The next three days ran together. Sara divided her time between dozing, tucked away against the cuddly warmth of Dogmeat's fur, roaming the Citadel to exercise her tight, sore muscles, and pointedly refusing to pick the photograph she'd thrown up from the corner it now lay pathetically crumpled in. Fawkes only annoyed her, even though she knew his far too frequent visits meant he cared.
Sara felt as though she had somehow become trapped in a few agonizing moments while the rest of the world around her moved forward as it always did. Not even the nuclear holocaust had managed to wipe out humanity's daily doings. They weren't about to stop for her.
Sometimes, usually in the dead of the night, she suddenly felt as though she was choking. The Citadel walls were smoke and ash and death, and they closed around her mind exhausted from lack of real, deep sleep. She clung to Dogmeat as the steady continuation of her breath reminded her that she was still alive. He was more attuned to her feelings than anyone else and usually reassured her with a series of groggy licks.
Other times, when her mind had settled into a comfortable semblance of sleep, she was back at Project Purity. Her father fell against the door separating them, mouthing for her to go, and Colonel Autumn laughed. Sometimes, she was in the room with him, and as the radiation coursed through their bodies James reached out to her and said at least Project Purity didn't disappoint him.
Early in the morning on her fourth day at the Citadel, Sara again woke from a blurry nightmare. The scream trying to escape from her lips fell back into her throat as she realized it was Dogmeat she held, not her dead father. The dog sighed happily in his sleep, and his paws twitched as though he were running free in a dream.
It was just after 3 AM, according to the glow of her Pip-Boy. She was suddenly anxious to be out of the bed, so she carefully navigated her way over the sleeping dog and climbed out. Naturally, as soon as her feet touched the floor Dogmeat's eyes flew open and his ears perked up. As much as she adored his silent, understanding company, Sara needed to be alone.
"Go back to sleep, Dogmeat," she coaxed, running a soothing hand down his coat. "Guard the bed for me."
It took a few minutes of stroking and whispering, but Dogmeat gradually drifted back to sleep. He stretched out across the bed, effectively taking up the whole thing. Sara pulled on her orange striped knee socks, a gift from Amata from long ago, to protect her feet from the cold and quietly exited the room. Dogmeat did not follow.
She emerged into an eerily still lab. A few dim lights flickered feebly overhead. In any other place, Sara would have been a bit creeped out.
She stopped by the orange grid that pinpointed the locations of the vaults throughout the Wasteland. The cursor slid soundlessly over the point that was Vault 101. She wanted to smash the stupid screen in with her fists for mocking her. She knew she'd lost everything. This computer didn't have to fucking remind her.
"Insomnia?"
Sara almost screamed and nearly fell onto the grid in front of her. She whipped around, heart hammering painfully, and found Knight Captain Durga far too damn close. She almost didn't recognize the young woman without her power armor. She was clad in a black cami and dusty khaki pants and didn't seem like a knight captain at all.
"Holy shit!" Sara gasped, placing a hand on her chest. "Do you even know?…I almost punched you!"
"I'd like to see you try." Oh wonderful. She was rude and arrogant.
"I know I could. It's not like you're out here in the action."
"Oh, I didn't realize limping around holding a Super Mutant's hand meant action."
"Are you always this mean?" Sara snapped.
"No. Mostly just to you newbies." It took Sara a few seconds to register what Durga said. She'd expected a resounding "Yes"; an affirmation that the young woman was, in fact, always this awful.
"Well, I don't fucking need it right now, okay?" A genuine smile spread across Durga's face.
"You know, you're the first person I've heard drop the 'f bomb' since I joined the Brotherhood. It's refreshing to hear."
Sara just stared. That was one of the strangest things anyone had ever said to her.
"What's your name, by the way?" Durga pressed on. "I mean, your real name. Star Paladin Cross keeps insisting I seek you out and repair your stuff. She said you were a little put-off by our first meeting."
"Sara. I'm Sara."
"I'm Kristen."
Manners that James had drilled into her mind almost made her say "Nice to meet you", but Sara bit her tongue. It was anything but nice to meet this woman who was rude one moment and then friendly the next.
"I've never met anyone with that name," Sara told her, unable to think of anything else to say.
"Well, obviously I've met another Sarah. You know, seeing as she leads the Lyons' Pride and all."
"Yep." Kristen Durga laughed a little.
"You're not really talkative, are you?"
"Not at three in the morning."
"Fair enough. You should bring your stuff by. I'll see what I can do with it. That is if you've got the caps for the parts."
