A/N: Hello readers! Here is chapter 3!

Also, this is a PSA of sorts. When I started this story, I only intended it to be a Cait/SS romance fic where both are fucked-up but fix each other in the end. However, I changed that plan a bit. This is still going to be a romance fic, but it's not purely romance. I have my own plot, now, which I'm sure you'll love. It's separate from the main storyline, but the main quests and some side ones will be looked at.

I tweaked a few things from the first two chapters because of that, but not really anything big enough to warrant you rereading it. I mean yeah, go ahead if you want, but it's not totally necessary.

This is a huge chapter but I just couldn't find a good spot to stop it. Hope you like it!


Chapter 3: Daye-um Son!

Part One: In Which Cait Hangs Out in Diamond City (And Fucking Hates It) And Meets a New – Friend? No, Not Really. Just Another Asshole.

"This is where ya live?"

"You got a problem, Red?"

"No, it's just –"

"What?"

Fucking messy as shit.

Cait never really had a place she could call home – the trailer park was boring and cramped, and the slavers drilled it into her head that you own nothing – we own you and really, that little side room with the nasty-ass mattress back at the Combat Zone was the closest she'd ever come to owning her own space – but she was pretty damn sure a house wasn't supposed to be this… chaotic.

A fuck-ton (which isn't an exact measurement but let's just say way too many for one person) of peeling crates and splintering barrels and flaking suitcases and rusty chests were stacked right to the sloping ceiling of the cramped, dark, dingy little house, all slanted and teetering dangerously and almost comically in a way. There were heaps of trash and random shit pushed off into corners – tires and old bottles and scraps of metal and clothing and pylons and cinder blocks and Jesus, was that a picnic bench under all that junk?

It was cluttered as fuck.

Daye seemed to pick up what she was laying down. "It's a little… crowded, yeah. But hey," he shrugged, and he pulled the crusty gas mask off his face to see better, tossing it aside. "It's supposed to be like this. It hides all my important stuff."

"Important stuff?"

"Think of it as a layer of dust over a – treasure chest? Yeah, lets go with that."

Cait gave him a what the fuck look. "Unless this treasure chest is owned by Captain Fuckwad of Cape Junky-Shit, I ain't seein' no Important Stuff."

"Maybe you should check your eyes then, Red." He left her there by the door, knee deep in rubbish, and began rummaging through the piles, shoving shit in his ratty travelling pack.

It smelled weird in here. Like old. Old clothes and old furniture and old dust. Old cigarette smoke. Old food.

You know, Cait had never really liked Diamond City. Too big, too noisy, too full of stuck-up pricks turning their manicured noses up at everyone who was different, who didn't belong.

Yeah, she knew you couldn't manicure a nose, but she wouldn't be surprised if some greased-up tweedle-knob here figured out a way to do it.

Anyways, she didn't like Diamond City. Didn't like the well-dressed people, the decent shops, the actually good food that wasn't two-hundred years old or some sort of Mystery Meat shit Tommy cooked up sometimes. Didn't like the open air, or the guards keeping watch, or the sense of utter normalcy the place reeked of.

Because Cait wasn't normal. She didn't deserve any of those things. And she hated the glares and stares people threw her way because of it.

Which she told Daye. Repeatedly.

Just going to one of my safehouses to grab a few things, he'd said before. Then we're getting the fuck out of Downtown. Lay low for awhile.

Daye knew how to lay low, alright. They'd skirted the main roads coming into the city, keeping to the alleyways and shadowy corners and dark places no one but Daye and the seediest motherfuckers knew. Then the asshole made her clamber up a rusty metal twenty-foot wall and then crawl like a fucking molerat through a hole in some wickedly sharp barbwire fencing just to end up behind the public shitters near the Science Centre. Tore a good, jagged hole in her last pair of pants, too, which were already soaked with crusty dried blood from the fight in the Super Duper Mart, but hey, at least they were wearable before. You could basically see her asscheeks now.

The guy didn't know how to use front doors, apparently. That, or he just enjoyed watching her struggle with her gimp-ass arm and gimp-ass leg. Wouldn't put it past him.

Home Plate, he'd called this place. She didn't know if he'd given it the name or it was forced upon him by one of the fat bigwigs up in the stands in an attempt to keep the old-world baseball atmosphere alive! or some shit like that.

God damn. Did she mention she hated the place?

"So…" she drawled, eyeing what looked to be a rusty old Nuka Cola machine against the far wall and vaguely wondering how he'd fit it through the door. And if there were anything inside it. "This is one of yer safehouses, ya say?"

He picked something old up, turned it over, tossed it aside. "Yeah."

"Where's the rest?"

"If I told you, they wouldn't really be safehouses, now, would they?"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Don't really care. Was just makin' conversation."

She spotted an old couch across the room, faded blue pinstripe with yellowing fluff sticking out, sort of near where the Nuka-Cola machine was. Shuffling over to it, she tossed her bag aside, swiped an armful of junk from the cushions onto the floor and collapsed onto it.

"Jesus fuck, I'm beat," she wheezed, stretching out like she owned the place. She shuffled a little, something digging into her hip. Tommy's pistol. She unholstered it and took a good look at it. A sharp, heavily-modded little .44 revolver, dull blue-grey in colour with a nice polished wooden grip. She wondered where Tommy might've gotten it, who he'd killed. Pfft. The lardass probably never even looked weird at someone else, let alone kill 'em. The little gun looked expensive, too. She could probably pawn it off for a good few caps if need be.

Cait turned it over in her hands lazily, looking at it in the low light. Tommy had told her to keep it close, just in case this Daye guy tried anything. She glanced over to him, still rummaging around the piles of shit like any of it was actually useful. He hadn't tried anything, not yet. But she was pretty sure he could've by now if he really wanted to. She sighed, tossing the pistol on top of her bag.

Then she scrunched up her nose, frowning. "This couch smells like shit."

"There's probably shit on it."

"Gross." But she didn't move. She hadn't rested in a good long while – not since the Combat Zone, probably. Actually, yeah. Since then. "I need me some food and a good shag. Where's the nearest bar?"

Some alcohol and a good-looking local could warm her up real good. Cait forgot how fucking freezing it was outside at night, having spent the last three years sweating in her dingy little side room off the arena. And Jesus fuck if she wasn't tired of those nasty snack cakes she'd been shoving down her throat. It'd been all she'd eaten since – well, since leaving the Combat Zone. Fuck, when was that? Two days ago? Goddammit, she couldn't remember. She needed some Psycho real fucking quick. It was making her antsy, going so long without it, and she couldn't shake the headache that clung to her skull like shit to a brahmin's asshairs.

She rolled up her crusty pant leg to inspect the bullet wound she'd got at the intersection literally twenty minutes after leaving Tommy's employment. It was a nasty yellow colour and still ached like no tomorrow, but it didn't smell and was well on it's way to healing. Still made her limp like a grandma, though.

"Uh, no," Daye said, inspecting a rusty old can or something. "Bad idea. Gonna have to pass on that."

Cait frowned at him. "What?"

"Leaving. Bad idea. I know how stoked you are to fuck some guy you'll never see again, but you're just gonna have to wait. Cross your legs or something."

"What? Why not?"

"Think about it."

"Quit playin' games and just fuckin' tell me."

"Think about it."

Cait's red-hot temper flared. "I'll tell ya what I'm fuckin' thinkin' about!" she growled, sitting up sharply on the boxy, springy old couch. "I'm thinkin' ya blow me boss's place all ta hell, murder all our customers, get me shot twelve fuckin' minutes after I leave the fuckin' place – and then shot again just a couple hours later – and feed me shit cakes and shit smokes and make me drag me fuckin' gimp leg and crippled arm halfway across the entire fuckin' Downtown, shove me through a hole in the wall, bring me to this shithole, and then not even let me get some fuckin' real food!"

Daye chewed his fingernails to hide his smile. "You done?"

