Atom Bomb Baby - Starlight713 (2024)

Chapter 1: Home Base

Chapter Text

The first time he’d ever noticed her crying, it was an accident. Safe bet was that she didn’t mean for him to see it, but when she bent over the crib, something broke in her that triggered a familiar ache in the pit of his gut. She probably didn’t even know that anyone else was in the house.

Sturges had mentioned in passing that, when they reclaimed Sanctuary as a settlement, she hadn’t said a word, but had set herself to closing this house off. She boarded up the walls from the outside, even patching over the front door, so that the only entrance was through the garage (which she also covered over, mostly). She meticulously junked everything in the place, picking up every bit of scrap that she could scrape up with her bare hands until each room was completely empty. Preston had offered to help her, and was about to start moving the crib, when she lost her composure and screamed at him to get out. She had been nothing but sweet and kind up to that moment, he swore, and nothing but good since. No one brought it up. As far as anyone knew, Preston never held it against her, but he also never asked questions. With a shrug, Sturges told him that if the general wanted to share, she would. In other words—he knew something was wrong, but never asked.

He knew that she had assigned all of the houses in Sanctuary to some purpose—a hospital, a couple bunkers, a supplies building. This one, she had sealed off for herself. Seemed a little strange to choose this over one of the less damaged ones (he, personally, would have chosen the yellow house she turned into an infirmary). Stranger that she was so weird about it. The baby’s room was the only room in the house she didn’t touch. She left the blocks on the floor, the threadbare rug, the chair. Once, he caught her straightening the crib over and over, as if she was hoping to get it just right. It would have been funny in that dark sorta way, had he not known better. This beyond-saving blue crib, smack in the middle of a desolated suburbia. He didn’t comment on what he saw. He knew better than to ask after a kid that was nowhere to be seen.

But this time, he’d be damned if he couldn’t stop himself from waltzing right up to her. Never could ignore a cry for help when he saw one. It was the mayor in him. He had this crazy urge to tell her all about Lucy and Duncan—to show her that he understood.

“I prefer a rocky ceiling over my head, truth be told.” He didn’t know what else to say. She straightened, and slapped her hand to her cheek, jerking it away so quickly that it took him a moment to figure that gesture out. It was the small sniff that gave her away.

“We should roll out.”

“Or we could stay another night,” MacCready suggested. “Preston seems to love having you here.”

She shrugged and pushed past him out of the room. There was a bed in the room across the hall. He assumed that this must have been the master bedroom before the bombs fell. She slept in it when they were in Sanctuary, but she refused to keep her belongings there. The room was empty save the bed. He figured that it was something to do with the guns. She kept those in the wardrobe she had set up in the garage, next to the little doghouse she had built for Dogmeat, and the trunk where she kept spare clothes.

“I built a better house. We can sleep there.” He tried not to register his surprise. In all the time he had traveled with Lola, and all the things she had built for complete strangers, she had never made anything for herself. As far as he had seen, the mirelurk-shell around this old house was the only thing she’d built for herself.

Down further into the cul-de-sac, he found that she was right. She had built a whole wooden cabin—fully lit with couches, windows, a canopy ceiling, and two floors. It was neat, sparsely furnished, and uncluttered. A blank slate. Upstairs, she had placed two beds on opposite sides of the room. There was a crib on the far wall, facing the two. That muscle in the pit of his gut seized up again. He suppressed a sympathetic groan.

“Nice.”

“I made it.”

“So you said.”

She sat down on one of the mattresses and laid back, hands behind her head. It was late, but he wasn’t all that tired. She passed out in her clothes right there, faster than he had ever seen her fall asleep. He curled up on the other mattress, and clicked off the radio she had placed on the bedside table.

He wasn’t surprised when he woke up a couple of hours later to her creeping down the stairs and rushing out of the shack. He wasn’t surprised that, when he followed her, she led the m right back to that blue, walled-off house across from the town hub. He wasn’t surprised that she curled up in the chair in the baby’s room and fell asleep. The wind whistled in through the gaps in the ceiling, and the chill of it cut right through his clothes. Her hair covered her face, but her breathing steadied fast. She had probably been asleep the whole time. Sleepwalking. He’d seen it in a couple of the younger kids at Lamplight—Bumblebee, if he was remembering right. Once or twice with the gunners, but you didn’t last long with them if you wandered away from base at night. He stood there in the doorway watching her sleep until his legs were stiff. She shivered in the chair, but didn’t wake.

She was going to get sick. Plus, she wouldn’t sleep well. If she didn’t get some rest soon, she wouldn’t be up for heading back out into the wastelands anytime soon, and that would make her frustrated. They had somewhere to be, according to Nick Valentine, and it sounded (though she and Nick wouldn’t tell him what was going on) like they were running out of time. He was halfway across the room when he had convinced himself that he had to move her.

She smelled like the plain soap she had found in the hospital they sacked. He slid one arm carefully under her shoulders, and then the other under the crook of her knees. Not too heavy, really, but solid. Warm, despite the chill. He maneuvered her through the doorway, and into the old master bedroom. He set her on the mattress, and pulled the unzipped sleeping bag that she’d left there as a blanket up around her ears.

He felt a little strange, then. As if he were intruding on something intensely personal. He had seen her sleep before while he was on watch, but in this place, it was like she was a complete stranger. Her eyes looked darker here—more hazel than spring green. Her lips seemed like they would be permanently weighed down at the ends, erasing that smile she shot him whenever he said something snide on the road. Always this half-hearted frown. More defeated than anything. Somber. Fragile.

He let himself out through the garage, locking the door tight behind him. Since she had hired him, he had been leery of letting her out of his sight, especially when sleeping, but she needed the time alone. He walked back down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac, where the cheery wooden shack stood empty. He mounted the stairs and crawled into his own bed, thinking of Duncan, tucked in and dreaming in the Capitol Wasteland. She wasn’t the only one who needed a little time alone with her regrets.

In the morning, she didn’t mention her relocation, and he didn’t mention relocating her. She handed him some squirrel on a stick, and they ate breakfast in silence on the benches in the town hub. For the second time this week, he thought about telling her all about Lucy and Duncan. He just wanted her to know everything. He rubbed the pad of his thumb along the tiny cap of the wooden soldier in his pocket.

“I have to follow the lead Nick gave me. He seems to think that Dogmeat can find the man we’re looking for”

“That where we’re headed, Boss?”

“I planned on it.”

He nodded, and they were out the front gates after breakfast. Preston waved one arm high over his head as they crossed the bridge. She waved back and smiled. Real smile this time—warm, reached all the way to her eyes. She and Preston seemed close, and he wondered for a second why she would travel across the wasteland with him, and not Captain Goody-Two-Shoes. Hell, she’d only known him for a couple of weeks, and she was still paying him here and there from what they took in butchering raiders.

She rolled her shoulders forward and then back, as if shaking off the weird weight that came down over her like a lead blanket every time they were back at base. Her strides got longer, and her head a little higher as they took off down the road.

Chapter 2: Shrapnel

Chapter Text

They had walked the whole day towards Diamond city. She filled him in along the way that the plan was to meet up with Nick. She’d left Dogmeat with him while they made a run back to Sanctuary for supplies. She didn’t want Dogmeat on the road until he was tracking, in case he got hurt. For a minute, she was real serious about it—all frowns and sighs. Then she got quiet. After an hour of walking in silence, he couldn’t take it anymore and started babbling on about how tired he was. On the whole, not such a great day. He leaned back onto his elbows in front of their camp for the night.

“So what’s up with you and Preston?” He probably shouldn’t have asked it. Personal business and all that. But they were getting to a point where maybe she wouldn’t shoot him immediately for asking, and the look Preston had given her when she had left made him wonder.

“What d’you mean?”

“You know…” No, she doesn’t know, which is why she asked that. “You two seem pretty close. Why not take him to find this guy?”

She frowned. It was pretty slight, but he was becoming an expert in her tiny facial expressions. The little ones that passed quick that no one seemed to pick up on when she was lying her way out of a sticky situation, or sweet-talking to get a good deal. The ones that lingered until she snapped back to reality. “He’s…great. Preston is great. A saint. Good with a gun, trustworthy, the best friend a girl could have.”

“But?”

“But, I think—” She paused. Sucked in a breath. He probably shouldn’t have asked this. “I’m not a good enough person. He thinks I am, but he’s just good through and through. Doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. And I’m not good like that.”

Definitely shouldn't have asked.

“I don’t think that’s true, Boss.”

She shrugged. What was it Lucy had called him as a kid? Motormouth MacCready? He nudged her shoulder and handed her his beer. She smiled a little and took a swig. Too big a gulp, he guessed, because she coughed when she handed him the bottle, and he had to smack her on the back to make sure she wasn’t choking.

“You okay, Boss?” He rubbed her back a little more gently now that most of the coughing had passed. He tried really hard not to laugh at her, but he couldn’t completely suppress a snort.

“What in the hell was that?”

“Gwinnet Stout, I think?”

“No.” She looked at him, her eyes wide and bright in the light from their little campfire. “No way in hell. That was so sour!”

He turned the bottle so she could read the label and she groaned, leaning her head back against the rock-and-dirt wall behind them. He took a sip of the beer, but he couldn’t taste anything wrong with it.

“Seems fine to me.”

“You poor thing!” Her head snapped back up so that she was looking at him again. “You wouldn’t even know!”

“Know what?”

She sighed again and he realized that he was hitting the end of what she would say on the subject. She did that sometimes. Say something that made no sense, marvel at him for a second, and then dismiss the whole thing. For now he chalked it up to “Vault weirdness.” One of these days, he was going to nag until she caved and told him what the hell she was talking about. He took another sip of the beer and leaned back on his arms. The sun had already set and it would be a good idea to douse the fire before it drew in every raider, scavver, and deathclaw in the whole ‘Wealth.

“Who’s up for first watch?”

She shrugged. “Rock, paper, scissors?”

She had just taught him that game and he had won three times in a row, just by watching her face and guessing how she would act. If that was the game, he figured he should probably start getting ready for bed.

“Deal.”

She scooted a little closer and held out her fist. He watched her lips quirk up—a sure sign she was feeling confident. When she was confident, she started out on the offensive, which meant the most aggressive of the three options. She was going to choose rock.

Sure enough, on the count of three she revealed a rock, and he revealed paper.

“Two out of three?”

Confidence shaken, she would choose scissors—sharp and quick—in the same way she went for her knife when her gun didn’t slow someone down enough. He went with paper again, to give her a fighting chance. Sure enough—one, two, three—scissors beats paper.

“Hah! Are you going to do paper every time?”

He laughed, a genuine, belly-laugh. He really did like this game. Confident again. She would choose rock, expecting that he wouldn't pick paper three times.

One, two, three, and she chose rock. He chose paper. She grumbled a little as he stretched out on top of the sleeping bag.

“How do you always beat me? I should be the one beating you!”

“Call me lucky,” he said. She rolled her eyes and pushed herself back against the rock, right next to his head.

“Yeah, yeah. Go to bed, lucky—I’ll call you if I need you.”

He pulled his hat down over his face to hide the small, antagonistic smile.

He wasn’t totally sure why he woke up, but it was a good thing he did. Lola was lying on her stomach with the sniper rifle cuddled up into her shoulder. By the time he rolled over so that he was facing what she was looking at, she had moved her finger from outside the trigger guard to over the trigger. When was she planning on letting him know about that?

There were two people picking their way towards the hill, maybe three-hundred paces from here. He could not be sure if they were raiders without a scope, but she seemed tense enough where the chances were pretty good. Maybe scavvers. Didn’t matter much what they were, so long as they kept their distance.

There was a road a short way away. They could turn onto it, he told himself, as he rigged his rifle and crouched. There was not enough room for them to both lay down, and he was the better shot, so he would have to make do. A gunshot would certainly give away their presence, so they would have to make the first shots or be prepared for a fight.

“Now?” Her voice sounded different when she whispered. More dangerous.

“Just a second.” He looked through the scope. These two were definitely raiders—he could tell by the bloody, patched-together armor. They both had pipe rifles, which wasn’t so bad if this came down to a fire fight.

“I’ll take the one on the left. You take the one on the right.” He focused in on the man on the left, who presented a much more challenging target. Angled all wrong, and half-hidden behind the other guy. “Let me know when you are ready. We’ll do this at the same time.”

Lola nodded, and adjusted her aim. It took her a moment to settle, and he wanted to adjust her hold on the gun, but later. She breathed “ready.”

“When I say one, pull the trigger.”

“Three.” He pulled in a breath through his nose.

“Two.” He slid his finger over the trigger.

“One.” He exhaled and the gun jerked back in his embrace, kicking his shoulder. One of the raiders dropped, but he was fairly certain it was hers. He knew that, while he was a good shot, that shot had not been clean. He had hit the guy, for sure, but in the meat of his arm. The remaining raider’s head jerked back and forth on the lens of his scope, trying to figure out where the bullet had come from. Lola had already reloaded.

He lined up another shot and hit again, but the raider was still standing. Lola hit him once too, and MacCready figured that the guy must have been on Buffout to still be standing after that headshot. Had it just glanced? By now, the guy knew where they were. He was reaching for his belt. MacCready lined up one more time, and this time, when he pulled the trigger, the raider crumpled. Right as he lobbed a frag grenade high into the air. Lola grabbed for MacCready’s arm, and he threw himself on top of her with enough force to send them off the ledge.

He hadn’t been thinking. The grenade fell a little short of where he had pegged it would, and landed in front of their hideout, on the ground a short ways away from where they had landed. As the thing went off in a brilliant flash of white, he realized that they would have been better off up where they were. Shrapnel ripped through his duster and buried itself in his shoulders, back, legs. She had thrown an arm around his neck, and he could tell that the only thing between his neck and some metal shards was her forearm. He would have to thank her for that when he was done shouting at her. The fingers he had laced over his skull to protect his head, took on more metal than he would have liked. She was going to have to jab him with a Stimpack before he'd be able to make a fist.

The worst was the ringing in his ears. For a moment, once the smoke cleared, he was seeing doubles and triples. Her free hand was gripping the front of his duster so hard that he didn’t think he would be able to peel her off.

When he finally got up onto his hands and knees, he found that she was curled beneath him, mostly unscathed. Her arm was a mess, but the rest of her was fine. Shaking, but fine. After a few moments of opening and stretching his jaw, the ringing quieted to an irritating buzz.

“Not bad, Mac.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” He didn’t mean to sound so angry with her, but the combination of the adrenaline and his frustration caught up at the same time.

“I wasn’t sure if we were going to have to fight them.”

“And you’d rather I sleep through it while they fill you full of holes and then come looking for me?”

She shrugged.

“Even if you had still killed the first one in one shot, don’t you think the odds are better with two guns? Boss?”

She withdrew her legs and started to stand up, only to find herself back on the ground. Serves her right.

“Sorry.”

He hadn’t expected her to apologize. “Yeah, well.”

“Well what?”

“Well, don’t do stupid sh—stuff like that. You have me here for a reason, boss.”

She shrugged.

“That arm isn’t looking so good.” He knew he wasn’t in the best shape either, but those Vault Dwellers—all soft and easily bruised.

She was up on her feet before he was, and had to help him up by the elbow. Anything below or above that felt like it was full of tiny hot razor blades.

She pulled him back up onto their perch and was digging around for a Stimpack before he even sat down. Not that he sat down for more than a second, that is, once he figured out that there were about a million fu—stupid pieces of shrapnel stuck in his ass and the backs of his legs. When she lit the fire, the hand she held up to it glittered like a mirror-ball.

She shot herself up with the first Stimpack, and then turned to him. Even with the little boost, they were still going to spend a while picking bits of metal out of each other’s bodies.

She started with his hands. When she was done, she jabbed a Stimpack into the meat of his wrist. Without a word, he flexed the life back into his fingers, and then grabbed for her mangled arm. It took a while, but he was able to get all of them. On his knees, he twisted her arm in the light until he was mostly sure she was in the clear.

“When are you going to let me look at your back?”

He caught her hand and dug a little shiny piece out of her wrist. It was right over the bone. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, and he pitied her a moment. Not growing up in the Wasteland meant not building a threshold for the littler pains.

“Take off your coat, Mac.”

He pretended to be scandalized, holding his hand over his mouth. “Boss, are you trying to get me naked?”

She flushed red from ear to ear and forehead to chin.

“You know what I meant.”

With some effort, and as she watched, he slid his coat from his shoulders. She had to help him get his shirt over his head, something that he would have given up on immediately, were it not for her quiet insistence. He laid on his stomach, a little relieved to be off his knees. Whatever his back looked like, it must have been pretty bad. She sucked in a breath through her teeth; he could picture the face she was making. She traced her fingers all the way down his spine, circling all of the flecks of foreign material that dotted his skin. Her fingernails felt so good on his skin that he felt better already.

Until she started plucking bits out. He ground his teeth to keep from shouting.

“Mac, these go all the way down…” Her fingers were down in his waistband, and he tried to worm his way away from her.

“I can handle that part, Boss.”

She plucked a little wedge of metal out of the skin just above the crack of his backside. He made the decision that swearing in his head was not the same as swearing out loud, and didn’t count towards his “be a better person” campaign.

“Pull your pants down more, so I can take a look.”

He really wanted to say something smart in response, but he was in too many places at once to be his usual, sarcastic self.

“Boss…”

“You have metal in your ass.” She was never one to sugar coat things. In a different situation, he might have appreciated that.

“I’ll get it.”

“Can you see your ass? Because even if you could twist far enough, I doubt you would be able to see the bits of metal in your skin. I probably can a lot better than you.” She let out a sigh. “Your thighs and calves are bleeding too, Mac.”

Chagrined, he pulled himself onto his feet and dropped his pants to his ankles just roughly enough to notice that she was right. This was not what he imagined when he thought (maybe once, maybe twice) about stripping down for Lola. She grabbed a couple more stimpacks while he stretched himself out on his stomach on the downy sleeping bag.

“Think we can afford the supplies?”

“We’ve had plenty of bad luck for tonight, Mac. I’m not adding “ass infection” to that list.”

He couldn’t argue with that logic.

She started all the way down at his ankles, finding things that didn’t even hurt until she removed them. He tried the whole “stiff upper-lip” thing, but found himself groaning in agony, just one after the other. Up his calves (both of them) and then the backs of his thighs (the left was worse than the right). Pain notwithstanding, his body still noticed every time her fingers moved over his skin, nails skimmed up the backs of his thighs. By the time she reached the hem of his shorts, he was ready to shout or f*ck or both.

She edged the material up and then down, trying her best to be modest. He almost laughed. She had just shot a Raider in the head in a late-night fire-fight. Modest. Ha.

It took a while, but at least they were both shrapnel-free before dawn. At the end of the ordeal, she jammed a Stimpack into his leg and handed him the bottle from which she was sipping. He sat there in his underwear, drinking with her as the sun crept up over the hills.

“Were you drunk for that whole operation?”

She grinned, her teeth flashing in the indigo light. “Only the part where I pulled shrapnel out of your ass.”

“And how did it get there?”

She shrugged. “I’ll wake you up first, next time.”

“You’d better.”

There was a long silence, and neither of them knew how to fill it. Maybe she was just tired, but for a second, she looked genuinely regretful.

“Hey boss?”

“What?”

“You saw mine…” He winked, and she was back, rolling her eyes. She laughed the same way every time he made one of those goofy jokes. A loud, open-mouthed, always somewhat surprised laugh.

Chapter 3: Kellogg

Chapter Text

He didn’t understand more than half of what was said. Too busy trying to figure out why in the hell she thought it would be a good idea for the two of them to waltz right into this mess with a handful of frag grenades, two sniper rifles, a pistol, and her powerfist. Had he known they’d be in close quarters, he’d have brought a shotgun or something. While he was real curious about what Kellogg was saying to Lola, finding cover for when this turned ugly had to be the first priority. He could pick her brain later (if there was a later). But this was definitely going to get ugly. She liked to talk her way out of things, but she started the conversation with “f*ck you.” There was no other way for this to go.

She fired first. Kellogg dropped back behind a wall of terminals, and the synths came running out from nowhere. Lola didn’t duck. Didn’t flinch. If he wasn’t so scared of getting his head blown off, he’d run out and grab her by the collar. What in the hell was she thinking? He knocked out two synths right off the bat, and winged a third. But there were just so many. She jabbed a Stimpack into her arm and grabbed for the little bag on top of her pack. She dropped the pack to the ground, pulled five plasma grenades out of the bag (the one’s she’d just bought off Arturo), and started pulling pins. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. All five, one after the other, like some kind of suicidal maniac. He threw his arms over his head, and when the smoke cleared, she was still standing there, definitely worse for wear, in the middle of injecting another Stim and chewing through Buffout like it was so much candy.

He had never been afraid of an employer before, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t quaking in his boots a bit.

He crouched behind a terminal and peeked out. At first, he couldn’t spot Kellogg. Then, he saw that telltale shimmer—like a ripple in the air. Bastard had used a Stealthboy. He shot at the ripple until, on the third round, he made contact. The shimmer faltered, and then ducked behind a cabinet. But Lola had seen him shoot. She secured the powerfist over her hand and walked over, shoulders rolled forward, slightly hunched, like an animal. The air above the cabinet shimmered again, and Mac caught Kellogg in what he imagined must be the man’s shoulder. By now, Lola was two steps from him. All she had to do was walk around the cabinet and pin him.

Kellogg surprised them both by popping back up and shooting Lola four times. Mac couldn’t quite see where they hit, but he was pretty sure Kellogg hadn’t missed. Lola broke into a sprint and slammed into Kellogg, knocking them both to the floor, and out of sight.

There was a crack, and MacCready popped out from behind cover. He couldn’t be sure if the crack was Kellogg’s skull or Lola’s. They must still be on the floor—neither one of them was back within view. Another loud cracking sound—one of them was hitting the other, and probably breaking something. Definitely breaking something. He vaulted over a cabinet and landed right behind Lola. She was kneeling over Kellogg.

Five more cracks. She had split his skull with the Powerfist on the second, but kept going until MacCready couldn’t even recognize that the mess she’d been pulverizing had once been a head. Holy sh*t.

“Boss?”

She pulled back again, and he caught her elbow. She tensed.

“Boss, I think he’s dead.”

She didn’t look at him, but dropped her fist, and clawed the powerfist off her arm like it was burning her. Threw it half across the room. She tore through Kellogg’s clothes like she was possessed—turned all his pockets inside out, stripped off his coat and shook it hard, until she found what she was looking for. A holotape. She tripped over herself to reach one of the last working terminals. He backed up to retrieve her powerfist. She would want that later. She shrugged on Kellogg’s leather coat and his stomach churned.

He couldn’t see what she was reading but whatever it was, wasn’t good. He didn’t mean to stare, but she was sobbing. Her shoulders shook, face in her hands, and she looked so small next to all those giant terminals. He really tried hard not to look. It’s just…he was curious. They’d been roaming around the Commonwealth together for a bit, and he still had almost no idea what they were supposed to be doing out here. As far as he figured, it had to be something about a kid. Between the cribs and the crying jags, he couldn’t think of anything else that would bring out this level of pain in someone. Maybe it was just the dad in him, but still, seemed like the only logical conclusion was that this guy had done something with her kid involving the Institute. He hadn’t heard much (she’d sent him away every time she talked to Nick Valentine), but once or twice, he’d overheard him trying to comfort her. “We’ll find him.”

He could hear something playing—a holotape, with a man’s voice—but he wasn’t totally sure what it was. He tried not to listen in. Seemed like it wasn’t his business.

It was a while before she stood up. He picked through the rubble for anything she might want; she had the habit of collecting junk to tear apart or sell. After he stripped the synths, he turned around and saw her crouched beside what was left of Kellogg. She pat his pockets again. Finally, she spotted something in the soup that was Kellogg’s head. He felt a little dizzy when she plucked something wiry and silver out of the chunks of blood and brain and wrapped it up in a rag she’d ripped from Kellogg’s shirt. She stuffed it into her pocket and went back to the terminal.

“Find what you, ah, needed, boss?”

A couple of keystrokes, and the doors along the far wall sprung open.

“No.”

She took point on the way out, and all the way back to Sanctuary. Barely slowed down to make camp and assess damages. Two of the bullets Kellogg had fired at her had only skimmed her arm. One went clean through the top of her shoulder. The last one, however, was stuck firmly in the meat of her arm. He must have hit Kellogg good for his aim to be so off. He fished some tweezers out of her pack and removed the bullet. She didn’t even fight him.

When they made it back to that walled-off blue house, she took three hits of Jet, four Mentats, two Psychos, and some BuffJet, and then chased it with a slug of whiskey, two shots of vodka, and an uncomfortable amount of Boborov’s Moonshine. Basically, whatever she had left in her pack, or lying around the house. They were getting close, he thought, but probably not close enough where he could call her out and sober her up. He was about to call for Pretson (maybe he could talk some sense into her?) when her fist collided with the wall. She was sitting in the kid’s room again. Her fist hit the wall a few more times before he started to worry she would break her damn hand.

“Hey, stop it.” He grabbed for her wrist, and she elbowed him in the eye. Off to a great start.

She struggled when he tried to bring her to her room, and kicked his shins when he tried to hold her still. Finally, she slumped into a heap on the floor, and he gave up on trying to help. So long as she didn’t pulverize her knuckles, he figured, sleeping it off would be the best choice. She curled up in the closet, and after a few hours, he figured she was asleep enough where he could give her a dose of Addictol and a Stim and she might not rip his damn face off. He could practically hear Lucy’s voice in his ear. Hydration is key. Apply Stimpack, one dose of Addictol, and then hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! He set a bottle of water next to her and rolled out his sleeping bag in the living room, in case she needed him.

He didn’t ask about it in the morning, and she didn’t throw out any explanations. She woke up at noon, splashed her face with water, and tugged on a change of clothes with Kellogg’s jacket still pulled over her shirt.

Chapter 4: The Silver Shroud

Chapter Text

Give it a week, and she was mostly back to normal. Collecting tin cans, holding settlers’ hands when they couldn’t figure out which way was up, generally finding more trouble than was strictly necessary. He’d had difficult employers before, but Lola took the snack cake in terms of sheer determination to get into trouble. It was like she wanted to suffer. And, of course, he had to get excited when they saw the comic book store, and so she just had to go right in, and when the ferals swarmed, she just had to clear the place. Of course. Because that shouldn’t be too hard, right? The building is pitch black in the daylight, and any small light attracts ferals, but that should be fine. And oh, MacCready, while you’re at it, can you just carry half the store in your pack? Thanks, that’s just swell.

He didn’t want to complain (who was he kidding, of course he did) but he was pretty sure that they should have cut their losses once she found the replica Grognac axe on the first floor.

She scrambled away from the corpse of that glowing feral on her hands and knees as he reached down to help her up. The green reflected off her face, making her look like she was about to puke. But when she looked up at him, a grin cracked across her lips.

“Did you see it?”

He looked around and sure enough, there it was in the corner. The original. Silver Shroud. Costume. Okay. So maybe not such a waste.

“Oh man!” She ran over to the coat and slipped her arms through it without a second thought. She cinched it around her waist and pulled the hat down over her eyes. He whistled his appreciation. She shot him a look that was too giddy to be truly annoyed. She pulled the script she had found downstairs out of her back pocket under the coat, and read a couple of lines in her best Silver Shroud voice. He laughed and read the villain’s parts to complete the scene. They climbed up onto the roof to make camp for the night while she demanded justice and he did his best impression of a petty crook. They finally dropped down onto their sleeping bags, tucked up against some metal heating ducts on the roof.

“Man, I wish I could have seen the tv show.”

“Eh, it wasn’t as good as the radio show. Flopped after the first episode.” She said it so off-hand that it took him a second to realize what she was saying.

“How would you know?” He nudged her with his shoulder.

“Hmm? Oh!” She bit her lip and leaned away. “Nevermind.” Another thing that she said that didn’t make sense and that she wouldn’t explain. Well, he’d told himself he’d ask. No time like the present.

“No, what do you mean? How would you know what the show was like?”

“They had televisions in the vault—”

“No they don’t. Not in any vault I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a few. Never seen a show before though.” He scooched a little closer to her, but she didn’t look at his face. So he got up and knelt in front of her. “How do you know what the show was like?”

She looked up at him. “Mac, you would never believe me if I told you.”

He shrugged. “I’ve believed a lot of weird things. Give it a go.” Something about the way she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath made him worry.

“I—” She paused, eyes bouncing over his face. It was only a flash, but there was that expression. Brow furrowed, lips pursed. She was about to lie.

“The truth, though, Boss. Don’t just go telling me stories.”

She let out all her breath in a whoosh.

“You really want to know?” She leaned her head back against the vent behind her. When he nodded, she shook her head again and shrugged “because I am 237 years old. Give or take”

He sat back and let his eyes trace her face. When she made eye contact, he came to the conclusion that she was either insane or had picked up some tips on lying. But she had never lied to him (that he knew of). He’d seen her lie to tons of people, but never to him. She pursed her lips

“Are you going to say something?”

He looked over her face one more time. Dead serious. He trained his eyes on her boots.

“How?”

She shook her head. “This.” When he looked back up at her, she waved the Pip-Boy for him to see. “Vault Tech.”

“Oh.” That would make some sense. Not a whole lot of sense, but Vault Tech was known for its bizzaro science experiments. It was possible—not probable, but possible—that she was telling the truth.

“Oh? That’s all you’ve got for me? Not gonna call me a liar? Ask me how it happened?”

“Well, why would you bother lying to me? Not like it would get you anywhere. And that is a very specific, very tragic story. If you were going to make something up, I doubt you’d go so big." He pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit up, and took a deep drag before offering her the cigarette. Her cheeks sucked in as she puffed on the thing hard. Like her life depended on it. "If you want to share, I’m all ears.”

“We were selected for the Vault because Nate, my husband, fought in the war. The big one.” She took another drag. “We lived in military housing in a military neighborhood. Thought it would be more of the same. Thought we’d be living it up underground with our baby Shaun and our neighbors. They got us inside, dressed us in vault suits, and shuttled us into these giant pods for “decontamination.” Froze us solid right there.”

He nudged her shoulder and the way she looked at him was so…whether or not any of this was true, she must have really felt like it was.

“I woke up when someone shot Nate. Kellogg. Took Shaun while I was watching. Just grabbed him from Nate’s arms. Nate wouldn’t hand him over. It was supposed to be me, but Nate had been holding Shaun when they froze us. So they shot him. Point blank range.” She wasn’t looking at him now, but she was falling apart at the seams. Shaking a little. He could hear the strangled sob in her throat, and she took four deep breaths and a muffled cough to clear it. Slowly, so that she could rebuff him if she wanted, he draped his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into his chest.

“Was frozen for awhile longer. Not sure how long, but I woke up, Shaun was gone, and Nate was…” She breathed out hard as if she was trying to push him out of her lungs. “Gone. As well.”

“I’m sorry, Boss.”

“Not your fault.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip. She stared at the ground. A lot of things made more sense, though. How she knew nothing about the wasteland. How she’d been so bad at firing a gun before he’d shown her. That whole thing with Kellogg stopped seeming half as crazy. He cringed. He had thought that she and Kellogg were nuts. Christ, not like there is anything to say after that. She kept knitting and un-knitting her fingers under the sleeve of the Silver Shroud costume. He squeezed her shoulders.

“So was the show really that bad?”

She cracked half of a smile and nudged him back. “Awful. They replaced the Mistress of Mystery.”

“Those ne’er-do-wells.”

“They wouldn’t stand a chance against the Silver Shroud.”

Chapter 5: Lawyers

Chapter Text

On the road that day, she told him that she had been a lawyer.

“A what?”

“A lawyer,” she grinned. “I knew the law, and had to help decide whether or not people broke it. It mostly involved being really convincing. But every now and again, I got to put away a baddie.” She shrugged.

He was able to picture that pretty well. She had always been bizarrely charismatic.

“Oh yeah? Would you put me away? Lock me up?” He adjusted his rifle on his shoulder as he leaned down to offer her a hand. She took it and he pulled her up the rest of the ledge. From up here, they were overlooking the expanse of hills. They could even tuck themselves up under the rocks for the night, making them all but invisible if they stuck to the wall of rock and passed on a dinner fire. Plus, there was so little space where they were setting up, no one would get a good foothold without being right in their faces. Of course, someone could still drop down in front of them from above, but they’d hear it coming for miles.

“Well. You do kill people—which is illegal—but it can be argued in most situations that you are killing in the name of personal defense.” She tapped her fingers on her chin. “That would be something you could be arrested for, though. Public drunkenness…you and I were drunk in Diamond City that one time…drug related offenses…thievery…B&E…”

“B&E?”

“Breaking and Entering…trespassing, essentially.”

“Ah.”

“I mean, this is all situational, and I couldn’t make the final decision on whether or not to detain you, but I could certainly stack up a compelling case for locking you away.” She plunked down on the ground, already laying out the sleeping bag.

“Aww, a face as hansom as this?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Sounds like there used to be a lot you could get in trouble for. Makes you almost glad to be here.” He bit his tongue just a second too late. Of course she wouldn’t agree.

She shrugged. “Made the world a bit safer. But there was still a lot of fear.”

The wind whistled through the awkward silence that followed. He rustled through his bag for dinner. She smoothed out the sleeping bag with both hands. For a second, she fidgeted with the zipper on the bag. He held out a reconciliatory Mutfruit, and she accepted.

“So you used to fight raiders in a different sort of way, then?”

“Well, not raiders. Usually robbers, or rapists, or people who had assaulted someone…sometimes drug offenders, though the laws on drugs had just slackened a little. They figured, with the threat of a nuclear holocaust an all, there didn’t seem to be a point to punishing some kids who liked to get high.” She dropped onto the ground beside him and stretched out, crossing her legs at the ankles.

“Makes sense.” He shrugged.

“I tried to get into civil defense, but there was a lot of panic at the time. People locked up for no reason.”

“So I would be locked up, is what you’re sayin.”

“If I was your lawyer, I think I would play up the idea that your safety was threatened by an ill-advised association, so that all the violence could be explained.”

“With the Gunners?”

“Bingo!” She punched her hand and he caught sight of what she must have looked like in one of those old-world suits, pointing fingers at people and shouting about the law. Must have been one hell of a sight. “I would play up the fact that they were after you, to win the jury.”

“What is a jury? Some kinda game?”

“Oh! Other people. Usually, people who live in the area. So, if Diamond City had a court, rather than a bunch of guys with guns, the Mayor would be the judge, who decides based on all of the arguments who is guilty or not. Piper and the merchants and the citizens would make up the jury. I would be your lawyer, and whoever you had harmed would have his or her own representative, to try and punish you. I would try to keep you from getting locked up.”

“Well that's really sweet of you, Boss.”

She shoved him gently, passing him a bottle of clean water.

“Eh, if you were on trial, they likely wouldn’t let me represent you anyways. You aren’t supposed to represent people you know—bias and all that. Besides, the law really cracked down towards the end there. Almost totalitarian.”

She leaned back and looked up at the sky. For a second, she didn't even look real. Her hair came down in waves of red, bright like the sunlight dying on the horizon. The light went right through her eyes, green like the paper lanterns in Diamond City. All images and associations. Sitting like this, it was easy to forget he knew her.

“You lost me,” he shrugged. “But, if they think you would be too soft on me, they don’t know you, Boss.”

She arced an eyebrow. “Well then. I suppose you can just argue your own hypothetical case.”

He shoved her, and then handed her a beer from his pack.

Chapter 6: The Princess and the Very Big, Very Green Friend

Chapter Text

The more he followed her, the more he noticed that she was in the bad habit of rushing to the rescue, even if that meant charging into gunfire 24/7. Distress signal coming from a radio station? She was there in ten minutes flat, with him a step behind her. Tower full of Super Mutants? She already had her rifle out and butted up against her shoulder. She shot one Mutie through the door, and then two more when they charged toward her. One bullet went wide, but she was able to hit the closer one before it saw her. He took out the one she missed, and she was up the stairs and motioning him into an elevator before he could even ask her what she thought she was doing.

It took them two hours to make it to the top floor. Two. They had been pretty sneaky about it, but it was still all close-quarters and there were too many places where the upper floors had rotted away and left holes for enemies to suddenly drop through. One landed right next to him, knocked him right onto his ass, and charged her when they had both thought they’d cleared the room. He could feel a bruise forming across his chest where the massive green arm had swung into him. She shot the thing between the eyes as it brought its fists down onto her right shoulder. It died at her feet and she stumbled away. He had to pop her shoulder back into the socket. He could hear Lucy patiently in his ear. “Slow and gentle, dear. Now give it one good hard pull away from the body.” Lola injected a stimpack while rubbing her arm. And they were off again.

The leader was on the roof of the building, and they had to do a lot of running around to keep him from pummeling them into the floor. She had him pick off the lackeys first, and once those were taken care of, she launched three grenades at the monster. Finally, after enough fire power to level a city and four more frag grenades, the place was clear.

Clear, that is, except for one scrawny guy, and one massive Mutie in a cage. He’d seen weirder, but this was still in the top ten. And of course, the Boss wasted .02 seconds on marveling at how the hell this happened, and was jimmying the lock before he could even shake his head.

The man inside the cage was talking about Shakespeare. He’d read some Shakespeare once (okay, so not a whole play, but a couple of acts. And he mostly understood what was going on. And Lucy only had to help him with a couple of bits). Old plays didn’t seem like usual Super-Mutant fare, but there that big green wall of muscle was, telling Lola about “Mac-Beth” and his milk. MacCready was pretty sure that the Mutie was missing a few things here and there, but he seemed to understand it enough. The Boss trusted it, at least, and shook the thing’s hand with a hearty smile. By the time their motley crew was shuffling into the elevator off the edge of the roof, she was smiling between him and the mutant. The eyebrows in her hairline said “new pet?!” while the gun in her hands said “defend at all costs.”

And just like that, they had their very own supermutant.

MacCready had to admit that having the big guy along for the trip back down was handy. There were a lot of new threats that popped back up in place of the ones they had already cut down, but their new friend punched his way right through his old brothers like they were made of paper. When they finally hit the ground, the man (who called himself “Rex,” even though he looked like a “Wilbur” or a “Jeeves” or something) wasted no time in scuttling off. Too much adventure for the old boy, he guessed. The mutie, however, stood behind the Boss without saying a word.

She broke the awkward silence with “Hey, big guy…”

He kept his rifle readied through the whole conversation, but the longer the mutie talked, the more admiration he seemed to have for the Boss. Proving once and for all, really, that there was no one she couldn’t charm. At the end of a hard to follow conversation involving milk and destroying humans, the monster finally asked the Boss if she would help him, or at least take him along. He knew the Boss too well to think that she would leave her massive green friend behind.

“You can come with us to Sanctuary!” She shook his hand and he jostled her so hard that MacCready worried he might have to reset that shoulder again. When the mutant turned to pick up a gun his brother had dropped, MacCready grabbed her forearm.

“We aren’t actually bringing him along, right?” He knew better than to ask, but he felt tempted to check, just in case she stopped being her usual self and suddenly came to her senses.

“Strong? Of course we are! He’s my new friend. He’s going to help us guard Sanctuary, I think.” Her brow furrowed as she planned.

“That thing is a monster, Boss.” He was more resigned than he sounded.

“Strong is just a confused mutant.” She watched Strong wrench a gun out of some massive, dead hands. “He just needs a good home with some clearly outlined boundaries.”

The walk back to Sanctuary was just messy enough for MacCready to watch the Boss’ pet in action. Two or three times, he tore a gunner’s arms or legs clean off. As if they were stuck on with ducktape. Just pulled them right off the unlucky bastards’ body. He did not envy the settler who decided to hassle Lola about her new pet.

When they made it through Sanctuary’s front gate, Preston’s jaw hit the floor, but he didn’t say a damn word. MacCready was sorta hoping that good ol’ fun-sucker Garvey would nag the green giant right over the bridge and down the road, but Lola waved from the sentry post, and Garvey just nodded like this was something that happened every day.

Chapter 7: Fear

Chapter Text

The first time a raider pinned her down, he felt a surge of rage that made him think he was going to hurl. A bullet lodged in his shoulder had drawn his attention away from her. She was more than self-sufficient. Learned quick, and had no trouble being ruthless when she needed to be. Of course he watched her back, but he never had to babysit her. He didn’t think he would have to keep an eye on her when the smoke cleared.

She was in the middle of applying a Stim when the last tricky raider (the one they hadn’t been able to find) plowed into her from behind. He’d thought the bastard had run off. When the raider had her on the pavement, he flipped her over and held her down under his body. She struggled, but was bleeding pretty badly as is. She head-butt him when he leaned in close to say something. He spat on her face. Big glob of spit rolled down her cheek like a tear. When he shook her shoulders, her head cracked against the pavement hard enough to rattle her. She stopped moving the second time her head hit the ground. The raider had her arms up—held her wrists in his hands and sat on her stomach. He was saying something, lips flapping, and she stilled under his weight. She blinked in his scope, mouth opening and closing, though he didn’t think she was actually saying anything.

MacCready lined up the shot and took it as the bastard wedged his knee into her stomach hard enough to make her fold around him. The raider’s head exploded like it was filled with bloody confetti. Like one of those f*cking Vaultech lunchboxes. Chunks of skull and brain rained down around the Boss as she lay there, blinking. He jabbed a Stimpack into his shoulder and got himself up and walking. She’d had plenty of time to get up as he approached her, but laid there on the pavement, looking at the sky as if she was still being crushed. Her hands locked around his wrist when he hauled her to her feet.

“Thanks, Mac.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She was shaking. He debated whether he should give her a hug or give her some space. What she found comforting changed day to day. He settled for using a bit of his sleeve to wipe the spit off her cheek. She looked up at him wide-eyed, not relieved or mad, just shell-shocked. The Boss usually wasn’t caught off-guard like that.

She took a long bath that night in the cold river. He stood outside with her, back against a tree as she scrubbed every inch of her body with soap. She even washed her clothes, and then his too. And her gun. And most of the spare clothes in her pack. And when they camped, she made sure to clear the ground first, and lay the sleeping bag somewhere relatively clean and very dry. She re-organized both of their packs, scrubbed the bits of fruit she had taken with her from Sanctuary, and even shined her boots to a sparkle.

After dinner, he announced that he would take first watch. He started to say something to her, but after watching her compulsively straighten the sleeping bag twice, he decided that it might be better to give her some space.

Let her sleep.

In the morning, she refused to talk about it. As if nothing had happened. She walked ahead of him like usual, and didn’t flinch when they came across more raiders. Ruthlessly efficient, lining them up and taking them out like she was born to it. Missteps here and there, but she was getting better and better the longer she worked at it. From lawyer to executioner.

Business as usual. Only he stuck a little closer this time.

Chapter 8: The Memory Den

Chapter Text

She gripped his hand hard in hers, so hard that her nails dug into his palm. The last time someone had held his hand like that, she had been giving birth to their child. But this could not have been farther from the doctor’s office in Rivet City.

Doctor Amari drummed her fingers on the counter.

“Just sit down over there, and keep your fingers crossed.”

“See you on the other side.” Nick Valentine pat her on the shoulder as he stood up and walked past her. His mechanical joints creaked and whirred when he sat himself in the memory lounger. Lola bit her lip, and the lid came down over him.

“Are you sure—“

“I’ve done this before.” Lola’s eyes didn’t move from Valentine as he sat back into the chair. “Right before I met you, actually. That’s why I went to the Rail that night. Needed a drink after.”

“Oh.”

She looked up at him and squeezed his hand. “I’ll have to tell you about it some time.”

She let go of him and climbed into the other memory lounger. The dome closed over her as she looked at him. Her fingers dug into the arms of the plush chair, and he almost told Amari to call it off. Whatever was about to happen, it couldn’t be good. She waved as the lid sealed to the pod. When he waved back, he saw the row of crescent-moon shapes pressed into his hand from her nails. She was finally hooked in after a few minutes, and her wrists dangled limp off the chair. He wanted to open the pod and fold her hands on her lap so she looked less…dead. But her chest rose and fell like normal—not dead, just sleeping. Not dead.

He ran his fingers back through his hair and joined Amari by her computer. She had been talking to Lola and Nick for a minute now, so he figured that she must be pretty sure they were okay. Seems like she had locked onto a memory.

“I’ll try to step you through the intact memories.”

“So you can’t find her the right one?” He leaned in, but the computer screen was all static. Amari held a finger to her lips and finished talking to Lola. She covered the microphone by the computer.

“It is all we can do for her. I warned her that this would not be easy.”

Mac let out a breath as the static on the computer screen cleared. Doctor Amari “hmm”d. When they could finally see clearly, he realized that they must be seeing through Lola’s eyes. Nick was nowhere to be found; she was standing in a room with a little kid and a woman. She looked down at her hands, and then around the little room. Part of it seemed to fade off into nothing, but she could see the kid just fine. When she walked over, a man started shouting at the kid. And then he could hear Kellogg. Like he was talking right to her.

“Memory residue.” Amari covered her mouth with her hand. “Part of his brain was saved in the chip that we found. He’s remembering.” She leaned into the microphone. “This isn’t what we’re looking for. Try this next one.”

MacCready planted his palms on the desk to steady himself. The screen went static again, and then they were in a different room, with a young Kellogg, a woman, and a baby. MacCready really wanted to think that the kid was Shaun, but something in his gut told him they weren’t so lucky. Kellogg was talking to her again. Nope, not Shaun. His daughter. Kellogg had a wife and a baby girl. And he knew he didn’t deserve either. Damn right he didn’t. Lola looked out the window and then into the crib. Her eyes didn’t move from the baby as the memory played around her. She didn’t need to move on to the next memory for MacCready to know that something bad was about to happen. He knew from experience just how well families with mercenary daddies survived.

Sure enough, some static, the next memory, and no kid. All gone. He ran his thumb over the little wooden soldier in his pocket. After a couple more memories, he pieced together that Kellogg had gone from mercenary work to the Institute before long after he lost his wife and kid. MacCready couldn’t shake the thought that this coulda been him. Any of it. If not the Institute, who knows where he would have ended up if he hadn’t left the gunners?

Amari said that she thought they were getting closer. It seemed to take a lot to pull up a memory—lots of clicking on that damn terminal. When the static cleared for the next memory, Lola froze. Kellogg was talking again, but it took a minute for everything to click. His jaw hit the floor.

“Pull the plug. Get her out of there.”

“I can’t; she needs—“

“You need to get her out of there. Now.”

“Is this…oh my god. Not again.” Amari started typing furiously as Lola came face to face with herself, sealed up in this giant pod.

Kellogg called her “the backup” in his memory. Kellogg’s team of scientists did something at the terminal, and the Lola in Kellogg’s memory shook her head and blinked awake. She was hyperventilating, eyes wide, pounding on the glass of the window. Lola looked away, and found rows of pods full of people screaming behind impenetrable glass, pushing on the doors from the inside, trying to escape. Her eyes followed the Institute scientists as they walked toward her, and came to a stop at the pod across from her. It held a tall man, olive-skinned and muscular, holding a baby wrapped in a soft blue blanket.

“Change the memory. Get her somewhere else."

“I’m trying, but she has to be willing to move on and I don’t think that she is yet. I think—” She typed something else into the terminal, and an error message popped up. “I think Kellogg wants her to see this. Somehow, he is still around in that little brain augmenter. It saved traces of his consciousness, as well as a backup of his memories.”

When Kellogg’s team opened up the pod, Nate practically fell out of it, still clutching Shaun to his chest. Someone caught him and steadied him as he looked around, asking if everything was safe now. He saw Lola’s hand come up to her face as she backed herself against the pod that held memory-Lola. He recognized Nate’s voice from the tape that she played sometimes. Her gaze jerked back from Nate to Kellogg, and then to Shaun. It must have dawned on her then; it’s a memory. She can’t change what happens.

A scientist tried to take Shaun, and Nate backed himself up into the pod, squeezing the child. Nate stood half a foot taller than even Kellogg, and had this feral, cornered look in his eyes. Everyone seemed to realize it at the same time. To get the kid, there was only one option.

The scientist tried to pry Shaun out of Nate’s arms, and Nate was fighting back when Kellogg pulled the trigger. Nate slumped back into the pod, they took the kid, and sealed everything back up, neat and tidy. Lola stumbled out of the way as Kellogg crossed to look at her cryo pod. He muttered something about the backup again, and then hollered at one of the scientists, who was tampering with the terminal at the end again. Dr. Amari pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Lola stumbled after Kellogg and Shaun as they faded away, disappearing from the memory. Her gaze bounced all over the room, making MacCready a little queasy. She doubled over, and then hit the ground on all fours. Her head touched the floor and her eyes shut.

Amari leaned back away from the computer. When Lola’s eyes finally opened again, she sat back up and grabbed ahold of one of the railings to pull herself back up. He had the sudden thought that she would be sick when she woke back up.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry you had to go through that. Again.”

Lola’s hands were shaking when she looked down at them. She trudged forward, and the screen went static again.

“This is only going to get worse for her, if we keep going,” Amari said. “I hope that you know that.”

He pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, sucking in smoke like his life depended on it. Amari made a face, but didn’t try to stop him.

“Is that…your son?” Amari leaned in to see the screen better. He hadn’t even realized that the next memory had loaded.

Shaun was unmistakable. Dark olive skin like his dad, and deep auburn hair, like his mum.

She knelt down in front of him as he played on the floor, waving her hand in front of his face. Of course there was no way the kid would see her. She reached out to touch him, and her hand when right through his head, like a hologram. She crawled on her hands to get a good look at his face. He was skinny, but had round cheeks. Kellogg at least fed the kid. He even had some toys—a couple of cars and some blocks. Lola reached out again, but pulled her hand back before she got too close to Shaun’s face. Not like she needed a second reminder.

Kellogg liked having the kid around. Even adopted Shaun, in a way. He couldn’t tell if that was better or worse. Kellogg kicked back with a magazine while Shaun played quietly—the picture of a cozy family. That sad drawling song came on the radio in the background as a man appeared from nowhere. Tall, scary-looking guy in a trench coat that said "I wear black so the blood won't stain." He told Kellogg that some scientist had run off, and collected Shaun. In a flash of blue light, the two were gone.

“Teleportation!” Amari leaned into her screen as she talked into the microphone. This was like some old world comic—Institute wackos teleporting in and out of their base to kidnap kids and stir up fear. Like old supervillains. Lola didn't look away from where Shaun and the man had vanished.

Amari started typing again, and then skirted around the table to watch as the pod hissed open. Nick was up and out first, and excused himself to take a walk with one hand over his forehead.

Amari was crowding Lola—he could tell by the way her eyes darted around the room and her chest heaved that she was two steps away from freaking out in that little, claustrophobic pod. He grabbed her elbow and helped her out of the chair before she screamed. He let go when she was back on her feet, and she pulled Kellogg’s jacket tighter around her, as if that could help keep her together. She was breathing like she had just run a marathon.

“Mac, can I have a sec to talk to Dr. Amari?”

MacCready nodded and backed out of the room. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he went up the stairs. Valentine was waiting in the lounge at the far end, sitting on a plush red couch with his head in his hands. MacCready wasn’t really sure what to do with himself, so he crossed the room to look at some old Silver Shroud memorabilia. Seemed better than waiting in the doorway.

Lola came up the stairs a few minutes later, walking fast towards Nick.

“Nick!”

“Hope you got what you were looking for inside my head.”

Kellogg. The voice that answered her was Kellogg’s. He told her he knew he should have killed her. Lola backed up, and Mac had his gun out before he’d fully turned toward her.

“Kellogg?”

Mac reached her side as Nick came-to. Seemed real surprised about the whole thing, but it was too late for Lola. He could see her withdraw. When Nick asked where they were headed next, she told him she would rather go it alone. Didn’t even say where she was going. Robo-dad frowned. He looked at MacCready, and then back at Lola, and asked if she was sure. Yes, she was sure. But thank you, for everything. See you soon, Nick.

MacCready winced. It wasn’t Nick’s fault he was having some trouble shaking Kellogg outta his brain. Valentine waved them off as they headed for the Rexford for the night. She paid for a room with a very forced smile, and dragged her feet up the stairs while he trailed behind.

“So, where are we headed next?”

She closed the door behind them and dropped onto the bed. He sat down next to her and gave her a second to reply before nudging her arm.

“Where to, Boss?”

She looked up at him and tried to take a breath, but it snagged into a sob. Her eyes were watery, but she blinked hard and shook her head.

“Hey.” He wasn’t sure what to say after that. He put an arm around her shoulders.

“That was what I saw last time I went to the Den. The Vault. f*ck.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “No matter where I go, I end up right back in that f*cking Vault.”

He rubbed her back, but what do you say to that? Yeah, that’s real awful about your husband and kid? Sorry ‘bout all that? He pat her shoulder. She tucked her knees up into her chest and hugged them before standing up. She paced to the far wall, and then back, and then around the bed, and then to the door. MacCready stood up, not totally sure what was going to happen next.

