Water...dripping.

So hot. Burning up.

Suddenly the world rushed at me through a bursting tunnel of light and sensation. My heart was racing. I heard myself mumble a name I'd tried to forget. "Victoria." As my vision came into focus I found myself face to face with the little wooden soldier staring at me from a bed stand. It had blood on it and the base was chipped a little. Completely disoriented I began to sit up, but winced in pain as lightening shot through my right leg. I glanced back over at the soldier and noticed a scrap of paper with pencil markings on it. The handwriting was a nightmare, but I could make out enough to know MacCready had written it and was saying he would be back soon. The mercenary hadn't left after all. Getting a whiff of myself I realized how absolutely filthy I felt and had the irresistible urge to clean off.

Ever so slowly I leveraged myself to a sitting position to look around. I recognized this place. I was in Kellogg's old hovel in Diamond City. Disgust washed over me. Why the fuck was I here of all places? I was in the hidden safe room- it had been converted to a makeshift bedroom and I was shut inside. "Fucking hell MacCready." He must have had a good reason.

I continued to study the room and noticed a very large wash tub filled with murky water and bloody rags hanging on the rim. I looked down at my wound and the dressing was actually pretty clean, unlike the rest of me. Did he do all this? I decided that even if the water looked a little nasty I smelled worse and started the long hobble to the tub. I slowly stripped down to my underwear and threw my reeking, tore up clothes to the side. As I pulled myself up off the bed I knocked into the bed stand and the little soldier fell to the ground. "Oh man, I'm going to break this thing and I'll never live it down." Just as I was bending to pick it up the false wall started to open. I began to internally panic and froze there, mid stoop, holding that damn soldier and in nothing but my underwear. It didn't even matter who was opening the wall- this was about to be embarrassing.

There MacCready stood, not too far from my bed, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and a ridiculous look on his face.

"Boy oh boy Kav...I leave for a few hours and look what I come back to," MacCready said with a half cocked smile. "You really like that little soldier I gave you, huh?" He furrowed his brow at me. "Why the hell are you walking around in your skivs playing with tiny soldiers? You really had me worried."

I could feel my face growing red. There was no hiding it. I stammered "Oh ah..I just..I just knocked it down is all." I frowned a little. "I know it means a lot to you." I couldn't believe how embarrassing this was. At the same time I felt my leg giving way. One can only freeze standing in place for so long when their muscle is shredded from a bullet. I fell straight down- hard- half on the bed and half on the floor.

MacCready quickly paced over to the bed and roughly helped the rest of me up on the bed. "AH Jesus fuck!" I yelped. "Elliot seriously, what were you doing?" he asked. "I just went out to get us some food and clean water to redress your bandages." I was honestly a little pissed at this point. Maybe not at MacCready himself, but this whole situation was making me furious. I tried to speak evenly. "I just wanted to clean up a little, I smell like shit." He smirked again. "Yeah, you have been out for almost four days Kav. You're a little ripe."

"Four days!? What the hell did those bastards shoot me with!?" I demanded. "He looked pretty serious. "I pulled a .50 cal out of your leg Kav- I can't even tell you how much blood you lost. I really thought you were done." I was taken aback. "Can you just help me to the damn tub?" He frowned again. "What do you want me to do? I carried your ass all the way back here and now you want a sponge bath?" I felt my blood boiling. Why was I so mad? He didn't have to help me like this. There's a doctor right in town for Christ sake. We both fell silent and just kind of sat there.

My heart was racing. I needed to calm down. I looked at MacCready-really looked at him. I watched as he kneaded his shoulder and winced. I began to think. This guy is a fair shot smaller than I am..wirey little dude. I mean…he has some muscle to him, but damn- he carried me all the way back here from the theater? "What are you the Hulk?" I asked softly. He raised an eyebrow at me. "The hell is the Hulk, Kav?" Ah yes, yet again I make a reference lost to time. Guess he hasn't found any Hulk comics yet. I could feel my heart rate slowing. "Oh jeez, no one man." He straightened up a little. "By the way…I'm real sorry to bring you back to this place, but well...we have no caps and we needed a safe place to heal you up."

My eyes were at him like lasers. "What do you mean we have no caps?" MacCready ground out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe and flicked it away. "You think I carried you out of that theater on my shoulder guns blazing?" He looked a little irritated. "I don't think even I could manage something that amazing."

