20. Grief
MacCready POV
Desperation by Steppenwolf
A nightmare. This has to be a nightmare.
As I'm standing here at the old Boston Airport, I'm surrounded by smoke and two voices conversing a bit nervously.
"That wasn't supposed to happen…"
"Well, fix it, Ingram!"
"I don't know what to do, sir!"
"Figure something out—we just lost one of our soldiers!"
"I mean no disrespect, but I'm not sure how get her back! This is the first time we've done anything even remotely like this."
She's not here. Where is she.
I can't help the monotone edge to my thoughts as I run over what just happened in my head.
One second, Beth is smiling down at me from atop the platform of the teleporter. The next, she's gone and there's smoke everywhere and the machine's burned up and she's not here.
The two voices, which I've identified as Maxson and Ingram, continue speaking in low, frantic voices.
I drop to my knees, my mind utterly blank—of course, that's besides the panic looming over me, threatening to take over at any second.
"Uh, sir? What do we do with…?" I hear Ingram ask.
After a brief pause, "I'll take him up to the Prydwen. Sort. This. Out."
Although I can hear and register what they're saying, their words have no weight, they don't mean anything. When I feel a hand on my shoulder, that's when the panic sets in.
Jumping up instantly—and ridding his hand from my body in the process—I whip toward the leader of the Brotherhood. My eyes alone tell him to remove himself from my presence. Wisely, he backs off a bit. "We should be heading back to the ship," he says.
"Like hell I'm moving from this spot until she gets back." My voice is dripping with pure hatred.
"We don't know how long she'll be in the Institute—"
"We don't even know if she made it!" I yell at him as I point to all the equipment. "Are you that blind? How could she have made it through that?!" Even though Maxson is taller than me, I loom over him in my anger. "She's gone now—because of you!"
He gets some of his austereness back. "She decided herself that she was going through with it. You were standing there, right as you are now. Did I push her onto it?" I find his condescending tone exhausting.
Seeing that this exchange is going nowhere, I trudge past him, knocking him in the shoulder along the way, and sit on a bench near the burnt machine. "I'm not leaving," I say, a challenge to force me otherwise evident in my tone.
He looks at me with a look I can't quite comprehend—pity, anger, woe? Perhaps a combination of the three. He looks to Ingram. "See to it that he doesn't do anything stupid. And for God's sake—do everything you possibly can to get her out."
"Yes, sir," she responds, turning back to the fried control panel.
I see from the corner of my eye that she's looking at me once Maxson leaves. "I'm not leaving," I repeat, this time to her. "I need to be here when she gets back." She walks up to me. Feeling like I could start crying at any moment, I suck it up and ask her, "How do you plan on doing that? Getting her back?" I look up at the towering woman.
"…I'm not sure yet. Maybe I can build another and send for her somehow…"
"If you'd get on that, you don't have a clue how grateful I'd be, Proctor." I can see a bit of surprise at me using her official title—since I never had before.
"I'll… see what I can do." She goes to walk off, back to the Prydwen. Turning back, "Need anything?"
"Not unless you plan on getting her back right now… no."
She nods, a look of understanding on her face.
As the hours go by, I do nothing but continue sitting here, waiting for Beth to come back. Minutes feel like hours, hours feel like minutes. Nothing can make time have value right now.
The sun starts setting, and I can't remember when noon even hit today.
She has to come back…
The moon is well across the sky, signaling it's at least three in the morning.
She should have let me go instead…
The sun has started its ascension into the sky, showing daytime is here once again.
What if she never comes back? What if she died? What if Shaun wasn't even there, making all this for nothing? What am I going to do without her?
I know I've never been one to pray, but please, bring her back! I'll do anything! Please!
I see Proctor Ingram walking toward me, but I'm too busy doing nothing to look her way. "You're still out here?" she asks me. "You look horrible. You didn't sleep, did you?" Barely able to register what she asked, I shake my head. "Didn't think so… Here. I brought you this." She sets down a couple bottles of purified water and a small sack of vegetables. "I figure since you haven't slept, you're probably not gonna eat or drink either, but… I have to try. Beth's gonna need you when she gets back. And depriving yourself of your needs aren't going to help her any." Seeing no physical response, she says, "Well, I tried. If she gets onto you for letting yourself go… that's all on you, pal."
She sighs heavily, saying, "I can see it, you know. The way you look at her—the way she looks at you. It'd be a shame for her to actually come back, and you to just be… here. She'd want you to take better care of yourself." Hearing naught a word from me, "Stubborn. I'll give you that."
As she walks away, I know that I was rude, but I couldn't help it. I haven't spoken a word since yesterday morning. And I don't feel like changing that anytime soon.
