A/N: Look at my life look at my choices. What started as nothing more than than an idle what-if has gotten so far out of hand it isn't funny. I started writing this in February 2016 and is in fact my first Fallout fic. It feels so good to finally have it polished enough to post.
As always, my previous fics in Lantern in the Dark aren't necessary to read this fic, but are there if you want some background. Except for What Makes a Memory, which can't exist in the same timeline.
Recommended Listening: Never Let Me Go by Florence + the Machine.
Where must we go…
We who wander this Wasteland
In search of our better selves?
—The First History Man, Mad Max: Fury Road
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
—Leon Trotsky
—
part one: weighty things do drag
—
For a second time, Kaelyn Prescott witnesses her world collapse in a burst of fire and radiation.
Instead of evacuating with the rest of the assault party, Kaelyn doubles back for Shaun. The sounds of last ditch combat echo down the once-pristine corridors; some poor fools are locked in a dance that will end in fire no matter the victor. A scientist groans and stretches out his arm when Kaelyn passes. In a curse or a cry for help, she doesn't know. His other arm is wedged underneath his stomach, but from the growing puddle of red spreading over the floor, his efforts are in vain. She doesn't stop and she doesn't listen.
Ten minutes.
Tinker Tom had yelped when she'd told them to go without her—"Whatcha gonna do? Grab a souvenir?"—but Desdemona had laid a hand on his arm and surveyed Kaelyn as if she could see through the power armor. Maybe she could.
"Just give me ten minutes. Then hit the button—whether or not I'm at the rendezvous point."
Another hard-eyed look from Desdemona, then she had agreed. "You have ten minutes. Get whatever you want, then get yourself out of here. That's an order."
Cursing the stairs, Kaelyn barrels upward as fast as her T-51 suit allows. Her HUD flashes red with alerts: damage in the left leg, the hip, suit breach in the shoulder. That courser had been onto something when he'd tried to cripple her armor.
He hadn't counted on a rifle that shoots railway spikes at high velocity.
Shaun lies still on the bed. Kaelyn freezes in the doorway. A flash of heat surges through her, morphing a chill as it rushes towards her extremities. Her stomach is a leadened thing, expanding until it presses on her lungs, her heart.
Is he...?
Shaun turns his head, and the world rights itself.
His eyes find her encased in an old world relic of war at odds with the Institute's sleek aesthetic. "No. Not you. Not now. I told you to go!"
He's in no position to stop her from doing anything, let alone crossing the room to his side, and they both know it. "You can fight me if you want, and we'll both die in the blast." It isn't meant as a threat. As she bends down to pick Shaun up, blankets and all, her nerves are calm and her pulse has only quickened from the climb.
Even with the strength of her power armor, a grown man should not be this light. His face is gaunt, making his cheekbones stand out in sharp relief. How did he deteriorate so quickly?
If not for the shrubs in the garden and her elderly son in her arms, Kaelyn would jump down the stairwell. She has to make do with pushing the armor to its limits. It's strangely appropriate to carry her son again, away from another disaster, bundled in her arms as if he's six months old.
Five minutes.
The elevator is excruciatingly slow and offers a prime view of the destruction. The concourse is littered with bodies and bullet holes, and the fountains flows with blood. More than one corpse floats in the water. Once-sterile silver walls and floors are smeared with trails of red that record the battle's movements. What had started in the relay swept downward in a flurry of chaos that had left the Institute disoriented, spreading through the gardens and outward to each research sector.
The Synth Retention Bureau and Robotics Division have sustained the worst damage, as the fiercest fighting raged between the rebelling synths and their former masters. The grass is churned and muddy from spilled blood, and one slender tree has been felled entirely from gunfire.
Shaun turns his head away from the destruction, pained. "What are you hoping to achieve? To salvage? Do you think this matters anymore?"
"I am not letting you die here, Shaun," Kaelyn grits out.
"This is my home, Mother."
It is, and the part of her that acknowledges that fact is drowned out by frantic grief. "I won't be responsible for the death of my own son." If he's still alive now, and if she hadn't delayed Desdemona…
"No, but you're responsible for the deaths of my colleagues, my friends, and my people. That is much better," he agrees, with enough acid to strip paint from a suit of power armor.
"We evacuated as many people as we could. Anyone who agreed to stop fighting."
Shaun merely sighs and tries to arrange himself with greater dignity, but he is marginally more relaxed.
Finally, finally, they reach the relay. Here the fight had been swift, catching Institute workers by surprise. There are fewer signs of battle and more signs of sudden executions. Starbursts of red, flecked with thicker tissue, decorate the walls in grisly patterns. Someone has dragged all of the bodies to the side of the room where they won't be tripped over and arranged them with some respect, leaving thick streaks of red across the floor. The soles of Kaelyn's boots are covered in blood long before she reaches the terminal.
