Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing about raiders: they’re people too.
I don’t mean that in a sympathetic they-have-feelings-and-you-shouldn’t-kill-them kind of way; I just mean that they eat and sleep and breathe, etc, etc. They can also have kids. That’s where I come in.
My parents, unlike most raiders, had me on purpose. When their gang started getting low on members, they took it upon themselves to make one more. They raised me as one of them. I learned to shoot a gun at seven. For years after that I hunted and gathered food for the gang. I made my first human kill when I was eleven. I was proud. My parents raised me to believe what I had done was okay. So, I continued.
They didn’t see me as a daughter; I realized that the moment my mother threw me in front of her and used me as a human shield against the oncoming bullets. I wasn’t their child- there was no love between us.
So, as I get slung over the wooden railing of our base, bullets flying at me, I think back on the blurry collection of my memories. Things started making sense, like why my parents never treated me like the kids in my magazines. Those kids got toys and good food and warm beds. I got ammo and Cram and a soiled mattress that I always had to share. Sure, the magazines were from before the war, but there had to be those kinds of places still around.
I guess this is what people called seeing your life flash before your eyes.

Which was worse, the impact of the realization or the impact of hitting the ground? I still don’t know.
Somehow, I managed to overcome the shock and ran unevenly toward the nearest solid-looking building. I dove through the doorway, which looked like it had been blown apart long before the war, and threw myself behind a behind an old desk. There were windows along all the walls, except the one in the back that had crumbled and left a gaping hole in the side of the building.
When I finally caught my breath, I rested my head on the rough brick wall behind me and listened to the gunfire in the street. A Molotov cocktail exploded a few yards away from the doorway I had come through. The thud of bodies hitting the ground fell in step with the beating of my heart.
The warm blood trickling down my arm drew my attention away from the massacre. It was leaking from a small hole in my shoulder, no bigger than a bottlecap. The skin around it was ragged and red. Looking at it made me dizzy.
It didn’t hurt. Why didn’t it hurt?
Another explosion shook the building. I couldn’t hear it. Darkness swam across my eyes.
Am I dying? I thought as my vision went dark.

Being dead hurt more than I thought it would.
I’d never really thought about dying much. It was just something that would come one day, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I always knew that I’d die in a firefight, my body cast aside, just another raider. But I’d imagined that it would just be like falling asleep, or at the very least cold. But never painful.
The pain wasn’t coming from my body. That is, I could feel the pain, but I couldn’t feel my body. I tried to move my arms, stretch my legs, wiggle my fingers, but nothing happened.
Death was dark, but that’s expected. There was no guiding light. Just a dark void that felt oddly cozy.
After some time, the darkness took on a red tint, then orange, then yellow. I could feel heat.
This is when I started weighing the idea that I might not be dead.
Sure enough, I could soon feel each individual part of my body, and the Sun’s rays beating down on them. It took a while, but I finally managed to pry my eyes open. They were stinging and dry, as were my mouth and nose.
The desk had been thrown aside, and the building I had sheltered in was the same, disregarding a few new holes in the walls and roof. The smell of blood and gunpowder and something bitterly sweet wafted into the room.
When I tried to sit up, I cried out; the pain in my arm was unbearable. The bullet hole wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it was crusted with blood and dirt, and the skin was turning a sickening shade of yellowish brown. How am I supposed to get help if I can hardly get up? I laid in the rubble, helpless, far beyond panic.
You have to get up, Elaine. If you don’t get up, you’re going to die.
I never again want to feel the pain I felt those next few minutes.
Once I was up, I leaned against the wall for another five minutes, tears threatening to spill from my eyes. I pushed myself away from the wall and to the doorway. Outside, a thick smoke hung in the air. The silence was enough to tell me what had become of my camp.
It was burned to the ground. Almost everything was gone, even some bodies. The rubbery stains on the ground told me what happened to those. Suddenly I was much more aware of the sweet smell in the air.
