If it was any consolation for the events of that morning, Moriarty did not beat Gob after he was brought back to the saloon. There was shouting and a rather red-faced Irishman, yet when it came to second-hand radiation, he seemed to share Simm's caution and stayed out of arm's reach. To keep him away from the merchandise and wary customers, for a few hours at least, Moriarty tossed his bartender into the back room they used for storage. He took inventory, scoured the entire area clean, and took inventory again under his boss's heavy scrutiny.
Gob worked through a haze of disbelief, waiting for someone to pop up and tell him the entire day was a joke. He was still waiting for someone to tell him the same thing about the last fifteen years of his enslavement, but until then, all he could do was wait.
He had trouble believing Cassie managed to get him out of the saloon during daylight hours. The smoothskin said she got in a shouting match with his boss. When he saw the way Colin favored his right leg through the lunch rush however, the startled ghoul wasn't sure shouting was the extent of their exchange. If he hurt her . . . Well, he couldn't do anything about it really, besides get slightly frustrated and feel even more helpless. To see his boss working the bar for such a length of time, especially injured, was a victory in itself. He didn't fear his next beating because of it. Gob returned to the bar a few hours before the evening crowd rolled in – plenty of time to get everything ready for their business peak.
When Cassie entered the bar that night, she found Gob seated at the bar's farthest edge, chewing mechanically. He normally sat there when he was allotted a short break to eat; Moriarty liked to keep him towards the back of the room. His plate was almost empty – cold squirrel bits left over from another customer by the look of it.
Adjusting the belt that secured her prized plasma rifle to her body, she made her way to the oblivious ghoul. After sidestepping a swaying man on his way out, she approached her friend and leaned in close to the side of his head. The squirrel must be inspiring some seriously enrapturing thoughts for him to have not noticed her yet.
Splitting a large grin, she whispered, "I'm glad to see you're alright."
As if someone dumped a bucket of ice water over his head, the ghoul spasmed and shot out of his seat. Finding Cassie, he calmed down but continued gaping. She still wore that strange blue suit, Pip-Boy around her wrist, but the color had returned to her cheeks and she appeared to have no trouble standing on her own.
"Smoothskin," he said at last, his voice rougher from the scare, and swore under his breath.
"I'm sorry," she said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, "I didn't mean to interrupt your meal."
"Smoothskin," he tried again, certain he had a point to make. His mouth felt dry and he still had a bit of squirrel climbing down his throat.
The recognizable beat of boots echoed over their heads, drawing both pairs of eyes upwards. With a dazzling smirk, Cassie tapped the side of her nose with a finger and casually retreated to her normal seat on the bar. Gob barely had enough time to throw himself back on his chair before Moriarty clomped down the stairs. Spotting the vault girl, his eyes narrowed.
"So," he scoffed with a sneer, oblivious to the way Gob hunched into his plate when he passed, "'yer not dead yet."
Cassie gave the miserable man a sweet smile; Gob watched out of the corner of his eye. Running her hand along the countertop, she shook her head, freeing the cropped locks to fall on her cheeks.
"Nope," she replied, sounding chipper enough to rival Moira. "Maybe next time."
Colin stalked into the private room, growling curses without bothering to offer her service. The bartender noticed he no longer walked with a limp. Either that, or he was making a strong effort to conceal it.
A lighter set of footfalls descended the rickety staircase. Looking over his shoulder, Gob caught sight of Nova. She glanced up at him on her way back to her post, looking sullen and bored.
Turning back to his squirrel bits, he ate as quickly as he could, nearly choking on the last couple pieces. Normally he stretched out his breaks as long as he dared, given Moriarty's mood on any given day and the number of ghoul-hating newcomers in the saloon.
When he finished, he cleaned the plate and bellied up to the front of the bar, a dirty rag in each hand. She watched with an expectant grin, but all he could do was breathe through his mouth.
"Hi Gob," she purred, succeeding in breaking him out of his trance.
"Smoothskin," he said, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"If you 'smoothskin' me one more time," she warned, a finger pointed at him playfully.
"Cassie," he returned, the finality of his own voice startling him.
That got her attention. She shut up and waited while many thoughts flew around behind his chapped lips. There was so much he wanted to ask her – Evergreen Mills, the bomb, Moriarty. Eventually, he fell back on an old habit.
