Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Unity looks at Red with something close to incredulity.

“Bored?” it says, blinking. Red shrugs. It’s still a little weird, talking to a not-quite reflection of herself, even after doing it hundreds of times. This go 'round, she’d swung by Enhance! on Neon and chosen a bright purple mullet and matching violet eyes. She’d stayed female this time (though she’s been everything, at some point or another, mostly out of curiosity). Unity even leant on a cane as she did, inexplicably. It wasn’t like a construct of the multiverse could have arthritis.

“That is what I said, yeah. Bored. Tired. Disinterested. I’ve just…I’ve had enough, Unity,” she replies, rotating the cane under her palm. It’s an Earth relic, something she had picked up at New Homestead. It reminds her of herself, in way. Been through the destruction of everything it ever knew, a little worn down. But still functional.

“Had enough. Of eternity.” Unity still sounds confused. Red can’t say she blames it, really. “What are you doing here, then?”

Red looks around the projections of the world she’s leaving behind. She’d chosen to let things work themselves out this time.

She’d married Sam (as she has done many, many times), found the artifacts, told both the Hunter and the Emissary to shove their ideologies, and set up a farm on Akila. The Terrormorphs came and went. Hadrian presumably fixed it without Red, for once. Delgado found his way to the Legacy, but without Red’s stealthy self, he had no comspike or conductor grid module, and last Red checked, the Crimson Fleet were being ruled by Naeva and slowly being whittled down by the Vanguard and the Rangers. No real loss, there. Red had leaned into the pirate thing once or twice, just because she could, and found that it wasn’t nearly as gratifying as being…anything else. Hell, even farming on Akila and sniping at the Ashta had been better than turning innocent people into space debris.

The First and Ron Hope’s deal ended up becoming public (Red had a sneaking suspicion Birgit had something to do with that – she’d always seemed to be a good person) and the company had been taken over by his second in command or something, and it seemed to be going okay. The First are still out there, presumably, seething over the UC’s betrayal.

Ryujin…are still Ryujin. Red had gone to the interview - she always did, part of her checklist - and had promptly decided that being a corporate spy wasn’t for her. The mind control tech was useful, occasionally, but not this time. Not this life.

“I have a question.” Red says, eventually. Unity gestures for her to continue. “You can send me basically anywhere, right? As long as a version of me is there?”

Unity narrows its eyes at her. “Yes.” Red nods and turns the cane again. “Why?”

Red takes a deep breath, looks at the projection of Sam and her on their wedding day (it had been in the fall, this time, and Akila had been bathed in the sun’s glow. He had looked beautiful, as he always did). The small form of Cora is there, gazing adoringly at her father. She still looked at him like that, even when he was on his deathbed. Red’s heart aches.

“Okay. I want to go somewhere else. Another time. Another place.”

Unity follows her gaze. “You are grieving, Meredith. Perhaps you should come back later.” Red snaps her attention from her husband’s visage and grits her teeth.

“Unity, how many times have I been married? I know you keep an eye on me.” Unity hums, its form flickering. Before it can answer, Red holds up the hand not gripping her cane. “I’ve married Sam forty-three times. I’ve married Sarah ten, Andreja five. Hell, I even shacked up with Barrett once. Do you know how many times I’ve outlived the loves of my life? Every. Single. One. I haven’t had kids. Ever. Except Cora.”

Unity tilts its head. The purple turns red for a moment – her original color, before all of the Starborn nonsense. “What, exactly, are you asking from me, Meredith?”

“Sam died last week. Cora…she wants to come with me this time. But only, only, if we’re together, and she doesn’t have to see Sam die again. And there is no variant of the life you keep sending me to that doesn’t end with him dead.” Gut shot, more than once. Caught unawares in an Akila alley by a thug with a hatred for the Coes, on one memorable occasion. This had been cancer, sudden and untreatable. That was a first.

The multiversal being leans off the cane and taps the handle of it against its chin. It flickers again, processing. “I know of somewhere.”

Honestly, Red had almost thought it wouldn’t be possible. “Oh?”

Unity pushes its tongue through its teeth. Red knows, deep down, that this is just a construct designed by the Armillary to make the whole jumping-universes thing easier to digest, but seeing one of her mannerisms reflected so perfectly makes her cringe in her skin a little.

“Yes. But it will be…difficult for you to return here. I would say borderline impossible.” It looks at her expectantly. “You would almost certainly be stuck where I send you. Is that an acceptable risk? To escape this apparent monotony?”

Red ignores the scathing tone on apparent. She looks again at the projections. “Unity, I am old. Physically, currently, but mentally too. I’ve been doing this for literal centuries. There isn’t a planet I haven’t seen, there isn’t a system I haven’t jumped to. There is nothing left here for me. I can’t…I can’t do all of it again.”

Unity regards her silently. It flickers again, flashing through all the versions of Red there has ever been. Man, woman, other, again and again. Old, young, and on more than one loop, barely mid-twenties, holding her guts in with one hand and reaching blindly for the portal with the other.

“If you are sure, Meredith, then I will do this. Please collect Cora, and we will begin.” It tells her, settling eventually on the red-haired, smirking version of Red that had started it all. The cane shifts into the form of her old Cutter, rusted and caked with dirt. “I will be waiting.”

As you always are, Red thinks, as she bows her head and steps back.

The void winks out of existence, and Red leans heavily onto her cane. Cora is by her side instantly, checking her over for wounds. “I’m fine, stringbean. It agreed. We can…we can leave. Are you sure you want to follow me? Doubtless there’s some kind of caveat to it. You know how Unity is.”

Cora puts her hand on Red’s shoulder and gives her a Coe Look. It’s intimidating, and for all of Red’s years being a Coe, it’s something she’s never really had the knack for. Not that she’s ever needed to be more intimidating, considering she’s…well. Red.

“I’m positive, Red. Do you want to say bye to Dad before we go? I already did.”

