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Arcade sat on the floor of the Lucky 38’s cocktail lounge, trying to teach Rex to play dead. It was a project Veronica had started when she learned that the only trick Rex knew was how to sit, which she declared a tragedy, and immediately resolved to teach him more. Arcade had, at her behest, gone to the King to ask if he was willing to assist in their efforts, and, while he did indeed assist Arcade in many spectacular and rather creative ways, Rex remained untrained. But now Arcade had a standing invitation to the King’s school, so it hadn’t exactly been an unproductive night. (And they’d had a few more equally productive nights since then.)
Anyway, here he was, trying to teach a cybernetic dog how to play dead. Because Veronica was off visiting a Followers chapter he’d introduced her to and had made him promise to continue her work while she was away.
Though, as Rex continued to stare up at him, panting and decidedly not playing dead, it was a promise he was beginning to regret.
Before he could begin cursing her name in earnest, however, the elevator doors slid open. He turned, expecting perhaps Cass stumbling back from a bender, or the Courier proudly bearing another string of ears she’d acquired from Legionaries who’d had the misfortune of being sent to assassinate her. Maybe even Lily with another sweater she’d finished knitting for them, with a variable amount of armholes to keep them all on their toes.
Instead, he was met with the sight of a distraught Veronica, tears streaming down her face. He jolted to his feet, Rex forgotten. “Veronica? What happened; are you okay?”
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again.
Arcade rushed over to her, putting a hand on her arm and guiding her to a nearby chair. Sure, his bedside manner was shit, but that was with normal patients; this was Veronica. His friend who hadn’t turned him in when, by all rights, she should have, and no one would’ve blamed her, certainly not him. So he’d be damned if he was going to fail her now. Drawing on all his knowledge of how to treat shock and trauma—because that was clearly what she was experiencing—he put a comforting hand on her back, rubbing circles soothingly.
“It’s all right, Veronica. You’re okay; we’re in the Lucky 38 and you’re safe,” he reassured. He desperately wanted to know what had happened, but an interrogation definitely wouldn’t help her calm down. There was one thing he did need to know, though.
“Veronica, who else was with you—were you still with the Courier? Is she all right?”
She cried harder, and ice crept through his veins.
“No, she’s fine; she’s still there,” she managed, and Arcade was flooded with relief. Whatever else had happened, at least their friends were still alive.
“Everyone else, though—oh god, they’re all dead!”
Arcade was burning with questions that he knew better than to ask. Still, though, if it would help Veronica to talk through what happened, surely that was okay, right?
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked, in as neutral a tone as he could manage. Hopefully she didn’t feel pressured to answer.
“We got to the outpost, like you said and—god, Arcade, I’m so sorry!” She choked up, and he took her hand, trying to project the sympathy he felt without revealing the depths of his concern.
“Hey, Veronica, breathe, it’s okay. Just take deep breaths with me, can you do that?” he asked, mentally thanking Julie for that book on handling emotional distress that she’d thrown at his head the last time he’d reduced a patient to tears.
She shakily inhaled and exhaled with him, and the accompanying relief he felt made it easy to manage a reassuring smile. “Good, good. You’re doing great, Veronica.”
They remained like that for a few minutes, her breathing slowly growing steadier and his knees slowly growing more uncomfortable against the hard floor.
Once her breathing had evened out, she pulled her hand away to wipe at her eyes. “Remember how I said that a few people were really mad that I’d left?”
Arcade wasn’t quite sure what that had to do with anything, but he nodded.
“I’m not sure how they found out that I was trying to join the Followers, but when the Courier and I got to the outpost, they’d already murdered everyone there. We were too late; we couldn’t save anyone. And then they attacked us, and we had to—god, we had to kill them!” Her tears had started up again.
Shit. Arcade hadn’t really known anyone at the outpost, but he knew that Julie had worked with Dr. Alvarez at one point and liked her. He wondered if she’d heard yet or if he was going to have to tell her what had happened.
Still, there was a more urgent matter to attend to. “Are you all right? Did any of them manage to hurt you?” Brotherhood Paladins weren’t exactly slouches when it came to combat, and while it seemed like Veronica and the Courier had pretty handily dispatched them, it was best to make sure no injuries had been sustained.
