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The world, small as it was, had always been in shades of gray. A little black and white thrown in, for variety's sake. This was how it was for everyone, until they met their soulmates. Most people didn't. And Lucy had been assured that that was totally normal. She still wanted.
Even now, side throbbing, dizzy and nauseated. She looked at the dark stain on the wedding dress she'd been so excited to add her name to just a few hours ago. She knew blood was red. She knew the dress was white. She wondered if it would be less jarring in color.
Norm was wedged up in her armpit, shaking. He kept accidentally elbowing her in her side, but she couldn't bear to let him go right now. She couldn't get the smell of brine out of her nose. She couldn't get Moldaver's face out of her mind.
What were they going to do?
*--*
They weren't going to send out a search party for Dad. They weren't going to do anything about it at all. Norm, usually so droopy and apathetic and morose, was twitching in anger. Her side hurt so much. She was upset. She was scared.
*--*
She left the Vault.
*--*
Lucy had almost expected the world above to be a different kind of colorless, but it wasn't. It was hotter, and windy, and the sky was so vast and open that it made her twitchy. But it was still gray.
That man who drank her water: gray. The sand blowing directly into her eyes: gray. The trees and the grass and the cars and the dead bodies everywhere: gray gray gray. Filly: gray, but with so many people moving around it made her a little dizzy.
All the shouting made her skin feel weird. There was rarely reason for raised voices back home. She adjusted her pack and kept going. Despite what the man with the dog had said, there was no going back home. Not for her.
Not without her Dad.
*--*
This was insane. She was insane. But she needed to do something, because that's what she'd been ‘brought up’ to do. And she couldn't ask the man more questions about that if he was dead. So.
She stood. She drew her weapon. Her hands were shaking, but she'd been taught how to deescalate conflict. She could do this. Eye contact was important, so she made sure to raise her eyes to-
She dropped her tranquilizer gun. The… the whatever he was dropped his gun, too. Lucy's knees buckled in shock, a headache lighting up her temples. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She didn't understand.
His shirt was blue.
His shirt was blue.
*--*
She was throwing up. She wished she wasn't. She wished she hadn't managed to pull the Doctor into the store, eyes sliding over everything in a panic. She wished-
Oh, God. It was so red, wasn't it, all that blood, all that torn up flesh at the base of the Doctor's neck. The bone was white. It was so incredibly jarring. Worse than the dress. Just so much worse.
It was the worst thing she'd ever seen. She threw up again. It was too much, all at once. She didn't think she'd opened her eyes all the way since she'd dragged them out of Filly, but she'd had to. So she could cut off his head. His whole entire head.
More vomiting. Great. Nothing was coming up. All cleaned out, as her Dad would say. Ugh. She sat down, away from the throw up, and did her best not to smell anything.
There was a color chart in her bag. She'd brought it, just in case. She wanted to toss it aside, bury it in the endless sand, but she couldn't make herself. She pulled it out. Ran her fingers over the colors and their names. She squinted, stomach twisting in protest, but she couldn't stop looking.
The sky was blue.
The sky was blue.
*--*
If there was one fuckin’ thing Cooper didn't fuckin’ need, it was a fuckin’ know-nothin’ vaultie soulmate. Fuck. Fuck.
She'd smiled at him. Smiled up at him like he didn't have a gun pointed at her face. Smiled at him like he was worth it at all.
Wasn't smiling now, shivering and damp, bleeding hand tucked into the crook of the opposite elbow. If he had to hazard a guess it'd be that she was in shock.
“Torture is wrong! You're my sou-”
Shit. Shit shit shit. He wasn't shit, wasn't anyone's soulmate. Wasn't nothin’ but a monster, wasn't capable of anything else. Didn't care to be. He choked on another hacking cough. He twitched, twitched, twitched. He needed to replace the vials Little Miss Morality had smashed up in her blind panic.
He wanted her gone. He wanted all these fuckin’ colors gone. No time for sentimental bullshit. No room in him for more than the brutal mercy of the Wastelands. But he couldn't bring himself to do it himself. Not to her, eyes big and red and sad. Sad, sad, sad.
Motherfucker.
At least they'd be quick about it, and he'd get his vials.
*--*
Lucy decided that her new favorite color was blue. Runner up was green. Third place went to yellow. Corn was amazing. And delicious. Max shoved more food into his face, no manners at all, but she was doing the same so who was she to judge. It was so very nice to be in a Vault again. To feel safe.
*--*
Well, she really fudged that one up.
*--*
Dad's eyes were gray. Gray and bloodshot and angry and miserable. The thing inside Wilzig's head had been blue, but a different sort of blue. Not like the sky at all. She stared at her mother, who was rotten and bleached out and twisted.
“What color were they?”
Moldaver looked over at her, surprised. “Excuse me?”
“What color were her eyes?”
It was awful, seeing pity on her face. It made her so angry. “They were the same as yours. Hazel. You really do look so much like her.”
*--*
Cooper set up a brutal pace; the sooner they were away from all that Brotherhood of Steel bullshit the better, but the vaultie kept up and kept quiet. Made his skin crawl kind of quiet. Bullet to the brain kind of quiet.
So he poked at her, just a bit. He pretended it wasn't relief he felt when she started snipping back, snooty little nose turned up, big eyes all offended. Pretended it didn't send a wicked thrill down his spine when she started smiling at him again.
He squinted into the distance. The Wastelands spread out before them, the sun shining harsh against the sand. He looked up.
The sky was blue.
The sky was blue.