Cora is well into her thirties now, hair styled into a messy bun. Her Ranger badge glistens gold in the midafternoon sun. Red looks out of the cockpit of her ship – not the Razorleaf, she’d left the Mantis-ing to someone else this life; this is just a basic cargo hauler Sam had purchased from the Ship Services over in Akila – at Sam’s grave. It’s marked with a simple stone, an eagle etched into it.

“I’ve said goodbye to him enough times, Cor. Come on then. Let’s go see what Unity has in store for us, yeah?” Red asks, rolling her shoulders back. For the first time in what feels like forever, she’s looking forward to whatever world lurks behind Unity’s portal. It feels like her bones are vibrating with excitement. Cora chuckles and loops an arm through Red’s, and the world shatters into the void once more.

Unity greets them with a joyless expression. “Hello, Cora. How are you?” it asks. Cora just raises an unimpressed eyebrow at the cosmic entity. It winces, and Red looks away before she laughs. “Ah. I am…sorry about your father, young one. If I could prevent his death, you know I would.”

“Sure. Can we just…get on with this, please?” Cora replies, eyes flicking around the images that surround them. Her lip quirks into a sad smile when she gets to the wedding. Unity mumbles something under its breath and waves a hand towards the centre point of the projections. There’s a beat, and then the portal splits itself open, dark and glittering.

“Before you go, ladies…” Unity says. Red grumbles wordlessly and mouths I told you so to Cora, who wrinkles her nose. “You two will end up together in this new world, but I cannot promise you when it will happen. It will likely be years. Meredith, you are used to simply waking up in a new universe, the day of the Vectera dig, yes?”

Red looks at Unity with no small amount of suspicion. “Yeah. Why? What’s going to happen?”

Unity, in a shocking display of humility, rubs the back of its neck awkwardly. It’s a gesture so un-Red-like that it makes Cora choke, giggling. “This world is nothing like the one you are used to, Meredith. As such, I think having a few years to get used to it will be helpful. You won’t be too young, of course, that would just be cruel. How do you feel about being a teenager again?”

Red distinctly remembers teenagedom as being one of her least favorite periods of existence, though that may have been due to her parent’s divorce and her father’s raging PTSD. She has happy memories of her high school years too, of sneaking around Neon with stolen liquor and a quarter of an inhaler of Aurora. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too awful,” she decides eventually. Unity nods once, like it knew she was going to say that (and it probably did, the sneaky, multiversal bastard). “What about Cora?”

“I’m good with staying in suspense, Red.” Cora interrupts. “We’ll find each other eventually, right?” The last part is directed at Unity, who nods again.

Red takes a deep breath as they near the portal, and just before she reaches out a hand to touch it, she turns back. “Hey. Unity.” The being tilts its head. “If I never see you again…thank you. This has been fun.” She gives it a cheery, two fingered salute. Before it can reply, Red dives headfirst into the void, Cora only barely hanging onto her elbow.

Chapter Text

Red wakes up in pain. Not her usual, arthritic-old-lady pain, thank the stars, but pain all the same. She squints her eyes open and takes stock of where she is. Her head’s all fuzzy, like it’s filled with cotton wool. White walls, linoleum flooring. A hospital? A machine beeps next to her ear, a steady sound. Her pulse. Across the room, a deep voice calls out for a nurse.

“Meredith, you’re awake! Thank God.” The man says, rushing over to her side. Red gives him a quick once-over. Middle aged, dark hair slightly receding. Wearing an ugly golf jumper, as always. Some things are the same in every universe, Red thinks.

“Hey, Dad,” Red says. Or tries to say, except it comes out as little more than a hitched breath and a scratchy sound. She clears her throat and tries again. There isn’t much change. Her dad puts a gentle hand on one of hers and kisses the top of her head so gently Red can only just feel it. A nurse with blonde hair pinned into an intricate, curled up-do swans into the room. Her uniform looks like something out of a vintage per-per-view porno that Red had seen once.

“Ah, Miss Whelan! Glad to see you’re with us. How are you feeling?” she asks, lifting something from the foot of Red’s cot – a medical chart, Red guesses, though it’s written with pen on paper. What sort of time has she been sent to, that the women look like old pinups, and everything appears analogue? There isn’t a television that Red can see, either. The only sign of patient entertainment is in the form of an odd-looking device on the windowsill. Soft jazz music is coming from it. A radio? Her brain’s too foggy to really think about it. She looks at the IV bag to her side and frowns at it. Pain meds always make her feel like she’s living her life wrapped in gauze. “Miss Whelan?” the nurse tries again. Red blinks away from the radio thing and gives her attention to the other woman.

“Hurts.” She eventually manages, voice rough. Red’s dad produces a glass of water from somewhere and she takes a slow sip. It’s ice cold and soothes her throat. “How long’ve I been out?”

The nurse and her dad share what they probably think is a subtle glance. Red, despite being very high on painkillers, catches it and sighs. “How long?” She’s never been particularly gifted with medicine, only really bothered learning enough to make her own med and trauma packs, but she knows some things about coma patients. She doubts Unity would have sent her to a version of herself with serious issues – the being isn’t cruel. But it isn’t infallible, either.

“Little over two weeks, sweetie. Do you remember what happened?” Her dad asks, gentle and sweet as honey. The sort of tone one takes with a child when you know something terrible has happened. Red takes a second to investigate her memories.

It’s hard to find, what with the layer of drugs, remnants of the coma and the fact that technically these aren’t Red’s actual memories – just a synthesis created to help her merge with this version of herself – but eventually she finds what she’s looking for. This universe’s Meredith Whelan, one hand on the steering wheel of a speeding car, eyes blown wide in fear, the other hand pushing down on…someone’s thigh, covered in blood. Red can’t make out who exactly she’s trying to stop from bleeding to death, but she knows enough about anatomy to know it’s a fruitless attempt. Shot to the femoral artery. The fact the pair of them have even got into a car is impressive. Red sees a syringe of some description, filled with a red liquid, lying on the floor of the passenger’s seat. This universe’s version of a medpack¸ she assumes. The wound on her passenger’s leg is knitting itself together, slowly – too slowly – under her palm.

