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"I don't know why you wear your hair like that." Nate, as always, complained when she came to join him in the kitchen after he'd - finally - been satisfied that his straight as a rail military buzz was acceptable and given it to her, to do the little bit of makeup she needed for work and tie her hair back in a ponytail. "You look so much better with your hair down."
"Please." She laughed brightly, giving little Shaun a look in her husband's arms on the couch, sleeping peacefully. Nate gave her a look and she struck a pose like what she'd seen in his Grognak comics, feigning a swooning maiden and grinning all the while. "I look fabulous no matter what I wear, daaarling!"
"Yeah, you definitely do." Nate chuckled, laying with his back against the arm of the couch and watching the baby like a hawk when he laughed. "I like the red you put in your hair, by the way. Gives you a bit of an edge, you know what I mean?"
"Thanks, babe. And yeah, I know what you mean." She quipped, that warm feeling in her stomach whenever he gave her one of those random compliments as she made her way to the fridge for something to eat. "Honestly, I'm surprised the college lets me get away with that but still makes me tie my hair back."
"Yeah, I know they can be strict, but you look awesome in your school outfit." Nate grinned as she sat down on one of the stools, smiling at the offered cup of coffee Codsworth laid on the counter for her. "Thanks, Codsworth. Did you remember-"
"Three dollops of cream, four spoons of sugar, and a touch of caramel, Mistress. Your requirements are permanently registered in my central memory unit." The silver ball cut in, bouncing chipperly in the air as she took the mug and smiled. "And I must say, ma'am, you look splendid."
She didn't understand why they just kept complimenting her, really. The only thing she'd done is highlight her black hair with red. And she wasn't even dressed in anything that showed anything off, either, as difficult as it tended to be to show off her still thin, wiry frame. Though she did still feel a little fat around her waist from the pregnancy, as much as her husband assured her he didn't mind and that it wasn't there. Though how he wouldn't mind something and it also wasn't present she would never imagine, the man only gave that rogue's grin when she pointed the contradiction out.
Damn him and that grin…
"Hey Codsworth, could you go see if Shaun's bed is in a good condition for his nap?" Nate asked as much as ordered, still unsure of how to speak to the servile machine.
"Of course, Sir!" The machine crowed cheerily as always, spinning its manipulating arm around and buzzing off up the hall.
"Still not used to having a robot around to give orders to?" She asked, turning on her stool and leaning back against the counter, sipping idly at her coffee as she did. He shrugged and, feeling somewhat childishly malicious for reasons beyond her, she barbed gently, "I'd think an Army boy would be used to giving orders."
"I was a trooper, babe." He drawled as he stood, Shaun curling against his muscled, scarred chest as he came towards her. Rolling her eyes, she reached behind her and pulled one of many little plastic straws out of a bag, tossing it into her cup and holding it up for him to sip without worrying about spilling the hot drink on the sleeping baby. "I had, like, two guys under me and mostly parroted orders. And that was weird, too."
"Wuss~"
"Suck it~"
"Maybe after you put the baby to bed we can head down the back, lay up next to the little creak." He snorted and then blinked, checking on the baby to make sure it was still sleeping. She waited too, to see if his snort and the motion from it would disturb the newborn, but when the little guy didn't make a noise they both relaxed and she sighed. "Ugh, I can't believe Camridge has me running all the way down to CIT to help with some stupid 'project' they won't even tell me about."
"Did you ask?"
"Of course I asked. But they said they couldn't talk about it over the phone. Special project, government mandates, Chinese listeners, the normal drill." He grimaced but nodded, the both of them knowing well enough what the Chinese posed to the nation in terms of risks and infiltration. "Way it is, I guess…"
"Yeah, I guess." The man sighed, "Can't stand the secrecy of it all, but I guess it just can't be helped."
"You'd know, Nate. You lived it, after all, at least for a good few years 'fore you got let out." She pointed out, nodding her head to the side, where his shiny Anchorage-earned medals sat next to his ceremonial trifold flag. "What do you think about all of this? Any ideas about what's goin' on down at Cambridge?"
