After X6's departure, Tuesday put off returning to Father. In all honesty, she was afraid of what he would ask of her next. Libertalia had been a mission with some external benefit to those living under the raiders' thumb, but only because the rogue synth had happened to be their leader. She doubted that her next mission would happen to be so kind, if only because it was the Institute she was dealing with. Their goodwill only went as far as their own best interests.
That's why she'd taken a detour to check on Vault 88's progress rather than reporting back to her son (it was still unsettling to think of him that way). She was prepared to build some more beds; plant some more corn.
She hadn't expected the Super Mutants.
They arrived shortly after she and Piper did. The first sign of intruders was the smell; the rotten stench of old, bloody meat wafting in through the corridor. After that came the heavy footfalls, and then the bellowing voices. It was too late to shut the blast door.
Even with her power armor, Tuesday was no match for the eight mutants and two hounds that poured into the vault in a seemingly endless stream. She and Piper were forced to fall back (meaning, Tuesday dragged Piper back) to the atrium under a hail of minigun fire, where they would have backup.
Not everyone had made it out unscathed.
Tuesday knelt now in front of the body of a settler, eerily similar to the scenes with Nate and Kent and more she didn't want to think about. She couldn't take her eyes from the unseeing gaze of the poor old woman. It had been sharp and alive just moments ago, when she was asking if there was anything she could help with around the vault.
She probably hadn't meant this.
Piper found her where she sat soberly in the offshoot corridor. She took in the scene instantly and Tuesday heard her give a quiet sigh. "Blue…that's not your fault," she said gently into the stillness.
Tuesday shook her head and refused to look at her. "I should have kept them confined to the entrance. If I hadn't fallen back here like a coward—"
"There were eight of them, Blue, plus the hounds. They would have killed us both and you know it."
"Better them than us? Is that it?" Tuesday demanded, voice sharp with pain, as she gestured back at the rest of the vault. It wasn't fair, because she knew that Piper was just trying to make her feel better, but she was tired of this. She was tired of not being able to protect people. Tired of staring down at the bodies at her feet, regretting that she had not done more. Tired of fearing that maybe someone else—maybe someone like Piper—would be next. The worst thing about trying to help everyone was the simple, agonizing fact that she couldn't. And yet what was there to do but try?
Piper fell silent for a second, hurt. It took a moment for her to recover, but when she did she sighed again in sympathy and knelt beside her companion. She gazed down at the settler on the ground, who had only just arrived at the vault, and reached out to gently close the old woman's unseeing eyes. It was then that Tuesday realized Piper's hand was shaking.
She'd reached out and closed her own around it before either of them knew what was happening. A breath of surprise was all Piper got out before Tuesday pulled her into an almost desperate hug, pouring all she meant to say into the welcome contact.
"Whoa, Blue, take it easy," Piper said jokingly, though the feeling behind the words was anything but. Her hand came up to run through Tuesday's dark hair and soothe away the pain. When she spoke next, it was at a murmur: "You're doing everything you can."
And that was the truth, but whether it was really a comfort or a condemnation, Tuesday hadn't yet decided.
…
Overseer Barstow was concerningly bent on building her vaguely sinister prototype devices. Her latest task for Blue was to search the Hallucigen, Inc. building for some chemical research that definitely might turn out to be deadly in some capacity. Blue agreed to the mission regardless of its implications, and Piper suspected that this was her way of making it up to Vault 88. Atoning for the settler's unintended death. She didn't bring it up, because she didn't want to cause her companion any more pain than she was already in, but she prepared to talk Blue down if things got out of hand. The last thing they needed was for the vault dweller to throw herself into unnecessary danger in some misguided attempt to redeem herself.
As usual, the two of them received more trouble than they bargained for. The building was full of stoned Gunners wringing each other's throats under the influence of some leaked toxins in the air. As soon as they laid eyes on the intruders, they charged them, too.
The moment they'd stepped in the door and Piper got a lungful of the tainted air, she gagged. It felt like it burned her throat.
Blue turned to her instantly and rummaged in her bag for the gas mask she'd picked up long ago. It had probably seemed more useful at the time than it turned out to be—the radiation could get you, gas mask or not. But now Piper was thankful for it. She reached out to take it before remembering herself.
"Wait. You need it more," she said, drawing back her hand. Her body was used to bullshit like this. Blue had only been out here for a few months. If anybody needed extra protection it was her.
"I have my helmet," the vault dweller returned. She rarely used the helmet of her power armor ("It screws up my peripheral vision."), but she kept it in her bag, too, which she now demonstrated. She put it over her head, where it clicked into place with the armor frame. "I'll be fine." Her voice was distorted by the extra layer.
Sighing, Piper accepted the gas mask and pulled it on. She still preferred for Blue to have it, as the power armor wasn't specifically designed to filter out toxins like the mask was, but she wasn't going to throw a fit in a nest full of enemies. The two pressed on.