The passenger mumbles something too quietly for Red to hear, and as her attention is diverted, bright lights fill her peripheral vision. Then there is the sound of squealing breaks, an almighty crash, and then blackness.

“Car crash. Someone wa’with me, n’ they were hurt. Bleeding out. Don’ remember much else.” Red says, looking down at the hand that had held so tightly to the passenger’s leg. She doesn’t know who they were, but the level of desperation she had felt…they must have been special to this Meredith. “Who wa’ the person I wa’ with? I, um.” She points to the side of her head, shrugs her shoulders. Her dad curses under his breath and reaches down to squeeze her other hand.

“A friend of yours from school. Marcus Nguyen. You were on your way back from a college interview when some idiot sinophobic thugs jumped the two of you. Shot the poor kid in the leg and ran away.” Her dad says, and there’s no mistaking the fury in his eyes. “Best we can tell is that you got Marcus into his car, drove like a madwoman to the hospital and got hit by a truck that didn’t see you coming. Doctors said you were lucky to make it out alive.”

Except she didn’t make it out alive, because I’m here, and not her, Red thinks. “Marcus?” she asks, mostly because she thinks it’s the sort of thing this world’s Meredith would ask. Her dad’s downturned mouth is enough of an answer. “Di’ the people that attacked him at leas’ get caught?”

Before he can respond, the nurse clears her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Whelan, but I have to complete a brief physical examination. You can talk to your daughter afterwards.” Red’s dad nods and squeezes her hand again.

“I’ll be outside, sweetheart.”

*

The next few weeks are some of the worst Red has ever experienced. Physical therapy hurts like a bitch, and between the steady cocktail of drugs the doctors keep her on (and only barely wean her off, despite her begging) and the slow progress, Red is seconds away from ripping her IVs out and leaving on her own. That is, of course, until a woman comes walking into her room with a cart filled with books, a sign on it indicating it belongs to Boston Public Library.

“Good morning, love. Anything you feel like reading?” she asks, and Red perks up considerably. It must show because the older woman laughs. “Bit of a bookworm, are you?”

Red has been trying to remember things about the universe she’s found herself, and despite this version of Meredith apparently being smart enough to apply for law school, she didn’t appear to have paid much attention to the world around her. Red knows that there’s something going on with China, based on her father’s comment on ‘sinophobic idiots’, and that there’s some sort of pandemic, because the nurses on her ward talk often about how thankful they are to not be working at one of the worst affected hospitals. She knows she’s in Boston, and that she’s about to turn eighteen. Other than that, she knows relatively nothing, and Red has never liked not knowing things.

“History buff, to be specific. Have you got anything like that on your cart?”

The woman nods and scans over the cart. She plucks one of the books out and hands it over. It’s a simple thing, a white cover with the title in bold red; A People’s History of the United States. “This is perfect, thank you, ma’am.” Red smiles at the woman, who waves her off.

“Don’t call me ma’am, makes me feel old. I’m Daisy. I’ll be back same time next week, if you manage to get through that that quickly.” The librarian waves and departs, and Red cracks open the book.

*

Unity wasn’t lying when it said this world would be different from the one Red knew. The timeline is a little off, too; this world is centuries back in the past in her perspective, and somehow despite having similar levels of technological knowhow, it’s far behind her old universe in terms of spacefaring. As far as Red recalls, humanity had made it to Mars around a decade ago, and in this universe, they made it to the moon and then…gave up, seemingly, on finding a home amongst the stars. On the plus side, Red thinks as she flips the page of the new book she’d grabbed, she likely won’t have to worry about Victor Aiza finding the artifact on Mars and the resulting damage to Earth from it.

“Morning, sweetie.” Red looks up from the pages and smiles at her parents. Her mom’s wearing what seems to be typical female apparel – a vest top with a flared skirt, paired with simple ballerina flats. It’s cute, in a vintage sort of way. Her dad’s beside her, wearing a slightly different version of the outfit he was wearing the day Red woke up.

“Morning!” Red greets, tucking a bookmark into the book and closing it. She looks her parents up and down and takes in the bags her dad is carrying. “Oh, is it discharge day?” Daisy and her weekly visits with her little book cart have made the month she’s been stuck in the hospital bearable, though she’s been antsy to leave since she woke up, and the buzzing energy under her skin has only gotten worse. At least the doctors finally agreed to take her off the meds she’d been on, and she can think without feeling like she was buried under a mountain of candyfloss.

“Indeed it is, little one. I grabbed a couple of different things; I didn’t know what you wanted to wear.” Her mom says, grabbing one of the bags from her dad’s arm and pulling out two piles of folded cloth. “There’s a dress and then a t-shirt and shorts.” Red gets up and out of bed – slowly, because her legs are still a little wobbly, somehow – and choses the shorts ensemble.

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll be out in a second.”

Red closes the bathroom door behind her and strips. As she pulls the shirt over her head, she catches sight of herself in the mirror and pauses. She’s not really taken a chance to look at herself, too busy with trying to learn about this new world and getting herself up and running. The girl in the mirror has dark auburn hair, slightly messy from sleep and weeks in a hospital, pulled into a loose bun. Her eyes are hazel, and despite remnants of bruises around them, they look…kind. Which throws Red for a loop, because she’s never really thought of herself that way. Loyal, sure, possibly to a fault. But kind? She thinks of Delgado’s face, as she pulls her gun on him, and of the terrified yells of the Spacers that she’d killed because they’d been in her way. No, not kind.

