Work Text:
The first time Olivia hears it, she is five and watching her mother and father being escorted out of their small home by police officers and protectrons. The neighborhood watches and the neighbors Olivia had grown up around have become unrecognizable. Her mother cries into her hands and keeps looking back at her, flinging out one hand only to be hustled along by the officer behind her. Her father seems to have folded in on himself completely.
Olivia’s hand is encased in the large hand of a tall woman. Her name is Chandra and she tells Olivia she is a case worker and she now will help Olivia acclimate.
The neighbors jeer at her parents -
“Goddamn Chinese communists!”
“Fucking chinks!”
“Should’ve never tried coming into our country, you commie spies!”
Olivia holds Ms. Chandra’s hand tightly and does as her mother had told her - “Don’t cry. Don’t move. You stay with the nice lady.” - before officers had dragged her away.
Olivia doesn’t move. She doesn’t cry. And she doesn’t look away as her parents are loaded up with other people in the back of a large vehicle and they drive away.
It is 2039 and she turns six in three days.
.
Ms. Chandra takes her to a new home. Olivia asks her twice when she’ll get to see her parents and then Ms. Chandra pulls her to the side. “Honey. I don’t know. Nobody does. You’ll be with other kids who don’t know when they’ll see their mommies and daddies too, mmkay? So you just hush now.”
Olivia hushes but quietly thinks to herself that she hates Ms. Chandra.
Her new home is full of other kids.
A boy named Gabriel offers his teddy to her when she meanders over to the books. “My mama and papa were taken too. The police said they did something wrong. Did your parents do something wrong?” And then he pops his thumb in his mouth. He is five too.
Olivia cracks open a small novella and purses her lips, turns away from Gabriel until he grows bored and leaves her alone.
Ms. Chandra casts a long shadow over her. “You play nice now, you hear? This place is your new home and they -” she points out women and men in uniforms watching the children “-are your family now too.” She pats Olivia on the head and leaves.
Olivia watches one of the women, a blonde with big blue eyes take Gabriel’s hand and lead him out of the designated playroom. The other children watch Olivia warily.
Olivia only has eyes for the adults and recoils like a stray when one of the men smiles at her, “Don’t you want to play with a doll? Or we’ve got blocks too.” She leans away from his presence.
This is not her home and these people are not her family.
.
“Well we probably don’t have the food you’re used to Olivia, but this is a balanced meal.” the woman puts her hands on her hips.
Olivia frowns and pushes the glass of milk away. “I can’t drink that. It makes me sick.”
“Well,” the caretaker huffs, “Well, well, well. I don’t like everything healthy either but I still eat it and don’t complain. Now drink it - and you’re not moving from this table until it’s all gone missy.” And she hurries after another child.
Gabriel on the other side of the table prods at his broccoli sullenly.
Olivia slides her glass of milk over to him and takes his plate. “Trade you.”
Gabriel smiles and guzzles happily.
.
The woman who had kept trying to force Olivia to drink milk is fired.
She had left one of the rooms open and having relations with another staff member in a vacant children’s room. Olivia had caught her and told one of the other women who had sputtered and took Olivia to see the supervisor who in turn had turned red.
The woman had been brought in and cried when her boss fired her. She kept repeating that the door had been shut and locked, she swore. The people in charge keep saying how they need to report her gross misconduct to higher ups, and how it’s out of their hands.
They call in Ms. Chandra who stands next to Olivia and berates the director for such negligence in his staff.
Olivia looks at her feet and says nothing.
The door had been shut and locked. Olivia had only opened it.
She’d read about locks in a book.
The woman keeps crying and Olivia watches her and feels nothing at all.
.
“Ain’t you Chinese?”
“No. I’m Japanese. Jap-an-ese.”
Billy the Bully, the boy whose father was under surveillance by the government, stands before her with his arms crossed and feet apart. Olivia was shorter than he was and slighter, but he thinks doing this makes him look bigger. It reminds her of a cat puffing up. He does this whenever he sees her.
He shrugs carelessly. “You’re still a commie. With commie parents.” He leans close and she can smell milk on his breath. “Go back where you came from, you commie.”
Olivia doesn’t speak, doesn’t cry.
Billy is reprimanded for stealing money from the safe in the back within the week. They had found the money under Billy’s pillow and they don’t believe him when he swears he didn’t do it. The staff come to the conclusion that one of them may have left the safe open by accident.
Billy is placed under restriction for a month for lying and stealing.
