March 13, 2288
The first time Danse heard the orders, they crackled through the radio on a vertibird bound for Bunker Hill.
"Eliminate the Railroad. All non-Brotherhood entities are now targets."
It took a moment to register. The words sounded foreign, didn't make any more sense the more he repeated them. And then, when they hit him full force, his heart stuttered. "What was that, lancer?"
The man in the cockpit briefly glanced back at the paladin, surprised he was addressing him. "Elder Maxson's orders, sir. Shoot on sight."
Shoot on sight.
Shoot the Railroad. Shoot Nora. It was all the same and it drained the color from his face.
He trusted Maxson. There had to be reasons behind the command and the way he'd chosen to issue it. He should follow his instructions, no second thought. It's what he'd always done but this time, Danse hesitated. He dropped down just outside of the settlement, still undecided, even while the other soldiers ran ahead of him into the unmistakable mayhem of battle. In any other situation, he'd have been leading the charge against the Institute but there was no mistaking what Arthur was asking him to do. It was calculated, to deliberate without the input of his paladin and then to spring orders on him when they couldn't be questioned.
He stepped into Bunker Hill and scanned the bodies. So many of them strewn across the landscape, some burned beyond recognition. The longer he stood a spectator to the violence, the higher the body count rose. Any one of them could be Nora and his stomach churned at the thought of finding her that way, slain and disfigured. At the hand of a brother, no less.
He couldn't bring himself to fire on the heavies. He didn't need to. They fell at twice the rate of any of the others and there was something despicable about catching them off guard. Maxson must have known as much. He wasn't ignorant and Danse hadn't been careful enough.
Nora was somewhere, dead or alive, and his objective shifted in an instant and consumed him: find her and get her the hell out of there.
Nora held her breath as she lined up her shot. With a single bullet, she dispatched the gen 1 and pulled back behind the safety of the wall to reload. She doubted the things could be bothered to trace her location, sniping as she was from a hole in the monument in the center of Bunker Hill, and she quickly repositioned herself to strike again.
A vertibird descended to her right but she didn't pay it any mind, too focused on a synth violently attacking a Railroad heavy. Her next target.
She flexed her index finger and the machine fell to the ground. The woman, its victim, pulled herself up from the ground and checked herself for damage. And then, in an instant, she fell back, smoke rising from the gaping wound in her chest.
If she hadn't seen the red flash, she would've never imagined it was the Brotherhood.
"What the hell," she muttered, scanning the soldiers that had exited the vertibird through her scope.
A fucking initiate. Of course. Undertrained and trigger happy. The culprit leaned down to loot the corpse of valuables and she had half a mind to put him down then and there. He was lucky she had too limited a supply of ammo to indulge her disgust.
Her anger mounted as she watched another laser strike the stomach of an agent and send them to their knees. Another accident, she thought, but no. This time it was a paladin and he approached the wounded woman only to finish her off with a shot through her head.
"What the hell." Nora ground her teeth as her barrel tracked the soldier. If he didn't remove his helmet first, a shot would only alert them to her position. She waited, anxious to put a bullet through his skull, but as she watched, more and more of her fellow agents were dropping at the hands of the Brotherhood.
It didn't make sense.
Her radio sputtered frantically and she pulled it to her ear to listen to the updates.
"...by Elder Maxson. The alliance is null, take out the Brotherhood of Steel."
It was low, even for Arthur, turning on his friends in the chaos of combat. He only knew war, needed it, craved it like a chem. Ironic how deeply he abhorred synths when he should possess so little humanity himself.
She shoved the radio back into her jacket and resumed her position, the rifle shaking in her sweating palms. One by one, she picked off soldiers and strategically placed bullets in the gaps of power armor as it fell apart under the barrage of Railroad force. After an hour, her fingers were stiff and cramping but she kept up her rampage. Most of the battle had moved underground but she remained in place, swiftly piercing any foe that revealed themselves.
Muted footsteps ascended the stairs and by the time she looked, the soldier was ripping her gun away.
He looked familiar. Initiate Andrews. Their encounters, too numerous to relive then, flashed briefly through her mind. He must have been after some sort of revenge. She'd humiliated him before and it didn't matter that he'd been the aggressor. Not now, when his eyes glinted dangerously. She slowly backed away and then sprinted upstairs to the weapons she'd stashed on the top landing but he was quick; all those drills he'd had to do, she supposed. He grabbed the back of her jacket and his knee forced her down onto the concrete steps. She thrashed and writhed but he threw her gun aside and restrained her hands with his own. When she desisted, he flipped her over and she took the opportunity to reach for the knife in her boot. Her fingers closed around the handle and the blade scraped up his torso as he wrestled it away from her and regained control, a vice grip on her wrists with one hand while his other tossed the weapon and landed a blow to her ribs.
