Chapter Text
She had been missing for a good week now and only he knew it.
How did Nick Valentine know this exactly? Well, a few things. Two to be precise.
The first could have been a mere coincidence, hell, given her nature it was completely normal. The last time he had seen her, the two of them had been in his office, throwing theories back and forth like a metaphorical tennis ball. The latest case that the pair had been working on was a murder – some poor bastard had been found strung and quartered out at Goodneighbor, hung over the railings in the air like some sick display of power. Murders weren’t out of the ordinary in that town, hell you could barely go a week before some poor junkie had decided he had enough of his pal stealing his supply and decided to slit his throat in his sleep, but those were individuals solving their own problems. They would be dealt with accordingly. But this certain display didn’t seem like some sick form of payback, as the victim was one of Hancock’s own men. He needed the culprit to be found so righteous wasteland justice could be given.
After collecting little clues they could find, the synth and human decided it would be best to go back to Diamond City. Mostly because there would be better equipment there to analyze the evidence, put up a pinboard that she had often done for other cases (something that he loved quite frankly), mostly because they needed a break. Spending days at a time in Goodneighbor wasn’t exactly ideal. He never much liked it there he had to admit, even though he got along well with Hancock. She liked it much more than him – something he never really understood, and he was supposed to be good at picking up little details like that. Nick did however pick up on the way her eyes always slid over to The Memory Den for a few seconds, an emotion he couldn’t decipher on her face. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Ever since the trip into Kellogg’s mind, she had never stepped a foot inside again, at least not that he knew. It always irked him how he had booted down as soon as he had sat down next to the entrance of the den, and when he finally came to, she stood before him with such a look of fear and terror it had become burned into his memory core.
“-so, by that conclusion, whoever murdered Andy must have not broken into his room at all. It had to be voluntary. Given that he had only had one set of keys found on his corpse, there’s a possibility that the murderer was invited in. Nick, are you listening?”
“Yeah…yeah. Or they had planted the key on his body to make it look like that it hadn’t been stolen. Not a lot of people put their keys in their shoes”
“Hmm. Or he was the kinda guy to put his keys in his shoes because he knew his pockets would be picked. Still an odd placement though. Why not put it under his underwear band then? Makes it easier to run on your feet…” she rambled on, and Nick let her. He was listening, but at the same time, another part of him wasn’t. Every so often he would interject with a comment, or answer to her question, and she’d lean against the whiteboard she had dragged in from the nearby high school. Easier to visualize she said. Better than keeping everything in a tiny little folder. As she stared at the board in concentration, marker tip resting on her lips, arms folded across her chest, sweat dripped down the back of her neck.
Big metal cubes weren’t the best for airflow or light, and they got hot fast. The fan Ellie had installed in the middle of the room after she moved in often wasn’t enough to beat the heat, it more so shifted hot air around the office. Smaller desk fans were often the go to as it did now, whirring cool air towards the torso of the woman in front of him. With the two women’s insistence, bless their souls, another sat by Nick cooling off his hot circuits. She had practically said he was melting before they plugged the damn thing in. He sure he wasn’t but hey, you don’t want to be wrong when it comes to those kinds of things. A small lamp had been switched on, enough brightness to illuminate around them, but leaving shadows in the corners of the room.
Nick would never admit to it, but he often found himself staring at her neck. She had her hair pinned up at the back because she hated the feeling of her hair in the heat, smaller hairs coming free from the bobbies. He didn’t know what made him so fascinated by it. Maybe it was because the vault suit she usually wore covered it, a concealed part of herself no one else could see. She had borrowed one of his shirts – not implying any flirtatiousness or anything like it for that matter, but because they were hardly worn. Nick did not need to change often, his current shirt having more bullet holes, rips, and tears to count, it didn’t bother him, but he always kept fresh pairs in case the one he currently wore got too coated in commonwealth grime and filth. It wouldn’t do any good walking around in Diamond City with bloodstains and brains decorating him. His signature white collar (or, whatever was the equivalent of over two hundred years of exposure does to white) sat loosely on her shoulders, top buttons undone, sleeves bunching at her wrists. Not every shirt that he or Ellie came across was his size, so a far few were either larger than his synthetic body, or too snug. Whatever one he had fished out of his drawer was the first kind.
