March 5, 2288

The Cambridge Police Station had been cleaned up and converted-rather impressively, Nora thought-into a Brotherhood base. It was heavily fortified and the conspicuous sword and gear insignia was stamped everywhere, a shield in its own right. The hum of activity reminded her of the Prydwen and it would make her just as nervous but the paladin stomped ahead of her, an unwitting bulwark against the abuse of other soldiers.

Danse approached a scribe, towering over her in his armor as she tapped the keys of a terminal. "Haylen."

"Sir," she smiled and snapped her arm into a salute. "Heading out?"

"Affirmative. Target?"

"Greenetech Genetics. We've traced the courser signal to a gunner base." She reached to the side of the desk and pulled out a map. "It's not far from here."

He nodded, taking the aged paper from her hands and studying it. "Very well. Thank you, Haylen."

The woman's blue eyes flicked to Nora and looked her up and down. She seemed as wary as her brothers and sisters but not nearly as vicious. Her face was soft and peaceable, out of place in the depravity of the Commonwealth. "Ad victorium, Paladin. And to you too... uh, miss."

Nora nodded her gratitude and pulled her bandana over her nose.

Greenetech was a few miles down the road, situated near the water's edge. Most of the area had already been cleared by the knights and it offered them a brief reprieve from the constant vigilance the wasteland demanded. Danse's power armor left imprints in the dust as he walked and Nora made a game of stepping in his footprints as she followed behind him. A breeze had picked up, gently playing with the stray hairs that had refused to remain in her ponytail. The Commonwealth generally smelled rotten and irradiated but today when the wind blew past her, she could smell hubflower-not necessarily pleasant but welcome all the same. It wasn't often she could relax this way, release the tension that coiled into her back and shoulders tighter and tighter, an organic noose threatening to strangle her. With every deep breath, her muscles loosened a fraction until she almost felt like it was all bearable, like she wasn't Atlas shouldering her own impossibly heavy world as it slipped out of balance.

The paladin alerted her to the architecture they were passing. He was something of a tour guide, she realized, spouting off facts and dates and names she couldn't be bothered to remember. It wasn't like him to rattle on so much, or at least he hadn't in the glowing sea. But this trip was much different. This time they were alone. This time they weren't at each other's throats. She wondered if it was comfort or nerves that were to blame for his history lessons.

Either way, she let him talk just to drown out all of her thoughts, still reeling at the loss of Shaun. Something about the deep rumble of his voice kept the madness at bay, kept her grounded and maybe he could tell that she needed that.

Every step lead her closer to the one that may or may not have taken her son but dammit if they wouldn't pay for it like they did. Her fingers twitched.

Danse gestured to a door. She crouched, rifle against her shoulder and ready-no, eager-to fire.

The entrance wasn't guarded. Only debris and a body or two. It was suspiciously quiet until they found their way to the second floor.

All hell broke loose.

Turrets. Gunners. Somewhere, someone announced the location of the courser over a loudspeaker but she knew it wasn't to help them. One of the gunners rushed at her with a pipe in his fist and she fired three bullets but only one hit and it was a neck shot. She hadn't meant to rip a hole through his windpipe but good intentions did nothing for the man splayed helplessly on the floor. He clutched at his throat desperately as if he might be able to staunch the rush of blood but it kept pumping red until the floor around him was drenched in it. She could only stare at what she'd done. Half of her was screaming to patch him up but it was far too late and she was rooted to the floor anyway, frozen until he went limp.

Danse stepped in front of her and metallic pings reverberated as bullets ricocheted from his armor. "What the hell are you doing, Adler? I need you alert."

Right. She tore her eyes from the body.

He turned and fired at two gunners across the bridge. She leaned around him, trying to help but she was shaking, violent pulses of muscle rippling through her hands, and she couldn't aim. Laser fire pierced the chest of one and the woman fell at the feet of her partner, still shooting rapidly at Danse as he drew closer. One shot to the knee took him down and another to the head dispatched him, body slumping forward in defeat.

Every floor they climbed brought more gunners. She was trying to shake the haze from her mind to no avail, missing almost every shot. Danse stayed ahead of her and if he knew he was doing most of the work, he didn't say it. He offered the occasional glance back, confirming she was still there, but as long as she kept moving, he seemed satisfied.

The courser was easily identifiable in his stark black getup. A handful of gunners were tied up on the floor around him and he was trying to break into the room that the synth he'd come for had taken cover in but when Nora entered, his eyes found hers. She walked up to him quickly and he was about to speak when she aimed her pistol at his chest and fired. She could see him stumbling back into the wall through the tears welling up and blurring her vision. His hand reached for a stealth boy tucked away at his hip but she wasted no time as she fired again, puncturing the device. Another bullet ripped through his chest and she fired again and again until his body was one bloody wound and Danse was calling her name and sturdy hands disarmed her.

