Sawyer ran up the stairs two at a time, an excited grin on his young face at the prospect of the ice cold Nuka Colas stashed in the back of the fridge. He hoped his new friend wouldn't get bored waiting in the playground without him, but Sawyer figured the promise of a sugary drink was enough to hold him still. By the time he reached the top floor apartments, he was breathless, hands on his knees and panting heavily. He could hear Gran chuckling at something on the other side as he drew near. Strange, since she didn't get too many visitors anymore. Curious, he slowly opened the door, careful to lift the door on its hinges to prevent a salvo of loud cracks from shooting up the door frame and giving his presence away.

She sat in her favorite rocking chair, gently bouncing with one slippered foot on the edge of the coffee table. An empty pill bottle speckled with flowers lay forgotten on the rug. She was talking softly into an empty corner by the open window. Sawyer felt the hairs on his skin stand up on end, but he didn't know why. "… and that was the last time anyone saw Doc Hollowpoint and his gang of terminally sick raiders, never to darken a doorway again. The kid used to love that one, made me tell it every night before bed."

He hovered behind the door, watching her silently gaze at the wall until she suddenly laughed in a way that Sawyer had never heard before. It could have belonged to another version of his Gran from twenty years ago, someone who existed before the boozy digressive grandmother he knew her as. "No, no. It was great fun for a while, but after all my travels and the way things went with Aisling, I figured I settle down into a domesticated life, you know? Maybe give that a swing." She chuckled again, but her thick accent sounded tinged with sadness. "'Sides, I can't feed the damn kid if I'm always spaced-out. Can't even crack an egg if there's any jet lying around. And he's growin' so fast. Not gonna lie, sometimes I miss the old marauder days. Not always, but I think about what I miss out on. Like you."

Something broke the moment, like a balloon popping, that made her look over her shoulder directly at him. He flinched, almost belatedly ducking behind the door in guilt. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused like she was peering through dense fog.

"Granny?" At the sound of his voice, she turned her chin to the side as though straining to hear some faraway tune. Her eyelids fluttered, and recognition returned to sharpen her features.

"Oh, hey kiddo."

Sawyer released the tension he didn't know he'd been holding. Whatever had made his skin crawl had started to fade away. "Gran, who're you talkin' to?"

She smiled, the lingering traces of the drugs giving her an indulgent secretive look that was decades out of time on her wrinkled face. "Oh, just a stranger I met a long time ago."

Sawyer jolted awake when he heard deliberate, hard steps on the cracked dry dirt approach him. His scarecrow hat that blocked the sunlight from his eyes while he slept tumbled away, leaving him blinking blearily at his surroundings. A tawny-haired woman with a stern face somewhere in her middle years stopped in front of the camper, dropping a bucket that sloshed with water with a ragged towel hanging on the rim. Without pretense, she told him he had 10 minutes to wash up before breakfast, then turned back towards the farmhouse.

He quickly got up, eager to shake off the cobwebs of stagnant old memories. Now that he'd arrived in the Commonwealth, the dreams that had provoked him to take to the road only made his chest ache and stomach feel tight. He washed the dust and sweat off as best he could, already feeling a little more like a human being as he jogged to the farmhouse. The sun was just starting to color the horizon a warm yellow, and nearby a brahmin's bell clanged. The smell of searing radstag filled his nostrils before he even reached the fence, making his eyelids sag.

Rounding the building, he could make out quick movements from behind the many gaps in the walls. Mrs. Abernathy (or at least that's who he assumed the tawny-haired woman was) was armed at the stove with a pronged fork in front of a sizzling frying pan and wagging a finger at someone. He could make out two more figures around a long table. His self-doubt returned at the idea of barging in on what looked like their morning routine, sharing breakfast together as a family. That old nagging feeling to run away and turn back was quickly drowned out by the hungry rumbling in his stomach, so he marched on forward.

A girl sat at the table with her legs crossed and hunched over in her chair, angled towards the light streaming through the doorway while she tightly stitched leather pieces together into what appeared to be the beginnings of a bracer. She paused her work to look up through brown spiky bangs that hung slightly in her eyes, flashing a dazzling smile at him. He scrutinized her, wondering if she was the same woman that had pressed a gun to his head.

