Chapter Text
This is the way the world ends, Piper thought.
The quote had been overused three and half centuries ago. In the past two—when the world had, in fact, ended with a bang—it had been worn beyond meaning. As a writer, she was obligated to feel a certain amount of disdain towards cliches, particularly ones taken out of context. But, well, when the words fit…
Something inside her was ending all right. Quite likely it was her last sense of self-preservation (below average to start with) crumbling away. Whatever kind of slow decay it was, it was quiet. Never in the moments of chaos did she notice it. Bombs and bullets had a tendency to drown everything else out. She could toss back a raider’s live grenade, outrun a vicious mob of cultists, or pistol-whip a feral in the face without flinching, but it was in the calm moments she heard her heartbeat at its loudest. Calm moments like right now.
“Come on, baby. Let’s see what you got.” Nora turned the handle on the safe with a satisfying clunk. She hissed her success around the bobby pin clenched between her teeth. “Yes.”
Piper couldn’t explain the flutter in her chest just then, crouched on the floor of a cramped closet in Vault 114. Anxiety, maybe. Excitement, plausibly. Of all her reckless habits, charging into pre-War Vaults on rescue missions wasn’t usually one of them. Definitely not Vaults filled with Triggermen, anyway.
She found herself grinning as her companion scooped up caps and ammo of questionable ownership. Those Triggermen were gonna be pissed.
As Nora passed her an extra box of 10mm rounds, Piper said, “You really do have a talent for finding trouble, don’tcha?”
Nora spared her a brief distracted glance. “At this point, I’d say it usually finds me.”
“Hey, I’m not one to judge,” Piper said, amused. “Honestly, it’s just nice to not be doing it alone for a change. In my line of work, things tend to get pretty hairy.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Loads of them. That’s the point, I suppose. Anything for a story.”
“Is this for a story?”
The question didn’t seem like an intentional accusation. Nora’s resigned tone suggested she wouldn’t care either way. That she had to ask, though…
But, hey, Piper got it. In Nora’s place, she wouldn’t have trusted her own motives either. If she had listened to the folks in D.C. for a single second, she would’ve run the opposite direction.
The fact that Nora hadn’t run the opposite direction yet meant one of two things: A) she hadn’t heard the talk, or B) she hadn’t cared. Both were unlikely. One was insane.
“What, saving Valentine?” Piper said. “Don’t see how writing about that would help anyone. ‘Nick Valentine is in a jam,’ and, ‘Gangsters are bad,’ are two headlines that don’t exactly make breaking news.” She fiddled with her satchel's buckle, securing the spare ammo within easy reach. “Besides, Ellie would kill me if I did.”
Nora tore her attention away from the safe. Wary, she gave Piper a once-over. “You don’t seem particularly worried.”
“We’re in a closet about to be murdered by one of the worst gangs in Goodneighbor. Of course I’m worried. I’m not crazy. But Nicky’s made of tough stuff. He’ll be fine. He’s probably better off than we are right now.”
The old synth may have been missing most of his skin and a good handful of screws, but no one could deny he was the best detective around. (Notably, he was the only detective around.) He could talk his way into any situation he wanted, including this one, and shoot his way out of any situation that went south, including this one. Piper had once watched him get body-slammed by a deathclaw and limp away with a joke about adding a little iron to the lizard’s diet. She could never dream of being that durable as a centenarian. These days, making it out of the second half of her twenties was uncannily daunting.
Nora released a long breath. She twisted out of her crouch into a sitting position, resting her pistol across her knee. “Here’s hoping he can find Shaun, then.”
The flutter in Piper’s chest sank, settling as a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. Right. That’s what this whole chaotic quest was about. Missing son. Murdered husband.
She hadn’t figured out what to make of the Pip-Boy toting, fish-out-of-water Vaultie she’d found outside Diamond City’s gate a week ago. Or the Vaultie who had found her, she supposed, locked out and yelling her head off at poor Danny Sullivan. Not Piper’s finest as first impressions went, she would admit.
But any sliver of chagrin had been smothered when Nora had begun asking questions no one dared to ask—the same questions that had gotten Piper locked out and her family threatened. While the good ol’ mayor had stammered through his usual bullshit excuses, Piper had been quick to do a double take.
The whole concept of Nora Delaney required a double take. Eight times Piper’s age, she didn’t look a day over thirty. Two hundred and ten years she had slept in her Vault—through centuries of toxic weather, bizarre evolution, and pointless war—to awake to the ashes of the world she had known. While others from the old world, ghouls and bots, had those centuries to adjust, she’d only had a literal blink.
