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There is a rage that heals.
Jun wraps himself in his grief like a shroud, the softness smothering his lungs. Always gentle, the sweet man who wooed her slowly, courted her with bouquets of hubflower and bloodleaf blossoms. But petal-soft, scars easily.
Marcy hones her grief like a knife, turns it to rage. Fury hurts less than tears, lashing out against a world that hurts, hurting back with all her might. Jagged steel and explosions, lets her rage simmer low and power her like a furnace. Bitter and scalding as black coffee, she sips it slow and watches. Waits.
The Vaultie took the minigun and the power armor, took to the streets to fight the raiders and the deathclaw. Preston was firing from the balcony of the museum, but Marcy was right beside him, firing her pistol and cursing every raider. Bullets are cheap, next to the cost of her son’s life. She will buy him vengeance in the afterlife.
When the Vaultie leads them to Sanctuary, Marcy takes over on the defenses. She may not have Preston’s training with the Minutemen, but Marcy knows what it means to be guarded. She curses the heat of the sun, the grit in her boots, curses everything they had to leave behind in Quincy, but she sets up in the workshop right beside Sturges and the Vaultie (and a funny-looking thing she is too, face pocked with acne and with those thick glasses. The real sign of her being a prewar relic is how she’s got her own prescription, not that Pip-Boy around her wrist) as they build turrets out of military grade circuit boards and scrapped steel, grease lingering on her palms. Guard towers framing the bridge, and Marcy hoards each splinter as personal triumph. Pain will not rule her.
Sturges talks about rebuilding, fixing what’s broken, but Marcy finds no healing in this. Pulling fiberglass from old toys, stripping down rusted cars for steel and rubber-- she is building so she can destroy, so that the jittering turrets can spit bullets and vengeance at whatever dares to challenge this new home.
The Vaultie-- Wong, no first name, and that’s fine by Marcy-- seems to understand. She rolls her eyes, smiles to herself at Sturges’ bursts of enthusiasm. Flicks her gaze to Marcy. Shuts up.
Suits Marcy fine.
. . .
Marcy buries herself in the farm, digs her hands in the soil and works a crust of grime beneath her nails.
(Never had a chance to bury Kyle.)
Sets up rows of melons and carrots, so many lives beneath her feet, promises bursting from dry earth. Air heavy with the smell of green and growing, the sun-baked sweetness of mutfruit and corn. Patrols the perimeter with Preston, the breeze cool and tinny under a shattered-steel sky. He hums as their boots crunch over dirt and gravel, sun glinting off the river.
She explores by herself, goes into the woods and hills north of Sanctuary, west. A peace in solitude, the scrabble-nailed scream at a muted roar with no one else to spark against.
She finds the vault entrance but stays outside. Some ghosts deserve to stay buried.
She finds the sagging canopy and sodden chair set up near the vault entrance, along with a carton of dirty water and a half-dozen candle stubs. She takes the candles, tightens her jaw as she examines the white chalk markings on the wooden board. No binoculars, but binoculars are expensive. Candles cheap. Whatever watcher was there might have been expecting to return, but not soon.
Marcy stands her ground against two wild dogs, hands steady and eyes narrowed as they charge. Two shots; one bullet each. Likes most dogs better than she likes most people, but still strips them for meat. No sense in being sentimental.
She returns to Sanctuary. Blood on her hands, grim satisfaction in her chest.
. . .
Wong returns from Tenpines Bluff, Dogmeat beside her. Treacherous thing comes right up to Marcy, butts his head under her hand and noses hopefully at her pocket for the pieces of bread she used to save for him.
Used to. Used to.
(Kyle always wanted a dog, begged her for one whenever the traders passed through. Begged Jun when Marcy said ‘no,’ but her husband stood firm. Common ground even on their disagreements. Perhaps if they’d bought that dog…)
Marcy shakes her head, shoves him away. Palm of her hand flat against his skull, could be mistaken for a pat. “Go away, mutt. I don’t have any treats for you.”
“Yeah, well. He seems to like you anyway,” Wong snorts, pulling a sweetroll from her pack. She tosses it to Marcy, underhand. Marcy catches out of reflex, not wanting to get hit in the face. “Why don’t you feed him? Gotta talk with Preston, don’t want the mutt underfoot.” Sly mockery in her grin, pulling her limp hair from its ponytail.
“Don’t be expecting any more favors,” Marcy warns, already ripping the roll into pieces. She leans against the sagging picket fence, sun on the back of her neck as she listens to Wong and Preston. Tenpines Bluff had raider problems, blah blah blah, Wong cleared out the raider station, blah. Marcy doesn’t bother tamping down a stab of vindictive glee. Hopes the bastards suffered, hopes that death was swift and painful.