Tinker Tom has left coordinates for the rendezvous point, but Kaelyn punches in a different set after a quick consult with her pip-boy. She steps into the relay and the white-blue beam consumes them, needling them with ice and fire simultaneously. Kaelyn's knees buckle when they hit concrete. Cold, impersonal light is replaced with uneven shadows and circles of blue-toned illumination. Impeccably smooth floor becomes old concrete. And the panicked evacuation alarm is replaced by the cool alert of a critical failure in the cryogenic array.
"Where… are we?" Shaun wheezes.
Kaelyn takes in Vault 111. "The one place that's safe from a nuclear explosion."
She lowers Shaun to the ground as gently as she can manage and steps back to climb out of her armor. It powers down with a whine and the back piece splits open like a metallic clamshell to free her from the trappings of a soldier. Kaelyn drops to her knees beside her son and carefully arranges him over her lap, his head resting against her shoulder. His skin is several tones lighter than her own copper, but darker than Nate's had been. Somewhere in between.
She holds him close as if they will be able to feel the shock wave down here. Surely her ten minutes of borrowed time are up, but her arm is supporting Shaun's shoulders so she can't check her pip-boy. Through his back, she can feel his lungs working quick and shallow.
The cryo pods, long since become sarcophagi, loom around them loom like statues guarding the walls of a lost mausoleum.
Shaun is able to crane his head, and guesses at their purpose. "So this… is it. Where it all began."
"Where it all ended," she corrects.
Shaun closes his eyes. His inhale is as sharp as a slap. "Just… tell me why, Mother."
"Because I love you. I'll always love you, no matter what. Because your father loved you. We loved you, and the Institute took you from us." Her voice, already hoarse, tightens into a hiss by the end. Unwilling yet magnetized, her gaze is drawn upward to one pod in the array. Even if it isn't opposite the lone open casket, even if she doesn't recognize the silhouette slumped behind the observation window, she would know from the scratches and smears of dried blood on the lid. "Why should I forgive that?"
Shaun follows her gaze, and he tenses in her arms. His eyes grow hooded. "Sometimes I wondered what it would have been like, had things… been different. But the future of humanity is more important than one man's desires. Progress has always demanded sacrifice. We did what we must to preserve humanity."
Kaelyn stops, draws in a deep breath. And then another. Until she can look down at her dying son with something akin to pity. "Do you know the source of every conflict in human history?" she asks softly. "It began when someone saw their enemy as less than human. The Institute could have done so much to help the Commonwealth, and you did nothing. Worse than nothing—they were only test subjects to you. Their lives, their humanity, meant nothing to you. This was inevitable."
She's captured Shaun's attention, that much is clear. His familiar eyes, hazel flecked with green, peer up at her with an intensity she recalls seeing in the mirror. "Was it truly? Or is that merely what you tell yourself?"
Her throat closes. Several moments pass before she can whisper, "War—war never changes."
"I wanted… I only wanted what was best for the future of humanity." He grows restless, shifting in her arms and twisting up the blanket.
Feeling the heat radiating from the blanket, Kaelyn loosens its hold on him. "And you tried, as best you knew how." Not something she ever expected to say, but in this quiet space, hovering between life and death, she realizes she doesn't want make it worse than she already has. "Shh." She smooths sweat from his wrinkled brow. Tries not to remember her own tatta, or wonder when he died in the Great War. "It's over now. You were right when you said it doesn't matter anymore. I don't want to fight. It's too late for fighting."
Shaun settles under her touch, like he did as a baby. But he isn't that infant; hasn't been for decades. She grips one of his hands and his cold fingers close around her own. His mouth is moving, voice wheezing, and Kaelyn leans over to hear him repeat himself. "Promise me. Promise me you'll protect them. Any... survivors."
"I promise." She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back. His grip is alarmingly weak, the skin on his fingers sagging between the bony knuckles of each joint. Dark blotches mottle the back of his hand, webbing between the prominent veins under his skin.
Shaun's breathing slows, then stops.
Her heart stops, too. Her eyes dart over his face, his chest, his neck—
And then his chest rises again.
She holds him while they wait. Looks to the ceiling of this cavernous tomb, letting the cold prick away the moisture in her eyes. When she glances down again, he's gone.
Kaelyn continues to hold Shaun. She leans over, like a pillar felled by lightning, and presses her face into the scratchy blanket. Even the creaking and dripping of the vault have gone quiet.
For a second time, a nuclear detonation heralds a new age into the Commonwealth.
She carries the body with her. Not literally; that is shrouded in Vault 111. But all she can feel is the press of Shaun's dead weight against her chest, the noodle-limpness in her arms, as the vault elevator rises to the stars. On the horizon, towards Boston, hangs a gray shroud of dust coughed upward by a mighty blow.
All Kaelyn can do is flop onto her bed, press her face into the pillow, and let blessed exhaustion overwhelm her. Oblivion is soft and dark and welcoming, and doesn't last nearly long enough. She only wakes because a thin metal chain is cutting into her neck. Pulling it loose, she runs her thumb over Nate's dog tags. Curls her fist around them until the edges cut into her palm.
I'm sorry.
