"I want you to take Dogmeat and get out of here."

"Sorry kid, but if you think I'm leaving after all this then you've got another thing coming to you."

I sent Nick Valentine a scathing glare while he pretended to ignore me.

"I owe you one, remember? It's the least I can do for your help with on the Winter case."

"That was totally different. The Institute wasn't involved, and our lives weren't at stake. This is serious Nick. Kellogg isn't some washed up gangster, he's a trained killer, and he's not going to go down without a fight."

"Which is exactly why I'm staying right here."

I released an angry hiss as I kicked at the rubble of Fort Hagen. I didn't want Nick to be involved, but there was no time to argue. Kellogg was just beyond that door, he'd told me so himself. Desperation had been building inside of me since I'd tracked that bastard down to this accursed place, and it had been torture being forced to listen to his taunting voice while fighting against his small synth army.

Every cell in my body was tingling.

I'm so close to finding Shaun, I can feel it!

"Besides, you didn't think I'd let you have all the fun without me, did you?"

I tried not to make a face. He thought I was going to do something stupid and hurt myself if he wasn't around to watch my back. I'm not saying he's wrong, but there's something to be said for a little reckless abandon. I'd certainly performed great feats of madness in the past thanks to a complete lack of self-control.

I heaved a frustrated sigh. "Fine, but if you die I swear I'll follow you into death and then kill you again for your bullheaded stupidity."

"Duly noted."

I finished loading my Laser musket and checked that all my ammunition was in order. I had plenty of ammo, three frag grenades, and two Molotov cocktails strapped to my thighs with the holster I'd stolen off a corpse. I took stock of the rest of my gear. Suddenly, all the things I'd salvaged for the return trip seemed ridiculous. After meeting Kellogg I probably wasn't going to be in any state to haul sacks of miscellaneous junk back home, so in a split second decision I tied my two satchels together like saddle bags strapped them across Dogmeat's back.

"This is no place for you. Go home alright? That's a good boy." I forced myself not to look into his melancholy eyes as I gave him one last pet.

"Well, looks like this could be it."

I eyed Nick as smoke drifted casually from his decaying lips. I don't know where he kept them all, but he always seemed to have a cigarette dangling from his metallic fingers or peeking out from the side of his mouth. I couldn't imagine him without them. Just like I couldn't imagine the Commonwealth without him.

Stop it!

I had a moment of panic. This was exactly what I'd been working so hard to avoid! If there was one thing I'd learned about life it was that the people you love always leave you, so it's best not to love at all. I'd watched too many people die in the last six months to forget the dangers of getting attached, which is why I never spent more than a few months with a companion at a time. I knew when I was in danger of caring too much, and I was definitely starting to cross that line with Nick. So there was nothing for it now, I'd have to leave him just like the rest.

I was getting angry just thinking about it.

"Promise me that after we get through this you'll settle down and start a good life with Ellie."

The corner of his mouth tilted up fractionally. "Why the sudden interest in my love life?"

"I just think you deserve better than… this."

"I hate to break it to you, but the entire world is covered in rubble. There's just no getting around it."

I scowled. "I wasn't talking literally. I just mean that I don't think you're achieving your potential. You're a damn good detective and I've been taking you from your work for too long. You could be doing some real good out there instead of slumming it with me."

There was silence, then after the beat of a moment he said, "Sounds to me like you think I've overstayed my welcome."

"No it's not that, it's just..."

He held up his hand. "I get it. You don't want to get attached. Hell, after everything you've been through who would? It doesn't take a detective to see how you always keep people at arm's length."

I couldn't keep his gaze.

"I know you don't want to hear it right now, but I couldn't call myself your friend if I didn't tell you to be careful. Revenge isn't as sweet as you'd think, and I speak from personal experience."

"It's too late for that now. I'm committed."

"I know why you think that, but I also happen to know that you're wrong."

I stared at the door that I knew would lead me to the man who kidnapped my son. "That man took everything from me, and I want him to pay. I want some justice. Surely you, of all people, can understand what that feels like."

"You're right, I do know that that feels like. But I also happen to know that it won't bring you any peace."

"I'm not looking for peace. I'm looking for answers, and I'm willing to do anything to get them."