Tenpines Bluff has agreed to join the Minutemen, blah. That halts her, like a bullet in a wall. Preston asks her to lead the Minutemen, says he knows tactics and how to hold a line but knows nothing of strategy or how to inspire--
And that’s shit, that’s utter dogshit, that’s fucking stupid and her rage turns nova, turns to grab Preston by the shoulders because even if he couldn’t save Kyle, couldn’t save all of them, he still fucking led them to Sanctuary but Wong shakes her head.
“Not if I gotta wear that hat,” she says. Snorts. “Suits you better’n me.”
“This is not a joke,” Preston says, and it’s something loose and breaking, a heart in slow shatter. “I’m the last Minuteman, and I can’t--”
“I can’t promise I’ll be any better,” Wong says. Gentle, soft. So unlike her, all her soldered steel and welded patches. “I was an army engineer, before. Infrastructure, not combat.” Arms crossed loose in front of her.
“But I can do that.” Preston trips over his words, fists clenched. “With you leading, we could--”
“No,” Marcy snaps, already seeing the shape of what’s coming. Another loss, another goodbye, another rip in this tiny community that already lost so much since Quincy. “Preston, you can’t go. Sanctuary needs you. Plus if you both go, how stupid is that for anyone who wants to contact the Minutemen? Anyone who needs help, anyone who wants to send a message-- how the hell they gonna track you down, huh? Send a runner to go shake down raider dens asking ‘You see where those Minutemen go? We got a settlement in trouble!’” She shakes her head, stabs her finger into Preston’s chest. “If Wong accepts, I go. You’re gonna stay here, run operations.”
“‘If’ I accept?” Wong asks, voice lilting. High-toned and musical, like she might slip into that rapid-fire language she first started when she met Marcy and Jun.
“If,” Marcy says. Scowls, jaw aching. Ribs tight. “If not, the Minutemen are dead. Can’t trust anyone.” Couldn’t trust the Minutemen either, in the end. But Marcy’s not going to waste her breath praying for what’s lost. Rather load her lungs for a battle-cry.
One breath. Two.
Preston bites his lip, shoulders slumped. So very, very tired. If Kyle’s death weighs on Marcy, Preston feels the weight of everyone else.
Wong clicks her tongue, lifts her chin. “Tell me what it means to be a general.”
. . .
Jun cries, but there’s nothing new about that. His sobs are quiet beneath the rain beating down on the patched roof, slicking itself against the shuttered windows. Marcy lets him weep into her shoulder, rubs small circles on his skin and pats his back, his ribs harsh beneath her fingers. He’s lost weight since Quincy-- they all did-- but he hasn’t regained his strength in Sanctuary.
And neither has she. Neither will she, if she cannot escape.
“To lose Kyle, and now you?” he pleads. Even now, all his requests unspoken, indirect and angled. Always easier to leave the hard decisions to her, let her take the blame when it hurts.
“You don’t need me here. You need Preston.” Another pause to let him cry, tears mingling with the sweat still cooling on her skin from an aborted attempt at lovemaking. Truth washes off her tongue like salt, cracking her lips on the way out. “We are already losing each other, Jun. I love you, but I can’t--” She grits her teeth, hisses. “I look in your face, and see our son. And I know you feel the same when you look at me.”
He still smells like dried grass and flowers, like fresh-washed linen and promises made under a twilight sky. They had been so young, once. “Is this goodbye?”
She swallows, kisses behind his ear so she won’t have to look in his face. “I don’t know.”
. . .
Wong takes a look at Marcy’s shitty pipe pistol, snorts, and gives her a 10mm with a sharpshooter’s grip and a large magazine. Slim, after being so used to her pipe gun. A solid comfort in its weight, the steel and gun-oil in her nostrils.
“You got a family to get back to. Better not die on me.” Half a smile, the other half in the jut of her chin, the taunt in her voice.
“You’ve got a family to find,” Marcy challenges. “And if I die, I’m taking the bastards with me.”
“Illegitimi non carborundum,” Wong says. Quirks her mouth at Marcy’s glare. “Shitty translation of a dead language. ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down.’”
“Doesn’t sound anything like that other dead language.”
Wong’s smile freezes. Face pale but for the throbbing tic above her eye. “Cantonese is not dead. Maybe not alive, not here, but China’s only an ocean away.” Voice deadly-soft, barely more than breath.
Marcy’s grief burns hot, but she shies away from this icy rage.