“Do we need to leave? If we need to go somewhere, we can go.” He rubbed the back of his neck. He would rather walk across hot coals than have Lola be…like this. He shifted his weight onto his heels, and then from foot to foot.

“No, I just—I am—”

She walked back over to the bed, peeled Kellogg’s jacket off her arms, and threw it on the floor. The spiked shoulder pad clanked on the floor. She rubbed her bare arms—it was a little too cold for the t-shirt she was wearing, but he couldn’t blame her for not wanting anything to do with Kellogg after all that. She scrubbed her hands through her hair.

“Hey, Boss.” He grabbed her arms as she dragged her nails down her face. She looked up at him as if she was just realizing that he was there. Her eyes bounced over his face. He started to back up, but she grabbed a fistful of his coat, pulled herself up on her toes, and mashed her face against his. His head spun as her lips moved against his, and it took his body a second to remember how to react. This was the Boss. Lola. The newcomer to this whole century, the juggernaut, kissing him full on the mouth. She bit his lower lip and he almost yelped in surprise. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood on end; he could feel goosebumps on his arms. She bit his lip again before running her tongue over it. Her sigh melted him. He wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her up against him as he licked along the line of her lip experimentally. She froze.

She pushed against his chest until he dropped his arms and they stood there, barely three inches apart. This tiny choking sound left her, from the back of her throat.

“I—” His fingers brushed her wrist. He wanted to grab her and pull her back in, but that had to be wrong.

“Catch you later.” She scooped Kellogg’s jacket up off the floor and barely had one arm through a sleeve before she opened the door to the room.

“What? Where are you going?”

She stopped in the doorway, jacket half on, mouth hanging open like she was trying to say something. She crossed the room and picked up her pistol (the one named after her husband, goddamnit) and shrugged.

“I have to see someone. Be back later.”

“I’ll come too.” He reached for their packs, but she shook her head as she shoved her other arm into its sleeve.

“No! No. I just need…some quiet. Please.” She bit her lip against her watering eyes. f*ck. “I’ll be back soon. Just get some rest.”

And like that, she was out the door and gone into the night. He watched her cross the courtyard through the window, and head right into the Third Rail. Okay. So that happened. He scrubbed a hand over his face a couple of times, but his mouth still burned like she was kissing it. He didn’t just make out with his employers. He was a professional. What the hell had that been? The bed creaked under him as he toed off his boots. He wiped a sleeve across his mouth like he was trying to erase the whole confusing thing. Look, he got it. Reliving Lucy’s death made him feel something weird too. Empty. Hollow. Listless. If he’d lost Duncan too? He probably wouldn’t still be here. But the Boss?

It seemed weird to call her the Boss (even in his head) after excavating her mouth with his f*cking tongue. And he f*cking hated himself for it (because oh man was this not the time for this sh*t) but he wanted more. Lots more. Her mouth tasted stale but he couldn’t have cared less. He wanted to grab her hips and kiss the soft skin at her throat and she would make that little moaning sound, and he would—

That was f*cking inappropriate. This was his Boss. And if Lucy could see him now…

He fell asleep somewhere in between extreme shame, and extreme something. She must have snuck back in some time before morning, but he had been in and out of sleep until pretty late, so there was no way she got more than a couple of hours of sleep. When she woke up in the morning, she listened to some propaganda tape about the Railroad (bunch of maniacs, from what he’d heard, but now did not seem like the time to pick fights), and they set out at around noon for somewhere (she wouldn’t say where). She treated him just like normal. Like nothing had happened. So he decided to go on the same way—like nothing had happened.

Chapter 9: Claustrophobia

Chapter Text

She wouldn’t tell him where they were going, but this was the third nest of muties they had run into, and he was starting to wonder why they needed to head south if it meant slogging through so many damned mutants. It had been nice to swing by Diamond city—bulk up on gear, get her some real armor and not just Kellogg’s jacket. But if he knew anything about the boss, it meant that kicking back and resupplying meant that she was headed for something dangerous. He vaulted over the hood of a bombed-out car, and turned back to see Lola twenty feet away, breathing hard. sh*t.

The Muties were gaining in a big way, and sneaking was pretty much off the table now that they were out in the open. She ducked behind a wall a little closer to him, but they would find her there, no problem. The overlapping ticking was getting louder and closer. Suicider, and more than one. She jerked her head towards him, barreling out from under cover. He could let her get blown the f*ck up. Serves her right for charging in, after he told her that this was not their fight. He darted out from behind cover, and caught up to her in eight strides—slow as hell vaulters. She grabbed his coat and shoved him down a side-street. The Muties were far enough behind where they probably couldn’t see MacCready and Lola, but would be able to follow easy enough. He shook his head in protest, not wanting for them to bottle-neck themselves into the dead-end, and wind up pulp. But she had a different idea.

She slammed her hand down on the control pad for the Pullowski shelter tucked into the corner. She evicted its previous inhabitant with an unceremonious kick, and he didn’t waste a second climbing in after her. The door curled around them, sealing them in the claustrophobic can. He didn’t mind being confined so much, but he had seen her reaction to the Mole Rat cave outside the Red Rocket and the pod at the Memory Den. Small, enclosed spaces were usually a no-go.

His arms were pressed against the walls of the shelter, and he was holding his breath, praying to the saint of idiots that their misstep wouldn’t drop them both into untimely graves. He could feel her breathing against his chest, and it was a damn good thing that he wasn’t some hulking mass like Danse, or they would have never fit. She was holding her gun between the two of them, but that wouldn’t do any good if the muties found them. She couldn’t even move that arm. Besides, his back was up against the door because there hadn’t been time to shift when they were running from those massive walls of muscle and bad breath. If the muties found them and opened the Pulowski, he’d come tumbling out ass-first. They had effectively cornered themselves—all he could do was sweat bullets and hope the monsters didn’t find them.

The tromping footsteps came and went, and he could feel her chest heave against his—choppy, panicky breaths. The air in the shelter was thin as-is, and he felt lightheaded already. For a long moment, they did not hear anything. Then, they heard massive feet trudging back towards their base, defeated. His knees almost buckled in sheer relief. She squirmed against him, impatient, waiting to make sure that it was all-clear.

All that adrenaline, and he was suddenly so aware of her that it hurt. Her hips brushed his; her arms were pinned against his chest. He could feel the curve of her body nestled into him, and she smelled like sweat and grime and he’d never wanted her more. He remembered kissing her hard in Goodneighbor.

“Just wait one more minute.” Her voice was thin.

He wanted to open up the pod, but he couldn’t reach the switch anyways. One hand dropped down onto her waist, the other resting on her back—pretty much the only place he could leave his hands now that he had worked them out from between him and the wall. Vaguely, he could feel her fingers on his coat, palms flat until she drew inward, clenching the material in her fists and pulling, as if he could get any closer if he tried. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. For a second, he missed that tight, stretchy vault suit, but he had do admit that the military fatigues did something too. When he slid his hand up under her shirt at her hip, he felt bare skin, and she exhaled hard. Her armor was in the way but, if anything, there was just something about the Boss, all decked out in that armor…

“Mac?” She didn’t sound upset, but he dropped his hand from her waist.

“Uh, I can’t reach the button, Boss.” It was the truth. The panel was too close to him to reach. In the small space, there would be no way for him to twist and touch the button that was tucked into his ribs. She squirmed again, and he had to suppress a groan. Somehow, that traitor hand of his had landed back on her hip, and she was so warm…What was he doing, holed up in this dark tin can with her, pushed up against him in seven different ways, with a sniper rifle snuggled between them? How had they gone from 200 caps in Goodneighbor (not 250, of course—the Boss never paid full price) to this? He had only been by her side for five months, and already, he felt like he knew her. All of her. And sure, they hadn’t talked about it, but she kissed him, right?

He was a little surprised when the door slid open behind him, spilling him out onto the ground. She held out a hand to help him up, and of course he took it, and of course her hands were warm and sweaty, and of course he couldn’t help but imagine those hands on him in different places. He shook his head. Get it together, MacCready.

He had her six as they crept towards the end of the alley, and then in the opposite direction of the muties. Sure, they could have fought them. Or tried. But the boss, for all her policing of the wastes, occasionally knew when it was better to fold. No lives on the line, outnumbered, and outgunned? Time to pack it in. He liked that about her. It was no fun working for someone with a deathwish.

Once they were away from Fallon’s mall and back into the scrubby tree line, she didn’t waste any time in finding them a place to bunk down for the night. It was already pretty dark, and the shack was pretty well abandoned. They did a sweep and then started fortifying the place. They picked the kitchen—off the center, with one doorway, and one window. She toppled the couch from the living room and butted it against the door to create some makeshift cover. He shoved the refrigerator in front of the window. She laid out the sleeping bag in a far corner, facing the doorway. He dug through their packs for something edible. All things considered—they were getting pretty good at setting up camp on the fly. The whole process took ten minutes, and they barely had to speak to know what needed to be done. He slumped to the floor, back against the counter. His feet ached, and he was chilly, and grimy, and hungry. Which is partially why he could not understand why in the hell she was still pacing—drilling a trench into the floor with her boots.

“Uh, Boss?”

She quirked her head towards him. She shrugged.

No matter how raw his feet felt now that he was good and comfortable, he hoisted himself up using the counter and walked over to where she was still pacing.

“You, uh, okay there?”

“Do you think we should sweep the house again?” She tapped her foot.

“Did you hear something?”

“No…”

He stretched. “I thought we were pretty thorough earlier.”

“Should we double check?”

“We can,” he shrugged. “Boss, hold still, you’re making me dizzy.”

She stopped and turned on her heel to face him. Her eyes were a little wild in the blue glow from her PipBoy, pupils huge black circles in that electric green. She had this feral, frantic look about her—shoulders up to her ears, jaw tensed. She looked like she would lash out at the next person to touch her. Rip them apart with her bare hands.

“Boss?”

“What?”

“You seem a little on-edge.”

“Fine. Just fine.”

Belatedly, he noticed the dull red blossom on the shoulder of her jacket. It was pretty fresh, and neat. A nice little hole, more than likely courtesy of one of the muties they had run into earlier. He had told her not to go charging in.

“Boss, you’re hurt. Lemme see.”

She looked down and pat her stomach and chest until she brought her palm down on the spot and winced.

“Not serious.”

“Boss.” He didn’t care that she was a live wire right now, that wound needed to be dressed. Opening a wound up to infection out here in the Commonwealth was just asking for trouble. He grabbed her elbows and steered her towards the counter. She hopped up onto the counter top without a word, and threw off her chestpiece over her head. She had a little more trouble fighting with the buttons on her coat. Her hands were shaking so bad that she only managed two or three before he stepped in and smoothed the fabric away from the wound. She adjusted the strap of her tank-top so that he could get a good clean look at the bullet hole. Not too deep, but pretty ugly. What was it Lucy said to do? Water to irrigate, alcohol to clean, bandage to protect. One, two, three. He motioned for her to sit closer to the sink, and she scooted over. As he retrieved some water and a fifth of vodka, she drummed her fingers on the counter top and kicked her feet. He lit a lantern that had been sitting on the counter and washed his hands as best he could with the sliver of soap she had brought with them and some of the cold bottled water.

It was a struggle getting her to sit still to be looked at. She had to lean sideways over the sink pretty awkwardly, and was thrumming—not quite shaking, but vibrating, as if powered by a particularly cranky generator. He sluiced some of the water over the wound a couple of times to be sure that he could get most of the grime cleared away. Then, for the fun part. Using some tweezers they had scavenged a while back, he had to dig the bullet out. This was always his least favorite bit. The bullet was always slippery, and the first few times he got a grip on it, the damned thing shot out from the tweezer’s grasp, and dug more firmly into her skin. To her credit, she didn’t make a sound. When he was finally able to maneuver the bullet out of her skin, he dropped it into the sink and, without missing a beat, splashed some vodka onto her arm. The loud hiss she let out as she jerked away from him was proof enough that the stuff was working. After a moment of breathing through grit teeth, she placed her elbow back in his hand so that he could manipulate a cloth (also soaked in vodka, because the wasteland was a cruel bitch) around her shoulder. Even in the flickering light, he could see the little tears in the corners of her eyes as she jammed them shut. He stuck the stimpack into her arm and hoped that would kill some of the pain.

“Well. You’re all done, Boss. And without stabbing me in the face, too. I would say that we were pretty successful.”

“Mmph.” She hopped down from the counter and started up that damned pacing again.

He wanted to stop her until it clicked. She was still freaked out from before. Tight spaces, impending fear of death…all right after reliving her husband’s murder. That must have hit a little too close to home. Too much like that vault she had crawled out of. He got that. The first time they’d had to clear a metro full of ghouls, he had stayed up for two nights after, half drunk, irritable, and with a feeling in his veins like he was full of angry stingwings.

“You can talk about it, you know.”

That seemed to catch her off guard.

“About what?”

“About the Vault. That’s what has you so wired, right?” In truth, he kinda wanted her to talk about it. There had been no chat after what he saw. Hell, he didn’t even know if she knew what he saw. In her own time, she’d probably want to talk about it, but still.

She bit hard on her lip and shook her hands as if trying to get water off them.

“You don’t have to talk about it, but you can. I’ll listen.” He leaned against the doorframe and waited. She would let him know what she wanted either way; she always did. When she wheeled around to face him, he definitely expected to get an earful about minding his own damn business, thank-you-very-much. But then, she was so close so fast, and one fist was grabbing for his shirt, and one was knocking his hat off his head, and she was kissing him as if she would suffocate if he didn’t share some of his air.

He wanted to be the good guy here—the upstanding guy. The friend. The just friend. The just friend who learned his lesson after the last time this had happened. But as soon as her fingers were in his hair and her hips were rolling against his, he was kissing back in earnest. She was too much too fast—her teeth ground against his twice, and he would have cringed if he was not so sucked up into her frenzy. Harder than the first time. She bit his bottom lip, and he tasted blood. He grabbed her hips and pulled her up against him. When she moaned, he could taste it on her tongue. Christ, he really wanted to be the good guy, but the moment she had stepped into his room at The Third Rail, it was over. Anything she wanted, and he wouldn’t be able to resist, even if it was for the best.

He grabbed her by the arms and shoved her away for a second. Do or die. If he didn’t stop this now, they wouldn’t stop. Her fingers were at the collar of his shirt. As if she had read his mind, she whispered “Mac, please?”

He turned and pushed her up against the wall instead of pushing her away. He was going to hell.

This wasn’t fair to her. She was upset. He was upset. It had been a long day. They should talk stuff like this out. They should have talked about what happened in Goodneighbor. But her hands were already up under his shirt. She moaned when he pushed her against the wall. When she pulled her face back from him for a second, he nearly fell into her. She yanked at his coat until it fell off his arms and he thought she would strip him of his shirt next, but she jumped right from that to his belt, and he felt as if he had been smacked in the ribs. Straight up winded, until he exhaled into her hair. He didn’t know what to do with his f*cking hands. He wanted to touch everywhere at once. His palms were braced against the wall, but he wanted—

She grabbed him hard and he almost doubled over when she ran her thumb over his…Holy sh*t. He buried his face in her neck.

It had been so long since he had—

And she had—

Holy. sh*t.

His body took over from there, because clearly his brain was malfunctioning. His palms rode the soft expanse of her stomach up to her breasts, and back down her hips, and up again, until he finally made it to the waistband of her fatigues. If only he could remember how to work button flies. Each time she squeezed, he made this grunting sound that he could only half-hear, and his hands got shakier. What was it about mercs always having steady hands? Hah. It sounded like she was kicking the sh*t out of him and in a lot of ways, she really was. He gave up on the fly, and pushed the fatigues down her hips and over her ass. They were big on her anyways.

She took that invitation and raised him one, shoving his chest until he stumbled back enough for her to get around him. She kicked off her boots, and her pants with them. She crossed him, and when he turned around, she was sitting on the counter. Within half a second, her underwear was down past her ankles. He was a little transfixed, and when he came-to, he realized that he must look like an idiot. Hair sticking up all over the place, standing there in a t-shirt and his jeans, one hand holding up his pants and the other still extended as if he were reaching out for her. She co*cked one eyebrow and he lurched forward, collecting her face in his hands as she slid forward and wrapped her legs around his waist. If she moved forward any more…

She did. She slid forward and he caught her, hands on her ass, as she caught him. His pants fell down the second he let go, and his shorts dropped with them. And she was so ready. They were a mess of limbs, grabbing and scrambling as if they could get any closer. She dug her heels into his lower back, and he thought that he was going to completely lose it. He almost did twice—once when she raked her nails down from his shoulders, and once again when she took his ear between her teeth, both too gentle and too rough. He spat out a moan that sounded almost like a laugh. She was breathing so hard that he could feel it all through her chest. Everything about her pulled him in closer. She would barely let him get far enough away to pull out before driving back in. His knees were starting to lock up and shake from supporting both their weight at such a weird angle. And he knew she was drawing blood and that would suck later, and he knew that they would have to talk about this at some point, but god damn was she perfect.

She was making this soft sound—a bit of a moan, breathy and low. She gasped suddenly and shuddered all over, collapsing in his arms. She rocked against his hips a few more times and he crumpled. Too quick, too hard. He felt like he had forgotten how to breathe, and choked on the air in his lungs. For a long time, he couldn’t move. He could feel the blood thrumming through his skin, but he felt slack. She was completely limp in his arms, and showed no signs of moving either.

After a minute trying to remember how to breathe, he leaned back and found himself pinned by bright green eyes. She was just staring at him, locked in place. He couldn’t even puzzle out what she was thinking. After a minute of long, awkward silence, he picked her up to move her, ignoring the trembling in his knees. She let him lay her down on the sleeping bag. He tugged his coat up around them like a blanket, and then curled up behind her.

“Lola?” He just wanted to say it out loud.

She jerked as if she had just been snapped back into reality. “You never use my name.”

“I’m sorry—I just—” He shrugged and propped himself up on his elbow. Her shoulders were a tense line, and she didn’t look over at him when he spoke.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her breathing hitched. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I didn’t—.” She dug the heel of her hand into her eye. “f*ck.”

He knew it. He was such an asshole for letting that go as far as it did. So much for his promise to be a better man. He sat up and let her go, leaning against the cabinet.

“I’m sorry, boss. If you want, I’ll take first watch.” He didn’t really know what else to say. Sorry I suck at boundaries? Sorry I have no self-control?

“Sorry? Do you…?” She trailed off as she wrapped his coat around her legs. He didn’t finish the thought for her or prod. Here it comes. She’s going to hate him.

“Do you regret that, then?” Her voice sounded so small that he wasn’t even sure that was what she had said.

“What?”

Her cheeks were bright red, and she wouldn’t turn to face him. She sounded like she was holding her breath. She started pulling on her clothes as if she couldn’t get them on fast enough.

“Wait. Regret that? The sex?” His voice came out sounding much higher than he liked. He cleared his throat. She exhaled in one huff and buried her face into the sleeping bag. “Boss, I—”

“It’s fine. Let’s just forget it happened. Sorry.”

“Boss, do you—”

“I said, never mind, Mac. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t.”

When she didn’t answer that one, he crawled over on all fours and grabbed her arm, rolling her onto her back. He wasn’t even thinking, and accidently yanked on the arm with the busted shoulder. She sucked in a breath.

“Ow, Mac!”

“I’m sorry—I—shi—oot. Lola, I don’t regret that. I don’t regret any of it.” He didn’t mean to be so sharp with her, but he couldn’t stand that insecure twist of her mouth. That bitter grimace. He felt a little wild and a little desperate. Like he had to find some way to push that grimace off her face. “Do you?”

“No.” That just made it worse. She looked even worse when she said it. He could see it on her face. There was an unspoken “but I should.”

There was nothing to say to that. For either of them. He let go of her and stood up to take the first watch, like he had promised. He tried sitting up against the overturned couch, but the kitchen was too warm—too claustrophobic. And he didn’t know what to do about her. He knew he should say something—the right thing—but MotorMouthMacCready wasn’t known for saying the right thing. For once in his life, he decided he would be better off keeping his mouth shut before it was too late. He hopped over the edge of the couch.

“Gonna do that last sweep of the downstairs, Boss. Be back soon.”

She didn’t reply. In all honesty, he was a little glad she didn’t. Sweeping the downstairs was a bullsh*t excuse, and they both knew it. There were three rooms—the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. He didn’t want to re-check the upstairs and leave her exposed just because he was feeling like a complete idiot. He paced around the living room with his gun out as if he had sucked up all of her agitation through his skin. Did he hurt her? What was he supposed to do, there? With a vague horror, he realized that she may have even gotten pregnant. I mean, it had taken him and Lucy more than one try, but she had told him it was all about luck, and he’d had the worst luck lately…

That was when he heard the cooing. A baby—somewhere—making a cooing sound, like it had popped out of his imagination and into the house. His mind immediately jumped back to the Capitol Wasteland, and he was scouring the room for a stroller bomb. The sick f*cks in the Commonwealth hadn’t seemed to have caught onto that one in the same way that the raiders from the Capitol had, but who knows. He was a transplant, so it was possible there was some psycho out there rigging strollers to explode. The last thing they needed was a bomb, and a stroller bomb especially would kill Lola. Then, he heard a man’s voice.

“No, no. Little fingers away.”

Oh.

He had heard her play that tape a few times—mostly when she saw something from the past that had been f*cked up beyond any comparison. Now, he could put a face to that voice. Her baby babbles, and then her husband comes on, and says just the right things, and she gets this look on her face like nothing will ever be right again.

He really tried not to be a goddamned snoop, but he couldn’t help himself. He was so curious. Her husband’s voice was warm. Not trashcan-fire-on-a-cold-night warm, but pre-war warm. A kind of warm he only heard playing over her PipBoy, or from her. The kind of warm he thought that Daisy must have had before all that radiation poisoning. The man sounded strong, confident. Capable. Her husband sounded like the kind of guy even Paladin High-and-Mighty couldn’t turn his nose up at. The guy whose voice played over her PipBoy when she thought no one was listening could probably take on the Institute, The Brotherhood, The Railroad, every raider in the Commonwealth, and a pack of muties, all before lunch.

MacCready didn’t want to feel bitter about it—hell, Mr. Competent was dead, and Mac wasn’t one to begrudge the dead. But he was only human.

He wondered what her husband would have to say about a mercenary like him. Or what in the hell he would say to the guy, if they’d ever met.

“Sorry you’re dead, man, but I’ll take it from here?”

“Sorry about your kid?”

“Sorry for f*cking your wife?”

He had no right to be jealous of this poor dead f*ck, who had lost everything—especially not with Lucy always so fresh in his own mind. But there was something about the look on Lola’s face when she heard her husband’s voice that made his skin itch.

Chapter 10: Changes

Chapter Text

“What are your thoughts?”

“Cagey was an understatement. They were completely hostile.”

“Mac—” She had that tone again. Plaintive and small. Like somehow, he was injuring her. She’d had that tone for days now. No matter what he said, even the dumb jokes that had made her laugh a thousand times before, she would just reply with “Mac…” and a thousand-yard stare.

Deacon was still watching them, though they were far enough away that he likely couldn’t hear what they were saying. That woman—Desdemona, what the hell kind of name is that?—stood there in her flannel, looking about as intimidating as a middle-aged woman in flannel could. She glanced at Deacon before walking away. Deacon stayed, waiting for a response to his offer to be her full-time traveling buddy. MacCready had a bad feeling he knew what her answer would be.

“Look, you’ve figured it out so far. I was just saying that the Brotherhood might be your best shot.”

“I already told Deacon I was going with him.”

That smooth-talking son of a—“Then why even ask me?”

“Mac.” There it was again. “I have to do something…big. But first, I need to get the Institute’s attention. Deacon will know how to do that for sure.”

He tipped up his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Deacon stopped watching and started talking to that aggressive chick who stood halfway behind the wall, as if ready for a firefight just in case one broke out. The guy was bigger than MacCready, for sure. And pretty stealthy if he had really been following them all this time. But still, the Railroad (as far as he knew) was a little on the cult-side. Plus, from the way these maniacs talked, that stalker wouldn’t care if Lola got shot, so long as he saved a synth. f*cking hippy.

“Are you sure you want to trust them?”

“I need to go with him. The only other option is…not feasible. I need to find a new way to Shaun, and Deacon’s the best chance I have for breaking into the Institute. We both know that.”

“I’ll come along then. You point, I’ll shoot. Pretty simple.”

“Mac…”

“Boss?”

She got up close to him, lowering her voice. Deacon tried to look like he wasn’t listening in, but he was locked, loaded, and ready to go. Prick. “They don’t trust you. He can’t help me if you come too. Please.”

It was that last little bit that broke him. Lola said a lot of things, but he’d never known her to say “please.”

He wanted to crack a joke about visiting his favorite mutt, but it came out “I’ll be around Sanctuary if you need me.”

Deacon turned towards them, walking forward. Definitely listening in.

“All right, Deacon. I guess it’s your turn.” He offered a half-hearted wave. “Stay safe.”

“Appreciate that, MacCready. You do the same.” As if they were the best of friends.

The way she looked at him, he thought for a minute she might change her mind. She reached out as if to grab for his hand, but the gesture never made it past her body. She didn’t say anything. But she needed this. Looking at her—she needed time apart. And maybe he did too. He pulled his hat off by the brim and rested it on Lola’s head. It was a little crooked atop her wavy red hair. The green made her hair look red-er. Like fire. It looked so right on her that he wondered why he hadn’t just given it to her in the first place. The hat was lucky, after all, and she needed the luck.

It was a long, lonely trip back to Sanctuary.

He hadn’t made a trip like that by himself in quite a while. He was a great deal safer, in a lot of ways. No urge to run off and pick fights with everything that cropped up on his radar. Nope—nosirree. He picked a route and edged around the bad parts of town. Came up against a Mirelurk here and a YaoGui there, but nothing he couldn’t handle. When Sanctuary’s bridge came into view, he was almost disappointed. And the whole way back, there had been no one to rib him about how much he complained. He walked through the front gates with a sigh.

He settled into her house in Sanctuary. Someone had to take care of Dogmeat, he reasoned, and none of her precious flock dared go into the condemned house. The only house that (at least, on the inside) hadn’t been changed much at all. Cleaned out, but not changed. And while she’d boarded the whole place off, it wasn’t as if it was dangerous. She was the only one who thought it was haunted.

When he slept by himself in her bed in that cold, empty house, he made Dogmeat curl up at the foot of the bed with him.

She didn’t come back for a while.

He took odd jobs here and there, but stuck close to base, in case she came back. After a while with no word from her, he stopped feeling the pressure to orbit around Sanctuary. Not like she would wander back any time soon, by the look of it. In some ways, he felt better without her. No wondering how long their crazy thing would last. About whether she would like Lucy. If the two would get along. If Lucy was watching him somehow, disappointed that he was pining after some crazy vaultie.

Preston let slip at one point that she had swung by Sanctuary to drop off supplies while MacCready was out by Goodneighbor, scouting work. She hadn’t even stuck around to say hi.

He was a little tempted to leave. It would be easier on both of them. He had known that they were f*cking things up when they…he ran his fingers through his hair. Besides, he had an end-game, and he wasn’t getting much closer sitting around Sanctuary, fixing roofs and manning the guard posts. He packed up a bag and left it under her bed (where he had found himself crashing more often than not, lately). But then, late at night when he had planned to hop the fence and make his way back to the Capitol, the bag would need to be repacked. Or it would rain. Or the moon would be too bright. Or Dogmeat would give him that look. He always found a reason to stay one more night. And he was always disappointed in the morning, when he woke up alone in her old bed, in her old house, in her old neighborhood.

Sometimes he wondered idly how often she listened to that holotape when she was wandering around with Deacon. A lot? Never? Probably never. The smooth-talking prick probably had her wrapped around his little finger. Among other things. The thought flashed into his head without warning, and refused to scuttle politely back into the shadows. He had to very intentionally, viciously tamp those thoughts down. If he was being honest, he was more than a little jealous and it was throwing off his aim.

One of her provisioners hired him while she was away, and now he made circuits from Sanctuary to that run-down boathouse in the middle of nowhere. Every time they left Sanctuary, he reminded her that he had another client, and if she came back, he would have to leave. The provisioner (Marcy, maybe it was) paid him separately for each trip. It was a pittance, and the provisioner never laughed at any of his jokes. She never laughed at anything—the woman was constantly in an apocalyptically bad mood.

The longer Lola was gone, the more he felt like a Nuka Quantum that had been shaken up and left in a puddle of nuclear waste to fizzle and pick up that scratchy, uncomfortable heat.

Chapter 11: The Waiting Game

Chapter Text

She was gone with Deacon for just over two months in total and he didn’t see or hear from her for the whole time, even though he knew that she had been back home more than once. Part of him wondered if that was on purpose, though he was bound to run into her at some point. He was taking a drag from his eighth cigarette when it finally happened. She finally strut back into Sanctuary, arm-in-arm with the world’s biggest prick, grinning like an idiot. Deacon’s hand seemed to be hovering permanently around her back, and he followed her like a shadow.

MacCready didn’t come out to greet her the way the rest of the township did. He hung back and watched her from the sniper’s guard post she had built him atop one of the ramshackle houses. Deacon spotted him immediately—he could tell by the way the man had locked onto his spot, and then very casually looked away without looking back. She hadn’t, though, and Deacon hadn’t pointed MacCready out.

That night, after everyone went to bed, he walked by her old house very deliberately. Not totally sure what he planned. He passed where her window should be (though, since she boarded the whole place up, no telling for sure where that was). Nothing. He slept in one of the common houses with the rest of the settlers.

She wasn’t gone come morning, but he figured he would give it a few hours before walking out and about. Felt a little silly, hiding from the Boss, but they had too much to talk about, and not enough brain between them to hash-it-out and be done with it like adults. He stretched out in a chair on the second floor of one of the common houses—the same one that she had built for herself, and never used. He propped his feet up on the table, even though he could practically hear her chiding him about tracking mud into her nice, clean house. He had watched her meander around the settlement for the last hour, looping in and out of different buildings—the refugee shelter, the boarding house, the bar, the infirmary, town hall, the market. She zig-zagged through the village, shoulders slumping a little more with each threshold she crossed. He knew her well enough to know that she was looking for him. This was the last place for her to check besides the open-air Brahmin pen.

He leaned forward in his chair and started preparing something to say when she came up those stairs.

Through the window, he could see Preston crossing the cul-de-sac to intercept, briefing the Boss on something or other. He got that look on his face—all focused and fired up about beacons and generators and radio signals. The Boss’ arms were folded over her chest, and she was shaking her head. Some settlement in danger—needs immediate help, for free!—as always.

Deacon was leaning against the tree at the end of the cul-de-sac, well within sniping-range, not that that mattered.

She looked up at his window, plaintive. With the sun back-lighting the house, and the blue sheets draped across the windows, he was certain that she couldn’t see him from where she was standing. Deacon probably could, but not her. Even if it felt like she could with the way she was looking directly where he was sitting.

Preston was getting more animated. Long description. She nodded. Deacon came up beside her, mimicking her posture to a tee. When Preston smacked his fist against his palm, she nodded again and turned on her heel. Deacon set off toward the Med Shack. She headed for her house. She always stopped there to regroup before doing something big. And she was going to leave him here in Sanctuary. Peachy.

Grabbing his “go-bag” hadn’t seemed too tempting, but then she walked out of her garage, all decked out and ready to go. Still wearing his damn hat. He could bee-line it for the Capitol Wasteland, and no one would be the wiser. He would just find the medicine for Duncan some other way. But then, when she stepped onto the street, she stumbled and dropped something she was carrying. That whole “cool-competent” thing she was going for shattered as she scrambled to collect herself. No one else saw it, and she was back on her feet quickly. f*cking dork. He wanted tease her about being so clumsy, but didn’t have the heart. But if he didn’t stick around, who would keep the Boss from getting a big head?

The whole settlement came together to see her and Deacon off. He leaned against the bar, arms crossed. They finally made eye contact over the crush of settlers wishing her and Deacon a safe trip. Her shoulders rolled forward—she never had liked crowds. Always said that she felt too hemmed in. She was still wearing his hat. He bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and she smiled. Deacon waggled his eyebrow and nudged her shoulder. He got real close to her ear and said something that made her laugh so hard her eyes crinkled shut. A real belly-laugh, bubbling up out of her, to her own surprise. He could hear it floating over the crowd to meet him before she feigned a sigh and rolled her eyes. Deacon shrugged, adjusting his pistol in its holster. Of course the asshole had to be funny too. MacCready wanted to spit.

From the bridge, the Boss turned and waved with one arm high over her head, the other at her side (ending in the fist that clenched her pistol). She was waving to everyone, but only looked at him. He brought two fingers up to where the brim of his hat should have been in a half-hearted salute. If he was being fair, she seemed a lot happier and a lot lighter than when he had last seen her. He thought back to his duffel bag. He was well past his 200 (not 250) cap retainer, after all.

Preston was packing up to leave a few hours later. Word around the settlement pointed to some base out in the middle of nowhere—The Castle—that Preston had been panting after. He’d heard the man mention it a while back after the Boss and MacCready had cleared and settled Starlight. The Castle (from the sounds of it) was pretty close to another location they had settled. An island in the ass-end of the Commonwealth. His mind jumped immediately to her, all decked out in the clunkiest power armor, back-lit by the moon. A glorious force of nature with a Fatman braced against her hip. In the fires from the mini-nuke explosion, her eyes looked too green. Radioactive green. She had tucked her helmet under her arm as she crouched beside him.

“I got the Queen, a hunter, a razorclaw, one of the kings, and most of the hatchlings.” The wild, goofy grin on her face drove him to laugh in spite of four broken ribs and a leg he couldn’t put any weight on.

“Oh man!” He had said it more out of shock than anything else. She had laughed with him, semi-hysterical. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. She stepped out of the destroyed power armor, and was so much smaller next to the thing that he stopped laughing and wanted to shake her. Preston hadn’t even asked them to clear that one. But, once she had seen that workbench, it was all over. She just had to have it. And once the Boss wanted something—goods, services, people—she got it.

“Besides,” she had said to him as she jabbed a Stimpack into his leg. “I need to become a real threat before I can take on the Institute.”

That was what everything boiled down to for her. Getting good enough to make people quake in their boots. Getting good enough to mow down her enemies and take back her son.

“MacCready.” Preston yanked him off memory lane so fast his head spun. The man never called him anything else—probably just copied what the Boss usually called him, though it sounded very different when he said it. Formal, somehow.

“Sir, yessir!” He couldn’t resist the bit of sarcasm. Preston frowned.

“We are retaking the Castle. The General is on her way to a neighboring settlement, and I need to set out with a team to meet her at the gates, and I need your help to keep an eye on the settlements around this area.” Direct as always.

“I thought you didn’t like me much.”

“Your help around the settlements hasn’t gone unnoticed.” This didn’t explain why Preston looked nervous as hell. “The General seemed worried about leaving without assigning someone to keep an eye on things.”

Preston seemed to know all the right buttons to press to keep MacCready from skipping town for good. She had probably asked Preston to say this. As if she was reading his mind and begging him to stay. He rubbed his beard. Preston eyed him as if to say “don’t read too much into this.”

“Alright. Who else but the one and only.”

“Offer help wherever it’s needed. And don’t ask for payment. People need to know that the Minutemen are there to help, free of charge.”

MacCready grumbled under his breath, but nodded all the same. “Sir, yessir!”

Preston shook his head and walked away. No sense of humor, that one.

MacCready, suddenly full of wanderlust, headed back to the Boss’ house to get ready for an extended trek around the Commonwealth. Sure, he'd help out. Better than following Marcy's slow ass back and forth across the same stretch of road fifty times a month. If the Boss really needed the help, she coulda just asked, anyway. He was planning out a route when who should greet him but the mightiest mutt, whimpering for attention.

“Of course you can come too, Dogmeat.” He scratched the dog’s ears. He fit some armor onto the mutt (whichever raider had thought to arm dogs and send them out to fight had been one sick pup—no pun intended—but had made the Boss’ face light up. “Armor!” She was playing with the buckles. “For Dogmeat!”). An hour later, he and Dogmeat were off in the direction of the Red Rocket for their first stop. From there, they walked from settlement to settlement one by one, clearing raiders, muties, and the odd feral as they went. She had nine settlements under her care: Sanctuary, the Red Rocket, Abernathy, the Boathouse, the Island, the Nursery, the Slog, Zimonja, and Starlight. Figured he could skip the Island (she was meeting there anyways), so it only took a few weeks.

How the boss had survived before meeting MacCready with only the pup in tow escaped him, though. The frigging dog would charge into battle, take out a few ghouls, and then limp away from the action and whimper until MacCready felt so guilty that he came running over with Stimpacks. Once or twice, MacCready caught himself butchering a raider with a little more savagery than was strictly necessary after the bastard had gone for Dogmeat. Christ. Now he understood why the Boss left the big baby safe at home.

They were on the home-stretch when they reached Starlight Drive-in, one of the more recent acquisitions. The boss had dumped so many resources into this one—full market place, living quarters, all raised on foundations so that everything sat level and secure…After three weeks of check-in calls and complaint-fielding, it was nice to have a little bit of luxury. And it was quiet (too quiet, he chuckled under his breath), which was always a bonus. He brought a couple caps to one of the vendors to buy a Nuka Cola for the walk home.

“Hey, can you tell her we all say thanks?”

“Huh?” He called Dogmeat to heel. The dog was too busy sniffing after some stew one of the settler’s had just made.

“The General. You're her friend, right? We are all grateful for the General and all of the opportunity she has given us.” The old man shook MacCready’s hand in both of his. “It’s hard work, but it’s honest.”

Happy people. Happy people living their lives. Not politicized like Diamond City, or rough-and-tumble like Goodneighbor, or regimented like Brotherhood hideouts, or defenseless like a family farm, or dangerous like a raider camp. The Boss, Lola, had given the people of the Commonwealth places to rebuild. He was impatient with all of her building projects for sure, but he felt a private glow of pride at what she had accomplished. For how much she meant to these people. For how she repaired everything from houses to humans.

Chapter 12: Triumphant Return

Chapter Text

When he and Dogmeat made it back to Sanctuary, they found Preston standing at the town meeting-place, chatting with a settler.

“Status report: all quiet sir!” MacCready jumped to attention in front of Preston, who scowled.

“I take it all of our settlements are doing well then?”

“Well enough, after I killed half the baddies in the whole Commonwealth so that everyone can grow their mutfruit in peace.”

“The General is back, if you were wondering.”

MacCready nearly choked and Preston raised an eyebrow. He shrugged, as if trying to shake it off. Of course she was home. Preston was home, which must mean that they’d done whatever they’d set out to do. Of course. How had he not made that connection?

“She and her partner are in her home.”

Of course they are. Duh. He shrugged again, and tried not to look too anxious as he walked over to her house, entering through the garage with Dogmeat. Just a little visit. Hadn’t seen her in a while and thought he oughta check in. How’d that errand go? Did the Railroad help you any? Just wanted to check in—nothing serious. His heart thudded up against his ribcage like it had footsteps of its own, and was sprinting to go see her.

The living room was empty when he turned into the house, but bits of armor were scattered across the floor, like she had been too tired to do anything other than drop them wherever they fell. That wasn’t like her. She was pretty annoying about putting things back where she wanted them, usually. He kept walking until he hit her bedroom and saw her sleeping in her underwear, half under that ratty old sleepingbag. Her face was completely slack, eyelashes fanning down over her cheeks. She breathed slowly in then out without tossing or turning, and was even smiling just a little bit at one corner of her lips. For a second, he completely forgot what he was doing. His hat was on her bedside table, next to her pistol.

Of course, Deacon brought him right back down to earth. He was next to her, though he was almost unrecognizable in a flannel and those stupid sunglasses (and he was abso-f*cking-lutely the kind of asshole to wear sunglasses in a house, probably even at night). Plus, the man’s slick black pompadour was gone—shaved right off. Took MacCready a second to place him (one of those faces, ya know). Probably came with being “the best spy in the Commonwealth,” right? His back was braced against the bedframe, keeping watch.

“Still killing people for caps, MacCready?” Before he could back out, Deacon was on his feet.

“Still pretending to be anyone but yourself, Deacon?” MacCready’s teeth were grinding against each other. Deacon laughed—a sincere laugh, not a derisive one. Like they were two friends trading some light-hearted teasing. Which made this all worse, somehow.

“Let me know before you try and wake her. I don’t want to be in the same room when she disembowels you.”

“I’ll come back later.” If there was one person he did not want to be around right now, it was Deacon.

“That’s good. Sometimes my wife can get a little snappy when woken. You know how it is.”

“Your wife?” Shouldn’t have bothered asking—why did he bother asking? Dogmeat’s ears perked up.

“Oh yeah. We got married out in the Wasteland. On top of a heap of bodies at the castle. Real low-key affair.” Deacon said it so deadpan that MacCready was tempted to believe him. His fists clenched, and Dogmeat barked in alarm at no one in particular. At that, Lola shot up in bed, hand on her pistol already.

“Ah, my blushing bride is awake!” Deacon grinned, hands on the bar at the foot of her bed. “Good afternoon, darling.”

“Deacon?” Lola blinked for a second, coming awake very slowly. “Where’s my dog?”

She glanced around for Dogmeat for a second, before her eyes fell on MacCready, who was still halfway out the door, standing there like a dumbass.

“Mac?”

“Hey, Boss.” MacCready nodded in acknowledgement and turned out of the room. Dogmeat hopped around the room, barking and panting.

That couldn’t have been more of a disaster if a suicider had come crashing through the walls. The Boss—Lola—couldn’t have married that asshole, and he was pretty sure about that. But that familiar hand on her back. They may not be married, but they were something. He didn’t want to be as mad as he was, but there was no denying that he would have taken any opportunity to punch Deacon in his smug face. Not like he owned her or had any claim on her. She could do whatever she wanted. He just thought that, after what had happened…

He hopped the fence and sat under a tree by the river. He knew when he wasn’t wanted. For now, he could always regroup in Goodneighbor. Ask Daisy if he could hitch a ride with her caravan and hightail it back to Duncan. He’d wasted enough time.

“Mac!” She slipped through a crack in the junk fence that was clearly not doing its job. Deacon started to follow, but the guy had to be twice as big as MacCready himself, and there was no way he would fit through the crack. Didn’t know the sweetspot to hop it either. He would have to walk all the way around. MacCready snorted. Served him right for following her around like a lost puppy.

“What are you doing out here? I heard you just got in.”

“I did.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” She dropped down to sit so close to him that he could feel the warmth from her shoulder seeping into his arm. She was wearing his hat again, and a ratty pink skirt. Her knees were red and one was actively bleeding from an older cut. “Aren’t you going to ask if I’d forgotten about you? Guilt trip me a little?” She frowned up at him. He was really only a little taller—she came up to just under his nose—but she looked so much smaller sometimes. He shrugged. Deacon had just made it around the fence, and sat next to Lola.

“Figured you would want to spend some time with your husband.”

“Husband?” She looked over at Deacon and flushed. He didn’t need to see this sh*t. Then, she wound up and smacked Deacon, who burst into laughter.

“You said we were married? What happened to the siblings cover?” She rolled her eyes. “Deacon is a pathological liar, Mac. He lies about everything. All the time.”

“I’m a synth too.” Deacon chimed in. MacCready raised one eyebrow.

"Is that what you were so huffy about?”

MacCready shrugged. “Did you have fun taking the Castle?” He couldn’t shake that moody tone, which wasn’t like him. She shot Deacon a look, and he excused himself to go change his oil, bowing. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket as he walked.

“Robert Joseph MacCready.”

She sounded a little too much like Lucy when she used his full name. He wanted to pull away from her, but there she was, so close that he was caught in her orbit again.

“I just don’t trust those Railroad bas—guys.” That wasn’t everything, but he wasn’t feeling all that chatty. A little humiliated and a little awkward, but not chatty (for once). Besides, if they kept talking, he’d probably just run his mouth and say something stupid again. It was his MO.

“Yeah, well I didn’t trust the Brotherhood. I know, I know—clean water. Danse is okay, but something about Maxon gives me the creeps.”

He slid a cigarette out of the pack and stuck it between his lips before he could agree—those tight-asses were a little dead-eyed. And the way Maxon looked at her sometimes. Like a piece of meat, and a radroach at the same time. Like he wanted to kiss her and then stomp on her. Sexually frustrated 20-year-old megalomaniac. He lit his cigarette.

Lola laid down on the ground next to him, hands behind her head. “So what were you up to, Mac?”

“Did a walk of the settlements.”

“And?”

“A few hiccups, but everyone is still alive and well.”

“How did the crops come in?”

If it was anyone but the Boss, he would think they were making awkward small-talk. But she looked up at him, completely intent on his answer, and he remembered that old guy at Starlight and how overwhelmingly grateful he was.

“Good. One of the Mutfruit trees at the Slog was destroyed in a raid, but I brought your seed kit and planted another one.”

She exhaled the breath she had been holding.

“Good! I was so worried about them.”

“How was the Railroad? As mysterious as the rumors say?”

"Them? Ha! Some of those people are about as subtle as an anvil. Deacon is sneaky, but sometimes, I think he’s the only one. They have a synth named Glory who went on a raid with us, and I love the woman but she couldn’t make any more noise if she tried.” Lola blew a strand of hair out of her face. “But they don’t know any more about the Institute than I do, really. So far, the only other option forward is the one Amari gave me.”

“Which would be…?”

She bit her lip. “Not good.”

She crossed her legs at her ankles. She looked dirty and tired. Usually, when she made it home, her first action was to take a bath and redress so she could wash her clothes, then take a nap. Taking the Castle must have been one hell of a work-out for her to forget about her obsessive cleanliness. He noticed the dirt on her face, highlighting the scar that ran from her forehead, and the smaller scar over her lip. There was a little dried blood on her forehead, up in her hairline. Before he could stop himself, his hand was on her head, and he was thumbing hair out of the way to get a better look. She whined his name and folded her arms over her chest. God, sometimes the boss could be such a child, he—

He caught himself looking down at her. When she rolled her eyes, she smiled. When she whined about him nagging, she leaned into his hand. He couldn’t suppress a snort. Of course the Boss ate this up.

“Are you saying that you would take better care of me? Because, I’ll have you know, you would have to offer quite a bit to break up the Death Bunnies.”

“The Death Bunnies?” He co*cked an eyebrow and tried really hard not to laugh. She had won again.

“Deacon said we needed a name. He suggested it.”

MacCready suddenly felt a little silly for being jealous of a man who came up with the name “Death Bunnies.”

“I’d never want to break up a dream team.”

She pulled away and looked him square in the eyes. “Would you join me if I came up with a team name?”

He could never begrudge her anything. He rolled his eyes, feeling a little giddy.

“What will the other half of the Death Bunnies do?”

“Whatever it is he does when I’m not dragging him through raider camps?” She grinned. “Stalk people around the Wasteland.”

He wanted to kiss her smirking mouth until she couldn’t breathe. He wanted to hold her so close that she fused to his coat. He wanted to demand that she never leave him behind like that again. He didn’t do any of that. No clue how she would have reacted to the first two, and there was no way that she would give up running around with her new best friend. Besides, she still had to set aside some time for Paladin Puppet to get in good with the Brotherhood (hedge her bets), and he knew that. But he would be lying if he said he wasn’t just glad to have her smile back for a bit.

Chapter 13: Close

Chapter Text

Sleeping in the same bed wouldn’t have been weird a month or two ago, but now, as he lowered himself onto the sleeping bag beside her, he couldn’t help but notice every time she brushed him as she got comfortable.

“You gonna take off your boots, at least?” She always stripped down to sleep. She had already kicked off her boots and coat, and was sliding out of her pants as she spoke. She probably figured that there was no way anyone could make it into the closet without them noticing. Not only was the building abandoned and the closet door locked, but they had piled up their packs against it, and their feet, when they laid down, would undoubtedly be touching the packs. There would be zero surprises and, besides, the place was completely deserted. He untied his boots and slid off his coat. Not like he was one of those lucky people who was always warm, but he wouldn’t need it lying so close to her. She was a damn furnace, and he was already sweating enough already.

He laid down next to her, but there was no room, and his legs were just a little too long. He scrunched a little, but then he was practically kneeing her into the wall, which wasn’t fair. Finally, he rested his feet on top of their packs and hunkered down. She was so close. In the dark, he could see the outline of her body, hips sloped down into her waist and then curved back up into her shoulders. Her arm was draped over her side. They were what—one or two inches apart? He could feel the heat from her body against his, almost as if they were touching. Beside him, she shivered. He could have suggested that she sleep under the covers, but instead, he draped his coat over her shoulders. Her disembodied “thanks,” sounded warmer.

In the morning, he woke up six different kinds of uncomfortable. Morning breath? Check. Awkward erection? Check. Her knee, just a nudge over from his balls? Check. One arm numb? You betcha that the arm under her head was completely numb. Eating her hair? By the mouthful! Completely unable to move without waking her up? Check, check, and check.

He let his head loll back against the wall and pulled his free arm from around her so slowly that he felt like he was trying to rob her rather than trying not to completely invade her already limited amount of personal space. He probably shouldn’t be spooning his boss. Cuddling up to her hadn’t gone so hot last time. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but he should have insisted on taking watch. But they were both so damn tired (spent the whole day answering a desperate call for help from one of the settlements he just checked on, only to find themselves in Raider territory), and the place was pretty safe, and there didn’t seem to be a point to it. She rolled in her sleep and nestled snug up against him even though she could have scooched closer to the wall. She fit neatly against his chest, her back pressed up against him, and he couldn’t stop the parade of thoughts that tromped around his head. Of course she fits perfectly. The right f*cking size. The perfect shape. Like a puzzle piece. Of course her skin was warm and of course the hairs on her arms were fine and light—lighter than her hair. He ran his fingers down her shoulder until her sleeves ended at her forearms and he brushed over her skin. Yup. Still soft. Her legs were bare too, and he wanted to run his hands from her hip down. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check.

Her hips rose in a graceful curve from her stomach, a little on the wide side, and he remembered how they felt in his hands when he lifted her up onto the counter and—

He shifted further against the wall, but there wasn’t much more room to escape. He sucked in a breath through his nose. Shouldn’t be thinking like that. That was a bad time. Besides, most of these thoughts were probably coming from all the blood that was pooling at about waist level. But no matter how many times he reminded himself of how bad it was, he remembered her mouth and her hands and her thighs and it was impossible to get comfortable with the boss curled up against him in the real world, and curled up around him in his memory.

When she woke up, she stretched out before remembering that he was there too, and he used that to pretend that she had woken him up, and he hadn’t just been laying there awake like a creep for the past hour. She apologized, and he sat up so quickly that it made him dizzy.

“Breakfast?”

“Mhhm.” He rubbed his scalp, as she crawled over to the packs to retrieve food. Not like he had meant to stare at her ass, but there wasn’t a whole lot else for him to look at. When she plunked back against the wall next to him, she stretched out to plant her feet on the opposite wall. She never liked being cooped up. She wasn’t tall, but her legs looked four miles long all laid out on display, and his gaze traveled up from her ankles, past her knees, and to the faded, raggedy underwear at her hips. He feigned interest in the wall when she turned to hand him a tin of sugary apples and some water.

She took a sip of water and then handed the container to him, and he was suddenly overcome by the need to ask her about where they stood after Goodneighbor, and that thing with the Pullowski, and her leaving. One hand came up to meet her mouth as she yawned. He could ask all those things. He could tell her that he just needed to know what they were. Are. Where they stand. All he had to do was open his mouth and start talking. That part had never been hard for him. Shoulda been a cinch. Instead, he complained about how soggy this particular can of apples was. She rolled her eyes, grabbed his tin, and swapped it with hers so that he now had the remainder of her breakfast. To her credit, her apples were a little less soggy.

“Better, Mac?”

He chewed in silence.

He tried real hard not to sulk when they had to get themselves together to go run errands for the Railroad. She almost tripped into him while she was pulling on her pants and he was thrusting his arms into his coat. They had to do some sort of tango for him to get around her so that he could repack the sleeping bag. She bent over at the waist with her back to him to tie her shoes and he couldn’t have looked away for all the caps in the ‘Wealth.

It was going to be a long day.

Chapter 14: Nightmares

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until they were making their way back to Sanctuary that the radiation storm rolled in. He had felt it coming all day—he could swear that he could feel the crackling in his blood long before he heard the frantic tickticktick from the Geiger counter on her Pipboy. He knew for a fact that she had only experienced a hand-full of these storms—four at the max. Every time that droning rolled in over the hills with that puke-green fog, she locked up. She couldn’t gun the elements down, and she couldn’t outrun them either. Her combat armor wouldn’t stop the rads from poisoning the air she breathed. Her battle-cry couldn’t scare away the clouds. That helplessness was something in the wastes that she hadn’t gotten used to yet.

