Piper couldn't exactly stop Blue when she set her mind to something, so the vault dweller recited her excuse to the raiders and back to the Commonwealth they went (with many a suspicious look from the resident raider leaders, but no bullets in their backs), and thus their time began running out. They hardly talked along the road back to Sanctuary except to call out to one another during firefights. Once there, Blue didn't bring Piper to her discussion with Preston. She had to assume that the vault dweller was giving him private instructions; probably something along the lines of get someone to keep Piper from following me, no matter what. She wondered how hard that unlucky soul would really fight her if she tried.

The anticipation; the dread made their time together in Sanctuary feel hollow and uncertain. Piper didn't know exactly when her companion was planning to fuck off to get murdered, and Blue seemed to intentionally avoid telling her. The question just hung in the air like a suffocating blanket every time they were together, sucking the air out of the room so their words were few and the ones they did speak fell flat. It tore at Piper's heart. She didn't want things to be like this. If this was potentially the only remaining time she was going to get to spend with her vault dweller, she wanted it to mean something, not feel like they'd just had some kind of breakup. She struggled to think of something—anything—to say that wasn't please don't go or you can't make me stay here or I can't lose you or any number of things that she knew would only make things worse.

In the end, she never got the chance.

They'd gone to bed together that night, as had become their norm, unresolved tension or not. Piper had tangled herself in Blue's warmth and tried to communicate all the things she couldn't (wouldn't) say in the tightness of her answering hold. She might have cried a little bit into the front of Blue's shirt, maybe. And the vault dweller might have feathered kisses upon her brow and her cheeks and her nose until she relaxed enough to slip into sleep, so tender even now, maybe.

And when she woke up, Blue was gone.

Piper bolted upright with a gasp. It was still dark, but she could already tell that the mattress was empty beside her. She ran a frantic hand over it anyway, in case maybe it was still warm; maybe Blue had just gotten up to take a leak like she sometimes did. But it wasn't. It held no sign that anyone had been there all night.

"No," mumbled Piper through sleep-sluggish lips. "No, no, no, no." She crawled across Blue's side of the bed and fumbled in the dark for the steamer trunk beside it, where the vault dweller piled her stuff every night. Its surface, too, was empty. Except for—

Piper's shaking fingers closed around a scrap of paper that had been tucked beneath one of the metal bands. A note. She clutched it so tight it crumpled as she cast around for some light to see by, heart racing in fear of what she would find. She could guess. She could predict, word for word, what Blue had written her as a futile goodbye; something heartfelt, dear, but not enough. Never enough.

She found her lighter in the inner pocket of her coat. Once acquired she flicked it to life, holding it up to the note so she could see what was on it. She almost didn't want to look. Almost. But if this was going to be Blue's final words to her, her heart gave her no choice. Her eyes locked on the carefully penned message:

Piper, it said, I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave like this, but I think I would have had to physically tie you down otherwise. Piper let out something more sob than laugh at the truth in that. She was tearing up already, and it made the rest hard to read. She forced herself on. I'll be back soon. If I'm not, everything I have is yours. Take care of Nat. Take care of the Minutemen. Take care of the Commonwealth. I wouldn't trust anyone with its future more than you.

"No. Blue," Piper cried to the empty room. This was what she got for falling in love with someone in these dark days. Open up just a little bit, and the world would rip you apart. Let yourself be even the slightest bit vulnerable, and it would pulverize your heart on the spot. Piper felt like hers was in pieces. "Fuck you. Fuck you. Oh, shit, Blue, what are you doing?" she sobbed into her hand as if that might hold back the despair.

But, of course, it didn't. Piper was overwhelmed by the flood of grief that hit her like a nuclear blast. Blue wasn't even dead yet, as far as she knew, and it felt like she was lost forever. The papergirl slipped off the edge of the bed and onto her knees on the floor, body weak against the prospect that she may have seen her precious vault dweller for the final time. "No," she whimpered again, weakly. Eyes squeezed shut, she pressed her forehead to the floor like it might physically ground her somehow. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work, either.

She didn't know how long she simply knelt on the floor and cried before she scraped together enough willpower to straighten up, uncrumple Blue's note, and scan it again in the dim glow of the coming dawn. Her eyes lingered on the pretty little loops on the y and l that must have been an art lost to time; a skill unique to only her vault dweller. She held the paper to her chest like maybe she could pretend Blue's touch was still on it. Still on her.

I love you, lay at the end of the message, written in a shakier hand than the rest, like Blue, too, had begun to lose her composure.

Piper let out her breath in a ragged, empty sigh. The paper was going thin in the spots where her tears fell against it.

She barely had the strength to whisper, "Sometimes I wish you didn't."

…

Piper had no idea how long she was supposed to wait for Blue to return before assuming the worst. Days, sure. She reasoned that it might take days to prepare and execute a project as big as kill everyone in Nuka-World. Weeks, though? What was she supposed to think after she'd heard nothing for two weeks and her mind was in a constant state of nervous, hazy sleeplessness and she'd taken to spending every free moment by the radio in case the Minutemen reported back on the air? When she'd gone back to Diamond City to look after her sister but in all reality, her sister was doing more looking after her? When the possibility of a life without Blue had become painfully much closer to reality, and Piper was struggling to find the will to stay in a life like that?