. . .
This is a rage that heals, like breaking bone that re-knits stronger.
She learns Wong’s style, soft and sheltered but still adapting. Learning quick, a sheetmetal-rattle to her words. Still old customs, like when she examines a chip in her cup and says, loose and detached like describing last night’s dream, “My mother use to say not to drink from a chipped cup. Would cut my mouth, my words. Leave me ill-spoken.”
Marcy’s laugh is a biting thing, harsh and ragged. “Chipped cups are the only kind we got.”
She learns Wong’s habits-- the woman craves a cup of something hot when she wakes up. Tea if she has it, coffee if not. Marcy makes the coffee most days because Wong’s too wasteful with it otherwise. Marcy brews it hot and bitter, more chicory than grounds. Strength comes from the bitter, more than the measly spoonful of actual coffee in it. When you’ve got little, you learn to make it stretch.
She learns Wong’s signals, terse companionship in silence as they investigate abandoned cabins and old shipping centers. Clear out feral ghouls with ruthless efficiency from a long-abandoned railroad station, where Wong peers at white-chalked markings and unlit lanterns while Marcy watches the shadows.
“Keep staring and you'll go blind. Blinder,” Marcy corrects as Wong’s glasses glint.
Wong pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, scowling. “Just trying to figure this out. Chem deal, raider problems?”
“Well, they been gone long enough that ghouls moved in. Finders keepers,” Marcy says as Wong pulls ammo and stimpaks from a hidden cache. The air is cool with dusk, and bigger predators than they will soon be on the hunt.
The gravel crunches beneath their feet as they leave.
. . .
‘Wong’ becomes ‘Vee’ after they clear the federal ration stockpile. Marcy would accuse Vee of having no real interest in actually finding her son (her own son, maybe still living, maybe better to live in hope, that shadowed half-thing between grief and joy. Better than to risk a searing truth) except that Marcy’s own grief won’t be dampened by Vee’s joy.
But if misery loved company, Marcy would have stayed with Jun.
And fury loves killing raiders.
Vee picks through the discarded letters and reads through the raider leader’s terminal. Marcy vaguely recognizes Red Tourette by reputation; not that many raider bosses with red hair and that warpaint, and any imposters would likely be shot by Red Tourette herself.
“She was trying to get her sister back,” Vee mutters, half to herself.
Marcy bites her words, like stripping flesh off bones. “She was a fucking raider. Took a lot of other people’s sisters.” Rattles ammo from a corpse’s pouch, barely louder than the blood drumming her ears. Air thick with gunpowder and caustic rage.
Mild as water, like weak tea and the last rinse of cola from the bottle, Vee says, “Not saying that makes it right.”
Marcy spits on the corpse. Hisses. “Good.”
. . .
Always takes Vee a while to fall asleep, lying on her back with her hands under her head, glasses tucked into her boots. The stars reflect in her unfocused gaze, the soft light smoothing the lines on her face.
“Go to sleep. No point in me keeping watch if you’re not gonna at least shut your eyes. Or else it’d be your watch,” says Marcy.
Vee grunts noncommittally. “Thinking.” Mind sharp, separating out thoughts and events. Jaw set firm.
“Got your Pip-Boy to do that for you,” Marcy says, scratching Dogmeat’s belly.
Vee barks laughter. “Not the same.”
“Could keep a diary.” Dogmeat whines as Marcy slows her pets, so Marcy picks up speed even as her thoughts turn inward.
Jun had asked her to keep a diary-- thought writing might help her heal, like spilling words might let it out. But she sees no point in opening a vein to let it bleed on the page. No healing there, just exsanguination.
(Exsanguination: a word she’d never heard before meeting Vee. Vee’s a fucking professor by Commonwealth standards. Marcy can’t imagine mandatory schooling for twelve years. Can’t imagine children with such protected childhoods that they were not only expected to survive to adulthood but to fill every corner of their developing minds with wordy definitions and algebra and national anthems and ‘English’ as if they didn’t speak the language every day, in addition to the ‘Cantonese’ that Vee and people who looked like Marcy and Jun spoke as well. A thousand things that Kyle never had, will never get to have.)
Jun chose to swallow his grief like razors, slicing his throat and bleeding him from the inside. Marcy chose to turn her sharp edges outward, better to make others bleed.
“Don’t like diaries. Don’t like too much info living outside of me,” Vee murmurs, low and slurry. Eyes hazy. Sleep comes like death, inevitable.
Marcy keeps her agreement to herself. No sense in pulling Vee to further conversation now that she’s close to actual rest.