My dad’s body was under a pile of wood and ashes. His face had the weakness of a boy’s, but nevertheless he still looked as ruthless as the next raider. I kick ashes back over his face, hiding it, and put his gun in my holster. It would replace my lost one nicely.
The smoke curling off the still-smoldering remains of the encampment was getting into my eyes, making them water and sting more. I took a deep breath and turned to walk down the street. Next stop: Goodneighbor.

Throughout the next few hours of walking, I kept watch for any survivors from the gang, though at this point I wasn’t sure whether I’d welcome them or put a bullet through their head. We’ll see.
Right before dusk, as I was opening a box of Sugar Bombs I’d found, I heard a shuffle and looked up to see someone standing a few feet ahead of me. I dropped the cereal box. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at me with a shaky arm. We stared at each other.
“Elaine?” He whispered, just loud enough for me to hear. He didn’t move the gun.
The shaggy blond hair and the round mouth struck me as familiar. “Dylan?”
He didn’t respond at first. His hand tightened around the gun. The fifteen-year-old looked more frightened than I’d ever seen him.
“You’re dead.” Lines formed over his brow. “You’re dead; I saw you go down.”
I remembered the other people that had fallen over the railing and died. How had I been so lucky? “I survived,” was all I could say.
“No. No, you died. You died, and now you’re here to take me with you. You’re- not- taking- me.”
I reached out to him, but I was too slow. He shoved his gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.
His harness fit me well, and the extra ammo didn’t hurt.

After a dinner of Sugar Bombs and mongrel dog cooked on a super mutant’s old fire, I laid down beside a highway pillar and collected my thoughts. Tomorrow, I should reach Goodneighbor. I’d never been there, but I’ve heard enough to know that they shouldn’t turn me away. I could get better food, shelter, and equipment. And hopefully something to help with my wound, which had started festering and hadn’t stopped hurting.
What would I do after that? I didn’t have a home to go to. I didn’t exactly want to join a different raider group, and I doubt they’d let me anyways. I could try being a mercenary, but again, who would pay a kid to protect them? Maybe I could get a job in Goodneighbor, at least until I’m old enough to get a real job.
I could go to Diamond City. I’d heard that they live almost pre-war there. And if the Diamond City Radio is a good representation of the city, then I’ll like it there.
I started absently thinking about what the settlement would be like. I kept thinking back a movie poster I’d seen before; the Wizard of Oz. Right under the title, there was a huge, glimmering city of emerald. Is that what the ‘Great Green Jewel’ would look like? Or would it be a couple of grimy wooden shacks with a turret or two?
I thought about it until I fell asleep.

I’d been told that the entrance to Goodneighbor was hidden, stuck between some buildings with only one way in through a maze of alleys. The labyrinth of buildings would have been effective if not for the giant neon sign.
There were bodies laying outside of the doors, in raider gear. The sight made me hesitate for a second, but I continued through the gate. If I’m going to die, I’d rather it be from a quick bullet to the head than an infected wound.
I pushed open the heavy metal doors and stepped into Goodneighbor.
The first person I saw was a bald man with a very square jaw, standing in front of me with a cigarette. He looked up and grinned without any joy. “Well, what do we have here?” He lit the cigarette, but kept it pinched between his fingers at his side. “Another raiding party? Where’s your group, kid? Waiting for you to distract us, so they can try something?”
He used his free hand to reach for the switchblade sticking out of his pocket. I rested my hand on the handle of my father’s gun.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, time out,” a rough voice sounded behind Finn. A ghoul in a long, red colonial coat and a tricorn hat walked up beside the man. He strolled casually, but his completely black eyes glinted intensely. “Someone steps through the gate the first time, they’re a guest. Lay off her.”
The bald man didn’t let go of the blade. “What do you care? She ain’t one of us,” he said as he glared at me through narrowed eyes. “She’s obviously a distraction for a raiding party. And I’m not fighting for you again.”
