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Chapter Text

After the Glowing Sea, Haylen thinks, it's good to be back at her impromptu home.

The Cambridge Police Station may not be much to look at, its ancient bricks and broken windows in vast contrast to the Prydwen. But there's nothing wrong with her having a taste for the old; that's what makes her a good Scribe. She wouldn't mind this campaign stretching out a while, in a Commonwealth less ruined than the Wasteland of her birth.

All that's missing is Danse, because nothing's quite the same when he's gone. His steadfast belief holding the rest of them together, his dogged certainty that spells out hope. Trust in their mission, their righteousness, that supports each of them as a good commander should.

Only she wakes up one morning to find she's wrong about that. Wrong about everything. The Elder has snapped his fingers and declared Danse an unperson, stricken from every record, and they're all expected to accept this and move on.

Maybe she could accept his death with equanimity. If Danse proved a traitor or a coward or a monster.

But she's a historian, damn it. 

Maxson should have realised erasure was the one order she'd never accept.

Chapter Text

Let's get one thing straight; I knew the dame would be trouble because clients are always trouble. No exceptions. Especially when it comes to footing the bill.

That being said, a client who'd bothered to take off her Brotherhood gear but forgotten the insignia stitched on her backpack was on a whole 'nother level than the missing dog type.

Nick wasn't around- off buying ammo at Diamond City Surplus and checking if that idiot Percy was still happy being where he was. Which would make the job easier. He always hates turning away business even when it's the smart thing to do, one of many reasons that DC's favorite Synth needs a girl Friday.

"Hello," she said. "Are you- are you Detective Valentine?"

Okay, so I might have softened up some then. "No. He's out at the moment, do you want to leave the details with me?"

"Well, I- I want you to find someone. Paladin- oh," she said, looking rueful. "His name is Danse and he's gone missing."

"For once, I think the Valentine Detective Agency might just turn down a missing persons case. If you saw him, you'd understand why Nick- why Mr Valentine wouldn't help the Brotherhood harass people."

"It's not what you think. Danse is my friend. I need to find him before Maxson does."

"Whoa! Whoa. As in Elder Maxson? Top banana, head honcho, owner of the boot that gets licked? That Maxson?"

"...there's only the one."

Bad. Very bad. DC is a volatile place at the best of times, and with the amount of firepower the Brotherhood seemed ready to throw around, it was only a question of how long it would be before they told the Mayor to jump. And he'd ask how high.

No question, DC is the highest profile target in the Commonwealth. There was already gossip about when we'd start seeing the Power Armor and Vertibirds- and once that happened, how long would Nick be allowed to keep working, stay in the home that had been his for decades? He'd be out of a job. I'd be out of a job. Especially if we waded into Brotherhood politics just to make an enemy of the Elder.

Then again. Seeing as we couldn't stop that one little bit, might as well make hay.

"Okay, we'll take it on. Let's talk caps."

"Does this cost a lot?" 

Nick says he doesn't get headaches. Lucky Synth.

Chapter Text

"Ellie? Are you smoking my cigarettes again?"

"No," she says, sucking in smoke. "I have not been sitting here chain-smoking your Gray Tortoise carton and worrying myself sick, boss. Everything's fine and dandy."

I put down the foil-wrapped noodle bowls and cold sodas. "The last time you were like this, it was the overzealous aunt case. Didn't turn out so badly then, as I recall." 

"Nick, this isn't finding somebody's antique ceramic. I signed us up for defying the whole damn Brotherhood and I'm not at all sure it was the right move."

"Hmm. Report."

She snaps back to herself then, the color coming into her cheeks as she gives me the rundown. A Brotherhood scribe, a missing Paladin, an angry Elder. 

"She's at the Dugout Inn if you need her. Wanted to pay us in technical documents but I held out for fusion cells. At least there's some kind of market for those."

"That sounds like the least of our problems." I sit down at my desk, feeling some relief that the bourbon bottle hadn't been touched. "Any idea where we start hunting?"

"She suggested a place up north called Listening Post Bravo. An old military checkpoint."

"And once we find Danse, what does she want us to do?"

She turns her chair towards the door again, her back stiffening. "Before I answer that. It occurred to me that we could send word to the Elder. I'm sure he'd be interested."

"Ellie!"

"It's a choice you made before," Ellie says; she's leaning back, her eyes closed. "When you decided to stay on here after Goodneighbor's founding, is it that different?"

"I...yes. It is." It's not one of my prouder memories in the first place. "I didn't bargain with a man's life then, I won't start now."

She gives me a watery half-smile. "Trust you to have a better sense of morality than any flesh and blood. Okay. Haylen wants us to help him get to an old railway station in Back Bay, she thinks there might be a functional train service to the Capitol Wasteland there. It's where Danse is from, he has a chance there."

"That's assuming he makes it past the Glowing Sea. Or New York."

Ellie shrugs. "Better odds than waiting for Brotherhood patrols to catch him."

"All right. Time might be of the essence, so I'll go tonight. Make sure the agency doesn't burn down."

It's just our usual banter, but her voice cracks. "It'll still be here when you get back, Nick. I swear."

She really isn't sure we'll be getting out of this one.

Professional optimism goes with being a detective, though.

Chapter Text

The difference between strategy and tactics is temporal. Policies that would be unsustainable for a long-term commitment of forces may be beneficial, even preferable, for a brief campaign. Lessons he's long since taken to heart: the Institute might have built him, but the Brotherhood made him the soldier he is.

Chapter Text

Your name is Arthur Maxson, and you're angry.

The Commonwealth campaign was meant to be your mark in history, an accomplishment that couldn't be credited to the Lyons or vault dwellers or anyone else. The Brotherhood needs a strong, defining leader. Someone who can reunite the scattered branches at least in legend, if not hands-on military leadership- or else degenerate into raiders with no purpose. 

The Prydwen, the sacrifices, the planning, will everything go to waste for the sake of this one stranger who claimed to be human?

"I'm ready to die," the thing that looks like one of your Paladins says, kneeling in the dirt. "Ad victoriam, Elder."

He looks to you as if expecting mercy for the blasphemy. No.

"Then a swift death. More than you deserve-"

"Hold it," a voice says. "He's got a couple of questions to answer first."

It's a robot. A robot dressed in a hat.

"Name's Nick Valentine, I'm a detective. Sometimes I do freelance work for Diamond City, and this is one of those cases. Nobody gets to do any hacking and slashing until after the Mayor and DC security have a word with you, Danse."

"What- how could I possibly have anything to do with Diamond City? I've never even been there!"

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but the whole Commonwealth happens to be in a tizzy over human-looking Synths right now. They want answers and I can't say as I blame them-"

"This is an internal Brotherhood affair," you interrupt. "Nothing to do with outsiders."

"Oh? This Brotherhood of yours is about controlling technology, right? Keeping it out of the wrong hands?"

"Of course."

"And you'd like it if that was a more generally accepted sentiment?"

"Yes. That's exactly why this mockery cannot be allowed to live-"

"Just to make sure we're on the same page," the robot says. "Because the Commonwealth already has a sworn officer for that. Myself, funnily enough. BADTFL, that's Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms, and-" it looks at Danse. "Lasers. That weapon you've modded isn't street legal. You're under arrest."

Danse looks dumbfounded.

You yourself are speechless.

"Anyway, that puts you under Commonwealth jurisdiction, and any little disagreements you want to work out with your militia friends will have to wait until I'm through. Any questions?"

You ready your weapon. "Let's see how your rules lawyering stands up to firepower."

The robot cackles, a hideous parody of laughter. "Piper, did you get that? It'll make quite the headline."

"I sure did, Nick!" The robot whistles; an Eyebot slowly flies out of the bunker, broadcasting a woman's voice. "Talk about a journalistic scoop!"

"That's Piper Wright," the robot says. "In case you don't know, she writes Boston's biggest paper. So, you have a choice. One, you kill Danse here, kill me, and by tomorrow it's all over the Commonwealth that Elder Maxson is bad at coverups and doesn't give two figs for the rule of law. Or two, you let me take the kid in tow, and Diamond City gets some answers it's wanted about the Institute from way before your airship turned up. If you're polite, I'll even ask Piper not to publish that the Brotherhood was infiltrated by a Synth."

"Elder," Danse says. "I didn't want any of this. I didn't ask for it. Please believe me."

Oddly enough, you do. This insane, twisted perversion of logic couldn't be farther from Danse's stolid simplicity.

The robot, however...you are going to personally murder this robot.

Destroy, rather. You can't murder a machine.

Chapter Text

So. He's not dead.

Danse isn't quite sure how to feel about that.

The trip to Diamond City had been far more anxious and concerning than his arrival; he's had a talk with the strangely clad DC guards, but nothing...meaningful. Only told them the truth, that he had no idea which memories were false, where the Institute was, what their plans might be. They'd believed him.

"After all," one of them had said, jerking a thumb towards Valentine. "If it was that easy to figure out, Nick woulda done it long since. Enjoy the market. Don't make us shoot you."

And that, apparently, had been that. He's beginning to see what Maxson meant about the essentially lackadaisical nature of the average wasteland peacekeeper. Discipline here is severely lacking.

"But what do I do with myself?" he asks Valentine. "I've spent my whole adult life- maybe my whole life upholding the Brotherhood's principles. I don't know who I am without them."

Yellow photo-cells can't twinkle, surely. "Nobody has ever yet paid a detective enough to find out the meaning of life. So I'll take a miss on that one, if you don't mind."

Ellie Perkins shows him the pick-your-own tato field, trades him fair price for the duct tape he's hauled along out of habit ("you'd be surprised how fast Nick gets through a roll. That poor coat, I swear.").

Neither of them talk about Maxson. He doesn't know how to bring the man up, is less sure he wants to. They have to give him back eventually, but in the meantime...

in the meantime, there's Diamond City to explore. Tinkering with the X-01 suit he salvaged. It's very strange to exist without needing to justify himself. Feels terribly wrong, somehow.

He wonders if it was like this after the war. When survivors awoke, and found the world kept on not ending.

*****

There's a radstorm sweeping through Cambridge today. Haylen knows it's a waste of time to watch but does so anyway, as she always does. It's turned the outside dripping and green, colorful and toxic as arsenic wallpaper.

Danse hasn't believed her that one time, when she'd refused to let the squad sleep in such a room due to the danger. But he'd made everyone stay away from it anyway, that's what had mattered.

The Brotherhood doesn't need him back. She doesn't. If he'd died honorably in battle, she would cry and accept it and move on.

But what's happening to him now...she's spending too many hours lingering at the ham radio, surreptitiously tuning into Valentine's frequency. It used to be a police channel, pre-war. Now it's the domain of one dryly ironic secretary, who seems to have a finger in every Commonwealth pie and shares tantalizing fragments of her know-how. The only woman she's ever met who had the smarts and attitude of a Scribe without being one...and of course, every bit of information she has about Danse is coming from Ellie. Safely encoded, of course.

Valentine found him; they were found by Maxson; they've retreated to Diamond City, where the Brotherhood doesn't quite feel ready to march down the streets in power armor yet. It's as safe a place as any for him right now.

"He's eating all my snack cakes," Ellie signals her. "And does he ever get out of the power armor?"

"Negative," she signals back. "Find him a work bench if he's too obnoxious. He likes keeping his hands busy."

"Acknowledged. Anything else?"

Haylen looks around the empty police station, weighs the odds. "Can I talk to him? Just briefly."

There's a pause before the next message. "If you think it's safe, go ahead."

Haylen gulps. "Danse? Are you okay?"

"Fighting fit," his voice comes through, easy and calm. "But don't contact me again. I wouldn't want to jeopardize any of my squad like this."

This might be the last chance she ever has to talk to him, she realises. This is goodbye. Case closed.

"I'm quitting. Stay put. If I take some Rad-X I can swim the river and reach DC tonight."

"Haylen! If you have any respect for your former commander, you'll stay right where you are."

"I do respect you. I have no respect left for the Brotherhood, so I'm leaving. We can't build the new world on lies and unpersons."

"If that's so- ah, I hope you'll take this in the spirit it was intended, that I don't have any... romantic interest in you."

She bursts out laughing, full of a hilarity she hasn't felt since Danse vanished. He's so earnest. "All due respect, but you're not what I want in bed. Sir."

"Well. So long as we're clear on that point."

Now if he'd thought to ask whether any sardonic secretaries had a hand in her decision, that would have been far more difficult to answer.

Chapter Text

Normally, I try not to have visitors in my bedroom; because I might have the whole upstairs to myself but the agency's a small place and pallet boards don't leave much to the imagination. Nick's a gentleman. No reason to impose on his sensibilities.

Normally, because sometimes the Dugout Inn is full and a tiny ginger waif is fainting in your arms and there's only the one bed. Well, two, but Nick's asleep on his.

"Thanks, Ellie...oh, I didn't know Synths could sleep," Haylen murmurs. "Wait, I did. Danse sleeps."

"Even a boxy RobCo terminal with no brains at all goes to sleep. And Nick's much more complicated than one of those." I guide her up the stairs to my cot, turn up the light. Too bad I don't have a Geiger counter to check her condition; wading to DC during a rad storm isn't the safest idea. "Did you take any RadAway before you got here?"

"One just after I crossed the river. Another after I killed a few glowing Radroaches."

"Then don't take any more. I'll fix you an egg cream."

"Ah-ha, herbal remedies are always interesting," Haylen says brightly. "What's the recipe?"

"Oh, for- sweet rads, does the Brotherhood not know anything about Brahmin? It's just milk with Nuka-Cola. The trick is to use a nitrogen dispenser so it gets a good head, like beer."

"...I wonder if that falls under the purview of my oath regarding misused technology," Haylen muses. "Moot point now."

Danse wouldn't agree- he's deliberately withdrawn, begged me to send her right back to Cambridge, before she threw away a promising career on a whim. He still doesn't think of the Brotherhood as enemies, at heart. Still wants them to win and wipe out all the nasty scary Synths and Ghouls in the world.

If my boss hadn't drawn a heart-shaped target on his coat by attracting Arthur Maxson's wrath, maybe I'd have let him talk her into it. As things stand...Nick and I have survived a long string of enemies by outthinking and outwitting them. And the kind of knowledge I needed now will be easier to wrangle from Haylen than an ex-Paladin having an identity crisis.

Trivia about medical treatment, that's as good a start as any. "So how do you people usually handle rad poisoning?"

"Power Armor...well, that and RadAway. You can manufacture a reasonable approximation of the prewar recipe in a laboratory. Down at the Capitol, we have a program to distribute it at cost. I mean. They do- I'm not used to having quit yet, I'm babbling."

"I think you're running a temperature." This is exactly why sane people drink egg creams, it doesn't fry your immune system like shoving orange goop in your veins will. "I'd get you a doctor, but, uh...ours locked himself in the clinic basement after his partner killed a patient. Nick was supposed to scout out a new one next time he had a case."

"There's an old joke in the Brotherhood that the salary is terrible, but you get free health care," Haylen says, sniggering. "I probably didn't make things better for myself by drinking all that whiskey, but there were some things I just had to bring along. Kompromat."

"Nice. You'll fit right in around here."

Her eyes sparkle with pleasure and a high fever. "Save the compliments for when I'll actually remember them. At the moment I couldn't even explain the difference between history of science and science fiction."

I finish decanting the fizz- a lot of people will top it off with a sprinkling of crushed sugar bombs, but I'm a purist. "Drink this, then. See if you don't feel better."

"I'm sure I will," she says, smiling. "Sweet as its maker, no doubt."

For the sake of Nick's delicate sensibilities, here's to hoping the Dugout Inn opens up a private room soon...

Chapter Text

"You really don't want me," Ellie's saying, hands cupped around a jug of moonshine. "Hangups. A taste for liquor. I'm in love with my boss."

The thing that Haylen's always been secretly afraid of is coming true, that once she started making bad decisions she wouldn't be able to stop. Worse. Attracted to decisions because they're perverse- it's been a long time since she was in the habit of making any. The Brotherhood's left her out of practice. 

"You'd be a lightweight on the Prydwen," she says, because that's the easiest item to quibble with. "The amount of booze we manage to put away, if we had to function without we'd end up murdering each other."

Ellie squints at her. "That actually makes you sound like people. Hey. I need more fresh air for this conversation."

She rummages under her cot for a spare hide and sleeping bag, secretes them under one arm with the moonshine tucked under the other, then kicks the agency door open. Most of the stars have gone down, but it isn't quite light yet. Haylen's own sleep schedule is a little erratic, after the rad drug-induced slumber; and so apparently is Ellie's; it feels more like a very late night than early morning. 

"You can come out here any time the cigarette smoke's too thick. I mean. If you're staying, which you shouldn't."

"What happened to my radio flirt?" Haylen jokes; and wishes she hadn't at Ellie's pained look.

"Easier when you were just- a voice, you know? A presence- people walk in the agency and they walk out, they get their closure even if it's bad news. Last time somebody thought they needed more it was me, so you can imagine that doesn't happen very often- oh, forget about it. I can help you get on your feet, if that's what you need. Lots of places around DC could use a literate scribe."

Haylen looks at the woman, dimly lit by the lamp still burning inside the house; and gently confiscates the jug for a few more sips. The feel of Ellie's callused hands is more memorable than it should be.

"I appreciate the offer. I'll be glad to hear details, but- we've barely even touched and you're trying so hard to push me away."

"I don't need to get hurt more than I already am," Ellie says, leaning against the house. "For one thing, you were just in an organization that wants Nick dead. Even if I wasn't his secretary and carrying a little bit of a torch, I'm from Goodneighbor and that would piss me off just on general principles."

Haylen considers that and decides it'd be easier to apply herself to the jug again. For something advertised as the city's best, it's like drinking wood alcohol.

"Quitting the Brotherhood doesn't count?" she manages, once the burning eases enough to talk without coughing. "Doing my best to save Danse's hide doesn't go for anything?"

The secretary unbends to the point of a giggle. "If it didn't, we wouldn't be having this chat at all. Certainly not on my balcony while sozzled."

"I think it would require a railing to count as a balcony. Technically."

"Nick would tell you not to pointlessly contradict a lady you're trying to court- sweet rads, there I go again," Ellie says. "How clear do I need to be that I'm sorry, you're sweet and smart and strangely kind for this stupid world, but compared to the guy I've built my life around, all you'll get is leftovers and kisses?"

"Maybe that's all I want," Haylen says; and, when Ellie doesn't draw away, moves in for a gentle, half-chaste cheek kiss.

Ellie accepts it, pushes hard for more. Her small mouth tastes of tarberries, she's not content to encircle with arms but uses sturdy legs too, ankles braced against each other. It takes Haylen off-balance, like falling, like the moment before power armor takes the impact-

she's lying, of course she's lying. Has been ever since she woke up to the flicker of an oil lamp on chestnut hair, hands folded over a knotted scarf, and held herself back from saying you're very beautiful, I want you, would you let me care for you, will you let me stay.

No wonder Ellie recognises the sentiment.

So maybe not such a lie after all.

Chapter Text

"Time to pay the piper, Nick. As it were."

Piper Wright, with a copy of her latest paper and on the hunt for the makings of a new one. She's a good friend; but when it comes to professional life, she can be as ruthless as anybody. And I do owe her a favor for saving my client's neck, to say nothing of mine.

"Ten caps do you? Since it's home delivery." I take the newspaper, skim through a story about the Swan's Pond massacre. Children of Atom trying to worship a behemoth, there's always something new in the Commonwealth.

"Cute, Nick, real cute. Look, you asked me to keep quiet about Danse and I have, but I'm not the only journalist in DC. Travis was kind enough to say that he had a tip-off about a flare up in the Brotherhood...so I want an interview with your client, today. That way I have a morning edition, Travis has a story for the weekend, everyone's happy." She plumps herself down on Ellie's desk, expectantly. 

"Except for the man who hasn't recovered from finding out he's a Synth yet. I have a responsibility to my clients."

"And I have a responsibility to the truth," Piper says, fiddling with a reporter's pen. "Also selling papers, let's be honest. So- it's eleven now. Have him in my office by four, okay? No hard feelings if I can't get him to talk, but I'll bet you a noodle bowl I can."

"That's exactly why I'm worried."

"You flatterer. See you later!"

The copy of True Police Stories that Piper was just sitting on has a line about how detectives shouldn't break their hearts over every client. Ellie keeps it there in case I forget the advice.

Trouble is, I always do. Even a self-hating, Brotherhood-brainwashed, stick-in-the-mud like Danse, I'm uneasy about throwing to the wolves. He's already started settling in here, helping scavenge junk for Myrna. They're getting along just fine.

"Ellie? Were you listening to all that?"

The thump-thump of bare feet on stairs is followed by an unusual sight: my secretary in her good outfit, a flowery purple affair with a blue blouse. I haven't seen it since last New Year.

"Bits and pieces. She wants you to go public on Danse, I suppose."

"With an ultimatum of four o'clock. Any good ideas?"

"We came up with a notion," Haylen says, following close. She's wearing a very familiar ratty skirt. "Give Piper something else to write about. I'll give her an interview! All the juicy gossip she could possibly ask for about the Prydwen, the Brotherhood, any damn thing she wants to know. It'll be the biggest exclusive she ever had."

"I think it's our best option," Ellie says solemnly. "Haylen's already made herself an enemy of the Brotherhood by deserting, she might as well milk it. And she's just as anxious to keep Danse's identity as we are- or Maxson, at that."

There isn't really a need for a functional cigarette machine in the agency, any more than there is for me to smoke in the first place, but the ritual of putting caps in and getting a pack out has its soothing qualities. Breaks up a conversation nicely, too.

"Two things, then. First, I have to talk to Travis and see what his scoop is. This plan of yours is no use if the news will still be broadcast over Diamond City Radio- though seeing as it's Travis, talking him down won't be difficult. Second- we ought to find Danse. You don't know, he might want to go public."

"He won't," Ellie says, at the same time that Haylen says "Absolutely not."

I slide a cigarette from the pack. "Maybe so, but we should still ask the man."

The door clatters open; Danse stumbles in, offloads three sacks of concrete into the corner. "As you asked, Perkins. Let me know if there's anything else I can be on the hunt for. It really is the least I can do."

"Question for you," Haylen says. "Piper Wright wants an interview with a former Brotherhood member. You or I?"

He visibly shudders. "If it's all the same to you, I'd sooner pound sand. There's only one thing about me that's even remotely interesting to a reporter, and I devoutly hope not to discuss it with her."

"Then I'll fend her off," Haylen says. "River squad still sticking together, sir."

"I have no authority over you any longer, Haylen."

"That's why it's funny. Sir," she adds, and helps herself to a butt from the ashtray.

Ellie must be rubbing off on her.

Chapter Text

"I've never had a home," Haylen says, pounding a slab of Brahmin into hamburger. Sometimes a cut from Choice Chops needs extra tenderizing. "The Citadel...you couldn't really call it that. The police station certainly wasn't."

Ellie nods, decides it's not worth pointing out that until very recently, the agency wasn't exactly what you'd call cosy. The Franklin cookstove that Myrna's been trying to offload on her for literal years, the new flower rug by her bed, an actual footlocker for the rainy day fund instead of a stash taped to the underside of her desk- these aren't new decisions, exactly. Just the kind of changes that she's never had reason to make for herself.

Funny thing is that Nick doesn't seem to mind her cluttering up the place. He messes around with the cookstove more than she does (you can take the girl out of Goodneighbor but you can't make her quit the taste for fast-food snacking). Brought in a bookcase to hold Haylen's stacks of prewar tomes and technical documents, his servos whirring with overladen warnings.

It's adorable of him. Also makes her feel disloyal. As if decorating makes her- less his, less the long-suffering secretary-

Haylen swoops in and kisses her while she's ruminating. Okay, so maybe feeling disloyal isn't that ridiculous.

"Nobody's ever gone to this much trouble for me before."

"Well, they should have." That's just a fact; the woman has a kind streak a mile wide, quotes prewar poets in bed, anybody would think she's a great catch. As soon as she gets over the shellshock of leaving the Brotherhood, Haylen's bound to realise that.

