This sort of shot makes itself. Like something out of an old movie, I took a deep breath in, aimed and fired. Wham. Straight through the back of that raider son of a bitches head. I turned to Nick and winked.
"There's a reason why they call me Bullseye." I whispered. His face was serious. Not that it was always easy to tell what he was thinking, him being a synth and all. But right now it looked especially flat.
"Come on," he said, "I doubt this'll be the last of them and Winter will be holed up further in."
I said nothing more and followed his lead. He was on edge. Tense and nervous and clinical. Well, finding Eddie Winter had been a long time coming, 200 years in fact. I couldn't blame Nick for not being as chirpy as usual. We continued our firefight through Andrew Station. The raiders seemed to just keep coming but Nick just kept shooting. Methodical and dare I say it, robotic. It was like he was shutting down that human side of himself that I'd grown so fond of. Was he preparing himself for what he was about to do? I tried not to get too distracted. My rifle in hand I took down my fair share of those bastards.
In the beginning, I mean when I'd first stumbled into this horrifying, post apocalyptic nightmare, I found it difficult to adjust. I mean, even the thought of picking up a gun made me nervous. I wasn't about that in my past life. I was a lawyer, I used words and I talked people down... In my new life? Nobody seemed to wanna talk anymore. I say new, because... Well everything about my old life was dead. My house, my husband, my parents... For all I knew my kid could be dead too.
The butt of my rifle smacked a raider particularly hard in the face whenever I thought of my son. For so long I had trudged through this waste land hoping to find my boy. For so long I'd wished that I'd get to feel his tiny weight in my arms, even just for a second... I remembered Kellogg wrenching him from Nate's arms, not even hesitating when he shot him. He took my baby and that was that. I was sure to make that bastard pay in blood. But even after trudging through that poor bastard's head, I still felt no closer to my son. I wished over and over that one day I'd look down into his rotten crib and see him smiling up at me, waving about his little arms and legs like he had done before.
Things had been so different back then. I was content. I didn't have to worry about radiation poisoning or running into a mob of raiders. Things had been simple and easy. My life was going according to plan, I had a family, a nice house... I had so much hope, so many things to look forward to. Now it was all death and destruction and worry, but the thought finding Sean always drove me forward.
Nick and I stood in the aftermath of the fight, both of us breathing heavily. I wasn't even sure if he needed to breathe or if it was just a memory of what the old Nick did. I found myself smiling at the thought. He nodded his head to the left, down a tunnel through a hole in the wall and lead us up a flight of steps. He still said nothing, just kept that straight robotic expression fixed on his face. In the back of my mind I remembered the old Nick Valentine. He'd been some wise ass cop always trying to put the bad guys away. A noble cause, but not an easy one in Boston. If I had a nickle for every time some scumbag got off because of bad evidence or a sudden "disappearance" of a witness, I wouldn't need to be a fuckin' lawyer. I think we crossed paths on one occasion. It was some small time drug pusher who got into a fight over money with another drug pusher and things got ugly. He was just a kid. Stupid, not overtly malicious, obviously just the wrong place at the wrong time. I got his sentence lightened to man slaughter. Valentine had a few words to say back then. Something about me playing into their hands or that the kid should've been done for murder.
"Mr Valentine," I'd said, very calmly.
"It's detective, Miss Gallagher." he'd sniped.
"Detective Valentine, I get paid by the state of Massachusetts to do a job, who I defend is not up to me. I get paid to do this job with the best interests of my client in mind. If that doesn't meet your goddamn standards then that's just too bad. Oh and it's Mrs Gallagher. If you're going to be picky about titles, do me the courtesy of addressing me correctly."
He'd squinted his eyes at me and muttered something under his breath, "You lawyers are all alike," or some such. I wish I had took the time to look at his face more. All I remember was the cigarette he lit moments after leaving my office and his hair, or what I saw of it before he put his hat back on. Haphazardly slicked back. Like it had been neat that morning but the day had dishevelled it. I remembered that meeting because it was the first time I'd felt my heart flutter with any man other than Nate. Did Nick remember it?
