"Commonwealth Savings Bank of MacCready - "
"Shush, you," she said, reaching into Mac's bag and pulling out the biometric scanner. She set it down on Sturges's workbench next to the other parts they'd collected over the last week.
"That's it," Sturges said, "Nice work. I'll get started right away."
"Thank you," she said genuinely.
"It'll take a few weeks to build," he said.
"It's fine, it'll take as long as it takes," she said. "Just let me know where I can help, I'll do what I can."
"Of course - you've worked on the generators in the past, feel free to take a couple settlers and get started on that in the morning," he suggested. "Did you guys get a tour of the new building?" He was talking about the riverside structure they'd finally been able to finish since MacCready had got the project rolling while she was off almost getting herself killed in the Glowing Sea.
"Not yet," she said. "I can't wait to check it out. Did the blueprints hold?"
"You bet," he said, "Boardwalk overlooking the river, space for the storefronts on the first floor, private quarters for minutemen officials on the second floor… and the third." He smirked at MacCready in a very obvious and she thought… disturbing… way.
"Third floor?" she asked. There'd only ever been plans for two. Honestly she was concerned none of them knew enough about architecture to try and build too high. Preston approached from the tato fields, wiping the dirt off his hands with a rag.
"Did you show her?" he asked MacCready, who shook his head.
"Ok, explain yourselves," she demanded, suddenly feeling conspired against.
"Mac suggested we have one of the rooms made up for our general," Preston said with a smile. Did he just call him… Mac?
"No, no," she said. She'd specifically designated the rooms as generic for whichever of the higher ranking officers were in town. The idea was to act as an incentive… as absolutely no one ever wanted to be in charge.
"It's too late, boss," Sturges said, raising his hands as if to absolve himself.
"We had all your things moved over while you were gone," Preston explained. She just gaped at the three of them, then turned toward Mac as he stepped in front of her, speaking in a lower tone.
"I could tell you didn't want to keep staying in that house," he said, glancing toward her old home. She sighed. He was right, she didn't want to keep sleeping there. It was a constant reminder of everything she'd lost, and was probably why she'd leaned toward staying in Diamond City so much over the last few months.
"The house will stay, but now you'll have somewhere new to… get a fresh start."
"You're using the wrong pronoun," she said. He looked confused at first, but then smiled in a way that seemed both surprised and genuine. She realized that she had basically just asked him to move in with her…. not that they'd spent a night more than an arm's reach away from each other in months.
"Thanks for doing that guys, you really didn't have to," she said to the three of them.
"You deserve it," Preston said, "The Minutemen would never have been able to do so much so quickly without your help. That's if we even got out of Concord alive to start with." They were all startled by a loud strike of thunder. It wasn't a warm rumble that meant welcome rain, but a vicious crack that meant incoming radiation.
"Damn, rad storm," Preston said, turning to look out toward the valley and the southern sky beyond as foreboding, dark green clouds began to build, rolling quickly toward them. "We should hunker down for the night. Might be a good time to break in your new digs, General."
She thanks Preston and Sturges again, then followed MacCready as he led her toward the riverside structure. The building sat right on the river, with a large section of decking extending out from the ground floor to create a sort of boardwalk along the river. A third floor had been added, spanning about half the width of the total floorplan on the northern side. It had a separate entrance in the form of a staircase that led up one side of the building. She could see as they walked up the stairs that on the other half of the third floor, they'd set up a small patio area that held a workbench, storage, and a dog house.
She followed him up the staircase and into the small, though more than adequate, apartment-sized room. Inside there was a small kitchen with a wood burning stove, a storage area stacked with various containers for ammo and weaponry, and a small balcony that, from this height, afforded a pretty nice view of the valley southeast of the river. They'd even installed a ceiling fan above the bed, which she appreciated because she'd always been a warm sleeper.
Then she saw it - that damned moon monkey that they'd found while clearing the raiders out of a Super Duper Mart. It sat, mangled, on a trunk at the foot of the bed. It was possible that the monkey had caught her off guard, and she'd shot the shit out of it before realizing what it was. Mac had found the whole incident extremely entertaining, and insisted on carrying her prize kill back with them so he could give her endless grief about it. She was half surprised he hadn't mounted it on the wall taxidermy-style.
"We'll salvage a table and chairs, couches and such eventually, but we got all your things moved in at least," MacCready explained.
"Thanks, Mac," she said genuinely, with a little bit of disbelief. How they managed to keep this from her, she wasn't sure, but she was grateful to have somewhere other than her former house to start calling home.
He kissed her cheek in response, then began to walk around and close the shutters on the windows as the wind picked up and the color outside started to fade to a sickly green haze, thunder and lightning cracking across the sky violently.
She turned on a few of the lights as the sky had darkened considerably, then turned on the radio, adjusting the tuning until she could hear Travis's voice crackling through. "It's looking like this storm will be rolling through for the next few hours, so hunker down for a while and enjoy some smooth tunes. Here's an appropriate one from Skeeter Davis."
It's the End of the World began to play and she turned the volume up, up, up… MacCready turned to give her an inquisitive look.
"Sorry," she said, turning the volume back down to a normal level, "Instinct."
"Ok, explain," he said, crossing over toward her as more vicious thunder cracked outside.
"When I was a kid and there was a bad thunderstorm, my dad used to turn the radio up really loud to drown out the noise. He'd dance with me until the worst of it passed. I think he was trying to distract me… I think he thought I was scared," she said.
"Scared of a thunderstorm?" he asked with some disbelief.
"When I was really young, maybe. I didn't have real monsters to be afraid of like you do now," she said. They were both startled by a particularly close crack of thunder. "As I got older, I just kept playing along with it because… well, I just wanted to dance with him."
Mac smiled then slowly turned the volume up on the radio, "May I have this dance?" He offered his hand out toward her and she could do nothing but gape at him for a few long moments.
"You can dance?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Let's find out," he replied. She took his hand in hers and set the other on his waist.
"I'll lead," she said.
"I'll follow," he said softly, and her heart just about fell out of her chest.
