I'm saying my thank yous here, because sadly my chapter notes at the end are dedicated to addressing the absolute shitstorm I received over chapter 50.
Thank you to my wonderful beta, waiting4morning! And thank you to all of you who understand that this is just fanfiction, and have enough common sense not to send me shitty messages because of it.
Lone Wanderer
"Why wasn't she wearing her fucking power armour?"
Rough hands grab and pinch as her body drags through coarse earth. She trails on the edge of consciousness—
"I don't know! I don't know!"
—red smeared in the dust, her feet bouncing on uneven ground. Her breath is short, gasping. Bubbles form and pop on her lips as—
"Shit. Shit! Quinn!"
—pain. Dull needles. Sharp throbs. Black pressing on her skull and smothering her, the hidden man laughing—
"Where are the damn vertibirds? You were supposed to signal them in!"
—his last grin on his dying lips. Laughing, and she's laughing with him, her rasping mirth crackling through her struggling lungs. Copper taste in her mouth, spilling down—
"I did! They're not here yet, they're not—"
"Then fire another shot! Never mind, I'll do it. Get back to the wounded, now!"
—her chin. Whispers in her ear as yells and orders flit above her. Fingers tight on her arm, a hand supporting her head.
"Don't die, Quinn. Please."
Movement. Swaying and rocking as a distant roar of engines lifts her to the heavens, taking her from the world. She knows she won't return, though the imprints of those tight fingers echo on her skin.
Fading.
"I don't know if we have the capacity, sir."
A river of sweet numb, haze lapping against her body as she is swept downstream. There are conversations in the thick air. They are unimportant.
"...bunks are your new sickbay. Every scribe will be..."
"Thank you, sir. Just let me administer this, then…"
All was still.
Quinn awoke.
A wheeze passed through her lips as she took a deep, shuddering breath. She felt her chest rise and fall, stabbing pains through her ribs and stomach, all sensation alien to her.
For a few minutes, Quinn listened to the sound of her own laboured breathing, her awareness increasing as she took in the gentle hum of the ship. The distant sounds of patrolling footsteps. A faint cry. But something was missing, and after a few minutes she realised the excited talk and laughter from the dorms and mess hall were absent.
Quinn tried to open her eyes. They were gummy, crusted...like she had been asleep for years. When she licked her lips, her mouth was dry and sticky, her tongue sandpaper.
Her surroundings floated in and out of focus, her body drifting down a bubbling stream, while the world stood still. Thoughts were muted, fleeting, and no matter how hard she grasped at them, they merely slipped away.
Eventually, she managed to turn her head to the side, feeling heavy. How could she be drifting while she was so weighed down? The world spun, and Quinn shut her eyes, fisting her fingers into the fabric beneath her as she clung to the edge of the world. When everything settled, she opened them again.
Details began to emerge.
It started as a trickle—she recognised screens and makeshift curtains hanging around the area. Then she noticed the beds. When she finally realised she must be in the dorm of the ship, the dam broke, and awareness cascaded down onto her.
Some beds were empty. Some occupied. Some patients were asleep, writhing in agony, or staring into space. The rest were unseen figures, faces covered by crumpled bedsheets. Their fights were finally over.
Harassed scribes flitted from bed to bed, messing with tubes or pinning people down while administering medicine. In the distance, a faint, muffled screaming echoed over the metal floors, while a shadow struggled behind a medical screen. Someone was at their legs, moving a flat object in long, sawing strokes.
Quinn turned her attention back to the scribes, nausea flickering in the pit of her stomach, until the groans of agony slowly grew quieter. When she looked back again, another sheet was being pulled over in place. A distant part of her brain was glad she could only see a scene of silhouettes.
Finally, Quinn let her gaze fall onto the centrepiece of the room. Maybe she had been avoiding him. Maybe she had known all along he would be there.
Stephen Cooper lay in a mass of tubes and bandages, staring blankly at the walkway above him. Pain was written across every inch of what could be seen of his face, the rest swathed in bandages. His breathing was rasping and hard, the revealed patches of skin pasty and sheened with sweat. If it wasn't for the twitching of his limbs, Quinn would have thought he was already dead.