It was the basement where they met their toughest foe yet. Not another gangster with a gun, but a dilemma.
There, beside the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, leaned a Gunner who didn't immediately try to shoot them on sight. Piper wondered why—whether he was injured, or unarmed, or uncharacteristically merciful—until she heard the stream of gibberish pouring from the young man's lips.
The clearest thing she could make out was, "Kitty. Bad kitty. Go away!" and the nonsense made her stop in her tracks and stare.
"What the hell?" Blue grumbled from beside her.
"The gas," realized Piper quickly. Instead of the toxic air turning this Gunner violent, it must have made him loopy. She looked to Blue through her plexiglass lenses. "What should we do?"
The vault dweller's expression was unreadable behind the power armor helmet. She simply stood there for a long moment, watching the man writhe and groan into the toxic air, gun held limp by her side. When she finally spoke, it was so soft it barely even escaped her helmet. "I don't know."
The unexpected pain in Blue's voice startled Piper, but she supposed it shouldn't have. Here Blue was, faced with another moral dilemma in the midst of a world that was already crushing her with lose-lose decisions from every side. Why shouldn't she be upset? If they saved the guy, they risked letting him recover into a life of violence again. If they left him here, he was as good as dead. And if they killed him themselves, well, that was a no-brainer. Piper felt torn. Blue didn't deserve this kind of weight resting on her shoulders.
The only thing Piper could think to do was shift some of the burden to herself. "We can try to take him with us," she decided, so Blue wouldn't have to. When the vault dweller's eyes landed on her in something like surprise, Piper tried to force down a blush, even though Blue couldn't see it. "What he does after that is on him. But this is on us," she said, managing to infuse a little steel into her voice.
Blue's lips twitched up in a hesitant smile behind her helmet. Did Piper dare to believe that it looked…proud? "Okay, papergirl," she conceded, and her tone definitely backed up Piper's girlish hopes, so it was good that she bent down to haul the Gunner into her arms just then and missed the silly grin on her face.
They carried the hallucinating young man with them toward the exit (well; Blue did the carrying—power armor and all), and though his ramblings definitely didn't help them in the stealth department, Piper was able to feel good about herself for once. They were doing something selfless. They were doing something kind. Not everything in this world was bad.
Piper looked fondly at Blue's back as they navigated their way out. Yeah. Not everything.
But the Gunner died in the hail of gunfire that ensued in the next room, because if the Commonwealth was good for one thing, it was rooting out any flicker of hope and quashing it out with a vengeance.
…
Tuesday wished she could say that they emerged from Hallugicen into an empty, peaceful stretch of the city where they could take a breather before preparing for the way home. But alas, the Commonwealth really did seem dead set on killing them, too.
Their exit brought them right out into Charles View Amphitheater, whose inhabitants seemed nice for all of five minutes before Brother What's-his-nuts turned on them and demanded everything they owned. Even if Tuesday had been inclined to do what he asked in the interest of finding some higher enlightenment, there was no way she'd be keen on letting Piper give up that sexy red trench coat of hers. So when she politely declined and the cult ringleader threatened them with death, they didn't have much choice but to fight their way out of there.
Tuesday was glad she'd had her power armor along for the trip, because the Pillars of the Community seemed to swarm in from every direction like angry bees wielding bats and blades. She and Piper were hard-pressed to fight off all of them unscathed simply because of their sheer numbers.
They made it out, though, thanks to Piper's quick reflexes and a few long shots with Tuesday's rifle. Her last shot was the most impressive. It was a cultist running at Piper while her back was turned who earned the brutal snipe to the head. Tuesday usually hated shooting to kill in such a way, but she wasn't about to gamble with Piper's safety. The cultist's brains painted the concrete as his body slid to a stop mere inches from the reporter. The shot still echoed around the amphitheater.
Piper cut wide eyes between the fallen man and the vault dweller. She must not have noticed his approach. "Wow," she remarked hoarsely. She had to clear her throat before continuing, "You…you really held your own there, Blue."
Tuesday crossed the slight rise back toward her companion. Her nerves were still prickling from the fight; her senses on extreme alert. As she reached Piper she raked her eyes over her whole form, looking for damage she may have missed. "He was running at you with a tire iron," she explained in a tight voice.
"So you really held my own," Piper corrected herself softly, facing Tuesday with a look all too tender and grateful for their current position standing over a headless dead body.
The vault dweller inched closer, feeling all her protectiveness and fondness and conviction and want for this girl funnel into her chest cavity at the same time, threatening to make her burst at the seams. But again, headless dead body, so Tuesday wrenched her attention away from where it had fallen to Piper's lips and cleared her throat. Some things never changed, and her terrible timing seemed to be one of those things.
"We'd better get out of the open," she said gently, gratified by the way the reporter stared at her lips as she spoke.
They were definitely going to have to find someplace private to stay soon.
…