And maybe that's why she's finally allowed herself to have a bed partner, because this is a temporary arrangement. Lord, is it ever temporary.

If you never had a home, Ellie wants to say, I've never had a girlfriend to sprawl next to me in bed during crisp nights. Never had someone to lean over my shoulder and squeeze me while I'm typing, or ask me about Diamond City. Swap for swap, an even exchange.

Somebody's heart is bound to get broken. That's inevitable.

At this point, Ellie's mostly hoping it'll only be hers.

Chapter Text

Danse knows it's too good to last.

Haylen's long since given up on her original plan, the idea that he head back to Rivet City- the heart of the East Coast Brotherhood is absolutely the last place he wants to be. Even if it wasn't, he doesn't want to learn the hard way which of his memories from there are false. Let it rest.

And her plan to draw DC's attention has worked out. The Diamond Radio DJ keeps chattering about her. The local science lab wants her to work with them. She can't walk through the market without some stranger asking if she'll be jumping off the Prydwen any time soon (one casual reference seems to have become a standing joke with alarming rapidity). Meanwhile he just walks by in the shadows, ignored and content to be so.

He has a suit of PA painted in prewar colors, he has a hunting rifle of decent calibre- it's no Righteous Authority, but it kills things. That's more than enough to scavenge junk for Myrna, fighting his way through raiders and ghouls in Boston's rubble. He's good at it. Risking his life on a daily basis tires him out enough to sleep. If he dies fighting some gunner over a teapot- so what? Fighting for principles doesn't seem to have worked out.

Then too, Myrna likes him. And hates Synths. It would be impossible to explain to Haylen or Perkins or especially Valentine, why he should find that comforting; but at least he's worked it out for himself.

It's a reminder this is too good to last.

*****

"Off the record," Piper asks. "Are you dating Ellie?"

Haylen hums to herself, types rapidly at the reporter's terminal- some of the data she's brought requires desktop functionality, and the detective agency inexplicably lacks one. "Off the record, I'm surprised you took this long to ask."

"Too much news at once is as bad as a drought," Piper fires back. "I try to stagger things, if I have the chance. A followup piece about your personal life would go down well about now."

"Are you always like this? Every friend is just material for your paper?"

"...I'd like to say Nat, but let's be honest, I couldn't get it sold without her," Piper admits with a shrug. "It's just- I can't ever get away from thinking of Publick Occurrences, no. Worse than a lover that way."

"People must clam up talking to you."

"Sometimes. Sometimes they like talking about themselves," Piper says. "And the others...sometimes they're like Nick and they find I can be discreet. If I'm in the loop as to what I should be discreet about."

"Are you saying," Haylen asks, deliberately coolly. "That if I don't tell you who I'm dating, you'll publish rumor?"

Piper looks at her head on. "The feedback after the issue I did on you was phenomenal. I could start a letters page, if I wanted. A lot of readers had their attention caught by this sensitive Brotherhood outcast, distraught over the deaths of her comrades-"

(Haylen winces. As reasons for leaving the Brotherhood went, it was solid; because the memories are still raw as hell.)

"-and making no bones about it, you're a celebrity now. You're news. People heard about you and realised that this terrifying military presence that's literally dropped out of the sky is still composed of relatable humans."

"I did not tell you one thing that the Brotherhood hadn't cleared for civilian access," Haylen says. "Just so you know."

"I didn't think you would," Piper says, still studying her. "Though symbolically, that's almost beside the point. There's a lot of people who are more interested in the threat of Vertibirds than the Institute's more nebulous terrors- if you aren't careful, you could easily wind up as the heroine of a fightback movement."

"Pushed by you, I suppose." This was supposed to be the safe, trouble-free alternative to Danse being outed. It's feeling anything but safe.

"Nick tells me there used to be a line between news and propaganda. It needed a lot of reporters checking each other's facts, and advertising for a regular cash flow, and a society where most people could read. You know what I have? An antiquated printing press and a pile of rags I turn into papers." She sounds mildly frustrated now. "There's no way a single person can avoid all biases. And right now, one of my biggest is about an airship of soldiers who won't tell us what they're doing or why they're here."

"Maybe you shouldn't have helped Nick blackmail them."

"Maybe if Maxson had sat for an interview like I asked, I wouldn't have felt the urge to get his attention. He owes me a favor now and he will pay out, one way or another."

Haylen finally stops typing, finds her voice sounds rather small. "Yes. I'm dating Ellie. Is that still off the record?"

"Sure it is," Piper says, quite sweetly. "But let me know if you want to go public. I'll wrangle you a dinner at the Colonial Taphouse if you like."

"...how?"

"The Mr Handy knows what he did," Piper says; and refuses to elaborate.

Chapter Text

"You know, I fancy myself a detective, but I still haven't worked out your first name," Nick says.

"Don't have one," Haylen says, sipping hubflower tea. Takahashi doesn't actually make it, but he brews it at the agency and brings it along when he has the spare time and inclination. Good thing corkage fees went out when the bombs dropped. 

"Where I'm from, having an extra name was an optional sort of thing- hey, this is good. Nothing like it in the Capitol Wasteland."

"Glad you like it," Nick says, sipping at his own cup. He watches in amusement as she gapes.

"...I'm being rude. Sorry. It's just- we use robots in the Brotherhood, but I never would have thought of making them tea."

"Do you justice, the average robot wouldn't know what to do with a cup. No offense, Takahashi."

"Na-ni Shimasho-ka?" Takahashi says, presenting their noodles. Haylen's is done up with crispy mirelurk slices and the bloodleaf that stands in these days for onion and garlic both. His own is just the basic order, because the chef really does know what he's doing and sometimes, simple perfection is where it's at.

"I know I haven't been doing...right by you, exactly."

"That's why I thought it'd be good for us to chat, clear the air some. Though I think you might be having more nerves than is justified."

"No? I just sort of- drop out of the sky, start- um, seeing your secretary. Move in without asking."

"It's Ellie's home as much as it is mine. And you're doing a pretty good job making her happy so far."

Haylen flaps her hands in agitation, stops, goes back to spooning up noodles. "I'm just terribly aware that if we'd met in the wastes, I'd have shot you as a Synth on sight. This whole- the whole situation with Danse is making me question so many of my assumptions about life."

"Good for you. Keep at it, questioning everything is the first step to becoming a detective. Though as a rule of thumb- my last partner used to complain about my waiting for the other side to take the first shot, but I figure that's when you know they're fair game."

She giggles. "You're so damned nice, I can see why Ellie dotes on you. Here I am all worked up and you don't seem to think there's a problem at all."

Nick drains his teacup, pours himself another one. "You asked us to help us save a man's life, which would put you in my good books whether or not he was a Synth. You're trying. And you make Ellie laugh, don't discount that."

"Then- you really aren't jealous."

"With this mug? Why would I be?"

Haylen looks flummoxed. He pours her more tea.

She's a good kid, Nick figures. A lot more naive than Ellie, could do with having those Brotherhood edges sanded clean, but nothing some life experience can't cure. Diamond City has a way of bringing out either the best or the worst in people, and he has a feeling she'll land on the credit side of the ledger.

"Na-ni Shimasho-ka?" Takahashi asks. 

"Yes, please," Haylen says, handing back her bowl. 

"It's not everyone who treats Takahashi like a person, either. You'll do all right."

Her brow crests. "Thought I left secret tests of character behind when I left the Brotherhood."

He chuckles. "Ulterior motive exposed. I don't have any more up my sleeve, promise."

"Phew. At least yours didn't make me run the length of the Citadel. Now that's a story..."

Nick listens. Considers that Ellie might have a point, dropping broad hints that he could use a partner with curiosity and laser pistol training. Next time he's on a case...

well, she certainly couldn't be any worse than Marty.

Chapter Text

As a technical problem, his assignment to arrest Nick Valentine and associates is the most interesting and involved exercise that Danny Sullivan's ever been tasked with. It's not like wading into a barfight to bang a few heads together. Two former Brotherhood members, one of whom owns the best power armor in the city. Ellie Perkins, formerly of Goodneighbor and therefore liable to whip out ten kinds of chems at the first hint of trouble. And Nick, who's...well, Nick.

From a personal point of view, it makes him feel sick. He's not the only one who was inspired to take this position, swear the oaths, by the role model of the Commonwealth's last cop. Just finding people who can be trusted to actually carry through the arrests will be a big problem.

"It's the right thing to do," the Mayor had said. "The Brotherhood wants their deserters back. In exchange, we'll receive a squad to help you guard the gate, which I think is very generous. There isn't a guard in the city who enjoys duty outside the walls, we can only benefit from this. It'll even give that damned Wright woman something to write about."

"But the detective agency?"

The mayor had frowned. "What of it? They helped the deserters escape and besides that- I expect you to keep this confidential- one of them is a Synth. Valentine smuggled a Synth under our noses, right into this city! No. The Brotherhood will handle their own, but we'll be jailing Valentine and Perkins ourselves. Asking what else they've done over the years to undermine us. It's the least Diamond City deserves."

"But he told us about that. We questioned the guy, it didn't go anywhere, he's as clueless about the Institute as we are."

"Are you telling me that in defiance of my orders and public opinion, you and your men allowed a human-passing Synth into Diamond City? Think very carefully before you answer."

So that had been that.

Danny throws himself into the plans again and tries to feel betrayal instead of distress.

*****

"I need your help," Myrna tells Danse one afternoon. "Up at the mayor's office, they've ordered some steel to fix the elevator. Can you take this package there for me? Oh, and no power armor. They don't want people assassinating the Mayor."

"Of course," Danse promises, and walks into the trap like a sheep to the slaughter.

*****

"It's an experiment," Doctor Duff says, wielding the sonic cannon. "I've tested it, Professor Scara's tested it, we're very hopeful about its ability to put enemies to sleep. The only trouble is, about half the time it doesn't do anything at all."

"I guess you can try it on me," Haylen says indulgently; and promptly passes out at the desk.

"That was a lie, right?" Danny asks, descending down the staircase. "I mean, it does work all the time? Because the boys and I could use that."

"Oh no, I was telling the truth," Duff says, looking rather sadly at the drooling ex-Scribe. "You just got lucky. It was going to be eels next."

*****

"A case, eh?" Nick says. "Can't say as I remember the last time this mayor asked me to investigate something."

"Well, he has now," Danny says. "Not to rush you or anything, but- sooner rather than later? He won't even tell me what it is."

"No time like the present," the detective says; and tips his hat at Ellie before leaving.

Danny takes a breath, swallows. When Nick gets to the outdoor lift, it'll be jammed; he'll be directed to the indoor one, which will get stuck between floors. And stay there until he's positive everything else is under control. He's not going to make his men shoot Nick Valentine.

Which leaves Ellie Perkins. Who notoriously will not budge from the agency, unless Nick is in; so there was never going to be a good way to do this.

"Do you mind if we talk?" he asks. 

"If it's a date, my dance card's full for the week. I'm taking Haylen to the Red Seats."

She's picked up all kinds of odd expressions, probably from Nick. "No. Look, I have to ask you some questions, and it might as well be here as anywhere- do you know anything about the Institute that I don't?"

Ellie stiffens in her chair. "No. On something that big, we'd let you know. Nick's sense of public duty would call for that much- we told you about Danse, didn't we?"

"Yeah. But the Mayor doesn't think it's good enough. Long and short of it is, I'm going to have to arrest you for a few days. If only to convince him that you're telling the truth."

"I suppose Nick's already in cuffs."

"Good guess." He pulls a set out of his pocket.

"Wait. I need a couple of things...uh, girl things. Then you can take me."

"No hurry."

The more so, because he doesn't want to get home and look himself in the mirror.

Chapter Text

...so there was an evening when the agency was slow and I'd taken a snifter too many of giggle juice, that Nick and I decided to talk doomsday scenarios. And name them after Chandler novels. The Lady in the Lake for a full-on Super Mutant invasion, complete with Behemoth. The Long Goodbye for martial law. The Big Sleep for a war-level nuclear release.

And the worst one, the one that'd made me cry fat tears into Nick's battered coat, was Farewell, My Lovely. What if the hate got too hot and he's arrested just for being what he is, a Synth living in Diamond City. Do I risk life and limb trying to save him, or cut and run.

"Go back to Goodneighbor if it shakes out like that," Nick had advised. "No point fighting city hall over this old mug."

"This old mug you're talking about has done a lot more good for the Commonwealth than anybody else in Boston."

He'd looked fondly at me then, bright eyed in the witching hour's hush. "Then don't ever lay your death at his door, okay? Some things you shouldn't ask honest circuitry to endure."

Nick's persistent, but I'm stubborn, and we'd gotten nowhere on that point. The circular arguments had been settled not by logic but my boozy sleep, and we'd silently agreed not to bring it up again.

So we never did work out the contingencies, for a day when I'd walk out of the office and know I might never see it again.

Rainy day fund. Duct tape. Cram and Nuka-Cola. Spare box of screws and springs and things that you want around, if you're a Synth pushing the century mark. I'm praying we get jailed together, the whole city knows we come as a pair.

A couple of Haylen's books. Nothing she'd miss. I wouldn't do that to her.

And then there are the files, more than I could even hope to bring. Hundreds of them in my efficient handwriting, a couple in Nick's elegant loops, quite a few from my predecessor. I wasn't the agency's first secretary and I'd hoped not to be the last. 

The stacks of case files and cabinets, memorandum of rescued children and recovered lockets, they aren't just records of the good that Nick's done. Not just a history of Diamond City's rebirth and growth, or how the Commonwealth has tried to reestablish justice over the decades. They're his life. So much of it that he can't even remember himself now.

I'm the one who remembers it for him. 

If we're losing everything else, that's more important than ever.

*****

Worst thing about this situation is the damn elevator music. It's been looping for what Nick's aware is three hours and twenty-eight minutes, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

Danny set him up, that much is obvious, and he fell for it like a damn patsy. He's made somebody very unhappy, maybe the Brotherhood, possibly the Mayor. A lot of possibilities. He has been kicking around long enough to have an interesting enemies list.

The emergency hatch has been sealed shut, with wonderglue dripping through the cracks. No terminal to hack: a simple pulley system doesn't need one. He could try to burn his way out, see how well the ancient elevator floor can stand up to determination and a full oil can, but it'd be an awfully long fall.

And it wouldn't save Ellie. Having a hostage to fortune has never cramped his style before, but it is now. He can't make a move until he knows how she is.

They haven't killed him; they're saving him for something. That means he has some leverage, and that's reassuring. 

Three hours and twenty nine minutes. He has an uneasy feeling he's looping almost as badly as the music, running over the same facts and getting nowhere. 

There's a point when there's nothing left to do but wait. He sets an internal timer for the morning and loosens his tie before going to sleep.

Chapter Text

There are days that Mayor McDonough wonders why he gets out of bed.

The Institute went to the trouble of placing a Synth here, him, the most important position in the most important city in the Commonwealth, and then decided the job was done. As if all you needed to do to impose a dictatorship was find a friendly dictator.

He could wish. There's an elected council with honorary members from other settlements. There's the security force, which has no objection to throwing their weight around if they feel neglected. Bunker Hill caravans, the remnants of the Quincy Minutemen, the interminable Borden rail project and to top it all off, only the Brotherhood of Steel. Any idiot can see the gigantic robot they're constructing at Boston Airport, they aren't being subtle over there.

He's asked for orders. Begged for them. But everyone at the Institute has an unholy and indeed unscientific faith in Father's plans, which means...what? A chaotic, incoherent mishmash of conflicting demands that don't even rise to the level of random impulse. At least that would occasionally lead to sensible decisions by accident.

He likes his job as mayor, likes eating noodles and knowing that Diamond City is his. He'd rather be a courser, but if the Institute aren't going to oblige...

"Elder Maxson is here," Danny says. The gatekeeper doesn't look his best; it's largely been his jumpiness about the Brotherhood entering the city that's delayed this meeting. "His Vertibird just arrived at the old box seat landing."

"Then don't keep him waiting, you idiot. Send him in."

His first thought when the Brotherhood coterie arrive is that this is the kind of effect the Institute really ought to strive for. Smooth, clean, ferociously deadly in polished power armor. That's the kind of attitude befitting a conqueror.

And Elder Maxson doesn't go in for small talk either, which is also admirable. He sets out his terms in brisk tones: the Synth, the sympathizer, and Valentine.

"As I said, I'll need a reason for that. We've arrested all of them as a gesture of good faith, but Valentine in particular has a certain popularity in the city. His disappearance will be noticed."

Maxson looks unruffled. "He tried to interfere with internal Brotherhood discipline. I consider that a threat of far greater magnitude than any weapon."

McDonough rises from his desk, looks out over the park. "It's a more complicated affair than our original deal. Now, if there's good reason for me to try..."

"A Vertibird with attached Brotherhood pilot," Maxson says impatiently. "For whatever use you might choose to put it to. And I take all three prisoners when I go."

He considers the deal, as mayor and as Institute plant. It seems solid both ways. "Then I suppose DC can weather the adverse publicity."

The look on Maxson's face is one of deep contempt, presumably for having to account for factors like "publicity" and "popular opinion".

Well. Don't some people just have all the luck.

Chapter Text

"Nicholas Valentine."

There's a couple things that'll override his sleep timer, such as gunshots, or being dunked in water, or Ellie Perkins asking for his attention. He gets off the elevator floor. "Ellie? What's going on, you okay?"

"Yes, who the hell knows, more or less. These nice gentleman-" she gestures at Abner and Clarence, two of Danny's reliables- "were just telling me to convince you about this all-expenses paid tour of the DC jail. I said you'd be long gone by now- you made me a liar, detective."

"Nothing doing without you, sweetheart." He reknots his tie. This isn't some raider hideout or gunner base he'd have no compunction about shooting his way out of. This is home.

"Chivalry'll be the death of you."

"There are worse ways to go."

*****

"Thought that Danny was supposed to be here by now." Abner puts his chest armor back on, newly restitched and reinforced. It's been a slow night.

"Well. He isn't, you dumbass." Clarence hardly looks up from the new Publick Occurrences crossword supplement, scrawling letters with a pencil. 

"I'm wondering cos regs say we give prisoners brunch- wait, do we feed him? It? I mean, it's a Synth."

"It's Nick Valentine, we're not going to fucking starve him," Clarence says, taking two purified waters and mutfruits from the security room cooler. "Danny's gonna get this whole misunderstanding sorted out with the mayor, and then you two will be back at the agency again. No hard feelings, I hope."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Ellie says, fairly listless. She's been exhausting herself staying calm, not crying, organizing the case files she's brought along in a duffle bag- the sentimental set, the ones he asked her to grab if there was ever a fire. Anything to ignore their predicament.

Not that he's been doing much better. Trying to coax an admission about why they're being held is getting nowhere, to the point he can't even be positive this is about Danse. It would only take ten seconds to fiddle the cell lock open, but the risk of Ellie being hurt in the crossfire is unacceptable. Terrifying, more like. 

If he doesn't have his agency- if he doesn't have a roof to call his own, the delicate accumulation of reputation that goes with the hand-tooled neon sign outside his front door. If he doesn't have Diamond City's goodwill singing him through the nights. If he loses everything that makes him a person and not a spew of pre-recorded holotapes, he can't think of a damned thing to do with himself except get Ellie safely home to Goodneighbor. 

He quietly offers her the mutfruit- eating is somewhat more recreational for him when there's a power-radiating grid around- but she only glares at him. Ends up eating it himself instead.

Tastes jammy, slightly overripe. Steadying. Whoever programmed Synths to have a capacity for giddiness should have been shot.

Of course, could be that's the same person who gave them the capacity for surprise or pleasure. Maybe it's the same thing. Maybe somebody should have shot 'em anyway.

He wishes he hadn't mixed Ellie up in all this.

*****

The DC security office is one of the few places left with functional television, in this case a closed circuit that offers a feed of the front door.

Nick doesn't ask why Clarence has switched it on, black and white and fuzzy. The whole damn city had gone very quiet when Vertibird propellors became audible overhead.

They watch Danny race up to the door, rest his hand on the concrete bunker in breathless exhaustion. He doesn't enter, but turns around and stays put. Gatekeeper as ever.

Who he's gatekeeping from becomes obvious, when a Brotherhood squad led by Maxson himself appears.

"You're not entering," Danny says, and his figure might be wavering but his voice isn't. "Diamond City is what it is because we have law, not anarchy. I can't allow outsiders to take our residents."

"Your mayor has already authorized the transfer."

"I'll consider any forward movement an expression of force, and respond accordingly."

Maxson promptly steps forward. Danny fires his pipe rifle into the air, then at the other man's face, then melts into a puddle of plasma.

Steel security doors slam into place; a klaxon of alarms go off. Clarence walks to the cell door, unlocks it. Hands him his piece back.

"Nick, you know the evac tunnels. Get the hell out of DC and don't quit running."

"I'm not worth a war with the Brotherhood."

"Danny Sullivan thought you were," Clarence says grimly. "At this point, you could sell out the whole Commonwealth to the Institute and I wouldn't care. Get lost."

"Done and done."

It's such a Diamond City farewell it hurts.

Chapter Text

If only, if only, if only, Haylen keeps thinking.

If she'd known what was going on, when she passed out in the science lab and woke up next to a pool table, somewhere else entirely. If she knew for sure what the reasons were for her to be here. If someone had cared to explain why Danse has been clubbed into submission, breathing shallow and his left leg twisted at a bad angle. 

If they'd sent someone besides Rhys to talk to her.

Because anybody else, anybody at all, she'd have held her temper. Understood the Brotherhood frame of reference enough to make allowances. Bit her tongue.

But they'd sent Rhys; and he hadn't even spared a moment to look at her before spitting on Danse, his usual restraint twisted into pure contempt. So now he's dead. Head bashed in with a pool cue. 

(Nobody thought to check a Brotherhood scribe for Ellie's welcome kit, a cocktail of Med-X and Psycho and who knows what. She'd said it'd let her take down anything short of a Deathclaw. She'd been right.)

If Elder Maxson had even the slightest thought of mercy for either of them, the chance is gone now. 

"Danse, wake up. We need to run."

"Run where?"

He looks so exhausted. Ready to die. It won't be enough for him to just go- they need a reason, something spectacular.

The thought of Ellie's soft face looking like Danse's, puffy and swollen, rises before her. She discards it again. Nick Valentine has obviously been around long enough to garner some good will here; and the Brotherhood will extend Danse's death sentence to the agency, if they see any further associations now.

Like getting her books. Or saying sorry. Or saying goodbye.

Haylen kneels down, to strip Rhys of his weapons and armor. She'll need them.

If only he'd given them a chance.

*****

"With all due respect," Clarence says to the Mayor. "I don't think this alliance with the Brotherhood is going to work out. Nick Valentine's escaped."

On a day that saw Danny gunned down on the doorstep of his own security office, he can't even be sure of delivering the news and leaving alive; but to his surprise McDonough just chuckles, waves him to a seat.

"It's a moot point, Gatekeeper. The Vertibird they were going to gift the city has been stolen by their own Synth. With my lead security officer dead, the whole plan has gone up in smoke."

It takes him a moment to digest his battlefield promotion. "Does that mean we call off the warrants for Valentine and Perkins?"

"Of course not, the last thing Diamond City needs is to make itself a target for some trigger-happy raiders with an airship. We're going to cooperate with them to the fullest extent. Blame everything on Sullivan. Give them no reason to take over our city."

"It's playing dirty to use Valentine as a bargaining chip like this."

The mayor snorts. "He's looked after Diamond City for longer than either of us have been alive. I assure you, if we put out a call for martyrs to defend this place, he'd be first in line. Right now DC needs a scapegoat, and we're very fortunate to have one."

This sort of rapid fire scheming is beyond him; he's a guard, not a politician. He switches topics. "And the Synth who stole a Vertibird? Will we be blamed for that?"

"I don't think Maxson can. It was being guarded by Brotherhood members, not our boys. And the escapees made sure to let the Elder have a good long look down a minigun barrel before someone blew out their engine. We can't rule out a military takeover today any more than we could yesterday, but it'll have to be that now and not public request. That Piper woman is going to have a field day."