He stopped at the top of the flight of stairs. We were faced with a door. A heavy sort of door with a faded key pad to its right. One light perched above it shining down in a dim yellow triangle.
"This is it." He didn't move and I didn't say anything. We stood there for a moment, neither of us wanting to move to finish what we'd set out to do. I heard the fans inside Nick hum that little bit louder before he sighed and lifted a hand to type in the code. It beeped and the door's lock clanked open, his metal hand pushed on the door to open it.
"Who the fuck?" The strong wise guy accent burst out from behind the door before I even got a look inside. It was a small room, carpeted in what would be fashionable back in the old world. It had plenty of false lights that sat on the red papered walls that gave off that same yellow glow as the one outside. It was plainly furnished, a desk, a book case and a bed. There was plenty of shelves stocked full of canned food, in particular those awful Yum Yum devilled eggs. I pushed my way in first, past Nick.
"Hey Eddie, it's me! You're old pal Seamus McFuckyourself!"
Winter rose a decayed looking eyebrow. I'd seen some pretty nasty looking ghouls in my time in the Commonwealth (Hancock included) but this bastard looked sicker than most. Even if he somehow managed to keep his crop of silver hair.
"You kidding me? First person to walk through my door in 200 years turns out to be a wise ass. Unbelievable."
"Well, you know, luck of the Irish and all that."
Winter laughed, an easy laugh of someone who doesn't know the robot behind me was about to blow his brains out. He laughed about us finding the code after all that time, laughed about how dumb the cops were back then. He laughed and taunted and I could feel Nick's glare shooting through me. Retribution has glowing yellow eyes, Winter.
"I'm not leaving till I get what I came for." Nick spoke finally, approaching Winter.
He laughed again, fuck, all this guy seemed to do was laugh. "Hey, you look kinda familiar. What are you some kind of Robot? That what it's like up there now? Robot overlords? I knew it."
"The name's Valentine." Nick said, his voice low and slow. I got ready to cock my gun. "Nick Valentine. Remember me?"
Winter looked confused for a moment but shook his head arrogantly, "Nah, I knew the real him and you ain't no Nick Valentine. You're just some kinda machine."
I saw Nick's finger twitch on his rifle.
"You killed my fiance, Jennifer Lands. Shot her dead in the back." he said.
"You're fiance? Nice girl like that wouldn't be seen dead with you, metal head. Nice girl, though, shame about what happened to her. Nick should've backed off when he had the chance."
"Alright let's wrap this up Nick." I said, clipping a round into place.
Winter looked startled for a brief second but quickly leapt across the room to grab a small pistol that sat on the desk. He pointed it at me, I pointed back at him.
"This what you came all the way here for?" Winter said nervously, "A girl gets whacked 200 years ago and you want revenge? It ain't gonna bring her back metal head. Just turn around and walk away and I'll forget all about it."
"Keep talking, crinkle cut and you're not gonna have a face in a few seconds." I warned him, closing one eye for aim.
He scoffed. His confidence coming back the longer he held that gun, you could see it in his posture. "What about I clip you too, sweet cheeks, your smart mouth is starting to get on my nerves." He pulled back the hammer with one shrivelled thumb.
"You're not doing anything of the sort." Nick raised his rifle slowly.
Eddie looked at Nick and then back to me, his glassy blood shot eyes leering over me before he scoffed. His wrist relaxed on the gun.
"What, you kidding me? Hey, the Lands girl was out of your league, metal head, but trust me, there isn't a hope in hell of you fucking sweet cheeks over here."
Bang. Nick let his rifle ring and Eddie Winter thudded to the floor with a gaping hole in his chest. He sputtered there, wide eyed for a few seconds before he finally lay still and the ringing in my ears stopped. We stood there a moment, Nick looking at the body long after I could.
"We're done here," he said lowly, turning round to walk back out the door but he stopped and turned half way to look at me. "There is one more I... I have to do. I wouldn't mind the company if you want to tag along."