Red shakes her head and brushes her hair out of the bun. There’s bobby pins on the counter, and she slowly and meticulously pins her hair back into something similar to her mother’s. Red reaches her hand up to her face, turns it this way and that.

“What were you like, before all of,” Sam gestures widely, their universal gesture for ‘all of this shit’. They’re sat on the porch of their farm. Sam is dying, slowly, and Red has seen it enough times that she can’t make herself look at his face. “I know you were a miner, and that you grew up on Neon. But what were you like, really?”

Red hums and nestles closer into his side. “It’s been a while, Sam. I think I was just like everyone else.”

Sam ruffles her hair and kisses the mess he’s left behind. “Okay, let’s think a little less vague, then. What do you think you’d be like if you grew up differently? If the world was kinder to everyone?”

“I…I don’t know. There was a point where I nearly went to university on Jemison, did I ever tell you that? Was gonna study law. But then Mom got made redundant and we needed money, so I dropped the idea and started working for Argos. So, I guess, I’d be doing that. Some fancy-ass solicitor or something. Making the world a little less miserable.”

Red takes a deep breath. She can do that now, she realises. Can go to law school – has already got a place, though she feels a little like she’s stealing it from herself, which is a strange concept – and do what she told Sam she would. Make the world a little less miserable.

“Meredith, you okay, sweetheart?” Dad calls, and she shouts back an affirmative, eyeing herself in the mirror again. It’s probably a trick of the light, but she almost thinks she sees her reflection shift into her older self, greying at the temples and with claret-red eyes. It almost looks like she’s crying. Then she blinks, and it’s gone.

“Thank you for everything, Red. I think…I think I’m gonna let you go, for now.”

And Meredith Whelan turns to exit, leaving Red – all the lives, all the blood spilt – behind.

Chapter Text

Three years pass in the blink of an eye, and Meredith finds that she can almost entirely forget about her previous life. Lives. Sure, she wakes up in a cold sweat some nights, memories of death and rage in the back of her mind, and yes, she sometimes thinks she can hear Unity’s layered voice whispering in her ear, asking if this is what you really want, Red? but she’s fine.

Mostly.

Meredith flags down the bartender of the crappy dive bar she’s found herself in, and he smiles pityingly at her as he pours her another rum and Nuka Cola. To her left, she hears someone practically fall into the seat beside her.

“I’ll have what she’s having.” Nick Valentine says, and the barkeep nods and serves it up before flitting to the other end of the bar. Meredith looks up from her crosses arms and gives a half assed wave. “Evening, Meredith. Long day?” he asks as he takes a long, slow sip of his drink.

“More like a long year, Nick. Fuckin’ Eddie goddamn Winters,” she grumbles, taking a swig herself. The rum burns. “We could hand him on a silver platter to the judge, and the man would still walk free. Hell, we basically did. And here we are, step fuckin’ one. Again.”

“You get a potty mouth when you’re drunk, doll.” Nick says, but he’s smiling as he says it. “We’ll get him eventually. Man can’t get away with it forever. Not after Jenny. I’ll track him down an’ shoot him myself if I gotta.”

Meredith’s grip on her glass tightens. “I’ll be right there with you. Bastard.” She leans back a tad and raises an eyebrow at him. “What are you doing in this dump, anyway?  Didn’t think it was your kinda place.”

Nick shrugs. “It isn’t, but I knew you’d be here.” That gets Meredith’s attention, and she turns fully on her seat to face him. “You ever met a kid called Cora? Legal name’s Cora Coe, but she’s in the system now so you mighta known her by something else.”

Meredith’s world freezes – she notices that it has literally frozen only after she sees the glittering stars of the void around her, and she releases time as soon as she does. It takes concentrated effort to not throw up all over Nick’s fancy coat; using her Starborn powers seems to always have an adverse effect on her in this world - either because she hasn’t had a reason to use them in a few years and so her biology just isn’t used to them anymore, or because the artifacts are all thousands of lightyears away. She’s not bothered to figure out which of those it is.

“Maybe,” she says, hoping Nick doesn’t notice how pale she’s gotten, “why’s that?”

Nick takes another sip of his drink. “Was called to a domestic a coupla’ weeks ago, and there was a kid there. Parents are in the hole on drugs charges. I was the one who took her to the kid’s home she’s gonna be in for the foreseeable – the one up in Medford -, and she asked me if I’d ever met a ‘Red Whelan’. Didn’t really think of you until I saw your name written down on the court docs this mornin’.” He cuts her a glance. “So, you know her? I know Whelan’s a pretty common surname, but I figured I’d ask ya just in case.”

Meredith finishes her drink in record time and spins Nick to face her, gripping his upper arms. “Take me to her. Right now.”

If Nick is shocked by the unexpectedly heated stare she’s giving him, he doesn’t show it. “Easy, kid. The place is probably locked up for the night, and you’ve had more than a few drinks.”

“I’ve had three, and I could drink you under the table and still be sober as a judge. Take me there. Now.” She slams a handful of bills on the bar and stalks out of the bar, spinning on her heel and glaring at the detective when he doesn’t move. “Nicholas. Move your ass.”

Nick sighs, world weary and long suffering – which is partly fair, Meredith thinks, he’s known her for all of six months but is more than aware of just how insufferably stubborn she can be – and forks over a couple bills for his own drink before joining her at the door. “The house mother isn’t gonna like us just barging in at nine at night, kid.”

Meredith shrugs and walks over to the car she knows is his, taps her foot impatiently. “She’ll like it, or I’ll report her to Social for how much of a dump that place is. You know how many times she’s nearly been taken to court over it?” Nick unlocks the car, and she hops in, drumming her fingers on the dash. She’s so damn excited to see Cora that she feels like she’s about to explode. “I don’t have an exact number, but it’s a lot, which is a problem. She’ll let us in.”

Nick takes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it, pulling out of the bar’s parking lot. “How’d you even know the kid?”