Clarence considers all this. "Then there are probably dead Brotherhood members up on the landing pad. I'll organize a salvage team and blame it on the Synth."

"Good work. You'll go far."

He's never heard of a security guard who lost a prisoner and was immediately promoted.

But then, the jewel of the Commonwealth always has been a strange place.

Chapter Text

"All the dens in the world and you walk into mine," Irma says. "I hope you realise you're compromising a lady."

"And what's worse, I'm here to talk business," Nick says, helping himself to a pristine pack of cigarettes. He draws one out, flicks it into flame with his engraved silver lighter. "That project you wanted me for, first time we ever talked. I'm up for it."

Ellie's never much liked Irma- so it's a jealousy thing, so what, they've hardly had reason to interact since she packed her bags for DC. If it amuses her to see the older woman's sudden discomfiture, there's no harm done as long as she keeps up a stiff enough poker face.

"That was- a long time ago, and before I knew you nearly as well," Irma says. "It's in poor taste to bring up the foibles of youth."

Nick sucks contentedly at his smoke. First one he's had since they left home, this morning and forever ago. "Diamond City's a dead end now, there's a bounty on me. And Ellie, because she was working for me. You buy off her bounty, promise she'll always have a home, you can cut up my tapes for that noir adventure you used to talk about. There ought to be more than enough raw material in this beat-up noggin."

It takes Ellie a moment to realise just what that'll mean. "But the holotapes- Nick, that's you! You can't go- pawning off your life and telling me to be grateful-"

His steady stare bores into her. "Sweetheart, if I'm not a detective I'm nothing. Literally nothing. Who in hell is going to want to hire me when the Brotherhood is chasing us and we can't even go home?"

There has to be an answer to that. Nick's life depends on her having an answer to that.

"It's...quite a request," Irma says weakly. "And irreversible. I'd have to consult with Doctor Amari before even thinking of the attempt. To say nothing of a good long cry."

All this time and she's still jealous of Irma.

At least there's something Nick can ask her to do.

*****

They go to the Third Rail, because there's never been much to do in Goodneighbor besides chemming yourself into oblivion. Same kind of people, same smell of bathtub booze. Maybe the songs are a bit better.

Haylen would be scandalized no doubt, probably wouldn't know what to do about being whistled and patted and smiled at. Shame she isn't here. You get only what you bring to a place like this, it'd be nicer for the start of a romance than the end of one.

Ellie's bone-tired. It's not so long a walk here from DC, but at a crawl, running out of ammo and no armor to protect her, the trip had felt like forever. They're both in shock. No wonder Nick's gone self-destructive on her, too caught up in the pattern of a man long since dead to deal with what's here, what's now. The original Valentine would have sooner died than repeat his mistake with Jenny.

If they could just stay here. Mix with the drifters, keep to the shadows. But Goodneighbor is too damn small for that, Nick's too well known, not enough action to keep her detective from pacing the boundaries like a trapped animal. There's only one settlement in the Commonwealth big enough to lose yourself, and they can't go back there.

He sips bourbon and chats amicably with a drifter about rifled cartridges and overtips the singer. It's so ordinary she could cry.

"I need sleep," Ellie says. "No, you stay. Catch up on the gossip. I'll be at the Rexford."

"Take care," Nick says. 

She wishes he would.

*****

The suite radio is tuned to classical instead of DC. Just as well. She's not sure either her or the radio would survive a blast of Lonely Miles right now.

Numbly, without much conscious thought, she takes a screwdriver to the back of the radio. Only takes a couple of fuses and jiggery-pokery to jail-break the frequencies, and now she can listen to whatever's in range.

The Valentine agency radio will still be broadcasting her distress call, if security hasn't cut the power yet. Generic SOS. No time for more. No listeners either.

She switches on, expecting the series of beeps that sound like nothing at all, like Nick's machinery humming, and it throws her badly to hear a staticky overlay. A whisper. A man's voice, repeating a single word.

She walks out of the hotel, right back into the Third Rail and into the chair across from Nick, who looks at her in cockeyed confusion.

"Nick. Ever heard the word Nakano?"

"Sounds like a name- think I had dealings with a fisherman called that, quite a while back. Why do you ask?"

One last time. One more moment in the spotlight for them both, before the shadows close in.

"I don't know, Nick. It's a mystery."

Chapter Text

Of the many ways in which this situation is not even a little bit like Cambridge, Haylen reflects, she's the one sitting here with the laser rifle.

"Danse...I don't think you're going to lose that limp."

He tries to test his weight on his bad leg, almost falls over. "You're probably right. Left it too long without a stimpak."

Haylen doesn't know how to reply. It seems impossible that fit, active Danse could be crippled for life; but so had him being a Synth, so had the idea of leaving the Brotherhood. So had gaining a girlfriend and losing her almost as quickly. They've long since moved into uncharted territory.

It could be worse. She might have never taken the emergency Vertibird handling course, in which case they'd both be dead in Diamond City. Danse might not have spent his rec time dabbling in repair work, in which case their bird would have blown up mid-air instead of wheezing on until she could safely crash it, a long way north of Brotherhood patrols. It's taken a lot of training and good luck to get them both here alive.

Wherever here is. Dead fields and dead trees are fairly numerous in the Commonwealth. They'd salvaged what they could and headed as far as possible from the incriminating crash; just as well Danse didn't have his PA. He'd never give it up, but it shows up terribly on scans.

"I'd ask why you're doing this for me, but I suppose you are in far too deep by now. The moment for decision has passed." He's been testing out junk from rubble heaps as walking sticks- an umbrella, a rusted gun barrel. "These aren't satisfactory. I can't support my own weight while shooting."

"There was a knight in the Midwest group who had a similar issue. I believe he resolved it by constructing a kind of portable chair, that he could sit on while firing."

Danse laughs, actually laughs. "Midwestern Brotherhood."

It's hard to let her guard down, but old habits- the Midwest group is a standing joke, always has been. She lets out a giggle and finds it difficult to stop, until a sudden noise from behind makes her turn and blast hell out of the instigator.

There's a silence. 

"You certainly have obliterated that radchicken," Danse says with a straight face. "I'd put you up for commendation if we were still doing that sort of thing."

"Permission to say 'go fuck yourself', sir."

"Permission granted."

"At least that solves the problem of dinner tonight," Haylen says, extracting a meaty thigh from the sad bundle of feathers. "Chicken noodle sound good?"

He makes a face. "Ten years of scavenging and I still can't accustom myself to food that doesn't come in a package. I wonder if that's a Synth fault."

"Pretty sure that's a stuck-up Rivet City thing. Everybody else in the wasteland eats their fungal glop and likes it."

Danse's smile fades into thoughtfulness. "I never did ask you. What your own background was...I didn't feel I had the right to ask. An obvious psychological block, in retrospect."

"Not much to tell." She tosses him the laser rifle, gets busy with a combat knife and cutting board. "I'm one of the Little Lamplight orphans. So excited about getting out into the big world where the sun shone all the time and people lived in houses."

"That must have been a hard change to make," Danse says, quietly gentle. "You've done very well to pull through."

"It was just...it was only survival." She rubs at her eyes with her shirt sleeve, keeps cutting. "And I met Rhys before my first week was over, the Brotherhood seemed like a beacon in the night. But now you understand that I'm used to being- exiled."

"I had no idea," Danse says, looking troubled. "It doesn't sound like you had even as much chance as I did. At least I had the option to stay at Rivet City- that is, I think I did."

"I think you must have. I remember one of the junk dealers mentioning that you'd given up a good market stall for a job that didn't even come with a salary. And a diner owner at Canterbury Commons who said he traded you snack cakes for unchipped crockery. Little things like that."

"...that's reassuring. Haylen."

The way he stumbles over her name, she can hear the scribe that isn't there. Same as she has to hold back the paladin before Danse.

They should both, she thinks distantly, be lachrymose. Distraught. Unable to function, without the warm burrowing comradeship of the Brotherhood that gave them everything from purpose to high-maintenance weaponry.

River squad. They'd spent too long isolated at Cambridge, that's what. Spent too much time facing up to the unthinkable as their numbers were chipped away, to ever again hope the Brotherhood was infallible. To expect that a creed would stand between them and a quick wasteland death.

They lost so many.

And the probabilities say they'll be lost too; but not if she can help it. 

Chapter Text

Nakano case file

- date, ??? (Should have asked before we left Goodneighbor, Nick hasn't figured out his calendar program in a century of existence. Backdate next time we hit civilisation)

- facts thus far, a literal cry for help (middle-aged male repeating the word Nakano on the Valentine agency frequency, using a recorded holotape of approx. three seconds duration)

- location, unknown (north of Salem is as much as Nick can recall. We'll be taking a circuitous route, to check on Listening Post Bravo and avoid going anywhere near Boston Airport)

- desired outcome, finding the source of the transmission (more specific outcome probable once destination found. At least I hope so.)

- fee, currently zero (you're hilarious, Ellie)

Nick would chuckle at that last one, but Ellie's finally gone to sleep and he doesn't want to wake her. Or give the raiders sharing the building reason to notice them.

She's a trooper, no doubt about it. He's had his share of partners good and bad, and can't remember one who was trying so hard. The rapid 10mm she carries is enough to keep something off her until he can kill it. Dispatch it outright if it's just a dog or a roach.

Her small figure is smothered under the scavenged armor she's exchanged for her beloved skirts. Bits of metal and plastic, dirty fatigues and a bandana covering her hair. She looks more like a Goodneighbor drifter now than she ever did when she lived there, her neat sense of dress in deliberate contrast to the rag-tag surroundings.

(He was dreaming about her, when she woke him to keep watch: dreaming in his own oddly precise way, genuine memories but juxtaposed in impossible ways. The teenager who lugged suitcases of junk for Daisy, looking him square in the eye as she said "I'm getting out of the neighborhood one day"-  but said at the top of Beacon Hill's monument, all of Boston at their feet.

Dr Amari is of the opinion his dreams aren't as complex or ambiguous as a human's would be. He doesn't doubt her.)

Ellie doesn't look like a woman who'll fall apart, if she doesn't have one battered old Synth to look after any longer. 

He hopes not. One last hurrah is all well and good: but she deserves a chance at life. Settling down without looking over her shoulder. Falling in love, the way he's almost sure she had been doing before everything exploded.

Haylen...if it hadn't been for Haylen, maybe he wouldn't have worked up the enthusiasm for this wild chase north, with every chance of failure and an even better chance of their deaths. Ellie will circle back to Goodneighbor in the end, he suspects. She certainly won't forgive Diamond City.

But her tearful hysteria at the Rexford, trying so hard to weave a case from thin air just to hold his attention, had brought home how much she's lost all at once. More than he did. He doesn't have the heart to make her lose him, too. 

Not just yet.

***

When Ellie wakes up, it's to see Nick staring at a holotape, turning it over and over in his hands.

"One of Eddie Winter's," he says, noticing her. "So many years I've never been back here to look. Afraid to know, maybe. Unfinished business."

He casually tosses it aside. "Guess it'll stay unfinished now. We should get moving soon, when you're up for it."

Ellie nods in agreement, says nothing; but when Nick isn't looking, slides the little bit of plastic into her breast pocket. Could be he'll want it again.

She needs to keep believing in a future where he might. 

Chapter Text

There's a room on the Prydwen which is always kept locked. Communication is made through a metal grate; the inhabitant hasn't been out for years. It's a room that Arthur Maxson visits sometimes, when he wants a sounding board or a certain flavor of advice.

"Proctor."

"Elder Maxson."

The greeting is polite enough, but the Proctor continues tending his flowerpots. There's very little the man cares for, and Maxson is well aware he doesn't make the list.

That's fine. He doesn't require affection. "The situation with the Synth has been resolved. Scouts found the remains of a Vertibird some distance past the border, it obviously crashed."

"I can't tell if that's supposed to be good news or bad," the Proctor says, dipping his hand into a watering can. He withdraws it, delicately sprinkles water on one of the more temperamental of his plants. "It's not as if you have an infinite number of Vertibirds."

"We have enough for the campaign. And ridding ourselves of the Synth is cheap at the price."

"I suppose you think I should be applauding," the Proctor says. He draws his hands together, claps them once. "Well done, Elder. That's what, two dead knights, a scribe and a paladin? At this rate you'll kill off your own forces before the enemy does."

"It speaks well of the Brotherhood, that this was the only Synth we had to weed out. Preparations for the real fight with the Institute can begin now we've covered our flanks."

"I'll say what I said about the last time," the Proctor remarks. "Liberty Prime cuts too near the bone, even for the wasteland. A triumph for the worst of old world thought. If you want a fight, it's easy to pick one- but finding a way to make war even more obscene than it was doesn't strike me as a step forward."

The boisterous speech and swagger that commands attention on the flight deck don't impress the Proctor; Maxson merely clenches his hands into fists. "I'm last of this line, and the Brotherhood is in my keeping. It is my duty to defend that legacy to my uttermost."

"...why not give children sweets?"

"What?"

"An old propaganda tactic. Find children, give them candy, let it be known your soldiers will pat youngsters on the head, while you blow apart their parents and elders. A few incidents like that, properly distributed, should go a long way."

The point has a certain merit, but... "We don't have the supplies for such an outreach."

"Of course not. Because the Prydwen is a standing army without a supply line, and you were counting on a fast and spectacular victory to paper over all the logistics issues you hate thinking about. If the Institute doesn't pop out of its cosy burrow soon you'll have to face the one thought you can't stand. Peace. Putting all the training invested in this ship, all the learning and expertise and manpower, to the simple human business of living. Learning how to farm. Fraternizing with the neighbors- don't get me wrong, that's certainly the outcome I'm rooting for."

"This is not going to finish like the Mojave chapter, surrendering to no one. There is an enemy out there that does require the Brotherhood's expertise to destroy, and if it requires Liberty Prime to accomplish that task, then Prime will damn well be reactivated."

"A wishful thought that hasn't come to anything in ten years."

"Ah," Maxson says. "But this time, we have an expert to assist. A scientist from Diamond City. We will retake this land from the Institute's domination."

"Let joy be unconfined."

It's good for him, to talk with a man like the Proctor sometimes. It punctures any inclination towards vanity.

Chapter Text

"Sis?"

It's not everyone who has good family like she does, Nat knows. Piper might disappear for weeks sometimes, might be kind of a pain about her spelling and grammar, but her sister is one of the best and nicest people in the wasteland. She does something for Diamond City that nobody else can, and that's cool.

What she doesn't do is sit on her bed crying, smelling like the drunks down at the Dugout Inn.

"Sis," Nat tries again; and Piper blinks and looks at her, dabbing away tears with a copy of the latest edition. It looks kind of wet already.

"I thought you were playing with Sheng tonight."

"I was gonna, but Miss Edna gave him some homework about eco- economics, and he's got this big fat book he's reading and it's super boring. So I came home early." She sits down on the bed, hugs her sister; and Piper hugs her back so it can't be that bad. Not like Janice, whose dad didn't even want to see her after her mom died. 

"I'm sorry, Nat. You shouldn't have to see me like this...I'm just feeling a little low."

"But the paper's doing better than ever! We never had to print a second edition before, Trashcan Carla told me they wanted it as far away as Concord. Isn't this like you always wanted?"

"...yes," Piper says. Her voice has gone very strange. "That's exactly what I wanted. I even have a holotape from the Brotherhood of Steel asking if I'd like to come up to the Prydwen and write an edition about them."

"Oh wow," Nat breathes. "That's cool. That's so cool. Can I come?"

"No. Nat, promise me something? Don't grow up to be like me, okay?"

"But...I thought I'd grow up, and we'd be reporters together in the Commonwealth. Learning stuff and telling people the news."

"Is it worth it?" Piper asks. "Is it really worth it, if I'm going to get good people like Danny and Nick and Ellie killed?"

Nat frowns. "But they brought a Synth into Diamond City. The Mayor's speech about how you were right and everything, that if we aren't real careful we'll get Institute bad guys in DC but the Brotherhood's gonna keep us safe so it's okay."

"Nat. How many times did I drop you off at the agency, because I had to chase down a case and there wasn't anyone I knew who'd take better care of you?"

"...well, lots of times. It was fun reading his mysteries and stuff. But I mean. If Synths are all Institute spies then Mr Valentine was just a spy too, right?"

Her sister starts to bawl like a little baby; and Nat, hugging as hard as she can, can't even understand why.

Chapter Text

"What are you doing at my vacation home?"

Or the garage, technically. But as the one with the biggest gun here, Porter Gage figures he won't be contradicted.

He knew installing spotlights and that alarm system when he rebuilt the cottage would be worth it.

"Last time I was here, nobody else was," the Synth says. He's a weird one, dressed up in a hat and trench coat a bit like the Silver Shroud. The sight makes Gage's fingers itch; the Rust Devils would love to get their wrenches on this guy.

"So you thought you'd just raid it and move on, huh?"

"Most people would," the girl says. Hard to tell if she's a robot-fancier or the fancied, in that drab settler getup. "If you have a spare bed, we'll pay to rent it tonight."

Gage considers. "Fifty caps for the night, I'll bring you a mattress. A hundred if you're gonna use the water pump and pick gourds."

"You're not overly fond of company, I take it," the Synth says. 

"Not as much as I like caps."

If they're just a couple of idiots, they'll probably take the hint and move on. If they're trying to catch up with him for some incident in his tangled past, they'll pay up, and in that case he needs to know who sent them. 

Then again...the girl looks like she's dead on her feet. Could be the first Mirelurk they see will eat her guts out.

"I say we keep going," the girl says. "We can make it to the packing plant before it gets too dark."

"Have fun with that. There's a raider gang in the way." The one he hitched a lift with to get here from Nuka-World. Just like a caravan, but with fewer stinking Brahmin and more killing.

The Synth sighs in a freakishly human way. "I think we'd better pay up. You need sleep, I need to catch up on my handloading somewhere with decent lighting. And also sleep."

"Why do you have to be so logical," the girl mutters. She draws out a cap stash, light enough that it won't really be fun murdering them for the rest. There's a point at which cleaning up blood and shit is more of a nuisance than it's worth to make a kill. "Here you go."

She could have tried to bargain, popped some grape fragrance or switched out her top for something more attractive. Looks like it is the Synth calling the shots here.

He really can't think what he's done to piss off a Synth. Unless shooting the Nuka-World animatronics counts, and everybody does that.

Honesty is occasionally the best policy; mostly when it involves a display of overwhelming firepower. "You guys gonna try to kill me or what?"

"It's been a long week," the Synth says. "We'll settle for the mattress."

It's not kindness that makes Gage slip him a bottle of Nuka-Cola later on, along with the mattress. It's nothing to do with this being what's left of his parents' old house. Not even that he's got more of the stuff with him than anyone can drink.

It's simply that the Synth offers an exorbitant price for it, and ripping off idiots is one of Porter Gage's great joys in life.

*****

"Thought we might have to fight our way out of that one," Nick says, once they're settled in for the night. Ellie puts her empty soda bottle aside and presses up against him, close enough to huddle under his trench coat.

"You figured he might recognize us?"

"No kidding. The Commonwealth's most notorious Synth and he doesn't bat an eye? Someone must not listen to the radio, or he'd be scheming to turn us in for a reward."

"Maybe he plans to."

"Wouldn't have charged us through the nose if that's what he had in mind. No. We can get some sleep for once."

"I used to dream about doing this," Ellie murmurs. "Cuddling my detective. One mattress and nowhere to go."

He places his soft hand over hers. She lets it stay. "It only took a bounty on our heads and throwing the entire Commonwealth into a tizzy."

"Next time, I'll just ask you for a date."

*****

Two days later, Porter Gage spits a mouthful of Nuka-Grape over a much-read edition of Publick Occurrences, detailing the Brotherhood's humiliation and the Valentine escape.

Ellie and Nick are long gone by then.

Chapter Text

I, Saul Danse, 

(is that name even properly real?)

being of sound mind and memory,

(demonstrably untrue)

do declare that this will and testament is made by me without coercion, out of my own independent decision 

(independent?)

and do hereby revoke any previous wills.

(I suppose that much is correct.)

I bequeath the following assets. One set of T-60 X-01 power armor to Proctor Ingram, who will know how to put it to best use.

(entirely moot point. I suppose some Diamond City guard is walking around in mine, if Myrna didn't sell it off for scrap.)

My personal possessions aboard the Prydwen to be divided evenly among the surviving members of the "River Squad"

(the only one left alive being Haylen, and she's hardly able to collect.)

with the exception of any technical documents that Proctor Quinlan may wish to claim for the furtherance of the Brotherhood's aims.

(Haylen tells me he was so self-righteous about my impending execution, she immediately went to Diamond City to hunt up a detective. I don't know that I blame him.)

The footlocker marked with my name at Listening Post Bravo, to be sent to Rivet City as a donation to the general market fund.

(Emptied when Valentine invited me to Diamond City. It was mostly snack cakes, anyway.)

Finally: all my weapons, including my modded laser rifle Righteous Authority, to be placed at the disposal of Elder Arthur Maxson. Whose far-sighted leadership it has been my honor to serve under for many years

----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------

(Haylen gets everything.)

Chapter Text

"Perkins, you could be better than this."

This is a nightmare. Every time you dream of this moment, it ends badly.

A snowfall is silhouetting you both, crisp shadows under a street lamp. You wonder how the robot before you can take the melting flakes. Valentine's metal, isn't he? Does he rust?

"I'm doing just fine," you point out. "Plenty of souls in Goodneighbor appreciate my welcome kits. I make good money and I don't cheat my customers."

The robot flicks a lighter, cups his metal hand protectively over a cigarette to make it smolder into heat. The red warmth is in stark contrast to the falling snow, his pale coat, your dark one.

"Med-X, Psycho, and Jet," he says. "All in one seamless chem. It's smart, I'm not denying that. But a mind like yours could do better things."

"Like what?"

"Anything you wanted," Valentine says. His breath is fogging in the air (how does he do that? Why was he built that way?) 

"There's no way to bribe me. I can get all the caps and chems and fucking I want at Vic's."

"But you can't buy your way out of death," he says softly. "Everyone in your line of business has to accept the blood that goes with it, I came here to make you face that. Pay the price or walk away for good."

"It doesn't have to be yours."

"Better me than some kid overdosing."

He stubs out his cigarette, the last cigarette that he requested, tucks his hands behind his back. The gun you're holding is aimed just right to rip through his throat.

You fire. He falls, staining the snow as he dies.

That's how it goes in nightmares.

*****

Ellie wakes, to find a trench coat flung over her and Nick in his shirt sleeves. Fixing his hand again. It's still night, but they're illuminated by warm golden firelight.

"You okay there, sweetheart? Looked like you were having a bad dream."

She sits up and breathes for a while. "The one where we met. I shot you- why do I always shoot you? Why don't I ever get it right?"

"Hey," Nick says, almost lightly. "The one time it mattered, you held off."

"Not because I was good. Just because- I didn't know enough about your investigation, I thought you could have all of DC's security backing you or something. What I was, that was just being careful. I didn't want to take a risk."

He puts the screwdriver away. "Ellie, goodness doesn't have to be about who you are. Or were. It's what you do."

She doesn't really believe that; because Nick is good, and she's not. Just lucky. Lucky enough to have gone her whole life without committing wasteland murder.

Tomorrow they walk down the hill and to the Nakano house, maybe it'll be a case and maybe it's a trap they'll have to shoot their way out of; and if she's willing to kill now, why not then?

It's not because she has to. She could go back to Diamond City and serve her time. Ask Dr Amari to change her face and voice, disappear into the persona of a stubbornly inept mutfruit farmer. Let herself die in the first firefight they walk into.

So maybe it's that she's wrong, and Nick's wrong, and they're both bad people. Masquerading as innocents in a world soaked in too much blood already. 

Haylen would have advice about all this, she thinks. The pain of her loss is like an abscess, the wound ready to break at the slightest pressure. Doesn't bear probing.

Though losing Nick would hurt worse.

Ellie crawls back under the coat that smells like him, oil and gunpowder and a hint of razorgrain starch; and sleeps dreamlessly until morning.

