((There's a small amount of canon divergence in this series. In one of my playthroughs I did things in a wonky order (by a mix of accident and laziness as in 'while I'm here I might as well') and that bled into this text. Also I'm officially completely incapable of navigating the Commonwealth sensibly. My first travel to Diamond City is always painful. I'm sure there's an easy way to go there, but I haven't found it. Every time I play, the first time I die is trying to get there.

I always estimated Wash It All Away (which was the first part I'd written for this) towards the end of the game. It must be way after The Molecular Level but before The Nuclear Option, simply because of how I referred to the Institute. Dark Star is only a little later, the rest is post game and mildly AU.

So this ends just before Wash It All Away takes over. Which means, this can stand alone, because every other part happens later. It also means it will not have a very satisfying ending.

The title is a line from the song Man's Road by America. Same band gives the chapter heading, taken from The Last Unicorn.))

Chapter 1
Over the Last Crumbling Mountain

Go to Diamond City, they had said. It's not far, they had said. Now Kalyna had collapsed to the ground, shaking. Every muscle in her body ached after she'd run from the huge green thing that had come at her with a motherfucking bomb under its arm. She'd heard and felt the explosion, had been knocked face forwards into the river. And while she knew that she needed help after swallowing the irradiated water, she also knew falling into a tree might have killed her. So she'd dragged herself back on land and just sat there.

'You've lived here, for fuck's sake,' she said quietly. 'Get a grip. You know where you want to go.' She was so badly shaken she could barely use the pip-boy, summon up the map. Most of the data was lost, but she would be able to manually input locations. She'd started doing that already. And at least the thing showed her where she was, even if it couldn't tell her what was around her. Nothing much, by the looks of it.

Taking a few steadying breaths, Kalyna picked herself up. She was bruised, soaking, and alone. Well. Almost. A gentle nudge against her hand reminded her of the dog she'd picked up. 'Hi,' she said. 'Know a better way to Diamond City?'

She hadn't expected an answer, but the German Shepherd took off and glanced back at her, clearly meaning for her to follow.

'Well. It's not like you can be worse at this than I am. Lead the way.'

All the way, Kalyna had her hand on her gun. As a young woman, she'd gone to the shooting range with her cousin a couple of times, just for kicks. She'd been quite good at it, too, but she'd never in her wildest dreams thought she'd ever point a gun at a living creature. She would not think of the deathclaw in Concord, at the huge, slavering mouth, the way it had picked up a raider and flung him away so hard every bone in his body had been broken, before coming at her … No. No, she would not think of that. There had to be nice things, too. Maybe bears had mutated into something like hamsters, if this was what had happened to chameleons. It was possible. No? Well. Probably not.

At least, she wasn't as clueless as she'd been when she'd crawled out of her vault. She'd had a few words with her Minutemen. She knew that there was an Institute. One night, she'd asked Sturges about them. The man had first seemed reluctant to talk, then Mama Murphy had taken him aside, telling him God knew what, and he'd come to her with a small smile. He told her about how no-one knew where they were or what they wanted, but that they had created machines, called synths, that looked like people; that there was no way to tell one from the other. She'd asked if synths were evil. Sturges had taken a minute to answer that. In the end, he'd asked the counter question if humans were evil. She supposed it was a fair question if they truly felt like people. Assuming that she wasn't blown up in the immediate future, Kalyna would certainly run into one of them. Until then, she'd withhold judgement.

Dogmeat, it turned out, probably knew where he was going. He led her east, further along the river than she would have gone. He also led her to more of the green things. In hindsight, Kalyna wondered if she shouldn't just have followed silently. The truth was, she had panicked. She'd seen them and had started running away blindly, with little to no attention where she was going. She'd crashed through the first door she could find, slamming it shut and leaning against it. Again, out of breath. Again, shaking. And again, without a clue where the hell she even was.

Ϡ

One would think that an old building was at least somewhat soundproof. Well. Deacon was probably just too used to the quiet in the Switchboard. The place had been large and there was little noise coming through closed doors. Here, he heard every single time a ghoul stubbed its toe above them. It made them all nervous, but on the plus side, it also meant that the moment the door banged shut above them, they were alert. 'No-one?' he asked into the lingering silence. 'Well, then I'll say it. Oh fuck.'

