Apologies for the delay in posting this update! I've recently come back on a trip to the USA in which I visited some of the country's greatest Fallout locations with my good friend niule (who also proofread this chapter, thank you!). There are photos on my tumblr (link in profile) tagged with 'Fallout tour of America' in case you're interested. I even wrote some of this chapter in Boston!

Ella was exhausted by the time they reached Cambridge, just after midnight. The moon was high and full in the sky, casting a bone-white glow over the remains of her old college town, now red brick rubble and piles of crumbling marble.

"I think this might be where I say goodbye," said Nick. "I've got an awful lot of cases to catch up on, and your friends don't seem like they'd be keen on me hanging around."

She nodded. "Thank you," she said. "For coming with me."

"You going to be okay?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," she said, with a weak smile. "Just need a good night's sleep."

He sighed. "Well, you know where to find me," he said. "Look after yourself, kid."

He watched her as she walked through the police station gates, then turned back towards Diamond City.

She walked slowly into the police station grounds.

"Whoa!" A Brotherhood knight in power armour stepped into her path, holding up a hand. "Hold up there. Where have you come from? You're throwing some crazy readings on my Geiger counter."

"Glowing Sea," she said,

"Explains why your suit is red hot," he said. "I'm going to need you to step out of that and move away quickly. You can't take that inside."

"Sure." She climbed out of the suit. Her legs were shaky as she stepped to the ground and backed away from her power armour. The warm night air surrounded her like a blanket

"Thanks," he said. "Leave it out here for decon, okay? You can pick it up in the morning."

The dim lightbulb in the reception area cast a pale glow over the front desk. The stopped clock on the wall was shattered, its plastic hands fragile and cracking. She stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

Danse was sitting at one of the tables. He stood up when he saw her.

"Don't you ever sleep?" she asked, trying to smile.

"I wasn't expecting you back so soon," he said.

"I just wanted to - to sleep somewhere safe," she said.

"Did you find the Institute scientist?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. "We did. He wasn't what I-" She sighed. "I'll tell you about it in the morning, okay?"

"Of course," he said, sitting back down.

She carried a spare sleeping bag into the holding cells and curled up on the cot in the cell furthest away from the door. As she was drifting off to sleep, she thought she could hear her Geiger counter crackling in her ears. She hauled her arm out from the sleeping bag to check her pip-boy, but it was silent. She could still hear the crackling in her ears as she went to sleep.

"Who's Mark?" asked Haylen. Her voice dragged Ella out of a deep sleep.

Ella blinked blearily, pushing herself upright. "What?" Dust motes danced in the sunlight that streamed between the cracks in the boarded-up window.

"Mark. You said his name in your sleep."

"Did I?" she asked. She leaned back against the exposed brick cell wall, stretching her shoulders uncomfortably. "I was thinking about him yesterday, I guess."

"Was he - your husband?" asked Haylen.

She shook her head. "No, no. He was - a junior partner at work. He lived in this gorgeous house out in Walpole, with these four little bushes out the front that he kept immaculately trimmed." She smiled. " Cheryl - his wife - had a baby a couple of months ago-" She broke off, frowning. "I mean, a couple of months - before. And he told me I should take Shaun to visit, now that their daughter was, you know, aware of other babies, smiling, making friends. But - I never did. It's just so hard, trying to get a six-month-old out of the house. Diapers, formula, things to keep him occupied if he gets unsettled. So, I never got around to it. I never thought that-" she broke off. "We used to joke about our kids growing up together and getting married."

Haylen wrapped her fingers around the iron bars and leaned her cheek against the door. "I'm sorry."

"It's-" She shrugged. "In the past."

"Why were you thinking about him?"

"Oh," said Ella. "Walpole's out to the, uh, southeast, along the I-95. My pip-boy says we walked right through that way yesterday, but - it's hard to tell."

"I can't imagine what it must be like," said Haylen, quietly.

Ella smiled weakly. "It's strange," she said. "It's easier if I try to not to think about it."

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Haylen. Her eyes were full of concern. "God knows Danse isn't the easiest to open up to about stuff like this."

"I - no. Not yet," she said. "One day, maybe. Hard to find anyone else who's been in quite the same situation."

"Well, if you ever feel like it..." said Haylen.

"That's kind of you," said Ella, softly.

Haylen sighed. "Well - it's hard being a new recruit. And I imagine it's even harder if-"

"You've got enough to worry about without adding me to the list," said Ella.

"You're part of the team, now." Haylen smiled crookedly. "I've got enough worrying for everybody." She stepped back. "Anyway, I came to let you know breakfast is ready, if you're hungry."