"It's good to see you again," he rasped. Though nowhere near covering what he wanted to say, it was a start.
She didn't respond, merely peered back at him with the eyes of a stalking predator. He backed down quickly but returned moments later with a chilled Nuka-Cola. She took a sip.
"I'm glad you're feeling better," she said.
"Me?" Gob barked. This kid spent an hour in radioactive water and she was worried about him? "What about you? The last I saw, you were-"
"Dead enough to get Moriarty's hopes up?" she finished with a tilted brow. "Hardly. A few packs of Rad-Away fixed me right up. I'm ready to kick butt and take names. How'd you like to volunteer?"
"Kid," he said, shoulders hunched, "a lot of people saw . . . well, they saw you . . ."
"Saw me what?" she asked, leaning in.
He dropped his gaze, hands running nervously across the wood surface. To say it was one thing. To do it in public was a whole other level of sacrilege.
"Saw me, touch a ghoul?" she inquired, tilting her head up at him.
His eyes shifted around, reluctant to verify the accusation. However, when he looked back down at her, he found her pointed finger extending across the bar. She poked him square in the chest. Embarrassingly ticklish, he had to bite back a chuckle as his hand flew to the spot to defend against further assault.
It clearly wasn't her intent, as she immediately leaned back on the barstool, hands flailing about.
"I touched a ghoul," she said in a speaking voice loud enough for the entire bar to hear. "Oh no!"
Gob's eyes swept the saloon's patrons until her hands stilled and she settled on a brash grin. Though no one appeared to be paying attention, appearances meant very little when it came to professional gossipers and eavesdroppers.
"Look," he tried, "you can't . . . can't just-"
"I think I just did," she said pointedly. "Good grief Gob. I know the only thing contagious about you is that adorable blush and I can handle everything else. Darn it – smile! I thought you said you were happy to see me."
Though he ducked his head to hide it, he could not fight the grin that overtook his face at her ludicrous flattery. Ghouls couldn't blush, thank goodness, but his bashfulness won out in the end.
"I am happy to see you," he murmured, trying to compose himself. He took a calming breath, but the smile remained. "And thank you, for what you did. I'm not really sure what happened."
"Don't mention it. You're okay. I'm okay. That's what matters, right?"
Try as he might, he couldn't ignore the very real probability that she had spent the last few hours vomiting in a cold sweat while receiving treatment for an extreme case of radiation poisoning.
"You are okay, right?" she asked, swiping her eyes to the side. "He hasn't been too hard on you, has he?"
"Nah, he hasn't touched me at all today."
When Billy Creel approached her from behind and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, Gob dropped his gaze.
"Hey," the scavenger said, "glad to see you're doing okay."
"Thanks Billy," she said, turning to smile at the kind thought.
The barkeeper waited until the other man left through the front door before returning to his place.
"So, what's that you got on, smoothskin?" he asked, falling into the routine of worrying a tumbler with a cloth.
Her fingers skirted over the sleek material. Admittedly, he could not help his eyes from lingering on the feminine curves accented by the skin-hugging outfit.
"This old thing?" she asked, looking up in time to see his gaze dart away. "Don't you like it?" When all he did was stutter and scrub at the glass in his hands, she continued, "What? You're not a fan of full-body condoms?"
Gob hid his face in his hands, heedless of the smelly rag. "Never say that again, please."
"I thought you'd recognize it," she said, scooting off her seat and turning around. "You of all people."
With her back turned to him, he could once again see the peculiar yellow shapes. At last, he realized it was a number – 101.
"Your vault suit?" he asked, silently congratulating himself for keeping his eyes above her waistline. The last vault suit he saw was her father's, and that was mostly obscured by a heavy white coat. "Why are you wearing that?"
She sat back down, rubbing the sweat from her cola bottle. "You were right," she said, "as always. I wore plain clothes because it was strategically smart for me to do so. I don't have to hide it anymore. I don't have to hide who I am. Now, people know exactly who they're dealing with. Truth in advertising and all that."
This was heavy. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to say anything. Luckily, she filled the silence after a short pause.
"You know, I thought raiders and slavers would drop their guard when they saw the blue – make my job easier because they thought they found an easy mark. But get this: when they see me coming now, they run. I cleared out two camps without firing a single shot. I don't know whether to be ticked off or gratefully accept it."
"I say be grateful," Gob replied, glad that the flimsy suit offered her some special protection.
