Pain and Promises

Sarah dreamed of Mr. Glass again.

He pushed her down into the dirt as she tried to hold onto his legs. Bella Buttercup lay at her feet, her chipped, painted yellow face smeared with red.

"I can't stay here," he whispered, not meeting her eye. Sarah couldn't believe it. He'd promised a world of toys, toys to make together.

And suddenly, he was not Mr. Glass. Sarah looked down to see herself standing at a window outside the Slog's meeting hall. Three figures were sitting around a table. One of them was her father, another Wiseman.

The last was a tall, scarred human woman, with heavy lidded, angular eyes, and dark hair scraped back into an aggressive bun. Her skin, naturally pale, was milk white. She leaned away from the two ghouls, her chair pushed back as far as decency permitted.

Mom.

Sarah continued to watch. Her dad looked upset, but couldn't quite meet her mother's eye. Instead, he stared at his hands as he spoke. "We...we need a place to stay. Somewhere to keep Sarah safe."

"All of you?" Wiseman rasped, scowling at Sarah's mom.

"No," she said, folding her arms and glaring back. "Just my husband and my daughter. I told you what I do. I can't risk it."

"Maybe we can't risk it either," Wiseman said crisply.

She snorted. "Don't give me that shit. I know what you ghouls are like. You look after each other."

"Because no one else gives a damn."

"Then we're agreed." She jumped to her feet, while Wiseman looked irritated, but resigned. "Look after them. Please." She strode away quickly, as if trying to leave before she changed her mind.

"Hon." Sarah's father stood up so suddenly that his chair fell over with a clatter. "Wait."

Her mom halted at the threshold, biting her lip, but not turning around.

He stared at her back for a moment, and then dropped his gaze. "What...what do I tell Sarah?"

"Tell her I'm dead," she said to the wall, blinking rapidly now. "And...and..." She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth. "She was loved."

Was?

"And if Sarah asks—?" her father began, but her mom's eyes snapped open. She reached the door in two paces, shoved it open, and disappeared into the night.

Slowly, her dad sank to his knees, burying his head in his arms on the dingy table. Wiseman hesitated, then reached out and touched the other ghoul's shoulder. Her father shook him off, scrambling up and snarling, "Don't touch me."

"You're a ghoul now," Wiseman said patiently. "Best get over the self-loathing quickly. You got a kid to raise."

Sarah moved from the window, staring out into the darkness. She could see someone in the distance—Mom?—moving further and further away. For a second, she considered following her, but then stopped.

She doesn't love me anymore.

Sarah woke with tears in her eyes. She blinked them away as she slowly sat up, her dream slipping through her fingers like sand. She remembered Mr. Glass, her father, and…

Sarah closed her eyes again, biting her lip. There was an ache in her heart, though she couldn't say why. It twisted like a knife as she tried to recall the dream, sharpening as a long lost face surfaced from the mist.

"You okay, kiddo?"

Sarah jumped and turned to see Oswald sitting at his desk, pencil in hand. He set it down and frowned at her.

"Fine," Sarah murmured, rubbing her eyes. The distraction had driven the dream completely from her mind, but she didn't mourn the loss. It had been a bad one.

Instead, Sarah glanced around the room, trying to avoid Oswald's gaze as she rubbed her eyes and sniffed. He'd given her a tour of Kiddie Kingdom, let her go on all the rides, and even shown her the fun house. Finally, when she'd dozed off on one of the spinning tea cups and been flung out of the ride, Oswald insisted she go to bed. He took her to his room, high in the rafters of the castle, through a hidden trap door, and told her he would sleep in the room below.

Sarah begged him to stay.

She wasn't sure why; Sarah had never been scared of solitude before. Maybe it was because of Mr. Glass. Or the collar around her neck. Or just sheer exhaustion. The reason didn't matter. Oswald settled himself at the desk near the bed, put on the small electric lamp, and pulled out a book. It looked like he hadn't moved since.

Sarah's eyes trailed across the peeling pictures on the wall, and realised they were photographs. They showed lots of people—real people—in a world that looked whole and happy. They were even smiling. One of them was tall and thin, with dark hair and a beard, wearing Oswald's tophat and suit. Only the suit looked clean and new. Next to him was a pretty, petite woman in a light floral dress. He had his arm around her.

"You sure you're alright?" Oswald said.

Sarah rubbed her eyes one last time, and finally looked at him. "Yeah. What are you doing?"

