Archive of Our Own ^beta

"See the one sleeping on that patio chair up on the catwalk?" Phil asked.

"Where?"

She passed Hancock the scope and pointed to the raider in question.

"Yep. Yep, I see her. If you shoot the legs off the chair, she'll just fall head first into the concrete."

"Good one. I was thinking turrets first, though."

"Naaah, come on, it takes them a while to swing around. You could pick off two or three raiders by the time those things finish aiming in the right direction."

"But they're so annoying," Phil said, sniffing disdainfully.

"Suit yourself," Hancock shrugged. "Now me, I'm going to aim for that Psycho'd up sucker by the water. One good shot in the shoulder, and he's taking a pirouette straight into the bay."

"You can tell the exact chems someone is messed up on through a scope?" Phil asked flatly.

"It's a talent," Hancock shrugged. "'Sides, it's always Psycho with raiders. They shoot up the stuff like it's going out of style."

 In the end, however, they needed not have bothered discussing their plan for how to attack the raider compound. They were startled by screeching metal, gunshots and panicked voices.

Phil fumbled for the scope, and peered through it in time to glimpse, in between planks of rickety wood, what had caused the commotion.

"What's going on?" Hancock asked, hands clenched around his gun.

"Would you believe," Phil replied, "a drunk power suit is attacking them?"

'Drunk' was the most accurate description Phil could come up with for the erratic movements of the suit. Whoever was controlling it was swinging wildly, and instead of shooting the laser gatling the suit was clearly equipped with, they were using it to bludgeon people to death. An adequately horrific end for the raiders, but hardly efficient.

In the confusion, it was not at all difficult for Phil and Hancock to pick off a dozen raiders without even being noticed.

They did get noticed eventually, because they ran right up to the ugly stacked shacks to get a better sightline, but by that point, the power suit had broken through a wall and apparently taken a support beam with it. The wood moaned and creaked, and half the structure collapsed inward on itself--and onto the power suit.

Phil and Hancock picked off the survivors, shooting down raiders before they could scatter away from the collapsed building.

Once it grew quiet and still, Phil holstered her weapon.

"What're you doing?" Hancock asked, getting a bad feeling about it.

Phil trotted up on top of the wood pile, and began sifting through the debris.

"Digging out Demolition Man," she replied.

Hancock leveled her an incredulous look.

"You realize that was a Brotherhood of Steel power suit, right?" he said. "Not that I can stop you from topping off the day's quota of crazy, but they're not as cuddly since their blimp got blown to hell."

She didn't exactly roll her eyes, because it was true. The Brotherhood stragglers were plenty dangerous on their own. But...

"I wasn't going to undig them all the way out, Hancock," she replied. "But we only really need to reach the head at the moment."

Hancock sighed noisily, but did nothing to stop her.

"Fine," he said. "You dig, I'll watch your back."

"Oh, come on, I'm sure everyone's dead for miles."

"I'm sure that line would go through any nearby scavver's head, too. I'm keeping watch."

Phil rolled her eyes at Hancock's concern, though fondly so, and began digging out the wood in earnest. She had to take a long pole and leverage a heavier piece of wall out of the way, but when she was done, the power suit's torso, left arm and head were all exposed from the wreckage.

She knocked on the armor.

"Hello? Anyone alive in there?" she asked. 

There was no answer. The headlamp was cracked, the light gone out. There was no sound or movement from the suit.

And then she flinched as the suit began beeping loudly and obnoxiously. She knew that beeping. The suit was out of power. The fusion core powering it was completely depleted. No wonder the laser gatling had gone unused.

Phil and Hancock exchanged a grim look. It had been a suicide run.

"Next time, maybe pick a fight with a deathclaw instead of a band of raiders extremely bad at carpentry."

Danse went from groggily half-awake to fully alert and scanning his environment for a weapon. It took him only half a second to reach for the bottle on the bedside table, crack it clean in half, and push himself upright, with his back against a wall. 

The Wastelander sitting across the room from him lapsed in stunned silence, and now stared at him with wide eyes. She had--Danse was displeased to notice--a ranged weapon, and he did not. He was already calculating whether he could rush and disarm her before she could shoot him down, when it occurred to him that there was something vaguely familiar about the woman.

"Well, if you wanted a drink, I'm sure I could've gotten you a glass," she said, voice more soft than joking.

Danse was acutely aware of his fingers clenched around the bottle neck, of the chilling lack of power armor around his vulnerable body. But he was not being actively attacked, so he made himself calm down and think.

The woman. He'd seen her somewhere before. Her voice was familiar. Where had he...

Ah. The Cambridge Police Station. Against the ghouls, and later helping him recover the deep range transmitter from ArcJet. He remembered. She gave her name as Phil. She'd surprised him with her competence, and he'd invited her to join the Brotherhood. 

She never did take him up on the offer.

Well. Just as well she hadn't, all things considered. It would have been just more waste of life.

Though his memory provided no answers as to how or why she was here now.

Danse made his fingers unclench, and he put the broken bottle back on the bedside table, telegraphing his movements. She seemed relieved, though she didn't put aside her own weapon.

"Ma'am," he nodded. "I can't say it isn't a pleasure to see you again, but..." He trailed off.

"But how the hell did you get here?" she supplied.

"Yes."

"We dug you out after you brought that shack down on yourself. Your suit was completely out of power, so we pulled you out of it and carried you to the nearest shelter we could find." She gave him a chiding smile. "That took some doing, by the way. You're a big boy, Paladin."

Danse ignored the jab.

"Who is 'we'?" he asked instead.

"Hancock and me. We had to drag you here on a plank of wood. And digging you out of your tin can was plenty of work, too."

Only two people, then. And worn out from carrying him there. Danse reassessed his chances in combat, just in case an escape still became necessary.

"Are you hungry, by the way?" Phil asked. "You've been out for most of the day."

"I require sustenance, yes," he said.

She nodded as if expecting it, and slung her weapon around her back, walking over to a cabinet. She took out a plate with a steak on in and placed it on the bedside table, taking the broken bottle away and brushing a few shards of glass off the table. She also helpfully provided him with a knife and fork. Blunt and rusted, Danse assessed, but not so much that they wouldn't sink through the more vulnerable spots in the human body. He made note of that, just in case.

His stomach growled loudly, interrupting that particular train of thought. He'd run out of field rations days ago, and faced with the food before him, he became acutely aware of the fact.

He ate ravenously, in complete silence, while Phil sat back down across the room and watched him. The food was cold, but not stale--had she cooked it for him, specifically?--and after he was done, she also passed him a bottle of beer to wash it down. Danse took two large swigs, not enough to incapacitate him, and felt himself more alive than he had in weeks. His head throbbed painfully, but that, at least, was something he'd grown used to. 

"Why are you doing this?" he asked her.

"You were in a tough spot," she said.

"So you help me out of it, again," he said.

"I tried," she shrugged. "Not like anyone else was coming after you... were they?"

Danse swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

"No," he admitted.

She was silent for a beat, and sadness passed over her face. Danse could not stomach being pitied, so he looked away, pretending he was inspecting the room.

"Well, since you have nowhere else to go, how about you come with me?" she said.

"Come with you where?"

"Sanctuary Hills. We got room to spare, and you look like you could make yourself useful."

Danse nearly refused the offer on the spot. If he was to ruminate on his failures and his losses, he would prefer to do it in solitude.

Except if the solitude had worked out for him, he would not have charged into a raider encampment with no plan, no backup and no ammo. He was... he was loathe to admit it, but he was giving up. He had given up once already, and now, in retrospect, that stunt felt more like a dishonorable surrender than the blaze of glory he'd envisioned.

No. With shame gnawing at him, Danse realized this was an opportunity he had no right to refuse.

"I would appreciate it," he said.

Phil tipped her hat at him and grinned.

There was movement in the hallway, and Danse tensed up again. Phil gestured for him to stand down.

"It's just Hancock," she assured him, just before the door swung open and her companion walked in.

"It's a ghoul," Danse said, hiding none of his revulsion.

The ghoul turned its head to him and blinked its black eyes. The way it looked Danse up and down made his hackles rise.

"Oh my god," Phil said, sounding surprised. "Hancock, you're a ghoul?!"

The ghoul leered at her.

"You would've noticed it yourself, if you weren't so distracted by my stunning good looks," he replied.

"You're right, how shallow of me," Phil said pointedly, turning to look at Danse.

Danse was at least perceptive enough to understand that that exchange had been for his benefit, to put him at ease. That the thing wasn't feral assuaged his immediate fear, not his disgust. But he stood down, and made no move against... Hancock.

"So," Phil said, her attention returning to Hancock. "Since the L&L Gang is dealt with in this area, I think we can afford a trip back to Sanctuary Hills. Paladin Danse agreed to tag along."

"Uh huh," Hancock said, glancing over his shoulder at Danse. "We're taking him to Sanctuary Hills, then. You're sure about that."

"We talked about this, Hancock," Phil said patiently.

"We did," he muttered. "Some people back at Sanctuary might have a few additional choice words, though."

"He'll behave himself," Phil said firmly. "Won't you, Paladin?"

Danse looked up, into Phil's expectant face. In that moment, she did not look like someone to trifle with. He would agree, or she would leave him behind. Alone. Without his suit.

"It's just Danse now. And yes," he gritted out, glancing at the ghoul. "I will... behave."

It was a tense trip, Danse couldn't deny. Hancock seemed intent on provoking him, and Phil was not very subtle about the fact that she was trying to act as a buffer between them, which rankled at Danse because it seemed she thought very little of his discipline and self-control. He was not going to attack the ghoul while they were traveling, exposed and vulnerable, and he did not appreciate her thinking so.

He could tell when they were approaching the settlement they spoke of, because he saw the tension start seeping out of Phil's shoulders. From alert, she turned cheerful and relaxed, and when a dog ran up to her, she did not shoot it, but knelt and allowed it to slobber all over her face.

The dog was followed by an exuberant Mr. Handy model robot, and then, the further they walked, they came across cheerful, filthy Wastelanders waving at them and shouting greetings. Hancock had disappeared at some point, perhaps in a corner where he might indulge his various addictions in peace, without Danse's judgmental looks.

This, then, was Sanctuary Hills, with its dilapidated pre-War housing units interspersed with newer structures. Danse noted the guard posts and the turrets as he followed Phil along. For a ramshackle settlement, it seemed adequately secure, and if he didn't miss his guess, the people in the more gaudy outfits were Minutemen. They, at least, knew how to hold their weapons.

"General," one of the Minutemen greeted, shooting off a loose salute as Phil passed by.

"Preston! Anything exciting happen lately?" she asked, stopping to lean against his guard post like a chatty housewife gossiping with the neighbor over a picket fence. Danse stopped a few steps away.

Preston's gaze slid from her to Danse, and then returned to Phil.

"You tell me," Preston said.

"Ah. Well. This is Paladin Danse. He'll be joining us," she said.

"Paladin. As in, from the Brotherhood of Steel," Preston said flatly. There was that tone again, the same Hancock had used when talking about taking Danse to Sanctuary Hills. Like there was something mad about the mere notion.

"Well, not so much these days," Phil replied. She gave Danse's uniform an assessing look. "I'll get him sorted out."

"If you say so, General," Preston replied. "Shout if you need us." Then his eyes flicked to Danse a final time, with a twinge of apprehension.

"Will do," Phil replied, and began walking again.

Danse fell in step besides her.

"Will my presence here be a problem?" he asked.

"Not if you don't make it one," she said.

"If anyone besides the ghoul is going to find my presence objectionable, I'd rather know now," Danse insisted.

"And the ghoul's name is...?"

Danse's jaw tightened for a moment, before he responded.

"...Hancock. But you still haven't answered my question. Ma'am."

Phil stopped, then, halting him in the middle of the road. Curious eyes peered at them from windows and driveways, and reflexively, Danse stood in parade rest.

She was quiet for a few seconds, watching him, seemingly considering something.

"The Brotherhood of Steel didn't make many friends in the Commonwealth," she said. Before Danse could interject, she raised a hand to silence him. "That's neither here nor there, but people already didn't trust you guys. And then after the Prydwen blew up, you all scattered and went your own ways, and became another uncertain element people have to fear while going about their daily lives."

"The Brotherhood was here to protect people," Danse said firmly. "It's why we all joined. Because we believed in something. We are not... miscreants."

"And you're not part of the Brotherhood anymore, Danse," Phil replied. "Not if you want to stay here, with us. And you're not obligated to stay, believe me. If you want to return to the Capital Wasteland and rejoin whatever branch of the Brotherhood is still there, we'll help you on your way. But I need to know you'll play nice and make an effort to be respectful to everyone here."

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "You have my word."

He could not state it more clearly or more sincerely than that, and Phil thankfully accepted that with a nod.

"Come along, then," she said, and took him gently by the arm.

She ushered him towards a vendor's stall, where a woman in a clean dress watched them curiously.

"Anne, this is Danse," Phil said, pulling him closer and indicating his entire height in one gesture. "He's looking for something less conspicuous." She turned to Danse next. "This is Anne Hargraves. She's our seamstress."

"He's a big one, isn't he?" Anne said, in her perfect-for-radio voice.

The look she was giving him up and down was more than a little appreciative, and Danse shifted awkwardly under the scrutiny.

"Might have to modify something to fit him," she said, reaching under the stall and rifling for something. "Try these for now." She pulled out a stack of clothing and gave it to Danse.

"Thank you, ma'am."

Anne's eyes flicked to Phil.

"And a polite one, too," she said with delight as she leaned against her stall.

"Down, girl," Phil laughed. She took Danse by the arm again, turning him around. "Alright, next we find you a bed."

She hardly took a step, however, before a shout of 'Mom!' rang out and a boy came barreling into her. Phil let out a squeak of surprise before throwing her own arms around the boy.

"Shaun!" she said, and ruffled the boy's head.

"You're back early!" Shaun said. 

"I'm back early!" she agreed.

"Does this mean you're going away again soon?" he asked, his expression melting from happy into worried.

Phil sputtered a bit, looking uncertain how to reply.

"Oh--I don't-- I-- had a slight change of plans, I--" She sighed as she yielded to Shaun's pleading eyes. "No, there's nothing urgent. I'll stick around a bit longer this time."

Shaun grinned widely in response, and hugged her again for good measure.

"How about I drop off everything I need to drop off and we can meet up at the house later and have lunch together?" she asked.

"Oh!" Shaun looked over at Danse, noticing him for the first time, and released his mother, straightening up. "Of course. Welcome to Sanctuary, mister," he said politely.

"Thank you," Danse replied.

Phil smoothed down Shaun's hair after she'd been the one to ruffle it, and then placed a kiss on his forehead.

"See you later, honey."

"Bye, Mom."

Shaun ran off again, in the direction of one of the old houses.

"Your son seems like a fine young man," Danse offered.

A smile quirked at the corner of Phil's lips.

"He really is," she said softly.

The room Danse was given had a bed, a chest for his belongings, and a shelf. To say it was cramped would have been an understatement--he smacked his head against the underside of the shelf at least once--but it was relatively clean by the standards of the Wasteland, and it was private. Most of the other rooms he'd glimpsed on the way in had two beds instead of just one.

He did not mind it. Cramped living quarters were something he got used to early into his time with the Brotherhood. The fact that he was not given a roommate might have denoted a lack of trust, but he preferred his solitude.

He changed into the clothing he was given; the worn leathers were tight, but fit him. He looked at his discarded uniform for a long time, unsure what to do with it, until he finally folded and placed it at the bottom of the chest. It was the only thing he owned, and the rest of the chest loomed empty.

Walking out of the building and out into the settlement was another strange experience. Now, with his uniform stowed away and no rank to his name, he was well and truly a civilian again.

It was an unfamiliar feeling to him. He did not like it.

Having been given no instruction regarding what to do, he began walking along the settlement, trying to learn the layout. The stands were arranged along the road. Anne's eyes lit up when she saw him wear the new clothes, but the other stands only seemed to have vendors half the time; the one selling medical supplies was operated by a ghoul woman, and Danse gave it a wide berth.

Further on, he came across more houses and, to his surprise, there was a power suit parked under one's roof.

Here Danse's steps faltered, and he stopped to stare, wondering how close he would be allowed to get. There did not seem to be much in terms of security here. A man was fiddling with something at the workbench next to the suit, and he gave Danse only a cursory look before returning to his work.

Danse hazarded a few steps closer.

The suit did not look well-maintained. Or, rather, not well-maintained to the Brotherhood's standards. It was in good repair, all things considered, but showed no signs of care or tinker.