They took shelter in an abandoned shop. He pushed shelves in front of the door and window while she lit the lantern they had strung to her pack and dug through heaps of scrap for anything worth saving. He could still hear the hum from the storm outside, but he was more worried about the other Wastelanders in the area, who might have the same ideas they did. He doubled up the wall of shelves, just to be certain they weren’t disturbed. She rolled out their sleeping bags in the back of the room, using the light from her Pipboy to clear the ground as best she could. He dug through his pack in search of something edible, and noticed that she had filled his pack up with junk.

“I didn’t know you were collecting antiques.”

“The fans have screws, and we need those back at base.”

“And you can’t tear them apart here and leave the heavy stuff?”

She shrugged and sat back on her sleeping bag. He pulled a can of Cram and some Sugar Bombs from within the bag. She took a fistful of the cereal, and a bite of the cram, chasing that down with one of the Nuka Cola’s she’d produced from her pack. For dessert, he offered her a stick of bubblegum. A crack of lightening lit the floor under the door momentarily, and she cringed against the wall. He nudged her side.

“Lights out, Mac. Do you want first watch, or the second?”

“I’ll take first. Rest up, Boss.”

She nodded, pulling off the separate articles of armor on her arms and legs. She set her boots up at the end of her sleeping bag, and crawled between the thick layers of cover, her head pillowed on her arm. Within a moment, she was burrowed so deep into the bag that she almost vanished from sight. A curl of red hair escaped the mouth of the blankets before she pulled them down just to her nose. The more he thought about it the more he realized that was her tell. The fact that she burrowed into the bag for sleep, stripped of her armor. He slept on top of his sleeping bag, ready to jump up at the first sign of trouble. Most of the people he knew did, whether they lived in the wasteland, or in a settlement. No one got comfy the way the Boss did.

Her eyelashes cast long shadows over her cheek, which was smooth up until her lips. He had always wanted to ask her about it. There was a gash over the corner of her lip, about as long as his finger and deep. He couldn’t imagine her having it, living in her pristine little house before the bombs dropped. But, she told him that she had found him pretty soon after being unfrozen, and that scar had been there when she talked him down from 250 caps, and it didn’t look fresh then. There was a longer companion scar, but someone had let it slip that the one across the other side of her face had come from a Deathclaw. The lip one, though, didn’t have a story. So before? Did her husband know about it? Had he seen it? Had he hit the person who had given it to her? Had he given it to her? He was tempted to wake her and ask.

There were a lot of things he wanted to ask her. And a lot of things he wanted to tell her. And, hell, a lot of things that they really, really needed to talk out. She grumbled in her sleep, and cuddled the edge of the sleeping bag to her chest like it was her child.

“I had a wife, and son.” He was talking to her before he made his mind up to tell her. She sighed in her sleep. When she didn’t wake, he told her everything. How Lucy lied about her age and left Little Lamplight with him when she was only fifteen. How they landed in Big Town and lived there until she couldn’t stand the smell of all that death anymore. How he earned the caps to get them out of there as a mercenary. How, on the way to the farm, he thought it would be safe to hide in the metro. How the ferals tore her limb from limb while he was on watch. How she had been holding Duncan, and how he knew that Duncan’s illness came from them somehow, from those irradiated monsters. His fingers knotted in his hair. It had been his watch. He was so tired; he wasn’t focused. He should have heard them coming. They never should have holed themselves up in the office—that door couldn’t hold up against all those bodies, doors just muffled the shuffling and hissing and…

Lola coughed in her sleep.

MacCready brushed a curl of hair away from her cheek as it crept toward her lip. He wondered what she would say to that—if she’d be sarcastic, or soft, or just uncomfortable. Maybe he would actually tell her. Soon. It had helped last time, after all. When he had told her about the Gunners, she had dropped everything and helped him track down Winlock and Barnes, no questions asked. She had picked him up off the pavement when he had barreled in (which was very unlike him) and Stimpacked him before that fuc—stupid Assaultron had come screaming out from nowhere. While helping him, she took a bullet in the arm—a bullet he’d dug out after. She’d bit on her fist, but hadn’t made a peep.

Besides, he needed to tell someone.

Her breathing was faster now, and every third breath or so, she made a low moaning sound, a whimper and a cry. She curled up tight on her side, her arms flying out of the sleeping bag and clawing at the ground. She missed his thigh by a hair. He could see her crying in earnest now, her face damp and red. In a panic, he grabbed her around the ribs and hauled her up into his lap.

“Shh, Boss. Shhh.” She wouldn’t wake up, but he could feel her chest heaving against the circle of his arms. He did the only thing he could think to do, and wrapped himself around her until the choking sounds stopped. Her face was turned away from him, and his head was buried in her hair. After one long, horrible moment, she started to sit up on her own, pushing his arms from around her.

“M-Mac? What are you doing?”

“Are you okay, Boss?”

He let her go and she turned away from him, wiping her face with her fists.

“I should take the next watch.”

“You’ve only been asleep for an hour.”

She shrugged. She fought the sleeping bag off of her body as if to kick the nightmare off too.

“What happened?”

She didn’t answer, but shoved the sleeping bag toward him.

“Was it the vault?”

“You should set this thing up in the other corner. I must have been sleeping on nails or something.”

“That was why you were crying?” He knew it was a bit of a ballsy move. She shrugged.

“Mac—”

“What were you dreaming about?”

She waited a long minute. “I’ll show you. Tomorrow.”

He considered for a moment, stretching his legs out in front of him. “In that case, you should get some more sleep.”

“Fine. I will. After you.”

He pushed himself up to his feet and shook out the sleeping bag, stretching again. She was still sitting there in her fatigues when he tucked his hands behind his head. He drifted for what was likely an hour, before waking up to a small snort. Hand on his gun, he was on his knees within a second. A quick scan of the room and Lola was still sitting there against the wall next to him, completely unalarmed. He wondered for a minute if all this stuff about nightmares was getting to him, when he realized that her head was forward, chin on her chest. He scanned the room again, but there was nothing. She had snorted in her sleep. It was easy enough to move her onto the sleeping bag—she was a heavy sleeper. He zipped the sleeping bag up her side, and sat down next to her.

This time, she slept soundly until the light seeped in from under the bookshelves. It didn’t have to touch her face for her to wake. If the sun was up, so was she. She crawled out of the sleeping bag and looked over at him, disoriented.

“Glad you’re up, Boss! Now, if you don’t mind, I think that I’ll nap through breakfast.” He yawned, and she scrambled back out of the sleeping bag.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He stretched out on top of the sleeping bag. It was still warm, and smelled like soap and sweat.

“S’okay, Boss.”

Chapter 15: Detour

Chapter Text

He thought that they were going back to Sanctuary, and was surprised when she walked around the outside wall without even stopping in.

“Where are we headed?”

“You wanted to know what I was dreaming about.” She stopped when they reached a little wooden bridge, over a stream. They were about five minutes from Sanctuary and he could still see the tall fences.

“I came from a vault.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to show you which one.”

“Look, you don’t have to—”

“Please.” She turned around, and he noticed the bags under her eyes. There was a force to her presence that held him still. “I should show somebody.”

I know the feeling. He wanted to say it. He really did.

“I was married.”

“You told me.”

“He was in the military. We were honored with a spot in the vault to—” her voice hitched. “Commemorate his service.”

He knew how this story ended. Hell, he’d seen it. But he still wasn’t sure if she knew that. And if she didn’t…

They were going to relive this for her.

They crested the top of a hill, where he kicked past a couple of skeletons, arms outstretched towards a gate. There was a whole set-up just past these gates, with blue crates and a couple of control centers. In the middle, overlooking the chain-link fence and the horizon, was a huge steel circle, planted into the ground. Big old gear-shape—classic Vault Tech style in blue and yellow.

“We made it to the Vault right as the bombs hit. I hadn’t even filled out the paperwork. I thought we were so lucky.” She spat on the ground beside the circle, and walked over to the nearest control panel. He could hear the slap as she brought her hand down on the control panel, and jogged back over. He followed her onto the platform, and she stood smack in the middle, over the yellow letters that spelled Vault 111. The whole thing shifted and groaned as the platform descended. She watched the horizon as the ground came up to meet them. He wanted to ask her how she knew they would be able to make it out of this place—how she was so certain the lift wouldn’t get stuck once they were underground—but it was too late anyways. A gate came up in front of them, and he followed her up a staircase and across a bridge.

Welcome Home, the banner said.

She walked straight forward, as if she couldn’t stop herself. They went down a hallway until they reached the room at the other end. She slowed down here, and he could see her filling in what all of this had looked like before in her mind. When they stepped down into the room, he noticed that the place was filled with those pods, and all of them contained people, just like in Kellogg’s memory. Frozen, dead people. Like one big, whirring mausoleum. She stopped short of the end, at the second to last pod. His stomach dropped.

Her hand looked so dark against the clean glass of the pod, backlit with an eerie blue. She reached towards the control panel to the right. He wanted to grab her wrist; an acidic dread roiled up into his throat, like bile. When she pressed the button, the pod hissed, and the front crescent lifted up to reveal Nate, as frozen and dead as ever. Big guy, strong like in Kellogg’s memory. Looked taller in person. His arm was crooked as if he was holding a child. There was a bullet hole in the center of his chest. It was one thing to see it on a screen, and another completely to stand next to this dead man’s wife, face-to-face with his frozen corpse.

"Hey, I'm really sorry.” He wanted to reach out and touch her. “We don't have to be here if you don't want to...” She pulled that holotape out of her pocket and slipped it into her Pipboy.

“I...I'll leave you alone."

He stepped back, but knew that she couldn’t even see him. The tape played over the Pipboy.

MacCready left the room and wandered into another. The terminal listed the names of each pod’s resident, and their status. Dead. All dead. He walked the lines of frozen coffins, but none would open. Their residents were sealed inside for all eternity. How very Vault Tech. The rec room was just down the way from the main chambers. A few skeletons from the crew. He didn’t wander much further—couldn’t hear her beyond the rec room. He was, after all, here to protect her.

When he stepped back into that first room, he found her on the floor at the foot of that same pod.

“Boss?”

“He grabbed Shaun when they told us to make a run for the Vault. We didn’t even talk about it. Didn’t have to. He took Shaun because he was a faster runner. He was in the army. Even if I didn’t make it in time, he could keep going, and get Shaun to safety. He was the fighter. The strong one.” She shook all over, fists clenched against the smooth metal floor. “He would have found Shaun by now.” Her shoulders drew up around her ears. “It should have been me who grabbed Shaun. Who died.”

MacCready didn’t know what to do. He wanted to pull her up off the floor, or pat her shoulder, or say just the right thing, but nothing came to mind. Lola’s situation was the opposite of his own. He was Lucy’s soldier. He had saved the baby, just not Lucy. And hell, not like he’d done so hot keeping the kid in one piece. Lola had lost her soldier and her baby, and was expected to set everything to rights by herself, out of time, and with no experience. There was nothing that he could say that would help her in any meaningful way at all.

He could hear her grinding her teeth as she stood and slammed her hand down on the panel. The lid came down over Nate, sealing him in the ice again.

“He still looks like he is just going to wake up. Be okay. I was ready to lose him in the war. I wasn’t ready to lose him when he came home.” She punched the pod so hard that he heard her knuckles crack. She was bleeding.

“They’re dead. They’re all dead. And I’m not.”

She turned around and started to walk out, but halfway out of the room, her walk sped up to a jog and then a run. She practically sprinted out of the room and back into the elevator. The elevator worked, thank f*ck, and the light from the sun exploded into view.

Before the platform even stopped moving, she stumbled off towards the bushes, doubled over, and vomited the contents of her stomach onto the ground. He waited, shifting from foot to foot, while she retched until she coughed up spit. When it was all over, he handed her a water bottle from his pack. She swished the first mouthful and spit it into the scrubby brush before swallowing a gulp of the stuff. There was a sheen of sweat over her brows and cheeks, which were grey.

“Thank you, Mac.”

“You’re welcome. Are you…?”

“I’m fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Boss, I—”

“I needed to see him again.”

That one hurt. He could feel the pain that radiated off her in waves. It was like sympathetic drowning. He felt a twinge every time he sucked in a breath while having to watch her try to breathe through her nose, shaky and unable to get enough air to calm herself. As if she were underwater and he was watching from the shore.

“I had to…when I left the vault, I was so scared. I stole his wedding band and left. I didn’t properly say goodbye. I still haven’t. But…” she trailed off, looking back out at the horizon. Bright gold, faded into a coppery orange. Sanctuary stood out in silhouette at the bottom of his vision, framing the scene. Her hair was fire in the light.

“This was the last thing I saw of the old world, and the first thing I saw of the wasteland.”

He looked with her, and wondered if the sun had looked the same before the bombs had fallen. When she turned around and looked at him, there was something so lost in the way she was hugging herself, shoulders curved in around her as if she as if she was trying to warm herself up. She didn’t say a word, just stared at him. He felt woozy. The longer she looked at him, the more he felt like he needed to say something. Anything. Literally anything so that they were not standing here in silence with her looking looking so sad.

“I had a beautiful wife, and a son named Duncan.” He had just blurted it out. He didn’t even want to say it, but then he was, and he couldn’t stop the words from falling out of his mouth one after the other. Almost desperate to make her understand. “I made a promise to him that I would clean up my act and be a better person. I guess that sounds pretty stupid coming from a guy who shoots things for a living.” And I guess it sounds stupid saying this to someone who lost her husband and child. But she was watching him like a hawk. He wanted to punch himself. Motormouth MacCready strikes again, bringing up selfish sh*t when all she needs is one more problem placed at her feet. He just wanted her to know that he understood. Misery loves company and all that. That he got it.

“I don’t know what to say.” Her tone was flat, but he could see her fingers working at the edge of her sleeve, pulling at threads.

“Sure you do.” It was like he just couldn’t stop. “You want to tell me how cruel it was to leave them behind.”

She didn’t say anything to that. The silence dragged out for one long, exposed moment.

“My wife died and my son…he’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. One day, he’s playing out in the fields behind our farm…the next, he took a fever and these blue boils popped up all over his body.” He was arguing more to himself than to her.

“Last I saw, he was almost too weak to walk. I didn’t dare ask him to come with me. Honestly, I don’t know how much longer he is going to last.”

She was still silent. And there it was. Congrats, Motormouth, you’ve just lost your friend—your closest friend, really. But he just had to tell her—couldn’t stop himself. She didn’t need to hear this. Bigger things to worry about. Her hands were clenched into fists. She was mad at him for being selfish. For throwing his problems out there while she was just barely recovering from seeing her husband’s body. Of all the sh*tty times to—

“There must be something we can do.”

She was biting her lip, looking up at him with some mix of desperation and empathy. She grabbed his hand in one of hers, almost insistent. He could have cried.

“Mac, your kid.” Her eyes were watery. This wasn’t fair. He was taking advantage of her sore spot. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? There has to be something we can do.”

“I—ah, I was hoping you’d say that,” he finished lamely. He supposed, all along, he was hoping that she would help. She helped everyone. She’d already turned his life right around. Maybe she could work a miracle for Duncan too. After all, he’d seen her do scarier things for fewer reasons. Hell, she’d taken on a Deathclaw for Preston before she even knew him. He felt like a selfish prick, but if he was being selfish for Duncan, it was all worth it.

“A few months before we met, I bumped into a guy named Sinclair, who claimed his buddy caught some kind of a disease. I thought he was wasting my time until he said his partner broke out in blue boils.” And before he knew it, he was telling her all about Med-Tech.

Chapter 16: Med-Tech

Chapter Text

By the time they made it to the lower levels of Med-Tech, his nerves were so fried that he jumped when she reached out and grabbed for his coat. He almost broke her arm with the butt of his gun, bringing it up high, fight-or-flight engaged.

“Mac!” She let go of his coat, hands up, palms out.

“Sorry, Boss.” His voice came out much gruffer than he intended.

“S’okay. Hold this and wait here.” She handed him a couple of stims and the microscope she had swiped from the previous floor. He tucked it into his pack and dropped the Stimpacks into his pocket. Never know when you’ll need those. She vanished around the corner. It only took two seconds for him to get paranoid. She had been holding that knife the freak painter had left for her, and he would put money on the bet that she was creeping around slicing throats while he waited. He knew that the halls behind him were safe—they had cleared those with extreme prejudice. But when he didn’t hear her within a minute or so, he felt like the whole place was crawling—filling up with shuffling and hissing. He heard a few thumps and a growl. Nothing from her specifically, though.

If he moved, he would either save her life or endanger it. Pull a feral off her, or help one find her. He bit hard on the inside of his cheek and edged forward, gun trained on the doorway. His feet felt like cement blocks. If he lost her—

Get ahold of yourself.

He couldn’t lose her. Not here. Not like this. Not again. He was two shaky breaths away from following her out there when a shadow appeared on his scope. It took him a second to realize that he was pointing his gun right at her, and he nearly threw the thing aside as he dropped it. She motioned him forward, unconcerned. He thanked every one of his lucky stars.

“I cleared the upper deck,” she whispered. “The rest will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

He could have kissed her, but settled for exhaling hard.

“Don’t leave me behind like that. I like to stay close.” He grabbed her arms to be sure that she was there—solid and okay. Not like he’d meant to sound so harsh, but she quirked a smile nonetheless. She knew him too well to take him seriously.

They stood side-by-side at the rail. He counted six, with only one stairwell connecting them to the ghouls. All he had to do was keep them from the stairs, and they would be golden. Easy to fight one-on-one, only really dangerous in a hoarde. He nudged the corpse of a feral with a slit throat so that he could better position himself.

They raised their guns at about the same time, took aim, and fired. Two went down immediately, and the last four frenzied. He lined up another shot and pegged another one as it was approaching the stairs. She took another, and he pinged the last two.

They moved quickly and quietly. She had to search through every side-room and cabinet, but he found himself less and less concerned with this as he watched her squirrel away goodies for her settlements. He felt a little lightheaded.

The hallways seemed a little longer now, and they were getting close; he knew it. He tried not to get his hopes up. After all, it might not be there. The ferals might have broken the vial. It might have expired. It might not even exist. But the more he tried to temper his hope with realism, the less real this whole thing seemed. By the time they were in front of the door, he didn’t know if he could survive disappointment.

They could both hear the noises on the other side of the door. More than one—three or four? Maybe five? She slipped a couple of frag grenades into his hand.

“The second the door opens.”

He liked the way she thought.

She pressed the button to open the door, and they launched four frag grenades in total. Before the chaos, he counted up. Four. Three regular ones, and one that was glowing. The grenades hadn’t even gone off yet, but she lobbed another two grenades as if reading his mind. He was crouched behind the desk to keep from repeating that time with the shrapnel, but she was hypnotized. He grabbed her by the coat and dragged her down just as one frag grenade went off, triggering the rest of them.

He hoped like hell that the cure was secured somewhere. He hadn’t even thought of that before they lobbed the grenades. They wouldn’t just leave an experimental cure like that out on a table though, right? All he could see of the room in the smoke and rubble was the doorway.

She pulled out a shotgun beside him and they waited.

The glowing one was still alive (of course), but the rest were dead. He felt her line up the shot and they fired almost at the same time. The feral dropped. They waited a second and then he vaulted over the side of the desk to reach the room.

The room definitely looked like a bunch of grenades had recently been set off, although, that wasn’t all that strange in the Wasteland. She was right behind him, digging through drawers. It had to be here. That drifter had been so sure, and every one of his instincts was telling him that this was it. It would be here. If he didn’t find it—if there was nothing here for Duncan, the little guy—

“Mac!”

She was standing at the center table, her hands behind her back. His mouth went dry. She held it out to him on the tips of her fingers. A little red cylinder with “PREVENT” stamped across the tube.

“Here you go, RJ.”

He reached out to accept.

“We did it. Holy crap, we actually did it!” He was pretty sure that his voice broke in the middle of that thought, but he just considered himself lucky he wasn’t crying. “We just gave Duncan a fighting chance to live. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to pay you back for this. I owe you big time.”

She rubbed the back of her neck.

“I dunno. You’re running up quite a tab.”

When he laughed, he surprised himself. “I know I am,” he said. “I’ve always been better at taking than giving. Maybe one day, I’ll learn to get my priorities straight.”

She nudged him and the shock of the sudden contact…he wanted to kiss her. He could feel the adrenaline pooling in his stomach, pulsing out into his veins with each heartbeat. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her in close, crushing her body to his. She giggled into his chest and he wanted to spin her around and kiss her mouth. And when she grinned up at him, so excited for him and Dunc...

“Anyways.” He backed up and rolled the cure in between his hands. “The last step is to get this to Daisy in Goodneighbor. With her caravan contacts, she’s the only one I trust to get this to Duncan on time.”

Lola eyed the tube. More precious than anything he had ever held. The guilt washed over him again. She’d hired him, and still they were no closer to her son.

“This is the last favor I am going to ask. I promise.”

She grabbed MacCready’s free hand and twined her fingers in his. He slumped against the wall of the elevator as it pulled them back up to the surface world.

The fresh air never tasted so good as it did when they kicked down the doors and burst into the sunlight.

Daisy took the cure from him and promised that she would get it to Duncan. She handed him a letter from the boy in exchange. He only got letters a couple times a year—considering how long it took even Daisy’s little caravan to make it from Goodneighbor to the Capitol Wasteland. MacCready tucked the letter into his coat and gave the Boss some space to hock the goods she’d gathered at Medtech. He read the letter while she talked to Daisy. Some stuff about Megaton. About Miri and her Supermutant friend, and how she even said that he could play with her dog when he was better. Her Mr. Handy was so funny. Always told him jokes. The house seemed really big because he couldn’t leave his room, but Miri still brought him the coolest toys and books, and had he read all the Grognak comics yet? Miri had just brought him a new one, and it was so cool. He liked the part where Grognak saved the lady, but then he kissed her and it was gross. Miri said that when MacCready was a kid, he used to have a “smart mouth,” and what does that mean? Was he really smart?

MacCready pushed his hat up to rub his forehead. Soon enough, he would be able to go back to Megaton to see Miri and Fawkes and the pup, and his baby boy. And, hopefully, by then Duncan would be able to walk and they could play tag together. Just one thing before then. Somehow, Lola had to get her boy back—he owed her that much. Hell, he owed so many people so many things, but everything was worth it if it meant that Duncan could grow up.

Chapter 17: Situation: Normal

Chapter Text

It was going to take them a few days to walk from Goodneighbor all the way back to Sanctuary, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t ever made a trip like that before. This time, however, she seemed to avoid all their usual stops at Settlements in the area, and kept to the outskirts of cities. Mostly walked in the woods, when they could. He was almost curious why they’d keep away from friendly territory (she watched over some of these settlements like her son was living there), but he wasn’t going to complain. Settlements meant chores—fix this, clean that, go off into f*ck-all nowhere and kill something please and thanks—so maybe she was just sick of all the noise and whining.

She started to hold his hand when they were walking alone. The first time she did it, he was worried she’d spotted something. He was stopped dead, ducked down, and scope up when she shot him that look. The one with one eyebrow up in her hairline, lips pursed. Her hand met her hip when he figured out that she wasn’t trying to warn him about raiders.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, boss.” He stood back up. “Thought I saw something.”

She didn’t take his hand back immediately, so he reached out and grabbed hers. No reason not to, right? He didn’t want to make it weird if she wanted to hold hands. Besides, she could use the support.

Her hand was warm. A little calloused, but not like a normal wastelander’s. Still soft. It was small in his, but her fingers were long enough to land just past his knuckles.

She let go after a little bit, and they walked a ways before she reached for him again. Desperate now. A little afraid, almost. She didn’t look at him, but groped the air near his hand for a second until she made contact. He laced his fingers through hers, and her shoulders rolled back down from her ears as she walked forward. It was a little awkward at first. Sweaty palms. He had to hunch his shoulders a little to accommodate her. But, after a few days, it was second nature. Wake up, shoot a couple of muties, take a cozy stroll to the next waypoint. Maybe they both just needed a “someone” to hold onto.

Just for now, of course. Things would change once they found her kid and their deal was up. But that was okay. For now, it was nice just to have this little something. The more time that passed, the more natural it felt.

She was really quiet when they walked, which was strange, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. It wasn’t like she was a chatterbox, but she was usually a little more talkative. He bantered on like usual, and she smiled or laughed or rolled her eyes, but she didn’t really banter back, which struck him a little funny.

When they made camp on the third night out, she slept her shift with her head in his lap. He tried real hard to stay as still as possible for as long as possible. Didn’t want to wake her up. When she awoke and he stretched his limbs, she sat close to wherever he rested and brushed his hair gently with tender fingers. Sure, he was sore from sitting so still during watch, but he’d never slept better. It was a quiet agreement signed with little touches here and there, and it couldn’t have felt more natural. So, when she kissed him on the temple one night, it was normal.

Perfectly normal.

Couldn’t have been more normal.

That night, when she slept, he kissed her cheek in return. The night after, she traced his face with the tips of her fingers while she thought he was asleep. In the morning, he combed his fingers through her hair to wake her up. She stretched, and then wrapped her arms around his bicep. He disentangled himself, and when she grumbled, he curled up beside her on the ground. She unzipped her sleeping bag. He kicked off his boots with his toes, and squeezed himself inside as best as he could. Her nose was in his chest, and he had to drape one leg across hers to fit. She settled against him and he ducked down to kiss the corner of her mouth. She turned her head and kissed his lower lip. He wrapped his arms around her. God, sex was one thing, but this was another for sure. He sucked in a deep breath when she fell back asleep.

Yup. Normal. Everything was perfectly normal.

Chapter 18: Calculated Risk

Chapter Text

He was close behind her as they walked the familiar route back to Sanctuary. On days like this, he didn’t feel comfortable being more than ten paces away. She’d been quiet and surly since daybreak, and that meant that if they ran into a fight, she was about one million times more likely to charge in head-first like some kind of deranged bullet-sponge. She hadn’t said they were going to stop, so when she did suddenly stop, he walked right into her, almost tripping. His hands snapped to her hips as if he was on auto-pilot. After how close they’d been all week, it didn’t seem weird till she pulled away. He tucked his hands into his pockets. She turned around and found herself standing close enough to him where she had to look up to make eye contact.

“Holds up. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, okay?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“I am going to do something stupid.” She bit her lip.

“Stupider than when you told some gang leader you were a comic-book hero?” He grinned, but she did not acknowledge him at all. Her stint as the Silver Shroud usually made her smile, at the least. He wondered if he should try to mimic that ridiculous voice she had put on for show.

“I’m serious.”

Definitely don’t do the voice, then. He co*cked his head to the side, and folded his arms over his chest.

“I have been putting it off since Amari told me about it, but I don’t have any other choices. Trust me, I looked.”

He got that weird feeling in the pit of his gut, somewhere between nauseous and nervous. Like his stomach was summersaulting. “Spit it out, already.”

“I’m going to the Glowing Sea.”

“Boss.” He almost wanted to laugh. This had to be a joke. “You do know what that is, right.”

“It is the only way to my son.”

Not kidding. Not at all. Her usually bright eyes were the flat, stale green of radioactive waste sunk into the grey Commonwealth dirt. He realized belatedly that she was looking for a response, so he shrugged. She grit her teeth and leaned back from him.

He wasn’t even sure of what he was doing, but then again, when was he ever? He moved towards her as she backed herself against the wall.

“Boss.” He had to hunch his shoulders a bit to make eye-contact. He always forgot that he was a little bit taller than her. She looked at her feet. He reached out for her, and when he grabbed her wrist, he felt her tendon depress under his fingertips, before it jumped to attention as she clenched a fist. Her skin was soft and warm. Delicate. Her wrist was so small that his fingers completely encircled her, and had enough space to meet like a latch over the lower arc of her palm. She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth as if to bite back whatever she was thinking. He turned her hand over in his, and dropped the bullets he’d saved for her onto her palm.

“We’ll need these, where we’re going.”

She sucked in a breath as if to reinforce her lungs. This crazy vaulter had popped out into the world with less than nothing, and had helped everyone—himself included—to a better life. He was not going to repay that by letting her go it alone. Even if there was a strong likelihood that neither of them would return. She was shaking.

“I hired you.”

“And I gave you that money back. Boss—” She was already on the move again. “Lola, it hasn’t been about the caps for a long time, and you know that.”

That caught her attention.

“Things have been…weird. Lately. But I’m still in. You point, I shoot. You saved my son; I am not leaving till we find yours.”

Her lips pressed so tight together that they almost vanished. When she shook her head, his hands found her shoulders. She seemed even smaller when he touched her. She usually had this presence that made him forget how narrow her shoulders were and how, if he wanted to, he could wrap his palms around them. How someone his size could fold her up completely. How someone his size, at any time now, could probably choke the life out of her. She just seemed so larger-than-life (invincible) while she was standing up on tables and gunning down swarms of raiders and rabid dogs.

When she looked up at his face, he could have sworn that she was going to cry. He dropped his hands to his sides and backed up. Gave her some space. But the thought of her alone in the Glowing Sea…

“Mac?” Her fingers dug into his duster. She pulled herself to him and buried her face in his shirt. She looked even smaller tucked into his jacket—like she was disappearing. He was almost afraid that, if he wrapped her up in his arms, she would melt right out of existence. But he couldn’t help himself. When her shoulders trembled, he curled an arm around them to steady her. His shirt was damp where her face rested, and her body shuddered with each breath. He pat her back between the shoulder blades, in the same way he used to comfort Lucy on the hard nights, when Duncan wouldn’t stop crying. Only thing he really knew to do.

“What if he isn’t there?”

He barely heard the question.

“What if he is?”

“What if he’s dead?” She came right back at him.

It wasn’t as if this hadn’t occurred to him. Not like the Commonwealth was one of the safest places to raise a kid. But if the roles were reversed. If it had been Duncan, he would want to know. No matter what.

“I’ve already started avenging him.” She was talking more to herself than to him. His chest squeezed, somewhere between a muscle spasm and a painful breath. “I’ve been out there avenging his death. He’s dead. I know it in my gut, Mac. Why am I even trying?”

He pulled her in a little tighter, hands on her shoulders again, as if to shake her out of it. When he pulled her away a bit, she still wouldn’t look up from that spot on the ground.

“You don’t know that yet. And if they have done something to your son, Lola, we will make them pay. I swear.”

“I don’t want to fight anyone anymore, Mac. I just want Shaun. I want my baby, and my husband, and my life back.”

There was nothing to say to that. He had never in his life been at a loss for words. She leaned forward against his chest, her arms wrapped around her ribs like two lengths of rope. He cradled the back of her skull in one hand, his fingers laced into her hair. He could feel her breathing.

Lucy hadn’t been dead when he had left her in that metro. She had still been horribly alive that last time he looked back—his beautiful wife, torn apart, bleeding, and crying. Teeth grit hard in the gentle curve of her jaw, the nails of one hand buried in the arm of one of the ghouls that was ripping into her stomach. Her head was thrown back against the ground as she watched him run with Duncan in his arms. That f*cking picture would be burned into his brain for the rest of his life. Thank Christ that Duncan wasn’t old enough to remember.

How long had it take for the life to leave those eyes? The eyes he had been gazing into earlier that night, when he thought they were on their way to easy living. Not knowing how long she had lived after he had sealed her in that tomb was the absolute worst of it. His best girl, not just dead, suffering. Sure, not like he had a choice with Duncan swaddled up against his shoulder, but how long? He didn’t want that uncertainty for Lola. He dropped his head and exhaled into her hair. Ragged and quiet—unsatisfying breaths to steady himself.

They stood like that, in the middle of a street at night, until they could both breathe again. He wasn’t sure how long they had been there, but eventually she snorted, something between a sob and a laugh.

She pulled away, looking up at the building that jut up into the sky like a giant middle finger.

“This was my office.” She gave that weird, weak little laugh again. “We always walk by it, and I always think I should show you, but I never do. We were on the third floor.” The place was all boarded up, with no real way in or out, save through the gaping hole where the ceiling had collapsed in and destroyed everything but that neat shell. He desperately hoped that she didn’t want to break into the place, but right then, if she had asked him to tear down the boards covering the door, he would’ve.

She dropped down for a second and scooped up a chunk of cement from the ground, lobbing it high into the air. It shattered a third-floor window with enough noise to draw out anything else within a mile of them.

“That was my boss’ window. Guy was a real prick. He tried to convince me to cheat on Nate while he was overseas.”

MacCready picked up an empty bottle off the ground, took aim, and launched the thing at the wall. He missed the window by a bit, and the bottle exploded against the brick.

She looked over at him and smiled—genuinely smiled—before tucking her hands into her pockets.

“Hey Mac, I have a spare set of Power Armor.”

“Well Boss, it would be a shame to leave it lying around.”

“Think you could pilot it?”

“I could learn pretty quick.”

“Good. But Mac, if you die,” she grinned again, but it was bitter this time. “I will lie down on the ground and die with you. I can’t be the one to tell your boy that I lead his dad on a suicide mission.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

Chapter 19: Hell or High Water

Chapter Text

All those pipe dreams he’d had about wearing Power Armor as a kid evaporated moments after climbing up into that monstrosity. He was a lean guy, and pretty good at hiding himself. No chance for that in the tin can. The armor even made Lola look intimidating, and she was five-foot-four and soft in the middle. Crazy as hell, but small. He had to admit, he felt a little better about this whole thing after seeing her decked out in two tons of steel. But that didn’t change the fact that his peripheral vision was reduced to jack-all, and there was no way to be light on your feet when, every time you took a step, the ground shook.

She had purchased or pilfered enough RadAway to decontaminate her whole settlement twice over. She had Stimacks coming out of her ears. Her pack jingled with all the bullets she carried. He was starting to feel that they were pretty ready.

Then, they ran into two run-of-the mill murder monsters (Deathclaws), four Radscorpions, a swarm of feral ghouls, six more Radscorpions, a fall-to-your-death cavern, and an Alpha Deathclaw that was so insanely irradiated, it glowed. On top of that, he didn’t think the Glowing Sea was as big as it was. Not like they had a map. But he was fairly convinced they would die out there when he looked out on the desolation and saw nothing resembling a scientist’s hide-away.

They slept in shifts no more than one hour long, inside their power armor suits. That was the single-most nerve-wracking nap of his life. All-in-all, it was a four day trek in the irradiated fog fearing for their lives every time a molerat sneezed. And worse, every time something attacked them, she threw herself at it and led it off, in some insane, misguided attempt to keep the worst of it away from him. He was about two ferals and a bloatfly away from having the mother of all meltdowns. He would have shaken her was he not too busy trying to keep her from an unmarked grave out in the open.

And of course, the queen of the Commonwealth found a settlement in the one place that was undeniably uninhabitable. A whole damn commune of zealots, sitting in a radioactive crater, milling about with their crazy-eyes and smudged faces. Only her. She had to be the only person in this god-forsaken world that could find a settlement in places where no humans could reasonably expect to survive. At least they could point her in the right direction, and give them a place to regroup for an hour or two.

They were hell and gone off the map before they found her—erm—man. Some scientist from the Institute, gone Super Mutant. MacCready had to feel for the guy. Must be hell to be able to tie your shoes one day, and unable to fit through most doors the next. And he only had bad news. A courser, or bust. All or nothing. She was really calm when he told her—freaky calm. That same calm that came over her before she pulled the trigger. When she got outside and he explained what a courser was, she punched the rocks that came up next to the cave so hard that she had to shake pebbles out of the fist of her power armor.

And then, like that, they were chasing down a courser.

Once they made it back home to regroup (which was the harder part), the thing wasn’t hard to find. Her connections with the Railroad seemed to help out a lot (and this time, she even let him come inside with her, so that he could realize that he wasn’t missing much). She checked in with Deacon while she was there, and he gave her a hug when he thought no one was paying attention. She seemed to take heart from it. She even went over and hugged the aggressive lady who had aimed a gun at them when they first found the Railroad. The woman punched her shoulder in a friendly way, and she was ready to leave once the loopy scientist gave her the next piece of the puzzle. Some medical facility near CIT. Just follow the radio signal. Easy as pie until…you know. When they were alone again, she hardly spoke. He watched her jaw work as she chewed the inside of her cheek. She didn’t set her gun down, even when she slept.

After they killed the Courser (pounding stims and drugs to keep on their feet after all that running around), she celebrated with a long moment of painful silence.

Chapter 20: Whirlwind

Chapter Text

It didn’t take her long to realize that she had a courser chip, and no concept of what to do with it. When they made it back to Sanctuary, she fidgeted with it for a whole night before finally bringing it to Sturges. And man, was she in luck that Sturges just so happened to be a colossal geek.

Before long, they were sucked into building this metal monstrosity, but she wouldn’t tell him why. He figured that it had to do with getting into the institute, teleporting, like Virgil had said. She really didn’t give him enough credit for figuring these things out. Or maybe she just didn’t want to say it out loud, because it was suicidally insane.

They ran all over the place, sifting through the piles of scrap she had saved up. Each time he handed her a piece, she set it aside and went digging for whatever she needed next. In the end, the thing needed a ton of power, and a ton of resources, and MacCready was certain that nothing good could come from it. When they had finished, they had some giant metal triangle with a satellite dish, a platform, and a terminal. Wires criss-crossed the whole thing, and enough generators to light five whole settlements chugged along in the background. She was two steps away from what she was calling the “launch pad” when she grabbed his arm and let him know that she was going to try to break into the Institute. Not like he hadn’t worked that part out, but he still didn’t know what to say to her. That look on her face said that she didn’t have time to argue. All those quiet days, and this is what she was getting up the nerve to do.

“One way trip. One person only.”

That he hadn’t expected. She hadn’t gone anywhere by herself since stumbling out of the vault. He grabbed her arm. She shot him a pleading glance.

As if he had ever been able to talk her out of anything anyways.

Before he knew it, he was kissing her hard on the mouth and she was kissing him back. He didn’t want to push or make things weird between them, but he got it in his head that this might be his last chance. The last time he sees Lola and her red hair and her wide lips and her grit. She gripped the back of his head; he could feel her fingers in his hair and he was weirdly aware that he hadn’t bathed in a week, and his hair must feel gross and she was so clean and soft. They kissed right up to the moment that she vanished in a blue lightning bolt. He stood there for a minute with his arms out. Like an idiot. Like she was still within reach.

When he asked Sturges if this thing was safe, the man replied with a shrug and an “I sure hope so.”

MacCready spent the next week while she was gone manning the thing almost constantly. He couldn’t sleep, and every time he heard a crackle, he was so sure that it was her. It took two days for Sturges to gently tell him that the thing was broken (if the frayed wires and loose tubing hadn’t given it away), and that, if she came back, she may be coming the long way. Problem with that was that he had no idea where the “long way” might take her. But he had nowhere else to sit and wait, so he kept up with his routine. Park himself in a chair in front of the teleporter, read a comic, and smoke through every cigarette in this whole damn settlement. Preston and Sturges kept shooting him worried glances and leaving food in front of him as if he had the stomach for it. Even that crazy old addict got in on it eventually, patting his shoulder as she walked by.

Of course, the “what-ifs” were the worst. He was waiting around, but there was a pretty decent chance that she was ash that had already been scattered to the wind. That she had become ash the second that lightning bolt had broken their kiss. Some traitor part of his brain loved to remind him of this as he stayed up at night, watching the monstrosity taunt him from her doorway. Hell, even if her goddamned teleporter hadn’t vaporized her, the Institute might. If she made it all the way to their doorstep, who knows what kinds of horrors they would subject her to. What if they made her a damn Mutie, like Virgil? What if they experimented on her, or replaced her with a synth? What if they’d shot her as soon as she’d landed, and he’d never find the body or know for sure? Everything had happened so fast once she’d made up her mind. And if she was gone…

Every time he ate, he thought he would throw up.

Preston seemed pretty sure she was fine. He’d sit with MacCready for a few hours at a time, until some settler pulled him away for help wiping their own ass or something. Mostly, they sat in silence. He didn’t realize the guy cared so much for Lola until he saw Preston rub his hands over his face for the fifth time in as many minutes, shoulders hunched.

“She has to come back.” He adjusted his hat. “The General is a fighter. She’ll be back in no time, with the Institute’s leader on a platter.”

“Sure.”

“You doubting her?” Preston probably didn’t mean to sound as angry as he did. Mac, personally, had never seen the guy get upset in his life. It wasn’t like he wanted to upset Preston. Hell, he almost liked the guy, delusions of a safe-and-happy Wasteland aside. But it was day eight with no contact, and he could feel his skin crawling off his bones.

“She could be dead, and we’d never know it.” The words tasted like iron in his mouth. For all he’d been saying them in his head—over and over and over—they sounded different out loud. Too harsh. Too flat. Too possible.

Preston was up and standing in a second.

“What, so she’s gone for a week and suddenly you have no faith in her? Show some respect. That is the General out there. She’ll pull through.”

Mac shrugged.

Preston grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up to his feet. Mac was two seconds away from hitting the guy when he saw the look on Preston’s face. Bags under his red eyes. Pale. A little sick looking. Garvey probably hadn’t slept since she’d left. Maybe longer—hell, he’d known her plan from the get-go. Colonel Preston Garvey lived on hope. It was all the man had left after Quincy. Lola had told him all about that when they’d passed through and seen the evidence of the slaughter. One more person dead at his feet, and the man might snap. He hadn’t seen it before, but he and Preston were pretty similar in that way.

Preston seemed to come to this conclusion at about the same time. He set Mac down, and plunked back down on the overturned crate he’d been using as a chair.

“You’ll see. She’s a force.” Preston wouldn’t look him in the eye as he spoke. Mac sat down beside him. “She won’t die before she finds her son, and she sure as hell won’t just leave us here.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Chapter 21: Hair Cut

Chapter Text

She reappeared after what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time. She was very clean, in better condition than she’d been in when she’d left, and was very clearly high as a kite, though she probably didn’t want anyone to realize that. He had been sitting in front of the damn arch, reading. He grabbed her as soon as she appeared in front of them in that weird blue lightening, and it was a good thing too, because she almost collapsed when she landed. Up close, he could tell that she was actually in terrible shape. Healthy, sure. No bumps or bruises, and scrubbed clean of grime. But from the look of things, it would take her two days to detox and get some of those drugs safely out of her system. Her eyes were ringed with purple smudges, as if she hadn’t slept in months. He almost tripped getting up to go grab her, and when he crushed her to him, she smelled like soap and antiseptic. She was boneless in his arms—wouldn’t hug him back or smile or even say anything. And she was alone. No Shaun in sight. He kissed her hair and held her close, even when people crowded around, eager to see what she had brought back. Her hair was so soft and clean that it felt a little off. Not bad, just not normal. Something was wrong but he actually laughed because he was just so damned relieved that she was alive.

When Sturges came to meet her, she handed him a holotape and stumbled back to her house. Preston, who always seemed to know just what to say to soothe her, was at a loss for words when he saw her face. So there was definitely something off, and off severely enough to catch Preston’s eye. Good to know.

For hours, she sat in Shaun’s room, just staring at the floor. He didn’t dare touch her, even though all he wanted to do was scoop her up and ask a million questions. He stood in the doorway for a second, but then turned to give her a minute and crawled into bed to sleep. When he woke up, she was curled up beside him.

He stroked her hair. Her breathing was choppy and her eyes were squeezed shut as if she was worried they would spring open suddenly. Not sleeping. When he rubbed her back, she snuggled closer into him and just cried. After that, she didn’t say much of anything at all.

In the morning, she was bubbly and bouncing around the house, packing for the next trip. She announced that they were going to head out to Diamond City for supplies. From the moment she passed through the front door of her house, until the second Sanctuary was out of sight, she smiled and waved. Preston didn’t look convinced, and MacCready wasn’t sure about the whole thing either.

The trip itself was pretty routine, but she didn’t speak once the whole way there. Smiled vacantly, weirdly enough, but didn’t say a word from the second they passed Sanctuary’s gates, to the second they made it to the city. It was almost a whole day’s walk in complete silence. Once they made it down the steps into the city, she looked up in a bit of a daze, eyes bouncing around the place as if she didn’t know what she should be looking for. Lola landed in front of the hairdressers and slipped him ten caps to cut her hair until it came down in little tendrils that stretched just past her ears. Short, choppy, and a little wild-looking. The change didn’t do anything to that weird numb look in her eyes. As if he could stab her in the hand and all she’d do is stare off into the f*cking sunset with that half-smile. When she passed him on the way to the Dugout, he realized with a hazy shock that she didn’t look anything like the woman who found him at the Third Rail. The one who grinned sweetly as she talked him down to 200 caps.

Not like she had been plump before, but she had been rounded then. Full hips and a bit of a tummy that suggested a lifetime of proper nutrition, even surplus. That was part of what had made him say “yes” to her in the first place, despite the fact that she was definitely holding her sh*t rifle all kinds of wrong, and her patchwork armor left a lot to be desired. Well-fed means caps. Caps mean you can pay the bills. Plus, if he had to spend a few days looking at someone’s backside, hers was not a bad choice.

She had gotten sharper in the months he had known her. More like wastelander than a vaultie (if you didn’t look at her near-perfect teeth). Her cheeks had hollowed out with the long days of traveling, harsh conditions, and poor food. She was trimmer—her hips were bonier (though this was a more recent change). Her stomach was concave, and her ribs showed under the skin in a way that made him uneasy. She was a lot stronger than she had been when they’d first met, but it wasn’t a glowing strength. It was a feral strength—something born from fear and necessity. Wiry, built and hardened to fit the Wastes.

He’d caught her trying on that slinky little Vault Suit back at Sanctuary a while back. It sagged where it used to cling. He’d left the room when she’d looked down at her hands, flexed her fingers in the dark. She hadn’t cracked that signature smile since they had taken out the courser. Her soft mop of long auburn hair had been the last thing that had looked like her. Without it, she seemed a bit like a stranger.

By the time he had caught up with Lola, she was already at the bar, drink in hand.

Chapter 22: Long Nights

Chapter Text

She knocked back another glass of that Boborov Brother’s swill before leaning in until she was so close, she could have touched her nose to his.

“I matched you.”

“You did.”

“One drink for” hiccup “every drink you’ve had.”

“That’s right. How you feeling, boss?” He really tried not to grin. He did. He knew this was probably a sh*t-storm waiting to happen. But he couldn’t help it. She was sauced, and this was the only time he had ever seen her this far gone, and still happy. The last time she had gotten this drunk was after killing Kellogg, and she went right from vodka to chems, and then to punching walls. He still felt that elbow to the face from when he’d tried to stop her.

She poked his chest hard with one finger. “Your turn.”

“I think I have had enough for tonight, Boss.”

“Pshh!” She slapped her hand down on the table and then jumped, apparently surprised by the noise. Vadim laughed good and loud from behind the bar, not even trying to pretend he wasn’t listening in.

MacCready was a little woozy and tempted to tell a few really stupid jokes (“dad jokes,” she always called them), which was a sign that he was getting a little drunk too. But the boss was plenty further along. And, in classical Boss fashion, she was being so very subtle about it. At one point, she grabbed his collar as if to pull him in, and then burst out laughing, but couldn’t breathe for long enough to tell him why. She told some random man who’d walked by that she was going to drink him under the table. There was one man who seemed to recognize her—a traveler, from the sound of it—and she all but crawled into his lap to tell him about the radioactive Deathclaw they had found in the Glowing Sea. The poor guy was visibly uncomfortable. He had to pull her up by her jacket to get her off of him.

“Mac. RJ. Can I call you RJ?” She brushed hair back from her face with her whole hand, blinking. “RJ, you are too pretty to be a merc. Yannow?”

“It’s a shame, I know.”

“But thas okay, because I still like you.”

“Oh good. I was worried, there.”

“Mac! RJ, you never have to worry!” She grabbed his face in both hands, pulling him towards her. “I’d like you even if you weren’t pretty.”

He rolled his eyes, trying to extricate himself. She was definitely causing a bit of a scene.

“Boss, I think it is time for bed.”

“Wha?”

“Come on.” He pulled her to her feet and placed some caps on the table for Vadim. Ten caps was a damn rip-off, but they could spare it out of the lot she’d brought for provisioning. “One room, please.”

Vadim looked a little scandalized. “You mean two. One for our girl, one for you.”

MacCready rubbed his temple with one hand, steadied Lola with the other.

“I’m not paying for two rooms, Vadim.”

“It is on the house. She helped me and Travis, yeah? On the radio?” He waved a hand as if to dismiss them. “She is room two. I will help.”

Suddenly, Vadim was around the bar, and had an arm 'round Lola, taking her off MacCready’s shoulder. Which, he had to admit was a relief. She wasn’t heavy, not really, but he was starting to feel some of those drinks. He wondered for a minute how in the hell she had managed to keep pace. Usually, people couldn’t. He’d almost drunk himself blind after Lucy died, and that had left him with a pretty high tolerance. Plus, she was small and malnourished. She hadn’t eaten anything since returning, as far as he’d seen. She was not going to be happy in the morning. He and Vadim convinced her to climb into bed, and then Vadim even fetched her an extra blanket when she shivered. He had to respect the guy’s attentiveness.

“Now, MacCready, you go.”

“Alright, alright. I know when I’m not wanted. But at least leave her door unlocked so I can check in?”

“I will check in for you. I can see her from the bar.” That was a fatherly warning if he ever heard one. His lip twitched as Vadim shoo’d him from her door. “Now, you go!”

Vadim ushered MacCready into another room—a smaller one, with a small bed and an overturned crate as a nightstand. MacCready closed the door behind himself and dropped onto the mattress, smoothing one hand over his face. He was a little worried, he had to admit. She had never drank that much around him. But Vadim was taking care of her (or, probably more accurately, Vadim was asking Yefim to take care of her) so she was at least in good hands. He fell back onto the mattress, and was asleep within minutes. No dreams, just sleep.

He wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke to the doorknob jiggling. With a vague panic, he remembered that he hadn’t locked it. He reached for his gun, which was resting against the bed. When the door fell open, however, there she was, in her shirt and underwear, rubbing her eyes in his doorway, and he dropped the rifle as if it had burned him. He sat up.

“Boss?”

“Mac!”

“What happened to “RJ”?”

She stumbled towards him. “Whossat?”

Still drunk then.

“We should get you back to your room, Boss.”

She folded her arms over her chest. Something was wrong.

“Can I stay witthou?” She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. She always did that when she’d had a nightmare. He pushed himself further into the wall, giving her space. She curled up in front of him. When he pulled the blanket around her, she burrowed back against him and nuzzled her face into the pillow. Vadim was going to give him hell tomorrow, but it wasn’t like he was taking advantage of her.

Lola must have been comfortable, because she fell asleep almost instantly, but he still wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Her head was pillowed on his arm which was pretty comfortable right now, but was not going to be comfortable in an hour. But he didn’t want to move her and risk waking her up. If there was one thing she needed, it was sleep. He settled in behind her, one arm crooked at a weird angle under her head, the other laying awkwardly against his side. His instinct was to pull her in close, and it seemed like that was what she wanted from him sometimes? But maybe not now. Not since she’d come home from the Institute. After some fidgeting, he finally fell asleep.

When he woke up, she was still asleep. Still no way to know what time it was, but he was pretty certain it was past morning. His mouth tasted like dirt and stale booze, and he was a little too warm, with her radiating body heat against him. Additionally, as promised, he couldn’t feel the arm she was laying on, and as a bonus, he was pretty sure she was drooling on him. Although, his other arm was now wrapped snugly around her, of course, because at some point in the night, his body must have forgotten all about that personal space thing he had been worried about. It didn’t seem to matter much, because she was clutching a fist full of his sleeve as if afraid he would leave without her.

With a start, he realized that she had probably been pretty afraid last night. They hadn’t really been apart for more than a matter of minutes since they started traveling together—her time at the Institute or with Deacon not counting, that is. She had probably woken up drunk and confused, alone in a fairly unfamiliar room, and come looking for him out of fear. After all, whenever she woke, he was usually there keeping watch if they were out in the wasteland, or sleeping in a chair if they were somewhere relatively safe.

He didn’t want to leave her alone again, but he also had to piss like a racehorse. Very carefully, he disentangled himself, and crawled over her. Once his feet hit the floor, he tucked her in as best as he could and shrugged on his coat. The bathroom was just down the hall, and when he had washed up a bit and felt more human, he headed back for the bar to see about scrounging up some breakfast (lunch?).

“MacCready!” His eyes snapped up to the bar, where Vadim was looking over at him, pointing with a dishrag. “I see what you did. The girl’s room—empty.”

“Hey, she came to me.” He leaned over the bar. “Don’t worry, Vadim, she just didn’t want to be in a room alone.”

“You be good now,” Vadim shrugged. “She is a good girl.”

“Hey, got anything for good girl to eat?”

Vadim shook his head. “It is all garbage. Don’t tell Yefim I said that. Go get noodles—better for nursing a hangover.”

“You’re a charmer, Vadim.”

Vadim shrugged in response.

MacCready headed out the door to the marketplace and grabbed two bowls of noodles from that crazy robot in the square. The sun beat down from directly overhead. They must have slept longer that he’d thought. One hangover cure, coming up.