Nick walked out slowly, his feet dragging more than they had done when we stormed in. The wind had well and truly been knocked from his sails. He said nothing as we made our way back to the surface, just checked behind him with a hollow smile to make sure I was still following. I didn't like seeing him like this, so serious and without something smart to say. I remember the day I'd said to him,
"You ready to go tin can?"
"If a mouth was all it took to find Kellogg we would have found your boy by now," he'd said back.
I had laughed at his tetchiness and he'd begrudgingly smiled. Now though he was silent, not a word. We came to the exit of the station and hazy sun flooded our vision. The air was thick and warm, the sky was clouded over in the mist and the sun blazed through it. Still couldn't get used to this weather. Rad storms were the worst. Nick walked on around the station to what would have been an alley if the building next to us hadn't collapsed into rubble. He knelt down and gently stroked the ground with his bare hand.
"This is it," he sighed. "On this exact spot, 200 years ago, one of Eddie's boys put a bullet in Jenny Lands' back."
He stayed like that for a moment and I watched him. I could understand that pain, hell I knew the exact pain he was going through but I didn't mention it. I watched him tenderly splay his hand out on the tarmac, close his eyes and bow his head that little bit lower. I remembered my palm shakily pressing against the ice cold glass of the cryo chamber when Nate was killed. I twisted his ring around my finger. A habit I'd picked up over the past year.
"Now Eddie's as dead as Jenny and Nick..." He whispered, slowly standing.
"Nick... I'm sorry if this isn't how you thought it'd be." I knew it wasn't. After I shot Kellogg all I felt was a hollow dissatisfaction. It left an acrid taste in my mouth, staring down at his limp corpse, a hole in the side of his head. I'd hated him. I had hated him for what he did to Nate. For what he did to Sean. But after going through his memories something other than hatred pricked its way into my heart. Pity. I felt sorry for the goddamn bastard. Hell if I could tell you why, but something about our lives seemed hauntingly similar. But I knew in my gut, I'd never turn as rotten as him. I still had hope.
"Eddie was the only reminder that I was just a mechanical copy of some cop from a bygone era. Winter was it. The only part left of the real Nick Valentine." He took off his hat and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"It's never that easy, Nick." I said
"You got that right. Because I was Nick Valentine. I had his memories, his fears... All that poor bastard's hope. I remember getting the call to head to some lab in Cambridge for a neurotrans- whatever and then I wake up in the trash heap. My family, my home, my life, gone. Then I realise that none of those things even belonged to me. All I know now is that without you Eddie Winter would still be at large and that's what it was about. Justice. That one act of goodness, that belongs to us and no one else. All these acts of goodness, they're ours. I don't think I'll ever be able to thank you for that."
"Oh well, you could always try. Caps, armaments, real estate, I'm not fussy." I said smartly and he chuckled. "And hey," I said taking a step closer to him. "Just so you know, you have built your own life here. You don't need to detach yourself from him like that. You are your own person, you have your own life, your own home, your own friends. You're a far more successful detective than Valentine ever was, believe me."
His yellow eyes flicked sharply to meet mine and his brow twitched.
"You... You knew me?"
I hesitated awkwardly. You and you're fucking mouth, Ava, I swear to god.
"Well... I was a lawyer, Nick." I said dumbly. He didn't look satisfied. "Look," I said, "I didn't know you. I met you once after court when you came to bad mouth me for defending one of your cases."
"Mrs Gallagher..." he said, realisation making his shoulders relax slightly.
"Detective Valentine." I said, trying to echo our first encounter.
"How did I not realise..." he said, "The smart mouth, the endless talking. That should have been the first give away, of course you were a goddamn lawyer."
I laughed and swatted him on his arm. "This mean you have to kill me now, cause I knew the old Nick?"
He looked me up and down, "No, I think I'll keep you around. For a while at least."
I smiled again and nodded for him to follow. We made our way back to Sanctuary that little bit lighter.