Ella could hear voices from the station command room; the crackling of radio transmissions as the base came to life.

"Did you cook it?" asked Ella. "Do you always cook?"

A frown flickered across Haylen's face. "It didn't use to be me," she said. "There's just - not many of us left, now. So I took over." She smiled awkwardly. "Danse just - doesn't care what things taste like, and Rhys is - well..."

"Difficult?" suggested Ella.

For a moment, it looked like Haylen was about to disagree. "He's - well, yeah." She shrugged.

"I'll be there in a minute," said Ella. "Thank you."

She took her time getting ready, trying to delay as long as she could. Her arms and legs ached from the unfamiliar feeling of moving for so long in power armour. She stretched her sore limbs out, wincing at the stiffness.

The others were eating when she arrived. She took a seat at the end of the table. Haylen passed down an omelette on a chipped white plate. She lifted a fork half-heartedly, trying not to think about what kind of animal had laid the egg..

"How was the mission?" asked Danse.

Ella looked down. "Can we talk about it later?" she asked.

Rhys looked up. "What, you don't want me and Haylen to hear?"

She put down her food. "I don't really feel like discussing the Institute over breakfast," she said.

"So when do you want to discuss it?" he asked.
"That's enough, Rhys," said Danse.

Ella glanced up at him gratefully, but she caught Rhys' eye. He glowered at her. She kept her eyes focused on her plate until the others were finished.

She had finished about half of the omelette Haylen had made, and was pushing the remainder of it around her plate when Danse approached her seat.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, pushing her plate away. She stood to follow him out the door.

"I came in here once, before the war," she said, once they were outside. "To hand in a wallet I found on campus. It had - I don't know, a couple hundred bucks in it and a student ID. I think he was from Engineering. Don't know if he ever picked it up."

"You handed it in here?" asked Danse.

"Yeah," she said, uneasily. "You still have that, don't you? Places you can hand in things you find that don't belong to-" She broke off with a sigh. "Maybe not. Not here, anyway. Here, you just find stuff and assume the owner is dead and keep it. Jesus."

"You handed it - to the police?" he asked. "Instead of keeping it?"

"Well," she said uncomfortably. "It's just what you did. It wasn't because I'm a particularly altruistic person, it was more in a social contract kind of way." She shrugged a shoulder. "You know, it suits me better if I live in a world where people hand in lost wallets, rather than a world where people keep lost wallets, even if I benefit from finding a wallet. Plus, it was like a month until exams and it's a huge drama to get another ID card in a hurry. It'd just be an asshole move not to."

He looked at her seriously. "We can rebuild society here so it's like that again," he said.

"I - don't know if that's possible," she murmured, looking away. "But it's a nice idea."

"It's what we do," he said. "What's our next mission?"

"We have to kill a Courser," she said. "A - special type of synth. They're meant to be more dangerous than the regular type." She ran her Geiger counter over her power armour, standing out in the courtyard. It was clear, so she climbed inside.

"I assume they die like any other synth," he said, as the helmet closed over her head. "Not a problem."

She smiled. "You have a talent for simplifying a situation," she said. "Apparently the most likely place we can find one is at CIT."

He nodded. "What was it you didn't want to tell me in front of the others?" he asked. "About the Institute scientist."

She looked at him for a long moment before speaking. "He turned himself into a super mutant to escape the Institute."

Danse's eyes widened. "Why? Why would anyone do something that drastic?"

"Because he thinks he can turn himself back," she said carefully. "He created a very specific strain - for the purposes of escaping, I think - and he created an antidote that he thinks will reverse the effects of that specific strain. Only that strain."

"You're saying - there's a cure," he said.

She put a hand on the arm of his power armour, over the Brotherhood sigil. "No," she said. "There's no cure out there for any super mutant other than him. No other super mutant would be affected. And he doesn't even know if it'll work."

He took a step back. She let her arm drop to her side.

"I told you," he began. "About-"

"Your friend," she said quietly. "Yes. This wouldn't have cured him."

"How can you say that?" he asked unsteadily. "How do you know?"

"Did he talk to you?" she asked. "When you found him?"

"No," he said, subdued. "Just - attacked. The only reason I knew it was him were the remnants of his Brotherhood uniform."

"If he didn't talk, you couldn't have reasoned with him," she said.
He sighed. "I know," he said. "But - I've always wondered if I could have done something more."

