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It’s in her handwriting. Nicky, in her rounded cursive, scrawled across the holotape in black marker. Of course, he knows it’s from her. He had found it in her pocket.
He understood – knows what it is, he thinks, before he even listens. It doesn’t make it any easier.
He shouldn’t listen to it. It seems – invasive. Even if it’s meant for him. Even if it has his name on it.
But. But. And that’s just it. A whole sentence, as it is: but. He has always thought of the word as something like a firmly-placed shoe, wedging open a door before it slammed shut behind him.
She had meant for him to have it. It’s meant for him to hear.
He uses the pip-boy to listen to it, in the end. It’s strange, to see it not attached to her wrist. It’s strange to see her wrist without it.
When it loads, at first there is just the whirring of the tape, the hiss and pop that comes with the format. He thinks, for an awful few seconds, that after all that build-up, the tape is empty. That it has been damaged, somehow, and wiped clean. And then he hears her take a static-y breath, and her voice, dulcet and wry, comes out of the small speaker.
“Hey, heartbreaker.” Her tone is teasing, playful, so out of touch with the awfulness of the situation. If he needed to breathe, he’s certain the air would have caught in his throat.
“It’s me,” her voice goes on. “If you’re listening to this… well. You already know the rest.”
The memory plays back in his head, and he is held hostage by the flash of jumbled images.
Bullets still plinking off him as he leaned over her. His ruined hand useless against the flow of blood. Her own hand clawing at her breast pocket, unable to work the zip. A wordless request in her eyes.
There is a slight pause, and when her voice comes out again, she sounds almost dreamy. Contemplative, but with a small smile on her lips. “It’s probably selfish of me to say I hope you were there, in the end,” she continues. “But I do. I do.”
He thinks of the fear, the pain, the sheer panic on her pale face. His presence had not seemed so great a comfort, in the reality of the thing.
“So… maybe I’ve already said my goodbye. But… if there’s a chance I didn’t get to say it…”
And here it is – like a punch he can see coming. He braces himself in every way his unfeeling frame can, re-enacts all the old responses saved within his body.
“You said once, that you have one thing that’s yours, and only yours. Justice. The good we do.” A pause. He hears he breathe in. He thinks he can hear the smile on her lips. “But you see, Nicky, that’s not true. Because I never knew the other Nick. And you have me.”
Impact. Nick leans forward in his chair, metal fingers gripping the wooden arms.
You have me. The words, now, only conjure the image of her in his arms, red-stained and fading, as he carried her back to Diamond City.
“I know there are some things we don’t say,” she soldiers on, “but I can’t go without you knowing.” Another pause. She is gathering herself, this time. When she speaks, her voice is calm. Level. “So here it is. In no uncertain terms.”
A steadying breath. And then—
“I love you.” A moment. And then she says it again. “I love you, Nicky.” Her voice becomes more confident, the words taking shape and becoming solid. “I love you.” The last is not an admittance, and she says it without a hint of nerves. It’s deliberate, a statement of fact. That makes her tone no less gentle, nor does it stymie the smile that shapes the sound of her voice.
“That’s it,” she says. The tape crackles for a second more, and cuts off.
A long time passes before Nick moves again. At last, he ejects the tape from her pip-boy, and stands. He walks over to the bed in the corner – his, in theory, had he any need to sleep (Ellie had insisted) – and lays both down beside the sleeping body there.
She still looks pale, yet not so ghostly as she had under the stark lighting of the Mega surgery cellar. He takes a seat on the mattress, making certain not to jostle her, and gently brushes the sweat-damp hair from her forehead. He sits there for a while, his hearing narrowed to focus on the sound of her breathing.
There is another version of this story, of this day. He knows it. One where he is not so lucky.
But tonight she alive, sleeping soundly in his bed. So he tries not to think too hard about the other Nick – the one who listened to her goodbye in earnest, incapable of feeling the dread, the doom of it, rolling in his stomach, in his chest. No – he puts those thoughts away, and listens to the quiet whoosh of her breathing, like waves crashing on a shore, and counts his blessings.
(“Hey, Nicky,” says one night, some time later. “You ever listen to that tape?”
She doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t ask.
Her cheeks are flushed, hot pink. She pretends they aren’t. He pretends he hasn’t noticed.
He doesn’t look at her as he says, slowly, “I figure there’s no need for goodbyes, if you ain’t going anywhere.”
She nods, also not looking at him. Takes another sip of her beer.
“Probably for the best,” she says, after a moment.
For some reason, he can’t help but detect a slight sting of disappointment in her voice.
He doesn’t bring it up. She doesn’t elaborate.
They don’t talk about it.)