The man at the workbench noticed Danse's attention, and gestured to the suit.

"Yeah, we got one of these, too," he chuckled. "T-60 model. Ever see one up close?"

"Yes," Danse replied, and did not elaborate.

The silence extended for a few awkward moments.

"Okay," the man said finally. "I'm Sturges, by the way."

"Danse."

"You interested in the suit?"

Danse wasn't sure how to respond at first. No, because it was not his suit, and so it should not interest him. Yes, because he was interested, and oddly confused by the strength of his interest.

"I was only looking," Danse replied.

"Sure, no harm in that," Sturges shrugged. "Want to take a closer look?"

"I would enjoy that," Danse replied, the answer flying out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

Sturges turned out to be good company. A capable mechanic, he'd been living in Sanctuary since the settlement was established, and was happy to share information about its ins and outs.

They went over the suit as they talked, cleaning, oiling and fine-tuning it, exchanging tips on maintenance. They spent several pleasant hours so engaged before they were interrupted.

They were discussing suit mods. Sturges, leaning against the suit casually, was showing Danse some of the things he was working on, when he stopped to wave at someone behind Danse.

"Evenin', Nick! Came for your check-up?" Sturges said.

"I'd appreciate it," came the reply. "I think I knocked something loose in my shoulder putting down some raiders."

The exchange was odd enough that Danse rose from his crouch in front of the powersuit and turned around. When he did, his hand clenched reflexively around a wrench.

"Synth!" Danse shouted, and hefted the wrench defensively.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on there!" Sturges grabbed Danse's arm with both hands, keeping him in place. "It's fine, it's just Nick, he's an old customer around here."

"You let that thing walk around here freely, on purpose?" Danse spat. "How is that fine?"

"Well, they let you do the same, so how about you tell us?" the synth responded.

"Hey, now," Sturges said, his tone holding a note of warning. He glanced at the synth, but then turned to plant himself in front of Danse, in between him and the synth--and with his back exposed to it. "Look, Nick's not one of them Institute synths. He's a good guy, and a personal friend of the vault dweller, might I add."

"It's. A. Synth," Danse ground out. "Dressing it up like a person does not make it one, and the Institute being gone means we should be destroying the last vestiges it ever existed, not allowing them to endanger people." Danse huffed in a breath before adding in an undertone, "There are children here."

"You know what, Sturges, I'm going to come back when the air's cleared a bit," the synth stated, before departing.

Sturges sucked in a breath, looking grim. He did not move or release Danse.

"Now you listen, pal. Yeah, there's kids here. And we're tryin' to raise them right. That means we teach 'em to accept people who are different, and treat others with respect. Now, Nick, he's done more to help people than most of us here. He's a good sort, and we know that because we know him. You don't know him, and if you think you do 'cause he's a synth, then, buddy, you ain't gonna last here long. Just warnin' you."

Sturges took a few steps back and gave Danse a final solemn look.

"Should be about dinnertime right now. Why don't you go grab some grub and think about some things?"

And with that, Sturges turned to his workbench, and proceeded to ignore Danse.

Danse, for his part, was too stunned to argue. He walked off in a randomly chosen direction, feet moving him numbly along.

Phil walked into the living room of her own house to find nearly all of her close, personal friends waiting there for her, arrayed around the room.

This was not an uncommon occurrence. Her house had become an impromptu meeting place of sorts, and she often woke up in the morning to one or two of her friends  already waiting with hopeful, puppy-dog eyes for a hot breakfast. This was her own fault, really. They learned early on that not only did she cook an amazing breakfast, but was also quite generous with the portion sizes, just out of force of habit. The Wasteland had not quite shaken her out of the belief that it was the most important meal of the day and should be treated as such.

Today seemed different, though. Phil could tell just by the way Preston was shuffling in place awkwardly by the counter, and the way Piper stood next to him stiffly. Hancock, next to the window, was fiddling with a box of mentats, staring off into the distance as if he could not quite decide if to take any yet, and MacCready was sitting on the couch, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, like he didn't exactly want to be there. Deacon looked unflappable as ever, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but Nick... Nick looked grim.

They all stared in silence as she walked in and trailed to a stop, and she was immediately filled with apprehension.

"We need to talk," Nick informed her.

"Oh god, I should never have told any of you about interventions," Phil said, only half-joking.

"We need to talk about Danse," Preston specified.

"What about him?"

There were some furtive looks exchanged, and Piper must have drawn the short straw, because she folded her hands together and said, as casually as she could manage,

"How sure are you about letting him stay here?"

Phil's expression turned stormy.

"We don't kick out people in need," she said.

"No, no, we totally get that," Piper added hastily, holding her hands up. "It's what we love about you, Blue. But I guess we worry about whose needs come first."

"He's got nowhere and no one anymore," Phil said. "Hancock, you saw it, he was ready to die out there."

"I saw it," Hancock allowed. "Can't argue with that. We're just concerned, is all."

"Concerned about what?"

"That you can take the paladin out of the Brotherhood of Steel, but you can't take the Brotherhood of Steel out of the paladin," Nick said.

"He's not exactly a paladin anymore," Phil said.

"Wouldn't guess with the way he was sniffing around that power armor of yours yesterday," Nick muttered.

Phil raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"That's the other thing," Preston said. "He almost attacked Nick yesterday. He might have, if Sturges wasn't there to stop him."

Phil turned to Nick, horrified.

"Oh my god, Nick--"

"I'm fine," Nick waved off the concern. "He's hardly the first one to shoot off his mouth at me. He didn't do anything."

"That's hardly the point," Phil said.

"Yeah, you're right about that," Piper said.

Deacon, who'd been leaning against the wall next to Phil until that moment, pushed himself off and walked closer to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Listen, boss lady," he said, "we really don't want you to end up getting strangled in your sleep by that guy."

"He's not going to strangle me in my sleep," Phil replied.

"Yeah, he seems more like the shoot-you-in-cold-blood type," MacCready added. "On an unrelated note, though, if you die, who gets your comic book collection?"

"That's what you're all worried about?" Phil said, ignoring MacCready. "That he's going to kill me?"

"You blew up the Brotherhood of Steel and his whole life with it," Nick said. "If he was going to kill anyone here, it would be you."

"He'd have to find out about that first, and none of you are going to tell him," Phil pointed out.

The room fell silent for a few long moments as everyone exchanged more concerned looks.

"Nobody's been treating this like a secret until now," Deacon said. "It'll get to him eventually. What's your bug-out plan then?"

"Deacon's right. Truth has a way of coming out, Blue," Piper agreed sadly.

"I'll deal with that as it comes," Phil replied.

Nobody in the room looked particularly pleased or satisfied with that answer.

"And Shaun?" MacCready asked.

"What about Shaun?" Phil said tersely.

"Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? 'What about Shaun'?! You've got a kid!" MacCready said, gesturing sharply. "You can't act like that doesn't matter, because that's what matters the most! You're telling me you've got some Brotherhood of Steel loon talking about busting synths and you're not thinking about your synth son's safety? Because that sounds like complete bullsh-- like complete bullcr-- That doesn't sound like you at all!"

MacCready's outburst took everyone by surprise, but more so when Phil turned red and whipped around to face him.

"I know this is a bad idea!" she yelled.

It was so silent in the room, that the distant chugging of the nearest generator could be heard through the walls.

"I know it's a bad idea," she repeated, lowering her voice. "I know it'll blow in my face. I know I can't really make it up to him for destroying his-- his entire livelihood. But I blew up that ship. I killed people, and no matter how rotten the Brotherhood was, some-- some of them were good people, who joined because they were trying to make a difference in the world, trying to help, and I-- I murdered them. I did that. I can't-- I can't make up for it, I can't take it back, but I can't just-- I can't not try to-- do something."

Her voice cracked a bit at the end. She didn't start crying, or tearing up, but when she exhaled, it was shuddery and exhausted. She rubbed a hand over her face as she composed herself again.

"I hope you'll understand," she said, her voice flat.

The general mood of the room softened, but it was Piper who walked over to Phil and put her arm around Phil's shoulders.

"We get it, Blue," she said kindly. "You've had a rough go of it. If this makes you feel better, we'll put up with that Brotherhood meathead for now. But if he steps one inch over the line--"

Phil huffed a short, dry laugh at that, and squeezed Piper's hand.

"Thank you," Phil whispered. "I am going to have a talk with him, though. And take the fusion core out of the power armor. Possibly not in that order."

"That's good too," Piper grinned.

His second day in Sanctuary, Danse reasoned, could not possibly go any worse than his first day had. He understood some of the basics now: where to go for food or other necessary items, how work was assigned, who to talk to if he needed something.

The settlers were slightly more apprehensive about him over breakfast, however, and Danse did not understand why until one of them asked, with a nervous chuckle, if he'd really been in the Brotherhood of Steel.

"I held the rank of Paladin once," Danse had replied.

The settler seemed shocked, as if they had not been expecting that particular answer despite their question, and had made an excuse to slink off as soon as possible.

After breakfast, Danse went to find Sturges. He was fixing something at his workbench--generator parts, as far as Danse could tell--and raised his head only to fix Danse with a cold stare.

"Good morning," Danse said, dropping in parade rest.

"Mornin'," Sturges replied.

"Are you busy?"

"You apologize to Nick for the other day?"

"I-- No," Danse replied, surprised by the question.

"Then yeah, I'm busy," Sturges said, and returned his attention to his work.

Conversation thus ended, Danse could do nothing but leave.

He walked until he reached the body of water at the edge of the settlement, and stood on the bank staring blankly at the purification station as it rumbled along. He was attempting to devise a strategy for how to approach living in this vexing place when he noticed the picnic tables off to his far right, and the child sitting there.

Danse recognized the boy as Phil's son, the one she called Shaun. In the few moments it took for Danse to remember this, Shaun looked up, noticed the attention, and waved at Danse while smiling widely.

Danse wasn't certain why he turned and walked towards the boy. Certainly, it was at least in part because he seemed like one of the few people in the settlement friendly towards him at the moment. Partly, he was curious about what the boy was doing. There was all sorts of junk laid out on the table before him, and the boy seemed to be taking things apart and putting others together.

"You're Mister Danse, right?" Shaun asked. "I remember Mom brought you here yesterday. Do you like Sanctuary?"

"It's adequate to its purpose," Danse replied stiffly. "Does your mother know you play with scrap?"

It was perhaps something of a stupid question, but Danse had seen toys around the settlement; a bookcase with toy trucks and cars and rocketships, a stack of boardgames and chessboards and wooden blocks. Granted, he was perhaps a bit old for wooden blocks, from what little Danse knew about children, but toys were a luxury not all children in the Wasteland had at their disposal, and it seemed strange to play with garbage when given the choice.

Shaun grinned at him.

"She gave me most of this stuff!" he replied. "I like to build things, and Mom picks up the best stuff for me whenever she goes out. Do you want to see?"

Danse hesitated for a moment, but saw no reason to refuse. Shaun seemed rather excited to show off his work.

"Proceed," he said, giving a firm nod.

This answer clearly pleased Shaun, and he explained the small device he was trying to create out of bits of, among other things, an alarm clock, a hot plate and a camera. Danse didn't fully understand the technical aspects, but it was clear the boy had passion for the work. In another lifetime, Danse would be considering recruiting him for the Brotherhood. He would have made a good scribe, the thought came--and left a bitter aftertaste in Danse's mind.

Then Shaun flipped a switch, and there was a pop, followed by the smell of something burnt. Shaun's face fell, and he quickly switched it back off, waving a hand to disperse the smoke.

"Oh no," he said. 

He pried the thing apart, his hands working quickly and deftly, and he inspected the damage. He let out a groan at the sight of burnt circuitry inside.

"It's ruined!" Shaun declared, crestfallen, and leaned his head against his hands heavily. His small hands shook as they curled into his hair, and his frustration was obvious.

Danse wasn't sure what to do in the face of the child's obvious distress, but vaguely, he felt as if he ought to say something.

"This is indeed a set-back," he said, in his best CO voice, hoping to put a halt to any further displays of upset. Shaun looked up, no longer close to crying. "The only thing you can do now is assess the damage, establish the source of your mistake and avoid making it in the future."

"Um." Shaun looked at the scrap. "I think I know where I went wrong, yeah!"

Danse nodded.

"Good. Next you look at your supplies and determine if you have everything you need to rebuild. Remember, failure is an inherent risk with any endeavor. Perseverance is what will see you to victory."

Shaun nodded, wide-eyed and with all the seriousness a ten-year-old could muster. He seemed to take Danse's words to heart, at least.

"You should come with me to Red Rocket, Mister Danse," he said.

"...What?"

"The Red Rocket truck stop. It's over the bridge, so Mom says I'm not allowed to go alone, and Dogmeat doesn't count. But it's a great place for building and repairing!" Shaun added quickly. "It's got loads of tools and things, and hardly anyone goes there, so I keep all sorts of cool stuff there. You should come, I can show you the stuff I already built!"

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Danse said.

"Why not?" Shaun wheedled. "You're a grown-up!"

"That... has no bearing on the reason," Danse said. "Your mother might not approve."

In truth, he rather thought that with everyone's discomfort, taking Shaun away from the settlement would only come across as suspicious. He had no intention of further endangering his standing with the community if he could avoid it. Before he could explain further, or at least come up with a pretext, they were interrupted.

"Shaun?" came Phil's voice.

Shaun twisted around in his seat, and apparently did not notice the cool look his mother had as she looked from Danse to Shaun.

"Mom, can Mister Danse take me to Red Rocket?" Shaun asked.

Phil seemed taken aback by the question. She looked at Danse again.

"Did he offer to take you?"

"No, I asked," Shaun said. "But he said you wouldn't let him! Why not?"

That was not exactly what Danse had said, but he supposed a child would not give the most accurate report on the situation. But Shaun had actually put Phil on the spot more than him with that question, and now Danse was curious to see how she'd respond.

"Oh-- honey, I... I was actually thinking maybe I could take you this afternoon," she said, recovering admirably. "You know, to catch up."

"Really?" Shaun's face lit up. "That would be awesome! Mister Danse can take me next time, then!"

Phil was quiet for a very long second, before saying something that took Danse by surprise.

"No," she said very slowly, giving Danse a speculative once-over, "I think he can come along. I need to talk to him anyway."

Danse could fully admit that his life had spiraled out of anything resembling control, but it took a concentrated bout of introspection for him to realize that the moment that happened was not when the Prydwen was reduced to fiery rubble, not when he returned to the Cambridge Police Station to find the lifeless corpses of his comrades, but when that woman and her pet ghoul pulled him out of his power armor and cast him into this world as a rankless, defenseless drifter.

He did not understand why she insisted on him tagging along with her on this outing which should have been spent bonding with her son, but he supposed he could not pass the opportunity. He did not have a good grasp of his position or obligations in Sanctuary, and the purposelessness this forced him into was unpleasant. 

Perhaps it was too many years spent in the military, but he found himself needing orders. He wanted her to tell him what to do, as mad as that was. She was in charge, and that task had to fall to her.

Whether she understood that or not, Danse couldn't tell. Her face was unreadable on the walk to Red Rocket, and other than giving short replies to her son, she did not say much, and nothing at all to Danse himself. The air was filled with Shaun's excited chatter instead, and the dog's happy barks as it followed them along.

It was not a terribly long walk, but it was just outside the settlement's defense perimeter, so Danse could see why Shaun would not be allowed to go there alone.

Danse had been given a 10mm pistol before departure, and a warning about mole rats. Certainly it didn't seem like there were any people around.

Shaun rushed into the building as soon as it was in sight. Phil opened her mouth as if to yell a warning, then seemed to think better of it and gave a tiny sigh. The garage door began to open.

"Does your son often rush into buildings before making sure they are secure?" Danse asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

Phil winced a bit, taking the implied criticism.

"He's still adjusting to the world," she replied. "He wasn't exactly raised in the Wasteland."

Then where was he raised, Danse wanted to ask, but did not get the opportunity before Shaun waved at them and called them over.

In what felt like long habit, Phil turned on the radio and hopped up on a nearby stool. She placed her gun aside, on the table next to the radio, and then began taking out a few Nuka-Colas out of her bag.

Shaun, who'd brought along a tool case, opened it and began pulling out half-finished projects and loose components.

Danse stood in place awkwardly, unsure what to do.

"Hey, Danse," Phil called out, "help me get these to the cooler."

He was almost pathetically relieved to comply.

There were actually two coolers waiting under a counter in the next room. Cold Nuka-Colas after a day's work were, in Phil's words, 'a Red Rocket tradition'.

