The air in Vault 87 was still, everything was silent and the whole place smelled of rot. Eve followed Fawkes further into the vault with a torn shirt covering her nose and mouth. "What are you even looking for, Fawkes?" she asked as she stepped over the corpse of a super mutant that she had killed when she first ventured into the vault.
It had been months since they had met in this very vault and Eve figured her companion was over what had happened to him. She was surprised when he came to her with a request. He wanted to explore the vault and see if there was anything there about his past. Eve had smiled at her dear friend, patted his shoulder, and told him that she would do pretty much anything for him.
She could hear Fawkes breathe quicken when they entered one of the many rooms of the vault. She had just enough time to look around his hulking frame to see a couple of holotapes resting on a desk within the room. Eve stood beside her companion and smiled up at him. "How could I have missed these when I was first here?"
Fawkes stood still as stone within the room, unable to tear his gaze from the holotapes. Something stirred within him, though he could not place what it could be. "Something told me to head this way." He started, his voice sounding more raspy than usual. "I think I remember this room." He leaned over and palmed the holotape with the oldest date and tried to press the button that would make the audio play.
Eve smirked at her companion's frustration and gestured towards the holotape. "Can I?" she nodded to Fawkes when he placed the holotape in her hand. She gingerly pressed the play button, the first few moments of the tape being nothing but the sound of static. Then a voice began echoing through the room.
"…but let me start at the beginning. My name is Shelton Delacroix, and I am a security officer here in Vault 87. I'm assigned to the laboratory level, which sure beats babysitting the reactor room!"
The audio fizzled out and Eve looked up at her companion and shrugged. "Sound familiar?" she asked, not really expecting a real reaction from the mutant.
Fawkes shook his head. "No. Let's play the others." He said before putting the second holotape in Eve's hand, waiting for her to push the play button.
"Sykes and Cossler dragged some unconscious guy from the dorms into the labs. I tried to ask what was going on, but they just glared at me…
After they left I snuck into the containment room, and… and I almost threw up. I don't even know how to describe it. It looked sort of human, but it was deformed… I could see some of its organs on the surface of its body like they were trying to push through."
That's when the audio quit and Eve looked to her companion again. Receiving a slight shake of the head and a gesture to continue Eve palmed the next tape and pressed play.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now? Merrick and his team are obviously experimenting on people. Someone's got to put a stop to it. But how? There's nowhere to go and no one to tell. Shit, what am I gonna… Oh my god. They're coming… I… Tell my wife in Dorm E that I love her… I…"
The audio crackled and was gone. Eve heard a strange choking sound from Fawkes and quickly placed the tape down and went to his side. "Fawkes? Do you remember something? Are you alright?" Eve was frightened, in all their time together she had never heard anything like that sound come from Fawkes' mouth.
Fawkes fell to his knees, causing the desk to bounce and the holotapes to slide against each other. He remembered…everything. The men he was supposed to be guarding turning on their own kind to run sick experiments with radiation. What their victims turned into, the sounds of their cries when they drug him down there to do the same experiments on him. He visibly trembled at the memory.
Oh god, the torture they had put him through to turn him into what he was now. The pain of losing everything he had before he became a monster. Maureen. Oh God, Maureen. He remembered his wife. She was such a young, beautiful woman with hair made of silky curls and lips that could make even the most devout monk turn his head.
"I-I remember…" he started, voice shaking with every syllable. "My wife… Maureen."
Eve kneeled in front of Fawkes and held his face in her palms. She was certain that if Super Mutants could cry he would be weeping. She brushed a thumb underneath his eye regardless and cooed at him. She never was any good at comforting someone, but Fawkes was so important to her she had to try! "Shhh, I'm sorry…" she then began to do what he could not. She wept for him. For his wife's loss. For his loss. For his pain. She allowed her tears to flow freely. She would not have wished this fate on the worst of her enemies.
"I lost everything…" Fawkes' shoulders shook in agony, but they stopped abruptly when he thought about the one thing that had made him happy after what had happened to him. He looked down at the fragile girl in front of her. 'Not fragile. Strong. She is only weeping for you.' He thought to himself. This girl, woman, had been the rock he could lean on during his struggles as a mutant. She had stood by him, defending him, knowing what he was and trusting him explicitly.
Fawkes would have grinned if he had lips. Maureen was his past, buried with the rest of the people in this filthy vault. Eve was his present. The one thing that kept him fighting for what he thought was right. He gripped her shaking shoulders firmly and continued speaking. "But that doesn't matter! I have you now. You are what matters. We must continue to fight to make this place worth living in."
Eve smiled as Fawkes used his calloused thumbs to wipe tears from his face. His words warming her to the core. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek before speaking. "Shall we play the last holotape?"
Fawkes' laughter boomed and he nodded in approval. "I don't see what else could be on it, but let's do it!"
Eve palmed the last holotape and pressed play.
"Stupid machine… how you work this thing… this thing is stupid… Smash it!"
Fawkes guffawed in front of Eve. "That explains the crack in the screen, does it not?"