I Synth pt. 7
The hills were shrouded in mist, the skies promising storm later in the day. I rolled the shiver from my shoulders, turning from the view outside the broken windows.
"It's going to be a cool one." Valeria commented, appearing at my shoulder with a cup of steaming coffee. I took it gratefully as she took my place peering out the window. "Think she's cooled off by now?"
I took a sip in order to delay having to answer. She waited patiently for me to swallow.
"Maybe," I finally said. "She was really angry."
"Well, yeah." The other woman laughed, dropping herself onto our ratty couch. "We all heard her."
I shrugged, trying to minimize the memory of the General's fury, the pain in her eyes.
"I guess I'd be pissed too, if Hamilton pulled something like that. Mad, but flattered, and the makeup sex would be incredible." Her eyes fluttered shut as she entertained that particular fantasy and I had to look away from the expression on her face.
"I don't think it's like that between the two of them." I pointed out hesitantly, as I was hardly an expert on interpersonal relationships.
She straightened up, making a thoughtful sound as she peered at me from under half-closed eyelids. "If it's not I don't think it's because of her. She's obviously crazy about him."
I sat down across from her, intrigued. "How do you know?"
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, considering. I waited patiently. There was no hurry this morning, one of the rare occasions that our off days coincided.
"She smiles more when he's around, as if she's more relaxed or something." Her voice was thoughtful. "When he walks into the room her eyes change, like something behind them goes soft. " She leaned back again and chuckled. "You realize that I don't watch them all the time but there's a few other little things. I don't know what they're like when they're in private."
"What other little things?" I pressed.
She eyed me. "Do you really think we should be sitting around gossiping about the General's love life?"
I jerked back, stung. "Oh, I…I didn't…"
She laughed at me. "You're so easy, Annette."
I blushed and ducked my head, scowling at her. She flicked her fingers at me, snickering.
"Okay, okay." She hiccupped. "Did you ever notice that out of all the people the General has brought here he's the only one that sleeps in her home?"
"I had noticed."
She nodded.
"What about Deacon, though?" I asked.
"He's a tougher nut to crack." She shrugged.
"It's hard to tell what he's thinking." I agreed. "Do you…do you think he wears those glasses even while he sleeps?"
She laughed long and hard. "I know, right?"
"But he's always watching her." She continued when her laughing fit had subsided, stretching her back before slumping back into the worn cushions. "He always turns toward her when they're together, like she's a lodestone. But I'm not sure either of them realizes that."
"But you do?"
She laughed again. "Me? I'm a romantic. So maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there, just because I want them to be. They'd be a cute couple."
"Like you and Hamilton?"
Valeria smiled at me before her expression slipped into thoughtfulness. "Well, we are a cute couple but every relationship is different. I wasn't too sure of him when we first met."
"How did you two meet?" I asked, curious. I had very little experience with the various aspects of love, or at least as far as I remembered. In the Institute I had never come across as loving a couple as I had here in Sanctuary, watching Hamilton and Valeria interact. Perhaps it was because such interactions were not something the culture of the Institute allowed as a public exhibition. Or perhaps there was something lacking there that the people up here had found. In any case I had no examples to hold up and say 'this is what a person in love acts like' from my time before Sanctuary.
She looked at me archly. "Aren't we curious today? Well, if I'm going to tell a story I'm going to need another cup of coffee."
I rolled my eyes and reached for the cup she held out to me with a languid hand. "I don't think I even want to leave the house today," She mused. "Though that'll change if I miss breakfast."
"We have some time." I reminded her as I handed her the full cup and settled back into my chair.
She took a long sip, her eyes distant. "You know what happened to my sister."
I nodded.
"For a long time afterwards I was very angry. Angry at the world, at my parents, at my settlement for not being able to protect her properly. So I packed up what little I had and left it all behind, joined up with a caravan that was passing through and didn't look back. It wasn't a very good fit. They let me join in but I wasn't one of them and couldn't be since I wasn't born to the life. After a while it started to get to me and after I got into a fight with one of the caravan leaders they made it clear I wasn't welcome anymore." She shrugged. "Not one of my better moments."
"They didn't just leave you on the road, did they?" I asked, caught up in the tale.
"No." She replied. "They dropped me at Diamond City, another place I didn't feel welcome. If you aren't one of the 'upper stands' or a shop owner you're pretty much nothing. I stayed there for about a week before I got tired of that and wanted to find something better. I was in Dugout Inn a short time after I made that decision, thinking over my options when this guy came wandering in."