"If I really, really had to guess?" She nodded, to show that he did have to guess, and the man frowned. Taking a seat on the arm of the couch and turning to look down the hall, he rubbed a thumb along his son's cheek comfortingly - for the both of them, she knew - and began to talk. "Probably a Vault, or something like it. You might be a lawyer, but you dual-majored in classical history, and besides technology they might be wanting to archive that stuff. Blueprints, information, maybe translating books into digital formats to store more densely somewhere secure…"
"That… Well, that was a more detailed answer than I expected." She blinked and he shrugged, as though it were all an obvious line of thought. Which, now that she considered it, it kind of was. "Why call for me, though? You signed us up with Vault-Tec yesterday when that guy came by, didn't you?"
"Yeah, veteran's benefits apparently, though nobody told me that was something on the table for my service when I signed up." Or after he was discharged for getting shot, she knew. She'd been there, looked over the paperwork with him and everything. Not a word about Vault reservations. "Kinda weird, that… And the guy, the way he talked, it was like he knew something."
"How do you mean?"
"I don't know, but he… Implied that the apocalypse that the Vaults would protect us from was coming. And soon." The statement unnerved the woman to say the least, knowing by proxy from her husband how well grunts like he had been and like the Vault-Tec representative still was could come across information they should never be privy to. "Just has me weirded out."
"I mean, it's probably fine. We've been fighting back and forth for about a decade now." She shrugged, grabbing one of the little crescents Codsworth had baked for them that morning and taking a large bite from it. Around the soft, delicate pastry, she added, "I mean, what? Are they just gonna start flinging nukes all willy nilly? Ruin the world over some gas?"
"It's a lot more than that…"
"Eh, not really." She shrugged, taking another bite of her crescent and holding it up for him. "Wars were fought over grain first, they say. Did you know that? Wheat fields were probably what caused the first wars."
"Babe…" Her husband drawled, smiling all the while even as he chided her. "You're ranting about history again."
"Yeah, I know, I just-" She was cut off as, at first distantly but then steadily rolling towards them in a cascade of shrill screaming, an alarm began to drone heavily and heartily. The duo stood abruptly and Shaun whined in Nate's arms, the woman asking quietly, "Are those…?"
"Raid sirens, yeah." The man nodded as, distantly, the sounds of vertibirds began to fill the air. The man grimaced at the sound and added, more firmly. "Troop transports. Wherever doesn't get bombed to hell, they'll be managing people and evacuations…"
"Oh god… Oh god, oh god, this is happening isn't it? It is..." She felt the panic well up in her chest and clamped it down the unhealthy way she always did, gritting her teeth and standing. "How long do we have?"
"I don't really-"
"Nate, Guess, god damn it." She snapped, feeling bad for snapping at him but turning around to grab a bag from the ground she'd normally use for toting books to work. Now, though, she grabbed formula and diapers from under the counter and started piling it into her bag. "You were a soldier, you'd have an idea of time frames, radar detection- I'm a historian as much as a lawyer, I did the late nights to know soldiers can see this kind of stuff coming."
"Ten minutes, assuming radar picked them up out over the sea and not when they started bombing us. They're probably hitting the closest coasts first..." He guessed, hearing the tone of her voice and raising his in turn, feeding off her own alarm like a soldier would. "Codsworth! Diapers and baby food in a bag now! No toys, just supplies"
"Yes, Sir!" The chipper robot called back, always bright and cheerful even as it toted out a baby bag of supplies for them to carry off to survive a literal apocalypse. "I would suggest you get going. People are started to head towards the Vault, up on the hill."
Neither of the two needed any further prodding to get moving, rushing out the door and headed with the crowd. Unlike most of the crowd, though, they were admitted into the Vault.
Whether that was a good thing, though, she'd debate for years afterwards.
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The first time Nora woke up, she was confused, disoriented and cold. It took a moment for her to remember what had happened, from the raid sirens, to her things being stowed by Vault-Tec security while she went in for decontamination. She didn't remember falling asleep, not really, but it must have taken a while and regardless, it was over now.
Distantly, she could hear voices approaching her, or more likely walking down the line, and pushed off her seat to see who was coming and get out when the door opened.
Except it… Didn't open for her, and when she saw the rugged man walk up to her husband's pod she started to get nervous.
"This the one?" He asked, loud enough that even through the pod's heavy hatch she could hear it. Laying a hand on a heavy, silver revolve on his waist when a woman joined him and pulled a lever that he assumed meant 'yes' he added a short, irritable grunt of, "Military man, right? What's the word from on high if he acts out?"