She was sitting upright when he came back in, but that was the most that could be said for her. She looked awful—real awful, like she was dying. Grey splotches under her eyes, as if he had smudged his thumb with charcoal and then swiped it under her eyelids. She was ash, not her usual pink. Her lips were pale. Her short hair was limp and tangled beyond saving.

“Where are we?”

“The Dugout?” He set the noodles down on the side table and dropped onto the mattress next to her. “We weren’t going anywhere after drinking so much last night. I wasn’t going to drag you all over the Commonwealth while you called me names.”

“Why did we stay here?”

“If you want to sleep on Takehashi’s counter, that’s your issue, but—”

“No, Mac, shush.” She rubbed her head. Her eyes squeezed shut. “Mac, I have a house in the city. Bought one ages ago, before I thought that Sanctuary could…”

“Happen?”

“Be long-term. It’s in the main square.” She frowned. “I hope we didn’t have to pay for two rooms. I feel like I remember waking up somewhere different.”

“Vadim gave you a room for free, so you invaded mine. We only paid for one.”

She turned a deep red, from her neck up to her hairline.

“Sorry.”

“Not complaining. Just, next time, try knocking.” He figured he would leave her with that one. Serves her right for making him wake up and accommodate her. She reached for the bowl of noodles as if it was the last bit of food she’d eat for months.

“I warned you not to try and out-drink me.”

She grumbled “two out of three?”

He opened his mouth to tease her when she produced a bottle from under the bed. How had that gotten there? She took a swig.

“Hair of the dog that bit you.”

Chapter 23: Bury It

Chapter Text

Vadim was sh*t at cutting people off. She would bat her eyelashes, and he’d have another drink ready for her in a second. Second night in a row getting piss drunk. Hangover or no hangover. He was not a judgmental man, but he was starting to worry. She only let herself get this wasted when things were going downhill. She had started when she’d woken up, and hadn’t stopped since. He had convinced her to slip some water in there and a little dinner, but the sun was down, and she was drunk again. Still, not like he was gonna say anything; knowing Lola, that could backfire too hard.

“Mac!” She snorted. “Like a Macintosh apple!”

“A what?”

She grabbed him by the collar of his coat and pulled him in close. He could see Vadim eyeing him from across the bar.

“Okay, boss. I think it is time for bed.”

“Only if you come with me.” She barely whispered it, but he could feel his ears heating up as if she had shouted. He shook his head to clear it, and then helped her up from the couch. She swayed when her feet hit the floor. It would be hilarious if this wasn’t night two of incoherent binge drinking. How much had she spent on all this?

Remembering what she had said, he helped her out of the Dugout, and back to the square. She could remember which door was hers, but could not get her key out of the snug pocket of her jeans for the life of her. He fished the keyring out for her, and unlocked the door. The house was not even as nice as the stuff she built for Sanctuary. She had lit the place, but it was pretty empty, except for her workshop, a counter, two beds pushed together, a crib, and a bathtub. He steered her towards the beds.

“Wait, Mac, stop!” She turned and put her hands on his chest as if worried.

“Boss?”

She grabbed him again, around the neck this time, and planted a kiss on his mouth—sloppy, teeth grinding against his. She bit his lip. She tasted like stale scotch and something sweet.

He pulled away, blinking down at her. He was about to say something when she got that look in her eye. He braced himself, and it was a good thing he did, because a second later, she pulled hard on his coat, tugging herself into the air. She was trying to wrap her legs around him, but was struggling. The coordination just wasn’t there. She was strong enough to hold herself up with her arms around his neck, but her feet scraped against the backs of his thighs. His hands snapped to the undersides of her knees to catch her without him even thinking to do it. He stumbled forward in surprise, and struggled to regain balance with her still wiggling, trying to hold on. And it would have been so much easier if she wasn’t hell-bent on distracting him. She latched on and ground herself against him in a way that should’ve been illegal. Her thighs tightened around him.

“Lola, what are you—?”

“You’re so good, Mac.” She buried her face in his throat, her cheek on his shoulder. He could feel every breath raise goosebumps. She licked from his throat to his ear, and he almost dropped her. “I’ve wanted to jump you ever since I picked you up at the Third Rail.”

File that one away for later.

He could feel the heat of her skin through her jeans. It was like she was burning him. He was more than a little tempted to let her slide a bit so that his hands were on her backside. She nipped his ear, and then licked again, slowly. His knees wobbled. He cleared his throat.

“Lola, you’re drunk.”

She laughed, pushing her fingers up into his hair. She bit him again, on the neck this time. Just hard enough to make him shiver. When one hand fell to his hips and smoothed out against his stomach, he bit his lip so hard he thought he might draw blood.

He walked her over to the bed and deposited her there. She rolled onto the covers, pulling one edge of the blanket up to her face. She gave up on that tactic pretty quickly, and stretched out on the bed, puffing out her chest and letting her shirt skim up her stomach as it slid. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Get some sleep, boss. We can talk in the morning.” She had better be able to sleep, because there was no way he would. She arched her back, arms over her head. She moaned a little, deepening the stretch.

“Mac, you’re so good to me. Come here.”

“No, Lola. I’ll eat breakfast with you in the morning.”

“You must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You do.”

“I—listen, we can talk when you sober up a bit.” He tried to keep his voice from cracking as she hooked her thumb in the belt loop of her jeans.

She nuzzled her face against the pillow. “It would be cozier with you.”

He shrugged, and propped himself up against the wall. She fell asleep almost immediately. Took him a little longer—his brain was fifteen different types of worked up. She had always wanted to jump him. Couldn’t stop thinking about that one. He made the conscious decision to chalk everything she said up to exhaustion, alcohol, and trauma. But they had…all those nights ago. Yeah, he reminded himself, and then she left. And, if he was being honest, he would have to admit that not having her around had been the worst he had felt in a while. No way he would risk that again, no matter how good things had seemed before she left for the Institute.

He finally fell asleep when her breathing evened out. When he woke up an hour later, she was on the floor, with her head on his lap, fast asleep. No use fighting her. The Boss always gets what she wants. He scooped her up and carried her back to bed. When she was settled, he crawled in after her and let her nestle into him. She calmed down almost immediately. In the dark, he heard her sigh “G’night, Nate.”

The next morning was a rough one. She vomited impressively into the scraggly bushes outside of her home. Luckily, morning came for her at four am when she woke up in a fit before the rest of Diamond City was up. She tried not to wake him, but the Boss was never subtle when she was drunk. He held her hair back, trying to stifle yawns. Good thing she’d cut it so short—easier to keep it out of her face. After the vomiting, she was grey. Completely grey, as if the color had been sapped out of her skin. She was also a little too limp, and he really struggled to get her upright enough to shoot her up with some of the Adictol he had found in the bottom of her pack. Somewhere in the back of his head, he heard Lucy “tsk-tsk-ing.” She would shake her head. “Acute alcohol poisoning. One shot of Adictol, and one Stimpack. Then hydrate, and then a second Stimpack as needed. Hydration is key.” Lucy would then shake her head, and mutter something about living rough. She never had approved of “Wasteland painkillers.”

The Stimpack was easier to administer. He was plenty familiar with those. In all, the hydration part was the hardest. Lola wouldn’t sit up to drink anything, and he had to prop her up and funnel water into her mouth. Her skin was clammy and slack under his hands, so he drained that second Stimpack into her before long. He wanted to go back to sleep when she seemed in the clear, but he ended up pacing the house instead. He checked in on her every five minutes or so. He tried to take her temperature with the back of his hand like Lucy used to when one of the kids was sick, but he wasn’t sure how warm she should be. When she roused, he promised himself he would smack her.

She didn’t wake up for quite some time, so eventually, he just wandered her house. There was a tub on the second floor landing, but nothing else. Such an empty little space. He liked the rooftop patio, but that was about it. With a sigh, he decided to fill the bathtub and scrub some of the grime from between his toes. Not like he was super picky about bathing, but Lola was. Of course, no running water in her house. Wandering the city, he found the kid who ran the pump-house, and snuck out back with some buckets. Fresh from the pump, reasonably clean! It took him a few runs, but soon he had half a tub of cold water. Better than nothing. He retrieved one of the bars of soap she had crammed into his pack, and got to scrubbing. Hell, later they could even wash their clothes. They had some spare pants in his bag. When he was clean, he left the soapy water and sat in the stretch of cloth he had been using as a towel. He could swing his legs off the second floor. Hell, if he wanted to, he could have jumped down to the first. This wasn’t a big place. He dressed in some jeans and a flannel they had picked up in a pre-war store awhile back.

She woke up again sometime late in the afternoon. A little pinker now, closer to what she usually looked like. Only still a mess. She had clearly tried to brush her hair with her fingers, but needed a bath. Luckily, he had one prepped for her. Hell, he had even added a little more clean water to the mix after using it. Still, when he walked her upstairs to show her, she did not look thrilled. Eh. He could see how cold water wasn’t the best wake-up call after a hangover that severe, but it was better than nothing. She promised him that she could bathe herself, and he waited downstairs in her empty room. He called out to her here and there to make sure she wasn’t drowning, and she sounded fine. She stayed in the water for so long he was concerned, but there were no walls. He would know if she had managed to drown herself or something.

He was preparing the sternest lecture of his mungo life when she came down the stairs, wrapped in the blanket they had both used as a towel. When she sat down beside him, she looked so small, shoulders hunched forward, the arcs of her shoulder blades sticking out under her skin.

He should have known better than to think he could just lecture her like that. Never had been able to before.

“We’re going to have to wash our clothes and then dump the tub. I think you have something to wear in your pack.”

She nodded, and then laid back down without dressing. He went back upstairs and washed their clothes, hanging them off the stairs to dry. Before he knew it, he was washing all of the clothes in their packs—everything they had collected and might need. Rags for mopping up serious injuries. Pants. Shirts. Everything. When he was finished, he could hear that tape playing again.

“You’ll dust off your law degree…”

He had turned to go up to the patio, when she called out.

“I know you are disappointed in me.”

Here’s your chance for that stern lecture.

“Lola, I’m not disappointed in you.”

She didn’t turn to face him when he sat down on the bed beside her. The holo from Nate was still playing.

“I just wish you would talk to me, rather than drink yourself blind.”

He wanted to reach out and say something, do something. But everything he thought of felt wrong. The Boss wasn’t always the “hug-me” type. Usually, he would offer her a drink, but that seemed like a bad idea right now. Maybe she needed time. Sometimes the Boss would get real quiet, and need some time to herself. He pat her shoulder as he stood to head up to the roof. When he came back in later, she was dressed and asleep.

Chapter 24: Truth or Dare

Chapter Text

The next morning, she seemed a lot better. Her tone was cheery, even, though it didn’t touch her eyes. They stocked up on supplies, dumped the water in the tub, fixed up their guns. They went to bed early, and woke up late. For one whole week, they crashed at her place in Diamond City, just puttering around the market, catching up with Piper and Nick Valentine. She seemed weirdly fine, but at night, she laid with her back to him and barely slept. He could tell by how still she was. Just staring off at the wall until her brain shut down.

He was sitting on the roof of her house when she came out with a bottle of something and sat down beside him. It was late enough that most of the city was dark. The moon crept up on the night, soaking her half in silver light, and half in a rainbow from the neon lights below. All that light, and he still couldn’t quite see her eyes.

“Truth or Dare, Mac?”

“What?” He sat up a little straighter.

“Truth or Dare? It’s a kids game.” She propped herself up onto her elbows. “We take turns, and when it is your turn, you say ‘truth’ or ‘dare.’ If you pick ‘truth,’ I get to ask you a question that you have to answer. If you say ‘dare,’ I come up with something for you do. If you want to pass, you have to take a shot.”

“Do you really think this is the best—”

“Do you want to play?”

“And this is a kid’s game?”

“Everything but the shots.”

He shrugged. She drummed her fingers on the roof. “Fine. Truth.”

“Starting safe? Okay.” She bit her lip. “Who was the weirdest kid in your baby commune?”

“Little Lamplight?” He tapped a cigarette against the pack and slipped it between his lips. “Zip, hands down. Couldn’t walk if you begged—ran everywhere, spoke loud and fast, couldn’t think coherently to save his life. Sounded a lot like a jet junkie. We had to find Nuka Cola for him regularly or he would bug out.” He caught the grin that tugged on the corner of her mouth.

“Truth or dare?” He was picking out a good question for her. The boss would usually play this kind of game safe.

“Dare.”

MacCready lit his cigarette. “Really? What the he—heck am I supposed to have you do?”

She shrugged. Helpful.

“Fine. I dare you to drop some of that junk you picked up.”

She picked up the bottle and took a hearty slug, clearly repressing a cough. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he said.

Her lips quirked up.

“I dare you to give me your coat, and that cigarette.”

“Why do you want my coat?”

She held out her hand and, grumbling, he tugged his coat off his shoulders, and handed her the cigarette from between his lips. She wrapped her mouth around the cigarette as she scrambled into his coat. When she thrust her arms through the one remaining sleeve, the cuff flopped forward over her fingers. Too big. He snorted.

“Truth or dare?”

She took a pull from the cigarette and leaned back, her arms behind her. “Truth.”

“Why did you want my coat?”

“I was cold,” she shrugged. She crossed her legs and the ankles.

“You have to tell the truth.”

She smiled up at him and puffed the cigarette. “I’m cold.”

He shook his head. “Fine, Truth.”

“Where’d you learn to cook?”

“Éclair, one of the kids from Lamplight.”

“Hmm. Truth.”

“Why did you drink so much before?” He didn’t think he’d get an answer, and he wasn’t surprised when she grabbed for the bottle. He reached out and grabbed it before she could take a slug.

She frowned. “That isn’t how you play.”

He “accidentally” knocked the bottle over and it spilled everywhere before rolling away. Shame. From the smell of it, he was missing out on vodka.

“Looks like we’re out.”

“Mac—”

“You have to tell the truth, remember?”

She scowled and jammed the mostly-smoked cigarette into the tin roof. “Long week.”

“The truth, Boss.”

“I went to the Institute.”

“I know that. And?”

“And my son is their f*cking leader, alright?” She didn’t look at him, but stripped off his coat and threw it at his feet. He had to grab her wrist to keep her from going back into the house.

“What do you mean?”

“I thought he would be a baby. Or ten.” She was crying, not even trying not to anymore. This must have been building in her all week. “He is in his sixties. And he’s the head of the Institute. All those people missing? It’s him. Those Synths that almost killed us? The courser? All his.” She gripped her arms so tight she was going to bruise herself.

“And he knew.” He had never heard her talk about him so much. It was like now that she had started, she couldn’t stop. “He knew he was hurting me, Mac. He knew I was looking for him, and he still let his damn synths come after me. I read it on his terminal while he was in some meeting. They could have killed us, and he wouldn’t have bat an eyelash.”

She struck his chest, her palm flat against his shirt. Not hard, but he flinched anyways. Leader of the Institute. No way to see that one coming. The drugs, the drinking…but holy sh*t, her son practically gave the order to have his own mom killed. She sucked in a breath through her mouth like she had been running and couldn’t choke down enough air. She sounded winded.

“The best part? He waited for me to come to him so that he could ask me to do his dirty work.” When he held out his arms, she collapsed and buried her face in his chest. Her tears soaked through his shirt. He had never seen the Boss like this. Not this much of a wreak. He sat back in his chair and pulled her into his lap. She curled up into him as if trying to make herself small enough to disappear forever.

“I was so ready for him to be dead, I just couldn’t fathom anything worse.” One fist was in her hair, pulling. “I am such a f*cking idiot. I just couldn’t…I couldn’t say no to him. What the hell am I going to do?”

He rubbed her back and realized that he could feel every vertebra. He had the overwhelming urge to wrap her up and cover her.

“I tore up the Commonwealth looking for him, and oh my god, Mac, I wish I’d never had him. I didn’t even want to have him at first, you know?” She breathed in hard as if she had been struck. “When Nate and I found out I was pregnant…it was an accident. We were too young. I didn’t want Shaun. I told Nate we should…get rid of him.” Deep breath, but shaky and rattling, and punctuated with shorter gasps. “He wouldn’t hear of it, and seven months later…I didn’t even love him then. New mothers are supposed to love their babies, but I just felt awkward. I had a career and a house and here was this little thing I couldn’t even like, and I was going to f*ck this up somehow, and—.”

Mac found that he had been holding his breath with her.

“The nurse said I was depressed. Damn right I was. I didn’t even love my f*cking kid. Even had my tubes tied right after so I could never have a kid again. But the funny thing is, a few months later, he was my whole world. I didn’t love him immediately, but I made up for that by loving him so much later. I was just getting the hang of being a mom when the bombs fell.” She bit her lip so hard she drew blood. “I was a sh*tty mom.”

“I’m sure you were a wonderful mom, Boss.” He smoothed her hair. “You didn’t lose Shaun, they took him from you.”

She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand.

“You should have seen all the tech and medicine they have hoarded. With their muscle and resources, they could heal the whole Commonwealth by themselves. We could restore everything. Take care of everyone. Push all the raiders and Muties and ferals and Deathclaws out. But he won’t hear of it. He thinks this world is sullied. Beyond saving. I don’t know what he wants from me, Mac.”

When she exhaled, her whole body curled in as if all of the air was leaving her forever. “And worst of all?” Her voice was hoarse. “Worse than all he has done, all he wants to do—and I haven’t even told you about the human experimentation—is that he made a little child synth. A ten-year-old Shaun synth. He f*cking looks like Nate.” She was full-on sobbing again, tears leaking down her cheeks and onto his shirt. She shook like she would never stop—like she was sick. She ground the heels of her palms against her temples as if crushing her skull would change how she felt.

“I ran into the kid first. Told him that he was my son, and he freaked out. They had to short-circuit him to calm him down! I really thought he was Shaun. But Shaun was watching me the whole time—doing another f*cking experiment on me and the kid. I mean, synth.” She pulled hard on his collar. “He looked so much like my baby, Mac. I thought I’d found him. My red curls and Nate’s eyes. God, looking at my real son was like looking at Nate at 60. I’ve lost everything.” When she looked up at him, her eyes were round and bloodshot and glassy.

“I wish I could have been there for you.”

“Ha!” She slid back in his lap to better look at him. “They would have vaporized you on on-site. Too many contagions.”

“I’m still sorry you had to go there alone.”

She looked out at Diamond city and ran her fingers through her hair.

“If I put my gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger, do you think he’d zap me back to the Institute to try and save me, or just create a synth-Lola and program her to raise synth-Shaun?”

He wrapped his arms tight around her, suddenly nauseas. It was like he couldn’t hold her tight enough. Like she was slipping through his fingers.

“Look at me. Lola, look at me dammit.” Her green eyes bored into his. Empty. Completely vacant. Lights are on; nobody’s home. “Don’t talk like that.”

She shrugged.

“I mean it. Don’t say sh—stuff. Don’t say stuff like that. You have all your friends, a Mr. Handy, and a Super Mutant, and all of them love you. Hell, I love you.” When she didn’t react, he shook her hard by the shoulders until she let out a very small, very helpless whimper.

He pulled her in so close that he couldn’t breathe without inhaling her hair. Cigarettes, vodka, soap, and iron. She burrowed back into his shoulder.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, but at some point, her breathing leveled out, and he realized that it was time for bed. He moved to scoop her up, but she clambered off his lap and moved towards the door before he got a grip on her. He had really expected that she was asleep. He grabbed his coat and followed her back into the house.

She didn’t go right to bed. She dismantled the crib she had built in the corner of the room as he climbed into bed. When she had pulled the thing apart and set aside all of the pieces to be repurposed, she crawled into bed next to him. There was plenty of room for her to sleep by herself. The beds were pushed together, but there were still two separate mattresses. She laid down against his back, her palms flat on either side of his spine. When he looked over his shoulder, he noticed that she was curled into a ball on her side. He rolled to face her and she flinched.

He stopped moving, and they both just laid there for a moment, looking at each other. He wasn’t sure if he should reach out or give her space. His hands twitched at his sides. Finally, she reached out just a little, letting her hand sit on the mattress between them. A bridge. He draped his hand over hers. She reached out again, this time to grab a fistful of his shirt. He curled an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in until she buried her face in his chest. The blanket had fallen down behind her, so he pulled it over them. Vaguely, he realized that this was the first time she had intentionally slept this close to him sober.

He rolled his thumb over her back. She shook a little, like a steady hum. Under everything, the boss seemed so tiny in his arms.

On a whim, he pressed his face into her hair and sang the first couple of lines to “Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall.” He used to sing to Duncan when he was inconsolable; it was the only thing he could think to do once Lucy wasn’t there to comfort their son. Not like he was some great singer, but Lola’s breathing steadied and slowed after the first chorus. By the end of the song, she had fallen asleep. He felt a flush of warmth spread up through the pit of his stomach.

For the first time since Lucy’s death, he felt useful. Like he was doing something helpful. It wasn’t much, but he could give her a couple of hours of peace. Her eyelashes reached out over her cheeks. Her lips were slack. This was the first time he had seen her so thoroughly relaxed in all the time they had spent together. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep with her.

When he woke up, she was still cuddled up next to him, though she had turned sometime in the night, and now he was curled around her back. She was holding his arm around her, her face pillowed on his hand. His other arm was arched over her head as if to protect her. He didn’t want to move and wake her, but he couldn’t feel the arm that was over her head.

“Mac?”

A little panic flashed through him. This was his boss he was spooning. If she felt uncomfortable…He could pretend to be asleep to avoid the oncoming awkwardness, but she would see through it.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She nestled closer to him, and sighed.

“You know,” she said over breakfast. “If I had gone to the institute before I’d met you, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so betrayed. Maybe I would have joined Shaun.”

“Do you think so?” He wasn’t sure how to respond, or whether she was close to tears or laughter. He shifted in his seat.

“I do. If I didn’t have you and Deacon, I might have taken his offer.”

“What about Preston?”

“He and the Minute Men would probably be able to stay out of it. The Institute doesn’t think of them as a threat. I wouldn’t have met you or Deacon or Danse or Strong.” She shrugged. “Just Preston, Piper, Valentine, and Shaun. And Shaun would have come first. I was so desperate.”

MacCready nodded.

“I don’t know what I am going to do about Shaun yet.” She poked at her noodles with her fork. “But thank you for showing me that I have options.”

Chapter 25: A Small Army of All Kinds of Misfits

Chapter Text

After big talks like that, she always needed space. Before they even left Diamond City, she told him that she was going to clear her head, and after she vanished for a solid twenty minutes, she came back with none other than the Piper Wright in tow. She was leaving him behind for now. He got it, he really did. She just needed space, sometimes. Wasn’t going to throw a fit, wasn’t going to storm off. He tried to stay light and joking with Piper—after all, Lola was an adult and she needed friends and at the end of the day, he was still close to her, so what did it matter?

Piper smiled at Lola. They were about the same height, and Piper took every excuse she could get to throw her arm around Lola. Or Blue. She had this weird habit of calling Lola “Blue,” as if her vaultie status was something she should be proud of. As if Lola didn’t still have nightmares about being trapped in that pod, frozen solid. He bit back a somewhat nasty comment as Piper threaded one arm around Lola’s with a hearty “let’s get going, Blue!” It was pretty clear to him that, even if Deacon didn’t have a thing for Lola, Piper definitely did. He raised an eyebrow at Lola, who shrugged. She liked Piper’s upbeat attitude. “Sass,” she called it. And if it made her smile after all that sh*t with her monster of a child, then nothing else mattered more. Lola came to give Mac a hug goodbye, and he kissed her forehead. She was warm, and she smelled like soap and cigarette smoke. Specifically, like the cigarette smoke from his coat. Like him.

Piper frowned for a second, but then rolled her eyes theatrically. Lola laughed and waved as they headed out of Diamond city. He turned around at the stairs and trudged back through the market place to her house. She’d left him the key to lock-up, which was good, because he hadn’t packed or anything when she’d told him she was heading out. Besides, he wanted to spend another few minutes somewhere safe before making the long walk back to Sanctuary.

He laid back on her bed, looking up at her ceiling. So that was four people who had a thing for Lola, himself included. He’d noticed Hanco*ck and Danse seemed a little flirtatious around her too, although with Hanco*ck, he wasn’t sure if it was anything special, or if that was just how the mayor operated. Hanco*ck flirted with Whitechaple Charlie too, so that could just be a part of being the coolest ghoul in the Commonwealth. Danse, however, was a creep. Grade A, certified, sexually repressed creep. Definitely—the tin can couldn’t keep himself from staring at Lola. And not even the usual staring—but murderous psychopath level staring. When she’d first been fitted for a Brotherhood suit and bent over to pick up her gun, Danse had unabashedly stared. Like he didn’t care who knew he was checking out Lola’s ass and actively wondering how many caps he could bounce off it.

Not that he was jealous or anything. It was just creepy.

Hell, if she was going to travel with someone other than him, his picks would be Deacon, Preston, or Cait. Maybe Strong, if he could make it through one settlement without asking if he could eat people. Good friends who kept their hands to their damn selves, genuinely cared about her safety, and would kill or die to protect her, no matter what she did.

Preston was a bit of a goody-goody, and sure, he couldn’t stop himself from messing with the guy, but Preston cared. A lot. Practically worshiped the ground Lola walked on after her assist at Concord. Deacon was her best friend and could clearly handle himself in a fight. Cait had her own issues, but he had seen her flatten a raider who’d shot Lola outside Sanctuary once. Climbed on top of the guy and punched until he didn’t have a nose before wrenching his neck so far to one side that you could hear the crack all the way across the bridge.

Of course, none of them would protect her the way he could, but it was better than nothing.

He packed up his bag and headed out around noon.

Chapter 26: Delirium

Chapter Text

The sun was right in his eyes as he looked out at the bridge from the ramparts. One silhouette, but shaped all wrong. His heart dropped from his chest down into the pit of his gut.

Almost knocked out one of the guards on his way down those stairs. Guy had his gun raised. Because. You know. That could be anyone. No reason to think that the weird visitor is Lola. Could just be another wastelander looking for a home. He was through the front gate by the time Hanco*ck reached the bridge. Carrying Lola on his back.

He reached them in a few strides, and they met at about the middle.

“MacCready, can you—”

“What happened.”

Lola didn’t lift her head from Hanco*ck’s shoulder when Mac spoke. Didn’t twitch. Her arms hung slack over Hanco*ck’s chest. Her head lolled to one side, with one cheek buried in the familiar red coat.

“Courser. Some lady met us on the road and said ‘Pam said to kill the courser,” handed her an address, and then left. She did kill it, though.”

MacCready wanted to get a good look at her face, but he was too afraid to touch her and make things worse. Hanco*ck adjusted his grip and picked back up walking, with Mac not even half a step behind.

“So she went after it.”

“You surprised?”

“I thought she was with Piper.”

“The reporter? Nah, sent her home. And if she was, do you think she’d have made it back?”

MacCready didn’t know. Maybe? Could he trust anyone to take care of her? f*ck.

“It was a damned close fight, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

“Did you even help her?”

Hanco*ck adjusted her again as they made it past the refugee house.

“What the hell do you think, MacCready.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah you are.” Hanco*ck shook his head. “You folks gotta doctor around here or what?”

Mac led him to the infirmary. Funny. She had just finished redoing some of the walls on this building before leaving. Not sure she would be glad to know that she would be the first person to bring in business. At least they would have resources.

When Hanco*ck set her on the cot for the resident doctor (and Sturges, who was called “just in case”), her head rolled so that he saw the left side. The side that had been plastered to Hanco*ck’s shoulder. Covered in drying blood, from her hairline down. There was a massive bruise on her forehead—already that sickly combination of purple and muddy yellow. Like someone had slammed her face into a table a few times. The bigger worry, however, had to be the lazer burn on her ribs. Doctor said that it was infected from her picking at it.

Sturges clucked his tongue and muttered “hmm. Fever.”

MacCready brushed a couple of strands of hair back from her forehead with the tips of his fingers.

“Passed out a little over an hour ago. Almost made it home, too.”

“Did she?”

Hanco*ck crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall as the Doctor buzzed out of the room—some settler had driven a spade into his foot. Sturges excused himself with a nod to help.

“Just dropped in the middle of the road. Never seen her hit the ground before.” He lit a cigarette and then passed the pack to MacCready. “Knew her head was bleeding, but it didn’t seem so bad, till she stopped mopping it up. She seemed pretty convinced she would at least make it home. Shoulda known. Hmmpf.”

Sounded like Lola.

MacCready lit his cigarette and brought it to his lips. “Sorry. For before.”

“No big deal, kid. She brings that out in people. Dontcha, Sunshine?” Hanco*ck pat her head so gently that he felt like an even bigger dick for assuming that Hanco*ck hadn’t tried to protect her. There was a moment where they both stood there, silent. f*cking Lola, making everyone worry. He tapped out his ashes in the little tray on the bedside table. Hanco*ck picked his nails clean with the tip of his trusty knife.

There was still dried blood crusted to her face, and (without her coat) the burn in her t-shirt stuck to the place where the lazer had cut through her skin. Whole thing looked pretty bad. He froze up. He wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Wash her face? Get her a new shirt? Another Stim? He puffed on his cigarette.

“Where is she?”

Of course. What else could make this better than Preston Garvey? Just what they needed. Peachy. The Minuteman shouldered his way around the settler minding the chem lab and stalked right past Hanco*ck and MacCready to Lola’s bedside.

“General?”

“She’s out cold, Garvey.” Hanco*ck slipped his knife back into his belt.

“How long?”

MacCready unfolded his arms and snubbed out the remainder of his cigarette. “Couple hours.”

Preston nodded, and then plunked down by her bedside. “We should set up a watch. Early morning to late afternoon, late afternoon to night, night to early morning. We’ll rotate. I’ll take first.”

MacCready looked out the window. So, late afternoon to night, then.

“I’ll take second,” he said.

“Guess that leaves me with the morning shift.” Hanco*ck nodded. He glanced back at Lola like he might hang around regardless, but he looked too tired. “See you in the a.m.”

Preston clasped his hands together like he was praying. MacCready followed Hanco*ck out the door.

“So, where’s the bunk-house, kid?”

MacCready just barely caught up. “Hmm? Oh. Straight ahead. The yellow one. Should be some open beds in the side room, across from the Longs.” How had he known that? How long had he been at Sanctuary where he already knew everyone’s sleeping arrangements?

“That’s where you’re headed?”

Oh. Nope. That wasn’t where he was headed. He was headed for Lola’s place, and they were almost at the doorstep. Sure, Hanco*ck probably didn’t know how to navigate Sanctuary, but he knew which house was Lola’s. Everyone did.

“Uh, no, actually.”

“Got your own digs somewhere, kid?”

“Yup. Yeah.”

“Glad to see you settled somewhere that isn’t a bar.”

“Glad to see you sober,” he snapped back. Hanco*ck laughed.

“That makes one of us, kid.”

He passed Lola’s house, not totally sure where he was headed.

“You missed your stop,” Hanco*ck said.

“Huh?”

“Your place? You’ve been staying with our little ball of Sunshine lately, right?” MacCready didn’t look up at Hanco*ck, but he could feel the mayor’s eyes on him. Hanco*ck laughed again. “She told me, yannow. No need to hide it from your old pal Hanco*ck. I wake her up after she drops and she says to find you. Says you’d either be at the gate or in her house.”

MacCready jammed his hands into his pockets. “She did?”

“Yeah, kid. ‘Course she did.”

MacCready shrugged.

“Look, kid. Ain’t any of my business, but if you and her aren’t a thing, I’d make you two a thing if I were you, ya dig?”

“I didn’t ask—”

“Yeah yeah, you didn’t ask an old romantic like me. But I’m tellin’ ya because you’re too young to know what you’ve got. Just passing along some advice. Now I don’t know about you, but it’s about time this ghoul tucked in.”

MacCready’s mouth opened as if to spit out a reply, but Hanco*ck just tipped his hat.

“Night, MacCready.”

Dogmeat greeted him at the door with a lot of barking and tail-wagging. He kicked off his boots halfway down the hallway and fell into her bed. He passed out in his clothes.

Preston woke him for his shift so late at night that MacCready forgot where he was for a moment.

“She didn’t wake up.” Preston rubbed his hand over his scalp. “Maybe you’ll have more luck. Fever is still pretty bad too, and Sturges thinks she has a concussion.”

“Great.”

“MacCready.” Preston squared up his shoulders. “This isn’t a joke. I need to know you will keep an eye on her in case she gets worse.”

“Fu—” Be a good person. Be a good person. Be a good person. He scrubbed a hand over his face to wake himself up as he threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I get it. I’m going.”

“Do you get it?” Preston’s eyes were bloodshot. “Look, you do your own thing, and that’s fine, but the General trusts you, and I need to you prove that her trust isn’t misplaced.”

“I’m going.”

Mac looked past Preston at his boots in the hallway. Preston stepped aside enough for MacCready to slip by. He tugged on his boots and was out the door in seconds. When he looked back, Preston was leaning in the doorway of Lola’s house.

She wasn’t any better when he made it to the infirmary.

Her cheeks were as red as her hair, but the skin under her eyes was grey. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat. He combed it back with his fingers. At least all the blood was gone. Garvey must have cleaned her up. There was a stained rag hanging half-out of a bowl of clean water. He kicked himself for being short with Garvey. The guy really did mean well, and he was one of Lola’s closest friends.

“Hey, Boss.”

She didn’t move.

That was the worst part. He’d never seen her lay so still. She moved constantly—even in her sleep—like she was just always on. She groaned very quietly, so he took the rag and wrung it out before swiping it across her forehead.

Lucy always said that you had to keep someone with a fever cool. Something about overheating. The kids hated it, because, kids. No one wanted to be uncomfortable less than a sick six-year-old. He peeled the blanket off her, and she groaned again. After a moment, she kicked one leg out. Then, she rolled her head to the side.

“Hey, hey there, Boss.”

She moaned again, and her hands clenched and unclenched the sheets like she was looking for that blanket back.

“No, you can’t. You’ll overheat.”

She rolled onto her side and curled up.

“I’m sorry, but it’s gotta be like this.”

She shivered.

“Look, it’s not like I’m punishing you. Too much heat is bad. You need to cool down”

She grumbled.

“Boss, stop. Lucy told me—”

She whimpered.

MacCready dug through his pockets for a cigarette and lighter. She usually tossed him one when she found one, and he found a pack of Grey Tortoises, but he wasn’t sure where the last lighter she’d given him went. He leaned back in the chair against her jacket and, on a whim, picked through her pockets to see if she had one. She did. She had one in her left pocket, nestled there with some of the .10 mm rounds he’d given her ages ago. Why hadn’t she used them? He lit up and took a drag.

He paced around the room. He sat by her bedside. He re-folded her clothes after rifling though her pockets, and laid them out on the table. Who had folded them in the first place? Preston? Seemed like a Preston kinda thing. Then, he couldn’t stop picturing Preston gently scrubbing the blood off her face while she slept, folding her clothes, tucking her in, and he felt like an ass. For all the sh*t he gave the man, Preston seriously wasn’t a bad guy. He added “don’t be a dick,” to his list of better-person tasks.

The sky was that flat blue color—the kind that is just hazy and bright enough to barely see, but still dark, right as the sun starts to wake up for the day—when Lola’s eyelids fluttered open. He nearly tripped over himself to get to the chair by her bed.

“Hey there, killer.”

She blinked a few times, as if trying to remember how she’d gotten here. “Mac?”

“The one and only.”

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and rolled her head back. Her neck was a long, pale stretch, ending in the point of her chin. He had the sudden temptation to run his thumb down the shallow ridges at her throat. She rolled her head back up to look at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I feel like sh*t.”

“You look like sh—crap.”

Her lip twitched. After a second, she rolled onto her side to face him, cheek cushioned on her fist. She was real pale, still sickly-looking. Her cheeks were unnaturally red. Her eyes were shiny and ringed with grey, and very, very green.

He leaned forward and rested his head on his hands so that they were eye-to-eye. She scanned his face, eyes bouncing from his chin to his lips to his eyes, forehead, hair. A hot flush crept up the back of his neck.

“I should probably tell Preston and Hanco*ck that you’re awake.”

She frowned. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

“They’d worry if you scraped your knee, Boss.” He ruffled her hair with one hand.

“Did I scare you?”

He dropped his hand from her head. After a moment, she leaned her forehead against his and her lips quirked up again. His fingers found the tips of her hair—short strands, a mixture of soft and coarse. She sighed.

“Never, Boss.”

She pulled back her head and gently, slowly, pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her skin was soft and too-cool. He could feel the heart-shaped imprint of her lips on him for a while after she pulled back. There was another long pause when she leaned back where he just wanted to touch her. Her cheeks, her hair, he wanted to run a finger over her lips and pull her against his chest.

“Not even a little?”

He licked his lips. “Nope.”

She dropped back down onto the mattress with a mumbled “you’re horrible.”

“The worst.” He stood up as she pulled the sheet he’d left her up past her hips. He moved towards the door, trying to remember where he could find her babysitters.

“But I’m glad you’re okay.”

Chapter 27: Storytime

Chapter Text

When she slammed the button and the door came around them, he heard her heart-rate spike as easily as if he had his ear pressed to her chest. He flattened himself against the curved wall of the Pullowski and held his breath, trying to give her as much space as possible, in case she needed it. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Her breathing was picking up. Had it been this bad the last time? Probably. And he probably hadn’t even noticed.

“Psst.” He kept his voice low.

Her eyes squeezed shut. He needed something to distract her. Anything. If the gunners found them in here, he didn’t want her to die in the middle of a panic attack.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I got shot in the butt?”

Her breathing hitched for a second.

“No.”

“It’s a good story.”

“Is it?”

“Mmhm.” He nodded before remembering that if her eyes were closed, she couldn’t see him. “Really funny. Involves lots of swearing and a molerat.”

“I’m listening.”

“Are you?”

She opened her eyes to look at him. “I’m listening, Mac.”

“I was fourteen. Still mayor of Lamplight.” She closed her eyes. “Are you listening?”

“You were fourteen.”

“Okay. So I was leading a scavving party.”

“With who?” As if she would even know any of the names he mentioned.

“Uh—Zip for sure, and then Squirrel and Penny, I think.”

She nodded.

“So we get outside—and that was big, because we didn’t usually go above ground—and we start hunting for something to bring home. Usually, Miri would bring us stuff, but she hadn’t been by in a bit, so we started getting antsy.”

“Miri is your friend from the Vault?” Her eyes were still closed, but one hand had drifted away from her body, and her fingers skimmed his.

“Yup.” He took her hand and her shoulders relaxed by a fraction of an inch. He ran his thumb over her knuckles.

“So we get outside, and it’s really bright, and we live in a cave, yaknow, so we’re not really used to it being so bright. Always takes a minute for our eyes to adjust. And I think that I’ll just keep walking, cuz I’ve done this before, and I think I’m so tough the Wasteland wouldn’t dare mess with me.”

“Oh no.” Her tone sounded serious, but she grinned. “What happened then?”

“Well, Zip was a little jumpy, and this was his first time outside, so when the molerat popped up out of nowhere, he got excited and started shooting everywhere—half-blind. Thankfully, Penny was able to wrestle him to the ground, but not before he fired off a few shots from that stupid pop-gun. Hit me right in the a—backside.”

Lola covered her mouth with her hand and he couldn’t tell if she was laughing, or concerned. “Were you okay?”

“I mean, they had to carry me all the way back into the cave. And then, I refused to tell Lucy even though she was the doctor, because I didn’t want some girl looking at my butt.” She scoffed at that, and opened her eyes so she could roll them.

“So did you ever get medical attention?”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Lucy found out and told me that my butt would fall off if I didn’t.”

She smothered a laugh.

“And did your butt fall off?”

“Nah. Only thing I lost was my pride.”

She was more relaxed now. Not perfectly calm, but better.

“Do you still have the scar?”

“Are you trying to get me to take my pants off?”

She flushed from the hairline down. “No. Just…professional curiosity.”

“I do have a scar.” He nodded down at her, and then leaned in real close. “You’d have to ask nicely if you wanted to see it.”

She shook her head and buried her face in his chest. Slow and careful, he brought his arms up around her as they waited for the heat to die down.

Chapter 28: Hat-Trick

Chapter Text

On their way back from provisioning at the Marina (new acquisition), she told him that she had to answer a summons from the Prydwyn. In his humble opinion, if Maxon was going to demand her presence, he should send her one of those nifty vertibirds and fly her there in style. She ran enough errands for him where she deserved at least that. But nope, here they were again, walking their way across the ‘Wealth.

She kept going for his hat. MacCready couldn’t tell ya why she did it, but she made a play to steal his hat every chance she got. And she was shorter than him, so she had to be pretty crafty about it. He was usually pretty good at fending her off, but it was all close saves, and she was bound to get what she wanted eventually. The Boss always did. At one point, she whirled around real fast and caught him by surprise. Her fingers skimmed his nose when she brushed the cap off his head. He tried to catch it, but she was faster.

“Really?”

She tugged his hat over her head and grinned up at him. He ran his fingers through his hair to un-flatten it. The green in his beat-up old cap made her hair look redder, somehow.

“Boss?”

She grinned.

“Give it.”

She rolled her shoulders forward, and her eyes flicked from him to the brim of the hat, to him again. He shook his head, but didn’t move. He knew that look. Any movement, and she would dart off like a spooked rad-stag.

“No. No, Boss. Give it back.”

Her grin spread further until she was practically beaming. Do or die. He lunged for her, and she was gone—shot right out of his grasp like a loosed bullet. Had to say this for her—her endurance was getting much better. Much faster, and she could run for longer than when he had met her. He quietly cursed himself for helping her in any way, ever. She ran at a dead sprint for a surprisingly long time, but he was eventually able to outpace her. He swung around in front, and stopped her dead in her tracks with one arm.

He caught her around the waist as she slammed into his chest. She rocked back onto her heels, trying to catch him off-guard. She struggled, and then pounded on his chest with her balled-up fists. He held her snug and secure. She was laughing so hard that, if there was something in the woods besides them, they’d know real soon. She twisted again to escape, trying to turn her back to him and use his legs as a springboard. Her feet connected with his shin.

“Ow, Boss!”

“Jerk!”

“Are you gonna give me my hat back?”

She squirmed, which he took to mean “no.”

He pulled her a little further up against his chest as he fought with her to pin both of her arms down. He was able to secure one of her arms under one of his after some maneuvering, and then he could wrap his fingers around her other arm to hold her in place. She was only wearing that dress (the ratty one she’d had Tinker Tom armor for her—said it made her feel bad-ass) and not her combat armor, which would have made securing her impossible. He reached up with his free hand to snatch back his hat. She stumbled for a second when he dropped her back on the ground, hat-less. She pat her skirt back into place.

He saw it in her face a second before she moved. He held the hat above his head right as she lunged. Too short to reach it. She braced one hand on his shoulder and tried again anyways. On her third jump, he caught her around the hips with his free arm, holding her in place off the ground. She planted her hands on his shoulders to shove him off, but she didn’t seem to be shoving all that hard. Her fingers dug into his coat. He was eye-level with one of the mis-matched buttons on her denim jacket.

It was like his brain short-circuited. He loosened his grip on her until she slid the length of his body and her toes touched the ground. And oh boy was that something. Every nerve in his body felt raw. Then, she looked at him like that. Eyes wide, waiting. Lips slightly parted in this quiet challenge. There was this moment—make or break. Two choices here. He could let go of her. Back up. Put his hat back on and jam his traitor hands in his pockets and stop touching her—for good—so that he didn’t end up in a mess like this again.

He grabbed her waist with both hands and kissed her lips hard.

She didn’t even need a second to process. Like always, she was either right on his trail or two steps ahead (too close to call), and she grabbed his face to pull him closer as she sucked on his bottom lip. Her nails grazed the length of his jaw, and he felt a shiver ride up from the base of his spine. When he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, she grabbed a fistful of his hair.

He could still stop, but she was pressed up against him, and they were pretty-much alone in the woods, and it was all he could do not to back her up against a tree. He knew how he’d do it too—could picture the whole thing in his mind—he’d hook his hands in the crooks of her knees and then shift so he could get a firm grip on her ass. She moaned in the real world, pulling him back into place at the edges of her lips.

“Boss—”

“Stopit, RJ.” She pulled back just long enough for her eyes to dart from his lips to his eyes back to his lips again. She stretched up on her toes and bit his ear. “I haven’t been your boss for a long time.”

“Lola.”

She had her fingers curled in his collar to guide him, but really, she didn’t have to work half as hard in that department. Right about now, she coulda told him to fist-fight a Deathclaw, and he would have given it a shot. When she went in for the second kiss, it was a lot less sloppy. She ran her tongue over his lip when he grabbed a fistful of her hair. He wrapped his arms around her as far as they would go, as if she would be ripped away if he didn’t hold on tight. She arced her body against his. He could feel each button on her coat against his ribs—distinct circles pressed into his chest. Probably could have counted them, if his brain wasn’t in sixteen places at once. When they finally broke apart for air, he didn’t have the will-power to let go and take a step back. He crushed her to him because if things were going to go south again, he needed something to think about when she dropped him at Sanctuary and ran off with another one of her strays.

She looked at him for a second, and they were back on that knife-point. If things were about to get bad, this is when it would happen. There was a pattern, he figured. She’d pull back a little. Look up at him. He’d have to drop her then—he’d get some signal, an eye-brow twitch or the hint of a frown—and she’d back up like he was some kind of horrible monster. He’d say the wrong thing, she’d listen to that tape, and it would be over. His jaw clenched in anticipation.

She leaned back a little, and he prepared to let go. Her eyes ran up and then back down to her hands, which were now resting in a lump over his sternum. He didn’t even breathe. After a second, she rested her head on his shoulder. Nuzzled right into his neck with her nose. Planted softer kisses from his shoulder up to his ear in a line. He let out the breath he’d been holding in a whoosh.

“Lola?”

“I’ve wanted to do this since the day I met you at the Rail.”

He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. It took way too long to compose himself before answering “really?”

She nodded with a breathy laugh. “Mmmhm. I didn’t totally understand why, but I did. Felt awful about it, though.”

His hand settled on her hair, fingers woven into the red strands.

She pulled back to look at him and opened her mouth to say something else, but nope. Not now. They could talk about guilt later. He kissed her again and, now that they were finding a rhythm, it wasn’t so desperate or urgent. It wasn’t like she just needed another body, or like he was kissing her like it was the last time he’d get the chance. He could take his time. Breathe her in and touch her face and smooth his thumbs over her cheeks, and her cheeks were so soft and her lips curled up and he could feel the movement against his lips and know that she was smiling—smiling! One hand wandered to the back of her neck, and the skin there was so smooth and warm, and he could feel the wiry little curls under her red waves—tiny spirals for him to get all tangled up in. She smoothed one hand up over his chest and tugged on his scarf. She tasted like salty skin and the Nuka Cola she had sipped earlier while they were walking. Vaguely fizzy on his tongue, but warm and sweet.

She pulled back again, but she was still wrapped up in his scarf, and he was still holding on like she would just vanish. She leaned her forehead forward, and he kissed it out of reflex. It would be so neat to play the cool guy here and be aloof, but that just wasn’t him, dammit. He sighed into her hair.

“We could set up camp,” she whispered.

It was barely past noon, and the sun still had several hours left in the sky.

“Oh yeah, absolutely. S’getting late.”

The muffled chuckle that followed sounded a little light-headed, and he figured he knew exactly how she felt. She flashed him a lopsided grin before wandering into the trees. There was a bombed-out truck in the middle of what must have been a road, and she tossed her pack in and climbed up into the back without turning around. He scrambled right up after her.

She was on all fours, setting up the sleeping bag when he caught up.

Chapter 29: Give and Take

Chapter Text

He had her crushed under his body, squirming against him. He kissed her jaw, and her neck, and her collarbones. The little hollow at the base of her throat, both her cheeks and her nose, her eyelids, and her forehead. When she hooked a leg around his hip, he smoothed his hand up from her calf, over her knee, and up her thigh. Her leggings were soft and worn, and probably lead-lined, but what the hell did he care so long as he was touching her?

She snaked one hand down between them and slid a couple of fingers in the waist of his pants. He could feel her knuckles against him, and then her nails skimming low but not low enough. She traced lines onto his skin as she shifted her grip and slipped her hand around his co*ck. Holy sh*t.

He grabbed a handful of her ass and she jumped and wriggled against his hips. She undid the button of his pants and he fought with the belt around her waist. So many f*cking layers. Once the belt was off, he thumbed the buttons on her jean jacket and f*ck he forgot she was wearing a t-shirt under that, and then he had to strip off the skirt…He gave up after the shirt, and she wriggled out of her leggings. He’d make do. There was a small gold ring on a beat-up chain around her neck. The ring itself landed right in between her breasts. Did she always wear that? He made a mental note to ask later.

He started to pull off his own shirt before he made it out of his jacket, got himself good and tangled up, and she had to come to the rescue. Didn’t matter, the second his hands were free he grabbed her by the hips. His fingertips skimmed up the inside of her thighs and she was so warm. He kissed her again, and holy sh*t was that nice.

Christ, this had gone smoother last time, and, in hindsight, last time was a trainwreak. But hey, finally, at least, they were both mostly naked. He couldn’t stop kissing her now that he had started. Any bit of her skin he saw. She pushed up against him—palms against his chest—until he flipped over onto his back, and she straddled him. Her fingertips crept down over his stomach, raising goosebumps until she grabbed him and guided him inside. Of course the Boss liked to be on top. That wasn’t a huge shocker, but the way she rolled her hips was. Where had she picked that up? His fingers dug into her thighs up under her skirt. His hands were shaking. The hem of her skirt tickled his stomach and where it blanketed him. She ground against him and he shifted his grip to hold onto her waist. This way, he could feel every powerful roll of her hips as she moved against him. He had to grit his teeth to restrain himself.

He sat up and pulled her down hard against him until she gasped, letting her head fall back. His lips were on her throat before he even thought about it, and she responded by pulling him against her by the hair. She jerked his head back and kissed his mouth like she was trying to own him. He pushed up and turned, laying her on the ground beneath him, back where they started. She hooked her heels behind his back and pulled him to her. He almost shuddered right out of his skin. His hands were making a circuit over her body from her breasts to her hips and back again. He ran his thumb over her nipple and she shivered.

He could feel her unwinding underneath him, and he was definitely not too far behind. She raked her nails down his chest and he grabbed her hands and secured them over her head. Her thighs tightened around his hips and her back arched. Her mouth was open, so he kissed her again and she responded with a passion that told him exactly who was really in control. After a moment more, her legs fell away from his hips. Her head lolled back and as she sighed, he could swear he heard his name. Damn right she was saying his name! With her satisfied, he let go and nearly collapsed with the force of it. His forehead hit the cool metal floor right above her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him and played with his hair, fingernails skimming his scalp.

For a minute, they just laid there completely tangled up in each other with his hands on her wrists and her body pressed to the floor underneath his. She hummed something soft and tuneless under her breath, just a contented sound, like she didn’t know any words that would fit how she was feeling and was happy to just hum. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears. Not totally sure how he was supposed to move after all that. Nope. Nosiree. Felt like every ounce of energy in his body had drained out his co*ck.

“Mmm,” she breathed. “We should have done that ages ago.”

They had, strictly speaking, but at the same time, they hadn’t. All he could do was nod and kiss her bare shoulder. She smelled like sweat and that old soap she always insisted on collecting. Her skin was warm and soft and unmarred here. Perfect. Smooth. He kissed her again and she pushed him up gently. When he sat up and looked at her, she stretched a couple fingers up and smoothed her knuckles down the side of his face and his ears flushed warm. He ran his fingers over her collarbone and noticed that chain again. He skimmed the length of it and ran one finger around the ring itself. Her hand came up fast to close around the thing.

“What’s that?”

“Wedding ring. Nate’s.”

His fingers fell back to the safety of her shoulder, but she turned her head to kiss his knuckles, so no harm, no foul, he guessed.

She tugged on her jacket without bothering to put on her shirt, and crawled out the back of the truck to clean up. He scrubbed himself vigorously with an old shirt they had “salvaged.” The thing was full of holes anyways. Not like anyone would miss it if he tossed it afterwards.

He was rummaging through her pack for dinner when she came back. He could have eaten a whole Brahmin all by himself raw, and when she pushed him aside and produced two cans of cram, he had finished his before she’d even gotten the top of the tin all the way off hers. He reached for some sugar bombs. She teased him about eating so much for such a lean guy. He rolled his eyes through a mouth full of cereal.

He napped through the rest of the afternoon, while she picked through her salvage to see if there was anything she could strip before they made it back to Sanctuary. He didn’t remember cuddling up to her, but woke just after the sun had set with his arms around her and his head in her lap. She stroked his hair with one hand and examined a massive magnet with the other. He pretended to sleep for another ten minutes, comfortable despite the fact that his side was aching from laying on the hard floor.

