I was walking along, minding my business
When love came and hit me in the eye
Flash, bam, alakazam
Out of an orange coloured sky

VERONICA

"And here she is, the most resilient woman in the Commonwealth."

I lingered in the doorway, taking in the sight before me as Kellogg finished his speech. He was older than I remembered, but the long, jagged scar that split his face in two was still as prominent and ugly as ever. His eyes were sagging and tired-looking, and his lips were pressed into a thin line, wrinkled from cigar abuse. He wore thick armour everywhere but his bald head and held a small pistol by his side. Four synths guarded him, all pointing their laser rifles at me and MacCready. A few desks were scattered around the room, computer monitors smashed and files papering the floor. I darted my eyes across the space, looking for easy ways out – to my left, there was a nook in the wall and behind Kellogg there was a potential exit.

"Well, come on in," Kellogg always sounded like he was growling. I walked forward as he beckoned, stopping a few steps away. "You wanted to meet so badly, so talk."

I tried my best not to look shaken, lifting the laser rifle I'd stolen to my chest, but I couldn't stop the stutter in my voice. "Where's Shaun? Where did you take him?"

"So, I guess we're skipping the how-do-you-do's." The old man snickered, apparently finding this whole event amusing. "Shaun's a good kid. Maybe a little older than you were expecting. But I'm afraid say, you came all the way out here for nothing. He's not with me."

Older than I was expecting? My mind raced back to when Nick had told me the possibility of Shaun being ten, but I hadn't wanted to believe him. I considered how I'd been refrozen after he was taken, trying to contemplate the time that may have passed before I was awoken again. This confirmed my fears, that I'd missed seeing him grow up. But at least I knew that he was still alive.

"Okay," I breathed, feeling MacCready step beside me. "Just tell me where he is, and I will leave you alone."

Kellogg let out a hollow chuckle. "Oh, you'll leave me alone? I admire your confidence, I really do, so I'll let you in on this. Shaun is happy and safe, somewhere he is loved and taken care of. He's with the Institute."

The words burned into my skull and I felt a surge of anger burst through my eyes. "And where is that exactly?"

"No one gets into the Institute." Kellogg sighed. "But I guess I can't say I'm surprised by your attitude. You're acting as any parent should – as I probably would, in your shoes."

"How can you be so… so uncaring?!" I spat, unable to control my temper now. "You shot my husband. You're a murderer!"

"That was regrettable, yes." Kellogg pursed his lips. "He was being uncooperative. We only needed the child."

"He was protecting his son!"

He raised his pistol now, lining it up with my head. "I think we've talked long enough. We both know how this ends; the question is, are you ready?"

The next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion – before I could even aim my rifle, Kellogg had fired. At the same time, I felt a harsh push on my arm as MacCready ploughed into me, knocking me to the ground painfully… and taking the bullet in my place.

"Bastard!" I yelled, scooping myself up and taking cover in the nook I'd noticed earlier, avoiding the storm of lasers that now came from the synths. I jerked my head towards where MacCready had landed; he was pushing himself up, clutching his arm which trickled with blood. The lasers were missing him, but only just. I wanted to scream at him. We locked eyes and he shrugged the bag from his shoulders, throwing it over to me before beginning to shoot the synths. I knew I didn't have much time – his aim would be compromised with an injured arm.

Desperation clawed at my mind as I tried to work out how to get us both out of here. I took a chance and poked my head around the corner of the nook to see what Kellogg was doing – he seemed to be packing a bag of his own, assuming that the synths would take care of us. I growled at his callousness. A noise came from the door behind him, and it looked as though someone was trying to punch their way through from the outside. Suddenly, it burst open and I watched in awe as Dogmeat charged into the room, immediately locking his jaw around Kellogg's right leg. A new sense of hope surged through me and I laughed out loud. "Good boy!"

I reached into the bag that MacCready had thrown at me, pulled out the first thing I touched – the shot gun – and threw myself back into the action. Three synths were down and MacCready was in a firing match with the fourth. Even with a bullet wound he was a good shot and could dodge the blue streams of energy as they flew at him. Dogmeat was still clutching at Kellogg's leg, ragging it back and fourth with his sharp teeth. The older man saw me walking towards him and raised his pistol again, cursing as his body was tugged around, preventing a good aim. He fired at me a couple of times but missed by inches.