She couldn't help the yelp it forced from her but she kept her mouth closed. He didn't deserve the satisfaction of hurting her. He'd always been an angry man, so hostile especially where she was concerned, and now as she stared up at him she could see he didn't intend to kill her. No, it would've been too sweet a fate to die right there. He didn't think her good enough for that.
"Shoot me." She was trying to appear collected but when the words left her mouth, they were a plea, an appeal to his better nature if he had one.
"Shut your goddamn mouth," he hissed. His free hand worked her belt and she closed her eyes against the tears threatening to overflow. She squirmed, kicked, spat at him but none of it kept him away. Nothing could spare her in the mind of man who believed in his bones that she deserved it.
She hadn't moved positions since she'd arrived. There was nowhere to go with twice as many enemies as anticipated but she should have tried. She should have run headfirst into the barrel of a Brotherhood-issued laser rifle. She should have been anywhere else but where she was.
Outside of the obelisk, bullets and lasers fired loudly; too loudly for anyone to hear when Nora's will was stretched and snapped.
The battle was nearly over, brute force and the element of surprise leading to a swift Brotherhood victory. It didn't taste sweet like it had all the times before. Not to Danse, because he hadn't managed to find Nora and he was still in the dark about the sudden break of the alliance. He stepped deeper into the underground tunnels, grimacing each time his weight shifted onto his right foot. The gnarly twist of his ankle had left him with a limp that could've been prevented if he hadn't had to abandon his power armor but it was useless, too heavy to be valuable, with its plates riddled with bullet holes and bent out of shape. The joint throbbed with each step and he knew that if he kept walking on it, he was going to cripple himself but medical intervention was the last thing on his mind.
He frantically scanned the bodies on the floor, as relieved as he was worried not to find Nora among them. There were fewer and fewer places to look and he was starting to wonder if the Institute took prisoners. It wasn't far-fetched to think the director resented Nora's interference in their affairs enough to abduct her.
He continued down winding hallways as quickly as he could, stepping over destroyed turrets and lifeless corpses, none of them her. He dead ended in a dimly lit room and immeditely, five guns were aimed at him.
"Stop right there," Desdemona snarled, pulling back the hammer of her revolver.
He raised his hands in surrender. "Stand down. I'm looking for Nora."
"Oh, that's rich. You have the audacity-"
"I didn't know." He leaned forward and dropped his rifle at his feet. Every instinct he had protested but he was as good as dead if he couldn't convince them he wasn't a threat.
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Maxson issued the orders at the last second, when the first squads were already well on their way."
Desdemona stepped toward him, gun still drawn and tracking every minuscule shift of his body. "Why should I believe you?"
"Where's Nora?" he huffed impatiently.
She signaled for the others to lower their guns. They huddled together protectively and he could see how much they'd lost in the battle. The Brotherhood had decimated their numbers and left them bloody and demoralized. No wonder they they'd reacted so strongly to him.
"We don't know if she made it. We lost contact with her."
"You don't know?" he repeated through gritted teeth. "Well, where was she?"
"Sniping. From the obelisk."
He nodded and retrieved his weapon, turning to walk away when Deacon slammed into him, holding him against the wall.
"Like hell. Haven't you done enough?" His lip curled up in resentment, the fiercest he'd ever seen the spy. "I could-"
"You need to retreat." Danse's timbre cut through Deacon's threat and drew the attention of the others. "All of you. There's a Brotherhood presence above ground looting. I'll look for Nora."
Desdemona narrowed her eyes, weighed his words and searched for truth. Her expression melted from stern scrutiny to grudging acceptance. "Fine."
"No way," Deacon gaped. "Dez-"
"No, Deacon. It's invaluable to have a friend in the Brotherhood, especially now. We won't turn our noses up at that. Get us out of here, Danse, and find her."
Deacon sighed and shook his head, reluctantly stepping back. "You heard her. Let's get moving."
