Work Text:
Prompt: Soul Bond
Lucy rested her hands on the edge of the sink, meeting her own eyes in the clouded mirror and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell she thought she was doing. She looked like a wastelander now, at least. And, she thought, she should. She’d been up here for close to three months now. Her hair was chopped short, her clothes almost permanently filthy, her PipBoy and her father’s stored in her backpack instead of on her wrist. She’d disabled the tracker when she’d taken it off his unconscious body…had cried while she’d done it. She’d cried when she’d slammed the fire extinguisher over his head and she’d cried when she’d driven the little cart through the tunnels and when she’d escaped through a hatch in the back, running out into the bright sunlight of the wasteland which had to be her home now, because her home had been a lie.
There was no justice, she knew, not in Vault 33 and maybe not anywhere. The Vaults were just experiments done by corporations, keeping the people inside trapped like rats in a maze. And sure, some of those rats had been treated decently well but that didn’t negate the facts.
She’d been a rat born in a maze and her father had been a scientist, and everything she’d ever known had been a lie. Not just her father. The whole system. The whole premise. No one was safe. Maybe no one would ever be safe. She’d thought that learning who her father really was and seeing him fly away in that power armor had been earth shattering…but this…this had been worse. This had broken her in a way she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to recover from.
Her father had been so kind when he’d explained it…when he’d told her that he’d made a lot of hard choices, but it had all been for his family…for the future of humanity. When he’d told her that the Vaults had been the only good option..the only safe one. When he’d explained that humanity was bad, and that it was the job of people like him and people like her to make them better, and if that meant forcing their hands and sticking mind control devices in their necks, well, then that was the price they paid. They had to live with their choices, but also, other people got to live better lives. And wasn’t that worth it? The burden was heavy but they could carry it.
And hadn’t the man who’d brought her here made a similar choice.
“In the end, even your friend Cooper decided that he would do anything for his family. Including betraying you.”
“Cooper?” she’d asked, brows furrowed, thinking back to the Ghoul impaled on the pole outside the hotel where he’d betrayed her..
And her father had turned to her, so full of pity it had made her blood boil. “So he never told you. Cooper Howard, honey.”
“Cooper Howard? The actor?”
“Yes. He’s been looking for his family all this time. I’m sure he assumed I would be willing to trade you for them.”
He’d taken her to the pods…had opened them. Barbara Howard and Janey Howard. And they’d been empty.
“You lied to him?”
“Well…I did what was necessary to get my little girl back.”
And more than anything, Lucy had hated him for making her feel bad for the man who’d betrayed her…who’d brought her all this way as a bargaining chip. Who’d made her think she could trust him…that had been her only friend. Everyone else had lied to her. Max. Her father. Everyone in that Vault who’d known. But the Ghoul, mean as he could be, had always been honest with her.
Only he hadn’t. He’d been a liar like the rest. And just when she’d started feeling…
No. She hadn't felt a damn thing. She’d thought they were friends and she’d been wrong.
“I’m not going back to the Vault.” That’s what she’d told her father.
“Honey, of course you are. Where else would you go?”
That was a question she’d been trying to answer ever since. First, out of that place, a fire extinguisher used to knock her father out, shaking fingers unlocking his PipBoy and shoving it into a bag, along with what little food she’d been able to scavenge from the kitchen of the apartment he’d been living in and a butcher knife. There hadn’t been any spare clothes she’d been able to find and she’d been too afraid to stick around, so she’d run, then found the cart, then stepped out into the light with no plan.
“Lucy!”
The familiar voice had made her spin,dress swishing around her knees. And there he’d been, dressed in Power Armor he’d rushed to climb out of. Beside him, his friend from before, looking a little strange. And beside him…
Cooper Howard.
No. The Ghoul. She refused to think of him as Cooper Howard when he’d never bothered introducing himself. If he wanted to act like a monster, she’d decided right then, she’d treat him like one, ignoring the stab of pain she’d felt at just the sight of him.