She rolls out of bed and almost clips her head on the nightstand when her legs seize up. It's easier to just lie on the ground for a while, congealing, her cheek pressed into the cold floor. Her body aches. Her eyes ache. Her chest aches. Rolling onto her back with a grimace, she takes stock of her injuries. Stretching her toes calls attention to the hot, pounding ache in her left knee and the tightness in her calves. Dark bruises mar her torso and shoulders where the armor frame dug into her skin, converting would-be bullet wounds into blunt force impacts.
She holds her hands above her face, turning them this way and that, feeling every strain from gripping her rifle too tightly. Bright red heat pulses behind her eyes, and her eyelids feel gritty and swollen.
All in all, it could be worse.
Kaelyn doesn't know how long it takes to scrounge the will to sit up. Her head pounds and white lights burst over her eyes, and she leans heavily against the bed frame. When her head stops trying to roll off her shoulders, she makes it to her feet. The first thing she does is scrounge for her patrolman glasses on the nightstand. Then she hobbles to the kitchen.
"Ah, good morning, Miss Kaelyn! Or should I say, good afternoon?" Codsworth's enthusiasm is almost offensive, even if it is a product of his programming.
"How long was I out?" Her voice is thick with sleep and grief.
"You slept almost a full day, mum." Now the eye stalks on his dome droop a little, and his voice grows somber. "We weren't expecting you to be home so soon."
"It's all over," she tells him.
Codsworth nags her until she accepts a bowl of razorgrain porridge. She sits at the kitchen island, elbows on the counter top, lacing her hands together. Steam rises from the bowl, misting her palms with humidity, and her stomach constricts.
Her thoughts turn, of all things, to Kellogg. When the battle fever had cooled, and the eerie silence had descended, and he'd found the remains of his family, what had he done? How many steps were there from the bodies of his wife and daughter to the body of her husband?
Hadn't Kellogg warned her how futile her cause was?
Kaelyn presses her forehead into her knotted hands. "I am not Kellogg. I will not be Kellogg."
Somewhere, his ghost is laughing.
While she stares into nothing, Codsworth is most excellent at politely detaining unwelcome visitors. "Miss Kaelyn is not receiving visitors right now, but can I interest you in some tea? Coffee?"
Later, Kaelyn finds a shovel and, with Dogmeat trotting beside her, explores the slopes that give Sanctuary Hills its name. Instead of following the trail up to the vault, she pulls a sharp right and limps up the slant behind the creek. She marks trunks with her switchblade so she won't lose her way. The maples grow taller, their trunks girthier, sunlight slanting through webs of slender withered branches. At the top of the ridge is a small clearing where nothing has been able to take root. Thick rock marks a sudden drop off.
Standing well back from the edge, she looks down the valley. Blue and yellow peek through the canopy below: Sanctuary Hills' cheery houses, their rusted brightness out of place among the gray and brown.
Grave digging is harder work than Kaelyn imagined. The earth is dry as old bones, ground up into bone meal and packed down tight; her shovel leaves tiny dings in the ground when she drives the blade down. It takes minutes to a cut a hole the size of her fist.
Sweat rolls down Kaelyn's back in rivulets to puddle at the small of her back. Within minutes she is drenched. The sun burns in the sky behind her, hurling every ounce of energy it can muster, and heat radiates upward from the ground. Stringy clumps of hair glue themselves to her temples and down the nape of her neck. She swipes the back of a hand over her forehead to dislodge the rough-cut strands, and grimaces at the feel of grime smearing over her skin. A waft of body odor swirls around her at the motion.
A chitinous scritching has Kaelyn vaulting out of the hole. She bashes the first radroach to death while Dogmeat jumps to pull a second out of the air. She barely raises the shovel in time to block the third. It bounces back, wings faltering, and she swings the shovel like a bat. Hitting the roach with the broad side of the blade, she cuts it out of the air. Dogmeat pounces on the second chew toy and rips one of its wings off. Nudging him away with her boot, Kaelyn drives the shovel down to decapitate it.
That doesn't stop its body from wandering around for a few minutes, however.
Kaelyn returns to digging. She has to estimate the length, and prays it is deep enough. When her arms tremble from exhaustion and her back is a mass of hurt, she tosses the shovel out of the pit and clambers out with some effort. She doesn't go to the vault right away, instead returning home.
"Ah, Miss Kaelyn! If I may, you look rather disheveled. Would you like me to heat water for a clean up?"
Her voice almost stays even. "I'm going to— to bury Shaun, Codsworth."
"Oh." Codsworth follows her out of the kitchen, hesitates, hovering in the living room. "Shall… shall I accompany you, mum?"
"If you want to be there. You're a part of this family," she tells him, and could swear his circuits hum with pride.
"Of course, mum!"
Kaelyn doesn't have the heart to banish Dogmeat. He's as much family as Codsworth is these days. So she takes what remains of her family to Vault 111, and carries Shaun's body to his grave. Despite the perpetual chill in the vault, the smell isn't pretty. She kneels down beside the hole and overbalances, almost topples face-down into the hole on top of him. The body slips from her grasp and lands, crooked, brown feet catching on the edge of the grave. Adjusting her position, she grabs his shoulders through the blanket and pulls him fully into the hole.
