A/N: Ever notice when your character wears Power Armor, neither the hands nor the feet go into the respective part of the frame? The hands would need some sort of finger-pulley system to actuate the crushing power, because it's not a positive-feedback based loop using human muscles as a base. The character's feet actually stand on individual platforms just above where the armor frame's ankle joint resides, probably to prevent overextension or rolling the person's joint. Something I gave a thought or two to. Oh the things we do to keep ourselves interested at Level 117.
.o.0.o.
"What music do you like?
"More on-the-record stuff for the Publick? You'd think your readers would tire of listening to stories about me." Blue teased.
Piper groaned. "You're insufferable."
"You seem to suffer just fine. I think you actually like it."
"Really Blue. What do you like? I know you like Diamond City Radio, but that's only about two hours of material."
Blue looked up from cleaning her pistol. "Well, I suppose I like the old rock and roll from the 1960s. A bit of that pop from the 1980s. But swing came back in early '73, updated for the 21st century. I really loved dancing to that with Nate."
Oh right, Nate. Piper's heart sank fractionally. Why had it risen to begin with? Blue never brought her dead husband up, Piper often forgot about him. Sort of. "You can dance? Like, for real?"
Blue laughed softly. And melodically. "God, no. Nate led. I just tried to not step on his feet too often. I was head over heels for him, I wasn't really concentrating on dancing,"
"Mmm. How did you meet him?" Piper asked. As much as she disliked (and felt guilty for the dislike of) hearing about Blue's love for her dead husband, Piper wasn't going to stop her. It was probably therapeutic. For her, at least.
"We met in Alaska. Colder than- well, anything. He was an embedded journalist. I had to give him credit, all he really carried was climbing gear, a knife, and his camera. And he went into the same shit we were. And one day I'm defrosting in the mess tent after an op, and he walks over and says, 'You know, I wasn't aware beautiful women were allowed to serve active units.'"
Piper gaped. "He did not. Did you punch him?"
Blue smiled at the memory, "Oh yeah, I knocked him flat on his ass. But as far as come-ons go, Nate's was probably the least sexist I'd heard."
"So how'd you two get together after that?"
"He came to my tent later and apologized directly. He said 'I had no idea how to break the ice with you, and making an Alaska pun just didn't seem to fit. Sorry about embarrassing you, but I really do find you to be the most beautiful woman on the planet.'"
He wasn't wrong. "And then?"
"Well, Nate'd apologized, and it was cold outside, so I invited him into my tent because I kept heated coffee in there. He had a flask of whiskey as part of that same apology sooo…."
"You banged a guy you knocked on his ass less than twelve hours earlier?"
"I married the guy I'd knocked on his ass six hours earlier." Blue corrected. "I mean, we kept in good contact after he went home to Boston, and since my parents lived in the same city, I figured why the hell not. I started going to trade school for work, and after about a year of dating, we got married."
Blue was staring off into a distance Piper knew she would never be able accompany her to. Her heart slid around, near her stomach. "So you were a soldier?"
"Yeah. Joined when I was 19. Fought for eight years, China, Alaskan Reclamation. Decided to retire when I started hearing rumors about units like mine ordered to 'contain' civilians at home."
"They what?"
Blue shook her head. "Listen, Piper, maybe an-"
She stopped so suddenly Piper ran straight into her and bounced right back off. "Jeez Blue, could you make like a tree s'more?"
Blue walked forward, almost trancelike, to the big silver screen. "This was where I had my first real date with him."
Oh, yeah. It was a regular old idyllic trip down memory lane. "We drove in and watched the Thing from the Black Lagoon. It was awful because the effects were so bad, but I got to be with him so it was a great night. We ate popcorn and hung out way past when we were supposed to leave."
She brought a hand to her lips as she sat down on the Starlight Drive In's diner stool. "God, I think I fell in love with him that night. I should have told him sooner." Blue looked to Piper. "You know? Don't ever wait to tell them you love them. Nat, or Nick… or whoever. Take it from the world's leading expert on waiting too long."
