9. Somethin' Stupid
The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and, oh, the night's so blue
And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid
Like "I love you"
The hole in her chest from the baby carriage in the Meresti tunnels didn't fade despite her triumph and her negotiation for peace and mutual aid between Arefu and the Family. She should have been pleased.
She should have been something other than aching inside.
Alas, when she found herself in Megaton later that evening, sun still enough in the sky that she hadn't felt more than a flicker of anxiety coming back, she flinched away from Lucy's grateful hug. Guilt spiked in her gut when she looked down at the Lantern but she slid into Moriarty's with her head down and blinking tears out of her eyes.
She couldn't fucking deal with him right now. Not when everything she'd lost was ripping into her like a feral dog.
She wanted to curl up on her bed and cry but didn't want to feel it. Any of it. She'd been out of the Vault for near on a month, no nearer to finding her father, and after today the losses had stacked up to the point she understood why her father and Ellen drank like they did, why Butch was the way he was.
She thought she'd understood before but now… She got it now and it fucking sucked.
She planted herself on a stool, slid some caps across the counter, and asked for scotch. She heard the tremor in her own voice and sighed at it. Dogmeat curled himself around the base of the stool, somehow understanding. Gob's mutilated eyebrows lifted but he complied, sliding the bottle over the bar. "You okay, kid?" he asked.
B took a swig, coughing at the burn that slid down her throat. "Not really, no. Today was… I mean, today was good. I stopped fighting and Lucy and her brother are back in touch."
"You know how much I don't believe that you feel that way?"
She looked up at him, one eyebrow lifted just a little.
"I'm a bartender. Therapist is pretty much in the job description." He glanced back at Moriarty's door where the Irish man had holed himself up with a caravan guard that had come in.
B sighed again.
"I keep hoping that I'll find something of where my dad went but nothing. I asked Simms when I got to town and he said he hadn't seen anyone new that he could remember." She dropped her head on the bar, trying not to think of what she was putting her face into. Gob tried to keep it clean but-
"Middle aged guy, dark hair, lab coat?"
Her head shot up. "Yeah. Have you…?" She let the question die off, hardly daring to hope, feeling something enter the black hole she was carrying around inside.
Gob's face twisted into a regretful grimace. "Sorry, kid. I can't say anything or Moriarty'll have my head. You'll have to ask him."
The tentative hope vanished and her head reconnected with the bar. "I hate him." She ignored the fine tremors that shook her left hand, merely tucking it under her thigh.
"So do we, B. But he's got us under his boot. I didn't realize you'd met him." Nova leaned against the bar at her side, like she was aware that B didn't want to be touched right now.
"I haven't. But I've seen the way he treats you two. It isn't right."
"He's-"
B lifted up a hand, ignoring the way her pain splintered through her forearm from the angle. Gob immediately went silent. It made her feel guilty for a second before that too was swallowed by the black hole. "Don't. If you're going to make excuses for him, I don't want to hear them right now."
There was silence briefly. "We might be able to find you another way. He's got a terminal in the back but we can't give you the password," Nova said slowly.
B's head shot up, red mark across her forehead. "I don't need one." The corner of her mouth quirked up. This was something familiar, something she desperately needed. "Haven't met a computer yet that I can't get into."
Gob and Nova looked at each other then the ghoul's dark eyes flicked to Moriarty's door. "We'll keep an eye out, try to keep him from going back there" he said, gravelly voice low.
Nova turned, eyes on the door. "We didn't see you, sweetcheeks. Couldn't have stopped you."
B sat there for a moment, thoughts flicking through her mind. She gently laid a hand on Nova's wrist and nodded her thanks to Gob when she stood.
The ghoul turned his eyes down to the radio, fiddling with it. Nova tapped the back of B's hand with a finger before uncoiling from her position against the bar to slink towards the only other occupant in the room.
B slipped around the bar, into the back room. She sat in the chair carefully, holding her breath at the slight creak it gave. Fingers flying over the keyboard, hidden by the large cupboard, it took only seconds for her to hack into the computer. She waited for the computer to log on, fingers lightly thrumming against the desk. She was settling and if she wasn't feeling so high strung from the stress of possibly getting an answer, she'd have laughed at the fact that hacking made her feel normal.
One eyebrow lifted as she skimmed through Moriarty's files. Despite the urgency, curiosity had her sniffing through the secrets of Megaton. "Doc Church. Need to keep an eye on Adam around him." The words were whispered just under her breath with a scolding click of her tongue. She hadn't gotten a distrustworthy sense from him and it didn't surprise her that other people had secrets too. Hers didn't matter as much, not out here anyway. Andy and Leo both had files, no surprise, though it did surprise her that Moriarty had known about Leo's addiction but hadn't done anything. Jericho had a heavy debt apparently though she didn't know if that would ever be relevant to her.