With the Railroad on his heels, Danse wound back through the underground maze, their footsteps echoing in the empty chambers. It was eery, cold and quiet until he pushed open the hatch and the humidity of the Commonwealth air washed over him and the clinking of armor revealed soldiers just outside the building. He crouched behind the counter until it grew faint and then gestured for the others to climb out. They snuck along the walls of the building and made a break for the front gate.
"Thank you. The Railroad won't soon forget this favor," Desdemona whispered as her agents slipped into the night behind her.
He nodded and she fled the settlement, Danse closing the gate halfway behind her to block the line of sight of anyone still inside the settlement. The whine of the hinges alerted a paladin a few yards away to his location but, recognizing one another, they exchanged salutes and he continued confiscating weapons and armor from the fallen.
When Danse limped into the obelisk, he didn't make it two steps past the doorway before another barrel was aimed between his eyes.
It didn't matter. Nora was on the other end and he'd never been so glad to see her.
"Stop or I'll fucking shoot you."
She was a mess, her ponytail loose and lopsided and dirt and bruises littering her skin. In her leg, a knife was lodged and she'd fashioned a strip of cloth into a makeshift tourniquet secured tightly around her upper thigh. She leaned against the concrete wall to support her weight and watched him warily from behind her 10mm.
He lowered his laser rifle. "Nora. What happened?"
"What... are you joking?! The Brotherhood happened!" she snapped. "You fucking cowards! You-"
"Easy, Adler. I didn't know."
"You're so full of shit. I can't believe you, you and your fucking double-crossing Elder. War-mongering, racist, violent-goddamn it!" she hissed as a shaky hand flew to her wound.
"Let me help you."
She laughed bitterly. "No. I don't want you to ever touch me again."
He sighed. Nora kept her gun trained on him all the while attempting to hobble down the stairs. She progressed slowly and he didn't miss the tremor of her lips as she inched painstakingly toward the door.
"Maxson issued that order at the last second," he explained. "I wasn't involved in that decision and I didn't engage."
She ignored him, using her free hand to guide her injured leg down a step. Every time she jostled it, a steam of blood leaked from beneath the knife and dripped down her thigh before the torn fabric soaked it up. The sight made him distraught.
He stepped closer to her and reached an arm up to offer her assistance. "You'll bleed out before you can make it anywhere near a doctor on foot."
"Oh, go fuck yourself," she bit out, reaching into her pocket and hurling something small at his chest. It bounced off, hitting the ground with a metallic clink.
He stooped to retrieve it. The holotag of Initiate Clay Andrews. Why she had it, he wasn't sure. They'd had a dysfunctional relationship at best and volatile at worst. His first thought was that he'd died in battle but that didn't explain why she'd picked it up.
He examined the holotag for any clue as to why she'd kept it but he was perplexed. "I don't understand."
"Give it back to Clay, would you? I'm sure he's missing it. I clawed it off of him while he was on top of me and it looks awful important. You should ask him if he enjoyed himself," she spat, voice breaking under the strain of the implication.
Red clouded Danse's vision, painted the night a deep crimson. The feeling was new and it surprised him how deeply it pierced. Hatred, he thought, like he'd never felt before. He couldn't bring himself to think the word but he knew what she meant, knew what had transpired and that it was likely Andrews was to blame for her leg.
But it was still just Nora in front of him and she looked only part the woman he knew. Her face was twisted in a pain he'd attributed to the knife but he'd been wrong. No, Nora knew the trauma of blades and bullets like the back of her hand. It was the pang of shame, the helplessness of violation that stole the last spark from her eyes and left them empty and dark. He could kill the man. Press his fingers into his throat just enough to make him fight for breath and draw it out until he'd drained the life he'd robbed from Nora out of him.
His eyes bored into the metal and he fought to relax his jaw so his words didn't portray how absolutely furious he was. "Nora, I... there aren't words."
"No, there aren't. So stop talking and leave."
He shoved the holotag into his pocket and refocused himself. "Negative. You'll die."
"Would that be the worst thing?"
The defeat in her eyes could've stopped his heart. This campaign against the Intitute had taken too much from her, cost her her son, her friends, her tenacity. There was still so much to be done before they finally wiped the facility from the face of the Commonwealth and for the first time, he wondered if it was worth it.
He was done arguing. He strapped his rifle across his back, climbed the stairs, and pulled her into his arms even as she kept her gun on him.
"I will, Danse, I swear I'll pull the trigger," she threatened shakily.
He grunted as he descended the stairs, his ankle screaming in protest. "You've established that."