Oswald stared at her shrewdly for a moment, but then apparently decided not to press the matter. "Writing." He shuffled a bunch of papers on his desk. "To my partner."

"Partner?" Sarah blinked. "Like a girlfriend?"

He grinned. "Yeah, a girlfriend."

"Her?" Sarah pointed to the photographs.

Oswald gazed up at them for a few seconds, a small smile on his face, his luminous green eyes drinking the pictures in. "Yeah, that's her. Rachel."

Sarah hesitated, a strange feeling rising up through her throat. That was her mom's name. She swallowed with difficulty, trying to act normal, and said, "Where is she?"

"Finding a cure for...well." Oswald turned to her. "Some of my people are ill. So she's going to help them."

"Is that why Pansy and Petey can't talk?"

"Something like that."

"Wiseman told me it's called 'going feral,'" Sarah said, recalling the conversation with him. Feral ghouls were only dangerous to humans, but they were nice to other ghouls. "He said it can't be fixed."

Oswald's expression tightened, but he didn't reply. Sarah thought he might be mad at her, but when he spoke again, his voice sounded calm and friendly. "I write to Rach almost every day. No mail anymore, and no idea where she is, but it feels good. Like she's still here."

Sarah considered the idea. She could understand trying to talk to people who had left. She'd done it herself, whispering promises into the night while her dad slept alone in his bunk. The dream, still fresh in her mind, resurfaced, and her eyes pricked again.

"Hey." Oswald got up, walked over, and sat down on the bed. He raised a hand, as if trying to comfort her, hesitated, and then set it back on his lap. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sarah mumbled, hating the hot tears rolling down her cheeks. "I just...hurt."

That was true enough. Her body ached from her flight for her life, and particularly her legs and chest when she'd slipped and crashed into the trash can. But she didn't want to talk about her mom. Not just now.

"Still?" Oswald frowned, gripping her arm without pause this time. The warm rush of his magic powers dulled Sarah's pains, his glowing skin brightening until it illuminated the whole room. The warmth stayed with her even when he let go, and she sank back into the pillows, oddly content. Oswald bit his lip. "Better?"

Sarah nodded. "Thank you."

Oswald didn't reply for a moment. Eventually he said, "Who hurts you?"

"Raiders," Sarah mumbled, feeling pleasantly heavy. It was hard to be upset like this. "They beat me if I don't do my chores. Or if I get in their way. Or if I'm just there, sometimes. I think they chased me for fun yesterday. There are other people with collars too, and they get hurt as well."

"Are they the same as you and me?"

"No. I'm the only ghoul. The only ghoul in the marketplace anyway. The new boss is one too. That's neat."

"Wait, the raiders have—?"

"How does the magic work?" Sarah interrupted, wondering about Oswald's powers. Wiseman had never mentioned anything like this before.

"It heals people like us," Oswald rasped, and for the first time Sarah noticed how hard he worked to avoid the word 'ghoul.' "But for everyone else, it hurts them." His expression suddenly darkened. "And if anyone tries to hurt you again, I'll make 'em disappear."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Oswald paused. "Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye."

Sarah peered up at him, worried. "Why would you…?"

But Oswald was laughing again. "Just an old expression, kid." Oswald held out his hand as a wilted mutfruit flower shot out from his sleeve. "Will this cheer you up instead?" He offered it to her and she took it with a small smile. It smelled like overripe tarberries.

"Thank you," she murmured, pressing the flower to her face.

"No worries," Oswald replied with a grin, standing up again. He returned to his desk and continued to write, shooting her concerned glances when he thought she wasn't looking. Sarah thought about her mom, who she hadn't seen in years. Her dad, who always tried to hide his disgust whenever they were together. He never stopped hating being a ghoul. Was it really so different to being a human? She couldn't even remember anymore. She'd only been little when she'd turned.

"Mr. Outrageous," Sarah said suddenly, and Oswald looked up, before bursting into laughter. Sarah blushed, and after a few seconds, laughed with him. "I mean...Oswald."

"Yeah, kid?" he said, his smile lingering.

"Can I write to people too?" She paused, feeling stupid. "My parents. And...people I miss."

Oswald's expression softened. "Of course you can. Hang on." He bustled away for a moment, returning with another pencil, paper, and a book to lean on.

Sarah took them with a smile, and waited until Oswald was seated again before bending over the paper. This was private. She didn't want him to see. But who to talk to first? Her dad, taken away by the mutants? Wiseman, so nice and funny? Or maybe Mr. Glass?