Instinctively, I knew what to do. It might've meant sacrificing my one chance to learn more information about the Institute, but I had no other choice. The fourth synth was down, but so was MacCready. The man before me had so much armour – but as I'd observed beforehand, none covering his head or face. I cocked the shot gun and brought it up so that I could look down the sight. My target was moving, but I was close enough that it didn't matter too much. I gulped… and squeezed the trigger.

BAM.

My whole body shook with the recoil and I dropped the gun in horror, hands flying to my mouth. I'd done it. I'd killed the man that had killed Nate. I was so close to him when I'd fired, his entire head had exploded, decorating the floor in a ghastly dark red. Dogmeat had yelped at the noise and ran to the side of the room.

MacCready coughed behind me. I blinked myself out of the trance that I'd almost fallen into and ran over, kneeling beside him. He was pushing around in one of his many coat pockets, eventually pulling out a syringe and plunging it into his arm. The label on the side of the tube read 'stimpak'. A sigh of relief passed through his lips and he laughed as he looked at me.

"That fu-… I mean, that really hurt!" He wheezed. "Just got to pluck the bullet out and wrap my arm in something. Give me that scrap of clothing."

Dazed, I dropped the cloth that Dogmeat had used to get us here onto MacCready's lap, and he began to push his fingers into the wound, wincing as he did so.

"Why did you do that, you idiot?" I breathed.

"I've done this a tonne of times," he grimaced, slowly extracting the bullet, more blood oozing as a result. "The stimpak makes this feel like a tickle."

"I mean, why did you push me out of the way?"

He flicked the bullet away and looked up at me, expression dark. "Shaun needs his mother to be alive."

I couldn't argue with that, but still, something niggled at the back of my mind. All this talk about 'every man for himself' and he so easily sacrifices his life for someone he's just met? I shoved the thought to the back of my head and watched in silence as he bandaged himself up. Dogmeat sat beside us and I stroked the good doggy, grateful for his intervention.

I most certainly would've died if hadn't been for these two crazy tag-alongs.

After a few minutes, I helped him up and we were soon standing over Kellogg's messy corpse. I couldn't look at what I'd done, so MacCready was the one to dig around in his pockets for anything we might need.

"What's this?" He muttered, holding something shiny in his fingers. "It was… it was in his brain."

I took a deep breath and ventured a look at what he was holding. It looked like a miniature circuit board, but still had a piece of flesh handing from the end. I gagged and turned away. "Maybe he wasn't completely human."

"Well, Nick might know a bit more. Let's show him."

MacCready wrapped the item up in a piece of paper from the floor and pocketed it. We made our way to the door that Dogmeat had knocked open and stepped out onto a balcony, feeling the cool air of the afternoon. Stairs spiralled down to the ground below. Glancing around, I saw that we had moved from the main building we'd entered, into one that sat beside it, most likely through an underground system like MacCready had first suggested. I then looked up to the sky, noticing that the Radiation Storm had passed whilst we were inside, leaving an orange hue in the air.

Something else caught in my peripheral vision and I turned further right – and what I saw gave me a complete shock.

A huge, grey zeppelin was sailing in the distance, searchlights scanning the ground below. I stared at it in disbelief. "What the hell is that?"

MacCready groaned, stretching his bad arm. "Ugh, it's a Brotherhood of Steel airship. I knew them way back when they were something good. Now they're just technology scavengers who don't care who's toes they step on."

"A brotherhood?" I frowned, and we began to descend the stairs.

"An army." MacCready corrected. "They wear massive suits of power armour and go around taking what they want. Never used to be their way. I mean, they're not evil as such, just a bunch of entitled di-… uh, douchebags."

I took a mental note of the way MacCready had stopped himself from swearing twice now. He kept on surprising me.

#####

MACCREADY

Veronica hadn't seemed herself since we'd left the Fort. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through right now, being so close to getting some answers only to be presented with more questions. Kellogg had told her that Shaun was in the Institute, but no one knew where that was, never mind how to get in there. Our only plan was to head back to Nick and tell him what happened; maybe his detective skills could pick up on something we hadn't? So, we slowly made our way back to Diamond City, stopping only to hunt Radstag or Brahmin. Her aim was ever improving, but I didn't dare tell her so. With every kill, her eyes got darker. I knew that feeling all too well and, boy, was that a slippery slope.