She paused, seeming to consider her physical state for the first time. “My wrist doesn’t feel great; I might have pulled something in it,” she said through tears, still trembling slightly.
“All right, is it okay if I look at it?” Arcade coaxed. He didn’t want to push her, but wrist injuries were at risk of getting worse if left unattended, and the way Veronica was clenching her fists would definitely be agitating it further.
She shakily nodded and uncurled slightly, extending an arm.
Arcade carefully grasped her forearm, trying to be as gentle as possible. It took barely a glance to determine that her wrist was sprained. It wasn’t severe, but it still had to hurt a lot. Especially if it had happened early on in the fight—it was her right wrist, and there was no way she’d have stopped fighting just because she got injured. He didn’t even want to think about how much more strain she would have put on it by punching people in power armor.
“Okay, it looks like it's just a sprain. It's not too bad, but I'll still need to treat it.” He hesitated. Given her distress, leaving her alone seemed like a bad idea. On the other hand, Arcade didn't know how long it had been since her wrist got injured and they couldn't really waste any more time. “Is it all right if I go get some ice? I promise it will only take a bit.”
Veronica nodded. “Yeah that’s—I'll be fine.”
He very much doubted that, but he really didn't want her wrist to get any worse. “All right, I'll be right back,” he promised. Giving her arm a reassuring squeeze, he left the room and headed for the bathroom, where he grabbed his medical kit and an ice pack. After a brief moment of consideration, he took a detour to the kitchen to grab a bucket of ice. He didn't know how long Veronica would be like this and he didn't want to have to leave her alone again.
When he returned, he saw that Veronica had barely moved, still staring into space and breathing shakily.
“I'm back, Veronica,” he said, kneeling by her side again. “I'm going to give you a stimpack first, okay?” She didn't say anything, but she held out her wrist again. As he took her arm and applied the stimpack, he made sure to do so slowly, broadcasting his movements so she wasn't startled.
He worked in silence for a few minutes before Veronica started talking again.
“It was horrible. It was a massacre. There were bodies and ash everywhere. I don’t think any of the Followers had even had time to fight back.” She didn’t seem to be entirely paying attention to him, and he wasn’t sure if she was recounting the events out of a genuine desire to inform him or because she was still processing what had happened.
She didn’t look for a response before continuing (which was good, because Arcade wasn’t entirely sure what he should say). “And they were just... standing there. Over the bodies. As if they hadn’t done anything wrong—as if they hadn’t just murdered innocent people who’d never done anything to them or the Brotherhood! How could they do this?” She finally focused on Arcade, eyes pleading for him to make sense of the situation.
He wished he knew what to say to make her feel better. He wasn’t exactly surprised to find that the Brotherhood had reacted badly—and violently—to one of their member rejecting them, but there was no way he was telling her that.
“Veronica,” he tried, “sometimes people don’t like to be confronted with the possibility that they’re wrong about things. Especially when they stake so much of their identity on it. When you left, you shook their faith in the idea that the Brotherhood’s isolationism was the right thing for the chapter. And it’s a lot easier to react with violence and anger than it is to reevaluate your beliefs.”
He wasn’t sure how much he believed what he was saying, but the truth—that the paladins were probably acting out of the sort of anger and possessiveness that led a child to break a toy rather than share it—was definitely not what Veronica needed to be hearing right now.
“But they were supposed to be better than that—we were supposed to be better than that! How could they go after the Followers? They didn’t do anything!”
He didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m sorry, Veronica,” he sympathized.
She shook her head. “No, it—” she broke off as her eyes widened and she looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, horror taking over her features and he realized that he’d somehow managed to make things worse.
“Oh my god, Arcade,” she breathed, “Oh no, Arcade, I’m so sorry!”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he reassured, panicking. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He had no idea why she was apologizing, but trauma could make people irrational and he really wasn’t equipped to deal with even more emotional turmoil right now.
“No, but I know you don’t like the Brotherhood, and you only know us as murderers, and now they’ve gone and done this! Killed Followers, your friends who were innocent and just wanted to help people!”
Oh dear. Litigating Arcade’s less than amicable history with the Brotherhood had really not been on his to-do list for this conversation, and he would very much prefer going back to fervently ignoring the oil rig-shaped elephant in the room.