Then she found what she was looking for. Near breathless, she read it once and frowned. Quickly, knowing she had to finish this, she read it again, getting more and more confused. After the third time, B plugged her Pip-boy into the computer to download the files. Her Pip-boy chirped softly as it started the download.
She heard a door shut and froze, eyes locked on her Pip-boy. If she was caught in here… Her left hand began to nearly spasm and the scar down her ribs suddenly burned. Careless boot stomps came down the stairs and her mind started to race to come up with a defensive plan if he came in here.
"Do you need a drink?" She heard Nova ask.
"No drink, just a smoke."
The entrance opened and shut.
B released a breath she didn't know she was holding just as her Pip-boy chirped again. Download complete.
She unplugged and walked out into the main room on shaking legs.
"Well?" Gob asked.
She shook her head, trying to get back to some semblance of calmish focus. "It doesn't make any sense. The file makes it sound like he knew Dad before but Dad's never been out of the Vault. At least I didn't think so. He wouldn't have had a reason to come out here. He was a doctor, for crying out loud." She turned to the door, grimacing, unconsciously leaning away from it. "I have to ask him about it."
Gob grabbed her arm. B's hand twitched for the knife in her pocket but resisted the urge. "If he finds out you-"
"He won't." She flashed him a bright grin with too white teeth front and center. "I'm a clueless Vaultie, remember."
Moriarty, as predicted, leaned against the railing overlooking his perceived domain. The reek of cigarette smoke drifted towards her and she tried not to wrinkle her nose. "Mr. Moriarty, sir?" She made sure to keep her eyes as wide and guileless as she could despite the glare of the sun on all the metal of Megaton when he turned to face her. "I'm looking for my father and Lucas Simms didn't know anything. But I heard that if anyone knows anything about him, it's you." She made sure to blink for good measure.
Moriarty puffed up, swelling with self-importance, and just the thought of having to flatter the man made B ill. Then he took a look at what she wore beneath the leather jacket that was as much a staple of her appearance as the ball cap. She could see the exact moment when something dawned on Moriarty; she didn't know what 'it' was but she saw it on his face. "You're the doc's kid! Heh, it's been years since I've seen you. Course, you were just a tyke then. Call me Colin."
B blinked, startled, the conditioned reply slipping from her lips easier than breathing. "Dad and I were born in the Vault. No one comes in, no one goes out."
Moriarty snorted. "Oh, yes, I've heard all about that Overseer brainwashing. 'You're born in the Vault, you die in the Vault.' Am I right?"
Hearing those words come from his mouth, with that weird as hell accent too close to her dad's, B frowned. He had no real reason to lie to her. And worse, things suddenly made a lot more sense: why the Overseer singled her out for hatred when there were so few young people in the Vault that they were all needed, why her father had discouraged curiosity of the world outside the Vault even though he had wanted her to learn as much as she could about everything else. Her world fell out from underneath her feet and she grabbed hold of the railing for support.
"But-" It couldn't be true. But it had to be. Her father had vanished in the short amount of time it took for her to get outside. He had to be familiar with the Wasteland, otherwise she'd have found him. Why had it taken her so long to figure that out?
Moriarty sympathetically patted one of her white-knuckled hands and B couldn't even shiver. "There, there, lass. It's understandable. Everything you thought you knew has turned out to be a lie." He paused long enough that he wouldn't seem overeager before asking, "Did your father ever mention me?"
She was instantly on alert, alarm smashing through her confusion. Even though the voice was different, the tone was the one she heard in her nightmares. "Oh, yeah. Of course. I just never knew who he was talking about. I didn't know a Colin in the Vault and no one ever mentioned one but him." She watched his face carefully after that bald-faced lie, fingers itching against metal for her switchblade.
"Well, I suppose you can be forgiven for a misunderstanding. What was your name, lass? Such an unusual name. You'd think I'd remember it."
B grimaced. "I go by B out here."
"Well, that's easier than what I remember. Wait. You're B? I've got a letter for you." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and he handed it to her, scowling. "Do I look like a fucking mail service?"
B flinched back. Mercurial moods. Not good. "No, sir."
He smiled but it was less comforting to her than threatening and her fingers dug back into the rail to keep her in place. "Hey, lass. You're fine. Listen, I wish I could help you find your dad but I don't know where he is. Last I knew, he was heading for the old GNR building in the DC ruins and that was right before you showed up."