She was not going to survive it if Preston returned with no Blue at his side. The vault dweller had reached too deep inside her and taken hold of too much of her heart to be extracted from it now. Piper lived in fear of the moment that her world would come crashing down around her. And the longer time stretched, the more acute that fear became. She couldn't eat for feeling sick. She couldn't sleep for worry. She was wasting away, and still Blue hadn't returned.

As two weeks crawled toward three, Piper wondered if there would be anything left of her for Blue to return to before long.

On the twentieth day, news came over Radio Freedom.

She was at her desk when it happened, staring at the same block of text on her terminal screen that she had been for hours. Everything had sort of faded into one long gray purgatory that hung like a fog around her, and she barely perceived what was going on around her. She couldn't focus on her work, much less get any of it done. She was so deep in her haze that she was almost deaf to the sudden action on the radio.

The usual cycle of music was broken by a burst of static, then a live voice announcing, Hello, listeners. This is Preston Garvey reporting in. Here, Piper jolted into awareness, back going ramrod-straight. Her hand flew to the radio, fumbling for the volume knob. Preston's voice grew louder, clearer. I'm here to tell you that the Nuka-World mission was a success. The Minutemen are back in the Commonwealth and back at your service.

That was all she needed to hear before falling apart.

…

Blue took a week to show up to the doorstep of Publick Occurrences after the radio broadcast. A whole fucking week. Piper had started to believe that Preston had left out a very important piece of information in his announcement; namely, that maybe the vault dweller had died a horrible death at the hands of the raiders. All the overwhelming relief she'd felt upon hearing the broadcast slowly drained away over that week as Blue still failed to return, replaced again by dread. She swore this last month must have shortened her lifespan by a few extra decades.

But, as it turned out, Blue hadn't died; not yet. She came knocking at Piper's aluminum door on the twenty-seventh day of her absence. As soon as Piper cracked it open and saw who it was, she practically flew into the vault dweller's arms, forgetting all of her anger and sadness and irritation in favor of just feeling Blue. All the air shuddered out of her as the taller woman returned her embrace tightly, and her stubborn tension went with it. She felt like she might crumble in its absence, having relied on it to sustain her for so long.

Blue spoke first. "Piper, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she was murmuring into Piper's hair, sounding like she was struggling not to cry herself. Her hands ran up and down the reporter's back over and over as if reassuring herself that she was real; she was here. "I never wanted to leave you like that." She kissed the top of the reporter's head, then her temple, then her cheek, then whispered in her ear, "I hope you understand I just wanted to keep you safe."

"Of course I understand," Piper tried to say, but it came out as more of a half-sob. Damn, she was just feeling so much. She hid her face in her partner's shoulder, embarrassed at herself. Then she remembered her month of suffering and drew back abruptly so she could glare into those lovely gray eyes. "But I'm still really fucking mad about it! You waited a week after getting back to tell me you were okay why?"

Blue's cheeks flushed a deeper red than usual, and she dropped her chin. "I was working on something," she supplied sheepishly, as if she realized now how silly that sounded. Good. Piper wanted her to feel suitably bad about it; just a little.

"Couldn't it wait?" she demanded. Her anger was slipping through her fingers like sand in the comfort of Blue's presence, but she still pressed, needing answers. What could have been so bloody important that it kept her partner away from her for a week after she miraculously returned from her suicide mission? She didn't want to be selfish, but: "I've been going out of my mind here! If I hadn't heard the broadcast on Radio Freedom—"

"I want to show you," Blue interrupted her gently, hands settling on her shoulders to still her.

Piper's irritation flared. "Are you listening to me? Blue, this isn't a joke."

The vault dweller leaned in and kissed her suddenly and softly enough that Piper's thoughts scattered like dust in the wind. Her lips. She'd been afraid she might never feel them again. Might never feel any of her again. When the vault dweller drew back, all Piper could focus on was those stormy gray eyes holding her just as warmly as the arms around her. "I'm not joking," Blue breathed. She ran her hands up to Piper's face, then down her back again, soothing. Like she'd missed her touch as much as Piper had. "I'm sorry I didn't stop by sooner, but I wanted to wait until it was done."

Piper leaned into the attention. "Blue, what are you even talking about?" she tried weakly, the last of her ire dissipating at the relief of being in the vault dweller's arms.

"Come to Sanctuary with me," Blue urged in lieu of an answer.

That little with me was like a warm flood of chems into Piper's bloodstream, filling her with the purest sense of comfort. She'd been afraid getting left behind would turn into a long-term engagement. But here Blue was, safe and whole and inviting her along with her again. Everything felt right again.

"All right," she exhaled softly into Blue's shoulder. But she didn't let go, and didn't have any intention of doing so for a long time yet. On the contrary, she squeezed her vault dweller even tighter. She felt her face heating up slightly as she ventured to ask, "Just hold me for a little while first, okay?"

The hum of Blue's laugh spread through her whole body, soothing her like the feeling of home. Blue was home, she realized once she gave it a moment of thought. And Piper was there, now.

"I will," the vault dweller murmured into her hair.

And she did.

…