AN: Thanks again for the reviews guys! We finally get to see (and hear) a certain someone who's only been mentioned all this time. Though, not in the way you'd expect, as was stated in the last chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 21

MacCready's Rain.

Oh how he hated the rain. Loathed it. Made travelling around much harder and heavier than it should have been. Mostly with drenched clothes and soggy smokes. At times when the weather was a tad warmer, it would also get uncomfortably humid. Then it when it got cold, it got real cold

Mac had returned back to Goodneighbour, where all the switches in luck, began. Mayor Hancock needed someone Delta trusted.

If it meant somethin' in caps, as well as helping find Delta, he wouldn't mind it. In the long run it could do him real good. Meant being one of his lackeys of course, but it beats runnin' with the Gunners and all their bullshi- uh, all their nonsense.

But he'd look into the overcast skies, wondering if the clouds above were to cast the downpour or just ending make it look like it wanted to. You hoped it wouldn't...then it would. As was mother nature's prerogative to make it all miserable as it was during the evening.

The unpredictable nature of humanity was the same. Though experience would tell you otherwise, that human nature could be valued under what ever scale of a system was in place. If you ended up dead or alive in the call of misplaced trust or sheer stupidity. The system made the world grey. Trust was as just the same way. But people would trust value. If you put a value on something, it would be made to be sought after or ignored, dependent on the type of value placed.

Memories were of a weird sort. Given the history of the Memory Den itself, a lot of people would irk on it's ability to bring back images of ages past. Popular with the Ghouls who couldn't let go of the supposed, good ol' pre war days. A lot of them had the perception of a life beforehand as the stories went on. It would only be a matter of time before they'd lose all sense of self (then losing other stuff) falling to the rads and end up becoming feral.

He despised the ferals with good reason. When something so much as a monster that was once human take down the one you love, you find less reason to trust regular ghouls, but to Mac he was willing to take chances with those who still had rational thinking in their heads. His gun would answer to their calling if it ended up going in that direction.

It could explain why he'd left the Gunners. Groups willing to take down monsters but end up becoming monsters themselves. It took a lot more than caps for him to take down regular human beings. It took them pissing him off enough to take to stepping back and seeing the smeared blood on the wall that belonged to the man or woman standing in front of him. They never screamed. Their eyes did the screaming. All they wanted to know, especially why, desperate before the light faded from them altogether.

Monsters have a glint, but you can tell that they lack the soul within, giving nothing more than a false front to prove their point. You can pretend, but the truth would always end up pouring down eventually.

So more than physical discomfort was the reason he hated the rain. He mirrored it with the monsters that would hide behind the noise. Just like when they tried to hide from it, it found them. And they paid for it.

He'd sat in the pod in the hopes of finding out more about the terminal Delta had read that day. He only had a quick glimpse himself before Delta realised what he was doing. You couldn't blame him for being nervous as everyone watched on. Memories were a private value and to put that on show to everyone would make them lose their worth. But...if it ended up helping out, then like all things once treasured but not exactly worth keeping for life, it would be a necessary sacrifice.

After all, it wasn't exactly something worth keeping a secret for, as it was just something that stuck out on a regular outing, like with all merc he'd done for people. It was easy for him to separate work and his personal life, although when it came to Delta, within given time it merged.

He forced himself to relax and to let go, as Doctor Imari had found the memory. Within moments, he could the flash of the now disappear, then reappear elsewhere, like he'd been teleported back in time.

He was outside, with the sky a nice blue and the eastern sun shining on them. Must have been a good morning to start that early. The southerly, weak winds brought in a stench, slight, but otherwise it was really stale. But the sun was good on his face.

They were in the streets that MacCready recognised as Quincy...aka known Gunner territory after the incident with the Minutemen. You'd either have be insane or be Delta to even bother going there these days. Man that day he was incredibly lucky to have the latter. Not that it mattered too much to luck...just skill...and the know how to take those bas- them down. He'd then heard voices nearby. It was them.

He saw himself strolling with her, subtle step by subtle step, into the midst of the town. Clad in her blue vault suit with numerous belts that kept the scattered bits of metal armour and pockets all around her, mostly filled with bits and pieces she'd scavenged. He remembered the conversations they'd had about the numerous variations of armour that were around but...she'd collect and worry about them at a later stage. She wasn't exactly skinny-skinny, as a lot of people were, but she wasn't exactly fat either. Enough for an extra layer of padding, but her face was nicely structured enough. Lucy was the same after Duncan was born; with the slight increase of weight. He also noted her weapon, a short-barrelled combat rifle...Overseer's Guardian...yeah that was it.

