Another song inspo fic! I had half written this with another song in mind, and focusing mainly on Maxson, until another song played and I LOST. MY. SHIT. It was perfect. So please enjoy my re-written mess focusing on my OC Emma. This picks up from The Man Who Never Lied, please read for context, though it goes along with the Blind Betrayal quest in which Danse leaves THE holotape. You know which one. I hope this gives you some feels.

Song is Decode by Paramore.

"I wish Maxson had sent someone else. But that doesn't change a thing."

The words echo in Emma's mind, twisting themselves and bouncing off her brain as the image of Danse is before her, just a memory now. That cold bunker that he had built a skeleton home out of while he hid out, it burns her eyes to be in it now. But she's found that she can't stay away.

When she came back and found… him. Her Danse, her Paladin, her heart . It was like the world had ended all over again. She had thought that they were in agreement with her plan to go back to Sanctuary. But his holotape… he hadn't been able to go through with it. To live his life knowing that he was the very thing he had years fighting against. Emma wished it had been different.

Packing up the last of his personal effects, the ones that he had managed to take from the Prydwyn before he left, Emma turned her eyes away from his last home and got into the elevator. His body had been removed and buried at Sanctuary next to Nate a week ago. And now she didn't want to ever return to this place. She wished she could burn it.

"I need to be the example, not the exception."

MacCready was waiting outside for her, his eyes shadowed in understanding as she exited the bunker and just kept walking, his steps falling quietly behind her. While she was grateful for his company, there was another man on her mind right now, her blood slowing beginning to boil every time she thought of their last interaction.

Her handing over Danse's tags, him casually mentioning that she was now a Sentinel and would be getting Danse's quarters, him not seeming to give a shit that his best man, his best friend even, was gone. For real this time, no lies, no hiding. Gone. When she had gone back to tell him of Danse's actions, he hadn't given her the reaction she was looking for.

"As it should have been." he said, with a shrug of his shoulders.

The truth is hiding in your eyes.

"Is that all you have to say?" she accused.

And it's hanging on your tongue.

"Flesh is flesh. Machine is machine. The two were never meant to intertwine."

Just boiling in my blood.

Emma glared at him as he glared in return, his face turning red with anger.

But you think that I can't see what kind of man that you are,

"Dismissed."

If you're a man at all.

It was the last time she had been on the Prydwyn, her eyes staring at it now from her position on the wall of the Castle. Arthur had made the decision for her, to leave the Brotherhood for good and fight this battle on her own. She felt guilty, of course. The information she got from the Institute had been Danse's downfall. If she had just left well enough alone…

How did we get here?

The only good thing about this was that without her, they didn't have access to the Institute and still didn't know where to find it. Her concern now was Liberty Prime, avoiding it, and getting the Minutemen in there before they could. She wouldn't let him have this one. It was funny, how one thing could change the opinion of someone so drastically.

When I used to know you so well.

"Emma. Preston is here. Are you ready?"

Do you see what we've done?

MacCready's voice washed over her. This was no longer a fight to save the Commonwealth, as much as she kept telling herself that it was. She wasn't killing her son for this wasteland. How could she really be that mad when he had inadvertently created the man she now loved? A man she now couldn't have. Because of someone else.

We've gone and made such fools of ourselves.

"Ready."

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