Blake was in position at the head of the table, already covered head to toe in a layer of dust, flipping through a ledger next to a plate stained with reddish juices. Sawyer's shadow engulfed the table, making the farmer beckon to Sawyer amicably. "'Morning. Take a seat, you're just in time."

"Uh, thank you. Smells great." Sawyer said awkwardly. He sat at the empty opposite end of the table from Blake, with the cheerful girl to his left. He cast a surreptitious glance at her, sun-kissed and dressed lightly in a worn flannel that fit too loosely. Unless he was mistaken, Mary looked much younger, cheerful and suspiciously non-threatening in the light of day.

"This is my daughter Lucy," Blake answered for him, as though reading his mind. "our youngest. You've met my wife, Connie?"

"Uh, yeah. I appreciate the chance to clean up. And the food."

Connie didn't exactly smile back but gave him an approving nod. "You're very welcome. No sense in startin' you off filthy and starvin' if you're here to work."

"Yes, ma'am, I am ... though if you don't mind me asking about any caravans coming up from the south-" He trailed off when a steaming plate of glistening radstag and seared sliced tatos swam in front of his face. Hunger roared past his tenuous grasp of table manners and ripped control of his body. He snatched the steak with bare hands and began tearing off chunks with his teeth, humming in almost delirious happiness. The gamey taste and tender texture nearly brought tears to his eyes while he chewed. Was that some kind of herb? His eyes fluttered shut in immense gratitude.

He was halfway done when he realized the family was pretending not to stare at him with varying levels of interest. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and tried not to breathe so heavily through his nose, dropping his steak back onto his plate with a thud. "Sorry ... it's been a minute. It's really good."

"I can tell," Lucy grinned as a gray cat pounced on her lap to snuggle under her chin, intrigued by the smell of food. "This is Maise, by the way. She's part of the family, just like Clarabelle."

"Clarabelle?"

Lucy beamed at him. "Clarabelle is our brahmin."

"You ought to extend your thanks to Mary," Blake mentioned, already flipping through his ledger again. "She got lucky in the dead of night. There was this yearling buck wandering too close to the farm. Shot it through both heads before it could find it's way through the fence and eat up the crops. She's been up all night processing it. Oh, and speak of the devil."

A flash of long, sunlit copper hair from the doorway stole his attention and there was suddenly a metallic taste on Sawyer's tongue. She was tall, lightly clothed and bereft of last night's bulky armor. Mary sauntered inside as if her family wasn't there, drenched in dark blood and viscera from the chest and elbows down, dropping a gristle covered bone saw into a large wide-brimmed wash basin.

Mrs. Abernathy threw her hands up in the air. "Oh, for crying out loud! Not in the house!"

Lucy's mood suddenly turned sour, muttering, "Isn't it past your bedtime already, Bloody Mary?"

Mary arched an eyebrow, smirking as she reached over and pinched her younger sister's cheek with gore covered fingers in response. Lucy squawked in disgust, rubbing her face on her shoulder. Blake snorted despite his wife's and daughter's protests.

Mary's hawkish hazel gaze landed on Sawyer's lingering one, which had, unfortunately, slipped down to the way the blood had slicked her shirt against her body. Before he could so much as blush in embarrassment, she winked in his direction before walking out with the washbasin in both hands. He snapped from his reverie, realizing he'd forgotten to breathe and attempted to recover by clearing his throat, suddenly invested in pushing a tato around in small circles on his plate. "So ... you folks get by on hunting and farming?"

"For the most part," Blake said as Mrs. Abernathy set Lucy's plate in front of her daughter, pushing Masie aside as soon as the cat set devious paws on the table. "We do a little trade with the caravans, but the real business comes in from Diamond City."

"Huh," Sawyer chewed thoughtfully. "That's uh, right past Cambridge from here, right? Long way to trek."

"Sure is, and too dangerous to go alone. That's why I wait for the caravans to roll around. Mary stays home to guard the home front while I do business in Diamond City."

"You go by yourself?" Sawyer asked. "I mean, I get that you roll with the merchants, but that's a lot of burdens to carry."