“No love for your mayor, Finn? I said,” he stepped closer to the man, Finn. “let her go.”
Finn let his hand drop from the knife. I kept a firm grip on the gun. There were other people milling around, but they didn’t do much more than glance our way. If this type of thing is common here, I’ll fit right in. If I get in.
Finn huffed. “You’re soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over us, one day there’ll be a new mayor.”
Hancock tensed up slightly, though I doubt anyone else noticed. The lazy grin on his thin lips tightened. He slowly strode up to Finn, until there was only a foot between them. “Come on man. This is me we’re talking about. Let me tell you something,” he said smoothly, with almost undetectable tenseness.
He casually put his hand on Finn’s shoulder, pulling the unassuming man toward him. I could guess what was going to happen, but apparently Finn didn’t. He leaned forward, curious of what Hancock would say.
The ghoul pulled a hunting knife from a hidden spot in his coat and stabbed Finn repeatedly in the stomach. A man in drifter apparel, who was sitting on a bench nearby, sighed and walked toward a broom that was leaning against the big brick building beside us.
Finn fell to a heap on the ground. He was dead within seconds. Hancock sheathed his knife. “Now why’d you have to go and say that, huh? Breakin’ my heart over here.”
He looked up at me. I hadn’t moved, and the aching in my feet and legs from all this walking was getting worse. “You all right, sister?”
The drifter that had grabbed the broom was now using it to push Finn’s body out of the walkway.
I holstered the gun and noticed that my hands were getting clammy. I was probably getting sick from the infection that was surely making its way into the gunshot wound. I straightened up, despite my sore legs’ protesting.
“I could have handled it.”
Hancock grinned, a genuine one this time. “Yet you didn’t say a thing.” He looked at the corpse that was being hauled away by the drifter. “Now, don’t let this incident taint your view of our little community. Goodneighbor’s of the people, for the people, you feel me? Everyone’s welcome.” He looked pointedly at the raider gear I was wearing. Oh, right.
I leaned against the half wall that was enclosing the entrance area. “I’m fine with anyone that would kill a guy for me the first three seconds after I meet them.”
The ghoul seemed to find that funny. He chuckled dryly. “I can tell I’m gonna like you already. Just consider this town your home away from home…” He trailed off, his tone getting darker.
“So long as you remember who’s in charge.”
I nodded, and he turned to leave. He stopped right before he went through a door to the brick building and turned toward me. A ginger woman with a half-shaved head walked up from the alleyway behind him. She looked from him to me.
He looked at my shoulder. I hadn’t dared try to put pressure on the hole, so it was uncovered and looked worse than ever. “You need a doctor. Fahrenheit, take her to Amari.” He looked at the woman, who nodded, then walked through the door.
I waited for her to start walking, then I followed her. Something told me I could trust Hancock.
Fahrenheit lead me past the armory and the trader, through a common area that was under a balcony protruding from the brick building. Hancock was standing on it, looking down at the people below him. Under the balcony was a neon sign that said THE THIRD RAIL. A ghoul bouncer was standing beside a staircase leading underground.
Past the common area and the entrance to the Third Rail, a small length of a road had been enclosed with some wooden walls. There were sleeping bags and mattresses placed under the sheltered ends of the street and lined up along the buildings that bordered it. Drifters lounged around, smoking and talking.
The most prominent things on the street were the neon signs hung over two sets of double doors, one that said HOTEL REXFORD and one that said THE MEMORY DEN. Fahrenheit took me into the latter.
Inside, the first thing I saw were the pinup girl posters. The red walls, candles, and cigarette machine made me hang back, but my guide kept walking with fluid strides. I followed her into the main room.
There was more of the same, with bourbon and wine bottles decorating very surface. There were extravagant, red velvet armchairs and loveseats, and papers and old cigars were scattered on the floor. The whole look of the place was thrown off by the huge white pods by the walls that people were reclining in. The people were watching something on screens, but I couldn’t see what from the angle.