She buries her only son in a shallow hand-dug grave. Tries to ignore the heavy plink of dirt landing on his body. The heat behind her eyes won't go away, but it doesn't burst, either. She tries to think of the right words, but they catch in her chest like thorns.
I'm sorry.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
These recent days are a blur of things that might have happened and things she only half-remembers. Absence isn't so bad, she decides.
Somewhere on the road, past Concord but before Boston proper, Dogmeat takes off down the street. His barks are playful, so Kaelyn shoves Deliverer back into its holster.
It's only Valentine, who looks immensely relieved. Valentine, who sweeps her into a hug the moment she's within reach. She leans into him, throws an arm around his neck, and breathes in the scent of cigarette smoke and motor oil that cling to his coat.
"There you are. Thought I might be in the market for a new partner."
What's meant to be a laugh comes out as a sob. "You're still stuck with me, buddy." She presses her forehead into his shoulder, feeling the whirr of machinery in lieu of a heartbeat. "Nick. It's Shaun. He's— I went back for him and—"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I know none of this is what you wanted."
Her laugh is muffled and bitter. "You can say that again."
They let go of each other, and Valentine relays the news while they head south. Three days ago, the Commonwealth Institute of Technology exploded, throwing up a thick cloud like a rippling banner to mark the spot. Dust had shaken loose in the shock wave, blanketing the streets in a dry brown fog. Things have mostly calmed down now, he says, since folks put two and two together. No one is certain, of course, but enough suspicions of the Institute's location abound that Diamond City is openly celebrating. For now people are relieved, but that will give way to uncertainty as long as there is a power vacuum, and with uncertainty comes fear.
"This is a brave new world you've ushered in," Valentine says. "Bu-ut I suppose it'll do."
He might have said something else, but she is miles away. Valentine grabs her sleeve and Kaelyn halts, eyes snapping around for familiar landmarks. The sun now shines around the sheeted clouds, weak and gray, from the western sky. They are at the river—but there is too much open space between the buildings.
The Commonwealth Institute of Technology is gone.
Where the proud building once stood, its pillars holding up a roof that refused to collapse under a nuclear apocalypse, is a crater flooded with brown river water. A brackish lagoon swallows chunks of unstable debris that have toppled down the steep bank. The empty space yawns like the maw of some great beast, inundated in a sense of wrongness. Radiation clings to the air like so many furious ghosts haunting the living, pressing down with a near-tangible weight on any surfacer who dares to step into their sphere.
"And the people of the Commonwealth slept soundly, for the greatest monster was gone." Valentine halts beside her, the brim of his fedora tipped low as he surveys the damage. "It took a lotta guts to push that button. I know it couldn't have been easy."
Kaelyn can only stare at the hole in the ground. Another subterranean grave. I did this. "It— it had to be done."
Valentine's hand lands on her shoulder. The one with its artificial dermis intact, allowing him to squeeze her shoulder without cutting off blood supply to her arm. "You'll get no arguments from me."
"I wish there'd been another way."
A sigh behind her. "Me too, partner. Me too. But the Institute made their bed, and now they have to lie in it." A pause. "It's hard to even wrap your head around. A world without the Institute lurking in the shadows. But that's the life the people of the Commonwealth get to lead now. All thanks to you. Whatever else this is to you, remember that."
They have to detour north-east through the suburbs around ground zero. The explosion destroyed the USS Riptide, and they must track along the north bank to the next unbroken bridge.
Kaelyn blinks, and they are almost at the end of the Freedom Trail. Blood spots her jacket sleeve.
Valentine taps on her arm—the steel hand, this time—and jerks his chin towards the alleyway beside Old North Church. A figure leans against the bricks, cigarette in hand, her plaid scarf loose to dangle down her side. Desdemona looks so very tired, her shoulders bowed under her faded vest, and it speaks to the exhaustion lingering in Kaelyn's bones.
She wonders if she should interrupt, or let Desdemona have a moment of quiet.
The choice is taken from her when Desdemona's gaze sweeps the area and land square on Kaelyn. Relief paints stark lines on her gray face. "There you are! I'm glad you made it out, Whisper." Desdemona, as fierce and swift as a storm, as ruthless as the winds that lash and the rains that spit cold fury. Of course she hit the button when her alloted ten minutes were up.
Valentine keeps his distance, leaning against the alley entrance, but Kaelyn comes to a halt beside her. "You too."
For the first time they are not Desdemona and Whisper, leader and heavy, but two women turning their faces up to the drizzle. The rain is polluted with dust, hanging from Kaelyn's lashes like tiny clouded jewels. The women share a minute of quiet camaraderie, the rain misting their hair with pearly droplets.
"When you didn't arrive at the detonation site— well, Deacon will be relieved. Not that he'll ever admit it."
Something in her chest eases, knowing Deacon made it out safely. "Of course not. He's got a reputation to maintain."
"And so the mighty have fallen. Dozens of years, countless sacrifices. It all paid off thanks to you." A quirk of her lips, softer than her typical smirk, is accompanied by a quick snort. "Deacon says this was his plan all along."