At night, they curled up together tucked behind their gear in the back of that massive truck. He had watch, but he risked laying under the covers beside her anyways. In the dark, he could barely make out the curve of her face, buried in all that red hair. It was starting to grow back, and almost reached her shoulders like it had before. He twined a lock of it around his finger. He probably shouldn’t be sleeping with the Boss. It could get confusing, right? But she was warm and soft and, no, if she asked him again, he didn’t think he would put a stop to it.

Besides, in the end, it was just physical, right? He kissed the top of her head and she snuggled into his chest. Her hand was flat against his skin, fingers just under his collarbone. Just physical. No pressure. He stared up at the roof of the truck, and all he could hear was his heartbeat, and her breathing. Just physical. He could do that.

Chapter 30: Tin Cans

Chapter Text

“Hold up.” The second scribe Haylen was out of sight, she grabbed him by the collar and ducked around a steel beam until they were mostly alone. The ambient noise from the massive airship dulled everything around them. For all he hated the Prydwyn (no one should be that high up in the air all the time), he didn’t mind the enclosed space one bit.

“Are you trying to get me alone, Boss?”

The shove she answered with pushed that right off the table.

“How could you say that nasty sh*t about Danse?”

“What?”

“What you said in front of Maxson? About me losing my marbles for not wanting to kill him on sight?”

MacCready leaned back against the girder. Lola was trying to keep her voice down, but her face was red from her neckline to her hair. Her hands were balled up into fists. Her shoulders were set and squared.

“Woah, calm down—”

“Calm down?” She exhaled hard through her nose. If he wasn’t slightly afraid she was about to combust, he would have been impressed at the rage she could summon. “Danse is my friend. We may not see eye-to-eye on everything, but he is a damned good man, MacCready. A true soldier, and a good man.”

He didn’t want to bristle. Would much rather play it calm and cool. She wants to risk her neck chasing down the tin can, fine. They’d done stupider things. But he’d caught that true soldier jab straight in the f*cking jaw. She probably hadn’t meant it like that. Shouting would only make this worse. Just stay still. She can smell fear.

“A true soldier?” He caught himself saying the words out loud. “Not like some people you know, then. I hear you.” He really wanted to walk away, but there were not a lot of places to go, and he was a civilian accompanying a Knight. Wander, and they’d have no reason not to huck him overboard.

“Don’t make this about that. You know that I didn’t say that.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “How could you be such a heartless asshole?” She hesitated on the last word as if somehow, that one expletive was too much. And he was mad at her for that too. As if she was mocking the fact that he was trying to be a better person. He very calmly slid a cigarette from the pack and lit it. The heat from his lighter pushed her away.

“Look. Fine. You don’t want to save Danse? Don’t. I’ll find him on my own.”

“Fine. Send me to rot in Sanctuary while you and whoever frolic around the Commonwealth for a man who would as happily kill you on orders as help you. Be my guest.”

She opened her mouth, but was so angry that she couldn’t manage to form any words. After a long moment of her standing there, melting holes in him with her eyes, she shoved past MacCready. He didn’t want to follow her. He wanted for her to wait and come around and admit that she was wrong about this guy. She was clearly wrong about this guy. But this was Lola. She would head out alone and get mauled by a Deathclaw just to spite him. He scrambled after her and caught up as she was mounting the stairs to get to the exit.

“Where are you going?”

“Nevermind.”

“Lola…” Of course he hadn’t meant to sound whiney.

“I said nevermind.” She was gritting her teeth.

He had never seen her this mad at him. She kept walking as if he would just fall away at some point.

“He’s a monster. Let’s go home.”

“And you were a greedy, desperate ex-gunner when I met you. I didn’t leave you behind.” She rounded on him. “I thought you were better than that. Better than Maxson, for sure. I am getting really sick of being wrong.”

He could feel this spiraling out of control just as much as he could feel his response bubbling up from his gut like vomit.

“Yeah, well I’m sick of you wasting your time on every pity case you find out here! Newsflash, Lola, you’re going to find one around every corner.” She flinched and he immediately regretted everything, but he couldn’t stop. “I know you’ve been running with Deacon and those Railroad nuts, but Danse is a literal killing machine. Leave this one for the suits up here and I don’t think even your Railroad friends will think twice.”

“How dare you?” She pushed through the doors and out into the air. The roar of the motors killed his low growl. How dare he? As if he was being unreasonable. She walked along the catwalk as if being at cloud-level was perfectly natural. He grabbed hold of the railing, not completely certain that she wouldn’t throw him overboard.

“Go home, MacCready. I don’t want to look at you.” They rounded the bow to where she had left her Power Armor last time they’d been here. Just sitting. In the open. He tried to bring her back into the argument, but she pulled herself up into the armor as if she couldn’t hear him. Without another word to him, she stepped up on some crates and took a dive right off the side of the ship.

He caught himself, arms outstretched, half over the railing. For one nauseated, dizzy moment, he forgot that wearing Power Armor would keep her from breaking bones and cracking her skull open. He almost threw himself over the railing reaching for where she had been standing before stepping back down onto more solid footing. It was foggy enough today that he couldn’t even see her land.

He pulled himself back onto the bow and secured his hat on his head. When he mounted the vertibird alone, the pilot shot him one aggressively incredulous look. MacCready just sat back in his seat and prayed that he didn’t look half as anxious as he felt. His knuckles were white when they touched ground at the Airport. He had never flown without her before.

He asked an initiate where she had gone and he pointed MacCready in the right direction. MacCready frowned as he passed the massive wall of robot with enough nuclear ammo to clear the world for good this time. Her power armor was standing abandoned by one massive metal foot. Probably ditched it almost as soon as she landed. She never had liked it. Too claustrophobic.

The initiate had said “north.” Of course north. Hadn’t Maxson said something about heading north? Maybe. He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he should have. He had been a little preoccupied with the thought of Danse as a plant. All that stuff she had said the Institute just knew about her. Of course Danse was a plant. Not even a super convincing one. The only other group that had kept such close tabs on her had been the Railroad, and he couldn’t see Deacon feeding information to the Institute. If there was one thing she’d made clear about Deacon’s character, it was that he was married to the Railroad.

Knowing her, she would start off at a dead sprint to put some distance between them. As she got further into the ruins, she would stick to cover on the sidewalks. He ran into the city outside the airport. Lucky for him, she hadn’t spent her formative years running around a cave or trying to outpace a Deathclaw, and her endurance was still crap. Once he got far enough into the city proper, he slowed down and tracked her based on where he found the best cover. Sure enough, a few minutes later, he caught her darting across the street to duck behind a car. He waited until she turned, and then followed, staying just far enough back where she couldn’t hear him coming. That was her big advantage. He had hawk-eyes and was pretty good at staying hidden, but his hearing wasn’t great. Too much shooting for too long. Her hearing was still pretty good, however, and if he made too much noise, he would spook her. He was coming up fairly close behind her now, though she didn’t notice. Sloppy. Just sloppy. This is why she needed him to come along.

There was a husk of a building laid out along most of the next block. He climbed through a massive, empty window, and tracked her movements from behind a protective layer of old brick. If he stepped a little quicker…he ran silently ahead of where he knew she was until he found a door. He leaned in the doorway just as she walked past it. She tried really hard not to seem so surprised, but the way her fists came up in front of her face killed the calm-and-collected thing. He shrugged. She pushed past him and kept walking, not sneaking anymore, and not even pausing when he grabbed for her elbow.

“Hey, wait up!”

She did not wait up, or even acknowledge him.

This time, when he grabbed for her arm, he jerked just hard enough to demand her attention.

“Lola. Hold. Up.”

She yanked her arm back out of his grasp, one hand on her hip.

“What the heck is your problem? Don’t run off on me like that!”

“I didn’t ask you to come along.”

He leaned back at the venom in her tone.

“And? You thought I’d hang around with those brainwashed robots all day?”

“I don’t care what you do. I’m going to find my friend.”

“Boss—”

“I don’t care how much you hate him, MacCready. I don’t. He isn’t perfect, but he is a good man, and I need to know his side of the story.”

“Did you ever think that maybe the Institute has been using Danse to keep an eye on you? How else would they—”

“Do you think I haven’t thought about that?” She fixed him with a dead-eyed stare. Usually, her rage would be enough to make lesser men shrivel up and die. But just now, she looked so sad that it hurt him to make eye contact. He reached out to hold her, but she backed away. He didn’t know what else to do with himself. He wanted to do something to fix this. Or at least to end this fight. But he had no fu—freaking clue what he could say that wouldn’t be horrible.

“I don’t think that he knew. I don’t think he betrayed anyone. It’s not in his nature.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was trying to keep it together by squeezing all of her fears back into her body. “I can’t lose anyone else to them.”

And then it made sense. Not only was Danse her friend, Danse was another person the Institute was corrupting for her. Another surprise—the kind her son could have softened a bit, if he gave half a sh*t about her. For chrissakes, Shaun had to know about Danse, and how close he and Lola were. The least he could have done would be to tell his mother the truth. His blood pounded behind his ears. If she didn’t kill Shaun, he might.

And then he felt like such an asshole for giving her such a hard time about the whole thing. This time, when he came up close to her and scooped her into his arms, she didn’t push away. She leaned into him and exhaled hard.

“There was some mistake. There had to be.”

“I’m sorry, Lola.”

She looked up at him as if she wanted to slap him and laugh all at once.

“Mac?”

“What?”

“You’d better be.”

She regained herself when he stroked her hair out of her face, and was back on the march towards her dear friend, even though he could see the defensive brace of her shoulders. No matter what she said out loud, she wasn’t sure what she would find.

The rest of the walk was pretty quiet. Some ferals here, a Yaoguai there, and they made it to the bunker. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. A couple of rooms, some supplies, and some old terminals. She made it through two Protectrons in record time to find Paladin Danse, looking small and naked without his Power Armor. She ran up to him as if to hug him, and he backed away. MacCready stationed himself in the corner, with his rifle down but readied. If the Institute triggered his killswitch (or whatever the hell the switch to make him go berserk was), he (at least) would be ready. But Paladin Danse very calmly asked her to kill him. Hands up, unarmed. Practically begged. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, leaned in, sighed, pleaded. For a while, he looked at the gun in her hand as if it was the only thing in the room. He could see Lola cracking, and her fierce, desperate attempts to convince Danse even had Mac hoping.

Finally, she convinced him that the emotions he was feeling were real. He looked like a man who had been woken up after years of sleeping. He had feelings. Mac was not surprised that this fact came as a shock to good old Tin Can Man. Mac was a little surprised when Lola flung herself into Danse’s arms and planted a kiss on his cheek. Danse seemed staggered too, his hands coming up to her back to support her. So everyone just does what she wants, then. No one was immune to Lola. Danse shot MacCready a glance as he set Lola down. MacCready let the brim of his hat shadow his eyes. Don’t get smug, Tin Can. She kissed you out of pity.

As soon as he set her down, he told her he was leaving the Commonwealth. She tried to argue, but he was already on his way out. She tagged along at his heels, and Mac followed hers. She was making a passionate argument for Sanctuary as his new home when they broke back out into the daylight to find Elder Maxson standing out on the footpath in front of the bunker, arms behind his back.

“Knight.” The man radiated hate, as if he could kill everyone there just by wanting them dead badly enough. He expected Maxson to confront Danse, but Maxson rounded on the Boss as if Danse didn’t exist. MacCready readied the shotgun. Close range, coupled with those nice exploding rounds she’d tossed his way…if he was quick enough, there didn’t have to be a problem.

Lola, of course, leapt at the chance to change Maxson’s mind. She started with the “you are all brothers” tack, but Maxon wasn’t having it. She switched gears. Within a moment, she had him convinced that he owed her Danse’s life. He threatened Danse, and then demanded that Lola join him on the Prydwyn. Whether she would or not remained to be seen (knowing the Boss the way he did, he was all but sure that Maxson had just lost a Knight), but when Maxson left, Lola’s shoulders slumped and she turned back to Danse, a little less cheery than before.

Danse seemed alright with the arrangement. Spoke highly of Maxson’s integrity while the Boss looked on, distinctly disappointed. Hell, even he had to feel a little bad about how willing Danse was to forgive the prick. Like watching someone in an abusive relationship. They left him to make his own home in the bunker and as they were walking away, she swore to MacCready that she would bring Danse back to Sanctuary so he could have a real home where people wouldn’t just abandon and beat him. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. She rested her head on his shoulder. They did not head back in the direction of the Prydwyn, and that was perfectly fine with him.

Chapter 31: Reciprocity

Chapter Text

On the walk home, she perched herself on a rock, arms stretched over her head. Sunlight rained down around her, refracting off her hair and the white of her teeth when she smiled. Like some kinda old-world fairy.

“Mmm! It’s nice out, for once.”

“Great way to get shot, Boss.” His rebuff lacked any kind of bite. She grinned.

“You’re just mad that now I’m taller than you too.”

She made the mistake of closing her eyes—trusting him, tsk tsk—and he seized the chance. With one arm around her waist, he swept her right off the rock and she stumbled. He caught her, of course. He wasn’t that mean. Both arms wrapped tight around her until she caught up with what had happened and squirmed free. She almost tripped head-over-heels, but picked herself up with about as much dignity as he imagined she would. He snorted.

“You were just begging to be clotheslined.”

He should have seen it coming. Lola was a good sport, but a firm believer in reciprocity. She moved to walk past him, but swept one leg out as he turned to follow. He landed hard on his backside and she laughed, shaking her head.

“You were just begging to be tripped.”

He got up onto his knees and grabbed for her ankle as she backed away. She went down with an ungraceful thump.

“So mature.” She tried to sound severe, but she barely managed to sound miffed. A grin cracked out over her face before she could stop it, and she laughed good and hard in spite of herself. The sound got him laughing too. And damn, was it hard to get her laughing these days.

He crawled over to her and she grabbed his scarf and pulled him in. He could feel her breath fan over his lips. Things had been a bit of a mess lately with Danse and all that, but she was lighter today. Happier. On days like this, she seemed like the worst of it was behind her, even if he saw her toss and turn at night and knew better. He leaned into her, and just before his lips skimmed hers, she rolled out from under him and popped back onto her feet. He had to suppress a very audible groan. After a second, he pulled himself up to follow.

She walked up ahead, and the best part about that leather-jacket and jeans combo the Atom Cats had given her was not the fact that leather made her look like one of those bombshell old-world pin-ups (though that was still a plus), but the fact that, unlike her fatigues, those jeans fit almost perfect and molded to the shape of her ass. Priceless. She flashed him a wicked grin over her shoulder. She knew he was looking.

She stopped up on a hill, fiddling with her PipBoy, probably trying to orient herself on the little map. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She wriggled her hips against him, and the rest of his willpower drained out his fingertips as he traced circles over her upper thigh. Her breathing hitched. When he looked over her shoulder, he noticed she wasn’t even looking at her damn map. The thing was just on the default screen, which measured her vitals. He noticed, with a grin, that when he hooked his thumb in the waist of her jeans and pressed against her, the heart-rate meter went wild. He waited for a second until she strained back into him again, insistent. Impatient. His pants were way too tight.

He popped the button on her jeans and slid his hand down against her skin and she made this sound that he swore in that moment he would commit to memory. He ran his fingers over her and she shuddered head to toe. He made little circles until she jumped and turned suddenly, pinning him to a tree.

“You are the worst.” Her voice was low and breathy, and when she crushed herself against him, he could feel that her skin was on fire. Her hands dropped to his belt, but she was struggling.

“You having trouble there, Boss?” She palmed him over his pants and he almost doubled over.

She finally managed to undo his belt and started working on his pants. In the meantime, he unzipped her leather jacket—and the sound of that!—and slid one hand up under her t-shirt, flat against her skin. He ringed his thumb around the indent of her belly button when she finally made it past his waistband. He bit his lip and she grinned. She managed to wring this strangled choking noise from him when she grabbed him, and he paid her back by sliding his hand up over her ribs to pinch her nipple over her bra. She squeaked when he rolled his fingers back and forth.

They were all hands, and she even bit his neck right over where his skin met his clothes. It took all his strength to keep standing upright when his knees were knocking so hard. She used her free hand to grab his collar and pull him forward.

“Whaddyou want?” He meant to sound a lot more teasing, but it was hard to manage his tone when she was grinding him against her palm.

She squeezed. He slid his hand back down, down, down, and she groaned.

“C’mon. Tell me. What d’you want?”

It took her a minute to compose herself, but when she did, he felt her lips move against his throat when she said “f*ck me.”

The way she gripped him when she said it damn near pushed him over the edge. His hands were shaking so damn bad—when was the last time some lady in jeans had got him so flustered. He pushed her back just enough and she turned around, slid her jeans partway down her thighs, and bent over at the waist. His jaw nearly hit the floor. Another image that, if he could, he would photograph and frame somewhere. She was going to be the death of him.

He shoved his pants down far enough to give him access. With how hard he was shivering, it took him a second to get lined up. He guided her hips back with his hands, but she really didn’t need the direction.

He was a mess. Couldn’t stop muttering sh*t. Wasn’t even totally sure what he was saying. And she was loud. Practically whimpering at one point—almost begging. That was what tipped him over the edge, and after a few moments, he slumped over her, breathing hard. She squirmed again and, still inside her, he reached around to finish what he had started. With a slightly clearer head, he decided that the noises she made were even a little bit better than the picture she presented, and he worked to commit them both to memory. When she came, she trembled all over and then breathed out hard through her nose. He could feel her ribs expand and then shrink under his cheek, and he (very reluctantly) righted himself and went looking through his pack for a handkerchief.

He cleaned up and handed the rag over to her. She tucked it between her thighs and dropped down onto the ground.

“So.” He couldn’t stop the sh*t-eating grin that broke out across his face. “I’m the worst, huh?”

She rolled her eyes at that one as he rolled out a sleeping bag for them to sit on.

“Robert Joseph MacCready, you are going to be the death of me.”

“Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Chapter 32: The Good Doctor

Chapter Text

The last time they had seen the good Doctor, Lola had been going back and forth about the scars on her face. Him? He kinda liked them. She was pretty, sure, but those tiny little scars on her face were unique. There was plenty of pretty in the world. Magnolia was pretty. Her news reporter friend was pretty. Something about those scars reminded him that she was a force of nature. Beautiful.

To her, they were bad memories. She wouldn’t tell him about the one over her lip. Didn’t shy away from it, just never talked about it. The one on her eyebrow had been from a Deathclaw. He only knew because that was when Preston had met her. Preston confided once that she’d found him and a few of the other Sanctuary-goers holed up in some attic in Concord. She looked feral and scared, but healthy. Preston trusted her because he had no other choice, but the second she saw people in danger, she had melted. Offered everything she had to make sure that this little family stayed together. After killing the Deathclaw to clear the way for them to leave their hiding place, she had bounded up to him in full power armor (no helmet, like he’d always seen her do), blood dripping into her eye. She didn’t even notice it until they got back to Sanctuary and Preston made Sturges look her over. She must have been fresh out of the Vault at that point, by his estimation. No wonder she’d wanted to erase it.

In the end, she’d decided not to get rid of the scars.

And he was so glad for that now as they watched the doctor, wild-eyed and holding a bone-saw over some chunks of his last patient. Hell, that coulda been the Boss if she’d gone through with it. He tightened his grip on the gun.

She was trying to talk him down, but once she lowered her gun to take him in, the guy injected himself with something from his pocket and was out in a second. Dead. She had let out this strangled cry. Barely made it to the body before that codgy old Doc Sun came in and (after a couple questions) ushered her out of the room. It all happened so fast that he wasn't totally sure that he had just seen all that until she spoke.

“Just once, I wanted this to end without anyone else dying.” She leaned against the door when they made it outside, looking up at the stars. “Just once, Mac.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. He handed her a cigarette and pulled her against his side. Better off without the guy, in his book, but the way she breathed out hard through her nose, for a second, he wished so too.

Chapter 33: Picking Sides

Chapter Text

It was situation normal until she came home to Sanctuary from the Institute breathless.

He sat her down on the couch and pulled her in close. Smelled like the Institute—he could recognize it on her clothes by now. The faint sting of antiseptic, and some light, sweet scent he’d never quite been able to place. Returned in one piece again. Always a good thing.

“Time to choose.” She was wheezing as if she had sprinted.

“Choose what?”

“A side.”

If he waited a minute, she would elaborate. Always did. She rubbed her hands over her face hard, as if she was trying to rub off her skin. He leaned back onto the couch, and she curled up against him. He ran his hand up and down her arm in an attempt to sooth her, but she was rigid. Shoulders scrunched up to her ears.

“The powers that be are all out for blood. And everyone wants to know—”

“Where you stand.”

“Exactly.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s Bunker Hill. The Railroad uses it as a way point for escaped Synths. The Institute wants the synths back.”

“Does Garvey want you to go set up a settlement there too?”

“Ha-ha.” No real humor in it. He kissed her forehead. “No. And he can’t risk getting involved to keep the peace. The Minutemen would be slaughtered by everyone else. I’m just grateful that Maxson hasn’t caught onto this.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Try not to get shot?”

He shifted in his seat and pulled her into the curl of his arm.

“Who are we siding with?”

“We?”

“We talked about this.”

“This could mean making some big enemies, Mac.”

He shrugged. She massaged her scalp.

“Fine.” Her eyes were more exhausted than resigned. “I’m…I’m saving the synths.”

“Really?”

“I can’t hand them over to the Institute to be wiped and put back into service. So yes. Really.”

She hadn’t made up her mind until he’d forced her to say it out loud. He could hear it in the hesitation. The pause between her declaration and his question. He nodded.

“When do we start packing?”

They made it there good and fast. Her orders were to stick with the Courser Shaun had sent to Bunker Hill, slaughter anyone who gets in the Institute’s way, collect the synths, and return to base. They game-planned the whole way there. The Synths were under the market, so (in theory) all they had to do was get the Courser underground where no one could see him, and then execute him. MacCready could block the door, and Lola could shoot him in the head. Easy as pie. Tell anyone who asks that one of the escaped synths did it, and then give her codename to the Railroaders, and tell them Dez sent her. Should keep them from filling her with holes, especially if she is leading rescued synths.

She pulled a gas-mask down over her face before they reached the Courser, so no one would blow her cover. He wasn’t a fan because then, everyone would shoot at her but hey, whatever she wanted. He’d just have to draw more fire than her.

The Courser was this big guy in just about the most obvious murder-trench coat Mac had ever seen in his life. Great. So it was safe to assume that sneaking was probably out. In broad daylight, they strolled the last two blocks to Bunker Hill, and came upon the single biggest cluster-f*ck MacCready had ever seen in his entire life (including Lamplight).

“f*ck.” Quiet, but heartfelt. She breathed out hard.

Somehow, the Brotherhood had gotten wind of what was happening, and had sent troops. Lots of them. Everyone was shooting at everyone—a couple of civilians running out of the city were gunned down before getting past the gate. It was impossible to tell who shot them in the chaos. Good thing she’d worn the mask.

She slipped through the fighting the best she could, with him on her heels and the Courser following, in between shots. She dropped down a ladder hidden behind one of the shop counters in the main concourse. He followed, praying for her sake that at least a few people were left alive after the mess. If she was thinking the same, her body language did not give it away. She was tensed for a fight, but kept her hands from balling up into fists like she did when she was scared or sad. Like she was mimicking the Courser. The Courser behind them was emotionless.

There was fighting in the caverns as well. Railroad, Brotherhood, Institute, all already down here and making a huge f*cking mess of each other. Lola winced before collecting herself, dodging gunfire, and sprinting up a set of stairs and past a line of Railroad corpses that studded the catwalk. The path led down into the room where they kept the synths. Lola breathed out hard through her nose, and the assault mask magnified the sound.

When they were out of sight, MacCready let the Courser place himself between himself and Lola. On the stairs down to the holding room, she turned on her heel and shot the Courser in the head at a point-blank range. Didn’t even have the time to raise his rifle. He hit the ground hard, and his hand shot out, fingers digging for purchase on the stone wall. MacCready shot him two more times while he lay on the ground in a puddle of his own skull.

And just like that, the Synths were safe. She told them she would guard them until the fighting stopped. They waited and waited and finally, after what could have been hours or minutes, the gunfire stopped. The Railroad had managed to win down here, and left immediately to help with the fight on the surface. A few came down to see what had happened to the Synths, but she gave her codename and they seemed satisfied enough. When they finally climbed out of that hole, Lola swayed and dropped her gas mask. People were already piling the bodies. There were more bodies than there were settlers. She practically tripped over a dead Railroad Heavy, and vomited into the bushes before she was able to force herself upright. Sure, the Railroad seemed to have won, but there was only a handful of them left to enjoy the victory. She spat onto the ground.

She started to walk out the front gate, but her walk turned into a run once she was past the gates. He had to jog to keep up. The whole place smelled like death—like iron and sh*t and sweat. She had barely caught her breath when a proto-synth teleported directly in front of her. She fell back onto her ass and fumbled her gun out of her pocket. Without so much as registering her fear, the synth told her that she needed to meet Father on the top of the college building, over the Institute. He was above ground. It was urgent. She nodded as she looked up at the Synth, but didn’t say a word. MacCready scooped her up and tried to get her upright again, but she swayed like she could fall at any moment. There was nothing he could say to fix this, so he didn’t say anything at all.

He held her hand tight as they walked, and she squeezed his fingers like he might vanish or die any second now.

Chapter 34: Shaun

Chapter Text

He was at her elbow when Shaun told her the Commonwealth was dead. He didn’t connect who it was at first, but then he recognized those eyes, as if they were staring back out at him through that cryo chamber again. Something in the arc of the brows was hers, but other than that, she had been right. Shaun looked just like her husband.

Her voice cracked when she told him the Commonwealth used to be different. Shaun told her he was the one who released her from the Vault. Not knowing if she’d live or die. Not making any effort to help her. She asked him if it had been worth it. When he asked about Bunker Hill, she asked if it mattered. He snapped. He snarled. They’d lost one of their top Coursers in that mess. How could she ever explain that? Eventually, she just lied and told him they were ambushed. He had to return to the Institute, and she had to follow. He teleported away in that eerie clap of lightning and then she was there, shivering in the rain on the roof of that old school where she told him one time that, before the war, she once dreamed of going.

She gripped MacCready’s hand hard when he looked at her face. She looked so dumbfounded and miserable that he wanted to tell her to just walk away. Anywhere but here. Don’t go with Shaun, just leave. He pressed his lips to her forehead. She sucked in a shaky breath before pressing a key on her PipBoy and following her son in that flash of sterile blue light.

He stood there for a long time waiting for her to return. When she did, he was hiding one floor down, tucked under a collapsed roof and out of the rain. He heard the crack like lightening, the metallic thud as she landed, and then a choked sob. Her knees hit the metal as he climbed back up to meet her. She was on all fours, shoulders rolled so far forward that he couldn’t see her face. She was shaking harder now. Each shiver rocked through her. Neck bent until her forehead touched the roof beneath her. She made this horrible gasping sound, hitching and catching, as if the air was getting caught in her throat and wouldn’t make it to her lungs. She was usually so quiet. He had caught her crying more times that he could count by now, but she was always so quiet. Long, painful wails wrenched out of her chest until they dwindled and died as she ran out of breath. One. Then two. After three loud cries, she gave up and her hands came up over her head, fingers knit behind her skull as if she was taking cover from an atomic bomb. She was too still, then. He wanted to reach down and shake her, but that couldn’t be right? There was no good way to comfort her, no matter how badly he just wanted her to stop crying. Jesus, he just wished she would stop crying. He felt hollowed out. Like her pain had gutted him. He dropped down beside her and scooped her up in his arms on autopilot. He just couldn’t stand there and watch anymore.

She was so small. He pulled her close until she was in his lap, but she was still curled in on herself like she was protecting her core. A rock. An egg. His hand covered most of the side of her face when he held her head against his shoulder. She was much lighter than he remembered her being. More jagged, less soft. Then he remembered all the chems she had been doing. The drinking. The running around—no food, no sleep. How sunken her eyes and cheeks looked when he caught her face in the light. How she wobbled sometimes when she walked. She was wasting away, whittling down to bones held together by sheer dint of will.

He could feel every breath, each one a little hiccup of a thing, snagging in her throat. It was still raining, and hard. Not a soft, delicate rain, but the kind that turned into a thunderstorm. The kind that hurt a little when it came down in sheets like a million tiny bullets. She was drenched and small and shaking and he had never seen anyone more scared or alone in his life. No matter how much he rubbed her shoulder or brushed back her hair or squeezed her, nothing helped. And it was even worse when she stopped crying, if that was possible. She didn’t fight him when he picked her up.

He wasn’t strong enough to carry her far; she was a dead weight in his arms. He settled for the edge of the roof that sagged down into a dilapidated room. He set her down on the ledge, scrambled down, and then pulled her after him. She followed mindlessly, gazing off into the grey clouds behind him. He was able to coax her into the corner where he had waited for her to return. He arranged her in his lap and then curled around her. They spent the whole rest of the day there, and then the whole night. She didn’t move unless he repositioned himself and jostled her. For a long time, she didn’t speak either. Just sat there, vacant. When she did sleep, it wasn’t well, and she made these awful, tiny moaning noises, high and scared.

Shell-shock. That was the only thing he could think it would be. Pure shell-shock. What had Shaun done to her? MacCready couldn’t even imagine what might have happened underground. Had he threatened her life? Had she killed him? Did the Institute banish her? In her sleep, she gripped his coat so hard that the tendons on her wrist stood out against the skin.

Chapter 35: Aftermath

Chapter Text

When she woke up in the morning, the only thing she said was “We need to check on Bunker Hill.”

They walked to Bunker Hill in silence. She moved fast without stopping, still on auto-pilot. When they got there, they found the caravaners piling dead bodies outside the walls. Some synths, sure, but mostly Brotherhood soldiers and Railroad Heavies. He had learned to spot them by the jumpsuits and coats. One or two civilians, but thankfully, it seemed like they had already buried the people they knew personally.

She stopped at a stack of bodies and stared for a long minute before moving to the side to vomit. For a god-awful minute, nothing came up and her body just heaved as if trying to purge her organs too. He stood beside her, and caught her cap before it fell off her head. He smoothed her hair back so she wouldn’t puke on it. When she stood back up, he handed her some water. She took it in a daze, swallowed a mouthful, and then handed it back to him.

The stern woman at the front gate looked her over and then said something under her breath about “powerful friends,” before politely letting Lola know that she could have the run of the place. The unspoken “just leave us alive,” would have barbed Lola any other day, and might have deep down, but nothing seemed to reach her through that impenetrable dead-eyed gaze. It was enough of a slap in the face that even MacCready felt the urge to correct her. Not like Lola wanted this. Any of it. But Lola didn’t defend herself, and so he didn’t jump in either.

Bunker Hill was okay. Better than okay—under new management that would see to it the place was protected. The bigger the Minute Men’s network, the stronger they were, and the less places like Bunker Hill had to fear being overrun by raiders. Plus, she’d see to it that they had everything they’d need to survive. On a better day. When she returned to the land of the living. For now, she shambled around the place, eyes roving like she expected to find something.

Just bodies. More bodies, being dragged or carted out. Stripped first and then tossed aside. Funny, how he couldn’t tell Brotherhood from Railroad when they were all laying naked in a heap. The only bodies that he could distinguish were synths. Not real Institute citizens. Oh no. Older, less human-looking models. Expendable war machines. Of all the groups that had fought at Bunker Hill, the Institute had lost the least. He wondered if she thought about that. If it added to the weight that was drilling her shoulders into the ground.

He stopped by a couple of vendors for water and food to bring on the road. Used his own caps—she could pay him back later. She stopped once to strip a coat off of one of the remaining Railroad soldiers. She shrugged it on over her shirt and pulled it closed around her like a shell. She was on her way out the gate by the time he was through with the restocking. No breaks. If he didn’t keep up, she would just keep moving. They headed straight out rather than sleep in that place. MacCready didn’t say a word.

On the way back to Sanctuary, he had to make her stop periodically for water or food. Not like she fought him too hard; she was completely impassive. As if she didn’t care what happened to her. He prayed to whatever f*cked up god it was that got a kick out of making her miserable that they didn’t run into raiders or muties or something on their way back home. He couldn’t imagine her picking up a gun to defend herself in this state. Hell, he could much more easily imagine her hugging a Suicider.

He was careful to keep a little ahead of her on the trip home. She didn’t even have her gun on-hand. Thankfully, he was able to lead her around the crowded cities where they would more than likely find enemies. They walked all the way to Sanctuary in silence. It took them three days. For once, Motormouth MacCready had nothing to say.

Chapter 36: Grey

Chapter Text

Preston noticed immediately when she stumbled through the gate without so much as a wave. She was always excited to see Preston. She didn’t tease him, or mock him, or slight him ever. She usually embraced him long and hard, as if each time she returned, she was so delighted he was still alive that she had to find a way to celebrate. He was, after all, her first real friend in the ‘Wealth after the mutt. And he’d never seen Preston hug anyone else. Their friendship was something quiet and untouchable—no one would even notice it if they didn’t know what to look for. This time, she walked right past him. Preston grabbed Mac’s shoulder. Unlike him. Usually, Preston just politely ignored MacCready and his cynicism.

“Have a minute?”

“If this is about another settlement, now’s not the time.” He knew better than that, but he just didn’t know how to greet the guy. Preston was too nice. Not a mean or sarcastic bone in his body. And MacCready was a raw nerve right now, watching Lola move through the settlement without so much as registering that they had made it home.

“It’s about the General.”

“Shoot.”

Preston looked back at her as well. “You may not believe me, but I know a thing or two about this. Whatever’s going on with her, she needs someone. Keep an eye on her. I have a feeling you know more about what is going on, and she’s going to need you.”

MacCready shuffled a little and slung his gun back over his shoulder. He sometimes thought Garvey was a little idealistic, but he had to respect that the man’s heart was in the right place.

“I’ve got her back.”

“It’s more than that.” Preston refused to let him shrug this off, insistent. “I know what she’s feeling. I don’t know why she’s feeling it, but I have been in that place, and after a while, living stops feeling like a priority. The General is a good person. She’s saved more people in the months I’ve known her than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. She deserves to have someone taking care of her for once.”

MacCready nodded. A moment passed while the Minute Man looked at him, trying to read his expression and decide if he was sincere. Openly searching MacCready’s face for the right amount of concern. He looked away, suddenly feeling a little exposed.

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Preston shook his hand—not hard or forceful, but firm, as if they had just made a deal. “If you need me, you know where to find me.” He tipped that ridiculous hat before walking off towards the front gate to patrol.

MacCready half-walked, half-jogged to the Boss’ house. He knew she’d be there, holed up behind the shoddy walls she had erected around the house to close the whole thing off. He entered through the garage. She was sitting in Shaun’s room, in the red easy chair in the corner. Leaning against the doorway, he could see that the room was still unchanged. Hadn’t even put lights in it like she had the rest of the house. He took a seat in the bedroom. The place was so quiet that he could hear every time she shifted.

When night fell, he walked into the room and took her by the hand. She allowed herself to be led. He stripped off her coat (she was still wearing that Railroad jacket—bloody from its previous owner), boots, socks, hat, gloves. When she was down to her undershirt and jeans, he coaxed her down into bed and pulled the covers up around her. He wasn’t sure if she would want to be anywhere near him, but she flinched when he started to leave, so he pulled off his coat and laid down next to her. She didn’t move in response, or even acknowledge that he was there. He wrapped his arms around her and fell asleep.

Chapter 37: Catalyst

Chapter Text

The morning wasn’t much better. And neither was the morning after that. Or the third or fourth morning since they’d made it back to base. He really tried to give her space. Maybe that’s all she needed. But he was losing his mind.

He sat her up and sponged her face with a damp cloth, hoping that she would wake up, or push his hand away, or do something. Anything. He didn’t care if she slapped him, so long as she showed some signs of living. He scrounged around in their packs until he found something for breakfast. Sugar bombs. Good enough. He choked down a handful, but she wouldn’t take the box when he handed it to her.

“Boss, here.” He tried again, but she didn’t respond. She pulled the covers back up over her shoulders. Hadn’t eaten or left her bed for days now. He could feel the panic rising up in his throat. This wasn’t like her. Sure, not like he missed watching her get piss drunk and sloppy, but he had never seen her just shut down like this.

“Lola?” She still didn’t reply. After a long minute, he made up his mind. He reached into the zippered side pocket of her pack and found the holotape she didn’t talk about. He grabbed her wrist a little more sharply than he had meant to, and any other day, she would have cuffed him. She hated it when he fiddled with her PipBoy. She didn’t even protest as he popped the holotape into the deck.

Static gave way to that soothing man’s voice, and then the baby, giggling away. This always worked. This had to work. She always reacted to that holotape. It was the last thing she had of them. Well. Not so much now, he supposed. If this made her worse…but not like he had a whole lot of choices.

But then the tape was over. Played through, and she didn’t make a peep. As if she couldn’t even hear it.

“Lola, please.” He started the tape again, but nothing. She didn’t cry. Just stared straight ahead, as if she couldn’t hear him.

He was getting desperate. He popped the holotape out of the player in the middle of the recording. Before he really thought through his plan, he was on his feet in front of her. She looked right past him.

“I’ll snap it in half.” He held it up in front of her face. She was fast enough; she could definitely snatch it out of his hands if she wanted to. Hell, he wouldn’t fight her on it. He just wanted something to register. She didn’t move.

“Boss, did you hear me? I’ll snap it in half!” She didn’t look up at him. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her.

“Lola. Did you hear me? I’ll snap it. You’ll never hear Nate’s voice again. It will be gone forever. You don’t want me to do that, right? Lola?” Usually, when he used her name, he was serious. She knew that. But still nothing.

He couldn’t bring himself to actually snap it. She would be upset later, when she was back to normal. It was the last thing she had of Nate, and he wouldn’t take that away from her. But she had no way of knowing that.

“Lola. I will destroy it. Forever. Lola, please. It will be gone. Don’t you want to stop me? Lola!”

When she finally made eye contact, she could have leveled him.

“I don’t care. Do whatever.”

The hairs on the back of his neck pricked up at how even her tone was. She was being genuine. He set the holotape down on the pillow, at a loss. So he did the only thing left he could think to do.

“Why? Because Shaun would be ashamed if he knew you still love your husband?” She cringed. Finally, progress. “Because emotions aren’t for the good science freaks of the Institute. Oh no. Your son doesn’t care that his father was shot, anyways.” She bristled a little.

“Hell, while you’re at it, why don’t you level this place?” He felt a little sick saying it. Any other time, and she would rip his head off with her bare hands. He had to get meaner. “I’m sure Shaun can use the supplies for a death ray or something. Or better yet, a nuke. Fry the whole wasteland so that him and his co*ckroaches can live underground. Kill Preston and the Longs and Sturges and all those other people you collect. Kill me.” She still wouldn’t look at him. “After he kills all of us, are you gonna live with them? I mean, now that your husband is gone, you might as well follow Shaun around and let him send you out on errands like you’re Kellogg.”

Her head snapped up, eyes narrowed. Just a little more.

“In fact, I wonder if he’ll send someone to kill you once you’ve outlived your usefulness, or if he’ll just abandon you like he did when he left you to rot in that f*cking vault for years!” He was shouting. She was on her feet now, up in his face. She dug her nails into her arm so hard that she was bleeding—a trickle of red tracing down her forearm and over her wrist. She didn’t even seem to mind the pain.

"Stop."

“Are you okay with your son killing you like he had you kill Kellogg? When you aren’t useful to him anymore? Or do you think he’ll just put you back on ice?”

When she slapped him, his teeth clattered. He rubbed his jaw and looked down at her. Lola’s teeth were gnashed together, fists clenched, shoulders just about touching her ears. She was practically vibrating. And she was crying. Silently, steadily.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in close. She didn’t return the hug, just stood there rigid in the circle of his arms. She was barely even breathing. So…he’d gotten her upset. Better than nothing, but what now? His hand covered the back of her scalp and he squeezed her close. Maybe he could—

But then she grabbed hold of him. Rubbing her face into his chest. Crying in earnest. He pat her back and let go of the breath he was holding. Definitely better than nothing.

Carefully, MacCready eased her back onto the bed, sitting her in his lap. The warmth from her skin seeped through his shirt as he stroked hair back from the side of her face. She bit down on her lip so hard he was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood. On an impulse, he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Chapter 38: Inheritance

Chapter Text

“He’s dying, Mac.”

MacCready didn’t respond.

“Cancer. And he wants me to lead the Institute when he dies.” Her fist balled up in the fabric of his shirt. “Which will be soon.”

He rubbed her back and rested his chin on her head. She buried herself in his chest.

“Are you going to say anything?” The words came out muffled against his shirt.

“That’s a lot to take in.”

“I know.”

“Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

She shook her head.

He squeezed her tight. “Keep talking about it.”

“What?”

“Keep talking about Shaun.” He mostly just wanted to keep her with him. Anything to keep her from slipping back into that awful quiet. “You need to talk about this. So keep going.”

She heaved a sigh. “What do you want me to tell you about?”

“Anything. Tell me what Shaun was like as a baby.” Just stay with me.

She let out this strangled noise between a laugh and a sob. “So fussy. Cried all the time.” She told him about when they brought Shaun home. About how she was afraid of him. About how she had to ask Nate to change him, bathe him, and hold him, because she couldn’t look at him for the first month. That, she said with a weak laugh, was why Nate had gotten Codsworth. He did not want her to feel like she had to do anything alone. Didn’t want her to feel alone. And hell, the thing had served its purpose. When she stumbled out of the Vault, the first thing she did was go home, and who was there to greet her but old Codsy. Even gave her that holotape from Nate. That was Nate, she told him, always thinking of her.

She couldn’t wrap her brain around how Shaun came out. Nothing like Nate; Nate was warm and considerate. A regular teddy-bear. Helped anyone he could, whenever he could. The poor man was horrified when he was drafted, and asked to be a medic. They wouldn’t let him. Put him right on the front line because he was healthy and strong, and no good at medicine. Gave him nightmares; he flinched at every little sound, was really beaten up over it. She told him that the scar over her lip came from Nate, during one of his night-terrors. Almost laid her out cold, but Codsworth was there, and she called his name at just the right time to snap him out of it. He went out and got help for himself the next day, and slept on the couch until she begged him to sleep in their bed again. He was so scared of hurting her. Not that he was weak, just gentle. Big, and competent, and he could be ruthless if he thought it would protect his family. But gentle. It had been what she’d loved about him. She didn’t know what he would say if he knew what Shaun was now. Probably have a heart-attack. But Shaun didn’t get it from him, that’s for sure. The way she said it, though. Not from, him.

“It was me.” She shook her head against his lap. At some point, she had gone from sitting and leaning against his chest, to laying curled up in his lap. He let his fingers stroke through her hair. At least she could talk without choking.

“All that violence? All that…whatever it is that Shaun has? It’s from me. He gets that from me, I think.”

MacCready wasn’t sure what to say to that. She could be brutal, sure, but she had also just undertaken a massive housing project because people didn’t have safe homes. He couldn’t imagine her—

“Look at me.” She sat up. “I have slaughtered so many people. Strangers. Hell, I bragged about headshots. Nate got upset over offending one of our neighbors, and here I am humming along to the radio while I explode heads. Shaun gets everything bad about him from me. I knew I would f*ck him up somehow. I just never thought—” She looked at her hands, and then back up to him.

“Lola.” He started to talk, but the words weren’t there. “You aren’t—I mean, you’re not. Lola, it’s not—”

“No, Mac, it is. It’s just like that.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I’ve done some good things too, sure, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t killed a lot of people. Or that I didn’t give birth to the monster who has been kidnapping people and experimenting on people and hoarding technology, and letting people die up on the surface when he has the resources to help everyone—”

“Lola, stop.” He pulled her back in close, and her breathing steadied a little. “You didn’t raise him to be that. You didn’t get to raise him at all. It’s not your fault that they brainwashed your kid. Whatever you want to do about this, I’ll stand by you, just…stop.”

“I—”

“Don’t.”

Her head lolled against his shoulder. “Is it wrong to think that maybe I don’t want him to die? I just found him.”

He couldn’t imagine what he would do if this was Duncan. “He’s still your son, somewhere under all that. So no, it’s not.”

“Everyone would be better off if he was dead.”

Well. She wasn’t wrong.

He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders so that it draped over her like a cape. Like a superhero. And hell, in a lot of ways, she was a superhero. And in the comics, the heroes always had these moments where they just lost sight of everything and bugged out, and then something would re-inspire them, and they would come back twice as strong. But really, Lola started out in a rut, and the more she ran, the deeper she dug herself. It was more like she was trying to climb out of a hole than muddle through a rough spot. And he had no idea how to pull her up.

“I’m going to have to kill him.” She said it so matter-of-factly that, for a minute, it didn’t sink in. “I’m going to take down the Institute and kill my son. It is the only thing to do.” It sounded so hollow when it passed her lips that he was worried she would relapse.

“Lola, are you—”

“It has to be me. He trusts me, Mac.” She looked up at him without flinching. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her skin was practically grey. “If he dies of cancer, there will be a scramble for power and they outnumber me. They don’t trust me, and they are right not to. We need to catch them off-guard to dismantle them. The only way to fix this is to do what everyone else is too afraid to. I brought him into this world, I’m the monster that has to take him out.” She trailed off, clenching and unclenching her fists.

“You aren’t a monster.”

“I am a monster. Only a monster could kill its own child.” She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I just…I just don’t want it to be this way and it is. No matter how many times I close my eyes, when I wake up again, everything is still so wrong.”

She didn’t always make sense to him at the best of times, but he didn’t know how to handle this. He twined his fingers in her hair. They sat there like that for a long time before she started to drift off, her breathing slowing as she slipped into sleep. He tucked her into bed in front of him and she rolled until she was facing away. Always looking away. Before falling asleep, she pulled his arm around her like a blanket. He let his nose burrow into her shoulder. Not the time for this, but having her close made him feel like the world was a less revolting place. Snuggled around her, he felt like he could take on a hoard of Yao Guai if it meant protecting her. And he missed that feeling that he would do anything to hold onto someone.

When he fell asleep, he was completely relaxed and restful, and he felt even worse about that. When he woke up in the morning, she had turned again and was looking at his face. Not talking, just looking. He wondered how long she had been like that, watching him. He started to sit up, but her arm was over his chest, and she clenched her fist in his shirt when he started to pull away. Not to restrain him, just a little, involuntary thing that told him all he needed to know. He got comfy and pulled her against him. They were quiet, mostly, but she told him little things here and there. About Shaun. About Nate. About the world before the war. He rubbed her back.

“Thank you, Mac.”

“No problem, Boss.”

Chapter 39: Reconnect

Chapter Text

The next week was filled with midnight cleaning sprees. When everyone went to sleep, she spruced up the shops, tidied the spare rooms where she had left space for more settlers, and patched holes in the roofs. She even checked the electrical in each house and rewired a couple, while people were sleeping one room over. He was exhausted, but anything was better than her being comatose. One day, she awoke at noon and started tearing down the walls around her house. She woke him up when she rolled out of bed after only four hours of sleep. He followed her around, handing her tools as she exposed the house to the sun. Sometimes, he forgot that it was blue. Sure, you could see bits of blue peeking out from behind those metal walls, but to see the whole place opened up? It looked exposed and shriveled and pale. Like a wound she was airing out. Smaller in the sunlight. This was the house that she and Nate had bought just before Shaun and the end of the world. She patched some of the walls up from the inside with the leftover materials. She ended up replacing one of the walls of her bedroom, and patching the other so that it was still completely closed off. But she opened up the front door again so that they could walk straight into the living room. And she boarded up the garage door, but left the window in the kitchen open. Baby steps, he supposed.

When she got to Shaun’s room, all she did was hang a large old painting over the bigger window. The kid’s room was a little less depressing now that it caught some light from the smaller window. She still refused to put a light in the room though. Every now and again she shook the nice blue lamp she had stolen from those immortal alien creeps out in the city, expecting it to work. It never turned on. Finally, she boarded up that smaller window and covered it with a painting of a ship.

She set up some stools at the bar in the kitchen, moved Dogmeat’s house inside, and pulled in some couches from the hospital shack. The place even started to look homey. In the living room and kitchen, at least. She put another light in her room, but the room was still bare, save the bed and a nightstand. And Shaun’s room was still eerily untouched.

But Preston shot him an impressed nod when they walked by on their way out of Sanctuary the next day, and maybe it was because he knew that Lola was better? At least a little? A man could hope.

More and more, recently, he found himself wanting to reach out to her. Hold her hand. Do something. But every time he looked at her, he remembered the way she had stared off, empty, as if nothing in the world mattered. Couldn’t risk rocking the boat. She still wasn’t smiling or laughing, but she was putting one foot in front of the other, so. Progress. He supposed.

Chapter 40: Point “A” to Point “B”

Chapter Text

Their walk of the settlements was pretty run-of-the-mill. Hike through some ruins, kill some raiders, field petty complaints about being short one bed (seriously? One bed? He was sleeping on rocks half the time. Sometimes, he was amazed she didn’t blow a gasket and tell them to fend for their damn selves). She was quiet, not her usual self, but walking. Doing things. So a little better, he guessed. When people talked to her, she talked back. Didn’t spend the nights with the other settlers, around fires or in Common Houses, but closer to normal.

They made it all the way through Bunker Hill without any mishaps. Bunker Hill was still a pretty new (pretty raw) addition to her collection. She stayed overnight to spruce up some bunk spaces, and distribute some seeds she’d saved up to add to their garden. With all the settlements supporting each other, food was not so much a concern, but she liked to be sure it would never become a concern. Which was nice of her. When they left, she went in the opposite direction they usually did, muttering something about avoiding Brotherhood troops. They passed some particularly surly scavengers, but she kept them out of a fight. All pretty routine stuff, until they rounded the corner and ran smack into the biggest f*ckup in the whole Commonwealth.

"Welp...Any landing you can walk away from…" He scratched his head. A ship. Not like the Prydwyn, or anything he’d really seen, either. The kind from some of those old world books—he’d found a picture once. They called them “frigates.” Massive. And lodged into the third floor of a building. Very much on land.

Lola stood there for a moment, one hand keeping the sun out of her eyes, and the other over her mouth. He was about to nudge her when her shoulders shook. Was she going to cry? Was this just another thing from her time in a way wrong place for her? His hand was halfway to her shoulder when she burst into hysterical laughter. Full on, doubled over, snorting, loud laughter. He hadn’t heard her laugh in a month. She was laughing so hard she was crying. She had to wipe away tears while almost doubled over, and the site of her made MacCready laugh, and for a minute, they just stood there at the base of the thing, looking up at it from the ground. She finally coughed and clutched her side in pain.

“What—” gasp “the” wheeze “hell!”

“Arr! They’ve run aground!”

She bust out into hysterics again, gripping his shoulder for support.

“Shivver me timbers! Lemme run a shot across their bow!”

“How?” She smoothed a hand over her face.

“Is this for real?”

Her face was red as a tato when the Mister Handy buzzed over. He had his gun out already, but the damned thing buzzed right past him and asked her about enlisting in the military in some bizarre accent. She snorted and looked over at him.

“Well, this is new.”

She talked with the thing for a minute, but no matter what she said, it barked some number at her and insisted that she was now a member of the continental military. Whatever that is. The bot scanned him as it passed, but decided to ignore him, which was just fine, really. When it puttered away, she nearly fell over laughing.

“It knew my license number, Mac. Holy sh*t, I didn’t even remember that!”

“What is that?”

“Oh, ah.” She tried to stifle her laughter with her hand. “Well, cars? In order to drive one, you had to have an ID with all your personal information on it. A picture and this big number-ish code for identification. I don’t know how he knew it, but that was the number, alright!”

He shook his head. But damn was it good to see her smile. She was clearly trying to wind down, but little snorts of laughter kept sneaking out.

“We should go inside.”

“What?” He slung his rifle over his shoulder. “No, come on. You can’t be serious?”

“Mac,” she said, with a careful straight-face. “The Captain requested me.”

And that was how he ended up on the bow of a pre-war frigate lodged who-f*cking-knows how high up in the air, talking to a haywire sentry bot with an ugly hat. Boy would he have a ton to tell Duncan in his next letter.

Aside from asking her to do chores that ranged from “play with live wires” to “trek halfway across the Commonwealth for this heavy metal thingy,” Captain Sentry-Bot rolled around the upper deck, barking orders at Protectrons that didn’t speak in a stupid accent. That seemed to be about all that he did. Chores and yelling. Like robo-Preston.

She ate it up.

For all his whining (and he was well aware that he was doing more than his fair share of whining), the way her face lit up when she saluted and said “Aye aye, captain!” was refreshingly warm. She dragged him up and down the those wobbly wooden ladders, in and out of the boat, prepared to march halfway across the world to help this deranged robot fix his clearly beyond-saving ship. That was Lola, though. Never knew when to let the past go. But, even if this was more than a pain, and he was sick of hunting down spare parts, anything was better than watching her stare blankly at the sky.

