1. They Can't Take That Away From Me
We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced 'til three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me
Her heart was pounding and she felt sick to her stomach about all the people she had been forced to leave behind but stepping into the open air, into real sunlight that blinded her, something seemed to click inside, something she hadn't realized had been left out of place until that moment. The sheer amount of space she was looking at as her eyes adjusted pressed the ache of loss down to something she could ignore, replaced by giddy curiosity. She didn't even notice when she stopped crying, the tears drying up in the heat of the August sun.
This "outside" was different than she'd imagined. It wasn't the green wonderland that the history books said it once was, nor was it a total wasteland like the Overseer said. Everything was bleak and washed out and destroyed, true, but even in this desolation, she got the sense that life had fought on. It was different, maybe, but life had found a way.
Of course, that moment as she stared in awe across the wasteland was when the bullet wound across her arm had decided to flare up. She clenched her teeth together to bite back the whimper of pain, not entirely sure how safe it was. Twisting around to peer at it, she saw the red staining the brilliant blue of her Vault suit and the tear in the fabric.
"Damn, I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb."
Trying not to move her injured arm too much, she dropped the backpack from her shoulders and pulled out Butch's jacket. She stared at it for a few heartbeats, fingers lightly tracing the stitching on the back.
Even though the black leather was well maintained and gleaming, it was still less obtrusive than the blue Vault suit. And really, why did Vault-Tec think it was a good idea for that very obvious blue to be the color of the jumpsuits? Not that they could have known way back when how badly anyone who wore a Vault suit would have stuck out in an irradiated wasteland and yet in the Vault, it hadn't seemed as bright as it did in the sunlight. Clearly the Simu-sun lighting was a pale comparison to actual sunlight and no one in the Vault knew any better. She snorted aloud at the awful pun, hearing Butch's groan in her mind.
For the first time in years, she felt a genuine hunger to learn and pull apart the way the world worked.
First things first, however. She needed to stitch herself up and she needed to get to Megaton. Probably in that order, though. She knew from experience that blood loss made her an idiot.
She fished through the front pocket of her backpack, retrieving the needle and thread she'd taken to carrying around after she got stuck in a vent and ripped a massive hole in the side of her Vault suit. Still, her fingers holding the needle spasmed from the pain as she pressed the tip to her torn flesh. A strangled whimper yanked itself free from her throat and for a brief moment, she feared she'd crack her teeth from the way she'd clamped down. Still, she persisted, sweat streaming down her back and face and making it all the more difficult to hold onto the blood-slicked needle and whining desperately against the urge to cry out. When finished, she snipped the thread with shaking fingers and pressed a rag to her arm, feeling the sting and blinking fresh tears from her eyes..
Okay. Outside meant a place where she had to willingly put a needle through her skin instead of having a little dose of Med-X and letting her father stitch her up, just like he had when-
She yanked away from that line of thinking, instead touching Butch's jacket again. She pressed her nose to it, eyes closing at the smell of pomade and smoke. A genuine sob rose up in her throat. Instead of letting it take over, she slipped the jacket on, careful of her wound. It would do her absolutely no good to turn into a blubbering mass. Dehydration was probably a huge problem outside and her dad had drilled it into her since probably before she could remember that she needed to always drink as much water as she could. She smiled before the thought provoked a pang of anger. She couldn't afford to lose any water on something so unnecessary as tears, not when she needed to find her dad and yell at him.
As she knelt down to pick her backpack up, tendrils of her hair that had escaped her shoddy bun fell into her face. She froze, eyes widening with every second that she remained motionless. With a barely muffled yelp, she yanked the strands forward so she could better see the color. She'd never seen anything that color in the Vault. The closest thing she'd ever seen was fire when Andy accidentally exploded an oven years ago. But the glow of her hair surpassed that out in the sunlight. Hey, Carrots. Butch's voice echoed in her head, the teasing from before her hair had darkened to what now accounted to an actual beacon in the washed out landscape. "What-I-How?" She lost her balance, sprawling on her ass in the dust. She groaned loudly, head dropping into her chest. Her tense neck muscles protested against the pull. "Inconspicuous for once in my life, please." One hand blindly reached for her pack and she fished through it, hunting for the battered baseball cap she'd gotten as a present for her sixteenth birthday.
Pain pulsed up her injured arm when she raised it to tuck her hair up underneath it. Wound taken care of, sort of. Check. She pulled up the files she'd transferred to her Pip-boy from the Overseer's terminal. "Okay, Megaton." She lifted her head, scowling briefly at the sun overhead before she turned her attention to the southeast. A sprawling mass of metal rose in the distance. She glanced back down, studying the information before nodding. Her eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun as she looked back up. "That's gotta be it."
She tipped her head back to look at the sky, at the sun. Steeling herself, she hauled herself to her feet and dug her teeth into her lower lip as she dragged the backpack onto her shoulder and started off across the Wasteland.
AN: So if this looks a little familiar, it's because I took down my old story to rework it and get back into it. Stronger sense of where I'm actually going with the story. Anyway, let me know what you think: good, bad and ugly. I'm always looking to improve the fiction writing.
Title and lyrics from They Can't Take That Away From Me by Peggy Lee (1959).