Putting the bottles away, even having to arrange them so they fit in the relatively small coolers, wasn't a task that ought to have taken long, but Phil worked slowly. It was an opportunity to talk.

"How are you adjusting to Sanctuary?" she asked.

"It's fine," Danse replied.

"I know it is. I was asking about you, though."

"I assume you've heard about the incident with the synth."

"Word might have reached me, yes," she said. "Nick's a good guy, he doesn't deserve the crap he gets from people like you."

"People like me--" Danse repeated, and scowled with disapproval. "People like me oppose the technological abuses which led to this world's destruction in the first place."

Phil turned around and raised a finger to silence him, but there was something thunderous in her expression which made Danse stop talking all the same.

"People like you are more of the same," she said quietly. "It was not technology which led to the world's destruction. Technology might have been the means, it might have been what allowed this level of devastation to be possible, but make no mistake. When the bombs fell, it was the men with their fingers on the button who were responsible for it. Technology didn't make the decision for them. Technology didn't make them think they were righteous or that they were saving the world. Technology didn't make them march towards inevitable doom because they were too proud to stop."

"You're so sure of this," Danse retorted.

"I was there," she said. "Two hundred years ago. I was put into a cryo pod the same day the bombs fell."

Danse stared at her, momentarily stumped by this information.

"But that would mean you're--" He exhaled slowly. Over two hundred years. She was a relic and an invaluable historical resource both.

"I am," she said. "So don't tell me what destroyed the world. I was there to see it first hand. And I woke up to see the Brotherhood do it all over again. Heading down the same path. The world might not be what it once was, and the details might not be the same. But war? War never changes."

She let the cooler's lid fall shut with a loud bang, and Danse flinched.

"I was sick of seeing it play out the first time, when the enemies were communists and Chinese and they needed to be crushed to preserve America and everything that was allegedly good in the world. And now, after waking up, the new enemies were synths and ghouls and humanity needed protecting from them. Why? Because they don't fit the exact pattern of what the Brotherhood wishes humanity were? Two hundred years was enough to make people forget that this thinking got the world in the state it is today?" She shook her head. 

"The Brotherhood of Steel tries to preserve and honor the past," Danse said. "They try to recover at least a piece of what humanity has lost. If you'd come to them, offered your perspective--" He made a frustrated sound. "Another Great War is exactly what the Brotherhood wants to avoid. If you'd told them all this, it could have steered them away from this path you describe. People would have listened."

"Maybe," she allowed. "But then, I also remember, before the war, that speaking truth to power tended to be suicide, in one way or another. The men with their fingers on the button, in my experience, don't like being told they're not heroes. They especially don't like getting lip from the people they're supposedly protecting. Ingratitude makes their fingers twitchy."

Danse's jaw worked soundlessly as he thought back on Elder Maxson, on how he'd take any sort of criticism coming from a civilian, and he couldn't quite form a counterargument. 

Phil reached into her pocket and pulled out a holotape, offering it to Danse.

"I found this in the Cambridge Police Station," she said softly. "There's a terminal in the back room. I think... maybe you need to listen to it." Then after a moment's pause, she added, in a small voice, "I'm sorry."

A shadow of sadness passing over Phil's face before she turned around and disappeared into the garage.

Danse looked at the holotape in his hand, and was surprised to see the handwriting on the label was a familiar one.

He found the terminal easily enough, and his hand only shook a little when he inserted the holotape. There was a click, loud against the quietness of the room, and then a familiar voice filled the air.

"Field Scribe Haylen, personal log entry 324-A," the voice spoke, and Danse fell heavily into the chair.

He almost stopped the holotape right then--personal logs were personal, and he was loathe to breach the privacy of even a dead woman. But...

But it was Haylen. Loyal, steadfast, gentle Haylen whose voice he never thought he'd hear again.

"I'm starting to wonder if joining the Brotherhood of Steel was a good choice," Haylen continued, regardless of Danse's turmoil at the moment. "I originally signed up seeking protection and comradeship, but..." She sighed. "I'm worried that I traded away a bit of my humanity in the process. The Brotherhood's message of hope for the future is idealistic and hopeful, but their methods leave a lot to be desired. The leadership seems especially misguided. Instead of diplomacy, they wield violent confrontation to exert control. Despite all that, I've been successfully avoiding the fighting by following the career path of a field scribe. I suppose only time will tell how long I can stand the sight of spilled blood over my own moral fiber."

The holotape clicked again, having reached its end.

Danse slumped over the desk, face hidden in his hands, and stayed there for a long time feeling nothing but the throb of a headache sharpening to a burning point behind his eyes.

Danse wasn't sure how long it took him to compose himself and return to the garage. His sense of time was skewed, but he'd heard grinding and various equipment in the garage start up and stop several times. Phil and Shaun's voices were a low hum in comparison, with the occasional snatch of laughter.

When he walked into the garage, Phil was holding a different weapon than the one she'd come with, looking down its barrel with interest. It was some manner of improvised laser rifle, by the looks of it.

"Yeah, it's got a bit of nice heft to it," she was saying, as Shaun hovered nearby.

"Oh, is it too heavy?" he asked.

"Nah, it's great," Phil replied, giving her son a grin. "When you're out there, it's best to have a gun you can also butt people in the face with if shooting doesn't get the message across."

Shaun giggled a bit.

"Do you want to try it out? I can find some cans!" he said.

"Sure," Phil replied. Her eyes flicked to Danse. "And Mister Danse can help on the great can hunt too. Right, Danse?"

There wasn't much Danse could say after Shaun whipped around and gave him that eager look, so he ended up scouring the fields around Red Rocket with the boy. The dog also joined them, but half the time, the things he brought back weren't cans, just other assorted bits of junk.

It was a calming exercise, at least. It made him remember the days when he was young and struggling as a scrap vendor in Rivet City, before joining the Brotherhood.

Phil, meanwhile, had set up a line of crates outside the building, and once the cans were collected, she arrange them on top of the crates as targets.

"Alright, let's see what this baby can do," she declared, and walked a distance away.

Shaun followd behind her, dancing from one foot to another in excitement. Danse stood aside, watching as Phil lined her shot and prepared to fire.

Cans vanished in brilliant flashes of red light, one by one, without any pause to reload, and in ten shots, she took out all eight which had been set up.

"Very nice," she said once she was done, ruffling Shaun's hair. "You're really good at this. Momma's little genius," she added with teasing affection. Shaun blushed, and grinned from ear to ear.

"The weapon did perform admirably," Danse said, nodding in approval. "And your mother is a passable shot."

Phil's eyes slid to Danse and her lips curled in disbelief.

"'Passable'," she repeated flatly.

Danse gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Alright, okay," she said, and handed him the gun. "Let's see how well you do, Hawkeye McGee."

"I do not understand that reference," Danse replied, "but very well."

Phil set up the cans again, this time the remaining ten of them, and walked back to stand behind Danse. She crossed her arms and watched him expectantly.

Danse adjusted to the weight of the laser rifle, lined up his shot, and in a few brief seconds, all ten cans were obliterated. The entire thing took so little time, that when he turned around, Phil was still frozen in the same position, arms crossed, as she stared at the ad-hoc shooting range incredulously.

Shaun let out a whoop, and congratulated Danse. He congratulated Shaun in turn, because the weapon performed as well as anything in the Brotherhood arsenal, and the boy had apparently cobbled it together from loose junk.

"I was a soldier, you realize," he said, offering Phil the rifle back.

"Yes, well--" She accepted the weapon, looking a bit flustered. "I saw those guns you guys toted around. I thought spread was more your strong point than accuracy."

"A mistake many enemies of the Brotherhood never live to make twice," he replied.

"I suppose not," Phil said faintly.

"As long as we're on the subject," Danse said, "I was hoping to discuss with you my role within the settlement. One has yet to be assigned to me, but I trust this demonstration of my skills was satisfactory."

"Oh yes, you're very good," Phil agreed, giving him a lopsided smile.

"In that case, would it be presumptuous of me to request a post on the guard rotation?" he asked.

"No, you would do very well on guard duty," she agreed. "But I was thinking you might want to diversify your skill set, now that you've made a break with your old life."

Danse frowned thoughtfully.

"What did you have in mind, exactly?" he asked.

"Well," Phil said, "how much do you know about farming?"

Danse knew next to nothing about farming, as it turned out.

This was a fact he was very much aware of as Marcy Long yelled at him for the third time in the span of one hour.

"That's not a weed, you idiot! Don't you know a gourd vine when you see it? Let it go! Don't touch anything!"

Danse released the plant, because as it happened, no. No, he did not. A gourd was something he'd previously never had to deal with this early in its maturation process.

"Go get a bucket of water, make yourself useful for a change," Marcy snapped, as she viciously attacked an actual weed.

Danse was relieved to be away from the woman, who was possibly more intimidating than any drill sergeant, and picked up the empty enamel bucket as he made a hasty retreat.

The pumps were at the edge of the garden, behind one of the old houses and half-hidden by a patch of razorgrain swaying in the wind. There was already a settler there, filling his own bucket, and he gave Danse a jaunty little salute by way of greeting. Danse gave him a curt nod and went to the next pump over.

"Marcy giving you a hard time, huh?" the settler asked. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but his grin was wide and friendly. "Not the nurturing type, that woman."

"I don't require nurturing," Danse replied, as he worked the pump. Clear water sputtered out and then flowed out steadily into the bucket.

The settler's own bucket was already full, but the man still stood there, leaning against the pump.

"Hey, don't knock until you try it, pal!" the settler laughed. "I used to be a lot like you, too. Grumpy. Kind of a loner. Bad at growing tatoes."

"I assume you're not anymore."

"Nah, hubby turned me around," the settler replied, then, after a moment's consideration, added, "Still terrible at growing tatoes, though. But if you're gonna go the trial and error route, this place is the best safety net you could ask for."

Danse's bucket was full now, and he turned to the grinning man. Had that been advice, buried under all that prattling? Was the man offering encouragement?

"My difficulties are apparently with gourds," Danse said.

"Hate gourds," the settler replied promptly, adjusting the cap over his bald head. "They're just melons that don't try hard enough."

Then the man picked up his bucket and turned to leave.

"See you around," he shouted cheerfully over his shoulder, just as he turned the corner and disappeared behind the house.

Danse returned with the bucket of water, and by that point Marcy had calmed down enough that she was willing to teach him the difference between weeds and useful plants once again.

This time, he paid close attention, and did his best not to frustrate Marcy any further for the day.

Paradoxically, the fact that Danse had spent the day being yelled at by Marcy like he was a deficient piece of hardware somehow translated into making him seem more approachable to the other settlers, in a way that perhaps he wouldn't have if they had instead seen him on guard patrol instead of... well, gourd control.

When he sat down at the long table for dinner that day, the seats all around him were no longer empty, and the tiny pocket of solitude he'd been allowed previously seemed to have popped.

Jun Long gave him a tiny nod as he sat on Danse's left.

On his right, however...

Danse recognized the nosy woman as the one who'd been accompanying Phil the day she rolled in and started shooting down ghouls at the Cambridge Police Station. It was because of the red coat, but mostly because of the shrewd look in her eyes.

"So," Piper asked, picking up her bowl of radstag stew and turning around in her seat to face Danse. "I see the Brotherhood of Steel gig didn't work out for you. Or didn't it? Do people really just leave the Brotherhood? They didn't seem like the 'letting go' type to me."

"An irrelevant question, since the Prydwen was destroyed," Danse replied stiffly.

"Sure, but there's still a Brotherhood out there somewhere," Piper gestured vaguely in the distance. "Could always go join up with them again. But you don't."

"Dereliction of duty is dealt with harshly by the Brotherhood," Danse replied.

"I'm sure they'd get it if it took you a while to get to them," Piper said. Then she apparently had a thought and narrowed her eyes. "Unless the dereliction you mean came... before the Prydwen got blown up."

Danse looked straight into his stew as he spooned it into his mouth.

"Blue tells me you weren't at the police station with the rest of your buddies," Piper continued.

"They were my brothers and sisters-in-arms, not my 'buddies'," Danse replied gruffly. "I don't know who this Blue person is, but both them and you need to cease your groundless speculation."

"Ooh, hit a nerve," Piper laughed dryly. "Maybe not so groundless, then. But okay. Have it your way."

She turned back towards the table. Too easy, Danse thought. She didn't strike him as the type to let anyone off the hook.

"Blue is my little nickname for Phil," Piper said after a while. "And she's not speculating about you at all, so me and a couple of like-minded pals of hers are going to be doing that instead." She smiled sharply, leaned closer to Danse and added in an undertone, "Smile, you're being watched."

Danse did not smile, or look at Piper, or for that matter do anything other than dutifully eat his stew. Piper did the same, finishing before him and leaving to drop off the dirty bowl.

It was after Danse had scraped his own bowl clean that he got up and actually chanced a look around.

But Sanctuary was quiet, only a few people milling around after dinner, with bottles of beer in their hands. Nobody seemed to be paying him any attention.

The woman had only been trying to unnerve him, Danse decided. That was all.

When he returned to his room, and took off the filthy farmhand clothes he'd bartered off another settled, he took a long look into the chest. His other set of clothing and Haylen's holotape--the paltry amount of belongings he now owned--seemed undisturbed.

He closed it up again and went to sleep. He would have plenty of time for paranoia after getting some rest.

It was Danse's hope that the matter of Nick Valentine would not be brought up around him again anytime soon. 

Unfortunately, the two settlers attending to the corn right next to the gourd patch were just within his earshot.

"Haven't seen my Lottie since the raiders attacked," one of them sighed. "It's the not knowing that hurts. If she was dead... well, then she'd be dead. But I never seen her body. I only ever seen her vanish into the junkyard. And since then, nothing."

"Did you ever go back to the farm?" the other asked.

"Burned down," the first answered barely above a whisper. "Everythin', down to the cellar. Gone. Even if she came back, to what? Ain't nothing left of the old life. Far as she knows, I'm dead too."

"You should ask Nick Valentine to look for her."

"What, the synth? This ain't somethin' to joke about, Carl."

"Hey, now. No joke.. He's a detective, and he's helped a bunch of us already. You know Lance? Valentine tracked down his son. He was joined up with the Gunners, had a bad Psycho habit. Valentine talked him into coming back home."

"Lance has a son other than Ben?"

"It's Ben I'm talkin' about!"

"No kiddin'!"

"No kidding. And the vault dweller--you met her son?"

"That Shaun kid? Yeah?"

"Valentine helped her find him too. Rescued him from the Institute before she blew it up to smithereens."

Danse froze with a gourd in his hands, forgetting momentarily what he was doing with it.

"That one sounds made up," was the settler's response to that claim.

"Most things about the vault dweller sound made up, but they still happened. At least talk to Valentine. What can it hurt?"

"I... I ain't got the caps anyway."

"Don't matter," the other one insisted. "Valentine doesn't care about that kind of thing. He'll be understanding. Talk to him. Do it for Lottie. Don't you owe her that much?"

There was a moment of hesitation, before the woman nodded.

"For Lottie," she agreed in an undertone.

The man threw a final ear of corn in his bucket and picked it up, going to take it to the settlement's food stores. The woman's bucket was still only half-full, and she remained behind.

This was when Danse approached her.

"My condolences for your loved one," he said softly, "but putting your faith in a synth is an inadvisable course of action."

The woman looked at him, eyes dark and sharp, and she sized him up the way only someone who'd survived a lifetime in the Wasteland could.

"You're the one that's come to us from the Brotherhood of Steel," she said, her eyes settling on the holotags Danse still wore around his neck. They'd slipped out from under his shirt as he worked. "I seen you boys scarin' people, circlin' the skies in your flying whats-its, pickin' fights wherever, no concern who gets caught in the crossfire." She looked up into his face with a contemptuous glare. "I'll be puttin' my faith wherever I damn well please. 'Least the synth walks the ground same as me."

With that, the woman picked up her half-full bucket and departed, her shoulders hunched in barely restrained anger.

Danse remained behind, stunned and unsettled. He tucked the holotags back into his shirt and went back to see to the gourds, but his heart was not in the task, and even Marcy's yelling couldn't get him to focus properly.

When Danse found Sturges, he was keeping amiable company with the Minuteman, Preston, while the latter fixed a hole in the wall of a house. They had a friendliness between them that made Danse hesitant to intrude, especially when Sturges laughed easily at something Preston said.

Watching them, Danse felt a dull ache and missed, for the first time, not the Brotherhood as a whole, not merely his fellow soldiers, but simply companionship. He missed Cutler--had always missed Cutler, that particular void never having been filled following his death--and this was making him think of things he thought he'd put to rest.