. . .
They share a dry kiss beside the crackling fire, breath ghosting in the air.
Marcy grimaces, regret sour on her tongue even as she pulls away. “This was a mistake.” She looks Vee in the eyes as she does so. A greater honesty than she allowed Jun or herself.
Wong sticks her tongue out, lips twisted something like a smile. “Agreed.” The moon softens the lines around her mouth, the crow’s feet edging her eyes.
But the moon’s a lie. Nothing truly soft lasts in the wasteland.
It’s been so long since Marcy felt something, it might have been easy to confuse friendship for lust, or camaraderie for romance. To think that the warm press of a hand against yours, passing a bitter brew of chicory coffee, means more than the simple touch of skin on skin.
So she asks, for her own piece of mind, “Do you miss your husband?”
Vee tilts her head, twisting the ring on her finger, the gold washed silver in the moonlight. “Yes. We were friends, long before we got married. We had a happy marriage-- no sweeping romance, but friendship. Companionship. Our families approved.” Shakes her head, laughing. “And the sex was good. Didn’t even have to change my name, after. I figured I'd been earning my own name long enough.” Raises an eyebrow, creasing her forehead. “Do you miss yours?”
Marcy stares into the fire. Hypnotic in its destruction, her toes roasting in their boots even as she swallows the lump of ice sitting in her chest. “I am still deciding.”
. . .
They ambush a pack of raiders outside the Wattz Consumer Electronics, Vee taking long shots with a hunting rifle and Marcy flinging molotovs when they get close. Molotovs are cheap, easy to make-- and even if they’ve got frag grenades, there’s a more satisfaction in the breaking glass and burst of flame, the way it blossoms smoke against the blue-black sky. All the world in searing color.
Vee and Marcy work in unison, shifting through corpses for caps and ammo. Marcy watches out for anything with useful components-- Vee’s got a thing for circuitry and copper, junk that can be used to build turrets at the settlements-- but it’s a shredding minigun that gets Marcy’s attention. She hoists it solid against her body, a weight that comforts.
“Careful with that. Chews up bullets,” Vee warns, her blunt fingers unfastening the strap on a scorched backpack. She pulls out a smashed box of Fancy Lads, grimacing.
Marcy snorts. “As long as it chews up raiders.” Vee’s a scrounger anyway, and Marcy knows they have enough ammo to let the minigun roar.
It sings a rhythm in her hands, words she cannot say. All her unshed tears and apologies buried in gunpowder and flash.
. . .
Vee talks Minutemen with Preston, then Sanctuary. Her voice raised high and clear, biting off her syllables for a crisp diction. For all she’s said about not wanting to be a general, she’s still used to command.
Preston’s rich voice is worn thin by the radio on Vee’s Pip-Boy, a reminder that distance fades all. “Crops are thriving, supply lines going strong, and we’ve got more people coming forward to join the settlements. Starting to run out of beds.”
Vee snorts, pushing her glasses up her nose with her middle finger as Marcy rolls her eyes. “Well, make more.”
Preston’s smile comes out loud, even through the radio. “We will. Just saying it’s a good problem to have.”
“Yeah. Sounds like you been doing good, Preston.” Vee slouches forward, elbows on her knees as she talks into her Pip-Boy. “I mean that. Having something to live for’s not the same as being willing to die.” A rubber band silence, taut and stretching. “How’s Codsworth?”
“Constantly appalled. He’s started a scrubbing and delousing program for every new arrival, and sharing his cooking. Modified, sure, but we’re figuring out swaps for most of it.” His voice picks up, fast-paced and excited beneath the static crackle. “Favorite’s so far been this thing he calls dim sum. Lots of little dumplings and--”
“I know what dim sum is,” Vee says drily.
(Marcy does not say: “I know what it is too.” Did not know it was Cantonese, but remembers making har gow with her mother, chopping radscorpion and mixing with chunks of molerat fatback, aromatic ginger and garlic. Remembers rolling out the dough, stuffing with shrimp and crimping the half-moon edges with a fork. Steaming them plump and juicy, pink through the faintly translucent wrapper. Enormous dumpling parties with her mother, grandmother, cousins.
As a child, had never understood why it was called har gow sometimes, why it was called dim sum. Doesn't even know if ‘har gow’ means the same thing to Vee, whether the language or the ingredients changed.
But for once, Vee doesn't have the only ‘real’ claim on their heritage.
Marcy doesn’t know if the past is worth pursuing when there is still a future to build.)
“Oh.” Preston has the grace to sound sheepish.
