*Thank you all for your incredible patience, as always! This last month I was slammed with quite a few more freelancing projects than normal... which was great for my bank account, but not so great for my "fun" writing.

I've also been taking more time to try and plan this fic out because, as I've mentioned before, I never really expected it to go this far or become this popular. That being said, I'm very interested in your comments/ feedback! This fic has changed and evolved more during the creation process than any other story I've written, I think.

Thank you all again for being so awesomely patient, and stay tuned! I've working on adding in some one-on-one scenes between Cass and Hancock in the upcoming chapters ;). You guys rock and thank you so much for reading!*

Nothing was right. The bed felt wrong, the smells were wrong. Even with closed eyelids, I could tell that the lighting was wrong.

Waking myself up was like trying to dig out of waist-deep quicksand. My eyes could've been sewn shut for all the good they were doing me, and moving my limbs felt like it might take an act of God to accomplish. Everything felt slow, heavy. I hadn't ever experienced sleep paralysis before, but I thought that this must be what it feels like.

Somehow, I managed to crack my eyes open. Florescent lights momentarily blinded me… but there weren't any of those at Jamaica Plain. As the fuzziness started to clear, I could see that I was in a white room, dark except for the light shining down on my head and the glow of a computer screen off to the side. I tried to tilt my head to get a better look, but couldn't. At first I thought it might be the curious heaviness that had infested my limbs; it was only when I attempted to shake my head from side to side that I could feel the strap pressed against my forehead.

I shuffled my hands. There were straps around my wrists, too. And my feet.

A doctor emerged from somewhere to my left. I could see his coat and hands, but his face was obscured by the shadows cast from the lamp. Something glinted in the corner of my eye; I turned as much as I could and glimpsed a long, sharp metal object. It looked like an ice pick, or an oversized hypodermic needle.

Fear began to tumble through me. I didn't know what that tool was used for, but the sight of it filled me with dread. It was bad. This was bad, I knew it was. I wanted to get out of here. I took in a breath to ask what was happening, or call for help, or demand to be set free, but all that came out was an unintelligible mumble.

"You're not supposed to be awake yet," the doctor said. He patted my arm. "Poor thing. Little matter… You'll be passed out again soon enough anyway."

I whimpered like an infant. It was all I could manage.

"Shhhhh." I felt him brush a finger against my cheek, and then he braced his hand against the side of my face. "Just sleep."

I couldn't tell if I was able to scream or not when I felt that instrument slide straight into my temple.

… Predictably, I didn't get much sleep for the rest of that night. My dreams were starting to evolve from vague, anxiety-born imaginings to full-blown, vivid nightmares. And that last one was a bitch… every time I started to fall back asleep, I dropped into it. A couple minutes later and I'd be jerking awake like I was auditioning for The Exorcist.

It was this whole stupid synth thing. I knew that I was a human, that I was just pretending to maybe-be-a-synth, but after spending weeks in an alternate reality it was hard as hell not to start questioning myself. Damn what-if's were inching through my brain like roots. Maybe it would've been different if I'd been tossed into like, Skyrim or Mass Effect or Dragon Age, someplace obviously fantastic. This particular universe had just enough in common with the real one for my stupid doubts to be plausible.

"Hey, you doin' alright, doll?" Hancock asked me as we were setting out. "Lookin' a little pale there."

"You mean more so than usual?" It took considerable effort to summon my usual level of dismissive snark. "Must be because I caught a glimpse of Mac getting dressed this morning. I'll never be the same."

"If by 'never be the same,' you mean you realize you'll never find anything better, then I agree," MacCready retorted jauntily. "But I'm guessing it's because someone didn't get very much sleep last night."

I narrowed my eyes. "Why do you say that?"

He nudged my shoulder. "Don't try to deny it, Cass. Sound carries in those old houses. I could hear you gasping through the walls all night."

He dodged my punch only to run right into Nate as he threw a fist into his arm.

"Knock it off, Mac," Nate chided him.

"Mad that I can get myself off all night without your help?" I shot back instantly. I never was one to let someone fight my own (verbal) battles.

MacCready froze and looked back at me with wide eyes. "Wait… is that really what happened?"

Hancock hummed in approval, giving me a long once-over. "Man, did I miss that? That's gonna be a fun image to think about later."

"Don't act like you haven't already," I countered, earning a cheeky grin. "Pervert."

"Guilty as charged."

"Isn't it a little early in the day for this conversation?" Nate asked from a couple feet ahead.

I stuck out my tongue at his back. "Hey, I'm not the one who started it. And you're the one who woke me up at this ungodly hour. You should be happy I'm not breathing flames-"

I got cut off when MacCready made a displeased sort of growly noise in his throat.

