Chapter 10: Paradise Lost

Ilya walked in no specific direction, she just walked. The memories of the Commonwealth before the fallout would drift over her, a cruel reminiscence of a paradise lost but never forgotten. She relived it every day, in the place deep inside her that she dared not touch nor let go. As long as she remembered, then it all still existed. Nate still existed. She still existed.

Her feet dragged over pristine roads, the white paint down the centre so crisp it reflected the sun. The streets were in perfect order, white picket fences surrounding the ideal homes for the ideal families. The trees swayed in the light breeze, leaves fresh in the summer season, rustling softly to her eardrums. Kids were outside playing in their yards, cheeks full and flush, laughter merry, eyes alight. Shaun would have been there, one day.

Beyond, the grand highways rose along the skyline, magnificent in scope, harbouring the bustle of daily automobile traffic. Freshly painted billboards graced those highways and the sides of towers, advertising an array of splendid services and products.

It was a metropolis at its height, brimming with luxury and refinement.

But beyond all of that, war touched the horizon. It spawned and spread, covering the world in its gloom, creating horrors and destroying the good in man. It fed on the lust for power, for domination, and it bred paranoia until mankind turned on itself and brought the world to its ruin.

But war was not done. It lingered, waiting, festering in the quiet while man stumbled in the wastes of its demise and learned to survive anew. As the skies cleared and life took a stand to try again, war took its place once more, and it smiled, because war never changes.

Ilya stood in place and stared at the face of life now, at how far it had fallen, at how it was dying all around her. She considered her place in it, a woman out of time, a sole survivor, a lone wanderer, a weapon for the people. It was such a small place in the scope of it all, but she still couldn't fill it. Couldn't save those Ghouls. Couldn't save her family. Couldn't save the world.

And then she ran.

She just ran. The road, the dirt, the grass, the rocks. None of it mattered, it was just her path, and in the way. The sun was on the wane, fleeing from her as she tore up the land. Her heart thrashed, bruising in her chest. Her breath wheezed, stinging in her lungs. Her limbs pushed, burning in her muscles. But she powered on, crashing through rivers and clearing outcrops of rock with a furious speed.

Her sprint was fuelled so strongly by a rage at the world that she ignored the familiar voice calling her from behind.

"Harper, slow down!"

Danse had fallen behind long ago, but he had maintained her trail at a distance, it seemed. Even Dogmeat had drifted away from her side, the canine's anatomy not built for endurance like the human anatomy. Ilya continued pushing her body, heaving air in and shoving it out painfully, ascending hills on all fours, pulling at the grass or dead branches for leverage.

"Harper, just stop for a moment!"

She couldn't stop. Couldn't let it all catch up to her. Had to keep going. Keep going. A couple of stingwings darted across her path, altering their flight plan to zero in on her. She didn't stop. Her sidearm was drawn in a fluid motion, and she snapped off multiple rounds, shredding one stingwing in the cascade. The other she rushed right at, ripping out the serrated machete she had taken from the Rad Lands and slashing. The stingwing dodged, but failed in round two as Ilya connected her following slice and brought it out of the air. Her feet picked up their momentum once again.

"God damn it, would you listen to me and stop!" Danse bellowed out in anger.

Ilya stopped. Gorski Cabin was right in front of her, offering a solid wall to heave against. She rested her hands against it and let her head slump while she sucked up air in loud gasps, then began to dry retch as her body processed the shock to its system.

Danse caught up, breathing heavily with footfalls slow in his approach. He leaned a hand on a sturdy tree and took a moment to collect himself, watching her wordlessly while she coughed and growled through her straining.

"What the hell was that?" he finally ripped into her.

Then it all collapsed. The tears, the curses, the thrashing of limbs, all bursting out of her without warning. She sobbed hot fluid as her boot connected with the wall. "Fuck!" Her hands went to cradle her face and the tears, but she tended to the fury first and picked up a nearby slab of wood from the broken porch, smashing it against the cabin with a vicious cry.

"Ilya." She was distantly aware of Danse's voice and his shadow, just standing there, not knowing what to do. But it was too distant, muted for the roar in her blood as she swung again, at the porch this time, breaking off a piece of its wooden structure. Splinters cut into her hands, but she feasted on the pain and struck the porch again, screaming out for more.

