Archive of Our Own

The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

-"Isabel”, Ogden Nash

They walk through the night to put as much distance between them and the Brotherhood as possible. Lucy treads behind The Ghoul, silent as a shadow, and he doesn’t once look back to make sure that she’s keeping pace. If she can’t make it now, she won’t last in the wasteland. 

It isn’t until dawn that he feels the air around her shift. Slow as the sun rises she drags herself out of the cocoon she’s spun of devastation and betrayal and emerges… well, only time will tell what kind of creature she’s become. The wasteland is a place of constant making and unmaking. Evolve, survive, and evolve again with more steel and grit. Over and over until steel and grit is all there is.

Lucy blinks and surveys the bleached and blasted landscape as if seeing it for the first time. Her eyes flicker over to him, then away, then back again. Her hand flexes and Dogmeat trots up to investigate the possibility that a bit of jerky has appeared.

Best guess, he has another mile to come up with what kind of lie he wants to tell.

He gets all of three minutes.

“So,” she begins and The Ghoul braces himself, “you said you had a wife?”

He almost misses his next step. Two centuries of thinking he’s been there, done that, and bought the lousy t-shirt and this vaultie keeps finding new ways to trip him up.

“It’s just that, gunslinging lone wolf who eats his friends doesn’t exactly scream ‘Loving Husband and Father’ but hey, what do I know I guess? It’s great though, that anyone can get married up here, even ghouls. It’s great that there are no rules about that. We had plenty of rules in the Vault about marriage. For good reasons, obviously. A small, isolated population runs the risk of incest and falling below replacement levels but I always thought it wasn’t fair that Alphonse and James couldn’t have a proper ceremony even though they lived together for years. They’re a few years older than me but James was my fencing coach and—” The floodgates have opened and she’s rambling in earnest. Her brows knit together in a frown but the words just keep pouring out. “There was never any obligation to get married and start a family though, in case you’re thinking that they forced us to pair up and pump out babies! A wedding and family were encouraged but you wouldn’t be coerced into it or shunned if you decided that wasn’t the life for you. Lots of folks didn’t get married and jeez louise why am I still talking?”

Her face twists like she took a bite of something sour.

“Your wife,” Lucy chokes the words out, frantically pumping the breaks, “is she…” She tries and fails to come up with a polite way to phrase her question. “Is she a ghoul, too?”

It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back and The Ghoul chuckles in spite of himself. It’s a ragged sound he barely recognizes, but Lucy lights up all the same. She can work with a chuckle. A chuckle means they’re getting somewhere.

“I don’t know,” he says, and it’s the honest truth for once. Barb had always been the type to have a contingency plan for her contingency plan, but a lot can go wrong in two hundred years. She may have been holding the map to the end of the world, but she certainly wasn’t in possession of the keys.

Lucy nods her head solemnly as if she understands. She’s not the same girl he dunked in the river anymore, so maybe she almost does.

“What are you going to do when you find her? And your kids?” she asks him. She thinks she’s being so clever but she’s a few centuries too early to get one over him.

“What will you do once you track your daddy down?” He throws the question back to her.

“Kill him, I guess.” She shrugs and The Ghoul is once again surprised, this time at her candid resignation. “He destroyed an entire city. He killed my mom. Or at least, he basically killed my mom. I’m the one who actually killed her. You know, if you had asked me that question a week ago I would have told you that I planned to drag him back to the vault to face proper justice for his crimes, but I think we both know how well that would turn out. A part of me still thinks that I can change his mind but—” She gestures helplessly.

“Maybe he’ll shoot first,” The Ghoul says, a small mercy.

“Yeah.” Lucy scrubs at her eyes but they’re dry. There’s not enough water in her to waste on tears anymore. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

A few more miles, a few more hours. They pass gas stations falling back into the earth, distant towers being choked by mutant blackberry tendrils, one crashed helicopter, and countless abandoned cars. The few people they meet shuffle past them wordlessly but he can sometimes feel their eyes on his back as they calculate their odds.

Crumbling billboards selling useless things they can no longer buy tell him they’re keeping to the right path, even when all signs of a road have been scraped away by the sand and wind. 

They walk through a desolate parking lot and then, not too long after that, a sprawling building that looks like it might have once been a warehouse. It’s been stripped of paint and signage so there's no way of knowing for certain. Whole chunks of the wall have been torn out and the entire west side has collapsed. 

It’s quiet, but not in a way that has him itching at the trigger of his gun. That being said, a mostly sound looking structure like this with no one making use of it should probably be warning enough.

Dogmeat gives a bark over from where she’s been sniffing one of the opened walls.

“Leave it,” The Ghoul says.

Dogmeat glances back at him and then darts inside.

“Come here, girl,” Lucy calls after her, jogging over to where the dog vanished. “Come here!”

Lucy pokes her head into the darkness and whistles.

“Now don’t you also—”

Lucy steps inside and the shadows swallow her whole.

The Ghoul shakes his head and continues on his way. He knows where he’s going, and he’ll get there with or without them.

A bark. 

A scream.

A gunshot.

He groans. If he still had a nose he’d pinch the bridge of it. He settles for dragging a hand down his face and hustles back to the warehouse.

Dogmeat greets him with her tail wagging when he steps into the gloom. Lucy, illuminated by her Pip Boy, is a little further in. She shines the beam of light across what appears to be an endless sea of collapsed shelves and their assorted contents.

He’s confused for a moment. This side of the NCR’s portion of the Mojave has more or less been scavenged clean. How is it that this much has been left untouched?

And then he sees the Yao Guai corpse in the corner. There’s a fresh bullet hole right between its eyes, but the wound is dry which means the creature was already dead. He almost can’t believe the vaultie’s luck. Most likely the Yao Guai took up residence here and scared off locals for the last few decades and everyone for miles around would have known to stay clear if they wanted to keep their limbs where they liked them. But not even the most irradiated amongst them is immune to the forward march of time and going off the lack of decay, the mutant hasn’t been dead long enough for anyone to notice or for the radroach cleanup crew to move in. One week in either direction and this would have been a very different story.

Lucy is picking through the rubble enthusiastically. She thrusts her forearm down and emerges with all sorts of lost treasures: a used retainer wire, a sealed holotape of an old romcom, two lighters that still spark, an aluminum tin with an old penny rattling inside, a tin of salted peanuts, a ring of keys to long lost doors. He doubts there are any of the good chems in that mess, but hopefully there are a few things they can use to barter with later.

“What do you think this is?” Lucy holds up a can. The way it rests in her palm implies that it’s still full, probably never even opened. The label is rubbed off, but he would recognize that cheery yellow and brown trim anywhere.

“Give it here.” He motions and it sails through the air towards him.

He whistles low.

“'S coffee,” he tells her. He turns it over in his hands. It’s the instant stuff, but it’s still a rare find indeed. Even the freshness seal is intact.

“Coffee?” Lucy cocks her head a little, then returns back to shuffling through the detritus. “I’ve heard of that.”

“What, no coffee underground? Too worried the vaulties will develop a crippling caffeine addiction?”

He’s mostly joking, but the look she shoots him tells him he might not be too far off from the truth.

“Maybe not a bad idea,” he says, crouching next to her to help dig around. “There was a time the world practically ran on the stuff. Whoever was in charge probably didn’t want to risk y’all running out.”

“My dad said they had coffee in Vault 31. We had chicory but he said it wasn’t the same. The movies made it look so good and I always wondered what the fuss was about.” Lucy holds up a bit of rusted pipe to her light, squinting to see if there’s anything salvageable. She tosses it back and Dogmeat leaps after it.

It’s not a bad loot: a bunch of copper wire, eight stainless steel razor blades, one precious Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap, painted porcelain shards, a handful of screws, and a little toy car. Not much they can use on the road but they leave with their bags full of promises to be fulfilled at the next settlement they reach. It’s still too early to bunk down for the night despite the good location and they manage to log a few more miles before the sun disappears behind the dunes.

She’s exhausted but she hides it well. They’ve walked through the night and most of the day and she’s spent the better part of it trying to cobble together the broken pieces of her rapidly expanding world.

He doesn’t get tired anymore. Hasn’t in a long time.

Still, she washes her face with a tiny splash of precious water, does some dutiful stretches, cracks open a tin of unidentifiable mush she must have picked up from somewhere before the Observatory, brushes her teeth with her finger, and primly dusts a section of the ground to lay her head on.

He clicks his teeth and averts his eyes. Something about it seems so obscene, this old world pantomime is the face of all it wrought.

“Um, do you want me to take first watch?” she asks, suddenly remembering her manners.

He shakes his head. It’s getting darker and darker and the girl is just a smudge in his vision now. “Rest,” he tells her. “We have a long day ahead.”

She turns onto her side facing away from him and curls up tight. She’s silent, but he can faintly make out a small tremor in her shoulders.

Is she crying? He squints to look at her more closely. Now, of all times?

It hits him that she’s not crying, but shivering. She’s cold.

She shakes until Dogmeat pads over to her and wedges herself between her arms. With a sigh, Lucy buries her face into the scruff of the dog’s neck and snuggles closer.

The Ghoul watches them until the light is completely gone.

A town shimmers into existence on the horizon just as Lucy nears the end of her canteen. She doesn’t know that much about ghouls and how or if their physical needs differ from a human’s, but The Ghoul drinks at similar intervals as her and has also been letting Dogmeat drink a share from his cupped hands, so she thinks it’s safe to assume that he feels the need to top up as urgently as she does.

He’s only slightly more tolerant of questions about the general order of occurrences after the Great War than he is about questions concerning himself, but the less they talk the less they have to drink so Lucy chooses her questions wisely and chews on his answers for as long as she can.

History was always her best subject, so she finds the puzzle of slotting events into a proper timeline and matching names to significant actions a welcome distraction from the ache in the arches of her feet and the dull burn of her thighs and calves.

The town looks like it got its start as a highway motel and grew multiple appendages and annexes as passersthrough settled down and set up shop over the years. The additional structures are built out of a precarious combination of timber, sheet metal, fired brick, and wishful thinking. Locals are too busy to give the newcomers a second glance, but she can already tell that the population is a healthy mix of young and old and that their small fields are neatly arranged and well tended to, if a little wild. She doesn’t know animals as well as she knows agriculture, but even though they’re a little thin they seem calm and cared for. A sign on their way in welcomes them to Eco Lo.

They trade in some copper wire and one of the lighters for supplies and a pouch full of caps. The Ghoul pushes a few back across the counter and asks if anyone’s seen power armor without a helmet pass overhead.

“Maybe,” is the reply.

The Ghoul tosses over a few more

“No,” the shopkeeper says, and scoops the caps back up into their hand.

“We’ve still got more stuff to trade,” Lucy says as they step outside, gesturing to her bag.

The Ghoul takes a puff from his inhaler and leads her over to a food stall a little further down the way where a man with a welding shield over his face is manning a low barbecue.

“They don’t have anything else we need,” The Ghoul responds as he hands four caps over. “'Sides, there’s hardly enough daylight left to get far away enough to make camp. Some townie’s bound to follow us out and take a cut.”

“You took down a whole unit of T-60s and you’re worried about a thief in the night?”

“Waste of bullets, sweetheart,” he drawls and hands her a skewer of meat, hot from the grill. “And here I was thinking that you’d be jumping at the idea of a bed and a bucket of water.”

Lucy takes the offered food. Their fingers brush accidentally and she lingers there for just a second, feeling a bit guilty for having snapped it off with her teeth the last time they met but then she clocks the peachy color, the dark stitching at the knuckle, and the neat cuticle that she had always paid such careful attention to.

“Is that…” She leans closer. “Is that my finger ?”

Her voice rises in pitch and she knows she must sound a bit hysterical to a casual observer but she actually feels very collected, extremely calm, and incredibly level headed and not at all upset that The Ghoul has her finger stitched to his hand. The very same finger he cut off her.

He raises the digit and gives it a few experimental flexes.

“Huh, how’d that get there?”

“Where did you— How could—“ She sputters and can’t quite seem to spit out a complete sentence.

She swings her skewer wildly and Dogmeat tracks it with a hopeful, desperate focus. 

“You’ll take Dogmeat’s eye out like that,” The Ghoul grunts.

He wraps a hand around hers and takes a step closer.

Lucy swallows her panic down, but doesn’t shrink back.

Like she’s done for the last few days, she chooses her questions wisely.

“Why?”

The Ghoul blinks, then lets her go and steps away.

“Think of it as a promise,” he says.

What does that even mean, Lucy wants to scream. She’s tired of dancing around him. She’s tired of taking penalties for rules that haven’t been explained to her. She’s tired of the sun, of walking, of being thirsty and hungry all the gosh darn time.

“Eat,” The Ghoul says, as if he can hear the sob that’s been steadily building in her chest. 

“I don’t want to eat!”

“You’ll feel better if you do.”

She wants to argue and she’s fairly confident that she would have said something perfectly snarky and cutting as a retort but the smell of the meat is making her mouth water and her teeth itch. She takes a bite.

It’s been marinated in a sauce that’s both sweet and spiced, new flavors sparkling on her tongue and reminding her of just how little she’s had to eat since coming to the surface. It’s so good it almost hurts. She knows she ought to be suspicious of improper food storage and unsanitary preparation methods but what starts as a nibble quickly turns into a frantic gashing. She can’t believe she used to get excited about room temperature Cram when something as delicious as this existed.

“Whoa,” The Ghoul tells her. “Slow down. That iguana ain’t going anywhere no more.”

She’s sure she would have gagged at the revelation two weeks ago but she ignores him and eats even faster. She’s been walking through the desert with a man with no nose on a mission to track down her mass murdering father and probably murder him too. Iguana dinner ranks very low on her list of Things to Have Complicated Feelings About.

Dogmeat nudges her thigh, does a series of tricks she’s sure will impress, and is rewarded with the last couple bites of Lucy’s dinner. The Ghoul tosses her some more and she snatches the pieces out of the air in a series of quick snaps.

They weave through the crowd on the lookout for lodging. People elbow past and it suddenly strikes her that she’s no longer the outsider she once was. The ever present dust is crusted on her skin and has dulled the once vibrant blue of her Vault suit, but it’s not just the grime on her face or the gray of her acquired finger that anchors her to the landscape, it’s much deeper than that. She’s lost something, and she’ll never get it back.

Most of the old motel has been taken up by permanent residents, but there are three rooms on the far end that are managed by an ancient woman with patchy white hair and two teeth. She sits outside the door of her own apartment in a sturdy old chair, a handmade pipe perched in the corner of her mouth, wrapped in a blanket that appears to be in the process of cannibalizing three other blankets. There’s a sign nailed to the wall stating her prices and it also boasts that this is the best deal in all of Eco Lo. Lucy has a suspicion that this might be the only one.

From deep within her apartment, a radio pipes music at a low volume.

Our moment is swift, like ships adrift , she hears, we’re swept apart too soon.

“One room or two?” The old lady’s voice is barely more than a creak. Her pipe wiggles dangerously in her mouth but doesn’t fall.

The Ghoul hesitates. It lasts no more than half a second and an ordinary person probably wouldn’t even notice, but Lucy sees it. She sees it so clearly: the dart of his eyes back to her, the press of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the stillness of his hand tucked deep in one of his pockets.

“Just one.” Lucy speaks before The Ghoul has a chance to interrupt. “Please,” she adds hastily.

The woman nods. She points to the unit next to hers.

The Ghoul shoots her a look but hands over the caps. A withered hand emerges from under the blanket and the woman counts them twice.

“I have a master key,” she says as Lucy walks past. Though it sounds like a warning, Lucy knows it’s the opposite.

“We can get a second room,” The Ghoul hisses to her, the meaning not lost on him either.

“Waste of caps,” Lucy whispers back, all too aware that she has barely anything of value on her. She doesn’t want to be more indebted to him than she has to be.

There are stains on the walls and ceiling and the carpet has all but rubbed completely away save for a small patch in the corner. The glass in the window on the far end of the room is long gone and in its place are carefully arranged wooden slats meant to let the light in and keep spying eyes out. From between the small gaps Lucy can see a charming view of the shack next door. A lopsided candle made from animal fat sits on a crooked nightstand. It’s getting dark and they’ll need to light it soon.

The faucets and toilet in the bathroom obviously don’t work, but there’s a bucket of water sitting inside that doesn’t send her Pip Boy frantically chirping.

Lucy can’t help it. She falls onto the bed that’s been dressed with more mid-cannibalization blankets, kicks off her boots, and sighs up at the ceiling. The mattress squeals and sags but Lucy thinks it might be the most comfortable thing she’s ever laid on. She closes her eyes and can still faintly hear the old woman’s radio from next door.

The other side of the mattress dips and Lucy’s eyes snap open. The Ghoul is unceremoniously dumping his saddlebag, shotgun, bandolier, and duster on the floor and sits facing away from her. He’s wearing a worn leather vest over a weathered blue shirt. Lucy can’t be exactly sure why, but he looks familiar all of a sudden now that the optical illusion of the billowing fabric is gone and she can more clearly see where he begins and ends.

He is, Lucy realizes, uncomfortable.

She stifles a laugh, turning her face into the blankets less her smile gives her away.

“Something funny, vaultie?” The Ghoul asks. He still doesn’t look at her.

“You want to wash up first?”

He makes a gesture that she interprets as an invitation to go ahead.

She uses the light from her Pip Boy to illuminate the bathroom and peels out of her jumpsuit. 

There’s a thoughtful little rag next to the bucket of water and it’s mostly clean, if a little crunchy. The water is room temperature and, by the time she’s finished the long process of wiping herself down, a sludgy gray. It doesn’t seem like a polite way to leave it for the next user but she supposes that’s just the way things are up here when you have to ration resources carefully.

