Moment 011: Wrong
She hates the Glowing Sea. Hates the sickly, green tinge to the air and the constant, murring rush of a wind that isn't there because it makes her teeth ache and her head tighten. Everything here is wrong, from how it smells to how it sounds to how it looks and feels, and the air itself is thick and dead on her tongue when she breathes; still, but crackling, like a ghost that hasn't yet appeared.
It might, she allows as they continue their trek across the decaying land, be easier to take if she would actually use all the equipment she has available. Like the power armor that Piper had been so pissed to see, that first time.
"You have your own, personal bullet-proof body sitting right here, and you run around in that jumpsuit and some cobbled-together armor? Are you friggin' kidding me, Blue?!"
Piper's eyes can change in a heartbeat; from warm, quiet comfort to sparking, steely anger. But she gets it, or at least she thinks she does. Piper is only ever angry with her when she worries, and with how dangerous the Commonwealth is, there's certainly plenty of cause to do that. And she doesn't want to make her worry; wishes – in fact – that she could just explain and maybe make that anger go away because seeing it makes her stomach hurt. The words to do so, however, elude her as they've always done.
She tries. Keeps trying, a little at a time when she has the chance and Sanctuary is still and dark and quiet and there's no one to see. But the armor is dark and tight and she can't move – can't breathe – for how it presses on her chest as if it's trying to cave it in. When she had to – that one time in the ruins of Concord – it was easier, because nothing makes her think less about clicking and whirring and how the colors are all wrong than a band of raiders out for blood.
"Really held your own there, Blue."
A different time, that. Different tone and inflection – warmer, she thinks; proud, not angry – but the same voice. The same smile. The same name.
Blue.
It fits. Better than her old one does, certainly; a new name for a new world instead of old for old. It settles, somehow, in her chest. Comfortably, with no memories attached other than the ones she's earned after leaving the vault. Clean. Fresh. She tries, sometimes, to sound her old name out in her head, but she can't do that without hearing it in Nate's voice.
"Hey." His voice; grabbing her attention away from the elevator shaft that is so long and dark and loud and filled with frightened faces and oh, God, that was actually a bomb. "Right here." A hand that she knows; gently taking her wrist and placing her palm over Shaun's belly where she can feel his breathing; warm and alive and hitching a little because he's as scared and confused as everyone else. "We're both right here." The hand releases her wrist and instead cups the back of her head, and she can feel his forehead against her own; a familiar pressure as his eyes catch hers and holds them. Grounds her. "Everything is going to be fine. Stay with me, okay?"
Piper always reminded her a lot of Nate. She misses him, still, and hates that fact that not seeing his face is getting easier because he was there for so long; noticing – perhaps more than anyone else because that was how he was – the ways in which she is... a little different, sometimes. Most of the time, maybe, but she learned to hide it long ago; to read the rhythm and sequence in how other people work, and adjust accordingly.
Nate didn't care. He just tried to understand as much as he could when even she couldn't explain, and was just there. Sturdy, safe and comfortable, and she loved him. Loves him, still, even if his face is fading.
"Well, we survived," Nick says when the air clears and stops tasting of poison. He startles her a little, actually, because he doesn't say much overall and talking – out here in the wasteland – is still something that belongs to Piper. "Where to now, friend?"
"Sanctuary," she says. Not 'home'; not yet. Maybe never. It doesn't fit; not the way it used to. "I'll-" The pause is small, but necessary to find the right phrasing because she doesn't want to hurt; even if it's Nick, who doesn't seem to much care about things like that. "I'll see you later, Nick."
"You sure?" He stuffs his metal hand in one pocket, and eyes her. "No denying that you can take care of yourself, but that's a long way on your own."
A day at least, if she hurries; more like two. But she nods because he isn't comfortable, not yet, and she needs to be alone to get her head together. "I'm sure. Tell-" Another pause; this time because she still doesn't understand. "Say hi to Piper for me?"
He promises that he will, and then she's alone. With her thoughts, and the silence that isn't quite that. It isn't comfortable, yet; the creak of dead branches and the occasional, far-off sound of gunfire. Every little sound jumps at her; pulling her attention in a different direction a dozen times in a single second, but that is, at least, a definite improvement from a hundred times per second.
She's adjusting. She's learning this world like she did the old one from before the bombs; getting to know its unfamiliar sounds and smells and sights. One day at a time, because it does – it will – get easier. She knows that from experience, and so tries to ignore the groans and shuffles and whooshes that sound so wrong to her ears; to just let the sunlight be a little paler, and the sky a little too blue.
Piper's company would be welcome. Her voice, her stories and the way she wanders off a little sometimes have proven to be great ways in which to center her attention. Familiar, by now. Safe. Comfortable.
But Piper isn't here.
"Sorry, Blue; I gotta run this paper, y'know? It's kinda the only thing keeping the lights on." And that's reasonable and can't be anything other than true, but something in her eyes is still... wrong. "Hey; take Nick with you, maybe? I think he's bored. I swear, the other day his joints squeaked; could probably use a little running around to limber him up."
She walks, at first. Sitting would probably be better; her body needs the rest after the stress of how wrong the Glowing Sea is, but walking is a close enough approximation and she does need to keep moving. According to Brian Virgil's notes – she takes them out now; studying them again even though she knew them by heart after reading them once – building this... signal interceptor (also wrong; sounds like it has a syllable too little or too much) is going to be a monumental task, so the sooner she gets back to Sanctuary and can have Sturges look at this, the better.
The raiders don't even come close to getting the drop on her; she hears them leagues away, which at least means that in some ways, her hyper-charged senses are a blessing. Killing also isn't comfortable – she hopes it never will be – but it's a necessity most of the time, and does, in a sickening sort of way, narrow her focus for as long as the fight goes on. Centers her.
There's three of them; grizzled and thin and now dead on the ground, and she takes what she can but otherwise leaves them behind after tending to her own injuries – minor, at least – and picking up three pebbles. She's never asked Piper to carry those; doesn't think she's even noticed.
302 now, total; most of them back in Sanctuary. One for every human life only because she can't keep count of the animal ones, which is saying something.
Now, she runs; jogs, at any rate, because the fight – in another backhanded sort of blessing – shook the rest of the stress from her system. In, two, three, four; out, two, three, four. Steady and simple and comfortable, with a flicker of Nate's grin in her mind and the sound of two sets of feet instead of one. Rhythm.
"How did I ever travel without you, Blue?"
She sighs, and pops another dose of Rad-X because she recognizes the far-off, weirdly metallic rumble of a radiation storm and can't be sure that those aren't stronger this close to the crater. "How the hell am I going to travel without you, Piper?"
But she has to, and worse than that, she has to do it with this sick, icy sort of feeling low in her gut that she did something wrong.
She just wishes that she could figure out what it was.
xXxXx
End notes:
So because I'm curious and try to have different styles of 'speaking' depending on which character is telling the story: How long did it take you people to figure out the POV switch?
Also, a small, advance warning; once Easter is over - which is very soon - I'll have to spend a lot more time adulting. Which means, sadly, that the updates will probably come quite a bit slower.