Or…

Sarah licked her lips and put the pencil to paper, scrawling out her first words.

"Mom…"

A whole week passed under Oswald's care. He introduced Sarah to all his friends, and showed her the inner workings of Kiddie Kingdom, from the traps in the funhouse to the sprinkler system.

"Full of radiation, see," he said as they walked through the mist. Sarah spun around as they went, her arms outstretched, enjoying the cool, tingling feel of the water on her skin, mixed with the warmth of the radiation.

He showed her books and magazines from the Old World, toys salvaged from the rest of the park before the raiders moved in, and pressed flowers his girlfriend Rachel had made before the bombs fell. Sarah stared at them in wonder, imagining how bright they'd been when they'd first bloomed.

However, the longer she stayed with Oswald, the more she thought about the others back in Nuka World. It started as an uncomfortable presence in the back of her mind, but slowly blossomed like the long dead flowers into something sharp and overpowering.

And finally she remembered her first day in Nuka World. The awful feeling of the cold, heavy collar being snapped around her neck. The sneers of the raiders as they told her if she strayed too far, it would kill her. Then a raider dragging her to the market by her arm, a sack dripping red in his other hand. The other marketplace workers were lined up inside, on their knees and clearly scared. The raider dropped her to the floor, kicked her towards them, and then opened up the bag and tipped it upside down.

Cries of horror filled the air. Sarah turned to see a head rolling out across the floor.

"We caught this one trying to leave. Thought he could beat our collars." The raider cracked his knuckles. "You know what that means."

All of them had been battered. One by one, pulled out in front of the others, kicked and punched and stomped until they lay trembling on the ground. One woman even died. Sarah was last. They didn't care if she was new. She had to know her place.

"I need to go back."

Oswald, who had been making some sort of lunch for the two of them, lost his grip on the bowl he'd been holding. It shot out of his hands and hit the floor, shattering and spilling something he'd called 'pancake mix' everywhere.

He ignored this, staring at her. "No you're not. Not if I have anything to say about it."

"But...the others." She explained the situation at the marketplace as best she could, her voice rising frantically with her heart rate. The more she thought about it, the more she realised the danger she'd put them in. She struggled up from her chair, babbling. "If I don't go now, someone could be hurt. Or killed! And it'll be all my fault. All my—"

"Woah, woah!" Oswald said, kneeling down next to her. He clamped his hands on her shoulders, forcing her into the chair and holding her in place until she calmed. Then he said, "They aren't your problem anymore, kid. You need to think about yourself."

"I can't!" wailed Sarah. "Mackenzie is my friend! She's always nice to me; she looks after me! And Mr. Corbett gave me a bag of candy apples for following the new raider boss, and they let me pet Buttercup, and—"

Oswald's expression grew uglier with every word she said, until he apparently couldn't hold it in any longer. "They sent a little girl to spy on raiders," he said, his voice trembling with anger, "and gave you apples as a reward?"

Sarah gaped at him, slighted. Didn't he understand what it was like at Nuka World? What a risk it was to give away candy instead of selling it? "They were really nice apples!"

Oswald closed his eyes, as if in pain. When he opened them again, his features were fraught. "Sarah, listen to me. And really think about what I'm saying. Have any of your friends ever been as nice to you as I am?

Sarah opened her mouth to say 'yes,' but then stopped. She couldn't say it, because it wasn't true.

Oswald had been nicer to her in one week than anyone in Nuka World ever—even Mackenzie. But he was also free. The others had collars on. She knew if they'd been free too, they would be just as nice. Wouldn't ask her to do dangerous things. Wouldn't let her take most of the beatings…

Sarah bit her lip, trying not to cry.

"You can't go."

"You're forcing me to stay?" she whispered, her eyes widening.

Oswald released her instantly, looking horrified. "No. I mean, maybe. I…" He stared helplessly at her. "I'm just trying to protect you. They aren't like you and me. They're outsiders. They hate us. Treat us like monsters."

Sarah's mom flashed before her eyes.

Oswald pressed on. "You know what I mean. They take advantage of you—use you because you aren't a person to them. They're just giving you treats to keep you sweet and on their side, so when the hurt happens, you accept it. They are not your friends. But no matter what they say, what they do, you're not a 'ghoul' —you're human, just like me."

He gazed at her imploringly, worry etched into every line of his ruined face, though he didn't touch her again. He looked at her the way Wiseman and Mr. Glass did. The way her father hadn't. Like she was a proper person.