Chapter Text

Travis Miles is a man in love. Profound, all-consuming, completely hopeless love, and he knows it.

"Our Scarlett, she is good girl," Vadim presses, while he wipes down glasses. "Sweet! You ask her, she would go out with you. Try it."

"Sure. Sure." Travis sips at his glass of heavily watered moonshine, wonders why he pays full price for what amounts to half a drink. It's something about the cost of water that he can't quite wrap his head around. "But she's not my type, you know?"

"Oh ho! Your type, what is she like? Or he? All good, so long as they drink plenty of liquor. Ha ha."

Travis takes another gulp of moonshine, and maybe it's less watered than usual. Or he's just tired of literally talking all day without being able to mention this one thing that haunts him.

"Tall," he says recklessly. "Slim, tall, smart, funny. Kind. With a zest for words..."

"You need someone to write you better copy," Vadim says, shaking his head.

"She would," Travis says dreamily.

"Oh, well. Maybe that is a tricky ask, but hey. This bot in Goodneighbor I know-"

"It's Piper. Piper Wright," Travis says in exasperation. "How do I get her to look at me? I mean, me? The least coherent DJ to ever load a holotape?"

"Well, speak of the lady-"

A soft red leather sleeve elbows him out of the way. "It's me again, Vadim," Piper says, placing a jug on the counter. "Here's the caps, swap this out for a fresh one."

Vadim lugs one out from under the counter, pauses judiciously. "All this drinking you are doing. I sell moonshine, yes, but customers drinking themselves to death is bad business. No more caps in the future, you understand the problem?"

"Well, I'm sober now," Piper says. "Give."

"Piper," Travis says desperately, as Vadim hands over the liquor. "I'm in love with you. Really, truly in love with you."

She groans, puts the jug down untouched. "It's not good enough that I spent all day on an airship that smells like a brewery, full of Brotherhood soldiers who think they're a gift to creation, and more untold secrets than you can shake a stick at- Travis, you're a great guy and I'll let you have the Prydwen photos tomorrow, but you picked the wrong night for this. Please just let a girl have a drink in peace, okay?"

"No problem," Travis says. He doesn't even finish his drink, just slips out.

Maybe she'll say yes some time. Maybe it'll be no, he has no idea. Spitting it out is already further than he actually expected to ever work up the nerve for.

He heads back to the radio station, humming Atom Bomb Baby under his breath and pondering some romantic lines for a song lead-in.

And maybe Piper, when he sees her next.

Chapter Text

"Follower Gannon," Proctor Ingram says. She leans against the meshed window of his cell, her power armor humming with energy. "Since we all know you haven't earned the title of Proctor."

Arcade hums to himself, delicately prunes one of the more unwieldy of his broc flowers. "I suppose anything's better than being called Elder."

He can't figure out why she's here. Tuesday is her usual night to come and try to pick his brains on Enclave technology, a reasonably fruitless exercise but one he encourages insofar as he's able, as a way to pass heavy-hanging time. Given that his usual conversational alternatives are Captain Kells' Saturday interrogation or the all-mighty Maxson, he'll take the person who has at least a passing interest in building and creation.

(Julie's mild voice will come to him some nights, even though he hasn't seen her in years: "Gannon, since when do you actually want to meet people?")

"You're drifting," Ingram says, with her usual bluntness. "I need you to focus."

"Whatever it is, it's not my field." 

"The professor we brought in from Diamond City is turning out just fine-"

"Did you have to kidnap her, or did bribes suffice?"

"Don't know, don't care," Ingram says. "Not my field- and frankly, neither is what I'm about to ask. Is running Liberty Prime in the Commonwealth going to break the Haven Treaty ceasefire or not?"

"That's a Maxson question and you know it," Arcade says wearily. If there's a palace coup in the works, the odds are low that any successor would treat him with the kid gloves that Maxson has. Plants and a few books and a new set of glasses whenever he needs them may not be particularly spectacular by Mojave standards, but for a prisoner of war he could have had a much more raw deal. 

He owes Maxson nothing; he owes the man his life. The two thoughts aren't so incompatible- 

"But I'm not asking the Elder. I'm asking you."

Something's changed. Something's altered the balance on power on this ship. An absence leaves a negative impression, from which a shape can be read.

He tries fencing. "I'm sure Proctor Quinlan must have a copy of the treaty in his files. It'll do him good to have something to do besides turn down my requests for chem documentation."

Ingram shakes her head, an action which has a rather monumental gravitas with her armor. "I can't stand that mealy-mouthed good for nothing. He hasn't touched a laser in twenty years. So just tell me- is reactivating Prime a war crime or not?"

"Do I get a treat for good behavior?" Arcade asks, in the most bored voice he can manage.

It's a surprise when she nods, as though he's made a perfectly understandable request. "Within reasonable limits. Don't expect me to open your cell or gut anyone for you."

"...you know, Enclave or not I'm a terrible soldier and always was. I wouldn't ask for more death. But I know you'll keep your promises, so- no. The restriction was only for the Capitol, Maxson can obliterate the entire Commonwealth with Prime if he's that way inclined."

"Good to know," Ingram says. 

"I'm still surprised Maxson didn't just tell you."

"And I'm surprised that the job of grunt mechanic involves as much Brahmin trading and soft soap as it does, but no rest for the wicked. Here," Ingram says, pushing a thin cutting through the window mesh. "A down payment on what I owe you. The locals call it a bloodleaf, it grows in dirty water and makes horrible tea."

Arcade can't help a smile, accepting the small plant; if nothing else, he's certainly got more than enough time these days for his botany work. "Thank you. And...thank you for at least considering the ethics of your orders."

"It's not the ethics I'm worried about. Just whether I'll be starting a war we can't win."

"Nevertheless."

Chapter Text

A waste of good Med-X to use it on seasickness, but Ellie's giving it serious consideration. It's either that or a welcome kit, and she's not happy about taking combat chems when Nick is the only possible target. 

She leans over the side of the boat again and tries to stop retching.

"I think you need a Stimpak," Nick says.

"I think we need to get off this boat."

It's wonderful that her hunch had been completely justified, with Nakano's call being both request for help and offer of succor. Grieving parents aside, it'd made her heart pound with relief and joy to watch Nick get back into gear, hunting down holotapes and forgotten keys. A lost daughter makes for worthwhile stakes.

He'd sounded like himself again, wry observant detective on the prowl. Once again in his element.

But she isn't. An indoor girl, accustomed to functional plumbing and a roof every night, maybe Commonwealth civilization isn't what it was but not everyone suffers through smoky campfires and tents. The trip here had been exactly the sort of life she swore she'd never have, it's getting to her more than she wants to admit.

The agency, and the market, and all of it. Home. Danny Sullivan, leaving not so much as a corpse. 

She throws up again. Nick's hands are set against her shoulders, to stop her falling overboard. Ocean water this cold would probably kill anyone fast.

"I should have left you with the Nakanos," he says ruefully.

"They didn't offer." They've been paid a fair amount- Kenji evidently trusts them- but she can understand why the couple didn't want them to linger. Finding Kasumi far away from the Brotherhood's sphere of influence and encouraging her to go home is rather different than cluttering up the family house with a fugitive. "I'll be- I'll be fine. Eventually. When we make it to shore."

Whenever that is. 

She gives up and injects both the Med-X and the stim. This is going to be a long trip.

*****

At some point she passes out, or falls asleep, or something; and when she wakes it's night and they're in Far Harbor.

Nick's tying a rope to a jetty, while a man bellows and a woman issues orders. Her usually-quick mind can't seem to process words just yet, grasps only that there's a threat. Attackers coming to the town. It's not until Nick takes her hand to guide her across a boardwalk and up to a guard post, that she registers they aren't all the stranger was worried about.

Giant luminous creatures of varieties she's never seen, eerie in the night. She grabs a kit and her pistol, feels the telltale shudder of addiction blast through her bloodstream. That's going to be pricey to fix later. If Far Harbor even has a doctor who'll do it.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, reload. Shoot. Shoot. Nick's picking out his targets with more care, aiming for heads or the equivalent therefore. She never has a chance to really look at how he fights; any time they're doing it she's too busy not dying.

They don't die. The wall holds.

There's some gruff thanks, and a suggestion about yet another journey halfway across the island, which Nick immediately quashes in favor of asking where they can find a room. Against all her expectations, the local bar has actual beds.

She doesn't wake for a long time. The sun never seems to rise.

Chapter Text

"Listen," Piper says. "I don't really need a boyfriend right now. I need- what's the prewar word, a coworker. Someone who can call me out on my bullshit when I've gone too far. Let's be honest, you can't do that if we're also- making love."

Travis is relatively sure that she self-edited that last comment in deference to his feelings. Which is very thoughtful of her and just one more example of how wonderful she is.

"So I need to know," Piper says, staring across the murky waters of the Swan Pond (there's a legend that it's haunted, which makes it a good place to talk undisturbed and laugh at people who believe in hauntings). "Do you want a relationship or a one night stand? Because if you're just keen to see what's under my leathers, well, I could stand to blow off a little steam too. We book in at Goodneighbor for the night, have a good time, then I don't talk to you for a year. Or otherwise...we tackle this story I'm working on. Together."

"I mean-" Travis starts. Piper shakes her head at him, puts her finger on his lips.

"Uh-uh. I want you to think about it, not just panic and run your mouth like you do when you're nervous."

He nods, and she takes her hand away; but honestly, this isn't a hard question at all. Spending more time with Piper sounds like heaven to him. Working on news stories with her would be even better. 

Assuming he doesn't have to do anything...dangerous.

"Will it be dangerous?"

"It could be," Piper says, lighting a rare smoke. "That's one reason I'm talking to you. You're already in the business, you know the risks."

"I...don't really take any risks in my trailer," Travis mumbles. He doesn't. Caravans drop by Diamond City and they talk to Danny- well, they talk to Clarence now- and then he gets a summary and blathers it over the radio waves. It's easy work.

"You will soon," Piper says, her voice going strangely expressionless. "Travis, the whole Commonwealth listens to your reports, and these days that's more important than ever. Like the Danny Sullivan story- there's a reason you're not reporting McDonough's official line on that, isn't there? You don't believe Nick Valentine shot him any more than I did."

"...no, I don't," Travis admits. "I mean- we all knew the guy. Like Moe says, the detective played with a straight bat. Hard to imagine him doing a thing like that."

"This is the kind of problem I'm thinking about. So the Mayor wants us to report on the death of Diamond City's gatekeeper- do we believe his account? Do we pretend it isn't news, keep on ignoring it? Or try to find evidence that Valentine was framed, dig up a dirty, rotten conspiracy- anyway," Piper says, looking tired. "I wouldn't blame you for taking the one-night stand and only talking about prewar songs on your radio from now on."

"...Piper, I'm a coward. If something bad happens to you, and I'm the only one left reporting the news in Diamond City, that puts me on the spot. I don't want to paint a target on my back like you have."

Her eyes widen. "Hadn't thought of it that way."

"You're not a coward. So I think we'd better do this coworker thing. At least we'll be able to warn each other this way."

"...Travis. Thanks. This means a lot to me," Piper says earnestly.

"Same! Same."

"So here's something you might not know. Nobody actually seems to have seen Danny's corpse. But there was a plasma puddle outside of the Security dugout that night, I went looking when the Vertibird left."

"And Valentine always used revolvers, not energy weapons."

"Exactly."

They sit there in silence a while, as the swans glide and the waves ripple; and for a little while it would be just the most perfect date he's ever been on, if not for everything else.

No, screw that. For a little while it is the perfect date.

Then they go back to Diamond City and get to work.

Chapter Text

Been too long since you last left the Commonwealth. Since you remembered places besides Diamond City can sing.

There's a howl outside like a radstorm, but in Far Harbor it comes out more dangerous and more beautiful, fog a-shimmer in the dimming afternoon. Frost is crystalizing on the windows, just the same as it ever did before the war.

Ellie rests besides you on the bare mattress, a picture of sleepy contentment. Her knees are pulled up high enough to tuck the hem of her skirt under bare feet. She tugs gently at your coat, pulling the warm material over the both of you. 

"I love you," she says quietly. "I hope you know that."

"Hate to think you'd come all this way just on a lark."

"...Nick, stop. Sometimes a girl just wants a little reassurance."

She reaches closer, loosens the half-Windsor knot of your tie but doesn't remove it. There's a few ground rules for this, since that first disastrous time on the roof of the Old State House: and one is that the tie stays on.

It's not about shame. Her fingers pinch folds of the soft leathery stuff that serves you for skin. She kisses the ragged edge of the wound at your neck, as you trace the curves of her hips, her breasts. There's no denying what you are. There never is.

What it is about: feeling safe. Shirt, tie, battered coat protecting both of you, the things that you've chosen to make yourself what you are. It's not the ghost of a long dead man that Ellie makes love to; it's the detective she knows, the choices you've made.

Only nothing's the same, this time.

Ellie's more greedy than usual, pressing herself hard against you- none of the more fragile parts, she knows where you might break- and you know why she's like this, what she's afraid of. If the future's run out. If it's her last time.

"Sweetheart," you say. "Ellie."

Her response is to entwine her ankles in yours, rubbing toes against cured radstag leather. The stuff makes for cosy socks, for anybody who doesn't happen to sweat.

Beautiful girl straddling you and you're thinking about socks.

"You're humming."

It's an occasional air-valve malfunction caused about fifty years ago by an enthusiastic serial killer with a bayonet, a story that you've never told Ellie because the sound strikes her as cute. There's not much point in denying her pleasure.

Which is what this is all about, really. Letting her have pleasure, because that does mean something and it's not so hard, to let her be happy this way.

When she's done, damp and trembling and sated, she lets you have your coat back. Falls asleep easily, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth.

And then you slip out and into the fog, to listen to Far Harbor and watch tiny curlicues of frost form on the palm of your metal hand. 

Chapter Text

"So you're the new guy," the ghoul says. He huffs a snort of Jet and smiles unpleasantly, while the Third Rail singer wails. 

Clarence drinks from his bottle of Gwinnett ale and says nothing. Nobody had mentioned that being the new Gatekeeper of Diamond City would require him to do a thing he hasn't done in years, namely travel outside the Wall. But practically his first assignment, once he had the DC guards calmed down enough not to shoot the first Brotherhood soldier they see, was to take a little trip out to Bunker Hill and Goodneighbor. Let them take note of the face that decides who gets in and who won't.

An old DC tradition, it seems. He guesses that if the nominee dies en route it's a sign they just weren't meant for the job.

Anyway, Bunker Hill hadn't been too bad. They don't care who's Gatekeeper so long as there is one. He'd scored some cheap beer from a trader. But Goodneighbor is proving just as fun as he'd figured, which is to say none.

"You're quiet," the ghoul comments. "Danny kept burbling when he was here. Wouldn't shut up about the joys of Diamond City, very politick as you can imagine."

The ghoul's name is Dick Hillerson, or Sick Dick as at least three people have yelled at him since they've been in this bar. Self-described leader of the local neighborhood watch and the person Mayor Hancock had told him to talk to. So roughly his equivalent, not that that makes him endearing.

"Any sign of life in there? Words? Listen. I got some knowhow you should set your peepers on, but if you're so DC you freeze up just to see a ghoul there's no point."

"If we have to discuss anything like that, wouldn't your office be better?"

"It would not," Sick Dick says lazily. "The spot that I laughingly call my office is a four-by-four patch of floor boards the next room over from Hancock's digs, and that man will eavesdrop on anything. No. You want a private conversation in Goodneighbor, you have it at the bar."

"Okay. So you guard the gate here, I guard the one at DC. We aren't going to have much occasion to meet, I don't think."

"Geez, lighten up. How you gonna know the passwords for Solomon's chem shipments if you piss me off? First of the month, somebody shows up and trades you a copy of Publick Occurrences, with two circled words. Eighth of the month we send the courier- don't worry, he's not a ghoul. He says the first word, you say the second, and you don't ask what he's carrying."

There'd been a note about this in Danny's office. He's not sure if it's sanctioned by the Mayor, but it doesn't strike him that asking will do any good. Can't ask his men to risk their lives every day without a steady supply of Med-X.

"Okay," Clarence says.

"You are just a barrel of laughs. Are we still sticking to the Chandler protocols in case of disasters? I know what you yahoos think of Valentine, but it was mostly me and Danny who worked out the plans, he only gave us the idea."

The last thing he needs right now is to tear up the agreements for coming to the other settlement's aid in case of a Behemoth or a nuclear strike. "I haven't talked to the Mayor about them, but as far as I'm concerned they can stay."

"Maybe you're smarter than you look. I've got a lead on Mr Detective's whereabouts, by the way. For the right price."

He has not spent his life practicing at being stolid and unreadable to be visibly shocked now. "Higher than I want to pay, I imagine."

"Not that bad," Dick says. "Hancock gets an itch to check out the old place some time. You could close your eyes."

"That's a no," Clarence says, feeling mildly relieved it's not a messier request. "DC voted to keep ghouls out, it's my job to uphold the rule. Tell your Mayor to take it up with his brother."

"Small price for Danny Sullivan's murderer, I'd think."

Clarence takes a deep breath. Mayor McDonough hasn't cleared him to say what he's about to admit, it's putting his own neck on the line- but for all the sarcasm, Dick is just doing a job like his own. And deserves to know what he's up against.

"That wasn't Valentine. It was Elder Maxson of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"Oh. Ho, ho, ho...ho. The same Elder who's negotiating to use the DC landing pad as a base of operations?"

"One and the same."

"Don't think I envy you," Dick mutters. "Okay. Well. Forget Valentine then, I'll just have to come up with some other way to smuggle my boss into DC."

"Were you like this with Danny?"

"Sure. And we played correspondence chess. Be a hell of a nuisance to find a decent replacement."

He can't resist. "I could lick Sullivan with a pawn handicap any day of the week."

The ghoul closes one eye, studies him sharply with the other. "Now if you'd said that first, you could have saved yourself a lot of backchat. I think we'll get on just fine."

"I mean. I'll still be at DC all the time, and I assume you'll be here."

"Correspondence," Dick says, stressing the syllables. "As in, messages. Regular letters between you and me that nobody thinks twice about."

"...oh."

"Glad you can take a hint."

Chapter Text

"Breakfast in bed? Aw, Nick, you shouldn't have."

Ellie smiles up at him- her seasick pallor is all gone, she looks herself again- and starts digging into scrambled radchicken eggs and mirelurk stuffing. "I'm sure I could have dragged myself all of one flight to the bar."

"After what she's been through, my secretary deserves no less," Nick says, starting on his own heavily laden plate. The local electrical grid is a closed system, always vaguely aggravating, and he can do without low power warnings today. "I wouldn't want the liquid breakfasts down there to put you off."

"You're forgetting where I'm from. Goodneighbor might not have much going for it, but I guarantee the drunks there can outdo any provincial fisherfolk."

"It still might be quite the contest. Particularly Old Longfellow, otherwise known as Far Harbor's only tour guide. We'll need his help later."

"That's right, I have to update the case file with all the new data- hmm. If this was the Commonwealth, I'd ask if we have to bring him."

"...but it isn't, and my street smarts don't cover sea monsters," Nick supplies. The mirelurk here doesn't taste quite like it does in the Commonwealth; it's more...green. And chewy. "A bottle of whiskey for every trip out. I'm hoping it won't be too many."

"Nick, have you thought about what we actually do when we find Kasumi? What happens then?"

"We sit down and ask if there's a reason she ran off that her parents didn't mention. Point her towards home if she asks."

"I don't mean the case. I mean- this is a pretty far off town, it's obviously too small to be of strategic value to the Brotherhood. We could stay. Maybe."

The thought would give him the shivers, if he was subject to involuntary reactions. A fishing village at the edge of nowhere, too small to have any good mysteries and needing to draft all the able labor they can round up. He'd be shooting mutated fish all day. Ellie would wind up serving liquor to the drunks downstairs.

He did not hire Ellie Perkins, gifted chronicler and the only typist in Boston with the patience to transcribe a holotape word for word, just so she could eke out a bare existence miles from anywhere. 

"There's always Acadia," Nick says.

Ellie squints at him. "We don't know yet that Acadia is anything more than some hermit with an imagination and a longwave radio."

"That doesn't preclude it being better than Far Harbor."

It's been too long since she laughed that hard. He's missed it.

Chapter Text

Synths. Or as Old Longfellow privately thinks of them, tourists.

It's in the nature of Far Harbor, always has and always will be. The locals who stay and the mainlanders who bring in the caps and the smarts and the little luxuries like smooth prewar whiskey, nothing you need for life but guaranteed to make it that much softer. They're two sides of the same coin, island needs them both.

"Never saw a Synth like you before," he says, pulling at the whiskey bottle he's just been paid.

"Obsolete model."

"Then I guess we have something in common."

The Synth doesn't have a real eyebrow to raise, but does it anyway. "The name's Nick Valentine- and this is my secretary, Ellie Perkins. We're trying to reach Acadia."

"Planning to join the colony, eh?"

"Just a missing persons case. A daughter her parents are very worried about."

Old Longfellow lets out a quick bark of laughter, washes it down with spirits. "Don't go telling me you mainlanders have the donut brigade back. Next you'll be asking if we'll quit salvaging wrecks."

"Nothing like that," Valentine says, with a courteous tone not much like the panicky tourists. "Just some private sleuthing. It's what I do."

"There enough cases like that to keep you busy?"

"Oh. You'd be surprised."

Old Longfellow grunts, drains the bottle. "What is it you carry? Is the girl any use in a fight?"

"Pipe revolver, I'll admit it's better for headshots than the kinds of things people fight up here. Ellie can look after herself, but I'd rather she didn't need to."

"You're not leaving me in town?" the girl says, looking surprised; and it's a damn comedic moment, seeing Valentine look like any man with his pants down.

"...it might be a better idea, now you mention it-"

"No. No. I'd go stir-crazy staring at this case file and wondering what happens next. Let's go."

"An extra bottle says she won't have to fire a shot." It's a sunny day, the Fog isn't too terrible. A blind man could find his way up the mountain on a good morning like this, but the tourists don't know how easy it is. Else he'd be out of a job.

Valentine does a fair impression of relief with his ruined face. "All right. But I'll hang on to it until we reach Acadia."

"Fair enough."

*****

Given a doctor visit and enough sleep and the absolute marvel of solid land, which she'll never take for granted again, Ellie reckons she's bouncing back well enough.

The steep mountain slope is tiring, but novel; her legs will be screaming at her tonight but for now she can manage. In all honesty she's not keen on Old Longfellow- something runs down her spine in a bad way to have to talk to him- but it makes Nick feel better to have the extra gun along. Short of suddenly acquiring a lifetime of combat experience herself, she can't blame him.

That's something that really would make a difference in the fight for his soul; if Nick had a proper partner again, someone to watch his back. The original Valentine always worked alone, which is as good a reason as any for her Nick to have company along on cases. 

Maybe that's getting ahead of herself.

They make their slow way up the mountain, fighting the occasional animal and doing their best to stay out of Fog. Radioactive clouds, that's cheerful. 

"Are there Brahmin around? For the rad reducing milk?"

Old Longfellow chortles. "Used to be. Got et."

By what, she doesn't know she cares to ask. She sticks to the manufacturer timetables for Rad-X consumption and hopes it'll keep her from being too irradiated. At least Nick doesn't need to worry on that score.

They round yet another curve, and then-

oh, her heart.

The Far Harbor folk didn't kid about hallucinations in the fog: the ginger-haired waif in drab robes can't be anything but. If Nick didn't have the quick reflexes to catch her, she'd have simply collapsed.

"Ellie?"

"Haylen?"

Chapter Text

She's taken up the robes, begun learning the chants and the use of the gamma gun: but Haylen hasn't truly believed in Atom until this moment. 

A miracle is the only reasonable word for it. Ellie's arms wrapped around her own, the rough texture of that familiar scarf pressing against her cheek. Safe and sound, not broken by the wasteland, just as delectable and kissable as ever.

They're being stared at, she's vaguely aware. Not that she minds. 

"Deal's off if you're taking up with her," Old Longfellow says. "I don't truck with the Children of Atom."