"Well then, seems like you've already made up your mind."

I took a deep breath and turned towards the door. "You don't have to stay."

"That's where you're wrong."

Unexpected emotion welled up in my chest, and I spoke before I realized what I was saying. "Thanks. For helping me get here."

"Don't mention it."

He flicked his cigarette to the ground and after a good deep breath, I pushed open the door.

"And there she is. The most resilient woman in the Commonwealth…"

"Shaun's a good kid. So maybe he's not quite a "baby" anymore, but he's doing great. Only... he's not here. He's with the people pulling the strings."

I banged my head against the wall of the Memory Den as Nick prepared to plug into Doctor Amari's machine. I wished I could drown out that smug voice that'd been echoing around my head for the past six hours.

It had been a slap in the face to learn that Shaun was even farther out of my reach than I imagined, and a lot older than I'd thought, but what had been worse was having to listen to that murdering psychopath talk about his crimes as if they were nothing more than acts of self-preservation.

I think in the end that's what made me snap. I hadn't meant to reach down and pull the pins on all three of my grenades, but the red had taken over my vision and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I barely even felt the slug ripping through my shoulder as I hurled them with an animalistic cry of rage. Or realized that if Nick hadn't football tackled me to the ground when he did, I'd have died then and there.

The explosion had been deafening, and the silence after it almost doubly so.

I'd managed to take out Kellogg and his bodyguards in one fell swoop, leaving nothing but broken body parts, hydraulic fluid, and guts splattered across the room. It was lucky that Nick had even been able to find Kellogg's cybernetic brain augmenter at all, considering what was left of him.

I closed my eyes as I listened to Doctor Amari talk Nick through the procedure. He was risking a lot, allowing her to plug into his brain and upload somebody else's memories, but he'd hardly even batted an eye before agreeing to do it. He was naturally selfless like that.

I gripped my newly acquired .44 pistol with shaking hands. Besides the augmenter, Nick had also managed to salvage Kellogg's highly prized pistol from the wreckage and had presented it to me as a sort of trophy. I glared at its dull grey barrel. This was the weapon that had taken the life of my husband, and probably countless others, so what was stopping me from hurling it across the room and taking a blowtorch to it till it was a puddle of molten steel?

I turned it over in my hands for a full minute as an idea built in my mind. Grabbing a nearby scalpel, I painstakingly began to scratch 'Avenger' in the side of the barrel. I thought it was a fitting a name, considering that I was planning on using it to pay back the Institute for their crimes. As I carved the last letter I felt a grim sort of satisfaction at the thought that I would be using old-world technology to blow new world technology back to hell.

It was poetic justice really.

"Athena, we're ready."

I settled myself into the spare memory lounger with grim determination. "Let's get this over with."

It had been forty eight hours since I'd had any sleep, twelve hours since I'd had anything to eat, eight hours since I blew Kellogg sky high in a fit of rage, and a mere hour since I'd walked through his memories and had to relive the worst moment of my entire life. And on top of it all, there was the truth about the Institute's most heavily guarded secret.

And I felt like shit.

I laid my head in my hands. What am I going to do now?

"I'm uh… I'm sorry you had to go through all of that again. It must have been painful for you."

I ignored the Doctor.

Yes! Of course it had been painful reliving Nate's death! But it had been a thousand times worse seeing the man I'd spend months demonizing reduced to nothing more than human. Even after everything he'd done, and after everything I'd suffered at his hands, somewhere in my brain I was tempted to feel guilty about killing him. And he'd started it all.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

"Are you ready to talk about what happened in there?"

I closed my eyes tighter.

Nick was right, revenge was not sweet. Yes, justice had been dealt by my hands and no man could have been more deserving of such an end. Many could even argue that it was too good an end for the likes of him. But then I'd been forced to walk through Kellogg's sad and sorry life, and I found myself questioning whether he actually deserved it. And now I hated myself because he had somehow managed to make me feel sorry for him.

Me, sorry for ridding the world of that murdering scum?

It was unbelievable.

Doctor Amari soldiered on, unaware of my growing agitation. "It's not very nice to think about, but he was a human being just like the rest of us, and he had reasons for being what he was, however cruel. How does that… make you feel?"

