"Elder… Please accept my sincerest sympathies." Burke rose under Lyons' gaze and glided closer. "Your daughter showed great courage and honour-"
He was cut off by an unexpected and remarkably powerful jab to the face. The force staggered him, the shock silenced him.
Lyons massaged his fist and glared at Burke.
Burke stared back until his surprise gave way to the throbbing pain radiating from his eye socket.
"Of course she did," Lyons agreed sharply. "No one is leaving this room until I find out what happened here."
Burke managed to scowl while testing the damage to his face with cautious fingertips. "What happened was Sarah saved the project and probably everyone here. Now look here, we had a deal-"
"I don't give a damn," Lyons hissed with rising fury. "Madison calls me to say there's no further response from the control room, and I find out it's my daughter-" He choked and turned away, pacing back along the catwalk while he composed himself.
Burke assessed him through his remaining good eye. His grief would scupper their chances, and he'd certainly told the Pride guarding the room to wait on the plan until told otherwise.
"Your daughter acted exactly as I'd expect a Sentinel of your Brotherhood to act. She saved a lot of people-"
Lyons whipped back around to face him. "Don't you speak of her! Don't. Speak. What do you know of the Brotherhood? Of honour, of helping people? I know all about you. Burke, Miller, Megaton, what else?"
Burke narrowed his eye. He was venting, but to what end? "Your point?"
He slowed from a blustering wind to a stiff, foreboding chill. "Hmph. My point. My point is, as you correctly stated, Sarah did something here today. She will be remembered as a hero. You, however, will merely be a footnote. A mention that you died today during the assault."
That was the plan, but Burke wasn't certain right now Lyons didn't mean it as a threat. He inched his hand closer to his pistol. "Yes, as we discussed. Must I remind you of our… arrangement?"
"Don't insult me, Mr. Burke. Not now. There is no 'second vial' of FEV."
Burke's fingertips twitched. "Then since you've done your homework you know I have other means of persuasion at my disposal."
"Yes. Yes I can see that," Lyons spat, slipping another forlorn glance into the central chamber.
The man was smart, but this wasn't like their first meeting. He was lost. Give him something to hate. Burke stepped closer and spoke quietly.
"I know you would've preferred Talia to be in there. It would be a very compelling narrative for the Brotherhood. The daughter follows the father… She was almost convinced herself. But it was never going to happen that way. Let me tell you: I would have forced Sarah in there at gunpoint if necessary. We're not your heroes; we had a deal."
If looks could kill, Burke would have just keeled over. He continued.
"But it wasn't necessary. We all discussed it and she stepped up, out of duty and…" He began to look back at Talia but decided it wiser to keep his eyes on Lyons for now. "Well, it's not lost on me that she stepped in before Talia did."
He saw Lyons' gaze drift past him. He turned. Talia was still propped against the wall, staring into space. He returned to her swiftly, pulling her arm over his shoulder in order to help her out of the entrance chamber. She was moving with him but barely responsive.
Lyons watched them pass.
"You think it's not you I'd rather see in there?" came his rasping voice. Though losing some of its venom.
"I'm sure that's true," Burke called back as he sat Talia on the steps. "You must have more gallant Knights." He left her seated in order to face Lyons again. "But I'm not a Knight. And neither is she. She's lost her whole family to this place, and she's not one of your people, that much is clear.
"She's given enough. I'm here to make sure of it."
He stared Lyons in the eye, daring him to renege on their deal. If he wanted them dead, he'd have to damn well do it himself and do it now.
Talia began to become aware of her surroundings as if waking from a dream. It ought to have been a nightmare, but she was numb. Sarah's death played over and over in her mind. She hadn't actually seen it, but her brain helpfully animated how it had likely played out. It didn't hurt anymore to watch her stagger and fall. It wasn't a real memory and yet her gut may as well have been wrenched from her body.