Her eyes changed, becoming softer. "This gawky stork of a guy with a shock of red hair and a tattered coat. He walked up to the bar and ordered a drink then started asking Vadim, Vadim runs the place," She told me in case I didn't know, which I didn't. "He started asking Vadim if he knew of anyone willing to take an escort job. See, he'd heard of this new settlement starting up in the north and wanted some muscle to make sure he got there in one piece."
She grinned at me. "'Well,' I thought to myself, 'I've got nothing else to do, and nowhere else to be, so maybe I'll try my hand at being a merc.' See, I still had my gear from when I was in the caravan and I was pretty strong from hard labor so maybe I'd take the job and see what happened." Valeria chuckled and took another sip of her coffee. "So I put on this 'hard guy' persona and offered my services. I'll never forget the way he looked at me."
"He didn't believe you?"
"Oh no, he believed me. He looked scared of me." She set down her empty cup and reached up to pull down her ponytail, letting her long blond hair fall around her shoulders while she finger-combed it out. "He turned so pale his freckles stood out like they'd been drawn on. But to give him credit he managed to ask a few questions before we settled on my fee and made arrangements to start out the next day."
I watched as Valeria gathered her hair and tied it back up, making, for a moment, her face look as hard as it must have been that day. "So there I am, standing at the gates with my pack over one shoulder and my gun over the other the next morning when he clanks up."
"Clanks?"
"His whole pack was covered in pots and pans and…I don't know, spoons and stuff." She smiled at the memory. "I remember thinking that he was going to make so much noise he was going to get the both of us killed before we got even ten feet down the road." She laughed. "I was really reconsidering my life choices at that point and pointed out to him that if he didn't want a target painted on his back he'd better do something about the noise. He was still scared of me at that point and cut himself with one of his knives while he was tearing apart one of his blankets. So I used one of the pieces to bind his wound and between the two of us we managed to tie everything down." She shrugged. "I'm not going to tell you about every close call because if I do that we really will miss breakfast."
"So when did he stop being afraid of you?" I asked, though I really wanted to ask 'When did the two of you fall in love?'
"It's hard to pinpoint exactly when." She shrugged. "But I think it started when I asked how his hand was that first night then insisted on checking it to make sure it wasn't getting infected. Then when he cooked for me the first time, and when I offered to share my blanket since his got shredded. I discovered that he was kind and generous." She smiled fondly. "A lot of little things that added up to something big." Her smile grew. "When we finally got here he asked me to stay and I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to be."
Her coffee cup clattered against the scarred tabletop. "And speaking of where I want to be," She stood up and brushed off the front of her coveralls. "I'm finding this urge right now to head on over to breakfast with a side of Hamilton."
"That was figurative, right?" I grabbed her cup and made a detour to the sink to deposit our dishes. I smiled to myself when I heard her laughing out the door.
There was a small vegetable patch next to our workstation, nothing much more than a few tato plants and a muttfruit bush. Certainly there was nothing there of much interest to a general or a mercenary. Nonetheless there they were, ostensibly looking over the rather wilted bush and talking in quiet voices. Or rather MacCready was talking, and the General was listening with a close attention.
I glanced at Sturges but he, as was usual, paid no attention to anything but the piece of tech currently occupying his workbench.
I snuck glances over at them, trying not to be too obvious about it. I had never seen MacCready look so uncomfortable before. But whatever he was trying to say seemed important enough that he was overcoming his nervousness. The General looked serious as she listened, and a little surprised from time to time, which was almost a pleasant change from her recent expression of something restrained and painful.
Their voices were low and I made no attempt to overhear, though I was terribly curious. Finally the General clasped her hand on MacCready's shoulder. He tolerated it for a second before nodding, gratitude written plainly on his face. With that it seemed the conversation was over. MacCready walked away quickly, his shoulders loose in apparent relief. The General, however, stood looking thoughtfully at the little garden patch with what seemed to be undue attention for a long minute before wandering off in another direction.
Their expressions lingered in my mind as I hammered out another dent in the X0-1's chest piece. It was finally starting to resemble a working suit of power armor again, but it was going to be a slow process. Sturges and I worked with a sense of urgency as until we could get the armor repaired this was the only available suit in the entire settlement. It wasn't terribly likely that we would need it, but there was still a chance. I calculated the statistical odds in my head and didn't like how the numbers added up. What with what had happened to Joshua it seemed as though the Minuteman patrols were more frequent, like they were expecting further trouble. There were quiet discussions of new threats being spotted throughout the area but no one would commit to what they might be.
