When Nora is in Sanctuary, she assigns herself cleaning duty. She knows she doesn't have to, Sanctuary's a bustling little settlement now and there's more than enough people to help out. But someone's always cleaning a new house, making it inhabitable, and the least she can do is sweep the floors or wipe off some counters or dust a little. She's no carpenter and Sturges stops letting her help the fourth time she almost electrocutes herself, so it's a place she can make herself useful. It's also nostalgic, a little bit. It helps her remember sunny afternoons with the radio on, and her skirt tied up so she can clean without getting it dirty.
It also gives her something to do at 2 o'clock in the morning when she can't sleep. Probably someone in the settlement is up somewhere, but she doesn't feel like popping mentats with Hancock or drinking herself under the table with Cait. She just wants to do some busy work, let her body wear out her mind so she can get some sleep and not be dead on her feet tomorrow. So she'd thrown on some jeans and trudged down to one of the fixer-uppers to do some work and breathe in the silence.
She's got a bucket of water and a brush and she's scrubbing the floor by lantern light. The night is dark and warm for this time of year; she can hear crickets chirping somewhere outside. It's nice that they haven't changed. Usually the sound of the generators mask them, but they haven't managed to gather enough scrap to rig power up out this far. The darkness and the sounds are soothing.
Nora is halfway done when the baby starts crying.
The sound rings through the house and only seems to get louder the longer it goes on. Her hand stills halfway between the bucket and the floor, suspended in air. Inch by inch, the brush slips from her fingers and falls to the floor with a clatter.
The Johnsons had shown up a month ago, battered and weary and the wife almost due. Despite their hardships, she'd given birth to a healthy baby girl that they haven't named yet. Nora had held her, cooed at her, let her hold her finger and giggle. She'd been alright, for the most part. Having a little one in the settlement is for the most part a blessing. It reminds everyone that you can still find new things, beautiful things, in the Wasteland.
But it's not a beautiful sound in the dark. In the dark, it sounds just like Shaun, down the hallway in his nursery and scared and needing his mommy. Her automatic response is to jump to her feet. She feels like she needs to abandon the cleaning and rush to his room so she can hold him and quiet him down, and the kitchen she's kneeling in suddenly feels wrong, because it's not hers and nothing is in the right spot. Her stove was a nice teal colour, not this off-white. And that's notwhere her table should be.
She's not having delusions; she knows it's not Shaun. She remembers that she's in a different house, 200 years after her world disappeared in nuclear war. But that doesn't make it easier. It doesn't make the feeling of wrongness lessen, or the tightness in her chest ease. She finds herself clutching at the front of her shirt with one hand, white-knuckled. For a second she half-hopes Nate will coming stumbling down the hallway to comfort her.
That's the drop that breaks the dam.
First, it's just a tiny prickling at the edge of her eyes, and a tight feeling in her chest. Then, suddenly, it's hard to breathe. Before she knows it, Nora has her face buried in her abraxo-covered hands, and she's sobbing quietly. Trying to clamp it down only gives her the hiccups and makes her throat hurt.
The baby stops crying long before she does. Vision blurry, she picks the brush back up and attacks the floor viciously. Fat teardrops fall and mix in with the dirty water on the tile, and she lets them, continuing to scrub and scrub and scrub as if the bristles can rub away all the hurt and anger and sadness that's been bottled up inside her since she woke up in Vault 111. Even after the little girl goes silent, it's like the ghost of her crying is trapped in the room, echoeing across all the walls.
Nora does this about once a week now. That's less than she used to, but it still doesn't feel like it's getting better. Inevitably, something will set her off – seeing Codsworth in the kitchen, watching someone in the garden, waking up and thinking about checking the mail. She'll spend a half-hour crying, and the feelings drain slowly, and she always hopes that that's the last time. But inevitably, whatever vessel inside her that holds those feelings fills back up slowly, minute by minute, and then it's happening again. The in-between leaves her feeling empty and used up, like she just doesn't have the strength to feel any more.
Her head is starting to hurt. Her throat aches from the pressure of choking back sobs, trying to be quiet so no one hears her. Some of the abraxo solution washes over a cut on the back of her hand and the sting jolts her. Nora drops the brush and snatches her hand to her chest and sobs even harder.
She's not a marathon crier. Fifteen minutes later, she's done all she can, and even though the baby's wailing again she just stares at the wet floor silently, hand cradled to her chest. The will to clean has gone out of her. She hates to leave a job unfinished, but she's too worn out, too bone-achingly tired to lift another finger, and really she just wants to curl up on the tile right here and fall asleep and possibly never wake up again. She's not sure how much longer she can do this.
There's a creak behind her. It sounds like a careful footstep on a squeaky floorboard. Nora scrubs at her tired eyes uselessly, knowing it will only make them look worse. Iit was too much to ask that no one would hear her having a breakdown in the middle of the night. She's just hoping she can excuse herself from this situation without biting someone's head off. If it's Marcy Long, though, the battle's already lost.
A figure ducks in though the hallway in the dark, just a shadow this far away from the lantern's glow. She thinks it's a man, but it's hard to tell with the new moon out.
"Hey, there you are. You missed our weekly 2:30 am hangout but it's okay because I see you're in the middle of some very important floor scrubbing."
It's Deacon. Of course it's Deacon, because while he's not the most likely person to be randomly awake at 2 AM, he isthe one most likely to be in a nearly-abandoned area of Sanctuary and to show up at the most inappropriate time. He's the only one that would make such a stupid joke about it too.