It manages to pull a ghost of a smirk to Kaelyn's lips. "Deacon's a damn liar."
Desdemona chuckles and drops her cigarette to crush it with a twist of her heel. "It's almost comforting to know some things never change. Did you find what you were looking for in the Institute?"
Kaelyn's chest constricts. "No."
"My condolences for the loss of your son." Genuine sympathy threads through Desdemona's tone. But in the undercurrent: for the Director who oversaw countless abuses, less so. She turns to head back inside.
"I'll leave you to your business," Valentine says. "You'll come back this way? I'll be waiting."
Kaelyn makes a vague noise that could be construed as agreement and enters Old North Church.
Desdemona halts her when they step onto the pulpit. Like storm clouds marching on a swift wind, her expression darkens and closes over. Here is the woman who has endured a thousand cuts and yet lives to retaliate against her foes. "Before we head in, a word. Patriot didn't make it out of the Institute. He died during the evacuation. Are we clear?"
If not for that last line, Kaelyn would have bought it. "There's more to this story."
She doesn't have it in her to be surprised by death anymore. It doesn't hurt as much as it perhaps should, to learn of a teenager's untimely demise.
Desdemona gives her a flinty look. "No, there isn't. It was a tragic accident." She brushes past Kaelyn, taking the lead, and slips something into Kaelyn's palm.
Kaelyn takes a moment to ascertain that it is folded paper, creased and smudged with dirt.
"Not here, Whisper. We have a funeral to attend."
Tucking it away, Kaelyn follows Desdemona. The bodies have been moved, those of friend and foe alike, but blood and bullet holes are more than enough to recount the story. Down the stairs, through the basement, past the dark stains puddled near the thickest clusters of bullet holes, and into HQ. Neither Kaelyn nor Desdemona want to look at the spot where Glory drew her last breath.
In the undercroft, a crowd circles one of the crypts. A gurney provides a splash of color among the grays and greens that paint the chamber in a dreary palette. On that gurney lies a cold body, of course. Liam Binet. Patriot.
Desdemona delivers a glowing eulogy, lamenting the loss of a boy she never met and honoring his final sacrifice. The letter burns a hole in Kaelyn's pocket. Her stomach churns.
Something is very wrong.
It's a symbol, Kaelyn realizes. She's burying Patriot, not Liam.
Four agents carry Patriot's body to a carefully excavated hole in the wall, and slide him into place.
"Rest easy, knowing your sacrifice hasn't been in vain," one of the pallbearers says, then lays the first brick. The gathered agents each place a stone, one by one, until Liam is entombed within the ancient walls. Kaelyn holds the brick that covers his face. She lines it up with care, pushes it into the wet mortar with a squelch. When it is done Tinker Tom adheres a brass plaque over the spot. Whatever the adhesive is, it smells repugnant.
Kaelyn glances away and notices fresh mortar in other six-foot rectangles along the wall. Is Glory buried here? Is High Rise?
They file back into the undercroft proper, and Desdemona motions Kaelyn over. "In days gone by, when us old timers waxed rhapsodic about life without the Institute, we recognized our work wouldn't end immediately. Hate runs deep in the Commonwealth. And we'd be stupid to think what remains of the Institute won't launch some sort of retaliation." Her eyes glow in the dim light, reflecting flecks of gold from a nearby lantern like rays of light peeking through clouds. "Our work isn't over, Whisper, not by a long shot. I'd understand if you want a much-needed vacation, but are you up for the next mission?"
Kaelyn doesn't feel sick anymore. She feels numb. "I sacrificed the last of my family for you. I can't give you any more."
Desdemona, surprisingly, doesn't fight. Her stormy gray eyes soften like the first gentle rains. "You've more than earned that. But if you ever change your mind, we'll keep a lantern lit for you."
There's no reason to prolong this. Kaelyn retreats. It should hurt, she thinks, to turn her back on the ragtag misfits who brought her into the fold, but she's too exhausted to care.
She blinks and finds herself standing on the bridge north of the church. In the open, by the railing, with the incessant coastal breeze throwing her hair into her eyes. Easy pickings for a sniper. Deacon will have her head if he sees this. Instead of moving to safety, she leans on the railing and, thinking of how Desdemona's eyes had turned steely at mention of Patriot, pulls Liam's letter out of her jacket.
Kaelyn immediately regrets it.
You betrayed me. ME! After all I did for you. I trusted you. I risked everything to help synths. To help you. And this? THIS is how you repay me?
My father is dead. Everyone I cared about was vaporized or lost in this barren irradiated shithole. Because of you.
I used to feel sorry for you, you know. You lost your son. You missed out on almost all of his life. But it's only what you deserved. You don't even realize you've destroyed humanity's best hope for the future. And I helped you do it. If there's any fairness in the world, you won't outlive my father.
I can't live with myself.
She can't breathe. Bile crawls up her throat; hot, acidic, vile. Liam. Idealistic, compassionate Liam, without whom few synths would have ever escaped the Institute. Liam, naive enough to not notice the undercurrent to her probing questions on using violence to free synths.