She felt hands on her shoulders, something firm at her back, but the voices weren't clear. Too much noise. The false memory faded to be replaced by nothing. She didn't even know Sarah that well, but somehow the Sentinel felt like someone she'd known a lot longer. No time to find out now. Get out of this shithole for me. It wasn't just what Burke said, it was a plea, a deal.
She swallowed a stone in her throat. That couldn't be it. James was unhinged, selfish, desperate. Sarah was doing her job. Burke would be gone soon if he wasn't already. What had happened after Sarah started the system? How much time had passed? She blinked her eyes and tried to take in the surroundings. She was strapped into a seat, metal all around, and a wall of bright light to her right. She squinted until her eyes adjusted.
She gasped weakly when she saw she was in the air. The ground below sped past, not to mention that it appeared worryingly close. A figure in power armour sat toward the front, and behind them she could see the sky and a couple of heads.
It took her far too long to figure out she must be in a Vertibird. Her nerves must have been fried for she had little reaction to the realisation. If she was on her way to another Enclave base, so be it. There was nothing she could do but throw herself out of the door. She sank back into her seat and closed her eyes.
A jolt shook Talia awake. There was no more wind, much less vibration. The craft had landed. Someone in power armour unbuckled her from her seat and guided her to her feet. She followed without resistance. She hadn't the will to move anywhere, but she didn't want to attract any more rough treatment.
A pair of hands reached through the wall of light and lifted her down to the ground. She covered her eyes with her arm at the sudden emergence into daylight and the waking world. The hands pulled her away from the aircraft. She followed blindly until her bleary eyes could pick out details of the ground and she could stop stumbling.
Dust. Rocks.
The Vertibird whirred up and she turned her head to see it lifting off. Then she was pulled into darkness. The sound of a door being closed and locked sealed out the retreating aircraft. She wasn't left to worry long as a small oil lamp was lit and she could see who had brought her here.
Burke...
He turned around and seemed to start at her lucidity.
"Where are we?" she asked, feeling the need to whisper.
"Wait a moment," he said quietly before moving further into the interior.
Something pressed against her leg and she looked down to find Dogmeat leant on it. A long, awed sigh escaped her parted lips. How did she forget about him? She crouched to give him a hug. She was relieved he'd made it. She couldn't remember much aside from Sarah's lifeless form and Autumn's mangled head.
"It's safe, come." Burke returned and offered a hand, leading her into a fairly ordinary looking sitting room, albeit dusty and peeling. "We're well out of the city. We can stock up and decide where to go from here."
He left her and moved over to a cabinet, which he opened and began to search, piling a number of things on the coffee table and throwing a few snacks to Dogmeat. Talia remained in the doorway, blinking at the couch and the rug and the sideboard and the broken TV like he'd just told her they were on the moon. A beam of sunlight sliced through the air, thick with dust thrown up by Burke's activities. She crossed the room and squinted through the gap in the boards nailed over the window. A crumbling road, a few houses, not unlike the suburbs she'd explored around Tenpenny Tower. But no skyscrapers, no aircraft carriers, no Brotherhood or Enclave.
She turned back into the dingy room. "We left D.C.?"
"We left what most call the Capital Wasteland." She must have looked stunned because Burke came over to rouse her. He pushed a bottle of purified water into her hand. "Relax."
She took a sip as he continued with his work, and the sip became a swig until she'd guzzled the whole bottle. Better. She looked around the room again and this time noticed that it was very tidy for an abandoned pre-war house. Dogmeat had already made himself at home on the couch and she decided to get out of her gear and join him.
She wrapped herself in one of the decorative throws, and they both watched as Burke laid out a map on the coffee table. The map was annotated with a lot of pencil markings. Roads scribbled into oblivion, towns crossed out entirely, new routes and settlements added in.
"How old is this?" she asked, pointing out Megaton.
Burke checked a note in the corner. "Just over six months. It should still be reasonably accurate. Unless we started a trend."
"And it's the whole United States?" she enquired, shifting forward to look properly.
"There's no such thing."