She briefly considers putting her Vault suit back on but the lining is still sweat damp and airing it out would be the next best thing to washing it. She chews on her lip.

He had offered to get her a second room. Her finger is stitched to his hand and he had called it a promise. That had to be worth something.

She nudges open the door and crosses the room with as much nonchalance as someone in only their tanktop and underwear can muster. The Ghoul has lit the candle in her absence and it throws anxious shadows across the walls. A heap of blankets has migrated to the ground and Dogmeat is lying on top of them in a loose crescent, paws tucked neatly under her. 

The Ghoul’s boots are off and he’s swung his legs up on the bed. His hat is tipped down over his eyes so that Lucy can only just make out his chin.

She wonders if he knew how long she stood by the door wrestling with herself, wonders if he’s done this before.

The arrival of night doesn’t seem to have dulled the activity outside. Sounds of chatter, laughter, and the occasional shouted argument creep through the thin walls. The old woman’s radio is still playing.

Lucy settles back down onto the bed. The Ghoul doesn’t acknowledge her weight on the mattress or the labored groan it gives as she shifts to get comfortable.

The Vaults were always so quiet after hours and the wasteland doesn’t make much noise after the sun goes down unless something is trying to eat you, but this town is alive in a way she’s never felt before. She pulls a blanket up over her head and screws her eyes shut.

The Ghoul blows the candle out.

Morning light tumbles into the room from between the window slats. Lucy wakes with an unfamiliar pressure against her cheek and a heavy weight across her chest. Her eyes crack open and it takes a moment for the scene to put itself together.

At some point over the course of the night she and The Ghoul have drifted together. He’s turned on his side, one arm flung over her. It’s unexpected but, she realizes, not unpleasant. Meanwhile, she’s asleep on her back with her head tucked under his chin, leaning against the rough fabric of where the collar of his shirts meets the twisted, melted skin of his chest. He’s fast asleep, breathing soft and shallow. She can hear the faintest whistle of air at the back of his throat and his pulse is slow, steady, and strong.

She closes her eyes and shuffles slightly.

The Ghoul groans low at the disturbance, then the noise catches as he comes to the same realization that she did moments earlier. Lucy counts the seconds and the distance between each one feels like years and years.

The weight on her chest disappears. He pulls away from her in a smooth motion and moves so that he’s casually seated on the edge of the bed. It’s a clumsy affectation, but he thinks he’s gotten away with it.

Lucy keeps counting, letting the years roll by in that little room, and then finally stretches out her arms and legs, gives a little sigh.

“Hey—” The Ghoul barks at her when she accidentally smacks the brim of his hat with her hand. “Watch it.”

There’s no bite to it though, and he’s not quite looking at her.

“What time is it?” she asks out of habit. They don’t measure time up here the same way her Pip Boy does.

“Time for us to get moving,” The Ghoul replies automatically and it might just be the most normal thing he’s ever said to her.

He pulls his boots back on with a merry jingle of his spurs. Next is his jacket, his sling full of bullets, his shotgun, then his saddlebag. He does it all with a practiced efficiency and then, just like that, her awkward bunkmate is wiped away and he’s The Ghoul again.

“Vaultie!” He snaps his fingers a few inches from her nose. “Vaultie! You awake?”

“Sorry?”

“Where did you go? Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t care.” He strides over to the bathroom and throws her Vault suit over to her. “Hurry up and get dressed. We can still beat the line to the shitters.”

Lucy zips up her jumpsuit and slides back into her boots. Dogmeat is already standing by the door, tail wagging. It feels good to have a secret over him, small as it is. He steps into the sun and she follows after. The old woman’s radio is still playing.

No one here can love or understand me , she barely makes out. Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.

Blackberries had always been an ever present, looming threat to the manicured gardens of his neighborhood, back when there was water to spare on plants you didn’t eat or turn into fabric. Once it took root it was impossible to ever truly be rid of and he’d hear stories at every summer barbeque from some poor Bill, Sam, or Harry bemoaning the dense bramble no shears or herbicide could tame and just how out of place it looked in their perfectly landscaped yards.

Just like they had done for the radroaches, the bombs had only made the blackberries stronger. They grew thick and tangled in old riverbeds and ravines, overtook whole buildings with vines the diameter of a human torso and thorns to match. Ironically enough, the berries themselves, though more abundant than they had ever been, became smaller. Most of the time it was rare to find one that grew past the size of a pinky nail.

Nothing in the new world could ever give freely.

The deeper into the Mojave they walk, the less they find it, but sometimes luck is on their side and the stubborn plant offers a bit of hydration and sugar to keep them going just a bit longer. 

Lucy loves the little fruits that grow in dense clusters, never missing an opportunity to fill her hands and pockets so she can snack as they walk. The Ghoul’s never been much of a poet, but even he can tell that the metaphor of thorned sweetness growing in a place where nothing else does is contrite, cliched, and downright lazy.

Now, they find themselves three days away from a settlement in any direction and they’re out of water. It’s been ages since the last blackberry bush and he’s absolutely certain that they picked up a tail a few miles back. Dogmeat won’t dash ahead to catch a gecko for herself like she usually does, and instead keeps close to Lucy’s side.

Lucy hasn’t noticed any of this, pleased as punch that she can now scratch between Dogmeat’s ears as much as she wants.

The way he figures, they only have one option.

Their path takes them through the abandoned ruins of some old town or another. The slanted skeletons of houses in various states of decay slouch around them, and he knows they’ve walked right into an ambush. It’s rough terrain with lots of places to hide. Easy to have the upper hand here if you’ve been making a living off of unsuspecting couriers and travelers.

“Hey vaultie,” he says and Lucy jumps to attention, startled at the fact he’s initiating a conversation for the first time. “We should see what we can scrounge up here. Don’t reckon there’s much but we’re not in a position to be picky.”

Lucy nods. “I’ll take this building over here?” She points to her left.

“Ten minutes,” he tells her, and heads in the opposite direction.

Except the second he’s out of sight he ducks behind a heap of rubble and peers back around to watch Lucy and Dogmeat walk away. The dog weaves anxious circles around Lucy’s legs, ears perked forward and tail stiff.

Lucy disappears around a corner and The Ghoul follows at a distance, watches her shift through the rubble in the futile hope of finding something that can help them. There won’t be anything. This place is a graveyard.

Dogmeat barks just as a gunshot rips the silence open. Lucy’s already ducked for cover with her pistol drawn.

Dogmeat takes off towards where the gun was fired, but The Ghoul has done this so many times before, has already seen the sand colored clothes dart just out of view, has already traced the bullet’s path back home.

He lines up the shot and fires. The shrill cry of pain and dull thud tells him that he hit his mark. 

All hell breaks loose after that.

The rest of the raiders open fire and Lucy holds her cover while Dogmeat scampers out of range. He spots two snipers and picks them off. One goes down hard, but he misses the other in a spray of concrete and dirt.

Lucy rises, shoots, and misses by a mile. He uses her distraction to get a little closer to her, slides into a safe spot behind the rusted frame of a pickup truck.

The Ghoul sets his jaw. The fire is coming from the north and west side, but they’ll be surrounded if this drags out any longer. He counts five more raiders. Or at least, five raiders with guns.

A bark. A shout. A heavy scuffle, and then a wet sounding scream cut off by a loud ripping noise.

Four raiders.

They open fire again and he watches as Lucy counts under her breath, then jumps back up before the last bullet shot at her has even wedged itself into the ground. Another miss, but she sends a shower of dust into one of their eyes and in the time it takes for them to stumble forward and out of safety, The Ghoul has already taken care of the problem by blowing their head clean off.

Three raiders.

One of them tries her luck with The Ghoul directly and barely has time to regret it.

And then there were two.

Dogmeat, muzzle wet and red, chases another raider into the open, snapping at their heels. They manage to kick her away, put some distance between them, and aim their gun.

Lucy shoots them clean through the neck and they’re dead before they even hit the ground.

There’s a 50/50 chance that the final raider will turn tail and run, but The Ghoul didn’t make it this far by being a gambling man. He hears the faint click of a reload and throws himself forward before common sense can catch up.

It wouldn’t have been fatal for her, he knows as he takes the impact of the bullet in his shoulder. But it would have slowed them down and they can’t afford any time wasted.

A bullet whizzes by his ear and for a second he fears the raider might have been too quick on the reload, but he sees a spray of blood a few yards ahead of him and realizes that Lucy’s not a bad shot when it counts.

There’s a moment of stillness; the only sound is Dogmeat’s panting. He turns back to Lucy and sees her staring at her gun. He can’t quite name the expression on her face, caught somewhere between horror and awe. She jumps, as if she’s completely forgotten he was there, and blinks at him.

He turns his back before she can say something and takes a step, but she darts around him and blocks his path.

“What?” he snaps. She’s on the comedown from her first proper kill but all these years of playing the monster have left him at a loss for what he can offer in a moment like this.

“I just—” Her eyes flicker between the hollow of where his nose used to be and the bullet hole blossom in his jacket.

“Doesn’t even hurt no more.” He shrugs her off and makes as if to step past her, but she moves in time with him.

“I just thought—” She licks her lips and he finds himself tracking the pink of her tongue as it sweeps from one corner of her mouth to the other. “That bullet would have gotten me. You were on the other side of that car so that means you actually had to jump in the way.”

“You were wide open.” He’s desperate to change the direction of wherever this conversation is headed. “Your aim’s not bad but you shoot like there ain’t anything shooting you back.”

“Was that a compliment?” A dimple appears on her left cheek he’d never noticed before.

“Don’t push it, kid.”

“That’s besides the point!” She’s not done with their little do si do. She steps closer to him and now there’s barely enough space between them for the light to shine through. “You saved me. On purpose!”

“And I won’t be making that mistake twice.” He fakes a left and manages to duck out of her gravity for the time being.

“We need to get that bullet out,” she calls. Whatever she was after, she got it, and it irritates him that he still isn’t sure exactly what it was.

“Later,” he calls over his shoulder. “If they have friends, we’ll want to be long gone before they start wondering what happened.”

He goes over to one of the bodies, crouches down, and starts rummaging through the dead raider’s pockets. He’s rewarded with a half finished flask of water, some jerky of unknown origin, a sachet full of caps, a canister of Jet, and some extra bullets. Or at least, whatever passed for bullets these days.

“What are you— holy smokes are you robbing him?” Lucy squeaks.

“The dead don’t need to drink, sweetie,” he replies, patting the body down one more time before moving on. “Here.”

He throws her the half empty flask and she catches it on instinct.

“You can’t just—” She doesn’t finish the sentence and he knows it’s because she can’t even lie to herself anymore about what’s right and just in a world that’s been split open and turned inside out.

They move to the next fallen raider, clean her of her belongings, then track down another with Dogmeat’s help.

“You used me as bait!” Lucy exclaims when it finally hits her. “Again!”

She still takes the switchblade he hands her and slides it into her pack.

“Oldest trick in the book,” he replies. “Far as I’m concerned, anyone who falls for it deserves a bullet between the eyes.”

This raider’s canteen is almost untouched and he tips his head back in a long drink. He passes it to Lucy when he’s done and she does the same. She’s so eager that she’s careless, a thin trickle leaking out the corner of her mouth and running down her jaw, down her bobbing throat, and down under the collar of her Vault suit.

She pulls the flask away with a satisfied gasp.

“Just, tell me next time, okay?” she says.

Something in his chest aches the way the bullets never have and she jogs over to the next fallen body while he shares the remainder of the water with Dogmeat. The head is nothing but pulp and bone shards, but she’s got her hands in its pockets and pulls them up with a triumphant cry.

She holds up a little jar of Buffout, some Rad-X, an assortment of Mentats, and at least five of the chems keeping him on the right side of sanity. Jackpot.

They gather what they can, leave what isn’t useful, and start back on their way. 

“Look!” Lucy points ahead of them. He can tell she’s feeling refreshed from the water because the gleam in her eyes is back and her voice doesn’t fry around the edges so much anymore.

He thought for sure they’d seen the last one days ago, but a lone blackberry bramble sits on the outskirts of the abandoned town. Lucy manages to pick a few that are still within reach and eats them as they keep walking. By the time she’s done the town is far behind them and her hands have stained a vibrant shade of red.

There was a reason he always preferred to be in front of the camera, not behind it, but even he can tell that the imagery is overplayed and heavy handed.

Lucy licks her fingers clean and he forces himself to look away.

Back in Vault 33, she and Norm used to play a game called “Just Pretend” where everything they said, no matter how far-fetched, outlandish, or taboo, was unprosecutable so long as the sentence began with those magic words. It was a game shared just between the two of them, safe from cousins and agemates and whispered in the safety of midnight blanket forts while their father slumbered in the next room over. 

“Just pretend that tomorrow, we sneak up to the surface.”

“Just pretend that when we get up there, we find a bunch of stray puppies who survived and they become our best friends.”

“Just pretend that the dogs are actually really sick. Because of the radiation poisoning. So it’s up to us to find a cure.”

“Just pretend that the cure is love. Just pretend that we love them so much that they all get better.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense, Lucy.”

That’s usually how their games would end, with Norm unable to make that fantastic leap with his sister and they would fall into a weighted silence, all of their Just Pretends scattered between them like broken toys.

In an attempt to not think of her father, Lucy’s mind turns to her mother instead, imagines what her life might have been like when she walked out the Vault doors and felt the sun on her skin for the first time. She wonders if they both choked on the same hot air, tripped over the same sand dunes.

The Mojave Wasteland is unending and merciless. One of her companions can’t hold a conversation and the other one is a dog. She needs something to make the trek less miserable.

There probably wasn’t even a plague in 2277, she concludes. That was almost certainly a lie made up to keep Vault 33 in their apartments while her father scrambled for a solution to the problem of his missing wife and kids. 

It’s so obviously a paper moon and a cardboard sea now that she’s stepped off the stage. 

But she has the truth, or at least, a small sliver of it. She can use it to build a better, stronger house to hold the memory of her mother.

Just pretend Rose sneaks out of the Vault with baby Norm strapped to her front and little Lucy clinging to her back. She left while everyone was sleeping, but up here the sun blazes high overhead. Fear sits like a fist in her throat but the Vault’s water is going somewhere which means it’s sustaining someone and that someone doesn’t want to fight or kill. They only want to survive. Just like her. They both have so much in common already.

Just pretend that Rose walks and walks and walks. Passersby gawk at her the same way they did to Lucy. People tell her to go back underground the same way they did to Lucy. But to Rose, going back would be worse than the death everyone is so sure awaits her up here. 

Just pretend that Norm and Lucy cry. So does Rose, sometimes. She misses warm showers and clean socks. But she walks and walks and walks and realizes she’s stronger than she ever thought she could be. 

Just pretend Lee Moldaver isn’t the first person Rose meets, but she’s the first person that feels like home. Rose notices there are fine wrinkles around her eyes, like she has spent years of her life squinting into the distance. Her hands are rough and cracked from the desert heat and ambient radiation, but she has an air about her that makes it seem as though she stepped out of a different world. Just like her.

Just pretend where everyone else sees a useless hothouse flower, Moldaver sees a whole garden in bloom. 

Back in the Vault, homosexuality was referred to with a tolerant candidness that put it in the same camp as intimate relations between cousins: understandable, harmless, but ultimately unsustainable. Children learned early that some of them might have urges to touch and kiss people of the same gender as them. Acting on these desires, so long as both parties were willing participants, was healthy and encouraged. However, officially recognized couples had to be able to procreate. The future of America depended on it. While it might have been fine to act on these impulses as a youth, it was important to put the continued population of the Vault first and prioritize the health, safety, and perpetuity of a real family.

Just pretend that up here, where the wind rustles the corn stalks and the clouds in the distance promise rain, Rose can finally love with her whole heart.

Just pretend that when Rose sees Moldaver holding both her children and smiling back at her, she feels like she’s watching a sunrise just for her.

Reality catches up and Lucy has to pause in order to reconcile the old world with the current one. That simile isn’t one she knows from experience, it’s just one she’s been taught. She untangles the gilded stories the Vault fed her with what she now knows to be true. Songs and books that survived the Great War made the sun seem so kind and gentle, a bringer of life and a champion to chase the night away. The sun she knows now is nothing but a tyrant.

Life can be so sweet, on the sunny side of the street , sings her Pip Boy radio as if on cue.

Yeah right. Lucy swipes the sweat from her brow and pushes forward, trying to keep pace with The Ghoul a few yards ahead.

Hundreds of years ago, a sunny day was something to celebrate. But now, sunshine feels like broken glass being rolled against her skin. It’s a constant reminder that if a radscorpion or a feral ghoul or a raider or a legionnaire or botulism or a rotten tooth doesn’t get you, dehydration or radiation will.

She can’t imagine what a benevolent sun would feel like, can’t understand why its appearance could take a day from good to great. She figures it’s just one of those many mysteries that have been lost to time, the shape of it preserved but its true dimensions obscure and unknowable.

How she spots the fire gecko before him she’ll never know, but she notices the sand shifting up ahead and she’s already drawn and fired before she can register what it might be. Her aim is true and the creature does down in a kick of sand and blood.

The Ghoul turns back to her and tips his hat like the sheriff in a corny cowboy movie. It’s a familiar gesture, almost a friendly one, but the light catches the line of his jaw just so and his tattered coat twists in the hot breeze and oh— the mystery uncurls itself slightly and Lucy wonders if maybe this is what sunshine used to feel like?

The rest of the fallen gecko’s pack arrives and the moment is ruined. Lucy fires another bullet that burrows itself in a gecko’s ruby eye while The Ghoul’s shotgun makes quick work of two more. Dogmeat leaps at the last one and tears it apart with a horrible squelch.