She shoved the barrel into his ribs and her forehead creased. He stopped before stepping out into the open and looked down at her, waiting.
"Well?"
She drew her eyebrows together angrily but tears spilled down her cheeks and she pushed the pistol into its holster around her thigh. "Damn you."
"Your mercy is appreciated," he mumbled, scoping the landscape. "Now, where do I go?"
"You don't really think after all that that I'm honestly going to tell you where HQ is. Are you batshit?"
"Listen to me." He leaned against the bricks of the monument to take some pressure from his ankle and summoned every ounce of intensity not yet spent. His words were rushed and quiet and steeped in misdirected frustration. "Diamond City isn't close enough to be viable. Goodneighbor is the second best option and even that is miles away. You came here on foot, which I assume means your base isn't far. Our best hope for your survival is HQ. Help me help you, Nora. Please. You have my word that I won't reveal your location."
She mashed her lips together into a line. "Swear on Elder Maxson's grave?"
"I swear."
"Swear on Squad Gladius?"
He sighed. "Nora, I swear it."
She hesitated. "The Old North Church. Down past the crypts."
He nodded and in four limps, he had them out of Bunker Hill and into the Commonwealth, shadows concealing them from bloodthirsty creatures and Brotherhood alike. With his injury, they moved slowly and he inhaled sharply with every brief step onto his swelling foot.
She took notice. "What happened to your ankle?"
He furrowed his brow, eyes swiveling constantly in anticipation of enemies. "I twisted it on the ladder."
She hummed. Her arm around his neck slackened at the realization. He could've boarded the vertibird with the others and saved himself the pain but he hadn't and if that didn't speak to his loyalties, then nothing could.
"Wait here," he mumbled, setting her on the ground against a wall, focused on dark shapes in the distance. "I don't think we're alone."
She reached for her pistol and he nodded, pulling his rifle from his back and flicking the safety off. Gravel crunched under his boots and the bloodbugs drifted closer, drawn to the sound.
"Disgusting insects!" He fired several shots at them, crippling their wings and scorching their skulls. Only one managed to zigzag enough to get close and prick him in his side but he threw an elbow against it and a final shot ended its struggle.
He slung the weapon behind his back and wiped his hand across his forehead. Flecks of blood, dirt, and sweat had accumulated and mixed, staining the orange of his flightsuit brown. He returned to Nora and kneeled to gather her into his arms again. They both looked worse for wear, deja vu striking as he recalled carrying her the same way from the glowing sea. When she'd been barely clinging to life. When they'd been more like enemies than anything amicable but he'd still been ruined by the possibility of her death. There were more parallels than he cared for because they'd been mending things long broken only to have this new development thrust them back into uncertainty.
"Just so you know," she said bitterly, breaking him from his thoughts, "this doesn't mean I don't hate you. I do. I hate all of you."
"I believe you, Nora."
She grew quiet and when he looked down at her, she was frowning. He kept on towards the church, a lump in his throat because he'd known she was upset but hearing those words still ripped into him. But what had happened to her had been inexcusable. Not just at Bunker Hill but every incident on the Prydwen and at the airport. She'd told him she was more likely to be hurt by one of his men than a synth and at the time, he couldn't have seen the truth of that statement.
If she hated him, he understood, no matter how deeply it cut.
After a long stretch of silence, she rested her head on his shoulder. There was immeasurable meaning in that small gesture and it filled his chest with sympathy. It was a sign that she trusted him in spite of the uniform he wore, that maybe she hated Maxson, the soldiers, the entirety of the Brotherhood of Steel, but not him. He wanted-no, neededto protect her because she trusted him and even if it was only a sliver, her trust meant everything. He was less of a man, less of himself without her faith in him and God help anyone who ever laid a finger on her again.
She pressed one palm against his chest and the hand draped around his neck gripped him and pulled her more tightly into him. Small reassurances and maybe all she needed was time. Maybe they could regain their lost ground. Maybe she was willing to try and she hadn't given up on him.
Her pain grieved him. The injustice grieved him. The Brotherhood was supposed to set things right. Make the wasteland a better place and even if they'd won, they'd failed at Bunker Hill. He was immensely disappointed in his brothers and sisters and he understood if she needed him to prove himself. He'd do anything, had done everything he could already, to convince her he wasn't the enemy.
Even if she hated him, having her this close was comforting. He knew she was alive and she trusted him a sliver, enough to close her eyes and rest on his chest.