“If you and Codsworth figure out some way to get fresh tea-- like actual tea, I don’t care whether you make it from dried herbs or whatever-- I’d love that. Or hell, send out a call for whatever traders you got. I’m sick of this instant coffee and stale leaf-water.”
When Vee clicks the radio off, she yawns. Stretches her arms overhead, a creak of joints as her nails scrape the moon. “Sanctuary’s starting to sound like a real home again.” Flicks her gaze to Marcy, tilts her head. “You don’t have to go back, you know.”
“Don’t have to do anything in this world except shit and die,” Marcy mutters, more habit than rage. Clicks her teeth against her chipped mug, drinking weak yellow tea. No flavor to it, barely more than grassy water. Old label said ‘chrysanthemum,’ but the logo looked more like a gunshot wound than a flower. At least it’s hot.
Vee still hacks laughter, turning to a wheezing cough as she pounds her chest. Marcy makes no move to help, even as her face creaks into a smile.
. . .
The woman outside Diamond City talks too loud, too fast, smiles like lightning from a clear blue sky. A quicksilver rush, sudden as a storm.
Marcy opens her mouth, ready to refuse whatever game the woman’s offering, but Vee beats her to it. Bangs the intercom and insists on being let in, that they don't want to get involved with whatever argument they just stepped into.
The woman fumes, stabs an ink-smudged finger at Marcy. Marcy steps back before it can make contact, hoisting her minigun. Barrels wedged between her and the other woman.
Vee’s not interested in making nice noises, and neither is Marcy. The self-styled reporter keeps hounding them with questions, requests an interview-- and while Vee retreats into sullen silence, Marcy snaps.
“Look, if you have ‘news’ to hunt down, go hunt it down. We’ve got business to take care of.”
“What kind of business? Missing person?” And the woman has the nerve to smile, to make like a pretty face and charm can make up for the fast-pattered lies, the way she pokes and pries and claws through things she has no right to know. “Child, perhaps?” Flicks her gaze to Marcy’s minigun, creases her mouth in sympathy. “I know life’s tough out there, but that’s why we need to--”
“That’s why you need to mind your own business. You want to help? There’s a difference between screaming ‘raiders are scary!’ and giving people weapons and ammo,” Marcy hisses. “Leave us alone, go actually help people.”
The reporter opens her mouth again, but backs off as Dogmeat growls. Slants her chin, bites her lip, and retreats.
Vee buys Marcy a cup of noodles to celebrate getting rid of the reporter. Marcy spills broth on her pants, smells like salt and peppers. Can’t keep Dogmeat from licking her legs, after, but it helps unknot her gut.
They don’t see the woman again for the rest of their trip.
. . .
This is a grief that heals, all their destruction winding its way to purpose as Marcy finally shakes Vee’s hand outside the gates of Diamond City. Warm day, bright sun. Gentle rattle of the defensive turrets. Synth detective rescued, Vee set to find her son.
And somehow, that’s no longer bitter.
“Good luck finding your family,” Marcy says, patting Vee’s shoulder. Solid woman’s lost some weight since they left Sanctuary, but not much. Mostly redistributed itself, her shoulders broader and her torso thicker. Like something in the Commonwealth’s been sustaining her, some vital thing she couldn’t find in Sanctuary.
Or maybe Marcy’s thinking of herself, how she is starting to recognize the shape of her thoughts, the patterns of her days again. Even outside of Quincy, even without a husband and child to mold her habits, she is no more a stranger to her own mind.
Vee laughs, shaking her head. “Good luck finding yours.” Extends her hand, fingers open and palm tilted up.
Marcy takes Vee’s hand and pulls her into an awkward side-hug. Brief and platonic, less affection than the pat she gives Dogmeat. “Got my own already.”
Even if she and Jun talk, maybe they don’t work out-- maybe he’ll still see her shallow and stubborn meanness, all her grief and rage like broken glass and trailing bloody footprints. Maybe she’ll still see his sad and fading weakness, like a death by drowning, endless kicking in a bottomless sea.
But they still shared a life together, still will. Friends and neighbors, if not husband and wife.
Still have Mama Murphy, with her wild tales and chem-fuelled Sight. Still have Preston, with his glowing heroism and his humming laser musket. Still have Sturges, with his drawling voice and ability to fix anything with duct tape.
(Still have Kyle in their hearts, and even without a grave, Marcy knows she can light a candle for him, hope his spirit finds its way home.)
Family isn't always an unbroken chain of blood relations.
And all else fails, Marcy and Vee killed more raiders than Marcy’d ever dreamed possible.