On a raised platform in the middle of the room, a woman in a ratty but elegant red dress with a large, feathered collar was lounging on a red velvet chase. Her hair drew my attention. It was platinum blond, piled up on her head and was somehow staying perfect, not a strand out of place.
She looked at me curiously. Fahrenheit didn’t stop walking, but slowed down enough to ask, “Is Amari here?”
“In the back,” the blond lady answered, her too-perfect smile never wavering. Fahrenheit didn’t thank her, just continued on to a doorway behind her. We went down a short staircase into a room that reminded me of the abandoned science labs that I sometimes found when looking for food for the gang.
A woman with a dark tan and black hair was working at a desk, in a dirty lab coat. “Give me a minute,” she muttered, not looking up. She finished writing something down on a piece of paper, then dropped the pencil onto the desk loudly and flexed her hand. She got up from her chair and turned to us.
“Yes? Who is this? Wh- oh, she’s been shot. Come, sit in the chair.” The lady talked fast but clearly, and didn’t give me or Fahrenheit a chance to say anything. I looked at the woman beside me, who nudged me toward to rusty blue chair.
She told the doctor, “Hancock’s orders. She’s new in town. By the way, Finn’s out,” and walked back up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.
I sat in the chair in silence as Amari gathered items from boxes and drawers. She laid them out on a folding table beside me. Scissors, tweezers, stimpaks, clear thread, various scalpels, a canister of antibacterial wash, and a blood pack that was dirty and bulging.
She pulled up another chair and sat across from me, a little closer than I’d like. She pulled a small notepad out of her coat pocket.
“Name?”
“Elaine.”
“Gunshot wound?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When did this happen?”
“Two days ago.”
“How have you treated it?”
“I washed it with water.”
“That’s it?” she stopped writing and looked up at me. I clenched my teeth slightly out of reflex. “Nevermind.”
She interviewed me for a little longer. She seemed to get more agitated with each answer.
“Okay,” she finally said. “So, the bullet is already out. That’s good.”
I was about to ask how that was possible, but I could see in the folding mirror the reflection of my back. There was another hole, bigger than the one in the front, on the back of my shoulder. Dried blood snaked down my arm, and a large portion of the back of my shirt was stained reddish-brown. The bullet had gone right through me. How had I not felt it?
Amari pressed a thick yellow cloth against my arm under the bullet hole. She then poured the antibacterial wash over the wound. I didn’t expect it to hurt, but it stung horribly. I cried out, thrashing against the doctor’s hold, and spat out curse after curse. She didn’t react.
When the stinging had gone down, I leaned back against the chair. I took in a deep breath and let her wash out the exit hole without fighting.
After it stopped hurting, I realized how much better my shoulder felt. The constant burning sensation was no longer there, and the blackening skin around it was tinted in pink, like a baby’s skin.
She handed me a small white pill. Buffout? I took it, looked at her questioningly. “It’ll help with the next part,” she answered my unspoken question. I swallowed the chem. Immediately I felt relaxed.
She grabbed one of the scalpels. “So, Elaine, what’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite food?” She kept asking me stupid questions like I was a toddler, most of them I didn’t have an answer to. What’s my favorite color? Why would I have or need a favorite color? But she seemed interested, to I humored her for about five minutes. While I talked, she messed around with my shoulder; I didn’t care to see what she was doing. I felt drowsy. I studied the picture on her desk. It was a lighthouse. What a nice lighthouse.
“All done.” Her voice broke me out of the trance. Done with what?
I looked at my injury. The ragged, blackened skin was gone, cut out in a perfect circle. Fresh blood was welling up in the new cut, but Amari dabbed it up with the yellow cloth. She started wrapping my shoulder with the cleanest bandages I’d ever seen in the Wasteland.
