It was Nora who first saw the Red Rocket as it peeked over the hills along the road back to Sanctuary.

She had not spent much time working on the old fueling and coolant station, apart from enclosing the office. With some minimal shoring up, it had served as a useful shelter in those first few days following her exit from Vault 111. Her old home in Sanctuary Hills had been largely intact, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to stay there - too much quiet and too many ghosts. Even with Codsworth floating outside as a sentry, she couldn't keep her mind from wondering what might have been.

So she crossed the old wooden bridge and took shelter in the Red Rocket. Later, when Preston and the others came to live in Sanctuary, she joined them there. And now that Sanctuary was a bustling hamlet of over 25, the Red Rocket was used mainly for storage and for watering the Brahmin as their caravans passed.

But if you wanted to get away from town for a while, just for some peace and quiet? There was no better place this side of Concord.

Sturges had taken some time to look over the old station - he wanted to salvage whatever generator it used to keep those bright red lights glowing. After three days of sweat, he had found the solar panels and admitted defeat. No way he'd be able to move those without breaking them. He had salvaged some wiring, mainly to justify the time he'd spent, but the rest he left in place.

Coming up that hill, seeing that bright red light, had come to mean one thing for Nora.

Home again, she thought.

For Nick Valentine, Sanctuary Hills wasn't home, exactly. But seeing that red light meant that he could relax a little, that safety was not far away at all. The tallest building in Sanctuary was a four-story tower, and a sniper on its roof could (and frequently did) cover the Red Rocket. It also meant that they'd know about visitors before the visitors knew about them - a fact that had saved lives on more than one occasion.

As they approached, he saw the woman sitting on the station's roof, and smiled to himself.

Curie was sitting on the canopy, right at the base of the rocket that gave the franchise its name. Her feet dangled gently over the edge, and it was clear that she was waiting for something. As they approached, she smiled and began climbing down to them. Nick saw that the ladder was newer than he remembered - perhaps Sturges had been making upgrades again.

Nick watched her gracefully make her way to the ground, and smiled back at her. Hard to believe she's had legs for only a couple months, he thought.

"Madame, Monsieur!" Curie said as she approached. She was wearing Jeans and a T-shirt, and carried her medic bag. On one trek through an abandoned Fallon's, she had seen the messenger bag and taken it. Mama Murphy had helped her dye a traditional red cross into the fabric. Now she carried it whenever she left home.

Nick got a hug, which surprised him only a little - he guessed that Curie would have been a hugger even as a robot, had she not spent a century and a half in complete solitude in Vault 81. Curie gave Nora a deeper hug, which Nora returned. Nick gave them their space, walking with Dogmeat over to the building to get him some water.

"Did you…?" he heard Curie ask.

"Mais bien sûr," replied Nora, as she removed a small bundle from her pack. But of course, Nick translated to himself. So Nora had had a secret mission, eh?

He saw Curie take the bundle, hold it a moment, then place it into her own bag. Then Nora got another hug - which told Nick all he needed to know about how important this had been to the young woman.

Curie had known they would be passing near Vault 81, and Nora had said she needed to stop there for supplies. After they met with the overseer and visited with friends, Nora had gone with Nick into the secret lab area of the vault, where they had met Curie in the first place. Nick had kept watch for molerats while Nora copied some terminal entries and retrieved some other items. He never saw what she gathered, figuring that it was between Curie and Nora.

It was a mystery, and he was a detective, and it wasn't like he could turn off being a detective or anything. But if Curie wanted to share, she would. He had enjoyed their talks, as she learned to be a person - and, through her, he learned what a difference having a family could make to a newly integrated synth.

He had had to figure out life on his own. Though he turned out alright in the end, thank you very much, he was glad she had support. Nick expected that there would be times when she would need it.

oOoOoOoOo

Evenings were a more pleasant affair now that summer had arrived. Even with the hot days, having more daylight at the end of the day meant more time to relax, and less time wondering what horrors waited in the dark. They had no lack of volunteers for sentry duty, though Nora worried privately if that would last when the summer heat really kicked in.

The fact that Nora was thinking that far ahead meant she was putting down roots - a good sign, as far as Nick was concerned.

She had put down other roots, of course. After Sanctuary had begun to grow, she decided that the resources in Vault 111 might be salvageable. In there, they were useless, just gilding on a tomb - but out here, those metals and electronics might be the difference between life and death.

But she couldn't just raid the vault without burying its victims.