"Bye-bye then," Ellie says indifferently, still hugging her fiercely. "Haylen- you have no idea how I missed you. I'm sorry we couldn't help you in Diamond City. I'm so sorry."

The regret brings Haylen back to herself, how unwise it is to linger anywhere subject to Fog and Yao Guai. "I wouldn't have wanted you to even try, but- look, if you can stand a hike there's a place I know where you'll both be safe. Truly safe, even from the Brotherhood." 

"Is it Acadia?" Valentine asks. "That's the way we're headed."

"No!" Her shout's too loud, too impassioned, and Ellie looks at her in fear, but- "Acadia is incredibly dangerous, that's why I'm waiting here to warn people. Especially for you, Valentine."

"In that case," the detective says, looking not much concerned. "Maybe we'd better walk and talk? Only I'd rather not stay in the open."

"Forgot I was on the clock," Ellie says dryly as she lets go. "Let's go, this'll be more fun under cover anyway."

That much, Haylen finds she has to agree with.

*****

"...so the Children call their base the Nucleus. It's more like the home where I grew up than anywhere I've seen since. A proper cavern, complete with fungi and rickety walkways..."

"...even with Nick looking after me, it was the hardest journey I ever made in my life. Especially when we reached Listening Post Bravo and it was empty, I- gave up hope for you then."

"...anybody's guess where we crashed the Vertibird. I'd never be able to find it again."

"Is that what happened to Danse?" Valentine asks, his voice somewhat softer than usual. 

It won't help to ready her laser rifle, but Haylen does it anyway, bites back amusement at Ellie taking out her little pistol too. "No. He was doing fine then, aside from his leg. We made our way up the coast and crossed over from the mainland almost by accident. A group of Trappers thought they'd take us on and ended up, ah, donating their boat."

Valentine chuckles; Ellie just winces. 

"They had an autopilot that brought them back home, a harbor southwest of here. Locals weren't friendly, so we started for the mountain. Danse was cheerful about it, said we'd either find a community there or at least get an idea where one was. By now we knew we were well out of the Brotherhood patrol areas, and that's how we ended up in Acadia."

Their conversation gets interrupted then, by a pair of anglers. Valentine's revolver isn't really up to the task, though his shooting is more than adequate.

"You need a better weapon," Haylen says when the fight's over. "I mean, I suppose that was fine for Boston gunners, but it just isn't going to do the job in these woods."

"I'm listening. If I had a better one I'd be using it."

"Most of my goodies are back in Diamond City, but- here, I think you can use your ammo with this. Sort of a welcome present when I joined the Children of Atom. I'm sticking with my laser rifle for now, anyway."

"Radical conversion," Valentine says, reading scratches on the radium rifle stock. "See, this is the kind of thing to make a Synth stick with the pipe gun he bashed together over a long weekend. No wondering just who was using the weapon and who was shot with it before you came into possession."

"I guess we could give it to Ellie."

"Already using as big a calibre as I can handle, sorry," Ellie says. "Nick. You do know how to use it?"

He gives her a mildly annoyed look, blasts a seagull out of the sky. It's dead before it hits the ground.

"It'll do just fine. Thanks. Got a mouthy secretary I wouldn't want getting hurt out here."

"If you can talk him into wearing armor, that's more than I can," Ellie says in a stage whisper.

Haylen looks down at her drab-colored sackcloth. "I don't think I have any right to talk."

Chapter Text

"Preston Garvey. Are you authorized to speak on behalf of the Minutemen?"

This isn't quite the answer he was expecting to his distress call. Honestly, he hadn't really anticipated an answer at all. At best, maybe he'd get someone who could hack a terminal well enough to let them salvage a fusion core, which he could put in a power armor suit to go save his people by heroically dying to some raiders. Which he'd been more than prepared to do.

The fact that none of that happened has nonplussed him. Nobody's even touched the power armor, and yet Concord is littered with the corpses of raiders and a dead Deathclaw. "I suppose I am at that. We're all that's left, tell the truth."

"Rough," the woman before him says, pulling a folder from her shoulder bag- she wears it clipped over a trim, unfamiliar uniform with the characteristic shimmer of stealth tech. There's three others with her, snipers in similar dress, but they haven't spoken and don't look like they plan to. "I've been trying to track you people down for a while. Ever heard of the Unionists?"

"Can't say as I have. Who are they, a new faction?"

"Sort of an old one." She hands him a sheaf of papers, brings out pens and water and tins of Cram from her bag. "We're from the Capitol Wasteland, we don't like slavery, and we're here to do something about it. So if you don't mind a little light reading with your meals...not that I'm trying to rush you, but. I am trying to rush you."

"You can lay off then," Sturges says in his relaxed-but-meaningful voice. "Without Preston, we never would have made it here. Sweet rads, give us a breather."

"No, no," Preston says, letting his boyfriend see a quick smile. "This has me interested."

It's a fairly lengthy document, and not even intended for the Minutemen, as such. What he's reading until long after lunch is nothing less than a treaty of alliance between the Unionists and the Commonwealth Provisional Government. Which never precisely existed in the first place and certainly doesn't now.

But he likes the bones of the thing. A mutual agreement to absolutely ban slavery in any degree. Exchange of prewar information, subject to exclusions for weaponry or especially dangerous chems. Even preliminary plans about trading caravans, though how they'd go back and forth seems to have been redacted.

"Sorry if some of the terminology is outdated. Our knowledge of the region is a few decades out, I know."

Sturges peers at it over his shoulder. "And I thought you were idealistic."

"That's the problem with this," Preston says. "It's great, I like it, but- to say that I have either the right or the authority to agree to any of this, that'd be absurd. Maybe the Minutemen at their peak could have made this stick, but when it's just five of us? No way."

"How many people would it take to make you feel confident that a satisfactory quorum has been reached?"

Preston considers it, thinks about the Brotherhood airship that the whole Commonwealth saw. "At least eight settlements. And our old radio station back for coordinating, otherwise there's no way to get consensus and the whole thing breaks down. That and asking one of the inner-Boston holdouts to sign on, though getting both Goodneighbor and Diamond City on board is probably impossible."

"Mmm-hmm," the woman says, jotting his words down as if she's helping at Trudy's diner. "I can see this is going to be quite a job. Which is something of an issue, because honestly we're just recon and not a whole army."

"I have a lot of faith in the people of the Commonwealth," Preston says. "I think if the Minutemen could start making a difference to people's lives again, help them out, you'd see them coming together just like the old days."

"Well. I guess you're still my best shot at this...and I hate disappointing Hannibal Hamlin. There really isn't anybody else trying to unify the region?"

"Not that I know of."

"Your lucky day," the woman says, tilting her sunglasses at him.

"No kidding! Though- I hate to ask, but you told me your name during the fight, I just plain didn't hear it. What is it?"

"Boone. General Carla Boone of the UIF, that's Unionist Integrated Forces."

"Huh. That's...appropriate."

Chapter Text

Nick

Shame a Synth can't be in two places at once.

Nakano is counting on me to find out the fate of his daughter. Every hour I'm not going to Acadia to investigate is just so much wasted time. But if it's half as dangerous as Haylen suggests, I don't dare bring Ellie there anyway. We need- well, not an agency, but somewhere she can stay and I can hang up a fedora without wondering what we'll be shooting next. 

And I don't trust Haylen to take her anywhere. No doubt that she has Ellie's best interests at heart, and probably mine; but there's a wild glint in her eyes that I don't remember from Diamond City, she swings between cocking her rifle at shadows and paying no attention to our surroundings. Danse's death, if that's what it was, hit her hard. This stuff about the Children of Atom isn't encouraging.

She clings to Ellie like there isn't another woman in the world; and Ellie, more tired than she'll ever admit and scared stiff, hugs her back. These two need to be somewhere safe before I can get back to the case with a clear conscience.

If Kasumi dies while I'm dithering, I suppose I'll have to carry around that guilt forever.

But detective's honor has nothing on protecting my secretary, it turns out.

*****

"This is a cult," he points out, as they enter the Nucleus. "Making people shoot at each over for a loyalty test, that's the textbook definition of a cult."

Haylen is clearly shaken, but still willing to defend the Children. "So that was a bad first impression. But they're not chaotic like raiders. They have rules and internal discipline."

"That's one of the things that worries me. It's too easy in a place like this to say the wrong thing and start a shooting match."

"Well. Ellie won't have to worry about that tonight," Haylen points out. The secretary is practically sleep-walking, her head tucked against his shoulder; it's late enough to be early again. "Look, my corner's up there. Home sweet home."

It's not much. It's a lean-to on a pile of slag, with a patch of glowing mushrooms illuminating a dirty mattress. More or less in line with the Salem settlement he investigated one time. They hadn't been best pleased when he found the captive glowing one and pumped off a few clean headshots.

Actually, this really won't end well if the cult knows he did that. But the Children aren't known for an especially cohesive network.

"I just love it," Haylen says with a mellow sigh. "On the Prydwen you get a cot in the middle of a field of cots and it's awful, I felt so exposed. This is just like the one I built when I was a kid."

"What kind of people made you build your own shelter?"

"I mean...children my own age, mostly. Little Lamplight was just like that."

Okay. Right. Ellie's going to have to be the one to explain that a born-and-bred Bostonian has higher standards, seeing how contented Haylen looks.

"I'd sleep in a ditch right now," his secretary says gracelessly; and just about manages to crawl inside before passing out. Haylen yawns, frowns. 

"My sentiments exactly...uh, but I don't have another mattress. There's probably a spare somewhere around here though. You're safe enough."

"Not a problem. I'll be here when you wake up."

Not a problem that he can't solve with a bottle of Vim, at least temporarily. His diagnostics can wait until Ellie's awake. This place doesn't feel right to him.

An opinion that ebbs and flows over the course of the next few hours. He hears gruff conversations about acquiring weapons for Atom, taking Far Harbor: also the patient voice of a doctor who spends her days cleansing radiation from the more susceptible Children. A self-described zealot offers to sell him some syrupy drink that's apparently a good medicine for the Fog.

"Can't say as I'll be needing it," Nick says, finding himself baffled and maybe a bit pleased. "I guess you never saw a Synth before?"

"I wouldn't want you to be hurt in our home, because I had made assumptions about whether or not you had Atom's blessing. You're very fortunate."

"...put that way, suppose so."

"It isn't everyone here who can say as much. Myself, for instance, and Brother Devin- did you see Brother Devin on your entrance?"

"Afraid I was in a hurry." Nick hesitates, suddenly aware of how incongruous a secretary is out here. "My- friend, Ellie. I wanted to make sure she was all right."

"I saw her. I can appreciate your concern," and the wink is embarrassing but at least the zealot doesn't dwell on that. "I'm concerned for Brother Devin. He's sworn to a water fast until Atom gives him a sign...perhaps, stranger, you could be that sign? This brew might benefit your companion, if not yourself."

"Glad to help. We came here with Sister Haylen. I could-"

"Don't ask her," the zealot says, something of an edge in his voice now. "She is very dedicated to what has been laid down in ink, and cares little for anything else."

Once a scribe always a scribe, from the sound of things. "Don't quite see how I can help you, all the same. I don't know much about Atom."

"Inquisitor Richter could tell you about that during an initiation," the zealot says. His voice is quiet. "And you might save a life."

He hasn't been a detective for so many years without learning to recognize what he hears now, the kind of hope that's mostly wild desperation. It has a jarringly familiar sound. 

"If I leave Ellie here, will she be safe?"

"I'll guard her," the zealot promises. "With my life."

Nick lets out a sigh. "This medicine of yours better be good stuff."

Chapter Text

"Of course it wasn't a fucking vacation," Gage snarls at Colter.

Which is not altogether accurate- a week of heavy-duty recreational fishing means he has a nice new barricade made of mirelurk carapaces at his cottage- but it's true enough for this conversation. He's long since grown tired of Colter's laziness. Or lack of balls, one or the other.

Colter losing it wouldn't even be a problem if somebody energetic was around to step up, only that's not happening either. Maybe it's brain rot from the goddamn soda. Trekking the three worst gangs in the Commonwealth out to Nuka-World, getting them not to kill each other on sight, all that effort and for what? So everybody can sit by the pool eating cotton candy. It's pathetic. Nobody's even bothered to kill the one Nukatron he took pains to cripple before he left. 

What they need is an absolute bastard. A genius for destruction. Somebody to put fear into these useless raiders and make them shape up a bit.

Still, as useless as Colter is, explaining that he spent the trip auditioning alternate Overbosses is thoroughly out of the question. Especially seeing as it was unsuccessful.

"I collected another installment of caps from the McDonoughs." Weird fuckers, all that opportunity to wreck havoc and not using it, but the brothers do pay up on the protection money. "I talked through the hospital deal with Malone, we'll start getting stimpaks for soda next month. And rumor was right, those Pittsburgh bastards did move in at the Ironworks. Nobody's crossing them, they have flamers and like to show off."

Colter grunts. "What happened to- what the hell was the name- those assholes at the ration site?"

"Eating it for all I know. They either died or cut out of the business. Can't check out everything."

"I guess not," Colter says. "Okay, good for you. Now get moving. The fucking fridge won't ice anything, and I want somebody to either fix it or throw it over the balcony."

Which is more or less the point Porter Gage decides Nuka-World can go fuck itself. The Gunners are hiring.

And he has some great ideas about how to improve their gang.

Chapter Text

Ellie's not sure she's ever wanted out of a place so badly in her life. The DC jail was paradise compared to this Children of Atom holdout.

It's terrifying not to know where she can walk safely, especially since the answer seems to be "nowhere". There isn't a rad counter to be had for love or money, and she only has so much Rad-X. Huddling in Haylen's little lean-to is a miserable experience.

Haylen herself is far too cheery. Disappearing for the morning chant, reappearing with fungus soup, gossiping with the cultists about ammo supplies and chickens. It's not like she's been here that long. The indoctrination can't be that good.

Then again, Nick's just been initiated and seems to want to prove her wrong.

"The Mysterious Stranger," he's explaining to Zealot Ware. "I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd see anything when I drank from that spring- but there he was, large as life. Been after him for years, and did he lead me a hell of a chase!"

"I'm not familiar with this figure," the Zealot says. Ellie rolls her eyes. Everyone has a blind spot, even her boss.

"The stories about him started after the bombs dropped. Maybe he's left over from the war- accounts agree that he appears out of nowhere to make a kill, and disappears again before you can talk to him. But he hung around for quite a while this time. Led me straight to a pack of ferals. For a while I thought he wanted me dead, but he stayed to help. I was almost close enough to touch his sleeve, but then, poof! He was gone again."

"Then where did the icon of the Mother come from? The one you gave to Brother Devin for his sign?"

"It was in the room where the Stranger vanished, locked behind a terminal. I've got kind of a weakness for hacking terminals."

"...well, I can't say as I understand it," Ware says. "But saving Brother Devin, I can understand and be glad of that. Thank you. Come back any time your friend needs more brew."

"Will do."

"Nick," she whispers, when he's caught sight of her and comes over. "How much of that did you make up?"

"Would you believe none of it? You know I've never been able to figure what's with that Stranger."

"A miracle, just like mine," Haylen says, settling down besides them with a pile of pamphlets. "I wanted Ellie back. You wanted to save a life."

"Don't ask me to join in," Ellie says, crossing her arms. "Besides. We have a case in Acadia to finish- or Nick does."

"You really shouldn't," Haylen says, shaking her head. "Not that they're violent, but- it's a colony of Synths, all right. They aren't hostile to outsiders. They just brainwash their own."

"You don't need to talk about it now," Nick offers. "If it's too much."

"But it's information you should have. They- they say they can unlock who Synths really are. Give them their pasts back. Danse said he had to know. Even if it was dangerous, he wanted the truth..."

Haylen starts sniffing, not exactly crying but close. Ellie moves close to comfort her wordlessly.

"Maybe I didn't do enough," the former scribe says, meeting Valentine's eyes. "Maybe I should have done more to point out he wasn't the first to go through this, that you're living proof a Synth can be a person in all the ways that matter. Habits and dreams and name dear to someone, who'd be missed if you were gone- anyway. When it was over, he wasn't Danse any more." 

It takes her a long, hiccuping pause to continue. "He asked me to call him by another name. He said the person I knew, the one you rescued, was nothing but a mistake and a lie. Ellie, it's worse than if he died."

"And Kasumi walked straight into the trap," Ellie says, her voice grim. She looks at her boss, both of them less fearful than bitterly determined. "We have to save her."

"Who's Kasumi?"

"The reason we're here," Valentine says. "An old friend thinks his daughter ran away there."

"It might not be a danger, if she isn't a Synth- but then, I don't know. I really don't."

"We'll find out the truth," Valentine says; and his mild android face seems cast in stone.

Chapter Text

"Hel- uh, hi. When Barnes said we were getting a Capitol recruit, I didn't think it'd be...you." 

Craig Boone tilts his sunglasses. His distance vision is as good as it ever was, but he's not a spring chicken anymore and looking at close things is getting to be an issue these days. "Mac, wasn't it? You're the one Little Lamplight sent to the Haven negotiations?"

"I was the mayor then," Mac says, with the sheepish expression of a man who knows he peaked way too soon in life. "Got kicked out at sixteen like everybody else- they're bringing up a kid of mine now. Safer than trying to parent him single-handed, since my wife died...I just want to have enough caps stashed away that I can have a home ready when he comes out. Maybe Duncan can be something besides a- darned sniper."

"That's what I say to my daughter. Trouble is she's got her mother's stubbornness...her name's Daisy. Institute took her. I want her back."

"Whoa," Mac says softly. "Don't get me wrong. I miss Duncan every day and at least I know he's safe. But the Institute? Even the Gunners don't know how to take that on, and frankly we're not looking to."

"You said you knew me," Boone says, tapping a cigarette from the silver case Manny gave him for an anniversary present. "How much have you heard?"

Mac swallows. "Took on the Enclave and licked them. Brotherhood would love to kill you but they don't dare. You'd be a delegate at the Temple of the Union if you wanted but you've said no at least twice. And any time the Followers of the Apocalypse need someone dead, you make sure it happens."

"...I try not to do that last one," Boone says mildly. "Much. It pisses them off."

"But none of that gets you into a place nobody can even find."

"Deal is," Boone says, tapping out his smoke. "The caps I'm ready to throw at this, I want to be sure you guys can find your own asses in the dark before I pay up. So yeah, for a month I'm a regular recruit. Any missions you give me, I do, no complaints. After that, assuming it goes well, I hire you to find my daughter."

"Me, specifically? We don't usually do one on one deals, but I'm sure Barnes will okay it this time."

"Not just you. Gonna hire the whole damn organization and put them on the job," Boone says calmly. "I don't fuck around."

Mac looks like he's just lost an internal struggle. "...fuck. Wow."

"So. Meantime, what are we doing?"

Mustering the will to give orders to a Capitol hero like he's a wet-eared recruit won't be easy.

Still. If there's one thing MacCready's always had a knack for, it's bossing people around. 

Chapter Text

"You'd take care of her, wouldn't you?" Valentine asks. "If something happened to me."

"At Acadia?"

"At all."

Haylen chews her lip, reloads her gun. They're out on a hunting trip, partly because she's run out of radstag jerky and partly so they have a chance to talk without Ellie. 

To say shit like this, apparently. "I'll be honest, I'd be no good at it. I don't...I love her, but I don't understand how Ellie is what she is. Can't fight, hates glowing mushrooms, reads books purely for kicks."

"She said you seemed to have a pretty solid grounding in poetry."

Haylen knows she's coloring a deeper red than her hair. "I found a book of poetry quotations once. Um. I thought memorizing a few lines might help me with girls."

Valentine chuckles. "Watch out she doesn't try to get you reading the originals some time. If we ever get our books back, that is."

"Why are you asking? Because I really don't want to hear you're going to offer your head to the Brotherhood." She's not sure the detective understands how thoroughly she's left her old life behind. How committed she is to the Children.

"Well, if we're going to be that direct about it- why not try to get my secretary off the hook that way?"

"Because then Danse died for nothing," Haylen says bluntly. "Because why would you want to give the Brotherhood one more victory than they already have. Because Ellie Perkins is a fancy city girl who I'm just terrified of losing, and you can tell me how to keep her happy. Because you deserve better."

"Hmm. I wouldn't know about that last."

"If anybody does deserve to be at the receiving end of Maxson's rage, I can promise it isn't you."

She pipes down then. There's a good meaty deer browsing in a clearing up ahead, its radioactive glow blending with the forest greenery.

"Beautiful creature, isn't it," Nick says distantly. "Shame-"

Haylen snaps off a few fast shots. More than Danse would have needed, but she makes it dead eventually.

"You were saying?" she asks, a while later. When they're done cutting off the edible venison.

Valentine manages a good approximation of a sigh, as they start walking back. "I've been keeping my gears turning by saying to myself, you can't leave your secretary in the lurch. Only she's safe now, or as safe as anyone who's a Brotherhood target can be. You know, I can't even remember how many years DC was my home? If I wanted to put myself together again, where would I even start?"

"The Children of Atom are always recruiting," Haylen offers. "I know I'm stuck on offering up my soul to comforting cults, but- they're open-minded. Sister Mai who gave me my recruitment quest, she's a Synth. They're fine with that. It's all just whether you're willing to praise Atom."

"Vision of the Stranger aside, I wouldn't fancy dedicating my life to a radiation-happy cult that lives down a hole and never quits with the hymns. No offense."

"Oh," Haylen says, as guilelessly as she can manage. "Then maybe you don't want that for Ellie either. In which case, huh, isn't it a shame you're leaving her to the mercy of a mad cultist who likes caves."

"...they teach you to hit below the belt in the Brotherhood? I thought you people had a sense of honor."

"I'm not in the Brotherhood any more, remember? Trust me, Little Lamplight orphans get a lot worse. There was this one mayor we had-"

"Oh?"

"You know what, forget it. You've got a way of making a gal feel self conscious about her crude stories. I think it's that tie."

"Any limericks you know, I probably heard fifty years back."

"Okay, Detective-You-Can't-Embarrass-Me, here's a stumper. Are we both going to keep sleeping with Ellie, or does one of us stop, or what?"

She was right; it's amazing how bashful a set of glowing diodes can look. "What say we put off that talk until we see her again, huh? Because otherwise you're just speculating ahead of the facts, and that's poor technique for a detective."

Haylen heroically resists all the many double entendres that occur to her. "...sure. Sure."

For a chat that started off with him trying to extract a deathbed promise, feels like she handled it pretty well.

Chapter Text

Proctor Quinlan has always found that people, particularly soldiers, tend to underestimate the soft power derived from simply listening once in a while.

Admittedly it's not a skill that comes in useful during fight or die situations. But these aren't the good times of Elder Lyons' heyday, when just about anybody a Brotherhood soldier met in the Capitol Wasteland was a raider or mutant or cannibal to shoot on sight. Speaker Hamlin's Unionists, the Enclave, the Followers...there's a lot of factions hanging about these days, keen for caps and recruits. The Brotherhood isn't the all-dominant force that it was. Or anything close.

Viewed from that perspective, Elder Maxson's drive to bring his faithful to a new and much less civilised spot had been a stroke of genius. Finding more frightened settlers who'd be glad to offer produce for the reassurance of power armor protectors...well, that'd been essentially how Lyons had gotten started too.

But the problems, the kinds of problems that would have been easy to see coming if people had bothered to do less shooting and more listening, are starting to drown them alive.

Recon Squad Gladius, for instance: that had been mishandled from the start. Danse should certainly have been executed, yes, but he had been sent north for the very specific purpose of gathering recon information for this all-or-nothing campaign. Years of effort and all they'd gotten out of it was some maps from Knight Rhys, a man so soundly xenophobic that he had apparently not learned one damn thing about the local factions during his entire stay in the Commonwealth. Which rather defeated the point of sending a reconnaissance mission.

All right, so he himself had been rather sardonic to Scribe Haylen about her failure to notice her commanding officer was a Synth, but she would have been more use than Rhys. He can't fathom why Maxson exiled her to the Cambridge outpost instead of pumping her for information. So what if she had gone native, sympathized with the Institute, anything? Propaganda offers valuable data about the preoccupations of its originators. 

