"About time you wandered back this way," Doc Church stood from his desk and crossed the room to meet June at the door. "Do me a favor, next time you leave take your girlfriend with you."
"Oh… what did she do now?" June asked, both worried and endeared by Moira's inability to keep herself out of trouble. "Is she alright?"
"I'll let her explain herself," he grumbled. "All I'm gonna say is I hope you brought me plenty of Rad-Away this trip, because I'm clean out."
"Here's what I found." June held out a large, plain burlap sack full of medicine- StimPacks, Rad-X, and yes, Rad-Away. There were even a few chems mixed in, for the doctor to dispose of.
"Good, good…" he appraised the contents of the bag carefully, then looked up and met her eyes. "Not nearly enough Rad-Away though."
"Sounds like she really did a number this time," June sighed. "I'd better go see her. I'll just pick up the caps before close tonight, doc."
"Talk some sense into that girl!" Doc Church called after the closing door. "Before she craters Megaton more than it's already cratered!"
As June climbed the ramp to Moira's shop, her worry climbed with her. Maybe explosives as gifts wasn't a fantastic idea. Maybe stashing her Nuka-Cola Quantum collection in Moira's office was ill-advised? Maybe the small, glowing toy rocket she'd found on a traveling merchant's corpse would have been better off emptied before being presented as a sorry-I-disappeared-for-months-on-a-chem-fueled-bender-it'll-never-happen-again gift.
Guilt snuck in then. Moira was an adult. A hyperactive, irresponsible, maybe not totally mature adult, but an adult. If she wanted to screw around with dangerous technology and irradiate herself, she was well within her rights to do so. And June had no right to keep her from it.
She reached the door to the shop and pushed it open uneasily. Thick, yellow-gray smoke poured out, and June coughed reflexively as the sulferous smell filled her lungs.
"Don't mind the smoke, it's safe to breathe, really!" Moira called out from the work bench. She looked up from her work- a blow torch and some unidentifiable piece of junk- and pulled her safety goggles up. "Junie! You're back!"
She set the torch down haphazardly, almost knocking several items off the bench, and ran to hug June at the door.
"What have you been up to?" June asked, holding her girlfriend tight against her. "Staying safe?"
"Oh, always safe," Moira said with an evasive chuckle. "Precautions and such, you know. Still, no one's perfect. But no, everything's fine."
"Did something happen?" June pressed. She traced small, reassuring patterns into Moira's back. Massages always distracted her, made her forget when she was supposed to be hiding something. Not that she was very good at hiding things anyway.
"Nothing worth mentioning," Moira said. Her tone had softened under the gentle touch on her back and shoulders. "I'd even say it's been boring."
"Hmm…" June hummed, and got to work on Moira's shoulder blades. "Really? Boring, with you around? That sounds unlikely. You had to have learned something new. I was gone almost three weeks."
"Oh... I'm always learning," Moira said. She sighed into June's shoulder. "I learned that… mole rats can fit through the crack in my wall. And that they can chew through locks. And they like mac and cheese. Don't worry, Jed took care of them."
The mercenary, as always, stood expressionless against the wall. Today he had an old medical mask on to try to filter out some of the fumes. He nodded blankly at June's grateful look.
"What else did you learn?" June asked. Moira yawned, sagged against June so that the wanderer's arms were the only thing holding her up.
"Mini nukes tend to leak when you stab them with a screwdriver."
"I knew it!" June cried, louder than she meant to. Moira jumped, startled, and looked up at her with wide eyes. "I knew something happened! Doc Church told me you used a lot of Rad-Away."
"Well that's a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. But yes, something did happen," Moira pouted. Reluctantly, she pulled away from June and stared at her defiantly. "I mean, you gave me the mini nuke, remember? And now you're upset that I used it?"
"Not upset," June assured her. "I just worry about you. You're a genius, Moira, but accidents happen. You could have really been hurt."
"Oh, I was hurt," Moira laughed. "I was so sick I probably would have died if that pack of ghouls hadn't found me and carried me back to town."
"Back to town…?" June asked. She dreaded the explanation.