Clearly she’s staring because The Ghoul pats himself down like something is amiss.

“What is it?” he asks. “I got gecko brain on me somewhere?”

No, Lucy means to say. She wants to see if he’ll confirm her suspicions about pre-war sunshine but instead she stumbles forward and throws up onto the sand.

The Ghoul is talking but the only sound she can hear is her Pip Boy’s radio.

I’ve got my pride, but deep down inside, I’m yours and yours alone , a voice from far away and long ago sings.

The sand is warm against her cheek. 

And then there is nothing.

Something wet drags across her face.

“Dogmeat!” she exclaims, eyes squeezed shut as she tries to sit up. “Stop it! Dogmeat!”

Dogmeat gets in a few more licks before backing away and shaking off the excitement of the moment.

“Scared us there!” a chipper voice above her exclaims. “Tougher than you look though, miss.”

Lucy yelps and tries to scamper away, but finds herself being pinned in place by The Ghoul’s hand on her shoulder.

“Easy, sweetheart, easy.” He says and, when she nervously settles back down, adds, “'Atta girl.”

She takes a few deep breaths. If he’s calm, then there probably isn’t any cause for alarm. Dogmeat is curled up next to her, watching her with big, black eyes. They’re sheltering in the shade of a dilapidated gas station and her head is resting in The Ghoul’s lap while he holds up an almost finished bag of Radaway that’s connected to her arm.

There’s a stranger in a leather jacket standing above them both and grinning down at her.

“I’m Timo,” he says. “You were lucky I came across you in time. This ghoul here was trying to carry you to the next town—”

“Just somewhere out of the sun,” The Ghoul mutters but Timo doesn’t seem to hear.

“—I just happened to know a more protected spot close by—”

“I woulda found this without you.”

“—and had some Radaway on me—”

“Wasn’t radiation poisoning, just heat stroke. You just shoved it in her arm without asking.”

“—I’m a courier ‘round these parts, y’see? That’s why I know about this place.”

Lucy nods along, not really following anything that’s being said. She snuggles deeper under her blanket and then pauses.

She doesn’t have a blanket.

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to realize that The Ghoul has covered her in his duster. Now that she’s up close she can see all the bullet holes and blood stains it’s collected over the years and the many repairs that have been made to the heavy fabric. It smells of sweat and dirt and something like an electric spark. She snuggles down even deeper.

Timo says something.

“Sorry?” Lucy squints up at him.

“I said, what’s your name? He won’t tell me his.” Timo gestures at The Ghoul.

“Join the club.” Lucy rolls her eyes. “I’m Lucy. This is Dogmeat.”

Timo reaches down to scratch Dogmeat’s shoulder. He finds just the right spot and the dog’s mouth suddenly pulls back and her back leg starts to desperately paw at the air.

“I didn’t know she could do that!” Lucy exclaims.

“All dogs have got a spot,” Timo says. “I’ve got a knack for finding it.”

The bag of Radaway is empty and The Ghoul slips the needles out of her arm so swiftly she barely feels it. He said it was just heat stroke and not radiation poisoning, but she supposes that keeping those rad levels in check is never a bad thing. She rubs the spot idly, her brain still a bit foggy.

“Well thank you kindly, Timo,” The Ghoul says in a way that clearly implies the opposite, “but Miss Lucy and I would like to repay you for your kindness and be on our way.”

He helps Lucy to her feet and takes his jacket back.

“Wait, wait!” Timo exclaims. “Y’all are probably headed to Babylon, right? I’ve gotta make a delivery there and it sure would be handy to have two mean looking folks such as yourselves to walk with the rest of the way. No offense, Miss Lucy.”

“None taken,” Lucy replies.

“We ain’t going to Babylon,” The Ghoul says. It could be the fuzziness of her brain but she could swear his accent has gotten thicker.

“I can pay! I’ve got caps. Lots of caps. Or intel. You hear a lot running across the wastes.” He turns to Lucy. “You’re looking for someone right?”

Lucy freezes.

“How did you know?”

“You ain’t never heard of a cold read?” The Ghoul growls in her ear. “Kid’s a two bit Coney Island confidence man.”

“I only understand those words separately!” Lucy hisses back. “Maybe he knows something about my dad!”

“I can tell you right now he don’t know jack—”

“Power armor with no helmet, right?”

They both stop and stare.

“Take me to Babylon. I’ll tell you where it was headed.”

“See?” Lucy grins smugly.

“His nose is so long you could dry your laundry on it.”

“Pinocchio! Finally, a reference I actually know.” Lucy says brightly, and turns that apple pie smile back to Timo. “We’d be happy to escort you.”

Timo sags in relief. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

Lucy’s feeling much more energized now and does a few stretches to limber up before they start walking again. She hums along to her Pip Boy as she holds a lunge, then sinks into it just a little more. She’s been getting stronger, the muscles in her legs and arms more defined than they used to be and her ability to spring to action faster than she ever thought possible.

“I don’t trust him,” The Ghoul says as they start on their way. He keeps his voice low so it won’t carry over to the man walking ahead of them.

“Do you trust anyone?” Lucy whispers back.

“How do you think I made it this long?”

“Just pretend you’re not overly paranoid for one minute.”

“It’s not paranoia. It’s experience, sweetheart.”

“It’s only to the next town. No one’s been able to tell us anything about my dad so far. This could be our one shot at a clue!”

“I could start cutting his toes off and see how far I get before he volunteers the information himself.”

“We will escort this man in exchange for whatever information he has and we will not be cutting off anyone’s toes.”

“Just saying.” The Ghoul says, adjusting his saddlebag a little. “It’d be faster. And I’d get a snack out of it.”

She picks up her pace to catch up with Timo. “Say, why do they call it Babylon anyway?” Lucy’s voice is so tight that it cracks down the middle.

The Ghoul is anxious to get to Babylon in record time and pushes them to keep walking long after the sun goes down. He only acquiesces to stopping for the night after Lucy slips for the second time on the uneven terrain in the dark. She’s doing much better than he expected.

Timo’s on his eighth mouthful of sand, but The Ghoul isn’t inclined to stop for him at all.

Lucy does her usual evening routine: a bite to eat, a bit of water for her face, some stretches to keep the muscle cramps away. Timo is polite enough to pretend he isn’t watching, but The Ghoul can see how he keeps her just within his line of vision. It’s an idle sort of curiosity, kind of like Janey’s fourth visit to the aquarium where the displays are familiar but the creatures inside still strangely shaped and brightly colored.

Lucy has noticed, but is resolutely committed to being polite. She rubs her gums with her finger and searches for a patch of empty sand that’s more comfortable than another patch of sand with the feigned intensity of someone trying very hard not to make a big deal out of something.

“Vaultie,” he hears himself say before he can stop himself. “C’mere.”

Lucy pauses and turns to him, brow furrowed.

The Ghoul shrugs off his jacket and arranges it in a way he hopes looks inviting.

He can hear Lucy’s brain do advanced algebra as she tries to figure out what exactly he’s telling her.

“’S gonna be cold tonight,” he says as casually as possible.

Lucy glances back to where Timo is chewing on a protein block made from ants, then back at The Ghoul’s jacket.

“Okie dokie,” she replies and lays down next to him.

He waits until she gets comfortable and settled before looking back at Timo, who is watching them both with that same detached interest. Dogmeat has strategically chosen to sleep in the space between them, her limbs twitching as she chases mutant rabbits in her dreams. She’s a light sleeper though and will be on her feet the second Timo gets to his. 

“I can take first watch,” the courier offers. “On account of you both looking out for me during the day.”

“Sure,” The Ghoul says and remains seated upright. “Knock yourself out, sport.”

He glances back down at Lucy, only to find her staring up at him. She’s trying to ask him a question, but he’s not in the mood. A bit of her fringe has fallen into her face and he’s suddenly overwhelmed by the compulsion to brush it away. He lifts a gloved hand to her cheek.

Lucy freezes and he is about to yank his hand back when her eyes flutter closed and she leans into his touch. He catches the stray lock of hair and runs his fingers back across her temple as he tucks it into place. Lucy settles her head down and her breathing evens out as her mouth goes slack. Lucy’s learned to sleep quickly and deeply because shut eye is just another precious resource out here.

Timo is staring. It’s different now. Sharper, The Ghoul thinks, though it’s hard to tell in the dark.

The Ghoul glares back, half daring the courier to say something.

They sit in silence as the hours drag by and eventually, Timo proves himself smarter than he looks by laying down in the sand and falling asleep.

They set off at first light and Lucy chats to Timo like they’re estranged classmates at a high school reunion. They walk a little bit ahead of him, their conversation mostly out of earshot but just close enough that he catches snippets here and there.

Ever curious, Lucy is trying to wring the man for as much history as she can now that she’s run out of personal questions to ask him. Timo’s not the most reliable source, it turns out, getting his dates and personalities jumbled.

“Not true,” The Ghoul interrupts when he can’t take it anymore. “The Legion didn’t clear out until after. The scrimmage up north was important but the NCR thought they could recuperate their losses if they pulled back.”

“It was before my time,” Timo shrugs, not really caring either way.

“Then quit acting like you know,” The Ghoul snaps.

“Not like anyone from then is around anymore,” Timo says. “What does it matter?”

“Careful, that’s how rumors start,” Lucy responds. “History may be written by the victors, but that’s why it’s important to consult multiple sources and utilize critical thinking skills to determine what hasn’t been recorded and why. Speculation and perpetuating false information just makes it harder to understand the actual order of events and the impact they had on the people who lived through them.”

The Ghoul shakes his head. “Looks like the radiation’s finally got to your brain,” he tuts. “I knew your frail vaultie body wouldn’t make it far.”

“If you know it so well, why don’t you tell it?” Lucy teases back.

“Didn’t say I knew it well. Just know what he said is wrong.”

“And how would you know, ghoul?” Timo retorts.

“’Cuz I was there,” The Ghoul replies and it buys him about twenty minutes of glorious silence which, all things considered, feels worth it.

“He was there? Just how old is this guy?” Timo whispers to Lucy.

“Beats me,” Lucy replies. “He won’t tell me anything.”

The Ghoul knows he’s no great teacher, yet Janey had always preferred to do her homework with him. Barb was the brains between the two of them. At parties he would introduce himself as her trophy husband and everyone would laugh like he’d cracked the funniest joke of the night. He’d never joke about a thing like that, but it never failed to open up the room and let Barb work her magic.

But after school and seated at the kitchen table, Janey would always turn down her mother’s offers of help and wait until he was home. Maybe it was because every question the girl had for her mother turned into a university level lecture on Punnett squares, long division, the salmon life cycle, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or the superiority of the Oxford comma. Or maybe it was because every question she had for her father would be answered with an earnest “I don’t know,” even when he did, followed by a “Let’s look it up together.”

Janey had always been the type to learn by doing, just like her daddy.

“Where’s he from? He got a family out there somewhere?” Timo prods for more information.

“Dunno,” Lucy says, voice light and casual. “Like I said, he won’t tell me anything.”

Babylon is about a mile off the old highway. It doesn’t look like much from a distance but once they’re closer The Ghoul can see that it’s main feature is the abandoned parkade that looms over the surrounding plantations. At seven stories it’s easily the tallest thing they’ve seen for days. He wonders what people would have driven all the way out here for that they required something this size to park their cars in. A casino, maybe? Or a stadium perhaps? It’s impossible to know now. The land surrounding Babylon has been razed flat, every scrap of concrete and metal repurposed for whatever they’ll find inside.

They get even closer and The Ghoul can’t help but let out a low whistle. The roof of the parkade has been converted into a rain catcher, and countless tubes and pipes and slides stick out of the structure like tiny tentacles. This isn’t just a settlement, it’s a machine optimized to do one thing: keep its inhabitants alive. 

He notes the turrets positioned at all of the highest windows that swivel in their direction as they approach.

The ground floor is a bustling market. Vendors are selling everything from scavenged goods to purified water to clothes to assorted weapons to fresh meats and vegetables. There are some stalls advertising mending, mechanical repairs, or construction services, and The Ghoul even spots a busker though it’s too loud to tell what he’s playing on his bone flute. People crowd and push against them, hurrying on errands and urgently hunting for what they need.

“Mayor’s office is on the top floor,” Timo yells over the din.

“Thought you said you were making a delivery,” The Ghoul shouts back.

“Yeah, to the mayor.”

In the meantime, Dogmeat has trotted over to a stall selling chicken eggs. She glances at him, her eyes as big as she can possibly make them. He fishes around in his pocket for caps, but pauses when he spots another ghoul amongst the crowd.

She’s tall with leathery skin like his though darker, and she’s still got a few tufts of short black hair growing out of her scalp and the nape of her neck. She stares at him and he’s about to shout something snide when he realizes that it’s not him who’s caught her attention, but Lucy.

Lucy is too busy gushing over a table of oddly shaped citrus fruits to have noticed anything.

He nudges her, and she mistakes it as him asking her to hurry and follow Timo up the ramp to the second floor. He leans in close to talk in her ear.

“Friend of yours?” He points over to the other ghoul, who is still staring.

Lucy squints. “I don’t think so.”

She gives a tentative wave.

The ghoul smiles and waves back. There’s an old burn on that arm, the skin even more mottled and raw than the rest of her. Parts of her fingers have completely fused together.

“Huh,” The Ghoul says and pays for an egg.

Dogmeat stretches her head up onto the table and nimbly takes a single egg in her mouth. It’s an elegant gesture completely ruined by the way she breaks it in her jaw and the albumen spills over her jowls. She gulps down shell and yolk, then licks the rest of the mess off the floor.

“This way,” Timo has come back and is urging them to follow him.

“Don’t see why we have to head all the way up with you,” The Ghoul replies.

“The mayor might have more information on the whereabouts of your power armor,” Timo tells Lucy.

They pick up the pace.

When they round the bend to the second floor, The Ghoul sees where Babylon gets its name from. The old concrete structure is covered in lush greenery. Moss and clover grows on the floor and blankets the crowded little apartments built close together. Thick vines with broad leaves climb up columns and posts. The ceiling is equal parts wires, tubes, pipes, and foliage. 

Lucy touches a leaf reverently. It’s quiet up here, despite the crowd not too far away.

“How is this possible?” she whispers. 

“I think the mayor once said something about a gecko?” Timo says as he walks past her.

Lucy frowns, then lights up. “You mean a G.E.C.K.?”

“I guess.”

Timo’s already on his way to the next floor. 

There’s not much activity here. The inhabitants must be running the stalls down below, working the farms, or doing one of the many other endless tasks it would take to keep a settlement like this up and running. There are even working lights, which means they must have a hell of a generator, which means they need a crew of people to keep it running.

A handful of rugrats are crouched by a wall playing a game that involves a brahmin horn, a collection of pebbles, and some dice carved from bone. They look up as they walk past, but quickly lose interest. 

There are guards stationed at the entrance ramp to the seventh floor and they step in Timo’s path when he approaches. One crosses his arms, which conveniently moves his shirt off his hip to reveal a plasma blaster holstered in his belt.

He talks to them in a hushed voice and glances back at The Ghoul and Lucy every so often. 

“Let them through,” a voice calls down the ramp. “Timo is making a delivery to me.”

A woman in neatly pressed clothes and tidy gray hair gestures for them to join her. She’s wearing a sash that says “Mayor” on it and The Ghoul thinks it might be a bit overkill but appreciates they at least got the spelling right.

“Oh my stars, an honest to goodness Vault dweller!” The mayor exclaims when Lucy approaches. “So fresh. Look at those perfect teeth.”

Lucy decides to take it as a compliment and bows her head a little.

“Come with me,” she’s mostly talking to Lucy but the way her gaze lands on him briefly tells him that he’s also invited on the walk, but not the conversation. “My grandfather was a Vault dweller, you see. When he came to the surface he brought along his Vault’s G.E.C.K. and that’s how Babylon was born. Or at least, that’s the short version.”

The mayor laughs and so does Lucy. The Ghoul rolls his eyes.

The seventh floor is nothing like its verdant predecessors. It’s been turned into what looks like a crude approximation of an administrative office. There are rooms built in confusing arrangements that are connected by weaving hallways that intersect at strange angles. People hurry past them with stacks of paper or collections of files and The Ghoul marvels at how smoothies continuously find new ways to reinvent bureaucracy.

Dogmeat is keeping pace with him, stopping to sniff every few yards, and Timo takes up the rear looking very out of place in his dusty leather jacket.

“—my grandfather found that the seeds of the old world wouldn’t survive in this new environment so he and his fellow Vault dwellers took it on themselves to genetically modify what they had to better adapt to the new—“

He tunes out again. More vaultie nonsense.

Lucy cuts in politely but firmly. “Timo said that you might have more information about someone piloting power armor with no helmet that came by a little while ago?”

The mayor looks back to Timo, who nods at her.

“Yes, of course. Babylon has excellent scouts, given our unparalleled elevation. I believe someone put a report on my desk about it the other day. Come with me.” The mayor takes them around another corner and opens a door. “My office. Please.”

Dogmeat slips inside and The Ghoul makes a move to follow but the mayor angles her body to block him. “We’ll just be a minute.” She smiles and closes the door.

The Ghoul thrusts his hands in his pockets and leans against the wall. Fucking vaulties. He’s already certain that Lucy will be in there for another half hour politely nodding along to a monologue about genome sequencing in carrots.

He feels Timo come up beside him.

“Didn’t you have something for the ma—“

Timo’s fist connects with his jaw.

The Ghoul hits the ground hard and Timo gets right on top of him, wraps his hands around his throat. 

“Usually I ask a fella to buy me dinner before we get to this part.” The Ghoul grunts.

Timo doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke and adds more weight.

