Survivor: Chapter Twelve
Disclaimer: Bethesda and Obsidian have made something awesome. I just like to play in it.
Notes: Sometimes I make changes for better storytelling effect, and sometimes it's because I believe the in-game source may be considered unreliable and the "truth" may be somewhat different. Please enjoy, and leave feedback
I've taken some liberties with the canon. I think you'll see why.
Alice is less than half a mile south of where she expects the bunker to be when there's a rustle in the underbrush. Something is coming her way, and fast - she drops to a crouch, gun at the ready. Whatever it is doesn't slow down, and when she takes off and hides behind a rocky outcropping, the creature coming towards her does the same. It's coming, whatever it is, and it's big -
And then something bursts through the clearing and she's glad her brain processes what it is before she can shoot, because it's Dogmeat. She's so happy to see him she doesn't even stop to wonder what he's doing here - instead she's hugging his neck and taking in the sweaty dog smell of him, like corn chips left outside in the rain. For his part, he prances happily around her, trying to lick her cheeks and mostly succeeding, no matter how much she tries to turn her face away. A solid two minutes later, she disentangles herself from the dog and he gives a happy bark, shaking his neck.
A bandana has been tied there, she sees now, and a piece of paper sticks out beneath it. When she pulls it out, it rips along the seam. Part of it is wet, but she can still read the careful printing.
Alice -
We've found something big that might help. Follow the Freedom Trail.
Piper
Distractedly, Alice shoves the note in her pocket. Piper has something for her that sounds good, but first she needs to find the bunker. She needs to find him.
She cocks her gun and she and Dogmeat set off to the north, looking for the bunker. Looking for Danse.
He's known someone would come looking for him; he's not so foolish to think Maxson would let an abomination like him live.
If what he's doing can be called living.
Standing in the back room of the bunker, the room with the cave-in, M7-97 looks down at his body. His uniform lies in a discarded heap in the corner; a machine doesn't need clothing. A machine doesn't have modesty, or pride, or shame.
He knows now what he is.
All he wants is some time to make his peace with his true nature - he isn't a human being after all. He is a machine, created by the Institute. He's not even sure if he's a replacement for a real person they kidnapped and murdered, in a bid to get inside information on the Brotherhood? If so, he certainly doesn't deserve to live.
If so, they really fucked up, because he'd never betray his brothers, machine or not.
Or was he created for some other purpose, and escaped or discarded when he was no longer useful?
Why does he have all these memories of before, if he wasn't meant to replace someone? Who would go through all that trouble?
Why didn't he know his own true nature before he heard his synth designation?
His hands are scarred; his legs are strong. In his chest, something pumps what he thought was blood, but now he doesn't know what is true and what's been manufactured.
The loud rattle of the elevator startles him, and he's furious inside; he's not ready. M7-97 isn't sure if a machine can want anything, but he does. He wants just a little more time to understand.
He won't stand up to the Brotherhood; if they've sent someone for him, he'll deal with it.
When the doors open and he sees her familiar pale curls, something inside him breaks. It can't be his heart; machines don't have hearts that can break.
He stares at her, waiting for her to speak. Instead, she holsters her gun and takes a tentative step towards him. Panic rises inside him and he takes a step back. The look on her face is devastating.
"I'm not surprised Maxson sent you," he sighs. If only there was more time. "He never liked to do the dirty work himself."
He can see her swallow. Her hands are shaking. "I wish you would have told me the truth, Danse."
But that's not his name; he's not Danse. Danse may have been a man who was killed so that M7-97 could take his place. Danse was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Danse was a soldier.
M7-97 is nothing. He should be relegated to the scrap heap.
The new knowledge of what he is, of how little he's known about himself, makes him want to collapse. He's never felt so tired.
"I might have, if I'd known what I was," he tells her, wondering why he's even bothering. "Until Quinlan got that list decoded, I thought synths were the enemy. I never expected to hear that I was one of them."
"I know," she says, her eyes are locked on his face, her expression unreadable. He looks away, ashamed. Whatever he thought this was, there's no place for a synth in her life. She's come to kill him, he knows that.
"Do your duty. I won't resist." At least he'll be able to rest. He won't have to feel...this. This heaviness. Why create him just so he could go through this?
It's another question he'll never have the answer to.
"Is that what you think?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, and when he looks back to her face, her eyes are huge and furious. It looks like she's barely keeping it together. "You think I came here to kill you?"
"You can't kill a machine."
"I don't look at you and see a machine," there's a pleading note to her voice. He wonders idly why she would want to save something that shouldn't exist. "I look at you and I see...Danse. The same guy who dragged me through clouds of radiation in the Glowing Sea. The guy who helped me find my way to the Institute. The guy who kissed me in a bunker."
"I'm not blind to the fact that this must be difficult for you. I wish Maxson had sent someone else." There's tears running down her face now. "Anyone else."