Footsteps sounded, and the curtain was drawn back, revealing Cade.
The man had never looked so haggard. He was sallow and shadowed, moving as though each step was his last. His clothes were covered in blood, fresh layering the old. Exhausted eyes with red-tinged whites roamed the sickbay, but Quinn saw that the sharpness of his gaze remained untouched.
"Stephen..." he said gently, leaning over his patient.
Stephen's turned his alert eyes to the doctor. He gave a slow nod. Cade frowned, but returned the motion, and left as quickly as he'd arrived. But a few seconds later he was back, this time with company.
"He hasn't got long left," Cade said in a low voice. "He knows this. But he wanted to see you both before…"
Cade's words were cut off by a low wail as Michelle Cooper entered, her hands clutching at her blotched and puffy face. She burst into tears.
Joshua Cooper followed. Silent. Sombre.
He glanced up at Michelle, and Quinn saw the disgust ripple through his boyish features. Then it was gone, and he was edging towards his father, a child again. His bottom lip trembled.
Stephen reached out, a small smile visible beneath the tattered remains of his face. The shotgun had done its work. But Josh seemed oblivious to this, taking Stephen's shaking hand in both of his own and pressing it to his cheek.
"Josh," Stephen murmured, turning his palm to his son.
Josh bit his lip, his brow furrowed with effort as he bowed his head, holding back his tears. "Dad...don't go."
Stephen didn't reply to this, fear flickering across his expression as he watched the boy. But when Josh wiped his eyes, Stephen quickly forced a smile as his thumb traced the spattering of freckles on Josh's skin. "I'm sorry...but you have Auntie Michelle to look after you, and...and…"
A sudden stricken horror filled his features, and his eyes darted towards Cade as he croaked, "Vivian…?"
Silence fell over the gathering as Cade's already pale face became ghost-like. Vivian had obviously slipped the doctor's mind.
"She's fine, Dad."
Every head in the room turned towards Josh, but he only had eyes for his father. He fixed a fake smile of his own in place, the boy beneath thoroughly broken.
Cade seized the lie. "She's currently in surgery to have the bullets removed, but she's fine, Stephen. She's going to be fine. You saved her."
"I saved her?" Stephen repeated quietly, and he began to cry as he held onto his son's hand. Josh crept forward, and suddenly they were hugging, pain written across Stephen's face as he clung harder to his child. "I saved her...I saved her."
Feeling sick again, Quinn closed her eyes. She didn't want to see anymore. And when the murmurs stopped, a few seconds of agonised silence reigned before Michelle's shrill wail of grief took its place.
Josh remained silent.
Danse stared up at the ceiling, the quiet in the bunker stretching out endlessly. He had tinkered with his armour. He had rearranged the room five times, read the book of poems twice over, finally finished fixing up that old pistol, and tinkered with his armour again.
Nothing filled the hole she'd left behind.
He turned on his side, his arm reaching out to her side of the bed, fingers resting in the space where she would have been.
Quinn…
Danse sat up and slid out of bed, pacing about the room. Being cooped up in here for days on end was doing him no good. He needed the smell of fresh air through his helmet filter, see open sky and rolling hills and—
Check up on Quinn and make sure she's okay.
Danse froze. No. What a stupid idea. He'd risk both of their lives by doing that, and while his was disposable, hers was not. If anything happened to her, he'd never forgive himself. And yet Quinn's continued absence after several days was putting him on edge. Haylen had set up the terminal in the bunker to be able to send and receive encrypted messages from her. So he'd shot her a line, asking if she'd heard from Quinn.
No response.
That was fine. Maybe the terminal was broken, or Haylen was busy. Maybe the messages took a long time to go through. After all, they were encrypted. Or maybe something had happened, and Haylen was delaying in telling him because—
Stop it, he thought fiercely, shaking his head. Enough already.
Danse was no stranger to long Brotherhood missions, where communication was sparse and secrecy key. And Quinn was perfectly capable of looking after herself. She'd saved his neck more times than he cared to count. All this was idiotic fussing. He'd grown too used to her by his side, too used to domesticity. Quinn was still a soldier—a paladin. The responsibilities she now carried were as familiar to him as his own name, and sometimes that meant long spells away from home.