Danse almost retreated when Sturges caught his eyes and his laughter died out. Considering the cold shoulder Danse had gotten the last time he'd spoken to the mechanic, nearly a week ago, he didn't expect things to be different now.

But surprisingly, Sturges raised a hand and beckoned Danse over.

Preston glanced at Danse, and then returned his attention to the wall he was fixing.

"Heard you've been adjustin' well," Sturges said neutrally, as Danse approached.

"I hope my performance has been satisfactory so far," Danse replied.

"You make any friends yet?"

"I have... been on polite terms with most people so far," Danse replied.

Sturges looked dismayed now.

"That's deplorable," he declared, then turned to nudge Preston. "Preston, you tell the man that ain't no way to live a life."

Preston was taken aback by Sturges' request, and glanced from him to Danse with a bewildered expression for a few seconds.

"Uh-- it's really not any of my business how he lives his life," Preston replied.

"Deplorable," Sturges repeated, shaking his head. "Listen, me and Preston were gonna have a few drinks after we finished here. You wanna tag along?"

Preston looked put on the spot once again, but there was only slight hesitation as he turned to Danse and nodded.

"Yeah, sure! It'll be great," Preston said.

"I would be honored," Danse replied.

Something a bit too genuine slipped into his voice, and Preston nodded awkwardly, turning back to hammer at the house wall. Sturges nodded as well, with a great deal of satisfaction, and clapped a hand on Danse's shoulder.

Sanctuary did not have a bar in the traditional sense.

It did have, however, an out of the way shack in the shade of a couple of maple trees, consisting of exactly one roof, one floor, one wall and a half, a counter with a few stools, several large coolers rigged to a generator, and some scattered tables around it. It would have looked like a sad place indeed, if not for the warm music from the radio, and a string of lights criss-crossing overhead. It looked... nice.

They called it the General's Taphouse.

"Not really a taphouse, since we haven't really had the time to build more walls yet," Sturges said.

Danse looked at the fully stocked shelves, boasting an almost dizzying variety of alcohol relative to the size and population of the settlement.

"Is that because you have been too busy drinking?" he asked.

Sturges laughed and clapped Danse on the back, not really answering his question.

They sat down to a table, and the settlement's Mr. Handy unit floated over to take their orders.

"What shall it be today, gentlemen?" the robot asked, its limbs curling with enthusiasm.

"Three cold ones, Codsworth," Sturges said.

"I assure you, Mr. Sturges, all our beverages are kept at optimum temperature!" the robot replied.

Sturges chuckled in response.

"I meant beers, Codsworth. How 'bout those Gwinnett Stouts Phil brought back from the ol' factory, we still haven't cracked open the case yet."

"Right away, sir!"

Sturges, Preston and Danse sat in silence at the table as they waited. Danse was stiff-backed and Preston stared down at the table, but Sturges seemed oblivious to the tension, and his fingers tapped a rhythm on the table.

It took only a minute for the robot to return and deposit the drinks on the table.

"Three beers for the gentlemen!" it declared. "Please do tell if there is anything more I can do for you!"

"Thanks, Codsworth," Sturges replied. "That'll be it for now."

Danse took his bear and drank deeply from it. A day of hard work made it taste more refreshing than the label would have usually led him to expect.

"Listen," Sturges began, swishing his own beer, "'bout Nick..."

"I haven't had the opportunity to apologize yet," Danse replied.

"I know, I know," Sturges grumbled. "He took off for Diamond City... oh, the next day, I think? We had a talk before he left, though, and he made a suggestion that maybe you need some time adjustin' to life here before you start gettin' comfortable with everything else. Learn to live and let live, that kind of thing. So."

Sturges jauntily saluted Danse with his beer before taking a drink.

"I..." Danse was unsure what to say for a moment. "I appreciate the opportunity. I understand there are rules to living here I need to respect. Adjustment to civilian life has been..." He trailed off, not sure what to even say.

"Yeah, well," Preston said, after the silence had dragged on for long enough. "Listen, if you want to join the Minutemen."

Danse chuckled in response. Preston bristled, and the fragile truce seemed ready to shatter.

"I'm sorry," he said, "it just wouldn't be the same. The Brotherhood had... stricter standards. They did things differently than the Minutemen."

"You mean because the Minutemen care about all the people, not just the ones deemed human enough by your superiors," Preston retorted, lip curling in disapproval.

"You allow ghouls in your ranks, yes," Danse said coolly. "And you tolerate synths among you."

Preston looked ready to say something pointed, when Sturges interjected.

"Danse, tell me somethin'," Sturges said. "Before you joined up with the Brotherhood of Steel, you give much mind to ghouls?"

"No," Danse reluctantly admitted. "I did not give any thought to ghouls before joining the Brotherhood."

"And after that you let them do your thinking for you," Preston reproached.

"I was not a mindless drone," Danse said. "I believed in the Brotherhood's ideals, in a brighter future for humanity."

"Lots of people believe in a brighter future without hatin' on ghouls or synths," Sturges said. "The Brotherhood ain't unique in wanting to build a better world. But I'm tellin' you now, Danse, that a lot of common folk liked the Brotherhood's message and loathed the Brotherhood's methods. You get that, right?"

Danse lapsed into silence, watching the drops of condensation on his beer bottle as he thought.

Maybe... Maybe they did have a point. Maybe the Brotherhood had misstepped in the way it had presented itself to civilians. Maybe it had not been perfect--though he was reluctant to admit that it was not still the best possible thing anyway.

The holotags weighed heavily around his neck.

"I understand," he said, his voice hushed.

Preston and Sturges did not form any reply right away, instead looking at Danse with consideration.

"Well, that's more than we expected to hear from you," Sturges admitted in the end. "Was ready to really rake you over the coals if needed."

"It is not needed," Danse groused.

"Still," Sturges said, and nudged Preston. "How's about that guard duty you mentioned, Pres?"

"Oh. Right," Preston said, then addressed Danse. "We're missing one of our regulars on tomorrow's night watch rotation. Care to fill in?"

"I would be glad to," Danse said, not really understanding why Preston was so tense.

"You're going to be on it with a ghoul," Preston mentioned. "You still want it?"

That was it, then. Probably they thought it was a moment of truth of some sort, but Danse was perfectly capable of performing his duty regardless of personal sentiments.

"I will take the post," he said.

Night was never completely quiet in Sanctuary. The constant stuttering chug of generators, the buzz of the lights around the settlement, a distant, tinny sound radio still turned on somewhere... And that did not even cover the sounds from outside the settlement, the howls, the distant gunfire that echoed through the Wasteland.

Lizzie McGrudy, the ghoul accompanying Danse on his watch, amused herself by identifying the exact caliber of any gunshot they heard. Danse grunted in response, because he rather doubted she could so accurately identify the echoing gunshots. Most likely she was guessing.

She did not seem the least bit offended by Danse's skepticism, though.

"I am guessing!" she replied, chuckling. It sounded like a tin can full of pebbles being rattled. "But if you want to lay some caps on it, the scavenging party's going to go look for whoever's lying dead in the morning, and we can get a good look at those guns ourselves."

There was a certain glint in Lizzie's eye that made Danse think it was wiser to decline.

"Suit yourself," she shrugged.

They made rounds of the settlement, along the watery banks and sometimes taking a few rounds over the bridge as well. Danse could not discern a particular pattern to it.

"Are we wandering aimlessly?" Danse asked, after Lizzie had them double back a bit to 'check out that junk over there'.

"We're the irregular patrol, rookie," Lizzie replied, and chortled.

"Oh," was Danse's reply, because that implied there was also a regular patrol, and the double layers of security was more than he'd expected, even from a settlement this well established.

They continued in silence for a while, making another round.

Lizzie spoke intermittently, whenever it seemed she felt the need to articulate a thought in Danse's direction. She explained more about their security, and about the current construction going on in the settlement.

"Once we finish the roof on the new building, you're even gonna get the chance to move out of that storage room they've got you in," Lizzie informed Danse.

Danse frowned at this information.

"They set me up in a storage room?" he asked slowly.

"Aw, honey... you didn't think that's a room people were actually meant to live in?"

"I didn't think I would be stored, like... like spare equipment," Danse replied.

Lizzie laughed, and patted Danse on the back.

"Listen, kid, you need to learn to think of yourself as someone who doesn't deserve to sleep in a closet."

"I do not think I deserve to sleep in a closet. I was not even aware I was sleeping in a storage room until you told me."

"Exactly my point," Lizzie replied.

"I don't understand."

Lizzie sighed a bit. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again and tensed. Her head tilted, as if she was listening to something in the distance, and Danse heard it too in the next moment.

Feet slapping against the ground, a harsh whisper against the dry grass. Moving fast. Animal, not human. It was all Danse registered before the mongrel leaped into view.

Lizzie shot its head clean off just as another two dogs approached. Others could be heard, yipping and growling as they rounded close.

Danse trained his gun on the dog nearest to Lizzie, shot one of its legs off, and then on the next, aiming for that one's leg as well--he winged its torso, instead, and it turned its attention to Danse, snarling as its eyes glinted in the moonlight.

There was white foam around its mouth, and its growl was deeper and more vicious than expected from even a feral dog. This was not just a pack of dogs scavenging the Wasteland like its human counterparts, these animals were killers looking for something to tear apart.

Danse unloaded the whole clip in the animal as it ran towards him, each shot more desperate as the distance between them was closed. The final bullet went into its eye, and that was when the animal finally expired, but inertia kept its corpse moving fast enough to slam into Danse's legs and make him fall to the ground.

Danse kept his grip on the pistol, too well-trained to lose it in a panic, but he had to throw himself aside quickly to avoid another dog bent on biting his face. He rolled onto his back and snapped a kick right into the animals head, dazing it for a few precious seconds.

He grabbed the clip off his belt--the dog shook its head--he clicked the clip into place--that dog snarled with its eyes fixed on him--he cocked the gun, aimed--the dog's jaws opened wide and it leaped--

And then there was a gunshot and Danse found himself splattered in dog bits.

He was not the one who shot it.

Seven dogs lay dead around them, and Lizzie reloaded her gun before checking on Danse.

"Are you bit?" she asked.

"No."

"Hm. I'd prefer to check you out myself, if you don't mind."

Danse must've given her a strange look at that point, because she laughed.

"Relax, kid. I also help run the clinic. I know what I'm doing."

"You're a doctor?" he asked.

Lizzie made a so-so gesture.

"They're not exactly handing out medical degrees these days," she said. "Let's say when you live as long as I have in this kind of world, you pick up some useful skills. I know a dog bite when I see it, at least."

"So do I."

"Ooh, I'm sorry, are you a doctor then?"

"I--no, I am not, but you--"

"Okay then," she said with finality, and looked to the east, squinting. "Our shift is over in about half an hour. We're going to the clinic right after."

Danse would have wanted to argue the point, but it did occur to him that it might be impolite after the ghoul had just saved him from a rabid dog. Some mild discomfort was perhaps a small price to pay.

The discomfort really did turn out to be mild, at that. Lizzie had him wipe off all the gore, made sure none of the blood was his, and gave him a pack of gumdrops at the end.

Danse stared blankly as he received the gumdrops.

"Because I don't have lollipops," Lizzie said, as if that was supposed to mean something to Danse. "Well, at least Miss Piper appreciates the gesture," Lizzie muttered as Danse continued to stare in incomprehension. 

"What would you have done if I were bitten?" he asked, perversely curious.

Lizzie gave him a slow look.

"I believe the expression is... shot you like a dog," she said, patting her weapon. She held the solemn expression for a few seconds more before bursting into laughter. "Nah, come on, we have a decent enough chem station. Curie would'a whipped you up a different sort of shot when she got in."

Danse naturally thought this was to be the end of their interactions and that he was free to be on his way, but as Lizzie walked out of the clinic with him, she steered him straight to the communal eating area, and loudly greeted everyone having breakfast.

"Good morning, you lazybones!" she said, her voice carrying. "Any of you do anything productive last night? Because let me tell you, me and the kid over here just wasted an entire pack of rabid hellhounds, and boy, did you guys miss out on some fun!"

From there, of course, Lizzie could only launch into the story about the encounter, not overly embellished, but definitely told with some... poetic flair. Danse mostly sat there, nodded whenever Lizzie asked for him to confirm a detail, and had his back patted a lot. As people kept arriving, Lizzie kept relaunching into the story, and that stretched out Danse's moment of notoriety for even longer.

Plates of scrambled eggs and tatoes were handed out, the smell pleasant as it wafted through the air. Danse concentrated on the food, hunched over his plate and shoveling it into his mouth at an alert pace. He never did outgrow the habit that one developed in the Wasteland, of eating as quickly as possible, but then, hardly anyone ever did, when having your food ripped away from you was always a possibility. 

It startled him when he raised his eyes and was met with Hancock sitting across from him. The ghoul gave an indulgent smile, as he casually chewed on his own breakfast.

Hancock ate slowly. Hancock ate like he couldn't be bothered. He ate like someone who never grew up fearing snatching hands.

Danse felt the sting of animosity towards the ghoul, but he tried to swallow it down and ignore it. 

As he finished his food, Lizzie elbowed him.

"Hey, go take a shower, yeah?" she said. "You got the day off since you were on night duty."

"What am I supposed to do?" Danse asked.

"On your day off?" Lizzie asked, befuddled. "Jesus, kid, if you can't figure that out on your own, it's more serious than I thought. Catch up on sleep, drink, do some chems, fuck around. I don't know, whatever tickles your fancy. Now git."

Danse did indeed 'git', as it were, and at least followed Lizzie's instructions about the shower.

The showering shack was built in a more out of the way corner of the settlement. A series of pumps and boilers strained to service the five stalls, and out of politeness, anyone who used hot water made sure not to linger more than necessary. Anyone taking cold showers was free to stay as long as they wanted, but usually did not.

Danse stripped out of his leathers. He had wiped the worst of the mess off himself, but still managed to find chunks in his hair. He gave himself a quick but vigorous scrubbing.

Changing into his other set of clothing, he dropped off the leathers with the launderers, who gave him a token and instructed him to show it when he came to recover his clothing.

And after that, Danse simply didn't know. In the days he'd been here, he had filled his days mostly with work.

He could catch up on sleep, but the throb in his head felt as if it was not going to allow him, so he wrote it off as a pointless endeavor from the start.

He wandered instead, and ended up at the edge of the settlement.

He stopped in his tracks as half a dozen shrieking children ran past him, waving their hands and throwing a knotted bit of rope around. Dogmeat whizzed along as well, barking and wagging his tail vigorously as the children played keep-away with the rope.

There was a sort of empty space here at the edge, a small empty field where nothing was built. There were a few kickballs stowed at the edge of the field, and a skipping rope, and Danse realized the space must have been meant for the children to play in.

There was a pang as he thought about the squires aboard the Prydwen--they never played like this, and they were never quite so loud and shrieking, but children were children, and these ones... they played like they did not know the dangers of the Commonwealth.

Shaun was among them as well, his face flushed and his usually well-combed hair tousled from running, and when the rope was passed to him, he waved it up out of Dogmeat's reach. Dogmeat rose on his hind legs trying to reach it, and Shaun shrieked with laughter and threw the rope to some other child.

He staggered, laughing, to the edge of the group, and did a double-take as he noticed Danse. His face lit up with recognition, he jogged up to Danse with a smile on his face.

"Mister Danse! Are you taking a break?" Shaun asked.

"I have the day off, actually," Danse replied.

"That's cool! So do you have plans?"

"Not... as such, no."

Shaun grinned widely at this.

"So can you take me to Red Rocket then? I have a bunch of new things Mom bought me from Carla, and I want to start building something new!"

"I'm--" Danse cleared his throat uncertainly. "You can build something here, too, can't you?"

"Yeah, but," Shaun shrugged. "I guess I just really like having my own workshop, you know?"

"As long as you appreciate the responsibility," Danse said. After a moment's hesitation, he continued, "You must not have had anything like a workshop at the Institute."

"Oh..." Shaun looked down and scuffed his shoe against the ground. "No, not exactly. They had labs and stuff, but that was really different."

"Because you wouldn't have had access at them," Danse surmised.

"Yeah, I wasn't really allowed in a lot of places. I think it was just because I was a kid, and they didn't want me breaking anything." Shaun shrugged. He brightened as he added, "I did manage to find some parts they didn't miss, and I built this device that caught radio signals from the Commonwealth. I managed to get Diamond City Radio! I didn't really understand most of the stuff Travis talked about at the time, but the music was pretty good. I liked it."