Underneath, in a different hand, this one a loopy script: Destroy this once you've read it.
She tears the letter, strip by strip, until all that's left are fragments that flutter like ash into the swirling gray waters below. Still following orders, like a good little agent. Kaelyn watches them drift on the surface, swept away by the current and then swept under until there is nothing left of the truth.
Sanctuary again.
Kaelyn descends into Vault 111 once more to retrieve her power armor. She doesn't linger. The fusion core wrings out its last burst of energy that is sucked greedily into the weary systems. Much like human injuries, the armor feels stiff in its damaged joints. Red symbols scrawl over half the screen, warning of total cascade failure.
Sturges whistles, somewhere between awed and aghast, as she stomps towards the car port that has become his base of operations. "What did you do to this thing?"
"That damage could have been the suit, or it could have been me. Take your pick."
"Point taken. Still, I hope you weren't banking on taking this anywhere any time soon." Nevertheless, Sturges is pleased to have something to do with his hands. Wiping sweat from his pale brow, he gets to work.
Kaelyn wanders to the outskirts of Sanctuary until she finds Preston, mid-way through his patrol of the perimeter, in the space between the broken fence lines and the fast-flowing water. He reminds her of the monument perched on the bank of the river: a lonely sentinel with his hat half-cocked and the tails of his coat flaring behind him. Walls crumble, hands falter, but he remains. Preston glances back, hands tightening on his laser musket until he confirms she's a friend.
"Afternoon, General." Preston's smiles are always easy and quick, a toothless twist of his lips. "Was there something you needed?"
"I wanted to talk to you." Gravel, tumbled smooth by the tannin-stained waters, crunches under their boots. They halt to watch weak gray sunlight dance between the maples lining the river.
"Shoot."
"Preston, I'm going to step down from my position. And I can't think of anyone better qualified than you to fill the role." Kaelyn could have framed it in a congratulatory manner, called it a promotion, but he will fight and she won't insult him by attempting manipulation.
"Whoa, hold up! You're stepping down?" He says it the way one would say 'you drowned puppies?' "And you want me to be the General? Can't you see how much you've done for the Minutemen and the Commonwealth?"
Kaelyn gives him a sad smile. "The Minutemen deserve a leader who can put them first. I've neglected my duties too much, and you all deserve better. The Commonwealth deserves better."
"What makes you think I can do this?" He looks almost panicked now.
"What makes you think I'm qualified for this?" Kaelyn returns. "This is an acknowledgment of the work you've already done. You're the one who guarded the survivors from Quincy. You're the one who never gave up. Rebuilding the Minutemen was your idea. You're the one liaising over the radio. So yes, I think you can lead the Minutemen, and lead them well."
"But still, this is sudden. Why are you leaving now?"
"Who said anything about leaving? I'll still be here, and I can help if you need it." Preston isn't quite convinced, so she rests her hand on his shoulder. "You can do this, Preston. Are you going to let a repeat of Quincy ever happen again?"
"Not on my watch." Preston becomes resolute. He looks her over one final time, seeking a chink in her armor, some indication that she's joking, then nods. Shakily. Then again, firmer. "Alright. I'll do it."
Kaelyn has spent enough time around military personnel that she can pull off a half-decent salute. "General."
"I guess this means I can order you around now." His smile is tentative but genuine.
"Like you haven't already," she returns, and then guilt twists her stomach. Shaun is dead and you're cracking jokes? What's wrong with you?
Preston nudges her gently, breaking her from her thoughts. "So what happened to your power armor?"
Upon learning of the Institute's downfall, Sanctuary Hills' reaction is to throw a party. Kaelyn feels a stab of betrayal, but doesn't stop Preston and Sturges from pulling together enough dining tables to seat all of the residents in Rosa's carport. Kaelyn's T-51 armor hangs in its cradle behind her, helmet drooping and limbs limp. Sturges has already begun repairs, but from the way he's been pulling his tongue between his teeth and swearing, Kaelyn wagers the damage is more severe than she had believed.
Despite the impromptu nature of the gathering, Codsworth somehow scrapes together several elaborate meals: a mystery curry close enough to the real thing that Kaelyn almost cries, brahmin roast with some kind of gravy, and a creamy soup that can only be described as seafood-inspired. Sturges breaks out a bottle of whiskey he's carried since Quincy.
After a few bites, the richness turns her stomach. Kaelyn pushes the food around on her plate, pours herself another finger of bourbon, and sneaks bits of her dinner to Dogmeat. Preston also slips something under the table, Mama Murphy openly shares her roast, and soon Dogmeat plops down at her feet looking rather pleased with himself.
Thankfully, Sanctuary's residents quickly work out Kaelyn isn't in the mood for sharing war stories, and none of them are so unfamiliar with loss that they think to press her for detail. Nick covers for her, and Kaelyn supposes she should thank him later. Jun sits beside her, and they don't talk. Dogmeat rests his head in Kaelyn's lap, his eyes shining green in the lantern light as he looks up at her. She scratches him behind one ear and he whistles through his nose, edging closer until his chest presses against her knees.