I didn't want to think about the world outside the walls of Sanctuary. I didn't want to think about threats coming over or through the walls. And yet I did. They crept up on me in quiet moments. Shadows lingered in the corners of my mind, watching and threatening. If I didn't keep myself distracted with work or conversation; other people's lives, stories or worries, my own would creep up on me.
I shook myself and turned my thoughts back to the armor.
At dinner that night I sat with Marie. She had been withdrawn lately. This attitude could have been her natural inclination or something she'd learned up here in the Commonwealth but she certainly wasn't volunteering that information or any other. I didn't know what the problem was and she was a private person who wouldn't appreciate me prying. I probably would never know.
MacCready walked in, plate in hand, and glanced at my table. I caught his eye and smiled. His face was serious but he took a few steps towards me before checking himself. He broke off eye contact and looked around before taking an unoccupied seat at a crowded table. I felt a little pang in my chest and found my forehead furrowing as I turned my gaze back to my plate.
"It's me." Marie said.
I snapped my gaze to her, brow still furrowed in confusion.
"It's not that he decided not to sit with you," She said. Her plate was empty, she had eaten as quickly as ever, and her fingers tapped a nervous rhythm against the food-soiled rim. "He didn't want to sit near me."
"Ah." The tight feeling in my chest eased. "I see."
She shrugged, pushing her plate away. "I know what you're thinking."
I stared at her, my eyes widening. "You do?" Was she another like Mama Murphy? Had all my thoughts been transparent to her?
She continued as though I had not spoken. "And I'm not going to apologize to him."
I felt myself relax as that had not been what I was thinking at all. It must have been a non-literal observation. I wasn't very good at discerning those.
Marie was looking at me as though gauging my reaction.
"I wasn't thinking that you should." I ventured. Though perhaps if she did the iciness between the two of them would thaw a bit and they wouldn't have to cross to opposite sides of the road if one saw the other approaching. Sustained animosity seemed to be very tiring. Ah, I thought, perhaps I should say that. But before I could formulate that thought into a proper response she spoke again.
"And he understands that."
"Really?" I asked, intrigued. "How do you know?"
"Because he's like me." She said, scowling when she saw my eyebrows lift. "Look at how he eats, no, without being obvious about it!" She snapped when I twisted in my seat.
I rolled my eyes and turned slightly to peer out the corners. MacCready was hunched over his plate, one arm curved protectively around it, shoveling food into his mouth without seeming to pause to chew or breathe. It was a wonder he was so thin what with the amount he seemed to consume.
"He didn't grow up with enough to eat. He might have had to fight for it, or defend his own plate from others. I don't know, I'm just guessing. But I do know he should be a bigger man than he is."
I cocked a questioning eyebrow at her.
She shrugged. "He has big hands, almost out of proportion." She tapped her own hand on the table. "He most likely is incapable of gaining mass at this point."
"That's why he's so thin?" I asked.
She nodded.
I thought back to the previous meal, and all the others that Marie and I had shared. Now that I thought about it their eating habits were remarkably similar. But other than that…
"I'm afraid I don't understand. You eat similarly but how does that make him like you?"
She looked angry for some reason. "Usually when you have to fight for your food it means you had to fight for everything else. You fight, and you never, ever apologize."
"But why not?"
She looked even angrier. "Because that would mean you'd have to acknowledge you were wrong. It would make it seem like you were weak. The weak don't survive. They don't deserve food, or shelter, or clothing or anything." She stopped herself, her breath coming hard for a minute. She seemed to deliberately calm herself, closing her eyes until her breaths became deep and regular.
She stood abruptly and grabbed her empty plate. "It took me a long time to overcome that way of thinking." She jerked her head in MacCready's direction, where he continued to eat, oblivious. "I doubt he has."
I leaned back and watched her stomp over to deposit her plate in the sink.
I imagined my face was, as they would put it, a picture, as I wondered what had brought that speech on. Had she been trying to tell me something, or teach me something? Or had she been looking for a reason to vent her views upon a willing, or unwilling ear.
Even though I wasn't sure what she had told me was true her words kept running through my mind even after I finished my dinner and went back to the house for a restless night's sleep.
The child had a pinched, cold face, hollow cheeks and a furrowed brow. Thin hands and sticklike arms reached out to me. I reached out to gather the child close but every time I did its arms slid away from me as though made of smoke and oil. I kept trying, again… again… until tears started running down my cheeks. When they fell upon the child's face it melted away like ink from a droplet of water and faded to nothing.