The Ghoul snarls, knocks Timo’s elbows out of the way and throws him off. He leaps back to the feet at the same time as he draws his gun, and he and Timo square up in the hall. 

He can’t help but smile. It’s an old fashioned showdown. 

“Now what’s this all about?” The Ghoul says.

“Brotherhood is offering a lot of caps for a ghoul matching your description,” Timo says.

“Ah.” The Ghoul nods. “Probably on account of me taking out a whole unit of knights last time we crossed paths.”

The color drains from Timo’s face. Credit where credit is due, he holds his gun steady. “Bullshit.”

“Call it whatever you want, sport.” The Ghoul edges towards the mayor’s door. Reinforcements are on their way. He can hear the thunder of footsteps coming towards him and smack dab in the middle of a hallway might be the worst way to greet them. “Either way, I think we’ll be taking our leave.”

”You stay away from her!” Timo shouts. “The Brotherhood only wants you. The mayor is offering her a home right now, and if you really care about her you won’t take her away.”

“If I really care—“

“I see the way you look at her.”

For once, The Ghoul has nothing to say.

“The way you touched her last night. I saw the whole thing! Does she even know what happens to your kind?”

“I’ve had enough of this.”

“She doesn’t belong with you—“ 

The Ghoul shoots him right between the eyes. He reaches for the door. The shouting is growing closer and Lucy— Lucy might have a real chance to survive this one if he turns and runs now. She wouldn’t miss him for long. She could have a whole life here full of radishes and barley and clean water whenever she wanted it.

His hand hovers there, and the shouting gets louder.

Lucy politely nods along while the mayor describes genome sequencing in carrots at length.

It’s not that she isn’t interested. She is! It’s actually fascinating. She’s spent her whole life farming the same Vault-Tec patented crops over and over and she’s in awe that there are so many more vegetables that she’s never even heard of and just as many new ways to cultivate them. 

Back in the Vault the G.E.C.K was rarely referred to, but when it was it was with an air of reverence and envy for the future generations that would make use of it. But she’s literally standing in the results of one right this very moment! It would actually work! She knows the Vault was an elaborate game of make believe, but the G.E.C.K. was very real. She had seen it herself, if only once, and it meant that someone along the way had truly believed in the possibility of their survival. Someone had hoped that they would make it, and left them a small gift to help.

“Do you owe him something?”

Lucy jumps, but slaps that apple pie smile on her face.

“Excuse me?”

“That ghoul? Do you owe him something? Or did he take you from somewhere?”

“No!” Lucy says a bit too loudly “He said that he would help me find my father. He’s the one in the power armor. The one you said one of your scouts saw?” she adds hopefully.

The mayor doesn’t seem to hear her. She takes a seat behind her desk and leans back in her chair.

“Well, whatever it is, you’re safe now. If ever feel ready to talk about it, you can always come find me. I’m never too busy for a fellow Vault dweller.”

“I’m sorry.” Lucy shakes her head. “I don’t think I—“

And then she sees the board behind the mayor’s desk covered in notes and memos and posters. One in particular catches her eye. A drawing of The Ghoul stares back at her, looking a bit lopsided but unmistakable in his hat. She steps across the room to get a closer look. Last seen in the company of a female Vault dweller and a dog, the bottom of the poster reads. It also promises more caps than Lucy can conceptualize. Wanted alive. Contact The Brotherhood of Steel upon capture.

The mayor takes Lucy’s hand and she flinches.

“They only want him,” she says. “You’re safe now.”

There’s a loud shout and sounds of a scuffle from outside. 

Lucy yanks her hand back and lunges for the door.

“You’re nothing but a meal to him!” the mayor shouts. “If he escapes from Timo, he won’t come back for you.”

Lucy hesitates. Dogmeat whines. The mayor smooths down a wrinkle in her shirt.

“Stay with us,” she says. “This is the life that your ancestors dreamed for you. We have good, honest work and a place you can stay. You’ll be happy here, and we need smart, young people like you.”

More muffled shouting, and then a gunshot that echoes all around them.

Lucy makes her choice, and throws open the door.

They almost crash right into each other, faces stopped only inches apart.

Lucy blinks up at him. She’s so close he can feel the warm puff of her breath on his lips, can see the thin shadows of her eyelashes. Her mouth opens and closes wordlessly as she tries to work out exactly what’s going on. There are a handful of light freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. They’ll get darker with time. He should buy her a hat.

A bullet whizzes past him and she leaps to action, diving into the hall with her weapon drawn and firing back. Someone screams and someone else trips and then they’re both running the way they came as chaos erupts around them.

“Look alive, MacLean!” He grins, blood singing.

They work like fucking magic. 

They turn a corner and come face to face with six people, all fully armed. Dogmeat charges ahead and takes down the first person they see, jaws tearing right though their neck and ripping out tubes and tendons in a spray of blood. Lucy goes low, slides between two of them faster than they can aim their weapons and pops both their kneecaps as she zips past. He rushes one of them before they even realize that’s happening, grabs him by the lapels and spins him around to take a series of bullets, and throws the limp body back into the next person in line. It buys him enough time to shoot one more attacker in the shoulder, then turn back and finish the last one just as she’s crawling out from under her fallen comrade. 

More bullets from down the hall, so they keep running.

“This way!” Lucy calls, making hard left when they come to a t-junction.

“How do you know?” he shouts back at her.

“You weren’t paying attention on the way in?” She whips her head around to look back at him and loses the tip of her ponytail to a lucky shot.

“This place is like a rat maze, how the hell is anyone supposed to keep track?”

Someone jumps out from behind a door up ahead and he shoots them in the chest. They’re sprinting past the corpse before it’s even hit the ground.

“I guess you just learn to navigate pretty quickly in the Vault,” Lucy replies. “Right!”

It’s a dead end.

“So much for that,” The Ghoul says, screeching to a halt.

“No, no, no.” Lucy bites her bottom lip and walks up to the wall. “This wasn’t here before. I know it.”

Lucy raises her hands to give it a push, but before she can even touch it the false wall swings open. Standing there is a Babylon resident with their gun drawn.

They collapse and he sees a knife sticking out of their back, a bloom of blood growing wider and wider in their shirt.

Standing right behind the fallen body is the ghoul from the market. Beyond her, the empty hallway stretches back. Huh. Fancy that.

A powder charge sails from around the corner they just turned and it bounces on the floor with a metallic clang. No going back now.

The other ghoul yanks Lucy forward and he and Dogmeat follow close behind. The blast from the explosion propels them even faster.

“Lucy! The door on your right!” The other ghoul calls. 

Lucy doesn’t hesitate, throwing her shoulder against it and tumbling inside.

The small room is empty save for a heavy desk with a child’s drawing of a giant flower. 

“Barricade the door,” the other ghoul instructs as she moves to the back wall. She presses her ear against it and knocks, frowns, moves a half inch and knocks again.

Lucy and The Ghoul do as she says, moving as quietly as they can. Footsteps rumble past their hiding spot and they freeze, barely daring to breathe. The sound fades away, and they tip the desk up and lean it against the door. It won’t hold forever, but it might buy them a little time.

“How do you know my name?” Lucy asks, sitting and finally catching her breath. 

“I guess you wouldn’t recognize me,” the ghoul responds, knocking again and moving to a new spot. “My name is Priya. I was one of the ghouls you saved from the organ dealership.”

“But how do you know my name?” Lucy presses.
“We did a bit of asking around once we got out. There aren’t a lot of Vault dwellers up here these days so it wasn’t hard to find out who you were and where you and your ghoul were headed. I didn’t think we’d actually meet again, though.” She knocks, frowns, moves again, knocks once more. “Call it fate. Anyway, word travels fast amongst us ghouls. Probably aren’t any who don’t at least know your name and what you did by now.”

“What do you mean my ghoul?” Lucy squawks.

The Ghoul sputters at the same time as her. “Since when was I her ghoul?”

Priya is unphased, completely absorbed by her knocking and listening. Just what the hell is she looking for?

“That’s what we call you, since none of us know your name.”

“Who’s this we?”

“The other ghouls. All of us. We refer to you two as Lucy and her ghoul.”

“Y’all never had trouble just calling me The Ghoul before.”

“To your face maybe. If you haven’t noticed, you don’t exactly have the monopoly on the condition.”

The Ghoul pinches his eyes closed. 

“Cooper,” The Ghoul finally says.

“Pardon?” If she wasn’t so preoccupied with knocking on the damn wall she would have heard him the first time.

“Cooper,” he says again. “My name’s Cooper.”

“Like the actor?” Lucy says absently. “Neat.”

He must be getting rusty because Lucy clocks something in his expression that gives him away and he has to watch as her face runs the five stages of grief in under a second.

“No.”

“'Fraid so, sweetheart.”

“No!”

“Wish it were otherwise.”

“But—”

“But won’t change the truth.”

“But I liked you!”

“They say never meet your heroes.”

“No!” He dimly registers that Priya has stopped her knocking so that she can hide her face behind her hands, wincing as Lucy seems unable to stop whatever trainwreck she finds herself hurtling towards. “No, you don’t understand! I liked you.”

Oh.

Oh no .

A bullet punctures the table barricade, then another, which means they’ve got to get moving. Priya gives a triumphant cry and slides a nearly invisible latch into place. The wall folds like an origami crane and reveals a concealed passageway. It’s too dark to see where it leads, but Priya steps inside and motions for them to follow.

“We can unpack your sexual awakening and daddy issues later,” Priya says. “For now, we need to get you out of here.”

“I think I’m alright where I am,” Lucy mumbles, comatose with mortification. “I’d actually rather die.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” The Ghoul growls and yanks her away from the wall right before another bullet zings through.

Priya disappears into the darkness, followed closely by Dogmeat. The Ghoul pushes Lucy forward after them both. She’s only a few paces ahead of him when she vanishes from sight. He barely has time to process what’s happened before his legs go out from under him and he’s sliding down a metal chute at breakneck speed.

He sees the light from the outside only seconds before he’s thrown into the sand in an undignified heap. Next to him, Priya is helping Lucy to her feet.

“Come on, come on!” she shouts as the turrets whir to life and start raining bullets down on them. “We gotta go!”

Priya takes off, leading the way, and they follow her across the sand. The bullets die off but he can hear shouting behind them as the inhabitants of Babylon regroup in hot pursuit.

The Ghoul’s breathing is rough and ragged and his heart pounds in his ears, but they have to keep going. The sun falls behind the dunes and their shadows grow longer and larger until they become the night itself, but they keep running. 

Lucy starts to fall behind. She doesn’t have the same stamina that he and Priya do, but they’re not in the clear yet and can’t afford to stop. She sags into the sand, legs buckling under her.

The Ghoul runs back, grabs her hand, and pulls her along so that she’s not running so much as she’s falling forward and catching herself at the last minute. It’s good enough. So long as they’re moving.

They come across an old quarry, a blown out scar in the ground with enough nooks and crannies to keep them hidden, and take shelter just before the dawn. They’ll have the terrain advantage if their pursuers from Babylon manage to catch up, but The Ghoul isn’t sure they have another escape in them unless they break into the Buffout. Dogmeat is collapsed on the cool floor, eyes wide and wild, her ribs heaving. Lucy can barely stand and her every inhale is a rasping thing that rattles and shakes. She throws up a little, though there isn’t much left inside of her anymore and her body convulses as it tries to sort through the adrenaline, acid, and exhaustion.

“'Atta girl,” The Ghoul murmurs as holds her up and rubs her back. “You did good.”

“Thanks, Cooper.” She wipes her chin with the back of her hand and then freezes, realizing what she’s done.

Maybe his grip on her tightens a little. He hopes that if it did, she doesn’t notice.

“I’m so—”

“Don’t sweat it, kid,” he tells her and is surprised to find he means it.

Priya offers to scout the area as the afternoon draws near. They need to keep up their head start but both Lucy and Dogmeat can barely stand. Priya reasons that it won’t do to leave safety without a plan. They need to move, even if it’s slowly.

“That’s probably the last we’ll see of her.” The Gh— no, Cooper remarks once she’s out of sight. Now that she knows his name, knows who he is, she finds she can’t refer to him as simply The Ghoul anymore. And yet it feels equally strange to call him by the name of the man her father admired so much, the man whose face was synonymous with integrity and good old fashioned American values, the man whom she pictured whenever Chet was clumsily but enthusiastically moving his fingers inside her jumpsuit.

“You really think she’d ditch us?” Lucy asks. Her voice is still hoarse. 

“Wouldn’t you?”

Lucy stares. “We’ve met, right?”

Cooper smiles. “Yeah, suppose we have.”

“How about a bet?” 

Cooper looks over at her. For a second she thinks he’s going to turn her down.

“Alright, vaultie. I’ll bite. What’s it worth to you?”

“If Priya comes back, you have to answer any question I ask you. Truthfully!” she adds, because Lucy is always careful.

“Suppose I should have expected that,” Cooper says. “You have yourself a deal.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucy exclaims. “You didn’t say what you wanted.”

Cooper thinks, then shrugs. “I’ll decide later.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Relax, vaultie. Promise it won’t be any worse than me having to answer one of your questions.”

“You make it seem like it’s pulling teeth. Or even worse than that.”

“We don’t have to do this bet.”

“Okay, okay!” Lucy gives in at the thought of potentially losing out on a carte balance to anything she wants to know. “You can think of it later. Not that you’ll have to because Priya is absolutely coming back.”

“Wouldn’t count on it, sweetheart.”

“You’ll see!” She crosses her arms and juts out her chin.

“You’re as green as the Boston River on Saint Paddy’s day, but you’re no dummy. How long before you finally figure out how things work ‘round here?”

“Priya wouldn’t do that! She’s a good person!”

“Are you talking about me?” Priya pops her head around the corner.

“Hah!” Lucy points. “I told you!”

Cooper rolls his eyes but she can see the corner of his mouth tug up slightly.

Dogmeat greets Priya with a series of enthusiastic licks to her hand. She knees down to rub at the dog’s scruff and coos insults meant as endearments.

“Who’s the stinkiest girl in the world? Is it you? Are you the stinkiest girl in the whole world?”

Am I the stinkiest girl in the whole world, Dogmeat’s expression seems to say. Is that good? I hope so.

“No sign of anyone,” Priya reports, giving Dogmeat a few solid slaps to the flank. “We should clear out.”

Cooper narrows his eyes. “Who’s we?”

“I have a proposition for you both. I’ll explain as we walk,” Priya says.

“If we’re even headed in the same direction.”

“It won’t take long. If we decide to part ways you won’t be far off course.”

They begin the hike out of the quarry and every muscle in Lucy’s body (plus a few more she didn’t know about before) screams in protest. But whenever she needs a bit of support, Cooper’s already offering his arm or guiding her forward with a hand between her shoulder blades. 

“I’ll spare you the worst of it,” Priya begins as they climb. “I was working a simple delivery gig out around the border when I got jumped by some traders who deal in, shall we say, livestock.”

Lucy shudders.

“There was a collector out west who would pay for a ghoul in my condition, so they kept me on a heavy diet of chems to make sure I didn’t try to make a break for it and shipped me to the Boneyard.” Priya peeks her head out over the last rock that will offer them protection, and gestures that it’s safe. “I got lucky, I guess. The collector was late for pick up and then you appeared.” She smiles and takes Lucy’s hand to help her over a bit of loose gravel.

“So what’s the proposition? You want revenge?” Cooper asks.

Priya shakes her head. “I just want to go home. And I’d like the two of you to make sure I get there safely. I can pay you in chems. The good ones.”

“Where’s home?” Lucy asks. She doesn’t care about what Priya’s offering. She’d do it for nothing, but a payment of the good chems makes it even harder to turn down.

There’s a gentle breeze and it catches the remaining patches of Priya’s hair. She looks out over the wastes with a hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the glare.

“Three days east,” she finally says as if she can distinguish this endless swath of sand from any other.

Priya must see Lucy’s confusion because she points out to the horizon.

“See that turbine?” Lucy squints and sure enough, there is a lone metal structure far in the distance. It’s been toppled over from the storms but it’s still there. “They’re all over the place, but this one has a missing blade and points north-south. Once you’ve walked the wasteland long enough you start to notice little markers that tell you where you are. Not as simple as a numbered grid system but Wastelanders make do, right Coop?”

“Not like LA’s ever made any sense anyway,” Cooper says absently. “Three days?”

“Could be less if the wind stays at our backs.”

Cooper shrugs. “Seems like our paths converge for now.”

Lucy’s trying to catch his gaze but he keeps his head lowered.

“Good enough for me.” Priya nods. “Time’s a wastin’.”

They get waylaid by a radstorm on the second day and have to take shelter in something Cooper calls a semi truck that’s half buried in the sand. There’s graffiti all over the inside from where travelers just like them have left their mark over the decades, and a dried out skeleton at the far end that she does her best not to look at or even think about.

They nibble on radroach and Priya tells Lucy stories from lifetimes ago, about a city way up north called Seattle where the clouds hung low over the mountains and it rained for weeks at a time. Lucy can’t even imagine all that water falling from the sky in cold, fat drops. It feels like an inadequate trade, but she shares stories about her time underground, about running with Norm though the Vault hallways and how she and Steph became best friends despite the horrible first impression Lucy made. Cooper offers nothing, and outside the wind howls.

On the fourth day, a farmhouse appears in the distance and Lucy knows they’ve finally made it by the way Priya picks up her pace and anxiety floods her features. She’s been gone for so long and now she can see her home looming larger and larger by the minute.

They draw closer and two figures dash out of the front door and come charging out. On instinct, she has her hand on her pistol at the same time Cooper reaches for the holster on his thigh, but Priya rushes ahead of them, arms wide and a choked sob falling from her mouth.