Still, Danse missed her.
He glanced over at his power armour, making up his mind. He wouldn't go near the Prydwen, and he'd be careful of patrols. He just needed to get out of this damn bunker for a while. It was driving him stir crazy.
Readjusting to his new suit again hadn't taken that long. When he and Quinn had visited the Slog together, it had been difficult. By the time they'd set off back home, he wore it as well as his paladin armour. Danse clambered into it now with ease and picked up his helmet off the shelf, where he'd left it next to the pony Arlen Glass had given him.
Why Danse had kept the stupid thing, he didn't know. The paint was peeling, the metal rusting, and he no use for toys whatsoever. But...it had been a gift. Keeping it felt right.
The caps Quinn had given away to Preston when they had made a brief visit to the Castle. Fund the Minutemen to protect the Commonwealth. The money was unworthy in their hands.
Danse put his helmet on and strode across the room, taking the elevator to the upper level. At once, the tension in his chest released, and he stared across the desolate landscape, never happier to see the wasteland.
He hummed a Bill Monroe song as he strolled in the first direction that took his fancy. Maybe he would go to the nearby hospital again and see if there were any stimpaks that he'd missed the last time he went scavenging with Quinn.
However, as Danse approached Medford Memorial, he heard a set of voices. Familiar voices, but not familiar enough that he could place names to them. Instinct told Danse at once that he needed to hide, and fast. Finding an old, crumbling building, he ducked down inside, peering around the door long enough to see a Brotherhood patrol walking in his direction.
Damn it.
Fear—real fear—flooded through him, and he edged away from the door, praying they'd move on. He wouldn't be recognised wearing his helmet, but they would know his voice. The fewer questions asked, the better. If they tried to find out his identity and he refused to answer, they might attack. He would be forced to fight back.
The thought of hurting his former brothers and sisters terrified him more than anything else. It was a level he did not want to go to, not when it could be avoided. Of course, he would kill them all in a heartbeat to keep Quinn safe. But Danse hoped it would never come to that.
"Over there, look," said one of them—a knight, Danse suspected, by the crackling quality of their voice. He'd been around power armour far too long not to recognise the sound of someone talking through a helmet.
"Yeah, that's the place," said another—a woman, this time. "We're bound to get what we need from there."
"That attack on the Railroad did a number on us," the knight said as they stopped outside the door Danse was crouched next to. "Don't think we'd have pulled through at all if the paladin hadn't shown up."
"Maxson shouldn't have sent us in without her," the woman said, her tone sharp.
"He had to. Who knows how much time until those assholes blew up the ship?"
There had been a threat against the Prydwen? The very notion seemed impossible, and yet obviously it had been real enough for Elder Maxson to launch such a large scale attack. He'd spoken with Maxson and Kells before about the Railroad, back when...in the past. But there hadn't been enough information on the group to deal with them accordingly. Clearly that had changed since his exile.
Still, Quinn had handled it, and spectacularly, by the sounds of it. Danse had never felt so proud.
"But look what happened!" the woman continued. "How many of our own died for that shitty mission, and for what? Even Quinn—"
She was cut off as the knight spoke over her. "You should use her title, not her name."
"She ain't here though, is she? Laid up on the ship instead with a stomach full of bullet holes because Maxson—"
Whatever Maxson had done, Danse didn't hear. Terror rushed through him. Quinn was hurt?
It took everything in him to stop himself shoving aside the group in his way and making straight towards the Prydwen. Only the desire to hear more information on her condition held Danse in his hiding place.
The group bickered for some time, sending Danse's nerves into a frenzy, before eventually they began to talk about Quinn again.
"Bantios," said the woman. "You were there. You signalled for the vertibird. And you treated her afterwards. How's she doing? A lost cause?"
Danse bit his lip hard to prevent the noise of horror welling in his throat from escaping. The panic was mounting now, familiar images pressing on his brain: an abandoned Rivet City, Quinn sprawled on the floor in Cutler's place. It was happening again. It was happening again.
"No," said another man with a faint, trembling voice. "Knight-Captain Cade says she's going to be fine. Just her recovery will be slow, with the lack of stimpaks we have right now."