"I'm fuckin' hungry!"

"Yeah, you look like you're withering away to nothing."

"Fuck you."

Not even ten minutes in Diamond City and she already wanted to strangle the guy and hang him up in the rafters by his toes. Sport for crows.

He turned, silent, and opened up a peeling yellow crate with a faded, crude red fish stamped on the side, rummaging around inside it like nothing had happened. Cait seethed, breathing in and out, in and out, deep of the smell of shitty couch and old dust and whatever the fuck was rotting under all the piles of trash.

"Once upon a time there was this guy. Tall, handsome as fuck, with a badass scar on his face. Don't remember his name though. But I'm sure it was badass too. Anyways, this guy was a pretty logical guy, Red. He did things because things made sense. He was hungry – he ate. He was tired – he slept." He pulled out a few boxes of cigarettes and pocketed them in his ratty jacket. "He was laying low after blowing the head off a raider gang leader – he didn't wander around the city buying noodles and flashing his cooch for Christ's sake."

He slammed the lid of the crate a little too hard, maybe, an exasperated look on his face that pretty much oozed Jesus fucking Christ, this isn't rocket science.

Cait crossed her arms. "Yer a fuckin' idiot."

"You know, I think you said that before. I'm not sure, really. Mind telling me one more time?"

"I appreciate sarcasm, ya know, I really do, but how in fuck has yer tongue not rotted out with all the shit ya keep spewin'?"

Daye smirked again, his old burn scar making it look more like a sneer, really, and he pulled out a bottle of Buffout from seemingly nowhere – how many pockets did his nasty jacket have? – and shook it a little, the pills inside rattling around against the glass. "Because the shit going in is worse."

Well. Couldn't argue with that, she supposed.

"Seriously though," he continued, pocketing the chems. "Don't go out there. We're just grabbing a few things here – some supplies and stuff – and then we'll be gone. North, I think. Less people. And deathclaws."

Cait's head positively throbbed – at him, at the lights, at the lack of Psycho juicing her up. "What? We ain't even stayin' the night?"

He shoved some more random shit into his pack. "Nah."

"But it's – fuck, it must be almost ten by now. The streets are dangerous this time o'night."

"Not as dangerous as if we stay here. Like I said – Chuckles had a lot of friends. A lot of guys who may or may not know where this place is."

Cait shook her head. This was all happening way too fucking fast.

"What the fuck, Daye? I need some food, some sleep. Me fuckin' arm hurts, me leg hurts. We should restock. Chill out. And what about the armour ya promised?"

He waved her off. "Yeah, yeah. Eventually."

She scowled at him again. "Oi - no, Daye. Look what happens without it!" She pulled down the half-sleeve of her stained old shirt to showcase the nasty bruise and pink, puffy skin where the raider bullet bit her in the Super Duper Mart, right in the clavicle. Well, Daye had said clavicle. He probably was just making shit up. "I'm a fuckin' one-armed gimp-ass pirate. Naked as a fuckin' baby. I need me some armour."

"Hey, I said I'd get you some that doesn't smell like piss. Never said it had to be right now. Or new. Or worth a damn."

Cait ground her teeth. "You cheap son of a bitch."

"That's Mr. Cheap Son-Of-A-Bitch to you, Red. Remember that."

A heavy, tinny thump on the metal door made the both of them jump. Daye spun around, frozen, and Cait's hand automatically went for her pack and her shotgun.

"Wait," he hissed, holding out a hand. Her own hand froze round the strap of her bag, nails digging into the fabric in anticipation. She watched Daye slide a short knife out of his many-pocketed jacket and hold it ready, still frozen.

The door banged again. Bam bam bam. The doorknob rattled impatiently. Schttkklll. Or whatever the fuck noise a doorknob makes when it rattles.

"Blue, it's me. I know you're in there! Open up!"

It was a woman's voice. Young and impatient and pushy. Not dangerous, maybe, but she still didn't trust it. Cait was good at telling a lot about a person without even talkin' to them. Or seeing them before. Had to be. She'd be rotting in the raider dump behind the arena right now if she wasn't.

Daye was too, it seemed. He tiptoed cautiously toward the doorway, over and around the piles of shit laying about, careful not to touch anything, make anything fall and make a noise.

Cait was sort of impressed with how agile he kind of was. He was a big dude, after all, tall and broad-shouldered, still in his duct-taped boots, too, and she knew he still had some junk in his veins from yesterday. She would've been wobbling all over the place, knocking shit over left, right, and centre like a distempered molerat. She'd seen one of those before. Quivering and bobbing its head all spastic-like, teeth gnashing at anything that came too close. It was fucking creepy, let me tell you.

When he reached the far side he peered through the grimy circle glass window in the door, back against the peeling blue metal, knife at the ready.

The door knocked again. "Blue!"

Daye relaxed, sighing, and pocketed the knife.

"Blue, if you don't open up this door I'm gonna get Valentine to break –"

He twisted the lock and swung the heavy door open, revealing a small, tidy-looking young woman in a press cap and long red trench coat. Her face was framed by her black hair and it was in a frown, hardly visible in the weak light of the streetlight outside. She squinted as the light from Home Plate spilled on her, and then Cait could see her face. She was pretty. The picture of eager youth, her face clean and free of bruises or scars that meant she'd known a tough life.

Cait instantly hated her.

"Hey, look who it is!" Daye laughed, a real laugh, not one soaked with chems or raider blood. The sound was strange to Cait. "Piperoni! Pipesqueak! How you doing, Pipes? Any new stories lately? You figure out if the mayor is boning his secretary yet?"

The woman half-frowned, half-smiled as she crossed her arms. "Don't try playing all hey Piper, how's it going? with me, Blue. It doesn't work."

"Because I totally think McDonough is boning that Gina bitch."

Cait relaxed her grip on the bag, settled back a bit. Daye seemed friendly enough with this glorified crayon. Because of her waxy overcoat. It was waxy, like a crayon. And red. Like a crayon. It made sense to her, alright?

The woman – Piper – what a stupid fucking name – smirked and rolled her eyes. "It's Geneva. And, if you must know, that story went cold a week ago. McDonough caught wind of that and threatened me. Again."

"Again?"

"Yeah. 'Lies and scandalous assumptions,'" she air-quoted, snorting. "Don't get me started."

"What an asshole."

"Yeah."

Daye rubbed at his nose awkwardly after a moment, watching this Piper bitch in silence. "Um… Is there anything I can get you, Piper?"

She blinked. "Right. Yes. Two things, Blue." She frowned, thinking a moment. "Three things. Four things."

"Wow, Ms. Wright. I didn't know you could count that high. Good for you."

"Har har."

"How'd you even know I was in town?" Daye asked, leaning against the doorframe casually. "I came in the back way. You wouldn't have even seen me."

She smirked, mirroring him. "I have my ways."

"It was Deacon, wasn't it?"

"…No."

He grinned wide, a crooked sort of smirk, the ghost of a charming smile on his marred face. "You're a terrible liar, Pipes."

Piper melted. Like a fucking crayon. Cait could actually see her shoulders slump, the reluctant smile breaking across her face. She couldn't believe it. What a fucking smooth-talker. "Alright, fine. It was Deacon."

Daye growled. "That sneaky son of a bitch."

"Just be glad he's on our side, Blue," Piper said, still smiling at him. "And not one of the Institute's little lackey's."

Daye frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Still, it's annoying as fuck. Knowing he's there, watching me all the goddamn time."

Her smile faded a little. "And that's why I'm here. Listen – Deacon told me about your little… argument with that raider."

"That asshole saw the whole thing and didn't bother to help?"

Piper put her hand on his arm. "Blue –"

"And if by argument you mean I shot a hole in the guy's head then, yeah. Argument."

"Blue, you can't keep getting caught up in stuff like this," she frowned, giving his arm a little squeeze. "You're going to get hurt one day. Really hurt. Dead."

"Thanks for the overwhelming concern."