At the very least, they could have asked her some basic facts, and saved themselves a few headaches like setting up a barracks on a spot that the entire Commonwealth knew was infertile. Or the plentiful stocks of power armor in the region all having BADTFL power limiters that can only be supplied by expensive fusion cores. Or the tetchy independence of Diamond City's guards.

That really could have been a disaster. They're just fortunate that Mayor McDonough is a pushover, or they might have lost the Commonwealth's good will right there. But since he got away with it, nobody can tell Elder Maxson he's an idiot. Probably one of the reasons the Maxsons have retained a sense of proportion though the Brotherhood's history is their propensity to marry young so an unimpeachable spouse could carry out the job, but sadly Arthur seems to have no designs in that regard.

And he's not interested in hints to that effect. The listening thing again. 

It's a problem.

*****

"O keeper of the Codex and other slightly less worthy documents," Proctor Ingram says.

The last headache he needs to have walking through his door today. Quinlan picks up his cat. He's a calmer person holding a cat, and he has no qualms about applying this knowledge when it comes to dealing with aggravating souls like Ingram. She's noisy and she stomps.

 "I have a question, Proctor Quinlan. Also some new technical documents."

In theory, they both get access to those in the end and it's a wash. In practice, a sort of proxy war has started with knights giving her documents for free and lording it over the scribes who he pays for theirs, an arrangement Maxson himself had agreed to because scribes have fewer opportunities to loot bodies. For Ingram to share voluntarily suggests she wants to extend an olive branch.

He'll unbend that much then. "Answering questions is what I do."

"All right. We knew that Danse was a Synth because you cross matched his genetic information to an Institute database."

"You were told as much." By an Elder Maxson who'd been just short of foaming at the mouth. She really had no business knowing, but a senior staff meeting is a senior staff meeting.

"...where did we get the database?"

"I'll answer that when Elder Maxson personally accompanies you here to order that I provide you with that information. Otherwise you don't need to know."

"It wasn't the Enclave bastard, was it?"

"Of course not," Quinlan says, startled. "We'd never have thrown over a Paladin on Gannon's say so, that would be absurd. If you're concerned about the veracity of the information, I can attest to its reliability."

"I suppose that'll have to satisfy me," Ingram says. "All right. You can't talk, you can't talk."

She stands not upon the order of her going, but disappears with satisfying haste. Good. It can be very difficult dissuading the woman.

And she'd be distinctly unsatisfied by the answer, that a scribe brought in the find from a donut shop.

It smacks of low comedy.

Chapter Text

Haylen might have prepared him for the sight, but seeing a stranger with a face like his own is more uncanny than Nick Valentine cares to think. 

They've settled on a two-pronged approach. Haylen picked up an odd set of soda-branded power armor somewhere, which she's putting to good use. Making a racket and generally throwing her weight around, while he trails unobtrusively in her wake. A quiet trench coat that blends into shadow is exactly the right get-up for this kind of work.

"So you return," the monster that looks like him says; and a human wouldn't hear it, maybe, but Nick recognises the voice. It's his. "I hope you've reconsidered my request." 

"I infiltrated the cult, yes. Still working on getting into the control room you mentioned, it's pretty heavily guarded."

There's some missions the monster asked her to do, Haylen had explained, needing a relative stranger to the island to accomplish. She'd gone along with it in the hopes of obtaining leverage, a hold, anything to bring Danse back.

While they talk, Nick slips down to the basement, planning to start his sweep there and move upwards as necessary. It's a large facility. No surprise that Haylen failed to notice anyone of Kasumi's description.

"Maybe you should stay with Ellie," Haylen had said at the Nucleus. "I can look for the woman you're seeking, and with less danger to myself."

He hadn't been able to invent any possible reason for coming himself; but his smart, intuitive secretary had, and bless Ellie for it.

"Don't be ridiculous. Nick Valentine's on a case."

"Oh," Haylen had said, as if this explained everything. "Then I'll bring the PA, in case we need to shoot our way out. With Zealot Ware's brew, you should be okay here for a few days."

"Look out for each other," Ellie had said, taking both of them by the hand. His lingering doubts about Haylen's Brotherhood past had eased, seeing the former scribe's determined little nod. So he has a partner again. Someone to watch his back.

And more importantly, someone else to watch out for Ellie, which means rather more than he's comfortable admitting. A load off his mind and no mistake. 

Just as well, when there's so much else to worry him right now-

there she is. Kasumi's likeness to her parents is unmistakable.

"Hello," she says cheerfully, putting aside a hammer she's been happily pounding. "New Synth? You look a lot like DiMA."

"Not exactly. Your parents asked me to find you, I'm a detective. Name of Nick Valentine. They're worried what happened to you."

Her smile fades. "I've been wondering about that. It isn't an easy choice for me."

"What choice?"

"Right now-" Kasumi gestures at herself. "I feel like I'm their daughter. I have the memories, mostly. Except for some strange dreams...and I could stay like this, go home again and be what they think I am. Or. I could take DiMA's offer, reject the Railroad brainwashing...and find out who I used to be. Who I really am." 

Her voice cracks in the stillness. "But then the Nakanos do lose their daughter for good. It's hard to know what's right."

This is more complicated than Haylen's tearful account would suggest; he's solved one mystery only to stumble into more. "Whatever you decide, will you let the Nakanos know what happened? They deserve that much."

She lets out a sigh. "I guess you're right. I thought that if I do change back, it would be kinder not to tell them, but they deserve closure. Either I'll go home or...radio them to explain I'm dead, I suppose. That their daughter is, and has been for a long time."

Well. Ellie can write this case up now, he supposes. All done.

For a moment, emptiness grabs him. No agency to return to, as neat a bookend on his life as anybody could ask for. He gets a flashback to the Institute's suffocating world, all loose ends tidied up and no reason for him to be. 

"Oh, Jenny! Nice to see you. This is Nick-"

"Valentine."

The voice, the figure, they're Danse's. The way the newcomer holds herself isn't; maybe it's her body language that unnerves him, stirring something in the back of his mind.

Nick frowns, finds himself checking his pockets for a soothing cigarette. Lights it with shaking hands.

"Jenny used to be a Courser," Kasumi supplies. "She just got her memories back the other day."

"There was a reason I dumped them," Jenny says; and starts a gesture that's familiar. So goddamn familiar even though he's lived a whole afterlife without it happening, putting a cigarette between her teeth and drawing close enough to light it from his own-

"Lieutenant Jenny Lands of the BADTFL," Nick says. "Got that damn brain scan a week before she died."

"The files were a lot more corrupted than yours," Jenny says, blowing out smoke in a way he's prepared to bet Danse never knew how to do. "They had to wait for the Gen 3 models to have something with enough natural processing power to fill in the gaps."

"...think that if synths could faint, I would."

"Run a deep-scan diagnostic if you need to. I'll keep you safe while you're out."

In his current state of shock, Nick doesn't feel he has much choice.

Chapter Text

"This is Travis Lonely Miles, and I'm here to tell you that...uh, nothing's happening tonight? It's been really quiet for a change?"

Ellie grins to herself, taps the radio fondly. There's almost, almost something to Haylen's weird belief in Atom's miracles. Out of the entire island, the Children of Atom just happened to pick a location beneath a radio tower capable of receiving DC broadcasts- well, that could just be because the submarine base needed the transmitter.

But that logical explanation doesn't account for the luck of there being a little trailer here with a door that locks, and a General Atomics Everburn cookstove, and a zero-rated sleeping bag that hadn't smelled too bad even before she'd taken it out to beat and air in a pine grove. 

She switches the lights off, snuggles down into the makeshift bed. Tomorrow she'll look at the local trees already tapped for sap, see about clearing some land. A few mutfruit trees should be able to manage even in Fog...too bad there's no clean water at the Nucleus. But the dirty stuff will do, given time and patience to distill it.

They probably will have quite a lot of time on their hands, at that. If Haylen's staying at the Nucleus, she and Nick can share this little holdout. Not forever. Just long enough to get to grips with their change of circumstances, rest and recover. Try to put themselves back together.

Maybe she should take up chems again. Richter doesn't seem likely to tattle about the origin of a few welcome kits for the zealots.

"...that was Atom Bomb Blues. And, uh, here's to hoping all you good listeners out there are having a safe night. If you are, Elder Arthur Maxson would like to take some of the credit. Uh, we'll be talking more about him tomorrow. For now, here's Kind Hearts and Gentle People..."

*****

Next morning starts well. Fresh carrot blossoms fried with breaded softshell makes for an indulgent breakfast. Ellie updates the Nakano case notes, thanks to a junked typewriter Sister Mai sold her. Aside from a jammed exclamation mark, it's quite satisfactory. Then a break to drink Vim outside and procrastinate a little, see if there's any sign of her duo showing up to help dig ditches. 

When she does catch sight of them, far below, she'd swear her heart outright stops.

Even from this high up the mountain, she can't mistake that greenish PA or faded coat. Haylen has Nick slung over her shoulders, while she slowly trudges towards the Nucleus.

It takes twenty minutes to take the safe path down, a rough S-shape bypassing radiation deposits. She takes the skin off her palms and makes it in five, to find not two people but three.

"This woman," Haylen says before she can even ask, "says Nick will be fine. I told her that if he's not, I'll test out a super sledge on her spine."

"She looks like Danse," Ellie says weakly.

"It's complicated," the woman says. "You really do hate my guts, don't you."

Haylen stomps through the sanctuary gate, gently lays Nick against a barricade before reloading a laser rifle in no uncertain terms. "Just because you- possessed, or took over, or did something to my best friend and then turned up in highly suspicious circumstances with the unconscious body of my lover's boss? What would possibly lead you to that conclusion?" 

"I did help you get him out. Even though it wasn't necessary."

"We'll see what Nick says when he wakes up, Jenny," Haylen growls; her mellow voice can take on quite an edge with the power armor mic to amplify it. "If he does."

"Take a Stim and call me in the morning," Jenny says impatiently. "He'll be running a second-order diagnostic to recalibrate his systems, it'll be done in less than a day. I know how Synths work."

"How reassuring," Haylen says, all but dripping sarcasm. "Ellie, I wouldn't have brought her here, but when I said I was taking Nick she insisted on coming."

"He's my erstwhile fiance. I'm entitled."

That, at least, explains what would sideswipe Nick so badly. Ellie stares at her.

"Jenny Lands. The woman Nick was going to marry."

"Well, yes and no. We were waiting until I finished transitioning to Jeremy Lands, then a few things happened like my death and nuclear war and a couple of centuries passing. I've got her brain scan up here-" she taps her skull. "Like Nick, but transferred back to gray matter instead of raw holotape."

"Uh- Mr Valentine never mentioned you," Ellie mumbles.

"He didn't know. I was only put together about fifteen years ago, long after he left the Institute. Obviously, he wasn't looking for me by then- why would he?"

"You talk a good line," Haylen says. "Maybe too much. Doesn't mean we trust you."

Sweet rads, she's glad Haylen's here to cast a cynical eye on proceedings. There's too much to process at once. Jenny could draw out a water gun and drown her with it and she'd still be standing here slack-jawed.

"Can you wake him up?" Ellie asks.

"Not a Gen 2, no. He's stuck in an idle, no point trying to unjam that."

Contradicting her just to show off is stupid, especially if it would hurt Nick, but- fuck, she's known him a long time without the benefit of a snooty owner's manual on legs. Ellie kneels down, says his full name the way she does when she needs him.

"Ellie? You here?"

"Sure am, boss."

Haylen snickers through her helmet, Jenny looks miffed. Nick looks tired, but alert enough.

Ellie feels a lot better.

Chapter Text

"I guess we're really doing this then," Travis says, looking at the stack of freshly printed newspapers filling her living room. "Wow."

"I could burn them," Piper says, a little recklessly. 

She probably wouldn't, even for Nat, but it makes her feel better to see Travis's obvious dislike of the notion. He's been carrying himself differently since that talk at Boston Common: more confident, less panic-stricken. The realisation of how important his job is to the Commonwealth seems to have stiffened his resolve. 

"Just to go over it again. If I'm arrested but you aren't, you'll look after Nat and keep broadcasting. If you're arrested but I'm not, I keep printing papers and send your holotapes to that new Radio Freedom whatever. And if we're both arrested, your dead man's switch at the radio station will keep broadcasting an expose until someone kills the power."

"Better than that," Travis says. "The courier came back from Mrs Goodman, she's agreed to keep broadcasting the story if we aren't in touch by the weekend. She says they aren't doing much since her husband disappeared, anyway."

"Great. Great." Piper picks up a crisp new paper, smearing the still-damp ink over her hands. Friend or Foe?

The Brotherhood piece that Elder Maxson had wanted, and the Mayor had pushed her to do. With a few twists. She doubts they actually wanted her to report on the shakedown missions for supplies, the heavy drinking culture, the weary arms merchant locked in his own store.

It's balanced against what the Brotherhood can offer. If anyone can take down the Institute, they have the best chance. Their sense of honor is unimpeachable, they have the loyal camaraderie Haylen described. 

"But all these qualities, for good or ill, pale to insignificance compared to one single question: what does the Brotherhood want?"

Her prose sounds spicier in Travis' announcer voice, she thinks.

"Are they here until the fall of the Institute and no longer, or do they plan to stay for good? This reporter has seen the preliminary agreement for the use of the Diamond City landing pad- ten years, with an option for renewal. That's a mighty long campaign."

"Hey, I didn't write that line."

"I'm paraphrasing," Travis says. "Figuring out how to deliver this in a smooth, lewd radio-friendly way- it's not me who saw that agreement anyway. How'd you get it?"

"Friend at the Colonial Taphouse who served a lot of alcohol while they hashed out the details. I say friend. More like...well-compensated source?"

"I won't ask," Travis promises, flipping through the rest of the paper. "And ending on a bang with the Danny Sullivan murder. I guess that is the right word for it."

"Diamond City deserves to know."

"I'll keep that in mind when I'm waiting for the guard to come knock on my door," Travis says wryly. "But hey. Time to see if the Commonwealth really does have a free press, I suppose."

"I think we do."

"I hope we do. See you tomorrow, Piper. I hope."

She mildly regrets the ultimatum about being her coworker or her boyfriend, as the door closes behind him. It'd be nice to have someone...nice, to share her bed tonight.

Oh, well. If they get out of this intact, they can always renegotiate.

Chapter Text

"I thought you were straight," Captain Widmark says, shutting off his terminal for the night. "Chicago didn't mention any of this."

Nick Valentine shrugs, pops an umbrella open; it's miserably wet outside, he really needs to get on with finding a solid winter coat. A souvenir Nuka-Cola windbreaker doesn't hold up to Boston winter, even if it does make him unobtrusive in a crowd. "Does it matter?"

"You know, once I'd have said live and let live." The Captain takes his badge off, loses a little of the stress that haunts Jonathan night and day. "These days, who knows?"

Nick can sympathize. It was either take this dangerous, undesirable assignment or get kicked upstairs to a decision-maker's job like Widmark; and that's not a thing he's sure he can square with his ethics any more. Not with the concentration camps and lockdowns and robobrains coming in. Not with the line between police and military thinned to the point of disappearing.

Resigning is no way out. People with a security background, experienced with guns, are getting snapped up by the think tanks these days. And the stories that come out of those, Vault-Tec and the like...aren't pleasant. 

"Short version is, thought I was queer as a three dollar bill. Then I met Jenny, figured I wasn't, then she said she's a he. Soon as the Winter case finishes we get the Auto-Doc appointments set up- she's got the body schematics all picked out, stocky and a nice beard- then we get married. Simple."

"You make it sound that way." Jonathan dips a stale sweetroll into the dregs of his last cup of coffee. Clearly he's in no hurry to get home. "The two of you have done sterling service. I hope you'll be very happy."

Which they hadn't. Because Jenny Lands had gotten herself killed that night, a pointless muddle of gunfire and blood near Winter's hideout.

The thing he's always wanted to know, the thing he wishes she could tell him, is whether she'd done it on purpose.

Chapter Text

Lancer-Captain Kells is aware he's not a patient man.

That he's fallen into the role of dogged senior advisor to the Elder's youthful energy is more an artifact of happenstance than his own inclinations. The militaristic side of the Brotherhood has the two of them set against Quinlan and Ingram at the staff meetings; and with Ingram being the battle-happy enthusiast she is, somebody has to side with Quinlan occasionally.

Only this time Quinlan is the furious one, which puts it on him to be the voice of calm.

"Look," Kells says wearily. "The expose, which I suppose is what it was, could have gone worse. Not a word about Liberty Prime, the Enclave prisoner, or anything that we specifically told Wright to leave out."

"She's still managed to cast us in a very poor light with the facts she had," Quinlan sniffs. "Making us out to be a roving pack of would-be conquerors."

"That's what we are," Kells says after a moment. 

"Nonsense. Nobody was using Boston Airport when we arrived."

"I suppose the ghouls were," Ingram says. "Look, we can all agree that this didn't go well, but the point is, what happens next? Do we swap around the order of things and start on the technology purchases and recruitment programs and all that propaganda before going after the Institute? We've seen Piper's old papers, she hates the Institute as much as any of us."

"They're almost too civilised for their own good," Quinlan says. "It won't be easy convincing a population so smugly convinced of their own superiority to accept Brotherhood tenets."

"Because we've been prioritizing our relations with Bunker Hill and Diamond City for the trading caravans, that would have been like Lyons attempting to recruit at Megaton and wondering why it didn't take," Kells argues. "The Brotherhood's strength has always been in inspiring isolated settlements, the people who have been left behind. They're out there, and we'll find them."

He wishes Maxson would say something, even to contradict him, but can't feel much hope. The Elder has the mildly glazed expression he adopts when trapped in a conversation he finds utterly boring. A wonderful fighter, yes, every inch a Maxson in that regard: but he's better suited for tactics than strategy. And without a firm hand at the tiller, the Brotherhood's direction keeps bogging down in interminable quarrel like this.

Ingram, who has an alarming lack of respect for rank sometimes, pokes the Elder with her swagger stick. "Earth to Arthur, wake up. You have the whole Prydwen at your command and the Commonwealth below, I say be direct about our intentions."

"We might find it difficult to find allies against the Institute if the region receives the impression that we're here simply to substitute for their present overlords," Quinlan says, possibly just to be contrary.

Maxson finally rouses himself. "Liberty Prime, Proctor Ingram. What's the present TOC?"

"Three months, tops. It could be faster if I take short cuts."

"Don't do that, I want you to take all possible precautions. We'll ignore this- fearmongering, proceed with the current plan, and revisit after the Institute's destruction. I think we'll find the Commonwealth much better disposed to us then."

He stalks out, which means the meeting is over. They all look at each other.

"I mean, ad victoriam," Ingram says. "But I assume I'll be building something else when Liberty Prime is complete. Should it be food processors or refitted power armor?"

"That's for Maxson to judge," Quinlan says, pressing his head against his hands. 

Kells says nothing.

Speaking with the Enclave prisoner about this verges on the treasonous, but he has to talk to someone.

Chapter Text

The Children of Atom hideout is not a particularly fun place to be. Full of radiation and prewar alarms that'll run until another doomsday, sometimes both at once. Nick has no idea how Haylen and Ellie managed to get to sleep without the benefit of a shutdown command. Maybe it's earplugs.

He looks at Jenny and she looks at him and he doesn't know how to act, how to be, any more than the first time he realised she was watching him. 

"Hello to you too."

"Question for you." He lights a cigarette. Ever since waking up he's been compulsively chain-smoking, and even for a Synth with mechanical lungs this can't be healthy. But his stress-relieving tactics that don't involve Diamond City are more limited than he's had occasion to realise until very recently.

(Stargazing by the Wall. Taking Ellie for a dance at the Red Seats, her pink skirt swishing to the music. Noodles. It feels like forever since he last heard "Nani ni Shimasuka?")

"Answers," Jenny says, wiping herbal poultice off her hands. Something the local doctor suggested for her bad leg, he had his doubts but it seems to be helping. "Maybe."

"You were going to be Jeremy, as I recall. We could call you that if you like. Do you?"

She releases a slow and measured breath, fluffs up her sleeping bag. "Not now. Too confusing. What she wanted to have, I already am- and in a way, have been for over a decade already."

"So Danse's memories didn't go away."

She nods. "I still have them. I could even try to be him, if I wanted- but I don't want. Years of lying and lying and not even knowing...he was a mess. I want to be myself in the long run, but I don't want to be him."

"Do you want-"

He stops short there, because the "me" sticks in his throat. Maybe he owes that much to Ellie. Maybe he's not ready for this.

"Want what? To be a woman again?" Her brow furrows. "Definitely not. I'm happy like this."

"That's good."

It feels like, after centuries of being separated and a nigh-miraculous reconciliation, they shouldn't be having this much trouble deciding where they stand. Though if she has Danse's memories...she'll remember seeing him at the agency, doting on his secretary and calling her sweetheart. He can't be sure what the man could have noticed. It hadn't worried him at the time.

"What is it you want?" 

Jenny smiles at him, a genuine one with teeth. "Thought you'd never ask. Though the answer is that I don't know, at least not immediately- there's a hell of a lot to take care of in the Commonwealth. I've barely scratched the surface of what the Institute is doing there, investigating that could keep you happy for years."

"You could make a start on explaining."

"I will," Jenny promises. "But there's so much of it...and I need sleep. If I know anything about DiMA, his memory files won't be easy to crack."

"What do you know about him?"

"That he's like you, but tasked with protecting a rag-tag group of wanderers under constant fear of death from anybody who might meet them."

"So like us, then."

"Times a century. Good night."

Well, that's not ominous at all. He glances at Haylen, snuggled around his tired secretary, keeping her safe and cosy. Heart in the right place. It's lucky the two of them are together. 

Reminds him of an old joke.

Do you feel lucky...

Chapter Text

Whatever Lancer-Captain Kells wanted to tell him, Arcade guesses he's never going to find out. Not so much because of the syringer dart sticking out of the soldier's back, as the instigators sticking around trying to unlock his cell.

"Hi," one of them says, adjusting his sunglasses in a way that gives him a pang of familiarity. "The name's Deacon. We're gonna rescue you and then make this airship go boom."

"The entire point of my spending years of my life here," Arcade says, exasperated, "was to stop the Enclave from blowing up the Brotherhood's last stand just to make some useless ideological point! I don't need a rescue-"

"Hold that thought," Deacon says. "What's an Enclave?"

"...you're here to rescue me, but you don't know who I am and you haven't heard of the Enclave?"

"We're from the Railroad, rescuing strays is what we do. Also, we're sort of in a hurry- Tinker Tom, how's the electronic hacker going?"

"Almost done," the other man says. "She needs a little more time to slither."

"Look, no, please don't do this," Arcade says. "There's families on the Prydwen, children too. It's the flagship of the Eastern Brotherhood, you'd be killing more than a few soldiers here."

Deacon looks slightly troubled. "But I'm from the Railroad, and the Brotherhood's trying to kill us for protecting Synths. They raided an old base of ours and now everyone there is dead, that doesn't sound like good grounds for negotiations."

"Got it!" Tom exclaims. The cell door swings open. "Let's get ticking so the bombs can go tocking."

"I can also shoot you unconscious and we can carry you out that way," Deacon says. "Thoughts?"

Arcade glances at his workbench, lets Deacon see it's only a stimpak that he picks up and jams into his arm. "Try it."

The next few minutes can only be described as comedic.

He has, after all, grown a lot of plants and had a lot of time on his hands, to the point that Deacon literally can't shoot him fast enough to keep up with the healing provided by his stock of pharmaceuticals. Not even after abandoning the syringer rifle for a pistol. Or a sniper rifle.

"Wowie, I know who this is," Tom crows. "He's the Dashing Doctor, the Silver Shroud's antihero counterpart in Reverse City!"

"Hang on," Arcade says, completely taken aback. "You saw that show too?"