A cascade of laughter echoes around the table, and Kaelyn flinches. She'd missed Mama Murphy's punchline, but whatever it was has Sturges in tears.
"If you need some quiet, it's okay," Jun murmurs to her. No matter how many months pass, the purple smudges under his eyes don't fade. "I couldn't handle being around people afterward. And I'm sorry about your son."
"Fresh air would be good," Kaelyn agrees and, after downing the last of her drink, pushes away from the table.
Out of the circle of warm yellow lanterns, the afternoon has long since dulled to a bleak twilight. The sky is half-choked by thick black clouds that stomp out the stars in their grasp. A gust of wind raises goosebumps her skin; she hadn't realized just how much the cold has been kept at bay in the carport. Still, Kaelyn wanders down to the park. Enough alcohol hums in her blood to ward off the worst of the chill.
The old playground juts out of the earth like splintered bones. When Kaelyn stops by one of the broken swings, she can practically taste that metallic decay in the air, like the rich smell of blood. Somewhere in the distance the river flows, quick and quiet, with just enough movement to tighten her nerves, warning of an impending attack.
She doesn't know how long she stands there; the distant laugher and yahooing behind her are a poor measure of time's passage.
"In need of company?" Valentine is smooth and soothing and far too casual as he approaches. He maintains a polite distance, as if she were the wife or sister of one of his witnesses and not his closest friend.
Kaelyn only shoves her fists into her pockets in lieu of a response and closes the gap between them. Despite his synthetic roots, Valentine stands out because he is a city boy at heart, used to the crowing of drunkards over the jeering of ravens, and not because of the wires and coils peeking out from behind his collar.
"First you quit the Railroad, and then you pass the fancy hat to Preston. Care to explain what's going on behind those eyes of yours?"
She flares. "Is it so hard to believe I'm not in a position where I can do anything, let alone handle responsibilities? Or people's lives?"
"No, it's not hard. I'm just worried, is all."
She closes her eyes. Feels the breeze toying with the ragged ends of her hair. "Valentine. Nick. You've been a better friend than I could have ever asked for. You know that, right?"
"This is sounding suspiciously like a goodbye." He turns those burning yellow eyes onto her.
"You've done so much for me, and I haven't thanked you enough for it."
"You don't have to," he says with enough warmth that her heart aches. "That's what friends are for. Now you listen here, partner. Take your time. Take all the time you need. Goodness knows you're the one who's bought it for the rest of the Commonwealth. And when you're ready to rejoin the land of the living, we'll be here. Just promise me one thing."
Everyone wants promises these days, apparently.
"What is it?" She has to clear her throat; her voice is hoarse.
"Promise me you will come back." He pins her under his luminous gaze, as bright as the lights inside the Institute but a hundred times warmer, and not for the first time she wonders how those blatantly artificial irises can hold so much depth.
She gives a shrug. "Fine. If that's what you want."
"It's not for me, doll. It's for you."
She makes an excuse to leave after that. Back at the car port, the others are still going strong. Marcy has had enough to drink that her trademark scowl has softened into hard-edged snickers. Mama Murphy has sunk low in her chair, snoring so loudly it can only be the entertainment factor that has stopped anyone from waking her up.
Touching her arm, Kaelyn rouses the old woman. "Hey, Mama. How about we get you into a proper bed?"
"Wha…? Su—" she yawns widely, her jaw cracking, turban askew, revealing her rotten teeth to the world. She swallows, a sticky sound, then wets her lips. "Sure, kid. Mama Murphy needs her beauty sleep."
It is a slow, arduous process to get Mama Murphy out of the chair. Her old bones, secured by worn tendons, are uncooperative after being still for so long. Her formerly pink and fluffy slippers have little tread to grip the concrete with. But they manage, and Mama Murphy receives various good nights from their neighbors.
For the second time, Kaelyn walks out of that little circle of warmth and into the cold embrace of night. When they are out of earshot, Kaelyn leans over to Mama Murphy's ear. "You'll look after Dogmeat if— if anything ever happens?"
She's more aware than ever how easy it is to die.
Mama Murphy glances at her sidelong, with clouded rheumy eyes that are far too sharp. She takes her time responding. "Sure, kid. But Dogmeat, he looks after his friends. Are you gonna let him?"
Kaelyn says, "Let me walk you home."
As they shuffle up the front drive, Mama Murphy's voice drops to a reedy whisper. "You're wearing a mask. You're standing with... outcasts. The underdogs. The lanterns in the dark. I see a world that will never know your sacrifice. You have led the enslaved to freedom, but they must still hide from those who don't understand. But you'll be there for them. You'll see their humanity when no one else will. You'll be their guardian in the shadows."
Her voice raises the hairs on the back of Kaelyn's neck. "Mama Murphy, you didn't."
The old woman only squeezes Kaelyn's arm and reaches for her front door. With one hand firmly entrenched in the crook of Kaelyn's arm, she reaches for the door frame with the other to haul herself up the step. Kaelyn has to brace under the strength of her weight.