“Shit – it’s getting pretty late, Nick”, she glanced at the pip-boy on her wrist, it putting a soft green glow on her features,” I should probably get some sleep after that awful hike back”. She put her right arm to her neck squeezing the tired muscles there, covering his line of sight. Nick’s amber eyes flicked back to her face as she turned her head. “I’m gonna head to bed. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah kid, of course”, the corners of his mouth lifted into a small smile as he sat up from his seat. Moving over to the board to once again go over what they come up with, she went softly over to the door but stopped for a second after turning the knob.
“Don’t just stand there staring at the wall all night, okay?”
Without him answering, she left.
That was the first clue. She had plans to come back and work on the case again with him. Not that she had promised, but she usually would say something if another thing popped up on her radar. Sometimes she would also just up and leave out of the blue as well. Either when something of grave importance came up, she wanted space, or she had decided to go on one of her early scavenging runs and got caught up. Really, it could have been anything with her. She was a capable woman, more so than most would give her credit for, and he knew she could take care of herself. That didn’t stop him from worrying sometimes, especially if she didn’t bring anyone with her.
So, he left it alone. Worked on the case, made some breakthroughs, connected some dots. Decided to have a look at some other files that he had neglected in the far reaches of his desk.
She never came back through that door. After a few days, he resolved to go straight to Goodneighbor himself to conduct some more interviews, show Hancock what they found, see if anything new had sprung up. But he never moved past the agency’s front door. First of all, she would kill him if he had decided to go without her. Any case that they had worked on together they finished together – that had become an unwritten rule. Secondly, it just felt plain wrong. He had gotten used to having her by his side now, she was practically his unofficial partner in all things involving detective work. She was his Nora Charles to his Nick Charles, his Pamela to his Jerry. Not that he couldn’t operate without her. There were times when she would disappear for so long, he had gotten used to his old way of operating, silently moving about the office, going out to the commonwealth to track down baddies, finding old lost things. But then she’d come barrelling through the agency like a tornado, bruises, and scrapes, trinkets and scrap tied to her like a one-man band, rambling on about her latest caper whether it be helping Preston with another settlement or rescuing kids out of fridges.
It was nice. And chaotic, but nice all the same.
After a week had gone by, he finally decided to check in on her. If it came down to it, he would just have to finish what they started himself. There was not much he could do if she had decided that working on a murder case was not her top priority at the moment, and Nick didn’t know when she would be coming back. Night-time greeted him as he walked out of his office, clouds covering the moon. Perfect for snooping around, without whispering town citizens to see you.
Clue two, her door slightly ajar.
This set off alarm bells – not enough for Nick to panic completely, he would always stay a level head no matter the situation, but enough for him to validate his concerns. She was extremely careful about security even in Diamond City. They both knew that the Institute's reaches were long and many, there were no ‘safe’ places away from their grasp. A shootout in front of Power Noodles was enough to squash anyone’s hope of that.
Inching the door open with his foot, Nick reached for his revolver. He used to have a pretty crappy pipe pistol before, not that he cared much for high firepower, but it got him through many a bad situation. Then she had somehow dug up one of those old-fashioned six-shooters in pristine condition and had decided that it belonged in his hands. Made him look like a proper cutthroat detective she said. His old one still sat in one of his drawers somewhere, buried under paperwork. He didn’t miss it.
There were no lights on inside and as he stood in the frame, he could not detect any sign of life either. No shuffling of footsteps, murmurings, or covered intakes of breath. No soft sounds of deep sleep, either. With his other hand, he flipped on the switch, and internally for a moment he wished that she wasn’t there, seeing him in her doorway with a gun in his hand as if he had gone crazy like those gen ones before him.