An emptiness filled me, as though I too were made of nothing more than smoke. I looked up and saw faces surrounding me, their expressionless eyes still somehow conveying judgement. Their hands reached out to me and all of a sudden I felt as solid as the child had been insubstantial. They towed me through decaying windowless rooms into endless impersonal hallways. Rot tinged brick became cold, cool seamless white. I tried to dig in my heels, but found I could not. I no longer had control of my body.
No, it wasn't even mine any longer. It was someone else's and I was just inhabiting it, a powerless observer. I wasn't even able to move my eyes, my vision narrowing to whatever was directly in front of me as I was spun around and placed in a chair that pierced my spine. I wasn't even able to cry out at the pain of it.
Something touched my arm, and it all melted away, like ink…from a droplet…of water…
I woke up with a gasp as something cold touched my cheek. My eyelids flew open and I darted them around the room just to make sure that I still could. Another drop of water made its way through the patches on the roof and hit me between the eyes. I relished that I could flinch from the shock of it even as I tried to calm myself for my heart was still racing far too quickly than was normal.
There was no possibility that I would be able to achieve down time again so I swung myself out of bed, planting my feet on the cold floor and taking deep breaths.
It had been a while since I'd had such a vivid dream. Such a terrible, vivid dream.
I clenched my toes against the rough floor, letting the sensation ground me further. No. That wasn't enough. I reached out and snagged my ragged leather coat from where I had carefully folded it on the unoccupied bed. My arms slid into the sleeves with practiced, unconscious movements and I hugged it around me for along moment before reaching for my boots.
It definitely would need another patch, I thought, looking critically up at the bit of roof above my sleeping chamber. It was dark, but no longer raining. It must have taken some time for the water to work its way down and drop onto me.
Sanctuary was quiet around me, a few distant, soft voices; security changing shifts I assumed, given the time. The widely spaced street lamps gave everything a soft, hazy glow. The turrets chattered away as usual, but I was so used to that by now that I was able to tune them out from the other night noises around me. It should have been unnerving, the quiet, but I found it rather comforting since it didn't feel empty. I knew that inside the house Maria and probably Valeria slept. I knew that the other houses were occupied by dreaming people or those content in oblivious darkness.
I caught a flash from one of the catwalks and knew I had been noted. I nodded at the unseen watcher and pushed my hands deep in my pockets, walking slowly down the middle of the street.
It was so different at night.
The light of a small lantern near my work station shone like a tiny beacon and I gravitated towards it.
Look for the lantern.
The words, nearly forgotten, rang clear in my head as though Z1 had once again murmured them in my ear. I shook my head as I walked closer, intent on snuffing out the flame. One of us had been careless to leave it burning precious oil while no one was around to benefit.
"Is this was he was talking about?" I murmured to myself, half serious. Then I snorted, the corner of my mouth curling up into a self-deprecating smirk. "Now I'm talking to myself." I laughed, bending to take the chimney and douse the flame.
"Sometimes we're our own best audience." Came a voice in the darkness.
I jumped and nearly fumbled the glass chimney, catching it just before it hit the concrete. With a gasp I held the warm, almost too warm, glass to myself, backing toward the nearest light pole.
"Aw, geez. I'm sorry." The voice came closer. "Another dramatic entrance just ruined." Deacon stepped out into the small pool of light. It flickered in the breeze, casting unsettling flashes against his dark glasses.
"Deacon!" I tried to relax, but my eyes flicked to follow the dancing light uneasily. I clutched the chimney to myself protectively.
"The one and only." He replied easily, though I noticed he had stopped approaching me, doubtless noticing my unease.
A dozen comments hovered on the tip of my tongue as I tore my eyes away from his glasses. I wanted to ask where he'd been. I wanted to tell him what the General had said she was going to do to him when he came back. I wanted to ask if she had been serious about any of those things or whether they would even be physically possible. Instead I found myself asking. "Where's the T-45?"
He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish. Then his hand dropped and he grinned at me. "Oh, you're never gonna believe me when I tell you. But I swear it's a great story and one hundred percent true."
I eyed him skeptically as he spun a tale involving being accidentally recruited by the Brotherhood of Steel and sent on a mission to clear out a nest of at least ten, no, twenty, no, now that he thought about it, fifty super mutants and just as he had finished taking out the ringleader singlehandedly, mind, he had fallen through the floor into a ghoul infested sewer.
My eyebrows climbed higher and higher as he continued and by the time he was finished I was staring at him in disbelief.
"Really?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Aw, c'mon. Would I lie?" He asked, from where he had settled down on the concrete across from me, both of us cross-legged with the lantern flickering its uncertain light between us. "It's not like I just got out of it and forgot where I left it."
I shook my head.
"That would make a terrible story."