They walked past, as Mac looked at her face, construed as a combination of that with youthful vigour and that of what reminded him of Lucy: the motherly expression that showed a type of radiance only mothers wore but also the partial stresses, indicated by the small dark circles under the eyes that were covered in a lot of make up, to hide the tiredness with the hint of wrinkles, though Delta's wasn't heavy, just enough to know that it was there. Had to preserve a lot for it to last. Not that Delta was one that always tired herself...but if she ever was, she never really showed it. It didn't surprise him in the least, given her normal 'heroic' like nature. Although there were times where they'd eat and she'd have to wipe something off his face as he chowed down steak and chastise him for eating like a pig. Going from past experiences, it was more a motherly nature than a heroic one, if he had to be honest.

Her eyes that twinkled in the sunlight. Those, pretty emerald eyes and that chocolate straight brown hair that waved above in the slight breeze, with the fringe cut off above the brows and normal hair above her shoulders...and of course the lips that defined an era ran rampant in rosy red. Given it's rarity, he would have imagined Delta wearing perfume. The aroma? God...anything flowery was a given. Or serious. He hated perfume but for some reason Delta could have worn it back in the day. He just never bothered to ask her.

"Only would you of all people, willingly go into the Deathclaw's den to find somethin'. I hope it's worth getting shot over. Figuratively speaking." The Memory version of MacCready said as he let his fingers run across the barrel of his sniper rifle. Truth be told he wasn't keen on heading further in but he felt comfortable with Delta with him, a partial influence to uplifted courage. She had that effect on people, he realised.

"Somedays it's easier to kill a Deathclaw. Hardly any guilt over killing them rather than your fellow man." Delta replied with earnest, her voice ringing in his ear. Present MacCready however just felt better to hear her voice again, even if it was just his own head repeating it.

"Pff really? Come on...you really don't think that?" MacCready asked her.

She was like that...maybe it was that, ultimately, skilled at showing different sides, making up various parts of Delta. The Motherly Delta and the Heroic Delta. Similar in how they care for others, just the way they approach the numerical amount of ways to care for others was vastly different.

"I was a lawyer. I was just like any soldier, in that I would help defend people and I would take people down. Only, with words as my sword and my shield...and evidence to provide sustenance in battle." Delta continued.

In all honesty, MacCready also hated metaphors, if they had to go down the list of dislikes. It drove him crazy how Delta could feel like she could make herself sound all poetic like. There really was no need. But he didn't mind her voice. Just what crap was poured from her mouth. Especially when it came to talking with individuals that she always ended up doing stuff for free for. She could have gotten caps for her hard earned work, but she didn't seem to care if she did or didn't. There would have to be a time where he could have said ''told you so'' but he never bothered to speak up about it himself, as he stood behind, with disproval each time she would have aided someone for free. Merc would be outta work if that continued. That being said, people would end up giving her caps anyway, just needed to ensure that it was equal to the amount she would do for them.

"Yeah yeah I get the point. So...tell me...everyone you've had to kill so far since coming out of that vault. Any guilt what so ever?" Memory MacCready questioned.

Present Mac knew to himself that at the end of the day, if you've killed to survive, that's all people need to know. If it was to kill for caps then...

Her face fell.

"So far? Besides the normal bad guys? It's not like a whole wave of regret would smack me in the face at any given moment. I do what I have to. Everyone does."

It really was hard to tell with her. A do-gooder Minuteman that...not all of the time was the exact angel he would have perceived her to be.

"Is that really it though? Because you have to? Who tells you...you?" He wondered.

Delta chuckled. She was her own woman. Made her own real decisions in life and was her own leader. She picked and chose what she wanted out of the circumstances relevant to her. Because she never had that chance previously.

"Of course. You get a lawyer's instinct when you're in the game as long as I have. When you've got enough evidence to justify your beliefs, you wanna make sure that it's going be enough to pull you through."

Memory Mac rose an eyebrow. You don't feed yourself on beliefs. You choose to fight to survive, there was no luxury in sitting back to have a Nuka Cola...unless you were in a sea of caps, you had to earn it the way everybody did these days.

"What kind of evidence do you need?" He wondered.

She smiled at him and patted her stomach.

"My gut, at the base point where nothing else would provide." She said.

Present Mac smiled. Gut feelings were a usual way to get yourself out of trouble, although it could get you into it as well. It made sense for it to be the last resort option.

