Moment 01: Second Fiddle
Blue is a packrat. She gives a little roll of her eyes whenever Piper dryly points that out - "I'm a scavenger, thank you." - but she really is, because scavengers... scavenge. They pick and choose; they don't just grab everything that isn't bolted down, lug it halfway across the Commonwealth to a settlement and scrap the lot for parts.
It's great exercise, if nothing else; especially since Piper usually ends up carrying several extra pounds worth of random junk herself, just to keep her friend from breaking her back.
It's also obviously worth it. The settlements that Blue essentially plays one-woman caravan for are probably the most well-supplied ones out there aside from the few, established cities; built as well as anyone can with what little technology and knowledge is available, all self-sufficient and protected by walls and towers and guards armed and armored by yet more of Blue's 'scavenging'.
The children of those settlements have more toys, Piper thinks, than the ones living in the Upper Stands of Diamond City. She doesn't waste the breath to ask Blue why she makes such an effort to not scrap those, or why she makes sure that there's always a small collection ready for a new child in every settlement.
The answer's pretty obvious, and the toys aren't that heavy, anyway. It's worth the effort to have all these kids so much better off than she was, way back when.
Piper considers making an offer to look over the guard postings and patrol plans since she did learn a good bit about that from her father – enough that she also had a hand in the layout of Diamond City's defenses – but with every new settlement they visit, it becomes increasingly obvious that she doesn't need to. The outer defenses are evenly spaced and the inner, worst-case-scenario ones strategically placed. Even the weapons are spread evenly among the guards; long-range for the outer towers and short-range one-helluva-punch for those that'll be right in the line of fire.
She isn't even surprised that all the tactical planning is Blue's handiwork, too. It's becoming increasingly apparent that there's nothing this woman can't do.
"I didn't know you were a soldier, Blue."
That earns her a look up from those very plans; from a crudely drawn local map spread over a table in the middle of the structure that serves as the central hub for this particular settlement. The look is warm and wry and a little amused, and Piper is suddenly very aware of how late it is and how alone the two of them are; of how warm the lighting from the few lamps is, and of how the only sounds are those of two sets of breathing, the night outside and the occasional, far-off murmur of the guards' voices.
"No more than anyone else out here," Blue says, and drops her gaze back to the map while Piper finally regains the presence of mind to breathe. "But I did pick up a few things from my husband, I suppose."
Right; her husband. Piper drinks from her glass and tries to get her wits about her. "Wow," she drawls. "Pillow-talk at your house was interesting, huh?"
A pencil bounces off of her shoulder for that remark, and Piper snorts and throws it back in exchange for another eye-roll.
She watches Blue makes notes on the map in the hand-writing of someone who was taught not just to write, but to write beautifully, and reminds herself that she really needs to get over this stupid crush.
There's no point in playing second fiddle to a ghost.