"We're not so different, kid. We're both gonna protect our own with what we have. And we're both gonna die one day."
Kaelyn pulls them both to a stop in the living room and faces Mama Murphy fully. When she grasps both of Mama Murphy's hands in her own, she is surprised by the pang of grief for her own amma. Mama Murphy's hands are gnarled and mottled, the joints swollen and the tips of her fingers a thick pink. Between the calluses, her palms are dry. No matter the ravages of age or the stiffness in her wrists, her grip is strong.
"That's all true. I know you only use the Sight to help. You've done so much already, and we don't want to lose you over this. You don't have to watch out for us anymore. It's over."
"Oh, you think so?" Mama Murphy's chuckle is almost pitying. She lifts one hand to touch Kaelyn's cheek. "Have heart, kid. You're gonna need it soon enough."
And with that, Mama Murphy shuffles down the hall. Kaelyn takes her leave, closing the door without slamming. Locks are meaningless here. No, they are worse than meaningless: they are lies.
"Your first wrong prediction," Kaelyn murmurs. Her fingers twitch on the door handle. "It is over."
Away from the carport the night is black and strong and unfeeling, and it is exactly what she needs right now. Kaelyn turns away from the lanterns, away from her friends. Instead of returning to the carport, she ducks around the back of the house to wander into her own backyard. She rights one of the deck chairs as she passes then steps over the broken fence into her neighbor's yard.
Laughter peals through the air like thunder, and Kaelyn flinches. She keeps going through back yards until she reaches the beginnings of the dirt pathway, flattened centuries ago by heavy machinery. Mrs Able had been aghast at the damage to her roses on the fence line, battered by passing construction workers and polluted with dust.
With a final backwards glance, Kaelyn finds the trail in the dark.
Vault 111 remains unchanged. It always is, lurking in those dark spaces between reality and memory, a sepulchral cavern cast in cool blues and cold shadows. The weight of the earth above is a near-tangible weight pushing on her shoulders. She still doesn't know how far underground the vault is. Kaelyn treads down the catwalk on soft feet. When she passes the swinging yellow gates onto solid ground her steps echo, plunk-plunk-plunk, like stones dropped into a still black pond. Water drips from an unseen point in a higher-pitched counterpart.
It's more or less a straight line to the cryogenic array she'd been stored in. Observation windows to other bays line the walls; the pods could be blue or silver, like rows of shark's teeth bared in the dark, their shapes indistinct from the flickering lights. Through the door into Bay C, down the stairs. Past the Callahans, who invited her and Nate around for dinner when they first moved in. Past the Ables. Kaelyn and Mrs Able shared family recipes, while Nate once helped Mr Able fix their car. And Mr Russell on the end, no family other than his poor terrier who limped on a once-broken leg.
Their silhouettes stare down from their vantage points, ringing with silent accusation. Or maybe that's just the blood buzzing in her ears.
Kaelyn reaches the spot where her son died, where her husband died. There should be some way to distinguish the place other than the ice-cold burn in her chest, the imprint of cold concrete on her skin. On her knees, cradling her son. Or on all fours, coughing through the panicked bands of ice that had constricted her ribs.
She stands, listless, in the unfeeling cold. Pulls her arms around her ribs so tightly they creak. The chill creeps down her neck, seeps into her bones.
What am I doing here?
Finally—finally her eyes thaw from the spot where Shaun drew his last breath and up to her husband. He's a specter of ice and blood looming behind the glass, haloed by the backlight so his face is in shadow. Despite the body filling the pod, it is so very empty.
She should leave. There's nothing for her here.
Kaelyn stretches her hand to the scratches that mar the lid, fits her fingers to their shapes. The blood has long since dried to a dull brown, almost black in the dim lights. Her fingernails ache at the frenzied memory.
There's no mistaking Nate for being asleep. Blood flecks the pod's interior, staining the upholstery brown, turning the blue of his vault suit black. He's slumped sideways, one stiff arm reaching up to cover the hole in his chest. Tiny icicles bead in his hair, darkening auburn to brown.
She should— should bury him, too.
Her hand hovers over the control panel. Her fingers tremble, but not with cold.
Kaelyn doesn't want to see this. She's already watched him die twice—once from behind his murderer's eyes, no less. Doesn't want this to be her final memory of him: cold, stiff, unresponsive. But her feet refuse to turn, and her hand refuses to cycle the pod closed again. Machinery whirrs as it cycles through the thawing procedure, counting off the seconds with a mechanical heartbeat. The pod splits open with a hiss that is too loud in the chamber, bouncing off the metal walls. Mist and ice droplets flutter down to caress the ground on soft wings.
Instead, Kaelyn takes a step closer. Another puts her foot on the tread, her booted toe knocking against his. It would be an easy thing to step inside and pull the hatch closed behind her. There's no latch on the inside, as her once-bruised fists can attest.
Kaelyn's fingers brush over his wedding ring. His skin feels almost warm to her cold fingers.
And then Nate's hand balls into a fist as he gasps.