On the third day aboard, they ran into a teeny, not-so-teeny problem. The scavvers they had run into before. Sure, they got most of them pretty quick, but he could tell there were more. No scavver team worth its salt would send five guys and call it a day on something so profitable as this. Ship was full of valuable sh*t. And of course, true to form, Captain Stupid-Hat wanted Lola to go get rid of them. Without violence. And also, please steal something. Without violence. Thanks.

The negotiations with the scavvers didn’t go as planned.

“Did you hit your head on your way out of the ship?”

She grabbed his collar and led him away, not making eye contact with the smart-mouthed woman who seemed to be in charge. The woman (reasonably) wanted to pay them to take out the ship. Which made sense, because it was full of loot. She waved at the scavvers they headed back towards the ship. Once they were out of sight, she stepped up onto a pile of rubble and jumped. She managed to get her arms onto the second floor of a severely ruined building and dangled helplessly before he grabbed her hips and pushed her up and over the edge. He pulled himself up after her. She circled back, ducked through a hole in the wall, and boom! Just like that, they were on the second floor of the scavver’s home base. And, as predicted, the second floor was so wreaked that the scavvers hadn’t bothered to post people up there. They had scouted this path out hours ago, but he had really really hoped she would have given up on this thing before it came to doing gymnastics while hiding from very well-armed maniacs.

“Look, I don’t trust these people. They are a half-step above raiders, and that’s generous.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, ducked below the destroyed windows, and turned the corner. If memory served, the door should lead to that room that was completely blown-out in the back. She jimmied the knob and there it was: the room they had spotted when they circled the bay before heading over. He had figured out that they could drop down into a roped-off room from the second floor, creep through the door, and have the chip before anyone caught their hands in the cookie jar. She leaned over the edge of floor now, making sure that the Scavver’s goons were nowhere to be found. He grabbed a fistful of her jacket to keep her from sailing over the edge face-first.

“They are also people. Probably just trying to put dinner on the table. So you side with the crazy robots.”

“Do I need to remind you that Nick is a robot?” She leaned back to sit on the ledge, letting her legs dangle. She landed and wobbled—on her feet at first, but then a bit of wall slid out from under her foot, and she landed on the ground in a heap. They both cringed at the noise, but it wasn’t really all that loud. Just that everything feels loud when you are trying not to get shot. He sat on the edge for a second before rethinking, turning around to lay on his stomach and ease his lower half over. He dangled by his arms while trying to figure out precisely how to drop down without sliding. The portion of the room in which he would land was covered in a little hill of debris. Finally, he gave up and let go. He slid when he landed, and she offered him a hand.

“No, trust me, I remember, and he doesn’t like me either. In fact, think there’s any way we could convince him to get on the ship for when the Scavvers blow it?”

“And you’re surprised he hates you.” She punched him in the arm hard enough where he knew it would be best to drop this. For better or for worse, Lola had a soft spot for the crazies. She dropped into a crouch, her ear against the door. He pulled out his gun. Just in case.

For a second, it seemed like she was successful. Slunk through the door when she thought she was in the clear. Left it open just far enough where he could lean out and cover her. The guards were in the front room, talking to the shrill woman and the other scavvers. She poked through the first drawer in the filing cabinet. No go. She groped through the second and found it. Held it up for him to see before slinking back over. They heard one of the scavvers shout “Hey!” as they shut the door behind her.

The room they dropped into was missing the whole wall that faced the waterfront, which is why they chose it. They scrambled up over the mounds of wreckage and onto the sidewalk, hitting the ground at a dead run. They didn’t stop sprinting until they made it into the old Savings and Loan building and up behind the hull of the ship. Before climbing aboard, she slumped against the hull of the boat and burst out laughing. A bullet had pinged off the pavement behind them when they were running. Could have taken out her ankle and then they’d both be dead. And she was laughing—hysterically, like she would never stop. For how worried he’d been, he couldn’t help but start laughing too.

“You shoulda seen his face, Mac!” She rubbed tears from her eyes. “He was just so shocked!” She burst out in another peal of laughter.

“You’re insane.”

She laughed through a sigh. “Yeah yeah, but I got the chip!”

He swiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and steered her by the arm up into the relative safety of the ship.

The final battle was something else. All those batty protectrons wandering around on the deck were down so fast he was a little ashamed for them. The rest were smart enough to stay below decks. Didn’t even last long enough to see Lola take out the scavver with the missile launcher with one perfect shot right through his left eye. Mac had been lining up a shot for that guy, and had seen her bullet hit through his scope. And if that didn’t make him want to kiss her, the way she followed up with another perfect headshot not a half a second later (moving target this time—damn had he taught her well) did. Gotta admire the effortless skill that went into that.

Then, one of them hit her. Nothing serious—just the very top of her shoulder. Grazed, really. He was sure the lady had been aiming for her heart. Mac dropped the gal who had hit Lola, and then took out her spotter too. Just to be sure. Lola injected a Stimpack, and then the whole thing stopped seeming so silly, and he hurled a couple of molotovs over his head to draw fire. All-in-all, it took them a few hours to clear the rest of them.

The sun was setting by the time they were cleared. The captain robot found Lola at the end, and commended her for a job well done, before gently shooing her off the ship. MacCready was prepared to be offended when good old Ironsides informed them that they were about to set sail.

“What?” She dropped the act all together, and tried to get him to see reason. They were going to kill every robot on this ship trying to make it to water. All her arguments might as well have been glowing praise, however, because that is how the captain took them. Oh yeah. This crazy robot was going to try to blast a ship into the air with rockets, so that he could steer it into the water.

Before sending her away, he gave her one last chore. Get aground and flip the switch to give them power. Of course. What better send-off than to do one last chore before the whole crew embarked on a suicide mission? She tossed her feet over the side of the boat to land on the top floor of the building below. He followed her down and she shrugged as they jogged through a minefield of scavver bodies to make it to the control panel in one of the ruined apartment buildings.

There was a charming sunset glow over the whole picture as she flipped the switch. In the golden orange light, the ships rockets powered up and the whole world must have shaken as the damn thing took off. He stood on his toes in the control room to see, but he just couldn’t believe it. The ship was airborn. All they had to do was drop it into the bay. He was waiting for them to turn, but they kept heading straight. Right into a cluster of skyscrapers. God, it was like watching the world’s slowest disaster. They were headed directly into the city—there was no way in hell the thing would clear all those buildings. He held his breath as the ship skimmed the top of one building. He could hear the wood scraping metal from here. Then, with a painful groan, the hull wrapped itself around yet another building, and came to the loudest, most miserable full stop. Completely nestled into the top floor.

They both stood there in silence for a long moment, staring at the ship, now aground in a different building.

“Oh yeah. Looks much better over there.”

Her jaw was practically unhinged. “But…it…?”

She couldn’t form words for a full fifteen minutes. Just stood there blinking. When she finally turned around, she was beyond laughing at the f*cking ridiculous thing she had single-handedly brought to fruition.

“Why?!” She demanded that they cross the bay and find that building. Get to the top, if they could, to see what happened to the crew. He had the sudden desperate hope that everyone was still alive. It would suck all of the hilarity out of this whole thing if all those robots up and died, and she couldn’t take any more death.

They found the building pretty easily (not like it had a giant boat-shaped target sticking out of its roof) and risked taking an elevator up into the building, and then another up to the top. Nothing he hated more than those elevators. He spent the whole ride praying that the ship hadn’t damaged the rigging and that they didn’t get trapped in some dark, airless box eighty feet up in the air.

But nope. The elevator let out on what was once the top floor, and was now a bridge of warped metal, leading down onto the even-worse-for-wear ship. They made it to the top safe and there, so high up that his knees almost buckled, was the robot crew buzzing about. The captain greeted her and thanked her over and over for helping them to success. Success. He defined this f*cking mess as a success. Little victories, he supposed. Lola’s face was priceless when he handed her his hat—the biggest, stupidest looking hat in the whole Commonwealth, and told her that she could sleep below deck in the captain’s quarters. When she started to refuse, he waved her off, confiding that someone might as well use it, since he couldn’t fit below deck. She started to ask him a question when he turned away, and he turned back and greeted her as if he hadn’t just talked to her two seconds ago. He wasn’t sure if it was this crash that had knocked something loose in his metal head, or the crash that had landed them in the first building.

She turned to face him after one long moment, looking out over the horizon.

“I guess we’ll sleep here tonight?” Her lip twitched, and he wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or laugh. They climbed below deck, and the second the doors to the captain’s quarters were shut behind them, she burst into peals of laughter. She held her side, crying she was laughing so hard. He laughed with her, and they finished the night off with a little vintage wine (or the whole bottle) that they found on the captain’s desk. That night, she straddled his hips the second they climbed into the small bed, and they f*cked like they would never see another sun-up.

Chapter 41: Homebody

Chapter Text

It took them over a month to tour the settlements. The Minutemen were gaining footholds in the Commonwealth left and right, and she was so busy babysitting and building houses that she almost seemed happy. He didn’t test it. If she had found a second’s peace while neck-deep in construction projects, who the hell was he to judge? They made it back to Sanctuary and she and Preston spent the next four hours catching up over a beer. He paced around the settlement.

He could tell how much she liked being at home by how often she demanded to occupy the same space as him. She would plant some seeds from another settlement, and then pull him down into the Mutfruit trees and kiss him so hard he would be dizzy from all the blood in his body rushing to one place. She’d planned out a new catwalk over the gate from his lap. One night, she pulled him by the collar into the bathhouse when no one was looking.

“We’ll definitely get caught.” He didn’t want to be a prude, but this was a public bathing shack. Emphasis on “public,” and “shack.” Damn thing could tumble down around them any time now.

“We are never home anymore—best enjoy it while we can. Anyways, where is your sense of adventure?” She hadn’t even finished the word “adventure” before dropping her panties to the ground.

“Where are your clothes?”

She was already in the tub, which he belatedly realized was full. She had planned this.

“Where are your eyes?” The eyes in question snapped up to meet hers, but he was caught. She licked her lips and he stripped off his boots, coat, pants, shirt, shorts. She didn’t even do him the courtesy of pretending to look away. She waited for him to climb into the tub before pushing on his shoulders to make him sit down. She snuggled up in between his legs. When she fit herself very snugly against him, he had to resist the urge to groan.

“See? Isn’t this nice.”

“It’s okay.” He sounded steadier than he felt. The water was chilly, like she had tried to heat it and given up halfway through. She wiggled her hips back against him and suddenly the water wasn’t so cold anymore. They both had little goosebumps on their skin, but he was fairly sure that they had goosebumps for very separate reasons. She was obviously cold, and he was…he could barely suppress a whine. She brought her arms up over her head and wrapped them around his neck, arching her back so that his gaze could ride down her shoulders and chest and stomach and legs. He hoped he wasn’t drooling. And she knew it. She turned suddenly, a little too fast, and was lying on her stomach against him. Her fingernails grazed his chest.

“Do you need me to help you wash up?”

He shivered from the core out. She pulled herself up against his chest until their noses touched, her body draped over his. She made sure to slide back down against him for the full effect. This time, he was good and loud, and she seemed satisfied. She rolled back over so that she was sitting again, and leaned forward. Her vertebra painted a dotted line down her back, and he signed it with the tips of his fingers. She sighed.

She hadn’t asked him to wash her hair. She hadn’t needed to. She dipped her head into the water, and he rubbed soap into her scalp. He had helped her wash up like this before in rivers, but that was very different. She leaned back into him, completely relaxed as he smoothed her hair back from her face. More mahogany than red in this light. Her eyes closed. He helped her rinse her hair (an awkward process given the full tub, but he wasn’t complaining), and then scrubbed her shoulders, her throat. He moved lower and lower over her body, and she warmed under his touch. There was a faint smile on her lips, but she kept her eyes closed. Restful. When his fingers found her lower belly, her breathing hitched. It was almost imperceptible, but MacCready never missed anything. He let his fingers trace her thighs, and she held her breath. When he edged further up the inside of her thigh, she tried to exhale, but her chest shuddered.

That was when he heard another settler setting up for a bath in the room right across the hall. They both froze at the sound of someone pumping well-water into the other tub. They should probably stop. Didn’t want whoever was on the other side of that wall to know what they were doing. But then she shifted her weight and the throbbing between his legs had other plans. He stroked her with two fingers and her breathing hitched.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispered. He pressed his lips against her throat and she sucked in a breath. She was at a definite disadvantage here, all laid out on top of him. Not like she could move a whole lot, or the swishing water in the tub would give them away. He dragged his free hand over her stomach, her thighs, up her ribs. Oh yes, he had the upper hand here. She gripped the sides of the tub while he worked.

“I am so going to get you back for—” She barely breathed the words, but couldn’t finish the thought when he slipped his fingers inside her. She pressed her lips together and arched back against him.

“Mmmmhm. I’m sure you will.” When he pulled back a bit, she strained against his hand, mouth making a little “o.” She shot him a look to shush him, but he slid one hand up to grope her breast and she melted back against him.

“Hey. Do you have any soap over there? I’m almost out.” The voice floated over the partition wall. One of the new settlers? Maybe Sal, Jon, or Remy, who had all arrived within the last month or two. He held his breath. She shot him a look.

Should I answer?

He knows you’re here.

YOU answer!

He shook his head, and couldn’t fight the grin that spread across his face. Nope.

Her eyebrow arched. Now he was just being mean. He withdrew his fingers right as she opened her mouth to reply, and she had to take a second to compose herself.

“No. Sorry.” She sounded a little strained, even to him. The guy on the other side of the wall huffed, and then, as if he knew he would be interrupting something and was just overjoyed at the opportunity to intrude said “hey, General, is that you?”

He could have laughed.

“Yup.”

“Oh! While I have you, could I ask you something? It’s Remy.”

Bingo. He’d thought it might have been Remy. He planted his hands on her hips.

“Go ahead, shoot.” She was practically grinding her teeth, but her tone was topical enough. And he thought to himself, hey, maybe I could change that. He pulled her up a bit so that she was sitting on his lap. She shot him a warning look. He settled her down on top of him and, with a little maneuvering, held himself so that he was just barely inside of her. He didn’t want to get caught either, but if he was going to be punished later, might as well do something worthy of punishment. She stifled a gasp as Remy went on about the bunkhouses. He had some idea for sprucing them up. Was going on and on about the walls and reconstructing and the whole time, he was easing Lola onto him and she had her eyes squeezed shut and her fists clenching the tub. She was so warm and when he was finally sheathed to the hilt, her body squeezed around him and he almost choked. Her mouth shot open, and she looked like she was having a real hard time not making any noise.

“Yeah.” He had no idea what she was agreeing with, and she probably didn’t either. Her voice came out hoarse.

“I can help with the building. I used to do repairs all the time back in Diamond City.”

“That’s great.” She was slowly rocking up and down on top of him, unable to stop herself now. Check mate. He pulled her down hard against him and she gasped. He had to cover her mouth with his hand when he did it again. Her whole body trembled and her head dropped back onto his shoulder. He could feel the jagged edges of her breathing against his palm.

“Thanks for listening, General!” He reached around to touch her while she rode him.

“Mmmhm!”

“We can talk about it with Preston tomorrow! I am sure he will be thrilled!”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

Remy finally seemed satisfied with this, and finished his bath. Meanwhile, he rolled his hips with one hand over her mouth to smother any noises she made. She rocked her hips against him in a way that should have been illegal. When Remy finally left the bathhouse, she pulled herself up off him so fast that he doubled over. He was about to protest when she flipped around, wedged her knees in between the sides of the bathtub and his hips, and rode him hard enough that he saw stars.

When she collapsed onto his chest, panting, he tangled his fingers up into her hair. She pressed her lips to his collarbone. "S'nice to be home."

“That it is. Was that you getting your revenge?”

“Hah!” Her breath raised goosebumps across his chest. Her arms were draped around his neck. “Not even close. Once I regain the ability to move, you had better brace yourself.”

“Mmm.” He felt loose-limbed, like he could fall asleep right here, no problem. He kissed the top of her head before he thought better of it. “Can’t wait.”

Chapter 42: Summer Nights

Chapter Text

Being out in the Wastes with someone could bring people together in all sorts of ways, and Lola wasn’t just attractive, she was magnetic. She drew in people from all over. Like they couldn’t help themselves. Some of the strangest people in the Commonwealth were drinking on her patio right now under a setting sun and clear skies, and some days he just couldn’t figure out how in the hell she managed it. But, then again, here he was with them all.

There was something in the sway of her hips and the slant of her mouth that made people freeze up. And he was fairly certain that his bed was the only one she crawled into at night (not that it mattered—they were grownups, she could do whatever she wanted), but that didn’t mean that there weren’t a few other people who would just love to slip into his spot beside her. She was loved. She had even charmed a Super Mutant into staying and playing nice. In a lot of ways, Lola was a menace. And he got the attraction of course, but if Hanco*ck pat her ass one more time, MacCready swore to himself that he would personally snap the mayor’s goddamned arm off.

Away from the bar (and speak of the devil), Hanco*ck twirled her. She’d left MacCready at Sanctuary a week or two ago and collected Handco*ck, Nick Valentine, and Deacon to help Paladin Danse adjust to his, er, new life. This patio-gathering was her idea—some dancing, some fun, a little booze to lighten everyone up—but her subject wasn’t having nearly as much fun as she was. He’d spent all his time since Maxon had blacklisted him sulking, first at that grimy old military post, and then in his room next to Preston’s here at Sanctuary. She really thought that Sanctuary would perk him up, and that Preston would welcome him with open arms. Turns out Paladin Prick managed to make even the nicest, most easy-going man in the ‘Wealth hate him. Go figure. Danse watched Lola with the single-most doleful, lost-puppy expression he had ever seen.

She spun a few times, still somehow fairly graceful in her ratty, too-big combat boots. She had loved to dance once-upon-a-time, she’d told him. And he loved to watch her dance. When she stumbled to a stop, she locked onto him like a target—breathe in, breathe out, ready to shoot. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck and sent a shiver like the brush of her fingers down his spine.

He leaned back against the wall, arms folded. When she twirled back to Hanco*ck, he saw her roll her eyes and smile—a real smile. Hanco*ck spun her again, and this time, she twirled right out of his grasp and into the bar. She slapped her hands down on the counter. He leaned forward onto the other side of the bar, and he was just close enough to notice that she smelled like plain soap and road dust. His lip twitched as he tried not to grin back at her like a dope. She leaned in a smidge more, until they were just a little too close for public. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Hey, sister, you missed your cue, eye-f*cking the merc.”

Hanco*ck practically cackled when she turned red as a Tato from her ears to her neck. Danse couldn’t have scowled any harder if he tried. The three things Paladin Holier-than-Thou hated the most: innuendos, Hanco*ck talking, and a reminder that this “insubordinate civilian” had something more than a suit of power armor to hold on to at night. Ha. Too bad for him. MacCready was so tempted to pat the man on one hulking shoulder, but he had promised to be a good influence for Duncan, and refrained.

Deacon cut in between Lola and Hanco*ck. When he caught her hands, he dipped her so low her hair brushed the cement foundation of the makeshift open-air taphouse (she was all about these frivolous structures; but Sheffield over at the bar did serve the best of anything she found). One of her legs was extended gracefully for balance as Deacon supported the bulk of her weight on his arm. When he tugged her back up, she dropped that leg, and twisted in his arms, spinning out, and then back in again like a top. A synchronization that could only have come from closeness. He wondered idly how they must look out in the field—two parts of a well-oiled machine. Fluid. When MacCready and Lola were fighting together, they were only in-step about seventy percent of the time. The other thirty percent was filled with tripping over each other, accidentally blowing cover, and too-close saves. But that was their relationship in general, he supposed. Seventy percent hot, thirty percent mess. Making a great show of it, Lola twirled Deacon, who tucked himself neatly into a surprised Hanco*ck’s arms. As if they had rehearsed it.

Lola’s peals of laughter rang through the night as Hanco*ck stepped back from Deacon, who was presently swooning. Moved by the sound of her laugh, Hanco*ck bowed to his partner, and Deacon curtsied graciously. She had been laughing again, and for chrissakes was he glad for that. Sure, she still had to deal with Shaun, but for now, she was laughing and safe, and that was about a million times more important.

“I used to ballroom dance, you know,” Deacon said, lighting a cigarette. “Out in California, when I ran with the NCR.”

“What’s the NCR?” She plucked the cigarette out from between his lips, took a puff, and then replaced it.

Deacon frowned. “Like the Mojave’s own Minutemen, with just a dash of authoritarianism sprinkled in.”

“You’re full of sh*t.” Lola laughed when she said it, as if it was a running joke. “You hate rules.”

“Once, I even danced with Elder Maxson while he was visiting the California Brotherhood. He dances divinely.”

Lola snorted at that. “You oversold it again, Dee. Dancing won’t save the world from abominations.” She waggled an eyebrow at Hanco*ck, who bowed again. Danse looked like he was melting in his barstool. But hell, they’d all be a little more charitable if it was only every other word outta the man’s mouth that was offensive, rather than every single word. The only person he was kind to was Lola, and no one but the two of them really knew why. She’d tried to convince MacCready that, under all that metal was a man whose bite wasn’t half as bad as his bark (of course, as she was explaining this, Danse was ten feet away, glaring holes into Hanco*ck and preaching about cleansing the wasteland of filth).

Lola spotted him again, and came over to lean against the wall beside him. She mimicked his posture to a tee. When he looked down at her, she reached up and tugged his hat off his head. She pulled the brim low over her forehead so that her eyes were shadowed. The way he wore it. He pulled her sunglasses out of her shirt pocket and pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

“There you are,” she grumbled in a voice that was only slightly less ridiculous than her Silver Shroud growl. “Almost thought you had forgotten about me.”

“Here Mac,” he replied. “Just hold these fifteen toasters for me. I need the screws.”

“You aren’t seriously going to make me carry all that junk?”

“Just one more typewriter—”

“I’d kill for a drink—”

“Let’s just charge in head-first.”

“In fact—”

“ Sorry, Mac, I didn’t know there would be a Mirelurk Queen—”

“I have.”

She grinned up at him. He pushed his hat further down onto her head, until the cap covered half her face. She shoved it back up, swiping hair out of her face as she did. He had the sudden urge to bend down and kiss her nose. To kiss her, period. He shook his head instead, and folded his arms over his chest as a precautionary measure. They were physical, not romantic. They f*cked sometimes. Were good friends. Best not to muck that up by getting cutesy. She forced her arm through his, even though his arms were folded tightly over his chest. Not annoying at all. Not his Lola.

Chapter 43: Last Hurrah

Chapter Text

She called a Vertibird when she was a little ways outside of Sanctuary and changed into her Brotherhood suit on the ride over. MacCready held her arm to keep her from falling out the side of the damn bird as she struggled to pull the tight suit up her legs and over her hips. There was a lot of swearing involved, and she nearly tripped over the minigun bolted to the cabin at least twice.

They brought her to the Prydwyn, and a Knight ushered her aboard. Maxson had been waiting for her return for quite some time (since that mess with Danse), and lectured her straight off. Insubordination. Wouldn’t happen again. Yes sir. Veeeery sorry, sir. When he was finally through shouting at her, he rolled his shoulders back and announced—to her, and Mac, and the one Knight who was hanging out by the doorway—that he had already told the rest of the Brotherhood aboard that she has been promoted to Paladin. In place of Paladin Danse. MacCready wondered if Maxson saw the shudder that rode the length of her spine. He was behind her (civilians couldn’t face Maxson directly—pompous little sh*t), but he knew what her face would look like. Pained grimace trying to pass for a smile. Maxson wasn’t paying enough attention, he bet, to notce how much she hated this. She got Danse’s room, his armor, all of his things, and his rank. Some consolation prize. She nodded her head and left for the main deck with MacCready a half-step behind.

Didn’t say much after that. Just turned in some technical documents to the snooty professor, handed over blood samples they’d collected down by Croup Manor to a lady in a very complicated-looking coat, traded with a couple of the merchants, slipped the younger squires a couple of toys and some chalk she’d found, and landed in front of Danse’s room. Right next to Maxson’s. She shoveled all of Danse’s things into a military duffel, and sent for someone to retrieve his armor and leave it on the deck, next to a waiting Vertibird.

“I’m bringing all this home to him.” She looked up at him as if waiting. Testing the waters. She was so mad he didn’t think anyone would dare fight with her. Her cheeks were flushed all the way down to her neck, and her hands made fists when they weren’t stuffing things into the bag. For a split second, he didn’t think there was anyone in the world she hated as much as she hated Elder Maxson.

“I figured.”

She handed him the duffel. “Just didn’t want you to complain.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, boss.” He tipped his hat with a wink, and she grinned suddenly—ear to ear.

“Actually, I have one last thing I want to do before leaving.” She dropped her pack onto the ground, so he dropped his, and set the extra duffel on Danse’s bed. Something in the twist of her lips looked like trouble.

“What did you have in mind?”

The slant of a smirk across her lips didn’t tell him much, but it raised the hairs on the back of his neck which was enough to keep him in interested. She opened the door and went back out into the hallway, glancing down the ladder that led to the deck (no one in sight), and then around the halls (still no one). The grin spread across her face. Suddenly she was very close, and reached into the pocket of his coat, fished around until she pulled out a bobby pin. He could feel heat creep up under the skin of his throat.

“Boss!”

“Knew you’d have one.”

His jaw dropped when she jimmied the bobby pin into the lock on Maxson’s door.

“What the hell are you doing?” It took him a second to think straight, but when his heartrate finally dropped back to normal, he leaned over the railing protecting the ladder, eyes peeled for unwanted company.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Breaking and entering.”

He heard a scoff. “I was the one who taught you that term. You can’t use it against me.”

“The hell I can’t.” Though, despite saying it, he couldn’t deny the rush of blood under his skin. If she was doing what he thought she was doing…

“Bingo!”

He heard the door creak open a sliver, and when he turned around, she was already inside, calling him over with a wink. She locked the door behind him.

“I would rather do this on the f*cking deck—right where he always stands, by the windows, but there is always someone there.”

“Do what?” He knew what.

She grabbed his collar and pulled herself up until her lips pressed against his, hot and urgent, and on the verge of laughing. He could get behind this revenge. He backed her up until she was sandwiched between him and the desk. She hopped up onto the edge and wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Just so you know, I plan to f*ck you in his bed.” Her lips moved against his throat.

A chill raced over his shoulders and down. “As you command, Boss.”

She practically snorted, and the laugh that followed made him grip her hips hard. Her breath traced against his skin and holy sh*t was he in trouble.

“That’s Paladin to you, civilian.”

He undid the buckle at her neck that held the zipper together, and thank f*ck he had watched her put this damn thing on, or he’d never have been able to figure out how to get it off. Hidden zipper along the middle seam, secured by a buckle. He smoothed the zipper down past her bra and over her stomach until he ran out of tread at her hips. Thing was so tight that it sprung apart over her skin immediately. Oh man.

She pushed him back, slid the rest of the suit down until it landed in a puddle around her feet. The bra followed. Then her underwear. He was going to have to help her back into all that when they were done, but it was so, so worth it. And Maxon stayed out on that deck from dawn till dusk, so they had time. She stretched out along the mattress. He nearly tripped stripping off his boots, pants, shorts, coat, and shirt, but then he landed next to her on the bed. At that point, he couldn’t have cared any less about why they were there—revenge on Maxson, stress, plain old-fashioned lust—so long as she kept squirming up against him like that. He had the wild thought somewhere between kissing Lola’s neck and feeling her nails rake down from his shoulder to his ribs that she was the kind of girl you held onto with both hands, no matter who in the world tried to stand in your way. When they shared a cigarette, both spent, lying flat on the mattress side-by-side, he stuffed that thought into the back of his brain because no. No, neither of them had the time for that kinda sentimental sh*t.

He should have known something was up when she called a vertibird after dropping Danse’s gear at Sanctuary. By the fifth ride to nowhere, he was pretty sure there was something she wasn’t telling him. The last two Brotherhood of Steel pilots were a little miffed at hearing that she dropped yet another smoke grenade over their radios. She didn’t seem to go anywhere in particular, just back and forth across the Commonwealth. They’d drop her off, she’d hop out and wander, and then she’d call another. Finally, she had them set the bird down somewhere near Goodneighbor. The pilots always dropped them smack in the middle of a street, so they ducked into an alley and did a quick scan of the area, guns out. All clear.

“That was the last signal grenade.”

“Aren’t those expensive?” Sure, it was not like they were ever really hurting for caps. The settlements offered them the necessities free of charge, nine times out of ten, so they saved a lot of the money they got. But she had just dumped most of her caps into buying supplies for Bunker Hill.

“Yup.”

“And you can only have a few at a time.”

“Yup.”

“Then why?” He looked up at the vertibird, which was shrinking as it hovered up into the trees. While he was not quite a fan of giant airships, he had to admit that it was pretty cool flying around the ‘Wealth.

“I won’t have a use for them, soon.”

He leaned on the stone wall behind them. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why not?”

“I’m about to make them hate me.”

When he co*cked his head in question, she shrugged.

“I have to stick with the Institute for now, so the Railroad or the Minutemen can bring it down from inside. But now, Shaun wants me to invade a Brotherhood-guarded hold to steal tech. He’s sending me because he knows it will force me to choose. Him, or the Brotherhood.”

“So, we kill every single witness and you are in the clear. Easy.” She handed him her bag and he held it open for her.

“They have radios, Mac.” She pulled her clothes out of her pack and stripped off the Brotherhood suit. “There is no way keep any of this a secret. I had to choose one, so I chose my Railroad cover and my son.”

The last vertibird was headed away from them for good, then.

“I have to relay somewhere.” She buttoned up the shirt of her old army uniform, and shrugged the heavy chestplate on over her clothes. “They didn’t give me coordinates, just instructions. The eventual goal is the Mass Fusion building. Do you remember where that is? We passed it on our way last time.”

He did remember. He nodded, glancing down at her PipBoy. Still didn’t trust their relays not to vaporize her.

“Head there.” He helped her slide her backpack up onto her shoulders. “I will meet you inside, I guess. It will probably be me and some Institute Scientist. She doesn’t trust me enough to send me alone.”

“You sure you have to do this?”

She exhaled through her nose. “I think we’ll be on the roof. We can’t relay inside anything, just outside or on the roof. Once the Brotherhood notices the breech, their scouts will call for backup. Get in and find us as soon as you can.”

“Will do, Boss.”

“So, I’ll see you there. I guess.”

“In one piece, okay, Boss?”

She quirked a smile and grabbed his hand. “No promises.”

Before relaying out, she squeezed his hand. He could still feel the pressure of her fingers, even after she vanished.

Chapter 44: Green Recruits

Chapter Text

The Good Doctor was smaller than he expected, and wearing a hazmat suit. Like, a head-to-toe hazmat suit over a lab-coat with no armor. What in the hell was Shaun telling these people? He really wanted to point out that this was just the ‘Wealth and not the Glowing Sea, but she didn’t seem like the joking type. He rolled his shoulder back and adjusted his grip on his gun. He had been sitting on the top floor of the building for a few hours before they showed up. And worse, minutes after he entered the building, a vertibird dropped Brotherhood soldiers at the front door. They were waiting—it would be an ambush as soon as Lola hopped into that elevator.

Lola’s face was carefully blank and the scientist reminded her that, when they got downstairs, there would likely be a fight ready for them. No sh*t. He’d told her that the second she’d arrived. He positioned himself in front and to the right of Lola. She was left-handed, and never covered her right side. After a passing few floors in the elevator, they started to spot Brotherhood agents crawling out of the floorboards to shoot at them. The elevator was too cramped for anyone to shoot effectively, so Lola jumped right to handing him frag grenades. They landed, finished killing off everyone in orange or chrome, and then sacked the place.

When the scientist was off picking through some terminal, Lola whispered in his ear that they had to be convincing, and that he had to show no remorse for the Brotherhood soldiers. Took him a minute to realize that her warning was not for him so much as it was for her. Sure, she hated playing nice with those bigots, but there were child scribes and kind doctors and people who (if a little misguided) genuinely thought that they were doing right. And there were people that thought Lola was one of their sworn order. A couple of the people they’d killed had looked her right in the eye. He grabbed for her hand and squeezed before she sucked in a breath through her teeth. She shook him off when that kook scientist turned around.

Another elevator trip, four hacked terminals, and two uncomfortably stiff hazmat suits later, Lola was geared up and ready to step into a room full of irradiated thigh-high water and giant pre-war machines that looked like death-rays. She made him wait outside with his hazmat suit (found in one of the lockers in one of the side rooms) zipped up to his chin, and the helmet all the way secured. She refused to let him into the room with her, and he wasn’t gonna cause a scene with their Institute Babysitter breathing down the back of his neck.

She and the scientist were speaking gibberish to each other. Lola pulled something cylindrical and heavy-looking out of the giant orb machine, and the whole room lit up red with warning lights. He shoulda known. Assaultrons. And a kill-bot. f*cking great.

Not like there was any less heat upstairs. The second he and Lola finished tidying up the mess (because not like the institute princess could manage a fight), they took the elevator back upstairs to complete chaos. More Brotherhood, and some reinforcements for the Institute. Already. Like they were just popping up out of the f*cking ground. Their Institute pal politely reminded Lola that she needs to get that cylinder-thing to the Institute, but that she could help fight if she wanted to. And the way she said “if you want to” spoke volumes about how the freaks at the Institute must view her. Like a rabid dog. Bloodthirsty. He bit back a reeeeally nasty comment. But Lola.

“Show ‘em who’s boss. Right, Boss?”

She squeezed his hand hard. All this talk of murdering green Brotherhood kids was not suiting her. When her Institute chaperone looked away, Lola rubbed her forehead and eyes. She gulped hard. Her knuckles were white on her gun. Sure, she hadn’t much liked most of them, or their mission, or their leader, but she’d trained with some of these soldiers. She even knew a few by name. He worked double time to cover her while she bolted for the door, leaving the synths to finish of the rest of the Brotherhood soldiers.

“You need to see Shaun now, right?” He held her shoulders when they made it back out onto the street. She was bobbing and fidgeting.

“I have to relay into the Institute. Yes.”

He pulled her in against him. She was warm and shaking. She rubbed her face on his coat.

“I’ll see you back at base, okay?”

She bit her lip and nodded. Didn’t say anything else. She hit the screen on her PipBoy and vanished. He pulled out his map and started to make his way back to Sanctuary to wait for her to return.

Chapter 45: Under Fire

Chapter Text

“How’d things go with Shaun?”

He tried to lean against the door as casually as possible. She’d appeared in her house in Sanctuary in a flash of blue light, and he’d come running over from the guard building by the front gate to make sure she was in one piece. For the record, she was. One really sad, wide-eyed piece, but one piece nevertheless.

“When I visited, little Shaun was sleeping. I sat by his bedside for hours.” Her voice was weirdly breathy and fast, as if she had sprinted here from across the Commonwealth. Her cheeks were red. “If I take them out, do you think that’ll shut down all active synths?” Her hands were shaking as she upturned her pack in the middle of the floor. He reached out to touch her hair, but in a second, she was on the floor, sifting through her piles of junk for something or other.

There must have been more to this trip than that. At some point during the week she was gone, a message in her voice had popped up on the airways of Diamond City Radio. Some garbage about trusting the Institute, and the Institute is the future, and some new power source. Her voice sounded strained and tired on the recordings, but at least he had known for sure that she had made it to Shaun in one piece.

She wasn’t playing her radio anymore. He noticed that pretty quickly. And she was shaking hard and sweating. Refilling her pack with ammo, guns, Stims…like she was headed back out.

“Where are we going?”

“I had to relay here. They can track where I relay, so I came here. They can’t track us if we walk, though.”

“Who, Lola?” He wanted to hold her still, but was a little afraid of her answer.

“The Institute. We have to go to the Railroad. Now. We have to go now.”

“Lola, what is going on?”

She buzzed past him but ran out of steam around the counter. Her palms splayed out over the surface when she doubled over. Looked like she was going to throw up.

“The Brotherhood. Is sieging the Railroad soon. They are going to massacre Deacon and Dez and Glory and Tom and Drums and Carrington and—” She sucked in a breath so hard that it rattled her from her ribs out. She clutched her chest as if she couldn’t breathe. He rubbed her back, but nothing seemed to help. MacCready thought that she had called this a “panic attack” once.

“They are all going to die, Mac. They are going to die. I won’t make it in time.”

He grabbed her bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder.

“Come on. We’ll set out now.”

She looked so grateful. And tired. They nearly ran past the gates and the Red Rocket. She didn’t stop when the sun went down, and she didn’t slow when it came back up. She stopped for twenty minutes when he insisted it, and then they were back up and at it. He caught her shooting up psycho to keep herself going twice in as many days. Woulda said something to her about it—he wasn’t the biggest fan of that sh*t—but he had to pick his battles. They reached HQ in record time, taking the stairs to the basem*nt two at a time, and sprinting through the old catacombs. She made it to Desdemona out of breath, exhausted, and on the verge of vomiting. MacCready thought he might keel over right there and fall asleep at her feet. His calves and thighs burned from dragging himself half across the f*cking ‘Wealth.

When Lola finished telling Desdemona what she knew, the whole place erupted into activity. People running back and forth across the catacomb, tripping over each other. Heavies divided themselves up into groups to cover all points of ingress. The nut with all the gizmos went around distributing weapons. He even gave Lola a gun that shot railroad spikes the length of his hand. For all he complained about her creepy little catacomb dwellers, they knew how to mobilize.

They were coming up with a gameplan when two Brotherhood soldiers burst in through the back entrance tunnel. Lola and MacCready had only been at the Railroad HQ for a couple of hours. Right in the nick of time. MacCready caught one in the eye and he dropped. Lola, wielding the monstrosity that Tom had given her, sent a railroad spike into the forehead of a Power Armor Helmet. She followed it up with three more when the owner of the helmet kept charging. So far, so good. No fatalities on their side, and the worst of things seemed to be stemmed for now. Of course this was only the first wave, but things could have gone worse.

One whole tunnel collapsed, which meant that they really only had to worry about the entrance through the catacombs. Dez sent him and Lola out into the crypt to join the synth woman (Glory, he thought) that Lola referred to as her “Gatling Angel.” When they made it out into the main chamber, it was quiet. Too quiet.

Lola motioned Mac to stick close behind her (as if he was going to hang back now, of all times), and crept forward. He was expecting to see some Brotherhood soldiers walking into an ambush, but when they rounded the corner, all they saw was bodies. One of them was nauseatingly familiar.

“Kept them all out by myself. No one got past me.”

“Glory!” Lola dropped down beside Glory, feeling her forehead, looking over her bullet wounds. She had a Stimpack in hand already. Glory pushed Lola’s hands away. Even Mac could call it from here. Too much damage for a Stimpack now. Lola reassured Glory that she would be fine in a small, shaking voice. Pat her hair. Fingers fluttering the wound helplessly. Glory seemed to get a chuckle out of that. Said a few last words to Lola. Died quietly while Lola shook her shoulders and hugged her. There was a long moment in time where Lola desperately jammed a Stimpack into Glory’s arm. Her hands were shaking so bad that she almost snapped the needle off the syringe. She smoothed Glory’s hair back from her face again.

“Hey, Lola.” He wasn’t sure how to finish that thought. Lola rested her forehead against Glory’s.

When some more Brotherhood soldiers rounded the bend, Mac got in the first shot without even thinking about it, and dropped one. Lola was back up in a second, and hit the oncoming wave of soldiers hard. She chased them up into the church, putting holes in heads faster than he’d ever seen. Ka-chunk, tunk, and they went down. He grabbed her by the collar when one soldier in full Power Armor towered over her, ready to pummel her into the ground. His fist barely grazed her shoulder thanks to MacCready’s reflexes, but Lola didn’t even seem to notice. She just kept moving. At one point, he watched a bullet wedge itself into the soft flesh of her thigh, and she didn’t flinch. Adrenaline is what she would call it, but she must have been made of sterner stuff than just that.

When they were all dead, she almost accidentally shot Dez for surprising her. She was still in kill-mode. She didn’t seem to register what Dez was telling her. Destroy the Brotherhood. Forever. She told Dez it was a suicide mission. Dez told her to do it for Glory. Deacon stood behind his leader, dead silent, staring at the ground. He looked up once and locked eyes with Lola. Or, at least, he thought Deacon was looking at Lola. No way to be sure with those damn sunglasses. She nodded at him before turning back towards the catacombs. On her way back down to regroup, she stopped to point out a Brotherhood corpse.

“Paladin Brandis.” She yanked his dogtags off from around his neck. It was the solider that had shot her. “We convinced him to rejoin the Brotherhood after his whole squad was slaughtered. Me and Danse. We got him back into the field. Rehabilitated him. He’d been hiding in a bunker, blaming himself for…”

She punched the stone wall of the catacomb. Her knuckles bled. She punched it again. And again. That was when he grabbed her. Her fist seemed weirdly tender, so he jabbed a stimpack into her arm. She didn’t fight him. They restocked at HQ, grabbed a couple of hours of sleep on a mattress on the floor, and were up again and headed for the Cambridge Police Center before daybreak.

Chapter 46: Up Close and Personal

Chapter Text

He had to put down a whole f*cking swarm of ferals so that they could regroup with Tinker Tom and Deacon in the plaza a block over from the Brotherhood’s post. Tinker Tom was in sight when she rounded on him.

“I can take it from here.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“So you can go home.” Her eyes were dark—more grey then green—and bright red around the edges.

“We’ve been over this, Boss.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged out from under it and pulled away from him.

“You have a son. He needs you. He’s gonna be alright soon, and then he’s going to wonder where his daddy is. I am not taking you away from him.”

“You aren’t.” He wanted to touch her. If he could hug her, she’d drop it like she always did. But every time he thought to reach out, it was like she could see the idea in his brain and backed up a step. “I can go get him once we’re done here.”

“Robert.” She looked him dead in the eye. “Stop. For once in your f*cking life, stop. You are not coming.”

“You can’t make me turn around.”

She ground her teeth.

“Lola, stop it.”

”Go home.”

“We had a deal.”

“I’m not paying you.”

“You already did. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me sh*t.”

He shrugged. “You know better than that.”

“RJ, please. I’m begging you.”

He should go home. This was insane. No guarantee any of them would make it out of this alive, and the deck was not stacked in their favor. And he had a kid out there, just waiting for daddy to come collect him. Not like he hadn’t thought of all this the other million times she tried to send him home. But he owed her more than that. He owed her Duncan’s life, and it seemed like nothing he did for her could come close to touching that debt. He smoothed some hair back from her forehead so that he could plant a kiss right between her eyes. Not sure why he did that, but the effect was like he was deactivating a bomb. Her shoulders dropped. “Sorry. No can do.”

She clenched his coat in her fists, face buried in his shoulder. “If you don’t go home now, you might not. Ever.”

He smoothed one hand over her head until it rested on the back of her neck. His arm could wrap all the way around her so that his other hand splayed out over the side of her ribs. Maybe it was because they had spent so long together. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Whatever it was, he wanted to kiss her hard, in case this was the last time he had the chance. He wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger instead. He was real glad it had mostly grown out again after she’d cut it.

“Hey, look at me.” He wasn’t totally sure why he said it, but he needed to see her.

“You’re an idiot.”

Her hair smelled like sweat, road dust, and gunpowder. He felt the fear coiling and uncoiling under her skin.

“Deacon and Tom are waiting, Lola.”

She and Deacon took out the guys in front of the Cambridge stronghold while Mac covered and Tinker Tom struggled to get his gun upright. Quick and easy—the Death Bunnies (apparently, the name stuck) slit both the guards’ throats to avoid being heard. She was usually pretty stealthy, but when they regrouped to go inside, she kicked down the door and led the charge. About as unstealthy as it gets. Super.

There was immediate panic. Brotherhood soldiers were scrambling, and the four of them were still stuck—bottlenecked in the doorway. The angry bald guy who always gave her lip (Rhys, he thought) was front-and-center, loading his laser pistol. MacCready maneuvered the barrel of his gun (shotgun for close range—one of hers) over Deacon’s shoulder, took aim and fired. Rhys dropped before he could take out Lola. Lola would have hesitated because she knew him. Now she didn’t have to worry about killing someone she knew. He looked up just in time to realize he’d spoken too soon. Haylen was standing across the room, one hand over her mouth. Lola loved Scribe Haylen. Talked to her whenever she was in town. Ran all sorts of ridiculous errands for her, brought her goodies, the works. And Haylen loved Rhys. Even MacCready knew that.

Lola’s eyes were vacant as she raised the barrel of her railroad rifle. She shot Haylen straight through the left eye—a perfect shot, immediately fatal. Haylen spilled over backwards against the wall of the police department. Blood gurgled up out of her missing eyelid. No pain. Instant death. Helluva shot. Lola had been on auto-pilot up till Haylen hit the ground. She dropped her railroad rifle, and froze. Deacon and Tom had already shimmied past and mostly cleared the main room. They had to move. He grabbed Lola’s shoulders and pushed her forward until she started moving on her own again.

In one of the offices, she got herself shot in the shoulder. The bullet had been meant for him, but she had jumped it—shoved him aside at just the right moment and taken the hit. He saw it all in slow motion. He could have shaken her. Deacon covered when he jerked her down behind a desk to patch her up. She kept looking straight ahead, as if she wasn’t sure where she was. There was a streak of blood running down her cheek, though he didn’t think it was her blood. He swiped it away with the pad of his thumb. She didn’t look any better when they popped back up to help Deacon finish off the last few stragglers.

A grenade rolled across the floor and stopped about four feet in front of them. MacCready grabbed Lola and forced her down behind that wall of desks, praying that the metal desks would shield them from the worst of it. He covered Lola’s head with his hand, as if that would help.

One thing he had learned in his time—grenades were never an instantaneous thing. Never immediate. You see one and your heart lurches. Pushes your body into double time. Everything around you seems like it is moving through wet concrete. There is an extra heartbeat between the time that you see the grenade, and the time it goes off, and your body is reacting so fast that it feels like there is a whole minute or two before it finally detonates.

His ears were ringing from the explosion. The desk had saved them, thank f*ck, and she was shaking beneath him, but they were both mostly unharmed. It took him a minute to uncurl and release her.

Deacon was already up, but Tinker was curled up in a ball on the floor. Not a field guy. Unharmed, as far as he could tell, but not a field guy. Deacon rounded the corner, a gun went off, and then he reappeared.

“Clear.”

On her final sweep through, Lola stopped dead in front of Haylen’s body. Crumpled, with a broken skull, still clutching onto her gun. He steered her away after a moment. No need to make that into another one of her nightmares.

“She was so nice to me.”

“I know.”

“So was Paladin Brandeis.”

“I know.”

“I’m so tired.”

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. He caught Deacon looking over out of the corner of his eyes, but the man seemed to know that she needed space. She sucked in a breath and leaned against him.

“But I kept you safe, Mac.”

“You did.” He tried to keep the grimace out of his tone.

“If you go home now, I won’t have to take bullets for you.”

“You won’t take any more bullets for me.”

She looked like she was going to cry. “Try not to get shot, please.”

“I’ll try if you will.”

Deacon was waiting on the stairs when they followed. On the roof, Tinker Tom was figuring out how to work a vertibird. Couldn’t shoot for sh*t, but to Tom’s credit, he took two minutes to look the thing over before he was in the co*ckpit and had her running. And, while Deacon didn’t seem confident about the whole thing, Tom did (sorta). Close enough for the Railroad, he guessed.

He realized a second too late, as Lola boarded the vertibird, that this whole plan was fatally insane. Holy sh*t. Fly a vertibird to the Prydwyn? Who the f*ck came up with that one? How in the hell she planned on taking out a balloon full zealots with a couple of bombs was beyond him, but hell, not like there was any turning back now. When she stretched out her hand to help him up, he took it, and within minutes they were in the air.

Chapter 47: Sinking the Ship

Chapter Text

This time, she didn’t bother changing into her Brotherhood suit. No need. Her mission was to remain undetected as much as was humanly possible, for as long as was humanly possible. Deacon, on the other hand, was helping Tom into a Bomber jacket while Tom fought to keep the damn bird in the air. Deacon, of course, had already changed into a flight suit moments after taking off, and without anyone even really noticing what he was doing. Tom talked to the control tower with about as much confidence as a kid trying to talk bullies down from pummeling him, but what they had was what they had. No time for regrets or worries now.

That zen attitude completely vanished when Lola handed him four Stealthboys, fastening one onto her belt and activating it just as the Prydwyn deck came into view. He followed suit. Deacon clasped her hand before she disembarked (he could faintly see the shimmer of her leaning over the co*ckpit to say goodbye). Then, the bird docked, and it was time to go. Tom gave them ten minutes—ten—before things would likely fall apart.

She had already tucked Tom’s explosives into her pack.

He watched the ground shimmer as she disembarked. He was right behind her the whole time.

They timed it just right, and squeezed through the main hull door right as a senior Knight was headed in for dinner. He had followed her around the airship enough times to know generally where he was going. Up the ladder into the main part of the ship. Cross the living quarters. Up two flights of stairs, and onto the catwalk where the helium tanks were. In theory? Not so bad. In practice, climbing a ladder while invisible proved nervewracking. The first time she tried it, someone started to climb down the ladder when she was on the second rung. He reached out in her general direction, grabbed a fistful of what he assumed was her armor, and yanked her back down onto the deck just in time to scramble out of the way. The soldier passed them and headed outside. They waited and listened until they were reasonably sure there were no more footsteps.

Then, of course, her Stealthboy gave out while she was on the stairs. She flickered in and out of sight before grabbing another and jamming her finger against the button. And if hers was flickering, his was bound to soon. He tucked the dead Stealthboy into a corner once he had safely activated his second. And damn did he hope like hell she had brought spares, because they weren’t even halfway towards their goal, and they were already down one Stealthboy each. Holy sh*t.

They finally made it to the living quarters. The last time they had been here, they had f*cked on Maxson’s bed. Despite the mess they were in, that popped right into his brain, uninvited. How long ago had that even been? It couldn’t have been long, but it felt like a happy, carefree decade-and-a-half ago. Before he knew that was their last time playing nice with the Brotherhood. Before he knew she was going to embark on this suicide mission.

They made it up the first flight of stairs, no trouble. Then the second. Seemed like most of the Brotherhood was clumped up in the chow hall, which was bad for them, but good for him and Lola. But, of course, their good luck came to an end when they hit the catwalk.

Guards. Two of them.

She stopped at the top of the stairs and he ran smack into her (harder to gauge where she was when they were both invisible). She waited a second with her hand on his arm, and then she was flickering again. They took a second to replace the dying stealthboys. When they were both safely cloaked again, she tugged him forward onto the catwalk. The walkway went through three cylindrical helium tanks, with big stretches of open space between each individual tank. Speaking strategically, they would want to run through the gaps in cover between the tanks, or else they’d risk the Stealthboys wearing off while they were crossing.

She planted the first bomb no problem. One second there was nothing, and then the next, there was a little box with blinking lights stuck to the tank. One down, three to go.

He saw her moving forward, but it wasn’t like they had the luxury of being able to game-plan. Then, the first guard choked for a second, and it was surreal. Like he was fighting a ghost. He could tell where Lola was based on how the guy moved, but not being able to see her made it look like the soldier had lost his marbles. She dragged him backwards into the shadow of the first tank and a gash opened up in his throat like some kinda awful magic. And that was one guard down. The other guard would turn around and see his buddy on the floor any second now, so MacCready pulled out his rifle, twisted the silencer onto the barrel, and took aim. With a pop, the second guard dropped. He heard Lola’s sigh of relief when backup didn’t come running up to check out the scene. Within a minute, she had flat-out run to the next tank and planted the second bomb. Her footsteps rang out loud and metallic around him, but the general noise the Prydwyn made to stay afloat drowned her out. He sprinted to catch up as she planted the third bomb. Their Stealthboys wore off on the mad dash back towards the stairs, but they didn’t stop to get new ones until they were back at the staircase and on the homestretch.

How many minutes had it been? Christ, he was praying that Deacon and Tom had kept that f*cking bird running, because they needed to leave ASAP. They were each down to their last Stealthboy, and sh*t if that wasn’t just their luck.

They made it down the stairs in one piece. Back across the living quarters. It was while they were scoping out the ladder that she started to flicker.

“f*ck it.” She slid down the ladder while still somewhat invisible, but by the time he followed her, they were both completely visible, and totally surrounded.

Maxson opened his mouth as if to say something, but she was faster. Running on pure adrenaline and rage, she dropped, slid between two Brotherhood Knights in full power armor (who couldn’t reach her since she was so close to the ground), and popped back up right in front of Elder Maxson himself. He made a move to hit her, but she was faster, and held the Railroad Rifle right up to his forehead.

