Chapter Text
There was darkness, but it was light on the other side of my eyelids which I now opened, gazing up into the blue sky. It was a bit cloudy in the horizon so maybe it would rain tonight, it sure looked like it would.
"Don't you fall asleep and fall in," a raspy voice spoke up from behind me, I turned my head slightly and saw Nick Valentine standing on the porch behind me. I was sitting on the edge as one would by a boathouse and Traffington Boathouse was such an idyllic place, and I had wanted to put my feet down into the water so badly and swim, but I don't want radioactive feet.
"Not planning on it," I replied with a grin. Nick didn't say anymore only pulled a feint smile.
"So we leaving?" I asked him, we were after all on a case to find out the code to Eddie Winter's underground base, Nick was very eager to find all the tapes, it seem to be his personal vendetta. Me? I just join him because I want to see him happy. Not that the piece of shit don't deserve us coming for him, I remember him from the news. The sleazy grin on his face when they showed off a photograph on the television. A disgusting piece of human trash.
"Well it's getting dark in not so long, you sure you don't want to crash here for the night?" Nick asked, he was very considerate, I felt warm inside.
"We only have two holotapes left to find, I say we get going," I replied. Nick's face kinda glowed up a little, as if that was what he had wanted. I would at least sleep, but he didn't.
"Are you sure? It looks like it will be raining," One of the settlers at the house asked, and I looked at them with a smile.
"It's gonna be alright, we'll find a place to camp later tonight," I replied.
I could see the way the settlers looked at me, like they didn't understand why I said we. They also seemed afraid of Nick, but because I was there, they didn't say anything out loud. A lot of people had this reaction towards Nick, I didn't like it, not a bit. I owed so much to Nick after all, he was here for me through a very rough time. He had been the first person I came to trust in this fallout. Him and his metallic yet extremely big heart. I loved it. Him.
Of course he didn't know that. He cared for me, that I knew, we were like best friends. He pulled me out of my depression when I found out my little Shaun was in fact an old man.. How I was too late to save him, how everything had just been played into their hands. How they treated synths...how they would treat Nick! I was disgusted, and I was disgusting. I had blown them to bits...I had blown Shaun to bits. I was a horrible person, and a horrible parent.. They had only wanted the best of this world, but..they had given me no choice. It was either to kill Desdemona and the Railroad or to blow up the Institute. A massacre either way, and I was the one holding the trigger. I felt my heart beat fast in my chest, just like the time I stood there int the rooftop about to press the button. All the people...the children. I felt like throwing up.
"Hey, you alright over there?" The raspy voice of Nick broke my line of thoughts, he had surely seen my facial expression change. This was not the first time it had happened and I looked at him as I always would, my eyes red from not blinking, my face sweaty and pale without saying anything.
Nick didn't say anything either as he sat down beside me, placing his skin-covered hand on my shoulder before looking at me.
"No one blames you except yourself," He said calmly, his glowing eyes was only on me and his entire person was entirely focused onto mine. My eyes started to trail off and stare somewhere into the distance as I couldn't have him do this every time, which made Nick tighten his hold onto me. "Hey, look at me!" He said in a tone that could be taken to be anything but annoyed or angry, making me look at him again.
"I understand that you feel the need to do that, but you are great and you have so much to live for and be proud of, like young Shaun," He said.
Young Shaun was the synthetic boy Father had created and later toyed with me with. He had wanted me to take him with me, and I could impossibly say no.
I had left him at the Railroad as I just couldn't face him, it hurt looking at him, and so I had ended up wandering around the wastes with Nick for a longer period of time. Until Nick brought up this Eddie Winter Case.
We've been looking for holotapes the last few months, and we only have two of them left. We are currently on our way to East Boston Police Station, coming down from Malden Center, it had been quite a trip. A lot of thoughts and feelings had managed to get sorted. I was much better now than I was the first months of this trip, but I still had this overwhelming guilt flowing over me from time to time.
"And even if you can't handle it, I will still be here to support you through it," Nick finished. I loved him so much, I didn't deserve to be traveling with such a wonderful person.
"..I know," I replied nodding. The guilt was settling down and I was able to breathe normally again, but Nick didn't remove his hand from my shoulder, not yet. His firm grip somewhat held me together you could say, and I truly needed it. I wondered what I would do without this man? He didn't know, but I truly needed him. The way he always stood for the people, and it was never for the money, I truly lived the life the way Nick Valentine wanted me to, and I had no complains. I was in fact head over heels in love with the guy.
We sat in silence on the porch for a while, I had calmed down long time ago, but I just wanted to sit like this, with Nick's hand on my shoulder and his full attention on me.
"I think we should stay the night here, you obviously aren't up for mutated mosquitoes and other random encounters we could have down towards East Boston Police station," He suggested, still looking at me with glowing eyes.