"I mean it."

He sighed, shaking off her arm. "It's fine, Pipes. Just gonna lay low for a while. Leave town for a bit. We can't stay here, not while things are hot."

"We?"

"Oh. Right." Daye thumbed behind him toward where Cait sat on the couch, watching the whole exchange silently. The woman leaned around him to see. "This is Cait. Picked her up in the Combat Zone. She's helping me out for a bit till Mac gets off his ass."

Cait saluted half-assedly. Piper's eyes shot back to Daye. "The Combat Zone? Jesus Blue, this is what I'm talking about!"

Cait frowned. "Nice ta meet ya too." What a bitch. Just like all the rest of the douchebags in this fuckin' city.

"She's not that bad. Really. I mean, I already saved her life twice and she's yet to shoot her gun off, but," he shrugged. "I guess we'll see. Potential, or something."

"But the Combat Zone?" Piper frowned. "Really? No finer place to get murdered in all the Commonwealth." She eyed Cait on the couch again with heavy suspicion. "You sure you can trust her? She looks kind of hard-assed."

Cait bristled. "Oi, I ain't some blockheaded gombeen, ye bleedin' tick!" she screeched. "I'm standin' right here!"

Daye turned round, frowning at Cait. Turned back to Piper. "Did you understand a fucking word of that?"

"What a charmer."

"Fuck you both," Cait growled.

"You can come crash on my couch if you want. Both of you. Until this blows over."

"Thanks for the offer, Pipes, but I'm gonna have to pass. Heading north for a bit. Maybe Medford or Lexington."

Piper sighed. "I'm not gonna change your mind, am I?"

"Have you ever?"

"Nah."

"You know, I'd invite you in, but the place is a bit messy," he smirked. "And we're leaving soon."

"That's okay. I gotta get back home soon anyways. Nat's been in a nasty mood all day. Some kid was picking on her at school, apparently. She's gonna be a nightmare to get to bed."

"Kids can be so mean, you know."

"Tell me about it."

"Want me to find the little prick and rough him up a little?"

"Don't you dare!" she gasped, and then she punched his shoulder when he laughed at her. "I mean it, Blue! You'll get me kicked out of the city. Again."

"Fine, Piper, whatever you say," he grinned, rubbing at his shoulder. "The offer's still open though."

Piper rolled her eyes again, then crossed her arms. Sighed.

"What?"

"I missed you, Blue. Been too quiet 'round here without you around. Nobody causing trouble, giving me something to write about."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well. Been busy lately."

She smiled. "You still owe me those forty caps from game night."

"Valentine owes me sixty."

"I'm never going to see those caps, am I?"

"You know me so well."

She smiled again, biting her lip as she eyed him. Then she frowned.

"You should go see Valentine, Blue. He won't say it, but I can read him like a newspaper. He's worried about you. He wants to apologise."

Daye grunted. "Yeah. Sure."

"Really."

"I'll get right on that."

Piper looked as if she wanted to protest, or push him maybe, but thought the better of it. She sighed again, then smiled tiredly. "Okay. Just watch yourself out there, Blue. Lots of nasties prowling the Wasteland."

"Not as nasty as me."

"Of course not." She leaned over his shoulder to Cait again. "Nice to meet you, Cait."

"Sure, sure."

"Well, seeya, Blue," she smiled, hesitating a moment longer in the doorway, in the light of Home Plate, before turning away down the street and disappearing into the night.

"Bye, Pipes."

Daye shut the door, locked it tight again. Turned around.

And Cait let out a roaring laugh.

"What?" he frowned, clearly not as thrilled as she was.

"Jesus fuck, but I haven't seen somebody so hard for a guy in all me life," she wheezed.

"What?" he hissed again, making his way through the piles of junk to the couch.

"That bitch has a lady-boner for ya, Daye. A real stiff one."

"What, Piper? No she doesn't. She's just a friend."

"Yeah she does. You really that blind?"

He collapsed on the couch beside her, a cloud of old dust and flakes of two-hundred-year-old crusties puffing into the air around them.

"I guess so."

"The lip-bitin' thing? The doe-eyes? Touchin' yer arm?"

"So? That's just Piper."

"Blue?"

"So?"

"Ya got yerself a pet name there, bud."

"She gives everyone a nickname."

"Fuck, Daye, she'd pretty much have ta strip down to her skivvies to be any more obvious."

Daye grunted, pulling out a Lucky Strike from one of his pockets. He lit it with his little gold lighter. And didn't offer her one, she noticed. Asshole.

"You some sort of expert on romance there, Red?" He blew out, sending smoke from his mouth and way too close to Cait's face. Didn't give a fuck.

"I've fucked a few fellows in me time, yeah," she said, waving the smoke away. "Same thing."

"Sure."

"Ya know, if ya weren't such an asshole and I was tanked beyond the fuckin' moon, I'd shag ya."

Cait loved pissin' people off. Thought for sure that'd get a rise out of him.

He just smirked. "If you weren't such a cunt and I had a thing for firecrotch's, I'd fuck you."

She scowled. "You and yer fuckin' firecrotch."

He shrugged carelessly.

"So. Ya gonna go for it?"

"What?"

"That Piper bitch. Ya gonna fuck her?"

"Jesus Christ, no. She's just a friend. Already said that."

"Don't mean nothin'."

"Means everything."

"Sure, sure. Ya got someone else yer bonin' then?"

"No."

"Just askin'. Cause if ya don't wanna shag that Piper lady, and ya have no one else yer shaggin' then that either means yer dick is so fucked-up ya can't put it in straight, or yer queer as Tommy is fat."

"Jesus Christ."

"It that Mac guy? Your partner or whatever? That's it, right?"

"Fuck, no." Daye blew out again, rolling his eyes. But there was a smile there, she could see. A tiny little one. "Why am I talking about this with you?"

"What else we gonna talk about? Interior decorating?"

Daye shrugged. "Where'd you learn to swear like you do?"

Cait shrugged back, rubbing at her sore shoulder. "Lots o' places, I guess. Me parents. Me slavers. Raiders in the pit."

"Slavers?"

Cait looked at him. He was frowning at her, his eyebrows creased, his cigarette smouldering, and she could smell it on his breath he was so close. Could see the dirt on his face, the stubble on his jaw.

She frowned back. "Yeah. You got me contract, remember?"

"Well, yeah. Thought it was just a merc paper or something. Some sort of working deed."

"Ya didn't read it?"

"No."

"Don't have to, I guess. Just a load of brahmin shit, really. Nothin' too interestin'."

"Hm." He leaned back into the couch, sucking in his cigarette again. "So. You were a slave?"

"Yeah."

"How long?"

"Dunno. Four or five years."

"Must've been tough."

"Yeah. I guess."

An awkward silence settled on them. Cait could tell – because she was good at reading people, remember – that he wanted to ask more. He was curious, and that was weird to her. Cait was sure he gave no fucks about anyone, not even himself, and least of all her. But it didn't really matter, anyway. She wasn't in the mood to talk about her slave years. Not too many fond memories there.

Daye coughed, glancing at his cigarette, then flicked it on the floor, grinding it under the heel of his boot. "Well. It's too late to go anywhere now, I guess. Piper held us up. Get some shut eye, then, Red," he said, pulling himself up from the couch. "You can sleep here. I'll be in my room upstairs. If one of Chuckles' friends comes knocking during the night, let me know."

"What am I, yer fuckin' guard dog?"

"Sure."

"Whatever."

Cait stretched out on the couch again, trying to ignore the smell of shit on the cushions and the springs sticking in her back. She kicked off her boots and shuffled off her jacket, shoving it under her head as a pillow. She grumbled, watching him slip out of his jacket and hang it on a rusty magazine rack. "The middle of the fuckin' street one night, the floor of the grocery store the next, and now this piece o' shit couch that smells like cat shit and has more holes than a cheap whore."

"I would offer you my bed, but I'm not that nice."