His comment made her eyes roll and the corner of her mouth twitch. "And where are we?" she asked as he sat down next to her.
He pointed out an empty spot north of Rivet City. Far north of Rivet City.
"Whoa."
"Our friends gave us a lift out here. Moving that quickly, we should be out of reach of any agents. And I don't think they operate all the way up here. All the same, I don't want to linger. We should move somewhere new as soon as we can."
Talia scanned the map for places she'd heard of, tried to place Raven Rock. They were further out even than that. "Oh my God, we're really out." She turned to Burke. "So- Oh! What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
"Not much. Not this." What was she doing when Burke got a bruised, bloodshot eye?
Burke sighed. "Old man Lyons, believe it or not."
"Oh…"
"Don't look at me like that, he's been a Knight his whole life. And he's probably had cybernetic enhancements."
"You need some ice," she soothed, raising her hand before realising there was nothing she could do to make it better right now.
"I'll be fine. They left us with some extra stimpaks at least. The Pride wanted to do everything just like Sarah said, even with Lyons not best pleased."
Talia balked and looked down at her feet.
"Don't even think about feeling guilty. You did enough for them and he knew it. He's trying to play a game but he has too much compassion to really hang you out to dry. His whole rebellion tells me that."
Talia slumped back into the tired old couch. Burke followed suit after fishing a cigarette from his pocket. She watched him light it and let her eyes follow the glowing embers. Her gaze lingered on his hand the way it often had when she didn't want to be caught staring. If they could be back in the Federalist Lounge, but the blood on her face and the ache in her fist reminded her otherwise.
"Ugh, I think I busted my hand." She winced as she tentatively flexed her fingers and assessed the swollen knuckle.
"What do you need?"
She sighed. "Ice would be nice. Stimpak to speed up healing, and a splint. Oh, no, can you do it?" She turned away as Burke produced an injector from the table.
"I'm glad to see you're squeamish about needles again." He was making a point, one she vaguely understood, but he didn't press further. He followed her instructions on where to administer the stimpak and then gathered materials to fix her affected finger in line. She held his cigarette and watched him do what she'd watched James do for numerous patients in the Vault, after Andy had once butchered the job and been reassigned to less complicated tasks.
When he was done binding her fingers so everything would heal in the right place, she smoothed over the tape and watched him finish his smoke with curiosity. "So, we're dead now?"
"Should be. How does it feel?"
She leant on his shoulder. "Not much different."
"Don't hope for a glowing obituary from Lyons. Though I'm sure your friend at Galaxy News will add his own thoughts when he hears."
"So long as he says we're dead."
"He will."
Talia chewed her bottom lip. She thought about trying to tune in on her Pip Boy, but she didn't really want to hear whatever he might have to say, even if they were in range. "This is your place you told me about?" she asked instead.
"Yes. It doesn't get a lot of attention around here. I keep my main stash locked up anyhow, just in case."
"Stash of what?"
"Supplies, caps. I told you, enough to take us wherever we want."
She fell silent again. He was so good, so good to her and she couldn't understand it. Would she ever be enough? She seemed to be for now. For now. That was the story of her life.
She turned her head toward him just a little. "Thank you." Small, far too small to convey the huge debt of gratitude she owed. Could she ever repay him? Damn, did he even hear her?
But he acknowledged her words, shifting his arm around her shoulders. By the small gesture she wasn't sure he knew just what she was thanking him for, but she wasn't going to start bawling and grovelling. He could work it out eventually. They had plenty of time for her to try to make things even. She was going to forget everything they left in the city and give this new life thing a proper go. There was no reason to make such a hash of it this time. It would technically be her third attempt, and if They were to be believed: third time was the charm.
"So, where should we go? Can we go somewhere warm? I'm not used to these cold winds."
Burke seemed pleased with her focus on the future. "South then, or west. Think you could make it as a farm girl?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Think you'd make a good cowboy?"
"A what?"