"Yeah, I went to Springvale for this particular experiment," Moira said. "Too dangerous to do it somewhere as populated as Megaton."
"There's definitely raiders in Springvale," June murmured faintly. "Absolutely are roving packs of rabid, murdering raiders in Springvale."
"I know, I know," Moira said dismissively. "That's why I brought Jed. Although he did wander off chasing those bloatflies that attacked... wasn't much help after that."
"I… am…" June took a steadying breath, calmed herself, reminded herself of what was important. "Just relieved that you're safe. I love you."
"Awww, I love you too, Junie," Moira cooed, evidently forgetting the entire argument as she took June's hand and pulled her further into the shop. "Now, do you want to see my notes? Maybe you could use them. We could make you a new gun with the parts from the mini-nuke, and we could repurpose the shell as, like, a cup or a soup bowl..."
June chuckled, let herself be led to the terminal. She sat first and Moira perched on her lap, still talking about all the different things that could be done with the parts from the bomb as she scrolled through pages of notes and diagrams.
She was intelligent herself, but sometimes Moira just left her behind. Her brain jumped from topic to topic, finding and making connections so fast that no one could possibly keep up, and when that happened June would just absorb the words, loving every one, loving the tones and inflections and enthusiasm that colored them.
She pulled her arms tighter around Moira's waist, nuzzled the back of her neck, nodded and hummed every so often to indicate she was still listening.
"…and once that's done, all that's left is to stick a handle on it," Moira concluded. "It'll make a nice thermos."
"It will," June agreed. She planted a kiss on the back of Moira's neck and stood up, regretfully. "Listen, I'm going to go see Doc Church about some caps he owes me. I'll get dinner while I'm out, too. What do you guys want?"
She got Jed's and Moira's order and set out.
After picking up the caps and placing her order at the Brass Lantern, Lucas Simms approached her, looking surly.
"We need to talk about Moira," he said without so much as a 'hello.'
"What about her?" she asked.
"Listen..." he started, hesitated, shook his head. "The people in this town are good people. Tired people. I'll be straight with you; she's scaring them. Explosions, strange lights, ghouls wandering in carrying her lifeless body… and the smell from her shop is making folks sick. We could all use a break."
"Are you kicking her out?" June demanded, leaning on a stool and looking him up and down.
"No, not at all," he held his hands up in front of him appeasingly. "I'm just… asking a favor of you. Maybe the next time you go out, you take her with you. Like a vacation."
"You do know there's a Wasteland out there, right?" June retorted. "A dangerous wasteland full of all sorts of dangerous people and animals? And you know Moira weighs like 20 pounds and is as squishy as they come, right?"
"I know," he conceded. "I know. But you're just as dangerous as anything out there, and you're 130 pounds of pure muscle. You can keep her safe."
She quirked an eyebrow, crossed her arms.
"Just a few weeks, please," he said. "Just long enough for me to calm people down. After her little plasma rifle stunt- bet she didn't mention that, did she- they're at their wits' end, and so am I."
"Fine," June huffed. "But listen to me- you all had better welcome her with open arms when we get back. I know she seems oblivious, but she's actually very sensitive, and it would kill her if she knew you felt this way."
"We love her," he insisted. "Really, we do, and we'll be glad to have her back. We just need a break, is all."
June returned to the shop with an uneasy smile and the three of them ate in relative silence at a table upstairs.
"So, Moira…" June cleared her throat, pushed her empty plate away. "I was thinking… maybe... you might like coming with me the next time I leave? I mean, you don't have to, of course, it would be pretty boring- I do a lot of walking, carrying things town to town, food, medicine, stuff like that-"
"Are you crazy?" Moira snapped. She set her silverware down, placed her fists on the table.
"I know," June agreed hastily. "I shouldn't have-"
"Of course I want to! I can't believe it took you this long to ask me!" She stood up, sprinted to her dresser. "I'll start packing! When are we leaving!? Ooh, I'll bring my plasma rifle! The one you're not supposed to know about!"
June just barely repressed a strangled groan as she met Jed's eyes across the table.
He chewed a bite of food, swallowed, stared her down.
"You are fuckin insane."