“Veronica, you have to know that’s not your fault,” he insisted. “And you said it yourself—this was just a few paladins with a grudge; I’m sure the Brotherhood as a whole wouldn’t sanction something like this.” He wasn’t even lying, though not so much out of a belief in the inherent nobility of the Brotherhood as much as the knowledge that the leadership, at the very least, would be aware of how monumentally stupid such a plan would be. Breaking their coveted isolation in order to murder a group that posed no threat whatsoever to them—especially a group generally appreciated throughout the Mojave—would provide them no benefit and cause nothing but problems. But like hell was he going to explain that reasoning to Veronica.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think that it was sanctioned by the elder or anything but—what does it say about us that some members were so easily provoked into murdering innocent people who had done nothing to them?”
Privately, Arcade thought that the idea that defection was an option spreading through the ranks would actually do a significant amount of harm to the Brotherhood. Those paladins were likely motivated just as much by a desire to discourage people from following in Veronica’s footsteps as they were by spite and revenge, but that was something else that he was certainly not going to tell her right now. Or ever.
Instead, he sighed. “Look, Veronica, the Brotherhood is far from a bastion of morality, but that’s not your fault. I know it hurts to have your view of them changed, but that doesn’t mean that the things you loved about them never existed, or that they didn’t matter. And before you say that you should’ve seen this aspect of them sooner, don’t you fucking dare blame yourself. They were your family; of course you didn’t want to believe them capable of that.”
Inwardly, he was a little proud at how well he was handling this. He was pretty sure that this was the kind of reassurance that Veronica needed to hear, and besides, it’s not like he was saying anything that wasn’t true. His internal celebration was cut short when Veronica sniffled and looked up at him, making eye contact for what might have been the first time all night.
“Is that what it was like for you?” she asked softly and Arcade felt his blood freeze. He knew that she was waiting for an answer, that he needed to say something, anything, but he couldn’t get his mouth to open, let alone think of what to say.
“Because,” she began, wiping her nose on her sleeve, “I never really thought about what you went through before, but—but now, I—” she shuddered, visibly smothering another broken sob.
Okay this was bad, but at least now he knew what to say. He just had to tell her that the Brotherhood was nothing like the Enclave, that to even think of comparing them was absurd and that their flaws were on exponentially different scales. He needed to tell her that immediately, before she continued down this train of thought, but despite every fibre of his being screaming that at him, he stayed frozen and the words stayed stuck in his throat.
“I mean—fuck, you were just a kid,” she said, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time and yup, this was bad; this was really, really bad; Veronica did not need to be thinking about this right now, or preferably ever. She was hurting, suffering from an unimaginable betrayal and here she was, wasting time worrying about him. “And it was a fucking war too, and—how many people did you lose? How much—” she broke off again, hiccuping wetly “—how much of your family did my family kill?”
He stared at her in horror and despair. He needed to stop this, he needed to put an end to it right fucking now. Finally, finally he managed to unstick his tongue. “Veronica—” he began, before choking on the rest of whatever he had been trying to say. Tears were streaming down her face freely again and he did the only thing he could think to do and pulled her into a hug. She immediately latched on to him, fingers digging into the back of his lab coat as she sobbed into his shirt. In the back of his mind, he considered the fact that it was probably inadvisable to let her hold onto him so tightly with a sprained wrist, but he couldn’t make himself let go of her. As they clutched onto each other, he slowly noticed the tears that had begun forming in his own eyes. He buried his face in her hair, no longer able to tell if she was the only one who was shaking.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, taking deep breaths together and holding each other up.
Eventually, he managed to calm down enough to formulate words again. “You do know that it’s not the same, right? Not even close?” he mumbled into her hair.
She sniffled into his shoulder. “I know,” she said, voice muffled by his shirt. “But...” She didn’t finish.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “But.”
They clung to each other for what was probably too much longer, but neither of them could bring themselves to let go. Eventually, Arcade asked, “Your wrist is really hurting right now, isn’t it?”
Veronica chuckled wryly. “Like a bitch.”
“We should probably get back to patching you up,” he said, reluctantly.
“Probably,” she agreed.
She didn't move.
Neither did he.