"No, okay. Well, what else is out there?"
"Not everywhere was hit as bad as the east coast in the war, so there could be all sorts. West certainly produces some of the less mutated food."
"We could start our own vineyard? First fresh wine of the wasteland, maybe."
"Dead people don't start businesses that will make them extraordinarily popular, I'm afraid. Besides, there are easier ways to keep a steady supply of booze."
"That's not why I said that," she protested. "Mostly."
Their semi-serious discussion continued, punctuated with soft kisses that spoke silently of the relief they shared to be out here discussing anything at all, and Dogmeat could be forgiven for thinking this was not a couple dripping in the blood of enemies, friends, and many others who crossed their unlikely shared path.
But then Dogmeat was biased.
The echoes of dawn could just be heard above the heavy shroud of night. The uncountable stars that painted the sky were beginning to shrink to the approaching day. Talia wondered how many she had seen before she was taken to the Vault, if she'd even known what she was looking at. She couldn't remember anything of the surface. She remembered learning about the sky in the Vault, and asking what was the point when they lived underground.
She still remembered a prayer or two. Even though they didn't go to many services, James had made her recite them with him sometimes. She didn't know what good it would do now either, but he'd always been soothed by them, so she muttered one out under her breath. She paused and continued less hurriedly, enunciating more clearly though still barely louder than the breeze that tugged at her clothes. It would carry the words wherever they needed to go, to wherever he lay now-
She fought against the rage and grief that swelled as bile in her throat, and swore at her loss of composure. She took a moment to get a hold of herself, apologised for cursing mid prayer, and completed what she remembered. She frowned, a final pang of bitterness that she couldn't even say for sure she knew one measly prayer by heart. But nothing she ever did was enough for James, so it would do.
But she knew she should quit being mad. She just wished she'd worked it out sooner.
She heard Burke locking up behind her and crouched as Dogmeat came to check on her. Today she didn't stop his daily attempt to lick her face whenever she was sat on the ground. Burke's feet appeared as a shadow in the gloom to her side.
"Ready to go?"
"I guess," she croaked, but she remained on the floor with Dogmeat.
He obviously took that as a 'no' as he made no attempt to leave. But she could tell he was antsy to get moving, and he was surely right to be.
"I called him a coward once," she blurted. Even though they were already well out of the city, she felt like it had to be said before she moved on. "But I was wrong."
Burke accepted her correction with the indifference of one who didn't even remember the original statement. Nonetheless, surely he had opinions even if he'd kept them to himself.
"I don't think he ever got over Mom," she continued. It made more sense hearing it out loud. "Purity was her idea and I think he needed to finish it, he thought he needed to, for her. It basically was her. So he did what he did because he couldn't hand it over. Especially not to Autumn, not like that." She carefully vented her frustration with a measured sigh. "He was hurting and I was too dumb to figure it out before, so all this happened, and-"
"You can't blame yourself," Burke cut in firmly.
"But we just fought all the time, if…"
"If you'd thought this a week earlier you'd have fixed twenty years of grief? Come on, snap out of it."
She did snap out of something when he patted her cheek somewhat sharply. She had only come out here to give James a private sendoff, more for herself since the Brotherhood would surely hold a proper service for him and their own fallen. How easily she could slip into self pity.
She blinked at Burke, then nodded. He stood and wiped his hand on a handkerchief. She finally batted Dogmeat away and dried off her face on her sleeve. Better to keep moving. She'd figured this out while not dwelling on it. James had wanted her to live and that's what she was doing. She could just about believe that he'd enjoyed their time on the surface, that he might have eaten his words about the Vault being the best place for her, had they had the time.
Burke waited, hand outstretched in an offer of assistance. She took it without hesitation, rising to her feet with a little help from him. It was warm and strong and made the dizzying chasm of loneliness she skirted a mere pot hole. Without fanfare the trio set off into the darkness, the rising sun at their back still too low to light the footprints they left in the dust before the wind swept them clear.