Max had stumbled forward and she’d run into his arms, feeling strange and hollow as she’d cried into his shoulder.
“Oh my god…Lucy? How did you get out…”
“We have to go.”
“What?”
“He has mind control chips on the people inside. They’re all brainwashed. He’s been kidnapping people…”
“Then we need to go in there! We have the cold fusion and we…”
She’d taken a step back, then another, shaking her head and feeling so exhausted she’d suddenly thought she might just sit on the ground and give up. Sit right in the dirt and close her eyes and sleep until she woke up or something came along and killed her. Either option had seemed fine to her at the time.
Only she’d never given up before, and she wasn’t sure she’d know how to do it if she tried.
“Is your dad in there?”
She’d nodded, so strangely numb. “I knocked him out. But he’s in there.”
“We’ll be back,” he’d assured her. “We’re going to take Vault Tec down.”
Lucy had tried to smile, feeling like an outsider to all of their plans…like a different animal entirely. She still didn’t know if she’d managed it.
They’d started towards the building but the Ghoul had hesitated, watching her. Just looking at her. Like he was glad to see her. He’d even stepped forward, hand reaching out.
She’d taken a step around him, marching forward. Whatever this was…whatever her father was planning or the Brotherhood was doing or Vault Tec would do, she hadn’t been able to take it. Not one more thing.
And especially not him.
“Lucy…” he’d started, and it had struck her that that was only the second time he’d ever said her name, the first being when he’d sold her out to her father. Again. All that time, she’d thought, all he’d wanted her for was bait. She’d never meant a thing to him.
So, she’d decided right then, he’d never meant a thing to her either
“Don’t.” She’d kept walking, and he’d followed along with that dog.
“Just…wait a second. I…”
“No,” she’d snarled, tears she hadn’t understood filling her eyes as she’d spun to glare at him. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He’d been quiet then, jaw clenched, eyes full…
No they hadn’t. His eyes hadn’t been full because the Ghoul didn’t give a shit about her. He’d made that clear enough.
“I thought we were friends! I thought…” A tear had fallen down her cheek and she’d ignored it, but he hadn’t. “You’re a traitor, Cooper Howard. All that time, you were just using me for bait! And your family isn’t even in there! Their pods are empty! He was lying to you, and you just trusted him!”
He’d gone still, mouth falling open, and she hadn’t let herself read the look on his face.
“And I would have helped you! I would have…” She still hated that her voice had broken…that tears had been running down her cheeks and she’d felt like she was crumbling.
“Lucy…”
“I never want to see you again.”
She’d turned again, tears still falling, and had started to walk, pretending not to see the pain on his face…pain like she’d only seen once before. Past dead Deathclaws and the carnage they’d left behind. Past cars turned over on their sides and the half burnt out neon signs, through a gate, not stopping until she was in Freeside again.
And here she was.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She knew she’d slept outside until she’d found enough jobs around the settlement to buy a set of clothes and a room at the Atomic Wrangler. People always needed help fixing things and she was excellent at fixing things. She knew that the room she lived in now wasn’t the same one the Ghoul had rented because the window was still intact, but that every once in a while she’d stand in just the right spot and feel her heart break all over again.
Max had come to find her at some point, and she’d listened to his speech about how he was going to take down the Brotherhood and make things better and that there were still good people in the world, and she’d nodded and had tried to smile, but she hadn’t felt a single thing, not even when she’d hugged him and told him good luck and had closed the door behind him when he’d left again.
She knew what he’d been expecting. She just couldn’t give it to him. Not anymore,
Not now that she was a different animal entirely.
She filled her days with work and she kept to herself and she didn’t think about her father or the man she thought she’d come so far with. She kept her PipBoy and her father’s in her bag under her bed and she had nightmares about a mind control device implanted in the back of her neck, making her smile and go along with whatever her father said. The perfect daughter again.
Lucy looked away from her reflection and walked into the main room. She sat on the bed. She thought about her brother. She wondered what the hell she was doing. She felt something inside of her threaten to break loosen then glanced at the bottle of alcohol on her windowsill.
