Chapter Two: Cornered
"Knight?"
The sweet, familiar rumble of his voice drew her absolute attention if not her title, and with it she realized that she had been staring at the wall for an unhealthy amount of time, at least according to the unadulterated look of worry that pulled on the masculine planes of her superior's face, weathered and dark and hovering expectantly just breaths away from her. She felt an unexpected pang of guilt, fervent and swift, and gave him a half-hearted grin before turning away again, shifting her position on the bare, dirt floor and reveling for a moment in the satisfying pop of her spine as she straightened it.
"Paladin."
They were holed up in a cramped, deserted building on the outskirts of the city, having been forced to find shelter when a yellow storm and the oily dark of approaching night restricted their visibility, not to mention that they were exhausted as utter shit after having nearly uprooted the entire Cambridge area on Elder Maxson's goose chase; he and Proctor Quinlan had decided that locating the source of an unknown, sporadic electrical transmission that had made an appearance on their charts was to be tasked unto the first sorry faces they bumped into — because why not — completely disregarding how recently the operatives in question had returned from a previous mission, their still-healing wounds, and probably also laughing maniacally behind their backs. She and Danse dutifully complied, though after the third hour of running up and down the same street holding a radar screen above her head like an asshole, Nora had admittedly started to feel a little irritable even before the acid rain started falling on her. Danse had lead her from the maze of once familiar buildings, barking out orders, keeping the soldier in his voice despite the sad hilarity of the situation, and thus she found herself cold and hungry and wet in the middle of a plywood shack, empty-handed in regards to her mission, and reduced to staring at rotting wood as if it was going to start telling her its life story at any moment.
Ad Vic-fucking-torium.
"Are you alright?"
Danse had stepped from his power armor only moments before, and in their closeness she could see beads of sweat pool at his brow and fall down his cheek, catching in his stubble and glinting in the cold light of his discarded helmet's flashlight, the perpetual griminess of him seemingly untouched. It was always strange to see him like this, so naked and small, and so much more human than she was used to without the plates of abrasive steel that had more than once stopped a bullet to his heart. She was thankful for it, and for the protection it offered them both, but she enjoyed the rare moments when he gave it leave to rest, when she could remind herself of the overwhelming fragility of him that he routinely forgot existed, when they could speak and look at each other without her feeling distinctly intimidated by the sheer power of him. She could steal a touch some nights, when he shed his fatalism and his artificial confines, just a brush of skin that was real and warm when their shifts rotated or when his eyes looked too sad in the shadows of a safehouse after a battle that lasted too long, and she began to realize that he couldn't hide his heartache well without that metal barrier to protect him.
She would've taken this time to watch him, assessing and disassembling, the question he asked of her forgotten, but the stark orange of his uniform distracted her as it pulled and wrinkled in dancing rivulets over his muscles at work, moving him closer, and her awareness of him increased tenfold. His body thumped unceremoniously when he sat to join her, folding his legs stiffly beneath him, and she quickly met his eyes, effectively hiding her unease from sight as she watched his fierce attempts to read her face, willing her thoughts to bare themselves to him, simple curiosity withheld from his features only by the deep frustration in his knitted brows. The intensity of him so suddenly intruding her space took away her breath and lodged it somewhere deep in her throat, turning to hot acid like the rain she heard still drumming against the roof, and she supposed he thought she must have been turning his question over in her mind in the long heartbeats it took for her to find it again. She swept her fingertips over the raw chords of the stitching that now braided across her jaw unconsciously as if it would bring her some comfort, the flesh still unsurprisingly red and half-split, Knight Captain Cade's handiwork in the time he was allowed before they left the Prydwen still an impressive thing.
"I'm fine," she tried, but it sounded strangled, shallow, and with an exasperated sigh she turned the tables, looking away to watch her soggy boots dry. "Are you?"
He flexed out his fingers, dropped his shoulders, the jutting square of his jaw clenching in her peripheral vision, unhappy with her response, almost uncomfortably so. "Yes, I am," he announced, the sound rushed and annoyed, choosing not to ignore her flimsy attempt at getting him talking but throwing it back in her face all the same, rotating his body so that he leaned toward her, asking, open. "So long as you are in my care I would appreciate your cooperation. If something is troubling you, I insist that you tell me what it is."