"I imagine they wouldn't have been pleased at a prisoner building anything like that," Danse remarked.

Shaun looked at him very strangely.

"I wasn't a prisoner," Shaun said slowly.

"Weren't you? I was under the impression your mother rescued you from them."

"I wasn't-- I wasn't in jail or anything," Shaun said. "I just lived there."

"All you life?"

"Yeah, until Mom took me away. She had to destroy the Institute. They were going to hurt people."

Danse looked at Shaun closely. The resemblance to Phil was obvious, if one looked for it: the straight, jet-black hair, the dark eyes, the same sandy-brown complexion, but lacking the smattering of freckles Phil had across her cheeks or her heavy black-rimmed eyeglasses. Enough similar genetic traits that one could plausibly believe they were related.

But maybe that was the point.

"Who told you she was your mother?" Danse asked.

"What do you mean? Of course she's my mom."

"But who told you she was your mother? How did you find out?"

Shaun's brows knitted together, and his expression was beginning to turn distressed.

"She's my mom," he repeated. "She just--she just is."

Danse knew enough of the signs to recognize programming when he saw it. But a child synth? He'd never heard of such a thing, and the fact that it was even remotely possible chilled him to the bone. How many could there be running around the Commonwealth at this very moment?

He didn't get to continue his questioning because he felt a death grip on his shoulder, and he was wrenched backwards so hard he stumbled a few steps.

Danse shrugged off the grip and turned to see Hancock's coldly furious expression.

"You need to leave now," Hancock said, something dangerous in his voice.

Did the ghoul know? Danse wondered. 

But Hancock was right, and Danse found himself walking away wordlessly.

Danse knew they'd track him down eventually, after what happened. He wondered who would come to him, though. He wondered who knew.

Would it be Phil? Was she aware her son was not who he pretended to be? Was she playing along, or was she merely in denial?

Would it be Hancock? Did the ghoul know about the abomination masquerading as a child and was helping to hide it from Phil?

What about Sturges? Did he know? Would he do something about it if he was informed? Would Preston? Would anyone here?

That nosy Piper woman, he'd heard she used to write indicting articles on the Institute. Did she know? Would she do anything about it?

Danse was still brooding over these questions when Phil made her way to the picnic table and seated herself on the tabletop, just beside where Danse was sitting on the bench. She looked down at him with an inscrutable expression, and she waited.

"Shaun is a synth," Danse said plainly.

"He is," Phil replied easily.

Danse craned his head to look at her, feeling a scowl deepen on his face. She knew. She'd known from the start.

"Explain this to me," Danse demanded.

"I don't need to explain my family to you, Danse," Phil replied. "He's my son and I love him."

"Was there ever a real Shaun?"

Phil sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly.

"Shaun is real," she said. "He's not some cuckoo chick the Institute dropped into my nest, he's my son. He's a kid who needs me, and adores me, and for some damn reason he even likes you."

Danse flinched as if slapped in the face.

"So he's also a synth," she said, and shrugged. "Alright. He didn't come into this world the same as you and me. But he's here now, and he has all the same thoughts and needs and feelings as any other child. So what are you going to do to him then?"

"I--" Danse flailed for a response, before finally admitting, "I don't know. I wouldn't... I wouldn't hurt a child. Even..."

Phil nodded.

"It's harder to kill them once you get to know them, isn't it?" she asked softly.

Did Danse really know Shaun, though? He had seemed so real, so much like a human child. He still couldn't fully believe...

"Are there others like him? More child synths?"

"No," Phil said. "He's... a unique case."

"There's a story here," Danse said.

"A damn long one," Phil agreed.

Danse remained quiet for a few minutes more, ruminating. Phil sat by him, staring off into the distance, waiting.

"You destroyed the Institute," Danse said, "yet you keep synths close."

"The Institute didn't treat its synths any better than they treated the rest of us. Worse, even." Phil's gaze moved from the far horizon to Danse's face. "I destroyed the Institute because I got to see it up close. They never regarded the Commonwealth as anything more than a landfill, some unsightly detritus of humanity that made them uncomfortable with its existence. Like the people of the Commonwealth weren't even real to them, like the humans who lived here were vermin. And synths... The Institute treated them like they were tools instead of living beings." She shook her head. "It was so clean inside the Institute, so sterile and so... ugly. All that concentrated brilliance and potential, all those self-important delusions about saving humanity and the future, and in the end, they didn't care about actual, living humans." 

Phil's lip twisted, not so much in disgust as pain. Everything about her at the moment looked pained, like she was poking at a wound.

"When you look at the Commonwealth, what do you see?" she asked.

Danse considered the question for a moment, looked around to the water purifier and its generator chugging along in tandem, looked to the old pre-war houses patched back together and the newer structures going up and up, the settlers walking with purpose around them, and Danse saw the nascent seeds of an ideal he believed in.

"I see the possibility for a brighter future," he said.

Phil quirked a smile at him, easy and friendly like she had never done before.

"I see it too," she said, her voice low, as if sharing a secret. "I see so much room to grow, and I only want to give people the chance to do it."

"That's why you destroyed the Institute," Danse said.

He could... understand that. He could understand wanting to build something in defiance of the enemy who would have seen it torn down. He was still wary of the traps an enemy could have left behind, locked in artificial brains and improperly understood, but she was a woman who tore down a force far greater than herself, and scattered obstacles were not going to slow her down.

"That's why I'd destroy anything trying to crush defenseless people underfoot," she replied, her mood turning solemn all of a sudden. The soft smile on her face slipped off, curdled into a faraway stare. "The people who fight aren't always the people who build. Most of the time, they're just the people who destroy."

She hopped off the table, and Danse thought she was going to leave, but after two steps she turned back around, looking resolute. She nodded to herself as if making a decision.

"Danse, about the Prydwen," she said, and Danse turned around on the bench to look at her properly. "After the Brotherhood of Steel attacked the Railroad. I was the one who blew it up."

There was utter stillness, a moment of the world coming to a halt.

It took Danse that much to fully process her statement, and then he turned it over several times, sifting through each word because he could not have possibly gotten the correct meaning out of it.

He was standing up when the meaning finally sunk in, as deeply as a knife. He did not remember getting up, he did not remember the step he took towards Phil.

"...what?" he asked, the last, desperate attempt to pull away from understanding.

"I destroyed the Prydwen, after the Brotherhood attacked the Railroad," Phil responded plainly. "It was me."

Her. It was her. 

How, was probably a good question. Why, also a good one.

But Danse did not ask. Danse did not ask. He was experiencing an understanding too large for questions at the moment, and he had never been the type of person to ask anyway.

He did not feel his hands curl into fists.

The world seemed to flicker out for him for a few seconds, and the next moment he became aware of himself again, it was just as he'd delivered a short, businesslike blow to Phil's gut.

She doubled over, all the air knocked out of her in a swift second. She did not crumple to the ground, but she remained bent over, wheezing and gasping and doing absolutely nothing to retaliate.

Danse watched numbly as she recovered from the punch, as she straightened up and nodded with pain still twisting in her face.

"Fair enough," she said hoarsely.

Danse turned on his heel, and walked away, cutting through the shallow water and clambering over to the other bank. An ocean between them would not have been sufficient at that moment.

Danse was sure plenty of people knew where he was. The patrols, especially. He was not far from Sanctuary. But he did not expect any of them to approach him, particularly not if word had gotten around that he'd assaulted their beloved leader and protector.

Solitude was something Danse could handle, whether by necessity or choice.

It was therefore a strange sort of surprise for Danse when Lizzie approached, carrying a can of purified water and a stick of roasted squirrel. She passed both these items to Danse before she sat down on the rock next to him, sighing in relief like the short walk from Sanctuary had been far more strenuous than it seemed.

"So," Lizzie said.

And that was all. She did not continue. As Danse stood there, dumbly holding the water and the food without making a move to ingest either, he realized Lizzie had intended it as a conversational prompt.

He did not have anything to say. 

The truth was that he felt foolish now, knowing what he knew. He felt like he'd been Phil's spoils of war, the trophy she'd brought home to place on the mantel, as the synths had been. Something taken from an enemy she vanquished.

"Why did she bring me here?" Danse asked, knowing that he would not trust any answer that did not match the conclusion he'd already reached. But he needed to hear the words from someone else.

"I'm gonna be honest with you, kid... She's a weird one."

Danse waited, but Lizzie showed no intention of elaborating.

"That is not an answer to my question," he said.

"It isn't," Lizzie agreed. "But trust me, it would've been much weirder if she'd just left you out there to die."

"I was doing fine by myself," Danse grumbled and angled away from Lizzie.

"That's not how I heard it," Lizzie replied.

"Do you--do all of you gossip about me?" he asked, feeling strangely exposed.

"We gossip about everyone," Lizzie said. "And about everything, especially the vault dweller's latest shenanigans. Hell, how do you think everything she does ends up on the radio so quickly?"

"So I am one of her shenanigans," Danse said. 

"Nah, you hardly rate above lovable stray, and there's lots of us here in that category."

"Strays," Danse repeated. His voice was flat, lacking in any overt emotion. He himself was not completely sure what he felt at the moment.

"You especially, with that puppy dog face of yours," Lizzie mused.

This, at least, jarred a reaction out of Danse. His expression turned displeased, almost petulant.

"I am not a puppy," he said.

"Aw, I guess you're too cranky for belly scratches right now."

Danse actually glared at Lizzie then, but she looked undaunted. There was a tiny smile on her face.

It occurred to Danse that these were overtures of friendship on her part. After a single night on patrol together, she felt comfortable finding him after he'd stormed off, handing him food and water with a consideration Danse was sure he would not have offered her if their roles were reversed.

That last thought made him feel a tug of shame, and he bit into the food in his hands, hoping to convey gratitude for her efforts.

He was not sure he could be friends with a ghoul, but he couldn't find it in him to rebuff her kindness either. There was a bare minimum he would not stoop below.

He ate in silence for a while, and then opened the can of water and drank deeply of it. Lizzie didn't speak, in contrast to how chatty she was during patrol. 

But in the end, she was the one who broke the silence.

"You want to know why she brought you back here, when she's the one who killed the rest of the Brotherhood," Lizzie said.

"Yes." Yes, he wanted his fears confirmed.

"Because it wasn't personal, is my guess," Lizzie said. She turned her blood-rimmed eyes on Danse. "She blew up the Brotherhood's fancy blimp, yeah. But that's just war. You didn't do anything to her personally, and she's not the type to leave anyone short of an enemy in a lurch."

War. It was the first time that word had ever filled Danse with humiliation. The Brotherhood had come to the Commonwealth with the explicit goal of waging war--and they had been defeated by an ambulatory pre-War relic with mediocre shooting skills. Was this how defeat always felt, or did meeting Phil in person just compound the feeling?

This entire chain of events felt absurd.

"She chose to tell me," he said. "I could have remained ignorant of her role in all of it, but she chose to tell me."

"Yeah, I don't really have any explanation for that part. It was straight-up stupid of her. Me, I woulda just taken that tidbit to my grave."

Danse involuntarily snorted a laugh. Lizzie smirked a bit.

"Maybe you would've preferred she not tell you anything?" Lizzie asked.

"Ignorance is never preferable," he replied. "But..." He gathered his thoughts before continuing. "I wish it hadn't been her."

"Ah. You were getting on a bit of that hero worship trip." Lizzie patted Danse's arms sympathetically. "We've all been there, kiddo."

"Even if that were true," Danse said, his tone indicating just how slim of a possibility he thought that was, "disillusionment certainly came quickly."

"Maybe that was the point of telling you."

Danse looked down at his hands; blinked.

"Maybe," he said, mostly himself.

But then.

"I could have stopped her," he said quietly.

"And if you believe that, I've got a nice vacation home on the Glowing Sea to sell you," Lizzie muttered.

"I'm completely serious," Danse said, turning towards Lizzie. "I understand now. The Cambridge Police Station. It was attacked just before the Prydwen exploded, and our vertibird was stolen. That was not a coincidence, is it? She stole it, because that was the only means of reaching the Prydwen."

Lizzie shrugged, and it was clear from her expression she didn't know the specifics of what Danse was talking about. But he continued.

"I wasn't at the police station," he said, looking off into the horizon. "A band of supermutants was passing nearby. I took Knight Sellers and Knight Karowski with me to eliminate the mutants before they could get too close, but there turned out to be more of them in a nearby building. Knight Sellers was taken out by a suicide attack, and Knight Karowski fell sometime during the firefight. I should have retreated then, gone back to the police station for reinforcements, but I didn't."

Danse shook his head, ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

"I acted like some idiot rookie and thought about revenge instead of proper protocol. If I'd gone back when the fight turned bad, I would have reached the police station just as it was attacked. But I abandoned my duty in the pursuit of some... vendetta."

"You'd've been killed like the rest of 'em," Lizzie said.

"No! I could have stopped her!"

"Kid, you need to get a grip," Lizzie snapped.

He pulled up short, eyes wide at the sudden harshness.

"You think she was alone?" Lizzie asked. "Look around you. She's got people, boyo. She doesn't know shit about flying vertibirds, but she knows people who do. She crawled outta that vault not knowing anything about the Institute, but she managed to find the exact people who could help her get inside. She's one hell of a one-woman army, but she's also not called General for nothing."

Lizzie smacked Danse's arm.

"She's got people, because she knows you don't do the really big and scary shit alone. So what about you? Do you get it?"

Danse scowled in response.

"The Brotherhood of Steel were my people," he said acidly.

"And were you happy with 'em?"

Danse was silent, and his eyes slid off Lizzie back towards the distance. He stared sullenly into the middle-distance.

"I belonged," he said.

"You can belong elsewhere," Lizzie said kindly. "What's wrong with trying to belong somewhere you'll be happy?"

Danse nodded gravely, sorting his thoughts.

Lizzie meant well, probably. Lizzie meant he could stay there, in Sanctuary, where Phil was, where Shaun was. Where Sturges, and the other settlers lived. He could learn to grow comfortable and safe in a community which had already accepted so many people of disparate origins.

But the more he thought about it, the more evident something became to him.

"I need to leave," he said in the end, having reached a decision.

Diamond City was the obvious place to go. Relatively safe, a hub for human activity, and large enough that Danse could slip notice, as long as he did not cause trouble.

He left Sanctuary with a change of clothes, a gun, enough food and water to last him the road, and three hundred bottlecaps.

Perhaps what surprised him more was that people showed up to see him off. Marcy and Jun Long dropped in on him as he walked out of the building where he'd been sleeping, and awkwardly gave him their goodbyes--in Marcy's case, with a sneering warning not to get himself shot the moment he set foot outside of Sanctuary.

Lizzie and Sturges were waiting for him too, further along. This was when Sturges pressed the bottlecaps on him. Danse tried to refuse, suspecting that the money came from Phil--it seemed like her kind of gesture--but he wouldn't have wanted to take them even if they were Sturges's own money.

He insisted, with a gentle stubbornness, that it was his pay for the work he'd done around Sanctuary. Danse didn't know if one patrol and some dubiously productive attention he'd given to some vegetables were worth three hundred bottlecaps, but he was well aware that he could use the money.

After Sturges said his own goodbyes, Lizzie lingered, and walked Danse all the way out of Sanctuary.

A few other settlers, mostly who'd worked alongside him in the garden, waved at Danse and wished him well, and Danse nodded back his thanks. 

Shaun and Phil were nowhere to be seen, which Danse had mixed feelings about, but a merc draped in ammo gave him a shriveling glare as Danse passed by, so he guessed he would not be seeing them anytime soon anyway.

Lizzie walked with him until the guard posts at the edge of Sanctuary were just barely visible in the distance, and before they parted ways, she put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a solemn look.

She didn't say anything al first, her eyes searching his face, but then she made a sound in her throat.

"Yeah, you're gonna be alright, kid," she said with confidence.

Strangely, it made Danse feel better to hear that.

Life went on for Danse, mostly for lack of alternative.

There was work for a man with a gun. The Wanted posters in Diamond City offered a variety of jobs, whether clearing out ghouls or raiders, or super mutants, and Danse took whichever job he thought he could complete. On his own, without his power armor, he had to be cautious and manage his risks, and what bottlecaps he did not spend on renting a mattress or food, he spent on ammo and stimpaks.

Because the jobs were too infrequent, or at times too risky, Danse swallowed his pride and did whatever other work he could. He had some basic skills with mechanics, enough to do odd jobs around Diamond City. He could dig ditches and tighten bolts and patch up pipes as well as anyone; the work was less risky than killing super mutants, but it was also harder on the body, the kind of thankless, grueling tasks the residents of Diamond City would outsource to drifters and newcomers.