When it was bandaged, she went up the stairs for a few minutes. She came back with the same drifter that had disposed of Finn’s body. While Amari started cleaning up her workspace, the man picked me up and started carrying me up the stairs. I didn’t have the strength to react.
The rhythmic swaying made me even more tired. I spent a few seconds making sure that my gun was still at my side and that my gear was still in place. I pushed the dark hair out of my eyes.
The drifters in the street were settling down for the night, putting out the campfires and getting into bed. A light rain had started sprinkling the pavement, but it was the warm rain of summer and no one seemed to care.
I sighed and buried my head into the drifter’s chest. It’s been so long since I’ve had a good night’s sleep.
I let the rocking lull me to sleep.

I woke up with no memory of last night’s high. All I could remember was Amari handing me the Buffout, and I was glad she did, because I couldn’t even begin to think of how painful the procedure would have been if I hadn’t been chemmed up.
I woke in a clean bed, wrapped in a warm cocoon of blankets. The only other time I’d used blankets was the time I found some in an old nursing home and fell asleep after a long night of scavenging for preserved food. These blankets were much cleaner and thicker, and they had a sweet smell lingering on them that could only be Jet.
The windows in the room were boarded up, but I could tell it was morning time by the birdsong on the other side of the wall. A candle was sitting beside the bed, illuminating the room. The wax had only just begun to melt, so I guessed that someone had come in when the sun had come up so that I wouldn’t wake in the dark.
A knock sounded at the door. I made sure I was clothed -thankfully, I was- and called, “come in.”
The door opened, and a young woman stuck her head in. “Elaine? Just seeing if you were up yet. I came earlier, and you were asleep,” she mumbled quietly. She kept her eyes downcast. The thought of someone, even just this shy girl, coming into the room while I was asleep made me uneasy. She seemed to realize how uncomfortable I was, and pulled herself farther out of the door. “Mayor Hancock wants to see you in his office, if you’re feeling well enough. It’s in the red building in the middle of the town. The door is near the weaponry shop.”
Her head disappeared and she quickly shut the door. I gathered my gear, which was either still on me or sitting on the night stand beside me, and blew out the candle. I walked out the door and down a set of stairs.
I was in a hotel lobby; the Hotel Rexford I’d seen. An old lady with dark skin and short, white hair grunted a greeting at me from behind the counter.
I nodded back to her and walked out into the street. It was around midmorning, and many of the drifters were still sleeping. The warmth of last night’s rain was still there, steaming up from the asphalt in wispy clouds.
I walked around the big red building and through the common area, where steam was pouring out of the grates in tall, warm columns. Through the alley, I came out beside the weapons shop. On my right was the door that Hancock went through after I met him yesterday.
I went through it, and up the big spiral staircase in front of me. I kept going up until I came to a big room, where the ghoul mayor was leaning against the wall with Jet in his hand. When I walked up to him, he took a long, deep inhale of the chem. He was a little over eye level with me; I didn’t realize how short he was. Or maybe I’m just taller than I thought I was. Now that I think about it, adults were starting to seem about the same height as me.
He put the tube in his pocket and pushed himself off the wall. He looked over me, the speed of his eyes showing the effects of the chem.
“So, kid.” A wisp of Jet escaped his lips as he talked, curling and floating up to the ceiling. “Tell me your story. Why’s a kid running around the Commonwealth by herself, in raider gear, with a hole in her arm?”
I told him that my parents were killed when a raider gang attacked our camp, and that that’s where I got shot. I didn’t say that me and my parents were also part of a raider group, but I could tell in his eyes that he knew. He knew, but he didn’t say anything or treat me differently or react in anyway.
I told him about blacking out; I even told him that I thought I was dead. I told him about the agony of the gunshot. I told him about Dylan, though I only said that I knew him, not that he was a part of my gang. I think he knew that too, though. He listened, only muttering the occasional “damn...”
When I finished, he shook his head and took another hit of Jet.