Daye tossed her a snack cake from his travelling pack, and Cait frowned. "I swear to fuck, Daye –"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get us some real food in the morning. Quit your bitching."

"Asshole."

"Goodnight, princess," he smirked, flicking off the lights and plunging the entire house in darkness. "Sleep tight. Oh. And if you have to piss during the night, don't. Just hold it. Toilet's broken."

"Fuckin' perfect."

"Meant to get it fixed, but I didn't."

"Of course."

He chuckled, and she heard his footsteps creaking on the splintery floorboards and up the steps, upstairs to his room. How in fuck he didn't trip over all the shit in the dark was a miracle in itself.

Cait unwrapped the cake and ate it in the dark, on the nasty old couch in some asshole's squatty little shack in a city she hated, her leg aching and her shoulder sore as fuck, positive she was gonna turn to mush from Psycho withdrawal, alone.

But she wasn't alone. Not any more. Daye was upstairs, just above her head. And whatever she might say to the asshat, it still didn't change the fact that he'd saved her life. Twice. And given her food, and a place to sleep, and some smokes, however shitty all those things were. That was more than anyone else had ever done for her.

Fuck. She owed him, now. Shit.

She was gonna get herself killed by this asshole, she just knew it.

Part Two: In Which Cait Realises That Yeah, This Crazy Asshole Definitely Has a Death Wish And Is Going To Get Her Killed For Fucking Sure

Cait had that weird dream again – the one where she was back in the trailer park throwing rocks at all the old shit she found lying around. Used to do that a lot as a kid for shits and giggles, you know, before her parents sold her into slavery and all.

Anyways, the same thing happened every time she dreamed it. Throw a rock at a rusty barrel. Ping! Throw one at some burned-out husk of a tree. Thunk! But as soon as the glass shattered through the window of the upended trailer down the road from her own, her parents came.

Screeching and hollering with feral eyes and wicked claws and Cait turned and ran as hard and as fast as she could, away from them, away from everything, but it was never fast enough. They were right there on her heels, snapping and clawing and tearing, and they were deathclaws, now, and then they were those weird hairless bear-things, and then mirelurks, and super mutants, and rabid dogs, and every horror she'd ever seen out in the dusty wastelands, all teeth and claws and blood and snarls.

"Cait…" they wailed, pounding in the dry earth behind her.

She ran and ran and ran, but her legs were so heavy, too slow, like wading through thick mud.

"Cait!"

They were right on her now, biting at her ankles, slashing at her clothes. They would get her, eat her, tear her apart. The snarling, wicked jaws of the great beasts were right there, right on her, biting through her –

"Cait!"

"Fuck!" she gasped, eyes shooting wide open.

She saw Daye before her, his face pale green in the glowing light of his Pip-Boy, his head floating in the darkness around them.

He pulled back a bit, smirking down at her. "Jesus, you're hard to wake up."

"The fuck…?" she groaned, rubbing at her eyes, trying to pretend like her heart wasn't about to burst through her chest.

"Get your shit. We're leaving."

"What?" she grumbled, sitting up a bit on the couch. "Chuckles? He find us?"

"No," he said somewhere in the dark. "Something came up."

"What?"

"Got a tip from an informant. There's a drug deal going down by the docks right now. Not a small one, either. Mostly Jet and Psycho." She could hear him rummaging around in the rubbish again, could see his Pip-Boy light bobbing around in the complete and utter dark. "Three crates at least, maybe four. That's more than twice what it was last time, eh, Lennon?"

"Mhm," came a scratchy voice behind her, and Cait nearly soared right out of her fucking clothes. She whipped her head around and saw some lanky dude leaning against the staircase, smoking one of Daye's Lucky Strikes and looking bored out of his mind. She could just barely see him in the flickering light of an old pre-war lamp resting dangerously close to the edge of one of the many yellow crates stacked high. He was almost as tall as Daye himself, wearing a stained shirt and dusty jeans and combat boots, and had wild hair and a pair of circle sunglasses on, despite it being darker than – well, fucking dark enough to not be wearing sunglasses, that was for sure.

"Lennon?" she croaked, trying to calm her still-thrashing heart, make sense of all this weird shit.

"My informant. Good guy. Good tips. Looks like John Lennon, hence the name."

"It's actually Gary, you know," the guy said, flicking his cigarette.

"I know. But you just look like John Lennon so fucking much, man. Couldn't resist."

Cait had no idea who the fuck John Lennon was and quite frankly she didn't give a shit. "The fuck is happening?" she growled, swinging her feet off the couch.

"I told you. Lennon says there's a chem deal down by the docks. So we're gonna bust it."

"Bust it?"

"Just a quick in-out thing. One-two."

"One-two, eh."

"Yeah. In and out. We'll be back before sunrise."

Cait grit her teeth, rubbing her tired eyes. "What time is it?"

"According to my RobCo Pip-Boy 3000, it is currently 3:47 am. It's also 42° if you're wondering. Cooler by the harbour, of course. That's 6° Celsius for you metric folk."

Cait peered over at Lennon again. The guy just shrugged.

She shook her head, pinched the bridge of her nose, blew out a long, tired breath. "Daye. It's four in the fuckin' mornin'. I'm tired as fuck."

"Take some Mentats, then."

"What about Chuckles? What about 'layin' low?' "

"Plans change. A man in the desert takes water from whoever offers it."

"And a man in need of money takes chems from whoever's dealing it," Lennon's raspy voice scratched out behind her.

Daye smirked. "See? Told you the man was great. He's like fucking Aristotle."

Cait groaned. "He comin' with us?" she asked, jerking her head back to where Daye's informant lounged lazily against the stairs.

"Nah. Lennon's more of the sit-back-and-watch-the-fucking-firework-show kinda guy. Likes to keep his hands clean. Well, cleaner than mine. Unless you want to come this time?"

The informant sucked on his cigarette. "No way. Not after what I heard happened to Jamaica Plain."

Cait frowned, her head still way too fuddled for her liking. "What happened to Jamaica Plain?"

Lennon smirked a little, showing his crooked, yellow-stained teeth. "This crazy bastard blew it up."

Daye chuckled to himself, and Lennon's smirk widened behind his ugly-ass sunglasses, and Cait's mouth hung open stupidly.

"You. Blew up. The town. Of Jamaica Plain?"

"Yeah."

"Not so much blew it up as created a crater the size of greater Boston," Lennon rasped.

Cait snorted. "Yer pullin' me fuckin' leg. Both you."

"No I'm not. I really did blow it up."

"Fuck off."

"Seriously, Red. I'm not lying. I'm not lying, am I, Lennon?"

Lennon shrugged again. "Never saw it for myself. But heard it from enough people. And you're mad enough to actually believe it."

"There you go."

"How can someone blow up a whole fuckin' town?"

"With hard work and dedication. And a fuck-ton of explosives."

Cait rolled her eyes. "Still don't believe ya."

"Whatever. Don't. I don't care. But if we're ever headed that way, I'll be sure to stop by and show you and say I fucking told you so."

"Lookin' forward to it."

"Right then," he said, clapping his hands together. "That's settled. Lennon, man, thanks for the tip."

"Anytime."

Daye thumped his hand on one of the peeling yellow crates with a red fish stamp. "Take whatever you want from this box. Not everything. Maybe a few things. If your tip's good enough I'll give you a little more next time."

"Have they ever been bad?" he said.

Daye smirked. "Nope. Well, maybe that one time. The stash at the hospital, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," Lennon groaned.

Daye slipped on his ratty, dusty jacket, checked his shotgun quick, and then strapped it to his back. "Alright. Red, get your shit. We're out."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a second," Cait hissed. "Nothin's settled, dipshit. Who says I even wanna go?"

"Me."

"What about me?"

"You don't get a say, Red," he said. He pulled out a roll of medical tape from his jacket and began looping new wraps around his hands, his wrists. "This isn't a democracy. Now get your shit."

