aren't short-handed, if it happens. But waiting for him, well." She finished on a shrug.

"Remember what your gran said about waiting." Consanguine cautioned, not saying aloud that the maybe-dad of her maybe-grandkid would very probably die in the desert before his child could walk. The Legion really only had one retirement plan.

"Waiting's easy, living's hard." They would head on to New Vegas, try to push west then probably backtrack all the way to the Long 15. Depending on how bad was the fighting between the NCR and everyone who looked at the Bear funny, they might leave the Mojave. "And war never changes."