Piper caught herself smiling more than she expected from such aimless wandering with her friend. All she could think about was how Blue had risked her life and limb, just so the Wall — a mere plaything in the context of the world she'd come from — could get a fresh coat of paint. She'd had no reason to do it, except out of her inborn sense of kindness and respect. She loved getting to see this side of Sam.
They were on the road again, this time to settle a different request — Blue still had a debt to Moe Cronin from getting her baseball bat refurbished.
"The estate should be just ahead," she stated, fiddling with her Pip-Boy as they walked. When she came to a halt, they were practically standing in swamp. "Wow, what's left of it. How does he expect us to find anything here?"
Piper, for her part, was having other concerns about the terrain. She's never seen me around water, before. "Blue," she opened, voice wavering more than she would've liked. "We don't have to do this, you know."
"Yeah we... kinda do," Sam flatly replied. "But hey! Come on, it'll be alright."
She waited for fate to prove them wrong.
They were searching one of the shacks that was only halfway sunk, which helped Piper keep her calm. What didn't help was when such precautions turned out not to matter.
There was no trigger, no forewarning. It just burst from the water, all at once. She knew that chitinous sound anywhere. "BLUE!" her voice practically cracked as she yelled. She gritted her teeth and tried to keep her tone steady. "Company!"
Before her friend could say a word, the creature was visible, shoving itself through the narrow doorframe. Its limbs clacked against the floorboards, and it smelled like everything bad about the sea. Swatter came unbuckled. Pistol came unholstered. Claws came out from under its shell. They fought.
She's got some serious nerves, going into melee with a mirelurk. If Piper hadn't been so scared, she might have noted the way they swapped blows, blocking each other's spar-like attacks and circling around. But she was too busy to admire their little dance. The only thing she seemed able to take notice of at all was the tremble in her aim.
Stand still, Blue! Give me a target!
She really didn't want to shoot her friend and front line of defense. Fear and worry gripped her, made the trigger slippery in her fingers. She mistimed her shots more than once. But thank goodness, Blue was alright. The mirelurk looked to be slowly losing out. Sam had a few new rips in her overcoat, but she was still swinging hard as ever. The creature, for its part, had some major holes and dents in its shell. Not bad for one shaky handgun and a piece of mahogany.
She heard the sound of crashing water outside. There were more. There were always more. Sam had just delivered a full-force swing into the first one's exposed soft underside, rendering it motionless — dead? — when two others came into view. Piper perched up on a desk next to an open window, and reloaded her weapon's clip.
She realized the error of her ways too late, as she felt something pinch her from behind and in an instant, yank her entire world away.
She was cold, dark, wet. She couldn't tell where up was. She couldn't breathe. Her heart thundered underwater. Everything was wrong at once. She felt the pincer around her arm, pulling her still.
She tried to point her gun under her armpit to shoot behind her — shoot at the beast. Everything moved slower underwater. Except her mind. Her mind was going so fast she couldn't catch up to it. Couldn't think. Couldn't words.
The bullets left compression waves in their wake. She felt her own gunshots. She felt the claw release. She felt her own desperation for air. She kicked away with her legs, flailed her arms for a sense of direction. She burst through the surface and half-gasped, half-screamed.
Even in her trenchcoat, she swam fast and hard into the center of the estate. She clambered on top of an old playground set, looking frantically in every direction. Nothing had followed her up. Maybe her shot had been lucky. She wasn't feeling lucky, anyway.
She heard Blue before she saw her, even with the water in her ears. She'd taken the fight out into the open. They were... what, maybe thirty paces apart? Piper was terrible at measurements. A second mirelurk lay dead on the beach, but a third was giving Blue a run for her money. It had managed to catch her bat with one of its claws, and was thrusting at her with the other as she tried in vain to wrench the weapon free.
She steadied her aim against the old metal bars surrounding her. Being on land again had lent her an unnatural state of focus. "Blue!" she yelled, this time clear and loud. "Get down!"
Sam needed only a moment's glance to understand. She released her grip on the swatter and dove straight into the sand. Piper drew a deep breath. Her fear froze solid. Time itself came to a crawl.
Seven shots, each one breaking and creating silence anew. The high pitch of her pistol rang in her ears. The mirelurk slumped. Blue's swatter rolled to the ground.
Blue and Piper just looked at each other as they collected their belongings. She didn't want things to get awkward between them, so she broke the silence. "You really held your own there, Blue."
Blue laughed sarcastically. "Barely. I mean... thanks, honestly, but I sure am glad you came back when you did."
Piper laughed nervously. "Y- yeah! Me... me too."
They smiled at each other earnestly. She felt a little less cold and wet under that smile. Sam velcroed her swatter back into place. "Come on, I think we've earned a break after this."