Still wary, B frowned as she leaned away from him. "Do you have any idea of how to get there?"
"I think you'll have to take the old metro systems. Be careful, lass. Between the freaks and the mutants, they'll kill even the most alert scavver. Wouldn't want your pretty face eaten off, or worse."
A shudder eased its way down her spine. "Thank you, Mr. Moriarty."
"Please, call em Collin. Your dad and I are old friends anyway."
No way in hell. But she put on a polite smile and backed away.
When the Brass Lantern closed for the evening, Leo accompanied Adam to B's house. Wadsworth as waiting when the door opened and Dogmeat bolted out, slipping around both men and the robot as he escaped the house.
Adam skittered up the stairs to B's workshop-turned-bedroom. When no other sounds of life could be heard, Leo turned to Wadsworth. "Where is she?"
"Ah, Miss B? She said she was going out to get some air. She looked a bit pale when she left. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to go check on her?"
"Do you know where she went?" Leo turned, hand on the door.
"She mentioned a vault. Miss B seemed distraught and I offered to go with her but she said I should stay."
Leo made sure to close the door behind him but made a beeline for the entrance to Megaton. There he found Dogmeat whining and scratching at the door.
"Let's go find her, dog." As soon as Leo opened the door a little, Dogmeat shoved the door with his nose open enough to get the rest of his body through and he was gone. "Dogmeat! Get your ass-ah, fuck it." Again Leo was careful to shut the door behind him but then he was running across the Wasteland at night, chasing down a baying dog.
It didn't take Leo long to realize the years of living in Megaton and more than likely the chems too had made him soft but he kept running until he found B sitting in front of an open door leading to a dark tunnel.
His chest burned and he tried to gulp in air as quietly as he could so he didn't disturb her.
She had her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her ballcap lay on the ground next to her and for the first time since he'd met her, Leo got to see her hair down. It had to be something about Vaults because the last person he'd seen with hair that didn't look scraggly and damaged was his mother.
Then he realized she was crying. Quickly, he knelt down beside her, ignoring Dogmeat's growl before the dog went back to frantically licking her hands. "B?"
She started lifting her head and he heard the wail tear itself from her throat before she clamped down on the sound. Then she threw herself at him, head burying in his shoulder and continued sobbing. Leo froze briefly before hesitantly wrapping his arms around her. The leather jacket she wore was cool under his fingertips.
He wasn't sure when the embrace changed from comfort to something charged. He did know that she responded to it. Hands gripped his tee shirt a little tighter, twisting to give her the leverage she needed to press her lips against his.
The kiss was wet and hard and hungry and she pulled herself up to settle more comfortably in his lap. Leo felt himself harden embarrassingly quickly as she wiggled around. It could have been seconds, minutes, even hours later when B pulled away to breathe but then she was pulling off the jacket that she'd become as known for as that ball cap of hers.
He put his hands over hers, stopping her movements when they went to the zipper of her Vault suit. She looked at him, eyes big and dark and gleaming wetly under the Wasteland moon. "Please." The whispered plea cracked into pieces, and without waiting for a response, she pulled him back to her.
The next morning, Leo woke in B's bed. His arm stretched out lazily to find her and pull her in close to him but the only thing he found was her side of the bed, cold. He bolted upright. The first thing he noticed was her Vault suit folded on top of her desk with a slightly charred piece of paper above it. Her beloved ball cap sat abandoned to the left of her suit. He clambered out of bed and lunged for the paper. There was a single word written on it in neat handwriting. It took Leo a moment to read it but when he did, his heart clenched.
'Sorry.'
He slammed the door opened and made a beeline for Wadsworth. "Where is she?"
"I'm afraid Miss B did not inform me as to her whereabouts. She merely told me to keep her house clean and safe while she was away though she did not tell me how long that would be." The Mr. Handy whirred softly, peering closely at Leo.
With a snarled curse, the man punched the set of lockers near the front door, almost immediately hissing at the pain in his knuckles. Adam peered out of his room, eyes snapping wide open as he quickly averted his gaze. It was only then that Leo registered his nakedness. With a groan, he rested his head against the lockers and held back the urge to thump his head against them.
"Sir, I do believe that it is rather dangerous to disturb that locker. Miss B stores her weaponry there." Wadsworth swiveled to adjust an out of place bobblehead. "Including several missiles and at least one mini nuke if I'm not mistaken."
Leo recoiled. "She has a fucking mini nuke in there? Seriously? What the fuck?"