Danse let out a slow, quiet breath of relief. Not great news, but his racing heart calmed slightly. If Cade said she had a fighting chance, then he had nothing to worry about. And yet...
After another ten minutes, the patrol moved on, and Danse edged around the door, watching them head into the hospital. He wanted to go after them, to press every stimpak he had into their hands, or at least leave them by the door. But it was too risky. Instead, he crept out of his hiding place and then sprinted back towards the bunker.
He needed to speak to Haylen now; needed to know exactly what was going on. If the number of injured was that high, Maxson would have pulled scribes from every corner of the Commonwealth to assist. Danse didn't know if Haylen could access his messages from the ship, but he had to try.
God, he had to try.
"Please, don't go. Don't leave me."
Quinn stared up at the retreating figure, her body numb as she watched him drag an old, tattered suitcase down the hall. The wheels kept catching in the rips in the carpet, holding him in place, keeping him in her world for a little while longer.
Her hands reached out, clutching at his crumpled, too big suit, the faded red tie loose around his neck. He was avoiding her eye, more focused on the suitcase than was necessary.
"Dad," Quinn whispered, tugging on his sleeve. "Why won't you look at me?"
"Yeah, why won't you look at her, Danny?" came a sharp voice down the corridor.
Both father and daughter flinched, turning their gaze to the tiny bundle of wrath in the form of Quinn's mother, standing in the doorway of the living room. Her blue eyes burned as she stared at Quinn's father, her hands gripping tight on her hips.
"Ana," mumbled her dad. "Not now. Not while Quinny is…"
"Oh, so you want to stay in her good graces, huh?" her mother hissed. "Lie even more? Or were you going to tell her that you're a good-for-nothing cheat?"
It felt like a slap to the face. Quinn glanced from her mother, triumphant in her spite, to her father, so meek in this accusation it had to be true.
"Dad?" Quinn said, her bottom lip trembling.
"Quinny, I—"
No denial. It was true.
"Get away from me!" Quinn spat, backing so sharply from him she tripped over her own feet and fell into her mother. At once, hands tried to comfort her, but Quinn shrugged them off, feeling nothing but hate towards the pair of them. It was their little game. And now she hurt.
Oh, she hurt.
As she ran from the room and up the stairs, she heard her dad erupt into a violent rage, screaming at her mother while she gave her all back. But Quinn didn't care. She put on her music. Blocked it out. Sang into her pillow until her throat hurt and her voice was gone and she could hear no more. She would not cry. Her pride said no.
But as the front door slammed and her father made his last exit down the mossy garden path, Quinn caught herself whispering to him once more.
"Dad...don't go."
Pain dragged Quinn from her sleep, deep and burning in her stomach. She groaned, squinting through the dark, and blinked until her vision cleared.
The bed where Stephen Cooper had lain had long since been vacated, others taking his place and leaving again with quick exchange. Those that could move around without risk of further injury didn't stay in Cade's presence for long. But no matter how many people had occupied the bed since, it would always be Stephen's to Quinn.
The bed was empty now, as were most of the bunks. The area was slowly being repurposed as the wounded were dealt with. She had seen the open dorm morph back into its old self between her bouts of unconsciousness, Cade's face peering over hers before he injected her with another dose of medicine. The pain would fade, the memories would blur, and she'd slip into blissful nothing.
That was not happening now. Deacon's face pushed to the forefront of her mind, his final grin etched into her vision. Even when she shut her eyes, he was there, the rest of the dead lurking just behind.
Danse had once told her he still saw the faces of his old team—that they haunted his waking and sleeping hours. Never resting. Never giving him peace. Now it seemed it was her turn.
The pain was getting worse. But far from wishing for it to stop, Quinn welcomed the distraction. It dragged her thoughts away from her crimes as her hand rested on her belly, a moan of agony escaping her lips.
"Do you want me to get Cade?"
Quinn jerked her head towards the sound of the voice, and found Rachel Marguerie sitting at the foot of her bed.
"The hell are you doing here?" Quinn mumbled, squinting at her.
"Keeping an eye on your shot ass," Rachel replied, snapping shut a worn book in her hands. Quinn recognised it as the one that had nearly gone over the side of the Prydwen when Rachel had been grieving.