Oswald shook his head. "I've been here a long time. I see what those 'normal' humans do to us. Even the ones who aren't raiders. If you go back, they will kill you, Sarah. Stay here with me. When Rach brings the cure, all of us will look after you. No one will hurt you again."

Sarah stared up into his green eyes, knowing he meant every word. He'd told her how long he'd been alone. He probably liked her company. Or maybe he was just a good person. But Mackenzie's face pushed to the forefront of Sarah's mind. Mackenzie, who could die because she had ran away.

"Promise me you'll stay," Oswald said, his glowing gaze burning into her. "Promise me."

Sarah licked her lips. "I promise." She hated herself for the lie.

His mouth turned into a sly grin. "Cross your heart and hope to die?"

Sarah blinked, and then forced a grin back. "Stick a needle in my eye."

Oswald beamed at her.

Night fell before Sarah finally made her move. She pretended to be asleep while Oswald scratched out his letters, thinking of the stack at the edge of his desk she'd written herself. Some to Wiseman, asking how the Slog was and thanking him for teaching her to read and write properly with Deirdre. One to her dad, telling him she missed him, and how she hoped he was happier now. Two to Mr. Glass, and how sorry she was for leaving him behind.

The rest were to her mom. They were...mixed.

Sarah eased herself out of bed as Oswald's snores filled the room. He'd laid his head on his desk and dozed off where he sat. He must have had terrible back pain all this week, but never complained once. Well now he could have his bed back. Sarah hoped Rachel would come home to him soon. She hoped he wouldn't be lonely for long.

Like a radroach in a metro station, Sarah crept through the room, pausing only to pick up her letters. Oswald had never asked what was in them, or even tried to read them. He'd respected the rules of the letters, of who they were meant for. Tucking them under her arm, Sarah carefully lifted the trapdoor and made her way back down into the castle.

Most of the feral ghouls were asleep, or crawling around, sniffing at the floor. They didn't notice her as she slipped by, and it wasn't until she reached the front door that one of them looked up.

Pansy locked eyes with her, froze, and then threw back her head and let out a long, guttural howl. The other ghouls reacted instantly, doing the same.

Sarah ran.

Oswald must have told them to watch out for her. She didn't understand how—feral ghouls were supposed to mindless! But there was no time to dwell on it. The ghouls were bounding after her, and for the first time in her life, she was scared of them.

"Sarah!"

Oswald's voice rang out from the battlements as she burst into the courtyard. She didn't stop, didn't even look back. He sounded frantic...fearful. Sarah ran on, ducking out of the way and melting into the shadows. But she had to keep moving. Wiseman had never told her how well ferals could smell, and she didn't want to find out.

A group of Oswald's ghouls clustered around the exit, blocking her path. Sarah, moved away before they spotted her, reaching the outer wall and quickly finding a crack she could fit in. Sarah pushed herself through, drawing over some of the ghouls, who tried and failed to follow her. When Oswald caught up, she'd already made it to the other side.

"Sarah, stop!" he screamed, banging his fists on the she heard his feet as he sprinted away towards the entrance.

Sarah gritted her teeth and darted for the nearest patch of bushes, throwing herself into them and concealing herself as best she could. By the time Oswald made it to where she was, she'd completely blended into the darkness of her surroundings.

Oswald searched for hours, calling her name over and over, firing up his magic so the green glow stretched far and wide. Each burst of energy sent a warm rush through her, and each time Oswald looked more and more exhausted. She watched him as he strayed further and further from Kiddie Kingdom, still shouting her name. Every time he did, he sounded more desperate. So desperate, Sarah almost called back. But she thought of the others waiting on her, relying on her. And so she stayed hidden and quiet.

Finally, as dawn broke over Nuka World, Oswald returned. He let out a string of swear words as he threw his hat, kicking violently at the wall. Then he leaned back against the cracked paintwork, slumping to the floor with his head in his hands.

The other ghouls came over to him, nudging him and bringing back the hat. Oswald ignored all of them, gripping tightly at his scalp. Sarah watched until the ferals drifted away, leaving him alone at the wall. She wanted to go to him, to stop him hurting the same way he had helped her.

Instead, she turned and crept through the underbrush back towards Nuka Town.

A/N: Sorry this is slightly late. I bought a house last April and have been renovating it ever since. I moved in at the end of August and have had no internet since then, except for my phone. But the internet was installed today, so I'm back on track!

Hope you're all still enjoying this!