I propped myself up so I could see him better. "Oh? What did you do?"

He looked like he couldn't decide if he was proud or devastated. "Well.." he sighed. "Those idiot gunners we ran into hadn't gotten word of what we did to my former crew." Now he definitely looked proud of himself as he straightened his cap. "I made a bargain with those idiots." He paused as he let that sink in for me. "You were gonna die Kav- I had no choice...I told them I'd pay them all our caps if they let us walk out."

My stomach sank. "They seriously agreed to that?" I asked. "The gunners I know would just kill us and take the caps anyway." MacCready couldn't look me in the eyes. "Well, you see, I told them we had a huge stash of caps back in Diamond City and we would meet and give it to them." Oh man. "We don't have a stash of caps." I said softly. "I know, that's the other reason I had you in this room. We were supposed to meet them 2 days ago and they said they'd kill us if we didn't show up." Fuck. "You're telling me you got even more gunners pissed with you- after I just took care of the others for you?" This look crept up on MacCready's face. One I had never seen on him before. He looked genuinely hurt.

I found myself watching as he got up and walked out into the other room, hanging his head lower than I had ever seen him hang it. My heart hurt as he disappeared around the corner. I felt like trash. He did anything he could think of to save my life. He even got himself right back into trouble when he had just crawled out of it. I was still holding the soldier, gripping it. "This is bullshit." I muttered as I lay where MacCready left me. I really needed to get a handle on my emotions. They've been nothing short of a disaster since I woke up in that vault and my only friend was probably about to leave because of it.

As I sat there looking at that wooden soldier, brooding over my stupidity, MacCready walked back into the safe room with a big bucket of clean water hanging from each hand. He sat them down next to the tub, and then carried the tub outside. A few minutes later he returned with the empty wash tub and a towel. I just kept staring at him. What was he doing? I had just been such a dick to him. MacCready shuffled over to the bed and silently, almost gingerly took the soldier from my hands and placed it on the stand. He looked down at me and stretched his hand out to help me up and then he put my arm over his shoulder to walk me to the tub. He dipped his fingers in one of the buckets and then he lowered me into the wash basin. "You probably want to leave those undies on," he remarked as he began to slowly pour the buckets into the tub with me. The water was hot! I groaned with all the bravado I could muster. "I haven't had a hot bath in 200 years!" I joked.

I caught him with a bemused look on his face as he left every once and a while and came back with more heated up water to pour in with me. The last thing he brought was a bar of soap. "This was in your pack on our last little excursion," he quipped as he tossed it into the tub with me. The sight of me had to be hilarious: stuffed into that tub with my legs hanging out. I was still in a lot of pain, but damn this felt good. Better than anything I could ever imagine. I lay there soaking it all in as MacCready sat with his back to me, slowly dragging on a cigarette. I noticed a full size mirror near the tub and saw my reflection. My mind began to wander back to Victoria. She had been my wife…and Kellogg had murdered her while I watched helplessly from a cryo pod. I shook the memories out of my head and studied my face. My hair had turned grey when I emerged from my long sleep. I look quite a bit older than I am, only 26. What did it matter anyways? Most people who had heard of me didn't want to come near me. I freaked them out. A glimpse of MacCready slightly looking over his shoulder at me snapped me back from my thoughts. "Uhhh, excuse me Mac, can I help you?" I said a little tauntingly.

This time MacCready was blushing. He quickly looked away and took a puff of his cigarette, slowly blowing it out of his nose. "You've never called me that before.." the merc said. "I was just making sure you're still conscious Mr. fainter." He stared to the side out the entry - presumably at the window across the way. I found myself studying him again. I had never noticed how blue his eyes were. He had also taken his hat off, revealing a full head of mussed up brown hair. My hair used to be brown. "You know," he said, "you're pretty fu-..darn heavy." He turned around partway in his chair. "Now if you promise to behave I'll come over there and help you out of the tub." I guess I'd been in the water long enough. I hated to let the sensation of warm water go. I was still far too woozy to feel too much modesty at this point, but I still felt a little weird having him help me out of the tub in my soaked underwear.

Before long I was dried off and back in bed again. I glanced up and caught a quick glimpse of the toy soldier before the world went black to me again.