The knight-sergeant saw where Quinn was looking and tucked the book in her uniform out of sight.
"Cade requested my help." She stretched out in her seat and yawned. "In his words, 'Marguerie, you're the only other person scary enough to keep the paladin in her bed.'" Rachel grinned. "He's taking a well needed nap. Don't think he's slept in the last three days."
"How long have I been here?"
"Just over a week. We had so many wounded the stimpaks had to be rationed. Most of the serious injuries were treated so that they weren't life threatening, and then left to heal naturally. But the knights that have been fit to go out have been sent on extensive scavenging missions."
"Why haven't you gone?"
Rachel frowned. "I wanted to, but Kells ordered some of us to stay behind, in case any remnants decide to take a shot at the ship. But scribes are in the process of making new chems from scratch, which I'm helping with by carrying materials around the decks. The rest of the medicine gaps will be filled in when the patrols get back. Give it a day or two and you'll be on your feet again."
"Is that why Stephen...?" Quinn paused, her throat tight. "Not enough medicine?"
Rachel said nothing for a moment, her face becoming blank. Then her eyes dropped to the floor as she said, "No. Cade...he…"
"Never mind," Quinn said quickly.
Rachel looked up sharply. "I'm fine." She leaned back in her seat again, fixing Quinn with a fierce glare, and then continued, her tone flippant. "Cade told me the stimpaks were just prolonging the inevitable. And eventually Stephen decided he wanted to be taken off treatment. Save the medicine for someone else."
"Cade was that blunt?" Quinn felt sick.
"Of course not." Rachel leaned on the bed, shaking her head. "But Stephen is...was no idiot. Had been trained by Cade himself for field medicine. He had a feeling something wasn't right."
"He wanted to go?"
"He didn't want to drag out the process for Josh."
"How do you know all this?"
Rachel went distant again, scrunching Quinn's bedsheets between her fingers absentmindedly. "I came to visit him. He...he asked me what he should do. And I…" Her lip quivered. "Oh God, Quinn."
The knight-sergeant put her head in her hands, clutching at her hair. Quinn tried to sit up, to comfort her in some way, but the pain was so great she was forced to drop back onto the bed. Rachel didn't notice.
Eventually, the knight-sergeant straightened up, staring at the medical screen surrounding the two of them. Quinn watched her uncertainly. Would this end in another violent meltdown?
"I lied, y'know?" Rachel said suddenly, still looking blankly ahead. "Cade didn't order me here. I came of my own accord."
Quinn blinked. Now that she hadn't expected. "Why?"
"I couldn't save Viv," Rachel said, as if she hadn't heard Quinn's question. "I couldn't help Stephen."
"But you still visited."
"I did that for me," the knight-sergeant replied, her voice flat and hollow. "I did it because I missed my chance with Viv."
"Rachel…"
"I told him to die."
The confession didn't surprise Quinn. Neither did Rachel's calmness.
"Stephen was a mess. Thought I...thought I was Viv. I'd tell him Viv was dead, and he'd start crying until his next dose, and forget all over again. I stopped bothering with the truth after the fifth time. Then eventually…"
There was a long silence.
"He asked me if I thought he was gonna make it." Rachel closed her eyes. "I said no."
Quinn could see it now. A dying man, so muddled he could barely think, and yet lucid enough to know something was wrong. Finding out he was on borrowed time. Knowing his suffering had no happy ending.
"Stephen asked for Cade," the knight-sergeant continued, her eyes still shut. "I fetched him, and Stephen said he wanted his treatment to stop. Save it for other soldiers. Spare Josh an ordeal. Cade argued, but the decision was Stephen's in the end."
Another silence. It was a quiet that Quinn could not fill. Did not want to fill. It was Rachel's and Rachel's alone.
"I did the right thing."
A statement, not a question. And yet the knight-sergeant sounded anything but convinced.
Quinn thought of Stephen's final moments. The agony. The fear. And yet despite all of it, he had been alert and ready through every second. Uninformed about Vivian, perhaps, but certainly aware. She told Rachel this, and the knight-sergeant's eyes snapped open.
"You saw him die?"