"Don't you...don't you want to live?"
"What I want is...immaterial. I'm a synth. I should be destroyed." He thinks of what she told him, of the Institute. He thinks of her son. "You know that better than anyone."
She crumples at that; her whole face collapses. In all this time, despite what he's seen her go through, he's never really seen her cry like this. Like her heart is breaking.
And he's done this, with his very nature.
That's when he sees the knife in her hand. In a moment, she's sliced open a line in her palm, wincing as she does so. She holds the injured hand out to him, and he takes it, careful to avoid hurting her. A drop of blood drips from her hand to the floor, making a red smear.
Alice grabs his hand, her fingers strong around his own, and before he realizes it, she's made a shallow cut in his own palm. It hurts. There's blood, or at least what passes for blood. M7-97 stares at it with a detached sense of curiosity.
"Does it hurt?" She's looking in his eyes, searching for something. He stares at his palm, closing and opening it. More blood drops from both their hands, splattering quietly on the floor. From up here, he can't tell which is hers and which is his own.
"Yes, it hurts," he admits.
"How can you tell me that you're not real if that hurts?" The knife falls from her uninjured hand, and she brings it to his face. Her fingers are cold, gentle - they touch his nose, his brow. They trace the line of his lips, and he feels a surge of longing. He wants to kiss her.
"If you don't decommission me, you'll betray the Brotherhood and all it stands for." That's the truth of the matter. That's why he's here, isn't it? To wait for death. What a shame it has to be her.
She shakes her head, curls flying. "Goddammit, Danse, fuck the Brotherhood, fuck their ideals, and fuck you if you think I'm going to kill you. I won't do it." She still holds his injured hand in her own and she squeezes it now, sending a shooting pain up his arm. He winces.
"Synths can't be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions. I was never meant to make my own decisions." He wonders about his life in the Brotherhood, following orders, taking direction. He was good at it - no wonder. He sets that aside. "Technology that's run amok is what brought the world to its knees and humanity to the brink of extinction. I need to be the example, not the exception."
She's sobbing now, her head leaning into his chest. He finds himself wrapping an arm around her back, rubbing small circles with one finger on her shoulder blade. Somehow comforting her comforts him; he feels more at peace knowing that someone who cares for him will do it.
Like he did to Cutler. Or at least, like someone named Danse did for Cutler.
If you don't do it," he sighs. "I'll have to."
Her body goes stiff in his arms. She is still, all her muscles tensed, and all he can hear is the patter of blood dripping from their hands to the floor.
And then so much happens at once. Alice is out of his arms, across the room, one shaky hand holding Kellogg's pistol to her head. The gun is cocked, the barrel hidden in a sea of curls, and her hand is shaking so much he's afraid she'll pull the trigger by accident.
Her voice is low when she says, "If you do it, I swear the next thing I'll do is I'll shoot myself."
His hands immediately go up, palms out towards her. Defensive, placating. His voice is soft. All he can think about is talking her down. "You can't do that. I'm a machine. Machines don't really die." But apparently they can feel pain? He doesn't think he can think straight anymore, not with that gun at her temple.
"I've already lost everything, Danse," her voice has raised. There's a note of panic in it. "My husband is dead. My world is gone. My son is a fucking sociopath who murders people and replaces them with machines and I think he even created you. You are the only person I love in this world and if you kill yourself just to make things somehow even, I can't live in it anymore."
He didn't think machines could feel shock. But here he is, shocked.
"You...love me?" It hits him like a ton of bricks. He can see her arm stabilizing; the look on his face must be clear.
She loves him. And he loves her; he's always loved her, from the moment he saw her at the Cambridge Police Station, shooting ferals even though there wasn't anything in it for her. He thought he loved watching her work, but he realizes now, no - he loves her.
A synth shouldn't be able to feel love. But he does.
"How could I have been so blind?" He's speaking to himself more than to her, but she hears him; the gun drops from her hand and she runs into his arms. Her body is welcome against his; she fits right in the curve of his arms.
She's crying into his chest, shaking again like a small bird, and he buries his face into her hair. He doesn't know who he is, but in this moment, he knows everything will be alright. Somehow.
Alice wraps their injured hands in gauze and opens some potato chips for a snack. Suddenly embarrassed at his display and shy about his body, he pulls his uniform back on They sit inside the bunker, curled up together on the floor, munching and chatting. Sometimes they're quiet. After a while, she turns on her Pip-Boy radio and they listen to music together until she falls asleep, wrapped protectively in his arms.
She's wanted the chance to save him, she thinks to herself as she drifted off. And today she got it. Tomorrow will wait. For once, she has no dreams of the vault or her family or everything she's lost. Sleep is quiet and peaceful.
It's hard to tell what time it is in an underground bunker, but she's in the habit of waking around 6, and so when she rouses and checks her Pip-Boy, she's surprised to see it's well after 8. Danse is already awake, running his fingers through her hair and smiling at her in a quiet way.