Olivia feels nothing at all, but she can read in the library in peace now.
.
She is ten when Gabriel leaves the facility.
His parents were released.
He is the only original child left in the facility from the time she had come to it besides her.
Now, she’s the only one. She has never felt so small before.
He waves at her as leaves with his parents, tired and worn but happy and alive.
She waves back slowly and looks up when a tall shadow blocks the light overhead. Ms. Chandra puts a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m still here, honey.” She says and Olivia turns a teary face into her skirt, fists bunching in the folds of the material.
“Hush now, honey. Ms. Chandra’s still here.”
.
“Come with me honey. Let’s go get something to drink.”
Ms. Chandra leads her away and makes her a cup of black tea.
They sit in silence on the patio overlooking a large garden. The cries and laughter and chatter of children sound out behind them in the facility.
“Honey, I am so, so sorry.”
Olivia looks up and sees Ms. Chandra’s dark face pulled taut. “Your parents, honey. They were deported. You won’t be, the government has recognized you as a child of the state and a citizen and I know how awful this must be for you...”
Ms. Chandra keeps talking but Olivia can’t hear her over the ringing in her ears. Her teacup slips and shatters.
.
Ms. Chandra has a scarf over her head. “Chemo, honey. It’s a bitch.” She says as she lights up a cigarette. “Now. You finished high school early. So did you want to start applying for colleges or start working? Either way you’re stuck here for two more years.” She says in a long exhale of smoke.
Olivia waves the smoke away. “I thought you quit.”
Ms. Chandra shrugs and loosens the scarf from her head. The rich black hair she had cared for over the years with its highlights and crimps is gone. “Losing hair is an itchy business, honey.” She takes a drag.
Olivia watches the cigarette tip burn brightly.
“I want to go to law school. I signed up for the Emergency Militia Academy too.”
Ms. Chandra breathes out smoke like a dragon. “Of course you did. I trust the director has no idea?” She shakes her head and the large gold hoops in her ears sway.
Olivia looks down at her hands knotted tightly in her lap. “I heard what’s been happening there. I don’t want to give anyone a reason to deport me.”
The air raids, bunk checks, curfew, China’s slow invasion, Russia’s push, the chaos spreading from Africa and out. She has never heard from her parents again and knows she never will. People gone this long never came back, and left no trail. She doesn’t even know if they were actually deported or if they’re still interned like she is. Because that’s actually what this place is - there are high concrete walls and tall electric fences with barbed wire. Security guards patrol the outside, there are guard towers. There is no hiding what this place is.
Ms. Chandra makes a soft noise in her throat and lays her hand on Olivia’s fists.
“You do what you gotta do, honey. I’ll sort out the director.”
.
The year is 2058 and Ms. Chandra is no longer her case worker. For the next five months, until she turns eighteen, she will have no case worker. Ms. Chandra has stopped chemo. The cancer is in her bones.
Olivia continues on with the Militia Academy; learning the basics of everything. They are preparing them for nuclear fallout, for surprise combat. They are training citizens to be jacks of all trades in the event the war washes to American soil. Sponsored by the National Guard, the American Militia Group is only meant to be a precaution for citizens. Terminal hacking, lockpicking, machine repair, conditioning them to make snap decisions and maintaining an exercise routine. They even teach them basic weapons training and maintenance.
The American Militia Group is mostly made of the sons and daughters of immigrants, or first generation youth. It's encouraged for them to be a part of it to better serve the country.
Two months before Olivia is released from the facility, Ms. Chandra passes away.
She is unable to attend because her family had wanted a private ceremony and a kid Ms. Chandra knew doesn’t count even if she was really the only semblance of family Olivia had had left.
The day her funeral takes place, Olivia is out in the rain and mud learning the ins and outs of a sniper rifle. She scores head shots on all the paper targets and feels nothing at all when her instructor claps his heavy hand on her shoulder and bellows out how well she did. He motions for her peers to watch her do the next one.
In, out, in, out, zoom, steady, in, hold-hold-hold- BANG.
.
She meets Nate after she already has a law degree and has graduated the Militia Academy with honors.
Nate is beautiful - green eyes, dark skin, wide smile and he is not looking for love. Not that way. Neither is she.
She isn’t his type and to be honest, for all the flings and casual sex she’s had, she doesn’t think she has a type. Nate is ideal. Healthy, fit, kind, believes in equal partnership and most importantly wants to be a father as much as she wants to be a mother.