They’re just children, Lucy realizes as they race closer. There’s a girl with corn blonde hair and a large burn on the side of her face and a younger boy with earth colored skin, both pumping their skinny legs furiously. “Priya!” they shout. “Priya!”

“Claire! Darcy!” Priya drops to her knees as they both tackle her at once, almost knocking her over. “I’m home.” She pulls them close, close, close.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Claire touches Priya’s face, half in wonder, mapping all the familiar ridges and dips with her fingers.

“We did everything you told us to.” Darcy hiccups into Priya’s shoulder, a wet patch steadily growing larger and larger. “The farm’s doing great. The chickens lay more eggs than we can eat.”

“I knew I could count on you two.” Priya kisses both their foreheads. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

The children finally register that they’re not alone and loosen their grip on Priya, though don’t pull away from her entirely. 

“These are friends of mine,” Priya says, turning to introduce them. “Lucy and Cooper. Lucy saved my life a while back, you know.”

“Thanks for bringing Priya home,” Darcy says as he wipes at the snot running down his nose. “We missed her.”

“I missed you too, kids.” Priya rises back to standing and ruffles both of their hair affectionately. “Come on, let’s show our guests how well you’ve been taking care of the place.”

“Guests…” Lucy starts.

“You didn’t think I would make you come out all this way and not feed and put you up for at least one night?” Priya smiles. “My, what do they teach you down in those Vaults of yours?”

They approach the house and a white and tan dog barges out the door. He runs right to Priya and leaps into her arms but she holds him up easily despite him looking like he weighs at least sixty pounds.

“I missed you too, Arnold,” Lucy manages to make out between slobbering kisses.

After he’s finished licking Priya’s face clean, she puts him down so that he and Dogmeat can sniff each other. Both their tails whip back and forward and in a blink they’re jumping and bumping hips before taking off, chasing each other around the farm.

“Never met a dog Arnold didn’t love,” Priya says fondly. “He’ll come say hi to you both once the excitement of a new friend wears off.”

They kick the dirt off their boots and step inside. It looks like it was built pre-war, though not much of the original fixtures remain. She spies traces of the past in the occasional crown molding and little scraps of wallpaper. It’s old, but clean and cozy with floorboards worn smooth from years of laughter and crayon drawings of animals, plants, and smiling faces tacked up on every wall.

“Priya’s friends pass through and stay with us all the time,” Claire tells them as she shows them around. “Lucy, you can sleep in this one. Priya uses it for repairs because it stays bright the longest.”

There’s a comfy looking bed on one side, and a workbench piled high with miscellaneous contraptions and old clothes on the other. 

Claire shows them to another room, mostly bare save for a lumpy mattress that’s made from straw and fiber scraps. “You can use this one, Cooper.”

Cooper shrugs off his saddlebag, shotgun, and bandolier and leaves them on the floor. It feels uncomfortably intimate, like Lucy’s seeing something that she shouldn’t.

“Next you can meet the chickens!” Darcy exclaims and grabs Cooper’s hand. There’s a moment where Lucy sees him hesitate, but he curls his hand around the boy’s smaller one and allows himself to be dragged out the back door where a whole brood of chickens haughtily ignore them.

There’s a brahmin and her calf further along, and then a thriving garden complete with a glass hothouse and a well built of stone.

The two of you managed this the whole time?” Lucy wonders aloud.

“Priya has been teaching us since we were small,” Darcy replies. “And the neighbors come by to help when she’s away.”

“Neighbors?” Lucy looks around, trying to see where they might be. There’s nothing but empty land as far as she can see.

“We’re pretty spread out, but we all follow an underground river that runs through here,” Claire explains. Arnold chooses this moment to rejoin them, tongue lolling out of his big square head. He looks almost the exact opposite of Dogmeat, thick and muscled where she’s svelte and lean, flopped ears where hers point up to attention, and a short coarse coat where hers is long and soft. “Priya leaves every three months or so, and they know it can be hard for us kids to keep things going without her. And we help them out whenever we can too.”

She points back into the house. “We’ve got a radio to keep in touch. We can all call each other to warn of danger, or if we need help with something.”

“One of them has bees!” Darcy exclaims. “I walk over once a week to help with the hive. It’s the best !” 

“Yeah.” Lucy can’t help but smile and Arnold nudges her hand so that she’ll start petting his head. “It sounds like it is.”

“Okay, kids,” Priya calls from the house. “Sundown’s not long from now and we’ve got two more mouths to feed. Claire, we’re celebrating today so take Cooper to help you nab one of the chickens. Darcy, let’s see what we’ve got in the cellar. Lucy, can you grab some water? About two buckets should be enough.”

Lucy is relieved for the orders to follow. Back in the Vault they rotated through collective assignments so that by the time she was fifteen she knew exactly what needed to be done and how no matter where she was in the chore wheel. She feels out of place here, unsure of what she can offer and afraid she might just get in the way. Water is easy. She can get water from the well.

Priya and Darcy turn up bok choy, pickled carrots, and onions. Clair and Cooper return with a fresh chicken. Lucy helps to clean and chop, careful to listen to Priya’s instructions so that nothing goes to waste, and there’s a small pit outside in the backyard that Priya uses to light a fire and heat a large cast iron pan. Priya locates a jar of cornmeal which she mixes with water to turn into flatbread, cooking them until they’re charred on either side.

They move the kitchen table outside and eat off mismatched plates with their fingers. Lucy thinks that this might be the best meal she’s ever had. She’s had a lot of new food since coming to the surface but chicken is most definitely her favorite.The children gasp and cheer as Priya recounts Lucy heroically freeing all the ghouls from the organ dealership. They laugh and squeal as she goes on to tell the tale of how they escaped from Babylon. 

“I guess they didn’t know anything about my dad after all.” She sighs and rests her chin in her hand. “You’d think someone would have seen power armor without a helmet at this point but I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever catch up to him.”

The children glance at each other.

“Power armor with no helmet?” Claire repeats, just to be sure.

Lucy’s eyes widen. “Yes! Why? Did you see something?”

Claire shakes her head in apology.

“Old Man Dickens radioed us last week to check that we were okay. A…” Darcy glances at Lucy. “A guy in power armor with no helmet landed in his field and just helped himself to a bunch of his apples.”

“I’ll call him on the radio right now.” Priya stands up and hurries back into the house.

They can hear her talking from outside. Old Man Dickens is losing his hearing and Priya has to speak loudly and slowly.
“Hi! Yes… Yes I’m back… Yes I heard… Yes, I can come get that… No… I… Did… Did you see a guy in power armor with no helmet last week, Dickens?... Yes, the kids were telling me about that… No, I can’t believe manners on people these days… Did you… Yes, the kids told me… Wow, that’s a lot of apples… Yes… Did you… Did you see where he was headed?... Headed!... Where was he going?... The border?... Yes, I heard you… The border, yes… Thank you, Dickens.”

“He’s headed to New Vegas,” Priya says when she emerges from the house.

Lucy lights up, excited to finally have a lead but when she sees the expression on Cooper’s face she realizes that this might not be the good news she thought it was.

“What’s wrong? Is that bad?” She glances from Priya to Cooper, then back again.

“It won’t be no cake walk,” Cooper says. “But if that’s where your daddy’s headed then that’s where we need to go, too.”

Priya puts another piece of chicken on Lucy’s plate. “It’s a problem for later,” she tells her. “Eat. Rest. You know where he’s going now.”

It’s good advice. Lucy focuses on the savory warmth of the chicken, the way the bok choy is tender against her teeth, the way the carrots are both sour and sweet, and the way the cornmeal medallions taste so much richer than anything she ever ate in the Vault. It’s not pretending that tomorrow won’t come, she tells herself, it’s just putting the important things first.

Claire and Darcy use the last of the water to clean the plates, then turn up a lumpy brahmin skin soccer ball and invite Lucy to play.

Lucy shakes her head as they pull her out of her chair. “I didn’t really play much back home— sike!” She dribbles the ball, catches it on the tip of her toe so that she can bounce it on her knee a couple times, then kicks it over to where Dogmeat and Arnold are ready to pounce.

“That’s cheating!” Darcy exclaims, running after it. 

“Yeah that’s cheating,” Claire agrees, close behind.

Lucy takes off after them, laughing the whole time.

Priya drops a pouch full of vials and an old bottle of whiskey on the table between them.

Cooper glances over from where he was watching Lucy showing off her soccer skills.

“As promised,” Priya says. “It’s not enough for what you’ve done for me.”

“You have a stash of these hidden here?”

Priya nods and sits down again. “I work as many jobs as I can for a month straight to buy up as much as I can carry. I try to never run out because, well, you know why.”

He does.

“I’ve got enough to last maybe two more weeks. And then I’ll have to leave them again. But I had to know that they were safe.”

He pulls out his inhaler and loads a vial up, offers another one to Priya who takes it gratefully.

“It’d be nice,” she says while Lucy, Claire, and Darcy kick the ball to one another and the dogs run circles around them, “if this could be enough.”

Cooper leans back in his chair. He takes his inhaler and knocks it against Priya’s vial.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Sure wish it was.”

They tip their heads back together.

Lucy lays on her bed wide awake.

Night has fallen and Priya and the kids have retired to rooms on the other side of the house.

She’s the cleanest she’s been in weeks and dressed in a shapeless cotton shift. Her freshly laundered vault suit is hanging out to dry on a line outside, and she’s even brushed out her hair. The bed is soft and there’s not one, but two (two!) pillows. They’re remarkably comfortable considering they’re stuffed with dried beans. Dogmeat and Arnold are piled up at the foot of her bed, breathing softly. There’s absolutely no threat of radroaches or night stalkers or raiders trying to ambush them in the middle of the night and yet Lucy’s eyes refuse to close and she stares resolutely up at the ceiling, counting every mark and scuff.

She turns onto her side, then her front, then flops onto her back again with a groan, unable to believe what she’s about to do.

She gets up, opens the door, and crosses the hall.

“Cooper.” She knocks quietly. “Are you awake?”

The door swings open and he’s standing before her, candlelight flickering against the far wall. He’s out of his usual kit, dressed in a borrowed shirt and faded denim while his clothes dry next to hers outside. He’s still wearing his hat, but Lucy thinks she might as well be seeing him naked.

She swallows, realizing that she didn’t have the foresight to come up with an excuse.

“Our bet,” she finally says. “I never asked you my question.”

He doesn’t close the door in her face, which she supposes is a good sign, but he doesn’t move and for a moment Lucy stands in the hallway, caught in the space between her room and his.

He steps aside.

Lucy doesn’t look back, and he closes the door behind her.

She’s already been bold once tonight, so she takes a seat on his bed and waits for him to join her.

He sits at a respectful distance but, Lucy notices, rests his hand just an inch away from hers.

“What were you so curious to know about that you couldn’t wait till morning?” he asks her finally.

She really should have come more prepared. She cycles through her options in rapid fire, trying to figure out how to best maximize this rare victory. What was my dad like when you knew him? How did you turn into a ghoul? Why didn’t you start looking for your family sooner? What will you do when you find them? Did you do your own stunts?

“What did sunshine used to feel like?” she blurts out.

He stares at her, expression moving from bewilderment to confusion to amusement and then back to puzzled. It’s quite the feat for someone without eyebrows.

“What kind of question is that, vaultie?” he rasps.

“I figure you might be one of the few people on earth who still knows.”

“You could ask Priya.”

“But she said it always rained in Seattle.”

That earns her a chuckle. “I guess so. A deal’s a deal. Let me think.”

He considers her question for a while, elbows on his thighs and hunched over while he tries to find the right words. He raises a hand and rubs his mouth and chin, searching for a way to describe something that’s long gone. Lucy follows the peach of her old finger as he brushes the crease of his frown, the corner of his lips.

“It felt like being touched by someone you love,” he says finally. It’s an oddly sentimental way to phrase it, like he’s remembering something he heard a lifetime ago. 

Unfortunately, Lucy doesn’t find it a very useful simile at all. To her, the concept of love has always felt as foreign as an ocean, an airplane, or an elephant.

“I never understood love like that either,” she tells him. “Like, obviously you love your parents and you love your community but it’s not something that—” she searches for the words. “Warms you.”

The Ghoul considers what she says carefully, but doesn’t reply. She takes it as an invitation to carry on.

“And before you go thinking it’s just because I grew up underground in a messed up social experiment we had lots of books and movies preserved from the old world and those talked about love. I know about it, the way it used to be. I just don’t get it.” She waves her hands for emphasis. “Down in the Vault, love doesn’t just happen. You have to build it out of what you have. It’s a duty to the county, hard work, and compromise. Love’s a privilege. Not everyone’s cut out for it.”

He balks at her.

“It’s love , not the goddamn Brotherhood of Steel.” He throws his hands up. “It’s hard work sometimes, sure, but you don’t notice it. And when you do notice, you don’t mind it much at all.”

That feeling of boldness returns and Lucy leans towards him a little.

“Was it ever hard for you?” she asks.

The Ghoul hesitates. “Just once.”

All the ghouls in all the world and hers had to be a romantic.

“And now?” she asks.

“Now?”

“Is it hard work now?”

He leans towards her, raps his knuckles against her chin lightly.

“Can’t say I’ve noticed,” he says.

And oh, there’s that feeling again and she thinks maybe she finally understands. Now she knows that it has to be her, that he won’t close the space between them on his own.

It’s foolish. It’s a bad idea. There are a hundred and two reasons she shouldn’t do this.

“The way I figure.” When he speaks his voice is low, low, low. “Love’s the only thing we give for free.”

She kisses him.

And it feels like a sunrise.

He doesn’t leave her time to wonder if she made the right call, pushing back against her immediately, all tongue and teeth. His hands tangle in her hair and Lucy grabs his shirt with clenched fists to drag him even closer. He tastes of his chems, sweetly alcoholic and dry, and of the wasteland after a radstorm, a live wire ready to spark.

They break apart and she moves to kiss his brow, his cheek, the spot on his upper lip that curls whenever he’s amused by something. He angles his head so that he’s caught her mouth again and it’s softer this time, slow and lazy as he drags his tongue across her lower lip and tips her head back so he can swallow her gasp.

He curls a hand around her bare thigh, moves it up under the thin shift that’s really just a formality at this point to skim over her waist, her ribcage, and the curve of her breasts. He moves his other hand up to cradle her jaw in his palm. 

“You’re not wearing anything under here?” he rasps. “Just full of surprises aren’t you, MacLean?”

Lucy turns her head so that she can kiss his borrowed finger. 

His grip tightens and he forces her back to look at him and kisses her so hard it knocks her back and he’s pressed between her thighs. The shift rucks all the way up her waist and she rolls her hips against him once, twice, as she whimpers into his mouth.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Plenty of time for that. No need to rush.”

Lucy shakes her head. Cooper pulls back a little, confused at her refusal, and she uses the opportunity to take advantage of the way he’s already a little off balance and twists her hips so that he’s knocked flat on his back and she’s straddling him. His hat rolls off to the side and it really is like looking at him naked.

“That’s the problem. Whatever we get, it won’t be enough.” She drags the shift over her head and tosses it aside. The candlelight casts a soft glow across her skin. 

“Alright then.” Cooper picks his hat up from where it sits and places it on her head, slightly askew. He guides her up his chest with his hands on the back of her thighs. “Let’s see if you ride as good as you talk, cowgirl.”

He presses the flat of his tongue against her, wet and hot, and she moans. She keeps her balance and tries not to put her full weight on him, but he loops his arms around the crease of her hips and pulls her down so he can taste her fully. Lucy muffles her cry with the back of her wrist as her hips stutter against him and she feels a familiar pressure start to build. Since there’s no nose for her to break she leans forward for a better angle and he pushes a finger inside her, grazes her clit with his teeth, and sucks her hard. 

Her climax hits her all at once and she has to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep herself from waking the whole house.

She’s still shaking through her orgasm when she hears the sound of a belt being undone and she moves back down to him so she can sit on his thighs and help guide him free.

She wraps a hand around him and Cooper tilts his head back with a groan. Lucy likes that.

She lets a thick line of saliva trickle down from between her lips and fall over his tip, pumps his cock and watches the muscle in his jaw flex and his hands curl into fists.

“For someone who said she’s in a hurry you sure are taking your time.” he says through gritted teeth.

“You want me to stop?” She murmurs, voice like syrup.

“God no.”

She gets on her knees and he helps her find the right angle, presses himself up against the heat of her. She takes him inch by agonizing inch, feels the rough burn against her entrance that melts to a sweet stretch as she lowers herself to his base. Cooper’s running his hands up and down her spine and it makes her both shiver and smile.

“That’s my girl,” he says, brushing her hair off her shoulder and tracing her finger down her sternum, past her navel, and back to her center. 

She rocks a little and his eyes roll back while his hands clamp tight on her hips hard enough to bruise. The thought of finding purpling blossoms on her skin tomorrow sends another rush of heat through her and she brings one knee up for better leverage and grinds against him harder.

He watches her the whole time, catalogs the way she moans when he pinches her nipples, the way she throws her head back when he adjusts the angle of his hips and urges her faster, the way she’s slick and swollen when he pushes his thumb against her clit, the way she clenches around him when she comes again so hard it almost hurts.

Lucy’s fingers ghost over his lips as she waits for her pulse to slow and for sensation to come back to her toes. He licks the length of her mismatched digit, from the scar shaped like a ring all the way to the blackening tip. Then he opens his mouth and Lucy exhales sharply when he takes it so far back that he gags. She adds another finger and he chokes on that too.

“Come on,” she whispers, eyes glazed. “You can take it.”

Cooper grins, her fingers still in his mouth and it’s the threat of teeth with his expression of raw wanting that gets her hips bucking again. He looks like he wants to eat her and she really thinks she might let him if she doesn’t eat him first.