"Against my advice, yes. However, I must warn you against disturbing the contents of any containers in this house. I will be forced to defend it."
The robot floated up the stairs to ask Adam if he wanted anything for breakfast.
Leo shifted uncomfortably. "Shit."
After the warning, days passed in a new routine. He'd come by B's house to retrieve Adam, and Adam, with a nervous shake of his head, would tell Leo that she hadn't come home yet. They'd work all day in the Lantern until sunset when Leo and Adam would come back to a still empty house save for the ever faithful Wadsworth.
Adam slowly became less closed off, occasionally offering a smile or a shy duck of his head when a settler or a caravan guard would flirt with him over their meal. The young man would never be entirely handsome by Wastelands but he was gentle and kind and Leo watched him charm patrons without attempting to, without even realizing he was doing it. Still, anything too aggressive from anyone and Adam immediately scurried to a back room to hide out until they'd gone. In those moments, Leo found himself being the one covering rather than being the one needing to be covered. Andy wasn't an idiot but he stayed quiet because Leo was pulling in more customers and had proven himself to be good with the books.
Leo knew B would be proud of the progress her ward was making.
Nearly three weeks since he'd seen her had passed but he still came by every morning to bring Adam to work. At that point, he'd given up hope of ever seeing her again so when she was there one morning, plasma rifle in his face and only lowered once he saw the recognition in her eyes, he didn't know which to be more surprised about. There was no apology, no greeting smile. Her flame bright hair was shaved on one side, the rest chopped off to just below her shoulder. Exhaustion and dirt lined her tanned, freckled face, green eyes hard and narrowed. Behind her stood a massively tall ghoul towering over both of them, impressive since she was the tallest person around. The ghoul had a shotgun cocked and aimed at him despite the fact that she had lowered her weapon, disfigured face impassive but Leo felt the threat in his black eyes shudder down his spine.
She wasn't a Vaultie anymore, Leo realized with a swallow. The Capital Wasteland had claimed her. "You're alive," he whispered.
"You should listen to the radio more often." Even her voice was damaged and when she lifted her chin, he saw the reason. Claw marks stretched over her throat. A sour smile curled her mouth, twisting the scar below her eye. "Feral ghoul caught me by surprise in the metro tunnels beneath DC. I survived. He did not." The explanation was not calming.
"Three weeks, B. Three weeks you were gone and no one knew what had happened to you!" Relief gave way to anger.
Her eyes narrowed. "Do not shout at me. If you listened to the radio, you'd have known. Gob and Nova probably did."
"What, were you on the Enclave shit? Because that's the only station that fucking works!"
Her face twisted before it smoothed out into a blank mask.
"Do not say that name."
Leo twitched in surprise. The big ghoul's voice was deeper than expected. B's nostrils flared, the only outward sign of her emotions. "Take Adam and leave. I want to be alone."
As if on cue, Adam scurried down the stairs, hugging the wall and staring at B and the ghoul with huge eyes. Damn it. Adam had almost stopped keeping his back to every wall he could. Leo didn't join him when he left. "What about the ghoul? He leaving too?"
"Charon stays with me."
"You're not fucking him are you?" He shouldn't have accused her. Not with the ghoul's shotgun almost in his face. She lifted her chin again.
"Who I fuck is of absolutely no concern to you." Her rough, almost maybe disused, voice was cold enough that it could have chilled any number of Nuka-Colas in the Lantern. She turned her back on him, facing the clothing locker, the one without the mini nuke. Right. Excellent reason to not be shot by a shotgun right there.
Leo stepped back. "But I thought… What happened to you, B?"
She froze. He watched her shoulders lift beneath the scuffed jacket, making the snake stitched on the back move with the motion. Misplaced curiosity flickered until a shudder trembled through her body. Her shoulders squared. She turned back to him, and he blinked in surprise to see the tears and barely restrained fury gleaming in her green eyes. "My dad died."
AN: Wow, I actually managed to get this finished today. I'm impressed. Also, the chapter itself is almost another 4k words again. I wouldn't get used to it. This is a treat.
Also, I am bruised up one side and down the other with a badly sunburned face from my camping trip. *finger pistols* Seriously. I'm a mess. It's pretty bad. But I survived a hike that took what felt like two days of my life away so yay.
Let me know what y'all think. I'm always curious.
Chapter Title and lyrics taken from "Somethin' Stupid" by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. And I'm wincing because it's from 1967 but it fits way too well for me to just dismiss it.
Also, a big thanks to TwistedApron for the follow and favorite. Per last week, you don't need to keep it that way after you read this chapter, but thank you for the smile anyway.