There was a tense moment where the Knights waited for orders. She might just take him hostage. That was the thinking, at least. But he knew Lola better. If there was one death she wanted out of all this, it was Maxson’s. MacCready loaded his fists with grenades and walked calmly over to her. The Knights, unsure of what to do, let him pass. Maxson didn’t say a word to him, or to Lola. And Lola didn’t say a word to Maxson.

Things happened fast after she pulled the trigger. Kachunk-thunk! And Maxson was no more. The Railroad spike lodged itself so deep in Maxson’s thick skull that the bone warped around it like molten metal. And so died a legacy.

Dispatching the rest took some doing. They just kept coming. But the doors and floors were steel, so only people in the immediate area seemed to know what was happening. The Brotherhood soldiers backed themselves up and took cover behind the walls of Maxson’s office, and he and Lola were boxed in by the windows. But that was what he wanted, really. He pulled the pins and launched four frag grenades into the air. They detonated at once, and shredded the Knights. Finishing them off after was easy. A few shots, and they were clear.

It wouldn’t be quiet for long, but when everyone was dead, she ducked down next to Maxson’s body and stripped him of his coat, his gun, and his dog-tags. She spit on his body before running back out to Deacon and Tom.

She shrugged on Maxson’s coat while Tom got the Vertibird out of range. Deacon turned around like he was going to congratulate her, but when he saw the savage look on her face, he turned back in his seat.

The Prydwyn didn’t just go up in flames. It imploded at first, and then popped like the oversized balloon it really was. Rained fire and metal and scraps of ship from the sky, before the blazing skeleton of the ship came crashing down on the airport base below. It was the single most horrifying thing he had seen since he’d lost Lucy.

Worse yet, there were survivors. Not many, and none in great shape, but there were still a few who had been on the ground when the ship had exploded, and had found just enough cover to miraculously survive. But not for long. Tom dropped Lola and Mac on the shore, and Deacon climbed into the back to use the minigun. It was Deacon who mowed down the first wave of survivors that came after them. Lola waded through the shallow waters back towards the airport, putting down soldiers here and there as she went. By the time she made it all the way back, the fires from the ship had died down to a dull crackle and some embers. No one was left. There were a few twisted, charred bodies, but no one was left.

The toe of her boot nudged a charred child’s toy when she climbed up the side of the wreckage. Probably belonged to a squire. There were child squires aboard the Prydwyn. Kids no older than Synth Shaun. Kids only a couple years older than Duncan.

She dropped onto her knees and shook so hard he thought she would break in half. He wrapped himself around her, held her shoulders, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. And then there was the crying. This horrible, ripping sob that came up from her chest and tore out of her throat.

When she finally stood up, she doubled back over and puked into the rushes by the water. Stood up too fast, he thought. And then it hit him. Holy f*ck, they had done it. Taken out the Prydwyn. Decimated the East Coast Brotherhood. Killed that sh*thead Maxson, who was only a little younger than MacCready himself, and got his start in the hellhole they call the Capitol Wasteland. Just like MacCready. He wanted to whoop and cheer for a second, and then, in the same breath, scream so loud it f*cking hurt. They had done this. The two of them, with Deacon and Tom. They had killed all those people—the weird scribe who was always nice to Lola, the kid squires who reminded him of Duncan, the scientist she had convinced to jump ship and leave the Institute for the Brotherhood…Maxson. Unbreakable, unyielding Elder Arthur Maxson. All of them. He planted his hand on a hunk of metal jutting up out of the ruins for support.

He’d always wondered what he and Lola could do—the two of them. And this was it. They could do this. He was almost a little scared of her. Not just because she had almost single-handedly destroyed an army running on nothing but righteous fury, but because he hadn’t hesitated to help her do it. What happened with the Prydwyn was as much his mess as it was hers. But she said “jump,” and he did, every time. And, if it kept her safe, he’d kill anyone who crossed their path. Not like that wasn’t in the job description, but he didn’t even think about not doing what she wanted. He was not an unopinionated guy, but when it came to Lola, it was shoot first and do the thinking later, which is not how a sniper lives to be a ripe old age in the Commonwealth. He choked back the bile that crept up the back of his throat, and wandered back over to Lola, who was on all fours on the beach, staring into the sand.

Chapter 48: On the Precipice of War

Chapter Text

There was no down-time after the Prydwyn. No break. They rested for four hours—the minimum they needed to function—and were back up and packing immediately after. Already game-planning. Deacon, Carrington, and Desdemona were drafting a plan as the rest of the Railroad readied for war. He packed his bag and hers while she wrote a few notes. One for Preston, one for Deacon, one for Cait, one for Strong, one for Handco*ck, one for Codsworth, one for Danse, one for Valentine, one for Piper, and at last, one for him. She holed herself up in a corner with some paper and an old pen, and just wrote. She left the notes with Deacon, who MacCready learned was not going to be on the ground party that was gonna break into the Institute. It seemed so…final. Like, for all she’d reminded him that they could die any moment before, she finally believed it now. When she handed over those letters (one page each, folded in thirds and with the name written in her neat handwriting on the front), it was like she was telling everyone, herself included, that she was not going to make it back to these people. To her family. She hugged Deacon and the two stood in the middle of all the chaos for a minute, silently saying goodbye. She hugged Drummer Boy and then Carrington next, while Dez scrambled to pull together the last bit of their fighting force for the next steps.

It was going to take a little while to get everyone together, and then Lola would have to go first to secure the relay. All by herself. After she did that, Tom would see the all-clear and teleport the ground team (him, Tom, Dez, and as many heavies as they could scrape together) into the Institute. The belly of the beast.

When he came back from getting himself patched up by Carrington (who wouldn’t so much as look him in the eye he was so on edge), he found her sitting in the makeshift shooting gallery, in a little alcove tucked out of sight. He didn’t even have to think twice to figure out where she was. Besides, Deacon hovered by the table just outside the spot, keeping guard for her. They exchanged nods as MacCready made his way over what was left of the demolished brick wall.

“Hey, Boss.” He nudged a human skull out of the way with the toe of his boot and sat down next to her in the rubble. You’d think the Railroad woulda cleaned all the pre-war skeletons out of their hidey hole, but nope. Reminders of death f*cking everywhere. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and replaced his hat on his head.

Nate’s old wedding band was in Lola’s palm, still yoked around her neck with that heavy chain.

“He used to call me ‘Lola-Lucky-Clover.’ Because of my last name. Married last name. Nate and Lola Clover.”

“Do you feel lucky?” There were a lot of things he could have said and that was definitely not the best, but it came out before he could stop himself. Of course she didn’t feel lucky. She was definitely lucky—looking at her track record, she should be dead like the corpses hanging out of the walls in this catacomb. She was damn lucky. But she probably didn’t feel it right about now.

Either way, she didn’t answer.

“If I don’t make it back here—”

“Don’t start. You will.”

She sucked in a breath. “If I don’t, go straight back to Sanctuary and see Preston. He will have something for you. From me.”

“You’ll make it back with me.” He wanted to sound sure, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t sound any more confident than he actually was. “And when we get back to Sanctuary, I want my surprise, and I want you to give it to me.”

“It’s important.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “When the sh*t hits the fan, you’ll need get the hell out of dodge. I already told Tom all this and he will get you home. And then you need to see Preston.”

“Lola—”

“Promise me you’ll go see him.”

“Lola, I—”

“Promise me.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were as red as her hair and something in him broke a little. It was like, if he promised her anything, it meant that he was admitting she could die. Freakishly strong, invulnerable, super-human, unkillable Lola could die. But she kept looking. Vacant—staring him right in the eye until he was so uncomfortable he muttered “I promise” half under his breath.

“Good.” She leaned her head back against the wall. “I’m too f*cking selfish to send you away now. I need to know you’ll do this once I’m gone.”

f*ck.

His head felt tight—like all the blood in his body was rushing up into his brain, pushing on the inside of his skull behind his eyes. Like he might pop. He let his head fall forward into his hands. He really wanted to say something, make a joke, get them off this f*cking subject, but his throat was tight too, and hell not like anything he could say would change anything she thought. It took a second for him to remember how to breathe.

Lola’s fingers found a frayed rip in the sleeve of his jacket. Her M.O. at this point. Didn’t know what to do with herself, so she did something idle. He coulda swatted her away but he just didn’t have the energy. He was so f*cking tired. How the hell did they even end up here anyways? She tugged on a loose thread and then another and dammit, soon she would unravel his whole f*cking duster if he didn’t stop her.

He grabbed her hand and really wanted to push it away, but then his fingers were around hers, and her hand was small and warm and mostly soft—couple calluses he knew she had from holding her gun or her knife—and if he let go he may never hold her hand like this again. And he just didn’t know what to do with that fact.

He didn’t let go of her hand. He leaned back and, without even thinking about it, pulled off his hat and settled it on top of all that soft red hair. It was a little big on her—not that big, and not so big it would slip and be a pain when they took the fight to the Institute, but big enough where it looked a little weird sitting on her head. Maybe it was just that she looked so small now that he knew she could die. And f*ck, there that thought was again. She could die. Hell, he could die. They all could. But it was almost worse knowing that there could be no more Lola Clover in the world in a few hours.

“The hat’s lucky.” He was trying like hell not to sound so bitter but the words tasted like rust coming out of his mouth. Lucky, sure. But luck ran out.

“It is.”

“If you’re a lucky clover, and the hat is lucky, then maybe we’ll have enough to make it out of this alive.” The worst of it all was that he no longer believed those words deep-down, but he had to say them because what if he didn’t, and she died, and then it was his fault for not telling her the damn hat was lucky?

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound even remotely hopeful and he didn’t dare look over at her face. He squeezed her fingers and she squeezed back. What he really wanted was to hold her, but this would have to be enough for now, because once they hugged and said goodbye, it was go-time, and they’d have to face down the whole Institute with nothing more than a couple of guns and the saddest-looking assault party he’d seen in his whole life.

Chapter 49: The Last Great Hope for Humanity

Chapter Text

She kissed him goodbye in that alcove, away from everyone else. Her right hand fisted in his hair, holding him close while her left hand latched onto his shirt like she’d never let go. Her lips were chapped and her mouth tasted like cigarettes, even though she almost never smoked. It was sudden. Deacon called her name and then she was half on top of him and he wrapped his arms all the way around her, as far as they could go—pressing her as tight to him as humanly possible. He didn’t think they’d be able to pull apart. She was fused to his jacket, lips moving against his and he could feel and taste every breath and when she dropped her head onto his shoulder, she buried her nose against his throat, shaking, pulling him so close it hurt. He cradled the back of her skull in his palm and ran his lips over her hair. Still smelled faintly of her soap under the sweat and dust. When she disentangled herself, it was all at once. She let go and pushed herself back, stood up, and muttered “I have to go.” He could feel every vein under his skin—his heart pummping blood through tiny rivers, the warmth along his chest where she had been, the tingling in his fingertips as he dropped his hands. No use reaching for her—she was already gone when he stood up.

It was him, Tinker Tom, Desdemona, and a few Railroad agents who introduced themselves as Whisper, Bullseye, Charmer, Fixer, and Professor. The agents he hadn’t recognized were new heavies, previous tourists brought in to fill the hole Glory had left behind. Wasn’t really sure he liked or trusted them, but it wasn’t like he got to assemble his team. They waited for the all-clear, and sh*t, nothing in his entire life had ever taken longer. He couldn’t sit still. Sure, he was the professional here. The new heavies were holding their guns right-side-up, but that was about all they had going for them. Out of the whole team, he and Lola were the only two with real combat experience, as far as he knew. But if he wasn’t pacing, he was jiggling his leg. And if he wasn’t doing that, he was tapping his fingers. And if not that, he was looking over Tinker Tom’s shoulder, trying to figure out if any of the words or symbols on the computer screen meant anything. Desdemona watched him as she moved through the catacombs, clearly annoyed.

Lola was alone. Anything could be happening right now. Anything. Deacon offered him a smoke, and he puffed the cigarette down to the filter talking to Deacon about catacombs. And how this place was a mess. Are they even really equipped for a frontal assault? And why wasn’t Deacon coming? How many people did they really need to defend the base? Realistically. Why couldn’t Carrington come? What if someone needed medical attention? Deacon had an answer for everything, and he would have appreciated the man letting him bitch for what felt like a year, but he was too busy ranting.

When they finally had the go-ahead, he exhaled a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding and stepped up to be relayed right behind Desdemona. Tom looked at him, nodded, handed him a small black box, and in a couple of keystrokes, sent him on his way. He had never been relayed before, and the process was terrifying. How Lola had learned to relay in and out of the Institute so easily was beyond him. It was impossible to describe with words—blinding blue light, this weird prickling on his skin, like lightening was about to strike, weightlessness, and then, in a blink, boom! You’re there. Gravity sets back in like a lead blanket falling over you from the sky. When they landed at the Institute, he hit the floor hard, as did pretty much everyone in their party. He was damn lucky he didn’t throw up. At least two of the heavies did. The little box in his fist was smoking, and he dropped it before it burned him.

Lola was waiting with a synth, gun in hand, blood on her cheek. Only took him a half a panicked heartbeat to realize it wasn’t her blood. There were three bodies tucked into the corner of the room. Brushed aside neat-and-tidy to prepare for their coming. He wanted to pat her down—make sure nothing was broken or bleeding before they got started. But they had to get moving, and she wasn’t walking funny or holding her shoulders wrong, so she was probably fine. Probably. Besides, he was jumping the gun. They hadn’t even seen the real combat yet. He followed on her heels as she led them down into an abandoned wing of the Institute.

The first stretch was easy. Some synths and defense systems, but they made it through the first few rooms pretty much alright. They were winding through narrow hallways and back rooms that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years, with a couple of synths here and there. Mostly simple stuff. It was when they got down a few floors to this room filled with old terminals that they ran into the most resistance. There was an office with a blown-out window before the room, so he stopped there and dropped behind the desk to keep an eye out for synths. Lola and two of the heavies walked out into the room, guns up. Des and the rest of the heavies were lagging pretty far behind. Patchy cover on two sides of a narrow aisle—they would be bottle-necked if they walked straight through. There were a few computer stations up on platforms on both sides of the room, and some big industrial machines, but they would have to walk single-file down that center aisle and turn a corner to keep moving forward.

Lola tucked herself behind an old monitor and fired a warning shot to draw any enemies out. And draw them out she did. The Institute released the hounds and synths filed in along the far wall, already shooting. He used a lull to pull himself up over the desk and advance to the wall facing the room. He could shoot through the broken window. Could barely see where the f*ckers were in the dark, though. He pressed flat to the wall. One of the Railroaders found cover further up the aisle out of sight, but Lola and the other heavy ended up staying on the cleared-out ground in the middle, with Lola closer to the right and the other heavy up on one of the computer stations to the left.

He saw it coming, but it happened so fast that he couldn’t do anything but slide down the wall, and keep his damn head down. The heavy not taking cover threw a f*cking grenade. Rookie sh*t. With the constant fire coming from across the room, there was no way in hell that grenade would make it five feet into the air before getting shot down. Sure enough—boom! He gave it a minute before scoping out the damage. Ears were ringing—couldn’t tell if he was hearing gunshots or not. From the look things when he popped back up, the grenade hadn’t gotten two full feet from the poor bastard before it had gone off and taken the heavy’s arm. Worse than that, though, was the guy’s face—so loaded up with shrapnel that he had to be blind, and there was little to no chance of survival. Not dead yet, but the guy was a goner. His remaining hand groped the bloody stump where his arm had been. He’d seen guys go like this. Confusion was always first. Then the pain set in.

MacCready tore his eyes away to reassess. He was by himself on this side of the wall. He’d been covering Lola…who had been relatively close to that dipsh*t heavy. sh*t. No sign of her. Anywhere. No body, which was good? But no Lola. And he couldn’t hear the sound of her gun firing back at the synths who were pulling themselves up off the ground across the room. f*ck. f*ck. Panic took over and he sprinted through the door, dodging fire until he was up on one of those terminal stations, behind a monitor. The synths were going to keep coming. He shot down a couple more, combing the aisle for her. Nothing. There was a lull, but he could hear footsteps pounding down the hall a little ways away. He had a second, but not much longer.

He had been the only one looking out for her. The rest of the team had a hard enough time looking out for themselves. If that grenade had knocked her out, she could be lying face-down just waiting to get shot. She could be—

The other heavy popped her head up on the other side of the desk to his right side, glanced around in a panic, and then ducked back down. MacCready whispered over to her before poking his head up (so she didn’t shoot it off). She was down on the ground, a little lower than the platform he’d run up onto. His heart stopped when he pulled himself over the desk separating them and saw a flash of long auburn hair on the ground.

Lola.

He dropped down from the monitor, pushed past the heavy (Fixer? Maybe Fixer? Didn’t matter right now) and scrambled over to Lola. She was limp, leaking blood from her hairline down, and covered in grime. He was in ten different places at once, fingers fumbling over her head, but he just wasn’t sure where to f*cking start. Was she even breathing? All that armor and he couldn’t tell.

He must have said something out loud, but his ears were still ringing from that grenade, and he had no idea if there were actual real words coming out of his mouth, or if he was just making choking sounds.

“Sir? Sir!” The heavy (definitely Fixer—the one who’d been talking about having a drink back at HQ while they were waiting to be relayed in) “She’s okay. Got her out in time. She fell pretty hard though. ‘Prolly knocked some screws loose, yeah?”

He nodded but the words still didn’t make sense all the way. It was like his brain just couldn’t keep up.

“You should Stim her, yannow?” Fixer poked her head up again to scan, and then ducked back down. He glanced around real quick and realized that they were close to the hallway Lola had been looking for, at the end of the aisle. There was a wall of terminals and monitors jutting up about seven feet high, acting as a barrier between them and the hall. In front of them, facing the middle aisle, was a conveyor belt that sat at about waist-height. Good cover—he could push Lola into the corner created by the conveyor belt meeting the terminals, and so long as she stayed on the ground, he could stand over her and shoot till they were safe.

He started setting her up in the corner when Fixer ducked back down. “Incoming. Gotta push ‘em back.”

Fixer covered them while MacCready dug through her pack for Stims. They had brought two whole lunchboxes full of chems—he knew she had Stimpacks. He injected the Stimpack first, and when she didn’t wake up immediately, he shot her up with Med-ex and forced her to swallow a Buffout tablet. Still nothing. He pushed her hair back and tried to wipe away some of the blood, but it just smeared and sh*t, that had to be her blood. What had Lucy said about head wounds? Was it that they bled worse than they were, or that they were worse than they bled? sh*t.

He smacked her cheek a few times and shook her and f*cking finally her eyelids fluttered open and he doubled over holding her close because holy f*ck for a minute he thought she was really gone. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, like she was gonna say something but lost the words. Took a minute for her to shake the fog in her head, but the chems were working, and she was lucid before he even had to explain. She rubbed her head with the heel of her hand and grabbed for her gun (Fixer must have scooped that up too when she’d saved Lola, and he would have to thank her for that later).

MacCready took his place beside Fixer and took aim. Lola was up on her knees and started to load her gun, but he shoved her back behind the terminals, just in case. He switched out his rifle for the shotgun on his back. They were too f*cking close. She had told him once that Gen One’s weren’t programmed to feel pain and would keep charging even if they were taking fire. If the synths kept pushing closer, their cover wouldn’t mean sh*t. Now he understood why the other heavy (who was almost definitely dead by now) was so tempted to throw a grenade. They were ridiculously outnumbered, and the synths just kept marching. Where the hell was Dez? And the other three heavies?

Fixer was managing to hold her own. He was taking out as many as he could. He could feel Lola shift beside them, and suddenly she was shooting over his head and if he wasn’t so busy keeping the synths out of their corner, he would’ve screamed at her to get the f*ck back down. They were thinning the synths out, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough. That was when Dez and the other heavies made a surprise appearance, catching the synths off guard and giving him, Lola, and Fixer some room to breathe. The added assist made a difference—within minutes they were able to mop up the rest and regroup.

Fixer took Professor, Charmer, and Whisper aside to tell them about the heavy who’d got himself blown up. It had been Bullseye. All the new heavies had come together and been briefed while he and Lola were off taking out the Prydwyn, but war built close bonds, and Professor actually started crying when Fixer told him how it had gone down. If he wasn’t so busy making sure Lola was good to go, he woulda felt worse about it. Lola grinned up at him, but it wasn’t a happy grin, and it didn’t touch her eyes.

“What.” He didn’t mean to sound so flat with her, but he’d been so f*cking scared and his throat was tight and he just wanted to push forward and get out as fast as humanly possible.

“Made it this far. Just a little further.”

“A lot further. We’re gonna have to walk all the way home after this.”

“Sure, Mac.” She leaned her head back against the terminal behind her.

When they were back on their feet, they dropped through a hatch, and one door later, found themselves in this perfect, pristine lab. All white and gleaming with little tufts of green that—holy hell—were some of the healthiest looking plants he had ever seen in his life. Clean, spacious, warm. There were these animals behind glass on the far wall. Lola had told him about them, and he had read about them once, but they looked so different than the pictures. Gorillas. And people. Unarmed doctors in clean lab coats. They were up in the Institute for real now. One of the scientists called Lola “Ms. Director,” and the other yelled out “Director Clover!” They all knew her. All of them.

They fought through the lab and out into the atrium. She had told him that there were a few different wings, but that pretty much everyone would hide away and hope that the synths would be able to take them out in the atrium. If he thought the fight in the old wing had been a mess, this was absolute chaos. More synths had come—some on their side, and some not, and it was pretty hard to tell which was which. And what was this party missing? f*cking Coursers. Oh, wait, it wasn’t missing Coursers, because they were crawling up out of the f*cking floor tiles to take turns kicking the sh*t out of them.

He hadn’t noticed one coming for him—damn thing used a stealthboy, got close, and when he felt the arm around his neck, it was too late. Dropped his damn gun in surprise like an idiot, and clawed at the face over his shoulder. Coursers could feel pain (or at least sense damage) because when MacCready’s finger caught an eye, the Courser knocked out his knees. He slipped and after a minute there were big black blotches all across his vision and he couldn’t get his feet under him or pull the arm from his throat, and oh sh*t was it ironic that Lola thought she was going to die and here he was, choking, pinned down by a Courser.

Duncan flashed into his mind before the arm suddenly dropped him and he fell forward onto the floor. It was a minute before he was back up, but when he rolled onto his back and pushed up enough to see, he found Lola on the Courser’s back, legs around its middle and one arm around its neck. She punched the thing in its head a couple of times before MacCready grabbed his gun, took aim, and shot out the Courser’s knee. She let go when it fell, and he finished the job. Her knuckles were bleeding when she picked her Railroad Rifle up off the floor.

“Thanks Mac. Didn’t want to shoot it. Could have hit you.”

She didn’t even wait for him to respond before turning back towards the elevator in the middle of the room, where two Coursers and a handful of synths had pinned Desdemona, Fixer, and Charmer. Whisper had the same plan, and the two of them unpinned Des. After that, they were each on their own. He tried to keep an eye on Lola, but most of the time it was impossible to do that and not get shot, so he stuck to what he knew, looked for cover, and dropped as many as he could. Institute citizens ran through the crowds. A dad scooped up his daughter from under a table and ran her up a stairwell and out of sight. He didn’t aim for anyone who wasn’t armed and shooting. Seemed like most of the Railroad was on the same page, though there were still civilian bodies, like there always were. Things slowed down after a bit and Desdemona radio’d Tinker Tom. Tinker came over the speakers and told them to get to the Director’s terminal and unlock the Advance Systems department to get to the reactor. Lola had told him they’d need to blow it from inside.

“We need to hold the concourse,” one of the synths shouted. Desdemona nodded and looked over at Lola. Of course. They needed to hold the concourse, so Lola should go on ahead alone and get them into Advanced Systems. Great.

Lola didn’t question it—just nodded and headed over to the glass elevator in the middle of the room. He sprinted over to her side. She barely waited for the doors to close around him before hitting the button, and then they were sinking beneath the concourse. They landed in what looked like an access hallway, and then got into another elevator without speaking. He grabbed her hand and she squeezed his so hard he thought she’d break all his fingers. When he looked over, she was shaking.

The elevator let them out and he scanned the room. No one. She dropped his hand and ran over to what looked like an observation tank—whole corner of the room boxed in by thick glass walls. Inside was a cot and some children’s toys. She pressed her face against the glass and then closed her eyes tight.

“Not here. So he’s in Systems.”

“Who?”

She jumped like she had forgotten he was there. Shook her head. Took him a second but, of course. Synth Shaun. They kept him here, like a lab rat. He rubbed her arm as she sucked in a few deep breaths.

“My son will probably be here. Just so you know. He spends a lot of time in bed now.”

“Okay.” He didn’t know what else to say to that.

“We just need his password. And he probably wouldn’t try fighting us.”

“Alright.”

“He probably sent all his guards out to fight us in the concourse too. He’s practical like that.”

“Lola, if you tell me how to get the password, I can—”

“No.” She wouldn’t look up at him. He squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not doing this for me, RJ. He’s my son.” She shrugged him off, secured his hat on her head, and started around the corner and up the stairs to what must be Shaun’s quarters. Like always, he was right behind her.

Chapter 50: Goodbyes

Chapter Text

Shaun looked small and feeble compared to the man who had torn Lola apart after Bunker Hill. And he was bitter. MacCready almost couldn’t believe his ears. After all she had done—tearing apart the Commonwealth, fighting certain death daily, all those tears. After everything, this was what she got in return. An angry, dying sociopath who hated her. She had to beg him to give her the access code for his terminal so she could get as many people out as possible. She even offered to carry his sorry ass out on her back, and he just glared at her from his deathbed.

Fine. Let the f*cker rot, so far as MacCready was concerned.

Lola kept apologizing. She wasn’t crying, which he supposed was good? Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard because her son was being awful? But she had that blank look on her face again that suggested otherwise.

She made it as far as the end of the stairs before looking out around the stark white room and stopping dead in her tracks.

“Lola, what—”

“Tell Des about the reactor. She’ll be able to find it.” She rubbed her arm. "And when you see a little red-headed boy on your way out, grab him. Bring him back to Preston. He'll know what to do."

“Why? Forget something?”

“I’m staying, RJ.”

He was so caught off guard he laughed. A weird little noise that sounded scared even to his own ears. She couldn’t mean it. They had done the impossible here. They had fought through the belly of the beast, called off the Institute’s defenses, and were two steps away from the goddamned finish line.

“Lola, come on.”

She bit her lip.

“Lola?” When he grabbed her hand, she pulled out of his reach very gently. She wouldn’t look up at him—just kept staring at the floor.

“I’m going to go back upstairs and sit with him.” Her voice broke.

“Lola, you can’t. The reactor will blow.” He grabbed her arm, but she just kept moving back out of his reach, until she was backed against the wall.

She shook her head. “He grew up thinking he didn’t have a mom. That he was an orphan.” She spoke through the hand over her mouth. “They didn’t tell him about me.”

“Lola—”

“He grew up his whole life thinking I was dead and he was alone. Didn’t even tell him my name. Or who I was. Or who he was.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “I just found him, RJ. My baby. I can’t leave him alone again.”

What if he couldn’t pull her out of this one? He could see it now. Lola standing by Shaun’s bedside while he tore her apart till the reactor turned them both to ash. She was going to do it. All this time, he thought she’d just been saying they wouldn’t make it, when she had really been trying to tell him she didn’t want to.

He’d lost Lucy in an underground tunnel. Why not Lola too?

“When you see Deacon and Preston, tell them Shaun shot me.”

He had to clench his teeth. Ball his fists up. Tense every muscle in his body to keep from losing it. Felt short of breath suddenly, like his lungs weren’t working. “You can’t ask me to do this, Lola.”

She sucked in a breath and started towards the stairs and he didn’t even think to do it but he was there, holding onto her so tight he could feel the ridges of her spine against his chest and the expanding of her ribs as she sucked in a deep breath, and the hiccupping sobs that spasmed through her.

Something parenting had taught him and Lucy: only one person is allowed to fall apart at a time. Take turns melting down, so that at least the other person is still in the right headspace to make the tough calls. He had worked damn hard to keep it together for Lola all this time, through the long nights, and the destructive behavior, and the pain. Didn’t always succeed, but he tried like hell, and that mattered. He was good at it. And sh*t, no matter how bad he wanted to, he couldn’t keep it together for another f*cking second.

There were a lot of words coming out of his mouth, and not all of them made sense. And he didn’t think for a second that she could distinguish any of them. But by the end he was begging—please don’t go. Don’t do this. Please. There wasn’t a scrap of pride left to feel bad about any of it. If he had to beg, borrow, and steal to get her home, he’d do it.

“RJ?”

“Lola, we need you—”

“RJ—”

“I need you—”

“Robert!” She turned around in his arms and buried her face in his coat. He was still wrapped around her and he sure as sh*t wasn’t letting go if it meant leaving her to burn.

Every breath stuttered through his ribs. He held her head in his hand and felt where the fabric of his lucky cap end and the soft stretch of her hair begin. Lucky. He’d always thought she’d been so lucky to have survived. Lucky to have made it from Sanctuary all the way to his doorstep in Goodneighbor. Lucky to have made the right friends at the right times who would help her get to where she needed to go. But she’d made her own luck. He hadn’t noticed because he was too busy trying to figure out how she managed, but every step of the way, every setback, she’d taken what she’d been handed and figured out how to make life work for her no matter how bad it hurt. Really, who could blame her for being tired?

“I couldn’t protect him, RJ.”

He squeezed tighter.

“I couldn’t protect him, and now I can’t even stay with him before he—” She let the sentence trail. Couldn’t say the word “dies.” But it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t staying. She had just told him she wasn’t staying.

“He isn’t your son anymore.”

“I know.”

That was the first time she had really admitted it. Admitted that he wasn’t her responsibility—and in a way, wasn’t her fault. When she breathed out, she was lighter. Calmer. He kissed her temple, more f*cking grateful than he had ever felt in his life. She swiped away tears with the flat of her hand. When she finally let go, she glanced back at the stairs to Shaun’s room one last time, before heading back out to the concourse to lead the charge.

They strolled into Systems without breaking a sweat now that she’d thrown the Institute into emergency evac and unlocked all the doors. On her way through Systems, she stopped in a side room, taken over by another glass observation tank with a cot and a research terminal. The observation room was filled with toys—grimy teddy bears, old blocks, toy cars and trucks, a couple of scorched books. Wasteland things. Things that looked strange in this gleaming, clean, sterile room. Things she must have brought in for synth Shaun. She was clicking away on the terminal at the desk.

“Where is he?” He got it. She was looking for the child synth. It took her a minute to reply. Desdemona did not wait for her and took her team ahead.

“They shut him down.” She swallowed whatever it was she wanted to say, and added “Terminal says that in case of emergency, they shut him down for good. Can’t have a proto-type running around, I guess.”

She just couldn’t f*cking win.

They pushed through a couple of doors into the reactor room—fought their way through another wave of turrets and synths, and there it was. The reactor—this huge metal drum with a whirring blue light. He was on the stairs, covering, when she slid the door open and stepped inside. Inside the reactor. Which was on. Christ. He turned tail and sprinted up the last few stairs to reach the reactor, but she was just about touching the core of the f*cking thing. He slammed on the control pad to open the door as she secured the bomb Tom had given her. Didn’t wait for her to stand back up—he grabbed her by the collar and dragged her ass back out of the reactor chamber.

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“Lola, fu—Lola. Take this.” He fought a RadAway I.V. out of his pack and jabbed the needle into her arm. The Railroad rounded up the last few synths while they waited for the chems to help flush her system. She leaned over to the side and threw up over the edge of the platform. RadAway always made her nauseous. When the area was clear, the rest of the Railroaders headed back to the relay pad where they’d landed. Tom was already relaying out synths—their party sounded like it would be the last to evacuate. She and MacCready gave it a minute before following. She was still in sorry shape.

The walk back through the destroyed Institute was eerily quiet. A lot of the rogue synths were either gone or damaged beyond repair. One managed to shoot her left shin, but they only had to put down a few before they were back in the elevator and on their way up to the relay room.

When they made it to the rendezvous point, only their original party (minute Bullseye and now Professor, who they must have lost along the way) was left. He was supporting some of Lola’s weight, but other than that, they were in the clear. He almost had her out of here in one piece, and if that wasn’t a miracle, he couldn’t tell you what one looked like.

They started to walk forward when they noticed Desdemona and Tinker Tom, heads bent close together in conversation. Des looked up to say something to Lola, but a smaller voice reached them first.

“Mom? Mom! Please don’t leave me!”

Well whaddya know. Spoke too soon about that whole miracle thing.

Lola’s breath caught. When she and MacCready rounded the terminal station, standing at Desdemona’s heel was this little red-headed kid who couldn’t have been more than ten. Smattering of freckles across his round cheeks. Warm brown eyes—Nate’s eyes, but cat-like in shape, like Lola’s. There was no mistaking it—this was definitely her kid. But she had told him before that synth Shaun didn’t know Lola was his mother, and he saw Lola freeze up, two steps away from the little boy.

“Why did you call me that?” Her voice was uncomfortably calm. Even.

Confusion flickered across Shaun’s face. His eyes kept darting around the room in blind fear. Must have been a hell of a day for the kid. “Because you’re my mom, right?”

Lola’s hand flew up to her mouth as she dropped to her knees, nodding.

“Of course, of course baby. Momma’s here.” She pulled him into a hug. Her arms wrapped around the kid so that he couldn’t have pulled away even if he wanted to. She stroked his hair and he could see her shake head to toe. Shaun begged her not to leave him. He was in a full-blown panic; his fists clenched her coat. He was crying and scared, and MacCready understood completely how Lola believed this was her son. He had lived with a bunch of kids at Lamplight, and this is how kids behaved. When Shaun rubbed his eyes with his fists, he could imagine Duncan doing the same. Synth Shaun was so human.

“I found him on my way down here,” Desdemona said as she signaled Tinker Tom with one hand. “Wanderer, we have to go. Now.”

Lola stood up, but kept ahold of Shaun’s hand. “I’m not leaving him.”

“Into the chamber, then!” Desdemona shuttled her team onto the relay pad, practically throwing Fixer, who was pretty badly injured, over her shoulder. Desdemona was acting like the building was already coming down around them—jittery and curt. “Tom, get us out of here!”

Lola shuffled Shaun forward, but Desdemona grabbed him by the collar and pushed him out of the chamber and towards Tom at the last minute. Lola lunged for Shaun right as MacCready turned to follow her, but it was too late, and the blinding light zapped them out of the building.

Chapter 51: Mushroom Cloud

Chapter Text

When they landed, he found himself on all fours, struggling to get back up. In fact, the only person who landed with any grace was Lola. She jolted up and made it to where Desdemona had just barely righted herself in less than a second. She shook Desdemona by the shoulders.

“Where is he?”

“Who?”

Mac looked around on the rooftop. The Railroad agents looked like they might shoot Lola if she didn’t stand down immediately. Guns up, fingers in trigger-guards, the whole nine yards. Desdemona waved them back with one hand, without ever looking away from Lola.

“Shaun.” Lola was grinding her teeth so loud he could hear her from where he was standing. “We were supposed to relay him out with us. Why did you push him out? He was supposed to come with us. Des, where is he? Did Tinker leave him? Des, where did you send Shaun?”

Lola dropped Desdemona, her hand on her PipBoy. Ready to relay back in. Mac wasn’t sure if he should stop her, or keep his eyes on the four Railroad heavies who looked like they were two seconds from opening fire. Lola’s eyes were huge in her face, darting back and forth, bouncing off each face around her as if she didn’t recognize a single one of them. When she finally landed on him, she locked eyes as if she was trying to tell him something. He couldn’t tell if she was saying “cover me” or “goodbye.” He stepped forward, but she backed up.

“I said stand down, dammit!” Desdemona had read his mind. The guns dropped. “Wanderer, your son is back at Railroad HQ. I told Tinker to take him back there before you saw him, regardless of whether or not you wanted to adopt him. I thought that might be safer than…” Desdemona looked out over the horizon.

“You aren’t lying? Are you sure he made it?”

“Tom knows how to use the relay, and went with him. I am certain he is alright.”

“Radio him.”

“What?”

“Radio. Tom. I want to hear him. I need to know he is safe.”

“Wanderer, I don’t—”

“Call him now, or I knock this detonator off the roof.”

She had the detonator in her hand before he could point out that this would be suicide. They would gun her down before she could huck it over the rooftop, and they all knew it. If Desdemona stopped humoring her for even a second, they would fill Lola full of holes and blow the Institute up without skipping a beat.

He slung his gun back over his shoulder and held his hands up over his head in surrender. Slowly, he made his way over to her side.

“Lola, hey.” He reached for her free hand—the one that wasn’t wrapped around the detonator that would blow the Institute to hell. “They have no reason to hurt Shaun.”

“You saw my son.” She turned to him. “You know what that kid became. They could kill him for that.”

“We would never harm a child.” Desdemona’s voice was even, but she was fiddling with the dials on her radio, trying to get a signal to Tom back at HQ.

“I can’t let anyone take Shaun away again. Mac. You saw what happened. I need to know, Mac. Please.” She squeezed his fingers hard, hands clammy. There was no moving Lola unless she wanted to be moved. And if they were going to be gunned down by a bunch of Railroad agents after surviving all that, well f*ck, they might as well do it together.

“Everybody stand the f*ck down.” Desdemona slammed her radio down on a crate and her agents dropped their guns. Lola didn’t flinch. “I am looking for a signal.”

It was a tense few minutes. No one moved; no one breathed. All he could hear was the static from the two-way radio as Desdemona twisted the knobs back and forth. Finally, she reached a semi-clear station.

“Desdemona to Tinker Tom. Tinker Tom, can you hear me?”

Garbled, but it was unmistakably him. “That I can, Dez. What’s happening?”

“Where is Wanderer’s son?”

“Sitting with—”

“Put him on now, please.”

Some shuffling, and then a child’s “hello?”

“Shaun?” Lola let go of MacCready and stumbled over to the radio. She held it close to her face and with both hands. “Shaun, are you okay, sweetie?”

“I’m okay, mom. When will you get here?”

Lola looked at Desdemona.

“Lo?” This time, it was a familiar male voice over the radio. “It’s Dee. Keep cool. I’ll babysit. You just wrap up and get here in one piece, okay?”

Lola nodded, which was unhelpful given that there was no way for Deacon to see her. But the man knew her well enough, and after a minute said “Dee out.”

Lola held the detonator out in her palm for Desdemona, but Dez pushed it back at her.

“Wanderer, you have brought us this far. You have more than proven yourself.” She said it fiercely, as if trying to pretend that Lola hadn’t just threatened to undo everything they had fought for. “Will you do the honors?”

She glanced back over her shoulder for one last look at the world as it stood before she came in and turned it upside-down.

He curled an arm around her shoulders and pulled her away from the railing as the mushroom cloud bloomed up from the ground in a bulb, and then collapsed in a wave of grey over the Commonwealth. The air was hot, like they were standing too close to a campfire. Tiny bits of dust and grit rained down on them from the sky. Got in their clothes, their hair, under his nails when he clenched her coat in his fist. And then it was done. Over. Gone. Wiped from the face of the earth. Blown to f*cking smithereens.

Lola leaned her head on his shoulder, eyes closed.

It must have been five minutes before anyone so much as moved. The synth she’d helped was on about freedom, and the Railroaders were already gossiping—did you see it, can’t believe we did it, can you imagine—

Desdemona watched Lola until Lola turned to face her. She was heaping honors and offloading some new chore before the dust had even settled—work’s not done yet, of f*cking course!—when he intervened. Grabbed her by the wrist and said, “hey, let’s go pick up Shaun.” Lola looked up at him like he had just pulled a rainbow out of his pocket.

They took a different route than Des and her crew did. The Railroaders decided to crack open the bottle of sh*t vodka Fixer had stashed in her bag and spend the night up in the tower. It was almost dark as-is. Still, Lola couldn’t have made it out of there any faster if she had sprinted. Turns out, they were on the roof of the building where that Institute scientist had taken them out to murder some Brotherhood soldiers. That was, of course, a cheery reminder, as they took the elevator down to the first floor and the doors opened up to some very old, rotted Brotherhood corpses. They were barely out the front doors when she doubled-over a Gunner barrier and vomited impressively. At first, he was worried that she’d gotten radiation poisoning or something from stepping into the reactor. But her Pip-Boy wasn’t ticking, and the little Lola cartoon on the screen seemed fine. Seemed fine. Supposed she wouldn’t really be fine till she had little Shaun back, and the only thing he could to help her there was get her to HQ.

He settled for holding her hair back for now.

Chapter 52: Reunion

Chapter Text

They made it back to HQ in record time. She was trying to keep calm, but threw open the doors like she expected to have to fight her way in and sprinted down the stairs into the catacombs. Shaun glanced up from his game of checkers with Deacon, and came running over to Lola when she stopped dead in the middle of the room. People were milling about, doing their own thing, and here was Lola in the middle of all this, frozen. Shaun stopped short in front of them as if embarrassed about how he’d jumped up so fast. He nudged her forward with his shoulder.

And then, like she had never gutted someone with a holopoint round or toppled any empires, she was Lola the mom. The gun slid out of her hand and hit the floor with a clatter.

“Mom! I was so worried! I never thought I would see you again.”

She dropped to her knees in front of him and stroked his hair and cried. Tried to hide it, and maybe Shaun didn’t notice, but everyone at HQ did. Railroad agents peeked at her from whatever they were pretending to be doing. The doctor watched her over the shoulder of a synth he was patching up. Tinker Tom smiled from behind his terminal. Drummer Boy grinned through a screen of cigarette smoke.

When she pulled back to look at his face, he asked about the Institute. In the end, seems like Tom had told him all about it (and talked her up as a hero while he was at it). Shaun asked if she was going to leave him, and she shook her head. Reassured him without even having to think about it. Of course she would stay with him. Bring him to a new home. Had some friends for him to meet, and his own room, and some toys. Plenty of room to run. A few dogs and some stray cats to play with. Shaun threw his arms around Lola’s neck and after all the struggle to get Shaun, it looked like she finally really had him.

“I can’t wait to see it, mom! Are there other kids? Can I play outside? I really want to play outside.” He was practically bouncing. Lola kissed his forehead and pushed hair from his face. He was older than Duncan had been when he had left him with Miri, but the look in his eyes when he saw his mom was familiar. Warm and full of awe. There was a sharp stab just up under the ribs when he thought about his own boy, so many miles away, recovering with Miri and Fawkes. Maybe even Butch, if he’d visited from Rivet City. He liked to picture Duncan surrounded by (heavily armed, very protective) friends. Didn’t bring him a bit of comfort, though, when it hit him that he couldn’t be there to hug his son. It would be a six-month trip to even get Duncan, and that wasn’t considering the safety risks. He rubbed the back of his neck.

When Lola finally let go of him, Shaun handed her a holotape, swearing that he hadn’t listened to it. She sent Shaun off to pack up his things, and he darted around HQ as if he’d lived there for years. The second he was out of earshot, she marched into the back room, hid herself around a corner, and listened to the tape. It was Shaun—human Shaun.

MacCready wanted to walk away. Maybe give her some time? But he waited with her. Listened to the whole thing through. Adult Shaun had wiped little Shaun’s memories and installed Lola as his mother. Kept his basic personality, but rewrote a few things quick when he realized he was going to die—must have done it only a day or two before they busted in there and blew the place up. The recording begged her to take care of synth Shaun and give him the childhood human Shaun never got, as if that was something she might not be willing do. For her kid, he knew nothing about her. She pocketed the tape, and then stared at the wall for a minute, not breathing. When she finally sucked in a breath, it was shaky, and before he knew it, she turned into his arms, grasping his coat in her fists. He stroked her hair. It was going to be a rough recovery, but she had little Shaun, the struggle with the Institute was over, and she had a home to return to.

She pulled herself back together after a minute. Sniffling, but through a watery smile. When he stroked away a tear with the pad of his thumb, she even laughed, and the sound was so relieved and warm that he just wanted to—

“Mac?”

“Hmm?”

“I need to talk to Deacon. Do you think you could keep Shaun busy? Just for a bit?”

He kissed her forehead in response. He didn’t mean to. Didn’t even think about it, really. But she laughed in response. That warm laugh again, like she was just so shocked and happy that she was alive. A lot of sh*t had gone down in the last few days, but no matter where they stood now, he was at the very least still her friend. It felt damn good to hear her laugh.

He watched her walk across the room to where Deacon leaned against a wall. She threw her arms around him and he squeezed her tight. Her hand came up to her mouth and he could see her crying again. Too much had happened in the past few days, and it hadn’t all processed yet. Deacon pat her on the shoulder and tipped his sunglasses down to look her in the eye. Seemed personal. Mac looked away to give them a minute.

He caught little Shaun (he would have to stop calling the kid that. His name was just Shaun now) on his way to his mother with a blanket full of stuff. The Railroad (most likely Deacon and Tinker Tom) had managed to pull together a set of clothes for Shaun that did not scream “Institute Experiment.” Some worn jeans, a t-shirt, and some sneakers. Even a couple of toys and some miscellaneous tech that Shaun didn’t seem to want to part with. Much better for walking across the wasteland than whatever weird thing they’d had the kid wearing when they’d found him.

“Hey, bud!”

“Hi, mister.” Shaun co*cked his head to the side, trying to figure MacCready out. Mac dropped down onto one knee so that he was about level with Shaun, rather than towering over him. “Do you know my mom?”

“I do. We’re going to take you home to Sanctuary, bud. Your mum built a whole town for you.” Well, not completely for Shaun, but mostly for him, at least.

Shaun’s eyes lit up, and all of his wariness was gone as questions came pouring out of him. Mac answered each question, one at a time. When Shaun asked if MacCready was going to live there too, he ruffled the kid’s hair gently rather than answer. Not sure on that one yet—dust still needed time to settle. He couldn’t help but imagine Shaun and Duncan, though. Shaun giving Duncan a piggy-back ride. The boys playing hide-and-seek around the corn field. Duncan asking Shaun to help him read a Grognak comic. Two brothers.

He knew that was a little much. After all, that wasn’t their relationship, he didn’t think. Besides, no real way to be sure what Lola would want now that everything was over. Hell, maybe she would just want him to go so that she could be with her family. They’d been through a lot and gotten real close, but fighting does things to people, and you won’t know where you stand with someone until the fight is all over. She’d been quiet the whole walk here, and hadn’t said anything about him living at Sanctuary with them. Maybe he would remind her too much of all the time she spent getting to this point. All the fighting. In fact, knowing how Lola handled things she didn’t want to remember, it was pretty likely that they’d make it back to safety, and he’d just up and leave for the Capitol Wasteland a couple days later, no real goodbyes or tearful kisses. Like good friends. And hell, maybe they’d see each other again someday.

Deacon came into his periphery and punched Shaun’s arm (gently, of course, or Lola would have clocked him). When Shaun scrambled to catch Deacon with his little fists, Deacon twisted out of the way, one hand on the boy’s head.

“Gotta be faster than that, kid.”

Shaun laughed and tried again, this time landing a gentle punch on Deacon’s side. Deacon pretended to double over with pain, choking and gasping. Shaun’s jaw hit the floor.

“Uncle Deacon! Are you alright! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!”

Uncle Deacon? Well, that was an interesting one.

Lola watched the whole thing over Carrington’s shoulder while he patched her up. When she was cleared, she marched right over to Deacon, who was wheezing, laying on all of the melodrama in his arsenal.

“He is teasing you, sweetie. And it’s not very nice.” She elbowed Deacon when he stood upright.

“Just messing with the kid, mom. He and I have had a lot of fun messing with people; isn’t that right, Shaun?”

Lola raised an eyebrow as Shaun glanced to Carrington. The doctor rolled his eyes. Deacon shrugged. Shaun cracked a very, very guilty smile. Deacon may have taught him a few tricks, but he definitely had not managed to teach Shaun to lie.

Deacon followed them up through the catacombs to say goodbye in the gutted church. Thankfully, Railroad agents had cleaned the place up a bit since they’d last been there, and all the Brotherhood corpses were out of sight.

Deacon shook his hand and muttered “take care of them” just low enough that Mac didn’t think Lola could hear. He nodded, and then tipped his cap. Deacon cracked a smile, and then crouched so that he was level with Shaun. Shaun was clearly trying to pretend he was not the hugging type—shuffling from foot to foot and shrugging a lot—so Deacon pulled the boy into a hug. Shaun hugged back and asked Uncle Deacon if he would visit. Of course he would. But, he’ll only visit in disguise, so Shaun is just gonna have to get good at figuring out who he is. Shaun asked if he would use their code word and Deacon grinned. Of course, little man. MacCready wanted to ask Shaun what in the hell the code word was, but now didn’t seem like the time.

Finally, Deacon stood up and looked at Lola. He handed her the packet of letters she had written before leaving, and she handed him back the one with his name on it. He tucked the letter into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Dee.”

“Lo.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, pal.”

She hugged him close and he pat her shoulder. When they broke apart Deacon flashed her a smile, and Lola laughed again, just a little too loud and a little too short, like she was surprised. He clapped her on the back as they parted, and they were out the door and on their way home.

Mac carried Shaun on his back after the first couple of hours. The kid was not used to long walks. He alternated between walking and needing to be carried, but MacCready didn’t complain. Here and there, Lola carried Shaun, but she stumbled noticeably under his weight, so it was probably better if MacCready had him anyways. She was so wrapped up in anything Shaun said. She quizzed him for hours. He couldn’t blame her. Going that long without seeing your kid leaves a mark, especially when that kid turns sixty before you even realize that he’s been gone more than five minutes.

At nights, they huddled up with Shaun in between them, and walls or rocks on either side as much as possible. Hunkered down out of sight. Guns within reach, always making sure that there was an eye or two on the kid. They alternated on watch, all clumped together in whatever little nest they had made for the night—one person sitting, the other curled up with Shaun. A couple times when he woke in the night, he caught Lola running her fingers through Shaun’s hair, eyes wide and round as she traced his face with her gaze over and over. He recognized the gesture: memorizing. It was how he remembered the dimple on Duncan’s chin, even if he hadn’t seen Dunc in two years. Lola picked out a lock of her own hair and held it against Shaun’s head, comparing. Sure, adult Shaun looked just like Nate, but there was no denying that little Shaun was hers with that mop of deep red hair, curled up just a little bit at the ends.

Shaun tended to cuddle up with whoever was laying down, so when Lola sat up for watch, Shaun would roll and tuck himself up against MacCready like a little kid. He couldn’t help but wonder if Dunc would be the same way. If he was here, would he cuddle up to Lola like she was his new mom? In a way, she could be. And he could be Shaun’s new dad.

Maybe.

Those weren’t the signals he was getting. In fact, he wasn’t getting any signals either way. They hadn’t taken a breather to chat about it. And it felt strange to admit it, but he kinda wanted to settle in with Lola and Shaun and Duncan all together. Which was weird, because they were physical, right? Friends with benefits?

But who the hell was he kidding? He had never just been friends with Lola. It had never just been physical for him, no matter how uncomfortable that would be if she didn’t feel the same way. Felt good to be honest about it, even if that didn’t change anything.

She must have thought he was sleeping. It was her watch after all. He could barely make out her face in the dark, but he would know that silhouette anywhere. Her hand traced the shape of Shaun’s head, from his forehead over his ear.

He stretched out one arm over Shaun and rested a hand on Lola’s knee before finally closing his eyes.

Chapter 53: Homestead

Chapter Text

Things happened fast when they got home. Preston was waiting for them at the gates. He scooped Lola up into his arms and swung her around in the most enthusiastic hug MacCready had ever seen. For a minute, he just held her as if he did not expect to see her ever again. She gripped his sleeves and laughed—a real laugh, warm and bubbling up out of her like she couldn’t help herself. Preston was a big guy—tall, broad-shouldered, strong. He should have dwarfed Lola the way Danse did. But he didn’t. When Preston hugged Lola, she looked confident and strong. He may not always get along with Garvey himself, but he loved to watch Lola and Preston at work—two people just hell-bent on saving the world, even if it killed them both. Like superheroes, without all the goofy costumes. They really did bring the best out in each other. He wondered suddenly if other people thought that he and Lola brought the best out in each other. Looking at her and Preston, yeah, they looked right together like that, with Sanctuary in the background.

Then he noticed Shaun, who was holding his hand and looking up at him. A question.

“This is your mom’s friend, Preston.”

“Do you think he’ll like me?” Shaun’s huge eyes stared back up at him. He ruffled Shaun’s hair.

“You just wait, bud. He’ll love you.”

Lola grabbed Preston’s arm and led him over to where Mac was standing with Shaun. Preston nodded to Mac and Mac touched the brim of his hat in salute.

“Preston.” Lola let one hand sit on Shaun’s shoulder, and the effect was tangible—like he was watching the kid thaw out from being frozen. Shaun loosened up and sidled closer to his mom, letting his head rest against her side. “This is my son, Shaun.”