“With me.” She says it like an order.

“You gotta be more specific.”

“Are you serious?”

“Tell me what you want, sweetheart. You have to say it.”

She grabs his shirt and drags him up to sitting, licks a burning line from the hollow of his throat to his chin.

“Come with me this time, Cooper Howard,” she tells him.

He pushes her over and her back hits the mattress with a solid thud. Both her knees hook over Cooper’s shoulders and he thrusts deep inside her, again and again.  Lucy raises her arms over her head to brace herself against the wall and meets him just as hard. 

She sobs into his neck, over sensitive and tender. Every time he moves inside her she can feel something fragile in her threatening to shatter again, closer and closer with every snap of his hips against the backs of her thighs.

Lucy reaches around behind him, finds the jut of his coccyx and follows the line down until she’s pressing against his entrance. It’s an awkward angle, but she sinks inside, tight and hot.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Who taught you a trick like that?”

“You like it when I’m inside you?” She says back, presses deeper.

“Pull the trigger and see for yourself.”

She flexes her finger.

Cooper falls to pieces, rhythm breaking into something desperate and wild.

His groan vibrates through her entire body and that’s what sends her over the edge after him, eyes screwed shut and mouthing his name against his lips.

Cooper collapses down beside her, trying to catch his breath. She’s tingly and boneless and seriously considers curling up and risking the UTI but Cooper throws the slip over her head and shoos her out of bed. She’s out the door and back in record time, diving under the covers to where he’s got a Radaway ready for her.

He helps her slide the needle in and while she waits for the bag to empty he lets her map the raised ridges and old scars of this skin.

“Much better.” Curiosity satisfied, she turns around and shuffles back so that she’s pressed up against him and tucked under his chin.

Cooper absently runs his borrowed finger over her thigh, up around her hip bone, and back down again. It’s such a gentle action that she wonders if he’s even aware he’s doing it, if maybe some part of her finger remembers it’s old home and is showing him how she likes to be touched.

“Where’d this come from?” He asks her, brushing over the puckered scar in her side. 

“My husband,” she replies. “Well, ex-husband technically.”

Silence.

“You know that raises more questions than it answers.”

“How’s it feel to be on the other side?” Lucy teases. “Not so fun is it?”

Another beat.

“He the one who taught you that trick from earlier?”

“No, that was my cousin.”

Cooper’s mouth opens, closes, then opens again.

“Lucy, you’re killing me.” He groans into her hair as she laughs.

When she wakes in the morning, she’s completely alone.

Cold panic hits her first, but then she sees Cooper’s things still on the floor and hears the sound of distant chatter and the click of plates and silverware.

And then the smell hits her. Something rich and dark she has no name for is carried through the air into the room. There’s a bitterness to it, like it’s been left on the stovetop just a bit too long.

Lucy pads down the hall and around the corner to where she remembers the kitchen is. The light spills across the floor and over the table where Cooper is helping Darcy lay out plates and cutlery. Priya and Claire are just coming through the door with a sizzling skillet of eggs and brahmin bacon.

“Sit beside me, Lucy!” Darcy exclaims and points to the seat to his left.

“You should have woken me up,” Lucy says as she takes the offered spot. “I could have helped.”

“The kids were already mostly done with everything by the time I woke up,” Priya admits. “I haven’t slept that well in months.”

“We wanted to surprise you!” Claire grins and passes Lucy a mug of a hot, almost black liquid.

Lucy gives it a cautious sniff.

“Is this… coffee?” She turns to Cooper, who’s got a mug of his own and sipping it slowly. “You kept it this whole time?”

“Figured it was worth more to me than anyone else.” He shrugs. “Give it a try. What do you think?”

Lucy brings it to her lips, only a bit self conscious of the way she can feel Cooper watching her. 

She screws up her face.

“It’s gross!” she exclaims and Cooper laughs.

It’s quite a curious thing. His head tips back and his eyes close. All the strange angles of his face bunch and twist in ways she’s never seen and she’d drink a hundred more cups of this stuff if it meant she got to see that again.

“Not gross,” he corrects. “An acquired taste. Maybe one of the only things I can taste now.”

He makes a move to pluck it from her hands and she brings it closer to herself.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” she tells him.

“Can I try?” Darcy asks, reaching up.

She lets him take an experimental sip and he makes the same face she did moments before.

“Ugh!” He sticks out his tongue and takes a big bite of bacon to override the flavor. “Orange juice is so much better.”

“Can’t be arguing with that,” Cooper agrees, ruffling the boy’s hair.

Breakfast is a messy (Darcy gets egg yolk on the table and Claire accidentally spills some water when she reaches for more bacon) and loud (Claire tells Darcy off for getting egg yolk on the table and Darcy teases Claire for spilling the water) affair, but it’s absolutely perfect. The bacon is greasy and smokey, and the egg yolks are bright and runny. At some point Arthur puts his paws on the table so he can lick at Cooper’s empty plate. Dogmeat, a quick study, does the same with Darcy’s. The siblings argue over the preciseness of their respective halves of the last piece of bacon and Cooper watches it all with a soft fondness. Lucy wonders if for him this is like stepping into a memory.

“You’re staring,” he tells her.

“Sorry!”

“Not everything is something else,” he says and she’s still trying to understand what it means as she drinks the last of her coffee, finishes her eggs, does the dishes, and steps back into her clean Vault suit.

Claire and Darcy hug them both goodbye and Darcy barely cries at all. Lucy notices Cooper hand Priya back the bag of vials she gave him yesterday when he thinks she isn’t watching. It looks even more full than it used to be.

“It’s not much, but at least you won’t have to leave as soon.”

“You’re a bleeding heart, Coop.”

“You might be the only one in the world who says so.”

Priya tucks the chems away and turns to Lucy, opens her arms wide.

“Be well, Lucy MacLean.” Priya wraps her in a tight embrace and Lucy thinks about how easy it would be to hold on forever. “I hope that when my time comes, it’s you on the other side of the gun.”

Lucy sniffles a little, unsure why after everything she’s seen and done that this is what makes her tear up.

Priya looks over at Cooper. “And don’t let him eat me,” she adds, which only makes Lucy want to cry more.

They turn their backs on the farm and walk until it’s no larger than a single cap in the distance. They crest a hill and it’s gone.

Lucy swipes at her nose. Cooper doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry.” She laughs a little. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Cooper pauses so that Lucy catches up to him. He bumps the back of his hand against hers, a movement so small that it could have been an accident or a trick of the wind. But she knows him better than that now. All those years of playing the monster and tenderness still feels like something he has to ask for.

She threads their fingers together.

“Proper goodbyes are in short supply out here,” he says. “Enjoy them when you get them.”

“I know.” Lucy blinks rapidly. “I know.”

He thumbs away one of her tears.

“I’m full of ghosts,” he tells her. “But lately, I don’t feel as haunted by them.”

She presses a kiss into the palm of his hand, pretends it’s the sun she’s actually feeling.

They have three days to scrounge up some more chems or they’re in trouble.

Lucy doesn’t seem all that surprised when he breaks the news to her and he has half a mind to think that she probably saw him hand Priya most of his supply, but has the good manners not to mention it. 

Their time at Priya’s seems to have refreshed her and she walks with the pep of someone who’s been well fed and well fucked. He supposes that it doesn’t help that he waits for her to catch up to him now, gives one word responses to her questions instead of flat out ignoring her, and wraps them both up in his duster when the stars come out. And if his hands keep ending up on the inside of her jumpsuit, who’s really to say what the cause could be?

He’s going soft in his old age and it’s going to get them both killed.

They make a stop in a town called Mile House 7 though he’s never been certain what the miles are counting to or from. They’d probably have better luck in The Hub, but they’re still a few days out and they won’t make it if they get caught in another radstorm. 

Mile House 7 is exactly the way he remembers it, a crossroad for traders, travelers, gunrunners, and bounty hunters all hungry for the next big payout. He sees the way some of them size them up when they stroll by, trying to decide if that fat reward from the Brotherhood is enough to risk it. They all come to the same conclusion: someone the Brotherhood is unwilling to confront themselves is probably a sign they’re not cut out for the task.

There’s a trading post with an abundance of what they’re after, but things look to be in high demand these days and they can barely afford a day’s worth of what he needs. Among the curios and practical purchases are some insect rations that cost twice as much as they did in Babylon, and a collection of janky pistols that would be better off as scrap metal. The only thing that looks to be worth what they’re asking for is a shoulder mounted machine gun displayed on the wall behind the counter. He looks a little closer and sees the sign that says it’s being sold “as is”. What a scam.

Lucy scans the job board in the town square and worries at her bottom lip in a way that’s more distracting than helpful.

“You could try selling me for my organs again,” she jokes. “Looks like a pack of Deathclaws have made a nest near one of their main access roads and the town’s offering a lot for someone to go take care of the problem.”

“Explains why everything’s so expensive out here.” He scuffs his boot against the dirt and looks closer at the options they have. 

“It’s not much, but I could probably fix that busted radio,” Lucy points to a small scrap of paper no larger than a business card. 

He reaches out and plucks another job offer from the board. Someone’s husband has gone missing and they want him (or whatever’s left of him) back.

“Meet you back at the saloon at nightfall,” he says, and then adds, “maybe they’ll even have a room for us.”

Lucy’s eyes light up. “Okie dokie.”

The apartment he’s looking for is in the southern quarter of Mile House 7.  It’s modest but sturdy and Cooper knocks on the door. It’s answered by a man with facial hair that has moved past the point of stubble but isn’t quite ready to be a beard. His skin is weather rough and brown and he’s wearing clothes that have been repaired over and over until they were mostly patches of mismatched fabric sewn neatly together. 

“I’m here about a missing husband,” Cooper says

The man nods. “It won’t be easy, but I can pay,” he promises. “Do you want to come in?”

Cooper stoops to step through the door frame and takes a seat at a cramped table. It looks like the man is a tailor, going by the tidy piles of clothes folded on almost every available horizontal surface and hanging from the ceiling. There is even a dress form made of wire and sporting a project mid-construction. Everything else about the house implies that it was made for two. Two clay mugs sit on the shelf. Two chairs at the table. Two deflated pillows on the bed further back.

“My husband’s good with machines. Was good, I guess.” Cooper doesn’t like where this is going. “He went out to a ranch to fix a broken water chip. No one else wanted to go on account of the deathclaws but Xian just wanted to help. Some traders he joined up with on the way back said they must have gotten too close to the nest and he—” the man looks away and blinks. “—he didn’t make it out with them.”

“And you want me to bring his body back?”

The man shakes his head. “He used to carry a lighter with him. Doesn’t work no more, of course. Only makes a spark if you get it at just the right angle, but he called it his lucky lighter and took it with him every time he left town.” A deflated half-laugh. “I’d just like it back. One thing to remember him by.”

Cooper nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The man introduces himself as Benicio and gives a brief description of what Xian was wearing when he left and a few other distinguishing features, though if the deathclaws really got him that kind of information won’t help much. The traders who were with him usually spend their evenings at the saloon and can give him more information about where Xian might be found.

The sun’s low in the sky by the time he gets back to the saloon and Lucy’s already waiting for him with a bowl of what looks like cricket and tuber stew and a glass of Nuka-Cola.

“It was a piece of cake,” she tells him as he takes a seat across from her. “I even helped her tidy up around the house and she gave me and Dogmeat some extra water and jerky as thanks.”

Dogmeat sits patiently beside Lucy, eyeing the meal and psychically willing a bit of it to splash out of the bowl and onto the floor.

Cooper tells Lucy about Benicio and Xian’s lighter and Lucy nods along to the story.

“Deathclaws don’t usually take their kills with them,” Cooper tells her. “He’ll still be there unless something else has dragged him away.”

“You don’t seem convinced,” Lucy says, bringing the Nuka-Cola to her lips and taking a sip.

“Something just doesn’t sit right, is all,” Cooper mutters. “Could just be I’m hungry.”

Lucy pushes over the rest of the cricket and tubers to him and even though it doesn’t taste like much he chews it slowly as Lucy tips her head back to take another swig of the dark liquid. She finishes it with a satisfying pop from between her lips, catches him staring, and then flicks her tongue out to lick the rim of the glass.

“You flirting with me, MacLean?” He crosses his arms.

“That depends.” She crosses her arms too and the line of her cleavage peeking out from under her half-zipped vault suit deepens. “Is it working?”

Before he has a chance to respond the saloon doors burst open and a group of traders step through, talking loudly all the way up to the counter where they order a bottle of moonshine and take it back to an empty table. Cooper recognizes them from Benicio’s description as the same ones who were with his husband during the deathclaw attack.

“Hey, “ he calls over to them. “You the ones who were with Xian last week?”

Their talking stills and all five pairs of eyes settle on him in a way he knows they hope is intimidating but he’s lived long enough to develop an immunity to that kind of game.

“Yeah, that was us,” one of them says slowly. If her hair is anything to go by, she seems to have had an unfortunate run in with a pair of shears recently. “He was a nice guy. Shame about what happened.”

Cooper nods. “Poor kid’s husband hired us to see if we could bring back what’s left of him. You wouldn’t happen to remember the coordinates, would you?”

He half expects them to try to haggle for it, but is pleasantly surprised when the trader nods and gestures to one of her companions. “Recain remembers. He can pop them into your friend’s bracelet.”

Lucy crosses the room to their table and offers her Pip Boy. Recain toggles the buttons with a few telling clicks. 

“Thank you very much, sir,” she chirps but as she makes to step away Recain yanks her down into his lap. 

“No one’s called me ‘sir’ before.” He presses his nose against her throat and inhales loudly. “I think I like that.”

Cooper draws his pistol but Lucy’s already cracked the hard weight of her skull against the cartilage of the man’s nose and leapt away, hand at her neck.

“That was a mighty fucking stupid thing you did just now.” Cooper steps towards them, weapon drawn. Dogmeat is right as his heels, hackles raised and growling low.

“It’s okay, I’m okay!” Lucy puts herself between him and the table of traders, who are howling with laughter, pounding the table and slapping their thighs.

“We didn’t mean no harm,” the first trader says, her hands raised in surrender. “Was just a joke, is all.”

“I’ve gotten worse from baby bloatflies,” Recain says as the blood pours out his nose and down his face.

“See?” Lucy presses closer to him. “I’m fine. Just leave it. Please.”

Cooper hesitates, but does as she says and goes back to their table. Lucy sits across from him and nudges his boot with hers, shoots him a wain smile.

The threat of a shootout dissolved, the chatter and ambient noise of the saloon returns as people go back to their drinks and conversations. Just another day in fucking Mile House fucking 7.

“Thanks,” Lucy says quietly. 

“No need to thank me,” Cooper replies. He picks at the remainders of their shared dinner but whatever flicker of an appetite he had earlier has all but vanished. “That’s your call to make. You want the rest of this?”

Lucy shakes her head so he puts the bowl on the floor and Dogmeat laps at it so enthusiastically that she pushes it all the way across the floor until it bumps up against a wall.

“They have space for us here?” he asks her.

She holds up a set of keys and they jingle merrily in the din. 

Their room is up a flight of stairs out back. It’s cramped and smells like cigarettes, but it could be a whole lot worse. Lucy arranges a little blanket bed for Dogmeat in the corner and then steps out of her Vault suit, rubbing the spot on her neck the whole time. 

“Hey,” he says and she jumps. “You okay?”

Lucy gives a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just… it’s not the first time that kind of thing’s happened. You learn how to deal but it never stops sucking, I guess.”

She sits down on the bed and pats the spot next to her. He shrugs off his gear and sits so that their knees bump together.

“Not even the Vaults are safe, huh?”

“It was worse for the girls a bit older than me. There was this guy…” she trails off and plays with a frayed edge of his coat. He lets her take her time because he knows he’s heard many versions of this story before. Some things really don’t change. “The adults took a vote on it. Lots of people had things to say, but in the end they decided that he just wasn’t allowed to be alone with any of us anymore. But he’d still work with us like normal and eat with us like normal and play cards with our parents like normal and we just had to pretend like that was okay. For the sake of harmony.”

She spits that last part out like she’s repeating it from someone. He can probably guess who.

She leans against him. He tentatively reaches an arm around her and when she doesn’t move away, lets the full weight of it drop around her shoulders.

“One time, we were all working on the corn harvest, he grabbed my hip and rubbed himself on me as he moved past. It’s crowded so you’re packed in there really tightly with everyone else, but I don’t think anyone else noticed. I didn’t say anything because he’d probably just say it was an accident.” Or a joke, Cooper thinks. “And it’s not like anyone would do anything about it anyway.”

“You and the girls,” he said. “Y’all had a little code or something to warn each other when he was around?”

Lucy’s eyes light up.

“We did! I almost forgot! It wasn’t a code so much as we’d make a funny face to let each other know if he was in a room or coming down the hall.” She gives a live demonstration, pulling back her lips in a bit of a grimace. “I don’t even know how it got started but we all did it, even the girls who were younger than me. How did you know?”

“Ah,” he says. The memory is fuzzy but it’s coming back bit by bit. “I worked on this film where one of the producers was like that. But it wasn’t the girls he was after, if you know what I mean.”

Lucy nods. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“I was a nobody back then, wasn’t even showing up in the credits. But he tended to keep his hands off stunts. Probably saw us throwing punches on camera and got scared. The lads used to rub the tips of their noses to let you know when he was on set or lurking around the dressing rooms. The gals picked up on it pretty quickly too and soon the whole cast and crew looked like they were sharing cocaine between takes.”

Lucy laughs at the image. “What happened to him?”

“Kept on making movies. You’ve probably even watched a few of them. The world’s always been broken, sweetheart. Now it just has a face to match.”