'Does anyone …' Dez swallowed. 'Well. Glory, Drummer Boy, we'll … What in the name …' Another sound had come from above, as if all the ghouls outside of their hideout had started moving at once, then a scream and shots. Fewer than there were ghouls.

Deacon bit his lower lip. 'I'm going up there,' he said at last.

'We don't know …'

'Yeah, Dez, we don't know. I'm not planning on spilling our secrets, but I'd like to not find a fresh, mutilated corpse the next time we check the entrance.' He shrugged, already on the way out. 'We need manpower, don't we? What better way to recruit someone than by rescuing them first.'

It soon became clear that not all ghouls had gone for the intruder. He shot those in his way somewhat reluctantly. They were a meagre protection, but more than nothing. And he didn't really like how easily they could be found. A necessity, but a dangerous one.

When Deacon reached the upper floor, he found several ghouls underneath one of the galleries. Above them, there was a woman. She was sitting behind the balustrade, apparently waiting for them to go away. 'Hi,' he said conversationally. 'What are you doing up there?'

She chanced a look down at him, cueing the ghouls to growl louder. 'Oh, you know,' she said. 'Just enjoying the view. Nice church you've got. Do you live here?' Her voice had a slight tremble and maybe there was a trace of an accent.

Deacon leaned against the wall, legs crossed. The ghouls ignored him for now, but he knew that might change, so he kept his gun in his hand despite the casual stance. 'Yeah, actually. Didn't use to, though.'

'Are these yours? If they are, could you please call them off? Oh. And I would like to go outside and call mine.'

'Call yours? Your ghouls?'

'My dog.'

'These are not dogs.'

'No? Huh.' She said something completely incomprehensible. 'You're a horrible person,' she added.

'I know that. Need help?'

'Don't know. I wasn't planning anything aside from chilling up here.'

'I think you need help.' He fired fire well-aimed bullets, taking down the ghouls.

The woman glared at him. 'I was just about to kill them.'

Deacon grinned. 'Yeah. They were impressed. You can come down now.'

With more elegance than he'd thought she'd have, she swung herself down and landed on her feet. He raised an eyebrow at her. Ignoring him, the woman walked to the door, opened it, and in came a dog. A beautiful one at that. 'Thanks,' she said. 'Where did you even come from?'

'Places.'

'Сучий сину.'

Deacon blinked at her. 'Sorry, didn't catch that.'

'I said, nice to meet you.'

Up close, she looked ill. Radiation, he thought. She needed help. 'Where are you from?' he asked her.

'Sanctuary.'

'Strange accent they got up there. Well. Fair enough. You can go now. Bye.'

'I want to know where I am, what you're doing here, and why you are in this place.'

Deacon ticked his answers off on his fingers. 'You're in the Old North Church, I was just saving your life, and I'm here because I live here.'

'That … wasn't a joke?'

'No. Now go.'

'No.' She swallowed. 'No, I can't. I need to go to Diamond City, but I nearly got exploded on the way, and I really can't keep doing that more than twice a day. So I'm not leaving.'

'Sorry. You've got to. Look. Follow the red lines outside back past the mutants. Be careful, don't get killed, and maybe you make it to Goodneighbor. Get your shit together there, and once you're done, move on to Diamond City. Maybe you can even hire some protection there.'

'Can I hire you?'

'No.' He rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'Oh, for fuck's sake. Wait here. If you follow me, I'll shoot you personally. I won't be a minute, but before I leave, I need to do something real quick.' He shook his head. 'I'm only doing this because if I send you out there alone, you'll be mincemeat in less than a minute and I don't feel like being responsible for that.' Dez might kill him, but leaving this fool to blunder around alone was irresponsible. He hadn't planned on staying in HQ for long anyway. Might as well go now.

((For once, I'm not translating the Ukrainian because it'll come up later. It's pronounced /suchyy synu/.))