He lightly squeezed her shoulders and asked her a question but she couldn't hear anymore. She stared into the eyes of his helmet and past them and then she ordered him to take care of the gunners and get the chip while she searched for the password to the terminal.

Danse obeyed and let her work without a word, even as the synth walked out of the building-unusual, for him, not to launch into a speech about the dangers they presented to the Commonwealth. She didn't dwell on it. Instead, she began picking through the bodies on the floor, looting every bullet and cap. He didn't help, only observed.

He didn't speak in the elevator but she felt the weight of his gaze on her. When they reached the exit, a radstorm was in full force, blowing wildly and flinging debris about. Contaminated air rushed into the building and Nora burst into a coughing fit. The pain in her shin flared up, stinging as the rads made contact with the scar tissue there, far too familiar for her body's liking.

"We shouldn't travel in these conditions. We'll need to stay here for the night," Danse said, forcing the door back against the relentless gale outside. He guided her away from the exit, supporting her as she limped along into a corner of the room. "I'll administer Radaway."

He was pushing the release and stepping out of his suit before she she could protest. He rummaged through his belongings behind his chest plate and produced an IV bag of red-brown liquid. Danse sat against the wall at her side and she winced as he pulled her onto his lap, sure hands sticking her arm with the needle. There was nowhere to set the bag as it drained into her so he settled for holding it, propping his elbow on his knee and leaning into his knuckles.

They sat with only the ominous crackle of the storm outside to break the silence, both consumed by their own thoughts. Nora bit her lip, an attempt to suppress the anxiety, to punish her nerves for jumbling and twisting under her skin. After all she'd been through, it shouldn't be now that she would falter under the pressure. She'd always imagined herself much stronger. Immune, even. It was all catching up with her now. Around her, Danse was just as tense. One hand fiddled mindlessly with a piece of concrete on the floor next to them until she felt like she might explode if he didn't say what was on his mind, chew her out for her waste of precious ammo and berate her for letting the synth free.

"I don't know why I did it," she started, voice cracking. "I just... I know he probably didn't take Shaun but that's all I could see when I actually looked at him."

Danse nodded. He stared down at her with profound sorrow plain on his face and it cut her to her core.

She couldn't cry anymore. She had nothing left but she still felt her eyes stinging like she might somehow. "I just wanted... justice. Or revenge. It's all the same in the wasteland, isn't it?"

He shifted under her. She was making him uncomfortable but she was finally being real. Hadn't that been what he'd traded her for? A Fancy Lads for the truth. For trust, because what they'd had had been squandered. This was starting over, a clean slate. Maybe he wouldn't like it but she'd already started and it felt right. If any man deserved her honesty, it was Danse. Not always understanding but always genuine. And if he was here, after everything, making sure she was okay, holding her up as much as her own bones, he wouldn't abandon her again.

She pulled her bandana down to her neck. "You're a good man," she whispered.

"I... thank you."

"It's a damn curse, really. Makes it hard to lie to you. But I have to."

"I understand." But he didn't. She could tell because he wasn't looking at her anymore and his hand went back to playing with that fucking concrete. It hurt him, maybe, that she wasn't truthful or else he was angry.

She sat up straight and leaned away from his chest. The distance was meager but she needed it to say what she was working up to. "Maybe I don't have to but I should. If I didn't... Well. I don't know. But I hate it."

"I'd never hurt you, Nora."

"Unless I was a synth," she said, but it came out like a question, daring him to say otherwise.

"If you were..." he started, pausing to search for words that never came. It didn't matter. It was enough. She knew what was at the end of that sentence. He couldn't kill her. It wasn't entirely a surprise; when he'd had to kill Cutler, something in him shifted. Everything was more precious, more fragile. It's what made her decision to join the Railroad so excruciating. And now she knew he couldn't do it again, couldn't hurt someone that close to him. It was the push she needed.

"I need to tell you something," she said, eyes holding his, tone low and serious. "Shaun... I didn't give birth to him."

That earned her a confused glance.

"Actually," she continued, "no one did. He's a synth."

His face hardened and he stared angrily into the floor and she was surprised it didn't collapse under it.

"I really didn't want to lie about him but... I had to protect him. Turns out I'm kind of shit at that anyway, huh? He came to HQ six years ago and Deacon and I were supposed to take him to a family. But when we got there, he wouldn't let go of me so I just... took him. He was so small at the time. He grows fast-isn't that amazing? First child synth I'd ever seen and he decided I needed him. And I did."

He rubbed at his temple. "You shouldn't have put me in this position."