Lucy lets that sink in for a minute, then without a word she throws a leg over him and is suddenly straddling his lap and staring straight at him, arms hooked around his shoulders for balance.

“Whoa there,” he says. “I’m flattered, but I don’t usually do this with fans.”

“Oh please.” Lucy rolls her eyes.

“Well, maybe I’ll make an exception just this once.” He sneaks his hand up under her tank top and spreads his palm across her back.

She scooches closer and kisses him between the eyes, right above the hollow of his nose.

“You sure?” he asks. He doesn’t doubt her, but he wants to hear her say it.

She nods. “I don’t want some jerks to kill the mood.” And then she adds, almost shyly, “I was really looking forward to this.”

He leans forward to kiss her and she hums happily and sucks on his tongue in a way that sends a jolt of electricity right to his cock. Lucy doesn’t waste any time, sliding right up close and rolling her hips against the hard line in his pants.

Both his hands move under her thighs and he stands up, taking her with him. She gives a little shriek of surprise and hangs on tight as he turns around and places her back down on the bed with him kneeling between her spread legs. 

“What are you—”

He presses a finger against the gusset of her underwear and her words melt into a moan. He takes the finger away and replaces it with his palm, feels the heat of her pulsing under his touch. She whimpers and leans back onto her elbows, aches for more pressure.

“Let me be good to you,” he tells her. “I want to be good for you.”

She raises her hips and he helps her shimmy out of her underwear. 

It’s times like these wishes he had his sense of smell back. Here, face between her knees he knows he’d be drunk on the smell of her, wonders how sharp and sour she’d taste.

He kisses his way along her inner thigh, up to the dark thatch of hair that she’d once confused him by apologizing for, and presses his tongue against her. He feels the scrape of her fingernails against the back of his neck pulling him in closer, deeper.

He licks and sucks, face pressed against her pubic bone like he doesn’t need to breathe, and slips a finger inside her, crooks it just the way she likes and she muffles her cries into her hands. Lucy falls back against the bed, her hips rising and he helps hold her up, drags his tongue against her, curls his finger again, and feels as she shakes apart around him.

She’s barely back to herself when she gets up, coltish limbs flailing, and starts stripping him down. She pushes him onto the bed and climbs back onto his lap like earlier. 

Hips tilted forward and shoulders back with one hand on his knee to keep herself upright, she presses herself against his cock so that it’s caught between his abdomen and her slit. She glides up and down him and smiles at the way his grip on her ass tightens.

“Not going to last long if you keep doing that,” he growls. “Quit teasing.”

“I don’t know much about you,” Lucy gasps as his hips jerk and she slips a little. “But I know you love being teased.”

“You know everything about me. Everything that matters.” He lifts her up, but it’s all Lucy who brings herself down onto him, rough and fast.

She doesn’t even wait to adjust to him properly, sliding up and down his length at the same time she pulls her tank top over her head and tosses it to some forlorn corner of the room. He leans down to take one nipple in his mouth, bites it and hears her breath catch.

She shivers at the spark of pain, pulls him close to kiss him as she starts to rock. It’s slow at first, steady and even. He can feel her swollen clit rubbing against him, feel the flutter of her walls at this new angle, and knows she’s not the type to get off on slow and steady. He takes a hold of her hips, licks a hot stripe up her neck and behind her ear, and drives her to a gallop.

She clings to him so tightly when she comes that he can hardly breathe, and just when he thinks he has a minute to recover she’s unlatched herself from him and down on her knees on the dusty floor, taking him deep into her mouth. He might not ever get a chance to catch his breath when Lucy is concerned, he realizes distantly, threading a hand through her hair and tugging. She hums to tell him that she likes what he’s doing and bobs her head in time with the hand she’s wrapped tight around his base. The other cups his balls just a little too hard and he’s all the way gone.

“Wait, don’t—” he barely manages to choke out before it’s too late and his hips jerk himself deeper into her throat and she’s swallowing him down.

There are still stars in his vision as he fumbles for his coat and finds a Radaway crammed in one of the pockets. Lucy looks at him confused, then her eyes widen when she realizes what she’s done. 

“That was careless,” he says.

“It was fun,” she corrects. “Usually it’s just me when we’re in the desert.”

“‘Cuz we can’t be burning through the Radaway like that,” he mutters. “There’s gotta be a better way.”

“I could take Rad-X in advance, I guess. And I could spit next time,” Lucy offers brightly as she pulls her Vault suit back on. She’s being responsible. “You can stab me when I get back and we can come up with some more ideas.”

“Go piss, vaultie,” he tells her, unwilling to unpack why the image of her spitting is making him hard again. “I’ll keep your spot warm.”

He untangles himself from her in the morning, leaves her sleeping as he puts his gear back on and holds his boots in his hands so that his spurs don’t jingle as he heads to the door. He’s left his saddlebag though, and only taken enough chems to last a day. Hopefully that’s enough to tell her that he’s coming back.

Dogmeat lifts her head to watch him go. He presses a finger to his lips and she doesn’t whine or bark, but her eyes are big and wet as he closes the door behind him.

According to the directions from the traders he’s not going far, just ten miles north-west. He’ll be back before dinner.

The walk is almost painful without her presence. He misses the music from her Pip Boy, misses the inane questions she never runs out of. Once or twice he catches himself drifting off into daydreams about lives they might have lived had the circumstances been different. Maybe she’d be Janey’s new teacher and they’d meet in the crowded elementary school hallways, both frazzled from the morning rush. Maybe they’d meet on set in the studio lot, her introducing herself as the writer of his latest picture and him putting his foot in his mouth over what he thought the “L” in “L. MacLean” stood for.

For once he’s not caught in memories of the past, the guilt and regret and so much joy that its absence aches. It’s not quite thinking about the future, but even so he knows that he’s changed. The wasteland is a place of constant making and unmaking and he’s found himself evolving again into something new. Less steel, less grit. Something softer.

Years of practice tells him that he’s coming up on ten miles so he slows his walk and scans the scenery more purposefully. The road he’s walking is maintained only by the steady footfall of travelers in and out of Mile House 7 but now that tourism has stalled, the low shrubbery and dry grass is quickly overtaking it.

He wanders off the path a bit, steps over rocks and pre-war trash and looks for signs of a struggle. He keeps going and spots a patch of freshly upturned earth a few yards ahead. Sun faded debris has been knocked free from its longtime resting place in the sand, dark bellies newly exposed to the sky.

Cooper looks around, wonders if he can maybe track where they went.

And then he sees the foot sticking out from behind some rocks.

The foot has a twin and they’re connected to a pair of legs, which are connected to a torso, which turns into a neck, which turns into a mangled mess. The blood is old and baked hard from the heat of the sun. Some scavengers have been by to take a nibble but didn’t stay long by the looks of it.

Cooper recognizes the same tidy patchwork repair on the parts of clothes that haven’t been shredded or caked in blood. This is the man he’s looking for.

He crouches to pat him down, searches for any irregular shapes hiding in the garments but turns up nothing. The lighter is nowhere to be found.

Something nags at him at the back of his mind but he pushes it away. He needs those chems which means he needs to finish this job and he’s wasting precious time out here in the desert. 

Maybe the lighter fell out in the commotion. He turns to go the way he came and is knocked back several feet by a hard swipe to the chest.

He hits the ground and rolls, chokes on the dust and dirt.

Shit. 

A roar fills the air, rattles his teeth, and Cooper finds himself staring an alpha deathclaw right in the face. Another roar sounds in the distance, no doubt this ugly bastard’s mate, which means the rest of the pack isn’t far behind.

Shitshitshit.

It’s too late to run. His only chance is to fight.

He pulls the shotgun off his shoulder and takes aim.

“Come and get it, motherfucker!” he dares.

The deathclaw charges.

It’s an admirable last stand, he thinks, ten minutes later. He’s out of slugs and all he’s got is his pistol which won’t do much. Two deathclaw corpses lie on the ground and the alpha male who knocked him over first isn’t looking so great anymore. Maybe a few more hits with the shotgun would have Cooper standing half a chance at walking out of this mostly alive.

He saw these things take out whole units and their artillery up in Alaska. They were terrifying then, even housed inside a suit of armor and supposedly on the same side, and they’re even more terrifying now. His gun looks like a Cracker Jack prize next to those teeth and claws.

Blood’s running down into his eyes and he swipes at it with his right arm. His left one is twisted oddly and hanging limp at his side, which is probably a bad sign. There are two deep slashes in his gut from where he wasn’t quite fast enough that have soaked through the fabric of his jacket. He can’t be entirely sure but he thinks one of his kidneys is trying to make a break for it. Also a bad sign. One of his legs is broken though he can’t tell which one and breathing hurts only a little less than coughing does. Definitely a bad sign.

The alpha male draws back and for a foolish minute Coopers thinks maybe he’s scared him off. Then the alpha female lunges for him out of nowhere and he barely has time to spin out of the way to avoid the worst of those saber-like claws before his broken leg slips out from under him and he takes a hard tumble over a pile of rocks.

Pretty stupid way to die, he thinks to himself as he hears the thunderous pounding of the deathclaws' feet moving in for the kill. Lucy’s going to be so mad.

A scream. An explosion. Something hits his face with a wet slap. Cooper thinks he tastes blood.

But it’s not his.

He sits up.

“Get down!” Lucy shouts and throws herself over him just as another explosion detonates and sends sand and rocks everywhere.

“What the f—”

He doesn’t have enough time to finish the sentence before she’s back on her feet, readying that big shiny machine gun that looks more like a personal sized canon, and charging right back at the alpha bitch.

He’s not exactly sure when it happened, but that girl he once dragged through the desert is long gone. In her place is a true warrior of the wasteland. He sees some old fashioned drills in her movements, tidy sparring done on mats with foamy helmets. But the way she holds her gun and lines up her shot is all him, lessons gleaned in the heat of the moment during their time together. But there’s something else there too, something he’s never seen before, something 100% Lucy. She’s efficient and ruthless, clever and clean. It’s magnificent to watch, even as black blotches close in from the edges of his vision. Yep, definitely a bad sign.

Another blast of guts and sand, a few inhuman shrieks that turn to foamy gurgles.

And then silence.

It’s done. Lucy’s covered in blood, only a little bit of it her own, and she’s got a boot on the dead mutant’s head, gun mounted on shoulder and panting hard. Above her, the sky is endless and blue, blue, blue.

She turns to him and the spell is broken.

He tries to get to his feet and finds himself falling back into the dirt instead. Lucy’s by his side in a second, calling his name and surveying the damage. Must be real bad, given her expression.

“Her name’s Janey,” he croaks and Lucy blinks, confused. “Last I saw her she was just a few months shy of her tenth birthday. Loves mangoes, hates green peppers—” He coughs. “Got her momma’s brains and her daddy’s smile.”

Lucy gets herself under his good arm and hoists him up. This won’t do, he thinks dimly, she’ll never cover the distance like this.

“Tell me later, Cooper,” Lucy grits out. “Kinda busy trying to save your life.” 

Lucy starts walking and he feels his feet drag behind them. She buckles under his weight but catches herself, takes a deep breath, and tries again. He feels like he should help her out, but the black splotches are almost all he can see and he’s so tired all of a sudden, tired in a way he’s never felt before.

“Cooper,” he hears Lucy say in the distance. Her voice breaks a little on his name and he wonders if it’s fault. He hopes not, but he can’t feel much of anything right now. “Cooper, you have to hold on.”

He’s trying. He really is, but he feels like he’s sinking deeper and deeper underwater.

“Come on, Cooper,” Lucy’s voice trembles. “Dogmeat is waiting for us.”

Oh right. Dogmeat. He almost forgot.

He puts his weight on Lucy and she doesn’t falter this time, holds him strong and steady, and they take one step forward together. Again and again.

He wakes up in the same cramped room above the saloon. It smells less like cigarettes now and more like blood and alcohol, but not the fun kind.

Lucy’s asleep next to him, curled up on the very edge of the bed so she doesn’t accidentally bump or disturb him. She’s not wearing her blue jumpsuit, clothed instead in an unfamiliar yellow dress. A closer look reveals tidy repairs to the seams and sleeves and he deduces that it must be a loan from Benicio while he fixes her usual getup. A bit of sunshine from the window falls across her brown hair, which is lighter now from her time on the surface. Little threads of gold wink at him as she breathes in and out. 

He’s bandaged up nice and tight and there’s a pile of used stimpaks by the bed. He wonders how Lucy managed to rustle up all these supplies given they were flat broke last time he checked. And then the image of Lucy standing under the vaulted sky with her fresh kill under her boots comes back to him and he’s more surprised that they’re still stuck in this dinky room. Mile House 7 will probably throw a parade for her. Maybe even raise a statue. 

Lucy sits up groggily, rubbing her eyes and blinking the sleep away. She turns to him and freezes. He tries to think of something clever to say and finds all his quips have deserted him completely.

“G’morning sleepyhead,” he says. Wow, real original. Nice going.

Lucy looks caught between crying in relief and dislocating his jaw with her fist.

“What the fuck, Cooper?” She says, which is an excellent compromise.

“I thought it’d be a quick job,” he tells her and it’s mostly the truth. “I didn’t expect them to get the jump like that.”

She stares at him and he knows it didn’t work. 

“I thought we were a team.”

“We are.”

“Not if you go sauntering right into a whole deathclaw nest while I’m still sleeping.”

“Partners protect each other.”

She stares at him. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

He swallows. 

“No.” It’s the truth, finally. “But I haven’t felt scared in a long time, so give me a bit to get used to the feeling.”

“Scared? Of the deathclaws?”

“Not the deathclaws, kid. Come on.”

Lucy frowns, then his meaning hits her.

“I knew it!” Lucy presses her hands to her temples. “Steph warned me about this. You give a guy a blowjob once and it’s like his brain just falls out and he goes and does all these stupid things because he thinks he’s Doing Right By You and—”

“Lucy,” Cooper says, but she’s not done.

”—I thought she was just being dramatic and that Chet was just like that because he didn’t know any better but now you’re throwing yourself at deathclaws just to—“

“Lucy,” he says a little louder. “Shut up.”

Lucy’s jaw snaps closed and she glares at him. This had better be good.

“You were really something out there.”

Lucy’s face cracks into a small smile.

“Yeah. You think I’ll get a cool nickname?”

“Better start workshopping,” he means to say but the end of his sentence turns into a cough.

“Here,” Lucy says. She loads up a vial and scoots closer to him, gently eases him up into her arms so that he’s vaguely sitting. She brings the inhaler to his mouth and presses down at the same time as he breathes her in, in, in.

“My wife loved our daughter so much that she would do anything to keep her safe,” he says suddenly. “Even if it meant destroying the world.”

“My dad loved me so much that he blew up a city,” she replies. “I guess that makes us the perfect pair.”

The energy washes out of him all at once and Lucy lets him slump back down on the lumpy bed. He usually heals up quick but it’s a long walk back from death’s door, even with all the wonders of modern science. He can feel the radiation knitting up his bones and flesh faster than should be humanly possible, but it’s still taking a lot out of him. His eyelids droop and he hears Lucy’s Pip Boy playing softly in the little room.

にじんだ星を数えて, the sound is tinny and slipping further and further away, 思い出す夏の日.

When he wakes again the sun is gone and Dogmeat is resting her head on the thigh that isn’t wrapped up. She’s got a new toy, a lumpy creature with four legs and a head stitched together from fabric scraps that she’s gently cradling between her paws. Lucy’s nowhere to be found, probably off looking for something to eat, but she’s left his freshly cleaned clothes hanging on a line by the window.

The walls and floors are thin. He can hear the low din of saloon patrons creeping up from the floorboards, the clinking of glasses and dishes and the occasional wave of laughter. 

He tilts his head. That feeling is back, an insistent tug telling him that something is wrong.

He sits up and Dogmeat jumps to her feet, alarmed but game for whatever he has in mind. He tugs on his trousers and shirt as quickly as he can and throws his hat back on. His gun’s out of bullets but he won’t need it. He’ll do this the old fashioned way.

He kicks open the saloon doors and the chatter dies immediately. Lucy’s sitting at the bar with Benicio and she’s halfway out of her chair at the sight of him. 

He finds who he’s looking for without any trouble. They’re gathered at the same table with a new bottle of moonshine. He crosses the room in a few quick strides and grabs the trader with the bad haircut by the lapels of her jacket and gives her a shake.

“Where the hell is it?” he growls.

“Cooper what’s—” Lucy’s talking but he’s already patting the trader down.

She’s wearing it on a cord around her neck under her shirt and he yanks it free.

“What the fuck—” the trader yelps, making a grab for it but Cooper’s stronger than she is and he gives it a hard pull at the same time as he pushes her back into her chair. The rope snaps and he holds it up in the light. The lighter clinks amidst an assortment of other trinkets. Trophies, he corrects, he knows a collection when he sees one.

“When they first dreamed up deathclaws, they engineered them to be mass murdering machines. Except instead of gasoline and engine oil they’d be powered on what they killed on the battlefield. Genius, right?” Cooper says. “Deathclaws are big, sure, but it’s not their size that gets you. It’s in the name. They shred and rip because you can make a lot of things bigger than a deathclaw but it don’t mean nothing if it’ll just get torn right through.”

“What’s with the history lecture, ghoul?” Recain snarls.

“Deathclaws don’t kill like that. Y’know what does? A person with a rock.” Cooper shakes the necklace. “And for what? Another piece for your charm necklace?”

A gun cocks. He turns to look behind him.

Benicio has a hand over his mouth and Lucy, well, Lucy has her pistol drawn and it’s trained right on the trader’s head.