"Did you really just growl at me to shut me up?" I asked, but he wasn't looking at me; his eyes were locked needle-sharp on something up ahead.

"No. But we may have company," he muttered, clearly unhappy.

That brought us all to a stop. Oh god, not this again.

"What do your elf eyes see?" I murmured, trying to follow his gaze. I couldn't immediately see anything but dead trees and old buildings off down the road.

"Elf eyes?"

"… never mind."

"Brotherhood soldiers," Nate clarified, his brow furrowed. He pointed off to a spot a couple minutes' walk away; it was then that I caught the glint of light reflecting off metal. Three figures in power armor, far enough ahead that they were occasionally eclipsed by the trees or crumbling ruins. One looked like they might be hefting a minigun or something similar. MacCready's unenthused- but not frightened- tone suddenly made sense.

Hancock checked the barrels on his shotgun. "Super mutants yesterday, BoS assholes today. Must be my lucky week."

Nate's expression shifted from wary to stern. "We're not going to fight them, Hancock. Our peace with the Brotherhood is shaky enough as it is."

Hancock grimaced. "They ain't got a peace with people like us."

He bumped my shoulder as he spoke, and I remembered that oh yeah, I was supposed to be a synth. A jolt of adrenaline ran through me as a I realized what that meant. If the Brotherhood got wind of me at all, they'd want to kill me on the spot. And they'd have the firepower and strength to do it.

Suddenly, those shiny metal racists were a lot more intimidating.

"Hey, you know what's also a great option?" I piped up, my voice going high with nerves. "Going somewhere else. Preferably before they see us."

MacCready sighed. "Too late. They're headed this way."

Yep. They had indeed spotted us, and the one in front was flagging us down. I contemplated lagging back and finding a place to hide; I didn't want to risk that they hadn't been given the same description the Gunners had. But it would be pretty obvious if they flagged down four people and only met up with three, so I settled for pulling my sleeves down over my arms and tipping my hat low to cover my face. If I kept my mouth shut, hopefully I would escape notice.

Hancock noticed my fidgeting and put an arm around my shoulders. "Hey, don't sweat it. You ain't got nothin' to worry about with me coverin' ya."

"Just you, huh?"

"Well, I'm the important one." He gave me a friendly little shake. "Us freaks gotta stick together, right?"

I gave him an incredulous look. "I'm sorry, but did you happen to see that gun they're carrying? The one that it literally wider than my entire torso?"

"You'll be fine, Cass," Nate assured me, as the gap between our two groups got smaller. "I doubt they're doing little more than standard reconnaissance. Just hang back and let me do all the talking."

For once, I didn't think that was going to be a problem.

It wasn't long before the soldiers were marching right up to us. The ground vibrated a little with every step they took; those power armor suits were big. The one with the minigun was on the side closest to me. I tried not to think about what that would do to me if he (or she) decided to squeeze the trigger.

"Morning," Nate greeted them casually. "What can we do for the three of you?"

"You're Nate, right?" the one in the lead asked. The speaker in his helmet made his voice sound all tinny. "Thought I recognized you. Haven't seen you aboard the Prydwen in a while."

"Do we know each other?" Nate was smiling, all friendly charm.

The soldier shook his head. "No, not directly, but I saw you from time to time when you were working with Paladin Danse. I'm Knight Erikson, and this is Knight Reyes and Knight Grant."

"Pleasure to meet you. What exactly are you doing out here?"

"Checking in with local settlements."

Nate's face hardened a touch. "Not commandeering supplies again, I hope."

"No, the Brotherhood's stayed true to your agreement with Elder Maxson," the soldier replied. "Any supplies we take from the farms, we pay for. The Elder mostly has us looking for information."

Every muscle in my body tensed.

"What kind of information?" MacCready asked suspiciously.

One of the other soldiers- Reyes, maybe?- looked over at him, and I could sense the hard stare even through the metal helmet.

"That's classified," she said coolly. "And you're talking too much, Erikson."

I fought the urge to snort. "Classified," my ass. Like everyone in the whole Commonwealth didn't know exactly who the Brotherhood had beef with and why.

"The paladin trusts him," Erikson said defensively.

"Him, yes. Not necessarily his…" she dragged the word out, and I could see her helmet tip as she looked over Hancock, and me standing next to him, "… companions."

Hancock's eyes flashed like tinder striking flint. I casually reached up to adjust my hat, and gave his forearm a quick warning squeeze as I did so. Just let it go. Don't start anything.