"Ilya!"

She released the pain through her vocals and kept smashing, again and again and again, until her palms were shredded and slick with blood. Then she went in to tear at the porch with her bare, bloody hands.

"That's enough!" Huge metal hands seized her wrists from behind and pulled them from their grip on the broken porch railing. She growled like a feral dog and tried to jerk away, fighting against his hold, but it was useless. "Stop it!" Danse demanded as he pinned her back against his chestplate, keeping her arms locked across her chest until she finally broke out into keening wails.

Her legs crumbled beneath her as all her strength seemed to drain out with her tears, but Danse supported her weight against his armour, holding her in place while she sobbed.

"I can't," she wept out, drenched in tears and sorrow. "I can't, Danse. I just can't keep doing this. I can't."

He said nothing, likely lost for words, and he just held her for a long while, until he must have realised she wasn't going to stop any time soon. "Hey," he soothed, and his voice was like rich caramel, caressing her eardrums this close. "It's gonna be alright. Deep breaths."

Gradually, her tension faded and her body sank fully against his armour. She just wanted to sleep, right there in his arms, in his security, and let it all wash away in the slumber. She felt him carefully lower them both until he was on a knee, and she could curl her limbs beneath herself on the ground. He released her then, but one hand didn't leave her, it remained against her arm, as if breaking contact would reduce her to tears once more.

Ilya finally brought herself to face him, vision hazy from the tears that still rimmed her waterline, but clear enough to see his face was pinched with worry.

"Ilya," he rumbled to her, "talk to me."

"Can we just sleep here tonight?" her voice cracked out.

His eyes roamed her first, then he nodded gently. "Sure. I'll keep watch. You just rest." He helped her into the cabin and down onto the mattress that someone had placed in there, pulling over a rug from the floor and gently covering her with it. He waited there as she burrowed into the rug and closed her eyes. She didn't hear him move away for a long, long time.

She was there again. Cold, limp, helpless. Outside the pod, life was a blur, the commotion meshing together fluidly, because she had witnessed it a thousand times before. There, she watched Shaun being torn away from his father. She heard the bullet escape the barrel. She felt it pierce her husband, and with it, she felt him slip away right there, in front of her, within seconds.

One moment. One decision. One motion. Kellogg had made it all. He had taken Nate away from her forever. She would never look in his eyes again to see them staring back. Never see him smile at her again. Never hear his voice. Never feel him in her grasp, or feel him touch her tenderly like he once had. Just like that, he was gone. And it hurt so much. Too much. She wanted him back. Damn it, she needed him back. She couldn't keep on going, not without him, not with his memory haunting her every day and night.

The pod gave way, and her hands caught her crash to the ground. She drifted through the memory like a ghost, lingering over Nate's body, his face frozen in the rictus of sudden death. The ring slipped into her fingers, and she crushed it inside her fist, vowing to never let go. Shock aided her to leave him there and pursue her son. She made a promise to get him back.

That promise carried her through the vault on the flight of grief and revenge. It pushed her out into the Wastes when nothing else would. It drove her to kill, and it forced her to love it.

Fury from the blood. Red and rage. Death and war and pain. She thrived on it all, needed it, whispered to it in the dark. And it kept her alive. The Wastes were gone, and she floated in the vacuity of her mind, waiting, whispering, and listening to it whisper back.

She was on the wings of paradise, before the war. The world rushed by, glowing and growing, achieving wonders from the human mind and promising the perfect life to all.

She was on the wings of war, before the fallout. The world was below her, shouting at her, accusing her. Nations were falling, people were running, soldiers were dying. She was down there, fighting, killing, dying. She hated it back then, dreaded every moment her rifle was in her hands, regretted every projectile that she freed, mourned every life she took.

Soldiers, power-armoured units, combat robots, artillery strikes, tanks, gunships and fighter jets, all gave way to raiders, mutated creatures, super mutants, synths, a deathclaw hunting her down, the Dark Bloods ravaging her limb from limb, a specimen suffocating her and crawling inside her head.

One minute, it was deathly quiet, the night seeming to drag on longer than usual, the next minute, his heart was in his throat. The screaming sent Danse bolting back for the cabin from the surrounding woods. Damn it. He had been so close, how could something have slipped past him into the cabin without him noticing? If she was hurt...