Piper nodded, her heart feeling like lead,"You got it Blue."
"Anyways, let's get to work. I think we can start build this place into an actual settlement." Blue stood up.
Which, of course meant she triggered a pressure release. The pin of a grenade flew upwards and arced over her head, complimented with a "SHIT!" which was the last word Piper registered before she felt hands on her chest and the sensation of falling to the ground.
KA-BOOM!
The grenade rocked her eardrums, and she was momentarily deafened by the compression on her eardrums. She did however feel what Blue had grabbed to save her life.
Her breasts. Oh yeah, that was happening. Piper felt a rush of heat shoot from her face into her stomach, knotting it up so badly she felt like she'd been eating that horrible potted meat stuff. Her mouth felt full of cotton and her ears were full of lead. But her voice echoed back through her jaw into her ear, muted but there. "Uh, Blue, I like you too, but do you mind asking me out first?"
Oh God. I didn't mean to say that. Especially not after what she said.
She took a second, spacing out from the explosion. Then her eyes furrowed and Piper lip-read "I can't hear you."
Piper let her chest relax. Not yet. She pointed to the hands still holding her boobs (if she was being honest, she enjoyed it) and gave Blue a questioning look. The blonde's face turned blood red and she whipped her hands away, and rolled off of Piper.
"Sorry," Piper saw the mouth form. Why had she never noticed how pink those lips were?
They lay there for a moment, trying to reorient themselves and feeling the aftershocks of the explosion. Except the aftershocks weren't stopping. They were getting louder. And closer.
Piper groaned, feeling her head buzz like she'd just walked by the open reactor door Abbot was working on back in Diamond City. She looked towards the treeline, and immediately wished she hadn't. A pale deathclaw stood in all of its twelve-foot-tall-twenty-foot-long albino scale glory, sniffing the air and staring right at her. Piper blindly reached out for Blue and when her hand made contact. The woman might have said something but Piper's ears were deadened from the blast. And fear. Mostly fear.
The deathclaw let rip a roar unmistakable to anyone even deafened, shaking the broken pavement and shattering the willpower of nearby Commonwealthers. Piper barely had time to stand, not being able to worry about Blue because the lizard seemed to dematerialize and rematerialize at Piper's front, jaws opening to close around her head. The reporter felt her obituary flash before her eyes as if she were at her terminal
Piper Wright, died sometime November 2287, ambushed by a Deathclaw like a dolt with a woman who is magnetically- wonderfully- attracted to trouble. She leaves behind Nick Valentine, her only friend, and Nat, her younger sister, and a lot of debt. In lieu of flowers, please send caps to Nat Wright at-
The entry evaporated because a crowbar appeared in the monster's mouth. Its yellow slit eyes bugged and it gagged, trying to swallow or close its mouth. "Die, motherfucker," Blue proclaimed (still a lot muted) as she aimed her .45 at the beast's head.
The deathclaw was still fast as lightning even if incapacitated. It slashed a wide upwards arc of bonesteel claw into Blue's sternum up to her chin. "No!" Piper screamed, unholstering and sending six 10mm AP slugs through the monster's eye. It fell with an almighty crash, and Blue crumpled against it. Piper flung herself to the woman. Her chest was pooling with blood flowing from her chest, neck and chin. "Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God."
Blue's blue eyes were hazing over in pain. "Oh good," She coughed, "I was worried it was bad."
Piper shook loose her jacket and took off her shirt to bind the injury. "Blue, I've got to stop the bleeding." Piper rolled her to her side and started tearing her pack apart. I saw her pack it. I saw her pack it. Piper pulled the duct tape free and mummified Blue's neck in the silver stuff. "You can't die on me now."
Blue smiled weakly, her eyes clouded over entirely. "Don't be stupid. I can't die."