"I thought we were partners, Daye."

"Mac's my partner. You're not. Thought I made that clear." He ripped off the tape with his teeth, shoving the roll back into his jacket. Flexed his hands, tested it out. "This is your chance to prove you're worth a damn, Red."

"Do ya ever stop?" she hissed. "Like, d'ya ever just sit and not do somethin' stupid?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"I ain't goin' without juicin' up first."

Daye frowned back at her a long moment. Too long. Cait didn't like it – he was thinkin' too much. Nothin' good ever came of thinkin' too much. Just kill or be killed. No thinkin'. "Fine," he said at last, and Cait smirked. "Jet? Daddy-O?"

"Psycho."

"Alright," he said, pulling one out of his pack and tossing it to her. "Hurry up. Stick it in. Then get the fuck outside. Don't want you tearing this place apart."

"Yeah," she huffed, pulling the needle from its crease and snapping it into place almost automatically. "Like that'll make a fuckin' difference."

She stuck it in her arm. And her whole world exploded.

The hazy, throbbing tinge of everything plaguing her vison the last few days burned away, leaving a raw, red, angry glow to the world. The colours dulled, the lights seared her eyes, and she could smell nothing but the cloying metallic stench that burned in her nose and would stick until she came off her high. It was familiar and comforting, and she smiled as she felt her heart began to hammer, her eyes widen and pin, the hair on her arms raise. The throb in her shoulder and leg sizzled out, and a surge of pure energy, of mad havoc ripped through her veins, pumping through her body by the heart thrashing erratically against her ribs like a pissed-off deathclaw in a cage.

Cait was back. Cait was fucking back! Whoooooaaaaaarrrrrrr! Pew pew pew!

It was fucking beautiful.

"Fuck," she growled, voice high and rough at once, and she smacked her arm where she stuck herself, making the shit flow and stick. "Fuckin' fuck. Let's do this."

Daye smirked, tossing her travel pack to her. She caught it with one hand, swung it round her shoulder, put Tommy's pistol in her pocket.

"Alright. Let's do this."

Graaaaaaahhhh!

Cait honestly could not remember much about the trek to the docks.

It wasn't a long one, that was for sure, and it would've taken even less time had Daye not dragged her through the shadows and creepy dark places again. No more than an hour, but Cait's Psycho high did not quell.

The slow groaning of centuries-old metal from the highway above sounded like the roar of a deathclaw, beckoning her to fight it. The wind whistling off the twisted, splintered wood of long-forgotten houses was akin to the mad jeering of a raider. The half-moon above gave just enough light to make the heaps of rubble and concrete look like feral dogs laying in wait, just ready to pounce on her, tear out her throat.

So yeah, more than once Daye might've had to stop Cait from blasting her sawed-off into nothing.

"Alright Red, listen here a sec," Daye whispered suddenly, grabbing her arm sort of tightly, swinging her back behind the brick wall, back into the shadows.

"What?" she hissed. She didn't like being still. She shook out her hands, hopped in place, shivered in anticipation. Blinked way too much. Spit out the excess saliva in her mouth. It splatted on the wood – the wood? Oh. Right. The docks. They must be there, then. Finally.

Daye peered behind the corner a moment, his hand still on her arm. It was rough from who the fuck knows, and the wraps round his hands scratched at her skin. His fingernails were filthy. Crusted with dirt, bitten low, grubby with grease and grime. Well, hers were no better, probably.

He pulled back from the corner, his face close to hers. Too close, maybe. Her pinning eyes darted over his face, taking in his unshaved stubble, his swirling, puckered burn scar, his bright green eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and too many chems. He smelled… okay. Not like dirt and sweat. He must've cleaned up a little. Didn't look like it, though. Should've shaved. His jacket – the ratty old thing with way too many pockets – was once a light brown colour, she could tell, but it had been worn and handled and abused so much it was almost black now. And it had too many bullet-holes for her liking.

All this she took in with surprising clarity. Well, not really surprising. One side-effect of Psycho was the inability to shut your fucking brain off and go to sleep. Bringing in too much info, processing too much data for anything else.

"Okay," he whispered, his breath reeking of Lucky Strikes. "There's five of them there. Three body guards for the one in the white suit. All ghouls, I think. Not sure, can't really see from here. And there's some black kid who looks like he's got a jar of pickles up his ass. The kid's buying. The ghouls are selling."

"How can ya be so sure?"

"This isn't my fist rodeo, kid."

Cait growled. "I ain't no kid, asshole."

"I ain't no asshole, kid."

She grit her teeth, but she couldn't stop a smirk anyways. Hey, she could appreciate a good comeback when it was thrown her way.

"Fine. So, who's the dealers?"

"Not sure."

"Who's buyin'?"

"Don't know."

"The fuck? Didn't yer Lemon guy tell ya any of this shit?"

"Lennon. And no. It was a last-minute thing. Just the time and place. Too good to pass up, though. Look at all the shit they got," he said, and Cait peeked round the crumbling brick corner.

There was indeed five people there, all just barely visible under the dying light of the old streetlamp – three in black suits with submachine guns at the ready, one in a white suit and fedora lounging against the railing looking out over the black water - a woman, Cait thought - and a young man in a pair of spotless suspenders and slacks who did indeed look like someone had shoved a jar of pickles up his ass. He looked nervous, like a virgin chem dealer, pacing up and down the boardwalk, in and out of the pale light, glancing up from time to time at the suited bodyguards around him.

And there behind them all, beside the woman in the white suit, were six or seven big crates stacked together, all yellow and peeling and wooden with a crude red fish stamped on the sides, and all looking just like the ones in Daye's safehouse.

Jesus fuck. This wasn't his first chem-bust rodeo.

She pulled back from the corner. "So what's yer plan?"

Daye chewed his lip a second, thinking. "Hm. Didn't get this far."

"Ya bust a shady chem deal at night by the old docks with dealers ya aren't even sure ya know and a buyer who looks like they just crawled out the womb and ya have no idea what the fuck yer doin'?"

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of bad, Red."

"That's because it is!" she hissed. "Yer gonna get me killed, ya know."

"Probably."

"What do ya normally do at these busts of yours?"

He thought a minute. "Well. Mac would take them out from here. Confuse them, make them scatter. I'd get in closer and pick off the runners, the stragglers, the ones he didn't kill. That's about as far as our plans go."

Cait peeked round the corner again. "Let's just fuckin' charge in there," she breathed, the prospect of impending gunfights revving up the Psycho in her veins. "Take 'em all out. Boom. Splat. Dead," she chuckled. "I'll get the bitch in the suit, and the guard on the left. You get the rest. The kid'll probably run, so whoever's closest can just pick him off."

Daye frowned. "You know, if Mac was here, he'd –"

"But he ain't. I am."

He seemed to ponder that a moment, chewing on his dirty fingernails in thought. His eyes flicked from Cait to the docks, and back again. He sighed. "Alright. Fine. Let's just fuckin' charge in. Take them all out."

Cait grinned. Yesssss!

She pulled her shotgun from her back, cocked it quietly (as quietly as she could with her trembling fingers) and crouched low beside the wall, breathing it all in – the old wet wood, the dusty crumbling buildings, the salty water, the oily barrels of two-hundred year old salted fish and crab and other sea life long since dead and forgotten.

She turned round to Daye, and frowned. "The fuck you doin'?"

He slipped on a pair of black-rimmed aviator sunglasses, slick cold metal glinting in the light of the streetlamp beyond. "These are my douchebag shades. I wear them during busts. Keeps them from knowing who I am."

"It's fuckin' dark as tits out here, Daye! You'll end up shootin' me."

"No I won't. Trust me."

"I trust ya about as much as I trust the shitters back at the Combat Zone. That's not very much."

Daye smirked. "You hurt me, Red. I don't know how I'll go on."

"I'm sure you'll live."

"Oh. One more thing," he said, touching her arm lightly. "The safeword is Richard Parker."

