Hello readers! Thank you for trying out my story, and let me again reiterate that if you've never listened to Gun Song by The Lumineers, go do it NOW because it's just amazing.

But honestly, as soon as I heard this song I immediately knew I had to do a Deacon one shot! It's only loosely inspired by the song, but everything about it screamed a reluctant Deacon not wanting to admit he loves sole. And since he's a serial liar, I loved the idea that he was singing the song to her as a way to slyly express his feelings *wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more!*

Thanks for giving my story a shot, and I hope you enjoy it!

"You know, I think I'm actually going to need a jacket after the sun goes down tonight. It's kind of cold up here."

"It's a good thing you happened to pack one. It's not like you expected this supply run to be an overnight op or anything. Oh wait..."

Deacon smirked as the Savior of the Commonwealth paused her search through her bag to make a face at him. Whisper was infamous in the Railroad for running unusually long ops, and as her partner, he'd begun to expect the extra time he'd have to spend with the Railroad's Secret Weapon. Not that he was complaining, because there was never a dull moment when she was around. Trouble always seemed to find her no matter where they went.

Case and point, only an hour ago they'd accidentally stumbled inside a Gunner hideout, startling a young Private. Deacon figured that if Whisper hadn't had the foresight to kick the poor bastard in the family jewels before he could sound the alarm, they would have been in much deeper trouble than they could handle. It had taken a long time to clear them all out, and after the fight they'd come to the unanimous decision to wait till morning before heading back to HQ. The sky was getting dark and they didn't particularly feel like tempting fate by trying to rush back through Boston over-encumbered. Besides, they deserved a bit of a rest, and both of them were currently enjoying the view their temporary camp provided.

Although Deacon could admit that it wasn't exactly the majestic panorama of the Commonwealth that had captured his attention.

Whisper let out a huge yawn as one foot kicked idly over the edge of the crumbling apartment building they'd decided to camp out on for the night. "You know it's funny, but from way up here it's kind of easy to forget that the world has gone to hell in a hand-basket."

"Hell in a hand-basket? Wow, way to date yourself Whisper. I'm pretty sure only my grandma said stuff like that."

"Well, I am over 200 hundred years old."

"You don't say? And I thought you didn't look a day over a hundred and sixty-nine."

She grabbed the nearest object she could find and threw it at him. He didn't bother to dodge the small package, which flew straight at his chest before dropping into his lap. He examined it with interest. "Well, what do we have here? A new pack of cigs? How'd you know I was running low on my supply?"

"Call it intuition."

"Well hell, if your intuition starts to pick up anything else don't hesitate to let me know. And just a little hint, I'm really into vintage comic books right now."

She shook her head at him with a familiar look of exasperation.

He took a cigarette out of the new package, lighting it up and taking a slow drag as he watched Whisper carefully from behind his dark shades. The glasses had given him plenty of opportunities over the years to observe other people without suspicion, and he was never more glad of them than when he'd met Whisper. His partner was unlike anyone he'd ever met, an enigma that was hard to crack. The woman had been dragged through hell over the last year: she'd watched her husband get murdered, woken up from cryosleep to stumble into the unforgiving Commonwealth, and gone on to discover that her 6-month-old son she'd been searching for was actually a 60-year-old man who was best known as the terror of the known world…Needless to say, it was enough to make any normal human being go insane.

But not Whisper.

Against all odds, she'd made it through. Not that she hadn't been changed by her experiences; You didn't have to be in the Commonwealth for very long before you started to lose important pieces of yourself, but Whisper was good at putting up a facade. A little too good. He wasn't sure if anyone else recognized the subtle shifts in her body language whenever someone mentioned a missing child, or the hardening of her gaze whenever a drug-addled Raider had the cojones to shake their gun under the nose of a settlement under her protection... but he did, and he'd seen the pain and the look of desperate loneliness that filled her eyes on those sleepless nights when she thought no one was watching.

She threw her head back and grimaced as the bourbon she'd been drinking burned on the way down. "Well, by this time tomorrow it'll all be over."

He accepted the bottle she offered and took a hasty swig. The truth was that he'd been trying to forget about that fact that after the Institute was destroyed, the Railroad was pretty much out of business, which meant that he was pretty much out of a job. He and Dez had been working towards this moment for so long, it was strange to realize that it would soon be over. He had no idea what he was going to do next, and that scared him more than anything. He was used to always being one step ahead, but now he felt like he was ten steps behind with no idea where to go next. The Railroad had been his whole life. What was he if not a Railroad agent? Who was he if not a spy? He wasn't even sure he knew how to be anything else anymore.

Whisper released a deep sigh, and he suddenly wondered how she was taking in all of this. She seemed to be keeping a cool head, but he knew she was sacrificing a lot by siding with the Railroad against the Institute. Shaun may have been a murdering asshole, but he was still her son, and when the Institute died he would die with it. That had to be difficult for her to accept considering all she'd gone through to save him.

He watched her gaze across the Boston skyline, a familiar frown pulling down her thick eyebrows. The warm light of the sun was kissing her dirt-streaked face while a light breeze tugged at the tips of her unevenly chopped hair. The circles under her eyes and lines across her forehead should have aged her, but he thought she'd never looked better.

She seemed to sense his eyes on her. "Do you know what you're going to do after tomorrow?"

"I was thinking about becoming a businessman."

Her eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can still set up a sweet deal with the local mortuary."

She looked confused for the beat of a moment before she threw her head back and laughed. He let himself grin as the sound filled up his soul. She rarely smiled these days, let alone laugh, but he was proud to say that when she did it was usually his fault.