"No, I'm fine," I said as I shrugged his hand off of my shoulder and got up, I knew he wanted to go, and I was fine now. It only happened once a while now. I was managing. Getting better. Healing.
"Let me just get some fresh water before we go," I said smiling at Nick. Whom looked at me attentively as I went on my way.
Half an hour later the sky was showing several beautiful pink and orange hues, the sun was about to set and I threw my backpack onto my back. It was holding some stuff like food, water, ammo, change of clothes the other holotapes, even a pipe pistol, but I surely favored my sniper rifle, which at some point had gotten the name Whisper.
"You ready to go Nick?" I asked, he was sitting on a chair in the living room pretending to drink from a cup. It was a habit of him to do so, pretending to be human. He did that a lot. Once he pretended to eat while we were taking shelter in a settlement. I had found him later that night outside trying to remove all the food from inside his mouth. He had been ashamed about it, but it was a habit, trying to make others comfortable around him.
We were now on our way towards our goal, the settlers had told us to keep away from the shore because there seemed to be some kind of bloodbug nest somewhere along it, so we ventured into the dead nature a safe distance away from the water.
"You sure you're okay?" Nick suddenly asked, he was walking a few steps ahead of me and spoke with his back turned, but he peeked over his shoulder, I could see his glowing eyes in the dim light.
"Yes, I promise," I replied grinning at him, I felt so warm when he was worried about me. Nick was just the nicest kind of person, and he wasn't even a real person in a way, though I would beg to differ. He had seemed to be okay with the answer for now as we walked as he got quiet. Which meant my turn to create conversation.
"Do you miss the pre-war?" Was what came out of my mouth and Nick stopped for a second, as if he was thinking about it before he continued walking, not turning to look at me.
"I think if you have memories of it, yes, you will, no doubt," He explained. He wasn't wrong. Of course you'd wish for a safer world. Not like this, unsafe, and being killed by fellow humans, animals or nature.
"True..." I mumbled as my mind got stuck deeper into the thought of pre-war. I wondered if I had seen Nick somewhere, but just didn't remember it. Then I got into what-ifs; What if I had become friends with the pre-war Nick, then he would have remembered me?!
I was so deep within this line of thoughts I almost didn't notice Nick crouching down reaching out his hand to stop me from going any further. I bumped into his arm, having been deep in thought.
"Shhh..." Nick whispered and I looked ahead and onto what obviously was the threat. A Supermutant lair.
Bodies impaled on fences. human bodies mushed together inside a net and the howling of a mutated hound. They were alert of our presence!
A Supermutant's shout roared through the camp, it was surely a battlecry.
"Perhaps it's best to-" Nick started, but I wasn't gonna let him finish, I pulled in his trench coat as to direct him in the way we were running. There had been no time to think, but north was not a good option as we could possibly not drag the pack up to the boathouse, and so we headed south.
We literally got an explosive start on our sprint as both grenades and shots were fired towards us, but we were not standing around there, we were running as fast as our legs could carry us. It wasn't as if we couldn't have managed, but the guns blazing approach usually ends up with a lot more bullet-holes than necessary. I tended to like the more sneaky approach. Which was somewhat how my Sniper rifle had gotten it's name anyway.
I heard the grunts of the mutated hounds behind us, but didn't dare to look, I didn't need to know how close they were. They were close enough by the sound of their grunts.
We continued running, over the dead forest-y nature which was now covered in fog, I could taste the blood in my mouth and my lungs were burning, but we could not stop, they were still after us, not to mention we didn't see much ahead either, who knows what we might run into?
We saw the shadow of a pretty large building to the right, but suddenly turning towards it could surely end up getting caught and made into human smoothies.
We headed past and down and we actually seemed to be gaining some distance between us and the hounds, with of course the Supermutants following them. We needed a hiding spot and that soon.
I saw a little house, or maybe it was a shed, we were heading straight towards it, maybe this was the way to loose them I thought as we ran inside and basically ended up running straight through it and onto the wharf. Trapped.
We stopped and Nick stepped out in the front of me, putting him in between the hounds and me, but that wasn't a good option, nor a very thought out idea. I looked at the water, I guess I would be getting that swim I had wanted after all, and without warning I pulled Nick with me falling in. Surely not the best idea I'd had.
What I had not accounted for was that I had just been running my lungs out of my chest, and holding my breath was critically painful, not to mention I already felt dizzy. Going up for air was however not an option, and would endanger us. Supermutants were rather dumb, and hiding underwater was surely a thing that would have them give up the hunt. We needed to give them time to leave but my lungs where aching for air and even my vision started to blur. Still I could not go up for air yet.
I remember looking at Nick at some point before I apparently blacked out.