He stampeded his way through what was left of the front porch and smashed in the side of the doorframe without any consideration to normal combat procedure, laser rifle at the ready and eyes wild for battle, only to find Ilya sitting up on the mattress, aiming her pistol at him with feverish hands. She instantly dropped the weapon and gave a grating exhale, before running a hand over her tear-soaked face.

"Shit. Sorry. Just a dream," she managed.

"Sounded more like a nightmare," he said to cover his panic, glancing back at the mess he had made before slinging his rifle. Dogmeat was right at Ilya's side, lying on his stomach and staring at her with anxious eyes. Danse took the chance to examine her closely while she had her face hidden in her knees. She was doing worse than he feared. "Are you... alright?" He was aware how much of a stupid question it was.

"Yeah, I'll be okay," she lied through a sniff, tucking unruly strands of hair behind her ears and dashing away tears with her uniform sleeve. That motion drew his eyes to her hands, still bloody from the splinters she had given herself earlier. Such fury.

He stood prone and cracked open his power armour, stepping down and coming around from behind it, careful not to aggravate his healing rib. "Let's take care of those hands." Ilya just looked up at him with thankful eyes as he approached with the lantern from the corner, hovering her hands out for him to see in the dim light. He knelt and looked them over, then peeked up at her face quickly. She looked like hell, haggard and gaunt, with eyes that were deeply haunted, not to mention bloodshot. It was a miracle she could still operate so efficiently. Well, until tonight.

Danse wanted to broach the subject of her health, but had no idea how to do such a thing without coming off as her commanding officer. He hadn't the first clue how to comfort someone in so much distress, but he knew he had to try. It was clear that Ilya needed an intervention. If he didn't do something, she would just keep going to her death. And that prospect shook him to his core.

"Would it help to talk about it?" he began quietly. He carefully took one of her hands in his to find any wood shards still in the wounds. The contact with her soft skin made something inside him soften just as much. He had never touched her bare hands before.

Ilya alternated between watching him, and looking at her hand in his. "I... I don't even know where to start," she murmured.

Good. She wasn't opposed to the idea. "Well, what's the first thing you remember?"

Her eyes dropped, and she remained like that for so long that he thought she wouldn't say anything more. "Shaun, being taken from Nate. The gunshot." He watched as her brow twitched and her mouth quivered. "It's always the same. It never stops."

He knew loss all too well, from Cutler, to Paladin Krieg, to his brothers and sisters in battle, but comparing that to losing a spouse and child would be insensitive. "Have you tried speaking to someone about it? Knight-Captain Cade, or the doctor in Diamond City?"

Ilya shook her head, a thin smile playing on her lips. "So they can dope me up on chems and tell me to take it easy?"

Danse had to grunt in agreement at that. He had gone to Scribe Haylen for a fix on his sleeping troubles and constant headaches after losing his squad back when they were holed up at the police station. She had recommended a similar treatment; bed rest, which he had declined.

"How often are these nightmares occurring?" he queried while pushing out a sliver of wood from her palm, just as gently as his words.

"Every time I sleep. Some are more vivid than others." She slinked more hair behind her ear as wisps fell free. "The sound of that gun... it's always the worst. It won't let me forget." He, too, remembered vividly the sound of his rifle taking the life of the monster Cutler had become. "God, I miss Nate," Ilya finished with a glitter to her swollen eyes.

Danse despised the twinge of jealously that struck his gut, then. He had no right to it. It surprised him, too, though. He wasn't prepared for his attraction to Ilya to develop any further than that. Did that small reaction in him prove that it had? Whatever it meant, it didn't matter, it was inappropriate and against regulations. He blinked to clear his head and focus on pushing out the last splinter from beneath Ilya's skin. "I can't imagine what you're feeling, Harper." He caught her gaze as her eyes flicked up to his. "But what you've accomplished out here, despite what you've lost, is extraordinary. You are extraordinary." Beneath the layer of illness and anguish, he witnessed a brief glimpse of what she might have been like before the Great War, when her life was still whole.

"I had an extraordinary teacher." Her eyes smiled more than her lips, and he wasn't sure what that meant. He found himself lost in her smiling eyes, then, and his hands on hers fell still. She seemed to drink in the moment as much as him, because her following words took their time to be spoken. "I don't think I would have made it this far without you."