"The infant is what's important." The woman answered in a sharp, clipped tone. "If he resists, do as you like, so long as the infant is unharmed and the backup is as well."
"Mhm. Got it, boss lady." The way he grinned, almost feral, at the answer unnerved Nora who slammed a fist against her hatch to get their attention. He saw this and smirked, sidling towards her while lights flashed over the other pod, and he leaned in close to get a look at her. "Gotta say, those suits don't leave anything to the imagination… Why aren't we takin' the doll too?"
"Too risky. Infants can't resist us and draw attention, a full grown woman can. And without the ability to Relay so far out, it has to wait." The woman answered snappishly as the hatch screeched back and began to lift. The man regarded her again, eyes lingering on her chest longer than she liked until she crossed her arms, and then he shrugged and turned to her as the door eased open. The woman, voice full of warmth, cooed the crying baby almost before the hatch had even opened, "Hey, little guy… It's okay, Sir, we can take him while you get cleaned up."
"I-I-I got him." Nate wasn't in any better a state than she was, still confused and lethargic. But well enough to know better than to hand off his son to strangers. The woman's hands landed on the baby, tugging him out of numb fingers, and Nate shouted, "What are you doing? He's fine!"
"Sir, you need to let him go." The woman intoned coldly, turning her suited head to the man and grunting. "Kellogg, make him let go."
"Let the baby go, pal. Last warning you're gonna get." The man, Kellogg she knew now, warned as his heavy looking revolver came free and levelled with Nate's chest. Her fists slammed into her pod lid and the man stepped to the side far enough to get a glance of her, face furious and fists slamming uselessly against metal again, and he chuckled, "Got some fire like your man, doll? Good for you. Won't help if he doesn't hand over the kid, though."
She flipped him off and he chuckled, turning to Nate for his answer.
"I'm not giving you Shaun, you motherfuckers!" Nate snarled, coming alive more and more with each passing second as the chill of the definitely-not-a-decontamination-pod faded away. She knew the look of adrenaline rushing through his veins, and saw him turning to push out of the pod and attack. "Now back off or get fucked, you bald son-of-a-bitch!"
Kellogg knew a threat when he heard it, and could probably see the man's attack building, even as knackered as Nate no doubt was. She was sore and even moving to pound weakly against the lid was an effort of sore limbs and painful shivers, fuelled by adrenaline and not much else.
"Time's up." The man sighed, "Sorry, Doll, but the grave's been dug and your boytoy didn't help himself."
"No!" She shrieked, the sound loud and echoing in her own ears.
The crack of the gunshot was even more so, though, and she could swear she heard her husband's head slam back against the back of his pod. She certainly felt it, punching right into her gut and aching where she leapt into the lid and her head hit metal, instinct driving her to do something to help him. And that 'something' ended up being 'slam her head against the door and hope it opened'.
And then glower when it didn't and Kellogg turned to give her a look, face flat and handgun hanging from limp fingers while he watched her.
"Kellogg we need to-"
"Sorry about this, Doll." The man nodded, sliding his revolver home and giving the man a look. Then he stepped forward and pulled the lever, closing the pod again, and said a simple, "Now you can bury him if ya get out, at least. Get a move on, you quacks."
"I'll kill you! I'll end you!" She shrieked, earning another look, this time with a small smile for her benefit. Seething, she pressed her face against the glass to get as close as feasibly possible to the man, in spite of how cold the metal was or how stupid she knew she looked. "When I write the history book on your life, this chapter will be called 'that time I made the biggest mistake since the nuclear fucking holocaust'!"
"Keep the fire, Doll." The man nodded, giving her a small faux-salute as he strode away and the machine chimed a warning about the 'cryogenic progress' being restarted.
Before she faded out, she committed the face to memory.
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The second time she woke up, the hatch opened and, having fallen asleep - and seemingly been frozen, she knew what 'cryogenics' were - pressed against the lid, she flopped out like a wet fish hacking for air. On shaky legs, she rose and teetered towards the door, not once looking back at Nate's hatch. She knew he was dead, and until she was ready to bury him she'd leave him be. She needed to try and catch the smiling bastard before worrying about that, though, and save Shaun.