Finally, he steps into the lantern-light and Nora can see him properly. He's dressed for sleep, in a white t-shirt and those ridiculous heart-covered sweatpants that he insisted were worth hauling back from wherever he found them. His head is bare and for one he doesn't have his sunglasses perched on his nose, so Nora knows he can see her flushed face and red eyes perfectly well. Trying not to sniffle, she thinks of something, anythingto say instead of sitting there silently like a broken-down old-world relic.
"Yeah," she answers roughly, turning back to the floor, "my evil stepmother told me if it's not finished by morning I can't go to the ball."
That joke is 200 years out of date but Deacon still laughs and squats down next to her, inspecting the abraxo and water.
"Well, looks like you need some help then. I'd hate for you to miss your prince." He taps the side of his brain, as if in thought, and then a slow smile spreads on his face.
"I have the perfectidea." Deacon says gleefully, and goes to sort through the cleaning supplies in the corner. He comes back with three more brushes and some rope and plops down on the floor. A pocket knife appears from somewhere in his fingers and he uses it to slice the rope into several long lengths.
"Uh… what's that for?" she asked, confused and a little concerned. Deacon is more likely to attempt to create a floor-cleaning machine than to actually contribute in any way, so she's nervous about what this 'perfect idea' of his is.
"Okay so I read this book one time," Deacon starts, picking up a brush, "and this girl made brush skates to clean her kitchen and I sense that this is a good idea. We're going to try it."
Nora blinks, and runs that through her brain one more time.
"Are you talking about Pippi Longstocking?"
He's too busy tying the brushes to his feetto see Nora's confused and somewhat horrified expression. This is all going to end very badly, with someone hitting their head on the edge of a counter and getting a concussion or something and she definitely does not condone this one bit. Deacon doesn't seem to care.
"Alright, your turn. Hop hop, Prince Charming waits for no man - er, woman, you get it – so let your fairy godfather do his thing."
"Deacon, no, this is a terrible idea – "she says, but she's laughing and letting him pull her foot to him, and then suddenly she's got brushes securely affixed to both shoes and Deacon is standing up shakily like a newborn horse. The brushes he's standing on are two different sizes and it throws him terribly off balance. Nora has to catch him before he brains himself on the floor. But then he's pulling her to her feet as well, and then they're up and standing hesitantly, and Deacon slowly lets go of her forearms so he can totter away on his brush skates.
"See, look, this is way faster, we'll be done in no time!" he says confidently. He's not skating so much as stumbling around like a new toddler. The image makes Nora double over in laughter. God, she wishes she had a camera.
"This was a really bad idea, why did I let you do this to me –"she says, trying for seriousness but cracking halfway through.
Nora straightens up and takes a few shaky steps of her own. The rope doesn't do much to keep the skates in place so she has to be careful they don't slip from under her. Absolutely no real cleaning is getting done, but she can't find it in herself to care. Deacon smiles at her from a few feet away and holds his hand, beckoning for her. She takes a few wobbly steps towards him, but before she can reach him, his feet slip out from under him and he lands flat on his back with a groan. Nora tries to lunge for him, overbalances, and suddenly she's on the floor too, collapsed across his shins.
"See?" Deacon wheezes, "Very effective."
Nora doesn't even move, just buries her face in the crook of her arm in helpless laughter. His whole back is probably wet from the water on the floor; her legs are getting soaked right through her jeans and she's grateful that it's warm out tonight.
"You know what?" Nora says, after she can get her giggling under control, "The floor looks great. It's perfect."
Deacon sits up and surveys his work proudly, taking in the puddles and smears of dirt as if it's a piece of art.
"Damn right it is. Don't think I didn't see you doubting me." He says drily. Nora leans over and starts untying her 'skates', thankful at least that she's still wearing shoes. She hates having wet feet.
"Okay, yes, maybe I doubted you a little. ClearlyI was mistaken." She says, smiling and tossing the brushes back towards the cleaning pile. The kitchen seems homier now in the lantern light, even though there's still debris all over the counters and the sink is hanging crookedly. It feels less…lonely.
Deacon does the same, then glances at his wet clothes and grimaces.
"Okay, I'm sure that all this abraxo is doing lovely things for my skin, but I'm thinking it's time for a shower. What about you?" He tries in vain to peel the soggy fabric away from his back, but it just slaps back with a wet sound.
Nora makes a face at her soaked calves and nods. The effect of the crying and it being late is finally hitting her; she wants to rinse herself off and collapse into bed and hopefully sleep until late morning. That's not unusual after her episodes, but this time, she feels – better. Not as empty inside. Maybe it's the warm presence in front of her, the man of many faces that always knows exactly what to say to make her laugh.
Deacon's job is intelligence, she knows, and she's aware that he's probably watching her right now, taking in her tangled hair and red eyes. Deacon never stops watching, not even when he's busy thinking up stupid jokes or elaborate lies to tell her. But…she's surprisingly okay with that. Nora knows that whatever Deacon sees, it ends at him.
She's okay with being watched, as long as it's Deacon.
"Hey, uh…" she trails off as they climb to their feet, just before they walk out the front door into the night. He stops and turns to her.
"Thanks." She says simply. For a moment, Deacon doesn't say anything, just smiles back.
"Hey, no problem muchaha." He says as they leave the house. The silence only lasts a moment before he leans over and stage whispers, "So tell me the truth, there's not really a ball, right? Because I definitelydo not have the right dress for that."