"Did you know you talk in your sleep?" He plays idly with a curl, twisting it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger.
She shifts into a sitting position, suddenly shy. Her hand hurts where she cut it the day before, but somehow she likes it; the scar will be something tangible from this night everything changed.
"Nate - my husband - used to tell me the same thing."
Danse's eyes narrow. Something lurks back there. "I forgot you were married once."
Jealousy? Is that what this is? She feels a flicker of annoyance. "He was my husband, Danse. It's not like I'm ever going to forget him. I'll always love him. But…" she looks down at his chest, the memory of his naked body standing before her seared into her memory from the day before. Now, in his orange-and-gray uniform, she can still remember the power of his muscles. She flicks her eyes back up to his face. "He's dead. He's been dead a long time. And you're here, and I meant what I said yesterday. I love you."
His lips, when they meet hers, are tender. His beard scratches her chin; it tickles. His kiss is polite, tentative, and she moves her hand softly up to his neck, holding it face against hers, even as she opens her mouth. His tongue works its way between her lips, and his breath still smells faintly of potato chips.
This is a man, no matter where he came from, she thinks as he wraps his other arm around her and crushes her to his chest. Her fingers wrap around the zipper pull at his throat and begin to work his uniform open, and he pulls back, hand wrapped around hers.
"I'm not sure I'm ready for that." His eyes are serious; he's not teasing. Before she can ask, he continues, "Everything I had, everything I knew is gone. In the span of a few hours, my identity was ripped from me and my world turned upside-down. I'm not sure I'm ready for...what this means, too."
Alice thinks about this and nods.
"I understand. Just…" her fingers work their way out of his grasp and gently trace the line of his jaw. "Let me know when you are ready."
A smile from him. "I will. For now, you need to get out here."
She's startled. "What, but why? I'm not leaving without you."
He presses something metal into her hand. "Take my holotags. Use them to prove to Maxson that your mission was a success, or he'll just send someone else to hunt me down."
Somehow, this is the moment when it dawns on her that this isn't over. Whatever happens next, where ever they go, Danse will be a fugitive from his own family. If she's with him, so will she.
Her thoughts drift back to the note in her pocket from Piper. Something big. Something that will help. Follow the Freedom Trail.
"I'm coming back for you," she says, starting to stand. "If I come back and you've used this chance to go back on your word, know that I'll kill myself too."
But his smile is gentle, even kind.
"You've taught me that I have value, even if I am an abomination," his hand is warm in hers. "I'll be here when you return. Waiting."
There's time for one more kiss before she leaves, and it's sweet.
The ride back to the surface is loud; the elderly elevator clatters and rattles and Alice wonders if the cables will break and she'll drop to the bottom to splatter into pulp. But eventually, she reaches the surface, and steps out into the sunshine outside.
And runs almost into Elder Maxson.
She stops dead in her tracks. The loathing in his eyes is a living beast all its own. Somehow, some way, he knows.
"How dare you betray the Brotherhood?"
Her rage rises up before she knows what's happening. "How dare you follow me?" Alice spits out. Her .44 is already in her hand.
Maxson looks her up and down. "I suspected you'd have difficulty following orders. But I also knew if anyone could find that...machine, it'd be you. It appears I was correct on both counts."
He holds a gun as well. She's not sure how she didn't notice it before, but the laser pistol sits casually in his hand, held to one side. It's long, silver. It looks lethal.
"What did it say to you to make you betray the Brotherhood?"
"He didn't say anything. I love him," she says simply.
Maxson laughs. "That...thing isn't a man. It's a machine. An automaton created by the Institute."
At the mention of the Institute, she feels a flare of shame. Maybe all this wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for her son.
"He bleeds, he hurts, he loves. He's real to me."
"Flesh is flesh," he gestures. "Machine is machine. The two were never meant to...intertwine." The look of disgust on his face is pure.
"How can you say that about him? He's been your most loyal soldier. Think of all the things he's done in the name of the Brotherhood. How can you doubt his loyalty?"
Maxson is silent, impotent in his rage.
"I couldn't kill him. If you think you can, you'll have to go through me." She tosses the holotags into the dirt between them. "Here's his tags. You can tell the others he's dead, or you can fight me for him."
He stares at her, perhaps trying to take her measure. Maybe just trying to think.
Alice stares back at him, trying not to let her knees betray her sense of nervousness. She thinks she can take him down if she has to. But she doesn't really want to prove it.
"Fine," he says at last. He leans over, scoops up the holotags from the dirt. Glares at her. "He's dead. Make sure he stays that way, or we'll shoot on sight. Same goes for you."
When she finally hears his vertibird take off over the hill, the sigh she lets out feels like it's been held for years. It's like she's breathing for the first time since she left the vault. The air is fresh, cool. It smells of fallen leaves and freedom.
She turns around and heads back into the bunker.