Nate would have wanted that more than her crying over him.
She found nothing aside from giant bugs, an empty Vault, some skeletons and a handful of weapons, holsters and medicine. The bugs wear easily squashed, the weapons were salvageable and the skeletons were… Well, skeletons. There wasn't much to be said for them and she shut down any emotions they tried to drag up the way only people like her could do, flicking the proverbial switch so she could deal with what mattered. The irony of being a historian while she said it had been and still was obvious, but she didn't care about whatever stories a bunch of skeletons held.
Outside she found her worst fears realized. Trees with sparse leaves, gnarling vines crawling up them, a pale blue sky filled with puffy clouds that threatened rain. And a blasted landscape stretching out in every direction, dimmer than it had been before and littered by the wrecks of the destruction wrought by the bombs. Houses down in Sanctuary Hills were dilapidated even enough to tell from here, and in some places they were nothing but piles of scrap iron and plates of steel.
She felt grief at the sheer loss of it all well up in her stomach and nearly drag her to her knees but stamped it down. Switched it off and turned away, looking first for tracks - she was no hunter, but that many people would leave something behind - and then when she found nothing moving on. Headed for home, to see what, if anything, she could find there.
She'd hoped for a bed and something to eat, if nothing else.
She found no bed, but there was a can of pork-n'-beans waiting that Codsworth found for her after their reunion. Heated up by his flamer, she sat down with an old fork to eat while he relayed what had happened to her.
"After that you and the Master ran off so suddenly and then… Well, I suppose it is obvious. The bombs struck, the blast came, and so it went." The machine paused the explanation she'd asked for when she got to Sanctuary to regard her, sitting where Nate once had with her knees tucked against her slight chest and har arms hugging them. "Are you alright, Miss Nora?"
"My husband is dead, the world is half-dead at least, and I'm stuck in a skin-tight suit. Oh! And my baby is missing, two hundred years and change are gone, and my house has more holes than house in it." She regretted the bitter snarking as soon as she'd finished it and pinched her nose to force herself to breathe through her mouth and calm down. "I just… I need to find Shaun, at least. Did you find anything out in the houses?"
"No, ma'am." The machine reported, eyes bobbing low in a show of sadness. Or a programmed replication of it, she wasn't sure either way and right now didn't care much. "I found some bugs but was rid of them fairly quickly. And some clothes, if you wish for something more… Normal."
"I…" Did she? Did she care, rather? She wasn't really all that sure she was, not with everything that had happened. But she got what Codsworth was trying to do, at least, and smiled as gently as her aching heart and head would allow at him. "Thank you, but I don't feel like changing when everyone, their mother, and their cousins can see me wherever I do it in the house."
"Maybe we should work towards remedying that, somehow," The machine suggested quietly, gesturing at the holes themselves like it was pointing them out. "With your permission, I can begin looking for ways to cover the holes. Rugs over them, mayhaps."
"It would help…" It would at least give her some privacy, at the very least. But she had bigger priorities and stood, instead, asking, "Have you gathered supplies from around Sanctuary? Food, water, weapons I guess, since I'm sure I'll need those with how things are."
"Never had a need, Mum." The machine answered, bobbing iits three arms up and down in a 'shrug'. "If you like, I will see all food, water, and whatever weapons are here gathered up. I will also take the spare pistol you brought in. they'll all be in the old bathroom, where they'll be the safest."
"And me?" She asked, knowing how ridiculous asking her machine for orders was but needing the direction. Something to do, to focus on, to keep her mind off simply losing her mind. "If you're doing all that, what am I doing?"
"I figured that you would wish to look for young Shaun, and feel that heading into Concord would be the best thing to do for that." the machine answered simply, "There are quite a few rotten eggs down there of course but, well, I don't know where else you're likely to get help from. Someone there is bound to have information for you."
"What kinds of 'rotten eggs'?" Just the gist of the saying had her grimacing, caught between imagining they stank and worse things. Along with a comedic vision of a walking, stinking egg at the old Museum of Freedom.
"The kind you'll be glad you have that pistol for, really." the machine explained vaguely enough to be annoying, "I must say, though, it has been some time since I saw a weapon like that in these parts, Mum. Not since about a hundred years past or so, at least. It should give you an edge."