They're friends who watch movies and eat out together before it escalates to dating but really it’s more like evaluating the fine print of a contract.
“I bought a house but I’m constantly on deployment so it doesn’t really seem to matter.” He mentions once they’ve dipped into the sauce.
Olivia smiles. “We’d make pretty babies.”
Nate looks surprised and so does she but he laughs and nods. “We really would.”
Olivia clasps his hand. “We should do it. Have a baby.”
He stares. “Are you baby crazy?”
She cocks her head and squints at him. “And you aren’t? Seriously you’ve built cribs for all the new mothers in your little neighborhood.”
Nate looks away and palms the back of his neck. “It’s just...damn it. I want kids. I want a family but. Liv. I’m gay, you know?”
Olivia blinks. “Well I knew that.”
Nate snaps back up to look at her. “Seriously?”
“Nate, you’re a good guy, we get along great but the whole avoiding sleeping over, no kissing and you not making a move pretty much set the tone, which is fine by me but I mean - we’ve been doing this for three years and we both want kids.” Olivia shrugs. “I don’t care about marriage, but it seems like it would be less questions.”
“If people ever found out - if the army ever found out -” Nate struggles with it. He looks ashamed. Olivia squeezes his hand.
“I want a family, Nate. One to come home to.”
He nods and looks far away, maybe thinking of the house he bought that he never filled. “Yeah. Me too.”
.
Immediately after they get hitched, Olivia gets pregnant.
Nate couldn’t perform so they’d had to use artificial insemination - “Not that you aren’t beautiful just. I’m so sorry.”
Olivia shrugs, feet up in stirrups. “We’ll make it work.”
Shaun comes squalling into the world and he is the most perfect human being Olivia had ever seen. He has his father’s skin tone and smile but everything else is hers, his eyes, his nose.
She trembles when the nurse hands him to her and feels Nate’s hand on her shoulder. She and Nate cry, looking at their child and the possibility of almost actually having a dream come true. She holds Shaun close, Nate’s hand on his head, and turns her face into Nate’s shirt.
She cries, and for the first time since she’d seen her parents leave in that vehicle so long ago, she feels everything. So much she could drown.
.
“What about those people outside of the gate? What will happen to them? Isn’t there room in the Vault?” Nate yells to their guide. He’s remarkably calm while her heart thrashes in her chest wildly. He holds Shaun to his chest confidently, tucked into his arms.
“Move, move, move! Center of the platform, now!” The guide points and Olivia rushes with Nate to the center.
“It’s going to be ok. I love you.” He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back.
And behind him, she sees a giant mushroom bloom up. It is the face of death.
“Oh god.” She whispers.
“Send it down, NOW!”
Nate pulls her close and they crouch down together over Shaun. The earth trembles below them and soon the sun is no longer over them.
Above them, before the Vault door shuts, all she can hear is the sound of fear in all of its forms.
.
She lands heavily on the floor, coughing and gagging and crawls her way to the pod across of hers - fucking cryogenic stasis how could Vault-Tec do that without telling and them and why didn’t she look through the contract more carefully, some law degree and - oh god. Nate.
Shaun. Oh god, Shaun. Someone took Shaun.
She slams the release on the pod and nearly falls to her knees. “Oh Nate.”
He died trying to prevent strangers from taking their baby. The struggle is a blur but he’d refused to hand over Shaun and he was just shot pointblank. A father holding his child. Shot dead.
All he ever wanted was a family, one that wouldn’t be persecuted for what he was - the same as her. All they ever wanted was a safe family. Was it so much to ask?
She gags and touches Nate’s frozen hand. “I love you too, Nate.” She chokes on the words, as if a physical weight in her chest is pulling them down. She slips his wedding ring off. “I’ll find who did this and get Shaun back, I promise.”
She lets go of his hand and seals him away again. Once the chamber hisses shut, she feels nothing at all.
She makes her way through the Vault - although it is a tomb, a crypt with ancient bones and the frozen, giant roaches - what the fuck giant roaches? - and there it is. The lift to the outside. She loots a corpse for its Pip-Boy and cringes when it wraps around her wrist.
The lift ascends slowly, aged gears grinding.
A bald man with a voice like sandpaper, a scar over his right eye in combat leathers. “At least we still have the backup.”
The Vault opens above and the sunlight is blinding and the world of tomorrow stretches out in front of her.
In, out, in, out, steady, steady, in, hold-hold-hold -