"I wish! Only read the comic tie-ins-"

Further conversation is curtailed by Tom falling to the floor and having the wind knocked out of him, which happens because an unconscious Deacon smashes into him. Kells dusts off his hands and starts duct-taping them to each other.

"I have to say, Gannon, I never really trusted you before. I do now. It would have been very easy for you to escape, and you chose not to."

"Uhm," Arcade says. "I have sixteen kinds of drugs in me and I'm higher than this airship, but- there might be a bomb? Or bombs? Also I need Cade, like, right now."

"I'll take care of it," Kells promises, turning a fascinating shade of purple before popping like a soap bubble.

He decides to just gracefully let his legs go and enjoy the hallucinations. 

Breaks up the monotony, that's for sure.

Chapter Text

Ellie

"I'm here for you, you know," Haylen says. "If he..." She hesitates, stops.

"If he what?"

"I don't know. Wants to run off into the sunset with his fiance and get robot-married."

"Thanks so much," Ellie says; and she is grateful but the words come out a little sarcastic.

They're out bounty hunting, because the Children of Atom had been looking for a suitably bloodthirsty volunteer and Haylen had taken the job. Justifying it on the grounds that no one else from the cult would let a heretic live. Nick and Jenny taking point, because her detective never can resist a missing persons case; she and Haylen following up behind. Three experienced fighters is enough firepower that she can tag along.

"I suppose it's a question of just how much he really is the man from the holotapes," Ellie says carefully, as though they're discussing a client. "And the deck is stacked against my Nick right now. Everything he built for himself is gone."

"He has you."

"I don't think there's much I could do for him that she couldn't. She definitely knows more about Synths. And she's a better fighter-"

"Listen," Haylen says, actually stopping to grab her by the shoulders. "You fight for him. You stick around to remind Valentine about what it is you do together, din it in his ear, drag out embarrassing stories and bang on about those case files. Tell him he matters. More than a dead man does."

Ellie has trouble reaching up to touch Haylen's face, about the only part of her that isn't covered in power armor; she manages to brush her hand against red hair and has to settle for that. "This isn't like Danse. Nick's always been aware of his background."

"Don't care. Fight for him anyway. He's a good man- anybody who's so important to you, so fundamental to your life, deserves his chance. And that means your detective, not some prewar cop you've never actually met."

"You two lover birds all right over there?" Nick calls. "Only we shouldn't get too separated." 

Ellie blushes, starts walking again. "It'll be fine. I mean, she can't actually reset him to the original Nick."

"You sure about that?" Haylen demands.

She's starting to wish she hadn't come.

*****

Haylen

"Get out of here or you're dead," I say to the heretic, laser rifle in hand.

Not the ideal approach for a fragile cult exile with very little grip on reality, I'll admit. It takes all of Ellie's considerable knack for soothing to explain that we're worried about her, that she might be best served by returning to the Commonwealth to preach her new creed to other Children of Atom. Probably they'll just kill her anyway, but at least Ellie won't have to watch.

I'd be going crazy without her. I'm going crazy anyway- Jenny's entire existence is proof that Elder Maxson is right and I was wrong, horribly wrong. I killed my Brotherhood sponsor and a Vertibird pilot to protect a man who never was.

Danse haunts me. He's there every moment, when Jenny laughs his laugh and talks like he did. He's there in the differences: her taste for revolvers instead of lasers, the tobacco scent clinging to her skin (his skin, a man who never used chems and was proud to let you know it). 

He told me once about Cutler, about shooting a man who had been his friend and wasn't any longer. I didn't know how he brought himself to do that. I understand now.

If Nick Valentine wasn't around to watch her, I wouldn't sleep; and I don't know how much longer we can trust him.

The only truth I can hold to is that the Institute's obscene. It has to die. Nothing so wrong should be allowed to continue.

The worst of it, the most infuriating part of it all, is that Jenny wholeheartedly agrees.

Chapter Text

Ingram has never considered herself a woman to quail at anything; and it's a damned good thing too, because nobody else wants to admit to Gannon that they were all hideously wrong. 

Even the proud Brotherhood had looked at his challenge to fight Maxson in single combat as the egotism of an overconfident colonel. Understood his subsequent refusal to accept ransom or exchange as shame, rather than a rather straightforward plan to protect his avowed enemies by placing himself in the Enclave line of fire. These Followers don't lack nerve.

For that matter, she's not sure the Brotherhood would have held off attacking an Enclave base for two years just because Maxson was being held there. Any replacement Elder would have consolidated power enough to sell Arthur's consequent death as a glorious sacrifice. Gannon must have remarkable faith in the Enclave's loyalty.

"We can't hold you in good conscience any longer," Ingram tells him. "Not after saving every soul on this ship. I'd be honored to work side by side with you, Proctor." 

"Not a bad offer, but I'll have to pass. This Railroad that Deacon and Tom are from, we never quite ran it to earth at the Capitol. I'd like to go with them when they're released."

"Why are we going to release two men who tried to destroy the Prydwen?"

"Because I'm asking nicely and Elder Maxson is honorable enough to pay his debts," Gannon says with a smile. 

"...the next time I see you I will shoot you," Ingram says. "Just so you know. You're right, it'll appeal to his chivalrous side. And we could use a spy."

"I'm not a spy," Gannon says, looking offended now. "I simply keep my eyes and ears open. And perhaps mention it in the right quarters if I hear of a genocide in the works."

"Close enough. There's a man waiting to see you at the airport, by the by. A gunner who calls himself Craig Boone."

She doesn't think the man's been so happy since his rubber tree plant bloomed.

Chapter Text

Ellie

"I've forgotten why we're actually doing this," Ellie says, puffing a little as she follows the others up yet another mountainous ridge. "We chased a Children of Atom heretic out of Far Harbor, to get on the good side of an Inquisitor so he'd have a word with the guards protecting this submarine mainframe base, which we need to hack to get some memory holotapes for the leader of Acadia, because- why?"

"Depends who you're asking," Haylen says. "I want the tapes as leverage to get Danse back."

"Putting aside your murder fantasies," Jenny says. "There isn't one damn faction in the whole Commonwealth that can do anything about Synths. The Institute enslaves them, the Brotherhood wants to kill them, we can't afford the Gunners, and the Railroad...well, that's Institute field-testing, basically. Wipe a Synth and send it out into the field for personality stress-tests. It's the modern day Vault-Tec."

"You said you'd been wiped by the Railroad," Haylen says slowly. "So you knew already what they did? Did you ask to become Danse?"

Her voice is high, and trembling.

"There's a certain wrinkle about the way Courser assignments are given out," Jenny says. "Let's put it this way- I knew that if I let myself be wiped while tracking a particular Synth, it would still show as an active pursuit on Institute hardware and nobody else would be given the job. The Railroad technicians were never supposed to wipe Coursers, but-" she shrugs. "I slipped through the net."

"Which Synth?" Ellie asks.

"Oh, have a guess. Take the Institute's taste for bitter irony into account."

"...that explains a few things," Nick says eventually. "I'm not sure a simple thanks is adequate for what you did. Not sure I'd do that for anyone."

Haylen frowns. "That's the first thing you've said that would make me feel bad about killing you. I don't like it."

"You're welcome, and also, do we absolutely have to have her along?" Jenny says to Nick. "Because Danse might have liked her, but I...don't. At all."

"You want me to flirt with Nick instead?"
Ellie hears herself saying.

All three of them stare at her. She flushes, closes her mouth.

Nick puts his soft hand to his temple. "I don't want to be flirted with by anybody right now. In the last month I've lost my detective agency, gone on the run, discovered I have a twin with Synth mindwipe powers, and that's without this entire five-way soap opera. Can we just not...do this, at least until the dust settles a bit?"

"Done," Jenny says, looking more amused than anything. 

"Haylen, maybe you'd better apologize," Ellie says. "We need to trust each other if we're going to stick together."

Her lover frowns. "That's a serious request. Despite the way we met, I take my promises to heart."

"Well. I'm asking."

"On my honor then," Haylen says. Stops short abruptly, propping her laser rifle ceremoniously against her shoulder. "Jenny, I swear that I will neither harass nor hinder, but serve you to the best of my ability and without reservation for so long as I am able."

"...that seemed oddly showy," Jenny comments. "I don't remember saying anything like that when I joined the BOS."

"There are some pretty ornate oaths on the west coast, you have to admit the Brotherhood has a knack for a good phrase. And don't fuck with Ellie or all bets are off."

"I admit no such thing. But to return to the original point, we need DiMA, because nobody else has the slightest chance of taking on the Institute. And none of us like the Institute, right?"

"Pretty sure that's the one thing we can all agree on," Ellie says.

"If you say it, it's probably right," Haylen concurs. "I think you're the only one of us with a functional moral compass."

"You really need to stop thinking as though I killed Danse, just because I wanted to be me again."

"No, this time I actually do mean you. One of the Brotherhood beliefs- the core one, even- is that failure to mutiny in the face of total injustice is the deepest moral failing a soldier can commit. Same for prewar cops, I should think."

The look Jenny and Nick swap, Ellie thinks, is appallingly like an old married couple.

*****

Nick

"I mean, I can't be sure," Jenny says. "I obviously don't have any memories from when she died."

It's mid-afternoon, but there's no sense of time in the dim tunnels above the Nucleus; they cleaned out the hostile robots and agreed to tackle DiMA's memories tomorrow. Haylen's asleep, even her toughened wasteland strength having finally ebbed. Ellie isn't, quite; her eyes are closed but he knows the way she snores when she's really out, and suspects that his secretary is making mental notes.

Nick's grateful for that. It's like a lifeline back to the present. His present.

"I just..." he begins, and stops again. Unsure if it's him who wants to know, or the dead man in his tapes. "I thought you might have a clue. A hint, anything. Was it suicide by criminal? Walking into a hail of bullets because she couldn't see any other way out? Was it his fault- my fault?"

"You tell me," Jenny says, voice low. "Or don't- I get blackout if I dig that deep. Any reasons she might have wanted to die, I don't want them, I don't want to hear it."

"Maybe I shouldn't have asked."

"You couldn't help yourself."

As true as that is, he doesn't like hearing her say it. 

"...I've wondered, is all. Maybe even hoped in a twisted kind of way. That there was some kind of meaning to her death, not just a helpless accident."

"If you want guesses, there was something she wasn't cleared to tell you. I can only infer."

"Tell me."

"The day before Jenny went for the scan, she received the notice for her next assignment after the Winter case. Advisor for the General Atomics robobrain project. So- there you go. I don't think you need to blame yourself."

Jenny helps herself to another cigarette from the carton between them. She keeps doing that, they're going to have to start tracking and splitting finds evenly.

He stubs his own out with fierce disgust. This is pointless. He's never going to solve this mystery, because answers went to the grave with Jenny Lands; and not he nor the original Nick or even this replica can be sure what was going on in her mind, that last day. It's over, it's done.

But Ellie will have a new datum to put in the case file she wrote up. The one she's carried for him from Diamond City, the one he'd thought would stay perpetually open long after he was gone.

Maybe it is time to close it.

Chapter Text

"You self-sacrificing dumbass," Boone says fondly. "I missed you like hell."

The Brotherhood has one shack at Boston Airport as a reluctant concession to any possible visitors. If the tightly-made bed is anything to go by, nobody's ever actually slept here. 

Arcade sprawls across it now, a little older and grayer but not too roughed up. "Same. Maybe it's time I gave up adventuring...but then, that is almost what I've been doing this whole time. Raising my garden and working on medical treatments."

"So Maxson treated you with kid gloves."

"More or less- he's not a bad man," Arcade says earnestly. "Just unfortunate enough to be in charge of a war machine he doesn't know how to handle. I sympathize."

"But you're really not going back, I hope."

"No. No, I'll be glad to come back with you- give me all the news. How are Carla and Manny and Daisy? How's the Temple of the Union? I'm completely out of the loop-"

"One at a time, Arcade. Uh. Capitol's fine, pretty quiet when I left. Boardwalk is still raking in the casino money, that's coming in handy. The Talon Company is in negotiations to go legit, although between you and me I'd almost rather they raise a fuss and call it off. A lot of bad blood there."

"Hmm. Last I remember they were contracting out to defend Haven."

"That's still happening, but they have more bodies than there's demand for. It's an accomplishment. A wasteland where there just isn't enough work for contract killers."

"Good. And what brought you north, the vague hope that I might accidentally foil a plot on the Prydwen and leave the Brotherhood as a hero?"

"I mean, I had an eye on that airship since coming north, but as for why- Daisy's gone. The Institute took her."

"...oh. Oh no."

"Yeah. We're not too sure what happened. Carla took her out on a mother-daughter hunt, just the two of them and some Deathclaws, but when they came back Manny said Daisy wasn't Daisy anymore. Someone replaced her along the line."

"Uh. And what proof did he have?"

"...you're not gonna like it. Circumstantial, mostly. She eats snack cakes like crazy now, that's new. And Fore- you remember that kid Fore, he took one look at her and started babbling about her divided heart. Hell, Arcade, Manny raised Daisy more than anybody else did. If he says she's a Synth, she's a Synth."

"...yeah, okay, I'll buy that. What happened to faux-Daisy?"

"Manny's looking after her, he says the kid still deserves a home whoever she is. I came north with a year of Boardwalk's profits in my pocket to hire the local mercs. Give it another few weeks and I'll kill my way to the top of their leadership."

Arcade whistles. "Same old Boone. And Carla?"

"Chasing down what's left of the local government for help. I don't know what raiding old Super-Duper Marts has to do with it, but she's keeping busy."

"So much for my long-awaited vacation," Arcade says, cracking his knuckles. "I was in two minds about following up with some new Railroad friends of mine, but if Daisy's missing-"

"I'll tag along."

"You will not. They're a panicky bunch of freedom fighters who'd blow your head off as soon as you said one cross word. The situation requires finesse."

"Damnit. I thought I was getting you back this time."

"You will," Arcade promises, fondling him. "When we have Daisy back and our family's complete again. Anyway. They can rot in the Prydwen brig one more night while we catch up."

"Huh? I thought we just did that-"

"Like so," Arcade says, shutting him up with a kiss.

Chapter Text

Well, this is bad. The world should not be composed of blocks in primary colors.

Nick's always careful when he hacks terminals, given that his life depends on the more or less flawless functioning of code he doesn't actually understand. Any more than the average human has enough biochemistry knowhow to grasp what their particular FEV strain does to their metabolism. Certainly, he's never plugged himself into anything in order to hack it. 

Especially VR sims. Trips to the Memory Den have done nothing to dissuade his mistrust of the things- but usually they're clearly labelled, big pods and television screens. Not just a regular terminal with an interface helmet...so, it's a virtual VR then. Virtual virtual-

in retrospect, he should have let Haylen do this. Only it wasn't going to be her, because Jenny is clearly at the end of her patience; and not Jenny either, seeing as...well, he doesn't quite trust his former fiance yet. Her stories hang together, he hasn't caught her in a lie so far, but she's counting cards in New Vegas when he's only just picked up a deck. The stakes are far too high to miss out on any facts he can get.

And he should know. About his other self.

His own voice- DiMA's voice- is explaining what to do, in the gentle tones of a prewar programming tutorial for kids. Deal with the broken pointer here, add new object-based variables there- 

"Hey, can you simplify this a little bit? Lower the difficulty somehow? Only I don't have all day."

The world wrenches itself out of all knowing and reformulates. Find block. Take block. Put block in gap-

terrific. He'll have this licked in no time.

*****

"You think he's going to die?" Ellie asks, looking terrified. 

Haylen can understand her concern. Nick spending a day zoned out in front of a computer terminal had been one thing; but waking up the next morning to find the detective still hasn't budged isn't a good sign.

Trouble is..."I have no idea. I assume it's taking longer than he realises, and he hasn't thought to come back to real time. Something might be interfering with his internal clock."

"...and Nick's hopeless with calendars under the best of circumstances," Ellie mutters. She pulls out a stimpak, jabs it through the much-abused coat. 

Haylen boggles at her. "Does that actually do anything for him?"

"He says it does. I don't know how either."

Now there's a question she actually would like Jenny to field, when she's back from buying breakfast. "Then I'll rig a field IV. I can't imagine anything benefiting from a stimpak that doesn't need hydration as well- he does drink water, I suppose."

"Like most denizens of Diamond City, he gets liquid from noodles and soda," Ellie says, failing miserably at smiling. "I think it might be optional, though? I'm not sure what there is to connect an IV to."

"President Eden on a bicycle. Ellie, how do you not know if your boss has a bloodstream or not?"

"He can be very private when he wants to be," Ellie says defensively. "Oh look, Jenny's back."

"Genuinely glad to see you for once," Haylen says. "Uh- Ellie just gave Nick a stimpak, and we're trying to figure out how to stop him dying of dehydration. If that's even a problem."

"Pour a bottle of water down his mouth if it's worrying you. His systems will figure it out." She looks harried. "I confess I don't like this."

"Join the party," Ellie says. "Anything you know that we wouldn't?"

"Only that the longer he stays out, the less I like his chances. And I imagine you already guessed that."

*****

Day two, Haylen mostly spends hunting. One thing Far Harbor has in abundance is game; there are so many radchickens it's amazing to a deprived Wastelander. More of her chicken noodle soup gets made. 

River squad had really gone for that, once upon a time.

She sleeps in her PA that night; it's not terribly comfortable, but it makes her feel safer, more in control. Danse's notorious refusal to leave the safety of his own has taken on a haunting quality in retrospect.

Morning of day three, Ellie doesn't look like she's slept at all. Jenny isn't much better.

"We might need to cut our losses. I have an idea, though I'll need help to implement it. With another Gen 3 body, we can- well, hotwire his consciousness into something a bit more resilient. Organic bodies have their flaws, but they don't tend to jam up in quite this fashion."

"And just where do we get a Gen 3 body?" Haylen asks, striving to keep her voice even. She did vow.

"Short of stealing a fresh one from the Institute generating vat, there is a fairly large community of them right over the way. We can ask."

"Bad," Haylen says. "No. Bad idea."

"Um, what she said," Ellie agrees. "Nick won't forgive any of us for waking up in someone else's body. The hand, the face, he's used to his own."

"And I'm used to a half-healed leg because that's the condition my body was in when I got it back, but that doesn't mean I like it, only that I'm used to it," Jenny retorts. "I'm not talking about nobbling someone and dragging them back here. I'm talking about getting a volunteer, which DiMA can probably get just by asking, to save Nick's life before he dies and someone has to start this process all over again. If a dead Synth clogging up the works hasn't totally corrupted the memory files in the meantime."

"Then I suppose you'd better go ask," Haylen says, as mildly as she knows how. "No hurry. We aren't going anywhere."

Jenny narrows her eyes. "Don't kill him while I'm gone." 

"If Haylen tries I'll shishkebab her," Ellie says helpfully. "I like having a live boss, thanks."

"Well...okay then."

The moment she's gone, Haylen asks "Can you call him by name again?"

"I've tried. I tried so many times, he's in too deep." Ellie pulls herself up on a filing cabinet, strokes Nick's sleeve in a slightly proprietorial, slightly disturbing fashion. "He's tougher than Jenny thinks. I bet he can hold on for as long as I'm looking after him."

For a moment, Haylen finds herself willing Jenny's plan to work, if the alternative is Ellie Perkins dedicating herself to an endless, meaningless vigil.

Then she gets a grip on herself. "Or possibly, we're just being impatient. The world wasn't even wrecked in a day."

"Ugh, what a nasty expression. Um- is there some way of getting one of us into the system? To talk to him?"

"That's what Jenny spent the first day doing. If she couldn't figure it, I can't."

"I was hoping you were holding out...maybe we aren't being fair to her, you know. At least she has a plan."

"...let's not talk at cross-purposes. If you're fancying a new flavor of meatbag for Nick to use, you should have gone with Jenny to drop broad hints about what you find sexy."

"I don't want another meatbag," Ellie says, downright petulant now. "I want him, bald head and robotic hand and all. I want- I have absolutely no business saying any of this."

"Because of Jenny? Because we're lovers? Because you're too late to tell him?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes," Ellie quavers, and finally gets off the filing cabinet to hug her.

This is a ridiculous place for a fuck- the command center for a nuclear sub- but then everywhere's ridiculous, the whole world is in ruins and made new every single day. Anyway. It's no worse than a loft over an ill-lit detective agency.

And they do have all the time in the world. 

That's a change she'll have to get used to, Haylen thinks, even as she moves in too quickly, almost tearing the hem of Ellie's skirt while drawing it off. The Brotherhood never so much discouraged sex as encouraged efficiency, a quick one-two-three in the showers and then moving on, ready for orders sir-

she has to keep reminding herself to go gently, that Ellie isn't used to absent-minded PA slaps or training bruises. Her previous partners could take anything she could throw at them in stride; but she doesn't want Ellie to have to.

Doesn't want Ellie to be afraid of her. The small, sweet body beneath her, still pale from years of a dusty office, is yielding but relaxed, unafraid. No mistrust. 

Valentine's dedication to protecting that civilian ease, keeping Ellie safe, ripples through her mind for a moment. There's something disloyal about this, as if she'd started sleeping with someone from River squad without the others knowing. 

But then, Ellie would know a lot better whether the detective would mind this- they never did have that agreed chat, Jenny had shown up first. Screwing everything up.

Her hands are holding Ellie's, stroking the short trimmed nails and ink stains, toying with the little button of bone at the wrist. She's wanted girls for as long as she can remember, hugged them, kissed them, slept on top of them. Never seemed quite fair that the big Outside thinks affection is only for people you're fucking.

"Hold me tight," Ellie whispers. "Tell me you love me. A lot."

So Haylen does.

*****

It's a few hours later, and about the same moment as Ellie, that Haylen notices Valentine isn't slumped in front of the terminal any longer. 

They look at each other, dress quickly, and walk down the hall. Nick is around the next bend, reading Poe and eating an apple.

"Uh," Ellie says. "Hi, Nick. So you got out of the memory program in one piece."

"Sure did," the detective says, not looking up. "Most boring puzzle I've ever solved in my life. When we catch up with DiMA I plan to tell him a thing or two about user friendliness."

"You were plugged in for something like sixty-eight hours," Haylen supplies.

"Hmm. That why I woke up with a mouth that tasted like soup?"

"Sorry," Ellie says. "You got us worried about my favorite detective." 

"Mmm-hmm. I would have mentioned when I woke up, but," he coughs. "You two looked a little busy."

"You're missing out," Haylen says, partly because it's true and partly to spite Jenny Lands. "Maybe it's worth trying before your fiance stuffs you into a newer model body."

The Poe reader slaps shut. "She what?"

"It was her idea for rescuing you," Haylen says helpfully. "She went back to Acadia to go window-shopping."

"Of all the- why- you two had a better idea for passing the time than that," Nick says, as Ellie colors. "Sad thing is, DiMA would just have gone for it too. C'mon, we're overdue for a showdown at Acadia."

Chapter Text

"...so you can understand that I need help," Jenny Lands finishes. "A volunteer who won't mind not coming back."

DiMA never looks perturbed, but Chase knows he can't be happy. Every time they've done this mindwipe business in the past it's been behind closed doors, discreet and deniable. Jenny dragging it out into the open, with the whole population of Acadia listening, that's never happened before.

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't need the help," Jenny says, the authority in her tone almost casual. A fist wrapped in a white glove. "When I return to the Institute to bring it down, trustworthy backup will be crucial. Nick Valentine is as experienced as DiMA, a good man and a better cop, and my partner from before the war. There's nothing we can't do together."

There are murmurs, a mild hopefulness in the crowd; but to Chase's relief, the group dynamic itself seems to be a hindrance. Nobody seems to feel the need to throw themselves on the fire. No more sacrifices for the utopia that hasn't come-

"I'll do it," Kasumi says, sounding much too happy. "You can take me."

Chase looks at Kasumi, with a life ahead of her and a home for the asking. "No. If we're talking about infiltrating the Institute, the best pick is a courser. As the only one here, I'll do it."

"Can you be spared?" Jenny asks. 

She can understand the question, but it's an insult to the hopes that this place was built on. Acadia won't survive if any one individual is irreplaceable. "The point is not open for discussion. You take me, or you take no one at all."