Quinn nodded. "He was all there, Rach. He didn't change his mind, even when the med-x wore off. He knew it was time to go."
"What did he say about Viv?"
Josh's face as he lied to his dying father slipped into her thoughts, and Quinn grimaced. "He thought he saved her. Cade told him she was in surgery, but well on her way to recovery."
Rachel gave a small sigh of relief. "Well that's a small fucking blessing, at least."
The conversation died. This was beyond Quinn's ability to comfort.
"I came here because…" Rachel rubbed at her face, suddenly looking tired. "Carson told me what happened in the tunnels. That you took down that guy for threatening the kids. The way you took down the rest of those assholes."
Carson's lie was not lost on Quinn. But for the first time since she had woken up, Quinn saw a genuine smile on Rachel's face. The knight-sergeant was beaming at her.
"I know you don't see synths the way I do, Quinn. That much was obvious when you punched me. But you came for us in the church anyway. All of us. It means a lot."
Rachel hesitated.
"And not just because you saved us. But because of the other things you've done. You took down the traitor even though you were…" She suddenly looked uncomfortable and quickly moved on. "And you think of the squires on this ship the way no other officer does. The way a parent does. You continually put the Brotherhood and its people before yourself."
Quinn didn't know what to say. The knight-sergeant was still trying to struggle on, her pain raw and deep. And yet she was letting Quinn see it.
"I like a lot of people on the Prydwen," Rachel said, fixing Quinn with a hard stare. "Hell, I'd even call some my friends. But I respect you. You are everything Danse could have been. Should have been."
She paused, looking confused, and then shook her head. "Get some sleep."
Quinn was moved in the middle of the night.
Cade stayed by her side, directing the scribes in a quiet—but firm—tone as they wheeled the gurney through the empty corridors. The few patrols that were there respectfully averted their eyes.
Only when they made it to the peace of Cade's office and the scribes were dismissed, did Quinn speak.
"Where's Kapraski?"
Cade jumped, dropping the needle of med-x he had been preparing, and then cursing as it rolled under his desk.
"Sorry we woke you, ma'am," he said, getting to his knees and rooting around for the wayward medicine. "But I felt you might appreciate fewer stares."
"Thank you," she said as Cade located the med-x and got to his feet.
He smiled at her and sat down behind his desk. "As for Kapraski, I feel his recovery is enough that he doesn't need to be wedged in my sickbay 24/7 anymore. He seemed happy with the decision."
It was then Quinn noticed his smile was forced, plastered over a foundation that was cracked and on the verge of crumbling.
Cade stretched in his chair and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "But enough about my other patients. How are you feeling?"
"Numb," Quinn replied, without hesitation.
Cade frowned at the med-x in his hand and then looked at her. "Physically?"
"Emotionally." She shrugged. "I don't mind. After all the shit that happened, this feels like I've been let off the hook."
Cade's frown deepened. "You went on that mission and followed your orders without question, despite the heavy losses. That can't have been easy."
"It wasn't."
"And it will have left its mark."
Quinn didn't reply. She saw what Cade was getting at, but she didn't want to entertain the notion. All he had to do was let her live in a blissful state of blank. Was that too much to ask?
"Why did you let Stephen Cooper go on as long as he did?" she said, wanting to drive the current topic out of his mind. As soon as she said it, however, she regretted bringing it up. Cade's face went pale. His eyes fell to a stack of reports on his desk, though he obviously wasn't reading them.
"Sorry," Quinn said, feeling a faint stab of guilt. "You don't need to answer that."
"No, it's fine," Cade replied, though he still wasn't looking at her. "As a doctor, I should know when to let a patient go. And despite every indication that said otherwise, I kept him here. Wasted valuable resources. Put the man and his family through pain and false hope."
Cade closed his eyes, resting his head in his hand.
"I just wanted someone to survive that day."
"How many people have you saved this week?" Quinn asked.
Cade glanced up at her. "What?"
"How many of our wounded would have died without you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Most of them, but—"
"So more survived than died?"
Cade rose to his feet, scowling. "That's not the point, Quinn. I let myself get selfish."