"I guess it's a good way to tell who listens to GNR and who doesn't," she mused, taking a sip of her drink. "The one downside is that it cuts down on my loot haul. I barely had half a bag when I got back yesterday. I'm going to be broke and poor little A3's gonna dry up without stuff to kill."
"That's another thing I don't understand," he said in a low voice, swapping out glasses. "How'd you get back so quick? I thought you'd be at Evergreen Mills at least until the end of the week."
"The storm, Gob," she answered. "Didn't you hear the rain? I got three-quarters of the way there, saw the storm clouds moving in, turned around, and walked right back home."
Well, she did promise she'd come back to rethink her plan if anything went wrong. He was glad she didn't try to clear out a raider base in the middle of a rare desert deluge.
With a huff, Nova peeled herself off the wall and came to stand behind the famous wanderer, hands clutched submissively over the front of her skirt. Gob saw the redhead walk over, looking a little less perky than most days, but it took a few seconds for Cassie to notice that her attention was wanted.
"Hey," Nova said when the other girl swiveled her seat around. Her eyes were down. This was obviously a delivery she was not proud to make. "I just wanted to say, thank you. What you did for Gob, he . . . Well, he means a lot to me."
Cassie remained silent for a few moments, processing her words of thanks and allowing her to say more if she wished, while Gob widened his eyes at the admission. Nova never said he meant a lot to her before. Sure, there was a sort of solidarity from banding together as indentured servants from the early days, but nothing ever that clearly phrased.
When Nova made no move to add anything further, Cassie did not offer any immediate response, only leaned forward. Resting a hand on the older woman's shoulder, she gave a small smile, one that spoke volumes.
"I know things may look dark," the wanderer said, "and hopeless, but I'm here for you." Looking over her shoulder, she laid her other hand over Gob's, stilling him as he unconsciously rubbed his dishrag over a glass. "Both of you."
Nova nodded, but as her head bobbed up and down, her eyes scrunched tightly shut and her pursed lips opened to reveal a trembling frown. Cassie released the ghoul's hands to welcome the shivering woman into a loose embrace, allowing her to rest her forehead on her chest while her shoulders shook with noiseless sobs.
Gob couldn't believe what he was seeing. Nova was a strong a person as Cassie, and while he'd seen her wistful or trite, he'd never seen her so openly distressed. In addition to that, Nova and Cassie rarely interacted or spoke with each other. He knew there was no animosity between the two, yet it was simply the case of two north-oriented magnets staying out of each other's space. He'd only seen one other person receive such gentle kindness from the bar-brawling, order-keeping, raider-slaying hero of the wastes – him.
The brunette petted the other woman's hair, heedless of the attention drawn to her corner of the bar. "Be strong," she whispered. "It's not much longer now."
Nova nodded, extracting herself from the other girl's hold. With a couple shy smiles, she returned upstairs to rest, dabbing at her eyes even though no tears fell.
When Cassie turned around, she noticed the bartender's slack jaw of disbelief and confusion. He tried to say something, anything, but the words dried up on his tongue.
Sensing his hesitation, she spoke up. "Look out for her, Gob," she said, her voice somber while she scrubbed her knuckles. "It doesn't take much to make a difference in one person's life."
Gob nodded dumbly. He didn't know what she meant by making a difference, but he doubted she could be talking about anyone other than Nova. The one thing that made it through to him was her mandate to protect Nova, to watch out for her. He didn't know how, or what that entailed, but knowing Cassie would never settle him with an impossible task, he resolved to do exactly as she said.
She finished off her Nuka-Cola, apparently tired of the direction their conversation veered.
"Plans to go back?" he asked at last. "To Evergreen Mills I mean."
She smiled, remembering what they were talking about a few minutes before. "In a couple days or so," she admitted. "I'm sure this dry ground sucked up all the water by now, but I don't want to chance running into a puddle when I'm not expecting one. Besides, I can only imagine how paranoid rain must make all those strung-out raiders."
Gob smiled. Cassie was back in Megaton and the world was as it should be once again. After talking a little more about storms of the past, she told him about a new book she found – a jewel among jewels for a romantic sap like her. She stayed until they locked up, when Moriarty stuck his head into the saloon and barked at her for still being there past closing time. After pushing caps into the ghoul's hand, she left with a promise to return the following day.