And someone knocked on her door.
Gun in hand, Lucy got up and dragged her weary body over to the door, not bothering to check who it was before she opened it. It didn’t matter. If they were here to kill her, she’d kill them or they’d kill her. If it was Max again, she’d invite him and Thaddeus in and she’d listen to their impassioned speeches and she’d feel nothing.
What she hadn’t been expecting was the Ghoul, Dogmeat sat by his feet.
Lucy blinked at him, and then she stepped back and slammed the door.
Well…she tried to slam it. His boot shot out, catching it before the wood could hit the frame. And she waited for the anger to consume the soul crushing pain but it didn’t. Where was her anger? Where was the fire that had been burning in her the last time they’d met? He’d betrayed her. He’d hurt her!
He’d hurt her.
She deflated, turning around and going back to the bed, leaving him standing there with one foot in the door.
It hurt. It hurt like a pulsing wound and she dropped onto the bed, wondering if toddler hide and seek rules applied. Maybe if she couldn’t see him, he would stop seeing her. Maybe he’d give up and go away. Maybe he’d leave her to her miserable life living in a hotel and doing odd jobs and drinking herself to sleep.
No such luck, of course. The Ghoul at least shut the door behind him when he came in, though, the soft jingling of the spurs on his boots announcing his arrival to the chair beside her bed.
“Why do you even have spurs?” she asked the ceiling. “Aren’t they for making horses go faster?”
“They were, originally,” he told her, that voice so familiar and so painful it felt like he’d stuck a knife in her. Like Monty.
She heard him sigh as he lowered himself into the chair, and the dog hopped up onto the bed beside her, using her muzzle to force her head under Lucy’s arm. And she had to smile at that as she stroked her warm fur.
“Guess I’ve held onto a lot of things,” he offered, but that wasn’t any kind of answer, and she was sick of whatever this was between them. It hurt too much and she didn’t want to do it anymore.
“If you want his PipBoy, you can have it,” she told him, figuring he had to be here because he wanted something.
“What?”
“If that’s why you came. I took it off of him before I left. It’s under the bed.”
He seemed to think for a moment. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” It was true. She had no idea what she’d been thinking. Had she planned to do something with it? If so, she couldn’t remember…couldn’t remember much at all about those first couple of days.
He was quiet for long enough that she looked at him, meeting his gaze, and that hurt too.
“That ain’t why I came.”
She sighed, closing her eyes and wondering if he’d hand her the bottle of vodka on the windowsill if she asked. Beside her, the dog whined and her tail gave a happy little thump on the bed. She hated the sorrow on his face. She hated that she still…
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
Lucy opened her eyes and watched him lean forward, his elbows on his knees, eyes struggling to meet hers.
“I shouldn’t have done it, Lucy,” he told her, sounding raw. “I thought it was the only way to get my family back and…he had me in a corner. And I thought it was the only way. But it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place.” He let out a breath. “I’ve been keeping myself alive for two hundred years, all so I could find my family again. And I’ve been on my own that whole time.”
“I would have helped you,” she whispered, hating the tear that ran from the corner of her eye and into the pillow. “I would have helped you find your wife and daughter. If you’d just been honest with me even once.” She sat up, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and disturbing the dog who jumped up and moved to the edge of the bed, laying down there instead “You never even told me your name! You just…used me! The whole time we traveled together! I trusted you! I liked you! I thought we were friends! I thought you were starting to…” She shrugged, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around herself. “At least tolerate me.” Lucy ended on a whisper, wondering what she was even doing. Why would she bother?
She should tell him to leave. Or walk out herself.
“I know,” he told her before she could get up, eyes locked on the carpet. “I know you would have. And…I didn’t know the plan from the start. I just…I thought having you with me gave me a better chance of finding my family.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to try and explain.”
“Okay. You explained. I’m going to bed so…you can see yourself out.”
“No…I mean…I wanted to explain all of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My name is Cooper Howard.”