"I'm ten years too late." She suddenly croaked, her voice only moments away from breaking. "He won't know who I am. He'll have new parents. He won't want to come with me."

I didn't know what to say, so stupidly I replied with a cliché. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

She nodded, most likely unconvinced, and we strolled along.

"Ten years, though," She pressed. "A lot can happen in that time."

I smirked. "You don't have to tell me that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, ten years ago, I was this skinny little twelve-year-old." I chuckled at the memory of my child-self, all limbs and bravado.

Veronica's eyes widened. "You're only twenty-two?"

"Yeah, I know," I scrunched my nose up. "The Wasteland is unforgiving. That's where I come from – the Capital Wasteland. You'll know it better as Washington DC, I guess. Back there, at twelve years of age, I was somehow the mayor of a settlement called Little Lamplight. Now look at me!"

"That's ridiculous," Veronica smiled, and I was glad to see her happy again. For some reason.

"I'm one hundred percent telling the truth. The whole place was run by kids like me, and we had elections. I was mayor for a little while, I swear to God. At age sixteen, you were considered a Mungo – and adult – and were kicked out. Adults caused the war, adults became raiders or worse, so we couldn't trust them."

"What about your parents?" She asked.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I don't remember them. I only remember Little Lamplight. It was a series of caves and tunnels built underground by hand, with rope bridges and dirt tracks. It was built next to a Vault, probably by whoever had once lived there, but by then the Vault was completely overrun by Super Mutants. We didn't know that that's what they were at the time, so we just called them monsters."

Something clicked in my memory and I smiled at Veronica's jumpsuit. "Someone came by once, a Mungo in a costume just like yours. He was probably just a kid too, thinking back, but he was over sixteen and couldn't be trusted. I can't remember why, but I decided to let him in, and he cleared out the monsters for us. I think that's why I feel like I can trust you. Vault Dwellers seem to have this uncanny ability to make everyone's lives better."

We stopped now and she looked me in the eyes quizzically, before softening into a small smile. Her auburn hair flickered slightly in the breeze. I returned the look with my own smirk, and we stayed like that for a little while, locked in each other's eyes. I didn't know what was happening but it felt nice. Eventually, she broke the link and we carried on walking. My stomach filled with butterflies and a familiar ache came over me – it had been like this the first time with Lucy. Ashamed at myself, I tried to ignore what I was feeling.

"So, you got too old for Little Lamplight," She ventured. "Then what?"

I could've told her everything. I wanted to tell her everything. But if I'd learned one lesson out here, it was to keep your demons close. I only hesitated for a few seconds before shrugging. "I hitched a ride with a caravan to the Commonwealth, joined the Gunners, which was a big mistake. I quit and became a gun-for-hire. Now, here I am."

I could tell that she wasn't totally buying it, but there was no lie in my words. Sure, I'd omitted a couple of truths, but they weren't important. We all had our burdens to bear.

After a little while, I saw a partially erected highway in the distance. As we approached, a feeling of dread washed over me. "Veronica… where are we?"

"Huh?"

"What does your thingy say?"

"Um…" She shook her Pip Boy to life and clicked into the map. "We're just coming up to Mass Pike Interchange. Why?"

My body stiffened and I gestured for her to stop. "We need to go around. We're heading into Gunner territory."

"Who are the Gunners?"

"You remember those friends of mine you saw when we first met?" I grimaced. "This is their base. I used to work for them. I only had one skill which was being able to shoot really well, so I joined them for a while. But it turned out that they were animals – they killed without conscious, tearing down families. Children, even. It didn't matter to them, so long as they got paid. I left without notice and they've been hunting me down ever since."

Veronica gritted her teeth. "So that's why you've been watching over your shoulder since we left Goodneighbor."

"Yeah, I guess it is." I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Look, if they see me, they'll kill me. But they might do worse to you."

She sucked in a breath and nodded slowly. I felt relief pass through my body – she was looking at her map again. Hopefully she was planning a new route around. But instead, she lifted her laser rifle and cocked her head to one side. "If we don't deal with them now, they'll eventually find you again."

"What, you want to kill them all?" I laughed, nervously.

She didn't even crack a smile. "If it gets them off your back, why the hell not? One less problem for us to deal with."