"I'm fairly confident you would have been just fine without me stomping around after you," Danse quipped, beginning to wrap her hands in bandage cloth. "I didn't give you the honoured rank of Crackshot Knight for no reason, you know?"

Instead of a return quip like he would have expected from her, Ilya sheltered her eyes beneath her lashes, staring at her knees. "I don't just mean in combat, Danse."

Oh... Danse fumbled for words. "Ilya, I... I had no idea things had gotten that unbearable for you." She kept her eyes down, and gave a nonchalant shrug, like it was no big deal. He realised he was still holding her hands despite having finished dressing them, and carefully gave them back to her. He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment cross her features before she examined his work, and wondered if he should have kept them in his hold.

"Thanks," she indicated her hands, then added, "and for having my back all this time."

"You're welcome," he said softly, a little too softly, but Ilya didn't seem to notice, still staring at her palms. He decided to take a leap. "I'll always have your back, even in the worst of times. I promise."

That drew her eye again, her sapphires sparking at him in the light of the lantern. He loved her sapphires, he could stare into them all night and familiarise himself with every wavelength of blue they hid, from the pale flares to the oceans of depth. But the light in her at his words quickly diminished, traded in for a hollow stare at her hands again. "I want to tell you about Shaun," she whispered.

Her son. The Institute. Was she finally ready to tell him what happened? He had read her report on the Institute shortly after arriving back aboard the Prydwen, but there had been no mention in it of her son. Danse bit back his questions and waited patiently. She would tell him what she wanted to tell him.

Ilya swallowed and her jaw-line tensed. "He's alive," her voice carried dully to his ears, breathing a cold air across the warmth of the cabin. Danse knew there was more to it, and that it wasn't good, but he waited, still. Her features creased with suppressed emotion. "And he's the Director of the Institute."

Alright. That was a bit of a hit to the gut, but he could handle this. Christ! Really? How is that even possible? "The Director?" he repeated. "Who you listed as 'Father' in your report? But, Shaun is still just a child."

She licked dry lips and nodded to his confusion. "I was in the pod longer than I thought. Sixty years longer... Shaun is," she pressed her lips into a stern line in an effort to keep control of herself, "he's an old man, now. He was the one who thawed me out. Wanted to see if I could find him. And I did." That lip she was trying to bite down on began to quiver. "And he's not my Shaun anymore."

The tears streamed down her cheeks, and she lowered her head again to hide her face. "I'm sorry," she squeaked.

"There's no need," Danse lulled, hesitatingly reaching a hand out to place against her shoulder. It shuddered with sobs beneath his hand, and Ilya buried her face in her knees once more, threads of hair falling forward and sticking to her wet face. His fingers yearned to tuck them behind her ear. How his fingers had wanted to do that every time her hair swayed in her face. But he didn't.

He did, however, shift himself over to sit next to her, wrap an arm around her shoulders, and gently pull her into him until she was fully leaning her weight against him. She was stiff at first, but she quickly melded against him, her tears catching on his uniform. It felt wrong but right simultaneously. Wrong because he was crossing a line, he was her direct commanding officer and he was getting too close, too personal, too attached. But right because... it was Ilya.

After she quieted, she didn't move, she just remained against his chest, her breath flowing in a calm rhythm. He wondered if she had fallen asleep, and then admitted to himself that he wouldn't mind holding her like that through the remainder of the night. But just as that thought occurred, she shifted, gently pressed her lips to his cheek, thanked him, and settled back down beneath the rug. Just like Haylen had.

This time, Danse stayed right there, watching over her until the sun graced the horizon.

A/N: More character-driven and less plot-driven with this chapter. Not really sure what people prefer, but I hope all enjoyed nonetheless! I wanted to delve deeper into Ilya's mental decline and really flesh out her instability, setting things up more for future events. And Danse, well he's a very complex character in my eyes so I always have to tread carefully in his perspective, but I love how the writers at Bethesda wrote his dynamics, he can always surprise me with some of the things he comes out with, and I have a lot of fun exploring him.

I'm sorry if the romance aspect is too slow burning for some people, but I wanted to explore both of their individualities before bringing them together.

Once again, thanks for reading and supporting, it means the world to me :)