Meredith thinks fast. “If it’s the Cora Coe I hope it is, I looked after her when she was a baby. Kinda dropped off the face of the earth years ago. Been trying to find her for a while but keep coming up blank.” The last part isn’t even a lie; Meredith hacked her way into the Births and Deaths registers for the entire country a month after she got out of the hospital and looks Cora’s name up every other week.

“Ah. Yeah, from what I read the Coes lived in Boston for a few years when the kid was first born but moved out west. Only came back recently, and then. Well. She’s in a home here now, until Social find a next of kin or someone fosters her. Folks’re likely to be locked up for a while. They were smugglin’ Psycho out of one of the military training bases or somethin’. Uncle Sam did not like that, with how things are at the minute.” He tells her, tapping the butt of his cigarette.

Meredith frowns, watching the city go by out of her window. “What’s her dad’s name again? I only really interacted with her grandfather. Can’t imagine he’d be too happy with his granddaughter living with drug dealers. Was always kinda posh, in my opinion.”

Nick takes another drag. “Honestly, I didn’t really pay attention. Just took the kid and arrested the folks.”

“Oh, okay. He was nice enough to me when I saw him.” Meredith tries to disguise the relief in her voice, though she’s still concerned about Sam. She can’t imagine him up and leaving his daughter in any universe, even less so if it meant she’d end up living with criminals.

A few minutes later, they pull up outside the orphanage. It looks genuinely awful; the paint is flaking off the walls, and several of the windows are boarded up where they’ve been smashed. Barely tempered rage boils under Meredith’s skin. “What, did Social not have anywhere less shitty to send her? I’d heard this place was a rathole, but Jesus.” She heads towards the steps leading into the building and curses when her foot nearly goes through the rotten wood.

Nick appears from behind to steady her. “You know how it is, kid. Nothin’ fancy for kids with stories like this. Sad, but true.” Meredith rolls her shoulders as she approaches the door. Nick narrows his eyes at her. “Meredith, don’t scare the poor woman to death. Y’look like you’re gonna set her on fire with nothing but your eyes.”

“Humans are too combustible for that. The whole place would go down in flames, and then where would the kids live?” Meredith retorts. She takes a breath and puts on her best Court Face. It’s not quite a Coe Face, but she’s used it on hardened criminals, and they’d damn near pissed themselves. Beside her, Nick swallowed nervously. “Relax, Nicky. I’m only gonna scare her a little.”

Meredith raps on the door delicately, and a few moments later it’s swung open by a portly woman. She reeks of booze and cigarettes, and Meredith contorts her face into a placid smile before she can grimace.

“What’dyou want? ‘s late. Kids’re tryin’ to sleep. Get lost.” She tries to slam the door shut, but Meredith slides her foot in the doorway and doesn’t flinch when it gets stuck. “The fuck?” the house mother asks from the other side, and Meredith slams the door open with her shoulder, sending the other woman sliding across the floor. Jesus, Meredith thinks. The place stinks. She thinks she can see mouldy plates stacked in the kitchen sink.

“Cora Coe. She’s here. Which room?” She sees Nick staring at her out of the corner of her eye. “Which room is she in, please.”

“Why the fuck would I tell you? Who the fuck are you?” the house mother tries to push Meredith out the door, only to find herself caught in Meredith’s grip. Meredith tightens her hold on the woman and whispers in her ear.

“Tell me what room she’s in, or I will report you for every single flaw in this building, and then a few I’ll make up. Would suck to lose out on that sweet, sweet federal dough, hmm?” Meredith asks, voice cold. The house mother shrieks and stumbles, nearly falls on her ass when Meredith lets her go. Nick looks between the two women, shock painted onto his face.

“Upstairs! Second room on the right. Just take the kid and leave, fuck. Get the hell outta my house,” the woman pants, scrambling backwards. Her back hits the mantle of the fireplace, and Meredith bows mockingly.

“You have my deepest thanks, my lady. We’ll be out of your hair shortly.”

Meredith turns on her heel and heads up the stairs. She’s halfway up when she sees a face pop around the door frame. Tanned, brown eyes, curly hair in a mess. “Red?” Cora asks, and before Meredith can blink, she has her arms full of sobbing child.

“Hey, stringbean,” she mumbles into her hair, squeezing tight. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Behind her, Meredith can hear Nick apologising to the house mother, who just swears at him again as she gets to her feet. Cora lets go of her grip on Meredith’s neck. “I heard her scream. Deserves a hell of a lot worse than whatever you did to her, you know.”

Meredith sets Cora down and gives her a once over. “You got all your stuff? Doubt she’ll let us hang around too much longer.” Cora hooks a thumb over her shoulder, indicating to the backpack she’s wearing. Meredith tries not to cringe when she thinks that everything Cora owns can fit into a bag so small.

The two of them amble down the stairs. The house mother honest to God hisses at the pair of them. Cora sticks out her tongue in response. “Alright, Meredith. You’ve got the kid, so what’s the plan now, exactly?” Nick asks, hand reaching to his jacket pocket and retrieving a smoke. He blinks at her when she doesn’t reply. “Please tell me you have a plan.”

“Go to Social, foster the kid, eventually adopt the kid. Can’t be too hard.”

*

Meredith glares at the man sitting across from her. He looks like Sam, has the same beautiful eyes and stubble. Even has the drawling, borderline southern accent. If it wasn’t for the fact he was wearing orange overalls and had visible track marks littering his arms, Meredith wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

Except, of course, the fact that this Sam Coe is a complete slimeball.

“No,” he says, pushing the paper in front of him away. “I’m not signing away my kid.”

Meredith’s mouth twitches. Sam Coe’s love for his daughter is seemingly multiversal. Or at least, that’s what she thinks, until he opens his mouth again and says, “she’s good at attracting customers.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?” Meredith asks. Sam shrugs.