"Safeword?" she growled, shaking off his hand.

"Yeah. In case anything goes wrong."

"Jesus, Daye, we're gonna kill 'em, not fuck 'em."

His face scrunched up in confusion. "What?"

"Safeword. Ya know, like durin' hardcore sex."

"That's not what I meant –"

"It's alright," she leered, earning a harsh glare from the man beneath the stupid fucking sunglasses. "Everyone has their kinks. Yers is just young dudes and ghouls, I guess."

"Fuck you," he growled. "You know what I mean. If something happens – someone else shows up, or there's someone hiding in a building or something – use the safeword. Let's me know something is up first without letting anyone else know."

"Fine. Whatever. Richard Parker."

He smiled. "Richard Parker."

And she crept out from behind the wall, Daye right behind her.

"Where the hell is Cooke?" the woman in the white suit rasped out once the busters were close enough to actually hear them. Her voice was gravelly like sandpaper through a woodchipper and Cait knew for sure she was a ghoul now. "We can't sit here all night. Fucking fish in a barrel."

"Relax. I'm sure he'll be here." It was the young kid, no more than twenty or so, and he should've listened to his own advice. Looked like he was about to shit his pants. Cait could almost smell the fear wafting about him, see the sweat on his dark skin glistening under the lamplight even from here, crouched low in the dark behind some old fish barrels or something.

The ghoul woman didn't seem impressed. She picked at her non-existent nails on her nasty rotting hands absentmindedly. "Yeah, well, he better be. This is bullshit."

"Who the fuck is Cooke?" Cait whispered, and Daye shrugged.

"No idea."

Click-kk!

The cold metal barrel of the black submachine gun pressed up against her cheek.

"Fuck me."

"Jesus Christ, you two aren't very quiet," the ghoul bodyguard rasped – a different one, a big guy. She hadn't seen him before. Fuck. Must've been behind the corner or something. That was embarrassing. "Hey, Trish! Got a couple live ones here."

"For Christ's sake – bring them out here, Mickey! This better not be a trick you shitless little punk."

The guard grabbed onto Cait's arm and dragged her up from behind the barrels, yanking her double-barrel from her hands, the muzzle of his gun still cold on her skin. Hey, she knew when she was bested. Remember the first rule of being a pit fighter: fight like you were dying. But don't actually die. Actually, that first part could go fuck itself.

Another guard, a smaller ghoul with an ugly black fedora, yanked Daye up, too, confiscating his modded shotgun, but not before the man elbowed the ghoul in the chest, threw some nasty curses, and got a swift punch in the gut right back.

"Holy shit," Daye moaned, clutching his stomach painfully. "You got a good fist there, man. Jesus fuck."

Cait groaned. What a fuckin' hero. "You half blind, asshole? Didn't see this guy?"

"Your eyes work too, don't they?"

"Guess it's too late ta call Richard Parker, then."

Daye hissed through his teeth, throwing a nasty glare her way. "Fuck off."

The both of them were dragged from their dark hiding spots and into the pool of light by the docks. She scowled darkly as Mickey ripped her and Daye's travelling packs from their shoulders and tossed them by the streetlight carelessly, nearly dumping them into the cold, polluted water. It was quiet here, nothing but the gentle lap of water against the wooden wharf, the distant clinging and creaking of old boats in the harbour. Utterly quiet, and utterly alone. No one to help, no one to hear their cries.

Fuck.

"It's not a trick, Ms. Trish, I swear! I wasn't –"

"Can it, dipshit," the woman growled, and the young man shut right the fuck up. She squinted at the two perpetrators as they were dragged forward, brushing at her impeccably clean suit, and then her pocked, rotted face twisted into something like a sneer. "Well, bend me over and fuck me backwards," she laughed, "if it isn't my good friend Nathaniel fucking Daye!"

"It's Daye," he wheezed, and despite it all, Cait smirked at that.

"It's whatever the hell I say it is. What the fuck are you doing here, Nate? Thought I made it pretty damn clear the last time you tried this schtick I'd gut you like a fucking fish."

Daye rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "Didn't know it was your deal, Trish."

"That's some brahmin shit if I ever did hear any."

"Honestly. My informant fucked up. Big time. Did you know I was coming?"

"If I knew you were within twenty miles of me I'd have smoked you out of your fox hole yesterday." She frowned, nodding over to Cait. "What's this? Found yourself a new piece of ass, dragged her along with ya?"

Cait growled, clenching her fists. "Oi! Listen 'ere, ya lump of rotten dog-meat, I ain't –"

"No, you listen, you fucking paddy smoothskin," Trish growled back, making Cait blink. "Running with this asshole was the worst mistake of your life. I'd get out as soon as I could if I were you, but I guess it doesn't really matter now."

Cait frowned. No, this wasn't the worst mistake of her life.

Well, yeah, it was pretty bad.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Trish asked, turning back to Daye. "MacDonald or some shit?"

"MacCready. He's fine. Resting up after a gunshot wound but, yeah, he'll live. I'll tell him you said hi."

"MacCready," she mused. "Right. Mac. Well, glad he ain't here. Good kid. He could've gone places. Never understood what he saw in you, though."

Daye smirked. "My rugged good looks. Obviously."

"You're one smug asshole, Nate."

"Daye."

"What's with the sunglasses?"

Daye smirked as he took them off his face, his twisted burn scar pale and shining in the streetlight. "You like them? They're my douchebag shades. Supposed to keep you from guessing who I am."

"Jesus Nate, there's only one son of a bitch in this entire Wasteland with a mug uglier than yours, and that's mine. I could recognise you from a mile away."

"Oh, come on, Trish. You're not that ugly. I mean, this guy here is pretty fucking hideous, so maybe you're the secondoof!"

The ghoul guard – Mickey, it was, the big guy – in question growled and delivered a swift elbow to Daye's stomach again, making him drop his shades and stagger like a drunkard, wheezing. He swayed into one of the old oil barrels, sending it off into the cold water, and Cait watched as the black, slick oil spilled and pooled on the surface of the already polluted water.

"Thanks for the compliment, toots. But I still gotta kill you."

Trish's guards cocked their submachines and pointed them at Daye and Cait, smirks on their ugly faces, and Cait sighed.

God fucking dammit. How many times had she almost died in Daye's company? Who fucking knew any more. But this would probably be the shittiest way to go.

"What?" Daye wheezed, coughing painfully. "You're gonna kill us?"

"Yeah. Sorry, friend." Trish pulled out a fat cigar from her suit pocket and lit it causally. Sucked on it. Looked up to her captives. Blew out. "Nate and I go back a ways. Kill 'em cleanly, boys."

"Wait! Trish," Daye coughed, holding out his hand to her. The guards froze, eyeing up their boss. "If you're going to kill me anyways, can you at least let me know why?"

"Do I need a reason? You're a right pain in the ass, son."

"This can't be over this shoddy drug bust, can it?" he said, running a hand through his greasy hair. "Is it The Boss-Man? He making you do this?"

"Marowski ain't making me do anything, asshole. But yeah, he's pissed."

"Marowski?" Cait asked under her breath.

"The Boss," Mickey growled next to her.

Cait wasn't stupid. Well, she wasn't smart, but she wasn't a lead-head. She could put one and two together. One – the yellow crates packed with chems. Two – the deal her and Daye had so miraculously failed to bust. This Marowski, The Boss, was a chem dealer. Maybe a producer, even.

Daye was still blabbering on beside her. "He mad about the dead drop at Echo? The raid at Park Street Station?"

"Raid? What raid?" Trish hissed. "Did you raid my fucking chem stash, Nate?"

"…No?"

The guard gave Daye a third punch to the gut at the flick of Trish's hand, making him wheeze and splutter and spit onto the dock. He fell down on one knee, simply unable to stand any longer. Cait winced. He was gonna start coughing blood soon.

"You slimy dickweed," Trish growled. "I don't know why I ever told you a fucking thing."