So they had buried 20 former residents of Sanctuary Hills in a clearing to the east - all but one. From her telling, she had not lived here long before she and her husband welcomed Shaun into their lives. She did not know her neighbors well. But she could not leave them in that cold vault while she and her new family slept in their homes.

To these they had added Tom Grant, who had died in a raider attack in early March, and Jim Coleman, who had died after eating bad meat.

Nearby, Nora had a small shelter built. Preston and Blake Abernathy had helped her build the forms, and Sturges figured out a good way to pour the concrete. To them, it was a test run - knowing that they could build their own concrete walls and structures would improve the settlement's defenses, given enough supplies.

To Nora, it was almost the most important structure they had built so far.

The shelter was open, just a wall and a bench that met at a 90 degree angle. The bench faced the graves - though few in the settlement even knew the names of the former residents, they had known Tom and Jim, and Nora sadly expected that they would be joined by others as time went on.

The wall had a number of small holes. 22 of the holes had small pegs. On one of these was a small screwdriver, the one that Jim had carried religiously, "Just in case." On another was a small chain with three shell casings. These had been Tom Grant's, and each of those three shots took down a raider, before their mates took care of Tom. But delaying their attack had saved lives - and it was a gesture Tom would have appreciated, Nora thought.

On the other 20 pegs were house keys. Some were crude replicas, and Nora was still unsure if she had found keys for every old house. But she hadn't known how else to thank her long dead neighbors for the gift of their homes. For the gift of sanctuary.

These are your homes too, she had thought at the time. Thank you.

On a small shelf at the top of the display was a pristine American Flag, folded and preserved in a display case. The case had been given to Nate when his father passed away. That flag had long since faded, so she replaced it with the cleanest one she had yet found in her travels.

Nate had never had a casket, other than that goddamned cryo-pod - so displaying his flag here would have to do. Once she found their son, once she had avenged her husband and dealt with the institute - however that happened - then, and only then, would she bring Nate here. Until then, he remained frozen in his cryo-pod, the look of anger and surprise still etched on his face.

Nora did not often come to the small memorial.

Nick did, however - he had known Tom, and one of the raiders he dispatched that night had been shooting at Nick. So when his travels took him to Sanctuary, Nick Valentine took some time to pay his respects.

He was not surprised to find Curie sitting on the bench.

"Bonjour" he said, lightly, butchering the accent enough, he thought, to bring a smile to her face. As she turned to him, he saw that it worked, if only just. Her mind was elsewhere.

I can guess where, he thought, starting to put the pieces together. He sat on the other end of the bench, giving her her space. He saw her bag on the ground at her feet, and three wooden pegs sitting next to her. Bingo.

She stood now, embarrassed. "Do not let me disturb you, Monsieur." She picked up her bag.

"Wait wait wait," Nick said. "You were here first. I should be the one leaving you to your peace." he waved his left hand, the one that looked closer to a normal human hand. "This isn't my spot - it's for everyone."

"I have no one here, though." she replied, sadly. She, too, waved a hand at the low mounds of dirt before them. "Tom and James died long before I met Nora, and the others died many years ago in the vault."

Nick sighed. "Funerals are for the living, Curie." He said, gently. When she cocked her head and looked quizzically at him, he continued. "It's just a saying. But when there is a funeral, the guest of honor is never there - he's already dead. The reason you have the funeral is so that the people who cared about him can share their stories and keep their memories alive. The funeral isn't for the dead man, it's for the people he left behind."

She nodded, but looked even sadder. Her eyes went to the bag.

"Besides," Nick continued. "Nora said you would need this." He reached into his coat pocket and removed the small mallet she had given him. It hadn't been a particularly subtle move on the General's part - but Nick had travelled with her for quite a while, and could read between the lines.

"Mon Dieu," Curie sighed, as she took the hammer. "Of course she would figure it out."

"She knows you better than you know yourself, at this point." Nick observed. "And she had inside information. But even I could see that something was on your mind." He reached out his hand to her. "Can I help?"

Curie smiled, and wiped away a tear. "Absolument." Then she handed the mallet and a peg over to the detective.

He chose three openings in the center of the wall, and placed each of the three pegs. When he was done, they were side by side. Then he stepped back.

Carefully, gently, she reached into her bag and removed a small piece of white cloth. It looked like it could have been a pre-war flag or tablecloth or something. Then Nick got it.

It's a lab coat.

Curie placed the cloth on her lap and began unwrapping it. Inside were three small pieces of plastic, each with text and a photograph. On one end was the magnetic stripe that would activate card readers or unlock terminals. At the bottom was the traditional radiation meter found on any Vault-tec ID badges.

