A/N: I've been writing an actual plot-driven fic in the same universe as this one shot. If you guys wouldn't mind, drop a review and let me know if you'd be interested in reading it. I'm no where near done, and I'd like to mass-upload, but feedback is always good. Keep it short if you want, I just want to know your thoughts.

Thanks :)

Deathclaw Encounter

MacCready POV

The Coastal Cottage. I'm not even sure why she wanted to come here. She said she wanted to go out for an adventure yesterday. So here we are. We stopped for a brief break inside the hole in the backyard of the broken down house for what seemed like five seconds. But she insisted on trekking north still.

God, my feet hurt. Will she ever stop? But she just keeps going. She makes jokes about being like something called the "Energizer Bunny." Whatever that is. Sounds like it was way before her time even.

"Beth, are we ever going to rest? My feet hurt like hell back here," I call out to my companion, my partner in crime, my wife.

She turns back to face me, pausing her northern advance for a bit, and just smiles her devious grin I've come to recognize all too well in the past half year I've known her. "Why? We took a break at the cottage. Isn't that enough?" She faces north again and takes off seemingly faster than before.

"C'mon, babe. You're killing me." I hear her laugh at me without a backward glance. "What are we even out here for?"

"I told you yesterday. Adventure." I hear the smile in her voice as she slows her pace considerably to let me catch up with her. Once I'm at her side—and finally at a walking speed—she looks at me and grins again. What does she have planned?

"We're not out here for an adventure, are we, Beth?"

"No, we are," she looks at me with big eyes. The same eyes she had when we met. But these are not full of fear, but rather feigned innocence. I know her better than that.

"Not the free roam kind though, huh." It wasn't even a question.

Looking forward—away from my face—she giggles under her breath like a little girl. "Maybe."

"There's not too much Commonwealth left north of here," I muse aloud. I pull out a reporter style voice. "What could she be after? Possible riches, overlooked by many over the past two centuries, or perhaps a secret hideout where she stashes all her teddy bears?" The last part made her laugh harder than I've heard her laugh in a few weeks. "Seriously, why do you keep all those teddy bears you come across out here?"

She calms herself down a bit before answering me. "I don't know. Maybe it's because I've always liked them. I had a huge collection when I was growing up. My dad brought one home every time he came back from his business trips. I guess he was away a lot." She shrugs as if it didn't bother her.

"It didn't upset you, him being gone all the time?"

"Not really," she shakes her head. "My mom and I were very close, so sometimes I forgot he was even gone."

"I'd notice." She turns to look at me, stopping completely in her tracks. "What?" It was as if I said something that offended her.

She responds with, "You sounded so sad when you said that." I walk back to her, because it didn't look like she'd be moving anytime soon.

"Well, I would," I say. "Growing up without parents…it'd be hard to not notice their absence." She finally is mobile again. Moving toward me, she wraps her arms around me and leans her head on my chest.

"I'm sorry, Robert. If I could change it, you know I would." As I wrap my arms around her, I hear a noise in the distance. Cutting our embrace short, I let her go and drop down into a crouch, pulling her by the arm to join me near the ground. Seeing my cautiousness, she moves so close that our knees touch. "What is it?" She whispers. A few months under a year in this wasteland, and her ears still haven't gained quite the expertise needed for catching the little things. At least not in comparison to mine, having the lifetime I've had out here.

"Not sure," I whisper back. "It's been a while since I've been in this area. I don't remember what's around here." I hear the same sound again. Focusing my hearing on it, I say, "Almost sounds like something scratching the dirt." I hear a snort. A very reptile-like snort. "Deathclaw."

"How can you be so sure?" She asks. I just give her a Really? You're gonna question this sniper's ears? look, so she follows up with a quick, "Okay, okay." I get out my plasma infused assault rifle as she pulls out her high-power gauss rifle.

"Well, let's go get 'em." I move toward the noise, still crouched.

"Are you crazy? It hasn't noticed us. Let's just keep going." She looks to the west.

"You wanted to go this way," I say pointing north, pointing toward the deathclaw. "Besides, you said you wanted adventure. Nothing says 'adventure' like charging a mutated lizard with deadly rifles and war screams." I once again take off, leaving her staring after me with a look that says she must think I'm nuts. Well, she's right.

Moments later, I hear her tread about two feet behind me. "Let me ahead," she says, still whispering. I know how desperate she has been to use that gauss rifle of hers, having found it on a Railroad agent's corpse a couple weeks ago. It's saved our butts more than a few times out here. I slow my advance to let her pass. Hearing the reptile snort again, I can't help but to notice how close we are to it. It's just around the face of the rock we're hiding behind. She turns back to look at me. "Well you said war screams."

She springs up from behind the rock, and takes my statement quite literally as she runs toward the dinosaur doppelganger. Screaming at it in her own impression of a gladiator, she fires into its face with her 2mm electromagnetic ammunition. It clearly was not expecting us, as it rises as high as its legs will take it toward the sky and roars so loud I wonder if my ears will start bleeding.

Beth is now running backward, away from the beast, and continues firing into it with her rifle. It seems to be slowing down, but is still quite mobile as it barrels toward her on all fours. As it is about to sink its claws into her, she makes a quick U-turn and starts heading the other direction, back toward me. As I come out of my I can't believe she actually did that stupor, I start firing into the monster as well.

Beth is about seven feet from me when she runs back-first into a cluster of trees. I continue shooting the deathclaw as it closes in on her. "Oh, no you don't!" She still hasn't gotten her bearings together when it is at her feet. He grabs her by the neck with its grubby left mitt, raising her into the air like some kind of repulsive twist on a parent raising their newborn into the air. Except it doesn't gently toss her or make silly faces. It raises its right hand, and however impossible, grows its nails even larger and longer than before.