"I can shoot," Lucy interjected, and the way Blake sighed suggested it was something of a long-standing argument. "I want to see the city for myself."

"I know you do, sweetie. But I need you to look after the melon patch until it's time to harvest. Diamond City ain't going anywhere." Blake turned back to Sawyer. "To answer what I think you're going to ask, we ought to be expecting a caravan any day now. You'll hear any news of Quincy soon."

"Thank you for keeping that in mind, sir," Sawyer responded, which put a small smile on the other man's face.

Lucy leaned forward towards him. "So is that where you're from? Quincy?"

"Uh, yeah, sort of. I left home some ten-ish years ago? Been all over the place since then," Sawyer stabbed a round of red tato and twirled it on his fork. "I came here straight from Seattle, hitting the road about three months ago, I think. I worked with a few colonies there, mostly Pioneer Square and the Sound, but they eventually dissolved and people just … scattered. I didn't want to leave, but there was nothing there for me anymore."

"Oh, I see," She said sympathetically. "What's it like over there?"

Sawyer pondered. "Cold. Really, really cold. But I liked it that way, and it was all right while the colonies were working together and the brahmin were fattened up right for travel. All the ice makes the old city ruins look like one of those snow globes after you shake it. It was actually so pretty out there."

"Why'd you leave then?"

Because the dreams wouldn't stop…

Mrs. Abernathy interrupted. "Don't pester the man, Lucy. You don't want to scare him away, now eh?"

"It's a long story," Sawyer added, grateful for the excuse to end the line of questioning. Lucy looked a little crestfallen but didn't push.

"Well if you're finished there, I'll take you to our first job today. " Blake announced, pushing away from the table. "You ready to look at the water pump?"

Sawyer nodded, quickly stuffing the rest of his tatos into his mouth and handing his plate off to Mrs. Abernathy's expecting hands, thanking her profusely before dashing out.

Blake and Sawyer spent the rest of the afternoon chatting while dismantling the pump, which meant digging up around the earth until Sawyer could see the concrete block that he'd be working with. They talked a bit about Sawyer's life on the road, in which he elaborated on its wretched loneliness.

"Every day becomes a routine. Wake up, pack up camp, and move on. Feral and raiders sometimes spiced things up, but most days felt like an awful dream I couldn't wake up from. When you're mostly driving for 16 hours straight on a highway with a couple pit stops to piss on a rock, your brain starts to hallucinate. Things that looked like a distant city or people walking far off in the distance were actually bent trees or broken glass. Sometimes I went to sleep afraid that the road and the emptiness would never end." Sawyer froze once he realized what he'd said and how it might come across. Blake had been nodding his head in the right places and offering commentary so far, but he'd become pensive as Sawyer had loosened up. Worried that he'd said too much, he quickly added, "What I mean to say is that the wasteland has a way of blurring all the days together."

Blake grunted in understanding, leaning on his shovel. "Coming back to a place you'd never think you'd return to has a way of testing your purpose and character."

Slightly dumbfounded, Sawyer frowned up at the farmer, who was gazing out at the crooked edges of the western horizon. "And once you arrive, everything looks so much smaller than it used to be."

Sawyer bobbed his head, not knowing what to say to that. He hadn't really expected Blake to really listen to his sad rambling account of life on the road. He was just a temporary extra hand available, and Blake's reassurance had brought up a tightness in his throat Sawyer wasn't prepared for.

Thankfully the moment passed as Clarabelle honked and mooed for attention, prompting Blake to leave him to his devices as he went about throwing feed into the trough for the beast.

Sawyer felt like he worked best alone, allowing a task to arrest and hold his focus for hours. He'd always enjoyed puzzles as a kid, and he vaguely remembered his Gran telling him he had a mind for finding the root of a problem that needed the most attention, or at least something along those lines. Blake eventually approached him near sundown, sweat on his brow after digging new rows for crops on the southern side of the farmhouse. "How's it lookin'?"

"Like a girl in a sundress," Sawyer replied absently, pointing to the twelve-foot fiberglass tube he'd pulled from the concrete base, laid out on the dry grass like a rigid noodle. "I replaced the hinge, so the wind will have to work harder to get anything out. The foot valve is fine, I washed the sediment out, no real issues there. It's the gaskets. They're old as sin and crumbling apart, so no matter how many times you pump that lever you'll never suction enough water from the ground. You outta be replacing those every year or so. I've seen enough scrap leather lying around your farm, if I may use it?"