"What do you mean, you haven't seen my pistol around?" She asked, picking it up off the couch but leaving its partner on the arm beside where she'd been sitting. She didn't like the weight in her hand, but Nate had made sure she could use it, so she felt somewhat wafer with it. "I'd imagine needing it because everyone had guns, in a world like that. Like this I mean, fuck I'm still not used to it…"
She still couldn't believe raiders were a thing, even as clear as Codsworth had been about explaining who they were and what they did. It made sense looting would start up, but so long after the bombs dropping, she'd hoped it wouldn't be that bad. The military should have enforced some kind of order…
Assuming any sort of command line still existed, that was.
"You'll adapt, Miss Nora." The machine assured her, seeing the sudden realization on her face as that idea sank in. And the threat behind it, what it would mean to her and everyone else, that the chain of command had broken down. "I'm sure of it. The raiders I told you about won't stand a chance once you get the hang of things!"
"What kinds of weapons do they use, then? What can I expect?" She asked, turning around and picking up the old leather and nylon holster she'd pilfered from the Vault. It wasn't much, but the weight on her hip when she holstered it did bring some odd, conflicting comfort even if holding it hadn't. "All I have is my ten milimeter and about three magazines of ammunition. If someone attacks me down there, I don't know if I can deal with them."
It had worked well enough on the giant roaches, but she wasn't so certain about using it against people.
"The raiders around here are poorly equipped, even compared to other parts of the Commonwealth. I've had a few travelers come and go, and they talk, you understand. The ones that don't try to scrap me, that is…" She winced at that implication and smiled apologetically at the machine, but he waved his pincer at her to show how little he cared about it. "Oh, it's nothing, Mum. A little woosh of my flamethrower and they ran off, nothing but a couple dents on my plating to show for it."
"I'll try and patch you up later, Codsworth." She assured him, practicing drawing and leveling the ten millimeter over and over until she started to feel comfortable with it. "But focus. Their equipment?"
"Mostly scrappy, shoddy plated of old metal tied onto themselves. Some have patchy chainmail, others have leather or padded clothing." She blinked and gave the machine a look and, again as chipper as it could be, the machine quipped, "That's why you'll be fine, mum! About a century in, the bullets ran dry. Now, it's all lasers for the lucky ones that have power to charge the cells, and everyone else has gone positively savage."
"You mean…?"
"Shields, spears, the like. It's all rather like your books, really. The history ones you kept on the little shelf over your side-table." The machine informed her, waving its saw towards the ruined bedroom and its original contents. "A gun like that will let you cut through almost any group of bandits! Or fetch a handsome price, if you prefer. Either way, a big help!"
"Are my books still there?" She asked, an idea already starting to form in her mind.
"No, Mum, I found a little shelter nearby and moved them there." The machine buzzed by and outside with her following behind, then, and pointed at a house down the road. "That one, the back corner. Can't miss it, mum. Most of the collection survived, a bit dusty mind, but intact enough. Shall I dust it off while you're away?"
"Do that." She nodded, turning to give the machine a look. "And add 'tools' and whatever can be salvaged to work on producing weapons here to the list of things I want you gathering while I'm gone. Get everything together, neat and ordered as best you can. This house and the one across the street. Okay?"
"Of course, Mistress." The machine bobbed, "Will that be all?"
"Yeah. Yeah, that'll be all." She nodded, patting the little gun on her hip and grimacing lightly.
She'd probably have to kill people out there, in Concord, before anyone gave her any information. A world with 'raiders' wasn't one where she expected to come out clean. But as much as Nate had always called it unhealthy, she was in a unique perspective to deal with something like that.
But right now, she simply 'toggled off' her emotions and turned to leave, calling back, "I'll be home in a bit. Watch the place for me."
The machine called its assent, but she wasn't listening. She was already off, headed to work, to find her baby and delete the bastard that had taken what was hers.
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For brief context-
The characters look as they do in vanilla, Nate and Nora that is, and sport the same names. The exception being Nora's hair, which is a darker brownish black and tinted red. I tried integrating this a few ways into the chapter, but this is just easier, and gives you all a ready reference point. You will also notice tweaks to timeline events and the like, such as the Vault-Tec guy coming the day before the bombs fall.
Hope you enjoyed~
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