Original Date: 2018

Series: Fallout 4

Notes: Out of all the stories, this is the most recent one. It was my own shot at the "Kellogg takes over Valentine" plot thread that went nowhere, though to be honest this was more a drabble because I had the first line stuck in my head.

Reasons for abandonment: Didn't like where I was going with it. There are more chapters than this but they didn't make sense compared to my outline and my constant brain fog means that replanning this takes a ton of energy. But I like the first chapter so I decided to upload only that. Maybe one day when I'm feeling better I'll be able to get to it. Feel free to shoot me a PM on this one if you'd like to hear what I was originally planning or want to donate some brainstorms.

Dying didn't hurt as much as Kellogg thought it would.

He wasn't talking about the physical pain, of course. The cybernetics numbed out most of it, and what was left was a sensation that he learned how to tune out years ago. No, he was talking about the fire of the vault dweller's eyes as she stared him down, a hiss escaping from her gritted teeth, blood leaking from a wound hiding somewhere in her scalp. The fury of a woman scorned, of a mother scorned, as she sought revenge for the life that was stolen from her.

She was everything that he hated about himself.

He didn't even remember which hit was the killing blow. But he remembered falling with a leg shot out from under him, his revolver taking its last shots before he blacked out. When he finally came to he was forced to relive decades of his life, seeing memories he'd locked away for so long that he'd almost forgotten he had them in the first place. He saw his mother again, his wife, his child. He saw the low-lifes, the synths, the eggheads in hazmats.

He saw the blood fly from her husband's head as it whipped backwards from the shot.

Being dead felt a lot like being half-asleep, he realized. Not that he could really remember what that was like, either-the implants made basic human needs near obsolete. But he remembered what a groggy head felt like; how nerves would cling to whatever thought they could when his mind couldn't concentrate. How his filter just disappears. But when he finally got a hold of Valentine, when the circuits in him were able to get past the firewall and make the connection, he felt alive again. And he was full of rage.

"Hope you got what you were looking for inside my head."

It was petty, those words. He knew that. But he couldn't deny the satisfaction he got from seeing her break down in front of him, the shaking of her hands as she tried to understand what she was hearing. But just as easily as he could break in, Valentine took over again and he was sent back to being an observer. There was still a lot he had to figure out in order to make this work. But it was a start.

Now the real fun could begin.