He sees the moment it clicks into place, the moment she loses last tether she has to the girl who lived underground. She knows the evil born of love and desperation, is a living testament to it. But this here is evil simply for evil’s sake. Nothing special, no hidden angles or grand design. She’s always believed that humanity has an infinite capacity for kindness, that people can be good and want nothing in return. But now she knows that the opposite is also true: humans are in possession of a unique kind of cruelty that is as mundane as it is endless.

Cooper steps back so that he’s standing next to her, leans over to speak in her ear.

“It won’t bring Xian back, won’t change what happened.”

“I know!” she sobs, but her hands around her gun don’t shake and probably never will again. “I know! But what do we do?”

“Ordinarily I’d never dream of stopping you from killing someone in cold blood, but a job’s a job and I think we should at least hear the boss out. What do you say? Change of plans? I’ll tell you now we charge extra for murder.”

They both look to Benicio. 

The man takes a deep breath and holds out his hand. Cooper hands him the necklace. Benicio pulls the lighter off and makes a fist around it, brings it right up close to his heart.

“That’s all I wanted,” Benicio says. He turns to the traders. “Get out. Leave town and don’t even bother collecting your things. Or I’ll borrow this Vault dweller’s gun and put you all down myself.”

The group needs no further encouragement and they scamper out the door and take off into the night.

Benicio sags back into his chair, lighter still clutched firmly to his chest.

“A deal’s a deal,” Benicio says and his voice only shakes slightly. “I’ll have your payment in the morning.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Cooper glances over to where a local is in the process of leaving a basket of thank you eggs by Lucy’s chair. They put it next to the other two baskets of thank you eggs that have already been left there earlier.

Lucy nods. “This is way too much for us to carry. You should take some.”

Cooper collapses down into an empty seat in a way he hopes looks even just a little dignified. He only notices now that his clothes also sport neat little repairs to old rips and tears. Benicio’s even fixed up some of the embroidery on his shirt that’s been fraying for the last hundred years or so. It’s good work. The scorpion over his breastbone looks almost as vibrant as the day he purchased it. 

Lucy passes him a bowl of the same cricket and mystery tuber stew. Nothing’s ever looked so delicious, though he still can’t taste anything.

There’s a cheer from another corner of the saloon and someone with a guitar has stood up on a table. Given the empty glass by his feet and the way he’s swaying he might need help staying up there, but the notes he strums are mostly in tune and pretty soon everyone’s clapping along and dancing. More instruments appear: a fiddle with only two strings, a beaten up trumpet, brahmin skin drums, an old can with sand and pebbles rolling inside. People pour in through the front doors and the moonshine flows freely. It’s a night for celebration, after all. The mysterious wanderer has saved the town and the bad guys have been banished. In a different time, this is the part where they’d fade to black and the credits would roll.

He’s still feeling too banged up to do much, but Benicio invites Lucy to dance and pretty soon she’s laughing and twirling in her brand new yellow dress and combat boots like it’s prom night and the scent of jasmine is thick in the air. 

He remembers this song. So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me . He catches his good foot tapping along.

Someone leaves a generously filled glass of moonshine by his elbow and he sips it while he watches Lucy borrow Benicio’s shoulder for support as he teaches her some new steps. She trips and laughs and tries again. People crowd around her, eager for a dance with the lady of the hour and she spins and shimmies and only steps on a few toes. Everyone’s too drunk to notice and getting drunker by the minute. His own drink is hitting him harder than it usually would thanks to the bloodloss.

“Dance with me?” He looks up and Lucy’s cheeks are flushed and her eyes are so very bright, He really ought to say no but one dance never hurt anyone, right? Even in his condition.

He takes the hand she offers and she pulls him up, folds herself against him like it’s what she was made for and they sway together like that, nice and slow.

“You look like you want to say something.” She’s looking up at him from under those impossibly long eyelashes.

“Me? Honey, I’m starting to think you don’t actually know me that well at all.”

“Oh! Honey! That one’s new.”

He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead. She probably smells of copper and sweat. He lingers there for a moment, pretends that he can really smell it.

“Wanna take this upstairs?” He nods at the door. The yellow dress is pretty but it’d be even prettier bunched up around her thighs.

“You’re hurt,” she chides him and flicks his chest.

“'S why I’ve got two hands.” He raises his good arm and waggles his fingers at her.

“One more song,” she says. “Please?”

The musicians are off key and can’t decide on a tempo. But they’re loud and they’re laughing and Cooper remembers a time that even just a little love could go a long way. The conversion isn’t a perfect science and he’d have to adjust for total economic collapse, but he wonders how far a lot of love will go up here now. Right up till the end of the world, he bets, if he plays his cards right.

“One more song,” he agrees. 

Just pretend, Lucy thinks as they cross the wasteland a week later, that she’s a brand new actress on the California Crest Studios lot and she’s late to her shoot and completely lost when who should she run into but Hollywood heartthrob Cooper Howard? He’s charming, kind, and very professional and she knows she shouldn’t get her hopes up because he’s newly divorced and wouldn’t have time for anything anyway given his commitment to putting his daughter’s happiness first and a fully booked schedule second. But she finds a bouquet of sunflowers in her trailer the next day with a small business card tucked inside, a phone number scrawled across it. She dials it from her apartment later that night and he picks up just a bit too quickly. She thinks it’s sweet. 

“Hi,” she says, “I’d like to order a chow mein and spring rolls for pick-up, please.”

There’s a pause at the other end of the line as he tries to work out just what’s happening. 

“Just kidding, Mr. Howard,” she says when she thinks she’s tortured the man enough. “It’s Lucy MacLean. I just wanted to thank you for the surprise. Sunflowers have always been my favorite.”

“Really?” He says. “Lucky guess.”

“Do you send flowers to all the girls who can’t find the right warehouse? She asks. Or should I be asking you out for coffee?”

“No, I don’t.” He clears his throat. “Coffee would be nice. But if you still want that chow mein I know a place near Sunset that’s open late.”
“Easy, cowboy,” she says. “Let’s see how the coffee goes. I’m on set tomorrow. Meet you at the gate? Say, ten?”

“Ten by the gate,” he repeats. “Don’t get lost, Miss. MacLean.”

Just pretend, Lucy thinks as they break in some shade for water, that she and Norm grew up in Shady Sands with their mom and Moldaver in a house full of the kind of love that would light up the whole world and ask for nothing in return, not the kind that would burn a city to the ground to prove a point.

Maximus is there too. They’re best friends, chasing each other through the streets, kicking a brahmin hide soccer ball between them, and always getting into trouble. 

She grows up wise and strong, loves her city dearly, but the horizon is calling to her and she wonders what lies beyond it.

And then he rolls into town, same tattered duster and silver spurs, hot on the heels of a bounty with a big payout.

Lucy knows a lucky break when she sees one, and finds him at a nearby bar.

“Sorry kid, not looking for a babysitting gig,” The Ghoul says when she explains what she’s after.

“I’m twenty-six,” she retorts, but she expected as much, which is why she’s got an ace up her sleeve. “He came through the other day, you know, the guy you’re looking for.”
“‘S why I’m here.”

“I was his waitress at the diner. He had a map with him.” The Ghoul’s eyes flicker over to her, as if he’s actually seeing her for the first time. “I know where he’s going.”

His gun is out and pressed under her chin in a flash.

“What makes you think I won’t just shoot off pretty pieces of you until you tell me?” He snarls.

A gun cocks, but it’s not his. Lucy’s got her own pistol out and pressed to his stomach.

A beat. His expression softens. He lets her go and she falls back a little, knees shaking.

“I leave at dawn,” he says. “With or without you.”

Just pretend, Lucy thinks as evening falls and they set up camp, that she’s the sheriff of a small but prosperous town and he’s an outlaw out to settle an old score. The bounty on his head is enough for someone to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, but Lucy doesn’t care about the money or the glory. She has a legacy to uphold and a town to protect. 

“You know there’s something rotten going on,” The Ghoul shouts back at her as she chases him through a ravine. “All those secrets the mayor is hiding in those books of hers. Even your daddy was in on it!”

“You keep my father’s name out of your mouth!” Lucy shoots but just misses The Ghoul by a hair’s width.

He darts around a corner and she follows in hot pursuit.

“You never thought it was odd? All those late night meetings? That small fortune that appeared out of nowhere? The way Shady Sands burned only after he got out?” His voice echoes all around her.

She keeps her mouth shut though every instinct screams at her to defend her late father’s honor. She slows her pace, deepens her breath, and thinks . 

She spies The Ghoul crouched in the shadow of a few loose boulders. It’s a good hiding spot, but this is her home. She knows it better than anyone. She doubles back, readies a sneak attack from the other side.

“You’re a smart girl, Sheriff. I think you know, you just don’t want to admit it.” He hasn’t caught on, still speaking in the direction he last heard her.

She’s much closer to him now, closer than she’s ever been. The scarring on his face is so severe that it makes his skin thick and ruddy. He’s lost his nose and parts of his ears, but Lucy still recognizes him, can still see the man in the photograph on her father’s old desk. “Cooper Howard was the best of all of us,” her father used to tell her. “A shame what happened.”

She tackles him.

He’s strong but, Lucy realizes when he doesn’t take advantage of an opening, he doesn’t actually want to hurt her. They grapple until Lucy manages to pin him down, legs anchored on either side of him and gun pointed right at his chest.

He raises his hands. She stands up, but keeps her aim steady.

“There’s an old Mexican eulogy,” she says. “Feo, fuerte, e formal. He was ugly, strong, and had dignity.”

She holsters her gun and holds out her hand.

The Ghoul eyes her with suspicion, but takes it and she pulls him back to his feet. There’s a little gap between his glove and his sleeve and her finger accidentally brushes against the sliver of exposed skin.

”Well, Mr. Howard, I’ll give you two out of three.”

The corner of his mouth pulls. “Think I’m not strong just because you got the best of me?”

”No.” She lets him go and turns her back, a sign that she knows he won’t shoot. “Now that I’ve seen you up close, I don’t think you’re ugly at all.”

The spot on his wrist burns the whole walk back to town.

“Where’ve you been today?” Cooper asks her as she assumes her usual spot in front of him, both his legs on either side of her. He shrugs off his coat and bundles them both up like he always does. Dogmeat has left them to hunt for her own dinner. Sometimes she brings back a whole gecko leg in the hopes she can convince one of them to play a game of tug with her.

“Just daydreams,” she sighs as she leans back against his chest. “You?”

“Same, I suppose.” But he doesn’t elaborate further.

Lucy nuzzles closer. “You ever think about the future?”

“I try not to,” he says honestly. “Glass has been half empty for so long it’s hard to imagine it any other way. 'S not pleasant, is what I’m saying.”

“I used to think about the future all the time,” she says. She doesn’t mean to monologue but it seems to be her default setting. “I’d think about who I’d marry, what our kids would look like, all the fun things we’d do together like making jello cake, movie nights, playdates with Steph and Bert’s kids, Christmas morning, Vault Door Breach Drills… you know, normal stuff. And I’d imagine that we’d all get to walk up to the surface hand in hand one day, become true pioneers of the new world. Pretty silly, huh?”

He makes a non-committal noise that tells her he’s listening, but not ready to talk himself.

“But now, I find it hard to even imagine what tomorrow will look like,”

“Sand,” he says and it earns him a little shove.

“Maybe tomorrow’s the day Dogmeat gets bitten by a radroach. Maybe tomorrow’s the day the Brotherhood catches up and we don’t survive the shootout. Maybe tomorrow’s the day I decide I’ve had enough of your attitude and we go our separate ways.”
“My attitude? Speak for yourself.” He scoffs but holds her a little tighter.

“You need to find your family. I need to find my dad and tell my brother what happened, but is it wrong that I don’t want this to end?”

She reaches up and cradles his cheek in her hand. He presses a kiss to her wrist.

The dim light makes Cooper’s features fuzzy around the edges. She raises her head under the bruised light of the sky and thinks she can almost smooth away the rot and the rads, find the silhouette of the man he used to be. 

She wants to tell him that she loves him so much that she would survive, that she would live, that she’d always choose one more breath, one more day. But she has no way to say so without sounding like the sun’s cooked her brain medium rare so she settles for taking his hand. She imagines that she can move the thought into her shoulder, down past her elbow, through the finger that breaches the border between them, and into him. She imagines he can feel it too.

Maybe it worked because he squeezes her hand.

She used to shiver herself to sleep as the heat of the sand dissipated into the dark but the desert nights aren’t so cold anymore, not where she is. 

He leans down to kiss her and she turns her head to him, sighs against the press of his lips on hers.

He doesn’t take his eyes off her when they pull apart. A hand comes up to push her fringe off her brow and there’s that feeling again of basking in the glow of a soft, sweeter sun from a time long passed. Her eyes flutter closed and she leans forward. 

She can’t stand the way he’s looking at her. She can already feel her heart crack at the way he groans when her tongue sweeps against his and it’s easier to pretend she didn’t hear anything at all.

Just pretend that this won’t end in blood and broken promises.

Just pretend that the last bastions of safety and civilization will mean something if he’s not there. Just pretend that there’s a place for them somewhere in this endless expanse of decay.

Just pretend that they have another day of this, another week, another month, then years and years.

Just pretend that tomorrow won’t come, that tomorrow isn’t already here.

Just pretend that he doesn’t love her, too.

She feels the zipper of her Vault suit being tugged down and he pushes it off her shoulders, slides his hands up her arms, drags them over her ribs, and then slips them down under the smooth fabric to the where she’s already burning for him.

He rubs the heel of her hand against her the way she showed him she likes, works her up slowly until she’s panting and gasping but not quite there yet. Lucy leans her head back against his shoulder and asks so nicely he can’t possibly turn her down. He slides his borrowed finger back inside her and strokes her until she unravels around him. Her forehead’s damp with sweat and he kisses her temple as she catches her breath, her hand clamped around his knee.

She wiggles her vault suit down her thighs, off her ankles, and tilts herself forward, urging him to follow her. He presses himself up against her ass and anchors one hand in the crook of her hip while. She hears him undo his belt and barely has time to prepare herself before he’s rammed inside her so hard she only just manages to catch herself on her elbows.

As if to apologize he guides her back up against him, presses a wet kiss against the nape of her neck as he thrusts up and into her. His kiss grows teeth and one arm hooks up under her knee, lifts it up so she’s spread wide against the cold desert air.

She chokes back a cry at the same time her hips jerk unevenly against him. He grunts, holding her steady as she rides her climax out, feels herself shimmer in time with the night sky. Her skin’s cold from sweat and spit and she shivers a little, lets him warm her with his hands and mouth.

“Hey,” she tells him when she finds her voice. “I want to try something.”

He looks at her dubiously but she finds he’s good at following instructions when he’s inside her. She gives his hip a few pats and he eases himself out, cock slick with her and sits back onto his heels.

Lucy stands, kicks off the rest of her clothes and walks behind him. He watches her but doesn’t say anything.

Kneeling down, she pushes right up against him as close as she can get, peaked nipples pressing into his back. She reaches around him for his cock, wraps it in her hand firmly. Cooper leans back against her, mouth open as he ruts into her hand. She wants to kiss him but their difference in height won’t allow for it, so she settles for a light nip to his ear.

“What’s your—”

He doesn’t have time to finish before Lucy’s bent him over in the sand, one hand spread flat against his lower back. She moves it down so that she’s pressing into him with her mismatched finger.

He groans and jerks against her more urgently. 

“Be good for me,” she tells him.

She crooks her finger. He loses his rhythm with another choked sound and she tightens her grip on his cock.

“More.” He’s all but begging and Lucy’s so turned on she thinks she might come again just from the rumble of his voice. “ Fuck .”

She leans over him to whisper in his ear. “Ask me nicely.” 

“Please.”

Turns out he’s even better at following instructions when she’s inside him. 

She can barely see straight so it’s good enough for her. She turns her wrist and pushes deeper, presses down in a pulsing rhythm. She feels it through the hand he’s thrusting into, feels him snap and shudder as he finishes onto the sand with a low groan.

But Cooper’s not done with her. Not by a long shot. He gets himself under her and pulls her down so she’s riding his face, her arms braced on his chest to keep her upright. She’s so worked up she comes almost immediately, thighs pressed against his jaw, but he holds her down and licks and sucks her again until she’s keening through one more.

The desert does have its perks, even if one wrong move and suddenly there’s sand in places it should never be. 

Lucy’s back in her Vault suit and they’re cozied up tight together under the stars. Dogmeat’s lying at their feet, gently cobbing at her beloved toy with her tiny front teeth. 

Her Pip Boy lost the last radio signal earlier that day and it doesn’t take much to pretend that they’re the only two people on earth.

“Did they always look like this?” She scans the sky. The whole galaxy glows above them, infinite and ancient.

“Not always,” he replies. “'S better now. Less light down here to get in the way. Might be one of the only things that actually improved.”

“We learned about the solar system in school so I’d seen pictures of the night sky in textbooks and stuff. I never thought it could be like this, though.”

In a world of ceilings and fluorescent lights, how could she ever conceive of a sky with no end, a love with no limits at all?

She points up, eager to share what she learned. “That one’s Altair, and that one’s Vega.” She squints, then shifts her fingers just a fraction of an inch. “And that’s Deneb. Together they make the Summer Triangle.”

“I always wondered how they decided on which stars to pick for constellations. There are so many of them, even if you’re not counting all the space junk and abandoned satellites. How do you decide on just a few to make a picture?”

Lucy ponders this for a moment.

“There’s the real answer, and then there’s my answer,” Lucy replies finally. “Which do you want to hear?”

“I figure I’ve probably heard the real answer once or twice and never found it worth remembering. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“You just choose the ones you like the most.”

His grip around her shifts and his chin rests against her shoulder.

“Yeah? That’s it?”

“Yep.” Her voice is low and the stars are bright, bright, bright. “That’s it.”