“She’s cute. People like cute.”

“She is eleven.”

Another shrug. “Yeah, so she’ll still be good for it when I’m out of this joint.”

Meredith stares at the man before her, anger making her blood burn. He looks at her, unrepentant, and Meredith loses control. Just a little.

Here’s the thing with being Starborn. You look human, appear human to scanners, and for the most part, remain more or less the same person you were before you go through the process. The thing, though, is that you willingly scatter your being to the cosmos, let the tides of stars reconstitute you somewhere else in the multiverse. Starborn, you are called. So, if you think about it, reach a little into yourself, you can call out those stars that birthed you.

Meredith does this, pulls at the void that she once sacrificed herself to, and lets it fill the room. Darkness fills the space, and a chill settles that drops the temperature two dozen degrees. Sam visibly pales, pupils shrinking to a pin prick.

“Sign the paper, or I will end you.”

Sam signs the paper, and Meredith leaves the prison with a new daughter and stars glittering at her heels.

Chapter Text

Over the next couple of years, Cora and Meredith settle into a routine. Cora goes to school, Meredith goes to work, they have a microwaved dinner whilst listening to a radio drama. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes, Meredith catches Cora looking at a family photo from her old home with her dad, eyes watering, and feels awful. She says as much to Cora one night, twirling spaghetti around her fork, and is shocked when Cora laughs.

“I wasn’t crying because of this Sam. He was the worst. I just think of home, sometimes. Don’t you miss it?”

Meredith spends several hours a week at a local gun range, picturing spacers and pirates in the place of the targets. She doesn’t miss a shot. Part of her yearns for the pull of a grav drive, for the sound of gunfire. But does she miss ‘home’? Does she miss the centuries she spent wandering the galaxy, living the same life, over and over?

“No. Can’t say I do.”

Cora hums and takes a bite out of her dinner. “If you say so. Hey, Re-Meredith,” she catches herself before she slips out Meredith’s old nickname, “you tried dipping your toes into the dating pool yet? Only people you interact with other than me are that cop guy, Valentine, and your parents. You not lonely?”

Meredith points her fork at her daughter, mock threateningly. “You’re scheming. I know that face, Cora.” Cora raises a hand to her chest, offended. “Don’t look at me like that. What are you orchestrating, young lady?”

Cora drops her hand. “One of the kids in my class, James, brought his brother into class for that careers event they did the other week. You know, the one you skipped out on?”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I don’t control court hearing dates. I would’ve been there otherwise.” Meredith defends, jabbing at a lump of mince. “You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway. So the kid’s brother is called Nathan, and he’s in the army. And he’s gorgeous.”

“Cora, you realise that you look like a thirteen-year-old, right? He won’t date you.” Meredith asks. Cora rolls her eyes.

“Obviously. I just figured you might want to get out there, you know. And you have a type. He was so sweet, Meredith.”

“He kills people.” Meredith tries, but Cora gives her a look so scathing she drops her shoulders and relents. “Okay, so he’s good looking and nice. How do you know he’s willing to go on a date with me?”

“Oh, I already asked him.” Cora smiles, impish.

“What?”

*

Nathan “please, call me Nate. Only my parents call me by my full name,” Smith is, to Meredith’s pleasant surprise, an absolute sweetheart. Cora’s first date for them had been something low-key, just a coffee at their local Slocum Joe’s. He’d walked in looking a little nervous, and when he introduced himself, had tucked his hat under his arm and kissed her hand. “Lovely to meet you, miss.”

Their second date had been equally as simple. Nate had pulled up in his (in his own words, junkheap of a) car and taken her to the Starlight Drive-In Theatre to watch a new horror flick. Meredith had barely flinched, but Nate had spent most of the movie with his hands over his eyes, fingers apart just enough to see the occasional image. When Meredith had asked why he’d picked a horror movie if he was so scared of them, he’d blushed. “James told me that Cora said you were into spooky stuff, so…”

“Oh. Yes, I am, but you didn’t need to scare yourself for me! I would’ve been happy with anything, Nate, really. It’s just nice spending time with you.” Nate had somehow gotten even redder in the face, kissed her on the cheek and driven away.

Their third date is to a local travelling carnival. Nate leads her to a shooting game. “I know you go to the range a lot, so I figured this is right up your alley,” he says, and Meredith proceeds to win the game thrice. The guy running the stall hands over her prizes, grumbling. Nate takes one of the large teddy bears and grins. “To the victor goes the spoils! I said that right, right?” He asks bashfully, and Cora was right, Meredith does have a type.

Meredith tries very, very hard not to fall in love with him. She fails miserably, and when he drops to one knee a year later in Boston Common, she’s saying yes before he even gets the question out.

They get married in a courthouse, partly because Meredith has been married countless times (not that she tells Nate that), and partly because Nate is almost as allergic to church as Meredith is. “Why do we need God to bless our marriage, anyway?” he asks as they sign their names, “it’s not like He’s doing much in terms of helping humanity nowadays, right?”

Nate gets deployed two months into their marriage, and Meredith spends the rest of the day in Cora’s embrace, sobbing. Cora and Meredith finish moving into the family’s new home in Sanctuary Hills a few weeks after he ships out, and Cora eventually convinces Meredith to buy a Mr. Handy unit. Codsworth’s not bad, for a robot armed with a flamethrower and buzzsaw, but part of her still misses Vasco’s hefty frame.

Meredith is just about done unpacking her wardrobe when she’s suddenly overcome with nausea. She barely makes it to the bathroom in time, and she’s still retching up what feels like a year’s worth of food when Cora appears at the doorway, concern etched onto her face. She holds out a glass of water.

“Hey, Meredith. Just out of interest…when was the last time you got your period?”

Meredith leans back on her heels and takes the drink. “Cora. I can’t be pregnant. Me and your dad tried hundreds of times. I think the whole being a dimension hopping lunatic might have something to do with it. This is just food poisoning or something.” Cora makes an affirming noise and leaves Meredith to it.