Lights slowly flickered on, and soft pops of electricity sounded across the room, Nick closing the door behind him.
To be truthful, he had only been in her house a handful of times since she had bought the property. Once after a particularly bad run in with raiders, another after she had gotten so drunk, she could barely put the key in the hole. Later, she admitted that she had only gotten shitfaced because she knew that Nick would be there to look after her, make sure no slimy scumbag decided to take advantage of the naïve woman belonging to another time. Also, so she could bring back the cleaned shirt that she had puked on.
It was a big property, ceiling reaching so high another level could be comfortably erected. She had started to do this – off to the side a new level had been connected to old metal and concrete stairs that had probably been there since before the war, now obviously made her bedroom given he could see that she had somehow dragged a double bed up there, complete with pillows and blankets galore. He eyed the rest of the room – a couch had been put under her bedroom companying it with a table strewn with magazines, further on a fridge sat with a makeshift counter housing a camper stove. The back of the property mostly consisted of junk piled high against the wall, pipe weapons, aluminum cans, gas canisters, pocket watches, circuit boards, you name it. A workbench nearby to strip it for parts. This was something she’d often do, dump most of her wasteland findings and sort it out later when she was in the mood. Looking closer, he could even see a separated pile of synth parts, a table dedicated to carefully deconstructing the pieces, synth head atop with its eyes removed. He couldn’t help it, but it mildly creeped him out.
The bedroom was obviously the best place to start. If any clues were to be found on the property it would be there, the place that she used the most. It was unlikely that any clues would be found in the scrap heap or accompanying benches and everything else looked pretty clean. He did however flick through the magazines before climbing the stairs to the next level, finding that most of the comic books were Grognack The Barbarian or !La Fantoma! , a few other weapon magazines mixed in too. There were however more traditional books stacked underneath the coffee table. Old school detective novels, romances, and court case novels he recognized from his memories from before the war. Stuff that he would be interested in, stuff that he probably would read too if he had peace and quiet and time off, but rarely ever he did. Seeing them there made him want to sit on her couch reading quietly beside her, her legs snug underneath her, hand resting on her chin as the other held the folded paperback, body only covered in her underwear and one of his shirts.
He decided to move on. Making his way up the stairs, his feet thudded on the new wood of the floor. She had done a good job of making it, it didn’t creak or shift, and she had somehow anchored it against the wall in a way that it was extremely secure. It was hard to believe that one woman had solely added on this entire new floor, as well as dragged up the furniture. She must have gotten help somehow, but he never saw it come or go. From what Nick could remember, this whole property had been used as some kind of storage facility previously, no walls, no windows, and only one door on the ground floor. To his surprise, he could see a third slightly taller level with three or four steps going up to make a small office. A salvaged computer sat on the desk with scattered paper around it, with other bits and pieces as well, wastepaper basket overflowing. A big red chair had been put on the other side of the wall with the door to the roof nearby, well bolted and locked.
Shifting through the papers, he found out most of them were missing person posters, wanted posters for work, potential caches, and scav locations. There were some more interesting documents, like her folder full of settlements, trade routes, and requests, but not of them were dated or gave any solid lead on what she could be up to. She could have been doing any one of those things, but Nick had a feeling that it wasn’t the case for any of them. Opening up the top drawer of the desk, he found it full of thin paper books, the kind that school kids would write in before the war (and currently, when they found them). Each one was dated, the earliest that he found being for October of 2287. Flicking through it, he read a random page.