"I'm certain you didn't need to give me the run around to that kind of point where you would always use your gut...everyone does." She replied, as if trying to get him to think that was just a generic current-worldly concept.

To kill or not to kill, that was the question. Actually, it was whether or not she was capable of feeling anything like guilt or regret at all.

"Be truthful with me boss...do you feel...anything?" Memory Mac inquired.

It wasn't particularly something he wanted her to fully reveal. It made sense to keep things to yourself, unless they were hurting you in a way that made it affect you and to anything you would perform.

She stopped in her tracks and adjusted her grip on her combat rifle, staring deep into Mac's eyes.

It'd been some months and Mac had almost forgotten how deadly her eyes could be, the way they would drill into your own and the ways that those aforementioned twinkles could disappear in an instant. To this day, he still didn't know whether or not he'd pressed the wrong button.

"I feel like how a sane person could feel at the appropriate occasions. Sad when someone dies, maybe angry. Regret? Maybe a feeling of failure because I didn't try hard enough? What about you? Do you feel anything when you shoot people?"

At this stage, Present Mac felt immense guilt on his own terms. He shouldn't have asked that question.

"It gets easier. That's all I'll say." Memory Mac answered as he forced to detach his eyes from hers.

They did encounter numerous gunners eventually. It was mostly unimportant memories, so Doctor Imari skipped the gunfight, flipping the scene to when they were inside one of the buildings. Present Mac remembered this part as they wandered into the desolate, dust filled rooms after taking out the gunners around them. The fun aftermath of scavenging for weapons, ammo and all else was in place.

Mac heard the thunder outside. Strange. It had been blue skies earlier. Might have been a rad storm incoming. They'd be there for some time, waiting it out before leaving. You could always tell by the stranger booms than a regular bout of thunder.

They hadn't finished, but he noticed Delta noticing a terminal nearby. Mac couldn't help but groan at the sight of her tapping away with those pieces of junk.

"Do you really have to?" Memory Mac asked.

It was this that made Present Mac note that he might not have been that patient with her then he would properly recollect.

Delta smiled.

"Only because you hate me doing it." She mocked.

Yeah she definitely tried his patience. Memory Mac's thoughts on the matter contained details of her working her magic with all sorts of peculiar jobs that he'd always considered something on the blurred line of black and white:

She's done things better than I could have. Those fingers of hers. They can do anything. Pick locks, pull triggers and hack terminals. Oh not forgetting basic mods and construction. What the hell did they do back in the pre war days. I'm no fan of eggheads...but...goodness knows what else those fingers could do.

Present Mac went down right red in the face as he bit his lip. Sh- why did he think that there and then? Egh...Piper already thought he was a joke.

"Fine, fine...just don't take so long."

It took perhaps...five minutes before he was over it. He'd paced up and down the room when he was done with what he wanted to do...and it sounded like the rad storm outside was beginning to clear up.

He tried to pass the time by cleaning his sniper rifle, replacing and checking the ammo. But, that was something he did often and given his sequence of do so, it never took that long, maybe about two minutes? He wrinkled his nose as he walked towards Delta.

"Yeah just a sec..." She told him.

Mac turned around and stared at the wall. Yeah...nice wall...

Moments go by as he got fed up with it, turned back as the room went deathly quiet. He knelt down beside her as he put his hand on her shoulder, then caught a glimpse of the opposing expression.

"Hey boss, think you could hurry up...why is this taking..."

Her face had fallen, her eyes darkened and mouth left gaping with barely any noise from her breathing. She had been shrunk and frozen in place. His own eyes followed hers, trailing downwards to her left arm, then looked at the screen.

Imari froze the scene as MacCready stared at it from the other side, trying to get a good eye on the text.

"Tell me what you see." Imari spoke, her voice echoing through the simulation.

He skipped through the lesser important parts as he read through it as Imari would pause and unpause whenever Delta scrolled down, as if briefly rereading what she had just saw. But the words came out of the terminal like something from a holotape.

"I thought they were a myth...these Paragons. They used to be nothing but fairy tales from cowardly ghouls. Though I heard from scuttlebutt that they've returned. All I know from them is that they're not to be messed with. At all. Prewar group, made up of special ops soldiers from the military. Some discharged but still kicking to do their bit for their country. Man they were deadly. A lot of us could learn from them. One of the boys said he'd spoken to a ghoul who was once part of the Paragons. How much of that is true and how much is bullshit is beyond me. Says that one of his exploits included an invasion of a enemy held fort, planting a bomb in the central part and blowing the place up without a hitch. Said fort was riddled with turrets and huge amounts of security. How in the world did he get into it...I asked him. He just laughed at me, and all he said was they were after a chem known as BR-210 that was being dispatched at the facility and where they were being made was left a complete mystery. I've heard rumours of a chem like that lately. Maybe that's what they were referring to. It was a legendary drug that made you feel like you were God. I wanted to shoot the Ghoul, but if we're to find that chem ourselves before these Paragons do, we'll need the ghoul to help us locate them. We're hiding him in one of our operating centres until he decides to talk about their secret stash."

