For You, The World

Piper barely saw anything before the woman dressed in blue stumble and collapse onto the door of Diamond City, supported by a DC security guard. "Get her inside! Mutants are coming!"

Piper banged on the intercom again. "Did you hear that Danny?! We've got wounded and Mutants are incoming! These guys need backup!"

The radio crackled as the great green and yellow hydraulics groaned to life, "Alright, alright!" Danny exclaimed.

The guard shoved the blonde onto Piper, shouldered his rifle, and began to return fire. Incompetent as they were pursuing possible missing persons, DCS was far from lazy or ineffective when it came to immediate and tangible threats. Like Super Mutants. Or a lack of dinner.

The door opened enough to duck underneath and scramble inside Diamond City's entrance. Bullets pinged off of the metal behind them, along with Molotov cocktails and lots of yelling. DCS officers were sprinting towards them, "Move it, move!"

The woman was light, weighted down only by her heavy boots, the .45 strapped in a loose holster, and of course by the several inch-deep laceration on her shoulder. Her gold hair was matted with blood, what looked like twin bullet holes to her left leg, and her clothing- wait, was that a vault suit?

"Doctor Sun! Doc! Dammit, I need help over here!" Piper screamed.

Pastor Clements was first to arrive, putting the woman's-Blue, Piper decided- right arm around his shoulder. Sun ran to them. "By god. Get her to the medical center, quickly!"

"No doc, we were just going to let you operate on her here." Piper wheezed as they dragged/sprinted the semiconscious woman to triage.

"Not time for sarcasm!" Sun snapped at Piper. "Get me antiseptic, now! Pastor, hold her down, I'm out of pain reliever. She's going to fight."

Clements and Piper scrambled to do as instructed. Sun grabbed his suture kit and emergency trauma aids. He set to work even before Piper completed finding the antiseptic, "Won't that infect her?"

"Deal with infection after she's stabilized. Have you found the antiseptic?"

Piper grabbed a jar of clear liquid and ran it to the doctor. "Here!"

The surgery took six hours, taking the four into the dark of night. Blue had screamed to the point where Nat felt the need to come outside to make sure there weren't wolf ghosts howling. They had eventually resorted to duct taping her mouth shut, compliments of Myrna, who figured "Anyone who screams and bleeds that much probably isn't a synth."

Pastor Clements sat next to the cot where the patient was fitfully sleeping, IV bags everywhere. Doctor Sun was passed out in his house, door open for any more updates of yelling. Piper was leaned up against a cabinet. They sat quietly for a good long while, listening to the woman shudder, groan, and mutter in her sleep. Piper caught the words vault, Shaun, and dog. The first word jogged her mind as to what Blue's suit said-
"Vault 111," Piper said aloud, to no one in particular.

Pastor Clements looked up. "I haven't heard of that one yet."
"Me either. That's why I'm worried. What happened in the Vault to make her come here? And what happened to her on the way?"

Clements looked thoughtful. Or maybe just shell shocked. He looked about as bad as Piper felt. For someone near death and missing most of their internal blood, holding the woman down had exhausted Piper more than running away from most things in the commonwealth. "Perhaps she was running toward something?"

"Maybe, but if she was from a vault, her whole life would have been there. I want to interview her when she wakes up."

Even in the moonlight, the pastor's face looked a little judgemental. "I hardly think she needs someone butting into her life right now-"

"Probably not, but you know me. I don't let anything go."

Clements raised an eyebrow, his equivalent of an eye roll. "Go sleep on it. I'll get you if she wakes up."

Piper stood, leaning heavily on the counter. "Thanks, pastor."

The reporter walked across the footpath to her house, entered the house, and promptly crashed on the couch.

.o.0.o.

The rapping on the metal door pulled Piper from sleep into a daze. "I'll get it!" shouted Nat, who was clearly skipping school. Again. "Hey Doc! Come on in."

"You're- ungh- so grounded-mmmph" Piper groaned out.

"Piper? It's the woman." Doctor Sun said, gently shaking her shoulder. "She's awake and kicking, literally."

Piper flopped off the couch. It wasn't her proudest moment. She got to her feet slowly. "Alright. Let's see the patient."

The patient was ripping IV needles out of her arm, cursing, swearing, muttering, and sweating profusely. "Fuckin pincushion is what I end up being. Two hundred goddamn years on ice and this is the first thing to happen. Oh sure, nukes drop, 'Let's hide underground babe, we were both in the army so we'll definitely get on the list.' Dammit Nate."

Piper heard every word, but it was like hearing a different language. The Vault dweller spotted her and Sun. "Oh no you don't, stay the fuck away from me." She reached for her pistol, which was now lying near a surgery tray. Sun snatched it before she could lay a hand. "I just spent six hours sewing your injuries, not to mention I gave you a free haircut, so quit trying to put holes in people you can't pay to put back together!"

The woman had frozen- her eyes were wild, likely from pain Piper guessed, but her voice was mostly controlled when she asked, "You're- you're not experimenting on me- your coat says- Vault-Tec and-"

Piper knelt, grabbed the woman's shoulders, and said, "We're trying to help you. Please trust me. You need to rest."

She felt her heart reach out to this beautiful, lost woman.

Blue's eyes became unfocused and began to spin. "Oh, God," she whispered, before collapsing sideways onto the cot.

Sun sighed. "She should be out for a few minutes. Do you think you could check with Solomon to see if he has any sedatives?"

Go figure, he too was out of supplies due to increased raider activity on supply lines.

Piper took a chair next to the woman, while Sun went to consult with Crocker on- whatever, and began to study this mysterious woman.

Sun had indeed shaved a third of her scalp to access a shrapnel slice across her right temple. That alone was probably the least interesting part of her. She had her Vault Suit peeled back to her torso, a complicated series of gauze wraps and duct tape covered most of her shoulder and chest, and obscuring a tattoo on her bicep. A silver bead chain ran into those same bandages, hiding whatever pendant was below. An engagement ring and wedding ring sat on her finger. Blue had two scars on her face, one perpendicular to her left eye and one on her chin, like she'd smacked her head on a set of monkey bars. She had a second tattoo on her right side ribcage. It looked mercenary, like she was from the Gunners. But the Gunners used a tattoo on their foreheads, nowhere else. Part it was torn away and healed over with another scar.

, E

2-47-5239

AB POS

NONDENOM

WE FALL AS ONE

With more information came new questions. What faction tattooed their members? Did they operate out of Vault 111? Were they like the Capital Brotherhood down south? Or some maniacs in the Midwest? With no good answers, she sighed and began work on the issue. Halfway through her second paragraph describing being ejected from the city by the mayor, it began to rain. Pour, really. It was very relaxing.

"God, look at how fucked up this world is." A soft voice said to her left.

"Excuse me?" Piper said, astonished.

"This was a ball park. Diamond City, my ass"

"This is one of the biggest cities in the Commonwealth. Best fortifications around."

"And what are you?"

"Who am I. I'm just as human as you are, Blue."

"Blue?"

"Yeah, you know, the Vault suit. Blue. Anyways, I'm a reporter. Who are you?"

"I guess I'm a machinist."

"You build robots?" Piper stood, on guard. She'd heard rumors about a crazy person who sent out killer robots across the 'wealth.

"What? No, I hate computers. A machinist is someone who builds parts to high tolerances."

"How did you learn that? I can't think of anywhere that teaches that kind of skill."

"Well, I'm from the Midwest. Taught myself." Her left eyebrow jerked up.

"So why are you here?"

"A Minuteman- Preston- Told me to come here."

"The Minutemen? Thought they were all wiped out. What are you looking for?"

"Well...