Rising, she turned to the new pegs. Nick gently reached over and moved her bag, so that she did not have to step over it. She nodded, and handed him two of the badges. The third, she attached to the first peg.

"Doctor Collins was the one who adjusted my core programming so that I could learn and grow." She said. "He added works from so many of your finest scientists, and told me to continue their work. After a while, he said that the experiment was a success because it resulted in my creation." At this, she sighed and looked to Nick. "I did not understand this, we had not completed any viable antiviral agents, and we had not yet approached any breakthrough. And I was just a robot."

"Don't sell yourself short, kid." Nick said. "You're not 'just' anything, especially now."

She smiled, and her eyes went to the id. The face was older, and its expression had the look of a kindly professor. How he got wrapped up in Vault-Tec's shenanigans was anyone's guess.

She placed a hand on Collins' badge. "I would not be who I am without his kindness." After a moment, she reached her hand back. Nick handed her the second badge. She looked at it and smiled, then placed it on the next peg.

"Doctor Flint was the last of the three to treat me as a person, rather than a device." She looked at Nick. "Maybe you will understand this, yes? Do people look at you and see the metal, see the hardware, before they come to know you as you?" Nick's nod was met by her own. "So it was with me. He was not cruel to me, not once, but I was a tool, nothing more."

Nick followed her eyes as they went back to the badge. The man's face looked vaguely annoyed, as if he had better things to be doing than having his picture taken by security. "One day Doctor Collins was ill, and Doctor Burrows had gone to assist him. So it was just Dr. Flint and I, and he asked me to proofread the formula he was working on."

She grinned at Nick. "I had already interfaced with his terminal before he realized what he had said. 'Curie, come check my work, dear,' he said." Nick chuckled at her attempted Boston accent. "Monsieur, we never discussed it, but from that day on he never called me 'Contagions Unit' again."

Nick handed her the third badge, and she placed it on the last peg. The face was a very young man, maybe a college student? Dark hair, grin - he looked like an ass kisser. Or a young patrol officer eager to make detective.

Curie sighed, and sat back down. Nick took his seat as well.

"Monsieur Burrow was the youngest of the three, and the last to expire. During our last conversation, he directly ordered me to carry on the work. To make sure that their deaths were not in vain." She looked at his smiling image. "And I did."

"Monsieur Burrow would have died in the detonations, except that he wanted to impress his supervisor. So he arrived at the vault minutes before the first alert went out. Once he asked Dr. Collins if he would have been luckier dying with the city. Dr. Collins told him that he still had a purpose as long as he had something to give to the world. That their work would outlive them." Now Curie tilted her head, as if she were accessing some long forgotten memory.

"Nick, I remember the moment clearly. These memories, I made sure to bring with me to this new body." her brow furrowed as she replayed the scene in her mind. "When Dr. Collins referred to their work, he nodded at me. He looked at my primary camera and nodded, raising his coffee mug as he did so." A tear fell. "How did I not see this at the time? What does that mean?"

Nick reached out to her, held her trembling hands. "It means that you were young and newly programmed, and didn't notice it for what it was. That's all." He smiled at her. "And as for what it means, Isn't that obvious? He was proud of you."

She lifted a hand to wipe tears away. "He always said so. Now that I have these feelings I can see it."

She grew quiet as she looked at the wall, at the three badges. Presently, Nick spoke softly. "I wonder what they'd say if they could see you now."

Curie answered him at once, her eyes twinkling with both tears and the beginnings of a smile. "Monsieur Burrow would ask me why I couldn't have become a woman two hundred years ago." Her head tilted again, and she continued. "Dr. Flint would thank me for becoming a more efficient assistant, I think."

"And Dr. Collins…." her voice trailed off.

He'd call you daughter. Nick thought to himself. He did not press the matter. Curie remained silent for a long time.

oOoOoOoOo

When the sky started to darken, Curie rose and picked up her bag, the lab coat tucked safely inside. She whispered quietly to herself, and then walked with Nick back to Sanctuary.

Nick smiled in spite of himself - he felt like he had intruded on that last moment. For he had heard what she said to the three badges. To the faces of the three scientists who, together, had given her life and purpose and the need to become as she was - so that she could learn and grow and continue the work, as she had been ordered to do.

"Messieurs, Merci pour ma vie."

Gentlemen, Thank you for my life.

A/N: Another of my old Fallout 4 stories. Curie learning how to be a person fascinated me, and most of my old Fallout stories center around her journey.

Originally published on AO3 as "Eulogy" on 3 October 2016.