The following Monday, Meredith is hunched over the toilet again, and Cora and Codsworth hover in the doorway. Cora looks a little smug. Meredith raises a finger at her, not lifting her head from its position. “Not a word, Cora Coe. Give me five minutes, and I’ll go into town and get a test. It’s probably just the flu.”

“Mhm.”

 An hour later, Meredith is on the floor of the kitchen, pointedly not looking at the stick on the counter behind her. Cora is stood next to it, tapping her fingers on the faux-marble surface. “You want to know what it says?” she asks, taking a sip of her Nuka Cola. Meredith presses the balls of her hands into her eyes.

“I already know. Goddamn it, Cora,” she says, getting to her feet. The strip sits there, taunting her with its two red lines. “This can’t be happening.”

“Well, Meredith, you didn’t exactly do anything to stop it happening, no?” Cora asks. Meredith glares at her. “What, am I wrong?”

“Cora, please. This is terrible. I can’t be a parent. What the fuck am I gonna do?”

Cora tilts her head. “What do you mean you can’t be a parent?”

Meredith throws her hands out, gestures to the world at large. Cora catches her right hand and squeezes. “Meredith. Look at me.” Meredith does, reluctantly. “How many times did you end up with me as a kid, before now? A lot, yeah? And I don’t remember them all like you, but I do remember my life before this one. You were a great mom. And this time, you literally put someone in a chokehold and then threatened to kill this world’s scummy version of your former husband to keep me safe. Does that not make you a good parent?”

“I’ve never had to raise you from infanthood. Kids usually hate me, Cora.”

The girl takes Meredith by the hand and leads her to the couch. Meredith curls up into a ball, resting her head on her daughter’s lap. Cora strokes her hair gently. “Trust me, Meredith. This will be fine. You’ll do great.”

*

Shaun Whelan-Smith comes into the world wailing. Cora is sat at Meredith’s side, grimacing at the iron grip on her hand. Nate is still up in Alaska, had been planning to come back home for the birth, but Shaun is just as impatient as his mother.

Meredith reaches for her son, and the doctor places him on her chest. His eyes are still closed, but Meredith knows when they open they will be a dark, glittering blue, like his father's – and a little like the stars she came from.

Shaun is taken to the NICU not long after – Meredith expected so, he was almost two months early, after all, and despite having a relatively peaceful pregnancy, she isn't sure if her Starborn physiology will impact him at all. Cora follows after the nurse, squeezing Meredith’s hand before she leaves.

Meredith lies back and closes her eyes. Thank you, Unity, she thinks as she drifts off, thank you for this life.

*

Nate comes home the day after Meredith and Shaun are discharged. He’s still Meredith’s husband, still Cora’s loving step-father, but Meredith knows the signs of PTSD when she sees them. Hell, she probably has a case of it herself. One night, he wakes up in a cold sweat, reaching for someone that isn’t there. Meredith grabs his hand and pulls it back to his chest.

Nate shakes himself awake properly. “Sorry, love. Just a bad dream.” Meredith slips her fingers through his and kisses him gently.

“It’s fine, Nate. Come on. Long day tomorrow.”

*

Everything is normal, the day the world ends.

Nate is preparing for a speech at the veteran’s hall, Shaun is down for a nap, and Cora is over at the Rosa’s doing homework with Louis. Meredith grabs a coffee from Codsworth and is ready to settle down for a relaxing afternoon when the Vault-Tech rep knocks at the door.

“Good morning, Vault Tech calling!” he says. His smile is so fake it makes Meredith’s teeth hurt. Meredith raises her mug and returns the greeting. “You can't begin to know how happy I am to finally speak with you. I've been trying for days!”

“Then I’m glad you caught me. What exactly did you need to talk to me about?”

“I know you're busy, so I won't take up much of your time. Why, I’m here to talk about you, ma’am! And helping secure your future. You see, Vault-Tec is the foremost builder of state-of-the-art underground fallout shelters. Vaults, if you will; luxury accommodations, where you can wait out the horrors of nuclear devastation. I'm here today to tell you that because of your family's service to our country, you have been pre-selected for entrance into the local Vault. Vault 111. Now, as I said, I know you’re busy, so I won't take up much of your time. Don't want there to be any hold ups, in the unforeseen event of total atomic annihilation. Won't take but a moment. Just need to get this pesky info all squared away!”

Meredith nearly zones out when the man speaks. “The apocalypse? Well hell, sign me up!” The rep blinks at her, clearly unsure of how to respond. She sighs. “Just give me the form, please?”

She fills in the form, glances over the contract. Nothing too out of the ordinary, at least from cursory glance. The rep takes the form back and bids her a cheerful farewell. Meredith watches him leave, squinting at his back as he heads down the path. Cora comes out of the Rosa’s front door, tucking her textbook back in her bag as she walks.

“That guy here again?”

“Mhm. I looked over the contract and signed it. I doubt we’ll be needing it, but…”

“Better to be safe than sorry, hon.” Nate says, swooping in from behind to steal her coffee and kissing her on the cheek. Meredith squawks and follows him inside. Cora fails to stifle a laugh.

The three of them are about to go about their day, Meredith twisting her hair up into a bun and securing it with a small mountain of bobby pins, Cora trying to chose between two dresses for the awards ceremony that evening. Nate stands behind her, holding Shaun. “The yellow one. It looks good with your skin tone,” he says. Cora holds up the yellow dress to the mirror, then the blue one in her other hand. She alternates between the two, and eventually nods. Meredith is about to step into the kid’s bedroom when Codsworth calls out from the living room.

“Sir? Ma’ams? You should come and see this!”

