Virgil

It won't ever be the same – but nothing is.

We aren't comfortable with each other, but we have no one else. There's always time, although there's a limit to the wounds time can heal. I found out that there's no such thing as forgetting. Dad told me that once before, but I didn't listen. As it turns out, there's a difference between knowing and understanding.

The first place we went was the Citadel. I remember the scribe – the same woman that showed up on our doorstep a few months ago. Wendy talks to her, shows her the Pip-boy, and the scribe downloads the map data off of it, face as bright as a kid's on Christmas morning.

I don't know where we'll go next. We'll check in with Wendy's family I guess, then head north, or west. Maybe south, across the river. We haven't decided yet.

It's fitting, now that I think about it. My birth mother left everything she ever knew – for what reason, we never found out. Now I'm leaving everything I've ever known. It's a shitty legacy, but I suppose it's more than most people have, really.

I miss Mom. I miss Dad. I've never believed in a god or an afterlife – religion wasn't all that important to either of them – but at least Dad doesn't have to suffer without her any more.

Five Months Ago

Maleficent

"I'm selfish."

I'm curled up in his lap. We're sitting on the porch; he's rocking us back and forth in his chair. "Tell me something I don't know," He jokes. A cigarette hangs from the corner of his mouth. Every now and then, he'll give me a puff on it. I don't trust myself to hold one of my own any more without burning myself. Too weak.

I have good days and bad days. On the bad days, it hurts just to breathe. On the good days I have enough energy to fidget, to want to get out of the house. It's a good day.

"I don't want to die." I squirm in his arms.

He sighs. "No one does, Mallie."

"It's funny," I say. "This isn't how I thought I'd die. Old, in pain."

He shifts, nervously. "How'd you think you'd die?"

"Violently. Shot, stabbed, blown up." I'd had countless dreams of watching myself bleeding out in the dust, like the legions of faceless raiders I'd dispatched by slipping my knife in between their ribs. "I didn't expect to live this long, either."

He chuckles. "I could say the same." He pulls out another cigarette, and lights it with the cherry of the old one, tossing the butt in the dust beyond the porch. He holds it to my lips gently, and waits patiently as I slowly inhale. We sit for a few minutes, enjoying each other's company.

"I'm scared." I blurt out. Tears well up in my eyes, and roll down my cheeks. "I want to take you with me."

He holds me close and kisses the top of my head. "I would follow, if I could." I remember all those times, when I was deciding where we should go next. No matter what I chose, he'd say, 'Where you go, I will follow.' I don't know if it was a scripted response ingrained from nearly a century of servitude, or whether it was a phrase tailored to me, to us, to our relationship.

"If I could stay, I would. Even if it was like this for me, forever. Just so I could be with you." I would go through an eternity of pain just to stay.

"I know. I would do the same for you." He says, gazing off into the distance. The sky is pink, purple, and orange. Sunsets here are beautiful, and I ask to be brought outside to watch them. It's one of the few pleasures I have left. I can't keep much food down anymore, and my body is either nearly numb with Med-X or wracked with pain, searing my guts from the inside out.

"I can't feel it anymore." I say.

"What?" he asks, concerned.

"The Darkness." I realized it some time ago. Something that had been with me my whole life had vanished, like smoke on the wind. It puzzled me, because I didn't miss it. The place it occupied was filled with something else. Meaning? Purpose? Maybe both. Lots of happy memories.

"It's ironic," I muse.

"What's ironic?" he asks.

"How buying a man set me free."

He smiles. "You are my wild thing." He rocks us gently.

"I only wish that I could've done the same for you." I say thickly, my chest tightening painfully. I'm coming close to crying again.

"You have given me more than I ever thought to ask for." He's stroking my hair slowly, lovingly.

The horizon is darkening, and the stars are coming out. It gets cold quickly at night out here, and because of my illness, he can't depend on me to help him stay warm. "Let's get inside. It's getting chilly." Gently he rises, pulls me close to him. He buries his face in my hair and takes a long, deep breath.

I used to think that meaning was something that you have to find, but it's not true. I watch the sun set every night, and despite the pain, I feel what can only be described as joy. That feeling – the feeling of grandeur – it doesn't come from God, or Nature. It comes from inside of you.

When we met, our hearts were dark, our souls broken.

But light can be shined into dark places.

And broken things can be fixed.