…so I had decided to leave Sanctuary for another scavenge attempt. I knew I could have brung Codsworth, or Preston for that matter (I have not yet made a decision on his offer, it’s a big ask!!! How could I possibly lead the Minutemen? A broken militia needing better leadership than I. Nate would be perfect for that, not me, a woman who could hardly pilot a power armour suit, or properly reload a gun for that matter. I miss you.) but decided that Dogmeat would be the best partner at the moment. He’s such a lovely dog, one that I hoped to buy for Shaun when he had gotten a bit older, German Shepherds were such a popular breed before the war. I have no doubt that he would love him, wearing matching bandana’s like pirates, going on…
Nick stopped reading, not wanting to breach any more of the woman’s privacy than he needed to. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about other entries, especially ones regarding himself, but he had more respect for her than that. Picking up a book with the current month's date, he flipped to the latest entry. Unlike the previous book's carefully done cursive, this ones writing looked more illegible, with the words barely fitting within the lines, more crude, crooked, and rushed.
Distress signal detected. Near Medford hospital (possibly inside?) Sounded like a young woman, begged for help saying she was stuck and in a bad way (Super Mutants? Raiders? Synths?). Urgent. Will have to put Hancock's mystery aside for now.
Apart from the date a week prior, that was all that was written on the page. He stuffed the book back where it belonged, it was all the proof he needed to start heading out immediately to that mutant-infested place and fish her out of there. The worst filled his mind, she had obviously left in a hurry, not bringing anyone with her. She had probably thought that it would be an easy job, fish out the girl, fix her back up, bring her either back to her home or one of the nearby settlements, done and dusted, but something had gone wrong. He would be less concerned if at least Dogmeat was with her (that mutt was worth at least five men in strength and speed alone, and fiercely loyal to boot) but last he heard she had left him back in Sanctuary with Preston. Making his way past her bed, a sudden click made him drop back against the wall.
“…hey, anyone home?”
MacCready.
Nick stood at the top of the stairs where the mercenary could see him.
“Just me, MacCready. What brings you here?”
“Same thing if you’ve already broken into her house”, he replied, eyeing the rest of the room. It was obvious by how his eyes lingered on certain objects that he had never been inside, and by the fact Nick had never seen him in Diamond City before. It wasn’t MacCready’s kind of town, he more so fit the rugged, dark bar scene at Goodneighbour than anything that Diamond City could provide the mercenary. There was only one thing that the town had to offer him, and she was long gone.
“It was like that when I got here”, his eyes flicking to the door that he had not bothered to lock on his way in, then back to the man below him.
“Yeah, I suppose it was. So, if the famous detective Nick Valentine is on the case of the missing dame, we got nothing to worry about, right?” MacCready said, hands going straight to his pockets, slowly walking around the living area, inspecting what Nick had already gone through.
The detective decided that it would be best for him to not be looking down on the other man like some watchdog, so he thudded back down the stairs again.
“You know she’s missing?”
“Missing? Damn Nick, I didn’t know it was that serious”, eyebrows knotting in concern. It made the tension that Nick felt towards the other man melt a little. The two of them never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things, well at least to Nick he didn’t, but there was one thing between them that connected them together, one thing that they obviously both deeply cared about.
Even so, that didn’t stop him from feeling put off by the man who had barged into his private investigation.
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I haven’t figured out that part yet. Has she not seen you either?”
“No. We normally catch up on the radio”, MacCready waved vaguely towards where he thought the ham set would be,” last time I saw her was when I saw you last too, at The Third Rail. She said she’d relay any progress she made through and I’d slink around to see if anything of note would be useful. Hancock wasn’t as concerned about the radio silence, but he said it wouldn’t hurt if I checked in”
Catch up on the radio. He did remember seeing a ham radio set on her desk as well, but it didn’t seem that important in helping him find her. Of course, she would have a way to communicate across the Commonwealth, she was a busy woman, and busy women needed a way to organize things. There was Preston over at Sanctuary to check in on, The Castle, Hancock and MacCready over in Goodneighbour, and of course the multiple settlements she had organized and erected. It seemed impossible for her to keep track of everything with all those strings pulling at her all at once, let alone her own troubles to deal with. She had though it seemed, to have sorted out a way to be MIA if she wanted to, without causing that big of a fuss. A few check-ins here and there was enough for people to leave her alone, the Minutemen big enough at this point to handle the bulk of the work. There were probably a lot more things that he didn’t even know that she was juggling, the big blimp in the sky that had sat over the airport being one of them. City residents sending her on while goose chases. Old detectives dragging her around.