So it was no surprise that after a few too many weeks of this kind of thing, Danse began thinking about hiring on as a caravan guard. It was still hard and exhausting work, and he'd heard about how poorly it was paid even when the traders didn't outright cheat a guard out of a fairly earned paycheck, but he was well and truly at the end of his rope, and if he had to wade through another sewer trying to find a leaky pipe, Danse felt very much like he was going to put his gun to his head and escape the need for further employment by way of a bullet.

Bunker Hill, then, would be Danse's next destination. He saved up his caps, bought supplies for the road, and gathered his things, ready to leave.

There was, however, the one, nagging errand he had not gotten around to in all his weeks spent in Diamond City, largely because he'd been avoiding it.

Not that avoiding Nick Valentine was easy in Diamond City. The synth lived there, and walked in the open, and people talked to and about him with frequency. It was hard to escape stories about Nick and all the people he'd saved.

It had been an awkward situation for Danse, to say the least. Even more awkward than avoiding Piper Wright, who he always knew was coming by the put-upon sighs by Diamond City security, and who was always harrying off again anyway, in pursuit of some new story.

But now that he was leaving, Danse felt he owed it to Sturges to at least deliver that apology to the synth, no matter how overdue. He would get it over with and leave Diamond City right away, and that would be that.

Coming within view of the neon sign, however, Danse felt his feet slow and drag, and walking up to the door felt like a monumental task on its own.

...Should he knock? Or was it like a public building? He knew people strolled into the agency all the time, but usually because they had some business. This was more personal than anything.

Danse knocked.

The door was opened by a pleasant-faced young woman, who looked him up and down.

"Hello there," she said, smiling encouragingly, "do you need help? Come right in, we were just wrapping up with someone."

She stepped aside, and Danse walked in, though he shuffled near the doorway uncertainly.

There was Nick, sitting at a desk, and a weathered woman in the seat across. It was hard to put an age to her--though she had no gray in her hair, her face was lined by hard living and smudged with dirt.

"You find him, Mister Valentine," the woman was saying sternly. "You find that deadbeat. You tell him, either he comes home for good or stays away for good, but he can't keep breaking his son's heart over and over. I don't care what 'business' keeps him away, if his family can't come first, he can't come home. You tell him just like that."

She repeated the last phrase more forcefully, an edge of bitterness to her tone.

"I'll pass the message along," Nick promised.

The woman nodded distractedly.

"Between you and me, Mister Valentine," she added, "if he doesn't ever come home, I won't shed any tears over it. Hell, I'll probably shed fewer than when he's around."

"I'll keep that in mind," Nick replied softly.

They rose from their seats at the same time, and Nick ushered her towards the door. The woman gave one dismissive look to Danse, before brushing past him and out the door.

The moment it closed behind the woman, Nick turned towards Danse.

"Diamond City been treating you well?" Nick asked amiably.

"I'm leaving," Danse blurted out. Then, as Nick raised an eyebrow, Danse continued, "Before I go, I wanted to apologize to you. For my behavior. In Sanctuary." An awkward beat. "It was unbecoming of me as a guest."

This made both of Nick's eyebrows rise--or at least the facsimiles of eyebrows he had--then his expression leveled out to a sort of amused tolerance.

"Don't worry about it," Nick said. "I'm used to it by now."

Danse actually felt a stab of shame at that. He had spent weeks listening to the way people talked about Nick: the gratitude, the hometown pride in his good work, the casual awe towards a synth who was seen in many ways as a pillar of the community.

But then he'd also heard the other people, the ones who grumbled about a synth living in their town, who never really trusted Nick and expected only betrayal. Danse's natural sentiment was that humans--real humans--should not be forced to endure such an interloper in their own space.

But then, humans should also not be forced to lose their loved ones to unfortunate circumstance, and whatever else could be said about Nick, he was unflagging in the service he provided to Diamond City. Nick Valentine was... an asset. Danse was not so stubbornly blind as to not see that.

"So is there something I can help you with?" Nick asked.

Danse shook his head.

"I only wanted to apologize before heading out," he said. "I... am sorry for my behavior towards you in Sanctuary. It was unbecoming of me as a guest there."

Nick seemed to chew on this apology for a while, and Danse held the glowing yellow gaze without flinching. A silence stretched between them, and Danse couldn't be sure how to interpret it.

"Leaving Diamond City, huh?" Nick asked after the long pause.

"I need work," Danse said simply. "I'm going to Bunker Hill."

"If you're looking to sign on as a caravan guard, you'll have hard luck getting hired in the off season," Nick said.

Danse felt his heart drop at this. The prospect of having to stay in Diamond City and cling to grunt work for survival was not one he liked. It must have shown on his face, because Nick gave Danse a measuring look.

"But if it's work you need, I could use someone to tag along and watch my back for this next job," Nick said. "I'm going to be making my way down south to a settlement. There's caps in it for you, if you want."

"How much?" Danse asked.

"Let's say enough to see you to Goodneighbor and last you until you find some work there," Nick replied. "The advice is for free, if you're taking it."

Danse swallowed, and nodded.

"I'll take it," he said.

It was just a job, Danse reasoned. Caps in exchange for shooting some raiders or super mutants along the way. That he was escorting a synth was an oddity, but not... difficult, exactly.

After a week doing nothing but manual labor, the gun still felt natural in his hands, and as long as his eyes scanned the ruins of Boston for threats, he wouldn't need to look at his companion and be reminded of the fact that he was not human.

The first two days passed mostly in silence between them, save for short exchanges when they approached danger, or stopped to camp for the night. Danse felt mildly embarrassed at having to stop and camp, when he suspected Nick on his own could have proceeded without the need for sleep or food.

He was also frustrated by the fact that, despite these stops being for his benefit, he often spent half the night or more awake, curled up in his bedroll unable to fall asleep, whether due to the dull throb of pain in his head, or the mingle of sickly thoughts which bubbled to the surface whenever he came too close to sleep.

Maybe that was why Nick began talking to him on the third evening. Short anecdotes, at first. How he came to find himself in the world, abandoned by the Institute. How he started out his agency. How he had been Diamond City's hapless handyman long before Danse fell into that same job.

"See this?" Nick said, raising his skeletal right hand. "Didn't get this way in any skirmish out here, I can tell you that. I got more banged up doing odd jobs around Diamond City than I ever did running head-first into trouble."

Danse lifted his shirt and pointed to a scar on his abdomen, still angry red and barely knit together.

"A sheet of metal snapped loose as I was welding below. It swung straight into me. Doctor Sun said if my ribs hadn't stopped it, I would have sustained heavy damage to my internal organs."

Nick gave a wry smile.

"And you had to pay the doc out of your own pocket, too, I'm guessing," Nick said.

"That is correct," Danse groused, pulling his shirt back down. "Mrs. Codman was also vocally displeased about me bleeding on public property."

Nick chuckled.

"That sounds about right," he said wryly.

Oddly, it made Danse feel better about wanting to run out on the hellish work, and perhaps because one confession begets another, Danse ended up telling Nick about Cutler that night.

Nick was strangely good at listening, though, his eyes and the glowing ember at the end of his cigarette forming three pinpricks of light in the darkness, like an incomplete constellation. There was no mistaking Nick for human; but Danse had learned that Nick did not want to pass himself as human anyway. He was, if nothing else, admirably forthright about his own existence, in a way that disarmed Danse.

It was uncanny, Danse thought. Bizarre. Not a person, but enough of a person that Danse began wondering what exactly made people... people. It was never a question he would have grappled with in the Brotherhood, where the lines were drawn so clearly and never given any thought beyond that. Perhaps that was the problem; Danse had lived in a bubble, and now it had popped.

Maybe Nick was completely unique in a way that made the world seem like a more complicated place, but then... Danse had lost simplicity the day the Prydwen exploded. Nick made as much sense as anything in the world.

The settlement was a ramshackle clump of buildings, piled on top of a hill. The wooden shacks seemed sad as they sagged against each other, but the settlers tended to their mutfruit orchard with a stubborn optimism, possibly justified in light of the many turrets ringing the settlement. Any raiders attempting to assault this place would be forced to do so while weighed down by a lot of lead along the way.

A woman was herding along a couple of brahmin just outside the settlement, her eyes sharp and suspicious. Nick walked up to her at a casual stroll, keeping his hands in sight at all times, and Danse followed suit.

Nick tipped his hat at the woman as he stopped a few feet away--a strangely old world gesture, which made the woman's suspicion edge into curiosity.

"Good morning," Nick greeted. "If you don't mine, we're up here looking for a man named Charles Patrice. Don't suppose you've heard of him?"

"Ooooh, Charlie," the woman said, her face brightening up. "Yeah, yeah, he's around. You must be that synth from Diamond City he was telling us about. Didn't think you were actually real!"

Nick smiled and shrugged.

"Go right up," the woman said, gesturing towards the settlement. "Someone can point you in his direction."

She turned towards the settlement then, and whistled sharply. One of the guards from the guard posts straightened up, and took a few steps closer.

"Someone's here from Diamond City," the woman hollered, at such a volume that Danse felt his eardrums shoot with pain.

The guard nodded stoically, which Nick apparently took as permission enough to approach. Danse followed closely, careful not to reach for his gun no matter how much his fingers itched for it.

From there, they were pointed the way of Charles Patrice's home, a shack built against a concrete wall. The small area around the shack was fenced in, and a woman in a moth-chewed sunhat was fixing the leg of a chair with a roll of duct tape.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Is this where Charles Patrice lives?" Nick asked, tipping his had at this woman as well.

"He's my husband," the woman replied.

There was just the slightest pause following that statement, a moment as Nick processed the information and put together why Charles was always running out on his wife in Diamond City. Danse, conversely, took quite a few moments more to process this information and become deeply indignant about this situation.

"Don't suppose he's home?" Nick asked.

"Is there something you need from him?" the woman asked in return, her face turning stern. She rose holding the broken off chair leg.

"We're not debt collectors," Nick said, holding his hands out. "We're from Diamond City. The, ah, gentleman ran out before someone could get a message to him, so we're here to deliver it."

The woman seemed mildly suspicious, but she nodded, and pointed off to the distance.

"Up by the pond. He's teaching Danny to fish. That's our daughter," the woman clarified. "If you need to talk shop with them, wait until later. Danny's barely seen him in months."

"Oh, don't worry, ma'am," Nick said with a jaunty salute. "We'll be out of your hair in two shakes."

He turned and walked off in the direction the woman had shown him.

"You're not going to tell her?" Danse hissed in an undertone.

"Let's see what the honorable Mister Patrice has to say first," Nick said, "then we'll decide if we want to demolish the one home life he still seems to be holding together alright."

Danse was not content with this answer, but he had not been hired to track this man down and handle him. He'd only been hired to watch Nick's back. He didn't have to be happy about what he was watching Nick do, but he could begrudgingly accept that Nick might have some idea of how to handle this situation that might not have occurred to Danse.

The pond came into view as they passed through a clump of trees, and so did the small dock build on its edge, with a pathetic little boat moored to it.

Charles Patrice and his daughter were sitting in patio chairs, and he was instructing her on the finer points of using a fishing rod.

"You can't just go stomping in where kids're involved," Nick muttered quietly.

All Danse knew, though, was that he was grateful it would be Nick doing all the talking. Danse didn't think he would be able to abstain from wringing Charles Patrice's neck if the case were otherwise.

Charles Patrice was a man who could recognize when he was in deep shit.

That much was evident when his eyes fell on Nick Valentine. He still schooled his expression, though, and cheerfully instructed his daughter to go home and tell her mother all about the tiny fish she'd managed to catch, while he finished some business.

"Laura sent you," Charles said without preamble as soon as Danny was out of earshot. "Look, you can't tell anyone here about her, or about Bradley. And if you do, they won't believe you. These people know me, they don't know you."

"If we're being completely forthright here, they don't know you either, Charlie," Nick replied flatly.

The barb seemed to get to Charles. He rolled his shoulder like he was trying to shrug off guilt. Nick's penetrating stare didn't seem to be helping.

"Look, what do you want?" Charles snapped.

"Me? I don't want anything," Nick shrugged. "Just came to tell you you're a one-woman man starting right about now."

Charles squinted at Nick suspiciously.

"You can't make me do anything," he said.

"Nope," Nick agreed. "But see, we don't have to. Laura's kicking you to the curb, pal."

"Excuse me?"

"She's dumping your sorry ass. You're kaput. Not welcome back into her house and home. Am I making myself clear enough here or do I need to crack open a synonym dictionary?"

There was a tinge of fear to Charles' expression now. Incredulity, alarm. He shook his head.

"No..." He shook his head. "She can't do that! We have a son! She can't keep me away from Bradley--"

"She doesn't have to. That's what Diamond City Security is for," Nick replied. "See, you're not a citizen of the Great Green Jewel. Means you don't have the right to stroll in any time you damn well please, just the privilege. And privileges can be revoked, especially if you step foot anywhere within--let's say one hundred feet of Laura's home. You getting the message here, bucko?"

Charles Patrice did not, in fact, get the message very clearly, because Nick had to spend another ten minutes spelling it out to him. For a man with an excess of wives, he seemed unusually incensed about losing one. The man would have doubtlessly started yelling if there hadn't been the risk of drawing the attention of his neighbors. As it were, he spoke in an angry hiss.

Still, Nick managed to get it through Charles' thick skull that his bigamist days were over, and Charles turned to pouting, tears in his eyes and his lower lip quivering with barely restrained frustration. Danse found the man contemptible in every aspect.

"We're done here," Nick muttered, and turned to leave.

Danse stayed in place, though, his hand clutched on his holstered gun tensely.

"You are a dishonorable man," Danse gritted out to Charles. "And your son is paying the price for your behavior."

Charles let out a whining sound of anguish and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out an overstuffed sock. Danse thought the man was going to attack him with it as he flung it at Danse's chest, but when Danse caught the sock, he realized by the heft and feel of it that it was full of bottlecaps.

"Don't you fucking dare imply to me that I wouldn't do right by my boy," Charles Patrice hissed, "when you're the heartless motherfuckers who want to keep me away from him."

With that, the man stomped away.

Danse turned to Nick, as a momentary loss for words, before extending the sock to him.

"I think he meant this for young Bradley," Danse said awkwardly.

There was just the slightest suggestion of a smile in Nick's face as he accepted the bottlecaps.

"Look at that, alimony. And we didn't need to get family court involved or anything," the synth remarked.

Danse didn't quite get it, but he let it pass without another word. The day had only just begun, and it already felt far too long.

"Is keeping a father away from his son the best course of action?" Danse asked.

Nick turned to Danse. In the sunlight, his yellow eyes were not as unsettling, and the small shift of expressions on his face made its plastic look almost alive.

"That's the kicker, I guess. We won't know until the whole thing plays out, and by then it'll be too late to change anything. All we have is hope and good intentions."

"Those sound like rather insubstantial things to hang a child's fate on," Danse remarked.

"Would be, if the kid's fate rested on those things alone. But he's got a mom who cares for him, and lots of people looking out for his best interest." Nick pulled his hat lower, thoughtfully. "Sometimes a good outcome is not just about a kid having people in their life who love and care for them. Sometimes it's about removing the people who do 'em harm, too. It's sadder when it's someone the kid loves, but that makes it all the more necessary. It's the people you love who can hurt you the worst."

Danse ruminated on this as he and Nick made their way out of the settlement and back on the road. He had no point of comparison in his own childhood, nobody he'd loved or who had loved him in turn while he was a poor urchin picking through trash to survive, but he could appreciate that the logic of it appeared sound.

How strange, that a synth should speak with such authority on the subject, when Danse himself felt out of his depth. 

If a synth had experience with aspects of humanity that Danse, as an actual human, did not, then...

Danse was not sure what conclusion to draw from here. There were several, perhaps. Danse resolved to think on the subject.

The tin box of caps that Nick passed to Danse felt heavy. It was more heft than Danse had felt since the caps he'd been given from Sanctuary, and given by the lack of rattling, it was full up.

"Goodneighbor, you said," Danse said, stashing the box in his pack.

"Should warn you, it is full of ghouls," Nick said. "But they'll treat you fair. Hotel Rexford's a good bang for your buck, and if you're looking to save, Mayor Hancock makes sure any drifters have a free mattress at his statehouse. Of the people, for the people, and all that."

Danse felt his lip curl involuntarily at the mention of Hancock.

"Thank you," Danse said. "I will keep your advice in mind." He thought for a few moments, before adding, "There was a woman in Sanctuary. I didn't get her name. She wanted to ask you to find someone named Lottie."