His persistence sent an unwarranted jolt of anxiety down the back of her neck, and she wondered how it was that he thought anything was wrong with her at all. He knew her fears, her story, he had seen her bleed and seen her kneel over in a pain he had bloodied his own hands to silence, had stood witness to her tears, if only once; what else did he want from her? What could he have seen in her cold, distant eyes that had instilled this idea that she needed him to help her, that he needed some guarded truth to be revealed, here and now, for both their sakes? Though the thought that he could so easily see through her was maddening, she patiently reminded her worse self that he was a friend, forgiving, uncut marble, every inch of her measly strength doubled and epitomized, that he could hold up a weight heavier than anything she had ever held on her shoulders and then some. The scar that sliced through his one heavy eyebrow twitched in his muted onslaught, and reluctantly she began to yield, exhaustion taking its toll on her defenses, on her bones, allowing some semblance of the age she felt show on her face, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead stained with the end-product of successful combat.
"I'm just tired. Of ... a lot." It wasn't a lie, but her lips closed around the sound of more words before they could spill and he could hear the weakness in them, and she pivoted to look at him, finding acceptance and a quiescent knowing marking the corners of his mouth, declaring herself the winner before the race had even started. His eyes were calmer, the slowing patter of gentle rain above her head, when he turned to her again.
"You haven't requested leave to continue your search for your son." He stopped, watching her, absorbing the quickness of her inhale and the flick of her eyes, rewording his next statement in his mind until it was softer. "Do you need anything?"
Damn him.
"Yes," she breathed, too aware of how close her arm rested next to his, pulling away. "No, I -" she laughed, a broken sound, over her struggle, settling her gaze on the ceiling for a moment before meeting him head-on. "I just need more time, that's all. I need to ... fix this -" she gestured towards all of herself. "- before I see him. Before he sees me."
He stared back, unrelenting, unfazed, taking everything in stride, though she thought she saw something small and horrible flicker through him, something she had hoped she would never have to face in another, especially not him. Pity.
He shook his head. "I see nothing that needs fixing, soldier." He added the last word as insurance, to distance himself, if only slightly. The edges of his mouth twitched into something akin to reassuring, but she couldn't swallow it. She swung up in a single movement from her place on the floor, breaking their contact, removing him from her thoughts forcefully and with a detachment so bitter that he could feel the sparks tickle the hair on his forearms, finding something slightly more interesting in the chest plate of his power armor, her arms tight and intertwined, holding her together from behind her back.
"That's only because you like me so damn much."
He remained seated, allowing her to walk untethered, to kick up dust by his feet, stretch out her tired arms like a cat feigning disinterest in her prey. "You don't think your son likes you?"
She spun on her heels, ambling across the room, bringing a chill with her that spread past the walls and out into the night with a vengeance. She shrugged without looking at him. "No."
"That's ridiculous," he started, not having to crane his neck much to glare up at her, seeking out her eyes so that he could burn his disapproval into them, to make sure she knew that she was wrong, that she was being unreasonable, so that he could help her. She refused to let him, and in a single gesture, loud and harsh, crossed her arms over her chest and signaled the end of that and any further conversation. He didn't take the hint. "You're letting your paranoia blind your judgment. No matter how much time that has passed -"
"But time has passed," she spit as if he were oblivious to the fact, as if he were a child that didn't understand, and heat rushed through her veins with the first ripple of rage and her lips twitched behind the growing volume of her voice. "Ten years have passed. That's not something I can just ignore. I mean, I almost didn't recognize my own goddamned son in Kellogg's memories; how could I ever expect him to recognize me, to know what I am to him, to believe me when I tell him?" She turned away fully from his view, the ruts between her brows eating into her face, and let the sharpness of her own words cut her right down the middle. "He has a new family, now." And he's safer in the Institute than he ever would be with me.
Her pain didn't go unregistered, and his hands trembled around what she had given him, knowing well his strength and how easily he could crush it and feeling quite nearly fearful over her vulnerability, but she was his soldier, and to him he saw only someone who needed guidance, his guidance, so when he hardened his voice he thought it was for her. "When I first met you, there was no mission more important to you than finding Shaun. That you would abandon him so quickly -"
He witnessed his fault in judgment whip out before him like the crack of green lighting and strike her before it was too late.