"I mean it Deacon. The Railroad was your life's work, and after tomorrow there won't be a need to save the synths. You could probably leave the Commonwealth if you really wanted to."

He stilled another lie as it came to his lips. Telling the truth never came easy, and it would be much simpler to give some bullshit answer about his next move so he didn't have to face the truth. But this was Whisper he was talking about, and if anyone deserved the truth from him it was her.

He took a deep breath and went for it. "Honestly? I hadn't really thought about it."

She took his answer with a quiet nod, and after a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, he cleared his throat. "What about you Whisper, oh great Savior of the Commonwealth? Now that you're about to cut the head off the snake, what's your next move? Have any plans to join a caravan and travel to the Capitol Wasteland? Or maybe you're going to commandeer a Vertibird and fly off to New Las Vegas? I hear they love a good party down there, and you deserve a vacation after this shitstorm."

She fiddled with a string on her pant leg. "I had a few ideas. You remember Nuka-World, that old theme park nearby that's been overrun by Raiders? Well, once the Institute's out of the way that place is probably going to be the Commonwealth's next biggest problem. I was thinking about maybe going over there and cleaning house. I could always use an extra hand, and seeing that you're currently out of a job…" She shrugged, "I don't know, it could be fun."

"Fun huh?" He laughed. Only Whisper would think that taking on an entire camp of Raiders was fun.

He could admit that he'd hoped she would ask. It was a good feeling to know that she still trusted him to have her back after all this time. Besides, he enjoyed roaming around with the Savior of the Commonwealth, and going with her to Nuka-World might give him a chance to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

He pretended to consider her offer for a moment. "An interesting choice for a vacation but… I guess I could pencil you in. I do have a fairly lengthy leave of absence coming up and I've been wondering how I was going to fill the time."

She sent him a small but sincere smile before it disappeared. She started fidgeting with her gun, a habit she indulged in whenever she started to get a little stir-crazy. "I'm guessing Dez will want us to stick around until we can confirm that there's nothing left of the Institute, so maybe we can make plans to leave as soon as the clean-up op is finished. I've heard reports from Caravaners that they've been losing people and I suspect Nuka-World is the problem, so I'd like to get there as soon as possible."

She seemed to eager to be gone. Deacon could admit he was reading between the lines a little, but he thought he could make a fairly educated guess that she was trying to avoid the reality that her son would be dead tomorrow. He knew how he'd felt after his wife died, so he could imagine that she would feel the same way. It would be a good idea to keep her busy for the next few months so the pain and guilt wouldn't be too overwhelming. He flicked his cigarette stub off the roof. "You know after tomorrow Dez technically isn't our boss anymore so… I'm pretty sure we could slip out of town tomorrow night while everybody's drunk at that celebration party Tom's been planning."

Her slow grin told her he'd said the right thing.

"Besides, Tom's parties always involve a little too much Jet for my taste. I personally prefer your version of fun. There's nothing like a good killing spree to lift the spirits, right Whisper?"

"Nora."

She'd caught him off guard. "What?"

"I was thinking that you should probably get used to calling me by my real name since Railroad code-names will be irrelevant after this time tomorrow."

"Fair enough." He couldn't bring himself to say her name out loud. It didn't seem right, even though it was the name she'd used to introduce herself to Dez all those months ago. To him, she had always been Whisper, the Courser Killer, the Secret Weapon, his partner, and she'd fit comfortably into those roles. But Nora… well, that meant something completely different. He supposed everything was going to be different now.

"I know it's hard Deacon, but you're going to have to open up to me eventually."

His head shot around to look at her, and he found himself trapped under her sharp grey eyes. Whisper was never one to beat around the bush; It was one of the things he liked most about her, but he wasn't sure what she wanted him to say. That he promised to change? That he'd be different tomorrow? This whole "honesty" thing was still new to him. He tried his best to be honest with her, but he wasn't sure he could promise something that might never happen.

She stood up and walked across the room to sit down next to him. The look in her eyes was far too discerning for his taste. "You told me once you were in my corner. Now it's your turn to trust me when I say that I'm in yours."

He froze as she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek. He tried hard not to think about how her lips were much softer than he'd imagined even as his heart was trying hard to hammer its way out of his chest. She laid her head on his shoulder.

"What was that for?" He finally managed to ask. He was relieved his voice came out stronger than he felt.

"It was a thank you. And a promise. You can trust me Deacon."

The sun had finally dropped below the horizon, and the moon was now on the rise. The stars were starting to shine through the dusky sky, bathing the silent couple in a faint silvery glow. It took some time for Deacon's heart rate to finally slow, but eventually he was able to relax enough to adjust his arm so that Nora could rest her head more comfortably against his shoulder. An hour passed in comfortable silence before her head drooped, and he realized that she'd fallen asleep.

Deacon waited another half hour to make absolutely sure she wouldn't wake up before tentatively brushing a hand over the top of her head. He wasn't sure when or how it had happened, but whether he was willing to admit it to himself or not deep down he knew the truth. He was falling for Nora. The idea was almost more terrifying than the thought of leaving the Railroad without a plan, but he had a feeling that with Nora at his side everything would turn out alright. He'd never told her this, but he'd suspected that something like fate had brought the two of them together. They had each other's backs, and he knew without a doubt that she'd meant it when she said she was in his corner. And for the first time in his life, he'd really meant it when he'd told her that he was in hers.

He always had been, and always would be.

And that was the honest truth.