"You thought he was yours. He was, even if it was only for a few hours. I trust you."

He was quiet and every second that ticked by drew her eyebrows closer together until he looked down to see her concerned expression studying him, hoping she hadn't made a mistake. "What do you want from me, Nora?"

A tear slipped from her eye and curved around her jaw while she decided what to say but the truth was, she didn't know.

Acceptance, maybe. Some kind of grand speech about how much he'd ached during those ten years, that he'd missed her terribly and it didn't matter that she was Railroad. Or reassurance, promises that he'd keep this time, that he wasn't going anywhere because how could he without her? Anything to let her know that she was as much his weakness as he was hers.

He sighed and let her lean back against him. A good sign.

"I'm tired."

"You can sleep," Danse offered stiffly. "We cleared the building."

"Not that kind," she shook her head. "I'm so tired of all of this... war. It'll never stop. Violence never has its fill..." Every life she'd seen fade to black replayed in her mind, eyes glazed over and distant, overwhelming her until the vision shifted and she was confronted with everything she'd lost. Her parents, her sister, Danse, her friends, Shaun, Danse, Danse, Danse...

Not Danse. He was there, cradling her, so close that she could smell him and he smelled like he used to: woodsy, like sweat and ozone and hard work and loyalty. It brought her back to the Muddy Rudder, to Rivet City and dancing and tongues mingling and the way he looked at her when he walked into the bank after being gone too long. How he'd leave his undershirts strewn around the room and she'd tuck some away to wear when he inevitably left, the way he'd shift in his sleep and nearly suffocate her, the intense shade of red that bloomed over his cheeks when she teased him. It was all so clear and so clearly gone. It punched a hole through her middle but when she looked up at him to ease the ache, he was breathing deeper and his eyebrows were furrowed the way they did was he was deep in concentration.

She nearly asked him what he was thinking but his eyes dropped from hers to her mouth. She cocked an eyebrow, letting him know it was okay, that he had permission so he leaned slowly into her and when their lips collided, it was chaste. This was Danse, after all, careful soldier that he was, and he shouldn't have kissed her at all.

He pulled back before she was ready, before her brain caught up to her body and registered what he was doing, and pressed his lips into her hair.

March 6, 2288

"Finished," Deacon exclaimed.

"Already?"

"Good to go." Tinker Tom ejected the holotape and inspected it before handing it to Nora and returning to his work.

"It's not that hard, Nor," Deacon murmured under his breath. "Don't give him too much credit, it'll go straight to his head."

"Ha! I heard that."

Nora grinned and kissed Deacon's cheek. "You guys are the best."

He leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs and bringing his hands behind his head. "I am pretty great."

She turned to pack the tape in her bag along with the weapons and ammo she'd set out on the desk beside Tinker's terminal. The next time she'd return to HQ would be after infiltrating the Institute. It was hard to leave; it felt like home but she knew it wasn't because Shaun wasn't there.

"Hey," Deacon started.

Not like him. He was all shifty suddenly, hands in his hair and looking at the ground.

She swung her bag over her shoulder and stood. "What is it, Deeks?"

"I'm... worried about you."

Just like everyone else. There wasn't a day that went by without some new apology uttered by a stranger or a fresh pair of eyes full of pity as they looked her over. The forlorn mother. The patron saint of the pitiful missing. How damned strange it should happen now when loss had become mundane, almost expected. "I'm okay. We'll get him back. I'll find-"

"This isn't about Shaun."

She couldn't imagine what else would have him so worked up. "Then... then what?"

"You need to be careful with him, Nor. He's still Brotherhood."

One eyebrow shot up in surprise.

It was meant to warn him but he continued. "I mean it. At the end of the day, he'll always choose them. And I care about you so I feel like I have to tell you that. His-"

"No, I get it, Deacon, and you can stop," she growled.

"Aw, c'mon, Nora. I-"

"Vertibird's waiting on me." She double checked her clip and flipped her safety off. "I'll see you on the other side."

He was calling her name, apologizing and begging her to just wait but she didn't. She crunched across the dead landscape torward the vertibird. It couldn't very well have been allowed to land closer to HQ for risk of giving their position away but the miles between Deacon's pleas and the aircraft were littered with turbulent emotions, too many, disorienting and searing her from the inside out. She'd already told herself more than he ever could. Her every thought was a lecture, a tirade, scolding herself because she knew exactly how stupid she was.

Dez greeted her as she slid into the vertibird but she didn't acknowledge her superior. She stared out into the blackness and she knew somewhere in it was Boston but it was obscured from her. Dark and empty. But probably Boston. A dark and empty Boston.

"So Deacon talked to you, huh?"

"Christ. You two plotting?" Nora leaned her head back and sighed, defeated.