She turned on him at full force, eyes livid, her son's name still lingering on the air in Danse's unforgiving voice, a breach in privacy, a heat on her cheeks that spurned her on, and leapt up to him with a finger pressed down into his chest. "Don't you dare." He was shocked into stillness for a breath of a second, all movement but for the fuming shadows on him gone from his face until he pressed hard into her accusatory finger with a frown, slowly heaving forward to stand, whether threatened by her height over him in that moment or preparing to stop her from running out the door, she couldn't say. She bent her neck to keep him in view as he unloaded the terrifying arsenal of the feet he had on her even without his armor, and the edges of him burned red as her vision narrowed into daggers. "Don't you dare assume to know what I do or what I feel, Paladin. To say that I'm abandoning my son now would be like to say that you abandoned Cutler." She watched as he began to deflate just as quickly as he had risen to the challenge, his eyes losing some of their steel, and the regret that she felt, the betrayal that barraged her in choking waves that rolled off of his body the moment she said it was more than she could bear. Her corruption of such personal information, secret information, a name that he had spoken to her in confidence now turned against him made her tongue feel gritty and her stomach start to twist, but she didn't show it, and she remained standing against him, resolute. His face was scored with a deep and unwavering sorrow, just barely revealing itself but always there, a hungry bleakness that stole away the honeyed light in him and turned him grey, and he worked to push it down with a swiftness that only came with practice.
"Then why do you run?" He tried, and though his arms hung limp and useless by his sides his voice rang out with full-bodied capability, and he blinked down at her, his chin hanging high from over the crown of her matted hair, trudging on.
She faltered, suddenly unsure of the truth, and she allowed her arms to fall parallel to his, anger still blooming behind her ribs hindered by the confused hurt that radiated off of him. She breathed heavy into the narrow space between them and watched as the warmth of her rose, tentative, in smokey tendrils against the winter chill. "I don't know," she said plainly, trying not to feel the hollowness in the words and failing, and desperately she added: "I know you want to help me, Danse. I know you want to ... to know what the fuck I am, but-" The hiss of his exhale was steady and patient, and he had closed his eyes, his careful hands which she hadn't realized were clenched going slack against his thighs.
"I know enough," he told her, smooth and cool iron, and she expected to see him angry, or resentful, or mocking, but his eyes had opened again, and he peered down at her through lashes that framed utter warmth, and she saw one side of his mouth pull up in a half-smile, and his compassion was mesmerizing. She knew what he was saying, what he meant: you're enough. I'm sorry. Tell me in your own time, and she didn't deserve him. She released the tension in her face and nodded, just slightly, suddenly wanting nothing more than accept the peace he had offered her and to forget, for them both to forget, and to let the night carry them away to someplace better, and so she stepped out and away from the ring. She thought she saw his hand lift to reach for her, hesitant and heavy, fluttering in and out of of her vision with a nervous tick, but she was tired and her mouth was still cotton and her guilt still pounded through her like the din of war, so she quickly slid back down to the floor to sit at his feet before she had the chance to feel it — whatever it was. He joined her after a long, agonizing pause and scooted back to lean his head against the furthermost wall, pools of purple-blackness settling in around his eyes, relenting his rummaging through her soul to slump against the weight of the evening with a resurgence of stoic poise. He found the same solace that she had in the the wood planks on the opposite wall, a thickness separating them like a tangible presence.
"I'll take first watch. We leave at sunrise," he said, his voice too loud, too perfect, and suddenly he was the Paladin again, his expression unreadable, so easily wiped clean after the turmoil that had nearly raged upon it, and he reached over for something at his side before tossing a well-worn blanket into her lap. "Get some sleep, knight."
She took the fabric and bunched it into her hands, scratching like sandpaper, and looked to him as if for guidance, for some semblance of what to say, of what to end it with, but she saw that he had already accepted the night for what it was, and she was at a loss. Half of her didn't want to leave it at that, to let him take away what he took; it wanted to scream at him, make her pound her fists against the flat expanse of his chest, call him a thief for stealing into her like that, to so gently leave her with his little comfort and his graciousness as if he had the right, but the other half was stronger. She could've argued that he couldn't fix her, but then, he didn't want to fix her, and she knew that; he wanted her, his knight, his sister, his friend, just as she was. This was for her sake. He had given her the chance to stop lying to her herself, to change, to be something different, offering the sturdiness of his understanding like a crutch for her to lean on, but she was blind, and stupid, and pieces of her were broken, and when she curled up on her side with the blanket that smelled like him, her arm under her head as a pillow, she fought hard to keep her eyes from stinging.
"Goodnight, Danse." She whispered finally before her body fell under, and it was a long time before she heard him respond, faint behind the haze of near-sleep.
"Goodnight."
Nora.