Delta warmed up as her body shook itself, then she turned to Memory MacCready and smiled weakly.

"Oh it's all good. I'm done now. I need to drop this stuff back at a settlement. You know the routine."

Mac's thoughts were that she wanted to believe it was all fine. Her voice inflected with anxiety and unwillingness to worry him. She wanted to worry about other people besides herself, her Motherly self defiant to all reasons and why's surrounding her. No need to concern yourself with smart n' sweet Delta, we'll just be heading off to help other people.

He didn't want to say anything as she got up from the chair. She just gripped her gun and headed towards the exit, puzzling MacCready to no end.

"You got it. Let's move!" He replied.

Most of it was formal when he left the pod. By formal, it meant only acknowledging the important stuff as he shuffled himself out of it. Their faces were neutral as they stood around, waiting for him to say something.

"Huh...so the Paragons have their own little stash of the magical dragon chem. Coincidence huh?" He stated, albeit nervously and adjusted his hat.

Cait grumbled as she crossed her arms.

"So what now? We gotta find this stash?" She inquired.

Yeah Cait would be eager...like she always would have been. Though rumoured' been she'd been off the psycho entirely. Girl could always fall back in something else showed up.

"The text mentioned a ghoul that's been with the Paragons that's still hanging around. The Gunners would have to have him still locked away in one of their hideouts. If he's still alive..." Doctor Imari spoke.

Piper nodded. She'd better pay in caps and/or more after this. He just hoped his dignity was left in tact. They didn't seem to pry anywhere else so...

"Yeah. Let's not hold our breath. But where would we know where to start?"

MacCready only had limited knowledge of where the Gunners would have forced the ghoul to stay. Over the years they would change location's consistently. Though one place he could think of was one where he knew they had heavy fortifications.

The Gunner Plaza, their headquarters.

"Could start where the head honcho sits. Gonna need a tonne of ammo though." He suggested.

Hancock smirked.

"Count me in. I've been waiting to deal with those assholes for ages. I know they cramp your style but they cramp mine too. Them and their militarist bull." He said.

He didn't doubt that. One of the things he had grown to hate was that the Gunners felt like they could replicate the armies of old but really, they were more like a well organised version of raiders than anything worthy of holding authority. They always had a type of grudge against everyone. So either feed them caps or else...they were known to raid just about anything for the right price.

He felt the same way but MacCready had higher standards.

"Me too. I wouldn't mind knocking some heads in. Been like that since leavin' Diamond City." Cait commented., eyeing Piper off.

She just sighed. The reporter didn't feel keen on going all in, but...

"You could always just go back to Diamond City if they made it all the more homely." Mac joked to her.

Piper was just disgruntled.

"Nah Nat's safe here until we can really figure out what the Paragon's deal is. Maybe getting hold of this ghoul will tell me all I need to know. If they bother to speak that is."She said.

Hancock waved his knife about and pointed it to her.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about that Miss Wright. Ghouls are just heavily irradiated humans. Like all humans, they'll break with the right amount of convincing."

MacCready knew that Hancock understood that much. It was in his business to take out the troublemakers that actually made far more trouble than the regular ones do.

So they'd agreed to head to the Plaza in the southern parts the Commonwealth, in the hopes of finding out what the hell was going on. Who was this ghoul? What was this particular chem's real purpose? To feel like a God? Heh...it was like it was meant to spruce overconfidence or to obtain and megalomanic attitude to life. Who knows? He didn't care much for it like Piper did, but now they'd confirmed it was linked to the Paragons, who could have been using the stuff and not bothering to share it.

The fact that Nate had returned was also partially disturbing after all that was heard in Sanctuary. He'd rather Lucy dead then to have her betray his trust like that...to that extent to which she would have to fallen so dam- hard from the tree that it would warrant to make him shoot her. That would have been the last thought in his mind and it made him feel ill from just thinking about it. So he got got himself organised, went and saw KLEO and Daisy for supplies, then prepared for the trip to the Plaza.

Then hopefully, the rain would let up.