She laughed dryly. "I told him not to. Never one to do what you're told. But that's precisely what makes you Railroad material."

A compliment. Nora faced her, all nervous energy. She thought she knew what Dez would say and it wasn't that.

"I saw you in his aftermath. The first time was brutal. A second might be worse. The fact is that nothing about your situation or his is different than it was 10 years ago. Your loyalties are divided and we're under the added pressure of closing in on the Institute."

She let her eyes fall closed because there was no defense for her, nothing to say that wasn't dishonest and she couldn't stomach lying to Dez.

"We're family. Deacon's just looking out for you. He's worried what will happen if Maxson finds out. I'm worried if he doesn't."

"...what?"

"If Arthur realizes you've got something with Danse, you can bet you'll never see the airport again. But what if he doesn't? We find Shaun and destroy the Institute and then what? He's going to parent a synth with you? Come live in Diamond City? Continue to work against you? I don't think so," she mused, tapping the ashes from her cigarette. "You've been my right hand woman for years. I trust you completely. But that doesn't mean it's wise."

Nora picked at the sleeve of her jacket, faded and threadbare from the nervous habit.

"I know what you're going to do. And I won't try and stop you. But you should consider what kind of future this means."

"How did you even know?" she asked weakly.

"Deacon saw you leaving his quarters a few nights ago."

The fucking spy. "Dez, I know what it looks like but I swear, nothing happened. I just-"

"It's nobody's business what happened. But Nora," she stared her down with a fiery intensity, a jarring reflection of the impassioned mother within herself, "be careful."

She nodded and turned her head to the side. The air whipped around, manic as her heartbeat, but the coolness of it soothed the heat of her embarrassment. She took deep, controlled breaths-in through the nose, out through the mouth, the way Amari taught her-because they were the only things she could control at this point. Too much damn crying these days. Her hand swiped angrily at her wet cheeks. She lied to herself so often: no, she didn't care about him, she didn't want that piecemeal family-her and Shaun and Danse-to live whatever semblance of normalcy they could manage, she didn't want to try again. It didn't fool her anymore and, evidently, it had never fooled her friends.

The vertibird docking jarred her from her thoughts. The rattle of metal as the landing arm gripped it and the unsettling way it rocked always made her reach for the handles inside. Desdemona didn't, fearlessly disembarking and not looking back as she disappeared into the ship because she knew just how far to press Nora without tipping her over the edge. It wasn't rude, not from her. It was space and privacy and Nora appreciated the gesture.

Her bag slung over one shoulder, she made her way to her bed. Her feet dragged under the weight of the exhaustion concentrated in her limbs and she watched them because she didn't want to look up to find dark eyes watching, soft and kind and smoldering like warm amber, happy to see her. Not while she was working through all the logistics of what that meant.

She dropped onto the edge of her mattress and starting undoing her boots.

"You're back."

Him.

He'd found her anyway. Still bent down and working at the knots in her laces, she could see his boots stop feet away.

"Yeah."

"I was hoping I could speak with you about something."

No. Not now. Your timing is awful, paladin, I'm sorry. "Sure. What is it?"

"I'd... rather not speak here." He eyed the beds around her, full of unconscious bodies snoring and tossing and mumbling gibberish in their sleep.

He led her down the stairs and through the corridors of the Prydwen to his quarters. He cast a nervous glance around as he held the door for her, as concerned over how they were perceived as she was.

The sound of the latch catching was loud in the quiet of his room. It seemed to echo against the walls before suddenly dropping off and leaving only the scratch of fabric as Danse brought a hand to the back of his neck.

"You'll be leaving soon," he said.

She nodded. "Whenever the relay is done."

"I'm... I need you to be careful."

"I'm never careful, don't you know?" she grinned playfully, propping a hand on her hip.

"Nora, I mean it," he countered sternly. He reached into his locker and pulled out a laser rifle. "I want you to take this with you."

It was heavy in her hands and her fingers reverently traced the scratches and dents in the barrel, scars to match the ones in his own rough skin, light slashes that crisscrossed and marred them both like violent brushstrokes across a tragic canvas. She had guns, ones she was comfortable using, but that wasn't the point. "Don't you need this?"

"Negative. This isn't the only weapon at my disposal. What I need is for you to make it back in one piece."

His feet took tentative steps towards her, arms jerking from his sides like he meant to reach for her. When he did, it lit her skin on fire and she put her hand over where his knuckles brushed her cheek just to smother the flames.

It wasn't the goodbye of the old world movies. He didn't throw her over his arm and kiss her senseless; no, his goodbye was entirely his own. It was reserved and intimate and delicate enough to wreck her.

It was something to live for if she couldn't save Shaun.

Home.