The three of them head to the robot quickly. He’s hovering in front of the television, and Meredith moves him gently out of the way. The newscaster on the screen looks concerned, white knuckles holding his papers. "Followed by... yes, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions. We're... we're trying to get confirmation, but we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations. We do have confirmed reports. I repeat, confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God."

Meredith is leaping over the couch and out of the front door before she can think. Nate and Cora follow her. Cora keeps pace, barely, and her voice is deadpan when she says, “I doubt we’ll be needing it, she says. You jinxed it!”

“Cora, is now really the time?” Nate calls from behind, jogging slightly slower so he can cradle Shaun’s head. Cora glances back as they round the corner to the Vault’s dirt track.

 “No, probably not, Nate, but we are probably about to be bathed in nuclear radiation, so pardon the gallows humor, hm?”

Meredith ignores the both of them, skidding to halt at the gates. There are two soldiers in power armor, ordering the growing crowd of panicked people to stand down, and a third holding a clipboard. Meredith swerves around the person in front of her – the rep, who swears at her before storming off. “We need to get in. We’re on the list. Whelan-Smith.”

“Adult female, adult male, teenage female, and an infant. Okay, you’re good to go.” The solider says, stepping to the side. “You’re gonna want to run.”

They reach the platform with seconds to spare. Meredith watches as a mushroom cloud takes shape off in the distance, and her hands curl into fists, tears threatening at her lower eyelids. Cora wraps her hands around Meredith’s. “We’ll be fine, Meredith. We always are.”

The elevator clanks into action, taking them below ground, barely missing a shockwave that rocks the ground. Meredith shakes off Cora’s hands and turns to face Nate, who is staring into the middle distance, like he’s seen a ghost. “Nate? Honey?”

He shakes his head and leans into Meredith, knocking their foreheads together. Shaun crows from his arms, babbling. “Sorry. I’m okay. How are you two holding up?” Meredith and Cora look at each other and just shrug. They have no words.

The elevator shudders to a standstill, and a blue grate slides up. A man in a lab coat directs the group to the inside of the vault.  Meredith takes the folded blue material from one of the security guards, wrinkling her nose at it. Nate and Cora take theirs, and Cora snorts.

“Shame you didn’t pick the blue dress, Nate. I would’ve matched the suits.” Nate sighs at her as they follow the scientist that calls them over. Meredith is only half paying attention to what he’s saying, more interested in her surroundings. She's in a daze, can't seem to focus. The end of the world will do that to you, she supposes.

When they reach the decontamination pods, Shaun starts fussing. Meredith takes him from Nate and shushes him whilst her husband gets changed into the suit. Cora turns round and makes a wide-armed gesture, grimacing. “This is possibly the worst thing I have ever worn. Ever.”

Nate takes Shaun back. “They’re definitely a fashion statement. Unsure of whether it’s a good one or not.”

Meredith zips up her suit, expression mirroring Cora's. “A bad one. This material isn’t breathable at all. Hope there’s aircon down here, or we’ll be sweaty messes.” The scientist laughs and directs them to the pods.

“Okay, folks. Just lean back. The procedure doesn’t take too long.”

Meredith steps up into the pod and settles back. Distantly, she can hear alarm bells ringing in her head. She takes a deep breath and forces herself to ignore them. “See you on the other side, love. Cora.”

Her husband and her daughter wave as their pods close. As Meredith’s follows, the alarm bells ring louder. It’s only when the lock clicks and she hears a hiss of air that Meredith fully realizes something is wrong. She tries to shout, but the scientist just watches her passively.

“Procedure complete…in ten…”

The last thing Meredith feels before the world goes dark is a bone-deep cold, and then, nothing.

*

The world flickers back into color. Meredith reaches up to pound on the glass, tries to shout. Nothing comes out. She’s reminded of when she woke from her coma – body aching, voice barely functioning. In the window, she can see two shapes. A man, with a nasty scar, and possibly a woman, though the odd hazmat looking suit they’re wearing makes it hard to tell. 

“Cryogenic sequence reinitialized.” Cryogenic? Meredith lets out a horrified gasp. How long have we been frozen?

“What’s taking so long?” Scar questions Hazmat, crossing his arms in frustration.

“I'm almost finished, Kellogg. I just need to confirm... all right. We're good.” Hazmat replies. Female.

Nate’s pod opens, and he blinks into consciousness. “What’s going on?”

Hazmat reaches for Shaun. Meredith pounds on the window of her pod, and Scar spares her a glance. Smiles, though it’s not a nice one. It reminds Meredith of her own, as she shot her way through the galaxy. No, no, Nate! Don’t!

“I’m only gonna tell you once. Give me the boy, and you won’t get hurt.” Scar orders, and Meredith notices for the first time the mean looking gun in his hand.

“I’m not giving you Shaun!” Nate shouts. Meredith screams wordlessly. Her next attack on the window cracks it, and Hazmat notices with a shout. She jumps backwards in shock. Scar sighs, almost like he’s bored, and before Meredith can process, he’s lifted his gun to Nate’s forehead and fired. Nate falls back, and Hazmat scrambles to grab Shaun before he falls. Meredith’s fist flattens, and she stares at her husband’s corpse. Not again. No, please, no, not again.

Scar turns to look at her, his gaze flitting between her pod and Cora’s. “Goddammit! Get the kid out of here, and let's go...” he lifts his hand, poking at the spot where she’s cracked the glass. “At least we still have the backups.”

He and Hazmat vanish off to the side. Meredith pounds on the metal door of the pod again, sobbing.

“Cryogenic sequence reinitializing. Ten…”

Bone-deep cold, and then Meredith is sent spiraling into the void again, tears freezing on her cheeks.

Chapter Text

Hey folks.

I’m doing a full time qualification for the next few weeks, and it’s been kind of exhausting so far.

Updates will likely be sporadic for the rest of the month, but I promise they’re coming.

Thank you for the kudos and bookmarks!

Enjoy the rest of spooky szn.
<3 Toni