“Yeah, I know,” she cut in. “Not because you ever bothered introducing yourself to me or anything…”
“I had a wife. Barbara. And a little girl named Janey.” He almost choked on her name, like just saying it hurt. “And I loved them, Lucy. They were my whole world…more than the fame or acting or…anything. I loved them.” He stared into her eyes, desperate, so she closed her mouth and rested her hands in her lap. When he saw that she wasn’t going to jump up and try to kick him out, he went on. “Then one day, a friend of mine told me the truth about Vault Tec…about the company my wife worked for. And we had a good marriage. We weren’t perfect but…Barb was the best person I knew. So I didn’t believe that she’d do the kinds of things my friend said she was doing, so…I met with a communist group led by Kate Williams. Moldaver.”
“The woman that took my dad?” she asked, surprised despite herself.
“Yeah. I bugged my wife’s PipBoy and I spied on her and I heard her tell a room full of corporate assholes that Vault Tec would drop the bombs themselves. My wife who I’d been married to for years…she was the love of my life. She was talking about killing billions of people so a bunch of corporations could make more money and experiment on people in Vaults. And…” He shook his head, wiping his hand over his face. “The marriage went downhill fast after that. We divorced. I tried to put a stop to it but there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do. I was one man against a company that all but controlled our government. And when the bombs dropped…they took Janey into one of those Vaults and they left me to burn.”
Lucy didn’t want to know that. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to scream at him again.
She didn’t want to hurt anymore.
“But I survived. And I searched for my daughter and her mother. At first I wanted to kill Barb. I wanted to dig her up from whatever Vault she’d been hiding in and I wanted to make her face what she’d done and I wanted to put a bullet between her eyes.”
Lucy swallowed. “What about now?”
“Now I just want to see my little girl again.” His voice wavered, but he went on. “You’re the first friend I’ve had in two hundred years, Lucy…the first person I’ve even considered trusting in all that time. And I know I fucked it up. I sure as hell don’t have any right to come here asking for your forgiveness. But I’m doing it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Becuase I miss you.” He said it so easily. “I miss having somebody to talk to. Hell, I even miss the way you explain books I’ve already read to me,” he told her with a grin.
Lucy’s jaw dropped, momentarily distracted. “You already knew about The Christmas Carol!”
“Sweetheart, I was in a local production of The Christmas Carol,” he told her with a chuckle that made her lips turn up into an automatic smile.
“Were you Scrooge?” she asked, making him laugh aloud, and she liked that so much…the sound made her heart ache.
“I was the narrator.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that you already knew it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t mind hearing it.” Then he shook his head, a wry look on his face. “I liked hearing it,” he corrected himself. “I liked it when you talked to me. I liked having you around. And that was dangerous because trusting people gets you killed up here. I didn’t want to let myself get distracted. But I did anyway. I cared about you, and…I didn’t know what to do. So I made a bad call. And I’m sorry.”
She looked away before he could see the tears in her eyes…held her breath so he wouldn’t hear it catch, but she knew he could read her anyway. He was so good at that. And part of her hated it.
Part of her wanted…
He got up, moving to sit on her other side, and she dropped her head against his shoulder, hands shaking as she fought back tears.
“I’m sorry, Lucy.”
She tried to sit up when he put an arm around her..pushed halfheartedly against his chest. But Cooper wrapped both arms around her and held her in place and she couldn’t stop crying…her fingers fisted in his shirt as her tears soaked his shoulder. He’d never done this before…had never held her in his arms while she cried, but for some reason, it felt so familiar.
So right.
He squeezed her like he was holding her together, stroking her back, cheek resting on the top of her head.
“You were right,” she whispered. “It wasn’t real…any of it. And I was so stupid…” Lucy choked out a laugh. “I thought I was going to take him back to the Vault and…and they were going to do something! But…it’s all bad. All of it!”
“You ain’t stupid.”