“All right. Okay. So here’s the deal. I want you to stay here for a while, at least until your arm’s healed up. I’ll talk to Charlie and see about getting you a job and a place to sleep; they’re not gonna let you stay at the hotel without paying. You’re welcome, by the way, for paying for you last night. Amari wants you to stay, too, to see if her treatment is working. That cool with you, kid?”
I thought about it for a second. A stable place to live, a job to keep me busy, nice people and a cool mayor? Of course, I was going to stay.
I agreed to Hancock’s arrangement, and we started talking about my time here. He offered me a hit of Jet and a case of Mentats, both of which I gladly accepted. We hung out for a while, which for me was a step up from where I’d been before in terms of social interaction.
We said our goodbyes, and I waved bye at Fahrenheit, who’d come in without me noticing, and I headed for the door. Before I left, I stopped at the door and glanced back at the mayor. “Hancock?”
“Hm?”
“Don’t call me kid.”
I could see him enough from over my shoulder to see his smile.
“Whatever you say, Elaine.”

I stayed in Goodneighbor for a month, recovering well. I got a job waitressing and cleaning at the Third Rail, and I slept in the side room. Though, there were times when I had to get out because Magnolia had been flirting with someone and she didn’t want to walk all the way to the Hotel. Those nights were the nights where I slept at Rexford, on Hancock’s tab, or slept in Hancock’s room. We’d become good friends, under some mysterious reasoning. Then again, I’d befriended pretty much the whole town of Goodneighbor, apart from a few of the mercs that Bobby No-Nose had brought in; they never spoke to me.
I also started hanging around with Magnolia, the singer in the Third Rail, and Irma, the blond lady that runs the Memory Den. They were apparently good friends, and they were always quick to chat and joke. One of them always ate dinner with me, courtesy of Whitechapel Charlie, who was also starting to soften up to me. And if not one of them, then Hancock, who would sit and talk with me even though he didn’t need to eat.
“Elaine, come here for a second.”
I leaned the broom I was using up against a wall and maneuvered my way through the tables and chairs toward Charlie, who was beckoning for me. He was talking with a man in a green duster, who was turned away from me. The man was holding a pile of caps.
Charlie didn’t have a face, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was frustrated.
“Elaine, this man is paying me to let him stay in the side room. I have to put paying customers before squatters.”
It took me minute to realize what he was saying. I thought of what to say. I heard Sammy, a regular that always ordered too many beers to drink by himself, whisper, “Oh, Hancock’s not gonna like this,” and get out of his seat. But what could he do? This man is paying a serious amount of caps for my room.
The guy in the duster turned to look at me. “What do you mean?” he asked Charlie. “Does she sleep there?”
Charlie and I nodded. The man put the caps on the table. “She can stay, if she wants. I just want somewhere to sleep.”
Charlie was silent for a while. I wasn’t sure if I’d rather sleep in the same room as this stranger or just find somewhere else.
“All right. You can stay, Elaine. I’ll get someone to bring a mattress in there.” He scooped up the caps and floated away.
The man stood there for a second, looking awkward. I went back to finish sweeping.

When I finished for the night and walked into my room, the man was sitting in a chair, fiddling with an old piece of painted wood. He quickly put it into his pocket when we saw me come in. I closed the door and sat on the couch I always slept on, on the other side of the room where the man was.
“So, we’re roommates? I’m Elaine.”
The man fidgeted with the lip of his hat, which he still hadn’t taken off, along with his duster. He seemed very fidgety. “Call me Macready. Sorry for intruding.”
“Sorry for staying.” Saying this seemed to make him uncomfortable. He took off his had and coat and went to sit on his mattress.
We didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the night. I was too aware of the sleepy breathing on the other side of the room.

It took a few days, but eventually Macready started talking to me. When I asked him why he didn’t just get a room at the hotel, he said it was ‘too obvious,’ whatever that meant. He started being friendlier and less awkward. Well, ‘friendly’ might not be the right word. Maybe ‘open’. He was sometimes, in all respect, an asshole. But I did grow to like him, and he seemed to tolerate me. I think he liked me more than he let on.