"Well that's unfortunate," Nate said conversationally, redirecting their attention back to him. "If we knew what it was you were looking for, maybe we'd be able to help out."

"Knight Reyes is just being overly cautious," Erikson said, and there was a strong note of disapproval in his tone. "We can't go into specifics, but we're searching for operatives of a group that we believe to be harboring escaped synths from the Institute."

I'm pretty sure the blood was starting to drain from my face at this point. Oh Jesus.

Nate crossed his arms and frowned. "Why is that? The Institute's destroyed… they're no longer a threat to any of us."

"Elder Maxson feels differently," Erikson explained. "We don't know what kind of programming went into those synths before the Institute went sky-high. He thinks it's best for the safety of the Commonwealth if we destroy any remaining Institute tech."

"You mean kill," MacCready said flatly.

"The synths may be lifelike, but in the end they're little more than androids. There isn't much to kill."

I had started to shake… both from the fear of being gunned down, and from the anger at their blatant ignorance. All you had to do was talk to a synth to find out that they were clearly intelligent beings with their own free will… their origins didn't change any of that. I had expected this level of prejudice from the BoS, but it didn't make it any easier to witness in person.

Hancock still had his arm around me during this conversation. When he felt me begin to tremble, he very subtly shifted half a step forward; he pulled me closer against his side and a little behind him. The movement was small enough that I don't think anyone else noticed. It was a protective gesture… and while I wasn't usually the one to play the damsel-in-distress card, I couldn't help but be grateful for it.

"Most of those synths are refugees," Nate was arguing. "Regardless of what Maxson thinks he knows, they were free-thinking people kept in a state of slavery. Most of them just want a chance at a peaceful life, a way to start over."

I think the soldier would've shrugged if he wasn't encumbered by his heavy metal suit. "Orders are orders. Think you would be pretty familiar with that… heard you used to be in the service yourself."

"That was a long time ago." Nate's voice had gained a forbidding edge that gave even me the chills. "Everyone is welcome in the Commonwealth. Synths included. So unless Maxson has decided to stop respecting the authority of the Minutemen, then the Brotherhood is to abide by that same expectation."

The standoff tension was real. I honestly think the soldiers were weighing the pros and cons of taking us all out (the conversation clearly hadn't gone the way Knight Erikson had hoped). It was at least a good thirty seconds before he responded.

"I'll be sure to relay the message." Erikson's tone was icy even through the helmet speaker. Salty much?

"Maxson knows how to find me," Nate said, by way of dismissal. "Until then, if I hear about anyone from the Brotherhood harassing my settlers- synth or otherwise- we're going to have a problem."

"As you were."

Finally, they marched off… I'm presuming to go back to the Prydwen and whine to Maxson. I could hear Knight Reyes berating her squadmate in lowered, angry tones as they thumped away.

We didn't move until the three of them were out of sight.

"Fuckin' assholes," Hancock swore, the instant they were out of earshot.

"This is going to be trouble," Nate agreed. He arched his eyebrows as he looked back at us. "Though I'm kind of impressed, Hancock. I think that's the first time you kept your mouth shut around the Brotherhood."

"Didn't wanna draw any attention." He sounded a bit like he regretted it, and I couldn't blame him. If we'd been more evenly matched I might've given them a piece of my mind myself.

"Thank you," I said quietly, eyes on the ground. I realized I was still clinging to his side, but I wasn't quite ready to let go yet. I think the touch of another person was the only thing keeping me from dissolving into a panic attack.

I felt him look down at me, and he rubbed my arm. "Hey, you ain't gotta be afraid of those jerkoffs, sister."

"They would've killed me if they found out what I am. Might be. Whatever." The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. All three of them were looking at me now, and I couldn't meet any of their eyes. "If they had somehow recognized me or figured it out, they would've opened fire… and none of us would be able to stop it." I felt a sick feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. "You three might've even been killed in the process."

Hancock crossed his arms behind his head. "Guess it's lucky for us they're dumb as a sack of bricks, then."

"No, she's right," Nate said. "We need to be treading carefully. I was hoping that Maxson would be reasonable-"

"That guy's an extremist psycho," MacCready countered. "Don't tell me that you're really surprised that he's pulling this kind of sh… stuff."

"I'll see if I can get in touch with Danse when we reach the Castle," Nate continued. "He's close to Maxson. Maybe he can talk some sense into him, help us to avoid a conflict. The last thing the Commonwealth needs is another war."

"War never changes," I muttered. Nate looked back at me and blinked in surprise.

"… No. It never does."

*(That first sequence is a dream, if that wasn't immediately obvious n_n)*