The next five seconds go by in slow motion.

The deathclaw sinks its nails into Beth's stomach. In and out. It couldn't have taken two seconds, but it felt like an eternity. "Noooo!" I scream, grabbing the gauss rifle lying a foot from my boot. It must have gotten thrown when that thing picked her up. I load extra power into the metal projectile, aim for its head, and fire. It goes down with a loud and heavy thud, seeming to purr out its last breath of life.

I throw the rifle down and run to Beth, now lying on the ground next to the trees that condemned her in the first place. This is when time starts to speed up, far past its earthly tempo. It's almost as if I'm on a reverse Jet kind of chem, making time pass a lot faster. Hurling myself onto my knees, I look at her. Not just her face, scrunched up in writhing agony, but also the gigantic gashes, streaming blood much faster than they would have been, would it had been a gunshot wound. "Beth…" I wanted to yell it, but my voice barely came out in a whisper. As I look her over, I'm not sure what to do. I reach the horrifying conclusion: stimpaks would not even help this.

I lay my hand on her arm, still unsure what to do. Looking at her face, I notice she opens her eyes and looks at me. I didn't think she could feel my touch. "RJ." Her voice is so small, I'm not sure if I heard it or imagined it.

"I'm here." I say, trying my best to keep my cool. It doesn't matter—the tears come anyway. "I'm here."

"Take care of Dogmeat. You're the only one he has left now." She voice is so raspy. It matches the wheezing when she breathes, as ragged and uneven as it is.

"No, you're gonna make it, Elizabeth." One of my tears lands on her arm so I wipe it away with my fingers, gentle as a breeze. "You're gonna—"

"Stop," she says.

"No, you're gonna make it. We'll get back home and—"

"No, stop calling me Elizabeth. I told you I hate that name." Even on her deathbed, she jokes. She smiles faintly and chuckles lightly. This causes her too much pain, so she cuts it short, making a tortured face. As her pants for air become farther apart, she says, "You have to find Shaun now." She grabs my hand with what seems to be all her might, although it could have been a feather for all I knew. "You have to tell him how much his father and I loved him, that we died trying to keep him safe—"

"You're not going to die!" I claim.

She looks bored at me, waits a second, and then says, "Interrupting is rude. It's like you were raised in a cave or something." She smiles again, leaving the chuckle out this time. She continues, "Raise him for me. You're doing good with Duncan. Give him a brother. Make him into the young man I can't."

"I…I…" I can't seem to get away from blabbering.

"I love you, baby. You know that?"

I finally find my voice. "I love you, Beth. More than anything." Each word rings with truth and purpose, louder than any of my other attempts at English.

With a smile on her lips, and looking into my eyes, she takes her last breath and becomes still.

She's no more.

I lost Lucy the same way—by her being ripped apart right in front of me. Why would the greater powers allow Beth to be taken from me gracefully? Let's make her get murdered in a similar fashion, they must've thought. Let's make this guy witness both of his wives' horrific deaths.

I let go all of the tension built up inside me and scream as loud as I can, not even caring what or who could be listening. Still holding her lifeless hand, I lean over her and sob so hard I am physically shaking. Almost as if someone is doing the shaking for me.

"Robert!" In the extreme back of my head, I think, At least whoever is out here knows me. Maybe I won't die today. But if I'm being completely honest, I wouldn't complain if it were my last day on this blackened planet.

"Robert, honey!" The voice seems closer now. And it sounds like… Beth. If ghosts do exist, she's being incredibly heartless right now. Give me some time to mourn first!

I stop shaking, but my eyes are still closed and leaking liquid sorrow. I feel Beth's hand in my own, but it doesn't feel lifeless as it did a second ago. It's warm and holding onto me with utmost effort. I realize that I'm neither on my knees nor on the cold, hard ground. But rather I'm lying on my back on a soft surface.

"RJ, sweetie?" She continues calling to me in a worried tone.

I finally find my eyelids and open them. I'm looking at the ceiling of our bedroom. In our house on Spectacle Island. Lying on our bed with blankets strewn across it as if someone had been tossing all night.

I look to my left—to Beth's side of the bed.

Not only is she there, but she had risen herself up onto her elbow, looking down at me with blue eyes scared as all hell, her blonde hair disheveled. "Baby? Are you okay? You had me worried."

Relieved to see her alive, I grab her—almost too roughly—and pull her to my chest, holding her there in my arms. Burying my nose in her hair, I smell her life scent. The aura that is just her. We lay there in that position for what feels like hours when she raises her head up looking me in the eye. "Whatever happened in nightmareland must have been really bad. You started crying in your sleep." She tucks herself into the crook of my arm, settling against my side in a content manner. "That's not even counting your screaming. That's what woke me up. I thought Raiders had swum all the way out here to murder us or something." She looks up at me from her resting place against my lungs, which had at last started slowing from their rapid air flow. "You're not gonna tell me, huh." It wasn't a question. She knows me all too well.

I shake my head, not trusting my vocals. She goes back to her previous position. "That's alright," she says. "I understand. I've had those kinds of dreams before." She starts drawing circles on my stomach with her left index finger. "But if you ever want to talk about it, you know I'm here… I won't bring it up." She lays her hand flat where she had drawn a good twenty circles. This is her way of bringing the subject to a close. I decide to say something important, vocals be damned.

"I love you, Beth. More than anything."