((Again, I stole the title. This time, from the Flying Pickets's Only You.))

3. All I Ever Knew

'We'll never find out.'

Nick was tempted to agree. He was standing knee-deep in the sludge and not entirely certain if he knew the way back. 'Don't worry Cat. If we've never got lost so far, we won't start now.'

'What a hare-brained scheme! To build a robot that will probably bomb my own arse to smithereens. I could go back and say I found nothing.'

'You could. But you won't.'

'No.' She huffed. 'Nick, I got a problem on my hands.'

He tried not to be too worried immediately. 'Can I help?'

'Yes. You can change my fusion core.'

'Will do. How many have you left?'

'Here or in Sanctuary?'

'Cat …'

'Here, just the one I gave you for this very eventuality.'

'That settles it. We're leaving. I don't appreciate wading through this mess, but I don't want to even begin to contemplate what that or the outside will do to you if you run out of power.' He took the almost dead core from her armour. 'I'm telling you something. When you're down to 75% you tell me and we walk, whether we've found anything or not.'

'I … agree. I really don't want to die.' She continued, Nick in her wake, hefting the minigun she'd handed him. Not his weapon of choice, but certainly effective. 'What about you? Are you … ah … waterproof?'

Nick snorted. 'We'll find out, won't we? Nah. I'll be fine. Or have you seen me panic when it's raining?'

'Look, there. More path. How big is this thing?'

'I'm more worried about how big your nukes are going to be. You sure you want to do this?'

'Not even remotely. Look, there's a kind of material lift. I'll call it.'

Noisy and slow, the platform descended. Nick recognised that particular glow long before it reached the ground. 'Got any grenades?'

'No.' She lifted a rifle from the institute and tried to aim between the mesh. Judging from the sound the ghoul made she'd hit it. Somewhat. Swapping the rifle quickly for a shotgun, she waited less than an arm's length from the lift. The ghoul lunged. It was dead before it collided with her armour. Dead and blown to bits, to be precise.

'Well, you're effective.' He gestured behind them. 'There's a door behind us. Might want to check that out, too. This could be our way out.'

'Happy prospect.'

'Well, I can't believe I'm saying that, but I think the Glowing Sea is easier to navigate than this thing.'

Ϡ

If anyone had asked Cat what this place was missing, she'd have said religious fanatics. Well. She probably wouldn't have said that because it might not have occurred to her in the first place. But she was definitely surprised to find living human beings deep within the Sentinel site. Well. She supposed they were human. Or maybe early stages of ghouls. She'd run into the Children of Atom before and knew their angle a bit. She'd get them.

'Why don't you tell him we'll make like an atom and split, he can't argue with you about that now, can he?' Nick asked behind her in an undertone. The Atom guy probably hadn't heard him, but the power armour amplified Nick's voice. She almost snorted, ruining her attempt to impress on the man that they were actually trying to help him.

'What he tried to say,' she said, 'is that we'll make sure these bombs are going to be used. Imagine they just lie around here for decades, you guarding them so faithfully, never allowed to fulfil their potential! I will make sure they do. I will spread Atom's glory.'

And it worked. The Children of Atom let her pass, let her place the signal. She looked at Nick, waiting for some input, an opinion, anything.

'Your choice, Kitten. Like I said.'

That was enough. She signalled the Brotherhood of Steel.

Ϡ

It might have seemed as if it had all gone well enough. Nick knew pretty soon that it hadn't, but he didn't suppose it was a big deal. Water might do him no harm, but whatever chemicals were in that particular water had caused slight corrosion in his exposed right hand. He was lucky the water hadn't been higher, as far as he was concerned. If anything, it caused him minor discomfort in the form of reduced flexibility. So to Nick it wasn't anything to worry about.

That was only true until Cat, ever observant, noticed that he was flexing his right hand more often than before. 'What's with your hand?' she'd asked, and he knew he was in trouble.

'Nothing much,' he tried. 'That's what happens when you're more or less scrap metal. Don't you worry.'

'Let me look, Nick.'

He wanted to refuse, but found himself unable. He extended his hand meekly and let her observe. She had a thing about mechanical things, she'd know. She bent and straightened his fingers. 'Too much resistance there. Why's that?'