"Oh, see I thought for a moment you were going to be generous there." Sara had not even thought of this retort; the words had simply flowed effortlessly in response to Durga. If she had to say something positive about the Knight Captain, it would be that she was surprisingly easy to joke with. But why did Sara find herself struggling for other things to say to her?
"Hardly," Durga replied.
"Can you repair my stuff now?" Why? Sara's head screamed at her. Durga was being remotely polite now…so what? That certainly didn't mean Sara wanted to spend time with her.
"Right now? I guess…I don't sleep much anyways."
"Great! I'll meet you in the Armory in about two minutes." Sara retreated to the quiet stillness of the mess hall. Careful to move as silently as possible, she pulled her trusty hunting rifle from the footlocker at the end of the bed. Her fingers practically tingled as they met the smooth exterior of the gun: this hunk of metal had saved her from several feral ghouls, radscorpions, and one Raider who seemed particularly antsy to rape someone that day.
That's all this sudden eagerness was about, she assured herself. She was eager to fire this baby off again. She would go out in the morning and shoot the shit out of that dummy outside while she pretended it was Colonel Autumn or a Raider. A dark corner of her mind suggested she could even pretend it was Amata, the selfish, in-bred bitch she'd been foolish enough to love. Luckily, the Wasteland had no room for love, except the kind between a girl, her gun, and her dog. And maybe a dumbass Super Mutant when he wasn't getting stuck in doors or screaming "YOU LOSE!" when he obliterated a hapless, wandering Brahmin.
Durga was waiting in the Armory as promised. She'd left the cell door open while she sorted through a random assortment of spare parts on some shelves near her bed.
"Can I come in?" Sara asked cautiously, not wanting to invoke a snide comment because she'd violated some unspoken Brotherhood rule.
"Sure," replied Durga. "But don't get used to it. If other people were around you wouldn't get back here until you'd earned the title of Sentinel."
"I just brought one gun," Sara told her as she stepped into the back of the Armory. "I didn't want to overwhelm you."
"You can't. I've seen it all." Sara doubted that. Durga turned to face her and caught sight of the hunting rifle in her hands. The knight captain reached out to take it from her, and Sara instinctively jerked it away.
"Hey, take it easy. I'm not going to steal this piece of crap."
"It's not a piece of crap!" Sara hissed. "This thing has saved my life countless times!"
"I was joking," Durga snapped, clearly very irritated. "Do you want me to fix it or would you prefer to just stand there and whine?"
"I want you to fix it," Sara said, angrily shoving the weapon into Durga's hands. The force of her shove caused Durga to take several steps backward. The knight captain's face hardened.
"I didn't know vaults let their bratty twelve year olds wander free around the Wasteland. Did mommy give you all those caps?"
"MY MOTHER IS DEAD!" Sara screamed. "FUCK YOU. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" She took several steps toward Durga who raised the hunting rifle in defense, then thought better of it and turned her rage to the shelf of assorted parts.
"YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW. NONE OF YOU DO!" She threw her hands into the scraps of metal and threw them clattering to the floor. "YOU SIT HERE ALL FUCKING COZY IN YOUR CITADEL AND PRETEND YOU'RE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. DID YOU WATCH YOUR DAD DIE, KRISTEN?" She grabbed the middle shelf and yanked it roughly out of its frame.
A shower of nails, scrap metal, and ammunition rained magnificently loudly to the floor. Sara kept screaming as she pulled each shelf free of the metal frame. She flung the top one behind her. Durga was forced to duck to avoid it.
"I'VE KILLED PEOPLE! I NEVER KNEW MY MOM, AND I DON'T HAVE A HOME TO GO TO ANYMORE! ALL I HAVE LEFT IS MY FUCKING DOG!"
She heard several bangs as doors flew open throughout the Citadel. She hoped every single one of them would come and see what she'd done. They should come and see that Sara Fairchild was no calm-headed, warm-hearted hero.
Elder Lyons entered first, his long robes sweeping behind him as he ran. Paladin Gunny and Star Paladin Cross, who both held their weapons at the ready, flanked him.
"What is this?" Lyons demanded.
"I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING HERO! I WISH YOU'D LEFT ME IN THAT ROOM AT PROJECT PURITY!"
"Get a sedative!" Gunny called to someone behind him.
Sara sank to her knees, entire body shaking with hysterical sobs, into a heap surrounded by a halo of weaponry.
"No, wait, don't!" Someone had stepped in between her and Paladin Gunny who now wielded a rather ominous looking syringe. "She's not actually hurting anyone-"
Sara felt the needle slide into her arm despite the person's objections. Everything soon became pleasantly warm and hazy. She felt her mind slipping into a realm of beautiful nothingness. Her last thought as she felt her face hit the floor was the hope that she wouldn't wake up.