He told me about his recent past as a Gunner, and I told him about my history of raiding. We both talked about it bitterly like it was a horrible thing, but I couldn’t help but notice the wistfulness in his voice, and I started to notice it in my own. I mentioned that I was unsatisfied with my job.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. But this just isn’t how I want to spend my life. From the moment I was born, I was supposed to be fighting.” I sighed. I was admitting this to Macready as well as myself. “Cleaning and waitressing- it’s not meant for me.”
Macready looked at me for a long time. “You can try the Minutemen, I hear they’re recruiting, if you’re into the whole justice thing. I don’t know if they’ll take someone as young as you, though.”
I shook my head. Definitely not.
Macready continued. “You could try mercenary work. I think that’s what I’ll do. Get caps, fight for people. Bodyguard.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I don’t think I could just fight for anyone.”
“Okay… uh, there’s the Combat Zone, a fight club and bar just for raiders. Maybe when you get a little older. It’s not really the best place for a kid. No offense.”
“None taken, sort of. Where is this Combat Zone? As a last resort.”
“Just South of here. But you aren’t going to go there unless you’re really desperate, right?”
“Right.” He knew I was lying.

That night, before I went to sleep, I walked upstairs to Hancock’s room. I knocked on the door, hoping he was still sober enough to talk. “Elaine?” He stuck his head out of the door. He didn’t have his hat on, and I realized that this was the first time I’d seen him without it.
He opened the door, and I stepped inside. The lamp was on, but there were also a few candles burning. While I’d been there, I’d noticed that he didn’t seem to like the dark.
I sat down in a chair as he pulled his red coat on over his t-shirt. Why, I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t question it.
“Everything okay? It’s almost midnight.” He sat down on the broken bedframe across from me, assuming his usual position.
I wasn’t even completely sure why I was there. I wasn’t planning on leaving for a few days. I was fine.
I didn’t talk for a few minutes. Hancock just sat there, growing increasingly more worried looking.
After a while, I tried to say something. I opened my mouth to talk, but all that came out was a noise that sounded like a scratched record. Tears started spilling down my cheeks. Hancock immediately leaned forward and hugged me hard, like he’d known that I was about to break.
I sat there, sobbing into his coat, hands clenching into fists, balling up the red fabric. He just held me.
My parents never held me like this. The thought only made me cry harder.
“It’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay,” he murmured softly, or as soft as his voice could get, repeating how everything’s fine. And mostly, it is. It’s better then I’d ever thought it could be.
I tried to say that I was all right, that I wasn’t crying because I was sad, but I couldn’t. I could only try not to start bawling again like a kid. I hated myself for being so childish. But I couldn’t stop. And Hancock knew that. He brushed his rough, scarred fingers through my dark hair, patiently waiting for me to pull myself together.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I awoke in Hancock’s uneven bed, wrapped in blankets that hadn’t been there before, clutching his red coat in my hands. There was a pillow and a blanket on the floor beside the bed; he must have slept on the floor. He wasn’t in the room, and his hat was no longer on the bedpost.
My head hurt, and I couldn’t breathe through my nose. My eyes were dry, and it hurt to open them. A clean-ish cup of water was sitting on the night stand next to me; I didn’t realize how dry my throat was. I must have fallen asleep crying. Pathetic, but what’s done is done.
I slowly got up and picked up the pillow and blanket he had used, throwing them on the bed. I pulled his coat around me and sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, drinking the water and trying to clear my head, then I put the empty glass down and walked out of the room and to the kitchen-common area. He wasn’t there, but a fresh, empty Mentats tin was sitting on the counter. He must have been on a massive high sometime that morning.
As I made my way down the spiral stairs, I noticed with dismay that my shoulder wound was hurting again. Great.