"Hey," he coughed, wiping the spit and drool from his mouth. "Mac's idea, that. Don't shoot the messenger."

"Oh, I'm gonna shoot you, Nate. Right in the fucking dick. Just to hear you squeal."

"If it's any consolation, those chems were shit. Barely got half of what I wanted. Was doing you a favour, really."

Trish shook her head. "Jesus Christ. You are the most senseless bastard I've ever come across, and I've been walking this godforsaken Wasteland since the bombs dropped. And you're the worst merc I've ever heard of."

Daye smirked, his wild eyes flashing up at her as he spit a wad onto the docks. "But you have heard of me."

Trish couldn't help but smirk back, just a tiny bit, Cait could tell, and she tried to hide it behind her cigar. She sucked on it again, and blew it out again, the smoke twisting pale white in the light of the lone streetlamp.

"Yeah. It's Marowski," she said at long last. "The Boss ain't too happy with you. Blowing Eddy's head off like you did. Took me and my guys a good few hours to find enough chunks of his face you splattered around to make sure it was him."

Cait frowned. "Eddy?"

"Chuckles," Daye clarified, finally standing up again.

Cait's heart dropped like a brick through the docks and into the icy water below. There was only one Eddy she knew of. "Eddy? Eddy Hart?"

"That's the one," Trish rasped. "Good man. Straight dealer. And one of Marowski's biggest customers in the entire Downtown area."

Well, fuck.

"Chuckles was fuckin' Eddy Hart?" Cait breathed, rounding on Daye now.

"Yeah. What, you know him?"

Of course she fucking knew who Eddy fucking Hart was. He only owned half of Downtown Boston – including the raiders squatting in the Combat Zone – and had the monopoly on chem sales there. Pretty much had the raiders eating out of his hands – including herself, she supposed. She'd poured half her earnings into lining his pockets for Psycho and Jet. An ugly motherfucker, and one cruel son of a bitch, too. Liked to smash people's faces in with that spiked bat of his.

Now no one was selling to the Downtown raiders. No one was making money for Marowski.

They were in deep shit. Real deep shit.

Cait blew out a rush of air through her nostrils. "Chuckles?"

Daye shrugged. "They guy needed to lighten up a bit."

"Goddammit Nate, I don't wanna kill ya, but you're such a pain in my ass," Trish wheezed out, the flick of her hands signalling the guards to push Cait and Daye roughly down onto their knees, the slick wood of the slimy dock wet and cool against the skin showing through the holes in her jeans, and the wrinkled, rotted hands of the ghouls rough on her shoulders. Something dug into her hip, and she winced.

Her gun. Tommy's gun. She'd shoved it in her pocket back at Home Plate. A fleeting stab of hope pierced her, her heart thrashing wildly.

"We all gotta do shit we don't want to do sometimes," Daye shrugged, utterly nonchalant as Mickey pressed his submachine barrel to the side of his head.

"You're fucking right," Trish growled.

"I think I know that better than anyone," he sighed, and Cait winced as she too felt the cold barrel of a gun against her cheek once more.

Cait closed her eyes, ready for her death. She'd heard that your life flashed before your eyes right when you died, before God took you to heaven or some shit like that. Cait tried to look back on her own life, think about all that had happened, all that she did, everything that led her right up to being murdered by a ghoul on the docks late at night. It wasn't very interesting.

How shitty.

"I don't blame you, Trish. It was a dick move, offing Chuckles like that."

"Just shut up, Nate. Don't make this any tougher than it needs to be."

"Alright. Yeah, sorry. I always did talk too much."

"Nate."

"Just tell me one thing, Trish."

"What?"

"You ever heard of Richard Parker?"

Cait's eyes flew open.

"Who –?"

It was as if the both of them had the same mind, then, were a puppet attached to the same wires, same strings. Cait just knew what to do, and so did he, and together they rose up from the wet docks, Cait reaching into her pocket to pull out Tommy's wicked little pistol. Daye drew a gun, too, a blue revolver from the inside of his many-pocketed jacket, and before the ghoul could even blink, Daye had pointed the muzzle at Mickey's chest and let a bullet rip right through the middle of it, blood showering out under the streetlight like a mist.

It happened in slow motion, it seemed, Mickey's body falling through the air, suspended under the old streetlight, falling, falling, his gun spinning through the salty, oily mist of the wharfs, his fedora flying off his rotten head, one last look of shock etched upon his pitted face.

"What the fuck?" Cait's guard screeched, but Cait's pistol fired off with a crack that split the night and his ugly face, spattering blood on her cheeks, in her eyes, in her mouth, and she grinned, his blood staining her teeth pink.

"Fuck!" Trish screamed, diving for cover behind the yellow chem crates, and the young buyer shrieked like a little girl, frozen to the spot, watching the spectacle unfold before him.

And then everything sped back up, raced into motion.

The remaining two guards roared in rage and opened fire, their submachine guns spraying bullets out into the little opening on the dock, sending bits of mouldy wood soaring into the air and Cait and Daye dashing for cover.

Cait ran, faster than she could ever remember, boots skidding on the wet wood, and she almost slipped rounding some crates. She crouched low behind some fish barrels, Daye right on her ass.

"You bastard!" Cait could hear Trish scream over the blasting roar of gunfire, over the pathetic keening of the young man. "You fucking bastard, Nate! I knew you'd fucking do this!"

"You should have killed me when you had the chance!" he cried back, a grim smile on his grim face. "This is your fault, really, if you think about it!"

"Oh my fucking god!"

Daye chuckled to himself, and Cait edged a little closer, chest heaving with a heart about to positively burst right through her fucking shirt, thrumming in time with the livid screaming of ghouls, and water on the docks, and bullets shredding wood just by her face. She smiled, despite it all. She was having fun. She felt alive. "So what's the plan?"

"Shouldn't you know by now I don't really do plans?"

She rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, not dyin' sounds like a good place ta start."

"Yeah," he breathed, "yeah. We're kind of outgunned."

"Yeah."

"And outnumbered."

"Mhm."

"Well. I didn't really think this through all the way."

"No ye fuckin' didn't." She smirked, though, and put her hand on his shoulder. He glanced her way, the light dancing in his weird green eyes, shining off his weird old scar. "But we ain't dead. That's somethin'."

He smiled back. "That's something."

She let him go.

"Okay," he said, not daring to peek above the barrels just yet. "Right. So. Ah. I'm gonna toss a Molotov. Yeah. I'm gonna do that."

"Yeah?"

"You go left," he nodded, "get the dude by the chems while he's distracted by the fire."

"What if he ain't?"

"What?"

"What if he ain't distracted, Daye? Sees me comin'?"

He shrugged. "Just wing it, I guess."

"Right."

"Listen – if things go south –"

"More'n they already are?"

"Just jump in the water. Swim out, get away. Meet me by Back Street Apparel, just up the road."

"Yeah. Fine. Got it."

"Ready?"

"I'm always ready."

"Alright," he said, holding out his closed fist to her. She frowned down at it.

"What?"

"Fist bump."

"The fuck's a fist bump?"

"It's like a high-five, but your fingers aren't – you know what, fuck it," he growled, dropping his hand. "Let's just go."

"You're too weird, Daye," she mumbled, shaking her head. She gripped Tommy's pistol tight, her finger quivering over the trigger, and deftly slipped away over to the left, creeping behind some barrels.

"Hey! You ugly fuckers!"

Cait nearly face-palmed at Daye's distraction. She heard the angry growls of the guards as they rounded to where he was crouched low, and then, peeking round an old oil barrel, she saw the Molotov as it arced high into the air, over the fish barrels, the fire a spinning speck of light in the dark – and explode off the neck of the streetlight with a metallic clang and a gasping whoosh, the fire ripping up into the air, over the side of the dock, and into the water, catching the spilled oil on fire. Another loud whoosh roared into the night as the fire tore across the surface of the water, devouring the oil, illuminating the entire wharf a bright, flickering orange.