“I thought it was real. I thought…I thought some of it was good. I…I can’t believe I was going to take him to…to the Vault,” she whispered, lips trembling, tears still running down her cheeks. “I…there’s a council and…I thought they…they would make him…make him face…justice.” She huffed out a miserable laugh through her tears. “There is no justice. I should have killed him.”
He shook his head, stroking her hair, and that only made her cry harder.
“You ain’t stupid for believing something you’d been told your whole life,” he told her again. “You’re good, Lucy. One of the best people I’ve ever known.” Then, after she’d caught her breath, “you know…I thought you’d go with your tin can boyfriend and his weird Brotherhood buddy.”
“Thaddeus?”
“That’s the one.”
“He’s not weird. He’s sweet.”
“Then why didn’t you go with them?”
She hesitated, then shook her head, not moving from where she rested it on his shoulder. “Max asked me to but…I knew I couldn’t be what he wanted.”
He was quiet for what felt like a long time, and when she finally looked up at him, he was studying her so intently…she couldn’t look away.
“What did he want you to be?”
“He wanted me to be with him,” she told him.
“Why couldn’t you?”
“I don’t know.” That was a lie, but she didn’t know how to explain her own stupid heart.
She knew why his betrayal had hurt so much. But how could she ever say it?
Slowly, he nodded, the left side of his mouth twitching upward, just a little, eyes soft. “I came here to apologize. But I also came for another reason.”
“What reason?”
“There’s talk of a couple of Vault Dwellers from 31 down close to Filly…only one of them is from 33.”
“What?”
“I got a description. Short guy. Dark hair. Goes by Norm.”
Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth, tears still falling, and she wished she could stop crying…wished the whole world hadn’t become so overwhelming. “Norm…”
“I’m guessing you know him.”
“He’s my little brother. I have to…” She had to go. She had to find him and try to explain…everything. Just the thought made her tired. She would have to cross the desert again.
“And that’s why I came. Figured you’d want to go find him. Thought I might join you.”
They took her aback. “Join me?”
“Yeah. Until I get a lead on Janey, I’ve got some free time to get sidetracked.”
Lucy dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry she wasn’t there.”
“Not your fault.”
“I checked his PipBoy. To see if he had anything about either of them stored in there, but I couldn’t find anything. You can look if you want. And…Max and Thaddeus are trying to find more information on the Enclave.”
“Well, they’ll know where to find me if they find anything.”
“Where?” she dared to ask.
“On my way to help you track down your brother.”
She leaned her head against him again, and he wrapped his arms around her, letting out a breath and resting his cheek against her head. And they’d never done this before but it felt so familiar.
“So…you’re coming with me?”
“If you want me to.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here tonight?”
“Well, it’s that or rent out a room.”
She shook her head, clutching his shirt. “Stay.”
“Alright.”
She tilted her face up to look him in the eye, cheeks still wet with tears, and he brushed a thumb over her cheek. Lucy thought she must be insane…that she must have lost her mind, because she reached up to touch his cheek and he didn’t pull away. He just looked at her…watched as she leaned her forehead against his, then closed his eyes when stroked his face, finally letting herself feel the texture of his skin.
“This is what I was worried about,” he murmured.
Had part of her known that? Had part of her worried too? “Are you still worried?”
He shook his head, lips twitching into a smile. “No, sweetheart. Not anymore. Not about this.” He wiped another tear away. “I’ve been wanting this for a long time…longer than I was willing to admit. Just wasn’t brave enough to even think about it.”
“Are you brave enough now?” she asked, so close she could see flecks of gold in his dark eyes.
“Depends. Is this what you want?”
It might be a bad idea. He’d betrayed her once…had broken her heart. Shattered her. He’d been cruel to her before. Dismissive. He’d traded her away, first for medicine, then for a promise from a monster.
He’d saved her life in a Legion camp. He’d taken care of her on the way to New Vegas, always making sure she had enough food and water and that no one hurt her.
And when he’d betrayed her, she’d seen the heartbreak in his eyes.
“Yes.”
Cooper leaned in and kissed her like she was something precious, and nothing had ever felt so right.