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Lucy is too busy wallowing in grief and depression over the actions of her father to think about anything other than moving one leg in front of the other. She barely regards the ghoul, and he regards her even less. He would likely be content to keep doing that for the rest of their journey, never properly addressing each other, communicating through body language alone. It seems like he’s been doing that for a long, long time.
The problems arise when Lucy has to go having a weak, human body. Part of her wishes she was like him in some regards. He’s able to keep up a fast pace, he doesn’t get thirsty or hungry as often as she does, he can’t get injured as easily as she can, he doesn’t seem to have to relieve himself, and he doesn’t need as much sleep as her. All of those traits would be useful, and when she’s desperately thirsty or praying that the ghoul will agree to take a break, she thinks she would trade just about anything to be more like him. She would trade her nose, her hair, her smooth skin, anything.
She doesn’t want to be weaker than him. She just is. The ghoul doesn’t seem to care.
Lucy falls to her knees on the harsh desert ground, legs unable to hold her up any longer. She’s hungry. The ghoul feeds her and hydrates her now, but they haven’t come across anything since they left the observatory, and his bag is seemingly empty save for his vials.
“Get the fuck up.”
They’re the first words she hears in what feels like a long time. The first words she hears from him since they left the observatory. She asked him how he knew her father after passing a Cooper Howard movie poster that sparked her memory, but he only glared at her like he might kill her, and she hasn’t spoken since.
“Get up.” They’re words laced with pure cruelty and hatred, like she’s done something wrong. After days of negative thoughts, she’s sensitive, and feels tears prick in the corner of her eyes.
When she doesn’t listen to him, not for a lack of trying, he grabs her by the ponytail and yanks her to her feet. It fucking hurts, and she winces in pain.
“You ain’t the only one starving out here. ‘Yer acting pathetic.”
Lucy doesn’t have the energy to respond to him, never mind to fight him back, so she forces herself to do what he says until they reach a settlement where he wordlessly purchases food and water for her.
That begins him feeling comfortable with hurting her, and being terribly mean. He kicks her hard enough to bruise to wake her up. He shoves her when she fights against his insults. He grabs her by the wrist or ponytail when he wants her to go somewhere rather than telling her.
During a break one day, something shifts. Lucy notices him quickly stalking towards her, likely to grab her and pull her to her feet, so she quickly shoots up and dodges him.
“Don’t touch me!”
He stops in his tracks.
“You grab me, or hurt me again, and… I’m going to leave! I will!” She fixes her mouth in a straight line, brows furrowed, nostrils flared. For his part, the ghoul has the audacity to seem shocked. His shock only spurs her on. “I would rather die out there than let you keep being such a jerk towards me! That is not how you treat someone, nevermind the fact that I saved your life! You’re… abusive!”
Lucy storms away from him, but she can still feel the adrenaline and rage burning inside of her. She doesn’t feel satisfied enough yet.
“Fuck you!” She exclaims for the first time in her life. It's directed towards the seemingly shell shocked ghoul, but really, the power behind it is directed towards other people. Monty. Her father. Vault-Tec. Everyone who’s tried to kill her on the surface.
She really does mean it, if he keeps acting like this, she’s going to leave. She’d probably live and find her dad before him out of spite.
He does not keep acting like that. He doesn’t say anything, but he keeps his distance from her and he doesn’t touch her at all. She can’t help but smile to herself the night after she confronts him, knowing she successfully held her own.
Truthfully, it’s important that she sticks with the ghoul. Even if she did go off on her own she would try to follow him from a distance. He knows the wasteland like the back of his hand. He seems to know exactly where her father is going, and which settlements to stop at along the way.
Two days after she confronts the ghoul, they’re both forced to reckon with the fact that they’re a unit while they’re travelling together like this. A group of raiders catches Lucy by surprise. The ghoul seems ready for them and before Lucy can even find cover, they’re all dead.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t walk away unscathed.
“Fudge.”
Her head feels warmer than usual. It almost feels like a hot shower is over her head, liquid spreading between the roots of her hair. When she pulls her hand away, her fingers are a deep red. Then, everything goes black, and she’s hitting the sand again, except this time she can feel the sand on her cheek. She hopes the ghoul doesn’t grab her by the hair again. That would really hurt, given the state of her skull.
The next thing that she’s aware of is the feeling of sand still against her cheek. Except it feels different, like a different kind of sand, if there is such a thing.
No, she realizes after a while. It’s just rough like sand. But it almost feels like a coat, with a solid body beneath it.
By the time she’s able to open her eyes the coat and the sand are both gone, and the only thing she can see are stars.
“Ghoul?”
She really shouldn’t be calling out for someone who’s been so mean to her, but the alternative is that a stranger’s moved her somewhere, and that’s infinitely worse.
“Hm?”
Yeah, that’s him. It feels strange to address him as Ghoul, but it’s not like he gave her a name. Would he give her his name if she asked? Surely he went by one at some point. “What’s your name?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Ugh, he’s such a weirdo. Even if he did just save her life, maybe he’s going to think this makes them truly even and he can start treating her however he’d like again. “Why are you such a jerk?” She groans, eyes fluttering as she fights off sleep. If he smacks her across the face for asking, so be it.
Instead of responding with anger, his shoulders slump and he sighs, as if…
It reminds her of the meetings she had to have with troublemakers in her classroom to discuss their behaviour. They always felt guilty about whatever they did, and they always knew that it was wrong. They were almost always willing to try and make it right with other students.
“I’m not.”
Well, that’s something.
She definitely wasn’t aiming for a full blown apology from him when she confronted him, but even this is more than what she anticipated.
Childishly, she wants to test him. She must have a concussion or something.
“I’m going to make up a name for you if you don’t tell me what to call you. It’s gonna be… Mr. No nose.”
Lucy’s stomach flips, anticipating being shot. Why the fudge did she just say that to the ghoul?!
She can’t even force herself to look at him from across the fire, until she hears the slightest hint of laughter in his scoff. Sure enough, his lips are quirked up the tiniest bit, and it’s the most human he’s ever looked.
“You go ahead and do that.”
Lucy smiles back at him long after he stops smiling, long enough for his relaxed face to turn a bit discontented by her beaming at him. Despite annoying him, he doesn’t say anything cruel, and he sure as heck keeps his distance from her.
After a few weeks of a truly equal partnership with the ghoul, the distance starts to close more and more, in a positive way this time. They’re basically living out of each other's pockets by the time they’re close to New Vegas.
“I’m looking for my daughter. And my ex-wife.”
Lucy shoots her head up from her meal, meeting his reluctant gaze. She had asked him earlier about his family and he got quiet again.
“Oh.”
A million questions race through her mind. “How old is your daughter?” She asks timidly, not sure if he’ll answer or not. At least now, she’s confident he’s not going to pistol whip her for asking.
“Seven.”
Lucy gulps, imagining what he was like as a father and a husband. Ex-husband, she notes. That feels important to her, but she can’t quite place why. He’s been looking for them for over 200 years, so he’s a good dad in her books.
“We’re gonna find her.”
The ghoul nods sadly, like he doesn’t quite believe it, but the sentiment clearly moves him. “Really. We are.” The earnestness in her voice settles between them, and she feels a permanent shift happen in their relationship.
“I need to remember…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, but she knows by the way he looks down at himself, weapons and scarred skin. He needs to remember how to be a dad, how to be a person who is capable of being loving and gentle. At least, that’s what Lucy thinks his eyes are saying. She doesn’t want to take all the credit, but calling him out seems to have re-wired his brain in some way.
She’s glad she didn’t ditch him in the desert. What comes after finding her father, she doesn’t know, but she intends to keep her promise.