"Beatrice, yeah," Nick nodded. "Found Lottie a couple of weeks ago. Spent the past two years as a scavver by the shore. What about them?"

"Nothing, I only... I..." Danse patted Nick's arm awkwardly. "You do good work."

Nick watched Danse impassively as the latter shifted in place, and cleared his throat.

"Thank you," Nick said. "As long as we're being sappy about it, I have a little something extra for you."

Nick reached under his desk and pulled out a combat shotgun, half-covered in rags. He discarded the rags and presented the weapon to Danse.

Danse took it, surprised.

"Phil left this little number here last year, after she bought a better one. Too lazy to pick it up again, I guess," Nick smiled fondly. "I'm sure with the arsenal she keeps these days, she won't mind you taking it."

Nick rattled through filing cabinets, opening and shutting drawers in search of something. Finally, he produced two boxes of ammo with a victorious 'aha!'.

"I shouldn't," Danse said, hesitant. "Why don't you keep it?"

It was a good weapon; solid and reliable. It would serve him better at long range than his pistol, which had been given to him at Sanctuary, and presumably came from the same arsenal that Nick had mentioned. Presumably, Phil would also be happier to have a friend use it rather than the odd stranger who frightened her son.

"Shotgun's not really my style," Nick said with a shrug. "More of a ten-mil guy, myself."

"Thank you," Danse said, with more sincerity than even he expected.

"Yeah, well, you really wanna thank me, just keep yourself alive," Nick replied.

There was something somber in Nick's expression as he said that, but Danse only muttered another thanks, and stuffed the ammo in his bag, next to the box of caps.

The road to Goodneighbor was not long, relatively speaking, but Danse found himself having to take a more circuitous route to avoid the bands of super mutants and raiders which pocked the ruined landscape.

He did not relish the fact that he now had to seek shelter for the night and continue to Goodneighbor in the morning, but he did not have a choice.

He sought higher ground, climbing a fire escape up to the blown-apart upper levels of an apartment building. The roof was gone completely, and a wall of the building was missing, but Danse kept away from there. He liked heights, associated them with safety after all the time he spent on the Prydwen and in vertibirds. But he no longer had the benefit of his power armor, so he would not be able to shrug off a fall so easily.

At any rate, Danse entered the building proper, going down a level and scouting it in case there was already a squatter there with the same idea as him. There did not appear to be anyone, so he circled back to the entrance he'd used and took the nearest room with an intact roof, and the smallest possible hole in the floor. At least if he fell out of bed, he wouldn't fall all the way down to the ground floor, he mused.

He had a quiet, lonely dinner, consisting of some squirrel, a bit of iguana, and the sound of his own chewing, and then he spread his bedroll on the musty old bed and curled inside to sleep. The sun was just setting, and soon the murky gray light turned to complete pitch darkness.

Danse was not certain he'd slept, though given his sudden, confusing bout of awareness, it did seem like he had to have been asleep at some point.

It took him a few moments to realize that he'd been woken by a loud sound--like a door being banged shut--and only a fraction of a second to realize why that was a bad thing.

There was someone else in the building.

Danse stood frozen in place, evening out his breathing and making sure not to let out a sound. His pistol was stashed inside the bedroll with him, and his hand could slip around it easily and quietly, but first he had to listen and take stock of his situation.

There was an orange glow of light coming through the hole in the floor. It flickered only a little; a lantern, rather than an open fire.

There were heavy footsteps; boots, someone who did not feel the need for stealth. Secure in their own safety, possibly because they were dangerous.

There was a pop and a hiss, and then loud obnoxious gulping--someone drinking a Nuka-Cola.

"Jesus fucking Christ, every day the same goddamn thing," someone growled. "If I had to listen to that guy say one more fuckin' word about that cost-benefit shit, I woulda blown my brains out, and then turned around and blown his!"

"Got the order a bit wrong there, darlin'," someone else replied, with a chuckle.

"No I fucking didn't, 'cause I woulda come back like a vengeful fucking zombie-ghost to kill Brunt."

"Zombie-ghost," the second person snickered again.

"Zombie-ghost! Unstoppables, issue 12. Get educated, you rube."

"Alright, professor," came the reply. "If you're so smart, why aren't you leading this outfit?"

"One day, man. I'm telling you, one day." There was a short pause, as the speaker apparently fell into a seat. "When I'm in charge, you can bet your ass we're not doing any of this pay-off bullshit. We're sacking Bunker Hill and putting them out of their misery for good."

Raiders. Danse knew enough about Bunker Hill's arrangement to understand that much. A testament to the short-sightedness of Bunker Hill's tactics, sadly. All it took was one unruly psychopath to take the reins of a gang, and the entire agreement would fall apart into a frenzied free-for-all as every raider grabbed for a piece of the pie.

Unfortunately, Danse had not shown much better judgment himself. He had assumed that the lack of dismembered bodies propped around the building meant no raiders would be around. Obviously they had simply not gotten around to decorating yet, and he would have seen the signs of human presence if he'd also scouted a level down.

Nothing to do now but sit tight until morning and slip out after they left.

"Ooh, look at Miss Gots-A-Plan, already plotting her reign of terror. Don't you gotta actually, y'know, be leading shit first before you start making proclamations?"

"I'm telling you--" There was a sudden stop, and the sound of a whack. "Hey! What did I fuckin' tell you about looking at me? What did I fucking say?"

The woman's voice hadn't exactly been quiet to begin with, but the way she screamed suddenly made Danse flinch. Luckily, he did not make enough sound to be heard, but he stood frozen, his heart hammering.

"I apologize for my lapse. It will not happen again," came the response. The voice was soft, modulated for a smooth lack of emotion, almost robotic. Submissive.

It chilled Danse as he understood that was not the voice of a fellow raider.

"You do it again, I'll rip your fucking eyeballs out," the raider said, voice dripping with malevolence. "Now get me another drink."

"Hey, c'mon, don't yell at the toaster," the other raider chided, sounded more amused than genuinely concerned. "If you rip its eyes out, who's gonna get me a beer and a hit of Psycho when I don't wanna get up?"

"Fine, I'll start with fingers," the female raider retorted. There was a sound of breaking glass, and she yelled again, "You hear that, tin can? Get this asshole his beer and Psycho."

Danse frowned to himself. A robot? No, there wouldn't be talk of eyes and fingers if the person serving them was a robot. But then why refer to them as a toaster or a tin--

Unless--

Danse very slowly sat up, making sure to be as quiet as possible. Sitting up, he could actually glance down the hole in the floor to the level below. He caught sight of a doorway, leading into a kitchen. Given all the light below, it was unlikely anyone else could see him in the dark, but he kept still nonetheless.

In a few moments, he caught glimpse of someone who could not possibly be a raider, in a dirty jumpsuit that might have once been white and gray. He caught glimpse of the Institute emblem on a broad chest, unmistakable even from afar.

A synth. And the raiders were keeping it for a pet.

Danse stood very still for a very long time and listened to the raiders talk. It was all the degenerate drivel he would have expected, of course, stories of looting and murdering and inflicting torture and death upon the defenseless. 

The synth, however, threw a very strange wrench into the situation.

The raiders addressed it once in a while, sending orders and invectives its way, and if this had been a person they were doing it to, Danse would have dropped on their heads already by now, and shot them both to hell.

But it was a synth, instead. And everything he'd learned from the Brotherhood of Steel, every scrap of his education, indicated that it would pure folly to endanger himself over a synthetic humanoid.

His stomach, however, twisted into knots every time he heard the harsh words. A few times, he thought he heard blows, and the female raider once flung an empty beer bottle at the synth. It exploded into shards against the kitchen doorframe, right next to the synth's face, and the synth only closed its eyes and did not flinch. When it turned to go into the kitchen, there were dots of red, small nicks and scratches on the side of it face.

Danse felt bile rise to his throat, felt the metallic sting of it at the back of his mouth, and he took deep, steady breaths to settle his twisting innards.

His training told him it would be folly, but his instincts told him it was the right thing to do. Danse had once thought he was Brotherhood through and through, steel down to the marrow, but now he discovered a place the Brotherhood's teachings had not reached yet, and he no longer had reason to push it down.

In the time it took Danse to grapple with his indecision, the raiders had their fill of alcohol and drugs, and decided to go to sleep.

"Get in your closet," one of them hissed, and there was the sound of a door banged shut and then latched.

That explained why the synth had not run away on its own, at least, thought Danse.

The light from the lantern was dimmed to an unobtrusive glow, and he heard the raiders settle down for sleep.

Danse waited.

For a long time, he waited, and without any timekeeping implement, he had to estimate how much time had passed. But the moonlight came through the window, and when the moon had moved completely into sight, Danse judged the raiders had to be deep in their stupor.

He moved slowly, checking his pistol a final time, and then rolling up his bedroll. He collected his pack, and crept out of his room.

At the end of the hall were stairs leading to the lower level, but they were barricaded with junk. Danse elected to use one of the many holes in the floor. He picked the room at the far end of the hall, far enough from the raiders' room that they would not hear a thing.

He clambered down carefully over the edge, dropping onto a rotting carpet which muffled his fall.

After that, it was only a matter of strolling down the hall. There were no signs of anyone else on that level of the building, though the stairs looked perfectly functional.

He opened the door and delivered the first bullet to the raider's head as she was sleeping on the couch with mechanical precision, and only the moment after her brains were splattered against the wallpaper did he notice the grip that cold anger had on him.

The second raider awoke with a start, but groped confusedly for a weapon. Danse shot him once in the torso, eliciting a shriek of pain, and then again in the head, silencing him forever.

Danse froze in the aftermath, expecting to hear voices raised in alarm, the heavy fall of footsteps racing towards the commotion, another attacked jumping from some corner he'd missed.

There was none of that. The window was open, and there was the rattle of gunfire in the distance, but nothing from up close, no stomping boots down the hall or up the fire escape.

Danse turned to the closed door, then, and unlatched it, shoving it wide open.

There was a smell inside, overwhelmingly of human sweat, filth and fear. The synth, huddled against the far wall, turned its grime-smudged face up to Danse. There was something handsomely symmetrical in its features, even with the deep bags under its eyes, and the synth's expression shifted from blank resignation to surprise as it looked up at Danse.

"M7-97," the synth said, voice threaded with hope. It was so different from the monotone of before, that Danse was startled.

"What?" Danse blurted out.

"I never thought we would meet again," the synth continued.

"We haven't met before," Danse replied, brows knitting together in confusion. Was this some strange ploy?

But then the hope went out of the synth's eyes, and his voice returned to the submissive monotone from before.

"Of course not. I was mistaken. Pardon me."

A glitch in his programming, probably. Danse did not dwell on it.

"We need to leave," Danse said firmly. He picked up a pipe pistol from the coffee table, as its former owners were obviously not going to be using it anymore. "Can you shoot?"

"I am capable of learning," the synth replied in its eerie monotone.

"I hope you're a fast study, then," Danse replied, and handed the pistol to the synth.

Skulking through Boston in the dark in search of Goodneighbor was not necessarily the smartest thing someone could have done, but staying in the building was making Danse feel itchy and paranoid. 

They crept down the fire escape, taking care not to rattle it. There was a tense moment when they turned a corner and almost ran into a patrol--or maybe just a couple of raiders shooting the breeze, because there didn't seem to be much patrolling involved--but in that moment, Danse quietly stepped back and the synth took the hint and retreated as well.

The synth was... quiet. He did not talk, he barely made a sound. He had the light, unobtrusive step of someone who learned not to draw attention to themselves, and he followed Danse without question. 

They crept through the streets of Boston like thieves, taking back alleys and avoiding any sign of activity. More than once, Danse had them turn back when he caught glimpse of light down the road, from a lantern or a fire.

For their efforts, all they encountered that night were a couple of starved mongrels rooting through the trash. 

That was when Danse turned to the synth and told him, in a low voice, to aim for the one next to the wall, but hold his fire.

The synth did not argue or hesitate. He raised the pipe pistol and aimed. Danse corrected his posture, delivered a set of brisk instructions, and then told him to shoot.

The synth flinched at the loud crack of the gun firing, but the dog's torso was torn open into a spray of blood as it tottered on its feet. The synth shot again without having to be told, and the mongrel fell to the ground.

Danse shot the other dog, a quick bullet to the head taking care of it.

He nodded with approval to the synth.

"You do learn," Danse said.

The synth nodded back, holding himself a bit more confidently, and Danse remembered how it felt, to have someone put a gun in your hands and prove to you that you are not defenseless. Strangely, it made Danse feel slightly better as well, to have another person watching his back, now that he knew the synth could at least operate a weapon.

When the Goodneighbor sign came into view, Danse felt more relief than he thought it was possible to feel about approaching that den of degeneracy.

He banged on the door a bit more forcefully, and he and the synth were let in by a steely-eyed ghoul with a submachine gun, who warned them to keep out of trouble.

It was at this point that Danse recognized they could each go their own way. He had delivered the synth to the relative safety of Goodneighbor, and that was more than anyone would have expected him to do. But he didn't say anything in this regard, and the synth followed in Danse's footsteps like a loyal shadow. Danse decided to hash it out after he'd gotten some rest.

Hotel Rexford was not hard to find, and since it was barely dawn, there wasn't much of anyone in the lobby. A robot was serving drinks behind the bar, and a woman in a suit stood behind the reception desk, looking not particularly enthused about being awake at that hour.

There was also a bearded drifter reading a filthy pamphlet by the bar, who was especially persistent in staring, and did not stop until Danse glared at him harshly. The drifter stuck his nose back in his pamphlet after that and did not look their way again.

The proprietor of the hotel, on the other hand, displayed the blasé disinterest of one who had seen many strange things along her lifetime. She took Danse's money and gave him his key, and other than telling him where to find the room, made no further comment.

Danse felt exhaustion start to hit him as he climbed the stairs. The synth followed quietly, obediently, right to the room.

There were two beds, thankfully. Danse stashed his pack into a corner, and sat down heavily on the one nearest to the door, taking a moment to rest.

He had spent the night sleepless and battle-tense, but now he was in a safe place, with solid walls around him. The synth hovered by the entrance stiffly. 

"There's food and water in my pack," Danse said. "I'm going to sleep, but you can eat if you're hungry."

"Thank you," the synth replied. After a second, he strode towards the pack.

Danse watched as the synth took out two cans of purified water and a sweet roll.

"Do you have a name?" Danse asked suddenly.

The synth paused in his motions, and turned towards Danse completely before answering.

"My designation is M9-31," he replied crisply. "And you?"

"My name is Danse."

There was a flicker of something in the synth's face, the first hint of expression since Danse opened that closet door.

"Dance, like the performance art form," the synth stated uncertainly.

"Danse, with an S," he replied patiently.

"Ah. It only sounds the same." M9-31 stood up and approached Danse, handing him one of the cans of water. Danse accepted it, and cracked it open. "Does it suit you?" the synth asked.

"I have been told it is incongruous with my general disposition," Danse replied. Though in honesty, what people often said about it usually involved some variation of the phrase 'stick up his ass'.

The synth accepted this answer, however.

Danse took a long swig of the water, before placing the can aside and lying down to sleep.

M9-31 did not make much noise. He ate, as instructed, and he opened his own can of water, and after that there was only the occasional brush of fabric as he moved.

Danse fell asleep soon enough. Oddly, he felt no worries about synths keeping him awake. Some might call that an improvement, something like Nick Valentine's voice rang in his head as Danse slipped into slumber.

Danse woke with a start, uncertain what had interrupted his sleep.

The room around him was empty, and quiet. M9-31 was nowhere in sight. 

The pack, at least, looked untouched, his weapons and bottlecaps and food still there. 

Danse decided not to wonder about it. In truth, he wouldn't have known what to do if the synth had stuck around. He went instead to the room's adjacent bathroom, and discovered that it had running water. It wasn't warm, but a cold shower was better than none, so Danse went about his morning routine with brisk efficiency.

He changed after that, and after pacing nervously for a bit, took the bottlecaps out of his pack, strapped on his pistol, and left the room. He would go to the local bar, and try to find some kind of employment. It was as good a plan as any.

In the lobby, however, was M9-31, talking with the bearded drifter who had been staring at them when they arrived. They were by the bar, their voices lowered. Danse's feet stopped of their own accord, even as he tried to stamp down his natural suspicion.

M9-31 looked over the drifter's shoulder, then, and spotted him. He tilted his head, gesturing for Danse to approach.

Danse did so, though apprehensively. The bearded drifter looked him up and down with an assessing glint in his eye.