"How many years ago was that?" she asked gently. "Nine? Ten? Even if this - this potential cure could have turned him back, that's still a decade of a super mutant nest operating in DC - killing people, eating them, leaving those bags of - flesh everywhere. Hunting people to make more super mutants. You spared countless people from that. He was gone when you found him. And this isn't a cure. I need you to know that. As for this - this is an experiment. It's untested and it's not designed to work on anyone except for this one person."

He was silent, his brown eyes troubled.

"You didn't just save other people from him," she continued. "You saved him from a life of having to live like that. I didn't know him, but - that's not a life anyone would want. That's not a life I would want."

"I've justified it to myself hundreds of times," he said.

"Do you believe it?" she asked.

He frowned. "Let's just focus on the mission," he said.

"Right," she said, quietly, as he turned and walked away. She watched him for a moment, then began to follow him down the quiet back alley.

After a few steps he stopped, and turned back, forcing her to stop short to avoid walking into him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to cut you off. This - isn't easy for me to talk about. And I'm very aware you have enough to worry about without my own problems adding to it."

She looked down. "I shouldn't have pushed you on it. It's just - I didn't want you to think that this could have changed anything."

The silence drew out uncomfortably. "S-sorry," she stammered, at last. "Was that inappropriate? I know this is - important, to you, I didn't mean to-"

"No," he said. "Not at all. Just - unexpected."

She hesitated. "You're not used to-" she began, but her words were drowned out by a vertibird flying low overhead. They both looked up as the mounted minigun began to fire at a nearby building.

Two knights in power armour dropped from the vertibird, landing just out of sight. The sound of laser fire echoed off the decaying buildings.

Danse glanced towards her.

She nodded. "Let's help out."

They crept towards the sound of combat. Ella crouched as they rounded the side of the building, and took a moment to set her rifle bipod up on a fallen chunk of concrete. She lowered her head to look through the scope. She could see huge, hulking figures shrouded by clouds of dust rising from the ground around their feet. She took the time to line up her shot, watched for a moment, and then squeezed the trigger. The figures scattered, taking cover where they could.

As the dust was clearing, a figure in power armour strode up and whirled around, facing away from them. "Who in the hell did this?" she asked, gesturing towards her back. There was a large, ragged bullet hole not two inches away from the armour's fusion core.

Ella's eyes widened behind her helmet.

The knight turned back. "I'm looking at you because that is a large caliber ballistic weapon entry point, and you're the only one I see here holding a scoped rifle," she said. "Do you see how fucking close this is to my fusion core? Do you know what would have happened if you hit it?"

"I'm sorry," stammered Ella. "I didn't mean-"

"I mean, yeah, you'd have taken out the super mutants," the knight continued, sharply. "You just would have taken out me and two of my friends as well. No survivors, either, so there's an added bonus for you."

Danse took a step forward. "If you've got something to say, knight, you can say it to me," he said.

The knight turned towards him, then took a step back as she caught sight of the rank markings on his armour. "With respect, sir," she said, her voice clipped and precise. "You may want to have a discussion with your subordinate about appropriate target identification."

"Thank you, knight," he said. "That will be all."

"Sir." She turned back towards the waiting vertibird.

Danse turned to Ella as she walked away. "I don't really have to have a conversation about target identification with you, do I?" he asked.

She looked down. "No," she said. "Sir."

"That's - not necessary," he said. "And I'm not going to give you a dressing down. But this can't happen again."

"I could have killed her," Ella said, quietly.

"Yes," said Danse. "You were lucky. She was lucky. You know how close you came."

"I didn't - fire at anything I didn't think was a super mutant," she said.

"You need to be sure before you pull the trigger," he said. "If your target is too far away, or is in close combat with a friendly target, it's safer to hold fire."

She looked down at the rifle, clasped in the mechanical fingers of her power armour. "I - I'm not a soldier, Danse," she said, her voice shaking. She lowered the rifle to her side. The power armour suddenly seemed claustrophobic and stifling. "I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be putting people in this kind of danger."

Danse looked at her for a moment before responding. "You're the Brotherhood's best hope of achieving its aims in the Commonwealth," he said.

She was breathing heavily. "That's it?" she asked. "That's all I'm for? Everything else is just window dressing?"

He shook his head. "Everything else I can teach you," he said. "Ella, there's a place for you with the Brotherhood. You belong." He paused. "Are you okay?"
"I don't-" She cut herself off with a sigh. "Yeah."

He looked at her for a moment longer, then nodded.

"Good," he said. "Let's move out."

This is secretly based on a true story (in that I accidentally shoot Brotherhood thinking they're super mutants ALL THE TIME whoops)