After this was dealt with, he thought she deserved some serious rest. Maybe he could try and drag out some old holotapes, old audio dramas that she’d be interested in, and just lay off. In all likelihood, that had probably been the straw that broke the camel's back, enough for her to not properly consider things, so tired and overwhelmed she would have not been thinking straight. If she didn’t have to worry about the world on her shoulders, then she wouldn’t have gone missing.
But that was just the kind of person she was.
“It’s good actually that you came. I couldn’t find anything of use and was about to head to Sanctuary myself, but with the two of us, we can cover more ground. I wouldn’t tell the Minutemen just yet – don’t want anything blown out of proportion if it turns out that she’s just caught up in some wastelander’s problems”
“That sure does sound right”, MacCready chuckled, agreeing with Nick’s assessment of her.
“You should go to Sanctuary instead – check out Red Rocket on the way. I’ll head over to Vault 84 – she often helps out Curie there, and it doesn’t hurt to see if they’ve heard anything from her”
“What about The Castle?” the mercenary offered.
“When you get to Sanctuary Preston can radio there. No point in wasting time when you can cover a bigger area” Nick shot down.
“Oh, yeah, right. Stupid idea”, MacCready said, chastising himself.
He didn’t know why he did it – actually, that was a lie. Nick knew exactly why he decided not to tell Robert MacCready the truth, and it was the pure fact that he just didn’t want to. He didn’t know much about MacCready, but what he did know was that he was a mercenary, and mercenaries tended to go in gun blazing. Not the best partner for delicate detective work, and there was the reality that Nick didn’t know what he was getting into. If you didn’t know, then it was always best to snoop around and find out first.
This was his logical reasoning for not bringing MacCready, but there was another, more sentimental one that hid under the first.
She was responsible for him being alive. Not in a literal way – no, she had not scanned his brain and uploaded it into a synthetic one – but she had crawled her way through Vault 114 and saved him. Not that Nick was scared of death, hell, at one time he actually welcomed it, but sitting enclosed behind a whole crew of men with a short-tempered mob boss and his trigger-happy girlfriend sure made it look like he wasn’t going to see the light of day again. He had been sitting in that grim office for weeks, berated, threatened by Skinny Malone's men, and at one point by Darla, condemned to be buried alive. He doubted that would happen – Skinny had at least respected him enough to not outright kill him when he had barged into their quarters – but by the way Darla gleefully sneered at him the next time she made her rounds, he was sure he wouldn’t be safe in that office any longer. He was sure his deteriorating wires and roughed-up circuits were making him see things when he saw the woman dressed in the blue and yellow vault suit, but luck had seemed to grant him a guardian angel, and she was as real as the hat on his head. This angel was packing a combat rifle full of fresh bullets and enough perseverance to level cities, the blood of Skinny’s men coated thick on her boots. It had made the normally fast-quipped synth speechless when he realized, she was the only one on the balcony outside of his prison, something that filled him with respect and uneasiness. That day had also planted a seed inside him of something that the synth ignored religiously, but grew every day, and with every moment spent with her.
So, his mind was made. If there was anyone that was going to rescue her from whatever trouble she was in, it was going to be him, and him alone.
Nick headed for the door and opened it, letting in the now downpouring rain. MacCready followed him, trusting the detectives’ words. The man stopped for a second before entering the rain.
“Nick, I hope she’s okay. For both our sake and hers”
“Me too, MacCready,” Nick said solemnly, then turned away into the night.