"This is Danse," M9-31 said.

"Uh-huh," the drifter said, still inspecting Danse. "Say, do you have a Geiger counter?"

The question came out of nowhere, and made Danse frown in confusion.

"...No," he replied after a long pause.

It was probably something he ought to buy, now that he thought about it. He'd always depended on his power armor's internal sensors for that kind of thing.

"Oh, I see, I see."

"Is radiation a pressing concern at the moment?" Danse asked.

"No, no, stupid question," the drifter replied, grinning widely. "Just an old ice-breaker someone taught me once. Anyway, about your friend here."

"What about him?" Danse asked.

"Well," the drifter scratched his beard thoughtfully, "don't suppose you'd mind parting ways?"

Danse's eyes narrowed in suspicion at this, and he looked over at M9-31.

The synth stared back serenely.

"I do not wish to impose on you further, and I have secured passage out of the Commonwealth," he said.

"There are a lot of people in the world who would take advantage of others around them," Danse said. He thought he was being subtle dropping the hint, but the bearded drifted coughed to cover up laughter.

"I know," M9-31 replied plainly. 

Danse was not sure how to reply to this. He had not asked how long M9-31 had been indentured to those raiders, but probably long enough to learn about the harshness of the world. The synth still stank of fear, but he had a pipe pistol strapped to his thigh and now apparently also a plan.

So, not knowing what to say, Danse instead leveled a suspicious look to the drifter.

"Why don't I let you two talk?" the drifter said. He picked up a beer from the bar and made for the other side of the lobby.

"Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary," M9-31 said, once the drifter was out of earshot.

"I am not concerned," Danse grumbled, though he realized it was a lie. He felt a spike of anxiety at the thought of M9-31 ending up in the same situation he'd found the synth in.

"He is not a stranger," M9-31 continued. "He has put me in contact with allies that I have been seeking since before my unfortunate imprisonment. All is well."

Danse had to wonder what kind of allies a synth would have in the Commonwealth.

Or, no. Now that he thought about it, it was immediately obvious. The Railroad.

Danse nodded.

"I understand," he said. "...Safe journey," he added more sedately.

"Same to you," M9-31 said.

M9-31 made to walk away, but Danse opened his mouth to speak and the synth paused, tilting his head in a question.

"What does M7-97 mean?" Danse asked.

"It is a designation," M9-31 replied.

"Whose designation?" Danse asked. Not what, he didn't think. Who. 

M9-31 remained silent for a long time before replying. Danse waited, dry-swallowing as the silence stretched, but he could see thoughts percolating behind the synth's eyes. A carefully considered decision forming.

"Someone I knew once," M9-31 replied eventually.

And by his tone, it was clear the synth wanted to leave it at that.

But Danse couldn't accept an evasive answer, because he remembered what had startled him awake now. He recalled dreaming of white walls and eyes burning holes on the back of his head, and in the dream he'd been trying to take a tray of surgical instruments down to a room at the end of a hall. But the hall extended endlessly as he walked, the room impossible to reach no matter how much he walked, and he knew something was watching him from behind, waiting to see if he'd break into a run so they would hunt him down.

It wasn't the kind of nightmare he'd ever had before. It felt foreign, as if a different person inside his skull was dreaming instead of him, and after he woke up he remembered that string of letters and numbers. M7-97. Why?

"You need to tell me," Danse said nonsensically.

"It would not help you," M9-31 replied softly. It was not the robotic monotone anymore, but something sad and pained instead. "Have a good life, Danse. It is what you are owed. Please believe as much."

Then M9-31 walked away, towards the drifter, leaving Danse alone.

Danse leaned heavily against the bar, understanding searing him deeper than when he learned that Phil had blown up the Prydwen. This was worse, cutting somewhere deep where Danse thought he still had some certainties. Once again, something was ripped away from him.

By the time Danse looked around the lobby again,both M9-31 and the drifter were both gone.

The robot behind the bar offered him a beer.

He drank the beer. He drank several.

Danse couldn't recall the walk from Hotel Rexford to the Third Rail. He was downing a glass of whiskey when it registered, finally, that the stool he was sitting on was uncomfortable, that the robot behind the bar was possibly some manner of criminal, and that the music in the place was jazz.

He stared at the bottom of his glass, and taking stock of himself, established that he was most definitely not drunk enough to justify the lapse in memory. Goodneighbor was the kind of place where people went to die in a gutter, it was not the kind of place Danse wanted to become distracted.

Carefully, he placed the glass back on the bar, still half-full.

He stared at his own fingers clenched on the glass for some amount of time. It could have been minutes, it could have been an hour, but eventually he lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip. Another undefinable length of time passed, and Danse took another sip.

Employment. He was there to find employment, Danse reminded himself. He unclenched his fingers from the glass, but whatever series of steps he was supposed to follow next in order to secure employment, Danse could not remember. There did not seem to be enough room in his head for it.

He took a shuddering breath.

"You alright there, stranger?" someone asked, and Danse turned his head to the sight of a woman in a red dress looking at him curiously. "Looking a bit peaky."

"I'm... fine," Danse said, his tongue just barely working out the response.

The woman tilted her head, looking by all accounts like someone who knew she'd been told a lie but decided to let it pass.

"You enjoying the show?" she asked.

"I'm more of a country and bluegrass man myself," he said.

The woman let out a huff of laughter, and drank from her glass. It took Danse a few moments to realize that she was the same woman in a red dress who'd been on stage, singing.

"Oh--I--I'm sorry," he stammered. "Your voice is quite pleasant. You engage in your craft admirably."

The woman choked a bit on her drink, and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Thank you, that's certainly... a compliment," she said, chuckling. "Don't think I've ever gotten one quite like it before."

"You're welcome," Danse said awkwardly.

"So now that we're friends, why don't you tell ol' Magnolia what's eating you up?" the woman continued, swiveling in her seat so she faced Danse.

"Nothing," Danse replied automatically. He regretted it just as the word left his mouth; he didn't want to carry the truth like a burden. But he also was not sure how to even phrase the words to explain the upheaval he was experiencing.

Magnolia did not seem to mind, however. 

"Alright," she said. "See you after my next set, then."

She got up and went back on stage then, and with a word to the band, began a new song. Something about trains.

Danse wasn't much for jazz, but he listened anyway. She did have a pleasant voice.

The second time Magnolia took a break, Danse was on his second glass of whiskey. He was pacing himself. She drank water.

He asked her why she only sang jazz.

"Goodneighbor inspires a certain... mood," she said. "And I write all my own songs."

"Do you? That's impressive," Danse said, not exaggerating a bit. Art eluded him to a large extent. He bitterly wondered if that could be explained by the fact that he was a synth. Probably. His simple mechanical brain, incapable of replicating the subtle processes of human creativity.

He took an angry swig of his whiskey.

"Now, country, that's that's not such a bad genre either," Magnolia said, her voice lightly pulling Danse out of his spiral of self-loathing. "It suits a fella like you, I think. Solid. Straight-forward. No pretense."

"I like the twang," Danse said, and frowned when the words seemed to make less sense out loud than in his head. "The... instruments. They have a distinctive... sort of..."

"Twang," Magnolia completed, smiling at him. "I get what you're saying."

"It's only that nothing feels straight-forward and solid anymore," Danse said.

"Oh, we're not talking about country anymore, are we," Magnolia remarked quietly.

"I may be a synth."

The confession dropped out of his mouth like a stone falling into a pond with a plop. Danse felt more stunned by it than Magnolia looked, but there was still a long moment of laden silence between them.

"Aw, honey," Magnolia said eventually, and reached out to rub his shoulder, "is that what's got you all twisted up in knots?"

"I may be a synth," Danse repeated. "I may be a synth." He turned to Magnolia, wide-eyed and strangely relieved. "I was a Paladin in the Brotherhood of Steel. I remember-- I remember my childhood, in the Capital Wasteland. I can't be a synth. I can't."

"Why? Because someone told you synths weren't people? How would they know?" Magnolia said. "If you weren't a person, you wouldn't be feeling the way you do right now." She poked a finger against his chest. "This fear you've got right here? This pain? It's all human, even if you are a synth."

Danse rubbed his chest absent-mindedly where she poked him, and shook his head.

"I thought I knew myself," he said. "I thought... I used to think... I used to think I knew what I was made of. Before all those things turned out to be false."

"So at least now you know what you're not," Magnolia said. "Plenty of people spend their whole lives trying to learn who they are. Discovering something new about yourself isn't a setback. It's another step in your journey."

"I'm a machine," Danse said with resignation.

"So?" Magnolia returned.

"So... I..." Danse trailed off, unsure what to say. "I don't know," he admitted in the end.

Magnolia rose from her seat, her break over. She gave Danse a grave look.

"Machine or not, you build your life the same as everyone else," she said. "You walk alongside people and touch their lives exactly as anyone elsewould." She cupped his cheek. "You're a person. Whatever else you find out about yourself, remember that you're a person. You can only live your life."

With that, she returned to the stage. The music picked up in a slow, melancholy number.

Danse finished his whiskey as he listened. It was odd, but Magnolia spoke with such confidence, he could easily believe her.

Sometimes, the only way out was through. Danse had learned that in battle. It was probably more broadly applicable in life, in some philosophical sense he had not considered before.

He emptied his glass and wondered where he'd find himself once he got through this.

It was shaping up to be a hot, sticky summer that year, and of all the things to be grateful for in the Wasteland, Phil chose to be happy about the fact that her daily commute to work involved taking a motorboat from Spectacle Island to the Castle, and not piling into a car so she could be stuck in traffic on a blistering asphalt road. At least now, she only had to worry about mirelurks on the shore.

Not that the mirelurks were going to be a problem for long. On Spectacle Island, the signal keeping them away was still going strong, and with a little tinkering, they could reverse engineer the thing and replicate the signal at the Castle. Nobody in the Minute Men wanted to lose their headquarters to a giant sea monster twice; that would just be embarrassing.

The issue, at this point, was just finding the parts. Sturges had given Phil a shopping list--which, in Phil's experience, was probably going to turn into a looting list when it became obvious that traders didn't deal in those highly specific parts.

But, honestly, Phil was always willing to give a lack of wanton looting a shot. Stimulate the local economy, and all that.

It was the entire reason that that morning, she rode her little motorboat not towards the Castle, but just south of it, to the Atom Cats garage.

Duke and Johnny D. were already waiting on the shore when she rode in, and she could see the curiosity in their stances even through the power armor they wore.

"Damn, Jack, you were the one making all that racket?" Duke said, gesturing to the boat. "Thought we were hearing some bad news coming our way."

Phil laughed.

"Sorry, yeah," she said. "Sounds like a machine gun from a distance, doesn't it?" she said, clambering out of the boat and tying it to some solid metal debris sticking out of the sand.

"Need someone to fix it up for you? Make that baby purr?" Johnny D. asked.

"Not what I came for today, actually," she said. "Is Bluejay around? I'm looking for some parts."

Bluejay was around, as it turned out, and so was just about everyone else. Duke and Johnny D. went back to their patrols, but Phil showed herself in.

It had been months since she last dropped in on the Atom Cats. Now that they were, relatively speaking, neighbors, the least she could do was come visit more often. They had given her a very nice jacket, after all.

She ran into Rowdy having a smoke at the patio table outside the garage, and stopped to say hi.

"Long time no see," Rowdy said, though she looked pleased. "Heard you've been busy, keeping all the nosebleeds in the Commonwealth on their toes."

"You know I wouldn't be away from you guys so long if I wasn't," Phil replied with a grin.

"Hey, you wanna make it up to us, put on some power armor while you're out there, and do us proud," Rowdy said, and offered Phil a cigarette. Phil declined, but sat down in the free chair next to Rowdy. "Anyway, things haven't exactly been a snooze here either."

"Yeah? Gunners still giving you guys trouble?"

"Nah, think they're finally learning. We got a new Atom Cat since you were here last, though."

"Oh?" Phil raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, that's him hammering in the garage," Rowdy said, and indeed, there was the sound of some solid hammer work coming from inside the garage. "He and Duke got into the same tight spot with some raiders a little while back. They were both a bit banged up, but after we fixed him up, he kinda stuck around. He knew his way around power armor already, so we figured, hey, why not bring him in? Some of our cool is probably going to rub off on him eventually."

"Do I get to meet him?" Phil asked.

"Nobody's stopping you, Jack," Rowdy replied with a grin. 

Phil grinned back, and sat with Rowdy a while longer, discussing other bits of Atom Cat news, such as the upcoming power armor race, and the new power armor designs they were planning out once they got enough paint together. Phil offered to send any paint she found their way, and Rowdy accepted with enthusiasm.

Afterwards, as Rowdy was getting to the end of her smoke break, Phil got up from the patio chair and went into the garage.

The hammering had stopped at some point, but the newest member of the Atom Cats was still at the workbench, tinkering with something more quietly. He was broad and well-built under the Atom Cats jacket he wore, and Phil took a moment to appreciate the fact that the jeans were doing his ass a lot of favors as well.

Phil leaned against the garage door frame, and cleared her throat to signal her presence. She wasn't going to just stand there and creep on the guy, after all.

When he turned around though, Phil nearly slipped right off the door frame and face-first into the concrete door. She straightened up at the last moment, her hands flailing a bit.

Danse's surprise was just as evident, as he stood there holding a wrench and staring.

"Danse?" she said, at the same time Danse choked out "You...?"

"What are you doing here?" they both managed to say at the same time, with varying levels of accusation in their voice.

Danse frowned, and Phil as well, as they both fell silent, waiting for the other to continue.

Phil gestured to Danse to speak.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated.

Well, she'd actually meant for him to answer the question, but this conversation was not shaping up to be one of the best Phil had ever had.

"I'm looking for parts," she said. "I dropped in to see if the Atom Cats have anything I need. What about you?"

Danse gathered himself up proudly, or maybe just stiffly.

"I am part of this organization now," he said. There was a hint of defiance in his voice, like he was expecting to be challenged on it.

"Alright," Phil said, not really having any protest to that. "I think you need more than half a dozen people for something to count as an 'organization', but alright."

Danse seemed to relax fractionally at least.

"Is it because of the power armor?" Phil said.

"No!" Danse said. "Partially," he amended more softly. "They have been... kind to me, and they appreciate my expertise, though perhaps not  the means through which I achieved it."

"They called the Brotherhood of Steel a bunch of wet rags, didn't they?" Phil grinned.

"'Squares' was the word used, actually," Danse admitted, a bit grumpy.

Phil broke into laughter, but covered it with a coughing fit when Danse glared at her.

"I assume Sanctuary Hills is doing well," Danse said.

"Things have been running smoothly with Sturges at the helm," Phil said.

"Sturges? Not you?"

"People like him. And they listen to him. They don't need me as much these days," Phil shrugged. "I'm actually, ah, relocated to Spectacle Island now. It's closer to the Castle."

"Spectacle Island? That speck of dirt off the coast?"

"It was a bit of a fixer-upper when we got there, yeah," Phil replied dryly.

"I heard it was infested with mirelurks which had slaughtered all the former inhabitants."

"Like I said, fixer-upper."

"And... is your son well?" Danse asked, looking down at the wrench in his hand and fidgeting with it.

Phil took a deep breath. Shaun was great. Shaun was better than ever. He loved his new room at Spectacle Island, and he was working on at least half a dozen projects, and every time Phil went out, she always brought him some new book on whatever subject was interesting to him at the moment. If anyone else had asked, Phil would have talked their ear off about Shaun and his latest antics.

But Danse's question was probably less polite interest and more wanting to know whether Shaun was still upset by their last conversation.

"Shaun is doing great," she said. "He was sorry you left. He was afraid it was because of him."

"Ah," Danse huffed out a breath. "I never apologized to him for... I never apologized. I hope you can tell him I am very sorry for what happened."

"He's a good kid, he doesn't exactly hold a grudge," Phil said. "What about you?"

It sounded like a jab, even to her own ears, but she couldn't resist. Danse didn't seem to take it too badly, either, instead looking at her gravely.

"I don't know if I forgive you for what you did," he said. "But I am no longer angry. It was war. The Brotherhood would have done the same to their enemies."

"Good? I mean, I'm glad we have an understanding," Phil said. "If you ever want to drop in and deliver that apology to Shaun yourself, the Atom Cats have an open invitation to Spectacle Island."

"Thank you," Danse said, and after a beat added, "...Jack."

Oh, she would invite him to Spectacle Island just to hear Danse trying to speak the Atom Cats' lingo.

"Righto, Daddy-O," Phil replied, grinning from ear to ear.