When I walked outside, the golden sunlight that had been streaming through the window had been replaced by a gray overcast sky. The air was warm and humid, but a gentle breeze set a comfortable balance. Birds flew lazily between powerlines. It was oddly peaceful.
Until I heard the gunfire.

I froze, unable to react accordingly to the bursts of gunshots coming from just outside the Goodneighbor gates.
KL-E-0, the robotic weapons dealer, sprinted past me, a laser being built up in the mechanics of her face. She was the only one in the area; it was deserted. Was everyone fighting? Or were they all hiding? The assaultron charged through the gates.
I didn’t have my gun or my gear, but I ran to the gates without worrying about that, like the idiot I’ve been proving myself to be.
Once outside, I raced down the alley. When I got into the nearest open area, where I thought I’d heard the shots come from, I was confused. No one was there. Not a soul.
Then there was a burst of light, and I wondered who was taking a picture, then I registered the loud bang that had come with it. Then I was pushed off my feet and tackled.
There was a smoking hole in the wall where my head had been. That’s the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Then I noticed the red liquid sliding down my leg. Not again.
But there was no hole in my leg. There was, however, a corpse laying on it.
Devin, the drifter that had carried me on my first night here, had no legs.
I think that’s when I started screaming.
The raiders didn’t expect the little girl in the red coat to start blowing out brains, that’s for sure. Four were down before they could turn their guns toward me. While they were confused, drifters started appearing from their hiding places and shooting at them. The raiders took a few seconds to start returning fire.
Armed with Devin’s assault rifle, I mowed through the front line and made my way the one of the buildings where drifters were shooting from. Hancock was there, in only ragged black jeans, a steel chest piece, and his tricorn hat. He had a gun, his knife, and a half dozen grenades strapped across his chest. He was using a second gun to take down raiders through one of the shattered windows in the building.
The room we were in was big, with a low ceiling. Drifters were shooting from the windows, doorways, and the many holes in the walls. Raiders and drifters alike seemed to be spread out randomly in the buildings around us, and there was no telling which direction they were coming from. Somewhere to our right, KL-E-0 the assaultron let loose one of her lasers.
There were a bunch of wounded drifters laying against the back wall of the building I was in. Doctor Amari and Irma flitted between them, helping them to the best of their abilities. In a building across from us, I saw Whitechapel Charlie using his laser on raiders from the second story windows. Is everybody in town out here?
When Hancock saw me, he stopped firing his gun and yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear him. He pointed toward the tallest building in the area. It was leaned up against the highway flyover, a gaping hole four stories tall almost splitting the building in half. Standing in the hole, just visible, was a raider in the most modified power armor I’d ever seen. Hancock shoved four grenades in my hands and ruffled my hair. He reached out and straightened the red coat.
Toppling the building would be easy enough, but getting there was a problem. Every time I tried to exit the building, bullets would pelt the ground in front of me. Eventually, I was able to run into the next building. I took down the two raiders in there, but more were coming down the stairs. I ran into the next building. Two more raiders were there, and two more came down.
They’re organized. With that realization, I dashed into the next building. Two down. Two more coming. Next building. Shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, shoot, run. This continued for the next few buildings.
When I came to the next drifter-occupied building, the only wounds I had were some minor cuts and scrapes. There were two bullet holes in Hancock’s coat, but they weren’t the first, so I didn’t concern myself with them.
Macready was there, fiercely killing raiders from the windows every time they dared to show themselves. He was only using one hand to shoot; in the other, he was holding onto that painted wood figurine like it was a lifeline. There was a body at his feet, though there was too much blood on it to see whether it was one of ours or not.
I tugged on his duster to get his attention. Pointing at my goal, the armored raider in the tower, I yelled as loud as I could: “I need a path!”
He understood instantly and started killing the raiders in my way. With a nod of gratitude, I left the building and followed the path of bodies that he was making for me. Raindrops were appearing, much colder and larger than the nights before.