"Goddammit," she hissed, gritting her teeth as she watched the flames lick and bite into the night, cutting off their escape route.

"Fuck," she heard Daye growl.

"You dumb fuck," one of the guards snarled, his bullets popping and snapping as they bit into the wooden barrels Daye was cowering behind, and off the crumbling brick wall, and through some old windows on the building, shattering it and spraying flecks of wood and dust and glass into the air, on top of Daye.

He was fucked.

Cait sighed, checking her pistol. Tommy's sharp, heavily-modded little .44 revolver, similar to Daye's blue one, with a shorter barrel, maybe. Three bullets left. Four enemies left. Ammo was in her pack, resting by the yellow chem crates.

She was fucked.

But she wasn't just gonna sit here and wait to be killed. She peeked her head above the crate, taking in the scene. Trish was still cowering behind the chem crates, cursing every deity that was ever worshipped, the young kid a blubbering mess right beside her, and the remaining two guards pissed as fuck and not letting up on Daye.

This was it – time to prove she was worth a damn, as Daye had so eloquently put. Cait fired her pistol off twice, the first time missing but the second one hitting the closest guy right in the gut. He wheezed, all the air punched right from his lungs, and collapsed onto his side, clutching his stomach and groaning pathetically as dark shiny blood pooled around him.

"Fuck this shit, I'm outta here!"

Cait peeked round the corner again just in time to see Trish scramble away from the crates, making a break for it off the west end of the docks.

"No you fuckin' don't," Cait seethed, rolling lamely out from the barrel and putting splinters in her palms (she hoped to fuck Daye didn't see this) and firing off at the fleeing ghoul, managing to catch her right in the leg, and sending her tumbling head over heals onto the wet docks.

"Woo! I got her! Daye, I got her!" she laughed, cursing as the last guard sprayed his bullets at her once again. She cowered back behind the crates (this wasn't turning out to be such a heroic fight after all, but hey, she was still alive, right?) and only came back up once she heard Daye's pistol crack, and another airy moan of pain, and the submachine gun clatter to the wood.

Swallowing thickly, she stood up.

Everyone was dead. Even the young guy, slumped carelessly against the yellow crates. Must've caught a few stray bullets. She would say it was a shame, but in all honesty, she didn't care.

There were bullet holes in the wood, blood spattered on the docks, on the yellow crates, on the steam-pressed suits of the bodyguards, on everything. Daye's douchebag sunglasses were twisted, stepped on, the lens of one eye shattered. The fire still roared on the water, nearly four feet tall, such a strange sight, too, illuminating everything, and everyone, close by.

Daye had his pistol to Trish's head.

"Don't move."

"Where the fuck am I gonna go?" she wheezed, clutching her profusely bleeding leg, blood oozing out dark between her wrinkled fingers and glinting oddly in the fire. "I ain't moving."

"You dumbass," Daye said, not even looking up as Cait stepped out from cover. "Did you really think I didn't have another weapon on me?"

"Nate, Nate, Nate," Trish chided, almost laughing despite her predicament. "You always were a bag of dicks and tricks."

"It's Daye."

"Whatever."

"You broke my shades, Trish. And you made me use Penance," he said, waving his blue pistol in front of her face. "You know how much I hate using her."

"Fuck you and your stupid fucking gun. You killed all my guys."

"Yeah," he said, pressing the muzzle against her temple hard enough to make her sway. "And I'm going to kill you too."

Trish's eyes widened, and she swallowed. "You don't have to kill me. I won't talk, I swear."

"Give us a reason not ta kill ya," Cait said, aiming her (empty) pistol down at the woman.

Daye frowned. "I don't need a better reason than to shut her up."

"I'll tell Marowski it was gunners, okay?" the ghoul pleaded, something like hysteria beginning to tinge her raspy voice. "You can trust me!"

Daye raised an eyebrow as if to say that all? You can do better.

Trish could see it too, Cait guessed. "And, and… and I'll give up Marowski's chem lab! This here," she said, nodding over to the stack of chem crates, "this is nothing compared to what he's got stashed there!"

Daye raised his eyebrow even higher. "Chem lab, eh? I like what I'm hearing. Keep talking."

"Where do you think these chems come from? We've got a lab, right here in the Commonwealth. Make all sorts of shit – Jet, Buffout, Psycho, you name it. But you'll never find it on your own. Not without my help."

Daye thought about that for a sec. So did Cait. Psycho? Literally all the Psycho in the Commonwealth? Her veins pretty much quivered at the thought of the junk runnin' through 'em. Non-fucking-stop. Yes please.

"Why do I need your help?"

"Because first," Trish said, "you don't know where it is. Second, even if you did know where it is, it's heavily protected. Third, even if you can get past security, you won't be able to get in without the password. I'll tell you everything you need to know if you promise to let me go."

Daye smirked a little. "Marowski wouldn't be too happy about this, would he, Trish?"

"Shut up, Nate. Do you want what I got or no?"

"Fine."

"The lab is in the old Four Leaf Fishpacking Plant, on the waterfront in South Boston."

"Fishpacking plant?" Cait frowned. "That sounds like a dumb spot for a top-secret chem lab."

"Exactly," she smirked. "No one would think to look there. Plus, it's overrun by feral ghouls. Don't even look twice at my all-ghoul crew. My idea, by the way."

"Feral ghouls? That all?" Daye scoffed. "Pfft."

"The ferals are just for cover, dumbass. You think anyone would venture near an old Fishpacking plant swarming with ferals?"

He frowned, thinking.

"Exactly. But the real security is a system of tripwires that have to be triggered in exactly the right order to open the door. You'd never even know the lab was there when the door is closed."

"You sound awfully proud of this lab, Trish."

"I am! Marowski's entire operation wouldn't be nothin' without me!"

"I bet. You sell him out to everyone that puts a gun to your head?"

The ghoul looked as if she was about to lunge forward and rip Daye's throat out with her teeth, but she didn't say nothin'.

"There's a terminal that will bypass the tripwires and open the door. And I have the password. So… I have your promise, right? I give you the password, you let me walk."

Daye smiled. "I'll definitely kill you if you don't tell me."

"You bastard. Fine. The password is red turnpike. There. Now you got everything. And I'm completely screwed forever," she growled. "I hope you can live with that."

"I can. But you can't."

And he pulled the trigger, splattering bits of Trish's skull and brains across the wet docks.

Cait jumped as if he'd shot her himself, the deafening crack of his blue pistol echoing loud off the water still burning bright with fire.

"The fuck was that for?" Cait gawped, watching the ghoul's body slump sideways onto the wood.

Daye tucked the pistol back inside his jacket and shrugged. "She would've spilled. Eventually."

Cait stood there, frozen on the docks, watching the fire reflecting off Trish's blood as it pooled darkly around her head. Daye was one cold motherfucker.

She groaned as everything caught up with her, hit her like a fuckin' brick wall – her shoulder ached, her leg killed her, her knees and palms all skidded up and splintered and bloody. Comin' off her Psycho high. Everything didn't seem so fun, all of a sudden. She was just really tired now.

"This Marowski guy," she said slowly, tearing her eyes away to watch him shoulder his pack, peak inside the yellow chem crates. "He's gonna be real pissed at ya now."

"Yeah."

"Killin' his guys and raidin' his lab n' all."

"Yeah. Not for long, though."

She frowned, rubbing her aching shoulder. "What makes ya say that?"

Daye turned to her, a handful of chems in his trembling, grubby paws, a mad smile on his scarred, fucked-up face, the fire on the water glinting in his wild eyes.

"Because after we steal his chems and blow up his lab, we're going to kill him."

She guessed that meant she was worth a damn, after all.


A/N: The plot thickens! Dum-dum-DUUUMMM!

As you can see, I love taking quests and twisting them into my own little thing. This is that side-quest Diamond City Blues. I loved that quest.

Anyways, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!