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Nate and Danse looked out over the Glowing Sea from their recon position. It looked… well, dead. No movement save the rare radscorpion and the kick of dust as a bolt of lightning struck the ground in the distance.
“We have about an hour before sunlight,” Paladin Danse said, lowering his night vision binoculars, a gift from Nate. “Then we’ll move out.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t find you a power armor helmet first?” Nate moved to pick at the seam of his pants, a nervous habit from before he was frozen, then dropped his hand when he remembered the power armor encasing him.
“Negative.” Danse put the binoculars down carefully. “I appreciate your concern, Knight, but my power armor and the RadAway I’ve taken will protect me sufficiently from radiation.”
“If you say so.” Nate grinned when Danse cut him a pointed look. “If you say so, Sir.”
The Paladin made a soft noise that Nate took for approval.
Silence stretched for a few minutes, comfortable and welcome. Danse was a man of few words and Nate never minded, preferring to hear himself talk.
“Mission report,” Danse said expectantly.
“Collect several soil samples from the Glowing Sea to give to the science division to continue monitoring the effects of the radiation,” Nate prattled off immediately. His stomach flipped when Danse’s mouth twitched into something like a smile, but it was gone as soon as it had arrived.
“Outstanding.”
He hated the Glowing Sea.
When he had first unthawed and Preston told him about ground zero, he decided he wanted to see it for himself, up close and personal.
Preston had nearly busted a gasket when Nate entered his power armor, grabbed a handful of supplies, and announced that he was going to make the several day trek alone.
He had hated it then, the crater that had ended his world and started this new one, and he hated it even more now as he was bent as far as the power armor would allow him, scraping hardened dirt into test tubes.
This was ridiculous, but as long as it kept Danse happy it kept him happy.
Nate looked over at Danse and watching him make a slow 360 turn, rifle raised, making sure nothing would disturb them. His face was considerably paler than it had been when they had set out half an hour ago.
“D- Paladin Danse?”
“What is it, Knight?”
“Are you alright?”
Danse looked at him and nodded curtly.
“Fine, thank you. How many vials have you collected?”
Nate paused. The paladin was looking right at the ten tubes on the ground. He decided against saying anything. Maybe Danse just wanted to test his attention span. Again.
“Ten, sir. I’ll only need five more.” Nate moved as fast as the power armor allowed. He didn’t like how Danse looked, and he liked it even less when Danse began compulsively clearing his throat and losing track of what he was doing halfway through doing it. Nate noticed him squinting into the distance and flinching when a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. Not very Paladin Danse of him. The man could face down a deathclaw with barely a twitch of his facial muscles, but flinched at lightning? No.
It took about five more minutes to scrape enough of the dirt to fill the five remaining vials. Danse did another quick 360, almost lost his balance, and started back to their recon position.
Neither of them talked as they walked back so when Danse broke the silence almost at the edge of the Glowing Sea Nate almost shot at him.
“Knight…” Danse turned to look at him, blinking rapidly, and Nate took a step towards him. Nate checked his Geiger counter. It had all but stopped clicking. “Nate, I’m… I don’t feel so…”
The ground shook as Danse hit the ground, crushing his rifle.
“Fuck!” Nate exited his power armor as fast as he could, almost falling in the process, and ran to Danse’s side. “Danse? Paladin Danse!” He slapped at the armor, hoping to rouse his commanding officer, but to no avail. “Shit. Pack. Where’s my pack?”
He retrieved a bottle of buffout from his pack, took two dry, and hefted the power armor onto its back when they took effect. As he took Danse’s pulse, weak too weak, he pressed the radio system on his Pip-Boy.
“This is Scribe Tara.”
“Scribe, this is Knight Lance, I need immediate medical evac from my position, my commanding officer, Paladin Danse, has passed out from overexposure to radiation in the Glowing Sea.”
There was the sound of clicking against a terminal keyboard and the Scribe cleared her throat.
“You’re at the edge of the Glowing Sea, correct?”