Preston dropped down onto one knee and made eye contact with Shaun.

“Shaun, I am happy to meet you.” It sounded stuffy to MacCready, but the way he said it was so warm that Shaun smiled back and said “I am pleased to meet you too, sir.”

“He's going to come live with us here at Sanctuary, Preston.”

Garvey beamed like the sun had just broken out across his face. Mac could see him a little better now. Hopeful Preston Garvey—hero of the Commonwealth, champion of the people, and someone who desperately just wanted to have a family—any kind of family to fight for.

“That’s great! He can play on the old playground equipment! We can build him a clubhouse!” Preston stood back up, still smiling. “We can set up a basketball hoop so that he can play! I’m sure we have some old sports equipment in salvage. I’ll have Mama Murphy look.”

Shaun relaxed a little in the face of Preston’s enthusiasm. Then again, who wouldn’t. You just couldn’t feel on-edge around a guy who got that excited about salvaged sports equipment.

She and Mac walked Shaun around Sanctuary, with Preston following a few steps behind. They all decided it would be best to start with the main stretch. She pointed out the refugee house (for travelers), and the new “apartment” shack she had built on the opposite lot. She showed him how to undo the lock on the gate that led down to the water filter and the river. She walked him past the market houses, the infirmary house, and then the bar she had set up in the open over one badly cracked foundation. He was especially in awe of all the settlers, who were breaking for their lunches right about now.

“They don’t have to wear uniforms?”

“Nope, and neither do you, sweetie.”

Beyond that was the common house and her home. She steered them past her home, promising that she would show him that later. Shaun held her hand the whole way, even as he pulled her in six different directions. He loved the meeting place she had just built next to the common house, and told Mac (practically shouted) that he had never seen anything like the tree in the cul-de-sac. Cait poked her head out from the rec center’s living room, and Lola walked Shaun over.

“Cait, meet my son, Shaun. Shaun, this is my friend, Cait.”

“Cait looks very stong.”

Cait, who looked a little leery of the kid at the start, warmed right up at that, telling him with no hesitation that hell yes, she is very strong. Strong, lured over when he thought he’d heard his name, also got an introduction, though he handled himself a little less gracefully.

“Small human is weak. Human should let Strong eat the small human.”

Mac put himself between Shaun and Strong, but Lola was already in the mutant’s face—tiny little Lola squaring up against a nine-foot wall of muscle and aggression. Her index finger stabbed into his chest as Shaun stared up at Strong in some combination of fascination and horror. Probably not the best introduction to mutants the kid could have, but at least his fear instinct was up and running properly. Meanwhile, Lola was in full “mom” mode. No, we do not eat the small human. He is my son. If you hurt the small human, this human will rip you apart. He had to admit, she could be pretty scary when she wanted to be.

He bumped Shaun gently, and Shaun looked up at him with a half-grin before bumping him back. Macready rolled his eyes and mimicked Lola, crossing his arms over his chest and gesturing behind her back. Shaun tried to stifle a giggle when Lola glanced back at them over her shoulder. After a long tirade, she convinced Strong that the small human was precious, and that he would become a big human and that he needed protecting. Strong didn’t quite seem to get it, but he would honor his leader. MacCready had at least managed to keep Shaun entertained the whole time.

After the ruckus with Strong, settlers started coming forward either to gawk at the General’s kid, or to introduce themselves. Mama Murphy hugged the boy and told him that she had been waiting quite a while to meet him. Marcy Long kept her distance, her own dead son too close to her memory, but Jun brightened up for the first time in months. Even Sturges dropped his hammer and came over to give Shaun a handshake, polite as always.

They finally made it to the pavilion at the very end of the neighborhood, where Lola had just set up a trading post for traveling merchants. That twitchy weapons dealer muttered something about mininukes before Lola then spun their little tour around. She let go of Shaun’s hand and started towards her house.

“I am going to set up your room here,” she said, gesturing to the front of the little blue house. “Why don’t you play in the yard or poke around with Preston a bit, and I will call you when your surprise is ready?”

She kissed Shaun’s forehead when he nodded. Garvey perked right up and told Shaun that they could go explore the barrier fences that hemmed in the whole settlement. Big, tall Preston Garvey and slim little Shaun made for a real nice picture—like father and son—as they set off towards the field.

MacCready remembered again that this wasn’t quite his place now that all ends of the bargain had been fulfilled, and holy hell did that hurt, all of the sudden. He had Duncan’s cure, and Lola had Shaun, as well as well-respected Preston Garvey, who would easily kill or die if it meant keeping Lola and Shaun from harm. They’d been close in the heat of the moment. They’d been real close. But she had a homestead all set up, and he just had this feeling that their deal was up and that some grimy merc like him didn’t really fit into her walled-off utopia. He didn’t fit this picture any more. It took him a minute to unglue his feet from the ground and follow Lola back to her little house.

Chapter 54: Toy Soldier

Chapter Text

She and MacCready hauled a bedframe and mattress into the kid’s tiny room, but she didn’t really say anything to him. Usually, the two talked nonstop.

The place still looked like a tomb to him when they set the bed down, and (he supposed) Lola must have agreed. She frowned down at the floor for a second, running her fingers over the rail of the crib. She breathed out through her nose. After a minute or so, she tugged the crib away from the wall. He got around on the other side and together, they maneuvered the old thing through the door, and set it in the small closet across from the bathroom. She couldn’t quite bear to get rid of it, but she looked happy to put the thing away. She draped a Minuteman flag over the doorway to act as a curtain. Couldn’t blame her for not wanting to look at it. He figured this must be her first real step in moving on.

“Thanks, Mac.” She leaned against the doorway and he followed behind, like always. Her fingertips were splayed out over an almost pristine vase, filled with carrot-flowers from the stream.

“No problem.”

She grabbed the blanket off their bed in the room across the hall and shook it out over Shaun’s. He helped her adjust the corners. She leaned back again and sighed.

“So, Boss?” The title felt a little weird in his mouth. Seemed kinda silly after everything. Now that they’d retrieved Shaun, she’d been a little distant with him. And sure, maybe she was just focused on bringing Shaun home, but if their thing was over…well, he wasn’t going to try and hold onto someone who didn’t want him around. His gut churned up like he was going to vomit. She co*cked her head to the side, hair spilling over her shoulder before she pulled it back with a strip of fabric she had in her pocket. “I, uh, now that this is all over, I can, uh, go if you want me to.”

He was already making a mess of this and he was what—ten words in? New record.

“I mean, you have your life here.” He watched her face, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking. “And we’re even on that contract.”

“Oh.”

She slumped down onto the bed, eyes trained on the hands in her lap. She shrugged. “Okay.”

He knew Lola inside and out, but he couldn’t read her right now to save his damn life. Disappointed? But resolved—they both knew this had to happen at some point. MacCready shifted from one foot to the other.

“The contract is up.” She raised her voice enough to startle him, even though she was still pretty quiet. She didn’t look up at him. “You’re right.”

“Okay.” He thrust both hands into his pockets, not totally sure what to do with them. “So I’ll—”

“Just.” She exhaled hard. “I thought. We.” She sounded like she was gagging on the words.

“What?”

She rubbed a hand over her face and finally looked up. Her eyes were wide and a little watery, her brows furrowed.

“Lola, what?” He sat down next to her, but she moved away.

“Your contract is up. I mean, I stopped paying you,” she puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled, “soooo long ago.”

He pushed his cap up off his head to rub at his scalp with both hands. “It is. We’re square.”

Now, he wasn’t so sure what he meant. Not like he had really wanted to leave. Just figured she would want him to. Moving on and all that. He wanted to grab her face and kiss her lips hard, but when he brought his hands up to reach for her, she pulled away just a little. He leaned back and mumbled “sorry.” There was a long moment of staring at the floor.

“I just thought you might want to.” He grasped for words, but every one sounded wrong. “Be done. Now. That you are home and have your son.”

She shrugged. “I don’t.”

“What?”

She looked back at him and this time, the way she looked—lips pressed together against something she wanted to say—winded him as thoroughly as if he’d been punched in the gut. She rolled her head back to look up at the ceiling, and then sighed.

“I don’t want to be done. I’m not sure where we…stand. But I don’t want you to go.”

If he couldn’t breathe before, he definitely couldn’t breathe now. His eyes dropped to his feet. He cleared his throat. That churning in his stomach came back—different now. Stronger and harder, and he was almost sure he would be sick.

“Look.” She turned to face him now. “If you want to go, I won’t stop you. But I don’t want…I don’t want to be done. I don’t want that. I don’t care if it’s selfish. And you don’t have to respond, but I love you. I’ve loved you for—” she let out a breath like she was deflating “oh God, a while.”

He tried to breathe but coughed instead, and had to pound on his own chest with his fist to catch a breath. He wanted to say something, but it was like all the words were gone. He couldn’t think of a single one that could tell her—

“If you go, I need to tell you—” She turned away as she spoke, and he could see it like it happened in slow motion. She started to get up, swiping tears from her cheeks.

Like usual, his body reacted before his brain caught up, and his arms shot up to pull her back to him. He kissed her like he was dying—clumsy teeth and tongues and he grabbed her face when she wrapped her arms around his neck. She fought to get closer, so he pulled her close, sucked in a deep breath, and kissed her hard again. When she finally pulled back, she closed her eyes.

“Where does this leave us?” Her voice was low and breathy.

“I love you, Lola.” He oughtta have said it to her ages ago. He wanted to smack his idiot self for all the times he hadn’t told her he loved her.

“So, then—”

“I’m staying.”

His knees were weak. She grabbed his face and they dropped onto the bed they had just arranged. He pulled her into his lap and she held him so tight he thought she’d never let go. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, could feel each pulse in his fingertips. Every breath she took fanned out over his lips and sent tiny shockwaves down his spine. He breathed her in. Something jabbed into his thigh when he shifted her in his lap and he remembered.

“Hold on a sec.”

He reached into his pocket, and his fingers found it without having to try. Like they always did. He pulled the little wooden soldier out of his pocket and ran his thumb over its cap and bayonet. He placed it in her palm and she turned it over, tracing the lines.

“It isn’t much. But it’s special…means a lot to me. Lucy gave this to me when we were younger. Before Duncan. I—uh—told her I had gotten work as a soldier and she made it for me.”

Lola turned the toy soldier over in her hands again and again, fingers memorizing the shape. Was it stupid? A little wooden soldier? Probably. She probably thought that was a stupid thing to give her. His eyes followed her fingers as she traced the brim of the little soldier’s hat. He wasn’t sure how she felt until she fished the chain around her neck out from under her shirt. The wedding band. Nate’s wedding band.

“I guess you know what this is.” She bit her lip. “I was holding onto it like he was going to come back and need it, but now. I just. I want you to have it.”

He wanted to make a joke. Oh Boss, are you proposing to me?! But yeah. She was. And he was too, in his own way. If he was being honest. So instead, he kissed her forehead and she squeezed his chest. And when she kissed him this time, he kissed her back like he was praying. Like she was something to be worshipped.

Finally, after a long moment of silence, she slipped the toy soldier into her pocket, and he twisted the ring onto his finger. A little big, but not so big it would fall off. She grinned, and then her grin turned into a smile, and she rested her forehead against his.

“Guess you’re stuck with me now, RJ.”

“Guess so.”

They sat there like that for a little bit—long enough where the leg she sat on fell asleep and pins and needles prickled at his skin. He couldn’t have cared less. When she finally shifted off of his lap, she crossed the room to scoop up a pillow she had set aside for Shaun’s bed. It sailed through the air when she threw it, and he caught the pillow, fluffed it, and placed it on the bed in between the one they had already dusted off, and a teddy bear she scrubbed in the bathtub. They set up a vase, some lamps, a globe, toys…finally, they tore down the wood panels that blocked off Shaun’s windows, and sunlight flooded the room. Blue rug, blue blanket, fresh air…much better for the kid. Her hair caught the sunlight and she was radiant and warm and he wrapped her up in his arms from behind until, laughing, she kissed his knuckles.

When she called Shaun back into his room, he spun around in circles, taking it all in. He pounced on the bed, ruffling the blankets she had just spent so long arranging, and knocking his pillow onto the floor. He rolled off the bed to pick up the pillow and almost knocked over the bedside table. He spun the globe, gave the Giddyup Buttercup Arlen Glass had left to Lola a tentative pat, and vaulted half-out the window to wave to Preston. Lola beamed, practically emanating sunshine. He had seen the little glass room Shaun had lived in at the Institute. Compared to that, Lola had just about given him his own kingdom. He hooked an arm around her waist as Shaun flopped back onto his new bed, arms outstretched.

They still had some settling in to do, but for the first time since Lucy died, MacCready felt at home.

Chapter 55: Slow Recovery

Chapter Text

After everything was said and done with the Brotherhood, the hardest thing was watching her talk to Danse. The morning after they had made it home, Preston knocked on their door bright and early to tell Lola that good ol’ Tin-Can-Man had gotten back from escorting a provisioner to Starlight, dropped his bags, and started packing. Said he was going to stay in the Commonwealth, but probably not at Sanctuary when Preston had asked.

Lola’s only question as she fought her way into her jeans and one of MacCready’s button-ups was “where can I find him?”

MacCready didn’t want to be a snoop, but he stayed within earshot, just in case. Lola had found Danse in one of the mostly empty bunkhouses and followed him outside to talk. No one was really even up yet. News hadn’t spread about the Prydwyn immediately, but by now the whole ‘Wealth knew, and Danse must have heard all about the massacre of the Brotherhood while on the road. Tin-can-man knew what she had done to his ex-brothers. Hell, she brought back Maxson’s coat and gun. Someone had let it slip that she’d even worn them on her way home.

“Please, just talk to me.”

He was decked out in full Power Armor, helmet sitting on top of his packed duffel. One foot out the door.

“I told you I wasn’t going to put up with your disregard for the Brotherhood’s rules.”

“After how they treated you?” He could hear it in her voice. She was going to start crying. MacCready jammed his hands into his pockets.

“That doesn’t matter.” Danse’s voice dropped a little lower. “I am glad that you found your son. But I cannot abide—” Long silence.

MacCready poked his head around the corner, in case things had escalated. They had not. Lola’s arms were wrapped around Danse’s Power Armor. Her head barely came up to his chest. Danse pat her back once, and then dropped his arms to his sides. He didn’t stop looking at her, though. Very slowly, he shrunk down until his head was only a little above hers. She adjusted her hug, but did not let go. He kissed her hair so softly.

Danse was an idiot. A grade “A,” certifiable idiot.

“You will always be one of my best friends.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She was definitely crying now.

His baffling loyalty to the Brotherhood aside, Lola was damn near his only friend in the world and he was willing to just throw that away. MacCready wanted to shake the idiot soldier till his teeth rattled. The only thing stopping him was the fact that Danse probably weighed at least four times as much as he did, and was over a foot taller in that metal suit. And the man was built like a f*cking steel tower.

Danse pulled himself out of Lola’s arms and she stood there, looking like she was going to teeter over.

“You are still one of my closest friends. But I cannot support you if this is what you do.”

“Danse—“

“What you did to the Brotherhood was sick, Lola. All those people. The scribes. Up in flames.”

Danse was too busy monologing to catch the way her shoulders slumped and her chest rose and fell fast, breath catching in her throat.

“Stay here?” Her voice cracked when she said it.

He thought for a moment. The man was a juggernaut. If he wanted to go, there would be no stopping him. He could make it on his own. But Lola? Lola had lost so many people. She had salvaged fifty-four dog tags from the wreak of the Prydwyn (scooping them up from the ash with shaking hands), and kept every single one. She had wept silently when the Institute had gone up in fire. One night, on the road home and after Shaun had fallen asleep, she recounted the names of the people she had helped kill (that she could remember), starting with Scribe Haylen and working her way through the Brotherhood, until she kicked off her list of Institute deaths with “Shaun. The real Shaun.” There had been nothing to say to that. Still wasn’t. But she had damn well suffered enough. He may have his gripes with Danse, but she would…If she lost Danse too…

It didn’t look promising. Danse grimaced as if she had jammed a knife in his wrist and twisted. She bit her lower lip hard, the nails of her right hand digging into the palm of her left. His shoulders squared and hers curled in around her. When a fresh wave of tears spilled down her chin, Danse finally cracked.

“I will stay. But I can’t come with you on missions anymore. I won’t support what you do with those Railroad monsters.”

She looked like she was going to be sick. Can’t support what you do, huh? MacCready leaned back against the building. What she did was create homes. Communities. Safe havens, like the one the idiot Paladin was standing in. Any jackass too caught up on principle to see that—

Lola leapt into his arms and he caught her, more out of reflex than anything else. Danse had been in love with her, in his own head. MacCready could see that play out across his face as he set Lola down on the grass. Oh sure. MacCready could sympathize. Loving Lola wasn’t easy at all. Ever. No matter what he did, or what she did, some days were going to be uphill battles. But if Danse didn’t love her more than the Brotherhood that had banished and then tried to murder him, clearly he didn’t love her enough. Not like Deacon or Preston did. Not like Cait or Hanco*ck or Codsworth did. Not like he did.

That was the end of their closeness—Danse’s and Lola’s. He wasn’t sure if the tin can knew it yet, but it was. Can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t respect you. Best friends or not, whatever they said they were, they weren’t. Lola still smiled up at Danse as if he hadn’t just said something horrible, and then walked away, towards where MacCready stood shamelessly watching. The second her face was turned away from Danse, she started crying again—fat tears spilling over her cheeks, shoulders locked up to keep from shaking visibly. He placed his hat on her head and pulled the brim down a bit. The least he could do was make sure that none of her settlers saw her and pestered her. People were waking up. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in until she was close. When they locked her door to her house behind them, she let him hold her. He pat her back and stroked her hair until the worst of the sobbing was past. She settled back into bed and he figured she would probably need to take today to recoup. A lot had happened in less than a week, her world was completely changed, and she had just been torn to shreds by a close friend. She would need some time.

He and Shaun ate breakfast on the couches, and then made their way over to the workshop so MacCready could do weapon repairs. Shaun watched the whole time like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen in his whole life, but he didn’t ask about Lola once. MacCready was starting to get the feeling that the kid knew. He and Shaun spent the day together puttering around Sanctuary, finding things to do.

Lola stayed in bed all day, so Mac tucked Shaun in and told him a story that night after a supper of baked beans and Cram. Shaun was too nice a kid to ask about Lola, and MacCready was sure at this point that Shaun must have overheard her crying when they’d come in this morning. He didn’t say a word about it. Didn’t really need a story to sleep, either. He was what—ten? But he seemed to instinctually know that MacCready needed to do something with himself—needed to take care of someone—and listened to Mac regurgitate some old Grognac plot as if it was the most important thing he would ever hear. When MacCready pulled the covers up to Shaun’s chin, Shaun actually said “Thank you, Mister MacCready.” He didn’t think anyone had called him “Mister” in his entire life. Mac ruffled Shaun’s hair, displacing the neat side-swoop that Lola always brushed into his hair with her fingertips. Shaun smiled and shut down for the night.

It was so easy to forget that he wasn’t human that Mac decided right then to stop reminding himself.

When he went to bed, Lola was already asleep, curled in on herself. On the bedside table was the holotape from Shaun. She’d set that one down next to the holotape from Nate. He kicked off his boots, dropped his coat and pants, and tucked himself under their repurposed-sleeping-bag comforter. When he reached out for her in the dark, she pulled herself closer to him and rested her head against his chest. Her breath fanned out over his skin, all jagged edges and stuttering gasps. He stroked her hair and hummed one of the songs from her radio until her breathing evened out.

They slept facing each other that night, and in the morning, she took a deep breath, got herself out of bed, and started putting one foot in front of the other.

Chapter 56: Whole Again

Chapter Text

She kissed Shaun’s forehead as she pulled out of the hug. When she stood up fully, Shaun swiped a hand under his eyes. No kid wanted to be caught crying over his mom. He’d thought that he’d be going with them, but there was no way in hell Lola was going to let that kid leave the compound. Sanctuary was the safest place for him, even if it was hard to go.

“We’ll be back soon, okay? And I’ll even bring you a surprise!”

“I’ll miss you, mom.”

She held Shaun’s hand, squeezed it, and let it go. This would be their first time apart since they’d brought him home. MacCready ruffled the kid’s hair.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll make sure she gets back to you in one piece.”

“Mister MacCready, wait!” Shaun dug through his backpack as he turned away from Mac. “Mom said that I should give you this one. I made it. Hold on, I know I have it!” Finally, Shaun held up a cylinder in one hand. MacCready picked it up with two fingers and examined it. It was a scope. And a damn good one. The lens on his rifle’s scope was scratched to hell, and this was a more than worthy replacement.

“You made this?”

“Yessir!”

“By yourself?”

“Yessir.” Shaun rocked back on his heels. “Do you like it?”

“You are definitely your mother’s son.” Of course Lola’s kid would build a scope from the junk she brought him. He crouched down and hugged the kid.

“Thanks, Shaun. I’ll put it on my rifle right now.”

“I’ll be over in a sec!” Lola, who had watched the whole thing, pushed Shaun towards Mac as she waved to Preston. She jogged over to his side, probably to let him know that they were on their way out.

Shaun followed less than a half-step behind MacCready as he went over to the machining bench to add his new scope. Shaun watched him undo the screws holding the old one to replace it with the new. He wondered if he brought Duncan to Sanctuary, would Shaun teach him how to make things? Would the boys get along? He pictured Duncan—pint-sized, loud, and energetic—trying to play with calm, quietly brainy Shaun. Once they got back from this caravan run, he’d tell her that he was going to the Capitol Wasteland for Duncan. Hitch a ride with Daisy’s caravan and grab Duncan from Megaton. She would insist on going, but he would beg her to stay with Shaun. No sense in endangering her, now that she had her kid. Plus, the whole trip would take half a year, and she couldn’t afford to lose any more time with Shaun.

Lola gave Shaun one last hug before they left. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her stomach. She stroked his hair and held him until his breathing slowed down. Just like his mum—all he needed was that reassurance. When she let him go, Preston stepped in and put a hand on Shaun’s shoulder. Shaun nodded—stiff upper lip—and waved them out the gate.

When he looked back for the last time after passing the bridge, Shaun was up on the catwalk over the gate, watching, with Uncle Preston by his side.

He was in a good mood until they passed through the gates of Goodneighbor and he saw it. Daisy’s caravan. Back in town. He hadn’t thought they’d be back so soon. Thought he’d have more time for this. If he wanted to head out with her people, he would have to do it now, which shot his whole “talk-to-Lola-about-this-beforehand” plan to sh*t. He raked a hand through his hair and adjusted his hat while Lola and Daisy talked supplies. Who the hell was he kidding; he wasn’t ready to leave her. On the other hand, if he didn’t go, it would be three months for the caravan to make it to Megaton, and then another three months for them to circle back this way. He’d be out another half a year—and then it would be a year before he made it home with Duncan. Over a year. He could feel something like panic bubbling up in his chest as he realized he would have to leave her. So soon. And he would have to send her home alone, unless Hanco*ck was free to make sure she made it to Sanctuary safe, and even then, what if something happened while he was getting Duncan?

Daisy came around the front of the store, and waved Lola over to the Brahmin that was towing a makeshift wagon, fashioned from old car parts, and covered over with ratty tarps. He remembered from when he’d traveled with her crew—that one was the flagship. Carried big and expensive things, and got the most security. Was Lola buying something big? If he left, would she be able to get it back to Sanctuary without him? And a big shipment would draw eyes, which would then draw bullets, and if she died while he was away—

“Mac!” Lola raised one arm over her head in a summons. It took him a minute to unglue himself from where he was standing. Gotta tell her now. No way around it. He hopped the stone wall that separated him from the wagon, and found himself face-to-face with the massive, two-headed beast. He maneuvered around back of the brahmin to where Lola was standing, peeking into the wagon. He would just have to come out and say that he needed to leave.

Something flashed in his peripheral vision, and he just barely managed to catch the ball of messy hair and bony limbs that shot out from behind the tarps like a cannon-ball.

“Daddy!”

His heart stopped.

Chapter 57: Pictures and Places

Chapter Text

He held the little body up and away from him so that he could see the kid clearly. Huge blue eyes, round cheeks, chubby fists. Just like Lucy—her warm complexion and round face. He’d been so tiny the last time Mac had seen him.

“Duncan?”

He was lightheaded—felt the whole world spinning under his feet. Couldn’t breathe at all. His knees wobbled. He dropped to the ground with Duncan crushed against his chest. Duncan’s little arms were circled so tight around his neck that he thought he might be choking.

“Hey, buddy! How’d you get here?”

“Miri brought us!”

He looked up, and sure enough, there she was, next to Lola. He hadn’t thought about it, but they both had red hair. Miri’s hair was brighter—spikes of fire-red sticking out from a bun next to Lola’s deep auburn curls. Both of his crazy, red-headed vaulties. He heard himself laugh as if he was outside his body.

“Hey, Mayor MacCready.” Miri wasn’t even a whole ten years older than him, but just like that, he was that mouthy little kid back at Little Lamplight again.

Lola grinned ear-to-ear.

“Lola? When did you—?”

“When we found the cure. I figured that no matter what happened, he would be safe here. And I figured that you would want him back.”

That had been a dangerous gamble. But, with Miri escorting him, Dunc couldn’t have been in better hands. But, alright, Lola knew Miri could get Duncan here in one piece. What she couldn’t have known was that she and Mac would still be alive when the kid arrived in the ‘Wealth.

“I know that I kinda side-stepped you on that one.”

“What if we had…at the Glowing Sea? Or…?”

“I wanted you to stay behind, remember? Tried to make you stay safe. And he is your kid. But you were being so hard-headed about staying with me that I figured if you wouldn’t go to him, I’d have to get him to you, so I just—”

“The surprise.” The surprise she’d promised him when she thought that she’d die at the Institute. The surprise he was supposed to ask Preston about. For a second, he felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. It all sunk in again—how close they’d come to not making it to here. To this moment in time.

He shot up onto his feet with Duncan still in his arms and kissed her full on the mouth. Miri said something to Daisy, who laughed, and Duncan made a noise of disgust. Kids. Ha. Lola blinked a few times when he pulled back, a warm smile cracking out across her face.

“Achem.” Miri patted some dirt from her duster and held out a hand. Lola shook it, looking a little bemused. “Lola, right?”

“Oh!” He looked from Miri to Lola to Duncan. “Miri, Dunc, this is Lola. My…friend.”

Duncan squinted at Lola. “Are you daddy’s girlfriend? Miri said that daddy has a girlfriend, even though girls have cooties.”

“Ooookay! That’s enough of that!” He adjusted Duncan in his arms. Miri burst out laughing, clutching her side. Unhelpful as ever.

“Hi Duncan! Nice to meet you!” Lola stepped into mom-mode. “I think they’ve had a long night, Mac. We should get some rooms at the Rexford before the drunks from the rail take them all.”

Miri looked over at Lola—foot to head, appraising. Miri was a pretty optimistic sort, but she had seen enough of the wastes to be careful who she trusted. Finally, she nodded, still grinning.

He refused to set Duncan back down. Couldn’t bring himself to let go of the kid, and Dunc didn’t seem to mind. He brushed some of Duncan’s hair back from his forehead, and one little curl of dark brown hair (so much like Lucy’s) stuck up in a cowlick. Duncan’s hand wrapped around a bit of his scarf and he was off, talking about the trip, and Brahmin, and they are so big! Lola’s fingers traced his arm as they walked towards the Rexford. How many times had he crashed at the Rexford alone (often after sneaking in and breaking into a room) before Lola? And now he was headed there with her, Duncan, and Miri all at once. Almost like a whole family.

Duncan talked about everything (including all the ghouls he spotted on the way, because it wasn’t like he’d seen a bunch of them in Megaton). He kept asking Miri if she thought they knew Gob, who she explained was a barkeep back home, who’d been real good about delivering food to Duncan and even keeping an eye on him if Miri was going to be out for the day. He pointed at the hotel when it came into view—so big! Could they stay on the top floor? Were there other kids there, did he think? He even struck up a conversation with Lola, even though he probably had no idea who she was. He was a little skinny and a little small, but he was chattering happily, and seemed pretty alert. On the whole, healthy.

Lola paid for one big room with two beds—one for him, Duncan, and herself, and then another for Miri. Seemed like it was the suite. It even had a couch and a little coffee table in the middle. And it was on the top floor, for Duncan’s sake. It wasn’t ritzy, but it was relatively clean, and the door had a lock to bar drunks from wandering in at night.

Duncan squirmed in his arms, so he set the kid down so that he could run up and down the halls for a minute. He tuckered out fast—only made two circuits before coming back to Mac’s side. He plunked down on the bed with Duncan, who immediately jumped off to explore the room again. He clambered onto Miri’s bed and then rolled back onto the floor. Lola dumped some water out of one of the purified bottles and corralled Duncan for just long enough to wipe some of the dirt and dust off his little face. Miri combed through his helplessly tangled hair with her fingers. What was it Lola had said about Shaun back at Sanctuary? It takes a village…

“Dunc, c’mere!” He scooped up the fidgety kid right before he dived under the bed. Who knows when the last time someone cleaned this hole was—probably better to keep him away from the ground as much as possible.

“What?” Duncan co*cked his head to the side and MacCready kissed his temple. Holy hell the kid had grown. Every time he looked over, Duncan seemed bigger somehow. Like he was growing a foot or two every time MacCready looked away.

“Want a snack cake?”

Duncan considered this for a moment, looking over at Miri. “Miri says I shouldn’t have sweets before bed.”

Miri shrugged. “He’s your dad, kiddo, so if he says it’s okay…”

MacCready dug a snack cake out of the rations in his bag and handed it to Dunc, whose expression was comically grateful. Like, you’ve-saved-my-life grateful. Oh yeah. He was still the cool dad. Lola rolled her eyes.

“Like father, like son.”

Miri seemed to get a good laugh out of that one, probably remembering all the times she brought food to Lamplight and watched the snacks disappear before they even hit the table. Mac pulled Duncan into his lap while the boy munched.

“You’re gonna love Sanctuary, bud. That’s where we’re gonna live. There’s plenty of space to run around, and there are a couple of cats and dogs, and you can play with Lola’s son, Shaun.”

“Will he be my new brother?” Trust the kid to ask the tough questions.

“Yeah, mayor. Will he be Duncan’s brother?” Miri leaned back into the couch, grinning. She took a long sip of her Nuka Cola. Her eyes were trained on Mac, wholly mischievous and definitely not helping.

He looked over at Lola, whose ears were a little red, but they’d been through this. He knew what he wanted, and he liked to think that he mostly knew what Lola wanted.

“Yeah, he will, kiddo.”

Miri nodded, smile widening to reveal her teeth. Not as perfect as he remembered them—one looked like she’d chipped it on someone’s fist. Still had the same effect on him now as it did when he was a kid. Made him feel like he’d done something right. Like she was proud of him. He had the urge to stick his tongue out at her.

Duncan spent the next hour telling him all about Megaton and his friends. Apparently, Miri would take him out for walks where she would carry him around on her back so that he could see the town. The more he talked, the more Mac felt like he couldn’t have left Duncan with a better person. He remembered some of the names Duncan rattled off from his trips to Megaton before Lucy died. Moriarty: Duncan didn’t like him, which was okay, because Miri didn’t either. Gob was nice. Nova too. Maggie, Billy Creel’s daughter, babysat sometimes (she was getting married to Harden Simms soon though, so she didn’t have a lot of time to play anymore). He liked old Manya because she gave him candy, but she was batty, and Leo Stahl said that she would prolly die any day now. He didn’t think so, but Leo said it. Moira was nice, but Miri wouldn’t let him talk to her too much. From what MacCready remembered of dotty old Moira, seemed like Miri knew what she was talking about there.

He talked on and on, telling MacCready everything he knew about Megaton top to bottom until, partway through a description of how Doc Church showed him how to use Stimpacks, he drifted to sleep on Mac’s lap. He started to fall asleep somewhere in between, Doc says I’m good at it! and all you have to do is, and then he was out. He wrapped Duncan in the coat he had peeled off immediately upon entering the room. Tiny coat—hand-stitched sleeves. Miri must have made this for him.

Lola leaned against his shoulder, and he scooped up Duncan and handed him to her. She curled up with him on the mattress behind him and the pair fell asleep. They looked perfect together—holy sh*t did they look perfect. His girl and his baby. He slipped his own coat off his shoulders and tucked them both in. He didn’t think Lola was really asleep, but he was grateful she was giving him the chance to catch up with Miri.

“He talked about you constantly.”

“Huh?”

“Oh all the time! He made me teach him to read and write so he could send you letters. I still had to write them, but—”

“But he always signed them.”

Miri smiled, eyes a little watery. “I am gonna miss this kid.”

“You could stay here. Plenty of people to save here.” Even when he said it he knew she wouldn’t go for it. She shook her head.

“The Capitol needs me.” It woulda sounded conceited coming out of anyone else’s mouth, but not hers. He nodded. It did need her.

“How old has he gotta be now? Five? Holy shi—oot, is he five?”

Miri nodded, “Almost. Four and three quarters, to be precise. He likes me to tell him how close he is to his birthday.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“How did he remember me so well?” Mac looked down at the little boy in his lap. They had written letters, but hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years. “He was two when I left.”

Miri reached over into Duncan’s coat pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. It felt well-worn against MacCready’s fingers. Practically falling apart. When he unfolded it, he saw himself, a few years younger and without his hat, looking back up at him.

“I drew it for him.” She pulled his coat back up around him like a blanket. “I didn’t want him to forget what his daddy looked like.”

He breathed in deep through his nose and leaned his head back against the wall. “Dammit, Miri.”

“Watch your language, Mayor Motormouth.”

And just like that, he was a kid again. He’d been fighting it—he was a grown-ass man, dammit—but he swiped a couple tears from his eyes. He’d made the right choice leaving Duncan with Miri. Probably couldn’t have raised Dunc better himself, he thought. She was like the big sister he never had—always looking out for him and Luce, and now Duncan.

“She sent us a letter.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she looked over at Lola. “Daisy did too, which is why I trusted it.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I am too. No one should be that far from their dad.”

He bit his lip.

“I don’t know how I can thank you, Miri.”

Miri kicked her feet up onto the table. “I take care of my kiddos. All of them.” Always had. Since that first time she’d talked him out of shooting the nose off her face. He took another deep breath and looked down at Duncan again. Asleep, healthy, and here. Right here, and with two of his favorite people in the whole damn world. He reached out to touch Duncan’s arm just to confirm, but yes, he was still really here. If someone had told him he’d have his son back and healthy a year ago, he’d have laughed and then punched them out for lying to him.

“How’s Big Town?”

“Good! Good. Red’s still doctoring. Zip took over defense—kid is really handy with the Protectrons. Biwwy married Bumble, and their kid is the new mayor of Little Lamplight. Red keeps giving me Stims to bring to them. They have enough Brahmin now to give the kids meat too.” She smiled for a moment, but the smile faded. “We lost Knick Knack though, on the way to Big Town. Supermutants. Knock never really recovered.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“Penny took her in, though. They are good to each other—gonna get married soon. They ended up in Canterbury Commons as shopkeepers. Doing better now.” She looked down at the Nuka Cola in her hands. Rolled it between her palms for a second, lost in thought. That was Miri all over—always thinking about something. The gears in her brain always turning. “How have you been, MacCready?”

“I—” He scrubbed his hands over his scalp. “Better.”

“I miss her too. Like a little sister.” She reached across the table, took his hand, and squeezed it. He sucked in a deep breath.

There was a minute where they both sat there, and it felt good to talk about it. He never talked about Lucy—and it had been ages since he’d talked about her with someone else who’d known her. Someone who would understand what the world had lost when she’d died. Miri squeezed his fingers before letting go, with a quiet “oh!” He looked up but before he could get a question out, she held up one finger and went digging through her pack. When she looked back at him, she held out another piece of paper. Fresher, cleaner. He unfolded it slowly, with shaking hands.

“Duncan wanted to know what she looked like too. And I figured you wouldn’t mind the reminder.”

Lucy. It was Lucy. Miri had drawn her face—long hair down and spilling into her eyes like it always did before she asked him to braid it back. Her cheeks were rounded like they’d been when she was pregnant with Duncan. Her eyes were soft, with those long lashes, and for a second, he could almost imagine the way those lashes had fluttered up against his fingers when he’d brushed them over her eyelids. Her lips were plumper than anyone’s he’d ever seen—naturally puckered, almost heart-shaped. Miri even drew the tiny freckles onto her nose and cheeks, a constellation of them. And almost all in the right places, though there was one gap right by her nose where Miri had missed a freckle—the big splotchy one. Wasn’t totally sure how he remembered that. Funny the things he remembered after all these years.

And, just like that, he was blubbering like a baby. Miri skootched over next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. She really was like a big sister. She rubbed his arm until the crying petered out. Hadn’t been on a sobbing jag like that in a while. But it was good. Every now and again it caught up with him, but now he had a reason to keep going, and people to talk to. It had been a long road since Lucy had died, but it would be okay. He knew it now—everything would be okay.

“Hey kid.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “You’ve done good for yourself. She’d be so proud.”

That night, when he curled up around Lola and Duncan, he thought that yeah, Luce probably would be proud. He slept with them in his arms, and the picture of Lucy in his breast pocket.

Chapter 58: Long Road Home

Chapter Text

“I love you, sweetheart.” Miri knelt down in front of Duncan and swept him up in her arms. It was the same way she had hugged Bumble when she’d skinned her knee running around the cave. Same way she’d hugged him after walking him and Lucy all the way to Big Town. Warm, motherly. She kissed the top of Duncan’s head and smoothed her hands down his shoulders. “Be good for Daddy and Lola now, okay?”

“You’re not coming, Miri?” Duncan was revving up for a good cry. Miri seemed to sense it and pinched his cheek gently.

“Nah, Dunc. I can’t. Who would help Fawkes organize his books?”

“He could come too. Right, daddy?”

MacCready wasn’t sure what to say, but Miri swooped in like she always did and saved the day.

“Oh Duncan, you know how Fawkes feels about traveling now that he has gotten so old!”

Duncan rubbed at his eyes with one tiny fist. “Yeah.”

“Besides, we’ll see each other again, little man.” She rested her forehead against his. “No way I could stay away from my favorite coloring buddy forever.”

Duncan sniffled, but there was a small smile on his face. His little fists grabbed at Miri’s coat.

“I’ll draw you a picture every day.” He rubbed his face on her shoulder.

“I’ll write you letters telling you how much I like your pictures, then.” She picked him up in her arms and snuggled him close.

MacCready took Duncan from her after a moment and held him while he calmed down. A second after that, he set Dunc down next to Lola and turned to Miri, who was waiting, arms outstretched. She was shorter than him now—had been for a few years. But when she hugged him, he felt like she was a million feet tall—strong, protective, same old Miri who had taken time out of her busy schedule fighting a war against the Enclave to check in on a bunch of half-wild ten year-olds. She rubbed her thumb over his cheek when he pulled back.

“You have grown up, MacCready.”

“Yeah, well.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “At least I’m not a mungo.”

She laughed at that, same laugh as always.

“You’ve done well for yourself. Keep in touch, alright?”

He nodded when his throat got too tight to really respond. She let him go and turned to Lola, who was holding Duncan’s hand by the gate leading out of Goodneighbor.

“Lola, you keep taking care of these boys, alright? They can be a handful.” Miri’s voice was still warm when she picked up the pack at her feet. Lola nodded.

“I’ll take good care of them,” Lola smiled. MacCready looped an arm around her waist as Miri climbed into the back of Daisy’s caravan wagon.

“Thank you.”

Miri waved as the caravan left Goodneighor. The rest of them stood there a moment after the gates closed behind her. Little Duncan was crying again—quietly now—so MacCready picked him up and hugged him tight. They’d miss Miri. Hell, he hadn’t realized how much he had missed her until she’d shown up. But they were together—he and Dunc—and everything was going to be okay.

Walking Duncan home was twice as nerve-wracking as bringing Shaun home had been. Duncan liked to run ahead on the path, keeping both MacCready and Lola on their toes. He tried to keep ahold of Duncan’s hand, but Dunc was so happy to be outside in the woods. Apparently, he never really got to leave Megaton with Miri, and all the trees in the Commonwealth shocked him. He wove in and out of a few, and didn’t even really panic when he startled a molerat and almost got his little face eaten off. MacCready and Lola, however, gunned the thing down with extreme prejudice. They stopped letting him off the path after that, but at least Duncan was relatively happy.

At nights, they hunkered down with him between them, just like they had with Shaun. Only, Duncan was smaller, and when MacCready looked down and saw Lola curled around him, he thought his heart would swell up so damn big it would pop and blow a hole in his chest.

Where Shaun had been quiet and calm, Duncan was rowdy, loud, and chattered the whole walk home. If he wasn’t sleeping, he was talking, and he woke up damned early. MacCready woke up one morning as the sun was coming up to find Lola and Duncan already making a fire so they could heat up a can of baked beans and some apples to fight back the morning chill. He’d be lying if he tried to pretend that this wasn’t one of the most perfect ways he could have woken up. Duncan was already talking a mile a minute to Lola about Miri’s dog, and all the times she’d let him play with Fawkes (Lola wasn’t too shocked to hear that Miri also had a super-mutated friend, but then, Lola wasn’t a good judge of normal). Shaun had made a couple comments here and there on the road home, but Duncan filled the trip with stories and observations. MacCready was almost worried about how he and Shaun would get along when they made it home, but he remembered Lamplight too well to think they’d really have an issue. Kids always figured out how to get along.

They made it home in pretty good time, with Duncan narrating everything he was seeing as they crossed the bridge. Preston met them at the gate with Shaun in tow. Shaun was standing half behind Preston’s leg, peeking out. When he saw his mom, though, he rushed into her waiting arms. She took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead soundly.

“Shaun, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Lola took his hand and brought him over to where MacCready was still standing, with Duncan on his shoulders. MacCready lifted the little boy up and over his shoulder and then set him on the ground. Duncan stuck close to MacCready’s side until he crouched down.

“Shaun, this is Duncan. Mac’s son.” She held out her hand to Duncan, who stepped forward. “Duncan, this is my son, Shaun.”

“Hi again Mister MacCready. Hi Duncan.” Shaun waved but stuck close to Lola, very obviously shy. He watched Duncan from the safety of Lola’s half-hug as if he wasn’t sure how to act around another kid.

“Miri said you would be my big brother.” And there went Duncan, barreling right through introductions. Trust his kid to be the one to make things awkward. Preston, who was standing behind Lola, burst out laughing at that. A smile danced across Lola’s face as Shaun turned red as a tato.

“Shaun, Duncan is going to live with you, Mac, and I.”

“I know, mom.” He looked back at Lola. “Uncle Preston told me.”

Preston stepped forward and crouched down in front of Duncan.

“Shaun and I just finished setting up the boys’ room, like you asked, General.” He turned and looked at Duncan, who was sizing the Minuteman up. Preston’s smile was warm—having a place to call his own and a nephew to look after suited him. “Hello, Duncan. Welcome to Sanctuary.”

It was hard not to warm up to Preston when he sounded so genuinely happy to see you like that, and Duncan trusted him immediately. When there were silences or pauses, Duncan filled them with questions. What’s that? And that? Why is that house so big? Where is their shop? Does Moira run the shop? Can he have a bite of that? Where’s his room? He gets to live in a big house?! Is that Fawkes? Can he play with the dogs? What’s a cat? Can he have one?

Shaun warmed up as they showed Duncan around the settlement, and took the charge when they made it to his and Lola’s house. He reached out and took Duncan’s hand to show him around the living room and kitchen before the two ran down the hallway into their new room. Preston and Shaun had moved everything around to fit in a second bed and dresser for Duncan. They had even found some toys—a teddy bear, a stuffed monkey, some toy cars—which were scattered across the soft blue rug in between the two beds. Shaun kept his bed by the open window (and MacCready couldn’t blame him for that after seeing the kid’s stark room underground), and they had tucked Duncan’s bed up against the opposite wall, under the boarded-up window that faced the woods outside the compound. Shaun helped Duncan scramble up onto the bed, where he seized a teddy bear and squeezed the life out of it.

MacCready scooped Duncan up off the bed and held him close. Home safe at last.

Chapter 59: Sleep

Chapter Text

He jerked up in bed out of a very comfortable sleep (thank-you-very-much) when he heard the floor creak just outside their bedroom door. Sure, every once in a while, some grubby settler would wake Lola up in the middle of the night to fix a turret, if Sturges had managed to drink himself under the table. Could be as innocent as that. And he could see the curled shadow of Dogmeat, asleep at the foot of the bed like usual, so no alert there. But with the boys one room over, he wasn’t taking chances. He reached for the pistol on the floor next to the bed as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

“Who is it? Come out now.” His voice was calm and low. Didn’t even wake up Lola.

“Daddy?”

Mac’s feet hit the floor before his brain caught up. He dropped the gun.

“Buddy, what are you doing up?” He collected Duncan in his arms, and the sleepy kid’s head fell onto Mac’s shoulder. Warm and solid—still half asleep.

“I can’t sleep,” Duncan whispered. “That’s not my room. Where’s Miri?”

“She’s at her house, bud. We live here now, remember?”

“Mmmph.” He rubbed his face into the sleeve of Mac’s undershirt. “Will we see Miri and Fawkes and Butch again? And Moira. I need to tell Moira that I found a Molerat for her.”

“We can always visit, okay, Dunc? But for now, bedtime.” MacCready pat his son’s hair, standing there in the doorway before he committed to a decision. He turned back into their room and tucked Duncan in beside Lola, and then climbed back into bed on the other side of the little boy. Lola, still asleep, curled around Duncan, who sighed and snuggled against her. Duncan wriggled for a minute as he settled in, but eventually stilled and whispered “night, Daddy.” He let his fingers ghost over Lola’s as she clutched Duncan to her.

Mac was drifting back to sleep when, not ten minutes later, he heard another set of footsteps at the doorway.

“Psst! Mister MacCready?” It was Shaun. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t find Duncan. I woke up and he wasn’t there.” Shaun bounced from foot to foot in the dark, and MacCready propped himself up on one elbow and reached out to ruffle his hair.

“S’alright, kiddo. Duncan is right here. He couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh.” Shaun continued to rock back and forth. “Okay.”

Mac peeled back the covers and stepped out of bed. “Go ahead. No use making you stay in a room by yourself.”

Shaun scrambled under the covers next to Duncan as Mac tucked the blanket back in around himself and his little family. With the boys curled up between him and Lola, and Dogmeat at his feet, Sanctuary was starting to feel like paradise.

Of course, Lola slept through all of the squirming and kicking. Duncan stretched out his stubby limbs, hitting Shaun, who curled up and elbowed Mac in the ribs more than once. At one point, Duncan’s hand smacked him in the face. Shaun kept nudging him out of the bed. But Lola slept right through, breathing steady and holding her two boys in her sleep. One arm wrapped around the both of them. Some time in the very early morning, and both boys settled into a comfortable sleep in the circle of her arms.

The next morning, he woke up second. When his eyes opened, they were peering right into Lola’s as she absently stroked Shaun’s hair, her face half-buried behind Duncan’s head. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve this. Really, not like he’d lived the life of a saint, unless headshots could be considered holy? But seriously. He’d decided that he would stop questioning it before karma decided to start taking people away again. His little family was perfect. Missing some pieces, battered, and separated for awhile, but perfect.

Chapter 60: Full Circle

Chapter Text

They were outside at dawn before any of the other settlers woke up for the day. Preston nodded to them as they left out the back gate—the one that let out by the stream. A faint fog blanketed the ground. Lola had Duncan hitched up on one hip, and Shaun in her free hand. All the trio needed was a sunset or a field of flowers. Duncan nuzzled his face into her neck in the hazy morning light. This was the image he wanted burned into his brain—the thing he wanted to picture right before dying. The most perfect f*cking thing he could think of.

They’d set up memorial crosses in the woods between the compound and the Vault. No bodies, just crosses—one for Lucy, one for Nate. A short ways away (private—hidden behind a small rock outcropping and not something Lola ever told little Shaun about) there was another for her biological son. She’d already paid her respects to him last night, alone. As a little pack, they formed a half-moon around the two-marker memorial. Duncan rubbed at his eyes with tiny fists. Shaun looked at the cross with his father’s name on it in neat print like it was a puzzle.

Lola set Duncan down next to Shaun, and then went over to the stream to pick a couple of hubflowers. She came back with four, and gave one to each boy before handing him the third. The last one, she kept.

Shaun set his down first, and Dunc copied him a second later. She looked over at MacCready. Her face was framed by all that soft hair in the warm midday light. At the same time, they bent to place their flowers—one for Nate, and one for Lucy. They all stood there for a moment, quiet. Even chatty little Duncan. He probably didn’t remember much of his mum. He was only one when she’d died. They still talked about her every night—something Miri had started doing with him when he was too fussy to sleep. Mac ruffled the kid’s hair, and he rubbed his eyes again. Not like Shaun could possibly remember Nate either. But he was old enough to understand what was missing. Duncan hugged Mac’s leg. Lola wrapped one arm around Shaun’s shoulders and Shaun turned his head into her side, sniffling only once his face was hidden against her dress.

Lola gave Shaun a piggy-back ride back to Sanctuary, and Mac carried Dunc in his arms, with the little boy half-draped over his shoulder.

Later that morning, after he, Duncan, and Shaun had sat down to a breakfast of cooked Cram and mutfruit, he overheard Lola cleaning out the bedroom. After tidying up Shaun and Duncan’s room, she decided that it was time to give herself and him a real bedroom. She patched up the wall, moved the bed so that it was facing the hallway (and the boy’s room), and set them up with his and hers dressers. Candles, lights, a quilt and everything. Even threw in some decorative vases she had stolen from those alien weirdos a while back.

When Shaun and Duncan skipped off to the playhouse shed she’d built for them out behind the garden, MacCready found Lola, hair tied back and sitting on their bed, listening to that tape from Nate again. He waited in the doorway, but she didn’t seem as decimated as she had before. A small smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. Instead of slipping the tape back into her pocket like usual, when it was done, she stood up and walked past him to the closet room with the crib. In the corner, she had drilled a safe into the floor. She crouched, twisted the knob some, and then reached into the safe to place the tape on the bottom, next to the tape from adult Shaun, one of Shaun’s old baby books, and Haylen’s dogtags. She sighed as she closed the thing.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” It sounded strange. Not hollow or light, but sincere. For the first time, she really meant it. And neither of them were all the way back to “okay” yet, but they were getting there. She stood up and walked into his hug. Strands of her hair slipped through his fingers. “I think I will be.”

She had pulled something out of nothing. Sanctuary had working turrets, two heavy artillery cannons, brand-new concrete fences, houses, roofs, electricity, lights, shops, an infirmary, a bathing shack, food, water, beds, and reasonably happy people. Families. A couple kids. Three dogs. A handful of cats. Half her friends. Hell, she even set up a rec center in one of the gutted houses, complete with pool table and sitting room. People ate dinner in the meeting hall, drank at the bar, lounged in doorways. She grabbed a beer from Sheffield. MacCready wrapped one arm around her waist.

She said with a nod, “we’ve done good, Mac.”

He looked out at the revelry. Hanco*ck and Deacon away from their respective posts in Goodneighebor and the catacombs. Up visiting. Danse, not dead. Preston, wiping down the counter of the bar reverently, as if he was still shocked they’d survived long enough to see a bar. Settlers puttering around, relaxed, chatting, heading to safe, warm beds. The two boys—Shaun looking after Duncan, chasing him up through the corn stalks, laughing.

“That we have, Boss.”

Chapter 61: Author's Note

Chapter Text

Wow!

Alright, so thank you sososososososossosososooooooo much to everyone who read this, commented, or kudo’d! This was the first work of fanfiction I had ever posted, and I was really worried about it being bland or terrible.

I was really sincerely very anxious about posting this, but everyone’s love, support, and commentary was so incredibly encouraging! I am so grateful to everyone who interacted with this story. You are all seriously so wonderful that I want to hug every one of you.

I will probably keep writing one-offs with these characters because I just can’t seem to leave these dorks alone. I was planning on doing some spin-offs with other companions’ perspectives to flesh out Lola’s relationships with all of these interesting characters (plus, I really love Preston and Deacon so I just about HAVE to try my hand at writing them). Would people be interested in reading that?

I was also thinking about writing my other Fallout characters (Miri, from FO3 and Lulu from New Vegas), and maybe eventually writing some Mass Effect nonsense (because I only play really emotional RPGs). Would anybody want to read that? If not, that’s alright! Just putting out feelers.

Anywho! I can’t say it enough—thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, and I wish you all happiness! :)

--Starlight

EDIT: I made a Tumblr for this account, potential extras (one-offs, prompts, questions, etc), and maybe screencaps? If you are interested, you can find me here: http://starlightwrites.tumblr.com/

Peace and love! <3