"Go right ahead, son." Blake clapped a strong hand on his shoulder with a pleased grin. "If you can find what you need then help yourself. If Mary's awake yet she can even cut out what you need."

Sawyer blinked slowly as his brain connected the dots. "Oh, so she's the night watch when you folks go to bed?

"Our first line of defense," Blake boasted, the picture of a proud father as he puffed out his chest a little bit, probably without even realizing it. "She's never failed us so far."

"From what you say and from what I've seen, I believe it."

Blake chuckled and disappeared into the farmhouse.

After a little wandering Sawyer found Mary strapping on her armor by the side of the house next to a tanning station, one leg braced on the edge of a tall, murky water basin while her hands worked with familiar ease. She faced away from him, her tanned arms were bare and her long reddish hair was bunched up loosely at the top of her head. He almost stopped dead in his tracks, just … struck. A long silver necklace hung next to her knee, her long deft fingers buckling the little belts on her thighs. Stop being so damn weird… He tripped on a bootlace that had treacherously become undone, attempting to casually clear his throat to cover it up.

She turned at the sound of his voice, tucking a dangling strand of hair behind her ear and instantly finding his eyes. He found himself at a loss for words and confused about where his hands should be, awkwardly cramming them at his hips as he stiffly forced himself to look normal. "Thanks for going and getting my hat for me last night." He blurted out. "And for the water. And for hunting the breakfast for this morning, Blake - er, your dad - told me that was thanks to you. And also for not shooting me on sight … I probably should have led with that."

What the hell was wrong with him? Mary had raised her eyebrows, the smallest quirk to the corner of her lips.

"Anyway," He continued loudly before she could respond, scratching his head as he looked around at the racks of drying skins for a convenient hole to jump into. "I'm going to need help making a leather gasket to draw any water from the pump. I was told you could help me out."

She stared at him curiously, and for a horrified second he wondered if he'd said some weird innuendo, or maybe he had an earthworm stuck in his hair, or maybe he sounded idiotic by-

"I can make whatever you need, if you have the measurements for it." She said, her features stoic like her low clear voice, but there was a teeny tiny hint of a smirk right there, in the dimple on her right cheek.

He was a rock. He was an island. "Yeah, I can show you what it'll look like."

Without breaking eye contact, she stepped forward until he almost stepped back to just to breathe. She handed him a flat pencil from one of her pockets, her chin cocked to one side with a small smile on her lips. "Ready when you are."

Bemused, Sawyer plucked the pencil from her fingers while his pulse was threatening to drown out his eardrums. A mental flash of her blood-slicked clothes clinging to her body made him almost shudder. He scoffed. He was learning new things about himself already. "Lead the way."

Mary finally grinned, mischievously and so alluringly. Sawyer frowned and looked away suddenly as he cleared his throat, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing the back of his head in distraction. Hitting on the farmer's daughter sounded like a surefire way to absorb a few rounds of angry-dad-buckshot. Misconstrued intentions could get a person killed. He couldn't afford to get kicked out, or potentially die without knowing what actually happened to his Gran. A wave of guilt washed out his flirtatious thoughts, which, in all honesty, would have made Gran cackle.

Her lips were moving, and it took him a second for her words to register. "What?"

"Move!" She shouted, tackling him against the wall as pockets in the wooden fence they'd been standing next to exploded into splinters.

The wind was knocked from Sawyer's lungs and his head thunked against the farmhouse, making him cough as he gripped her shoulders. "Whoa! What the hell?"

Coarse shouting mixed with the unmistakable cracks of gunfire made his heart sink. Mary crinkled her nose in disgust, the barely disguised fear in her wide angry eyes alarming him.

"Raiders."

So sorry it took so long to update! RL problems and a full time job eat up a lot of the time I'd rather spend writing. :c Thanks to everyone who left a comment, because nothing lights a fire under your ass like positive attention. Lemme know what you think so far, concrit is much appreciated and keeps me going. 3