“Correct, yes.”
“We have a bird about five minutes from your location, Knight. Is the Paladin in his power armor?”
“Yes. Yes, he is, he doesn’t have his helmet, he forgot it in Sanctuary before we left.” Nate’s chest ached in a way he couldn’t quite place, and the edges of his vision were blurry, focused entirely on the man before him. “Is he gonna die? He can’t die.”
“Knight Lance, please remain calm. Try to get him on his side so that if he vomits it won’t constrict his airways.”
Of course. Nora had had to do that with him several times when he was sick.
Nora would know what to do. Nora was the soldier. Nate was the lawyer.
Nate pushed the Paladin onto his side, wincing when his rifle crunched pathetically, and Danse coughed almost immediately afterward, expelling the contents of his stomach. Nate tried his damnedest not to do the same.
“Come on, Danse, stay with me,” Nate said, rubbing at his back. He knew the Paladin couldn’t feel it through the armor, but he hoped it was the thought that counted. “You’re okay. You’re a tough guy, remember you always telling me ‘keep your chin up, soldier’? Come on. You can pull through.”
Danse mumbled something and vomited again in response. It was streaked red with blood and then Nate started panicking.
“Where’s the fucking bird? We need evac right now as in immediately, please! I don’t want to lose him! I can’t lose him, too.” He knew he was saying too much, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“Knight, keep your cool,” the Scribe said, voice cracking uncertainly. “Please use one of your flares provided for you so that the vertibird can hone in on your exact location. It should be about two minutes out.”
Nate rustled around in his pack, tears blinding him, trying to find the correct flare. When he couldn’t he took a Minutemen flare, ignited it, and held it up to the sky.
One tense minute later during which Nate prayed to whatever God still roamed the wasteland, there was the drone of propellers coming towards them.
When it touched down and medics crowded out Nate didn’t know whether to kiss them or cuss them out for taking so long, so he stepped back and let them take care of Danse.
“Will he be okay?” he asked when one of the medics came close enough to hear him.
The medic smiled.
“It’s gonna take a lot more than some radiation poisoning to take out Paladin Danse, Knight Lance. It’s a good thing you called when you did, though, he should be fine.”
The ball of dread didn’t leave his stomach.
When they arrived at the Prydwen the medics moved Danse into the hospital wing quickly, ordering Nate into a separate station to be examined by a doctor. Nate tried to wave their concerns away, wanting every available person keeping Danse alive, even though they assured him that Danse was stable. They insisted that they look him over.
Besides a bit of dehydration, he was fine. They hooked him up to an IV and one of the nurses brought him reports on Danse whenever she could.
Two hours later she returned to tell Nate that Danse had woken up and that she had a bit of bad news.
“Blind?” Nate nearly screeched. He barely managed to keep his voice in check. “He’s blind?”
“Temporarily,” the nurse corrected him. “Exposing the retina directly to radstorm lightening has known damaging effects. They always fade with time, maybe a week or two depending on the severity and time of the exposure. Given that you were only there for a half hour, I would say he will be fit for duty again in a week.”
“How’s he taking it?”
The nurse glanced around and then grinned at Nate.
“All he has asked about since he woke is you.”
Nate hoped that the blush on his cheeks and neck isn’t as visible as it feels.
“When can I see him?”
“You can come on back now.” The nurse stood and pushed the curtain back to allow Nate to pass. She lead him to another bed on the far side of the hospital.
Danse was sitting up, still a little pale, with patches over his eyes. His head cocked to the side when they approached and he put down the cup of water in his hand.
“Knight Lance?”
“Yes, sir. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Did you collect the vials?”
Nate smothered a laugh. Danse could have died and all he cared about were Nate and the damned vials of soil.
“Yes, sir. I gave the vials to one of the scribes to take to the science wing as soon as we arrived.”
A ghost of a smile tilted Danse’s lips and Nate had to bodily keep himself from kissing them.
“Outstanding.”