Quinn sat up, ignoring the nauseating wave of agony that washed over her, and glared back. "You let a little boy say goodbye to his father. You let Stephen Cooper go out on his own terms. I think that's all any of us can ask for these days."
Cade blinked at her. For a minute, no words passed between them. Then he nodded. "Ma'am, you need to lie back down. Your stitches."
Quinn did as she was told, and the doctor strode over to her, lifting up her shirt and checking over her wounds with a careful hand. Then he fetched the syringe of med-x and injected her with it.
"This discussion isn't over, by the way," he said, as the chems took hold. "We will have a proper talk about what happened when you're be..."
His words faded out, the sweet nothing returning.
A/N:
Hello everyone!
Normally I reserve this section for happy things and thank yous, but last week there were a few of you who were deeply unhappy with my decision to kill off the Railroad. Enough to tell me I can't write, they hate my main character, they aren't going to read my story anymore, etc. Funnily enough, all of these people are blatant Railroad fans who show through their anger and word choices in their arguments that they think the RR can do no wrong.
Last year I would have ignored this or maybe taken it to heart to such an extent I would have rewritten chapter 50 to please the people I'd angered. But a year's worth of dedicated writing has changed my outlook on the author-reader relationship for the better.
In short, eat my entire ass.
I spend hours daily, working my writing, research, editing, and planning around a full time, 40 hours a week job. On my days off work, I spend the entire day working on my fic. I have written to the point of exhaustion. I have written to the point of needing hand splints. I write for free and because I enjoy it.
I am always open to criticism of the quality of my writing. However, for people to come to my fic knowing full well it's a Brotherhood story and then threaten me with stopping reading because you don't like the outcome I chose...because I killed your favourite faction...in a Brotherhood playthrough...
Go.
Seriously. If you don't like Brotherhood stories, then go. I appreciate every reader I have, but I am not your bitch. And I certainly will not sit by and ignore the level of shit I received over a goddamn fanfic chapter. This is a Brotherhood story. My story. I am not changing it for you, and you are not entitled to the direction I take it. If you want a story where the Railroad survive, type 'Railroad' or 'Minutemen' or 'Deacon' into the searchbar of the Fallout 4 section and hit enter.
There are plenty of fics out there for you.
But not this one.
This is a Brotherhood story, but it's not pro-Brotherhood. In fact, I think it's highly critical of the Brotherhood. But still, the focus is on them.
What the hell else could you have been expecting to happen? How much clearer could I have possibly made it? I have dedicated thirty chapters to building up relationships between Quinn and the Brotherhood. On the flipside, she barely knows the Railroad. Deacon has only appeared three times in total in this entire fic.
Did you think it was for shits and giggles?
I wanted to bring out the human side of everyone involved. Quinn is a highly flawed individual. She is selfish and shortsighted and that's the entire POINT. But I don't believe her choice was immoral. That decision has no right answer. It's supposed to be a shitty choice.
The Brotherhood are not good people. They are racist, bigoted bullies.
The Railroad are not good people. They kill children and only care about the lives of synths.
And the best part of this? Deacon agrees with this assessment. He says he wishes Des would help humans too. It is also implied by Deacon that the Railroad use some very nasty, low-level tactics to get their job done. If you ever bother to do the research that I have into his character, when he drops in affinity and has a talk with you, he tells you that you're normally really noble, and that you've been acting out of character lately. That you are stooping to the level of the Railroad...to the level of Deacon.
Shock!
Finally, I've responded privately to most messages/reviews, but one individual decided to leave a guest review that I couldn't even respond to and have a conversation about it. I had a full, very thorough response for that person. But then I realised, why bother? They didn't give me that courtesy. So I'll be brief in my reply to their one-sided irritation.
My dearest guest reviewer. Everything I've written. Everything I spent hours carefully constructing.
You missed the entire fucking point.
I have nothing more to add.
I have no intention of continuing this debate further. I don't intend to address it again. If you're unhappy with my interpretation of the Brotherhood and the Railroad, then you know the answer. No one is forcing you to stay.
For the rest of you who weren't so damn rude to me over a piece of fanfiction, thank you. I'm sorry I made some of you cry, but thank you for not yelling at me or ripping me down because I killed a character you like.
You people are why I write.
Thank you. :)