'I suppose I might not be as waterproof as I thought. Can we just be glad nothing came in through my neck?'

Cat clutched his hand is both of hers. 'And now you're going to tell me that I'm not dragging you from one danger into the next.'

Nick sighed. He removed his metal hand from her grasp and hugged her. 'Listen. I'll be fine. I've survived for quite a bit before I met you. There's the occasional damage, but I am not going to break completely anytime soon.'

'Just how long does a Gen 2 body usually survive?'

'I have no idea. A few hundred years, apparently.' He cupped her face with both hands, knowing she wouldn't shy away from the cool metal fingers. 'I will look after myself, Cat.'

'Perhaps you should consider upgrading, Nick.'

Nick's eyes narrowed. 'Did you hit your head? Repeatedly?'

'Well … like what Amari did for Curie. I'm sure it would work.'

He should have known she wasn't going to give in that easily. 'I don't think that's such a brilliant idea,' Nick said, voice low, almost a growl.

'Why not? For one thing, you wouldn't need to worry about corrosion, or anything getting into your system.' She lowered her voice. 'And you could feel me, get a lot more out of our union.'

He had thought about it. Once or twice, in the distant past. His answer to himself had always been the same: The reason why he was tolerated was the fact that he couldn't pretend to be human. If he asked, Amari would make it happen. And he would be shunned and feared and perhaps killed. That aside, there had been nothing he missed out on.

Now there was. He knew it. He knew he should talk this out with Cat, listen to her, and at least give it another thought. But he couldn't. He'd told himself that this was what he was for too long. He was too old to adjust to a Gen 3 body and all that came with it: breathing, eating, the entire digestion stuff. Even if that wasn't necessary for a synth of any generation to survive, it was extremely uncomfortable not to do it and he wasn't in for that kind of ride.

That aside, his troubles were very minor. The right hand still functioned and there was no reason why it shouldn't continue to do so. He'd be able to do some maintenance and it would all be fine again, he just hadn't got to it.

Nick would tell her that no, he wasn't really interested because he'd enough identity struggles for the moment. He didn't need another. 'I'm not going to do something like this to become a more adequate bedfellow,' was what came out of his mouth. He watched her eyes go wide, regret exploding in his chest with a vengeance. 'Oh God, Cat, that wasn't what I meant to say.'

She swallowed. 'If that's … Well. That settles that, then.' She didn't cry. Or yell, for that matter. Nick could have handled that. If she'd cried, he could have tried to soothe her, to somehow convince her that he knew he'd screwed up very badly. If she'd yelled, he could've waited until she stopped and then, well … again, talked to her. He wasn't sure he could handle the disappointment written on her face.

'I am sorry, Cat, I really am. I hope you know that this isn't how I think of you. Or us. I don't know what to say.' It was true. He knew what he was to her, there had never been any doubt. If what she wanted was a toy, it would definitely not have been him.

'You've just said it all.' She took a step back. When Nick wanted to reach for her she took another. 'Not now. Maybe we can talk about what you just said to me eventually, but right now I can't handle even looking at you. I need to go.' She strode off towards the workbench. 'Danse!' her voice was firm, if a little higher than usually. 'Danse!' Nick watched her searching for the man who rarely stepped out of his power armour. 'Where did he go?' she asked no-one in particular.

'We could look for him,' Nick tried. 'Sanctuary isn't that small, he could be on the far side.'

'Leave me alone right now, Valentine. Deacon! Where's Danse, do you know?'

Deacon pretended to check his pockets. 'Not here.'

'Now listen …'

The young man raised his hands in defeat. 'Hey, all right! He left. Seemed a bit hectic. I didn't ask where he was going. Didn't want to know.'

'Good to know we're all cooperating.' She sighed. 'For all I know he might be just next door and you're just being you.'

'No. No, he left. That's true.' Deacon frowned. 'He looked … off. Maybe you should go and find him.'

Cat contemplated that for a moment. 'Not right now. I'm going to the Airport, if Danse isn't there or on the Prydwen, I'll look for him. You're with me.'

'Are you out of your mind?'

'They don't know you anyway. Look alive.'