I stood up abruptly. "Feel? You want to know how that makes me feel?"

She stepped back with a look of alarm.

"That man was a murdering psychopath and I did the world a service by killing him. You have no right to stand there and say that he was only human and that he had any good reason for murdering my husband. Everybody on this earth has had to deal with horrible shit. Hell, the world IS shit! And I know I don't have clean hands. Maybe I shouldn't have killed some of the people I've killed, but you know what? I didn't choose this life, and he did. He made the first move. He killed my husband, stole my son, and made my life a living hell. So in this case, I know at least my hands are clean."

I felt Nick put a restraining hand on my good arm. "You're right kid, you're right. We're not excusing that son of a bitch for anything he's done. Doctor Amari was only trying to help you process so that we can move forward, and help you find your son."

Doctor Amari eyes were locked onto mine like a deer in headlights, and it took a few moments before Nick's words filtered through my cluttered mind.

He's right. The Doctor's not the one you should be angry at, it's the Institute. They did this to you.

I took several deep and shuddering breaths.

"There you go." Nick gave me a gentle squeeze. "Now where do we go from here doc?"

"Oh! Um, well… let me think..." She was trying hard not to look at me while she struggled to collect her thoughts. "What about that memory involving Virgil, the rogue Institute scientist? If he were alive, we have a common enemy. He might help us."

Nick scratched his head. "And where did that last memory say he was?"

"His last known location was the Glowing Sea, but I'm not sure how reliable that memory is. That's not a place people go, or come back from..."

"If we need to find Virgil, then I'm going after him." I cut in harshly.

"Of course, of course!" She hurried to say, fear now evident on her face. "I simply meant that it's not very...usual. But since you're set on going you'll need to be prepared. Navigating radioactive hazards is nothing new, but the Glowing Sea can kill a man in seconds."

"I'll find a way to get through the rads. Don't worry."

"I don't doubt that you will."

The Glowing Sea. Just another part of nature that wants to kill me.

Kellogg's memories had been difficult enough to navigate, but one of it's biggest bombshells was that the Institute was not located anywhere even remotely accessible like oh, I don't know, Far Harbor, or the Capital Wasteland, or even deep down under the sea.

It could only be reached by teleportation. TELEPORTATION I tell you!

Damn it all!

Why couldn't something be easy for me, just once?

"You still want to go it alone?"

I refused to look at Nick and instead pet Dogmeat, who had settled himself at my feet. "There's no way you could make it in that hell hole with all your parts exposed like they are."

"I've survived worse."

"No! You've risked enough for me already and I won't have another life on my conscience."

"Alright, if that's really what you want." He sounded disappointed, although whether it was with me or with the whole situation I couldn't tell. "But you will take someone with you, right?"

"Last time I passed through Goodneighbor, Fahrenheit told me that Hancock was starting to get antsy. He's been hitting the chems hard and partying even harder. Maybe I'll present him with the offer. It'll probably be good for him to have a few near deaths experiences to shake things up a bit."

"How philanthropic of you."

I shrugged. "I'm just trying to take a few pages out of your book."

He shook his head. "I don't think he's a good influence. Piper told me all about that stunt you kids pulled at Easy City Downs last month. That explosion rocked the whole damn city!"

"That wasn't my fault! He didn't tell me he'd swapped the water in my canteen with vodka, and by the time I realized that it wasn't just funny tasting water I was too drunk to care."

Of course, I neglected to tell him that it was my drunk self that had suggested that we execute that self-destruct in the first place.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about."

"That's the last time I'll take any food or drink from Hancock, I promise you that. After having to live with that monster hangover the next day, I learned my lesson. I'm a wiser woman now."

He sighed and shook his head.

As I let the Doctor see to my shoulder I faced the truth: I needed a little reckless abandon in my life after having to work under Nick's stifling logic. Hancock was exactly the kind of guy I could count on to take risks and move at my pace, which was always a little too fast. But one needed to be fast in a place like the Glowing Sea. It was how you stayed alive. Plus he was always good to have around when you wanted a good laugh. And these days, I desperately needed something to laugh about.

My first step would be to figure out the bar floor he was currently favoring, and exactly how long it would take to get him sober. Then we would make our move.