DiMA had said last time, that it would be the last time. At least this way she won't be around to see the next.

"Then if you'd help us with the preparations," Jenny says to Faraday. "I know you don't like leaving Acadia, but the situation is urgent."

He looks to DiMA for a lead, but the old Synth is silent, his gray eyes catching no one else's. The manipulator has become caught in his own strings, Chase thinks. 

She'd die for him, nearly has on several occasions, but it doesn't stop her feeling a fierce satisfaction. One day Acadia won't have his leadership any longer. It's good to know that someone else is willing to fight for this place, ready to be strong for it.

Good to think that the fight will finally be taken to the Institute. That is worth her life, ten times over.

"...I suppose I'll need to pack," Faraday eventually manages to get out. "There's a lot of- a lot of equipment that might be needed for a project like this. I wouldn't want to make the trip to the Nucleus twice."

"Can't say as I'd recommend it just the once, either." Nick Valentine strolls into the light, a handful of tapes in his robotic grasp. "Not what you'd call a quality vacation spot."

Jenny couldn't have seen his unobtrusive entrance from where she stands, so Chase has to admire her for maintaining perfect equanimity. "So you made it back whole. That's good. Saves trouble."

"Saves even more that I'm sticking with this bucket of bolts," Valentine says, tapping the gray skin of his cheek. "No plans to move out, believe me."

"Brother," DiMA says, his blank eyes turning towards Valentine. "I am so pleased you found your way here."

The detective grimaces. "Maybe you wouldn't feel that way if you had your memories. I've got one holotape here says I was less than polite last we parted- and I hoped it wouldn't end as badly this time. But I can't say as I think much of the way you run this place, DiMA."

"Come and change it then," Jenny challenges. "The Institute needs to be taken down, we all know this. Acadia is our only chance."

Chase can't remember hearing DiMA ever speak with the harshness in Valentine's tone. "I don't think much of sacrifice. Whether it's blood or oil."

"Then the wasteland's changed you," Jenny says. "The Valentine I remember- the one who was a better man than you- he would have agreed with me. Gone into the system to change it from the inside. He wouldn't have run away like a coward."

Nick shrugs. "Then I'm a coward. But I'm going home."

"How? Where? You're still barred from Diamond City. The Brotherhood will still shoot you on sight. The Commonwealth is lost to you."

He looks at her, past her. To the companions who followed him in, and look ready to fight their way out.

"I don't know. But it won't be here."

The holotapes Valentine carries make hardly any sound, when he tosses them across the observatory floor and walks away.

Chapter Text

some time later

His world can't have become so narrow.

It's really too cold to sit outside the radio trailer at night, but Nick switches off his fans and heads out to the cliff edge anyway. One particular spot's already become his favorite: a high point towards the east, where the dull radioactive glow of the Nucleus entrance can be seen far below, and the rounded top of the Acadia observatory is barely visible in the distance. 

Somewhere beyond that is Far Harbor. The boat that would take him home. He should have talked to Kasumi about that, figured out how to return it to the Nakanos. Unfinished business.

Probably he shouldn't have succumbed to the drama of that spectacular exit. But the idea of anyone surrendering their existence to be overwritten by his own, that's just as infuriating every time he thinks of it.

"Nick? Nick, are you okay out here?"

Ellie pulls him back to reality, steadies him. "Not so much, sweetheart."

She doesn't press him; just sits quietly by to keep him company. If this was Diamond City and they were sitting on the agency roof, she might be typing up case files while he smoked and watched the city alleys. Or she might be stargazing while he read old magazines, patched his coat. Doesn't seem like so much now; but he misses their domestic moments more than the flashy tourist stuff DC's known for.

"Ellie, I think your boss is in a bad rut of feeling sorry for himself."

"You've had a rough time of it," she says, patting his arm. She's trying not to shiver, he notices. Ware's brew might be good for radiation, but he doesn't like the way it leaves her pale and exhausted. Explains too much about the hollow-cheeked fervor among the Children...

"Better get you inside," he says, helping her up. "Haylen won't be happy to find out I'm not looking after you."

Haylen, of course, has power armor. Fortunate woman. 

"You don't- you don't mind her, do you? Just so I know."

"Of course not," Nick says, slightly startled. "Number of times by now she could have gone on a Brotherhood rampage if she wanted to- if I had any worries, the way she took my cue at Acadia settled that. I wouldn't have put it past your average Paladin to have started shooting right then and there. But I didn't want to go that far, and she held off too."

"I meant more- us. As a couple and all. Not that I'd leave you," she says hastily. "The Nucleus isn't a fun place."

"That command center wasn't irradiated. We might need to stay there if the winters here turn rough." He unlocks the trailer door, finds himself appreciating the little cookstove. It shouldn't really make a difference, but something in his bones appreciates the warmth.

"You told me after the run-in with Malone, how unsettling it was being underground all that time. Doesn't sound pleasant for you."

He hasn't got a good answer to that, so backtracks. "But what you were asking about was you being with Haylen. Fine by me. Go out and grab any happiness going, I figure."

"Mmm. Turn around, please? I want to get into my night things."

He obediently does, and pours some water into the pot while he's at it. Herbal tea, fast and hot: it'll do her good. 

"Anyway I'd be much too afraid of getting- carried away with Haylen," he hears. "If it was only us- okay, you can turn around now."

"Not with this on the boil." He resists the impulse to dip his metal hand in to check the temperature. There's a host of small thoughts like that which would make life simpler, but detach him even further from the performance of humanity, and in general he avoids them. 

"You think I overdid it with Jenny and DiMA?" 

"No. Ugh. You'd never forget whose body it was you were walking around in- I mean, so they couldn't know your reaction, but they didn't think to ask me what you'd want. It's what Sister Mai was saying about how she wasn't welcome back anymore when she decided to believe in Atom, they're only interested in their own community."

The water's boiling. He pours out two cups, adds dried flower buds. Ellie looks very picturesque holding hers, her hair falling loose. The heavy pottery contrasting with the thick red yarn of her nightgown. 

If he hadn't been hasty, she'd be sleeping tonight in a warm, sheltered settlement with clean water and guards prepared for all the Island's nightmares. They could have found some safe corner for a typist to do useful work. 

Maybe he'll have to swallow his pride and go back, beg for DiMA's forgiveness. If he could accept the ghoul expulsion in DC...she looks so wan.

They finish their tea and settle in for the night, pulling the sleeping bag into the center of the trailer. Too small for two, really; but the way a sleeping Ellie will cling to him, doesn't matter so much.

She kisses him and slides into her favorite position, pressed against his chest unit to listen to the gentle hum of his machinery. It soothes her.

"I love you," she murmurs. "I love that you're brave enough to do what's right."

Maybe he wishes he wasn't. 

Chapter Text

The trouble isn't the Children of Atom, Haylen thinks. They're good people. They have a respect for scribes, they keep tech out of the hands of people who would kill themselves with it, they seem more aware and comfortable with the world around them than the Brotherhood ever did. Aside from Far Harbor, and she has a few ideas about fixing that.

The trouble isn't with Nick or Ellie either. Her lover is as dear as she ever was, even more precious if anything, bright against the Island's demure setting. While her newfound respect for the detective is a thing quite apart from Ellie - Valentine might be silent in the face of Jenny's determination, but he could have taken any Acadian's life for the asking. He hadn't. Walked away from the chance of a clean young body without a trace of regret; and after what happened to Danse, she'd defend him to her last drop of blood now.

So they're all well and good, both halves of her life; but the trouble is they don't blend at all.

"I wish you two would stop fussing," Ellie says, blowing her nose on an old dollar bill. "Ith a cold, that's it. I'll go to the doctor when the Fog drops and geth fixed up."

"Second illness you've had since we came back here." Valentine fretting would be downright comedic, if the cause was something less worrisome. "I don't think this trailer is warm enough for you."

"I absolutely refuse to live in a cave, so stopth hinting. It's probably the water anyway. And before you ask, I don't need your coat."

"Maybe I could build a cabin," Haylen offers. "Lots of trees about."

"Why would that be better than a perfectly good trailer?" Ellie argues, coughing. "Ith fine. This is fine."

"...well, I don't think it's fine," Valentine says. "Simple fact is, this place is too damn small. Once winter comes in, we'll drive each other stir-crazy. I'm not a space heater and you shouldn't need to keep your gun loaded for wolves and trappers."

"I keep telling you, the Nucleus would be glad to have you," Haylen says.

Two voices say "No," simultaneously and keep on arguing. She thinks about it. Maybe there's a way to help them and the Children both.

"You know that the Children keep trying to send a missionary to Far Harbor, right?"

"The last one was shot," Ellie says. "I hope you didn't volunteer."

"No. But it gives me an idea. What if you two moved there, and I visit sometimes, and they got the idea the Children aren't all terrible and out to persecute them. Wouldn't that ease tensions somewhat?"

"Or get us all ridden out of town on a rail," Valentine says, looking interested despite himself. "Though it's been a while since I did a long-term infiltration job."

Ellie sneezes. "If you have your hearts set on it, I remember Teddy telling me about a dance. They'll let you stay if you're good enough at it."

Haylen opens her mouth, before noticing Valentine's silent plea. The Captain's Dance is a hellish proposition, but evidently Ellie doesn't know that. "I did learn a few steps with the Brotherhood."

"Can't say as this chassis is built for a hornpipe, but we might be able to show them a waltz or two. Been too long since we took a turn, Ellie."

"I'll say- oh Haylen, you should have seen us," Ellie says, a grin spreading across her face. "A good jukebox tune and a sprung floor, away we went. Until three in the morning, sometimes. And Nick never stepped on my feet."

Haylen fights down an unexpected stab of jealousy. "Then shall we make the hike this week? Whenever the weather is favorable."

"Good plan," Valentine concurs; Ellie sneezes again and mutters "sweet rads, yes," under her breath. 

It's kind of a shame they're agreeing so easily. Her life right now is just about perfect: a cosy cavern for the nights, scribe work during the day, and people she likes and trusts to look after. 

Still. Can't have everything.

Chapter Text

Debbie nurses a deep hatred for Ellie Perkins.

A mainlander is usually good company, especially one who'll tip a barmaid well and speak politely, but the girl's like a mockery of her dreams. Those brightly coloured clothes (so foolhardy in a world with anglers and rabid radstags), the utter frivolity of her job (who needs a secretary in this day and age, what does she do?) Even the way she tries Vim and enjoys it, when that's an Island mainstay and no one else's.

And now what she's done is invite Teddy into the Last Plank for a drink. He's never set foot in here before. It's different.

"So what is this Captain's Dance?" Ellie inquires. She's drinking a Vim Refresh, which is a dreadful waste. It ought to be saved for fighting.

"An old, old ritual," Teddy says, staring at the sea. He's drinking plain water and seems to have forgotten about it. "If you want to stay- if you want to be accepted in Far Harbor, it's the way to people's hearts. We could do with a reason for some merrymaking, it's been too long since we had any here."

"I mean, it wouldn't just be me," Ellie says. "My boss, Mr Valentine- he's the one who knows how to fight. There wouldn't be a problem with him living in Far Harbor, would there?"

"He's a Synth. Why doesn't he want to be with his own kind up the mountain?"

The girl hesitates, takes a long pull at her drink. "We were warned away. By one of the Children of Atom."

"Uh...huh. On the one hand, the advice might be sound. On the other, if you're going to make nice with the Children, they won't let you buy a beer in this bar soon unless you do something to prove you have the town's interests at heart. Say, by doing the Captain's Dance."

"What makes you so stuck on us doing it?" the girl presses. "I'm missing something."

He smiles at her. "Maybe I'm crazy. But the truth is...we've tried the other ways and they haven't worked. Technology has saved us a pittance, this bare foothold, and nothing more. We've tried worshipping the Fog, running from it, cursing its name. Sacrifice is all that's left, really. Respect for what is and not what we wish was."

"Oh. So it really is just about leading us to a trap."

"Not leading," Teddy says, finally finishing his water. "Warning you. There'll be a lot of blood if you try it- you know what the stories are about the prewar? How they used to put boys in uniforms and send them off to fight, a few brave souls standing in for the whole community? Maybe we've lost the knack of that. Maybe nothing will be right again, until we return to the old ways."

"I doubt that a lot," Ellie says, rather cross. "Mr Valentine knows a few things about the prewar, and he doesn't describe it that way at all."

"If you say so," Teddy says indulgently. "You know...there's an old bowling alley up the road. Clean of Fog. It wants clearing out, there was a landslide, but if you came back alive, we'd muster the will to fix it for you. Or pretty much anything else you could ask of us. It's not impossible. People just need hope."

"How many mirelurks are we talking, again?"

"A lot."

Doesn't amount to much, hating someone who looks so terrified. Someone who beckons her over and quietly starts bartering, for the things needed during a long journey and a tough fight. 

Debbie makes a pact with herself that if the mainlanders do try the Dance, she'll let go of her hate.

Not that it'll be very hard, if there's no survivors. 

*****

She ought to talk them out of it, Ellie thinks as she opens the bedroom door. Neither would have come back to Far Harbor if not for her. 

"So, how bad is it?" Nick asks. He's plumping up a seat cushion, settles in with a tired grunt. The trip here had scored his coat a few new gashes.

"Bad enough," Ellie says, slipping under the covers to Haylen's cosy embrace. "It's not that different than the Nucleus, they have this crazy notion that either you sacrifice mirelurks to the island or they'll sacrifice you. So they're happy to have us do it, but..."

She breaks off, coughing. In the last few weeks that's been a recurrent problem, which she doesn't care for. Any more than the way the other two have started treating her like a delicate ceramic, to be coddled and protected. Both of them are avoiding some incredibly heavy trauma by pretending she's the be-all, end-all of existence.

If she's going to take the brunt of that, she needs to be in an okay place herself. Somewhere she can go for a walk without being irradiated and drink clean water. With functional plumbing. And a bar.

Which does mean Far Harbor, since Acadia is utterly out of the question. 

"How bad can it be?" Haylen asks. "We're both good fighters. You can fix me up a few welcome kits, it should be okay."

"We've been crisscrossing the Island for some damn reason or another since we arrived," Nick agrees. "One more time to score a safe home for you, that's actually a good reason to do it."

She's still coughing. Haylen coos, makes her drink some purified water. Says reassuring things about the future, how they'll have a place to live in peace at last. All three of them. 

It's wishful thinking and if she could summon the energy to point that out, she would; but right now she's too tired to try.

"Although," Haylen says, stops. "No way do we bring you. Brotherhood protocol isn't wrong there, civilians are a combat risk."

"Can't believe I'm agreeing with Elder Maxson," Nick says dryly. "But she's right. You stay here and get your strength back, it won't help if we're fretting more about you than the enemy."

"I think she's out cold."

"Just as well. More sleep she gets, the better...think we can do this? Whatever this Dance turns out to be?"

"I don't see we have much choice."

"Put that way, I don't either."

Chapter Text

Middle of a swamp. A Mirelurk Queen bearing down on him. Hell of a time to decide he wants to survive this.

At least Ellie isn't around to see if he doesn't.

Nick backs up as fast he can, pumping a trapper's shotgun and desperately trying to get out of range. He's not taking damage from its acid attacks, but if a thing the size of a house reaches him for melee he's done for. And it moves a lot faster than it has any right to.

Haylen's just barely visible off to his left, her power armor broken down to the frame. He's heard nasty stories about people dying like that, crushed by the sheer weight of the armor when the servos went. Maybe being stuck in watery swamp mud will actually buoy her, if she can avoid drowning.

Too bad he can't fish her out. The Queen hesitates between the two of them; he fires again to get her attention, even though that's the last thing he wants to do. They've been fighting sea monsters for three or four hours already, half of which has been spent trying to down this thing. Boring and lethal, worst kind of fight there is. Too easy to be distracted.

Ellie. Ellie, and finding things out, and helping the Island and noodles and the quiet satisfaction of patching his coat back to usefulness. Never mind if he never sees Diamond City again. Right now he'd settle just for staggering back into the Last Plank.

His ammo supply is running critically low; he's now down to his handmade pipe revolver, which is hopelessly inadequate to the task. Nick sighs and lets himself go, smack into the mud.

The scuttling sound the Queen makes approaching him would make anything human shudder, cry out, instinctively panic. He shuts off every system he can, sinks heavily through the swamp's murky pestilence. 

It crawls closer to him. It crawls over him; and Nick suppresses even the fans that keep his systems cool. Motionless as any broken piece of machinery.

By the time it scuttles off again, only the freezing water is stopping him overheating. Dragging himself out onto shore is a thing more in line with muscle memory than anything his Synth body needs, but he does it anyway. 

The Far Harbor witness sent to observe the ritual regards him with a calm, indifferent stare. Nick tries to meet it.

"Help."

"Not here for that. Here to watch," Dottie says stoically.

"There's a woman who might be dying over there."

"Only here to watch-"

If Dottie was going to say anything else, it's interrupted by the explosion of what looks appallingly like a mininuke. 

As bits of roast mirelurk rain out of the sky, Haylen wades towards them, worn but triumphant.

"How'd you do that without a launcher?" Nick asks.

"Don't underestimate the Children of Atom," Haylen says cheerfully. "Hope Far Harbor doesn't mind that I pitched in to help, but I like Nick and I'd hate to see him smashed into bits- speaking of which, Nick, can you rescue my PA frame? I burned my last fusion cores."

"You let on once that you can hook into those systems and you'll never live it down," Nick mutters. "Okay. Uh- do you want to come back with us, Dottie?"

"Feast won't be ready for your return if I'm not quicker," Dottie says, with the faintest hint of a smile. "Come when you will."

They watch the witness take off at a surprisingly swift pace, and disappear into the Fog.

"I think that went well," Haylen says brightly. "How about you?"

"Figure I'd be long dead if I'd tackled this myself. You're a good partner."

"Don't tell me that," Haylen says, as they start for home. "Or I'll start to tease you like I did River squad."

"I'm sure I'll live," Nick says dryly.

For the first time since leaving Diamond City, he thinks he means it.

Chapter Text

With Nick and Haylen out there fighting and maybe dying for her, Ellie figured the least she can do is put aside her typewriter for concrete action. Her health is coming back in the clean sea air, away from the Nucleus' pollution. Teddy's patient care helps too. 

The bowling alley is too big for her to tackle alone, but Old Longfellow takes an interest when the ghouls prove unduly numerous. Only asks the price of a whiskey for his efforts.

"You're a good woman," he tells her. "Remind me of my betrothed, that the Children took from me. Reckon you shouldn't go back."

At least that explains why he always seems to be looking through her instead of at her.

So he takes on the ghouls and cleans out the dead bodies, while she undertakes the tedious business of salvaging. It does let her pay off Longfellow's bar tab, and by the time they're done it's still a mess but a mess with potential. Above the bowling alley is a nice little workshop, with soft couches outside it. Working kitchen. Two bathrooms.

The people in Far Harbor are coming into focus as individuals and not just harborfolk. Captain Avery, with her calm good sense and leadership and hopeless love for a Mariner who doesn't even notice her that way. The Mariner herself, the best mechanic in town and owner of the docks, distant and oil-streaked and yet rather captivating. Brooks, oddly shy past his merchant exterior and curious about Nick. Dottie and Allen and Cassie and the rest...

they're no more indifferent or harsh than Diamond City folk, and they've survived harsher pressures than the Commonwealth has known. Kinder than the Goodneighbor of her childhood. Not quite as mad as the Nucleus. 

She's checking the roof for loot when she sees Dottie coming back, their figure bobbing in and out of the fog. Her heart clenches. It has to be good news, doesn't it? No salvaged laser rifle or battered fedora in sight. 

But she can't bring herself to go and meet them. Or even be present when Dottie knocks on the bowling alley door; she hides instead, the dirty material of her skirt blending better into the shadows than it ought.

It can't do any good to listen. It will not. Nick and Haylen will either come home or they won't, there are any number of accidents that could happen to them en route, if they are dead she doesn't want to know. Would rather stay in ignorance as long as possible. 

So much for being a detective's knowledgeable secretary.  

Dottie gives up, starts on the road to the Hull. Ellie whimpers, sits down to wrap her arms around her knees. Nick's not going to stop chasing kicks as long as he lives, but this isn't home. He doesn't have a ton of metal protecting him like Haylen does.

That's a point. Her girlfriend probably is coming back, even if it's without Nick. So she won't be alone....odd thought, that...

A sound starts down at the Hull, starting low and building in intensity. It's a cheer. A triumphant, ecstatic, slightly murderous cheer.

She slides off the roof, starts pounding down the street towards the Hull, heedless of fog or ghouls. By the time she reaches the gate she's out of breath, wouldn't have a hope of making herself heard if she had any; but the Harbor's fierce pleasure puts life and spirit back into her. It's for her loves, even if not her.

"Hey."

Allen Lee, looking down from the top of the Hull. "You're with the ones who did the Captain's Dance, aren't you? Come in. Come home."

He's wrong there, and it starts a fierce glow of satisfaction in her chest. When the feasting is over and Far Harbor returns to normal, they'll have a home to go to. 

Or almost. One thing missing.

Chapter Text

two weeks later

"Glass, a touch of noble gas, electricity to light it all up-" Haylen removes her PA helmet. "Not bad for a homemade job, if I do say so myself. And I think we're set. Care to do the honors, Valentine?"

He doesn't try to hold back his grin, as he throws the switch. The new heart-shaped sign lights up, a reassuring red glow that shines a long way down Far Harbor's deserted streets. 

"Just as tacky as ever," Ellie notes. "Still doesn't have my name on it."

"I'll make you one if you like," Haylen offers. 

"Please, no."

"You never mentioned this when I hired you," Nick says. "Way I remember it, you said it was a good color and must bring in the business." 

"Lil' white lie for the interview, boss," Ellie says. "It's traditional."

"Maybe I'm not as good a detective as I thought- oof." He hugs his secretary back, not quite as hard as she's holding him. 

Haylen steps back, contemplates her work. "Now that I've built it, though- um, exactly how much use is a detective agency tucked in an isolated bowling alley?"

"Better prospects than Diamond City had back in the day. You should have seen the place when I moved there. Trash everywhere and not even a water pump yet. The Island's better than that already- and with a Synth settlement and an actively recruiting cult around, I think the prospects aren't too shabby for a lot of missing persons work."

"Hmm. I see your point."

"And to keep us going in the meantime, I might just have held back one of DiMA's memories." Nick pulls the holotape from his pocket, tosses it in the air. "Now we've got this place fixed up, anyone want to go treasure hunting?"

"I am very much in," Haylen says. 

"Nick, I love you, but any more adventuring is gonna kill me," Ellie says, letting go. "I have a typewriter, a lot of case files to reconstruct, and the walk down to the Hull will be more than enough excitement for me. I'll keep the light burning while you're gone."

"Spoken like a true secretary."

"Just take care of each other, please? I want you both coming home."

"Done and done."

"I'll look after him," Haylen promises. "Anyway, it's not like we need to leave just yet. Have a breather, make sure the defences will hold. I need to make another batch of chicken noodle for field rations."

Nick stares at her. "You make noodles?"

"Uh, sure? Flour, water, egg, working fridge- I can jury-rig that from the old Nuka-Cola machine in there. River squad loved my recipe."

"Ellie, you better hang on to this one. Break up with the only person who makes noodles in two hundred miles, you'll have a very sad detective on your hands."

"He's been alive for a century," Haylen stage-whispers. "How does he not know this stuff?"

Ellie just shrugs. "I don't know how to make noodles either."

"Sweet rads, you guys are hopelessly city. Good thing you have a tough wastelander looking after you."

"While you're lucky we saved you from a cult," Nick observes to no one.

"And I get both of you," Ellie says fondly. "So Diamond City can go hang."

"...let everything unworthy fade." Her detective looks southward, wistful but accepting. "Stay not the falling leaves."

"That a poem?" Haylen asks. "I never heard it before."

"No? Well, let's get inside and out of the wind. I'll tell you all about it."

The door closes behind the three of them, snug and secure; and even the harsh Far Harbor fog can't stop the agency sign shining out, a beacon for the lost.