When the next day rolls around, I actually decide to heed Ingram's words. Beth will need me, and I'm doing nothing but sitting around, going to waste. I eat from the bag the Proctor brought, drink from the water. I even try out sleeping, but it proves useless as I do nothing but toss and turn on the bench—even the ground won't suffice. Left with nothing but my thoughts, I can feel myself slowly spiraling into a depression—thinking about nothing but negative thoughts about the situation.
She's never coming back. It's all my fault. I should have told her a more resounding 'no.' I bet Shaun's not even there. I bet he died out here, like I should have when I was his age.
Nothing but negative thoughts. But I keep myself maintained on the off chance she actually shows up sometime.
I decided to go up to the Prydwen to see what I could do about catching a shower. After taking possibly the longest, hottest shower I've ever taken—and being unable to enjoy it—I go back out to the teleporter. Not a single minute after I sit down on the bench—now implanted with a seemingly permanent butt mark—I see the brightest flash of light ever. Then—
Bang!
Standing before me is Beth, in the flesh.
With her back turned to me, I call out. "…Beth?" She turns around as I get to my feet. She looks utterly beaten down: her eyes surrounded by purple puffiness, her skin even paler than her normal ivory colour. Before I get the chance to cross the ten feet between us, her eyes widen for the slightest second before they close completely, her body crumpling on the ground.
"Beth!" Running up to her, I check for a pulse on her neck. Feeling a faint but steady beat, I call for help as loud as I can. With no response, I try my best to pick her up as carefully as possible. Carrying her back to the area with Brotherhood populace, I see Danse of all people. "Danse!" I yell out. Turning immediately, he sees Beth and runs toward us.
Exclaiming an oath, he asks, "When did she get back?!"
"A minute ago. She looked to me, then just… collapsed."
"She needs to see Cade—find out if anything's wrong with her. Follow me."
After reaching the Vertibird, the man Danse talked about—Cade—checked her. He said nothing was out of the ordinary, just a lack of sleep and perhaps a mental trauma—he assured everything was okay, but to just watch her.
I convinced Danse it'd be best for her to be home when she woke up, so he personally escorted us via Vertibird back to Spectacle Island. He even carried her in, laying her down in our room, when he saw me struggling with her weight under all the stress of everything.
After thanking him, he took off on the whirligig, leaving me with nothing but a quiet house and an unconscious Beth.
I'll admit it: as I laid on the bed next to her, waiting for her to wake up, I fell asleep a few times—okay, maybe more than a few.
But I'm plenty awake as she starts to stir, making little but frightened sounds as she shifts in small movements. Finally finding her eyes, she opens them, looking up at the ceiling in confusion. Then she starts to blink more rapidly, confusion being replaced by fear, and slowly starts to prop herself up on her elbows. Seeing me, she stops completely. I'm afraid she's about to pounce, acting on her horrors—but instead, she jumps on me in a mixture of delight and helplessness, a different kind of fear altogether.
Hugging her to me, I feel her body start to shake, hear her quiet sobs as I feel them leaking through my shirt.
Suddenly, I'm reminded why she went in the first place, and how she came back alone. I was so worried about her, that I'd completely forgotten about how Shaun was supposed to be with her. What happened to him? Is he…? I can't help but to wonder what has shaken her to her core so much.
After a good half hour of silent condolences, she raises her head and I see a hollowness in her eyes. I want to ask what happened so bad, but know better than that. Ran dry and red-lined, her eyes look up and meet my own. She doesn't seem to know where to start.
Finally, "He's there. My… son… is there—in the Institute."
I move a piece of hair out of her face. "How about you start at the beginning. That may help."
"He's… I can't believe it," I say in disbelief.
"Oh, you better believe it," she mutters, her eyes too gave out to produce any more salty precipitation. "He tricked me—used me as a… an experiment." A hard look comes over her face. "He's not my son. By blood—but that is all. Nate would be…" She closes her eyes, shaking her head. Continuing on a previous thought of hers, "They're evil. The whole facility. My son… is evil. He's playing God, and doesn't care about the consequences." She looks me dead in the eye. "They need to be stopped… He… needs to be stopped. I'll tell Maxson everything tomorrow—put this to rest."
"…Are you sure that's what you want?"
She looks away. "It's what I need." She pauses. "I've killed people for the betterment of other people's lives—Raiders. Gunners. Mutants…" Another pause as she looks back at me. "This time is no different. Except it's for the entire Commonwealth."
A/N: I'm kind of ashamed to say I sided with the Institute on my first playthrough. But it felt so wrong—even as I was doing it. My second playthrough—the one with Beth—I obviously did not.