It hadn’t stopped her. Day one, she had charged out into the wasteland with nothing more than a scavenged gun, half-remembered training from her soldier husband, and a terrifying determination. And, miraculously, she had survived. She’d taken every new strange thing in stride. She’d built an arsenal of allies and weapons. She’d continued to ask questions that should have gotten her killed. Months of clawing through the wastes on luck and wits later, Nora Delaney refused to slow down.
Missing son. Murdered husband. Mad world. She couldn’t slow down.
It was all too reminiscent of a teenager Piper no longer recognized. One who had picked up a pencil in one hand and her dad’s gun in the other—before the dirt on his grave had time to settle. She had grown out her hair, donned a new hat and coat, and become the person she needed to be to survive. Then she had become the person who would help others survive too, no matter how unpopular it made her.
There was familiarity in shared necessity. Besides the whole “woman out of time” bit. That was out there.
“Trust me,” Piper said. “Valentine’s your guy. He’s been doing this decades longer than I have.”
“Hiding in murder closets?” Nora asked, which almost passed for a joke.
“Just about. Getting in trouble…it’s what folks like us do. Me and Valentine—and you.” Piper flicked the makeshift press badge on her cap. “Can’t uncover the truth without a little risk.”
“More than a little. This might be the most insane thing I’ve ever done.” Nora rubbed her thumb along the grip of her gun. “I mean, I kill people now. I shot three in the hallway and it was nothing. That’s not normal.”
It was normal, though. That was how it went: either you shot the other guy, or you let them shoot you. But sometimes—sometimes—Piper did know when to hold her tongue. Nora understood how the world worked. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have survived two steps out of that Vault.
Instead, Piper said, “The first time I killed someone, I was fifteen. A raider made a grab for me. Dad was holding Nat—couldn’t get his gun in time. So I pulled the trigger. Then I threw up.”
“Christ.”
“After, Dad sat me down and told me I had done two things right and one thing wrong. For the first right, he said, ‘You feel bad. That’s good. Let yourself wonder if there could’ve been another way, if there’s something you could’ve done differently. It’ll keep you from taking a life too lightly.’ He died less than a year later, but I still hear him say that with every bullet. That and the second right.”
“Which was?”
Piper held her gaze. Tired brown eyes, lined with dark crescents. “You didn’t hesitate.”
Aforementioned eyes found more interest in a dust bunny beneath the shelves. “And the one wrong?”
“I should’ve aimed somewhere other than his shoes when I threw up.”
Nora laughed softly. It didn’t extend to any part of her face. “Why are you here? This feels a little extreme, even for you.”
“Uh, have you met me? Remind me to tell you some of my stories when we get home.”
Over the years, Piper had dealt with near executions, undeserved arrests, public ridicule, failed assassination attempts, slightly less undeserved arrests, and all the joys the post-apocalypse had to offer. This… Well, Piper had essentially chased a woman she had just met into a Vault filled with murderous gang members—a woman who had only learned to fight a couple months ago, if that. Logic dictated that Nora would be dead before winter’s thaw, along with anyone who followed her.
But, maybe, she wouldn’t be. It was that “maybe” that had Piper’s attention. She didn’t care to calculate the odds (she left the math homework to Nat), but she was sure as hell invested in how this wild quest would play out.
And in saving Valentine. That was important too, she supposed.
“You and I,” Piper said, “we put ourselves in harm’s way so others can have a chance at a better life—Shaun, Nat, the people of the Commonwealth. You haven’t hesitated yet, so let’s just say I have a good feeling.”
“Some feeling.”
“You’re the one who told me you can only take it one day at a time. That all anyone can do is just keep going. So that’s what we’re doing. Together, all right? I got your back, Blue.”
There. There was the smile that had been in hiding. It was subtle—a slow pull of Nora’s lips to one side, a slight crinkle in the corners of her eyes—but it was definitely a smile. Well, would you look at that? Only took Piper a week to earn it.
The flutter in her chest was back. How long had she been rambling? On second thought, she didn’t want to know.
“Anyway,” she said, with the smoothness of a heart attack, “I just wanted to let you know, I’m real happy to be along for the ride.”
Nora’s smile widened, revealing bright white teeth. “I’m glad I found you. You’ve been my angel. Really.”
Maybe Piper was having a heart attack. “Oh. Uh, thanks, Blue. That’s…that’s awful sweet.” And unexpected. No one called Piper an angel—except for MacCready, but that was MacCready being weird.
“You’re cute.”
It would have been less mortifying if Nora had taken this moment to shoot her in the back. Then Piper wouldn’t have been able to feel her face burn.
No. Don’t do this to yourself, Piper. Missing son. Murdered husband. Missing son. Murdered husband.
Murder closet. Shit.
“Sooo,” Piper said lamely, “you want to get out of here?”
Nora nodded emphatically. “Yes. Very much yes.”